Inquiry

This is a really touch choice.  I am so fascinated by many of them, but for different reasons.  Personally I am very intrigued by Moral Development.  I find that as much as I want to "move up" on that line, that I must attend to many other things first!  Go figure....Not really going too far in moral development without my spiritual development.  And you know?  This is for right now.  Ask me in a few years as I move through my life and I will possibly tell you a different story!

As a psychologist I am very interested in cognitive development.  Since I specialize in bereavement, I am aware that how one's perceives his or her relationship with and conceptualization, experience, and expression of death and bereavement are very contingent upon cognitive development.  Throughout all my work I have to assess the most for this...and then move on to other lines.  these other lines are either supported or hindered (depending ont he direction from which I am viewing the individual) by cognitive development...So I can help assess the client's spiritual development, see how it may interact with my own, and then try to determine how to best support the person in his or her spiritual growth through the bereavement process.  So there is another line on which I focus.

 

Where am I with moral development?  Hum...great question...I think I am still exploring that.  I think that as I progress, I become more in tune with the shared human-ness between people.  My sense of moral agency improves and I have a much more clear understanding of my need to make space for other world views.  I think I also hold myself much more responsible for my own life and become less judgmental of others.  I think that "practicing competency" is a daily endeavor.  And it also requires mindfulness...which is something of a challenge for me since I tend to get lost int he abstractions of my own mind sometimes.

 

When there is a person who is more developed than me (who's to say, huh?), and I am being honest with myself and you, dear reader, I think I feel a bit self-conscious, but also curious.  I tend to listen more and then ask a lot of questions (my mother said I did this as early as she can remember).  When I am with someone that is at a lower stage, I find that while I try to temper my response with patience and detachment, I also get a bit frustrated and sometimes even plain angry.  So, I continue to work on my response set, both internally and externally....

Namaste -

 Christina Zampitella, Psy.D.

 

Having just listened to Ken Wilber explaining how gender can be considered as a line of development that goes roughly from sex (1st tier), to gender (2nd tier), to transgender (3rd tier), and, before that, relistening to him conversing with Joe Perez, and, before that, to the slides on sexual polarity, how could I not be intrigued by a Kosmos in which all of this is evolving, and developing into I dare not, cannot, guess what? Maybe that's why the term transgender is used: not enough is yet known about it, other than that it goes beyond gender, to be able to flesh out (spirit out?) what it is, or will be.

What an awesome issue to tackle. I have often analyzed my own line of development and discovered that sexuality is one of the easiest to pinpoint. It is very closely related to my other creative energy, the arts, as it comes from the same chakra.

Clothing styles tell a lot. I remember during my 'green' glory days (my 20's and early 30's), I would wear men's clothes and shoes.... they were just much more comfortable and men and women were all the same in my orange/green eyes. This was in the late 70's and 80's. I was one of the first women working at the steel factories here in Hamilton... actually did an interview with Micky Moore on CITY TV, in Toronto. The topic was "women in non-traditional jobs". Green was just making it's way in at that time and it was a HUGE deal.

During my 40's I spend 12 years being  a shepherd....I ran about a 130 sheep, which would swell during the spring and summer to about 300. You do a lot of thinking among the flock and a lot of things changed during that time. My feminine side definitely softened...it had to, it had no choice. I dealt with live and death on a daily basis. I was also a fiber artist at that time (was for 30 years, before I switched to oil painting). During that period I had to learn to adjust and nurture both my masculine and my feminine side to be effective on all fronts. From growing the hay and harvesting it, to nursing a sickly lamb.....to designing the next sweater line and weaving 50 yards of wool fabric, it became a dance that I did with ease. I wondered often why it was that it came so easy for me to flow in that way.

I am in a relationship with someone who is also fairly developed and I've noticed that the relationship is like a dance. At times he clearly is the feminine and I am the masculine and then it just swing back with very little effort. It just flows with the situation we find our selves in and adjust without even thinking about it.  Sometimes we are both in our masculine or both in our feminine. And when I am in my feminine, I am deeply in my feminine and it feels very comfortable...but then when I pick up the power tools and start building canvasses, I am deeply into my masculine and it feel very comfortable.

             Hillie Bakker

--As a teacher educator I am fascinated by lines of development as they apply to creating learning environments. For teachers, the highest correlate might be the interpersonal line which is closely tied to both the cognitive and ego development lines. I am acutely aware of the current dysfunctionality within the public education system and I wonder how best to effect change and awareness in preparation of teachers. It seems to me that having teachers be developed to at least an achiever (ego), formal reasoning (cognitive) and able to take 3rd person perspectives is necessary for the teacher to provide learning environments in which students can flourish. I am also keenly aware of the candidates who are in teacher preparation in the public university system. I don't think many have the capacity to take 3rd person perspectives. So does it perpetuate the dysfunction in the system when ethnocentric individuals are 'graduated" and become "certified" to teach in the public school system. The numbers of teachers needed is a factor that influences this selection. How do we go about changing the system to include those who better understand wider perspectives? 

Peace and Laughter,

Nancy