As I mentioned yesterday, there is a lot going on regarding the forming of ILP Groups.

There is an ILP Group happening in the Bay Area - meeting in Berkely - and this one is certified by Integral Institute, as it is led by Terry Patten.

I am figuring out whether my time is free enough to join.  I hope that I can free my time up.

And then, in Seattle, there is a lot going on in Integral. 

Included in this, is the work being done by the organization that includes my favorite integral and whole life economist, Daniel O'Connor (blogging at Catallaxis).

His organization is creating iPraxis Practitioners Circle, which is a very cool concept.

So more and more happening!

Went to Cafe du Nord on Saturday.  One of the better venues of San Francisco, no doubt.

Of the three bands that were there, I really liked both:

Finding Stella - two amazing female voices, and decent songs, cute too.  Harder rocking than Indigo Girls, while definitely not as deep as Indigo Girls either.  A shallower but harder Indigo Girls?  Hmm, I wonder how that works...

Smithpoint - this band is at least as good as other punk-pop rockers, such as Good Charlotte, and they have fun doing it.  Their lead singer has a GREAT voice for pop - and not the typical look, even though he has the typical voice.

Miggs, the headliner.  Well, great voice, good musicianship, but it would be hard to find a group of more "self-important wankers", I would say.  (Am I too old for musicians that simply take themselves so seriously now?)

The women seemed to like them though.

I definitely recommend listening to the first two bands - and kudos to new services like Podbop, without which I wouldn't have been able to spring the low price of 10 bucks, and thus found some pretty good live music to listen to.

I bought the ILP Kit.

Finally.

Should be here in a few days. 

What's interesting is some of the divisions in the Kit, from what I hear. 

1 minute, 10 minute, and 35 minute versions for the 3 Body workout, for example.

Also, a lot of activity around ILP groups, in the Bay area and elsewhere.  I will document this here in future posts, never fear...

I think this post by Brian at Zaadz encapsulates what a lot of us are hoping for, in terms of a next generation, conscious, connected, internet.

It certainly tracks with some of the "future-gazing", I've been spouting off here., but of course, more down to earth, and  more experience with "social networks".

Rating systems

Skillful Means

Portfolio analysis

Great to see someone running with the ball!

Is called Podbop. 

From the description:

"We podcast bands coming to your town"

Now you can LISTEN to bands that are coming to town, see if you like the voice, like the music. NOTE:  The pages are slow to load, but well worth it.

Here is the San Francisco page.


Seriously, this is a long standing problem of mine.  There is a free evening, I want to go out and here music I haven't heard - but how do you know it isn't crap?  Now you can preview! 

Now there only needs to be MORE bands listed.

I've already lined up a couple of bands I want to see.  I'll report on the results next week.

Here's the link from Mind Hack.

This is actually a follow-up to a previous post, about a month ago.

IF (and a big if) that for every consciousness state, there is a corresponding and measurable neurological activity - in the future, we could have "Patterns of expected activity" for the main modes of higher consciousness.

Union with God as other?  One particular pattern of brain waves
Nature mysticism?  Another pattern
Nirvakalpa samadhi?  Another pattern of brain waves.

Meditation masters (and teachers) take note - there may be "minimum standards" required for teaching meditation.  Can you achieve the accepted pattern for nirvakalpa samadhi?  Then why are you talking about it? 

Think of it - neurological proof as a necessary -but not sufficient - requirement for teaching meditation...

Update - Link fixed - thanks Vince.

One of the areas of pragmatic physical practice that I have been remiss in covering, is the areas of vitamin supplements.

I've been remiss, because I haven't investigated this area much, if at all - and for the neophyte, it seems that every person who takes supplements have their favorites.  Some of which are opposed.

While this is also true of diets - there are a million diets - there is a basic element of commonality that can be pulled from any of the diets.  No sugar, sweets, less cars, more proteins, smaller portions, more meals, etc.  This commonality of advice exists across the spectrum of well-received diets -with of course some going much further.

I'm assuming that there is this type of commonality around suggested supplements - is this right?

For myself currently, I take a daily megavitamin, and a C - and that's about it.

But I was talking to a good friend of mine, who told me that he "hasn't been sick in 5 years", since he started taking "x".  (I'll leave it at "x" for now, but I'll come back to this.)

I also hear that super-helping of gelatin oils are very good for you, as well as a lot of super-vitamin E.

Does anyone who reads this know enough about supplements, that you could point me to the "common threads" around various supplement plans?

It's important for good living - and I do believe in "better living through chemistry" - but I don't want to go too far out on a limb.

Thanks in advance!

A new blog was brought to my attention, that seems to have a really unique focus. 

Called Composition, Service Compassion, Photography, there is a real focus on that CAPTURED MOMENT of awareness, where the mind stops - and briefly - there is a pause in meditative reflection.  And this is reflected in the photographs.

As well, there is a focus on service, isn't something that I have linked to much here, and I need to do more of it...

Matthew has a great article, somewhat in the vein of making internal dialogue external - but going much further, with a call of deeper inspiration, and of course applied to art.  Definitely recommended reading.

Umguy also asks this question to himself, and I would agree with his answer.

I reflect on the topic, try to pull in a few other interests for balance and next thing you know (well okay, sometimes this takes awhile or never quite materializes) I've got a post that articulates something I might not have been able to articulate without the push of knowing someone was going to read what I say.

For me, this is almost an ability to "ruminate", or "reflect" on something - whatever it may be - but interestingly, have this reflection be EXTERIOR rather than INTERIOR.  And that rumination/reflection, becomes a bit more disciplined, a bit more coherent - and also gets read by others - so if a particular rumination is way off - hopefully - I'll be told - "dude, what are ya thinking?", or offered a useful "rumination correction"!

Through ups and downs, woes and joys, we remain together, united in our love and laughter.
You are the first sight I see in the morning (and I smile)
You are the last sight I see as I go to sleep (and I am comforted).
Your smile, your joy, your heart,
Enliven me, fill me, gladden me.

Pulsing, my heart is always filled with love for you!

For my lovely fiance, all my love

Jeff was kind enough to leave a comment last week,  and in passing, he reminded me of something I was going to post on. 

Namely, he says this: "Which would be more or less a rejection of my work as an integrally-informed coach/consultant. Which would be more or less a rejection of my purpose. And me.)"

I completely relate to this, and I wonder who else does so?

My observation is that sensitive, intelligent guys, if they "grok" Ken Wilber - there's a pretty natural tendency to say "My life purpose is to be THAT type of coach/counselor, and help people get their lives together!"

Of course, maybe I am projecting.

But this is a common thing in literature, inspirational literature ABOUT the WORLD and IDEALS, that also motivates -

People who read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, everyone starts to see themselves as:

"The hero, Howard Roark, is Rand's ideal, a noble soul par excellence, an architect who is firmly and serenely devoted to his own ideals and believes that no man should copy the style of another in any field, especially architecture. All the other characters in the novel demand that he renounce his values, but Roark maintains his integrity. Unlike traditional heroes who launch into long and passionate monologues about their integrity and the unfairness of the world; Roark, in contrast, does it with a disdainful, almost contemptuous taciturnity and laconicism."

Same thing with Herman Hesse - the idealist Siddartha becomes a role model of emulation.

Talking to a lot of people about Wilber - I think there could be a lot of the same dynamic going on.  The idealized version of wanting to help, of thinking of integral as the "life passion", etc. 

I think it is also a TRUE inspiration - it certainly is true for me - but I also wanted to point out that there is a certain literary device being employed, that flows from Wilber's work, that all of us feel, when reading it - and that same type of literary device works the same way (but with different CONTENT) for other writers.

I don't know if this was a concious decision on Ken's part or not, but for me, it's an interesting phenomenon.

And since this is in a public place, this really is a meet-up - or a meet-and-greet.  Nothing profound.

Here's the information.

It looks like we will be back to a private home next month though, so this is encouraging.

Take a look at this introduction -

Fitness, education, arts, community, religious life -

There's talks, such as this one on Kabalah and Eros.

I pointed this out last year, but I hadn't actually checked out the San Francisco page. 

All you really need for the Integral Community Center, is to model the JCC, have an adjunct be California Institute of Integral Studies. 

And then because a lot of us are interested in the "new new" thing, have a section - a couple of rooms, a program, etc - devoted to "experimental practices"

Anyone got a couple million dollars - to get this started?

:)

This is a good article on procrastination at 43 Folders. 

Also, an article from Psychology Today on the absolute self-infliction of psychic and other costs that procrastination represents. 

Procrastination is evil.  Evil!  Beat it, without beating yourself up about it - but make no mistake - you MUST beat it.

Beat it, for your own psychological, moral, professional, and spiritual health. 

What's interesting also about the Psychology Today article, is the solution:

Procrastinators can change their behavior—but doing so consumes a lot of psychic energy. And it doesn't necessarily mean one feels transformed internally. It can be done with highly structured cognitive behavioral therapy.

That's a pretty tall order, it seems to me.  I'll have to research a bit more about "highly structured cognitive behavioral therapy".

From Paul I am pointed to the University study, about the devaluation of music - because of too easy access.

I say again, this is a real phenomenon, when things are too easy, when there is too much choice - there is a disincentive to engage in them. 

In a way, that's a good reason to have a full Integral Practice - it remains challenging through your life - but it also is important to not have TOO many choices for creating your integral practice -as this can remain a disincentive.

Everyone who cares about Integral knows that the ILP Kit is now out.  From what I understand (I have yet to order it) the kit will concentrate on the 4 main modules, with many other "choices" and options for lesser or greater time.

But here's a thought.

It has been well-documented that TOO MUCH CHOICE in a certain field, is a significant de-motivator.  From the article:

Offer shoppers a choice of 24 jams and they are less likely to buy a jar than if offered a choice of 6 jams. Offer students a choice of 6 essays, rather than 30 essays, for extra-credit and more will take up the opportunity if there is less choice of essay titles - and, what is more, they write better essays.

Depending on the person, an Integral Practice has either been deeply inspiring, in that you bring your own choices and creativity to bear in building and participating in a holistic life.

But many other people - too much choice is paralyzing, unstructured, and not useful.

Your thoughts?

Came across a new site today - Quantum BioCommunication - The Consciousness Revolution in Science.

Lots of great articles here, that basically accept things like intuition as a given, and then draw out the possible body-mind correlations. 

Some of the other sites pointed to here, that address these type of issues.-

Centerpoint - sound technology for altered states.
Transparent Corporation   Transparent is the premier developer of brain stimulation and training products geared towards solving human problems and increasing human potential.

The issue of course, is - what's real and what's B.S.?

I remember back to when I was a teenager, and I made a habit of going to New Age Expos. 

I always thought they were rather wacky, but I enjoyed them.  I remember people walking around with little wire pyramids on their heads, to "align their energy".   I thought the people were crazy, but hey, it was fun!

For those who have a site, and aren't using it, I wanted to make sure to recommend the Site Meter, Counter and Statistics Tracker, for tracking how much traffic you are getting on your site.

First, it is free. 
Second, it is unobtrusive on your site. 
Third, it is one of the most used tracking systems, and it is what is used by the largest sites - such as DailyKos, Gizmodo, etc.

Take a look at the above links, you also get hourly, daily, weekly, and yearly views. Very nice.

I currently have three systems that I see views on, that I check weekly.  One is what is built-in to blogware, the blog provider I use. The second is Blogpatrol , which is down every other week, and when you use it, always pops up an advertising window - and then Sitemeter.

Sitemeter has been the most transparent, fastest, and most consistent, by a long shot. 

Sitemeter is also very good at discounting the traffic from spammers, and only getting "live bodies" - which is one of the issues with blogware. (According to blogware, this site gets an amazing amount of traffic - but it includes various spamblogs, without breaking them out.)

It's possible that sitemeter doesn't contain traffic from RSS feeds - which blogware claims it does - but again, without a breakout of "real" feeds from spam feeds, it's hard to say.

At any rate, for those who are interested in such things - definitely add Sitemeter as your counter!

I've been noticing the integration on gmail, of both Gtalk's chat, with the search and archiving abilities of google.

It's actually a pretty cool setup.  But the best review of the new integration, and suggestions of how best to use it, is at the Unofficial Google Weblog.

The three main ways of communicating with someone - email, Instant Message, and Talking - are now provided through the same interface.  That's pretty cool!

NOTE:  This is probably going to be a tech enthusiast day, for posting...

We've been having fun here over at Integral Practice (or maybe just me) with the notion of feminine and masculine.  For example, Jean's comment made me chuckle mightily:

"Ebuddha! Boy, you're just hankering for a masculine/feminine slapdown aren't you? At least your comments on GenSit over the David Jon/Victoria dialogue, and now this would seem to indicate. At any rate, let me go put on my magic grrl power Docs, and let's see if we can sort this out.

Ok, for the freakin' record, I never said that ILP in and of itself is hypermasculine. I said the ILP Kit is hypermasculine, and to me there is a big difference."

Sorry about that Jean!


At any rate, the whole comment is worth reading - and for me, it brings up a couple of important points.

How to define what is masculine and feminine, as these energies interpenetrate each other, within each person.  To a degree that I'm not sure how you can do things but have general percentages - "ITP is 80% masculine, in it's current form", "that statement is 50% ignorant of feminine realities", etc, etc.

Also, another point this brings up, in regards to the limitations of reality and messy egos, what they need to grow:

Let's say you are very good at structure, and at your "practices".  You meditate every day, do your yoga twice a week, run 3 times a week, do a heart practice nightly, go to group awareness once every two weeks, hang out with your friends once a week, spend enough quality time with your significant other,  as well as have your work, which you enjoy (and is on a strict 8 to 5 schedule as well.)

This regularity, and balance - it's a good life, a whole life, and a full life.  

But does it lead to transformation?  As Jean as pointed out, an "imbalance", an injustice - something UNcomfortable, out of one's "control", something challenging, this is as important for growth as a stable pursuit of excellence. 

Let's say one has all of the above in terms of integral practice - aren't there aspects of life that are missing - say, are you really ever challenged about your personal egoic crap?  If you are disciplined, it's really easy to hide a sense of smugness, superiority, rightness with a capital R, in a life like that, wouldn't you say?

I wonder what a nondual,  integral "encounter group" would look like?  

The stuff one learns about oneself in encounter groups, if you are simply falling into the non-dual consciousness, or responsibly going on with your practices - you may never bring sufficient attention to, and may easily learn to camouflage.

But to bring TOO much attention to these personal deficiencies - well, you are back to accepting the FALSE - as in belief in a separate, limited self - as REAL.

Thoughts on the above?

Also, I'm going to attempt to make the process of commenting here a bit easier in the next couple of months.  I've had some feedback that it's a bit of a pain...

Jean seems to think so. 

Is she right?  Is she wrong?  Why?

Good point though - a "perfectly balanced" ILP, is often not what grows us, but an imbalance can often grow us.

In case you haven't been tracking this, and you are interested in politics, and have some time (three prerequisites!), make sure to check out "Who owns God?" at Integral Options Cafe.

Who Owns God? Part 1
Who Owns God? Part 2
Who Owns God? Part 3

It's actually politics through the realm of Spiral Dynamics, but worth reading in any case. 

What is valuable is the insight that the "God" that people believe in is related to their own level of growth, and that this has been mapped, via (hopefully) large scale and coherent statistical analyses.

I'm still skeptical (or perhaps confused) of this Tier 1- Tier 2 understanding.

Tier 1 is considered everyting the "memes" Green and below.  Tier 2 is yellow and above.

To me, there still seems a confusion between a substantive and authentic "level of consciousness",be it green, orange, yellow - with the whole aspect of "meme", which really is a strictly cognitive development.

A level of conciousness is deeper than a cognition, deeper than a meme, so it looks like a conflation between a particular "meme" or world-view, with a level of consciousness.

I've been attempting to "automate" a lot of my practices - and I would like to explain what I mean by that.

A lot of various financial books and recommendations, say something like the following:

"If you are attempting to DISCIPLINE yourself to save money, forget it. There is a much easier way.  What you need to do, is to automatically setup your savings account to accept a certain amount per month.  A minimum you should save is $5/day.  That means, automatically having 150 going into a savings account, your IRA, 401K, etc.  Trying to do this after the fact is MUCH harder."

I've been doing this in regards to other practices as well.

a. I've set myself up to run back and forth from home at 4 times/week.  Since I have to go home or work anyway, and I am close enough to run, it has really worked out to setup this particular process. It "smooths the way", so to speak.
b. I'm doing something similar for meditating, that requires one piece of discipline.  No matter what, I don't get in the shower in the morning, unless I've meditated for 30 minutes.  Even if I am running late, I do NOT get going in my day, unless I have meditated. (Once this made me late to work - but since then, my mind sort of got it.)  

I am looking for ways to do this for other important disciplines.  If I find any, I'll let you know here...

I've been ruminating about what I like about blogging, and various bloggers that I read - and then also the limitations of the blogging form.

I - clearly - blog a lot.  Why is this, when at the same time, one of the main things that I hate is too much "talking" about spiritual matters?  Same thing with too much discussion around intellectual pursuits.  I tend to "tune out", at some point.  Too much spiritual and intellectual "indigestion", and not enough lived insight, and "alive", or "living" conversation.

That's one of the reasons why I - in goals at least - created Integral Practice, because what I ostensibly care about is the practice aspect.  What works, what doesn't.

At the same time, I find myself blogging more than I thought I would, and find myself ranging far afield from my original intentions.

I think the reasons for this are two:

a. Blogging is an aspect of personal creativity - I feel creative when I express myself in this form, even when I'm writing things that are clearly run of the mill. 
b. I love DIALOGUE - both my own inner dialogue, and then reading and responding to other's dialogues about either personal subjects, or authentic, felt, reflections about life and subjects I am interested in.  (This is one of the reasons I also blog at Generation Sit.)

I guess that for me, blogging is another form of good conversation - it shifts from conversation about ideas, to humorous stories about each other, to practical things (oh! - have you tried this?  It's great!), to deeper and more intimate stories that we share.  A virtual form of social communication, but a form that speaks to the few people that find THIS perspective of THIS bodymind - interesting.

But it truly is this love of dialogue, that keeps me coming back.  In a real way, this form represents the best of capacity for dialogue that I have.  And somehow, this is true, even though when you think about it, blogging IS a particularly solitary venture. 

Does anyone else experience this?  Is blogging for you a form of relaxed, delayed, conversation?  A form of debate?  There are many different type of blogs, as there are different types of conversations.  What stimulates you?

I also think this is why, I gravitate towards other blogs that share this love of dialogue. 

As an example, I haven't been reading Stuart Davis much, or really, I've been skimming by his particular blogposts.

Why?  I know that any particular blogpost of his, is an amazing virtuosity of creativity, humor, sarcasm, and intelligence, that expose my posts as silly pedestrian musings.

But his posts stay in his own little world, and don't connect back to anything else.  The constant focus on "Me, me, me", so much - just isn't my thing.  (Says the person who engages in the fairly solitary pursuit of blogging.  Do I hear the sounds of hypocrisy?)

While there are blogposters in "my world" that I have been frustrated by, I actually get much more value in reading them, because they are engaging beyond themselves.  One example of this would be Matthew Dallman, who is always engaging his mind outside of himself, even if we sometimes are on opposite sides of an issue.  As long as the RELAXED aspect of the conversation is kept at the fore, it's always stimulating - for me at least.

At any rate, I wonder what others get out of blogging.  After all there's a big wide world out there, with a billion other important things than blogging to be doing. 

So what else do YOU get out of reading, or creating, blogs?