I’ve been traveling and connecting with friends new and old for the past two weeks through No. California. Here’s one of the places I landed:

I am staying with two folks, Rich and Kathy, I had never met before I walked through their door. Rich noticed the license plates of the cars the three of us are driving.

Rich has only known me a two days, but he had enough of a pulse to what’s going on to comment: “Boy, are you in the right place or what!”

I have to agree. I love how the life process is supporting me these days!

I came across this note in my files the other day. I held on to it because I find it a fascinating way to think about numbers, large abstract numbers. Check it out.

If I spent $1 every second it would take:

11.5 days to spend a million dollars

31.7 years to spend a billion dollars

317 years to spend 10 billion dollars

3170 years to spend 100 billion dollars

and, 6230 years to spend 200 billion dollars…that’s before the pyramids appeared on earth.

Ummm…the cost of the Iraq War is estimated in the trillions. With that large of a number, conceptual years doesn’t even help me. I just have no way to conceptualize “a trillion” of anything.

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.

The Chesapeake Bay Organization Development Network (CBODN) coaching SIG (Special Interest Group) hosted a session with Leslie Williams from Integral Coaching Canada this past week. The first U.S. based training will be held in the Washington DC area this year.

Being a 8-year student of Ken Wilber’s Integral framework, AQAL and certified coach, I certainly was curious. I came to coaching after I began learning integral theory, so for me, it was an opportunity to look integral theory this time, after coming to coaching.

I loved my coaching training. CTI, the Coaching Training Institute, has in my opinion, one of the best intuitively integrally (as defined in Wilber’s work) designed training programs around using a Coactive Model of coaching. Integral Coaching Canada, uses integral theory as it’s model, and since I only experienced a one hour introduction, I can’t speak for their training design.

The thing about integral coaching, and Leslie said this straight away, is there is a voluminous amount of pure content to digest first, before you can truly engage the coaching side. Which is not true at all about CTI, Henry House, Karen Kimsey-House and Laura Whitworth manage to teach content through an innovative and brilliant design template they call The Coactive Way, which includes a stop in the “magic” shop. Now, can you do the same thing with an integral frame? Probably, but my guess is it would still include a fair amount of cognitive learning elements as well.

Having said that, my impression of Integral Coaching Canada is positive, aside from a few technicalities and the ubiquitous mis-characterization of Spiral Dynamics with the AQAL lens. What I was most impressed with is their ability to find a simple way start within a complex model, without losing too much of the elegance of the complexity. The content of creating “sustainable change” using an AQAL lens is one of the models main benefits and then staying with a context of a coaching relationship, two people, made it easy to grasp the idea of 4 perspective of a whole. Of course, once you get past the 4 quadrants/perspective of the AQAL, it gets a whole lot more complex fast, and we didn’t dive into that. In fact, the use of another non AQAL perception model, took over Leslie’s presentation after that, abandoning the level, lines, types and states components of the AQAL model.

But hey, we only had an hour -and I’m 8 years into an intensive study of the theory and it’s application; a study that has taken me beyond the AQAL frame as definition of integral anyway! For me it’s about “progressive engagement.”

Most memorable statement: Paraphrasing: ‘This model calls me, as a coach, forth into my own development, because I not only help my client from a more complete picture, my skill set and competency, or lack there of, rise to the surface as well.’

Amen, Sister.

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?

Bang! Did this phenomena hit me or what?  What’s that, you ask.   Mercury retrograde, I answer.

I’ve known about Mercury retrograde for, oh about 5 years now. I am not a big follower of astrological information and models- but I keep an open mind. I’ve always been told that during this time to be careful of initiating any new agreements or contracts, that communication modes tend to break down very easy and electronics are subject to unusual malfunctions. This is a perfect time to reflect, to look back on has been, to see new perspectives on what is, and to use the time for integration of the past before looking to and preparing for the future.

Okay, so for a cycle that happens three times a year, I’ve noticed times when this happens to some extent or another, and I occasionally slow down for a day or two while it passes.

By no means did I plan for the last three week, but the start of this Mercury retrograde coincided with an event that literally turned the clock back. My husband packed all of his belongings and moved back to his childhood home in California, before setting out for his next adventure. But…wait, that’s another story for another time.  For me these past three weeks, I can only describe as being plunged deep into the “Mercury Retrograde” experience.

Briefly, it’s a time to take a new look at information, insights, and perceptions, and rework interpretations to prepare for the four month period that follows a Mercury retrograde. Mercury goes back over ground it’s just traversed, but during the retrograde there is an entirely new angle of view that presents itself so that some things previously unknown or unnoticed can be factored in for the future. There are curious returns that allow us to re-think some things, and find a new rhythm of coordinating our life affairs.

What is fascinating to me, and about which I am writing, besides the understanding, insights and learning gained from looking back, is the more general alignment to cosmic patterns and cycles my life seems entrained in. It’s a lot like living through the seasons. We know we will have certain experiences that differ significantly with the change of each season. So it is when life is aligned to these more subtle (and not so subtle) patterns and flows.

It’s a bit of a relief really. To rest in the flow of the solar system, the galaxy,  the Universe and other universes! It’s really out of our control. The choice is whether or not to align with them.  Much like winter, spring, summer and fall.  When we align our activities that are suited for one season to that season, life usually works better.  But it doesn’t have to.

Me, I’m finding the alignment absolutely enlivening, exhilarating even.  That is, when it’s not kicking me in the Bum!

These two words, used together, have been swimming in the forefront of my mind in the last week.

I think I am beginning to understand why.

It’s a long story, and one perhaps that I will publish to the web, one day. The short version is something like this. I got married two years ago (yesterday happened to be the anniversary) for the second time to a man I barely knew and who is both, so right for me, and so opposite me. A dynamic that will make, I am sure, an interesting story. Anyway, I married him because I was following something so deep, so real, so compelling in me that there was no doubt that getting married was what we would do. That this love connection is strong enough, bold enough, flexible enough to hold us together.

It’s not been an easy road. In short, we’ve made a real mess of things. I was prepared for it to be hard. But I did not fully grasp the intensity of what I was engaging in. Love, as the song goes, is a many splendid thing. And I am finding that the road to love is fraught with everything unlike it. Much of very un-splendid.

There are times, like now, when the resilience of love, of heart, of courage is the only thing left. Anyway, transformational love, I’m finding, describes a state of connectedness that can surface the differences in personality, in expectations, of ways of thinking that work to create a huge gulf between two people. This is certainly my experience of my second marriage.

My husband calls forth in me capacity that I didn’t think I had, and when it is called forth, I don’t like it. For it means that I will have learn to love things I didn’t think I would have to or want to love. It hurts to open to what seems to me to be common courtesy, basic human civility, common sense. And it’s challenging to open to it and simultaneously not let certain behaviors be okay, to not tolerate unseemly behavior. It is transformational when it happens.

And love expands. I expand. The relationship is given a new chance at life.

That’s what is on my mind, aching in my heart and exciting my soul this morning.

(photo by alex noble)

These two words, used together, have been swimming in the forefront of my mind in the last week.

I think I am beginning to understand why.

It’s a long story, and one perhaps that I will publish to the web, one day. The short version is something like this. I got married two years ago (yesterday happened to be the anniversary) for the second time to a man I barely knew and who is both, so right for me, and so opposite me. A dynamic that will make, I am sure, an interesting story. Anyway, I married him because I was following something so deep, so real, so compelling in me that there was no doubt that getting married was what we would do. That this love connection is strong enough, bold enough, flexible enough to hold us together.

It’s not been an easy road. In short, we’ve made a real mess of things. I was prepared for it to be hard. But I did not fully grasp the intensity of what I was engaging in. Love, as the song goes, is a many splendid thing. And I am finding that the road to love is fraught with everything unlike it. Much of very un-splendid.

There are times, like now, when the resilience of love, of heart, of courage is the only thing left. Anyway, transformational love, I’m finding, describes a state of connectedness that can surface the differences in personality, in expectations, of ways of thinking that work to create a huge gulf between two people. This is certainly my experience of my second marriage.

My husband calls forth in me capacity that I didn’t think I had, and when it is called forth, I don’t like it. For it means that I will have learn to love things I didn’t think I would have to or want to love. It hurts to open to what seems to me to be common courtesy, basic human civility, common sense. And it’s challenging to open to it and simultaneously not let certain behaviors be okay, to not tolerate unseemly behavior. It is transformational when it happens.

And love expands. I expand. The relationship is given a new chance at life.

That’s what is on my mind, aching in my heart and exciting my soul this morning.

(photo by alex noble)

It’s Blog Action Day.

I am participating in a global movement today that attracted bloggers from around the world, to blog about one single issue, on the same day. It’s a possible inflection point, albeit a small one.

The topic is the environment.

I don’t have strong opinions about the environment, other than to say three things.

One: The environment is important.

Two: The environment includes more than plants and trees, it’s first a system of interlocking forces that live exists within…and, second, the function of each life form; from micro organisms, to bugs, to trees, to weather, to complexity of the human body/mind, to our relationships and back out to planetary movements are dependent, independent and interdependent of one another. To look at one without the other gives us distorted view…sometimes appearing cataclysmic.

Three: Just because our collective attention is now turning to the environment as critical…doesn’t mean it is ‘doom and gloom’ scenario.

I have been reading The Skeptical Environmentalist, as a balancing perspective to “Inconvenient Truths”. The bottom line is, yes, by all means, the environment needs, wants and deserves our attention, yet let’s look at the data, all the perspectives, the patterns and flows within the largest understanding we can. And that, my friends, is where the more of the truth lies. So very few us can do that. So I do what I can, and then I do a little more and I spend more of my time working on expanding my mind.

Here are a two of my favorite perspectives on the environment:

I try to watch what is going on around me. Seeing beneath the surface, across the span and as inclusive as I can get. I tend to notice “little signs”, which I interpret as indications of deeper dynamics of the relationship between things. Sometime these signs are directional, others give data and still others evocate feeling.

Last week I noticed a fascinating difference between two similar gifts I’d received. Each gift was given to me by the same person. The first on Monday night, the second on Tuesday night, in what may appear to have been a repeating pattern. Except for….well, what do you see?

I love Facebook. Yesterday I was reviewing the updates to my Facebook home page when I saw one of the most viewed videos was that of Miss South Carolina answering a question as part of the competition to become Miss Teen USA 2007.

Here it is in case you missed it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww]

Well, this youtube video points you to other related videos, so it was through this linking function that I became interested in the 20/20 video called “Stupid in America” and I watched it…all 40 minutes. I’ve posted it in case you care to do the same.

Education, and particularly the education system in America, is a complex one. While the 20/20 expose hits many of the perspectives, truths, perceptions and facts about the current state of our public schools, we still are not getting to the core of the issue. And it may take many years of chaos before we get it sorted it out.

Having said that, trying to sort it is out is part of the chaos. As big issues like this come to the surface because the reality of the conditions becomes important to more and more people, we will continue to hear the barrage of worldviews, value systems, and ways of solving problems hitting us in the face, making the situation…well chaotic.

In May, about 40 people attended the SDi Confab in Dallas, where Dr. Don Beck began to layout the elements of natural design to an education system, in an effort to help us begin to sort the realities. I found myself more and more interested in the topic and during this event I had a small breakthrough in my own thinking. The clarity of thinking then enabled me to draw a solution template on one piece of paper.

These videos gave me a chance to think again about what action I might be able to take toward a solution. My thinking brought me back again to the idea of Living Locally. It’s here in Howard County, Maryland where I and others can have the biggest impact thus it’s in a local context the solution must be designed. The approach will based on creating a template that finds the simplicity beyond the complexity; that works because it is a natural design that fits the local people; yet is relevant to all because it can be customized to fit other counties to account for regional differences.

This is the intelligence I am looking for and that humans have not yet developed.

I love Facebook. Yesterday I was reviewing the updates to my Facebook home page when I saw one of the most viewed videos was that of Miss South Carolina answering a question as part of the competition to become Miss Teen USA 2007.

Here it is in case you missed it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww]

Well, this youtube video points you to other related videos, so it was through this linking function that I became interested in the 20/20 video called “Stupid in America” and I watched it…all 40 minutes. I’ve posted it in case you care to do the same.

Education, and particularly the education system in America, is a complex one. While the 20/20 expose hits many of the perspectives, truths, perceptions and facts about the current state of our public schools, we still are not getting to the core of the issue. And it may take many years of chaos before we get it sorted it out.

Having said that, trying to sort it is out is part of the chaos. As big issues like this come to the surface because the reality of the conditions becomes important to more and more people, we will continue to hear the barrage of worldviews, value systems, and ways of solving problems hitting us in the face, making the situation…well chaotic.

In May, about 40 people attended the SDi Confab in Dallas, where Dr. Don Beck began to layout the elements of natural design to an education system, in an effort to help us begin to sort the realities. I found myself more and more interested in the topic and during this event I had a small breakthrough in my own thinking. The clarity of thinking then enabled me to draw a solution template on one piece of paper.

These videos gave me a chance to think again about what action I might be able to take toward a solution. My thinking brought me back again to the idea of Living Locally. It’s here in Howard County, Maryland where I and others can have the biggest impact thus it’s in a local context the solution must be designed. The approach will based on creating a template that finds the simplicity beyond the complexity; that works because it is a natural design that fits the local people; yet is relevant to all because it can be customized to fit other counties to account for regional differences.

This is the intelligence I am looking for and that humans have not yet developed.

Alex received the magazine GOOD for Sep/Oct 2007 in the mail the other day. The cover story include a heavy artillery machine gun with the headline “Is there a design this good that doesn’t kill people?”.  I was intrigued by the thoughts that immediately arose in my mind. Intrigued because they were different than they have ever been.

“What’s wrong with killing people?” Was my originating thought.

Next came a quick deluge of awareness to my acculturation to the idea that it is wrong to kill, and, it’s wrong to even to die. Yet death is a part of life. Which most of us would concede as true. It follows then that as long as death occurs in a “natural” way it is okay, other ways of dying is not. My purpose in bringing this up is not to debate the issue. There’s along history chronicled in our national discourse. What interested me most was the calmness and clarity with which I was now understanding a myriad of occasions in which death at the hands of another would be not only be okay…it could be in the natural order of things.

It’s a complex subject, and not one that can be won or politicized or even pursued for consensus. The point of this post is to just document the change in my thinking.

Alex received the magazine GOOD for Sep/Oct 2007 in the mail the other day. The cover story include a heavy artillery machine gun with the headline “Is there a design this good that doesn’t kill people?”.  I was intrigued by the thoughts that immediately arose in my mind. Intrigued because they were different than they have ever been.

“What’s wrong with killing people?” Was my originating thought.

Next came a quick deluge of awareness to my acculturation to the idea that it is wrong to kill, and, it’s wrong to even to die. Yet death is a part of life. Which most of us would concede as true. It follows then that as long as death occurs in a “natural” way it is okay, other ways of dying is not. My purpose in bringing this up is not to debate the issue. There’s along history chronicled in our national discourse. What interested me most was the calmness and clarity with which I was now understanding a myriad of occasions in which death at the hands of another would be not only be okay…it could be in the natural order of things.

It’s a complex subject, and not one that can be won or politicized or even pursued for consensus. The point of this post is to just document the change in my thinking.

Two years ago I learned about an extraordinary body work done by William Strauss and Neil Howe on generations. There seminal work entitled Generations: The History of America’s Future tracks 14 American generations from 1584 to 2069. The patterns and change dynamics they uncover are important contributions to understanding what world we live in and how to adapt to it.

The Thirteener generation (those born between 1961-1981) is typically called GenX, but includes a segment that mainstream media usual includes in the Boom Generation (1961-64). The Thirteener generation is just beginning to come into their leadership phase, although it will not bloom till much later.

I’ve been reading What’s Next: Exploring the New Terrain for Business of late and I came across this passage from Paul Saffo, reframing the dot com burst in early 2000.

“The dot com bubble trained a whole generation of young entrepreneurs who got in early. They rode it up, they rode it down-they came out. They’re still 32-33 years old [as of 2002], with their whole careers in front of them. I think we just forged what will go on to be the greatest entrepreneurial generation of the last 50 years.”

From a Spiral Dynamics lens, I’ve noticed that what’s next for America is a renewal and densification of Orange into our culture and this quote, along with the generational turning seems to support that assertion.

It’s about Life Conditions…life conditions…life conditions.

America is entering a crisis era in an historical pattern of change cycles. For the next 15-20 years we will be dealing with conditions that work to breakdown, challenge and call us forth to new capacities and new ways of living. I believe this crisis period will coalesce around three major domains: energy, healthcare and nation building. I think we are beginning to see second tier thinking from two individuals. The first is Thomas Friedman on globalization, the Middle East and now, energy. The second man is Thomas Barnett on nation building. Neither of these gentlemen has The Answer, but the level and type of thinking to come within a framework they write and speak from looks like early yellow to me. Haven’t seen much on the healthcare issue yet…but I’ll keep looking.

I found Tom Friedman’s 2006 documentary on “Addicted to Oil” uploaded in 5 parts on Youtube, posted here for your viewing convenience.

Here’s Thomas Barnett on a Grand Strategy for the US.

I have to tell you I have been absolutely fascinated by this trailer and plan to see the movie next week when it comes to town.

I am fascinated from many dimensions, primarily with great curiosity about what is actually happening in this country.

While I certainly understand why it looks “scary”, it too pulls my on red, orange and green codes…my blue code, which is fairly dominate in me and has lots of density (if you are interested in this concept, come to Don’s Personal Emergence training in Boulder this year) giggles in absolute delight.

I have challenged myself to look at this from a second tier perspective and continue to push against the limitations in my thinking on daily basis.

I’ve had some some breakthroughs.

Now we can argue whether the breakthroughs are to second tier or not, but in an attempt to, at a minimum, illuminate another point of view, I can tell you the upside – just to what I see in the trailer (if it represents what is in the movie and what is actually happening) is right on target.

The target being- kids who are growing up with a strong sense of purpose, of guidance, of fighting for something bigger than themselves and they are doing it together, and, not fighting against something, as much as for something. Jesus in this case. From a developmental process it is foundational. These will not be kids, searching at age 50 for reasons why they are on this planet.

The downside, as a SWIT (Spiral Wizard in training), I will pay close attention to whether they get stuck here. If this movement is closed down, then it could have huge impact on the big picture of change. Interesting, what might close it down? The very act of fighting against it. Now a certain amount of opposition is helpful. However, calling it wrong, doing whatever we can to derail it, will only strengthen it. Telling somebody they have to be something other than what they are is dangerous, and particularly with people who have been trained to fight for who they are and what they believe in.

What do we do then?

Well, to quote our friend Reverend Helix, The Spiral Knows! With orange and green of course; spending our efforts to make sure that when these kids, naturally, are looking for the next thing, they have lots of choices and pathways to orange and then to green ( and from what I know, I would assert Jesus is all for moving up the Spiral, even if it is not part of the Bible). Remember we can out grow a literal belief in Jesus, just like we naturally outgrown a literal belief in Santa Claus and yet the essence of Santa Claus remains. So too can the essence of Jesus.

I’ve also been learning a lot about our generational differences and kids (Millennials born 1981 to 2001) today will have a very different function to perform on their lifetime. They will confront complex and intense life conditions we can only guess about it. My sense is many of them have the capacity to move to second tier and they will require intentional personal emergence pathways (and nature -including the Master Spiral intelligence- is already handling the much of process). The Millennials are 100 million strong, double the size of the Boomer generation and will move together like schools of fishes who suddenly change direction in unison. It’s their coding! They are a Hero generation, much like like the GI who fought and won WW2. This is the generation with the capacity solve our challenges…if they get the appropriate conditions. As SWITs…that means a dense Spiral full of them.

And as we move into a crisis period, and more than likely a gamma trap , as 6.5 billion humans are navigating 6 or 7 major up shifts in their vmemetic patterning…a regress back to Blue and traditions is anticipated to be a necessary part of the natural change dynamics that leads to a major up shift for a significant portion of the species. No guarantees of course, but understanding these big change dynamics will lessen your own personal suffering. At least it does for me.

We here in the DC node of the CHE are working on an audio series about these kind of issues that will made available to this constellation soon.

Of course my curiosity is not satisfied. There is much work to be done to ascertain with clarity; what is actually happening in our country..and across the globe. But as a single event, seen within a human emergence context, “JesusCamp the Movie Trailer” is a great thought exercise for your vmemetic stack!

So, my life becomes increasingly focused around the insight topic of this post and I find it hugely exciting, particularly the steps I see in front us (I say us, if you chose to play) clearer than ever.

Let me explain.

As I stated in my first post, I have been working three questions related to Spiral Dynamics for over 5 years now. What is 2nd tier? How do we model it? And, how will it help us solve the myriad of challenges facing humans individually and as species. During the course of that time I’ve participated in oodles of related conversations. I notice a preponderance of thinking centered (certainly I see it in myself) on making the leap the 2nd tier, that second tier is the place to be. Late this last spring, I came to the conclusion that at this point in time, the focus of attention is better spent on preparing for the leap, rather than the leap itself. Not to polarize the issue, understanding the leap certainly helps us prepare for it, and I am not advocating abandoning such a course. Rather the clarity that appeared before me was in the vain of preparing for the leap is the leap.

I regress a moment to give some context to the term leap. In Clare W. Graves original article, the article that gave rise to Dr. Don Beck’s interest in Dr. Graves’ work, an article written in 1971 (yes, Dr. Graves was well ahead of the curve) is titled, Humanity Prepares for a Momentous Leap. As mentioned previously, Dr. Graves’ research reveals that at GT (or Yellow/second tier*) the capacity to solve problems and to deal with life conditions, far exceeds the sum of the changes seen at each of humanities first six existential stages; hence, Dr. Graves’ use of the term ‘momentous leap’.

So why is preparing for the leap, the leap? One of the major capacities at this level is the resolution of paradox, and the statement certainly seems to fit that bill. Also, at this level, the adaptive intelligence seeks to recover, regenerate and renew all of the lower systems at least to a point that it can consciously choose which patterning of thought to use in any particular circumstance.

Now that is an easy thing to say, write and perhaps even read. Yet, I have slowly gained a deep appreciation for the reality of this. To be able to use, consciously and through choice any one and all of the thinking systems is an exponentially greater capacity to move and walk through life than I could cognize up until this point. And I think, my deep appreciation is still just scratching the surface.

Let me articulate it another way: It’s a HUGE you to emerge into! And we haven’t even begun to think about Turquoise, which appears to be emerging along side of Yellow.

Therefore, Yellow is often hard to spot because it works so much in lower thinking systems. It both up and down, both out and in. Yellow is also called the integrative stage. Here the integration of all ‘wholeness’ we have within us works cohesively and aligned toward some goal state. So integration of our lower systems and their horizontal development can’t happen if we are rejecting, suppressing or if they are underdeveloped.

Enough said? The point is – work the lower systems. It’ll be worth attention you put to them.

OK—now I’m ready to make some sense of this.

This movement to second tier also seems to be part of major quantum leap in the evolution of life. Akin to the evolutionary quantum leap when multi cellular organisms suddenly become frogs, seemingly overnight. Well, if there is a parallel, then each of us can be likened to a multi-cellular organism, or more simply a cell in the body of the emerging organism I’ve likened to frogs.

If that is indeed the case, then this next human emergence all of us will function as one new organism made up of billions of humans. Can you begin to picture that?

No, well hang on…I’m getting to more of the practical action.

That said, the neural net system of this new organism seems to be forming (preparing –you might say) and it is what we call the internet. Howard Bloom and Peter Russell have each independently written a book called the Global Brain, either one a good resource to contextualize this ‘leap’.

Wikipedia’s description is this:

“The global brain is the name given to the emerging intelligent network formed by all people on this planet, together with the computers and communication links that connect them together. Like a real brain, this network is an immensely complex, self-organizing system, that processes information, makes decisions, solves problems, learns new connections and discovers new ideas. It plays the role of a collective nervous system for the whole of humanity. No person, organization or computer is in control of this system: its “thought” processes are distributed over all its components.”

The leap to second tier then follows, it will be those whom can send and receive information from this global brain that will thrive. Much the same way as all the cells in your body function together and thrive when they can receive information from your brain/nervous system.

So the process of connecting everything to everything else is underway, it’s happening now. We are preparing for the Leap in lots of ways…this is a major one. That does not mean everything has to do the same things, be the same or think the same, just that one is connected to something else that is connected something, etc…

When does the human not thrive? When any of the pathways between the cells, organs and major subsystems within it are blocked. Yellows major contribution to this emerging, organism made up of billions of humans will be to remove the barriers so people, communications, resources, information, and energy can move freely through it pathways, not in an ad hoc whatever you want kind of way, but a well designed and functioning environment, with appropriate limitations.

Each of the other adaptive intelligence systems will have a specific function as well, I suspect anyway!

So, you might want to prepare yourself and help your clients prepare for this leap by developing, practicing and optimizing your interface with the internet.

Or not…

Nature has a way of working things out. It’s the next generations (another extremely interesting topic—13ers and Millennials) that this world belongs to and they, collectively, already have very sophisticated relationship with the internet. So if you are not interested in connecting, maybe help a youngster thrive in the every changing world of the internet.

A little preparation goes a long way!

*Note, Dr. Graves’ work never refers to a second tier. It does, however, suggest that there is a harmonic between the first six stages and the next six stages, meaning there exists similarity between beige and yellow (or AN and GT) and purple and turquoise (BO and HU). Further interpreting that at beige we are concerned for the survival of self and at yellow for the survival of the species. From there Dr. Beck and Chris Cowen developed the idea and terminology ‘second tier.’

Two years ago I learned about an extraordinary body work done by William Strauss and Neil Howe on generations. There seminal work entitled Generations: The History of America’s Future tracks 14 American generations from 1584 to 2069. The patterns and change dynamics they uncover are important contributions to understanding what world we live in and how to adapt to it.

The Thirteener generation (those born between 1961-1981) is typically called GenX, but includes a segment that mainstream media usual includes in the Boom Generation (1961-64). The Thirteener generation is just beginning to come into their leadership phase, although it will not bloom till much later.

I’ve been reading What’s Next: Exploring the New Terrain for Business of late and I came across this passage from Paul Saffo, reframing the dot com burst in early 2000.

“The dot com bubble trained a whole generation of young entrepreneurs who got in early. They rode it up, they rode it down-they came out. They’re still 32-33 years old [as of 2002], with their whole careers in front of them. I think we just forged what will go on to be the greatest entrepreneurial generation of the last 50 years.”

From a Spiral Dynamics lens, I’ve noticed that what’s next for America is a renewal and densification of Orange into our culture and this quote, along with the generational turning seems to support that assertion.

It’s about Life Conditions…life conditions…life conditions.