Deepening our Practice Through Integral Awareness
The integral framework offers profound tools for evolving our practice in all fields, allowing us to step into a larger universe of awareness in our work in the world . This seminar offers an opportunity to both experience and learn about embodying an integral perspective through a deeper understanding of integral theory and its application in the areas of ecology and education.
By simultaneously holding a seminar on integral education and one on integral ecology in the same location, we will weave these two strands together, while also honoring and deepening each one separately through parallel programs. Certain segments of the event will be held with everyone – participants from both seminars – present, while others will allow for participants to dive into the exploration of either integral education or integral ecology, depending which program you choose.
The most complete treatment of every ecological or environmental issue involves crucial aspects of educating and informing a broader audience. And every educational undertaking takes place in both a local and global ecology that influences the nature of what can be offered in the learning environment. Each of these streams has its own perspectives, approaches, and methodologies, and yet the two fields are equally informed and deepened by an integral understanding, and also intimately interwoven.
Integral education stands out as one of the most pertinent and practical means of creating positive change in ourselves and the world. As educators we will explore how we can deepen the necessary vision, skills, and processes to fully serve students and the world that we inhabit.
Integral ecology provides a multifaceted framework for engaging fully with our human surroundings and the natural world in a way that allows both to flourish and shine. As ecologists, we will work with our ability to identify and use understanding of multiple perspectives across many levels, bringing energy and vision together to make a real difference in the world we inhabit.
As agents for integral change and progress, we will explore how we navigate the next decades as a human family – focusing on the tools, skills, and understandings for us to be co-creators in building a healthy emergent global ecology with new generations of lifelong learners.
Integral Education and Integral Ecology are two emerging fields, propelled by people who seek to push the envelope of what these two ways of being present and active in the world have to offer. This two-strand seminar will provide an inspiring environment to meet with colleagues and to network with a small but growing community that clearly understands that addressing a more complete spectrum of personal, cultural, and systemic realities at play in the universe is one of the most powerful ways to begin creating the changes we hope to see in the world.
Some of the core questions we will be asking ourselves are:
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Diane Musho Hamilton has been a practitioner of Buddhadharma for over 20 years and has a Masters Degree in Contemplative Psychology from Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado. She is a Zen teacher, and one of Integral Institute’s most popular trainers. She is a core founder of iEvolve: Global Practice Community and a co-director of Integral Life Spiritual Center. Diane is a fully ordained Zen priest and teacher. She has studied Buddhism since 1984, and was given dharma transmission by her Zen master, Genpo Roshi, in 2006. She is also a mediator, group facilitator, and trainer in conflict resolution. Diane worked as the initial Director of the Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Utah Judiciary from 1994 “1999, where she established the first mediation programs in the courts. She has extensive experience in facilitating large meetings, including public policy issues. Diane received the Utah Council on Conflict Resolution Peacekeeper Award in 2001 and the Peter W. Billings Award from the Utah State Bar for outstanding work in Dispute Resolution in 2003. She was a founding member of the Utah Council on Conflict Resolution, and serves on the Board of Trustees of Utah Dispute Resolution. Diane teaches mediation at the University of Utah Law School and Communications Institute. She is also well known as an innovator in facilitating group dialogues, especially controversial conversations about culture, religion, race and gender relations.
John Gruber, M.S., holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies and a graduate degree in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy. As an undergraduate faculty scholar at Brown University he worked to integrate studies in biology, geology and environmental science, and received the C.F. Ma Research Fellowship for Natural Products research as a graduate student. In 2001, he was a Teacher Recognition Awardee in the United States Presidential Scholars Program. As a science teacher and long-time student of evolutionary biology and natural history he is particularly interested in ways to apply integral thinking to the secondary school classroom. Having taught a botany seminar for twelve years, John uses that particular class as an experimental ground, a place to explore the application of integral approaches to teaching with a group of willing and interested students. He emphasizes field-work, experimental observation, and direct perception alongside conceptualization in his science courses, and continues to develop ways to build interior and exterior experiences into his science teaching.
In addition to his work and research as an educator and administrator, he is involved in an active research program in insect ecology and systematic biology of moth species.
John is one of the directors of Next Step Integral, and currently he also serves as Chairman of the Upper School Science Department and the Director of the Summer Science Institute at Friends’ Central School, an independent Quaker day school where he has taught for sixteen years.
Miriam Mason Martineau, M.A. Miriam’s formal training lies in the areas of psychology, dance, choreography, and voice. She has a Masters Degree in Psychology from the University of Zurich, with a specialization in Youth and Child Psychology, and is also a certified teacher of Laban Modern Dance, as well as a singer and vocal instructor.
Miriam works in private practice as an integral therapeutic counselor for adults, couples, youth and children. She is vice-president of Next Step Integral, an organization that applies integral consciousness to parenting, education, ecology, and community. For the last 15 years she has studied and researched how parenting can be pursued as a spiritual practice. This has led her to offering courses on the topic, working as a coach for parents, and writing a book (forthcoming) titled Integral Parenting. She also leads workshops on authentic voice and movement, and has performed both as a soloist and in a variety of choirs such as the Swiss National Television Choir. From 1992-2002 Miriam lived in an integrally-informed intentional community and there honed the skills of group facilitation, conflict resolution and generative dialogue.
Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Integral Studies Department and Program Director of two Master of Arts degrees (Integral Psychology and Integral Theory) at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California. He is founder and Director of the Integral Research Center, which supports graduate and post-graduate mixed methods research. In addition, he is the founder and Executive Editor of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice.
Sean is a leading scholar-practitioner in Integral Studies. He is currently the most published author applying the Integral model to a variety of topics: education, sustainable development, ecology, research, intersubjectivity, science and religion, consciousness studies, and play. His articles have appeared in academic journals such as the Journal of Consciousness Studies, World Futures, ReVision, and Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Sean co-edited Ken Wilber’s book The Simple Feeling of Being and has just completed writing a 600-page book with environmental philosopher Michael Zimmerman: Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World. Currently, he is co-editing an anthology on Integral Education.
He is a practitioner within both Tibetan Buddhism (Shangpa Kagyu linage) and A. H. Almaas’ the Diamond Approach. Sean serves as an integral coach and consultant through his business Rhizome Designs.
Terry Patten has worked with Ken Wilber and a core team at Integral Institute to develop Integral Life Practice, which distills ancient and modern practices into an intelligent contemporary transformational lifestyle. He is a Senior Trainer at Integral Institute seminars, a teacher participant at the Integral Spiritual Center, and Co-Director of I-I�s Mentoring and Coaching Center.
He has recently finished co-writing a book with Ken Wilber, Marco Morelli, and Adam Leonard: Integral Life Practice: How to Design Your Own Training Program for Body, Mind, and Spirit.
For more info on Terry's work go to: integralheart.com.
Jonathan Reams, Ph.D., is currently an associate professor in the Department of Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He teaches organizational counseling, coaching and leadership, and is pursuing research in the areas of leadership, dialogue and the evolution of consciousness. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Integral Review, a Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal for New Thought, Research and Praxis.
A passion for understanding human nature has guided much of his experience, eventually leading to a doctorate in Leadership Studies, with a dissertation on The Consciousness of Transpersonal Leadership.
His consulting work has focused on developing leadership capacities for a wide range of clients. This has included developing and delivering curriculum, consulting, coaching, facilitation, research, writing, and teaching. In addition to this work, he has presented at a number of international conferences on topics such as leadership, consciousness, transformative learning, spirituality, and science and religion dialogue.
Gail Hochachka, BSc., MA. has more than a decade of experience applying an integral approach to sustainable development globally. She works with the Canadian NGOs Drishti-Centre for Integral Action and One Sky where she is involved in projects in Peru, Nigeria and El Salvador. The purposes of these projects are varied, giving her direct experience of the many ways an integral approach serves in practice in communities and ecosystems across the world. In Peru, the focus is on integral capacity development for increased effectiveness in Amazon rainforest conservation. In El Salvador the focus is on climate change adaptation in vulnerable regions. And, in Nigeria, the focus is on leadership development for sustainability in what is considered a ‘bottom billion’ country. As Adjunct Faculty at JFK University, she teaches graduate students in the MA in Integral Theory program and leads a bi-annual Integral Field Course to the global south. She is involved with Integral Institute in various capacities, such as a co-director of the Integral Without Borders. She has authored articles in academic journals, such as in Ecological Applications, World Futures Journal and the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, and has written a book entitled, Developing Sustainability, Developing the Self. An Integral Approach to International and Community Development.
