checkout our new site @
http://www.boulderintegral.org

Summer Nights at BCIL!

 

Hi Friends,
This is an invitation for you to kick-back and relax with others in the Boulder integral community.  Take look at the list below for some fun and light hearted evenings here at BCIL.  More maybe added on, but for now, its already pretty full summer schedule!  

For any of the events below, show up about 30 minutes earlier and, more than likely, there will be dance music playing for you to shake some stresses away from your day at work.   You are also welcome to use the meditation hall and salon.  

Questions?  Write to Nomali@b-cil.org or Jason@b-cil.org.
Integral Wishes, 
Nomali
 

Rock Band with Jason Lange
7 pm - 9pm on July 11, Friday
Suggested Donation: $5 - $10 per person 

Bring your inner rock star to BCIL! Here's a great opportunity for you to sing, dance, and play!  If you don't know what Rock Band is, you can find out more here, but really, you ought to just show up ready to rock and roll.  Think Karaoke, but here you create the full band, so you have others with whom you can all look like fools at the same time!  Its a blast, y'all! (kids accompanied by parent welcome)

Matrix Evening with Amina Knowlan
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm on July 15, Tuesday
Suggested Donation: $5 - $10 per person

An Experiential Introduction and Beyond.  We will review the essential building blocks of creating an open, embodied, relationally based group-as-a-whole (emergent system). From this beginning understanding, we will create a context to glimpse the profound implication of differentiating from habitual roles and the resultant exponentially increased collective intelligence and simultaneous individual differentiation and development.

Movie Night with Jason Lange
Dark City, directed by Alex Proyas (1998)
7pm on July 24, Thursday
Suggested Donation: $5 - $10 per person

Upon awakening with a start in an icy bathtub in a strange room--with a woman's dead body inconveniently nearby--John Murdoch can't remember how he got there. With a police detective hot on his trail and a psychiatrist skulking around, Murdoch discovers that the key to his mystery is the presence of strange extraterrestrial creatures, the Strangers, who are experimenting with the memories of the humans in his city--from which there may be no escape. Ambitious sci-fi noir, with rich production design and a dense, Kafkaesque concept.

Drumming Night with Gregg Hanson
7pm - 8:30pm on July 29, Tuesday
Suggested Donation: $10 per person
(kids accompanied by parent welcome)

Gregg from "Community Drums" is going to provide all the drums we need (+ plenty other instruments too), but if you wish, you are welcome to bring your own drum.  To join this event, you do not need any kind of drumming experience.  Let's all breath together, drum together and create a riot of rhythm!
Learn more about Gregg and Community Drums here. 

Stuart Davis Show
7:30pm  -  9:00pm on August 2, Saturday
Entrance Ticket $10 per person

This show will include screening about a half hour of new material from Stuart's TV show (comedy sketches), comedy reading from the new audio book, and  music, of course! Don't miss this one!

Stuart Davis (born in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.) is a contemporary American musician and songwriter.  His music contains elements of folk, punk, rock, pop, haiku, and progressive rock.  He describes his musical style as 'Post-Apocalyptic Folk Punk Rock' or 'Dharma Pop'.  He has been performing throughout the United States and Europe for over fifteen years.  To date, Davis has sold over 40,000 albums worldwide.  Davis is also a member of the art branch of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute.  He lives in Boulder, CO with his wife Marcia and daughters Ara and Aja. 
 

Integral Politics with Steve McIntosh
7:00pm - 8:30pm on  August 4, Monday
Suggested Donation: $10 - $20 per person

Integral philosophy represents a new understanding of the evolution of consciousness and culture.   When applied to politics, this new way of seeing provides realistic and pragmatic solutions to many of the contemporary problems of our society.  Integral politics also offers a long-term vision that promises to bring an eventual end to war, suffering, and environmental degradation. This event includes a 40-minute power-point presentation followed by questions and discussion on the application of integral philosophy to the realm of politics.  You might agree, this is probably the most exciting to time to have this

STEVE MCINTOSH (www.stevemcintosh.com) is the author of Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution (Paragon House 2007).  He was an original member of the Integral Institute and What Is Enlightenment? Magazine has referred to him as "“integral thinker par excellence."” An honors graduate of the University of Virginia Law School and the USC Business School, today Steve is president of Now & Zen, Inc. and director of The Project for Integral World Federation.
 

BCIL Family Picnic
5pm - 9pm on August 17, Sunday

Location: Eben G. Fine Park (200 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder, CO 80302
Google Map here)
Bring family, friends + games for all ages. Please bring along food and drinks to share with the community (beer and wine allowed). All children must be accompanied by a parent/guardian. 

  
Evening with Integral Europe
7pm - 9pm on August 20, Wednesday

We'd love for you to come and greet our special guests all the way from across the Atlantic, the founders of Integral Europe, Pelle Billing, Ewan Townhead and Peter Kessels.  They will introduce us to the integral movement in Europe.   This is a very impressive group!   Together, between USA and Europe, we have many opportunities to expand the integral perspective.  Let's all join in!
Don't forget! We'll have light snacks and "ROCK BAND" after the Europeans' presentation.  

 

Monday & Friday Morning Meditation with Nomali Perera
Suggested Donation: $1 - $5

We will open the meditation hall and the movement area every Monday & Friday mornings from 8am - 9:30am between July 14 and August 29.  These sessions of sitting, walking and/or movement meditation will be either on your own or guided.  You are free to choose whether you want to sit, walk or dance/move.  Depending on the need of practitioners, the last 30 minutes of the session will be for discussion and instructions.  Email nomali@b-cil.org, if you are interested in leading groups.


Ken Wilber Study Group
Every other Friday at 3pm
Suggested Donation: $1 - $5

Every other Friday from July 18th - August 29th, 3pm - 4:30pm, Nomali Perera will facilitate a Ken Wilber Study Group.  Everybody from those who have not yet read Ken Wilber to those who have read one too many are welcome! 

Email nomali@b-cil.org, if you are interested in leading groups.   Please note: Mr. Ken Wilber does not attend these groups. 

 *   *   *

Other Upcoming Events
Registration now open! 

October 9 – 12  Integral Leadership in Action, 2008 Conference: Leading from Goodness, Truth and Beauty ~ Featuring Steve McIntosh, Diane Musho Hamilton, Jeff Salzman, Elizabeth Debold, Terry Patten, Victoria Wilson, and more.  With Special Guests Andrew Cohen and Stuart Davis!  For all details, check out www.integralleadershipinaction.com

November 14 - 16  Integral Recovery: Treating Addiction the Integral Way ~ John Dupuy and Bill Harris.  *This event, originally scheduled for July 11 - 13, has been postponed to November 14 - 16.  Please see more event details here.  

Dearest Friends,

This Saturday come and join us for Creating Connections In Integral Community with long time Matrix Leadership trainer, Jack Spivak.  This event came about as a result of the great teaching that  Amina Knowlan, co-founder and director of the Matrix Leadership Institute and Dr Elizabeth Smith, long-time integral scholar, teacher, and psychotherapist introduced us to at BCIL this week. 

We learned that Matrix is a pioneer in what may be an important evolutionary emergent in how to create new kinds of open, interconnected human systems where people tune into others' and their own perspectives in a whole and rich way.  Thank you, Amina and Elizabeth, for sharing your wisdom with us, and please come back!

So, if you'd like fuller relationships with others in the local integral community, join us this Saturday, 6/21, for a morning workshop.  

From MatrixLeadership.org: As human beings we radically redefine ourselves when we awaken from our trance of separateness. When we live and work in interconnected networks or matrices, we harvest our collective intelligence and realize our full potential. Each member becomes a leader and leadership occurs through the relationships between people. Communities and organizations become highly creative, effective and sustainable.

Sounds interesting?  Then come and help us try it out!  The workshop will be mostly experiential, with a little theory thrown in (we can't help ourselves!).

About  Jack Spivak, BS, MS:

As a facilitator and trainer Jack brings 25+ years perspective from teaching, living systems research, and bioengineering. With an academic background in aerospace and bioengineering, Jack has led diverse groups since 1975 as a project engineer, an internationally certified technical trainer, and an environmental activist. He is passionately inspired by the realization that creative, loving, effective, and satisfying groups are actually possible. He is dedicated to their emergence in our day to day lives. Living an intimate and comfortable dance with Chaos, Jack describes himself as "a surprisingly human engineer whose best and worst qualities are probably the same." He practices what he preaches daily as a loving partner and father of his son.

What is Happiness, and How do I Get Some?: The Practice of Positive States ~ Jeff Salzman

• Date: This Saturday June 14
• Time: 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
• Suggested Donation: $25

Please checkout our new website at http://www.boulderintegral.org

June 17^th 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Suggested Donation $10 - $20

Come and explore the Matrix Leadership Model, a deeply integral “We” space model. Join us for an interactive presentation with Dr Elizabeth Smith, long-time integral scholar, teacher, and psychotherapist, and Amina Knowlan, co-founder and director of the Matrix Leadership Institute. Matrix Leadership teaches leadership through radical interconnection. The principles and practices offer a blueprint for creating groups as conscious groups, living systems.  Emergence occurs by the simultaneous support of differentiation (becoming more uniquely and fully yourself) while developing increasing unified, connections with others and the whole.  It optimizes communication between the parts, differentiation from cultural paradigms based on separateness and individual development. Elizabeth and Amina will explore how the Matrix Leadership Model can be used to help develop vibrant, integrally-informed leaders, groups and communities.

 

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Dr. Elizabeth Smith is the founding director of the Center for Spirituality and Integral Social Work at the National Catholic School of Social Service, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, where she taught for more than 20 years.  During that time she also maintained a part-time psychotherapy private practice in Washington, DC, and was a Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD.  While teaching in the graduate school of social work she developed and taught (for several years) a course in transpersonal theory which centered around Wilber’s book on Integral Psychology. Elizabeth has also been closely involved with Integral Institute in the development of Integral University (IU) as Director of the Center for Social Service.  She has written and published a number of articles in professional journals, chapters in books, and has edited two books.

Amina Knowlan co-founded Matrix Leadership in 1990 (previously Group Leadership Training). She has been facilitating groups and trainings for 30 years. She considers herself a social artist and works as a trainer, facilitator, consultant and spiritual-somatic life coach. She was a trainer for the Hakomi Institute of Body-Centered Psychotherapy for 15 years and an owner/practitioner in Wellspring, Partners in Health (a holistic medical clinic) for 15 years. She incorporates somatic, energetic and intuitive approaches as well as dance, movement, voice, art and practices of mindfulness into her work. She also leads retreats for women entitled Fully Embodied Woman: Remembering the Sacred Feminine.

For more information on the Matrix Leadership Model, see http://www.matrixleadership.com/matrix_model.php

22-Day Integral Practice Intensive
Three weeks toward integral transformation and  embodiment ~ Jeff Salzman
 
4 Saturday Morning Sessions, 9 am - 1 pm (Suggested donation: $25 per day)  

• Saturday, June 7  (Intro to Integral Practice, see above)
• Saturday, June 14 
• Saturday, June 21  
• Saturday, June 28

Weekday Morning Practice, 7:30 am - 9 am (Suggested Donation $5 per day)

• Monday - Friday, June 9 - 13
• Monday - Friday, June 16 - 20
• Monday - Friday, June 23 - 27

Wake up your summer with three weeks of intensive integral practice at B-CIL!

Daily practice is a time-honored engine of transformation.   Practicing in the context of an integral view, one that includes the precious gifts of many transformational paths, lights a booster rocket that propels us into our bigger and better selves.

Join us as we seek to enact and embody the promise of the new, emerging stage of integral consciousness and functioning.  In three weeks of intensive practice you will exercise all aspects of your evolving self: your spiritual life, your physical and energy bodies, your relationships and your ability to act powerfully in the world.   The goal is to claim and inhabit new territories of yourself and your world, with very practical results, including:

• A loosening of fear in your life, and the emergence of your personal calling to create, express and contribute
• A new capacity to inhabit your body (including your energy body) in more powerful and beautiful ways
• New possibilities for intimacy and relationships based on authenticity and intentional co-creation
• Awakened spiritual insight and embodiment
• An ability to harmonize conflicting perspectives and bring real healing to the suffering world.

The Saturday Sessions are designed to help you assess your life in powerful, new ways.  Through the four sessions, you will develop and track a specific transformation path that is right for you, and get valuable support from others.  It is best to attend all four, but okay to miss if necessary.

The Weekday Morning Practice will consist of meditation, body practice and short group processes.  They are designed to help you embody and stabilize the gains you are making, and to be more awake and alive for the coming day.
 
Some sessions will be audio/video taped, and we will encourage participants to make on-going video diary.


.

Integral Recovery:  Treating Addiction the Integral Way ~ John Dupuy and Bill Harris

• Dates: Friday 11/14 - Sunday 11/16  
• Fees:  Early Registration $695 before October 15/After that, $895 

If you are working with or interested in helping people recover from drug and alcohol addiction, and have been frustrated and at times despairing of existing treatment models, please continue reading to learn about a new and comprehensive approach to recovery treatment.

After many years in the world of addiction treatment, recovery expert John Dupuy has created an innovative, new treatment model called Integral Recovery.  This model is based on the application of Ken Wilber's AQAL map to the field of addiction treatment, and puts forward an ongoing life-long Integral Life Practice as the core healing modality of Integral Recovery. This is a real world application of the Integral/AQAL map to one of our largest and most pressing human catastrophes: drug addiction.

You will be introduced to this model in two ways. First, John would like you to have a complimentary copy of a paper he wrote on this new approach, published in AQAL: Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. The paper is called "Toward an Integral Recovery Model for Drug and Alcohol Addiction," and you can download it by clicking on the link.

Then, we'd like to invite you to a special live workshop where John, along with a few special guests, will discuss this innovative approach, and show you how you can easily implement it in your facility or practice in order to increase the success rate in your recovery approach.

The workshop will be Nov. 14 - 16 at the Boulder Center for Integral Living, in Boulder, Colorado. We are extremely excited about this new approach, and we thought you'd want to know about it.

John Dupuy's work has been published in the AQAL Journal and Integrale Pespectiven, the leading German Integral magazine. He has conducted workshops and talks in the U.S. and Europe, and have many years of experience working with those suffering from addiction and their families. He founded Passages to Recovery and is the co-founder of Open Sky Wilderness Therapy, two therapeutic wilderness programs.

The event's co-presenter will be Bill Harris, who has created an amazing tool that has been used in addiction recovery with astounding results. In this workshop, Bill will demonstrate this tool and show you how you can use it in your own work.

Bill is currently President and Director of Centerpointe Research Institute. He started Centerpointe Research Institute in 1989 with borrowed recording equipment set up on his kitchen table. Today, approximately 700,000 people in 173 countries have used Centerpointe programs, including the tool I want him to share with you, to improve their lives.

Though not initially created as an addiction recovery tool, Centerpointe's proprietary Holosync sound technology, when listened to through stereo headphones, creates the brain wave patterns of deep meditative states, causing the brain to reorganize at higher levels of functioning, while at the same time raising the stress threshold, which in itself powerfully contributes to relapse prevention.

John and Bill have found that those who use Holosync during their recovery process experience tremendous positive changes. They much more quickly have (and embrace) many of the key insights that make their recovery smoother and faster. More specifically, Holosync:

• Reduces stress and increases the ability of people to handle stressful situations

• Reduces the production of cortisol in the brain, a harmful stress-related neurochemical and increases the production of positive neurochemicals, such as dopamine and serotonin

• Aids in balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which is experienced in the individual as increased cognitive and creative abilities

• Aids in the reintegration and release of trauma and repressed shadow elements in the psyche

• Quickly leads to an increased sense of well-being and serenity in one’s life 

This workshop is a unique opportunity for those interested in a cutting edge, new approach to treatment. It would be of particular interest to:

• Treatment professionals
• Individuals in recovery (or their family and friends)
• Those interested in Integral theory and its real world application

The workshop will be a forum for learning and discussion, as well as an opportunity to use and experience Holosync brain entrainment meditation, one of the cornerstones of the Integral Recovery model, with John Dupuy and Bill Harris.

You will never look at addiction and treatment the same.

Since seats for this workshop are limited, please register right away. The cost is $895. For early registration, the price is $695, before June 15th. To register, click here or button below. 

To download your copy of "Toward an Integral Recovery Model for Drug and Alcohol Addiction", please click here. Or, call John Dupuy at 435-691-1193 for more information.  You can also download a pdf version of this event invitation here. 
Sincerely,

John Dupuy


        

Integral Leadership in Action, 2008 Conference: Leading from Goodness, Truth and Beauty 

Join an exciting group of professionals who are seeking to apply integral thinking to our work and leadership in the world. 
Dates: October 9 - 12
Pre & Post-event private vendor presentations - October 9, 12 & 13 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS!

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!  

 

 

• Creatively apply integral leadership concepts to your everyday (professional, personal, family and community) life.  Be an everyday integral leader - from parenting children to managing employees, to organizing a neighborhood watch group – be prepared to lead through an integral lens.

• Support your unique integral path by communing with like-minded seekers and restoring your sense of beauty, truth and goodness. 
  

• Find out more about the new frontier in WE space – expanding the culture we live in.

• Learn more about how you can enact leadership from a second tier perspective and employ an integral framework to organizational settings.

• Walk away with practical tools on how to implement integral leadership in action in today’s fast changing world.

• Join us as we collaborate with each other; share best practices and create meaningful and lasting connections
  

TOWARDS A MORE INTEGRAL CHRISTIANITY
By John Dupuy (http://integralrecovery.com/about/)
Participant at  Integral Christianity  Experience Seminar at BCIL
April 16 - 20, 2008
See pictures here
 
About three weeks ago, I attended a workshop on Integral Christianity at the Boulder Center for Integral Living in Boulder, Colorado. This center is housed in a former church building (with a storied past), and is the brain child of Jeff Salzman, who is an extraordinary Integral teacher in his own right.


I attended the five-day workshop with no real expectations, but with a definite agenda of sorts. As my practice has deepened over the past few years, and as I have relaxed and looked into the vastness of my interiors, that Jesus fellow has come up as a presence, as a strange attractor. And I DO have a history. 

Let me speak to that to set the stage. At the age of twelve I had my first mind-blowing, life-changing spiritual experience. I was raised Catholic, attended church with my family, went to Sunday school, and had been confirmed in the Church. In short, my parents felt that I should have a religious grounding, so I went.

In the summer of ‘68 in my bedroom I picked up a Gideon’s New Testament that someone had given me at school. As I started reading Matthew Chapter V, the Sermon on the Mount, I was blasted by a powerful “awakening state” experience. First of all, Jesus’ words deeply penetrated me, and I felt a tangible sense of being loved by God, loving God, and loving everyone and everything else.  I began praying a lot, reading the Bible, and trying to share what I was experiencing with my friends and parents. For the most part, I think I just weirded them out. Ironically, I never even thought about speaking to a priest about what was going on. I guess I figured that since I had been going to church all my life and never sensed or experienced this God or Jesus in church, the priests must not know. Living in Houston Texas at the time there was no shortage of churches. So I did the rounds and was left frustrated. I do remember listening to Billy Graham on my radio at night and feeling some nourishment from his preaching. (Recently I read, “How can you tell an Evangelical from a Fundamentalist?”  The answer was, “The Evangelicals actually like Billy Graham.”) Anyway, thank you, Billy.

To make a long, long story very short, I ended up joining a radical dropped-out Christian group two years later, and spent the next nine years of my young life in that milieu. As often happens, my group transformed into a very toxic cult in the space of those nine years. I left in a wave of anger and disgust (some of it self-directed, wondering why I had stayed around so long). I thought, “Way to go guys. We reached a level of decadence in a decade that it took the early Christians 400 hundred years to achieve!” I felt that much of my experience had been legitimate, but much had been crap, and as I wasn’t prepared to sort it all out just then, I put the whole God/Jesus/Spiritual thing on hold and went about trying to figure out what to do with my life.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago…
I went to the Integral Christianity workshop thinking it was time to look at this stuff anew. I had known Brother David Stendl-Rast back in the early nineties when I had worked with Fritjof Capra and the Elmwood Institute in Berkeley. I sensed it was important for me to reconnect with him, and he was one of the presenters. Both intuitions proved dead on, and I was highly impacted by the event, and, as with all Integral Workshops that I have attended, with the quality of the people who were present. So let me share a few of the insights that came to me while I was attending:

•    Firstly, Christianity, or the worldwide body of believers, could greatly be aided by the adoption the AQAL map as a guide to healing the fractures and gaping wounds found in the church (or as Brother David says “catholic” with a small “c”). To put as a starting point that the goal of an Integral Christianity is to express God’s love in all four Quadrants; this would be a hugely clarifying and healing vision. Again, as with most things non-Integral, the Church (and by Church I mean all followers of the Jesus tradition) has erred largely in what it has neglected, the body, nature, interiors, the shadow etc. For Christianity to become a channel for healthy translation and transformation to the whole of Creation, all these essential dimensions must become the field of labor for the redemptive work of Christ: exteriors and interiors, individual and collective. The redemptive symbol of the Cross takes on added depth and meaning in light of the Four Quadrants.

•    Inclusion of the knowledge of lines could aid in the cultivation of compassion and greater skillfulness in creating healthier organizational structures that include all the necessary gifts to make the church healthy and relevant in meeting the challenges the human family faces in the 21st Century. Acceptance of an Integral life practice that encompasses the essential lines as the sacred duty of all believers in the goal of becoming more “Christ like,” would be of inestimable value in reintroducing a vital healthy and balanced contemplative path at the core of the Christian faith. It almost goes without saying, in the light of recent events and history, that techniques and technologies for dealing with the individual and collective shadow could heal and bring new meaning to Jesus’ admonition, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Not that we are ever done with shadow work, because if you ever get done with your own, there is always everyone else’s to work on!

•    The inclusion of developmental stages and the wisdom that it brings could revolutionize Christian theology, practice, and charity. Rollie Stanich’s observation that, “We all see God through colored glasses,” could begin to soften the often bitter animosity of Christians at one level of development for those at others. I know this is a tall order but I feel as this understanding is spread, the rigidity of the different levels could begin to loosen with a greater understanding of the perspectives that different altitudes afford. We are looking at the same Lord through different lenses.

•    The understanding of states is a must for any skillful and accurate understanding of the contemplative terrain. Adding the Integral understanding of states vs. stages and how they complement one another, could usher in a new era of depth Christianity, and once again, or maybe for the first time, the mystical power of the Jesus transmission could become the birth right of all Christians, and not just the purview of other-worldly saints. As Bernard Shaw once quipped, “There is nothing wrong with Christianity, it’s just that so few have ever tried it.”  Wilber wrote in Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, that no other religion had done as much to keep its adherents from obtaining the consciousness of its founder, and I mean Jesus, not Paul. Christianity, at least the organized institutional variety, has been comfortable with the 3rd and 2nd person approaches to God, but when one approaches the 1st person, “I and the Father are one” experience, one is on dangerous ground indeed. When the 1,2,3 of God is understood as the territory we all travel in our contemplative journey (often in one sitting!), the tradition is gloriously enriched and many of the early sayings and teachings are revealed as powerful and as fresh as the day they were uttered. 

•    There is so much to be said about types, but there is much good already written on Enneagram types from such writer Christian writers as Rohr and Rizo. One useful understanding of types on the individual soul level could be in the feminine and masculine aspects of the souls; the feminine part of the soul being the part that longs for union with the Divine, and the masculine that which wants to be about his Father’s business, finding, doing, and accomplishing the Will of God. The individual and the Church need both: transformative mysticism in action.

•    The next essential aspect that came up for me in an Integral Christianity, or at least an Integral Christology, is to look at the figure of Christ through three essential lenses, namely,

1.    The Mythic Christ: This is the Jesus of the stories, miracles and legends. Of course these are seen as salvation-necessary dogmas to those at the mythic Amber/Blue developmental level. They include the Virgin birth, raising from the dead, descending into hell for three days, ascending into Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father on a throne, riding back on horse with a bunch of Angels to kick literal bad guy butt at the end of days, and setting up a last judgment to separate the sheep from the goats, etc., etc. These can be viewed not as literal articles of faith, but as powerful symbolic, archetypal stories that point the way to deeper spiritual truths that inform and illuminate the soul’s journey. While the traditionalist fundamentalists will reject this approach, it will be in place when those who are ready make the leap from Amber to Orange and above. These are actually some of the archetypal stories that helped me reconnect with Christianity when I started finding and processing these archetypes in my own inward journey. In the Christian mystery I was lead into and through the darkness and suffering. When my own darkness and the World darkness became too great it was the figure of Christ dying on the Cross that somehow imparted to me the Grace to stay with it until the Darkness too became the light. I see it as essential for the tradition that these central archetypes be preserved and illuminated all the way up the developmental spiral, and not discarded with the move from Amber.

2.    The Historical Jesus: The man, the actual human being, that we can perceive through the historical record, scant and often contradictory as the accounts may be. It is very valuable, and I believe edifying, to dig into this historical soil: the Gospels, the Jesus Seminar, the Book of Acts, Josephus, the writings of the Early Church fathers, the Epistles, the archeological record, the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Naghamadi Texts, Roman Historical texts, Tibetan texts that shed light, other apocryphal writings and so forth. There is so much to be gained from this form of inquiry and search. For me the preponderance of evidence suggests that there was a Yeshua walking on the Earth in First Century Palestine, and that through the force of his character and personal power he got this whole thing rolling. It is a fascinating study that can be both iconoclastic and revelatory on many different levels, and needs to be a part of our Integral Christianity. To be included in this is pre-Jesus history, the life and time of Jesus, and all that has unfolded from this tradition/transmission subsequently.

3.    The Kosmic Christ: The third essential lens would be the Kosmic Christ, the living water, the great presence that is Love and at the same time our most fundamental nature and consciousness, the realization of and identification with which is the goal and Grail of the Christian and ultimately all contemplative paths.

Another intuitive hit that I came to in the wake of the workshop was an understanding of the relationship between Tradition and Transmission.

Tradition consists of the historical accumulation of cultural artifacts that has become the historical/cultural/social inheritance of the Church. This consists of artwork, sacraments and ceremony, organizational structures, the literature and liturgy, the dogma and theology, the architecture and language, the history, the legends, the saints, the heroes and villains. I’m sure each one of you could add categories that would also be part of the incredibly rich and complex meshwork that makes up the Tradition.

The Transmission, on the other hand, makes up the inner living light that is the realization of Christ consciousness. To put it simply, I see the Tradition as good and healthy insomuch as it supports the Transmission, or the awakening to and realization of our Christ Nature, and of course the translation of that awakening into the service and healing of the World (in all four quadrants). Tradition on the other hand is negative and even idolatrous when it hinders this Transmission and its translation.

Lastly, but not least, came something of a personal revelation that could obviously have broader implications and meaning beyond my own personal struggles with Christianity. We were doing a 3,2,1 shadow work process and the following emerged in my work. I was working with what I had brought to the party, which was my wounded but ongoing relationship with Christianity and the Christian Mystery, for lack of a better word. I’m not claiming that this is the orthodox way to work with the 3,2,1 process, but this thing took on a life of its own.

In the 3rd person, I saw a very outraged, angry version of myself. I was pissed! I was delivering my own personal jeremiad at the last two thousand years of Church history. I was cursing and going by the numbers from the Inquisition, the self-righteous colonization and destruction of Native cultures, the pedophilia and cover-ups of recent memory, the killing and persecution of Jews and other Christians and so forth; I was experiencing total outrage. When I shifted to the 2nd person, I had a vision in my mind’s eye of myself, standing before an empty tomb (Jesus’ tomb) and I say, “What have they done with my Lord?” And I begin to sob great bursts of utter grief. What did they do with Jesus, this light to the world? How did it become so twisted, lost, and perverted? It takes huge effort to control this as I’m doing the work surrounded by the rest of our workshop group. (The manly thing being not to utterly lose one’s stuff in public–thanks, super-ego.) I then shift to the 1st person perspective, and I become Christ! I become a being of immense wisdom, compassion and love. I look around and see this same consciousness and light radiating from everyone else in the room! Everyone and everything is radiant. This is the answer I sought. Christ the living water, the heaven on Earth within and without is the Grail and the goal and the resolution of the Christian mystery. Same as it ever was.

A woman who has been going through some rough stuff gets a hug from Brother David, and I think just as one bad priest can do so much harm, one loving man of God can do so much good. I approach Brother David and ask for a hug. The love in that hug burns me with its power. I say, “Where were you forty years ago?” Brother David says, “This hug goes back forty years.” I am healed.

One last note, we performed two ceremonies while at the workshop: a communion and an anointing ritual. What happened was something that I was in no way prepared for; a profound experience of gathered group presence, love and holiness. Tradition shining forth the Transmission: The Jesus of History, myth, and the Kosmic Christ, all present, all one, all Love. Yes. Thank You. Amen.

BCIL Community Night  

• Thursday, March 20
• 7 - 9 pm

Our old church is coming back to her glory, and we're ready to open the doors and begin our first round of on-going practice opportunities.  Come and hear what we're up to, and how you might want to join in. 

At BCIL, we are looking to work and play with committed integral practitioners who want to enact their highest selves into the world.  And who want to be a part of a community committed to the same path.

So if that rings your chimes, do come!

We'll have some snacks and an open house starting at 7, and a short program around 8.   If you are moved to bring something to eat or drink, please do!  This event is free. 

An open discussion on Integral Philosophy, with Steve McIntosh

This interactive discussion will focus on the practice of integral philosophy, together with its applications to politics, spirituality, and society.  Please note: The Friday night event is a prelude to Steve’s full day Saturday workshop on the practice of integral philosophy (see a description below).   

Friday Evening Introduction

• March 21, 7 - 9 pm
• Suggested Donation $10 - $20 (checks and cash only)
• Open House starts at 6 pm - join us for tea and snacks

Saturday Workshop

• March 22, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
• Suggested Donation $50 - $100 (checks and cash only)
• Lunch will be on your own. There are lots of places to eat across the street.

This full day workshop will focus on the state of the art of integral philosophy and its power to produce integral consciousness.  The workshop is designed to help participants directly experience the emerging epistemological capacity of the integral worldview. The day will include presentations and discussion on the founders of integral philosophy, integral politics, and the practice of the integral worldview, as well as experimental exercises. 

About Steve McIntosh 

Steve McIntosh is the author of Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution (Paragon House, 2007).  Steve is a member of BCIL’s board of directors, and What Is Enlightenment? Magazine recently referred to him as “integral thinker par excellence.” For more information on the work of Steve McIntosh, visit: www.stevemcintosh.com  

Hi Friends,

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank Steve McIntosh for a wonderful presentation named "The Natural Theology of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness" on 6th of November at BCIL.  About 60 people showed up and we learnt very quickly that BCIL needs more chairs!  Please see below for a few pictures from the event.  We look forward to Steve's next visit. 

To give you an idea, the presentation by Steve McIntosh described how the values known as the beautiful, the true, and the good play a central role in the evolution of the universe, serving as attractors of evolutionary development that pull evolution forward from the inside through their influence on consciousness.  

As Steve says, "this ancient and venerable triad of values can be expansively understood as descriptions of the actual directions of evolution in nature, self, and culture.  Understanding where evolution is headed is, of course, a central inquiry for a philosophy that defines itself in evolutionary terms.  But questions about of the directions of evolution’s unfolding are not just relevant to integral philosophers; properly understood, these questions relate to every situation in which the need for improvement can be recognized.  And as it now becomes increasingly necessary for humanity to participate in guiding cultural evolution toward a more positive future, knowledge of evolution’s essential methods, techniques, and directions is of critical importance." The event was wonderful! Steve, thank you so much! And thanks to everybody who showed up for this event. We aplogize for our shortage on chairs and all the remodeling that is going on inside the building.