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The Home of Evolutioneers

Integral Spirit: News & Events - March 2007

Integral spirit masthead
Issue No. 4
Spring 2007

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Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Online Integral Spirituality Community Members:

It has been a few months since the last Integral Sprit update was sent. During this time we have been working on exciting enhancements to the Integrative Spirituality community experience. In this new edition of Integral Spirit, it is our honor to share some improvements with you as we work toward building community and deepening our commitment to our mission.

With this newsletter, we hope to keep you informed of events and creative happenings in which you are welcome to participate. We also look forward to sharing ideas and inspirations with you, as well as keeping you appraised of our adventures in the unfolding of integrative spirituality, both as an organization and as a movement. Read on to learn more about Universe Spirit and our upcoming gatherings on the Creative Spirit!

If you have any questions about the offerings discussed in this newsletter, feel free to email us at manage@universespirit.org. We welcome your participation in our unfolding integrative, Universe Spirit!

Sincerely,

Lawrence

 
Articles Sacred Image
New Articles On the Website

Spirituality Begins at Home

It's no surprise that we arrange our homes to reflect our personalities and interests. Literature lovers fill their rooms with books and comfy reading chairs. An enthusiastic cook may spend thousands turning a dull kitchen into a glittering showpiece. Yet aside from occasional holiday decorations, the spiritual side of life rarely plays a starring role in the home. That might be changing...

Click here to continue reading or place a comment...

The Pathologies and the Beauties of Organized Religion: A Quick Summary

For many of the estimated 30% of the population that calls itself "spiritual, but not religious," the very word religion creates an unpleasant and aversive reaction. One does not have to go far to see the pathological aspects and abuses of religion today or remember the pathological aspects and abuses of the past. But, what if a group of spiritually mature individuals could co-create a new form of evolutionary integral spirituality in a completely new type of organizational form that could perform the beautiful social and spiritual functions that healthy, non pathological religions should perform...

Click here to continue reading or place a comment...

Coming to Mary - the Divine Female of a Christian West
By Chandra Alexandre, Ph.D.

This article invites the reader to journey with a new face of the western Divine Feminine as a re-visioned Mary who within Herself encompasses and extends beyond a traditional Christian notion of "Mary." As Virgin Mary, she is a power that has for millennia stimulated the imagination and hearts of peoples the world over, a goddess in her own right who is being claimed and reclaimed as such by many seeking the Divine Feminine in the west.

Welcome HomeThis article introduces the many facets of Mary, reclaims her from a subordinate role within the Catholic Church, honors her as a goddess of antiquity who has taken a Christian name, and helps to broaden understanding of her within a philosophical framework that includes a vision of an unpathologized God/Masculine Divine.

Click here to continue reading or place a comment...

And there are many more articles since the last issue. Click here for more articles!

Integrative Spirituality embraces...

Universe Spirit - a spirituality that is at the cutting edge of all of our collective spiritual wisdom traditions. Universe Spirit particularly coalesces the life affirming wisdom of the eco-spirituality, women's spirituality and integral spirituality movements in order to create new potentials for spiritual wholeness and sustainability.

Universe Spirit is...Focus on Peace

  • integral and integrative, including the most effective, safe and universally applicable spiritual wisdom from all of humanity's spiritual traditions while at the same time striving to transcend the ineffective, inapplicable or pathological elements of that religious heritage.
  • open source, which means that anyone or any organization can contribute spiritual wisdom to a growing global spiritual commons knowledge base.
  • co-evolving new ideas, forms of leadership, governance, and organizational structures to support life-affirming spiritual engagement in the problems of today.

What does Universe Spirit do?

Universe Spirit facilitates a conscious celebration of life that can help individual seekers discover or expand their personal spirituality through transformative, panentheistic, direct experience with the Ultimate Reality.

The transformational journey through Universe Spirit enables:

  • making one's life into a collage of ethical and successful relationships and experiences at all levels (spiritual, physical, emotional, intellectual) and in all arenas (political, economic, social, etc.)
  • moving toward fulfilling spiritual completeness through a balanced living of the virtues, and
  • co-creation of a just, sustainable and equitable world for all.

Who is it designed for?

Universe spirit is for anyone who senses the essence of Spirit in life or senses that a better world is possible. It is for those who define themselves as spiritual but not necessarily religious, or, who are religious but think beyond the borders of just their own faith, or, who may be part of today's cultural creatives.

It is for individuals who are passionately committed to:

i) realizing more of Divinity within themselves (through regular spiritual practice, psycho-spiritual exploration, and authentic participation in spiritual community);

ii) the values of an integrative and integral spiritual process, where values such as: collaboration, partnership, interconnectedness, sustainability, authentic leadership, inclusion of multiple viewpoints, embodied engaged spirituality, diversity, transparency, non-polariziation, creativity, deep listening, accountability, both/and transcending solutions vs. either/or solutions and compassionate action, et al. are honored-on individual, societal and planetary levels; and

iii) service.

 
Boat Sideview
The Zero Carbon Emissions "Green Marine" Program
for our Floating Spiritual Center

Environmental sustainability is a vital eco-spirituality element of open source Universe Spirit. In addition to the necessary marine safety repairs that we made to enable our floating center to go from city to city, we have begun our green marine program to convert our floating spiritual center to a zero or near zero carbon emitter.

We will be adding both solar and wind power along with a new super efficient, low-energy refrigerator/freezer, hot water heater and greener lighting throughout the center. We also hope to soon be using a mix of 80% bio-fuel to feed our two 650 horsepower engines. We will be one of the first boats of our size anywhere to have gone this far toward green marine. We calculate that we will be zero emissions and energy independent at dock and at much lower emission levels when cruising thanks to the bio-fuels mix. It is our hope to have occasional open green marine days in 2007 where we help educate others about what can be done as well as publicize our success in marine magazines around the world.

If you believe in helping to support our green marine leadership program, click here.

 

Boat SideviewOur Floating Spiritual Center is Sailing Around
the San Francisco Bay Area for New Events

In 2007, we completed all the necessary marine safety repairs to our floating spiritual center, and it is now sufficiently seaworthy to travel to locations around California to help grow our spiritual community and make our services and events more readily accessible.

Much like the mules used by the first Padres of the Catholic Church to help them get to and establish their many California missions, our floating spiritual center will dock in various cities (e.g., Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sausalito, Petaluma, and maybe even Sacramento or Stockton) for a weekend or longer for educational workshops, spiritual events, meditations and more!

To see our current San Francisco Bay Area events calendar, click here.

Attention San Francisco Bay Area Visitors and Locals!

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You are warmly invited to attend any of our public events at the Creative Spirit, our floating spiritual center. Even if you are just passing through the San Francisco Bay Area, consider meeting us during an event and sharing the joys of community.

Email us at: manage@universespirit.org
and put "Local Mail List" in the subject line.

We will add you to our "local events only" notification list to ensure you receive emails with our event calendar and any updates as soon as they happen.

To see our current San Francisco Bay Area events calendar, click here.

Time for the Divine Female?

At Integrative Spirituality, we believe that the effective implementation of an integrative and integral spirituality will help facilitate the creation of a just, sustainable and equitable world. It will do this in part by affirmatively and actively supporting the recognition, re-assent and resacralization of the Divine Female/Divine Feminine

in spiritual practice and life. A spiritual reconnection to the Divine Feminine will, we believe, then organically grow to support the rebalancing of the Divine Feminine with the Divine Masculine. Once the Divine is envisioned in this way, a more robust, inclusive expression of creativity, joy, peace and love will be possible.

Viking Woman In 2007, we have dedicated ourselves to doing the work of honoring the Divine Female because She, often also called Goddess or Divine Mother, is currently neglected, suppressed, denied, rejected, marginalized and psychologically repressed throughout much of the world. Her denigration and the ignoring of Her qualities has been the root cause of myriad crises-environmental, spiritual, physical and social-because without a valuing of the Feminine/Female face of the Divine, humanity has in many contexts stripped itself of the potential for wholeness the Divine affords. By embracing Her within the larger context of our worship, we embrace truly more of ourselves, each other, and our beloved Earth. Embracing Her, we reconnect to the source of embodied wisdom; wisdom that has been denied expression given the tendency toward pathological dualities and patriarchal limitations within so many of humanity's social structures.

At IS, we hold that a renewed envisioning of the Divine Feminine, replete with all qualities and aspects, will further assist us in realizing paradoxical Oneness-what some see as a triune Godhead with aspects encompassing the transcendent, immanent and evolutionary absolute states of spiritual consciousness. This opening to a fuller acceptance of life's challenges and the wonders of Ultimate Reality is only possible through the healing work of loving what we have disowned. This vital spiritual and psychological shadow work, we hope, will involve and continue to be informed by healthy iterations of engaged spirituality offered by the women's spirituality, eco-spirituality and integral movements.

New Online Courses for 2007 and 2008!

Our website is shifting more toward expanding our spiritual education support tools so that members and visitors can access new information and participate in some new online classes and other educational on-line forums. Anticipated areas of online content and/or online course expansion for the next couple of years include materials for:

  1. Introduction to Open Source Universe Spirit
  2. Releasing the Divine Empowerment Within (through the practice of Open Source Integral Spirituality)
  3. Integral Women's (Eco)Spirituality
  4. Integral Spirituality Communication and RelationshipHeart Constallation
  5. Pathologies of Religion: An Integral Perspective
  6. Basic Integral Spiritual Practices
  7. Intermediate Integral Spiritual Practices
  8. Advanced Integral Spiritual Practices classes
  9. Integral Spirituality Eco-Action & Sustainability
  10. Integral Spirituality Ethics, Right Livelihood and Sustainable Living
  11. An upgraded Life and Spirit Facilitator's Course

If you would like to help these new or upgraded online materials and courses become reality through your support, click here.

 
Our Mission Statement has Evolved for 2007 and Beyond!

We are a (r)evolutionary new form of spirituality and have refined our mission statement to be reflective of our true north compass point-the primary direction we're focused on heading as we do our work in the world. Our mission now states:

Through art, beauty and with delight, we at Integrative Spirituality seek to integrate humankind's spiritual wisdom lineages in a (r)evolutionary and integral way to help individuals discover, expand and unfold fulfilling personal spirituality through transformative, panentheistic direct spiritual experiences with the ever-present Origin.

We want this to be a year of greater expansion of authentic spiritual community building free from the many pathologies of past spiritual and religious organizations. We are seeking to attract and work with more individuals who have a strong desire to make a difference in the world and who want to keep growing spiritually themselves.

IS Logo
Overall, we have rededicated ourselves to embodied Evolution Spirituality that facilitates the unfolding of one's natural relationship to the Ultimate Reality and encourages doing the work of spirit in the here and now. We are further committed to the creation of safe (non-pathological) spaces of spiritual community the world over-community in which people can engage, nourish and uncover (discover) their own authentic spirituality while tapping into humanity's entire spiritual wisdom heritage.

If you believe this mission and our vision are worthwhile and you want to help achieve it, please click here.
 

SpiralAbout the Who's Online Feature
We have changed our Who's Online counter parameters to reflect instant results of only the exact number of people online at that moment. The instant anyone logs on or off the Integrative Spirituality website, the numbers will change. The Who's Online feature is located in the top left-hand column of each page. (Previously, this feature was set to show everyone on the site for the last few hours.)
Co-Creating the First Non-Profit Organizational Structure
for Open Source Integral Spirituality

Integrative Spirituality is dedicated to providing an authentic open source (r)evolutionary spiritual experience and spiritual relationships that are uplifting, vision-building and inspiring as well as affirming of your ongoing partnership with the Divine. After experiencing our services and materials, we hope that you will discover an expanded positive image of yourself as someone who embodies a balanced faith that not only empowers you in the face of your life's challenges, but also turns those same challenges into opportunities!

Earth Heaven

For 2007 we have just a few key targets:
  • More of our visitors and members draw significantly closer to Divinity from using our website, workshops and materials and by attending our community events;
  • Our San Francisco Bay Area community of members doubles in size;
  • We begin satellite support spiritual communities in Berkeley, Oakland, Petaluma, Redwood City and maybe even Napa, Sacramento and Stockton by moving our floating center for weekend or longer events;
  • The green marine program for our floating spiritual center dramatically cuts carbon emissions and serves as a learning example for others in the marine enviroment;
  • We become even more efficient stewards of member donations and,
  • We increase our financial viability through increased member donor support.

When you help financially support Integrative Spirituality you are:Infinity

  • Helping to support your and many others' spiritual growth and transformation by supporting and expanding the first non-profit spiritual/religious organizational structure dedicated to open source Universe Spirit.
  • Supporting an effective source of new integralized spiritual wisdom and leverage, hope and energy that is vitally needed to help resolve the global and local challenges that we, our sister and brother planetary citizens, and all Earth's inhabitants now face.
  • Releasing abundance as a gift back to the Divine. From your commitment to Spirit, others are also inspired. Your support and actions to bring about a better world help our common, mutually-beneficial and larger union.
  • Receiving the tax deduction benefits of contributing to a religious non-profit organization. With each donation to our organization you make a statement. You can trust that we will use your support wisely. Of course, we are financially transparent so that members and contributors can be aware of where all their donations are directed. To see our current tax return click here.

Please do take the time now to go to our donations page. By clicking here you are helping co-create the world's first open source (r)evolutionary spirituality.

Thank you for your support!
Feel free to let us know how you feel about our organization's ongoing evolution. We look forward to hearing from you!
Website Member Agreement Update

The Integrative Spirituality Registered User Agreement has been upgraded with a new section, No. 19, which reads as follows:

Your acknowledgement that you are giving us permission to email you.

Your registering as a user of our website is your agreement to allow Integrative Spirituality to send you emails containing your new website passwords, important website upgrades or changes and periodic website newsletters.

You may opt out at any time by using the opt out link provided in each email. Keep in mind that you originally had to give us your permission to email you because we had to email you your website passwords

. Check out our new forum agreement link next time you loginbecause it is in effect now.
 

 

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