Recently I spent a week in beautiful countryside of Hertenstein, Switzerland, 30 minutes around the lake from Luzern, immersed in conditions created to support the development and emergence of 6 people eager to contribute to the Spiral Dynamics Group (SDG) as potential trainers. Co-leading with Christopher Cooke, new insights were revealed and seen by me, as result of dedicated, intensive and protracted interaction with Chris while “training” others.

One of those insights relates to an “open wave.”

I’ve known Cookie, as he is often called, for about 5 years now, our paths crossing in various cities across the US and many phone conversations related to the future of SDG. Chris has used a metaphor of an open wave for several years now in speaking about the process of emergence. The nuanced thing about metaphors, is they either connect and offer meaning and guidance or they miss. The open wave has usually missed with me, that is until last month. The context of this training, from Chris’ point of view is act as if we operate from second tier, which intrinsically means beyond yellow into the space of turquoise. Co-leading for the last 3 years with Don, the premise focus tends to emphasize yellow, leaving turquoise to the imagination and co-opting of first tier minds. My 10-day interaction served as an entre to dipping, full bodied, open hearted and mind twisting into a sequence of state experiences more closely aligned with turquoise than I have recognized before, leaving behind a flow that I have been surfing in ever since.

Here’s a cool video to bring the imagery and experience of surfing to this post.

As I watch in video form; what it’s like to surf a wave, I notice that, metaphorically, for the entire time I have been surfing at all (I’ll admit..much of my life has been spent on the beach…maybe even to the parking lot…not venturing into the water all) I have been inside the breaking water. Lately, and you can read several posts on my blog, here, I have written about being more in the break, where it is messy and hurts and I spill all over everything. Manly, however, I’ve gotten very good at breaking through the barriers, finding the open wave just long enough to return to the pipe waiting for the next break to appear in front of me, then working on the breaking though to the open again.

The biggest impact of revisiting the open wave metaphor, for me, was in the realization that it was time move out in front of the “breaking”, into the wide open space where the boundaries, instead of always being in front of me, shift behind me. In fact, the entire world of boundaries closes off behind me when I stay in the open wave.

Gulp!

Yet, notice that in surfing, no boundaries doesn’t mean chaotic, directionless abandon. In the open wave, as a surfer I am held in place by the momentum of the movement of the wave in combination with the competencies of practiced surfer. Controlled freedom in awareness of my surrounding conditions. AND I notice, in this place “the pulse” of the prime directive, or the pulse of evolution keeps me grounded, aligned and totally connected.

I think I might have the “hang” of the open wave. Ooops, there I go again, back in the break. Oh, well. It’s a good thing my capacity for resilience is active and strong. Getting up and out in front of the wave again is becoming easier too.

When I was 4 years old, I fell in love for the first time. And boy, was I committed. The recipient of my heartfelt love, Dr. Ben Casey, a popular TV character in the early 60’s. I remember waiting to watch his show every day (in re-runs by then). I still carry with me remanents of world where he come and be with me, usually in his doctor capacity. My 4 year old mind was not aware of sexual encounters. I remember to this day, my experience of how wonderful this man felt, and how I felt loving him.

Then one day my mother read in the newspaper that the actor, Vince Edwards, whom play Dr. Ben Casey, got married, reading the article out loud to me while played near by.

I was devastated. How could the man I love marry someone else? It was inconceivable to me. I have my memories of the first 30 seconds and no more. I remember nothing after that, but have heard the story from my mom. It seems that I hid from the world, most of that afternoon, curled up in our dog Minnie’s house. Away from everybody.

Eventually, I come out from the dog’s house and, although, I am sure there was sympathy for my reaction, I would be expected to recover from it quickly. I am sure that I did not recover from it. In fact, my heart would never be the same again, because I made a decision at 4 years old. I decided that day to protect my heart at all costs and internally constructed the most awesome shield around it.

Ask Alex. It was about a month after we had been together when he sat on the couch working while I was in the kitchen and with a concerned tone asked my why there was so much pressure on his chest. I stared at him with a blank look. Like there was a plate of armor pressing against it, he said. I had no answer for him then. I think I remember the feeling stayed with him for days.

Early warning sign!

Since then I have become aware of a body of work called, Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women, by Alison Armstrong. This video is a very cute explanation of what happens to women when their feelings get hurt. Basically, her whole system shuts down, starting with the heart…and ending with accessing a file in our minds where we have filed every little petty offensive ever committed against us!

At four, I don’t think I had much in my petty offense file yet. I had only promise to myself to never love that freely and fully again.

Much, much later, along came a couple of men that had the courage to love me and love me hard, risking the things they held dear in order to do so. The first man risked his wife and family. The second man is Alex, who risked a lifestyle, staying in a comfort zone, going to his own edge and through the hell I would create for him in order to break into the places that would crack open – and keep open – the heart that was buried 40 years earlier. At his core, he cares about little else.

And he is good at it.

Finally, after decades of walking around protected from others, I am learning to love again freely and fully – from my core of being.

The past few weeks have offered opportunity after opportunity to move through difficult emotions, polarity thought patterns, and unmet expectations with my now open heart. This divorce/ending standing out to be a real test. It seems, as I am discovering, that I passed the first half and failed the second.

I’ve gotten some help. There are always sign posts, communications from the universe of God to guide me, if I am paying attention, which I try to always do. Last week, I was reminded of this short video excerpt by Ken Wilber, entitled “Love until it hurts” where he talks about the spiritual practice for women is, rather than staring at walls for hours on end in stillness, to love while life arise around them.

The first half of my test to was to stay open during an attempted exchange to draw up paperwork related to a divorce agreement. I stayed open until I could feel the hurt in what was happening. From that place I sat for an hour with an open heart and a quiet mind until motivated to action. Then as lovingly as I could completed the paperwork to as simple a conclusion that made sense to me.

Okay, I said to myself. I’ll end this. I closed whatever part of my life was still connected to him. And let 5 more days pass. On the sixth day, I was called back into relationship by that heart and opened back up most of what I had closed down. Not quite finished, I guess.

Today, I realized that loving until it hurts isn’t far enough. It’s loving through the hurt and then finding a fierceness to love even more from there. Equanimity is just the gateway. The real ride is just beginning.

Where Alex and I are going will demand more than loving in equanimity. It will demand a fierce vulnerability on top of that calm love.

Risking everything.

I expect him to demand nothing less from me.

P.S. More about demanding in relationship, at least this relationship, later.

John Petersen, founder of the Arlington Institute and frequent speaker at many of the Spiral Dynamics events I have attended, has dedicated himself to sifting through a spectrum of sources; in search of indicators, models, insights and early warning signals in pursuit of understanding, predicting and envisioning our future.

About 8 years ago, I came across the work of Lee Carroll, the man behind Kryon, a channeled entity of Magnetic Service. At that time, I thought the information from this source, while interesting, didn’t hold much attraction for the focus and issues I was working at that time. My mind is naturally resonate with metaphysical principles so I didn’t reject it, at that point I wanted a different kind of support.

Last week, John hosted Lee Carroll in the DC area for an afternoon lecture/channel. When I received an invitation I knew I needed to go.

The best my mind could wrap around the reasons I would be attracted to this event stemmed from an overarching interest in solving the big issues facing our planet. So if John thinks this source is worth investing in, I’ll listen. Beside my mental constructs have change significantly since I explore new age/metaphysical content. I was curious to know if some recalibration or shifting of my thinking was being called forth.

Off I went, a two hour drive from my home in Maryland to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia on gorgeous, sunny Sunday afternoon. That in itself would make the day enjoyable. The lecture was in held in a garden room where all the windows had been blacked out. Interesting. That was never fully explained, but I assume it has something do with Kryon as magnetic master, relationship with sunlight. Perhaps sunlight distorts or dilutes the channel connect. I don’t know…pure speculation on my part. We sat in very dark garden room.

I found Lee to be funny, down to earth, not strange at all, and very easy to listen to. The channel portion of didn’t yield much for me. But I enjoyed a refresh in the new age world. I took two things with me from that lecture. One of which is the real subject of this post.

What I valued most from the Kryon material is the integration of it with Lee’s scientific and engineering background. Lee spent some time with us on his leading edge of exploration involving the understanding of human DNA. The basic premise of Kryon’s channeling about DNA is that it is multidimensional and the physical part of it is only a small part of it’s whole nature. Lee was really excited about new discoveries in the physical world of DNA. He spent a significant portion of his presentation outlining a precept that DNA is not a strand, but a loop; a loop that is a super conductor of magnetic energy.

DNA, the basic structure of life on this planet, and it’s multidimensional properties is a magnetic force.

The implications of this precept are extraordinary. Lee’s excitement focused around the idea, if this is true, then our ability to shift and change can be largely facilitated by the direct and intentional interaction of human DNA.

I have been sitting with this imagery and possibility in my mind for the last week, intuitively following the spark created from Kryon/Lee Carroll’s illuminations. In conjunction with lots of activity and change related to my relationships, a model started to come together in my mind, as a critical piece of the next model around which to structure a support system for a Marriage.

One thing about my life is that the rate at which subtle things change, that rate is constantly accelerating. And subtle change in my world demands action to support it. One of those actions is to write about it. I have resisted, repressed, rationalized away reason to not write, but I seem to always return back to the same place. Write it down. Let people read it.

Yuck.

I spent a quite a bit of time the other day integrating these subtle changes in my mind and body. It uses a lot of energy, and thus a good 12 hours of sleep was induced. I woke up the next morning, knowing I was to write about this change and thinking…”this is process is really fucked up.”

“What’s fucked up?” said my thinking buddy and best friend, Jessie, who has been my companion throughout this process, “The evolutionary process? God’s design of how things happen?”

Well…no, I said. But who wants to read about all the drama and the ugly interaction, the incivility that has comprised my life in the last 3 years and call it “Divine.”

An hour later I was reading a marketing piece for organizational consulting work when I became suddenly impassioned. The document described a process of: assessing, analyzing, recommending and planning – and then connected this orderly process to the word “emerge.”

GRRRRR, I screamed. The word emerge is overused and misused these days. Emergence doesn’t happen from a process of assessing, analyzing, recommending and planning. Emergence happens because you put two or more elements together that are not alike and ask them to interact. We can’t organize, plan or even direct that to any specific outcome. It’s not comfortable, easy, nor linear. It often doesn’t make sense.

But that’s just it, what I am living through is an emergent process. It’s often chaotic, and ugly, and confusing, and sad. It’s messy and I don’t look so good all the time, my husband or ex-husband (I’m not quite sure what he is right now) doesn’t look so good all the time. I read a blog post from Jim Kunstler, whom I describe as having a finger on the pulse of change in this country and he writes: We think we deserve to have a neat and orderly process through this kind of change. That is should feel good and look the way we want it to look.

Folks, it doesn’t.

My marriage has been about polarity and values conflict and ways of thinking that don’t just automatically sync up into something beautiful, innovative or even workable. It first consists of more breakdowns than improvements, arguments than agreements, and tension than cooperation. It’s been about the two of us interacting in ways that call a multiplicity of character traits, patterns, desires, motivations and actions to the surface while that same interaction calls forth new capability and demands a different action. And for me, it’s been about being conscious of the change that is happening and continually saying at my deepest and purest level, Yes-bring it on.

It’s messy, and I often don’t know what I am doing. And I’ve come to understand that what has been most important is to stay in it. The Marriage has not really begun, the marriage vows to this point have been about staying in a divine relationship, a soul based union, that has it’s own agenda, separate from the two individuals, that would be Alex and I, involved. The hardest part for me, is knowing that I must live that agenda, not know it before hand and not being able to orchestrate my own plan toward it, even though I constantly try to do just that. This emergence dance is the marriage before The Marriage.

And The Marriage is not guaranteed. Even though Alex and I are “soulMates.” Our souls pull us forward into that future, our hearts pull us forward, but our minds, our words and our deeds don’t always follow suit. Even if one of us is sure they are following suit. It’s a point of view I have spent the last 2 years integrating into my body.

What is though, is the interdependence that exists between us. So we are in a constant dance responding, relating and interacting in way that I call polarized harmony. It’s quite interesting when I notice it, and lately I am having to surrender to the interdependence that already exists. That means, Alex is always responding perfectly to me and me to him. We get locked into one kind of dance for awhile before one realizes it’s time to do something different.

Those are the magically moments.

God, this is an amazing ride. I wish I could package it up and sell it. But alas, I am just holding on. On a good day I find an ability to surf: adding some style and finesse to my ability to hold on. Other days I just hold on.

Lately I have had many just hold on days. It seems, Alex and I will take some sort of formal direction toward completing “the little marriage” as a precursor to “The Marriage”. Will “The Marriage” be with the other. Too early to tell, as it takes two people making choices. I do know that the “3rd entity”: the two “i’s” that make a “we”, or a “wii” as Jessie pointed out to me, is still very much alive and active.

One thing that has characterized my experience of this relationship is the ever reoccurring and sometimes deepening requirement to re-commitment to the relationship, to stay “in.” The challenge is that Alex and I, as we do with many situations, occupy opposite side of the relationship tweeter totter. When I am up, he is down -then vise-versa. Or rather, one of us is more in and the other more out, like a rubber band. Yes, the rubber band analogy is better suited as a metaphor. Why? Because the tension that exists between us is also reflected in the rubber band imagery. The solution is not compromise, or self-sacrifice. And obviously it’s not duking it out. It’s tension and conflict that is natural part of change, big change.

Dealing with that tension is a capacity that has certainly grown in me over the last three years. Tension in my life, before Alex, would quickly translate for me, into either fix it, or flee. With Alex, I often chose the flee. He is a great partner for me, because he could deal with my fleeing by letting me have the space, and wait, open and available for me to come back to him. When he was really on his game he could step in do his best to pin me down and not let me leave. It’s an art to know which approach is best in any given situation…an art when he wasn’t dealing with his own response. If both of us are having trouble with tension, the tension turns quickly into chaos. We often fight or stop talking to each other.

A friend of mine once said to me, “just let the tension be there.”

Right.

While we were living together, it was quite juicy. There was so much energy running through house, we at one point blew out an electric circuit; it literally burst into flames. Now that we are not living together, sometimes I can just let the tension be there, but that tension still pulls energy – it’s not a neutral space. So I would translate ‘just let it be there” to don’t fix or flee…stay in the tension.

It’s in the tension where new, emergent things become possible. The pull of the energy in a transcendent direction, makes transformation possible.

So where is the tension in the divorce of “the marriage?” It was a real switch for me recently. First, because we are not living together I don’t have to deal with tension 24 x7. I can work with it at my own speed and taking care of my own needs. Second, because the speed at which I can work with tension has increased. Alex is much faster, by the way, another dynamic that made it difficult to live together. The divorce word has been used often over the last two years, at least 10 times. It’s an exit strategy in dealing with the tension. Is this time different? Yes, in a big way. Because I am learning how to love, and that, I’m discovering is a fabulous elixir for tension.

I’m working with tension these days is not by fixing, not by fleeing, not by processing and storytelling, not by fighting or resisting, not by drawing conclusions and exacting a new plan of action. No- last week, in the tension of divorce, I opened up and let old and as Conversation with God calls them, sponsoring thoughts flow through my mind, not following them, but going deeper to find the associated emotion. Once I tap into my emotional body, I let myself feel the emotion. And when feeling gets tough and and the self-deprecating voice, or the story or the blaming arise in my mind, I am to chose to love both myself and Alex. It’s taken me many years, many layers, many failures to be able to do this. And the results are worth every penny, all of the intensity, and every drop of gut wrenching emotion.

The results: a new way of thinking, and being is emerging in me; a new level of self integration: mind, body, spirit; and a deepening level of trust in what Alex and I are doing together.

Here are two of my twitters, back to back from this week:

• SpiralEyes living inside and through my emotional body is rich. It takes mental discipline, but from the other side….it’s well worth it! 12 minutes ago from web
• SpiralEyes is feeling…mostly sadness that at times slips to despair, at so many gaps. about 9 hours ago from web

My competence with my emotional body has been taking more prominence in my life. Oh, it’s been increasing since 2001 after I returned home from Retreat 4, of the CoActive Space Leadership development programming. It was during that 5 day event as the climax of the entire 9 month course that my emotions began to override a well honed ability to mentally abstract, story or otherwise repress or shutdown my emotional experience as a human being.

I find it to be a practice, for sure. First to let emotions rise to the surface, then to express them (responsibly), to just feel them, to learn from them, to let them inform me, to share them with others, and lately, I’ve been working with communicating with emotions while letting the run through me from a state of love. It’s from this state of love that total spectrum of emotions is accessible and can bring about transcendent consequences. It also has a powerful impact, so it’s often like playing with dynamite. I’m still working on it…so stay tuned.

What I found in the last couple years is that permission to be emotional, without a story is an invaluable gift. Two years ago there was a period during February and March that if you would have asked me what my hobby was I would have told you, crying.

Last month, my friend called me dealing with mental constructs of her own that were breaking down, and she really just needed to cry. I said, come on over, to the House of Emotion, as I had just spent several hours opening to my own tidal wave of emotions and the house was “primed.” That permission was all she needed and she was off riding her own wave.

It’s usually a strong indication I’ve found one of my edges, a limitation or a boundary if my emotional body is activated. Since living at the edge of myself, expanding, breaking through and transcending my limitations is a life strategy for me; navigating through my emotional body is part of the experience…it’s a good thing!

Andrew Cohen publishes a magazine called EnlightenNext, which used to be What is Enlightenment? About 5 years ago he became very interested in Spiral Dynamics integral (SDi) and for a time was in collaboration with Don Beck. Together with Don, Cohen and his team wrote one of the most easily digestible articles on the SD material, include a lot of the (SDi) content on their website, produced a video called Leap into the Future from which a 25 minute overview of Spiral Dynamics I’ve used often in my own presentations of the SDi model.

Having participated in 5 in depths retreats at Foxhollow (the headquarter for EnlightenNext), I, personally, find Andrew’s teachings of enlightenment extremely helpful in my own personal emergence and his Evolutionary Enlightenment views are integrated into my life practice and worldview.

I have been especially pleased to find emails like this one showing up in my inbox of late. To me, it demonstrates the evolving nature and teaching of Andrew’s perspective and indicates a deeper integration of the Spiral Dynamics insights and the importance of understanding value systems into the core essence of Andrew’s work.

Freely Choosing to be Yourself

Our values are what define the choices we make, the actions we take, the life that we create. They are a set of subtle and not so subtle beliefs, ideas, and ways of seeing the world that we deeply subscribe to but may not even be conscious of. And if we’re not conscious of the values of the conditioned self, they are going to inhibit our capacity to be truly awake. So it’s imperative, if you want to be an agent of conscious evolution, to bring the light of awareness to this level of your self. What are your deeply held values? Are they your values? Did you freely choose them? Probably not. Very few people freely choose their own values. Many of us who have grown up in a postmodern world where the freedom of individual is valued above all else assume that we have freely chosen our values, but it’s very rarely true. So this is why the culturally conditioned self is a subject in all of us that needs to be made an object in the light of our own awareness, so that we will be in a position to begin to freely choose who we will be. We have to, in a sense, die and be reborn again. This is what rigorous and serious spiritual practice is all about: learning how to freely choose to be yourself. Andrew Cohen

However, I must add, that Andrew’s view, although informed by value systems, is not the same teaching as Spiral Dynamics, a model that is steeped in framing values systems and change. Nor do I think that Andrew’s integration of value systems is one that I would support, unilaterally. What I do support is his effort of integration for himself, like my own integration of the work for myself.

What I support is the integration of enlightenment teachings and value systems for personal development because value systems are important. Mike Jay, who is constantly pushing an edge of the Spiral Dynamics model, presents a provocative perspective where he indicates the process of valuing exists very early in the mental sequence in the brain as humans responded to stimulants in our environment.

There is no integration effort, at this point, that is scientifically validated, nor is there necessarily an integration that will serve everybody. The question is: what integration will serve you – living where you live, dealing with the conditions you live in?

Ray Kurzweil is a leading advocate of The Singularity.  I am reprinting part of one of his articles because it’s a great visual for understanding exponential change.  As for the rest of his predictions, I think it’s only a part of much larger story unfolding, so his conclusions are also partial.

Now for the story (which can be found in its entirety at http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html

The Singularity Is Near

To appreciate the nature and significance of the coming “singularity,” it is important to ponder the nature of exponential growth. Toward this end, I am fond of telling the tale of the inventor of chess and his patron, the emperor of China. In response to the emperor’s offer of a reward for his new beloved game, the inventor asked for a single grain of rice on the first square, two on the second square, four on the third, and so on. The Emperor quickly granted this seemingly benign and humble request. One version of the story has the emperor going bankrupt as the 63 doublings ultimately totaled 18 million trillion grains of rice. At ten grains of rice per square inch, this requires rice fields covering twice the surface area of the Earth, oceans included. Another version of the story has the inventor losing his head.

It should be pointed out that as the emperor and the inventor went through the first half of the chess board, things were fairly uneventful. The inventor was given spoonfuls of rice, then bowls of rice, then barrels. By the end of the first half of the chess board, the inventor had accumulated one large field’s worth (4 billion grains), and the emperor did start to take notice. It was as they progressed through the second half of the chessboard that the situation quickly deteriorated. Incidentally, with regard to the doublings of computation, that’s about where we stand now–there have been slightly more than 32 doublings of performance since the first programmable computers were invented during World War II.

This is the nature of exponential growth. Although technology grows in the exponential domain, we humans live in a linear world. So technological trends are not noticed as small levels of technological power are doubled. Then seemingly out of nowhere, a technology explodes into view. For example, when the Internet went from 20,000 to 80,000 nodes over a two year period during the 1980s, this progress remained hidden from the general public. A decade later, when it went from 20 million to 80 million nodes in the same amount of time, the impact was rather conspicuous.

As exponential growth continues to accelerate into the first half of the twenty-first century, it will appear to explode into infinity, at least from the limited and linear perspective of contemporary humans. The progress will ultimately become so fast that it will rupture our ability to follow it. It will literally get out of our control. The illusion that we have our hand “on the plug,” will be dispelled.

Can the pace of technological progress continue to speed up indefinitely? Is there not a point where humans are unable to think fast enough to keep up with it? With regard to unenhanced humans, clearly so. But what would a thousand scientists, each a thousand times more intelligent than human scientists today, and each operating a thousand times faster than contemporary humans (because the information processing in their primarily nonbiological brains is faster) accomplish? One year would be like a millennium. What would they come up with?

Well, for one thing, they would come up with technology to become even more intelligent (because their intelligence is no longer of fixed capacity). They would change their own thought processes to think even faster. When the scientists evolve to be a million times more intelligent and operate a million times faster, then an hour would result in a century of progress (in today’s terms).

This, then, is the Singularity. The Singularity is technological change so rapid and so profound that it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. Some would say that we cannot comprehend the Singularity, at least with our current level of understanding, and that it is impossible, therefore, to look past its “event horizon” and make sense of what lies beyond.

“Scientists are exploring the possibilities of altering the arrangements of over 20,000 genes on our biological DNA. Their interest is produce healthier bodies and lives. Our interest, here, is to describe how to influence emergence and expression of the eight core adaptive intelligences presently sequenced in our psychological ‘DNA.’

The plan is to increase your odds for the development of healthy minds, organizations, communities, and societies.”

From Spiral Dynamics: mastering values, leadership and change. Beck and Cowen 1996.

The question I ask myself and am actively pursuing in my own life is: is it possible to grow a new mind? I think minds grow all the time. Certainly we see this a baby grows into an adult, its mind matures. The opportunity is once we reach adulthood, can we grow a new mind?

My own experience says yes. It would seem, that like it or not, that is the opening before most, if not all, of us. The chaotic conditions descending rapidly up the species demand new minds. Not everyone is making the same change, however. Minds are at in different places, using different codes, dealing with varying conditions. An adaptive workforce is passing through various steps and stage simultaneously. Expecting staff to solve problems with a mind out of sync with it conditions creates more problems then it solves. Getting minds matched up with environments creates a healthy, happy thriving place to be.

Are you ready?

Thinking Buddy is a term Jessie and I use to describe the relationship we have with each other, and the kind of relationship we can have with others.  Based on the idea that life is so complex that most of us, including me, are literally, In Over Our Heads, having a thinking buddy expands my mental capacity to deal with opportunities and challenges that I face.

Thinking Buddies expand the capacity of an individual. It synthesizes partnering, coaching, mentoring, witnessing and truth telling into a dynamic that lets two act as one and that one is you.

As a Thinking Buddy, I believe there are five critical areas of attention:

1. Get Connected
2. Open Up Your Mind
3. Be Ready to and for Change
4. Have a Personal Strategy
5. Start Now

I watched “We are Marshall” last weekend. I enjoy movies based on true stories. For me, somehow they offer a deeper view into human nature. This was a compelling movie, emphasizing how a devastating event can shift an entire town, not just those whom experience profound loss. Often our best is called forth during these times, generated by the exceptional leadership capacities of a few. In this case it was Jack Lengyel, a coach, who showed up to lead not a just a team, but community through the next very difficult football season. It wasn’t his football skills that made the difference, but his ability to connected with people with an open heart, not ignoring the pain, but moving through it to find the other side.

I was in Omaha on December 7, 2007. I arrived in town for a couple of projects; one of which was to assist in a day of presentations geared toward shaping Omaha’s future. Our message is simple, it described the kind of thinking capacity, the mind open to new understandings, insights and potential our leaders will possess to meet the complexity of our current collective problems. Our first presentation occurred at the same time 9 people where shot at local shopping mall. The building we working in was locked down while the facts were being sorted out, and the hotel we were staying in was the police/family/media home base that day. The picture included in the post is the sign that hangs in front of the our hotel, which sit directly opposite the mall department store. This crisis became a part of our project in the most direct of indirect ways.

We collectively are moving into a Fourth Turning. The “winter” years of a 20 year change cycle uncovered in the work of William Strauss and Neil Howe. They call this stage the crisis years. Perhaps it has already begun.

I was reminded, again, both in Omaha and through this movie, the determining factor for our future is not that crisis happens, but it how we respond to these events that define the shape of the next ones. In Omaha, we talked about fact that this extremely troubled boy was taken in by a friends family, their home and hearts open. We talked about the courtesies extended to grieving family members by offering up private meeting space in use by local business people at our hotel. And we pointed to the restaurateurs who opened their establishments as place to receive free food and drink to the people involved with the mall events.

As 2008 quickly approaches, and the coming series of crisis. I worry less about what might happen and look to my own leadership capacity as I prepare to respond to with my head up, an open heart and an open mind.

As life condition to the power of 7 (that’s the terminology used to describe one side of Dr. Graves double helix model where seven represent the complexity of conditions causing yellow to emerge) continue manifest all around us, it is even more apparent that the yellow code is brightening in many minds around the globe. There is a conscious awareness or conscious evolution that exists today, meaning that as the code brightens in minds, it (the intelligence of the code) may know that is what is happening… like right now as you read this! or you may have developed a strong enough observer with yourself that you can watch yourself as your thinking changes.

In any event, second tier remains an area of intense curiosity for most of us interested in all things integral. This was certainly true for me. Over the past five years I have been sitting in three questions: What is second tier? How do I model it, and how can it be used to meet the challenge we face, not only on global scale, but on a personal scale as well?

I’ve decided to post to this list, my own as well as other’s, thoughts about possible answers to those questions, with the intent inform, inspire and explore what the coaching field might offer in this context.

To get started here’s a segment written by Don Beck a couple of years ago I thought you might finding interesting.

“The “momentous leap” in Clare W. Graves’ language describes something of an emergence surge that appears to be much more than simply the seventh ratchet in the developmental sequence of complexity. Several of his graphics make this point dramatically and he believed this GT (Yellow) system contained greater conceptual capacity than the sum total of the first six.

He justified the notion of sets of six by the extraordinary quality and complexity in decision-making and other aspects of cognition in certain people he had tested and observed. The individuals who were expressing the 7th Level pattern had less fear, could generate many more options, appeared to be much more resourceful, etc. I believe he found early tracings of minds that were becoming aware of Problems “G” long before they become visible to the rest of us. Remember, Graves conducted his research before the age of the microchip, the end of the Cold War, the onset of molecular biology, and the more general impact of the FS code in its deconstruction and pluralistic influences. FS did, indeed, seek to cleanse and compress the Spiral by “liberating” the indigenous people (and all vMeme codes) from the dominance hierarchy. This created the memetic theatre where all the value systems that humans have expressed since the big brain emerged, thus appearing in real time on CNN – all demanding their respective places in the sun and in the higher valued niches. Herein lies the complexity that Graves could only imagine but could not directly experience. So, the Life Conditions to the Power of Seven that would require the new thinking complexity that he had observed three decades ago finally cascaded onto the scene. He knew something was up and was quite accurate in his future visions. The Gravesian blueprint will serve us well for decades to come.

Keep in mind that the ultimate texture and capacity within this 7th Code must match and/or exceed the complexity within the Life Conditions that it confronts. Those who exhibit this thinking will not be clones, nor cut from the same cloth. Each will have a unique mixture of agency or communal subtexts; each will bring diverse levels of motivation and energy to the task; and each will respond to its own internal drummer. But ALL will have an enhanced vertical perspective with the ability to transcend but include (and value) what came before, and also transcend but anticipate what will be next, thus declaring that we exist in the tension zones between ascending and descending priority systems. I also believe the 8th Code will rise in conjunction with the 7th, that we will always have a dominant expressive and dominant sacrificial system working in conjunction with other. Think of 7th Level (Yellow) as “left brain with feelings” and the 8th Level (Turquoise) as “right brain with data.” Yellow will identify the particles up and down the spine of the Spiral and will seek to surf the spine with its multimemetic tool kit; Turquoise will focus on the waves and energy flows that engulf the Spiral and will be much more comfortable in a command, control and conformity function, but only on behalf of the Life Force itself, and in its many manifestations in life forms on the planet

I hope you can see that these are not discrete steps that everybody have to climb in a uniform manner. Think of these as color chalk marks on a sidewalk that “nature” has laid down in a sequential fashion, because each is simply a complex, adaptive, and contextual intelligence that addresses the emerging complex of Life Conditions. We all play vMemetic hopscotch along these conceptual spaces, often landing with two feet on one zone but moving on one foot through the others.”

As life condition to the power of 7 (that’s the terminology used to describe one side of Dr. Graves double helix model where seven represent the complexity of conditions causing yellow to emerge) continue manifest all around us, it is even more apparent that the yellow code is brightening in many minds around the globe. There is a conscious awareness or conscious evolution that exists today, meaning that as the code brightens in minds, it (the intelligence of the code) may know that is what is happening… like right now as you read this! or you may have developed a strong enough observer with yourself that you can watch yourself as your thinking changes.

In any event, second tier remains an area of intense curiosity for most of us interested in all things integral. This was certainly true for me. Over the past five years I have been sitting in three questions: What is second tier? How do I model it, and how can it be used to meet the challenge we face, not only on global scale, but on a personal scale as well?

I’ve decided to post to this list, my own as well as other’s, thoughts about possible answers to those questions, with the intent inform, inspire and explore what the coaching field might offer in this context.

To get started here’s a segment written by Don Beck a couple of years ago I thought you might finding interesting.

“The “momentous leap” in Clare W. Graves’ language describes something of an emergence surge that appears to be much more than simply the seventh ratchet in the developmental sequence of complexity. Several of his graphics make this point dramatically and he believed this GT (Yellow) system contained greater conceptual capacity than the sum total of the first six.

He justified the notion of sets of six by the extraordinary quality and complexity in decision-making and other aspects of cognition in certain people he had tested and observed. The individuals who were expressing the 7th Level pattern had less fear, could generate many more options, appeared to be much more resourceful, etc. I believe he found early tracings of minds that were becoming aware of Problems “G” long before they become visible to the rest of us. Remember, Graves conducted his research before the age of the microchip, the end of the Cold War, the onset of molecular biology, and the more general impact of the FS code in its deconstruction and pluralistic influences. FS did, indeed, seek to cleanse and compress the Spiral by “liberating” the indigenous people (and all vMeme codes) from the dominance hierarchy. This created the memetic theatre where all the value systems that humans have expressed since the big brain emerged, thus appearing in real time on CNN – all demanding their respective places in the sun and in the higher valued niches. Herein lies the complexity that Graves could only imagine but could not directly experience. So, the Life Conditions to the Power of Seven that would require the new thinking complexity that he had observed three decades ago finally cascaded onto the scene. He knew something was up and was quite accurate in his future visions. The Gravesian blueprint will serve us well for decades to come.

Keep in mind that the ultimate texture and capacity within this 7th Code must match and/or exceed the complexity within the Life Conditions that it confronts. Those who exhibit this thinking will not be clones, nor cut from the same cloth. Each will have a unique mixture of agency or communal subtexts; each will bring diverse levels of motivation and energy to the task; and each will respond to its own internal drummer. But ALL will have an enhanced vertical perspective with the ability to transcend but include (and value) what came before, and also transcend but anticipate what will be next, thus declaring that we exist in the tension zones between ascending and descending priority systems. I also believe the 8th Code will rise in conjunction with the 7th, that we will always have a dominant expressive and dominant sacrificial system working in conjunction with other. Think of 7th Level (Yellow) as “left brain with feelings” and the 8th Level (Turquoise) as “right brain with data.” Yellow will identify the particles up and down the spine of the Spiral and will seek to surf the spine with its multimemetic tool kit; Turquoise will focus on the waves and energy flows that engulf the Spiral and will be much more comfortable in a command, control and conformity function, but only on behalf of the Life Force itself, and in its many manifestations in life forms on the planet

I hope you can see that these are not discrete steps that everybody have to climb in a uniform manner. Think of these as color chalk marks on a sidewalk that “nature” has laid down in a sequential fashion, because each is simply a complex, adaptive, and contextual intelligence that addresses the emerging complex of Life Conditions. We all play vMemetic hopscotch along these conceptual spaces, often landing with two feet on one zone but moving on one foot through the others.”