A major characteristic of Human Beings is that their prepotent assumptions guide the development
of all their Response Potentials. Some of these assumptions we have brought into awareness by
perceiving and conceptualizing them and making them explicit in forming and up-dating our Self-concept and World View. These Assumptions that operate outside of our awareness can be made more explicit through interpersonal dialogue. Politics could be much more productive for
improving the Social System if structured so as to also emphasize Helping each other better understand our World and our place in it. The Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Communications and Management Sciences have accumulated a great deal of research-based
information about Interpersonal Communication and Interpersonal Relationships that helps
explain what is going on. The Participants in the dialogue take turns assuming the role of Helper,
Helpee or Communication coach. Every one is trying to better understand and integrate their
Assumptions into their positions about what's going on...and where and how are we to intervene
to improve the social system?

Before I came on these boards I had my thoughts, but figured there were not many who agreed

Found out there are hundreds which translates to millions world wide that agree

It is a way of at least knowing one doesn't have weird thoughts, and that you are not going crazy

If people of like mind could all see they are not alone, they would resonate.
Imagine how many people are not looking at these boards, thinking like I do, but never opening their mouth (especially in the so called ultra "red" states.)
They don't want to lose their job, their spouse, they are scared they might be investiigated or something like that.

If only one can find all those people then the minority easier becomes a majority

It would theoretically also be a way to get rid of the 2 parties and start a new one if all those people could be identified (which makes it sound ominous that we are looking for them, which is not the case at all)

The, "Social Validation Theory" of personality development and of social system development
is widely supported by research in Social Psychology. Seeking evidence to test our hypotheses
supports a model of personing where each person is represented as scientist-in-action. Unfortunately human beings have a tendency to cherry pick the evidence and let barriers develope between us and our experiencing, but science is self-correcting. It feels awfully good
when some people agree with us and it feels even better when most people agree with us. Our
challenge is to not confuse a natural preference with a demand that some or most or especially
all people agree with us...but isn't this just about always the problem...changing a reasonable
preference to an unreasonable demand?

While the social validation process is always going on in the social system, placing Me in the cell of
the social system I am riding in, up Time and across Space, the self-actualization process is also
going on. A two-dimensional Matrix in three-dimensional space, representing the emerging,
evolving universe, up Time (left-vertical axis) and across Space (top-horrizontal axis), with Me
in an inner matrix at the center of the universe , bounded by Time and Space, and all the systems within systems between the Universe and I.(If you need to see a visual of this, draw
a 1 inch square in the middle of a 6 inch square and forget about making it porportional) One
of these systems between you and the universe is that social system that most overlaps the Nation you live in. The third dimension of the universe is spherical so that the north-south axis
is bent east and west and the east-west axis is bent north and south, allowing for continous motion
without returning to the same time-space intersect. The human experience, historically, represents both a trend towards autonomy and towards Homonomy.

This monologue I have going here is cycling back to the possibility of interested CGCS's
constructing a conceptual model of Personing--in the Universe, through Time, from a Person-
centered, Family-centered, Community-centered Place --(Perhaps a 3-level, bulleted outline).
If we pooled all our previous discussion of the topic and assigned a value of $1. for each post, we would all have stock in an internal organization, and could accumulate stock with each additional post, elect a Secretary & Treasury, Orchestrator and Back-up Orchestrator, or we could just do it for fun.

We have seen that Concepts make a difference. We have hypothesized that interpersonal dialogue can help participants clarify their own assumptions and their understanding of the Others' assumptions. In any on-going dialogue. the introduction of a concept will have a
neutral effect, a positive effect, or a negative effect on the quantity and quality of the on-going
interpersonal dialogue. A functional model of Personing would improve all these personal
and interpersonal processes.

Will review and join in in good time... I'll have to go back over your monologue and spend some serious time. You know already that you and I share a similar view, if not the same background and training and thus the same "lingo". I am currently reading, for example, a book published decades ago by Eugene Gendlin, Ph.D. on the use of "focusing" in dialogue, in which the parties watch for (in themselves) a "felt shift". I am also trying to catch up with the works of Candace Pert, Ph.D. in the field of psychoneuroimmunology. An experience to which I have referred once or twice was taking three levels of "encounter group" seminars with Stuart Emery (Actualizations), author of "You Don't Have to Rehearse to be Yourself" et al. The gift I gave his colleague Carol Kamen was of a photo of the cliffs at Pemaquid Beach with the inscription of Lao Tzu's line "Who will prefer the jabgle of jade beads if he once has heard stone growing in a cliff?" More later...

Eugene Gendlin was way ahead of his time, and being one his admirers and working along a similar vein, so was I, and so are you. It is a stimulating position to be in but not often a com-
fortable or profitable one. My son's bottom line for me is still, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" He does say it with good humor now, not like the first time I heard it.

maybe the answer to that question is

the rich are not happy
While money is not the root of all evil, the evildoers that have money who are evil are the root of all evil

Maybe a really smart person knows to have too much riches causes untold heartache and problems, doesn't it?

while I am not that up on these books, to go by things I do know lyrics "Money can't buy you love" and love to me is more important than money
Money is just what you need for your day to day supplies. (and money cannot buy health, or living forever either, nor can it buy the political outcome in the world as George Soros found out)
Money is just money.

(I probably could have used some more psych classes in college, but alas, I took writing and sociology courses instead of reading and psych). (and I do feel woefully inadequate in these type discussions rla and magmak...but I like reading them here, I find I learn alot from each of you).

g4a. I enjoy and learn from enteracting with you very much. I've not had an opportunity
to learn whether I would be spoiled by wealth, but I'm willing to risk it if you know of any foundations that wish to do that kind of research.

Back to the matter of Focusing, or Attending Behavior. My 2nd wife had a 13 year old daughter
who was institutionalized for severe retardation and mental illness. It was impossible to take her to a resturant when she came for home visits. I just incidentally worked with her on Attending
Behavior and on the fourth home visit we took her to a resturant and when they brought the food
she was grinning from ear to ear, and saying, "I tending Robert"-- over and over while she ate
with a fork for the first time in her life.

When you speak of "attending," RLA, do you speak of what psychologists are writing about so much at present, i.e., "mindfulness?"

Yes, except that I characterize the concept, "Attending," as more Behavioral-Cognitive and
the concept, "Mindfullness," as more Cognitive-Behavioral but that's not much difference.

The Me, I or Person, cell-in-the-human-social-system-matrix, while maintain its structural position
in the system, moves up time and across space. With the Person's perfect Self-in-situation adaptation, autonomy and homonony would be perfectly integrated along the diagonal of the
Time X Space Matrix from the bottom left corner to the top righn corner (I wish I had more graphics cabability but what you see, you draw for yourself.

What I think RLA is talking about in the first sentence is sometimes referred to (perjoratively) as "tapes". We each have self-talk or mental recordings of "stuff" that we have accumulated over the years, from our parents, our teachers, our experiences, our friends, et al. When something comes along as a stimulus or trigger, it automatically sets this tape recorder playing in our head. (A good example of this is when the astronaut de-programs the HAL 9000 computer in the movie 2001. ) This is our memory. While we think of our memory being embedded within our brain, synaptically, it is actually embedded in an extended network that includes our brain, but also includes our body, our hormonal and neurotransmitter system, and more. This is why we can memorize something through movement, or train our selves with bodily triggers, or why some physical movement whilel earning (the example in Hannaford's book [1] is of the student who did not take notes, but instead knitted). It is also a key to athletics, musical performance, et al. So, to the extent that we are not aware (self-aware) or conscious, then when the simulus comes along, that tape plays automatically, and sometimes stimulates our verbalization or action. We're not thinking or mindful. When we are, we give ourselves the choice of playing the tape (or not). This is also the parallel in the activation of the amygdala which is an autonomic gate=keeper for the fight-or-flight mechanism; unthinkingly, we will react emotionally and without thought (a good thing when we are truly in danger, but perhaps not when we are not truly in danger). But if we take a deep breath and pause just long enough for the 800 milliseconds for our higher brain to kick in, then we have a chance of selecting a more optimal response. This is discussed at some length in Gonzalez' book on fighter pilots, mountaineering and wilderness survival [2].

I agree with RLA that dialogue in one form or another helps each of us surface these "tapes" or deep, submerged beliefs. Writing in a journal with some sort of structured exercise can also do this, though having a trusted guide is nice, even if its only a friend. This type of dialogue is, as I understand it, what goes on in therapy. I'm not trained or versed in the cognitive therapeutic fields and, in fact, come more frequently from the perspective, not of pathology, but of a lack of it. I appreciate that pathology exists and that, when and where it does, it needs to be dealt with by a professional, not by me. But I also understand and believe that, in the absence of severe or debilitating pathology, people can be helped to become more aware of how their mind/body/spirit connections work and thus learn to program them to their own specifications (it's their life, and their free will). These "technologies" can be and have been used by others to train or program the human mind to the wishes and designs of an external force and in a way against the will or even awareness of that individual. But I believe that an individual can be brought to a higher awareness in a way that enables them to set the goals, standards, etc. for themselves.

Dr. Rose [3] describes the process RLA speaks of in the first sentence this way:

Identifications (how one sees oneself) are etched into the subconscious.

At the core of each identification is a subjective belief.

Beliefs generate attitudes.

Attitudes generate feelings.

Feelings generate thoughts.

Thoughts generate action.

Our experience is related to our beliefs.
--

1) Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All In Your Head, Carla Hannaford, Ph.D., Great Ocean Publishers, Arlington, VA 1995.

2) Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, Laurence Gonzalez, W.B. Norton and Co., NY, 2003.

3) Your Mind: The Owner's Manual, Linda Joy Rose, Ph.D., Kriya Yoga Publications, Eastman, Quebec, 1999.

I would like very much to be wealthy and see what I could do with it... it would be self-enlightening to find out what I would actually do... knowing what I have learned over the course of my lifetime... if I have truly achieved any real sense of empathy or compassion or philanthropy... I wonder then, since I am not, that in the larger scheme of things, that I am unworthy of such achievement... perhaps, as such, it is better that I do not know.

(Magmak1 - regarding 2001... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kyavXyKRhk )

This is what Peters (the author of In Search of Excellence and A Passion for Excellence) refers to as ready-fire-aim. It also reminds me of Julia Cameron's discussion, in The Artist's Way, of the "wet blankets", "crazymakers" and others in our lives. Sometimes we have to put up with them, but we can minimize their effect to some degree, or to a large degree, by the choices we make, and by engaging them in dialogue. There are some, however (and I'm not referring to anyone at CGCS), who don't want to engage in dialogue, or can't, or have too much pathology.

Yes, I'm not rich either... lol... I am beginning to think that the only way to be rich is to take advantage of the system or the people in the system.... a la PT Barnum. But we are rich in ways others are not.

As noted, I have no experience working direcrtly with those afflicted with something or other. I'm coming from the perspective of having raised two kids who were into athletics and trying to learn something to help them. So the mode there, in terms of working from a place generally lacking pathology, is "coaching", sports psychology, performance psychology and enhancement, and more.

I believe that the concept of "attention" in its various forms is one of the most central elements, if not the most central, in our progression. It is said, for example, that "the only identifiable across-the-board advantage that good athletes seem to have over the rest of us is the quality of their attention. They pay attention to the task at hand a little better than you and I do".

Attention is also at the core of learning (and the focus for some pathologies like ADD and ADHD). There are video game training technologies that address this. For information on the Peak Achievement Trainer, click on http://www.peakachievement.com.

One of the simplest sources for information on attending for the average individual is Dr. Robert Nideffer's work. See http://www.thewinningmind.com/press/ .

Also of value might be the works of Tim Gallwey on The Inner Game, including The Inner Game of Work.

The single best source for improving our understanding of attention and how it plays out in the dailylives of those without pathology is the book by Eric Booth entitled The Everyday Work of Art.

Another source is Dr. Ellen Langer's books:

Mindfulness, Ellen J. Langer, Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading, MA 1989.
[The apposition/antidote to mindlessness, by a Harvard psychology professor.]

The Power of Mindful Learning, Ellen Langer, PhD., Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading, MA 1995.
[Ought to be required reading for all teachers and coaches.]

Mel Levine, M.D., a pediatrician at the University of North Carolina, in his book A Mind at a Time:

Attention is the administrative bureau of the brain, the headquarters for mental regulators that patrol and control learning and behavior, directing the distribution of mental energy within our brains. Like the parts of an orchestra, the mind's various functions combine in numerous ways for different needs but they require leadership; this is the function of attention. There are three types of attention control: mental energy controls, intake controls and output controls.

Mental energy controls include alertness, mental effort, sleep-arousal control and consistency control.

Selection control includes selection control, span control, satisfaction control,
mind activity control, and depth/detail control.

Output control includes previewing, options, pace, quality and reinforcement.

Another place we can examine the matter of attention (and intention, and memory) is in the field of somatics. Richard Strozzi Heckler, Ph.D. is a psychologist who has written extensively in this field as it pertains to performance, leadership, and other fields.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the flow theory, says:

It seems we can manage at most seven bits of information (such as differentiated sounds or visual stimuli, or recognizable nuances of emotion or thought) at any one time. The shortest time it takes to distinguish between one set of bits and another is about 1/8th of a second. It is possible, then, to process not more than 126 bits of information per second, or 7,560 per minute, or half a million per hour. In 16 waking hours each day, this amounts to about 185 million bits of information over a lifetime of 70 years. It is out of this total that everything in our life must come -- every thought, memory, feeling or action. The information we allow into our consciousness therefore becomes extremely important; it is, in fact, what determines the content and quality of our life.

Attention is at the core of several Eastern philosophies, as evidenced in the book Be Here Now, and in the Buddhist meditative training of people like Thich Nhat Hanh. Meditation itself is a doorway to improved attention, and is used in a wide array of "applications", including sports psychology. The Monroe Institute and and the Centrepointe Research Institute have harnessed new understandings in brain waves and mental states and offer audio CD's that enhance and enable awareness, meditation, attention, et al.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., a molecular biologist, has turned it into a major health-centered focus. He is an expert on medical applications of mindfulness meditation training, and the author of Wherever You Go, There You Are and The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting.

Dr. Kabat-Zinn is also the the director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Socety; see http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/index.aspx and http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/mandala.aspx.

See also his book Coming to our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness [Hyperion 2005, ISBN 0-7868-6756-6].

Lordy Mag., when I finish reading a few pages of your post I feel like I just earned another Master's Degree. I really appreciate you adding so much substance to my generalizations.
The question of, "Pathology" is really the biggy. This is where people like Gendlin, Carl Rogers,
Truax & Carkhuff made their contribution. Showing that providing certain necessary and sufficient therapeutic conditions got results with those with the most pathology. (More later)

There is a lot of professional and pari-professional turf protecting going on in Human Services
which helps explain the high wall that is kept arround physiopathology and psychpathology.
Beyond that, Parents, Friends, Teachers, Elders, Holy Men, Doctors, Bosses and goverment
need something to blame our failures on. In our mostly dychotomous world, it is either a
disease or a demon. Something that has taken over One's essence which is naturally evil,
and must be dealt with by a Professional. Professional expertice in all areas is inherrently valuable to the social system. Professional status, achieved in all sorts of role playing, not much related to improved competence, is often used for powerfull social, economic and politic ends.
During much of my professional career I was involved with developing and researching mutual
self-help networks and peer counseling programs within educational and human service
programs. I could show a few scars from falling off the tight rope I always walked between
family and community-based Helping and professional helping. A better model of how
Persons operate and how we achieve optimum growth and development will allow better
cordinated, integrated helping.

I've always been appreciative of Maslow's work in, "Motivation" because he was early in incorporating
a developmental model for maturation and evolution. My impression is that he was moving to a general system model but hadn't got there yet. Instead of emphasizing the vertical, hiearchial
structure of motivation, I prefer Ardrey's more horizontal structure of integrating the three
major classifications of needs:Identity, Stimulation and Security. Thus Self-in-situation Adaptation is a matter of balancing and integrating identity, stimulation and security. Identity
is the integration of perceiving, conceptualizing, feeling, intending and acting and the accompanying awareness that it is "I" who perceives conceptuales, feels, intends and acts.
The Person, Self or Organism acts as a whole but may be more or less integrated at a given
time and place. The second component, Stimulation may be represented by a bell shaped
curve. The height of the curve represents the Stimulation-Activation level of the organism
from a normal awake to a normal sleep cycle. Everyone has a customary stimulation-activation
level, or pace, tempo, information seeking type, which comes from genetics and learning.
When persons are experiencing less thar their customary level os stimulation-activation,
they are bored, when too much, they're anxious. This is another reason awareness is so important--so one can anticipate and plan for an optimum amount of stimulation. Over or
under inflating one's identity or not monitoring and planning for one's appropriate need for stimulation will empede one's risk management behavior and lead to Security problems. Over
emphasizing the need for security may endanger one's identity and under-emphasizing it
will endanger your person or your bank account.

Wundermaus, I have often wondered the same thing... what I would do if I were wealthy beyond reason and could be philanthropic. My now-trite phrase is that when money sees me coming, it runs the other way. But many of us, you especially, are wealthy in ways that count, in ways that other people will never be. If money should come into my accounts, one of the very first places I'd find a way to spend it is to enable the kinds of things that RLA is speaking of here... and perhaps to fund the edcuation of some in places such as I have discovered by people I have read about. I'd go there myself, of course... there's a whole world out there, and in some corners, some folks are doing some wonderful things. But you are worthy... it's just that right now there's a different plan in place.

I shall have to come back to re-visit and watch your 2001 video. There seems to be a resurgence in interest in the film. I was a huge fan of the flick when it came out, and have seen the movie about ten times. I believe the American Film Institute voted it the second or third greatest movie ever made.

We could talk for hours. (I have a few scars of my own. lol...)

I haven't operated in those fields. But it seems to ring true. It seems to be in parallel with what's going on in the world of education, a world I encountered only personally and then indirectly through my kids. I bring in education only because it operates, presumably, on the basis of a lack of pathology, though increasingly students are labeled as having some. A crude theory is that the child is a tabula rasa. This, of course, is not true, as we know the child's growth and development is at its richest and most rapid growth in the very early years, which shines a light on the arguments for and against professional daycare and raising the child at home.

Your discussion brings to mind two articles I've read that discuss the nature of silo thinking within our worlds and our professions and our bureaucracies. Leonard Marcus, Ph.D., at the Harvard School of Public Health, has written them. The first is “Connectivity and Public Health Preparedness: Resolving Conflicts and Building Collaboration to Enhance System Readiness", Leonard J. Marcus, Ph.D. (Harvard School of Public Health). http://www.mass.gov/dph/bioterrorism/advis...onnectivity.pdf.

"There is a tendency in organizations and among people working in them to think in narrow and self-protective terms. The silo mentality refers to a perspective that is insular, parochial, isolationist, and tilting toward the close-minded…. Training and career development occur in silos, knowledge tends to organize itself in silo-oriented literature, and budgets, space, and departments are bunched and distinguished into silos for ease and efficiency of management. The silos offer a reinforcing zone of familiarity that encourages silo-reinforcing pursuits. Connectivity acknowledges the effects and inevitabilities of silo thinking and counters it by constructing explicit, robust, and purposeful briidges … that link and re-motivate ...."

"In and across multi-organizational settings, funding, publicity, organizational image and organizational vitality are often at stake, even in situations that would seem demand greater collaboration. “Although senior executives strive to achieve common goals…, they also represent powerful sub-units or constituencies…. This creates ‘a tension regarding group identities’ and enhances the likelihood of goal conflict and self-interested behavior in some, but not all, situations…. Members can find themselves in direct competition regarding the allocation of resources….”

The second is on meta-leadership.

In doing a quick google to find it (it's also on my hard drive), I note that the second google reference to the paper is my own reference earlier here at CGCS. See http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/leadership/Pdf/...orkingPaper.pdf .

Thank you.

When I read yours, I realize I've been enrolled in a doctoral program.

There is so much to learn, and so little time... and money.

It's the same feeling I get when I walk into a library.... where do I begin? What do I need to know first, before I can tackle that other thing?

I'm somewhat of a Maslovian, as several entries in my blog will attest. One of the more prominent sports psychologists, Ken Ravizza, did his doctoral thesis on peak experiences. And RLA's post on Maslow will require some time and digestion. I sense RLA is on to something there.

RLA and Magmak1,

You guys are so far over my head... I get nose bleeds just reading your stuff... Maybe in time I will begin to understand but for right now, let me just say thank you for your richly challenging posts... enlightenment can be baffling at times... but as it is pondered, it ferments in cellars of the mind to make a very fine wine.

yes, yes, yes and yes...

I was struck, among other things, by the description by the actor of moving from a place deep within the core of his body. This is precisely what is described by Richard Strozzi Heckler and is an orientation to one's awareness of one's hara. It speaks of a centeredness -- physical, emotional, spiritual and mental -- which lends to a state of relaxation and awareness --- George Leonard uses the acronym GRACE for grounded, relaxed, aware, centered and energized -- and it is a source of spiritual energy (ki) which flows through us (it is not of us). It is at the core of the art of aikido (and others).

I would like to watch the entire hour-long documentary. I once was a student of media production (including film). My "history of film professor" made me take the required course three times before he would give me a passing grade. I had, for decades, a dog-eared paperback on how the film was made. Kubrick set a standard with that movie that has rarely, if ever, been approached since.

Meta-leadership is a good descriptor for activities like starting mutual Self-help networks
and organizations. Other applications I've seen often is really effective Rehabilitation Counselors
who don't just sign a paper that they have exhaused all available community resources before authorizing a case services expendature, but they actually go out and find or help create a lot
of community resources to supplement their case service funds. They also teach their clients how to find and utilize resources.

Yes. Much of the same kind of thing is discussed in a white paper entitled "Coalescing Effective Community Disaster Response: Simulations and Virtual Communities of Practice" (a paper I was motivated to write at the suggestion and prompting of another CGCS member). The creation of virtual "stages", settings, scenarios, cases, etc. can enable a great deal of effective dialogue that will help break down silos and enable more effective problem-solving across disciplines, time, and geography.

Seedlings

As I meandered through the web site at the collective wisdom initiative [see http://www.collectivewisdominitiative.org/ ], I felt like a child in a playground filled with my favorites games.

In just this one place, I found a concentration of energy and focus, a reflection of both where I’d been, and where I wanted to go. I recognized some names and themes, and discovered new ones.

I felt like Archie Graham must have felt ...
when he got out of that VW Microbus in Iowa and recognized Shoeless Joe Jackson and Mel Ott.

Is this heaven?

No, it’s just a ballfield.

But there’s no such thing as just a ballfield…

I’ve read Kinsella (“Within the baselines anything can happen.”)

I’ve read A. Bartlett Giamatti’s Take Time for Paradise and his description of the mathematical and geometric forces at work on a baseball diamond. (“Symmetry, a version of equality, forces and sharpens competition, encourages both passion and precision.”) The compression of space and the warping of time can produce magical things.

And I’ve been on a few ballfields when magical things happened….

As I walked the labyrinth of the web site, I was vibrating with the question of what and where the preparatory steps or ‘curriculum’ were that enable more effective ‘entry’ to, participation in, availability to, or ability to read, hear and resonate with the underlying rhythm, and to better facilitate collective wisdom processes.

How do we evoke or create ‘lessons’ for others? -- our citizens and co-workers, our youth, our college students. I’m told I should focus on adults (“they have the money”), but it seems to me an investment in youth will bear more long-term fruit. Is there a short course of readings we’d recommend? Are there experiential processes we can provide? Is there a trial or sampling run at a discipline or way or path we can put before them? Yes, of course, and many are found at the collective wisdom initiative. Can we duplicate and mass produce these for wider consumption? Are there elementary steps the learner can take before they trek under the direction of a master teacher? What part of them can be fashioned into multimedia, video games, or podcasts?

Based on my own experiences and readings, I came up with a preliminary list of 22 themes, the portals to the labyrinth of personal transformation. This listing isn’t intended to be all-inclusive; it’s a starting point.

They are in no particular order, neither alphabetical, nor chronological in terms of my discovery or where they should fit into a ‘curriculum’, nor certainly in any sense of priority. I’ll leave that triage to the reader, or some collection of minds. There are overlaps, linkages, connections, blends and precursory elements that I haven’t fully catalogued and of which I may not yet be fully cognizant.


1) Awareness Disciplines

A few weeks ago, googling for something else (a search which eventually brought me to the collective wisdom initiative), I entered the term “awareness disciplines”. Surely, I thought, there were a range of teachings, institutes, and readings. Repeatedly over the first few pages of the search returns I discovered dominantly the book from which the phrase came. I was familiar with and had sought out the works of Richard Strozzi Heckler.

In years past, I had been struck by the fact that many of the books I had discovered were the result of a small cluster of people and were centered around several schools and institutes with which they were affiliated. Indeed, over the years, it’s become obvious that there are epicenters of a social earthquake located near a famous geologic fault. Heckler, Leonard, Murphy and others have been professionally linked; there are also several notable schools of transpersonal psychology, organization development et al in the San Francisco Bay area.

2) Awe and Enchantment

See, for example:
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...p;showentry=563

3) Aesthetics and Beauty [See Eric Booth’s The Everyday Work of Art]

4) Wonder, Curiosity, Inquiry and Yearning

It seems almost laughable to note this cluster. Aren’t these at the heart of every educational effort? Sadly, no.

5) Attention >> mindfulness See Booth, Gallwey, Kabat-Zinn et al..

6) Breathing

To some, it seems silly to consider that the automatic process of inhalation and exhalation may hold one of the essential keys. I’ll simply mention here several focal places for further elementary exploration.

• Herbert Benson, M.D. in The Relaxation Response and The Break-Out Principle
• Stanislov Grof
• Sports psychology (See, for example, Inner Sports: Mental Skills for Peak Performance, Lydia Ievleva, Ph.D., (audio cassettes), Human Kinetics, 1997.)
• Meditation-based breathing techniques

Or Judith Kravitz on Transformational Breath (Apr 20-22, 2007 at The Rowe Center)

"Throughout the ages, spiritual teachers have realized the value of expanding our awareness beyond the mind and ego as the key element in attaining this shift. Fortunately, reaching higher, more enlightened states of consciousness is now a realistic and attainable goal. But how do we stop the constant chatter that rules our minds? How can we experience what lies in the spaces between our thoughts. Breath is the connecting link between our mind and body, bringing them into harmony and balance, opening the door to our mystical and spiritual nature. Breathing in the 21st century is going to be known as the fast-track method to enlightenment, health, and peace."

8) Interest, Discipline, Absorption and Intent

This cycle of qualities is at the core of learning, performance, practice, some religions, etc. It is a major focal area discussed in many sources. An entire chapter has been written about these four words alone.

9) Passion, Vision and Goals

See, for a single source and great example, Laurence Boldt’s book How To Do, Be or Have Anything: A Guide to Creative Empowerment.

9) Movement Disciplines and Kinesthetics

• Eurhytmics
• Tai Chi
• Aikido
• ITP
• Feldenkrais

“We tend to place high value on rational thought, achievement and goal-oriented action at the expense of that part of our experience that is not rational: namely feeling, intuition and emotion, which are sensate phenomena, qualities that can only be appreciated through the medium of the body, which offers its information via sensation, often in very subtle ways.”

-- Robert K. Hall, M.D., in the foreward to The Anatomy of Change: A Way To Move Through Life's Transitions, Richard Strozzi Heckler, Ph.D.

10) Music

“Our success in working with community, in remembering visually and aurally, in moving in creating and interacting with grace and sensitivity, in expressing emotion and relieving stress, and in listening to and trusting our own "inner voice" are equally important -- and all are enhanced by listening to and making music.

Music shapes and stimulates the mind, body and spirit.”

See also:
Music, The Brain and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination, Robert Jourdain, William Morrow & Co., 1997.

The Rhythm Inside: Connecting Body, Mind and Spirit Through Music, Julia Schnebly-Black, Ph.D. and Stephen F. Moore, PhD., Rudro Press, Portland, OR 1997. [Based on the Dalcroze Eurhythmics approach to teaching music, with accompanying music CD, this book suggests a marvelous way to introduce movement with music and the practice of kinesthetic awareness.]

11) Spirit (subtle energies)

12) Sacred places


13) Stillness

See The Tree of Contemplative Practices here: http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/tree.html

Other contemplative practices and exercises are described here: http://www.contemplativemind.org/programs/...rpractices.html

See also http://www.miksang.net/Miksang%20Quicktime.mov on contemplative photography


14) Surrender

“Whether your art be management or marriage, baseball or ballet, surrender invites a cultivation of the mind and the heart at the beginning of every stage along the way. For the master, surrender means that there are no experts, there are only learners.”

-- George Leonard, Mastery

15) Energy/ki

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. But if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly... to keep the channel open.” -- Martha Graham, quoted by Agnes DeMille in Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham, as noted in The Art of Possibility.

“Thus far, ki has proved difficult to measure, and skeptics tend to attribute its powers to suggestion, a sort of dynamic placebo effect. To the pragmatist, this distinction is unimportant.

The idea of ki can offer the untrained person an effective way of gaining a sensation of increased power along with relaxation, especially during times of fatigue and stress, and thus is useful. With practice, the increased experience of ki leads to increased effectiveness of intention.

-- George Leonard, in Mastery


16) Joy, Empathy and Gratitude

17) Connectedness/Detachment

18) Creativity

19) Love

20) Zanshin

21) Neuroscience, Immunology and other cognitive sciences

The enhancement of our self-awareness, and our awareness of others, and our ability to help others, is an elemental component. One article can’t begin to do justice to the explosive growth in scientific research in these fields. It is difficult for the professional to keep pace; how can the curious individual do so?




Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences has spawned a small sub-industry. (See, for example, Seven Times Smarter: 50 Activities, Games and Projects to Develop the Seven Intelligences of Your Child, Laurel Schmidt, Three Rivers Press, New York 2001.)

Words/Language Naturalist Existential Spiritual Body/Kinesthetic
Math/Logic People Intelligences Self Music Spatial

Our schools emphasize and test words, language, math and logic extensively and almost exclusively. But even in PE classes, gym and athletics, we don’t necessarily get a thorough education in kinesthetics and how to listen to our body (or make the most of it). Music and the arts have been under assault for some time. Spiritual intelligence is seemingly left to the parents and the churches. Interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, and emotional intelligence, aren’t necessarily or systematically taught by any of them.

So the question is this: Where are the organizations, schools and media outlets that are translating the best, proven results into reformation and change?

Where will we find a curriculum devoted to life? Ask Nel Noddings: http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...p;showentry=879

22) Somewhere and frequently, we get to think about how the self fits in with other selves, which leads us to a range of topics at the center of which may be teamwork and leadership. I won’t extend deeply into these two areas (there are more than enough experts and readings) except simply to note these twin clusters of sub-themes:

intention
vision clarity
cohesion Team expectation
choice
trust communication
learning energy
momentum
breakthrough

will audacity courage enrollment convocation
energy communications vision
Leadership
intellect vision modeling
innovation flexibility judgment character
problem-solving heart humility
inspiration imagination improvisation
creativity innovation synthesis

So these seedlings can be planted.

Some will root and grow, some will flourish.

The best time to plant a tree… was 20 years ago.
The second best time is today.



Some sources for further reading:

Free Play: Improvisation in life and art, Stephen Nachmanovitch, Tarcher Putnam 1991.

The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature, Michael Murphy, Jeremy Tarcher, Los Angeles, 1992. [An overview of the research into metanormal human capacities by the co-author of In The Zone.]

God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution, by James Redfield, Michael Murphy and Sylvia Timbers, Tarcher/Putnam, New York 2002. [A profound book with a stunning premise, something more than just its thorough yet simple review of the wisdoms of sages, mystics and scientists, it is an exploration of the range of extraordinary capabilities available to the human body/mind/spirit, and it is a call to personal action. Redfield is the author of The Celestine Prophecy, The Tenth Insight and The Celestine Vision. Murphy, the founder of the Esalen Institute, is the author of In the Zone (with Rhea Murphy), The Future of the Body, and The Life We are Given (with George Leonard). Timbers has been involved in consciousness studies and training for 20 years and a multimedia producer of projects focused on psychological and spiritual development. The book also contains a 66-page guide to the literature of transformative practice and a 28-page series of simple suggested practices that will deepen anyone's abilities in personal development of body/mind/spirit unity.]

Schools With Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers, edited by Linda Lantieri, Beacon Press, 2001. [A fascinating and delightful book about how to bring the arts, spirituality, the environment and other approaches to deep engagement and connectedness into the educational process.]

Walking in this World: The Practical Art of Creativity, Julia Cameron, Tarcher/Putnam 2002. [A follow-up to The Artists' Way, this book is about rediscovering our senses of origin, proportion, perspective, adventure, personal territory, boundaries, momentum, discernment, resiliency, camaraderie, authenticity and dignity. Her list of recommended reading is remarkable.]

The Widening Stream: The Seven Stages of Creativity, David Ulrich, Beyond Words Publishing, Hillsboro, OR 2002.

During one three-year period of my life journey, I was Chair Person of a psychology department, in a State University, which included a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, under the
Dean of Arts and Sciences, A Masters and Specialists Degrees in Counseling in the School of Education and all the courses in educational psychology, child psychology, adolescent psychology, Etc. Other department heads had one Dean to suffer through, I had two. I also had to teach which
ever courses I couldn't get someone else to teach so I got a second education free. We needed a
new Human Growth and Development Graduate course, which included the whole life span. I
made it a 400 level course that could be taken at the senior undergraduate or graduate level.
Pretty soon all of our highest performing students were taking it instead of choosing between Child Psychology and Adolescent Psychology or taking both. Human Development provided a frame of reference for integrating biology and sociology with the content in child and adolescent
psychology and learning psychology. We could learn a lot about the evolution of knowledge by studying the birth and death of college courses. Psychologists who focused on understanding
the maturation process, such as Piaget, Khollberg and others, calling attention to the, "stages
of development where different operating system were in play, helped us recognize the
parrallels between genetically programed maturation at the individual person level and
genetically programed emergent evolution at the species level.

...continued from above...This line of thinking brings me back to the model we were exploring
with the Time-Space Parameters matrixed within systems existing within other systems infinitely,
in all directions. Each and every Human Being, past, present and future, occupies one cell of
this universal human matrix, which for that Person is always at the center of His or Her Time-
Space Intersect(Present Here and now), except when they use their Intuitive skills for imagining
one's self at a past or future time or past or future place. I think something like this is involved
with experiences label Spiritual. We are part of a larger whole (vehicle?, journey?, genetic structure? or what?). Without sufficient awareness, intuitions become hallucinations and demons.
From a purely intuitive level, quantum physics, which allows for an X to be in more than one
place at a time or more than one Time at a Place is consistent with a systems model of personing
where the Organism, through focused attending is able to see a rock growing--either larger, or
in reverse.

There is a video here ( http://transafixion.com/ ) featuring Krishnamurti on listening, attention, total attention, and the crisis in consciousness.

Since the goal is to build a conceptual model of Personing, in common, ordinary language (English
in this instance), everyone's input is sought). Now common, ordinary language does not necessaryly mean simple and unsophicated. It can include description at any level from most concrete and specific to most abstract and general and the interactions of different levels. The
common focus of the school of thought named common ordinary language is to avoid as much as possible, creating and utilizing specialized concepts (jargon), and select concepts which evolved from common activities and tend to suggest common thoughts, feelings and activities. In other words to make use of the existing similarity of how language is structered and how human behavior is structered in the self-in-situation adaptation process.

A personal sense of responsibility, when explained thusly, comes close to the concept, "Connectivity," we've discussed in other threads. Mindfullness and Connectivity are
certainly important components of healthy, happy Personing. What kind of Life Skills curruculumn
will get us from here to there?

I must say that I feel a lot like wundernaus here in this thread but I already made up my mind to get into this because other things are just not working. All I really know is a lot of whats really going on in the world these days is very wrong. And I have come to the conclusion that although I like slinging barbs at the politicians as much as the next guy.
To only throw blame for whats wrong at politicians is really not going to fix anything. I think it serves an important purpose though in trying to get people to see whats wrong. A lot of people I know do not think there's really that much of anything out of the norm going on. We have to take some responsibility ourselves though like gabrielle was talking about earlier in the thread.
There has to be some kind of way to convince people of how they are supporting wars and genocide by continually being led like sheep by people who know how to manipulate us.

The above video is pretty impressive and maybe a good start for me to figure just what you guys are talking about here. Lol !

Magmak .. RLA ..... you two really make me have to pull the damned dictionary out to follow you at times but hey ... that's cool.

Also after watching that video I clicked the video and found lots more to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKvz3BdB2EE...tiits%2Dtime%2F

JimiRay, there's an unpublished book that will help you figure out what we're talking about.
It's an encyclopedic collection of excerpts from over 200 sources ....
just a few pages a day, says the author...
oh, wait a minute...

Hey I read your blog mag....
I am so caught up in reading as of late that I don't know how I keep the circuts from overload status. lol !
There's really nights that I think my brain hurts and so I have to watch some music videos or something to get my mind straightened back out. Just stepping back at times and looking at myself in general ?
I may be in a heap of trouble boy !
Because I kind of understand this Krishnamurti dude.
That's kinda scary man.
I'm not supposed to understand that kind of thinking .... but I always have had similar thoughts and questions.

Just another thought here too.
Although I don't always catch on to the big picture here right off the bat.
Sometimes things have to be translated into lingo I can understand so I can convey the message amongst the people I come into contact with on a personal basis. I don't exactly hang with intellectuals ya know ? But then neither did Jesus.
I think I could be an important grassroots type translator though.
Someone who knows how to speak the language of the little guy.
Any way just a thought.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whw08RmUFNg

We are all searching for a certain set of common, ordinary language words and how best
to configure them to model the structure and process of Personing. The evolution of human culture focused mostly on responding to problems. After the 1950's, awareness, especially
among social and behavioral sciences, began to increase that problems were highly related to the absence of employing certain concepts and skill. There was a further shift to studying healthy,
happy and self-actualizing development, and what kind of famillies and educational systems
produced proactive, self-managing behavior with satisfying and satisfactory interpersonal relation-
ships and career development. Magmak provided us a survey of available instructional units and
programs available for these kind of concerns. This data base could be maintained and further organized consistent with whatever model of personing skills we end up with. At the time of my retirement in 1995, the group I was working with had developed training packages, that clustered
in the three areas of: Self Management, Relationship Management and Life Management. The
organization lost its federal funding the year after I retired and I haven't kept up with the
research literature. I think we need to further clarify some of our basic building block concepts
such as Democracy, Person, Community etc. I've talked about how this model is based on
the five personing processes in other threads. This could provide a conceptual bridge from
Understanding Human Behavior to selecting interventions.

I echo Wundermaus and Jimi in straining to understand the "lingo" particularly from rla. I know some here at CGCS have degrees in Psych or related training or a deep interest in therapy and counselling. I come at this from a layman's stance though I have read quite a bit of Jungian Lit. But I did so when I needed help in dealing with what some might call "spiritual problems". I encountered John Rierson (sp) who was the president of Radix in Otai California. He was also the author of the sci-fi/ fantasy book by the same name. Radix is a form of physio/psychological therapy based on the knowledge and concepts of Wilhelm Reich and Ida Rolff.

I encountered him while at Stelle Illinois which was a spiritual community and still exists as a town today. The basic spiritual concept at Stelle as it related to the individual was conscious spiritual self-advancement. In pursuit of that several members at a time were encourgaed one time to join in a group therapy session conducted by John Rierson himself from the Radix Organization, so I understand some of what rla and Magmak are talking about regarding how we learn and where on the body emotional memories are stored. Rolffing (which is a deep muscle therapy) combined with the ideas of Reich (which concerns the free flow of the "Life Energies" known as Orgone) produce a release of deeply held emotional trauma which tends to block people from self-actualization.

My point is that these issues involving the political, psychological, spiritual, or philosophical, probably do cross over these labels and I think I get what rla is saying when he is speaking of "modeling" a new way of approaching a science of "Self in Situation".

Just my two cents.

Continued from above...A Model combining, "Mindfullness," human Autonomy and, "Connectivity,
human Hononomy, without violating common, ordinary language principles? This is our challenge.
What are our solutions?...I'm on a dial up modem and not able to get vidio stuff.

To my mind the solution starts with a free peaceful society that provides a foundation for "spiritual" advancement. When I say "spiritual" I do not necesaarily mean religious. To me "spiritual" means a total concept involving the "Self" or "Soul" in relationship to his or her whole Consciousness and includes the Unconscious. It also necessarily includes ones relationship with others in all ways from the interpersonal to world citizenship and even beyond.

Please see RLA's response embedded above.

I just saw the embedded response. You are welcome rla. I found that those therapy sessions did indeed bring up transformational energies, but I found as did John Rierson that deep Jungian Therapy was needed in my case, to deal with issues that bordered on the Metaphysical.

Just more food for thought.

I use spiritual and intuitive interchangeably. I prefer Intuition for model building because I think it is more operational and less likely to attract, "Noise makers," but this is a democratically regulated free market of ideas. The Goals I see for the Country are Peace, Prosperty and
Wellness. I am convinced that a better understand of human behavior is a primary route to
meeting all three goals.

I agree. But the political bent of those whose agenda is personal wealth and power over others in order to garner more and keep it at all costs has decimated the whole subject. Remember when social work was an honorable profession? When Civics Class, and Social Studies existed in school?

It seems the entire subject you are trying to address is tied to a cultural change that it seems needs to evolve upward again from the grassroots. Will it be knocked down again by those who see the danger of "spiritually" liberated citizens?

A political movement towards Universal Health Care might be a begining

Yes, especially linked with Reform against corruption and incompetency at all levels of
our goverment and a stop to Predatory Lending practices.