Corey deVos

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Since the dawn of civilization, sports have been an intrinsic part of human society. From the militaristic competitions of ancient China, Greece, and Egypt, to the enormous rise of spectator sports in the wake of the industrial revolution, athletics have long served society as a foundation of human triumph, camaraderie, and excellence, as well as a source of personal discipline, achievement, and improvement—not to mention a common language of stories and statistics that men have traditionally used when women aren't around to fill the often-awkward spaces between them.

In many ways, sports represent the very best of the human spirit. And yet, some may find it odd to suggest a connection between sports and spirituality, as though these are two completely distinct facets of human life with very little in common, if anything at all. Maybe if we are talking about kung fu, tai chi, or some other martial art we can see an overlap, but what does spirituality have to do with modern western sports like football (of either variety), baseball, or basketball? After all, these games are fueled by the decidedly earthly elements of blood, sweat, and testosterone, while spirituality is often charged with the role of dealing with the more abstract and heavenly concerns of our finite human existence. But really, this establishes a sort of false dichotomy, unable to capture the full complexity and richness of either athletics or spirituality. After all, an athlete can find as much virtue, luminosity, and self-transcendence through sports as a monk can find through his or her spiritual practice. And a monk can find as much personal power, potency, and embodiment through spiritual practice as an athlete can potentially find in any type of sport.

In the Zone: Sports and Spirituality In this dialogue we explore the role of sports as a "hidden religion," an age-old tradition with the extraordinary ability to evoke powerful states of transcendence— spiritual experiences, by any other name. Listen as David Meggyesy and Ken explore some of the contours of this "hidden religion," and discuss what it takes to be a genuinely Integral athlete.

"Athleticism" draws upon a combination of these developmental lines, in varying degrees of importance. But what is especially interesting is that, as any of these individual intelligences approach the highest stages of development currently available to us (teal, turquoise, indigo, and beyond, as indicated below) they begin to take on qualities that can only be described as "trans-rational" or, more simply, "spiritual"—which is why, for many, watching Michael Jordan play at the peak of his game can feel like listening to Mozart, looking at the Sistine Chapel, and reading Rumi at the same time.

Developmental altitude not only describes the progress of each of these multiple intelligences, but also influences the overall cultural sense of meaning that surrounds sports, for both the athlete and the spectator. For example, sports allow fans a certain amount of magenta ritual, a healthy outlet for red aggression, a source of amber allegiance to a particular team, city, state, nation, etc.

For athletes (particularly males), sports have historically had an exceptional ability to bring people from red to amber, tempering the rawness of the ego by plugging the often testosterone-driven identity into a higher-order structure of self-sacrifice, discipline, and teamwork, before opening them up to orange principles of accomplishment and excellence. These structures also determine the general values of sportsmanship with which the athlete approaches the game—whereas red is focused upon the glory of victory, amber reminds us that "there is no I in team," orange tells us that it's "not if you win or lose, but how you play the game," while the modern Olympic code reflects the green sentiment that "the most important thing is not winning, but taking part."

These different modes of sportsmanship are especially important in today's world, which situates sports in an aggressive business market that can seriously reinforce the power-hungry ego. Without properly internalizing the ethical sensibilities of amber-and-above structures, it is all too easy for the ego to be seduced by delusions of self-importance, enabling athletes to remain red megalomaniacs running loose in an orange world of fame, status, and celebrity—which may help us understand the moral transgressions of people like Michael Vick, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Tonya Harding, and many others.

There is another definition of "spirituality," which has more to do with the fleeting—but very real—subjective experience of spirituality that athletes frequently tap into, regardless of which developmental altitude they may be coming from. Often described with phrases like "in the zone" or "out of his head", athletes can often slip into the same exact nondual states of consciousness that have more typically been associated with artists and mystics—states of utter self-transcendence and unobstructed creative or performative flow. These nondual "flow" states (along with gross, subtle, causal, and witness states) form the very core of esoteric and contemplative forms of spiritual practice at the heart of virtually all the world's religious traditions—and although they have very different names, metaphysical assumptions, and cultural contexts from tradition to tradition, there is an astonishing symmetry in all of these various descriptions, enough to suggest an essential unity underlying every single spiritual experience and expression in the history of mankind.

According to many athletes, these states occur with astounding frequency—especially for those who have evolved to the highest reaches of development in any of their developmental lines, which seems to allow more stable access to these higher states. These nondual "peak-experiences" are rarely acknowledged by the sporting community, largely due to the unavailability of adequate language in sports culture to properly communicate these experiences, or to help take them off of the field/court/ice and into daily life. But whether acknowledged or not, nearly every athlete has had his or her own sense of being "in the zone" at one time or the other—the effortless collapse of player, opponent, audience, and game, until all that remains is the erotic scent of freshly-cut grass, the weight of the warm sun pressing against your skin, and the slow-motion frenzy of a Kosmos-at-play.

All in all, this exceptional dialogue goes a long way to remind us that all those aspects of our lives that seem separate or distinct from our spirituality are, in actuality, anything but. There is nothing Spirit doesn't touch—from our highest ideals of love, respect, and sportsmanship, to the drunken bloodlust of hearing millions of people cheering you to victory—everything finds its home in the transcendent mind of God, nestled in the immanent heart of the Sacred, where the line between winning and losing becomes the very same line that separates self and other, part and whole, here and eternity.

A Brief Overview of Stages of Consciousness

• Infrared (archaic): Infrared Altitude signifies a degree of development that is in many ways imbedded in nature, body, and the gross realm in general. Infrared Altitude exhibits an archaic worldview, physiological needs (food, water, shelter, etc.), a self-sense that is minimally differentiated from its environment, and is in nearly all ways oriented towards physical survival. Although present in infants, infrared is rarely seen in adults except in cases of famine, natural disasters, or other catastrophic events. Infrared is also used as a kind of catch-all term for all earlier evolutionary stages and drives.

• Magenta (egocentric, magic): Magenta Altitude began about 50,000 years ago, and tends to be the home of egocentric drives, a magical worldview, and impulsiveness. It is expressed through magic/animism, kin-spirits, and such. Young children primarily operate with a magenta worldview. Magenta in any line of development is fundamental, or “square one” for any and all new tasks. Magenta emotions and cognition can be seen driving such cultural phenomena as superhero-themed comic books or movies.

• Red (ego- to ethnocentric, power): The Red Altitude began about 10,000 years ago, and is the marker of egocentric drives based on power, where “might makes right,” where aggression rules, and where there is a limited capacity to take the role of an “other.” Red impulses are classically seen in grade school and early high school, where bullying, teasing, and the like are the norm. Red motivations can be seen culturally in Ultimate Fighting contests, which have no fixed rules (fixed rules come into being at the next Altitude, Amber), teenage rebellion and the movies that cater to it (The Fast and the Furious), gang dynamics (where the stronger rule the weaker), and the like.

• Amber (ethnocentric, mythic): The Amber Altitude began about 5,000 years ago, and indicates a worldview that is traditionalist and mythic in nature—and mythic worldviews are almost always held as absolute (this stage of development is often called absolutistic). Instead of “might makes right,” amber ethics are more oriented to the group, but one that extends only to “my” group. Grade school and high school kids usually exhibit amber motivations to “fit in.” Amber ethics help to control the impulsiveness and narcissism of red. Culturally, amber worldviews can be seen in fundamentalism (my God is right no matter what); extreme patriotism (my country is right no matter what); and ethnocentrism (my people are right no matter what).

• Orange (worldcentric, rational): The Orange Altitude began about 500 years ago, during the period known as the European Enlightenment. In an orange worldview, the individual begins to move away from the amber conformity that reifies the views of one’s religion, nation, or tribe. The orange worldview often begins to emerge in late high school, college, or adulthood. Culturally, the orange worldview realizes that “truth is not delivered; it is discovered,” spurring the great advances of science and formal rationality. Orange ethics begin to embrace all people, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, the US Bill of Rights, and many of the laws written to protect individual freedom all flow from an orange worldview.

• Green (worldcentric, pluralistic): The Green Altitude began roughly 150 years ago, though it came into its fullest expression during the 1960’s. Green worldviews are marked by pluralism, or the ability to see that there are multiple ways of seeing reality. If orange sees universal truths (“All men are created equal”), green sees multiple universal truths—different universals for different cultures. Green ethics continue, and radically broaden, the movement to embrace all people. A green statement might read, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, regardless of race, gender, class….” Green ethics have given birth to the civil rights, feminist, and gay rights movements, as well as environmentalism.

The green worldview’s multiple perspectives give it room for greater compassion, idealism, and involvement, in its healthy form. Such qualities are seen by organizations such as the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Doctors Without Borders. In its unhealthy form green worldviews can lead to extreme relativism, where all beliefs are seen as relative and equally true, which can in turn lead to the nihilism, narcissism, irony, and meaninglessness exhibited by many of today’s intellectuals, academics, and trend-setters… not to mention another “lost” generation of students.

• Teal (worldcentric to “kosmocentric,” integral): The Teal Altitude marks the beginning of an integral worldview, where pluralism and relativism are transcended and included into a more systematic whole. The transition from green to teal is also known as the transition from “1st-tier” values to “2nd-tier” values, the most immediate difference being the fact that each “1st-tier” value thinks it is the only truly correct value, while “2nd-tier” values recognize the importance of all preceding stages of development. Thus, the teal worldview honors the insights of the green worldview, but places it into a larger context that allows for healthy hierarchies, and healthy value distinctions.

Perhaps most important, a teal worldview begins to see the process of development itself, acknowledging that each one of the previous stages (magenta through green) has an important role to play in the human experience. Teal consciousness sees that each of the previous stages reveals an important truth, and pulls them all together and integrates them without trying to change them to “be more like me,” and without resorting to extreme cultural relativism (“all are equal”). Teal worldviews do more than just see all points of view (that’s a green worldview)—it can see and honor them, but also critically evaluate them.

• Turquoise (“kosmocentric,” integral): Turquoise is a mature integral view, one that sees not only healthy hierarchy but also the various quadrants of human knowledge, expression, and inquiry (at the minimum: I, we, and it). While teal worldviews tend to be secular, turquoise is the first to begin to integrate Spirit as a living force in the world (manifested through any or all of the 3 Faces of God: “I”—e.g. the “No self” or “witness” of Buddhism; “we/thou”—e.g. the “great other” of Christianity, Judaism, Hindusm, Islam, etc.; or “it”—e.g. the “Web of Life” seen in Taoism, Pantheism, etc.).

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Part 1: The Vast Expanse 

Part 2: One Hand Clapping 

Download here
(147 MB, 1 hour 1 minute)

Sutras is a recording of a very special set I played at this past Integral Spiritual Experience: Kosmic Creativity event, which accompanied a live painting presentation by Alex and Allyson Grey (see the videos below, including a really cool time-lapse recorded by our good friend Mathias Weitbrecht).

Alex has been a tremendous inspiration and influence for me for over fifteen years, so the opportunity to share a stage with him—and making even a tiny imprint upon his creative flow and upon this extraordinary piece (which will most likely be titled "Cosmic Creativity")—was one of the greatest and most meaningful experiences I've ever had. I send deep gratitude to Alex and Allyson Grey, to the ISE design team for allowing me to offer this gift, and to everyone who was able to be there that night. I hope y'all had as much fun as I did.

I am very happy to now be able to share the first part of the soundtrack to that spectacular evening with you all. This is the entire first half of the set I played that night (with a few new wrinkles thrown in), and includes spoken word pieces by Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Lama Surya Das, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts. Some elements may be familiar to those who have hear my previous Empty Spaces and Dark Matter mixes. I hope you enjoy!

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"Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being. Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves." –Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Simply love. This is all Christ, or any other enlightened master, has ever asked of us. Love fully, love freely, and love completely. Love to the bottom of our hearts, to the depths of our souls, using every moment as an opportunity to express gratitude for our blessings and to renew our devotion to one another.

It's such a deceptively simple instruction—so deceptive that we rarely find it being followed in a wholehearted way in our own lives or in the world around us. This is one of the central paradoxes of Christ's message: it is so simple that almost everyone misses it. So simple that most of us would have an easier time walking through the eye of a needle than we would walking the path of God's love.

But it's hard to love so fully. Even hearing the words "simply love" can sound banal—we've become habituated to our world, and when we are so locked into our own day-to-day habits it can be very difficult to see the universe as a living manifestation of God's love. But being so habituated is not itself a bad thing. It's an interesting irony that while the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the stairway to heaven is built upon steps of habit—morphogenetic habits that constantly add new layers of depth to the universe; kosmic tendencies that have led from inert matter to chaotic biology, to the abstractions of mind, and onward into the soul of the future. The idea is not to eliminate our habits altogether, but to bring awareness to them—to make subject into object and loosen the grip of the habituated mind, allowing for more spontaneous outbursts of love, clarity, and joy.

While it's true that we are all suspended within God's Heart, drenched by the ubiquitous Presence of Her love—infinitely patient, infinitely abundant, and infinitely available—our own hearts are anything but infinite, and forever incapable of reflecting the full effulgence of God's love. The human heart is a bloody and broken thing, stippled with scars, shrouded in shadow, and horrified by its own fleshy mortality. Our hearts will inevitably fail us, falling short of our ideals, recoiling at the first hint of fear, and inevitably leading us astray. Sometimes we even allow our hearts to wound the ones around us while recklessly pursuing some form of comfort or convenience. Our hearts are damned to disappoint—which might explain why the principle of forgiveness plays such a central role in the Christian faith.

Rumi: Dancing in Fullness is an extraordinary new video collection available from Integral Life. Featuring Coleman Barks and David Darling, Dancing in Fullness is an exquisite hour-long performance of music and poetry, celebrating the mystical writings of Jalal ad-Din Rumi. Rumi: Dancing in Fullness

We are asked to love beyond our means, but we are never asked to be any more perfect than we always already are.

We are simply invited to recognize ourselves as what, in the deepest recesses of our minds, we already know ourselves to be.

We know that every hardship we've ever suffered, every humiliation, every betrayal, and every silent defeat, all of this carves an ever-deepening channel into our hearts, allowing us in turn to contain more love, more joy, and more liberation. But we also know that no matter how full our hearts may be at any given time, they can always be fuller. They can always continue to grow and strengthen, pumping more and more of God's love into the world. The human heart seems to be designed to grow. It is a work-in-progress (or, if you like, poetry-in-motion) and is constantly changing and evolving. We are, after all, created in the image of God, and our hearts are each a reflection of God's own Sacred Heart.

As such, our hearts continue to evolve just as the rest of the universe continues to evolve, increasing the force, range, and durability of our love to unimaginable magnitudes. As the creative force of Eros exerts its extropic pull upon the universe, so does a natural pressure build within us, an innate urge to expand and come ever-closer to our own limitless potential.

This is what drives us to practice, to exercise the multiple dimensions of our existence.

We exercise our physical form so that we can more fully embody our love. Our bodies are both temples of worship and furnaces of will. It is within our bodies that our beliefs become our practices, our ideals interface with our behaviors, and our compassion is transformed into action. By deepening our relationship with our own bodies and striving to be as healthy as our anatomies allow us, we dramatically increase our own ability to respond to the pressures of the world with unyielding strength, courage, and kindness.

We exercise our emotions and explore our shadows so that we can discover all those broken pieces of ourselves we have long forgotten about—dark splinters of psyche and nerve-ridden filaments of neurosis that often remain completely hidden from us, distorting our perceptions of ourselves, of our relationships, and of the world around us, and ultimately suffocating the potency of our love.

We exercise our minds so that we can cultivate the mental clarity and sophistication required to understand God's word and to recognize the patterns running through the universe around us. Our minds grow through lens after lens of values and worldviews, great stained-glass mosaics with increasingly intricate patterns and colors, each window refracting the light of God's love in very different ways.

And finally, we exercise our spirituality so that we can more fully realize Christ's instruction to simply love. We intuit that this entire manifest world—all the sin, all the suffering, and all the painful fragmentation—is really just a misdirection, an elaborate ruse to distract our attention from—something. Something we once knew, but have long fogotten. The world is an illusion.

And so we close our eyes to the world, sinking into the inner room at the core of our own souls, looking beyond the frenzied noise of thought to the all-pervasive silence behind all things. We are each alone in the unimaginable quiet, the only place we could ever hope to hear the seraphic whispers of God's voice. God alone is real.

And so, sitting right here in the center of consciousness, right now before the Throne of the Lord, here and now in the timeless Kingdom of God, we begin to pray.

We surrender ourselves to the infinite Other, catching glimpses of our timeless Beloved dancing behind chimera clouds, and falling even deeper in love with the unmentionable Mystery. God alone is real, and we pray before Him for guidance, for inspiration, for forgiveness, and for the strength to love.

And through the very act of praying, our prayers are answered.

By recognizing the intrinsic Oneness of God and submitting ourselves to something so undeniably greater than our ordinary selves, our hearts are opened even further, allowing even more of God's love to flow through our veins.

Feeling a gentle warmth growing within us, we begin to tumble upwards through our hearts. Wiping away the already-fading memories of Theosophy, we open our freshly baptized eyes and watch the world explode into a carnival of bliss and color, the faint hum of love emanating from everything we see. God is the world.

Fully human and fully divine, we feel the rhythm of two hearts beating in our chests and a palpable current of electricity flowing through our bodies, threading all of our souls together in the sweet melodies of love.

Awash in the sacred Hymns of creation, we all look at each other, gazing tenderly at each face we see. Some we know as friends and family, some we recognize from the street during our daily routines, and a great many more we've never seen before. We look into each other's eyes, we share a single universal smile, and we simply love. We love as fully and freely as we've ever loved, holding this moment as the most precious moment we've ever known, as if this were the only moment we will ever share again—knowing that, in a very real sense, it is.

And there has never been anything more beautiful.

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Empty Spaces: an 80-minute musical meditation by dj rekluse (Corey deVos).

Featuring Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts.

A soundtrack for Dark Nights.

Liberation upon hearing.

  
TRACK LIST

Here is a comprehensive track list for the Dark Matter mix, complete with time-codes and purchasing links. If you like anything you hear in this mix, please support the artists by PURCHASING THE ALBUMS!

Part I

(0:00) Nothing – Bill Laswell
(1:43) Thunupa – Bill Laswell
(2:35) The Nature of Thoughts - Sally Kempton
(4:34) Mantra – Material
(7:01) Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows — The Beatles
(7:29) To Know You Are God – Alan Watts
(10:14) Raghupati – Bhagavan Das and Mike D.

Part II

(0:00) Ghost Dance – Tomahawk
(1:04) Roads – Portishead
(4:32) Weathered Stone – Aphex Twin
(6:57) Who Am I – Peace Orchestra
(5:11) Integral Spiritual Experience Meditation – Sally Kempton
(10:43) Locomotion – Plastikman
(7:27) Dark Night of the Soul – David Lynch and Sparklehorse

Part III

Part IV

(0:00) 10 Ghosts II — Nine Inch Nails
(2:48) Sala – Tosca
(3:34) The Ultimate Experiment – Ken Wilber
(6:59) Splitting the Atom – Massive Attack
(10:48) Banged and Blown Through – Saul Williams
(15:25) Blood on the Motorway – DJ Shadow

THE DJ MIX: AN INTEGRAL ART FORM

To some, a DJ mix might seem like little more than an iTunes playlist, a mix tape you made for your boyfriend in middle school, or the product of wedding DJs who are contractually obligated to play "Mony Mony" and "The Chicken Dance" everywhere they go. But to others, the DJ mix is something much more extraordinary. When done right, it can be a truly integrative art form—taking bits and pieces of our shared cultural reference points, and using technology as an instrument to transpose, transform, and recontextualize those pieces until something genuinely and unmistakably new emerges.

The DJ is so much more than a human jukebox who puts together a compilation of catchy tracks. It's about knowing how to fit those tracks together into greater and greater wholes—matching, manipulating, looping, and layering individual songs into a single seamless experience. At his or her best, the DJ is a musical maven, turning people on to new sounds and new genres while fighting the growing tides of cultural homogenization. It's an art of sonic ninjitsu, learning how to use turntables, MIDI players, or laptops to mix and match beats, keys, and melodies. And like any performance art, DJing can be a sort of 21st century shamanism, conjuring and shaping the states and experiences of entire groups of people by crafting the most unbelievably satisfying breakdowns, bardos, and transitions—creating a space for all of us to dance ourselves into oblivion.

Now to be perfectly clear, the DJ mix is still a subversive art form, and is often perceived as a threat to the status quo of the music industry—which, come on, kind of makes it a little bit cooler doesn't it? Although no small-time DJs like me have ever been harassed or sued for sharing their mixes for free on the internet, I have to admit the fact that this all exists in something of a grey area in copyright law. I do believe I am morally justified in sharing my art with you all, but there are some who would disagree. For more on this, check out this friendly debate I had with Ottmar Liebert a few years ago.

If you would like to connect with me on Facebook and receive updates on future mixes, here is a link to my dj rekluse fan page.

OTHER MIXES YOU MAY ENJOY:

Corey deVos Corey deVos is Editor, Writer, and Producer of Integral Life, as well as the Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. A collection of Corey's writings and "trans-genre" DJ mixes can be found on www.CoreyWdeVos.com.                            In Hot Water           Fully Human, Fully Divine: Integrating the Work of James Fowler and Evelyn Underhill           Responding to the Death of Osama bin Laden

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Download here (265 MB, 2 hours)

"A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having." — V for Vendetta

I wanted to take a moment to make my own artistic contribution to the #OccupyWallStreet movement. I do not pretend to have the experience or cognitive dexterity required to fully understand this economic quagmire we are standing in, and I will allow others within this community to offer their own assessments and suggested calls for action. What I do have, however, is a keen appreciation of the amazing power art and music have to reflect our interiors, to nourish our spirits, and to inspire our ongoing involvement during chaotic times like these.

This mix was created in the spirit of the great protest songs of the 1960's, channeled through one of the most (r)evolutionary art forms of our time: socially and spiritually conscious hip hop (don't worry, there are plenty of rock and roll touch-points scattered throughout for the uninitiated). This set covers a very wide range of emotional content, from frustration to optimism to outrage. I also attempted to weave a variety of perspectives together, from premodern to modern to postmodern, as a demonstration of how these different points of view can all "fit together" into a single cohesive experience.

Every song in this mix is carefully wrapped around two main thematic pillars, which should be instantly recognizable to the Integral crowd:

Wake up.

Rise up.

As the editor of IntegralLife.com and a long time integralist, my primary motivation is to do everything I possibly can to encourage growth and awakening in this world. For the record, it is not my goal to proselytize the Integral Vision until the entire planet evolves to integral consciousness—that would clearly be a fool's hope. Rather, my role is to continuously document and present the key insights, perspectives, and practices that can be so effective in catalyzing our own personal and cultural growth, providing our small but ever-emerging community with the tools they need to step more fully into the world—so that each of us can become more skillful communicators and agents of evolution in our own little pockets of the Kosmos.

One of the common problems I have seen in the integral community is the temptation to use developmental perspectives to dismiss or write off other people's perspectives. Unfortunately, once we've made an object out of someone else's subject and lumped it into one category or another, it can become difficult to think outside the color-coded box, and the risk of egregious oversimplification and even contempt can disconnect us from the sort of empathy required to understand the problem and to find the solutions that we need.

As such, it's easy for many integralists to regard something like #OccupyWallStreet as a largely "green" movement (with plenty of healthy orange underpinnings, in my opinion, which prevents the movement from slipping off the edge into outright anti-corporatism and anti-capitalism, as well as a sprinkling of red anarchism for good measure). It's just green doing what green does best, we might say, challenging these latest disasters of modernity and the seemingly endless pursuit of profit over people. And to some extent, that can be an extremely useful generalization. But we need to remember that, regardless of how we might want to classify the movement, at its core it is an organic response to an insidious condition that infects the entire spiral of development, top to bottom.

One of the themes we often discuss here at Integral Life is the desire to create a healthy "conveyor belt" that can help us grow through increasing waves of consciousness, complexity, and care. But I do not believe that we can begin to hope for a healthy "conveyor belt" in the left-hand quadrants without healthy economic mobility in the right-hand quadrants.  Without a way to prevent such massive income disparity, without real economic mobility and the opportunities for growth and self-authorship that it allows, without a healthy and robust middle class, the gaps between each stage of development become dramatically increased—after all, the very best way to prevent people from growing into their fullest potential is to keep them locked into deficiency needs. This in turn ensures that the world remains perpetually entrenched in conflicting ideologies, reinforcing our collective fear and cynicism, and ultimately resulting in complete political paralysis. In other words, welcome to America in 2011.

For these reasons, I believe it is extremely important for all of us to pay very close attention to the #OccupyWallStreet uprising, and to seriously consider what the Integral Vision might have to contribute to the movement as a whole. Each of us holds our own unique piece to this massively complex puzzle, and all of us have a vital role to play in the ongoing drama of evolutionary emergence. Integral philosophy offers an exceptionally rich and powerful framework to help us make sense of all this complexity, but we cannot allow ourselves to remain forever stuck in abstraction. We must live this vision in our daily lives—in our hearts, in our hands, and if need be, in our boots. We must step beyond our own biases and pre-conceived notions of how the world should work. We need to remain ever vigilant to the dangers of partiality, while at the same time being careful not to get lost in the forest without ever touching a single tree.

It helps to remember the story of the Buddha, which is the story of a man who sat and sat and sat some more, until finally it was time to stand up.

My friends, it's time to stand.

It's time to dance.

Download here (265 MB, 2 hours)

WHAT IS A DJ MIX?

To some, a DJ mix might seem like little more than an iTunes playlist, a mix tape you made for your boyfriend in middle school, or the product of wedding DJs who are contractually obligated to play "Mony Mony" and "The Chicken Dance" everywhere they go. But to others, the DJ mix is something much more extraordinary. When done right, it can be a truly integrative art form—taking bits and pieces of our shared cultural reference points, and using technology as an instrument to transpose, transform, and recontextualize those pieces until something genuinely and unmistakably new emerges.

The DJ is so much more than a human jukebox who puts together a compilation of catchy tracks. It's about knowing how to fit those tracks together into greater and greater wholes—matching, manipulating, looping, and layering individual songs into a single seamless experience. At his or her best, the DJ is a musical maven, turning people on to new sounds and new genres while fighting the growing tides of cultural homogenization. It's an art of sonic ninjitsu, learning how to use turntables, MIDI players, or laptops to mix and match beats, keys, and melodies. And like any performance art, DJing can be a sort of 21st century shamanism, conjuring and shaping the states and experiences of entire groups of people by crafting the most unbelievably satisfying breakdowns, bardos, and transitions—creating a space for all of us to dance ourselves into oblivion.

Now to be perfectly clear, the DJ mix is still a subversive art form, and is often perceived as a threat to the status quo of the music industry—which, come on, kind of makes it a little bit cooler doesn't it? Although no small-time DJs like me have ever been harassed or sued for sharing their mixes for free on the internet, I have to admit the fact that this all exists in something of a grey area in copyright law. I do believe I am morally justified in sharing my art with you all, but there are some who would disagree. For more on this, check out this friendly debate I had with Ottmar Liebert a few years ago.

If you would like to connect with me on Facebook and receive updates on future mixes, here is a link to my dj rekluse fan page.

TRACK LIST

Here is a comprehensive track list for the Dark Matter mix, complete with time-codes and purchasing links. If you like anything you hear in this mix, please support the artists by PURCHASING THE ALBUMS!

(r)evolution I

(0:00) Awake – The Doors
(0:26) Revolution (STR Part 1) – DJ Z-Trip
(0:52) Build This World – Joyo Velarde
(3:07) Heartbeat – Nneka
(5:12) Nothing to Lose – Blitz the Ambassador
(7:43) Civil Disobedience – Sage Francis
(9:52) Tr(n)igger – Saul Williams
(11:45) Land of Confusion – Genesis
(13:11) Capital G – Nine Inch Nails
(15:55) Angry – The Bug
(17:22) Kalkuta Show – Gift of Gab and Lateef

(r)evolution II

(0:00) Strange Days (Thievery Corporation mix) – The Doors
(2:00) War (King Britt Mix) – Edwin Starr
(2:17) Nucular Turrism – George W. Bush
(4:41) Revolution – The Beatles
(5:11) We Need a Revolution – Dead Prez
(6:05) Rise Up – Zeph & Azeem
(7:27) Rising Down – The Roots w/ Mos Def
(9:58) Robbin Hood Theory – Gang Starr
(13:21) Six Days – DJ Shadow w/ Mos Def
(16:36) Storm Warning – Latyrx
(19:24) Harvester of Sorrow – Metallica
(21:46) Pray for Rain – Massive Attack
(24:16) Resurrection – Lupe Fiasco

(r)evolution III

(0:00) Riot – Wyclef Jean and Serj Tankian
(2:50) We R In Need of a Musical Revolution – Esthero
(4:48) Evolution Revolution Love – Tricky w/ Ed Kowalczyk
(6:30) The World's Gone Mad – Handsome Boy Modelling School (feat. Del the Funky Homosapian)
(9:35) Rise – Flobots
(12:02) Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – Jimi Hendrix
(12:20) Wake Up – Rage Against the Machine
(12:45) Rebel Without A Pause – Public Enemy
(13:19) The Rebel – Zion I
(14:16) Sly Fox – Nas
(16:12) Everything Is Under Control – Coldcut
(18:18) Animal in Man – Dead Prez
(20:34) My Favorite Mutiny – The Coup
(24:03) Fight the Power – Public Enemy
(24:24) The Message – Grand Master Flash

(r)evolution IV

(0:00) Poems 4 Post Modern Decay – Zion I
(1:45) I Told Y'all – J Dilla
(2:33) Black Steel – Tricky
(3:59) Seein' Thangs – DJ Shadow and David Banner
(5:25) Last Trumpet – Lyrics Born
(9:13) If – The Maroons
(11:41) Evil – Paris
(15:44) Resist – The Lifesavas
(16:49) Beautiful Struggle – Talib Kweli
(18:36) American Terrorist – Lupe Fiasco
(22:48) The Travelers – Brother Ali

(r)evolution V

(0:00) Weight of the World – Pigeon John
(2:50) As the World Turns – Blackalicious
(6:14) Yes We Can! – Azeem w/ Variable Unit
(8:44) Nobel Acceptance Speech – President Obama
(10:11) Something's Got to Give – Beastie Boys
(12:52) Eugene's Lament – Beastie Boys
(15:04) One Day – Matisyahu

Download here (265 MB, 2 hours)

OTHER MIXES YOU MAY ENJOY:

Corey deVos Corey deVos is Editor, Writer, and Producer of Integral Life, as well as the Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. A collection of Corey's writings and "trans-genre" DJ mixes can be found on www.CoreyWdeVos.com.                            In Hot Water           Fully Human, Fully Divine: Integrating the Work of James Fowler and Evelyn Underhill           Responding to the Death of Osama bin Laden

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There is an old proverb often used as an analogy for technological growth, about an ancient emperor of China and the inventor of chess. According to the story, once the emperor became aware of the game of chess, he sent a message throughout the kingdom seeking to reward its inventor, offering anything within his power to give for such an exceptional game. Upon meeting the emperor, the inventor, a poor peasant farmer, thanked the emperor for his generosity, and proceeded to place a single grain of rice in the first square of a chessboard. He then placed two grains in the second square, four in the third, eight in the fourth, etc., doubling the number of grains for each of the chessboard's 64 squares.

At first the emperor was fairly amused by the farmer's request—after all, these were mere grains of rice we were talking about, how much could he possibly lose? So he allowed the farmer to continue. It wasn't until they got about halfway through the chessboard that the emperor began to notice that something didn't quite smell right in Shanghai. After 32 squares—32 successive doublings of a single grain of rice—the farmer was up to about four billion grains of rice, the equivalent of a few acres of rice fields. If they were to continue all the way to the end of the board, the farmer would be owed about 18 quintillion grains of rice, which would require a rice field twice the size of the surface of the planet to produce, oceans included.

From a single grain of rice to a quantity that more than quadruples the total biomass of the Earth, in just 64 steps—this is the nature of exponential growth. Because we are largely linear thinkers living in an exponential world, this sort of growth can be very difficult to comprehend—or to even perceive—at least until we are plunged headlong into the second half of the chessboard. Visually graphing this sort of exponential curve [y=2^(x-1), for the mathematically inclined] gives us some insight as to why this acceleration can be so easy to take for granted—for the first half of the curve, progress seems to move almost parallel to the horizontal x-axis, and the frequency of change can seem fairly negligible: from a few grains, to a few bushels, to a few acres, not amounting to much at all. But once we begin moving into the "elbow" of the curve—about 32 squares, in the case of our increasingly anxious emperor—we begin to see progress truly taking off, eventually becoming more closely parallel with the vertical y-axis.

So what does this anachronistically agrarian metaphor of grains of rice, Chinese emperors, and peasant farmers have to do with today's digital scurry?

According to Moore's Law, computational power is doubling every 18 months. Which means that the year 2000 marked 32 consecutive doublings since the invention of the transistor, while 2006 marked 32 doublings since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958. We are now living on the second half of the chessboard—and from here on out, things get really crazy. Turing-approved artificial intelligence, cyborg brain/computer interfaces, nanotechnology, even the possibility of uploading consciousness to digital substrate—all of this "post-human" technology is now becoming increasingly feasible, and there is a very good chance we could see this (and more) achieved within most of our lifetimes.

This rate of acceleration currently shows no signs of slowing anytime soon—if anything, the rate of acceleration itself seems to be accelerating. (Some critics of Moore's Law believe that there must be a hard limit at the upper-end of this growth, as defined by the number of transistors you can physically fit upon a single slice of silicon, but others argue that our current technology will eventually be subsumed by a new computational paradigm, such as quantum computing, which will break through this "silicon ceiling.") Within the next 30 years we will be able to manufacture $1000 computers that are capable of as many calculations per second as the human brain. Following this trend as far as we can, we are taken to the limits of imagination itself. The sheer magnitude of our imminent technological progress is almost impossible to grasp, the implications and possibilities are too far beyond our experience to make any meaningful sense of, at least from our current coordinates in history.

This is what is meant by the "technological Singularity"—like a black hole in time, it represents a point in our not-too-distant future beyond which we simply cannot imagine. There is no going back, and there is no slowing down—there is only tomorrow's unfolding, a future pressing into the present through this thin veil of time, a world well beyond the visions of the world's most inspired mystics, prophets, and science fiction writers. But while some may rhapsodize about the approaching technological Singularity as some sort of mythic rapture, a kind of digital utopia in which the struggles that have long been at the core of the human condition find instantaneous resolve, there are many others who aren't so quick to think that we will all go up in light with the simple flip of a switch.

And while we could make the argument that technology is the single most influential arbiter of human development, technology does not actually determine human development. The internet, for example, while representing the legacy of some of the most cognitively advanced minds the world has ever seen, can be used by anybody—in fact, it has become a megaphone for everybody, including Nazis, religious fundamentalists, left-wing alarmists, and Ron Paul supporters. The same can be said for splitting the atom—anyone smart enough to actually build a nuclear bomb would be the least willing to detonate it, assuming their values are on somewhat equal footing with their cognitive intelligence. At every moment our world bears witness to the cruelties that occur when the inventions from higher altitudes are used by people at lower altitudes, whether that invention is a computer, an AK-47, or a democracy.

If anything, the Singularity promises to bring as much rupture as it does rapture. As technological evolution continues to accelerate, our identities, ideals, and values struggle to keep pace, increasing the gap between the hardware of technology and the software of consciousness and culture. Make no mistake: if it is to truly become the denouement of human evolution, a jumping-off point for an entirely new conception of human existence, the technological Singularity must be accompanied by a cultural Singularity and a conscious Singularity—a Singularity of "I", a Singularity of "we", and a Singularity of "it". Otherwise it will not be a Singularity at all, but a world-devouring monster at the end of history, threatening to send evolution in this tiny corner of the galaxy back thousands, if not millions of years.

Fortunately, we do see an analog to the technological Singularity occurring within consciousness and culture. Just as Moore's Law predicts that each successive technological innovation will take less and less time to emerge, we can actually see the same happening with cultural worldviews. For example, we can estimate a couple hundred thousand years of tribal cultures, ten thousand years of warlord cultures, a few thousand years of mythic traditional cultures, five hundred years of rational industrial cultures, and just over 50 years of pluralistic informational cultures, each new stage taking only a fraction of the time to emerge as the previous stage. We are now seeing a new stage of culture and consciousness beginning to emerge—a markedly Integral stage, capable of viewing the world through a meta-paradigmatic and multi-perspectival lens, holding all the world's knowledge, wisdom, and insight as a single living jewel. And as more and more Integral individuals come together, a powerful cultural force begins to sweep across the planet—one that is inherently more whole, more balanced, and more capable than anything the world has ever seen.

And to the extent that you are even vaguely interested in conversations like these, you are actually enacting and participating with the Singularity, at least in its conscious dimension. Today's Integral pioneers are the living ancestors of tomorrow's post-humans, standing in the convergence of all that is Beautiful, Good, and True. You are the Singularity, every breath rippling out to the edge of our shared future, echoing back as tomorrow's possibilities.

Corey deVos Corey deVos is Editor, Writer, and Producer of Integral Life, as well as the Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. A collection of Corey's writings and "trans-genre" DJ mixes can be found on www.CoreyWdeVos.com.            MORE BY COREY DEVOS           Dark Matter: A Soundtrack for Psychonauts           HeartBeatZ: A Mix for Lovers           In Hot Water

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"Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven."
—Walter Savage Landor

I am very happy to share with you all my latest DJ mix, lovingly crafted in preparation for my upcoming set with Alex Grey at this year's Integral Spiritual Experience event. This one of the more experimental mixes I've put together, playing with the tension between soothing and menacing, soft and jagged, glossy and glitchy. It's not your typical dj mix—it's a soundtrack for psychonauts, a synesthetic adventure through shifting tones, textures, and soundscapes. I hope you enjoy.

Download here (129 MB, 53 minutes)

Stream:

WHAT IS A DJ MIX?

To some, a DJ mix might seem like little more than an iTunes playlist, a mix tape you made for your boyfriend in middle school, or the product of wedding DJs who are contractually obligated to play "Mony Mony" and "The Chicken Dance" everywhere they go. But to others, the DJ mix is something much more extraordinary. When done right, it can be a truly integrative art form—taking bits and pieces of our shared cultural reference points, and using technology as an instrument to transpose, transform, and recontextualize those pieces until something genuinely and unmistakably new emerges.

The DJ is so much more than a human jukebox who puts together a compilation of catchy tracks. It's about knowing how to fit those tracks together into greater and greater wholes—matching, manipulating, looping, and layering individual songs into a single seamless experience. At his or her best, the DJ is a musical maven, turning people on to new sounds and new genres while fighting the growing tides of cultural homogenization. It's an art of sonic ninjitsu, learning how to use turntables, MIDI players, or laptops to mix and match beats, keys, and melodies. And like any performance art, DJing can be a sort of 21st century shamanism, conjuring and shaping the states and experiences of entire groups of people by crafting the most unbelievably satisfying breakdowns, bardos, and transitions—creating a space for all of us to dance ourselves into oblivion.

Now to be perfectly clear, the DJ mix is still a subversive art form, and is often perceived as a threat to the status quo of the music industry—which, come on, kind of makes it a little bit cooler doesn't it? Although no small-time DJs like me have ever been harassed or sued for sharing their mixes for free on the internet, I have to admit the fact that this all exists in something of a grey area in copyright law. I do believe I am morally justified in sharing my art with you all, but there are some who would disagree. For more on this, check out this friendly debate I had with Ottmar Liebert a few years ago.

If you would like to connect with me on Facebook and receive updates on future mixes, here is a link to my dj rekluse fan page.

TRACK LIST

Here is a comprehensive track list for the Dark Matter mix, complete with time-codes and purchasing links. If you like anything you hear in this mix, please support the artists by PURCHASING THE ALBUMS!

(00:00) The Wilhelm Scream - James Blake
(02:08) 11 Ghosts II - Nine Inch Nails
(03:38) Pieces From the Whole - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
(05:35) Intro - The xx
(06:02) Keep Me There - Nicolas Jaar
(10:17) Dune Rider - Eat Static
(12:33) Fake It Till You Make It - Banco de Gaia
(16:34) …And the World Laughs With You - Flying Lotus feat. Thom Yorke
(17:31) Vordhosbn - Aphex Twin
(19:28) Life-Death - Prefuse 73
(20:38) Will Do (Switch Remix) - TV on the Radio
(24:17) Joe Si Ha - Tosca
(25:49) The High Road - Broken Bells
(28:07) Stormy Cloud - DJ Krush feat. Ken Shima
(30:14) Easy Muffin - Amon Tobin
(32:10) PG - Saul Williams
(33:19) Black Mass - UNKLE
(34:05) Come On Riding (Thought the Cosmos) - DJ Shadow
(37:44) Festival - Sigur Ros
(40:25) Bloom - Radiohead
(41:35) Unbalanced Pieces - Soulsavers
(44:05) Def Surrounds Us (Rockwell Mix) - DJ Shadow
(44:52) 4 - Aphex Twin
(46:26) Caffeinated Consciousness (Das Racist/PatrickWhat Remix) - TV on the Radio
(49:33) Hamlet of Kings - The Orb
(50:08) On the Run - Pink Floyd

OTHER MIXES YOU MAY ENJOY:

Corey deVos Corey deVos is Editor, Writer, and Producer of Integral Life, as well as the Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. A collection of Corey's writings and "trans-genre" DJ mixes can be found on www.CoreyWdeVos.com.                            In Hot Water           Fully Human, Fully Divine: Integrating the Work of James Fowler and Evelyn Underhill           Responding to the Death of Osama bin Laden

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It is said that if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out immediately and without hesitation, as any self-respecting amphibian would—but if you put it in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat one degree at a time, the poor thing will eventually boil to death, fatally oblivious to the increasing threat its environment portends. Though somewhat macabre (no frogs were harmed in the making of this blog post), this analogy aptly conveys the condition of our current place in history, in which our entire world seems to be coming to a boil right before our eyes—a slowly culminating but inevitable transformation of history from one state to another. And we have, until recently, been largely oblivious to this—but now we are beginning to take notice, and like the frog who suddenly realizes that it's getting just a bit too warm for comfort, we are collectively faced with an existential ultimatum—either jump out of the pot, or boil alive.

But can we jump out? Is there any hope for us at all? Can we possibly transform in time—and if so, how? On the one hand, transformation is an utterly mysterious process, often happening suddenly, violently, and without any warning at all. On the other hand, Western science has very proficiently demonstrated that evolutionary leaps—both biological and psychological—tend to occur when environmental pressures demand them to. According to the biological fossil record, this has usually been due to such things as drastic climate change or the geological merging of two previously isolated ecosystems. In terms of psychological development, when asking the question "why do people transform?," we can look to the concept of the "dialectic of progress," which essentially states that every new stage of psychological growth brings with it its own "good news" and "bad news," the good news of each stage being the resolution of the bad news from the previous stage.

Or, as Albert Einstein famously quipped, "problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." We ascend the spire of psychological and cultural growth simply by solving our own problems—and every step forward comes with its own new set of emergent problems, which can only be addressed by taking yet another step forward, as consciousness continues to bootstrap itself ever closer to the evolutionary horizon.

Taking this sort of evolutionary view can actually be a great source of solace for those who might feel somewhat overwhelmed in the face of our current global crises, as feelings of hopelessness and desperation begin to seep in through the cracks of disillusionment. If evolution has shown us anything at all, it is a silent yet unyielding current that tirelessly flows toward ever-greater depth, complexity, and emergence—like a mighty river that patiently but relentlessly carves through anything in it's path. There is nothing that can stop this extraordinary force. Evolution has never taken a U-turn—even when the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs struck the earth, it only cleared the path for mammals to inherit the planet, marking a critical leap forward for the evolution of life. We are not separate from this evolutionary process—indeed, humanity itself is the vehicle through which evolution is slowly becoming self-aware. And by recognizing this fact we can consciously bear the responsibility of our extraordinary heritage, billions of years in the making, and continue to breathe life and light into a long-slumbering universe. We are evolution—all of our beauty, brilliance, and blemishes—and that is itself a tremendous source of faith, guidance, and inspiration.

From this evolutionary perspective, the question seems to shift from the detached and dis-empowered "can we make it through this?," to the much more positive and pragmatic "how is this going to go down, and how can I help?" One thing is clear: we are dealing with an entirely new set of global challenges, the likes of which are absolutely unprecedented, and which will require nothing less than an Integral perspective to even begin to address. Our problems are so inextricably interwoven, that none of them can be addressed individually without making the others worse—our environmental crises, our economic crises, our energy crises, our culture-wars crises, and nearly every other crisis we are currently facing all need to be addressed simultaneously, or else our very best intentions incur disastrous results.

An immediate example of this can be seen in America's efforts to invest in biofuel technologies, which is made from food crops such as corn and sugar cane, in reaction to oil prices approaching $100 per barrel. 25% of the country's corn supply is currently being dedicated to developing viable ethanol-based alternatives to fossil fuels, which is in turn raising the costs of corn in the global food market, exacerbating the already horrific food crisis the world is currently experiencing. If we are not careful, and do not approach these problems with the level of sophistication that they demand, our very best intentions will likely incur devastating effects upon many of the vulnerable populations of our world.

Add to that the fact that it requires a fairly advanced cognitive capacity to even be able to recognize many of these global crises, and a similarly-advanced moral intelligence to care enough to do anything about it, and things might begin to seem dire indeed—especially since the people with this level of cognitive and moral sophistication form a painful minority in the world, and their voices are often lost in the white noise of our increasingly lowest-common-denominator focused media.

So if that's the bad news of our current predicament—that all these problems are really massive, really tangled, and people are dying right now because it is so damned difficult to untangle—what, then, is the good news? As Jim Garrison and Ken mention in one Integral Life dialogue, we already have everything we need to solve the majority of these problems, in terms of the technological means that are required. We are not short on technological solutions, we are short on will. As Ken says, "Nobody on this planet goes to bed at night hungry because of lack of food. They go to bed at night hungry because of lack of political ideas, and the lack of political systems to get them the food." Adding to our previous example, we are currently in the midst of a horrific food crisis, as food costs continue to skyrocket around the world, and millions of men, women, and children are forced to starve to death—and yet, this crisis does not stem from any sort of real food shortage. In fact, many economists claim that we currently have a global food surplus—and though what exactly "food surplus" means remains a highly debated topic, it suggests exactly the sorts of politically systemic problems we are actually struggling with.

There is more good news—we are currently witnessing the evolutionary rise of a new stage of psychological development, the only one properly equipped with the right tools to make sense of our tangled web of a world. A new generation of Integral thinkers are beginning to emerge, just as our world begins to cry for an Integral response. It is happening around the globe, on both elite and grassroots levels of influence—and make no mistake about it, they are the future of this world, if a future is to be had. As Jim Garrison mentions, "everything we're doing now is happening within the context of a grand historical denouement that is not too distant down the trail…." And, we would add, only the rise of Integral consciousness allows for the sort of synthesis between spiritual realization, scientific reasoning, and civic duty that we so desperately need.

And assuming you have any interest at all in such Integral topics as these, you are part of this evolutionary wave. And by simply acknowledging this fact you vow not to remain an idle spectator to the world, but an evolutionary agent within it.

So, finally, we come to the all-important question: "what now?" As Integral thinkers, practitioners, leaders, artists, and activists, it is essential that we live up to a new standard of global citizenship, in which some sort of civic engagement becomes as intrinsic to our personal practice as any meditation, study, or physical exercise. These inner-focused practices must be allowed to come to fruition and find full expression in the world, or else we begin to swallow and smother our own light, rather than sharing it with those who need it most.

After all, as Plato reminds us, "Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber."

INTEGRAL CIVICS IN FIVE GENERIC STEPS

Step 1 – Wake up! Continue to practice, practice, practice, in as many fundamental areas of your life as you can. If our problems demand an Integral response, the Integral response demands your ongoing efforts to enact it. This is arguably the most important step, which is why it is the first step—but it cannot be the only step.

Step 2 - Get informed! If you wish to do something to help the world, then you need to understand what is going on. Find perspectives that you trust, and use the Integral framework to deepen your understanding of these perspectives. While many feel that staying in touch with the news in our sound-byte-driven media can feel like standing on a mountain of marbles, there are indeed sane and stable voices out there, who retain some degree of journalistic integrity. Find those voices.

Step 3 – Interact! Share your perspective with your friends, your family, and your community, Integral or otherwise. Pay attention to where you agree, and where you disagree, while keeping in mind that, from an Integral perspective, everyone is always right—even if some are more right than others. Simply sharing your ideas and values with others helps to further refine and focus your views, especially while keeping an eye out for your own personal and cultural shadows, biases, and blind spots.

Step 4 - Get involved! Decide what level of engagement works for you, whether that means donating a portion of your disposable income to a particular cause or candidate that you resonate with, all the way to taking it to the streets in public protest—of course, at an absolute minimum, if you have any Integral perspective at all, you should be voting!

Step 5 - Wake up! The alpha and omega of Integral civics. You are asleep, and are having a dream. In that dream, millions of people are suffering needlessly. What is the best way to immediately liberate all of these people, to alleviate all of this pain?

Just open your eyes, and wake up. Now.

Originally written for Politics in the 21st Century (w/ Jim Garrison and Ken Wilber)

Corey deVos Corey deVos is Editor, Writer, and Producer of Integral Life, as well as the Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. A collection of Corey's writings and "trans-genre" DJ mixes can be found on www.CoreyWdeVos.com.            MORE WITH COREY DEVOS           Synchronicity: A Post-Metaphysical Interpretation Corey deVos and Ken Wilber           Does Quantum Physics Prove God? Corey deVos and Ken Wilber           Learning, Laughing, and Loving: Behind the Scenes of The Daily Show Warren Farrell and Corey deVos                     The Upward Tilt: A Creation Myth           Culture, Climate, and Consciousness: Growing Green           Responding to the Death of Osama bin Laden