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July 2009 
Z4: Enactivism, Integral Theory and 21st Century Spirituality!
Posted on Aug 11th, 2008
by 
Julian
Julian
Its Symposium time again!
We kick off Z4: Enactivism, Integral Theory and 21st Century Spirituality this Wednesday August 13.
cognitivescience
We'll go three days this week, take a break for the weekend and then start the dialog again Monday August 18 for the remaining four presenters.
These symposia (Zymposia in the "Zaadz" days..) were something I initiated to create an online conference-type experience. Seven presenters take turns over the seven days presenting a paper on the topic and then host a conversation in the comments section of their blogpost. The other presenters participate in a panel discussion of sorts, but the discussion is open to all readers! Its a way of focusing the conversation on a topic that has been emerging in the less formalized discussions here on Gaia in our little integrally-influenced community.
Previous symposia have garnered a readership in the thousands and created a forum for long, respectful, feisty and deep conversation amongst participants and readers.
Check out Z1: Integrative Spirituality
Z2: Riding the Kundalini Dragon
Z3: Eco Business
I am excited for Z4!
Largely at the prompting of Bruce and Matt, two of my favorite intellectual online-buddies and jousting partners - we have decided to organize this session around the relationships between Franciso Varela's philosophy of Enactivism, Ken WIlber's Integral Theory and what I somewhat grandiosely (and hopefully tentatively) call 21st Century Spirituality.
Z3 was largely something I produced and promoted (I did not contribute a written piece) to give some of the most knowledgeable voices on Gaia a chance to discuss their ideas about Eco Business and Conscious Capitalism, but for Z1 and Z2 I chose the topic and led off the presentations - largely focusing on areas in which I felt very strong and upon which I was excited to expound.
For Z4, given that Enactivism is a fairly new (yet exciting and elegant) philosophical subject for me, I am am bowing to the superior knowledge of some of my fellow presenters - and placing myself close to the middle of the proceedings. The order has been arranged to allow for contrast and provide the most illuminating, interesting give and take between differing worldviews and interpretations of the material...
Please check out the profiles linked below and join us for what promises to be an amazing seven days!
The presentation order will be as follows:
wed aug 13: Balder (Bruce)
thurs 14: James
fri 15: Adam
(Break)
mon 18: Buddhacious (Matt)
tues 19: Julian
weds 20: Crouching Tiger (Erin)
thurs 21: Marmalade (Ben)
Access: Public
hi fellow participants!
how are you doing with this?
check in if you would and let me know any thoughts, feelings or anticipations as we gear up for our fantastic idea-fest…
personally, i am thoroughly enjoying the middles third of varela's the embodied mind!
Hey, bro J,
I'm putting together a few notes for my piece as we speak. I may be putting my writing on the back burner this evening to go meet a few still-visiting Integral/Gaia friends for dinner, but I'll be sure to burn the midnight oil tomorrow if I do.
I'm glad you're enjoying the Varela book. I'm looking forward to hearing your further thoughts on this topic, when your turn comes.
Best wishes,
B.
how was the conference!?
is varela's “embodied mind” the best reference for the enactivism angle? if there are any web resources, please point me… otherwise, from what i've seen so far, my own thinking recently has been along similar lines (with some important caveats), so i'm hoping for a concensus between us which may really raise the bar and delineate the thinking from existing “integral” paradigms, models, and practises.
really looking forward to this one…
J, the conference was quite good. I didn't enjoy or appreciate all of the presentations – I thought a couple were pretty lame and disappointing – but overall, the content was good, and it was of course fantastic to meet so many online friends in person at last.
Adam, yes, I think Embodied Mind is a good resource for the enactivism angle. Varela has a few essays which tie his ideas to spiritual practice, such as “Steps to a Science of Inter-being” and “Embodied Imagination,” but to my knowledge neither is available online.
I also have a few “caveats” regarding adoption of Varela and Maturana's enactive paradigm, but I agree with you that it may provide a helpful “meeting ground” in the cooperative articulation of our respective viewpoints.
Best,
B.
yea - i wanted to go , but its hard to take time off work, and i wasnt sure how high the quality would be… whose presentations did you LOVE!?
I don't know if there were any I absolutely loved, but there were some I enjoyed or appreciated for different reasons. Roger Walsh gave a great talk Friday evening on the shadows of Integral theory and culture. (I was interested to note that he named most of the things that I had mentioned last week in my blog, but also a number of other issues as well.) I also got a lot out of Torbert's presentation on “action logic” – another integral model that frames development in terms of different “action logics.” I'd read some of his writings before, but the talk (by Torbert and a panel of other researchers) really brought the subject alive. Another panel on integral psychotherapy was good, and the last presentation I attended was a comparison of Habermas and Buddhism, which was relevant to me given recent discussions on my IPS blog.
I may blog about these things in more detail, but for now I want to give the majority of my attention to this upcoming symposium.
Best,
B.
wise and insightful typo alert on line 2 of this blog: kick of
delete this message, despite the insightfulness…
picky, picky, picky - both of y'all…. :O)
Julian, I think it's great that you initiated these engaging symposia!
”The order has been arranged to allow for contrast and provide the most illuminating, interesting give and take between differing worldviews and interpretations of the material…”
Appreciate the opportunity to present as I'm a relative novice to Integral language, though I've been living its Life Practice a long time (and am passionate about an ILP!). I'm really looking forward to participating and have been making notes…reading…making more notes…reading…
Hoping the variety of presenters will draw some new folks to the material and discussions as they read our respective blogs and maybe…even…the Gaia Front Page… :)
Can't wait to kick this off! I'll be working on my piece all week.
Adam (and anyone else interested), there is a great site that has TONS of Varela and Maturana's material. Here is the link: http://www.enolagaia.com/AT.html You may need to explore a bit, but there is an encyclopedia's worth of information about enactivism there.
Varela's Embodied Mind is probably the best book to read, but he and Maturana co-authored another great book many years before the word “enactive” was even coined, or at least before it was popularized. It's called The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding
yowsa! splendid - thanks matt : )
Matt, thanks! I appreciate those links…
The conference this past week (from Thurs to Sunday) and a (mildly) misbehaving son last night have severely eaten into my prep time, so whatever I produce for tomorrow morning will be the result of a haphazard combination of past studies of this material with whatever I can read and process this afternoon … meaning, I don't have a lot of time to read new articles! But I appreciate that new resource, Matt! I've been skimming through it this morning and it looks like there are some good essays there.
Here's another website with some essays. It's Varela's homepage.
Best wishes,
B.
so, if your presentation 'sucks' your blaming it on the conference…and your son? LOL
Yes, I'm complaining a little bit – I really did want to be better prepared – but like God, the presentation will be what it will be. You can still critique it all you like!
That is, if you can…. ;-)
i have no doubt that what you present will be amazing…and exactly what is needed…just like you…much joy…star…
cant wait bruce. no need for disclaimers…
Yes, I don't want to jinx this (bringing my Magical cognition to the table), but like Adam, I'm feeling something “afoot” with this upcoming discussion and have high hopes for a fruitful exploration…
and another thing bruce, why should you feel it necessary to exempt yourself from the habit enjoyed by most of humanity of historical revisionism… why not revise and add to your entry through the week? demonstrate your amazing powers of prescience to later readers! show that autopoeisis functions backwards in time!
and if you get stuck, pull out some poetry! the crowd loves it!
hehe ; )
(airports do this to me…)
damn - the essay links on varela's page are dead… titles looked very promising…
Ah, excellent suggestions, Adam! Why, Julian himself has done this on occasion, so we have respectable precedent here on Gaia already.
But, being a student of TSK, I'm going to go one better. I'm going to write throughout the week, then travel back in time and post my paper on Wednesday, so even you will be none the wiser… I will also travel back and edit out this comment, changing history a bit, so you will not remember it by the time you read my paper tomorrow…
P.S. Sorry about the dead links on that page! It's a site I hadn't been to in awhile; they used to be active!
did someone say poetry? awh…star awaits inspiration…lol
Big thanks to Matt for the links
how very dick-ish of you bruce! :OP
phillip k. dick - that is…
I was wondering if you were going to leave that just hanging out there….
thank you for clarifying
ehem …
all
ways
………
erin and ben you out there - or buried in a pile of resarch?
Both!
well keep a breathing straw poking out of that pile, ok?
i am off for more varela..
I did come up long enough for a little shimmy, heh. Now, back to reading!
see you all in the morning!
Maybe late morning! It's 5:45 right now and I am not done yet. I hopefully will get something up before the morning is through, though.
take your time, lead presenter…… i am sure it will be great!
how is everyone else this a.m.?
do you have the flux generator activated from your parallel future ? i am ready to collapse the wave form and bring it all wooshing together into consensus reality…
lol…
Z4 in the house….
just post a link here when you are up and running.
did we get those varela links figured out?
anybody awake yet?
Awake here! Up and at 'em.
Bruce worked all night, and maybe has fallen asleep over his lap top in the coffee shop…LOL
Sorry, y'all! It's in process! Tick tock is right…. I've got to work on my time traveling skills….
given the very broad remit of this symposium (to discuss the relationships between the three approaches in the title, each of those also being very broad and different) i'm curious to see what angles are adopted by each of us, and what aspects of similarity/dissimilarity strike each of us as most pertinent. and let's see who tackles matt's vidblog question : “what's the point” most satisfyingly! matt - i think some onus is on you to have a go! a few pretty good ones spring to mind…
how nonjudgmental of you adam…
Bruce…we await with excited antipation…regardless of your lack of time traveling skills…lol
I feel like we're standing on the side of the football field while Bruce is running with the football, all shouting, “Bruce, Bruce, Bruce!”
After watching one of the Visser videos, I felt nudged to weave “what's the point” through my piece…
This is gonna be fun :)
i think the main thing to remember is this:
“in the recursive consensual coordination of consensual coordinations of behavior of the flow of languaging, many domains of objects arise, as different kinds of operations in coordinations of behavior become tokens for coordinations of doings in different domains of consensual coordinations of doings”
couldn't have put it better myself ! (except for the comma i added ; ) … thanks maturana!
yea varela has a couple awesome run-on sentences like that too!
That's a mouthful, Adam. Can you reiterate that in English? jk!
Maturana's style of writing is sometimes difficult to follow, but I think what he is trying to say about the nature of language requires that we be open to the self-referentiality of what it is we are doing as we speak, write, and think in a public language. Looking forward to your exploration of these ideas this week!
What is the point of all this? Hopefully I'll find one as I put together my essay (which I hope to start today) and continue participating with everyone in the comments, but preliminarily, I think the point is to arrive at a point of departure concerning how and why spirituality can be thought and lived without fairy tales and pseudoscientific fantasy. I emphasize that it is a point of departure, because I do not think we can or should try to define the essence of spiritual practice for fear that it might become rigid and cancerous, unable to develop and unfold as the ongoing activity of living requires. This is what enactivism has taught me about knowledge: it is both a seeing into and a doing with others. The process is never complete, which is why life is never settled and certainty –whether scientific or religious– is equally maladaptive.
I'm off to start my essay. Looking forward to Bruce's piece!
be well all,
Matt
he said all of that but couldn't put an s on human? LOL
(not you matt…maturana)
I'm working on writing my piece in Plain English ;) Okay, maybe not entirely…but as much of it as possible. Possible relative to needing to incorporate the jargon, quotes and exerpts references, but hopefully in such a way that any person reading it will understand the language I've found challenging from time to time. And I didn't just fall off a turnip truck (not that there's anything wrong with turnips, or turnip trucks, mind you lol!).
My intent to write in Plain English as much as possible is to invite a wider readership and dissolve the illusion of one form of inaccessibility to the material…
good goal erin…and i am looking forward to reading it…but all those integralies of wilberland might not understand…lol…my bad…couldn't help myself…
matt…love what you posted…and yes…a process…in progress…and every one has their own path of awakening…and although, it may have distinct guidelines for critical analysis…my true nature is not your true nature…
Thanks, Star! Hey, I've got this posted on my profile for a reason: “…We drew a circle that took him in.” I figure if some of the language initially intimidated me (and I'm not easily intimidated), I can't be the only one.
There is some really good stuff in all that material and I agree with (and practice) so much of it (the Integral stuff)… I imagine a lot of people would love to discover and explore it, too. Maybe to the extent some of the material acts as a catalyst for expanding their awareness!
Hey, the more (who explore it) the merrier!
matt, i find your writing to be presumptuous, patronising, heavily biased, frustrating, non-sequitur, reductionist, and simplistic!
fortunately, that's not all… and there is so much convergence between my developing worldview and what i see as your own (underneath the logical “exuberance” ; ), that i am finding it highly fruitful and enjoyable to share the space with you, and tantalisingly close to a satisfying depth of concensus.
having said that, i'm about to give your last comment the pasting it deserves ; )
your publisher will thank me for it in 5 years time…
tip: just because i point out a wordy sentence doesn't mean i don't understand it even a little bit. duh!
and you can stop bragging about having 4 1/2 days to write your piece. smarmy git…
and starlight…
there is a particularly specious analogy given in defence of the god proposition that expecting a world working as perfectly in complexity as it does to have happened by accident is like expecting an explosion in a word factory to produce the webster's dictionary.
since your writing sometimes resembles an explosion in a webster's dictionary, you're not really in a position to call other people out on their typos !
“integralies of wilberland”
what are integralies anyway? ; )
JETLAG!!!!!!! LOL…
Erin, i find the some of the language ridiculous, and i would agree that it is used in such a way, not intentionally necessarily, to prevent understanding…and increases the divide instead of unifying…
i think that is one of J's primary inspirations…to come to a consensus of language that can be understood as well as integrated…within our very being…i could be mistaken though….not taking anything for granted with adam in the house…rotf…
it's a made up word adam…lol…do you not think i have an abc spellcheck too? you are assuming…onus on you…
and i can call you out on anything i want too…i'm up for it…are you?
Star, Exactly…! Much of this underlines one of J's recent entries, doesn't it?
“My intent to write in Plain English as much as possible is to invite a wider readership and dissolve the illusion of one form of inaccessibility to the material…” That's a passion of mine, regardless the material that upon first glance, seems inaccessible due to language…
lol maybe I should count my blessings Adam hasn't addressed me yet! (kidding…I think!)
Ah, it's all in good fun and stimulating too :)
oh no…he's dead serious…trying to rock the boat to stabilize it…challenging our thinking…i assume…but don't take anything personal…it is very hard to last around here if you do…the main thing is that we learn to 'think' for ourselves…instead of having our spirituality and beliefs, or whatever spoon fed to us…
Adam,
I am glad you are willing to challenge so much of what I have to say! I look forward to your criticisms and I hope they reorient my thinking in a surprising way!
I must say, though, that I think you have misinterpretted what I said in my last comment. I in no way implied that you didn't understand Maturana. My comment was a knock on his writing style, and really had nothing to do with whether I thought you understood or not!
I have an annoying tendency not to procrastinate. Could be some form of OCD. Sorry if that frustrates you, lol.
-Matt
rotflmao…let the games begin…lol
star
“and i can call you out on anything i want too…”
is that extra “o” a deliferate mistale as well?
don't shoot me - i'm only the messenger!
(of god hehe)
well, i just love to aggrevate you…sooooooooooooooooooo…you figure it out…
it does tell me one thing…if my spelling is all you can call me out on…i've come a long way…bay…be…lol
matt
no, that doesn't frustrate me, just makes me envious!
and mainly what i'm aiming at is a reduction in the bulk of argument between us all (yes, all) - let's see what u think. see you over on the other page shortly…
and is anyone else having weird formatting/typing gremlins with the blog tools on this site?
Nah, not personal. Curious, but then I have an inquisitive mind ;)
ok, time to get scholarly folks, but gosh darnit, it was so much fun!
no adam, but then i'm not working on a presentation…lock and load…
“and is anyone else having weird formatting/typing gremlins with the blog tools on this site?”
Yes. Not only with blog tools but also on the leaving a comment feature. Super slow not taking and having to rewrite. Images and vids, too.
Was hoping some of that would be resolved during the shut-down last night.
adam…an observation…you assumed that matt had insinuated that you did not know what that quote meant…i did not get that from his post…he has said that was not what he meant…
question…why did you 'read into' what he wrote? jetlag?
and why would you try and control the arguing anyways…that is an important part of the learning process…and beyond your control…
star - cos he started explaining it.
peace…
i'm just having fun, but i'll stop if others aren't.
(& jetlag doesn't happen much between uk and germany…)
thanks for feedback tiger - i wonder what's going on with it… hope it's sorted soon…
adam, i think your fucking hilarious…and besides, it helps us get past our thin skins…and our egos…i mean if we are going to ever resolve anything…we have to have a strong sense of ourselves…that is reality based…we can be sensitive when necessary…and firm when needed…i know your certifiably insane, and appreciate you for that genius insanity you have…LOL
and matt…your comeback was endearingly hilarious as well…lol
erin…are you feeling right at home? rotf…
where the hell is bruce and j?
Well, I finally put my piece up, now that the day is almost over! I'm very sorry about the delay. Not something I should have attempted to write all in one evening – especially when the muse wasn't making housecalls! I'm not particularly happy with this product, but I still look forward to whatever discussion it generates, and to all of your (hopefully more timely) contributions this week…
Love,
B.
alright people - let's have at it - comments galore to jump start this puppy please!
Lovin' Bruce's presentation! Keep trying to read it all the way through but Gaia's freezing shutting down and coming back with that message about how Gaia's dreaming and will be back up later. Not sure what they were working on last night but hope this gets resolved quickly. Printing his presentation now so I can read it offline and prepare my comments and hopefully, get 'em on there in between getting kicked off!
Do you know if activity alone is enough to get the entries on the front page or do we also need to click “I liked it!”?
and one for all!
I plan on posting another reply to Bruce's essay tomorrow. I was having trouble with Gaia as well.
let's see if i can't get y'all something to read over lunch… (or dinner james ; )
i'm concerned about the gaia bugs though…
write everything in a seperate application - not in the balck hole new blog entry window that might just swallow you whole….
tiger i am not sure about the “i liked it” function…
one thing i do know is i was slightly appalled by the gaia mass email this morning and its lighthearted “speeratchual” inclusiveness won at the expense of how “unenlightened” philosophy professors are and how “naive” the idea of finding life truths in logical axioms and great minds of the past…. also the implication that critical thinking and “answers to life's deeper questions” are somehow mutually exclusive….
arrgghh……
didn't “like it” :OP
oh boy i am looking at the link and its a wonderfully “non-judgmental” course in”philosophy” that proceeds from a “simple basic principle” along the lines of our “limitless deep well of happiness, love wisdom and truth within”….. and that requires “no academic preparation.”
its a school of “practical” philosophy - as opposed to all that heady intellectual impractical stuff… right?
i am just wondering what a little digging migght find viz some kind of cutish front…. smells a little fishy - but might just be well-meaning mushiness..
I don't receive any emails from Gaia, but that sounds like a disappointing one! And not nearly as “inclusive” as it professes…
well that took ten minutes on google:
http://www.philosophers.co.uk/current/cult.htm
http://www.andypryke.com/pub/SchoolOfEconomicScienceACult
i guess their money is as good as anyone else's when it comes to getting a mass email promo and an endorsement from siona….
no offense siona, but i wonder if you guys took the ten minutes i just spent to find out with whom who you were dealing?
this link is particularly chilling:
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/misc/SES/secret01.html
in case this is not clear from the links - its a multi-state organization called different things in different countries. school of economic science in england = school of practical philosophy in the USA - this is fairly easy to confirm…
an interesting counterpoint to the philosophical dialog we are enacting here…
Not sure what is going on but I'm getting the frozen screen again today with this site. 50/50 whether I get the dreaming message or can sign on. If can sign on, I'm getting kicked off after a few minutes. I've spent the better part of the morning checking settings, running diagnostics and still no go. Sometimes I'm getting the blank black screen when I reboot so I'm taking this baby into town this afternoon so I can find out what's what.
anyone else having these issues? i am fine..
I had one issue last night with my browser spazzing out and freezing, but it seems that was on my end. Everything seems ok today.
james how close are we?!
can't wait….. and i have to start working in 30 minutes.
will be back to check it out around 6 pm!
please post links here and on bruce's blog alerting everyone that your post is up…
all participants this should be standard practice as we continue!
james is in the house!
read and make preliminary comments please!
looking forward to it adam!
hows gaia working for everyone now?
anyone have any clues about how to make james' piece not show up in crazy html code on the home page?
gaia seems to be working better, formatting ok now. you're aware of my imac breakdown right? look to the east at sunset.
holy shit is everyone gonna have some kind of personal or technical difficulty this week?! :O)
(including gaia…)
sorry to hear that adam…
hey where the hell is everybody?
all the conversations sem to be at a standstill…
i'm busy cooking
here's a starter
i think gaia is heading for a total breakdown…i keep getting the same emails…over and over and over…jeezh…maybe we are overloading its system…lol
julian, i have not heard from erin…i think she had to take her pc to the doctor…
I know Adam hasn't even uploaded his essay yet, but what would you guys think if I uploaded mine a bit early, say after midnight tonight (Friday)? I ask only because I've got it all formatted and ready in the new blog entry box, and I'm concerned that my browser will freeze and I'll lose it all if I wait another few days. I have all the text saved as a .doc, of course, but there is a lot of work involved in adding pictures, headings, videos, links, etc. No need to read or respond to it until monday, i just want to get it posted because i'm a bit nervous abotu all the computer bugs floating around here!! let me know how you all feel about it…
thanks,
matt
i don't know if i count…not being one of the magical 7 and all…lol, but i say hell yeah…i am anxious to read how you address and unpack that long ass quote you just posted…lol…i was totally following along till then…you threw me for a loop…haha…course i have to tell you matt, it took james and julian asking the right questions and julian disecting what you posted for me to understand it…but hey, i still can't believe i understand as much as i do…so, go figure…lol
matt - i would defer to adam, james and bruce in this regard as they are the one's whose essays are live (but especially adam - whose thunder you might be stealing) - i hear your concern and suggest getting their blessing if you want to post…
no star - we all get those as these discussions unfold - you can disable them in your account….
yea i hear you star - thats going to be a piece of source material for me… :O)
matt - if you post, i'm fine with it. it'll give me some more understanding on enactivism anyway, you and bruce are the dons in this area. i'm still working on my piece, given my mactastrophe, and given that it's the weekend anyway, i'm cool with you going ahead. no sweat. just be prepared to be quoted!
the discussion will flow through all the entries beyond the week anyway. i'm impressed with your eagerness, plus you're being done already!
j, i am looking for you to disect it…unpack it…or whatever it is that you're doing…you are my missing link inbetween a fuller understanding of matt…LOL
alright looks like a feast of late and early bloomers!
Matt - I say go ahead. Don't let the Gaia gremlins take your stuff! What does Bruce think?
Wow, what a lot of incredible interaction I'm missing here!
I'm writing from a Kinko's in town (at $18/hour I need to open one of these!). PC doctor has to send my baby to Toshiba; they said it could take 10-14 days to get it back. (Picture me shouting now!)
lol the mountains are beautiful but there are inconveniences. I'm feeling so frustrated not being able to join in the discussions, not to mention my presentation! Town is a 60-mile round trip and I love you guys but I can't drive out here every day and sit at Kinko's for hours on end (sure they'd love it though, ka-ching ka-ching).
It looks like I'm going to have to surrender my place…maybe to Star? To Vector? Deb? Anyone? When I get my laptop back I am going to respond to each of the presents, you better believe it! Maybe we can do a Z4: Reloaded? Wah, I don't want to miss out!
Keep it up, this is such good stuff; I was so happy to see some new folks enter the discussion!
See you all soon (the computer gods willing, lol), Erin
erin stay with us as best you can! shit with all the computer problems i should have checked to see if mercury was retrograde before scheduling this huh?! :O) hahahahahaha
matt looks like you have cart blanche, eh?
is adam's piece up yet?
If Adam doesn't mind waiting a bit, given his computer gremlin issues, then I don't see any problem at all with Matt taking his place in the line-up.
And Erin, I hope you are still able to join us!
i'm still writing, matt's piece is up, i don't mind postponing - i could post over the weekend or for monday am, or as soon as possible. what does team leader say? does he feel a disturbance in the force?
ok, de facto done deal. i'll post as soon as complete, comments to matt and me at will, good night folks… we're getting there!
Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag. I did upload my essay a few days early. I suppose adam is still posting his tonight, too? I have orientation for school on monday until about 5pm pst, so feel free to comment over the weekend and i'll respond, but be aware that monday i wont be around until evening.
sounds like fun…
LOL at or with julian who is tripping again!
Rushing into the symposium last Monday, the lights were dimming and folding chairs were being stacked back against the wall. A few interested commenting participants hung back to chat with the presenters, enjoying last conversations and questions…
I was too late and I knew it, but like Hillary Clinton's dogged determination to hang in for the nomination, I didn't want to let go of the opportunity to present my perspective.
Torn, because I knew most of the presenters had also faced challenging computer system breakdowns. Torn, because I knew most of the presenters had demanding professional lives and full family lives and yet they still created brilliant pieces to share. Torn, because I had been so excited for the opportunity to participate and it isn't my nature to be late or to quit things. Torn, because while offline, a serious case on which I'd been assisting had intensified and I had to make a decision where best to direct my time.
Through the week, I delayed making the decision to gracefully bow out. I tried to juggle catching up with the presentations and wealth of intellectually-stimulating comments while refusing to let go of my desire to honor my commitment to the symposium and finish and present my piece…while working on the unrelated-to-the-symposium case. I began experiencing atypical headaches…so I questioned myself, along with candid (and welcomed!) questioning from friends…why was I giving myself no quarter?
Today, after enjoying a simple dinner up on the mountain and driving home past painted horses running in the rain and the wind, I felt a resurgence of serenity and insight. Was it ego that I didn't want to admit struggling to catch up? Was it ghost feelings of insecurity if I dropped completely out the others might think I wasn't up to the challenge? Was my sense of self-competition creating an obstacle from accepting my limitations? Was I unable to give in because I am so very deeply passionate about the subject matter?
It was each and all of those reasons.
I am deeply passionate about the symposium topics. From an experiential and present practical-life perspective (Matt, don't get me on the semantics here, lol) I wanted to address the “What's the Point” factor and show how directly and effectively employing enactivism, integral practice and/or 21st century spirituality can affect and effect our lives and the lives of others - individually, locally and globally. I wanted to address how directly and effectively - and potentially dangerously - what we believe and what we don't, what we practice and what we don't, can affect and effect each of our lives - individually, locally and globally…
Taking a deep breath, I walk toward the presenters. By now, even the last commenting participants are packing it in ready to leave. I applaud them for meeting, and exceeding, their respective commitments; I apologize for not meeting mine. The room is quiet.
And with my apology, I humbly offer my hope to engage relative future discussions.
I'll be back to present another day ;)
Erin, I just noticed this… I would welcome a belated contribution from you, as I'm sure others would too. But certainly there's no pressure to contribute anything at this point. If you do at some point, please post a “note” here or announce it on your status bar, because I wouldn't want to miss it.
All, I want to ask where you all stand with the symposium right now. Do you feel satisfied with it, or is there anything else we should address? It feels to me that the energy sort of scattered at the end, and it would be nice to have a wrap-up of sorts … What do you think?
Thank you, Bruce. I thought maybe I'd imagined there were still a few hangers-on left in the room :) I will write something…and post it…but it will a little while…
Along with the myriad of computer crashings around this symposium, the post office mistakenly renewed my temporary forwarding address! Of course, they redirected my ordered copies of Valera and others to where I was visiting for several weeks this summer; the orders are now traveling within a seemingly endless loop of confusion (along with my usual mail) beween Colorado and Ohio! It's amusing to visualize!
I do feel the energy scattered and I contributed to that by not contributing.
Looking forward to hearing others' comments,
Erin