This opening session will provide a welcoming introduction, and an orientation to integral education and ecology. We will be introduced to a sense of place at Mt Madonna. All of our individual journeys intersect at this place and this point in time creating an unprecedented opportunity to deepen our practice, learn from each other, and build connections that will inspire and sustain us in our work as educators and ecologists. We will begin to get to know each other and will examine some of our hopes and expectations, sharing a few of our questions, interests, and glimpses of the paths that have brought us to this place. As a group, we will also reflect on how we can embody an integral experience, one that we will continue to create together during the seminar and in our lives going forward from this retreat. We will also briefly introduce Otto Scharmer's Theory U model, upon which we designed the structure and flow of this year's seminar.
We will anchor our attention and do a series of exercises, engaging, opening, loosening, activating, cultivating, and harmonizing all three of our bodies and energies (gross, subtle, and causal) before connecting with Spirit, in ways that briefly invoke the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st person forms of our relationship with Spirit. We will finish with a period of silent sitting meditation.
In this session, we will explore how we can embody Integral theory together during the coming week —with feeling, heart and presence. Truly integral practice manifests in all four quadrants — as free consciousness, effective action, awakened culture, and transformed human systems. In this session, we will move between talks and practices, silence and sound, reception and expression. We will ground ourselves in the Integral framework and to how we can practice differently together, based on its illuminating distinctions. Mostly, we will connect. We will connect with our highest intentions and intuitions, with our bodies, and with each other, and we will invoke some uplifting agreements that can frame and support us in co-creating a dynamic and transformative week.
This introductory session offers an experiential introduction to the Integral framework. We will review the elements of the Integral framework, engage participants in experiential exercises to ground the theory in our lived experiences and experiment with applying the framework to personal and professional contexts.
This session will focus on the ways in which developmental theory and state stages are naturally embedded within each other from the earliest levels, throughout our lives. This orientation will set the stage for engagement, practice and planning for the use of developmental state stages in educational settings in a natural and non-contrived way, first by recognizing how this is embedded in the very fabric of our learning lives anyway and next by seeing ordinary applications that naturally evolve.
In this introductory presentation we will look at Ecology as a foundationally integral science. How did it emerge? What does it observe? How is it used? What does it teach? How do "integral" and "ecology" inform each other? And what can "integral ecology" bring to today's environmental, economic & social challenges?
Bringing integral frameworks, perspectives and consciousness to education is an exciting adventure. There are lots of ideas about how this might look according to the maps laid out, but what is it like to traverse the territory? In this opening session Jonathan will share the overview of the field he has gained from his involvement with the integral community, Integral Review and the two books on integral education coming out this summer. In addition to this he will share stories from his long history of involvement in educational activities and his journey of moving from teaching about the theory to integrating practices for the classroom.
He will explore with participants how to integrate the conventional teaching of knowledge with teaching as mentoring development and as transpersonal transmission. This session will allow plenty of space for questions and dialogue.
In groups of 6-8, participants and faculty will meet daily for reflection and integration, and to deepen interpersonal connections. Participants will have an opportunity to select their group according to their interests.
The religious traditions had no way of knowing about modern psychological notions such as shadow, aspects of ourselves which we are unable to incorporate in 1st person ("me") and are thus incorporated in 3rd person ("it"). For example, if we are unable to acknowledge our own hostility, we may project it onto others, seeing them as being hostile to us. Our shadows cause painful symptoms and tend to sabotage spiritual growth, even in the most steadfast of practitioners. This session introduces practices which help us to identify our shadow and bring it to light, releasing stores of energy we never knew we had!
There is an immediate light of creativity in each new morning, or a way that we might express artistically our direct experience of that which is beyond words and concepts. In this morning practice, we will explore the use of written words as a form of art practice to express what is present in our awakening to the day. Participants will be engaged in walking, sitting, and writing exercises over the span of an hour to explore our relationship to the environment at the Mount Madonna Center and our presence in that space. We will engage in both individual and collaborative writing and share some of our insights with each other at the close of the hour. We will work in a combination of movement and stillness to draw inspiration from both our exterior surroundings and our interior landscape.
We will utilize singing as an Integral Practice that combines Body, Mind, Imagination and Spirit. When we sing, each of us is an instrument. We shall join in song and intention and see how they all sound together! In this way we will raise our energies, connect, and communicate with ourselves, each other and Spirit. No prior experience necessary! Just the willingness to listen and offer your voice.
In this session, the Big Mind process, a unique and revolutionary approach to transmitting the authentic teachings that emerged from Buddha's enlightenment teachings, will be shaped specifically for educators and sustainability pracititioners. By participating in Big Mind you will gain profound insights into the illuminating experience from which Buddhism and all the world's religions originate.
Polarity practice is a dynamic and effective way to engage and bring the integral model to life, as it continually challenges us to confront our tendency to be partial, to disown or to marginalize aspects of reality. It also allows us to see and work with dimensions of our world that we have previously missed and to reduce a sense of conflict or resistance to change and to expand the complexity and range of our world view. In this session we will learn to discover and work with the polarities inherent in the worlds we inhabit, and in so doing will find new perspectives and pathways to our own development and to the transformation of the challenges we face.
Today there is a bewildering diversity of views on ecology and the natural environment. With more than two hundred distinct and valuable perspectives on the natural world—and with scientists, economists, philosophers, and others often taking completely different stances on the issues—how can we come to agreement to solve our toughest environmental problems? In response to this pressing need, integral ecology unites valuable insights from multiple perspectives into a comprehensive pragmatic framework—one that is currently being used around the world. This framework highlights how various perspectives are each correct in their view that things are getting worse (e.g., climate change), things are getting better (e.g., new environmental legislation), and things are already perfect (e.g., being present to the beauty of each and every moment). Come learn how you yourself can hold this triadic paradox and in so doing enact a better world.
What might integral education look like in the classroom, in the field, across different developmental levels? How can we design structures and experiences that will support and engage as many elements of growth and learning as possible while also honoring the unique dimensions and aspects of different teaching styles and subjects? How can we best support and work with our colleagues in teaching communities to build a meaningful environment of collaboration and shared purpose? In this session, we will begin to explore the look and feel of integral education enacted and embodied in practice. We will illustrate possibilities for evolving educational settings and offer examples of diverse ways to realize as much as possible in the ground of shared learning.
We will utilize singing as an Integral Practice that combines Body, Mind, Imagination and Spirit. When we sing, each of us is an instrument. We shall join in song and intention and see how they all sound together! In this way we will raise our energies, connect, and communicate with ourselves, each other and Spirit. No prior experience necessary! Just the willingness to listen and offer your voice.
Dr. Hamilton will explore the role of 12 evolutionary intelligences for thriving in the human hive. She will draw on her recent research and her book, “Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive”, demonstrating the special role of education to integrate the city back into a whole. The presentation will show the vital intersection of ecology and education and how they contribute to waking up the human hive to its responsibilities and possibilities in the integral era.
In this 1.5 hour workshop we will draw on one of the core principles of integral education: multiple perspectives. In particular we will use 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-person perspectives to guide us in developing criteria and forms of evaluation for different aspects of the educational process. These three major perspectives can be applied to single classes, entire courses, and a whole curriculum. Participants will work with examples from their own educational activities and join others in small group activities and large group discussion to explore what it can look like to apply this dynamic principle at various scales of their own integral education efforts.
Can we do it... do we stand a chance to crack this nut? Much is at stake, and affecting real change in this world requires that we engage with myriad value systems and perspectives. What are some of the key assumptions that influence us as we do our work? What are some new perspectives we may want to adopt as we work in multi-stakeholder situations? What do Integral Solutions actually look like? And most importantly, how on earth (!) do we get there?
In this interactive talk we will explore together the above questions and inquire into a potential path that an Integral perspective points to and facilitates so that we can get back out into the world and contribute to sustainability with greater poise and effectiveness.
Resituating the human story within a cosmological framework helps us to recognize that we are a part of a vast and unfolding, evolutionary story. And bringing a developmental perspective to human/nature relationships helps us to more clearly understand where we are, where we’ve been and where we might be going. I will share practices and perspectives that move us beyond a conventional approach to environmental education. This includes engaging with non-dual perspectives on human/nature relations, an integral self-assessment tool for environmental educators and practices to cultivate ecological and kosmological consciousness.
Integral education has the potential to equip young people with an extraordinary capacity to become leaders in the 21st century. Culture is more than the collective interior, its transformative power is undeniable in an urban high school in Austin. Listen to three students and the Director of the school as they reveal the impact that a highly principled and embodied culture has had on their lives. We'll explore the most salient features of the culture in this case study, and then take time to learn how to use the four quadrants to investigate the culture of your own school or organization. Come prepared to be inspired and engaged!
Ten sustainability educators, in ten global locations, involved in ten different integral sustainability education programs, engaged in a reflective practice to see what they might together have learned at a Learning III level about sustainability pedagogy. Initially done just for our own professional development and practice, the results will now be shared. The results highlight aspects about the subtleties and overlooked fundamentals of sustainability education that may promote one’s own reflective practice towards being a skilful and aware educator in sustainability. Calling this the 10x10 Inquiry, we collected over 100 Learning III perspectives (i.e. our learnings from unlearnings about the process of teaching in sustainability learning) from practitioners with over 100 years collective experience and now disclose the synthesis of meta-themes that emerge. The co-contributors providing the reflections are: Marilyn Hamilton, Barrett Brown, Gail Hochachka, Alexander Laszlo, Regina Rowland, Josh Floyd, Andrew Outhwaite, Miriam Karell, Nicole Pettit, Rod Safstrom and Will Varey.
At our starting point is an assumption that there is an evolutionary impulse, a drive common amongst humanity; most people say that they are interested in becoming better, even their best, and want more meaning out of their work, home, and community environments. However, most human and organizational development approaches and methodologies tend to be partial and fragmented in their ability to address the overall ecology in which all human endeavours are inherently embedded. In an effort to address such circumstances, this one-hour session will explore the importance for applying integrated, systemic/holistic approaches for assessing, aligning, measuring and monitoring human performance (management) that lead towards building capacity for a healthy and sustainable culture. Its theme is 'Applications that Reflect'.
In the integral community we say 'don't confuse the map with the territory' but in order to enact that advice rather than use it as a slogan we need a deep understanding of the nature of our maps—their limitations and potential misuses as well as their strengths. Using this lens we will take a broad look at the theories of human development used in the integral community (e.g. Spiral Dynamics and Action Logics). Along the way we will investigate what it means to move from progressive or new age perspectives into a more integral, "second tier," or "post-metaphysical" consciousness, and inquiry about the place of mythical/magical thinking in integral thought.
This presentation will use case studies of two Australian policy making processes to provide insights into how Integral thinking can contribute to such processes. In both cases, state governments in Australia sought to develop policy responses to climate change. First, the Victorian Government sought to mandate the roll out of smart meters as a way of facilitating the emergence of smart grids that can deliver low-carbon energy. The policy process was a failure because there was too little attention to the diverse interior perspectives on smart metering. Second, the Queensland Government is pursuing household behaviour change policies to meet an ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target. The Integral framework has been used as an input to policy recommendations with some success, but there has been resistance to overcome along the way. These case studies help to highlight the value of the Integral framework in policy making and practical strategies for getting Integral thinking into the policy making process.
TBA
Integral Theory contains the ‘pointing out instructions’ for a world engagement. It provides us an elegant framework for how to meaningfully work with complex global issues. What does that actually look and feel like in practice? In this session, come share and learn about an embodied practice of integral ecology. Using multimedia and stories from all over the world, we’ll journey through several vignettes of integral ecology practice from Amazon rainforest conservation in Peru, leadership for sustainability in Nigeria, and community development in El Salvador. These are places on the planet where the needs are more severe and the symptoms of global ecological problems are already acutely felt. Not only do they require that we deeply understand the many ways we are in this together, but also a recognition that there is only one being present, beyond the self-other divide. These are some of the litmus tests for whether and how Integral Ecology can serve global wellbeing. In this workshop, we share these ‘integral field notes’—intimately, vulnerably and in service of our co-evolution—drawing out and discussing the key lessons and the unanswered questions to deepen our own engagements with the world.
Docere, the word root of doctor, means “to teach”. What if we were to reframe our role as educators and see that we are in fact healers? How can we learn to embody a healing presence that becomes a vehicle for our teachings, regardless of the subject matter or content? How can we cultivate a learning environment that serves to promote the vitality and conscious evolution of our students? If we view the health of individuals and the collective as interdependent, what does such a shift of focus in our educational approach imply for our collective future? In this experiential session we will explore these questions together through participating in practical exercises that draw from the unique environments in which we each work and serve.
When human beings become aware that they can make object what they were once subject to, education becomes the practice of freedom rather than the replication of the status quo. Learning becomes a co-creative experience that supports personal and collective growth. In this session co-operative inquiry is introduced as a democratic tool that empowers a small group of people, at most levels of development, to make meaning from their collective experience. The session will focus on the radical epistemology of co-operative inquiry that opens the participants to an integral lived experience that includes conceptual, intuitive, emotional and physical knowing; and can result in transformations of being.
Thomas Arthur is a performing artist who integrates contemplative juggling, abstract rhythmic vocalization, acoustic music, subtle storytelling, and digital media into an evolving form of participatory ritual theater for children and adults. In a synchronized choreography of sound, motion and light, Thomas interacts with natural objects, geometric shapes and projected image. Seeking to embody and make visible subtle interactions of sense, soul and the biosphere, his work is informed by the rivers, oceans, meadows, forests, slopes, weather, gravity, light and pulsing resonance of the Pacific Northwest.
In this interactive and hands-on morning practice you will experience a selection of embodied communication exercises. We will explore the leading and following principles from Aikido and Argentine Tango and apply them to communication
How do we take our inspiration and vision for integral education and ecology and translate it into embodied practice that ripples out beyond us and into the world? As we are filled with ideas, energy, and a sense of purpose, we find the perfect moment to begin drawing up a clear set of plans or steps for bringing our hopes and dreams into the world of action and real structures. What lessons and wisdom can we draw from to guide us in the process of enacting our sense of the possible? Drawing from all of the experiences of the group, we will work to synthesize the many pieces that have come to light during the week and advance our sense of the whole.
We all sense that humanity's next step is to create a truly integral culture. The obstacles to realizing this future are largely internal: the deeply embedded worldviews of the past, and the habitual ways of relating to ourselves, each other and life as a result. To support the emergence of this future, one of our most important tasks is to create conditions for transformation at the deepest levels, to question our most deeply held assumptions about ourselves, others and the world. In this dynamic, interactive session we will engage the core principles and practices that create conditions to catalyze transformative experiences and support the integration and embodiment of new and emergent worldviews.
Most of the meditative and contemplative practices we’ve inherited from the past were designed for people at a much earlier stage of development than the stage most seekers occupy today. In these morning practice sessions, we will experience a contemporary approach to meditation that leverages our more evolved postmodern consciousness to give us a direct experience of the “great perfection” at the heart of all paths to awakening.
