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Integral Journeys
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| GENERAL
PROGRAM INFORMATION
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PROGRAM
DESCRIPTIONS
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| GENERAL PROGRAM INFORMATION | ||
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THE PROGRAMS DESCRIBED HERE ARE AVAILABLE IN SEVERAL FORMATS: The Write of Your Life; Who Do You Think You Are?; Living Poems, Writing Lives; Our Only True Choice; and An Introduction to Ken Wilber are available as one-day or ongoing workshops or retreats—up to a 45-hour, 3-credit, college-level course, and are appropriate for anyone sixteen* years of age or older. Both content and format will be adapted to the needs, focus, life experience, levels of motivation, and openness of the participants. I will work with you in order to tailor the experience to the specifics of your group. Poetry from the Heart can also be presented as a one-day workshop, or over a period of days or weeks—up to a 45-hour, 3-credit, college-level course. Both content and approach have been adapted successfully to second graders, post-graduate school professionals, and virtually everyone in-between. Ken Wilber's "all-quadrant, all level, all-line" approach (currently being adapted for use in education, medicine, business, politics, etc., etc.) is at the heart of these programs, all of which are grounded in the understanding that the extent to which each of us truly knows him- or herself is a major factor in our respective abilities to know, understand and live peacefully with ourselves and the rest of the world. Whether the venue is a local school, university, corporation, community center, place of worship, or living room, the focus remains the same: provide the atmosphere, tools, knowledge, experience and opportunity to grow in awareness of ourselves and others. All of the programs include a bibliography for ongoing reading, listening, and learning. *SIXTEEN IS A MINIMUM AGE FOR A FULL-LENGTH COURSE, AND IS AN APPROXIMATION-SOME MOTIVATED FOURTEEN AND FIFTEEN YEAR-OLDS COULD UNDOUBTEDLY ENGAGE THESE PROGRAMS SUCCESSFULLY. SIGNIFICANT PORTIONS OF THE MATERIAL CAN BE ADAPTED SUCCESSFULLY FOR WORKSHOPS/RETREATS FOR MIDDLE-SCHOOL STUDENTS AS WELL.
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| Integral Journeys programs work successfully from elementary school through higher education (with the age-level qualifications noted above). Both content and format will be geared to the developmental needs of the participants. We will work to help students develop a true awareness of who and how they are so they may better accept themselves and others, and learn to address both inner and outer conflict through peaceful, nonviolent, and potentially transformational means (in their thinking and language as well as in their actions). These programs provide an authentic approach to staff and professional development as well (anyone out there who couldn't benefit from a little more awareness?). A workshop or retreat that brings together faculty, administrators, and all levels of support staff opens up the opportunity for a renewed and deepened sense of acceptance and community.
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| IN BUSINESS AND THE COMMUNITY: Integral Journeys programs address individual development, organizational culture, and relationships with those outside the organization. Whether participants are executive officers, middle management, entry-level employees, or some combination thereof, and regardless of the profession or industry in which they are engaged, a workshop or retreat will provide them with the opportunity to take a breath, and truly see themselves, maybe for the first time in a long time—maybe for the first time ever—as they are. Amid the rush and demands of work and family, the process of answering the question, "Who am I, really?" may prove invaluable. The development of a mindful, moment-to-moment awareness is an essential step in this process, which includes both inner and outer conflict resolution. Wilber's "all-quadrant, all level, all-line" approach, again, provides the foundation.
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| If your group is a registered, not-for-profit organization, I will share the tuition receipts from a program that you sponsor. Together, we'll present a valuable experience, you'll raise money for your work, and I'll get paid to do what I love. Call or write for specific details.
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| The detailed descriptions that follow are intended as an indication of what is available. Your particular workshop or retreat might focus on one issue or topic from Choosing to Look Within or on something from The Write of Your Life and something from Our Only Real Choice. Again, our goal will be to address the time constraints and specific needs and desires of your organization within the framework of these outlines—and, where appropriate and possible, we will expand the outlines to meet your needs. Of course, the programs are available "as is" as well. | ||
| PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS | ||
| The Write of Your Life provides an opportunity to explore, through writing, specific themes that we inevitably face in our physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual experiences. The course requires no special writing ability and is not about how to write. Rather, specific writing exercises will encourage each participant to look honestly within concerning such issues as choice and change, silence—as friend and foe, images of love, healthy discipline, interpretation and response, vocation, work and money, and living the questions. A bibliography is included. Click here for a class-by-class description.
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Who Do You Think You Are, and What (in the World) Are You Doing? The workshop's purpose is to provide us with the opportunity to look within in order to better know ourselves—to identify the various familial, cultural, religious, ethnic, gender, and societal influences that have nurtured and/or limited our development. Such awareness empowers us to choose to embrace, discard or balance these influences-to see more clearly who we are, what we do, and why we do it. As we learn to better understand and accept ourselves, we cannot help but extend our understanding and acceptance, and inevitably, our compassion and love, to loved ones, neighbors, colleagues and fellow humans-to all that we encounter. This awareness or consciousness is not a "quick fix" that changes one's life after reading a book or attending a class. Rather, it is a choice—a commitment to practice, to pay attention to one's self and to the world, not through the conditioned blindness of what Thomas Merton called "the anonymous authority of the collectivity," but through a conscious, genuine, ongoing, and integrated life of learning and growth. "Who Do You Think You Are, and What (in the World) Are You Doing?" is, for those who would choose to attend and participate, an engaging and fun introduction to, or reaffirmation of, the choice to consciously live a life of one's own-to better know, understand, and finally be him- or herself. We will do this through a combination of readings, presentations, oral and written exercises, and meditations that incorporate the work of Mary Catherine Bateson, Ram Dass, Father Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, M. Scott Peck, James Fowler, Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ken Wilber, and others. A bibliography is included. Click here for a class-by-class description.
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Living Poems, Writing Lives provides a basic introduction to/review of a selection of poetic devices such as imagery, metaphor, line, structure, point of view, rhythm, diction, punctuation, theme, texture, revision, and completion. We will (re)acquaint ourselves with each of these within the context of its meaning for reading and writing poetry. This first step done, we will then apply each of these devices to living a conscious life. We will explore the images we have of life; examine the nature and levels of our chosen structures; consider how our chosen metaphors (life's a jungle/life's a gift...) both result from and contribute to our point of view; we'll discover the need for and the benefits of revision; and we'll face the inevitable—completion —the reality that our lives, like our poems, eventually come to an end. We'll engage these topics in each session through writing exercises, brief lectures, discussion, listening to and providing feedback on our poems, and an introduction to/continuation of meditation practice. No poetry-writing or meditation experience is necessary. Click here for a class-by-class description.
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Our Only True Choice: Vision, Transformation, and Integral Practice looks at the current practices of mainstream education, governance and media in America. Weeks one through four provide an overview of elementary-school-through-college experiences from both a philosophical and a practical perspective, as these years require the cooperation of students, parents and educators. Week five calls upon the work of Jonathan Kozol, especially Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace, and Ordinary Resurrections, and explores the issues that these titles denote. Weeks six through fifteen address the various paradoxes, ironies, and shortcomings of mainstream education, governance and media. A multi-disciplined look at government, religion, media, education, gender, spirituality, and violence in America suggests that individual transformations of consciousness, leading to changes in worldview, are the only true means to address these issues. Toward that end we will engage Ken Wilber's "all-quadrant, all-level, all-line" model, and briefly consider several "non-traditional" educational approaches. Our primary focus, however, will be on the need for lifetime growth and the approaches available toward personal transformation. An introduction to meditation is included. Click here for a class-by-class description.
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Ken Wilber's Integral Vision will introduce participants to Wilber's AQAL (all-quadrants, levels, lines, states and types) model. Our journey together will include an overview of Wilber's work, the evolution of AQAL and its applications in education, business, politics, medicine and psychology, the growing role of Integral Institute (www.integralinstitute.org) in the world, and a close look at his 2006 release, Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World (Boston: Integral-Shambhala, 2006). Bibliography and web resources will be provided. Please call or email for details.
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Poetry from the Heart: Writing Poetry Without Fear will provide the participants with a safe, supportive and structured environment within which to "plum the unconscious" and discover the poetry within all of us. Each session will have its foundation in a specific poetic issue, technique or form (including, but not limited to showing vs. telling, the line and line breaks, the music of poetry, imagination, point of view, comparison, and revision) which will then be explored through various exercises, readings, and feedback. The basic class structure will include exposition of the week's issue, technique or form, related writing exercises, reading poems aloud with feedback, and a written assignment.* Virtually all of the exercises we use can be adapted for use with elementary, middle, high-school and college students. This is a poetry-writing class; while we will engage and discuss specific poems and issues, our focus will be writing— generating original work. NOTE: All work to be read and critiqued must be typed and photocopied - one copy for everyone present. *The focus of weeks one through seven will be on free verse, both structured and unstructured (what this means will become clear as we move through the course work). A bibliography is included. Click here for a class-by-class description.
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Prospects for Peace juxtaposes the work of inner peace with the work of peace for and on the planet. In a world of militarism, terrorism, corporate fraud, governmental deceit, consumerism, pollution, natural resource depletion, bigotry, abuse, murder, rape and robbery (among other issues), what, in fact, are our prospects for peace, and what are the relationships among human development, worldview, activism, and how we engage peace through the troubles of our times. Because this offering is updated regularly, no class-by-class description is available. Please email or call for more information.
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