Six months ago, I posted my first article on this blog.  This post will be my 120th.

I've had 7,000 unique IP address stop by, according to the stats.  Hard to believe.

Well, I've deeply enjoyed posting, and I hope to continue to enjoy, posting here. 

I have at least one useful, entertaining or educational article in every category - and the "usefulness" means pointing to a better speaker, writer, or practitioner than me!

I've continue to learn a lot from doing this - I've clarified more and more what "integral practice" means to me.  I've been able to reflect, in an informal community of enthusiasts, what this means to others. 

For those who read here - thanks.   I've appreciated the emails, the encouragement, and the back and forth with readers, and with other comrades-in-arms, at other sites.  (Coolmel, Vince, Ryan, Aeh, Daniel, Annalene, Matthew, Shawn, the rest of the GenSit gang, and others who I don't have time to mention right now) have all been excellent online companions.

I'll post on this more later, but there are several exciting and wonderful things happening in the integral blogsphere, and, I believe, several different other wonderful and exciting things that will be happening. 

I have attempted to get out of personal navel gazing (umm, except for this post - cough cough), and pointed to useful practices and constructions, having fun along the way. 

It's only going to get better!

Read this article on Mirror Neurons. 

What is interesting to me about this, is, the the ability to accurately read what is going on in another person.  Supposedly, these mirror neurons are a person's internal representation of what is happening externally - i.e. in action, in sensations, in emotions. 

I suppose this is built up over years of interpretation.  I remember reading a study years ago, that the ability to clearly read a person's "expression" and adduce their mental state, wasn't really mature until around age 21.  Previous to this, many more significant "misses" in guessing what another was thinking/feeling.

A fruitful area of investigation for integralism, is to extend the "intepretations", to the ability to experience altered states - can these be mirrored?  Is this why being around a spiritual teacher is beneficial?  Etc, etc.

It's not finalized yet, but it looks as if I have a corporate training presentation on May 6th, down in the Los Angeles area. 

If so, I think it's about time I got to see Stuart Davis.

Anyone else who might be doing the Hollywood Shuffle next week, email me! 

Anybody else thinking of going to this show? 

I also want to go to the Bodhi Tree - it's been over 10 years since I've stopped in there - (I've gone to L.A a lot since I've left, but haven't managed to make it back to the Bodhi Tree.)

Looks like I've lost all my voices in the moment - I guess that's what you get when you sign up with a brand new service (Blogdigger). 

I'll attempt to get these back, but see if I can get them back in a - more reliable? - service. 

The thing is, I love the way I had this working - this site had become my "rss aggregator", so it worked perfect for me.

Updates at another time!

Whenever I start a broad look at "change your life" or transformational practices (from work habits to diet, to exercise, etc), I always come across the "90 day" gambit.

Take a look:

Working Smart 

Habit of Health

Government studies ( you need to look halfway down page) - A number of studies have shown that treatment effects on recidivism do not appear before about 90 days of treatment, and that treatment effects improve with time in treatment ( Hubbard et al., 1989; Simpson, 1981, 1984). Time in treatment, whether in the institution or in the community, is a critical factor.

What do other people think about this?  When you attempt to learn a new skill, or change in some way, do you follow the 90 day rule?  Do you believe this is simply a convention?

This is silly, but at lunch, I ran across this "googlefight" site (I ran across this site, while doing some learning research, and decided to input my own subjects.  Really - I know you are going, "sure you were" but it's true.).

Also, Scooby-doo beats down Snoopy. 

I always liked Scooby-doo better.

Chorus:
What's this feeling?
My love will rip a hole in the ceiling
Givin' myself to you from the essence of my being
Sing to my G-d all these songs of love and healing
Want Moshiach now so it's time we start revealing

You're all that I have and you're all that I need
Each and every day I pray to get to know you please
I want to be close to you, yes I'm so hungry
You're like water for my soul when it gets thirsty
Without you there's no me
You're the air that I breathe
Sometimes the world is dark and I just can't see
With these, demons surround all around to bring me down to negativity
But I believe, yes I believe, I said I believe
I'll stand on my own two feet
Won't be brought down on one knee
Fight with all of my might and get these demons to flee
Hashem's rays fire blaze burn bright and I believe
Out of darkness comes light, twilight unto the heights
Crown Heights burnin' up all through till midnight
Said, thank you to my G-d, now I finally got it right
And I'll fight with all of my heart, and all a' my soul, and all a' my might


Watch the video here.

Rest of the lyrics here.

Health and Wellness is now showing up too - on the left column, and under Psychological Tidbits.

An update to what is up on this site -

I've added a few more voices to the "Integral Voices in the Moment" (right side of blog, go down).

In addition to this, below Integral Voices in the Moment, you will also find a section titled "Inspiring Professional Advice".  This, like Integral Voices in the Moment, will be constantly changing as the professional and career blogs update themselves..

And on the left, below "Integral Views" (which link to other blogs) you will find the "Psychological Tidbits" section, which will have posts, constantly changing, about psychology. 

I'll be adding one more section later - about Health and Exercise. 

Let me know if you have any feedback on these items!

I wonder if this goes too far, but it's also a great corrective to the U.S. attitudes.

Practicing Selflessness,

No comment necessary.

It's Saturday night, I'm sick, Amy's gone out to a SF boat party (that I was supposed to go to as well - sigh).  Between coughing and sneezing, I'm web surfing...

And I think I have my next water sport.

Trouble is, my recently dislocated arm won't be able to handle it, for at least another year.

Well, them's the breaks!

Check out the video,  Funny funny

So,who's going to be the 1st integral vlogger (Video Blogger)?

Great link - save some money, get all the functionality you would ever want.

In my investigations of wikis, open source content managment, and uses of these type of applications, I'm finding quite a lot of cools, "co-creative", or open source, sites.

First, the Echo Chamber Project.  This project, based on Drupal, plans to use a wiki, and other drupal modules, to create and offer "open source journalism".  Worthwhile to check out. 

Next up, The Transitioner.  Particularly devoted to the economy and co-intelligence, (topics like "open-source money"), but also included are knowledg, philosophy, community, and spirituality articles. This looks to be a straight Wiki, with a modified look.

Integrative Spirituality - Actually, this site froze me to my seat.  It is about integrative spirituality, has news, calendar functionality, polls, reviews, forums AND a wiki!  This is a PostNuke site, another open source CMS system.

I'm defnitely needing to find out more about this - supposedly the people for this meet here in San Francisco.  Two hesitations - for an "open source" project, when you enter, you agree that all content you post BELONGS to the site.  Why isn't this a Creative Commons license?  Also, on the calendar, the one event that is mentioned is an Andrew Cohen event in New York.  If this site is tied up with Andrew Cohen in a strong manner, not something I would be too interested in. 

FYI.  Lots of cool, wonderful participatory things happening.

Most people who care about this have already read about this, but it's big news for anyone who deals with delivering training content online. 

Not only is Macromedia coming out with cooler and more integrated products, such as Captivate (old Robodemo) and Breeze, and Contribute, but also Flash is basically becoming the lingua franca of the web. 

I'd like to hear from all the Grandmaster Flash's out there.  What are the thoughts?

A couple of notes about the ongoing research for the Integral Commons Skillful Means Project - from ASTD.org

Foundational Competencies - define relevant behaviors for learning and performance professionals to varying degrees.

Areas of Expertise - are the specialized knowledge/skills an individual needs over the foundational competencies.  An individual may need expertise in one or more areas (my note - If you are talking about integral practice, this would definitely be the case.)

Roles - are groupings of targeted competencies. 

In an earlier post, I said I would give an analysis of the recent Integral Naked dialogue between Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen. As an experiment, I’ve decided to do a form of “liveblogging”. I remember this first being done during the presidential debates – and I have decided to use this format, for commenting on this dialogue. NOTE: This isn’t really “liveblogging” since I’m not that fast a typer (or thinker). This is more listening, stopping when something is interesting, and then even playing the interesting segment back again, to make sure I get it correctly. My commentary will be in italics. At the end, will be my analysis. At any rate, with that introduction, let’s go:   more »

I know I said I would put another article up about Mr. A.C., but I saw this, and burst out laughing in my chair - lookin' back over  todays posts, I've clearly been in a wiseacre mood than anything else....

Hey, I talked about tap-dancing last post, so its sorta related!

I've just listened to the most recent "what's new" dialogue up at Integral Naked. 

I'll post a real analysis tonight, but I wanted to mention that, it's worthwhile listening to it.  (Let me know if I should post the MP3 file to OurMedia, and provide the link, for anyone who isn't a subscriber to Integral Naked. Or simply email me, that way it stays private.)

It's worth listening to.

Again, more later, but 1st thoughts. 

1. Cognitively, most of the points being talked about are clear - a person's "center of gravity" doesn't shift, even if one understands the spiritual vision intellectually.  To move the center of gravity up takes work, and at times will involve confrontation.
2. Ken is very, very nicely nicely, almost excruciatingly nicely, hinting around some of the controversy surrounding Andrew Cohen.  It's a public forum, and so I understand the feather touch - it makes sense.
3. Emotionally, Cohen sounds incredibly defensive, using valid points about spiritual authority and spiritual growth, but the emotional defensiveness seems is there..  There is no doubting this.
4. Andrew Cohen is a "Right Man", in terms of always believing, he, or his vision, is right.  I'll attempt to find the link to a pathological description of "Right Man" later. There's a very good description of this is some work of psychology, but it has slipped my mind at the moment.

 Being "Right" with a capital R, and being a "Rude Boy" to boot, is very problematic, in my view.

NOTE:  Cross-posted at Integral Naked Forum

Okay, I'm starting to think that our buddy Coolmel is the integral bloggers's Instapundit - but with a better sense of humor. Let's look at the evidence:

1.  Short, pithy links, to cool stuff.
2.  Super-fan of technology.
3.  Well-rounded interests. Not a navel gazer, or single-minded in focus.
4.  Has a tagline, which I like a heck of a lot better than Instapundit's "heh".  Coolmel's is "very fluffy".
5. At this point, has a bunch of links from other sites - 174 links from 22 sources.  The linking champion of Integral Blogging?
6.  Coolmel is one of the keeper's of Kosmic Bloggers, so he knows all the cool blogging kidz.
7.  Other Kosmic bloggers think they have "arrived" when blessed by coolmel's "very fluffy".  I certainly was glad to get my first coolmel link.  More evidence here and here.
8.  Pithy and funny, both together.

Of course, right now, he's in a love affair with his camera.  So how about it coolmel?  Do you wish to accept the nomination as Integra-Pundit?? 

I'm not sure what's up, but Where The heck are the California Institute of Integral Studies bloggers?

Naropa University (not to mention not-even-started-yet Integral University) is simply kicking tail here.  You've got Vince, you are soon to have Dan, you've got a lot of the bloggers over at Generation Sit.  CIIS bloggers - ehh, I got nothin.

Am I missing something?  If so, send me a link.  C'mon guys!  Time to join the fun!!

By the way, same with other Naropa bloggers - send me links - I'll update this post with a Naropa vs. CIIS blogger deathmatch count!

Looks like someone has set up Technorati to catch Integral Tags - link here. 

I notice that the posts here at Integral Practice don't seem to be showing up however, even though this should be automatic.  Hmm...

Annalene, however, is rocking the town...

I've begun experimenting with updating the Integral Commons Wiki.  (I'm the only one updating, at the moment).

Here's the 1st list of updated pages.  Very unprofessional, very basic, at the moment.

I'm considering the following type of template - But again, coming from an integral perspective, relating various skills to all 4 quadrants, and adding levels and lines.  The levels and lines (stages as well?  hmmm) would be modeled on the typical self-assessment and 360 degree assessment tools. 

We would have to build these assessments.  Sometime this week, I'll have a example template

Function Name (Grouping Related Skills) - similar to "job title" in above template . In this case, the function name could stand in for "psychic", C++ programmer, consultant, ethical growth, etc.

Skills -

a.  Name of skill
b.  Which quadrants involved.
c.  Suggested level and lines of skill. Similar again, to this:  imagine this for a criteria of ethical growth, e.g. Kohlberg.
d.  Suggested criteria for assessment - self and 360.
e.  Makeup of assessment questions
f.   Practices associated with improving said skill (examples - awareness - vipassana, compassion - tonglen, productivity - Getting Things Done, etc.)
g.  Groups or organizations focused on improving these skills, listed.  (Hopefully, my hope of Yahoo Reviews for teachers and groups can also get enacted, thus pushing people to the best quality people and groups.)


Okay, this will continue to be worked on - again, I'm thinking that this is a very very VERY good fit for a WIKI, with lots of contributors.

As before, email me or comment with any thoughts. 

I have been reflecting on the development of this site, and some of the development of my own views. I've started to come to the realization that the concept of Integral Practice is probably more richly reflected in the concept of Skillful Means.   more »

Catallaxis blog has been doing quite a good job exploring a new concept/term - "neuroeconomics".  In a way, it's a new term for an old concept - how economics and human behavior interact. 

Still, Daniel's doing some great work, on providing a more integral base to economics.  Continue to check it out.

Something different to use your XBox and Playstation for.

Work out with Maya!

As part of what I keep up with in my job, you've seen here before links to e-learning articles.  Here's an article on Learning and Blogs.

For communities we may create around integral, something to think about.

Well.

Looks like I have an opportunity now to engage in "integral healing" in a very personal manner!

Over the weekend, while at the gym, doing a shoulder press, with free weights (two dumbells, 50LBs each arm) over my head, a guy walking by stumbled.  This startled me, and my left hand went back, and then kept going and going and going back, until there was this loud pop, and wrench, and bang! shoulder came WAY out of its socket! 

Needless to say, not the most pleasant experience.  Shoulder has been thobbing to its own (pain) drum ever since, although is a little better today.  The first improvement of course, was when the shoulder was put back in socket (3 hours later).  Today, still pretty tender and "throbby". 

So, a little time for healing!

Good news, shoulder dislocations tend to be pretty cut and dry, in terms of getting back to normal.  Bad news, all the stuff I do physically (boogieboard, snowboard, working out, yoga, swimming, running), I'm going to need to curtail.  Even in 3 weeks, when I take off the sling, there remains quite a risk of re-dislocation. 

So, my integral practice is going through an adjustment, at the moment!

Brewster Kahle, the guy who has brought us the Internet Archive and the Wayback machine, has now combined with all the right big-time guys, to bring us OurMedia.

So for all you creative, intelligent, spiritual guys and gals out there, producing staggering works of genius that you don't want to lose, and would like to share freely - now you have a place to put it!

I think (not sure yet) that you can automatically back up your blog on this as well - and it stays as long as OurMedia stays.

I particularly like this video - You Are Here

UPDATE:  Nix on the blog backup - see below

Found this weblog, thanks to Technorati. 

This is a link to one succinct post at Personal Level, but if you have time, a lot of what is on here is useful.  (Good links in this post though.)

They style of writing is very crisp, clear, and short.  Almost Zen in nature.

Also, this guy's been doing this blog thing for quite awhile.

I'm late to this - but I'm going to treat this question from Matthew Dallman seriously - because actually, the question cuts to what this particular site is about. 

If integral was a "pill", then, it would be a "tracer" pill - loaded with tons of nano-sensory, to measure (and wirelessly relay to a nearby computer) information about the person prescribed. 

The pill would give a rich, detailed, and exhaustive information about the health of the person, about anatomy, breathing patterns, cortical structures, muscle tension, organ health. 

At the same time, the pill would be engineered to provide a rich, but safe, psychedelic/mental experience, that would structured in the following manner, in stages:

Stage 1.  Bring an instant (though of course temporary) enlightenment,
Stage 2. On a psychic level, would also reveal to the person the major areas of psychic stress, and holding on. Processing of difficult emotional content would occur here, and the doctor would need to be patient, loving, and present.
Stage 3. Once the personal architecture has been revealed in Stage 2, the "self-in-the-world" structure would be revealed to the patient.  Interconnections between the self, the environment, both the harmonious and disharmonious aspects  and patterns of living in the world. This means that personal skills, activities that bring fulfillment in the world, would be revealed to the patient, as well as inklings of societal and environmental structures of living well.  The patient makes a list of his/her possible order of activites, for reflection and acting on later.
Stage 4 - The fourth stage would be the calm entrance into the heart - deep experiences of gratitude and love would be invoked, as well as an understanding  of the preciousness of living life fully and with integrity, in every moment.
Stage 5 - Gratefulness and a sense of ending would flow naturally back into the patient's normal consciousness. 

That is what would happen when taking the integral pill.

How does this relate to the site? 

I attempt to provide information, links and thoughts, regarding what the "ipill" referenced above, would do.  There is no pill for it, but, there are different practices, insights and reflections, actions, that invoke the experiences of the "ipill". 

What do you think?

By andrenalin

Deep sleep surfing on a Delta-Wave,
Third-Eye pancake visions on the dreaming channel,
Hollywood barbecue and liposuction vouchers
illuminated hamburger bracelets on sinewy wrists.
Deep sleep surfing on a Delta-Wave
Buddha hearts - download now for free!
each one silently singing cycles of hard disk paradise
while the saints in the wine-cellar,
order another brain on ice.
Deep sleep surfing on a Delta-Wave
my head wrapped in Chinese wonder,
where poems write themselves on moss-grown walls
and lunatics walk the skies without wings.
my soul subscribing to every superstition,
the mailbox of my mind blowing to pieces
while my body stalks a tomorrow in underwater-malls.
Deep sleep surfing on a Delta-Wave
an ego awakens to its own lie,
Spotlight on the stranger dangling in mid-air:
The candidate for craziness is revealed!
and the book of consciousness clear
comes flying from the shelf,
transforming every drop of sorrow,
converting shit to gold
turning every stone,
and finding everything
while expecting nothing.

Vince was kind enough to invite me to be one of the group posters over at Generation Sit, and I have now put my first post up. 

It's a tongue-in-cheek attempt to ask a serious question:  In current times, what's the right relationship between a teacher and a student? 

Check it out, let me know what you think.

Ryan takes the time to respond to my subtle proddings (Editor's voice:  yeah right! subtle he says...)

Two great posts,

A Guide to Free Therapy,

and

A Guide to Choosing A Counselor.

At some point, those who wish to deal with living an integral life, will be in need of a mirror - whether talking to a life coach, or talking to a Buddhist teacher who utilizes psychotherapy, or simply to deal with grief, and the death of friends or loved ones.

At any rate, both post are well worth reading - go take a look.

I've been participating in various places online, and inevitably, questions come up about therapy, and also questions come up about money. I thought it would be worthwhile to post a little on places to start a search for therapy, that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and that also has some consciousness.   more »

Came across this post at World Changing.  A "To-Do" list for a sustainable civilization.

Along with this, I thought I would post a couple of links to eco-careers.  As, hopefully, society is able to engineer a soft transition rather than a hard transition away from fossil fuels, there will be a huge need for competent people in these fields.  You may as well be saving the planet, as part of your career, while at the same time you save your soul.

Ecojobs

Ecoemploy

A little bit of friendly advice to anyone pursuing an environmental career - while absolutely and completely necessary,  it seems the deeper you go into the field, the more research reveals dire and bleak scenarios.  Too often, my "earth first" friends lack any sense of humor, and carry the weight of the world on their shoulders literally.  (Going to an eco-party is somehow reminiscent of going to a Miss Manners party, for some strange reason - maybe someone else can clue me in on why this is...)

At any rate, politically, the first step is a pragmatic, politically and technologically savvy, and economically sound way of weaning the world away from oil.  This requires as much political, marketing and communication skill, as it does technical skill.