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In This issue:
Why the name, The Integral Spiritual Commons? Event Highlights Most Inspiring Quote of the Day Editorial: Are We in The 2nd Enlightenment? Integral Worldview News Best Spiritual Humor Successes Why Shop at our Affiliates Volunteering Opportunities Website News
Newcomer Advice Featured Web tool: Quote of the Day ![](http://universespirit.org/modules/SpiritMates/pnimages/rotate/craig_and_linda.jpg")
Partner News:
Integrative Spirituality is an alliance partner of IONS and a proud co-sponsor of IONS regional conference:Global Consciousness: The Missing Piece of the Sustainability Puzzle, April 22, 2006 in Oakland, CA. Click here. Honored Artists
Brother David Steindl-Rast - Oct 2005 Gary Malkin and Michael Stillwater - Nov 2005 The Global Peace Initiative of Women -Nov 2005 Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd-December 2005 Copyright Information
The Creative Commons Deed: All art, logos and trademarks in this ezine and on our website are property of their respective owner. Contact Us
Integrative Spirituality, PO Box 1508 Sausalito, CA 94966 Email your letters and comments to us. To receive free subscription to The Integral Spiritual Commons and other emails, click here. For more information about Integrative Spirituality and membership options please click here. |
The Integral Spiritual Commons Issue #1 March 2006 From the Editor Happy Spring to all! We welcome you to the new version of our quarterly ezine,The Integral Spiritual Commons. This replaces our monthly newsletter. The theme of this issue is "The 2nd Enlightenment of Mankind" and as you will see, there are a variety of offerings on this topic along with our regular pieces ranging from upcoming integral events to what's new on our website. Our next issue will come out in June and we will be adding 2 new columns: 'Letters to the Editor' and 'Integral Worldview News'. Please be sure to email us your letters and ideas on integral worldview topics so we can include them in the next issue. We are also pleased to report that over 500 of you are new members since December 29 (welcome!) and that we have had over one million visits to our site in the last four months. Please continue to share Integrative Spirituality with your networks as an organization and website whose growth and expansion is co-developed by members like you and other integral groups and individuals worldwide. And remember that we have 24 interactive web tools available for just this purpose of co-creating a global integral spiritual commons. Contribute to your heart's delight. Blessings, Mary Cosgrove, Editor Why Our New Quarterly Ezine is called The Integral Spiritual Commons For two reasons we believe that the creation of an integral spiritual commons is vital for expanding the dissemination of the integral worldview and for the expansion of the global integral community. Firstly, the creation of this integral commons in an open source, neutral, non commercial and non personality or brand focused space allows for greater community co-creation, cross pollination and community validity testing of the developing integral ideas, values, processes and applications. By this we mean the integral ideas, values, processes and applications that are now being developed independently within the many global integral communities. In the evolving new integral commons co-creation, cross pollination and community validity testing is ideally achieved through a collaborative and respectful process that we call integral 'coopertition.' This coopertition process notices and respects the necessary differences in perspectives in current integral approaches, but focuses upon the recognized common and pressing greater world centric needs --- needs that would be best served by expanding an integral commons. Within this evolving integral commons, at some level, we ALL can truly be self organizing co-creators, cross pollinating and validity testing emerging integral ideas and applications. Here what connects and energizes us as individuals or groups, can be strengthened, refined and then act as a rocket boosting the spread of a revitalizing and pragmatic hope for the future. (A hope that the integral worldview can both promise and deliver.) The second reason why our ezine is called The Integral Spiritual Commons (and not just The Integral Commons) is because we believe that the integral spirituality should always be held separate from integral philosophy. We believe that integral spirituality in all its healthy forms holds the most realistic promise and ability to reach and influence the greatest portion of the world’s population (an estimated 70% of the world’s non-postmodern religious population,) though their own (soon to be) integrally informed faiths. This unparalleled ability to dramatically influence the future of the world through already existing, powerful inherent spiritual leverage applied by integrally informed religions is what may be the single most practical hope that humankind has to realistically mitigate the global challenges that we currently face. We humbly offer this ezine and the tools of our website to help create and maintain the space of the Integral Spiritual Commons. Event Highlights: Bay Area Integral Day Long and After Party, WIE visit, World Spirituality Day Recently Integrative Spirituality co-hosted a very enjoyable Integral gathering of San Francisco Bay Integral folks at our floating event center, ‘The Creative Spirit’on the SF Bay. What really gets us turned on about sharing this recent event with everyone in the Integral commons is the indisputable awareness that interest and passion in integral living and integral spirituality is expanding and creating both a momentum and excitement. And, we at Integrative Spirituality are here to fully support the integral living worldview and the integral spirituality it seems to naturally engender.
This integral event was held as a social get-together after a very successful day long integral educational event organized by the Bay Area Integral group yahoo group– bayareaintegral) and held at the urban retreat center, One Taste, in San Francisco. This day in January included discussions of the integral works of Ken Wilber, integral spirituality, samples of integral meditations, talks, music, poetry, group processes, movement and more! It was so well organized and informative and fun (thanks Camille and friends)! We feel grateful to have found more kindred spirits on this integral journey and know that we are just now edging our way off the tip of the iceberg and towards the center of something greater. The post event at our floating event center was complete with great food, music, dancing, conversation and confirmation that this is the kind of crowd Integrative Spirituality really enjoys co-hosting! The group energy was intelligent, fun and cohesive. During January we also had the pleasure of hosting representatives from 2 other organizations doing good work in the world, What is Enlightenment andEnlightenNext. Publisher Robert Heinzman and Enlightened Communications facilitator, Steve Bret spent 2 days on the Creative Spirit while visiting San Francisco to present a workshop. One of our staff attended this intriguing event that offers new perspectives on personal responsibility and partnership in the evolutionary process. It became apparent from our time together that there exists the need expand the integral commons within the diverse integral global community. Look for future collaborations between Integrative Spirituality and these groups and more in the coming months. Last but not least, the 3rd Annual World Spirituality Day on December 31st, was celebrated more widely than ever before. The press coverage increased greatly over last year and The Salt Lake Tribune chose to cover WSD in their article 'Look Within, Look Ahead'. Here in San Francisco area we had over 100 people brave record setting rainfall and floods to celebrate on The Creative Spirit, enjoying great comedy, dance, live music, great food and new connections. We view all these events and others, as real turning points for Integrative Spirituality in that we are now committed to only hosting and co-sponsoring events that clearly have an intention of furthering the integral conversation and the flowering of integral spiritual understanding. And of course this must include fun and delight, 2 key ingredients to experiencing life and spirituality to its fullest! With that said, we would like to invite you to keep us in mind for co-hosting and co-sponsoring future integral gatherings of this kind or similar and creating strategic alliances of an integral nature. Integrative Spirituality is always interested in joining or creating strategic alliances with other cultural and spiritual creatives and organizations that forward any of the mission compatible areas of spirituality or spiritualized social activism or that directly forward or are compatible with our Our Mission or goals. We encourage all inquiries, big or small, and will be happy to discuss any proposals you have.  (Sunrise view from The Creative Spirit) New Honored Artists for Spring 2006 To view art and information about this quarter's honored artists, click on their names below. * Visual Artist, Eva Ariela Lindberg We always welcome contributions of integral style art, be it poetry, visual art, music, humor, philosophy, and more. Please contact us to share your ideas and works of art. As Matthew Fox says in Original Blessing, "A true artist is an intellectual with ideas to share. By the same token, a true intellectual is an artist with ideas, passionately in love with their wonder and their consequences for humankind." The re-integration of art with spirituality is one of the more important goals of our organization as well as an important factor in the growing Second Enlightenment movement. Read more here. News: Study Examines Spirituality Among University Members
Over 40,000 professors from 421 colleges and universities and 112,232 first-year students from 235 colleges and universities were surveyed about how their religious and spiritual beliefs affect their everyday activities. Seventy-nine percent of freshmen surveyed said they believed in God, and 69 percent said they pray. Eighty-one percent considered themselves spiritual. Click here to continue reading. Most Inspiring Quote of the Day "The ultimate metaphysical secret, if we dare to state it so simply is that there are no boundaries in the universe. Boundaries are illusions, products not of reality but of the way we map and edit reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two." ~ Ken Wilber Are We in the 2nd Great Enlightenment Period of Human History? Are we entering into the 2nd great Enlightenment period in human history --- a convergence of enlightened new ideas and a new more integral worldview? Just in time and concurrent with the rise of the 3 new technological revolutions comes the emerging new 2nd Enlightenment. This movement is being spread, in significant part, by the rapidly growing global population of cultural creatives. Read whole article by clicking here. Integral World View News Please send us any integral worldview or integral spirituality related news stories or articles that you think should be on our website or in our Quarterly Ezine. Feel free to also suggest people in the integral community that you think we should interview. Email your suggestions to manage@universespirit.org with 'News Editor' in the subject line.
Best New Spiritual Humor: Adam's Rib In Sunday School, they were teaching how God created everything, including human beings. Little Johnny seemed especially intent when they told him how Eve was created out of one of Adam's ribs. Later in the week, his mother noticed him lying down as though he were ill, and said, "Johnny what is the matter?" Little Johnny responded, "I have a pain in my side. I think I'm going to have a wife." Integral Success Stories: "Just wanted to post a shout-out to you for the fantastic web-site." -R.B. "It really is great that we all are finding each other at this enormously important moment in evolution. I believe that we are all tracking the same scent regarding the importance of how we "show up" at this crucial fulcrum. I have signed on as a member of integrative spirituality and look forward to continuing to be a part of this expanding and robust community of movers!" - B.K. If you have a story of how the integral worldview and/or Integrative Spirituality has contributed to success in your life, please share it with us for a new feature we will be adding to the ezine: Life successes with the integral principles. Send it to manage@universespirit.org with 'Integral Success' in subject line.
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The Integral Spiritual Commons, Issue #1, March 2006: Part 2
Most university students and faculty members consider spirituality to be an important part of their lives, according to a study by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA scheduled to bereleased today. 
