The Wise Turtle Speaks

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organismic

Published August 24th, 2008 in Integral, activism, living economy and purpose. 0 Comments

each part does what it's best at to help move the whole self forward

Does your organization or company know who you are, and what you’re capable of? Does it know who it is as a whole, and what it is capable of as a group?

How often do groups find themselves lost and in danger of disintegrating due to all of the individuals milling about in different directions?

How easy is it for a group to find direction by clarifying the identities and skills of the individuals, and then clarifying the identity and collective skills of the group as a whole?

Imagine if your heart, your lungs, and your knees all got lost and wandered off to do something else, because they no longer identified as being a part of your whole self, or because the whole self didn’t recognize who they were and what they were offering as individuals? How functional would you be, then? Pretty darned nonfunctional, right? Well, thats what happens to an organization when the individuals don’t have a clear understanding of how they are an integral part of the whole, and what the whole organized “self” is really all about.

So consider asking yourself who you are in your organization, and what you are offering it, and then consider what the organization itself is, and what it is offering the world, so that it can function as a complete self and go about it’s business in a fully organismic way…

probe

Published August 22nd, 2008 in Integral, healing, learning, philosophy and science. 0 Comments

what do the barnacles have to say about it?

Who haven’t you asked yet?

With more than 7 billion human beings on the planet, and countless other beings, and non-beings, all with some useful information about how things work and how things might be able to work even better, there’s an extremely good chance that someone or something, somewhere, has the answers you’re looking for.

So keep asking. And when you’re asking, seek out the sorts of individuals and groups that you might not have ever before considered asking, because while common sense is as common as the common cold, exceptional sense nearly always come from the unexpected places…

do you want to follow the path of the porcupine?

Published August 19th, 2008 in Integral, development and philosophy. 0 Comments

who's path did I follow to get up here?

Last winter, I was staying in a place in northern California in the mountains. One day I decided to try climbing one of the pointier peaks that had a small clearing at the top. It looked so lovely up there. So I started climbing. At the beginning of my climb, there was a wide, easily traversed, path that had been made by humans that I chose to follow. After reaching a bit of a clearing and a trickling stream, that wide path led me to a narrower, steeper path, which I had some difficulty following. But I persevered, and continued to follow my leaders who’d climbed the mountain before. They knew what they were doing, I assumed. So I followed, up and around the trees, and roots, and rocks and a few psychedelic mushrooms even (which I wisely left alone since I wanted to get to the top of the mountain for real, not just inside my head!). By the time I reached the top of the peak and the lovely clearing, I realized that my leaders who’d laid that path down were not at all human. I’d guessed that they were deer, instead, which seemed nearly as useful, though a bit more of a challenge, since my human legs and feet are less adapted to climbing steep slopes than a deer’s legs and hooves. I stayed up on the peak for quite a while, taking in the vastness of the mountains around me and the ocean below me.

When I finally started heading down the mountain to return to my home base (I was really looking forward to some hearty dinner after that vigorous workout!), I chose to follow a different path down that seemed less steep. Almost immediately, I ended up stuck in the middle of some scraggly bushes and was forced to scramble under increasingly lower branches. When the branches that the path passed under ended up being only about two feet high, and I found myself crawling on my stomach, I decided that my path-making leaders were most clearly far, far smaller beings than I, or even baby deer, and I faced the fact that I needed to turn around and look for another way to continue.
I did turn around, and chose to forge my own path back home, which while, difficult, did indeed get me to where I wanted to go. I got returned to a warm comfy place to sit down and enjoy my dinner while I looked up at the peak again and appreciated the accomplishment that I’d achieved of making it to the top. An accomplishment I’d made by choosing to initially follow the lead of those who’d been there before, and then choosing to go my own way when I noticed my leaders had gone in a direction that simply wasn’t taking me to a place that I wanted to go.

Some people believe that it’s a leader’s responsibility to lead people to where they want to go, while others know that it’s up to each individual to make our own good choices of when it’s time to follow the leaders who are heading in the direction we want to go, and when it’s time to create a new path for ourselves…

Where do you want to go? Has anyone been there before whom you can follow, or will you create your own path there and be the first to reach that point?

where are my fears

Published August 18th, 2008 in Byron Katie's Inquiry and get out of your own way. 0 Comments

what lurks under there? come out into the light...

What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?

I’d love whomever I was with at the moment.

I’d enjoy whatever it was I was doing at the time.

I’d play and laugh and share my life with the world for the rest of my days here on this planet.

So what on earth am I still bothering to cling onto fear for?

I have indeed let most of my fears go, far more than I ever imagined possible. Yet I still hold on to a few fears. Why is that so? What do I want these fears for? Are they serving me in any way? Why would I choose these fears above joy, and freedom, and laughter, and love?

I’d question these fears, using Byron Katie’s inquiry process, but I can’t quite put my finger on what they are. They are strong, yet elusive. They are hiding in the shadows, giving me a vague sense of wrongness, but they are just fleeting shadows, without definition or substance for me to face head on.

So, I welcome my fears to come out from the shadows, to step into the light, and speak your peace. Who are you and what do you want? You are real, you are valuable, and you deserve to be recognized and acknowledged, and I want to offer you my attention and my love.

let’s make a deal…

Published August 17th, 2008 in activism and living economy. 0 Comments

what's in the box?

Do you believe that what you have to offer is valuable? How valuable do you think it is? Is it worth a smile? A good hearty belly laugh? An hour of someone’s time? A trip to Disneyland? A lifetime supply of…

If what you have to offer is that valuable, then let everyone know, so they can decide how much they are willing to invest in you.

So, yeah, we’re here, waiting patiently for you to tell us how much better our lives will be when we accept your offer and join you in enjoying whatever it is you’ve already got that’s so great!

when in Rome…

Published August 16th, 2008 in Integral, development, learning and philosophy. 0 Comments

$what environment would you need to be in to grow fractal spirals?$

Evolution is about an organism making changes to adapt to a new environment, while continuing to maintain the integrity of the already successful attributes of the organism. Genes (physical programs) are one way to make those changes, and memes (ideological programs) are another way to fit in while still being yourself.

So, when you find yourself being thrust into an unfamiliar environment (which will inevitably happen, since “all roads lead to Rome”, as they say), you can choose to adapt yourself physically by acting, moving, eating, dancing, and playing differently. And you can choose to adapt yourself philosophically, by thinking, imagining, considering, and remembering differently.

And if you want to give yourself an opportunity to stretch your adaptation skills, you can also choose to voluntarily put yourself into an unfamiliar environment for a while and play around with your thoughts. Wander somewhere you’re not quite sure you want to go, and let your creative mind allow you to make some changes that will help you be more successful as you increase your comfort zone a little and generate new memes that help you adapt to a more diverse world.

you want fries with that?

Published August 15th, 2008 in Integral, activism, living economy and needs. 0 Comments

let your communication lead people down a path

Communication is about selling something or buying something. A product, an idea, a feeling…

If you are looking to get something out of your communication, are you being very clear about what you are asking for? Is your audience getting all the information about the who, what, where, when, and how of what it is you want them to help you obtain?

And if you are looking to offer something with your communication, are you offering it in a way that makes it look and sound and feel appealing? Is your audience seeing how much better their life will be once they have accepted whatever it is you have to sell them, be it something physical, something intellectual, and/or something emotional?

Imagine that your audience is a board of directors, how would you present your thoughts to them so that the board understands you well enough to agree with your proposal and choses to work with you to achieve your common goals? (Whatever you do, don’t use a lame Powerpoint presentation! Puuhleeeezzzz! Instead, how about telling a story with pictures, sound effects, and other stimulating sensory energy…) Consider if you would buy what you’re selling if you were on the other side of your communication. Is it a good deal?

If you are being clear about what you want and are making your offer appealing, then you will be as successful as possible, and can look forward to a vigorous and enthusiastic handshake in the near future…

3D sensurround smellovision movie theater with vibrating seats, plus a box of popcorn

Published August 13th, 2008 in happiness, needs and reality. 0 Comments

A wild ride! Can you taste the excitement Looks fun! Sounds thrilling!

How do you like to experience life?

What form of data works best for you. What kinds of resources convince you the best? What channels do you like to receive energy with?

Do you prefer to see what’s going on around you? Look for information to be clear and bright and shiny.

Do you like to hear your information making a lot of noise? Listen for information that sounds just right.

Or do you want to get a good taste for it all? Is everything coming up smelling like roses?

How does it all feel? I hope it all sits well with you, and you’re comfortable with the direction things are moving.

We use all of our senses to interact with the world, and we tend to have one or two favorite ways to enjoy our experiences. Knowing your options, and investigating your preferences can help you find more joy and pleasure as you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel your life.

zoom and wide angle

Published August 13th, 2008 in Integral, nonduality, philosophy and science. 0 Comments

The ability to examine things at a fine level of detail and then zoom way back out to see everything all at once gives you more control over your life. Stare at a flower and see the veins that carry the water from the earth to the tips of the delicate petals. Then pull back your vision so that you can see 180° of the horizon including the sky, the trees, the sun, and the flower, too, all in one big, broad swath of everythingness.

Human brains seek patterns. We understand things by recognizing patterns that repeat over large area and long time periods. When you can open up your vision to include the peripheral view, and let your focus melt outwards, you will be able to see as much of the pattern as possible, and new, emergent ideas will suddenly appear.

Similarly, when you go about collecting other kinds of information - from quantitative to qualitative - seek out as wide a variety of data as you possibly can, so that you can later zoom in on the details if you like, and also zoom back out to see the whole lot of it all at once, to give you the whole, integral image, and then, if you like, you can even zoom back into another area of detail, giving you an even fuller perspective of how the small things in life all relate to each other, even when they seem so different - like how the veins on the flower petals relate to the fingerprints on your fingers, the ridges on your teeth, and the waves on the ocean…

complexity out of simple elements

Published August 11th, 2008 in Integral and science. 0 Comments

photo from NASA - a nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074

Life is self organizing. I know it may not always seem that way, with chaos reigning so often, but amidst all the other things in the universe, life itself functions as a process to organize individual atoms and molecules into larger organisms such as human beings which are then organized into useful and productive and beautifully complex collaborations called societies.

So, while you might discover something unexpected, no matter what happens in life, what you will most certainly discover will be something useful and practical and beautifully complex.

I, personally, am looking forward to finding out what that might be. How about you?

curves in all the right places

Published August 8th, 2008 in Integral and purpose. 0 Comments

which light is you in the curve of the wave?

What part of the bell curve would you like to be in? For a healthy, natural curve, we need people to be in all of the parts. We need people to be in the minority at one rare and eccentric end, and people to be in the large majority in the big bumpy middle, and people to be in the minority at the other rare and eccentric end. Everything you do in life places you in one of the three parts of that bell curve. Your work, your play, your style, your politics, your relationships, and your geography all make you either eccentric in one way or another, or just like most everyone else.

So when you make important choices, you can always consider where you’d like to end up in that curve and choose the options that lead you in that direction.

Of course, you’re going to be a complex mix and match of curviness as you look at your life as a whole. For example, you might have an eccentric and youthful approach to your hairstyle with green spiky hair, perhaps, while having a lust for the very mainstream and middle-of-the-hump musician Sting, while also having an intense desire to read and heatedly discuss the most eccentric philosophical works available by cutting edge folks such as Douglas Hofstadter and Ken Wilber.

Regardless of where in the curve you are now in a given area of your life, you might like to look at where you want to be in the near future. Do you want to be the lowest common denominator, so that you cover all your bases? Or do you want to be the mean (as in most common), so that you’re hangin’ with popular crowd? Or would you rather be the elite, so that you’re dealing with the exclusive and rare stuff only? It’s your choice…

slow dancing with the universe

Published August 5th, 2008 in Integral, healing, love, nonduality, philosophy and science. 0 Comments

stay in a place long enough and you become a part of your surroundings

We see things only when they look different from other things around them, otherwise they are camouflaged and become a part of their environment. We hear things only when they are different from the things we always hear, otherwise they blend into the background noise. We feel things only when they are new sensations, otherwise we’d constantly be noticing our hair growing, or our shirt sitting on our shoulders. We smell things only when they are smells that we’re not used to, otherwise we’d always be smelling our own upper lips. And we taste things only when they taste like something other than our own mouth, otherwise we’d be constantly thinking “Mmmm… enamel, and saliva!”

So, because we can only experience individual things as being individual relative to other things, like us for example, the more we move at the same speed as the rest of life, the universe, and everything, the more connected we become to it all - the more we relate to everything - and the more we understand how we are indeed alive and a part of the universe. On the other hand, the more we move around at a pace faster than everyone else, the less connected we feel to them - and the less we are able to relate to them - and the more we understand how we and they are different.

So, if you want to feel more independent, you can speed up. Hit the ground running. Enter, and win, the rat race. Exceed the speed limit, physically, emotionally, or intellectually. Get on the superhighway, floor the accelerator, and watch everyone else fall further and further behind you.

And at some point you’ll get tired of being independent, and long for some companionship, intimacy, and perhaps a bit of that illustrious good life.

So, when we want to be able to work with the external world, collaboratively, and feel connected to life and everything, we know that we can slow down. Exit the rat race. Take an amble down a quiet path. Go with the flow. Just sit. And then maybe try some slow dancing with the universe, or one of it’s many living beings, instead.

And if we want to quite literally merge with the external world, we can slow ourselves down to as close to absolute zero degrees, and become a Bose-Einstein Condensate, where the individuality of the atom itself dissolves, and all becomes one.

Personally, I suggest starting with a good long (room temperature) hug (literally or metaphorically) and see what that does for you, if you are indeed looking for some connection with life, the universe, and everything.

put some spin into it

Published August 4th, 2008 in get out of your own way, kids and science. 0 Comments

just keep your center of gravity above your feet

When you find yourself stuck, spin around. Literally. (Rope swing suspended from an old maple tree, or office chair, optional.) The result of your spinning efforts will be one of several things.

You might end up feeling a bit silly and lightheaded (kids know that the best free drugs are the ones already inside your head), which is just generally kind of fun.

You might end up digging a hole in the ground (spin long enough and you’ll make it to China!).

Or you might end up with a completely different perspective of things.

And if you think others might find it a bit unusual for you to be spinning around in the middle of the afternoon, feel free to tell them that you’re doing it in the name of science, to see what a little angular momentum does to your thought processes.

stereo society

Published August 2nd, 2008 in Integral, development, kids, nonduality and science. 0 Comments

the 3D generation can see which tomato she picked, can you?

This generation that is just entering their teens right now might perhaps be considered the “mash-up” generation, or perhaps the 3D generation. These are the first group of kids brought up under the common idea of combining things beyond peanut butter and chocolate. The first generation to think of previously separate ideas such as neurology and philosophy, biology and engineering, and The Beatles and the Beastie Boys as simply, neurophilosophy, bioengineering, and The Beastles.

In some sense, these young adults are going to be the first generation to understand things in a three dimensional way, naturally. They will be the ones who can look at something from one set of coordinates and automatically understand how things look from other set of coordinates. They naturally will see things from two or more perspectives at a time and know what it might be like if the perspectives were combined, like some kind of intellectual View-Master.

Those of us who are a bit older might have to put in a bit more conscious effort to see things in this kind of cognitive 3D way, but if those kids can do it we can do it to, right?

hidden gems

Published August 1st, 2008 in activism and happiness. 0 Comments

make art!

You can improve your world a little bit at a time. Sometime today, or tomorrow, if you prefer, offer something new and interesting to the outside world. Novelty inspires people, and you can be the instigator of that inspiration by simply placing a curiosity in a place where it’s not expected. A potted plant in a parking lot. A toy on top of a fire hydrant. A few glittery gems in the hand of a memorial statue. A marble on a merry go round. Some twigs woven into a chain link fence. Or a circle of river rocks on the pavement in a playground.

The artist Andy Goldsworthy spends his life looking for ways to express his love for the world by making joyful and intriguing sculptures out of the things he finds. He then leaves his creations for others to find. Things such as arches made of chunks of ice, domes made of beach rock, and delicate ribbons of leaves can be discovered after Goldsworthy has played in the area.

What kind of discoveries will people find after you’ve played in an area? What surprises do you want to see, waiting just around the corner, ready to inspire the world?