Integral Conscious-Engaging Blog-Lab 101 (blogging as "lab work" )

--I'd like to think that I'm only offering what most of us would like as "prerequisites" for our better connecting more healthily in our communication.  For me it's not about creating difficult hoops to jump through, in case it helps for me to state that, but about being a bit more intentional, and acting on that intention, and considering how we can be more present and authentic with both ourselves and each other here.  As such, I want to offer up some potential "soft structures" of sorts to consider/use for our LL quad interpersonal engaging. I have little if any interest in controlling this process as it progresses, but more interested in opening doors that don't seem apparent to us, or at least to me in what I read on this and other Integral sites.

Thanks for your honesty about my writing style.  Ironically, it sometimes puts me off too!  Honestly.  In my attempt to write clearly and thoroughly my writing inevitably often looks rather cumbersome and overly structured.  Though I don't prefer my left brain (and its proclivity for structure, among other things) to take the lead in my writing, I know that it can't be entirely ignored and needs to be at least "used" in any communicating I engage in with others in print.  My face-to-face style is much more responsive and interactive, engaging, intuitive (since I can see and feel the person), not long discourses and definitely not monologues.  But given the kinds of things I like to advance here with others, I find myself thinking, rightly or wrongly, that I need to set up sufficient context for what I'm offering.  The result is possibly putting people off by my writing style.  I'm open to feedback about it all.  My intention is simply to spearhead attempts at helping us all become more effective at opening to our 2nd tier athenticity, and presencing such with each other in these blogs.  This includes our being open to our emergent consciousness, open to what's wanting to come through us to be healed, evolved, and enculturated.  And this can be better done interpersonally more than alone in a room left to our own circular devices.

I have a sense that there are many people on this site that have images that they want to uphold, spiritual images and personas, portraying levels of knowledge and competency that aren't quite authentic.  This includes me, but I'm being honest about it, wanting to more fully open into my authentic self, which includes unearthing my shadow material (can't do it without others!!!), so I can also open into more of my "whole self", being truly more of an integrated self (Integral, duh) of all my "parts", light, dark, and everything in between.  I've realized much more fully that I can't enculturate LL mutual Integral dynamics with others without engaging others about it and in it.  AND, again, it's messy work that needs to be done.  Otherwise we all stay in our UL quad private understandings of what Integral functioning is, which of itself isn't being Integral, all four quads of functioning integrally.  As I experience and understand it, Being Integral is as much or more about BECOMING than it is about merely being.  It's (e)mering among and within us all.

Perhaps more than what we focus on in Integral, it's about where we focus from.

-- Ambo Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Great response.  You're already basically  doing in your post what I'm talking about.  Presence and authenticity (I-statements, for one; sharing your feelings), inquiry, openness for looking at yourself while your communicate (being meta), with openness to emergence of the we-space in our process.  I'll respond to your (in bold) specific questions/comments, knowing that it might still seem a bit on the "convoluted" side (which I'll distinguish) of communicating:

You say: Are you suggesting that these blogs take place here in our ILC blogs. I'm assuming "yes"?  I am saying "yes".  What I'm wanting to do here isn't about setting up a "separate experiment" from IL, but about wanting to evoke viable "2nd tier 'guidelines'", "energies", ways and means and meta ways and means, terminology aside, for how we engage each other, and about how to do so while we engage each other.  BTW, I'm trying to write about all this in a way that will better "take us out of" only left-brain attempts to "grasp" what I'm wanting to "communicate". 

In general, I'm wanting to co-emerge with you all functional "guidelines", or ways and means, that are for advocating and advancing our further 1) exploring, 2) discovering, and 3) enacting what it means to engage as Integralists, 2nd tier engaging (again, I don't have, nor claim to have, the "the answers" on what that is or how it should look; just wanting to open some doors into it for us).  I'm not merely wanting to talk about these things as subject matters, though that's a start.  It's about functioning interpersonally while being able to be meta to our functioning (hopefully that's not confused with being "convoluted").  For example, I'm endeavoring to be or enact what I'm talking about here, in how I'm communicating with you, as well as talk about these things at the same time as best I can in this moment.  And, honestly, I'm not sensing I’m being as clear about it as I'd prefer to be.  But today is today, and this is what I got to give today in this writing.

Please know that I'm not promoting "rules" and such, it's not my intention to create an "Amber" atmosphere of relating, nor anything 1st tier as a predominant mode or style of discourse.  Also, I'm not coming into this with preconceived ideas and mental constructs about what 2nd tier engaging is, but more simply wanting to initiate these considerations with us on this site for us all to co-explore and co-generate together so as to at least reduce, specifically, the probability of "shadow-boxing" dynamics occurring; communicating relatively "blindly" and unconsciously with each other, and being willing to point it out when it's being "perceived" as occurring, and doing so lovingly, coming from "whole love", all as feasible in any moment for us.  I don't see it as a "finger pointing" or blaming kind of thing.  And yes, this is for explorers and pioneers of new we-consciousness territory, not for, by whatever terms, "settlers" and "status quos", metaphorically speaking about anyone's willingness and ability.  It's intent isn't to exclude anyone, but to raise our bar of interacting for any of us to step up to who are willing and able, and who have the guts to.  All are welcome, not to say all are ready yet, which will become apparent through time and interaction.  In fact, I might not always be "ready" myself, and I'd expect someone to point that out when it seems to be the case by whatever "standards" or "guidelines" we're identifying as we go.

My intentions are really pretty simple and relatively clear to me, not to say my explanations of my intentions and approach are.  Regardless of my intentions, I know that I can come across as rather "convoluted" here in my writing-communication style, thought that's not my intended or desired methodology, ever.  It's more an attempt to steer Integralists away from promoting or reinforcing our conventional, rigid, dictatorial or inappropriately simplistic ways of engaging each other, especially to get us outside of shadow-boxing exchanges (not to say we will be masterful at it; we probably won't since it's new territory we've playing in).  For me, my intention behind my writing style is not about trying to be convoluted, or such, but about writing in a way that helps us better loosen or unweight from our conceptual and mental-constructivist propensities, on into higher-subtle or causal, and ideally, nondual states of engaging so as to at least get us to a place in ourselves where we can more easily be "objective about" or "meta to" how we're engaging each other while we're engaging each other.  It's about realizing and actualizing the realization that communication is both always concurrently both an ongoing process and a "series" of "microgenetic" products of engaging.  Even our entire communicative process can be considered a product given how we and others can macro-perceive it at any point in time.  This includes noticing which tier of consciousness we're "coming from" or "focusing from" while we're communicating.  I'm not saying this is easy, just what I see as important and even integral to becoming more "Integral" (2nd tier)  in our engaging styles on this site or in our Integral lives, and the living of those lives.

I like your notion of prefix-labeling a blog post with "IBL" to suggest one's intention to be "in the spirit of " this IBL intention, specifically acknowledging that we're open to feedback as to how we're being perceived as an Integral engager.  Oh yes, right, this involves labeling and "ranking" orientations.  Scary territory for Green in us, and therefore functions as a natural self-selection dynamic for participating in this work (e.g., someone will get "upset", "complain", and "disengage").  But that's not necessarily an upset to the Integral domains of consciousness within us, just the Green domains that many of us are still unwittingly clinging to or caught up in (including me wherever that applies).  And we won't get wise to this until we hear about it from others since it's blind to us, yet.  A major challenge will be how to determine who's coming from Integral in any moment and who isn't when two people are claiming they, but not the other, are coming from Integral.  Pre/trans dynamics will often occur and we'll only get clearer as to who's coming from where as we brave our edge-pressing engaging together.  This is an inevitable part of the messiness, of sorts, that has to be gone through, and our continued LL engaging will eventually reveal the "truth" of what is Integral and what isn't as we continue to "stumble around" together.  Again, as I understand it, LL mutal "understandings" (i.e., mutual signifier-signified-referent strings as our mental constructions of "what is" or "seems to be") get enculturated by continuing to engage, and not by individually retreating back to our UL privacies and claims about being Integral to continue "feeling safe" in our "untested" circular awarenesses about Integrality.  I expect to hear from others (i.e., from their Integral/2nd-tier consciousness, the only perspective in us that can "sort" this all out) about where I might be "off", Integrally speaking.  Again, this is for consciousness pioneers and such, those of us who are relatively used to the "dangers" of being in relatively unfamiliar, unstable, or unpredictable new territories of consciousness work.  It's for whoever wants to get better at it in more of a loving space of transcendent and inclusive Integrality (and even getting clearer and cleaner about what that even means!), beyond functioning in duality with its adversarial, competitive, win/lose propensities.  Even so, I know this is not easy, nor simple work, just necessary if we are to I-evolve and, especially, we-evolve we-spaces.  In case it helps to say, I'm not presuming I absolutely know what I'm talking about in all this, but more so just "listening" to what's "wanting to come through me" and trying to put it into words (mental constructs); and feeling quite vulnerable in it all.

You say: I can feel some risk already, apprehension and excitement already that arise apparently most immediately from my historical LUQ self. I can imagine, project, and fear the many ways that this can feel like it is going awry. And as I think you are suggesting, that is the 'grist for the mill'. While intentions and hopes for relative competency in the three numbered points and others above are somehow held.  I'm sensing that you're getting me on with what I'm saying here.  It's about sharing where you are or I am in UL while talking about these considerations, as appropriate or timely to the conversation.  Beautiful.  Again, this will be clarified over time and experience together, hopefully.  We're co-unfolding this together.  Yes, it's all grist for the mill, we're agreeing.  How can it not be.  I'm merely opening a door, looking in and sharing here what I'm "seeing" through that "door", as well as having gone through that "door" on my own and "looked around".  You and Matt, so far, are basically hearing what I'm saying and are asking great questions to help us better generate our LL "understandings" as a possible groundwork or framework of sorts for playing together (even though such "groundwork" must remain "loosely held" in our mindedness as we proceed).

You say: I think that your stated intentions of operating from 2nd tier, of witnessing capacity, and of "meta" perspectives are a little daunting to me and may be often questioned. For example, I have one bias that part of our capacity for and our sometimes declaration of "witness" presence isn't necessarily the same as what is meant by "turiya" or 2nd tierness. I think that we more often have capacity to speak in cognitively "meta" and "witness" language, but frequently it is . . . ok, I'll say it, counterfeit or a surface linguistic technique or trick without much embodied depth. Ambo, again, beautiful.  I love your courage and presencing to step into and express yourself here about your concerns and worries with this, your feeling that it's daunting, and about how "co-experimenteers" might misread or respond to you "negatively" ("negatively" is my interpretation of what you're saying).  That kind of authenticity (and guts/strength) is an aspect of what I'm aspiring to advance here (not to suggest others aren't aspiring to it as well, but I, for one, am feeling a need to "jump in" about it all and advance the LL potentialities a bit, trying ground it "better"; questionable).  Also, you're point is spot-on about turiya vs. "look alike" expressions.  Wonderful distinction, and I truly agree with your point.  I'm not claiming here that everyone/anyone will agree with what I'm saying about what I think I know in all this.  I too notice myself (but usually only in hindsight later once in meditation) many times not truly coming from turiya, or turiyatita for that matter, when I thought I was, and not to suggest I'm claiming I always come from either of those states (I don't even try to always do so, let alone want to).  In case it needs saying, I'm also not claiming that my UL zone 2 understandings are the same (zone 4) as "experts" zone 2 understandings of these states.  These dialogues on this site (and others) will help us further co-generate zone 4 mutual understandings.  We get better at doing by doing, not only by talking about it.  Heck, I'm not even sure what we're doing here, just advancing a sense of it via my current mental constructions of it.

Also, to distinguish and clarify these notions of states, in the last few years I've stumbled into what I've come to call a state of "innascence" (think of it as our Being-essence presencing ourselves in an "adult" innocence while in nascence and emergent awareness, or some such: I'm pronouncing "innascence" the same as "innocence").  I sense it as a "hybrid" nondual state (not stage) of sorts of conscious awareness.  It's "somewhat" of an aware Delta/Theta brainwave phenomenon of "seeing" as it "engages with" "being present" to what's "in front of" us in any moment.  It's not a permanent state but something we can go in and out of at will, once identified in our state-work.  BTW, you'll notice that I use quote marks a lot around various words because I'm not necessarily applying conventional (1st tier) signifieds (meanings) to them.  As a meta comment to that statement, as we all open further into 2nd tier experiences of uncharted UL zone 1 openings, we'll "discover" and interpret zone-2 understandings/meanings that will eventually need to be LL-zone-3 co-engaged, co-explored and co-interpreted (zone 4) so that we'll have mutual signifier-signified-referent "strings" in our languaging of our experiences, i.e., the relatively same meanings (signifieds) for the same "referents" so we can "understand" one another in our words.  Again, it will be cumbersome and messy interpersonal work.  But necessary if we ever want to generate LL we-realities, beyond having just multiple non-we-integrated UL I-realities, which is so characteristic of, and prominently exemplified and advocated by, the Green in us all, including me.  We have to consciously work to "rise above" that propensity for fragmented relativistic pluralism.

You say: Along with maybe having some truth to what I'm saying, I know that I'm also projecting. I think that I actually lack much conscious 2nd tier depth, but can do a reasonable facsimile. I can 'speak about' something because of some clever fold in my cerebral cortex, and it's quite habitual and facile; and dubious. So how would we handle that - as a challenge to the other person. Does it and other "shadow" themes that you mentioned become a verbal fray? And such? I'm feeling worried. (And I'm feeling worried when I say, "I'm feeling worried." because I don't trust the habitual responses to that sort of personal statement, even here in Integral Land.) And when I say all this, I'm worried that I alienate and trigger the quick minds and voices of potential co-experimenteers.  All I can say at this point is, again, this will be messy, for several reasons.  One, we have differing zone 1 experiences of 2nd tier consciousness.  Two, we sometimes have different words for the relatively same experiences of this territory.  Three, we have shadow material that's "wanting out" that will impede our abilities to stay clean and clear enough in "sorting out" 1 and 2.  Four, our intentions far out-step our capabilities in this.  Such is life.  As we will sometimes, or often, feel threatened about what we think we know (when it seems different from someone else's "knowing"), we'll contract and defend instead of open and see and feel.  What to do.  We won't always have the answers.  At best we'll notice we're "stuck", "off", "lost", etc.  But if we can be meta to our experience we can as least acknowledge and accept that reality, be with it, be okay with it, and look at what to do next.  What else is there!? 

You say: Am I, so far, clearly not meeting the 2nd tier injunction, or others? I want to begin to play with you here, but, should I vamoose - nos vamos, me voy - from the IBL? Ambo, no reason to "vamos" (I don't know Spanish, just looked up the word) as far as I am concerned!  Just the opposite, I'm feeling good resonance with you so far.  I'm also sensing your openness to the emergent aspect of consciousness experience and knowing, by whatever terms.  That's another of the three qualities (presence, meta, emergence) to "be in" when engaging (even if only in our "in-print interactions").

You say: Going back to what Matt said, I too had a minor reaction to your writing style - it reminded me of me, I thought. When I'm writing extemporaneously, I often find myself with long sentences and sometimes (distinct from you, here, Larry) quite convoluted. Like Matt, I also recognize your sincerity and boldness in trying to invite a practice. Thanks.  I'm just someone trying to follow my inner inclinations for opening 2nd tier LL engaging, to not only find and experience each other there, but become clearer as to the "soft structures" and "guidelines" there that will help us better navigate together.  Worst thing that I see can happen in this intended 2nd tier LL experiment is that it will be a bust.  But we will, as Edison knows, learn from that too.

Bowing back,

Larry

Perhaps more than what we focus on in Integral, it's about where we focus from.