Integral Life in a Small Town

It’s been an extraordinary adventure for me these past nine months in the life of Integral Sedona, my hometown integral group.   I’d like to tell you a little about iSedona, and by inference, something about myself.  I’ll not try to present a comprehensive history here, but just a rough get-acquainted pencil sketch.  We formed as a study, discussion and practice group rather abruptly last December, 2007, when three of us (not me) said, “Let’s start a KW/ILP group in Sedona!”  A brief announcement was placed in the local paper, and more than twenty people showed up for the first meeting!  We’ve met for two hours every Saturday morning since then with an average attendance of around eighteen to twenty brave individuals willing to plunge, or at least tiptoe, into brisk integral waters. 

As a group we groped and foundered a bit at first, but we soon found our bearings.  Within a few weeks, those of us with the deepest understanding of integral theory and those of us with leadership skills stepped forward to form a leadership team.  At first six of us, now five including myself, have put together and presented a robust and ongoing program of inquiry into integral theory and practice.  Many of us in the larger group are rather new to anything integral, so the leadership wanted to be sure everyone knows the vocabulary.  To that end, we’ve assembled a collection informative handout sheets, purchased fifteen copies of Ken’s little blue book, and put together a lending library list of more than fifty books and iNaked Premium DVDs.  We spent about the first twelve weeks in our meetings presenting and discussing the AQAL model from top to bottom.  Since then we have explored the four ILP core modules one at a time, given four weeks to probing the murky depths of integral relationships, and a couple of weeks looking over the rocky terrain of integral leadership.  Our last two weekly meetings were devoted to visioning work, first as individuals then as collectives.  We have hosted a Big Mind video day and held two potluck socials for our members.  One of us, a master of computer arts, has built us a virtual meeting space, our own private, by-invitation-only, social network website where each member has a personal page and access to a vast and still-growing array of integrally-related materials.

One of the first spinoffs to form out of the larger group is the shadow work group, meeting every second Thursday evening to try out the 3-2-1 Process.  We were surprised to notice that the same five who mustered for the leadership team also signed up for the shadow group.  And not a day too soon either, because shadowy waves certainly have come up, and are being addressed, within our close-knit leadership family.  We have since decided that some exposure to shadow work should be a prerequisite for new inductees into the leadership team.  Another important cross-training subgroup has recently emerged, the strength training/meditation group.  If all goes well, ten or twelve of us will soon begin meeting on Sunday mornings at a local fitness center for an hour of weight lifting followed by an hour of formal sitting meditation. 

I could say more about the doings of iSedona, and I will in future blogs; here I’ve only described some of our inwardly-directed activities.  But we are also attempting to locate, communicate with and share experiences with, encourage and support and learn from, other local integral inquiry groups that we imagine are springing up around the world.   I would enjoy comments and questions from anyone on the Integral Life network who is involved in a local integral practice group, or would like to be.  You can take a look at the visitor page of our Integral Sedona website here.  Thanks.