Polarity Lab: What are Integral Expressions of Masculine and Feminine after #MeToo?

This week: July 28, 2022: Integral Expressions of Masculine and Feminine

On the other side of complex gender discussions (biological male/female, non-binary) is yet another topic of relational essence—an aspect of being—in all of us as a polarity regardless of gender identity. That is the world of masculine (Yang energy, the directive, evolutionary, agentic, thinking) and feminine (Yin energy, the receptive, involutionary, communal, feeling) energies and expressions in all of us beyond gender. There is also a neutral expression and energy.

In this discussion, let’s look at how masculine and feminine energies and expressions evolve through three stages as taught by David Deida, author of Intimate Communion. Beyond traditional and post-modern, how (and why) would third stage–or Integral–masculine and feminine be enacted and embodied especially in times of #MeToo.

This topic isn’t about sex although it can include it. This topic isn’t about gender although it can include it. This topic could be more appropriately looked at as how best can we make the most Love to ourselves, others and the entire Kosmos through the embrace of these polarities. We will also explore the ideas of sacred eros and agape.

The Polarity Lab is hosted once a month by Nomali Perera to learn how to spot and work with polarities in your personal and professional lives, relationships and the hyper-polarized world around us nationally and globally.

Through small experiments, discussion, and small groups, let’s explore this beautiful practice that builds complexity-resilience and synthesis of interdependent and competing values. Our work in the Polarity Lab is inspired by the work of Barry Johnson, the author of And: Making a Difference by Leveraging Polarity, Paradox or Dilemma.

These Polarity Lab sessions have thus far examined hot-button topics that polarize us such as abortion, the pandemic, Critical Race Theory, immigration, culture wars, the future of the Integral movement, as well as issues that are personal and unique to each attendee. If you have a polarizing issue that interests you for a session, please contact Nomali through www.practicalintegral.com.

Optional: Join up to 10 minutes early to chat, meditate or engage in some music together. Please note that the Zoom link will appear on this page 15 minutes prior to start time.

PAST SESSIONS:

May 26, 2022: Yet Another Uniquely American WTF 

This week on May 24, fourteen children have been gunned down by a teenager in Texas. The sheer magnitude of this uniquely American crisis is hard to fathom, and the hopelessness many of us feel is like falling into a bottomless pit of nothing. We won’t achieve much in this 90 minute session, and, yet, it is hard to not come together at yet another time of yet another mass shooting in the USA. Bring your truth in the form of grief, rage, solutions, policy ideas, activism, prayers or anything else you’d like to share in any way you wish.  We will also explore how finding a “polarity” in every issue might be a pipe dream.

Optional: If you wish to, please watch this conversation between Ken Wilber and Corey Devos from 2019. Be warned that this is 8 hours worth of deep, integral dialog. Watch or listen to only what you can.

April 14, 2022: Polarity Lab Theme for this week: When Mean Green Spoils Every Party

Special Guest: Ken Wilber

More than 2 decades ago, the likes of Ken Wilber and Don Beck were two of the first intellectuals to predict the “mean green” postmodern uprising in all of its complexity, hypocrisy and hysteria. Today it is alive and well as “woke.” The particular aspects of pathological postmodernity can be scary for those who have experienced it. It can hijack you, shout you down, throw identity politics in your face, cancel you, shame you in righteous indignation, chew you up and spit you out, while most of us wouldn’t know where to run, let alone attempt to reason with that fire. It is also impacting policies around certain institutions in ways that are questionable to a critical thinker.

Still and still, we also know that this is an aspect of postmodernity that is knocking at the door of Integral. So, we need Green, period. “Green bashing”–which too has become very fashionable and has created massive platforms for the likes of Jordan Peterson–is also useless, boring and old.  So how do we generate real, skillful and strategic communication with green so that its immense value to evolution isn’t entirely lost in the carpet burn?

Ultimately, we may also observe that trying to reason with angry post-modernity is, in fact, no better or worse than trying to reason with a magical Qanon believer, a premodern religious fundamentalist or a hyper materialist modernist. It is easy to feel somewhat hopeless, isn’t it? Well, let’s explore what can be done…with a bit of commentary from Ken Wilber.

Some questions to consider:

• What is the danger of “woke/angry postmodernism?” How is it impacting you?
• What is the danger of failing to see this topic through developmental stages, and especially failing to see that there are both healthy and unhealthy aspects in every stage? Therefore, what is the danger of “green-bashing?”
• Why has Integral and Wilber been harsher on unhealthy postmodernity than equally-unreasonable unhealthy premodernity?
• What can Integral realistically do to create more meaningful communication with “angry postmodernity?”
• For those familiar with Polarity Perspectives (Barry Johnson), what are polarities that could be introduced to this topic?

Meet Your Practice Leader

Nomali Perera, MA, PCC, has been in the field of leadership development coaching, facilitation and teaching since 2007. Nomali is a certified Polarity Practitioner through Polarity Parterships, and a certified Integral Master Coach through Integral Coaching Canada. Learn more about Nomali at www.practicalintegral.com.