LeslieMeehan Holosapien

OUR BIRTH AS HOLO SAPIENS
NAVIGATING OUR PASSAGE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE
by
Leslie C. Meehan
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of
the California Institute of Integral Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities with a concentration in Philosophy and
Religion and an emphasis in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness
California Institute of Integral Studies
San Francisco, CA
2010
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
I certify that I have read OUR BIRTH AS HOLO SAPIENS
NAVIGATING OUR PASSAGE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE by Leslie C.
Meehan and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a
dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy in Humanities with a concentration in Philosophy and Religion and an
emphasis in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute
of Integral Studies.
_____________________________________
Sean Kelly, Ph.D., Chair
Core Faculty, Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness
_____________________________________
Brian Swimme, Ph.D.
Core Faculty, Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness
_____________________________________
Allan Combs, Ph.D.
Core Faculty, Transformative Studies
© 2010 Leslie C. Meehan
Permission for use of various diagrams by William Tiller
Received email confirmation April 21, 2010
Dear Leslie:
Concerning "Reprint Permission Confirmation", yes, you have my permission to
reprint all five items listed below.
Best wishes,
Bill Tiller
Written request sent March 23, 2010
Dear Bill and colleagues,
Thank you for our nice chat last week and for your permission to reprint several
of your diagrams from your profound body of work in my dissertation from the
California Institute of Integral Studies entitled “Our Birth as Holo Sapiens:
Navigating our Passage through Climate Change.”
Your model is the subtle scientific foundation for my subtle body theory (“Holo
sapien Unergy Model”) that integrates my engineering… and energy healing
experience. I quote your wisdom ranging from the boggle effect, to deltrons, to
the systems properties of consciousness….I’d be happy to forward a link to my
dissertation when it’s ready.
I’d appreciate an email response to document your permission to reprint the

following diagrams. I’ve scanned your website to see if I should use any online
diagrams instead, but I believe the book versions better satisfy my dissertation
publishing constraints….
• Figure 3.16 Chakra-Endocrine Pair (Tiller, 1997, p 122)

• Figure 2.2 Tiller’s 11-Dimensional Model (Tiller, 2001, p. 25)
• Figure 6.1 deBroglie Pilot Wave/Particle (Tiller, 2007, p 113)
• Diagram 15. Positive-Negative Space/Time Model (Gerber, 2001, p. 146)
• Diagram 16. Frequency Model of the Human Subtle Bodies (Gerber,
2001, p. 156)
The requested permission extends to any future revisions and editions of my

dissertation, including non-exclusive world rights in all languages, and to the
prospective publication of my dissertation both by Proquest UMI Dissertation
Publishing and by myself on my personal website(s) currently under development
at www.wisdomspace.net.
These rights will in no way restrict republication of the material in any other form
by you or by others authorized by you. Your approval will also confirm that you
own the copyright to the above-described material.
Thank you for your lifetime of pioneering work. You are my subtle wisdom hero!
Leslie Meehan
408 209 3472
Permission for use of General Timeframes for Sustainability Table by William
Varey
Received online March 15, 2010
Leslie,
What a delightful message to begin the day.
You have my permission to reprint that Table with adaptations….
Thrilled to meet you and hear of your work.
William Varey
(Principal)
emrgnc
Tel: + 61 8 9433 4255
Email: will@emrgnc.com.au
Web: www.emrgnc.com.au
PhD Candidate
Murdoch University
School of Sustainability
Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy (ISTP)
Faculty of Sustainability, Environmental and Life Sciences
e-mail: W.Varey@murdoch.edu.au
Request sent March 15, 2010
Dear William,
I would first like to thank you for who you are and what you do in the world. I
discovered your incredible integral work at emrgnc while researching my doctoral
dissertation at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). In “Our Birth as
Holo Sapiens: Navigating our Passage through Climate Change,” I explore Holo
sapien (“whole knowing”) wisdom systems (principles and practices) across
interdisciplinary personal, collective, and subtle (interior) perspectives….
Your work is the most highly integral form of action research that I have found
within integral sustainability. It has been wonderful to find a kindred soul who
dances with principles, practice, and poetry across civic, social, and corporate
sectors. In particular, your astounding array of case studies has been my most
useful guide in relating integral models to real organization systems.
I am now completing my dissertation and would like your permission to reprint

the gist of Table 3: Generational Time Frames for Sustainability from
Transforming Sustainability: An Integral Leader’s Framework (2004, p. 26). My
only modification is to replace the color system column with Integral (Wilber et
al. vs. Spiral Dynamics) colors. I have also quoted a couple paragraphs from the
paper. I would be happy to send you a dissertation link if you would like to see for
yourself!

at www.wisdomspace.net. These rights will in no way restrict republication of
the material in any other form by you or by others authorized by you. Although I
believe reprinting is allowed under the partial creative commons license at the
emrgnc site, I would still like to have your blessing and to affirm that your efforts
do make more of a difference than you can imagine…
Thank you in advance for your reprint blessing and again, thank you for shining
your wise and compassionate light on us all.
Warmly,
Leslie Meehan
lesliem@whitelight.ws
MSEE, Stanford
PhD Philosophy, CIIS
Co-founder, Gaiafield Center for Subtle Activism
0011 1 408 209 3472
Permission for use of Hieroglyphic Stairway poem excerpt by Drew Dellinger
From: Drew Dellinger's Office [mailto:drew@drewdellinger.org]

Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 12:30 PM
To: Leslie Meehan
Subject: Re: Drew at PWR pics and reprint request
Hi Leslie,
Thanks for the pics!! It was great to see you there, but too brief.
You can cite the poem to the new printing of the book:
love letter to the milky way

by Drew Dellinger
2010
Planetize the Movement Press
Mill Valley, CA
best,
Drew
On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Leslie Meehan <LeslieM@whitelight.ws>

wrote:
Dear Drew,
It’s Doc Meehan (hooray!) finally sending you these PWR pics (how did it get to
be mid-March already?!) Great job at PWR - hope you enjoy these memories! and
that you have as much fun in Canada.
I’m now slogging through the administrative details of publishing my CIIS

dissertation
“Our Birth as Holo Sapiens: Navigating our Passage through Climate Change”
and am delighted to be formally requesting your permission to reprint the
following excerpt from hieroglyphic stairway:

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren

ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something

when the seasons started failing?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do

once
you
knew?
What should the citation location and date be? I can’t find the poem on your
website.

the material in any other form by you or by others authorized by you.
I greatly admire and appreciate your inspiring poetic wisdom and would be
honored to include this luminous, numinous jewel in my work. I still remember
the first time I heard you perform it at the 2004 Wisdom and Action conference. It
sent shivers all the way through me, and it still does, every time.
Thank you so much for who you are and what you do to shine love and justice in
the world.
Love,
Leslie Meehan
Permission for use of Whale Mandala art by Tom Pipinou
|From: tompipinou@comcast.net [mailto:tompipinou@comcast.net]

| Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 6:27 PM
| To: Leslie Meehan
| Subject: Re: Whale Mandala for my dissertation pretty please??
It would be my pleasure to share this with you.... Hope you’re successful with
your work, and I am glad I can be of help.
|
| Sincerely,
| tom
| Tom Pipinou
| Creative Art Director / Visual Designer
| Northstar Studio
| | Santa Clara CA 95050
|
| 1-408-390-8067
| 1-408-260-7870
| www.northstarstudio.com
| www.alexiacenter.org
Dear Tom,
We met at your wonderful CSE art exhibit opening a few weeks ago, and I
expressed my interest in using your beautiful whale mandala image in my PhD
dissertation at the California Institute of Integral Studies. I’m in the publication
editing stage now and am hoping that you are still willing to share your
transformative art with my dissertation audience, whoever they may be!
In “Our Birth as Holo Sapiens: Navigating our Passage through Climate Change,”
I explore Holo sapien (“whole knowing”) wisdom systems (principles and
practices) across interdisciplinary personal, collective, and subtle (interior)
perspectives. The whale mandala image would be a perfect transformative
artpiece for the opening reflection section of my chapter on subtle wisdom.

the material in any other form by you or by others authorized by you.
Congratulations again on your exhibit and your newly public sacred art journey.
I hope to be a companion along the way!
Warmly, Leslie Meehan
Permission for use of Wisdom Mountain painting by Janelle Vasche’
Leslie C. Meehan
California Institute of Integral Studies, 2010
Sean Kelly, PhD, Committee Chair
OUR BIRTH AS HOLO SAPIENS

NAVIGATING OUR PASSAGE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE
ABSTRACT
The survival of the human species requires nothing less than re-defining
who we are as humans. We are not just homo sapiens descended from the apes,
but Holo sapiens (whole knowing), aware that we literally embody a fractal part
of the universal whole. The dawn of the early Holo sapien marks the birth of a
global wisdom society. Our birth passage through such ecosocial crises as climate
change, peak oil, and extreme poverty can be assisted by integral wisdom systems
linking personal, collective, interior, and exterior growth.
Wisdom is defined as the multidimensional experience of wholeness.
Wisdom development is an embodied, participatory process of healing and
transformation called the Integral Wisdom Journey. Wisdom systems provide
practical tools for the wisdom trail, using sets of principles and practices that
support the perspectival shifts necessary to cocreate a world that honors personal
diversity within collective unity. Wisdom systems guide us toward a sustainable,
just, and soul-fulfilling wisdom society that benefits our entire earth community
and the next seven generations.
This work illustrates perspectival freedom by examining wisdom
development from the personal, collective, and subtle (inner awareness) points of
view, as seen through action research and through my personal experience.
xii
Patterns in wisdom society principles and practices are shown to be consistent
across these simultaneously occurring perspectives. Climate change is a case
study focus for each perspective.
A wisdom toolkit of intuitive models is provided to aid our perspectival
flexibility and our discernment of wisdom within ecosocial complexity. The Holo
sapien Compass is a guide to personal wisdom development in identity, felt
experience, and attention. The Wisdom Society, Wisdom System, and Resilient
Holo sapien Mandalas portray collective wisdom patterns in the United States.
The Holo sapien Unergy Model hypothesizes Holo sapien as an eleven-
dimensional human antenna that subtly attunes with collective consciousness
through frequency resonance coherence. These patterns coalesce in Holo sapien
Wisdom models of today’s wisdom society.
In summary, recommendations are made for personal wisdom systems,
collective reflection programs, community resilience networks, and strategic
wisdom system development to best assist wisdom society maturation.
xiii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Gratitude to my family, friends, colleagues, and guides
is expressed at the beginning of each chapter
Digital Graphics Design of Author's Images by Brooks Cole
www.hologenesis.com
Art by Tom Pipinou and Janelle Vasche
Poetry by Drew Dellinger
Selected diagrams by William Tiller and William Varey
xiv
DEDICATION
to my parents John and Ellie
to my children Patrick and Lisa
to all our great-great-grandchildren of all species
xv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ................................................................................................................. xii!
Acknowledgment ................................................................................................. xiv!
Dedication ..............................................................................................................xv!
List of Figures .................................................................................................... xxxi!
List of Tables ................................................................................................... xxxiii!
A note about the integral orientation of this dissertation........................................1!
Chapter 1: The Integral Wisdom Journey................................................................3!
Opening Reflections ....................................................................................3!
In Deep Appreciation.......................................................................3!
To the Beauty of the Journey ...........................................................3!
Centering Poem................................................................................4!
Introduction: Becoming HoloConscious .....................................................5!
Our Journey: What on Earth is Going On With Humans? ..........................7!
Discovering the Integral Wisdom Journey ..................................................8!
The Phases of Healing .....................................................................9!
The Phases of the Integral Wisdom Journey .................................10!
Waking Up to Our Ecosocial Dis-ease ......................................................12!
Facing the Brutal Facts ..................................................................12!
Facing Our Feelings.......................................................................13!
Denial.................................................................................13!
Shame.................................................................................14!
Fear ....................................................................................15!
Searching for Wisdom ...............................................................................16!
An Integral Perspective of Wisdom...............................................16!
xvi
What Is Integral?................................................................17!
What Is Wisdom?...............................................................17!
Wisdom reflects wholeness. ..................................18!
Wisdom serves a useful purpose............................19!
Wisdom is a dynamic process that evolves over

time. .......................................................................20!
Wisdom is based upon personal–social

interdependence. ....................................................20!
Wisdom uses multiple modes of experiential

learning. .................................................................20!
Wisdom requires a reflection–action dynamic. .....21!
Wisdom: The Multidimensional Experience of Wholeness ..........21!
The Wisdom Terrain Ideogram..........................................22!
Consciousness ....................................................................24!
Personal Wisdom ...............................................................24!
Subtle Wisdom...................................................................25!
Collective Wisdom ............................................................25!
The WisdomSpace Model of Integral Wisdom .............................27!
Integral AQAL Approach ..................................................27!
Wisdom Mandala ...............................................................29!
Finding Your Wisdom Journey Trailhead .....................................30!
Spiraling Into an Integral Reality...............................................................31!
The Illusion of Modernity..............................................................32!
An Integral Worldview: Holoconsciousness .................................34!
Beyond Denial: Reality as a Vibrational Living System

Relationship .......................................................................35!
Reality as vibrating relationship. ...........................35!
xvii
Reality as a living system. .....................................37!
Reality is a wildly unpredictable living

relationship.............................................................38!
Beyond Shame: Appreciating the Immensity of Our

Evolutionary Journey .........................................................39!
Origins of toxic shame. ..........................................40!
Antidotes for toxic shame. .....................................41!
Beyond Fear: Empowering a Thriving Future ...................42!
Embracing the unknown. .......................................42!
Heaven or hell: Looking in the crystal ball...........43!
Coalescing: Exploring HoloConsciousness ...............................................44!
An Integral Identity as a Holo sapien ............................................45!
The Holo sapien Compass .............................................................48!
The Heart Center of Essence .............................................48!
The Star of Intention ..........................................................48!
The Spiral of Process Shift ................................................49!
The X-Axis of Identity: As Go I, So Goes the World .......50!
The Y-Axis of Felt Experience: As Above, So Below ......50!
The Z-Axis of Attention: As Within, So Without .............51!
Wisdom Systems: Practical Tools for the Trail .............................51!
The Birth of a Wisdom Society .................................................................53!
The Universal Human (Barbara Marx Hubbard) ...........................54!
A Life Sustaining Society (Joanna Macy) .....................................54!
A New Era (Teilhard de Chardin)..................................................55!
Chapter 2: Developing Personal Wisdom..............................................................56!
Opening Reflections ..................................................................................56!
xviii
In Deep Appreciation.....................................................................56!
To the Beauty of the Journey .........................................................56!
Centering Poem..............................................................................57!
Introduction: Becoming a Holo sapien From the Inside Out.....................58!
The Personal Wisdom Journey ..................................................................59!
What Is Personal Wisdom?............................................................59!
Opening to the Transpersonal ............................................59!
Transpersonal Perspectives................................................60!
Transpersonal Wisdom ..................................................................62!
Personal Wisdom Journey Patterns............................................................63!
The Integral Approach ...................................................................63!
Stage Development ........................................................................65!
Waves of Existence (Ken Wilber) .....................................65!
Self-Identity Ego Development Stage (Susanne Cook-

Greuter) ..............................................................................67!
Subject/Object Orders of Consciousness (Robert

Kegan)................................................................................68!
State Cycles....................................................................................72!
The State–Stage Dance ..................................................................74!
Beyond Vertical Transcendence ....................................................75!
Participatory Knowing (Jorge Ferrer)................................75!
Panentheism (Carol Christ)................................................76!
Holo sapien Stage Model ...............................................................77!
Toroidal Butterfly State–Stage Model ...........................................80!
Toroidal Cycle of Expand and Embrace............................80!
Toroidal Cycle Illustration.................................................81!
xix
Holo sapien Growth Rings.................................................83!
The Toroidal Butterfly .......................................................83!
Goal of Freedom of Motion ...............................................85!
Personal Wisdom Journey Principles ........................................................86!
Center and Open Your Heart .........................................................86!
Hold a Steady Intention .................................................................87!
Go With the Flow ..........................................................................88!
Dark Nights........................................................................88!
Shadow...............................................................................89!
Embrace Others as Part of Yourself ..............................................90!
Treasure Multiple Modes of Experience .......................................92!
Balance Inner–Outer Attention ......................................................93!
Personal Case Studies: Leslie’s Personal Wisdom Journey ......................95!
Personal Case Study Retrospective: Leslie’s Odyssey ..................95!
LifeCycle One (ages 0–21): Birth to Young Adulthood,

Waking Up to Coalescence................................................96!
LifeCycle Two (ages 21–41) .............................................96!
Early 20s, engineering and travel: Waking up.......96!
Late 20s, beyond the mind: Searching for

wisdom...................................................................98!
Early 30s: finding heart in marriage (Spiral) and

motherhood (Coalescence). ...................................99!
Late 30s: exploring my heart; Waking

up/Searching. .........................................................99!
LifeCycle Three (Ages 41–50) ........................................100!
Early-mid 40s, diving into inner depths: Spiral. ..100!
Late 40s, dawning peace: Coalescence................102!
xx
Odyssey Principle Reflections .........................................103!
Opening to love and grace (heart center).............103!
Labors of expansion and compression

(intention).............................................................103!
All in its own time (process shift)........................105!
Appreciating interbeing (x-axis identity).............105!
Roaming the head/heart/body/soul spectrum (y-

axis felt experience). ............................................105!
Dancing with being and doing (z-axis attention).106!
Personal Odyssey Episode One: Do I Tell?.................................107!
The Journey Never Ends (Heart Center)..........................107!
My Body–Head–Heart–Soul Dance (Y-Axis Felt

Experience) ......................................................................107!
Navigating Through Love and Fear (Holding a Steady

Intention)..........................................................................108!
Appreciating My Wisdom Mirrors Everywhere (Z-Axis

Attention) .........................................................................109!
Healer, Heal Thyself to Heal Anyone Else (X-Axis

Identity)............................................................................110!
The Journey Gets Easier in Time (Go With the Flow) ....111!
Bodhisattva Training (Open Centered Heart) ..................112!
Personal Case Study Episode Two: Leslie’s Climate Passage ....112!
My Climate Change Confessions ....................................113!
My Search for Climate Wisdom ......................................114!
Personal Wisdom Systems: Tools for the Trail .......................................115!
Personal Wisdom Systems Matrix ...............................................116!
Personal Wisdom System Survey Orientation.............................116!
Concluding Reflections on Developing Personal Wisdom......................118!
xxi
360° Vision ..................................................................................120!
Wisdom Attitude..........................................................................121!
Recommendations for Developing Personal Wisdom .................122!
The Pathless Path .........................................................................122!
Chapter 3: Developing Collective Wisdom .........................................................124!
Opening Reflections ................................................................................124!
With Deep Appreciation ..............................................................124!
To the Beauty of our Journey Together .......................................124!
Centering poem............................................................................125!
Introduction: Becoming a Holo sapien From the Outside In...................125!
The Nature of the Collective........................................................126!
What Is a Collective? ...................................................................127!
What Is Collective Wisdom? .......................................................130!
What Is a Wisdom Society?.........................................................131!
Collective Wisdom as Action Research...................................................132!
Community Action Research (CAR) ...........................................132!
Appreciative Inquiry (A) .............................................................134!
Integral Approach (I) ...................................................................134!
The Personal-Collective Journey .................................................137!
Patterns in a Wisdom Society ..................................................................138!
The WisdomSpace Theory of Wisdom Society Evolution ..........138!
Wisdom Society Mandala of Healing and Development.............139!
Exploring the Quadrants ..................................................141!
Applying the Model .........................................................143!
The Interior “Subtle Body” of a Wisdom Society .......................143!
xxii
The Exterior “Anatomy” of a Wisdom Society ...........................145!
Individual .........................................................................145!
Family and Friends ..........................................................146!
Groups..............................................................................146!
Communities and Organizations......................................147!
Cities and Corporations ...................................................148!
Distributed Community: Broad regions, Nations,

Networks, and Social Sectors ..........................................148!
Community network theory. ................................148!
Distributed community network types.................149!
Earth Community.............................................................150!
Cosmic Community and Beyond .....................................150!
Patterns in Collective Wisdom Systems ..................................................151!
Patterns of Living Systems ..........................................................151!
Dancing With Systems (Donella Meadows)....................151!
Paradox and Promise of Communities (Meg Wheatley) .152!
The Fifth Discipline (Peter Senge) ..................................153!
Patterns in Wisdom Community Principles.................................154!
Knowing: Seven Patterns of a Healthy Community ........154!
Caring: United Religions Initiative..................................155!
Living: Earth Charter Principles ......................................155!
Living: Future Search ......................................................155!
Patterns in Systems Practices.......................................................156!
Collective Being (Relational) Practices ...........................156!
Trust and safety agreements ................................156!
Personal connections............................................156!
xxiii
Creativity. ............................................................157!
Open-hearted emotional expression.....................157!
Collective Doing (Behavioral) Practices .........................157!
Spark of life. ........................................................157!
Home-base structures...........................................157!
Organic, informal social structure. ......................157!
Identity systems. ..................................................158!
The Personal–Collective Wisdom Systems Matrix .....................158!
Collective Wisdom Systems: Tools for the Trail.....................................159!
Human and Social Scale Systems ................................................162!
Collective Wisdom System Overview .........................................162!
Developing Collective Wisdom in Groups ..................................162!
Circle Work......................................................................163!
Dialogue...........................................................................163!
NonViolent Communication............................................163!
Group Dynamics ..............................................................164!
Working With Differences...............................................164!
Working With Intuition ...................................................165!
Developing Collective Wisdom in Communities and Cities .......166!
Discovering Your Community.........................................166!
Convening Community Conversations ............................166!
Healing Divisions and Conflicts ......................................167!
Working with diversity.. ......................................167!
Community mediation. ........................................167!
Restorative justice................................................168!
xxiv
Community Healing Circles ............................................168!
Shaping Community Governance ....................................169!
Community Arts, Play, and Celebration ..........................169!
Distributed Community Wisdom: Regional, Network, National 169!
American Communities Movement.................................170!
Healthy Communities Movement. .......................170!
Sustainable Communities Movement. .................170!
Civic Renewal Movement ...............................................171!
Developing Collective Wisdom as an Earth Community ............171!
Wisdom Systems Mandala...........................................................172!
Case Study: Our Birth Passage Through Climate Change ......................175!
Climate Change + Sustainability => Resilient Wisdom Society .175!
What Is Climate Change? ................................................175!
What Is Sustainability? ....................................................176!
A Resilient Wisdom Society............................................179!
Our Transition to a Resilient Wisdom Society ............................179!
The Long Descent (John Greer).......................................180!
Fair, Practical Ways to Keep the Planet from Burning

(George Monbiot) ............................................................180!
The Transition Movement (Rob Hopkins).......................181!
The Resilient Holo sapien............................................................183!
The Resilient Holo sapien From the Inside Out ..............186!
Resilient personal being.......................................186!
Resilient personal doing.......................................191!
The Resilient Holo Sapien From the Outside In..............192!
Resilient collective culture...................................193!

xxv
Resilient collective systems. ................................193!
Transition Strategy: Wisdom Network Initiatives .......................194!
Wisdom Network Initiative Principles ............................195!
IMAGINE… ....................................................................198!
Morphnets ........................................................................199!
Coalescing Reflections on Developing Collective Wisdom....................199!
Birthing a Wisdom Society Needs Every Head, Heart, and Hand200!
Recommendations for the Collective Journey .............................202!
Personal Reflections on the Wisdom Society Within Us ............203!
Chapter 4: Developing Subtle Wisdom ...............................................................204!
In Deep Appreciation...................................................................204!
To the Beauty of the Journey .......................................................204!
Centering Poetry ..........................................................................205!
Introduction: Dancing with Holo sapien Systems Theory......................206!
Unergy Theory .........................................................................................207!
Unergy Macrophase Principles ....................................................208!
Unergy Essence: Everything Is Made of a Wave-

Particle Called Unergy.....................................................208!
Unergy Fields: Everything Is Connected by Unergy

Fields................................................................................210!
Unergy Patterns: Unergy Space Is a Dynamic

Holographic Information Structure..................................212!
Unergy Dimensions: Unergy Exists in More Than Four

Dimensions ......................................................................214!
Navigating Rocks in the Subtle Wisdom Journey Trail ..............215!
Subtle Frequency Measurement.......................................216!
xxvi
Quantum Imaginary Math................................................217!
The Tiller–Einstein Model of Direct/Inverse Space Time.......................220!
The Holo sapien Unergy Field.................................................................223!
The Human Subtle Body..............................................................224!
The Human as a Live Antenna ....................................................224!
The Chakra-Endocrine System ........................................226!
The Chakra–Endocrine Detailed Antenna Design...........226!
Front to Back Antenna Operation ....................................229!
Top to Bottom Antenna Operation ..................................229!
The Center........................................................................230!
Fields of Consciousness...............................................................230!
The Personal Conscious Field..........................................230!
The Collective Consciousness Field ................................232!
The Consciousness Spectrum ..........................................233!
Holo sapien Unergy Antenna and Butterfly Models ...................235!
Subtle Healing: The Subtle Wisdom Journey..........................................237!
What Is Subtle Healing? ..............................................................237!
An Overview of Subtle Healing Theory ......................................238!
Patterns in Subtle Healing Principles...........................................240!
Center: Love Is the Healer ...............................................240!
Intention: Go for the Best Outcome for All .....................241!
Process Shift: Surrender Control .....................................241!
X-Axis Identity: Respectful Collaboration With Others .242!
Y-Axis Felt Experience: Healing Is a Whole-Body,

Full-Spectrum Phenomenon ............................................243!
Z-Axis Attention: Healer, Heal Thyself ..........................243!

xxvii
The Personal–Collective–Subtle Wisdom Principle Matrix ........244!
Patterns in Subtle Healing Practices ............................................244!
Opening/Centering the Healer’s Personal Field ..............247!
Setting the Healing Field Intention ..................................248!
Resonating/Attuning ........................................................249!
Closing/Blessing ..............................................................250!
Subtle Healing Case Study: Leslie’s Subtle Wisdom Journey ................251!
My Personal Subtle Journey From Waking up to Coalescence...251!
My Collective Subtle Wisdom Journey: The Cottage Circle and

Gaiafield.......................................................................................254!
Coalescing My Subtle Wisdom Dance ........................................256!
Subtle Activism Case Study: Gaiafield WiseClimate 2009.....................257!
Coalescing Reflections on Developing Subtle Wisdom ..........................259!
Subtle Healing as Frequency Resonance Coherence ...................259!
Recommendations for Subtle Wisdom Development..................261!
CHAPTER 5: Coalescence ..................................................................................262!
In Deep Appreciation...................................................................262!
The Holo sapien Invocation .........................................................263!
Coalescence: Reflections on our Holo sapien Birth ................................264!
Birthing Peace..............................................................................264!
Hope.................................................................................265!
Endurance ........................................................................266!
Courage ............................................................................266!
For the Children of All Species ...................................................268!
Holo sapien Wisdom................................................................................268!

xxviii
The Wisdom Intuition Toolkit .................................................................270!
The Holo sapien Wisdom Principles Compass............................270!
Heart Centered Essence ...................................................271!
Steady Intention ...............................................................272!
Resilient Process ..............................................................272!
X-Axis Holoconscious Identity .......................................272!
Y-Axis Full-Spectrum Felt Experience ...........................272!
Z-Axis Being–Doing Attention .......................................273!
The Holo sapien Wisdom Terrain Map .......................................273!
Wisdom Systems Recommendations and Visions...................................275!
(Personal) Calling all Holo sapiens: Do Your Growth Work Now!275!
(Subtle) Strengthen Our Inner I/We “All of Us” Muscles...........276!
(Human-Scale Collective) Increase the Resilience of Our

Communities ................................................................................276!
(Social-Scale Collective) Catalyze Wisdom System Development277!
Imagining "WiseUSA" Morphnets ..........................................................278!
Building a Wisdom Culture in Mainstream America ..................278!
Designing "WiseUSA" Morphnets ..............................................278!
Caring Sectors..................................................................279!
Knowing Sectors..............................................................279!
Living Sectors ..................................................................279!
Intuitive Vision of WiseSFBay Morphnet Partners .....................280!
Closing Inspirations: The Journey of the Wisdom Warrior.....................282!
References............................................................................................................285!
Appendix A: Wisdom System Survey .................................................................298!
Appendix B: Climate Change Resources.............................................................304!

xxix
Government .............................................................................................304!
NGO/Philanthropic Reports.....................................................................304!
Social .......................................................................................................305!
Personal Conversations............................................................................306!
Appendix C: Experiential Exercise—A Day in the Life of a Holo Sapien .........307!
xxx
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. The Journey to Wisdom Mountain (2004) by Janelle Vasche..................3!
Figure 2. Wisdom terrain ideogram.. ....................................................................23!
Figure 3. Wilber’s AQAL Model Quadrants........................................................28!
Figure 4. Wisdom mandala of integral wisdom.. ..................................................29!
Figure 5. Holo sapien model.. ...............................................................................46!
Figure 6. Holo sapien compass..............................................................................49!
Figure 7. Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary..........................................................56!
Figure 8. Holo sapien perspectives (3rd person).. .................................................61!
Figure 9. Embodied experiential perspective (1st person).. ..................................61!
Figure 10. Holo sapien state-stage lattice..............................................................74!
Figure 11. Human torus.........................................................................................81!
Figure 12. Holo sapien first career ring.................................................................82!
Figure 13. Holo sapien as a toroidal butterfly.. .....................................................84!
Figure 14. World peace pole and flag ceremony ................................................124!
Figure 15. Wisdom society mandala of healing and development.....................140!
Figure 16. Wisdom system mandala.. .................................................................173!
Figure 17. The resilient Holo sapien ...................................................................184!
Figure 18. Whale mandala (2010) by Tom Pipinou............................................204!
Figure 19. deBroglie pilot wave/particle.. ...........................................................218!
Figure 20. Tiller-Einstein positive-negative space/time model...........................221!
Figure 21. Tiller’s 11-dimensional model. ..........................................................222!
Figure 22. Human subtle body frequency model.. ..............................................225!
xxxi
Figure 23. Tiller’s chakra-endocrine pair............................................................227!
Figure 24. Front and back of chakras.. ................................................................228!
Figure 25. Personal conscious antenna with frequency spectrum (near field). ...231!
Figure 26. Holo sapien personal unergy antenna model.. ...................................234!
Figure 27. Holo sapien unergy butterfly montage...............................................236!
Figure 28. Leslie chakra sketches.......................................................................252!
Figure 29. Leslie self-portrait from source painting...........................................253!
Figure 30. Discovering my collective subtle body.............................................256!
Figure 31. Celebrating with family and friends.. ................................................262!
Figure 32. Holo sapien wisdom mandala.. .........................................................269!
Figure 33. Holo sapien wisdom principle compass.............................................271!
xxxii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1
Human-Oriented All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) Quadrants..........................28!
Table 2
Holo sapien Rings of InterBeing ...........................................................................47!
Table 3
Wilber’s Simple 3-Stage Progression Model.........................................................66!
Table 4
Self-Identity Model................................................................................................69!
Table 5
Order of Consciousness Model..............................................................................71!
Table 6
Comparative Analysis of State Transitions ...........................................................73!
Table 7
Holo Sapien Development Stage Comparison Chart.............................................79!
Table 8
Experiential Mode System Comparison ................................................................92!
Table 9
Personal Wisdom Systems Matrix .......................................................................117!
Table 10
Wisdom System Domains and Categories...........................................................119!
Table 11
The Personal–Collective Wisdom System Matrix...............................................160!
Table 12
Varey's Generational Time Frames for Sustainability.........................................177!
Table 13
Resilient Holo sapien Identity Map .....................................................................187!
Table 14
The Personal–Collective–Subtle Wisdom Principle Matrix ................................245!
Table 15
WiseSFBay Wisdom Domains and Potential Ally Organizations.......................281!
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Table 16
Interior Wisdom Systems.....................................................................................298!
Table 17
Exterior Wisdom Systems ...................................................................................301!
xxxiv
A NOTE ABOUT THE INTEGRAL ORIENTATION
OF THIS DISSERTATION
The intention of my dissertation is to contribute to our mutual healing and
insights about our current dilemmas as humans: to bring such collective concerns
as climate change home into our hearts and backyards. By illuminating our
personal relationship to ecosocial evolution, I hope to support each of us to more
freely navigate our evolutionary passage with wisdom, compassion, and courage.
Therefore, I offer a panoramic view of personal–social participation in today’s
epic birth of a wisdom society.
The integral narrative perspective of this dissertation has the following
rather unusual and noteworthy implications for an academic treatise. First, it is a
broadly complex tale on the cutting edge of knowing, weaving together multiple
methodologies and disciplines much the same way that a Holo sapien must
synthesize a coherent worldview from the complexity of life. The writings that
have meant the most to me have told comprehensive personal and ecosocial
stories which literally helped me to recognize myself, to understand my own
dilemmas as an early Holo sapien, and to know that I was not alone. May my
story inspire and support you in return.
This story balances multiple perspectives. It intuitively speaks beyond the
intellect to the deep wisdom of the head, heart, body, and soul. I use both–and,
inclusive concepts and terminology with the intention of finding common ground
across disciplines and traditions. I dance between the personal and collective,
speaking with my personal voice in double-spaced paragraphs and the collective
1
voice in single-spaced paragraphs (the same style as long quotations of others’
wisdom). I present a selection of “softscape” (intuitive/interior) art and stories as
well as “hardscape” (intellectual/exterior) models and theories to honor both
dimensions in us all. As a practice in shifting perspectives, I invite you to reflect
upon each chapter’s opening art and poetry to open your heart center and to attune
your intuitive and intellectual awareness.
With sincere gratitude to you for joining me on this wisdom journey, Leslie.
2
CHAPTER 1: THE INTEGRAL WISDOM JOURNEY
Opening Reflections
In Deep Appreciation
to the philosophers who have illuminated the Holo sapien panorama for me
California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) faculty and administration:
Allan Combs, Pamela Eakins, Jose Ferrer, JoAnne Gozawa,
Sean Kelly, Robert Kenny, Robert McDermott, Charlene Spretnak,
Joe Subbiondo, Brian Swimme, Rick Tarnas, David Ulansey
CIIS tribe: Ernest Courant, Jim Fournier, David Nicol, Drew Dellinger,
Darcy Riddell, Marc Slavin, Kathy Anne Woodruff
evolutionary and psychological consciousness philosophers:
Thomas Berry, John Bradshaw, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
Barbara Marx Hubbard, Joanna Macy, Paul Ray, Lynne Twist,
Ken Wilber
the wisdom of the Buddha, Gandhi, Jesus, Kwan Yin, Sophia
To the Beauty of the Journey
Figure 1. The Journey to Wisdom Mountain (2004) by Janelle Vasche. Reprinted

with permission.
3
Centering Poem
Dreaming Wisdom Mountain
A dream came to me one day that keeps ringing inside my head.

It has breathed itself into my very being,
into waking thoughts, my feelings, the pores of my skin.
I can dimly sense this dream lodged deep in the core of my soul.
It has changed me, this dream –

It has re-arranged me oh so slightly,
subtly shifting the rhythm of my heart so that nothing looks or feels the same.
It is beating inside me,
nudging me forward in directions I could never have imagined.
Where did this dream come from? Is it mine, or is it one of yours?

It first came to me while I was sitting in the forest,
lulled into stillness by the whispering of the trees.
Maybe it was the trees that told me of a magical place and time
where all the people are at peace in their lives:

where everyone has good food and water,
a solid roof over their heads,
and medicine for their troubles
where no one lives in fear of being

shot or robbed or raped or bombed
because human society is rooted in
wisdom and love and life and sanity
where the whole earth society is thriving:

the wind blows clean and wild,
the land is rich and blessed,
the water flows clear and free,
and the birds, the bees, the flowers and the trees
are honored as the marvelous beings they are.
I yearn to live in this fairytale place,

this Wisdom Mountain land that is calling to me.
My heart aches for home, but I do not want to travel alone.
Will you weave your dream with mine?
What if the place is here? what if the time is now?
Please dream Wisdom Mountain into life with me.

Here. Now. Together, we dream it so.
–Leslie C. Meehan
4
Introduction: Becoming HoloConscious
This work explores the question of why so many of us cause harm to our
planetary community and how we can wake up to and heal our ecosocial dis-ease.
My thesis is that many of us are psychologically trapped in denial, shame, and
fear because of our alienation from our ecosocial community. Recovering our
collective identity means becoming holoconscious: restoring our experience of
interconnectedness to other beings, to the earth, and to the cosmos.
This restoration is not a simple intellectual decision. Holoconsciousness
requires surfacing and facing our unconscious behavior in a healing and
transformation process similar to that of recovering from other losses. I define this
awakening process as the Integral Wisdom Journey, affectionately known as the
path to Wisdom Mountain. The wisdom path values both being (interior essence)
and doing (exterior form) aspects of the human experience, fully engaging the
body, heart, head, and soul.
Chapter 1 mirrors my personal voyage through the steps of the Integral
Wisdom Journey: Waking Up, Searching for Wisdom, Spiraling Into an Integral
Reality, and Coalescence. The story begins with my initial Waking Up shock of
shattered denial and fractured self-identity. During the next phase of Searching
for Wisdom, I define wisdom as the multidimensional experience of wholeness
and discuss its meaning and patterns as a matrix of personal and collective
experience across interior and exterior domains. I then discuss my process of
Spiraling Into an Integral Reality, in which I expanded my identity as I gradually
began to develop a holoconscious, all-inclusive worldview as a Holo sapien. Here

5
I present a model of a Holo sapien as a human being embedded in its collective
interbeing from siblings to the stars. The Holo sapien model is the foundation of
further models exploring personal, collective, and subtle wisdom in subsequent
chapters, which culminate in Coalescence summary reflections in Chapter 5.
My theories and models build upon the collective wisdom of numerous
integral theorists and practitioners who are cited with deep gratitude throughout
my work. My contribution is conceptually unique due to its multiperspective
approach, combining a participatory, embodied perspective of an individual with
the ecosocial interrelatedness of human individuals, society, other species, and the
earth. My Holo sapien modeling system is both a conceptual and a practical
contribution that supports personal intuition and discernment along the wisdom
journey trail. Other practical contributions of my work include its accessibility as
an interdisciplinary common ground and its modern-day relevance through its
series of climate change case studies.
By examining wisdom development from the personal, collective, and
subtle (inner awareness) points of view, as seen through action research and
through my personal experience, I show that patterns in wisdom society principles
and practices are consistent across these simultaneously occurring perspectives.
The illustration of holding multiple points-of-view of reality at the same time is a
useful exercise in the perspectival freedom necessary to be able to “walk in
someone else’s shoes” well enough to cocreate a world that works for everyone.
I invite you to imagine that you are walking along the path to Wisdom
Mountain with me as I tell my personal wisdom journey tale.
6
Our Journey: What on Earth is Going On With Humans?
I happen to be a particularly lucky person because I live in the United
States with enough food to eat, a roof over my head, and a happy, healthy family.
So what could possibly be wrong with my life? What do I have to complain
about?
The sad truth is that I feel a constant underlying sense of anxiety and
worry about the world, like many people I know. On one hand, there are
wonderful things about life today, especially here in U.S. abundance. But, when
we really dare to look, many of us also see widespread problems that seem
overwhelming. Since the problems seem too big to imagine changing, we often
put our narcissistic blinders on and just focus on our daily lives.
Here are some of the things that scare me as I look around. I see adults and
children too busy to enjoy life and each other, with many of my friends and
family on antidepressants. I see adult and children obsessed with television,
computers, and video games. Rampant alcoholism, drug use, and violence damage
people and families, setting adults against children, men against women, and the
disenfranchised against anyone. Social discrimination is still pervasive. Millions
of people are out of work and sometimes homeless, with continuing economic
uncertainty. Climate change and pollution injure human health and that of the
planet. Species are going extinct at an alarming rate; rainforests, lions, frogs, and
elephants are disappearing rapidly. There is a constant potential for widespread
war and nuclear annihilation.
7
Do you see these things around you, too? Do you feel like your feet are on
the ground but there is a deep abyss snaking between them that you might fall into
at anytime? Did the terrors of September 11 or the financial collapse drop you
right into that chasm, and even after you return to the surface you know that the
chasm is really still there?
How do you react to our ecosocial dis-ease? Do you tell yourself that
things are really not that bad, that humanity has always faced problems and
always overcome them? Are you afraid that humanity is headed for self-
destruction so you might as well enjoy life while you can? Do you feel helpless
to be able to change anything beyond your immediate neighborhood so you do
what you can locally and try to forget the rest? Are you ever filled with anger or
despair about how we can be so stupid, or even worse, evil? Do you ever wonder
why so few seem to understand the extent of the destruction, or why so many of
us are still asleep?
I have had all these reactions myself: denial, anger, despair, helplessness.
It reached the point where I was distraught enough about the crazy-making
discontinuity between U.S. short-sighted social behavior and the severity of
global issues that I began an intense academic and spiritual quest to understand
what is really happening. This dissertation is the story of my journey so far.
Since stories feed our soul, I will share my own in the hope that it nurtures yours.
Discovering the Integral Wisdom Journey
To begin my quest to understand the global big picture, I went back to
graduate school to study leading thinkers’ insights about our ecosocial situation. I
8
expected to rationally analyze the issues and then choose how to invest my energy
and talents to become part of the solution in the most effective way. Instead, I
found myself on a runaway emotional rollercoaster.
When the stark reality of our ecosocial disease finally sank in, I was
literally devastated. I remember walking across the Golden Gate Bridge looking
at my beloved San Francisco with tears pouring down my face, shaking with sobs
of grief that the city’s golden age would soon end: that life as I knew it would die.
I watched all the smiling tourists biking by or posing for pictures, wondering if I
would ever feel that happy again. My depression lasted for months.
The Phases of Healing
As my journey of waking up to global reality unfolded, I recognized
familiar emotional reactions of disbelief, shock, anger, and contempt. I gradually
perceived that my ecosocial awakening paralleled my journey of waking up to the
reality of an alcoholic marriage. I was suffering through the same familiar painful
stages of grief as defined by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross (as cited in Beattie, 1992, p.
122): denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I recognized that I
was grieving the loss of what I now call my Holo sapien identity.
This insight was very helpful, for I had already learned much about
grieving. I knew that it is impossible to shorten or circumvent the mourning
process; avoiding it just means it will come back and bite you later. I also knew
that coming to understand how I and others could be so blind was a crucial part of
my own healing process. Until I could forgive myself and my fellow humans for
9
causing so much pain and destruction, I would not be healed and whole enough to
be of any use in community healing and transformation.
Here is my perspective on the grieving process, which is also known as
healing, as forgiveness, and as what I call the integral wisdom journey. Note that
the wisdom journey can be motivated by a desire to develop new skills or
capacities, so it is also in effect a general model of lifelong learning and an
informal model of the process of change. Given the recovery orientation of my
work, I primarily focus on the healing model.
The Phases of the Integral Wisdom Journey
The phases in the integral wisdom journey are similar to the Kübler-Ross
healing phases and are discussed in depth in Chapter 2. They are not phases in the
usual sequential sense; they are subprocesses that often overlap, even occurring
out of sequence or seemingly independently. Healing processes well underway
are often interspersed with moments of sudden peace or clarity and resurgences of
sorrow or confusion.
I combine the denial and anger healing phases into what I call a Waking
Up phase of facing both the facts and the feelings of the loss. In grieving my
marriage, this meant admitting the scope of our relationship dysfunction.
Grieving the loss of my ecosocial identity meant absorbing the scope of the
damage in the global community. Once denial began to crack, feelings such as
anger, disgust, and fear emerged. I had thought that fear for my children’s safety
was the worst fear I would ever feel, but how does one survive grieving the whole
earth?
10
The next healing steps of bargaining and depression frequently cycle back
and forth, as awareness and learning grow about what lies ahead. These steps
represent various ways of adjusting to the loss and considering options to move
ahead that I call the Search for Wisdom. The Search phase ends with a person’s
crucial choice to heal. Without this intention to grow, people can stay mired in
grief indefinitely, remaining in a rut of repetitive recycling of memories. The Rut
state is not addressed here as a productive Integral Wisdom Journey phase.
The commitment to growth marks the beginning of Spiraling Into an
Integral Reality. The Spiral state is a more energetic state than the Search state,
typically involving action such as studying or counseling as the person embarks
on a forward path. My marriage-healing search led me to Al-Anon and therapy.
The ecosocial healing search took me to graduate school.
Once traveled consistently, the spiraling healing path becomes an ongoing
cycle of positive adjustment “a-ha”s leading to dawning unpleasant implication
“oh-no”s as time and experience guide us through the ups and downs of shifting
worldviews. My marriage grief cycle taught me about addiction recovery and
letting go of the illusion of control. My planetary grieving has led both to high
hopes and to the depths of despair as I trace human progress. The final Kübler-
Ross acceptance phase I prefer to call Coalescence, for the acceptance recovery
phase is not a peaceful ending but a continual process of embracing the now.
In summary, Waking up involves facing the facts and fears about leaving
home. Searching for Wisdom is the process of finding your path. Spiraling into an
11
Integral reality is the ups and the downs along the trail, and Coalescence is
enjoying a plateau’s panoramic view (before the next journey begins).
The following sections highlight what I learned during each phase of my
journey as an orientation to the insights, terminology, and core models used
throughout this dissertation.
Waking Up to Our Ecosocial Dis-ease
Statistics paint a frighteningly stark reality of our ecosocial dysfunction.
Facing the Brutal Facts
• Population: More human babies are born every day than all the great
apes left on the planet. Humans use half of the water available on
earth, an even graver issue when our numbers double (Ulansey, n.d.)
• Climate change: Global sea levels could rise from 2 to 20 feet with the
loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, severely impacting
coastal areas worldwide (Hausfather, 2008).
• Extinction: We are in the sixth great mass extinction on earth. The last
(smaller) was the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, 65 million
years ago, which involved the dinosaurs. One to two thirds of earth’s
species are predicted to be extinct by 2100 (Ulansey, n.d.).
• Globalization: World Trade Organization trade agreements (such as
NAFTA) override any nation’s laws that restrict trade. The U.S. EPA
had to lower clean gas standards. “Third World Development”
12
worsens poverty for at least a fifth of the population (International
Forum on Globalization, n.d.)
• Monopoly: Ten corporations control 32% of the global commercial
seed market. Fewer than ten corporations control broadcasting,
publishing, and entertainment (Shiva, 2001, p. 27).
• Addiction: The United States has an estimated 60 million sex abuse
victims, 75 million lives seriously affected by alcoholism, 15 million
violent families, 13 million gambling addicts, >50% eating disorders
((Bradshaw, 1988, p. 67). 70% of U.S. residents over age 8 watch
more than 4 hours of TV a day (Mander, 2001).
• Biotech: Life forms are patentable as “machines or manufactures.”
Hens’ “mothering instinct” genes have been removed to make more
efficient egg laying “machines” (Kimbrell, 2001).
Facing Our Feelings
Did any of these facts surprise you? Why is this readily available
information invisible to so many? Why are so many of us unable to face the
consequences of our behavior? The roots of our unconsciousness lie in denial,
shame, and fear.
Denial
Western society, especially U.S. society, has been in a state of denial
about the state of the world. Denial is a result of shock, numbness, panic, and
general refusal to accept or acknowledge reality. It is the shock absorber for the
13
soul (Beattie, 1992, p. 122). Denial is not lying. It is the unconscious repression
of not letting yourself know the real situation. We, on some level, really believe
the stories we tell ourselves. In times of great stress, we shut down our awareness
emotionally, sometimes intellectually, and occasionally physically. I shut down
my awareness in my marriage for years until the subconscious pain of our
separate lives became too great to remain buried. The Inconvenient Truth movie
(Guggenheim, 2006) was the catalyst that finally woke up many of us to climate
change. Rather than dismissing denial as mere stupidity, it might be appreciated
as a defense mechanism for survival.
Our individual denial is reinforced by a social structure that makes it
difficult for us to see the connections between what seem like separate problems.
Do we put our focus on saving trees? What about the polluted water our children
are drinking, or the millions dying from starvation and war? We have only so
much time, especially for depressing topics, so we focus our efforts in one area—
if we do anything at all. Our social institutions, such as national government,
corporations, and media, have substantial blind spots that help prevent us from
seeing the interconnections (Ray & Anderson, 2000, p. 227).
Shame
We know at a deep level that we humans are responsible for most of these
ecosocial brutal facts. We already know this, and we are paralyzed by our shame.
Ever since I learned about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust as a child, I have
been ashamed of the German people. I am of German descent myself, and I
always wondered if that made me guilty, too. I knew that most German people
14
during the Holocaust said that they did not really know what horrors were
happening, but I could not comprehend their blindness. Rationally or not, I still
blamed them.
As an adult, I can understand how the Germans could say they did not
know what was really happening because I see the paralysis of shame happening
in the United States today. Many of us suffer from the same subconscious horror
of our own complicity as the Germans did. I can now appreciate how terrible and
helpless the Germans who could see the truth about Hitler must have felt not to be
able to stop him, because I feel helpless and terrible about my country’s warlike
behavior against other countries and the earth. The information about what is
really happening is available but our shame will not allow us to see it. I shudder
to think what our great-great-grandchildren will think of us.
Fear
We fear losing what we love and what we have fought so hard for. Is the
American dream dead? We know we will have to give up some things that we
hold dear, but we do not know exactly what, and we cannot imagine how our lives
will change. Cars are one key example. Since even the physical structure of our
homes, our towns, and our transportation systems is geared to our cars, how can
we imagine giving them up? Quite a few people like me live in beautiful rural
areas that would not be readily accessible without cars. Does living sustainably
mean that rural populations must leave the serene environment of their homes?
However, our fear goes much deeper than our lifestyles. We actually fear
for our lives. We are afraid to lose our identities and sense of control as
15
individuals if we acknowledge our interconnectedness. We are afraid that we will
die as a species. We are afraid that it is too late, that change is impossible, and
that we are already doomed. We read Biblical predictions of the Apocalypse. We
hear experts like James Lovelock say that it is too late to stop climate change. We
see movies like The Terminator (Cameron, 1984) and Blade Runner (Scott, 1982)
with their visions of future machine-driven hell on earth. We are mortally afraid
that that is our future and that there is nothing we can do. We secretly despair that
there may be no more great-great-grandchildren.
Searching for Wisdom
Emotional reactions of denial, shame, and fear (and the related greed,
anger, and despair) are natural, unconscious reactions to our troubled times. Our
unpleasant emotional experiences are often actually signs of a healthy awareness
of ecosocial disease, rather than signs of unhealthy personal neuroses that should
be medicated into oblivion. To accept reality and to make fully conscious choices
about our behavior, we need to choose to heal and grow. Our search for wisdom is
a commitment to learn about the situations and beliefs that are creating our valid
emotional reactions and to discover a broader truth of integral wisdom.
An Integral Perspective of Wisdom
My personal search for wisdom has uncovered what for me was a
surprising but marvelous broader truth about the nature of wisdom. In my Anglo-
American culture, wisdom has usually been thought of as intellectual knowledge,
16
the province of scholars and the elderly; however, wisdom is actually integral by
definition.
What Is Integral?
Integral has become a popular adjective to describe an all-inclusive
approach to various phenomena. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary definition
of integral is “essential to completeness” or “lacking nothing essential” (Woolf,
1974, p. 600), which is also its definition of wholeness: the state of being
complete and undivided (p. 1338). Undivided completeness in a physical sense
could correlate to quantum physicist David Bohm’s description of the ultimate
nature of space-time reality as a single unbroken wholeness in flowing movement
(C. Hamilton, 2004). Undivided completeness in a personal context could be
interpreted in the way that philosopher Ken Wilber (2000) uses the term integral:
“to integrate, to bring together, to join, to link, to embrace . . . in the sense of
unity-in-diversity, shared commonalities along with our wonderful differences”
(p. 2).
What Is Wisdom?
To understand integral wisdom, we begin with Webster’s Dictionary,
where wisdom is defined as “knowledge, insight, and judgment” (Woolf, 1974, p.
1345). Knowledge is further defined as cognition: “the act or process of knowing,
including both awareness and judgment” (p. 639). The direct awareness faculty is
also known as intuition, defined as “direct knowledge without evident rational
thought” (p. 607). Webster’s definitions thus portray a multifaceted perspective of
17
wisdom as a cognitive, intellectual knowledge faculty and a direct awareness or
intuition faculty, filtered together through judgment in a dynamic process of
discernment.
Wisdom as collectively defined in Wikipedia (2009) echoes this inclusive
theme of wisdom as “knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion, and
intuitive understanding, along with a capacity to apply these qualities well
towards finding solutions to problems.” This definition emphasizes the social
value of wisdom gained through experience. Experience is defined as the
perception of reality, or the direct participation in events (Woolf, 1974, p. 403).
Experience, then, implies the participant’s active and discerning role in wisdom
development.
I define wisdom as the multidimensional experience of wholeness with
these principles:
1. Wisdom reflects wholeness.
2. Wisdom serves a useful purpose.
3. Wisdom is a dynamic process that evolves over time.
4. Wisdom involves personal-collective interdependence .
5. Wisdom uses multiple modes of learning.
6. Wisdom requires reflection and action (being and doing).
Wisdom reflects wholeness. Wisdom reflects the undivided completeness
of wholeness and thus contains the shared unity of our similarities and the
uniqueness of our differences. The more inclusive or integral the experience, the
wiser it is. Greater wisdom contains a kernel of truth for an increasingly wide
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range of participants, valid from an increasingly wide range of perspectives.
Greater wisdom is experience that leads toward a universal applicability that
honors individual diversity.
Ken Wilber’s Integral Approach reflects this principle in his Integral
Methodological Pluralism (IMP) criteria for assessing the wisdom of any
perspective (Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman, 2009, p. 42). One criterion is
nonexclusion, which addresses diversity. Nonexclusion means that everyone is at
least partially right and that everyone contributes a different and partial view of
any situation. The next criterion of enfoldment values more universally applicable
perspectives that are more inclusive and comprehensive than others. The third
IMP criterion of enactment means that each person’s worldview influences their
interpretation of their actions, reinforcing the holistic nature of participation.
Wisdom serves a useful purpose. Wisdom scholar Robert Kenny (1999)
defines wisdom as the “faculty of making the best use of knowledge, experience,
understanding, etc.” (Footnotes). Wisdom is valuable in helping us navigate our
relationships and making life choices more effectively in the vast complexity of
wholeness. The wisdom development methodology of action research, further
explored in Chapter 2, also stresses practicality. As defined by Reason and
Bradbury (2000), action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned
with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes
(p. 1).
How does one know if their purpose is wise, foolish, or just another
miscellaneous opinion or activity? Process theologian Carol Christ and
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management consultant Peter Drucker offer the same simple criteria that I
personally use: Do no harm. Carol Christ (1997) speaks of “testing” her deepest
intuitive knowledge.
I have learned to be suspicious of nonrational “knowledge” that seems like

a way of assuring myself that I can have what I want. I would also not do
anything that my reflective mind told me was harmful to myself or others.
On the other hand, if mystical or revelatory experience makes my life
richer and more meaningful and helps me better understand the world and
my place in it, I am willing to accept it as valid. Of course, insights based
in mystical experience, like all other experiential knowledge, find
confirmation or disconfirmation in communities. (p. 39)
Wisdom is a dynamic process that evolves over time. Wisdom is a
discovery process, generally over the course of a lifetime! As our life experience
grows and shifts, so does our perspective on wisdom. Arriving at wisdom often
requires inner change based on deep reflection and the willingness to adapt to life
experience.
Wisdom is based upon personal–social interdependence. A person’s
wisdom develops within a social context; wisdom is not the experience of an
objective dispassionate observer. Each of us is intimately interwoven with the
world around us, so our multidimensional experience is dependent on our
relationships. As our relational life experience develops, our wisdom more
consistently reflects the diversity of wholeness.
Wisdom uses multiple modes of experiential learning. Kenny (1999, 2004)
describes wisdom as cognitive and intuitive modes of sensing and knowing. Other
theorists further expand upon additional modes of sensing and knowing.
Transpersonal theorist Jorge Ferrer (2002) defines participatory knowing as
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multidimensional access to reality that includes not only the intellectual
knowing of the mind, but also the emotional and empathic knowing of the
heart, the sensual and somatic knowing of the body, the visionary and
intuitive knowing of the soul, as well as any other way of knowing
available to human beings. (p. 120)
Carol Christ (1997) honors thinking through the body, or embodied thinking.
Embodied thinking enlarges experience through empathy: putting ourselves in
another’s place (p. 35). For Christ, experience is “embodied, relational,
communal, social and historical” (p. 37).
Wisdom requires a reflection–action dynamic. Wisdom evolves through a
participatory feedback process of reflection and action, which I call the dynamic
of being and doing. Reflection provides a big-picture perspective of a situation;
action is the close-up, hands-on view. Without testing a proposed wisdom concept
in the world, it remains an unproven and potentially invalid idea. A person’s
interior belief practiced in their exterior environment has a powerful impact.
Wisdom: The Multidimensional Experience of Wholeness
Wisdom encompasses the range of personal and collective perspectives;
the full-spectrum felt experience of head, heart, body, and soul; and the interior
and exterior attention of being and doing. For the remainder of this work, the
integral nature of wisdom will be implicitly assumed. Far from being a dry fact,
wisdom is a living process of discovery and discernment using a range of
intellectual, intuitive, emotional, and somatic faculties.
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The Wisdom Terrain Ideogram
The following Wisdom Terrain Ideogram builds a wisdom lexicon
anchored in wholeness, the domain of wisdom. Wholeness consists of what I call
physical reality, subtle reality, and the Great Mystery. Physical reality is the
tangible exterior aspect of Newtonian space-time: DNA, organisms, rocks, stars,
and so on. Subtle reality is the intangible interior aspect of Newtonian space-
time: beliefs, emotions, and energy fields beyond the bounds of measurement.
There are many beliefs about the nature of subtle space-time reality and
where its boundaries are with whatever may lie beyond space-time. With due
respect to the myriad understandings of scientific and religious tradition, I seek
common ground by naming the unknowable source of Newtonian space-time the
Great Mystery, a topic of later chapters.
The Wisdom Ideogram in Figure 2 illustrates wholeness as physical
reality, subtle reality, and the Great Mystery. Wholeness covers the whole
Ideogram sheet of paper and beyond ad infinitum. The wholeness corresponding
to the sheet of paper could be described as a field, which is defined as a region of
influence (Woolf, 1974, p. 426). My favorite name for the infinite field of
wholeness is WisdomSpace, as coined by my friend Rebecca Moore. Subtle fields
are generally represented by light shading in my diagram modeling system.
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Figure 2. Wisdom terrain ideogram. Author’s image.
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Consciousness
Another term related to wholeness and wisdom is consciousness. My
perspective, further developed throughout this work, is that consciousness is the
field of wholeness, the space from which everything emerges. I concur with
Wilber’s (2006) view of consciousness as “the emptiness, the openness, the
clearing in which phenomena arise” (p. 68). In integral wisdom language,
consciousness is the wholeness of WisdomSpace.
Personal Wisdom
Personal wisdom is an individual’s multidimensional experience of the
wholeness of the physical, the subtle, and the Great Mystery. There may be as
many ways to discover wisdom as there are beings. The Ideogram actors named in
Figure 2 and used in following sections to illustrate wisdom concepts each have a
wisdom lens that they metaphorically “look through” to “see” or sense
WisdomSpace. This lens is what transformative learning scholar Jack Mezirow
(2000) calls a frame of reference, “the structure of assumptions and expectations
through which we filter sense impressions” (p. 16). The lens shape and size
represent the actor’s worldview, life experience, maturity, and so on. The unique
lens forms the actor’s field of view, determining their sensing capacity to “see”
wisdom. The scope of the field of view represents the person’s intuitive
awareness: their capacity to directly experience wholeness.
Using the physics particle/wave description of reality as an analogy,
intuition involves sensing the invisible pattern-wave of the interconnectedness of
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existence. Cognitively perceived wisdom events could be considered the particles.
Wisdom events are the particle nuggets of intellect, inspiration, synchronicities,
and resonances that “ring true” within us. A person’s wisdom nuggets can only
arise within their field of view. In the Ideogram, Giovanni’s visible wisdom
nuggets are represented as ! (alpha) particles.
Subtle Wisdom
I use the term subtle wisdom to describe intuitive awareness and resulting
cognitive insights. The terms collective consciousness or unconscious are
sometimes used by such scholars as Kenny (1999, 2004) and Jung (1938) to refer
to varying aspects of the intuitive faculty and its field of view, but the subtle
terminology is more consistent with my wisdom lexicon and less subject to
historical connotation. I suggest that Karl Jung’s (1938) often negative
interpretation of the collective unconsciousness stems from his psychological
orientation, but in this work subtle wisdom is assumed to contain the full range of
positive and negative attributes within wholeness. I agree with Kenny (2004, p. 8)
that the intuitive sensing process requires a level of transpersonal development
where a person’s sense of identity extends beyond the individual to encompass
wider aspects of humankind. In the Ideogram in Figure 2, Jane has not yet reached
the development level of perceiving subtle wisdom, so her intuition beam is weak.
Collective Wisdom
Wholeness incorporates an unimaginable number of relationships among
the collective of cosmic beings, where collective means relating to a group or
25
whole (Woolf, 1974, p. 220). Imagine the interactions of the small set of
characters and their lenses in the Ideogram diagram (Figure 2) multiplied by all
the relationships throughout the universe.
When two or more people intentionally focus their lenses of awareness
together, they create a new multihuman lens. I call this practice collective wisdom:
deliberately seeking the experience of wholeness with other people. This brief
definition of collective wisdom is expanded in Chapter 2.
The synchronizing of the multihuman lens intensifies the lens power,
allowing greater visibility of wisdom nuggets. In the Ideogram, Patrick and Lisa
have intentionally linked their lenses (shown by their linked hands). I call their
visible insights " (omega) wisdom events.
A person such as our Ideogram friend, Patrick, can exercise his collective
consciousness (using prayer, nature walks, or other inner consciousness practices)
to tap into wholeness on his own. In my view, this personal experience of
collective consciousness is not collective wisdom. Neither are Giovanni’s or
Sophia’s randomly intersecting intuitive senses. Collective wisdom as used in this
work involves at least two humans with conscious intention to augment the lens.
There is debate within the scientific community about whether the
multihuman lens creates a group “field” or a group “mind.” Kenny (2004)
specifically defines collective wisdom as a group field that represents the
conscious (and perhaps unconscious) and reflective interaction, consensus and
shared intentions of the members of a collective (p. 14). I agree that collective
wisdom involves a field phenomenon. My experience is that the shared intention
26
of at least two people produces a palpable field effect with resulting insights and a
collective felt-sense that did not exist before the collective process was initiated.
Collective wisdom requires the willingness to risk sharing your honest
truth with another human being. It grows from “shared intention, trust,
vulnerability, not knowing, authentic participation, interest, and perhaps most
fundamental of all, listening” (C. Hamilton, 2004, “Chapter 5”).
The WisdomSpace Model of Integral Wisdom
The personal, subtle, and collective perspectives of wisdom can be
brought together into a single guidance system to orient our wisdom model using
the foundation of Ken Wilber’s (2006) All Quadrant, All Level (AQAL) model.
Integral AQAL Approach
The AQAL model contains four quadrants representing the interior and the
exterior of the personal and the collective of practically anything. All quadrants
contain levels of growth or development called stages that are permanent
milestones along the wisdom journey. Wilber (2006, p. 23) describes a simple 3-
stage model of human evolution of self-identity unfolding from ego-centric (me)
to ethnocentric (we) to worldcentric (all of us). A human-oriented AQAL model
is shown in Figure 3 and Table 1 below.
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Figure 3. Wilber’s AQAL Model Quadrants. Author’s image.
Table 1
Human-Oriented All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) Quadrants
Quadrant Abbr. Contents Perspective
Upper left I What a person looks like from Intentional
Being the inside: ideas, emotions, 1st person subjective
sensations, etc.
Upper right IT What a person looks like from Behavioral
Doing the outside: DNA, organ 3rd person objective
systems, neocortex, etc.
Lower left WE What society looks like from Cultural
Culture the inside: worldview, shared 2nd person
values and feelings, etc. intersubjective
Lower right ITS What society looks like from Social
Systems the outside: laws, 3rd person
organizations, sectors, etc. interobjective
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Wisdom Mandala
Figure 4 presents the Wisdom mandala, the WisdomSpace model of
integral wisdom. In translating the integral wisdom perspective into AQAL terms,
we see that Personal Wisdom corresponds to the upper half, and Collective
Wisdom corresponds to the lower half.
Figure 4. Wisdom mandala of integral wisdom. Author’s image.
In the Upper Left (UL) personal interior quadrant, a person’s wisdom
unfolds in complexity from a central reliance on instinct, to intellect, to intuition
(corresponding to Wilber’s [2006] body, mind, and spirit). In the Upper Right
29
(UR) quadrant, personal wisdom is visible in the world in the forms of physical
action, verbal expression, and charters (publicly declared intentions or
principles). In the Lower Left (LL), cultural collective wisdom expands from
respect to understanding to a sense of interbeing. Interbeing is Thich Nhat Hanh’s
(1987) term for a sense of interconnectedness to all life. Collective wisdom is
visible in the world in the Lower Right (LR) quadrant as increasingly
participatory forms of cooperation, collaboration, and cocreation. The fiery heart
of holoconsciousness at the center represents the core of compassionate wisdom
that radiates throughout WisdomSpace.
Finding Your Wisdom Journey Trailhead
As we can see from the complexity of the Integral Wisdom model,
searching for wisdom is not a trivial pursuit. It is a lifelong journey along many
trails according to each person’s unique development goals and needs. The
journey requires practices of personal and collective participation, full-spectrum
felt experience, and combined reflection and action.
The wisdom journey accelerates once you have set your intention and get
to work in a disciplined way. Dabbling in occasional reading or workshops is still
supply-gathering, a warm-up for the real trail that requires time, commitment,
training, and support. There are countless trails to wisdom. The important thing is
to pick the path that appeals to you, to start walking, and to keep on going when
the road drops out from beneath your feet.
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Spiraling Into an Integral Reality
The wisdom journey carries us toward the experience of being
interconnected in a tapestry of interbeing. Does that sound like a sweet trip into
the light of Oneness to you? Actually, the wisdom journey is by far the hardest
journey I have ever been on. I have traveled around the world twice (complete
with dysentery, cyclones, and other delights), but my inward journey sitting still
in my own living room has stretched my being so far that I have broken into bits
over and over again. As if I were on a virtual reality ride, I have burned up in an
inferno, soared through the clouds, been ripped into shreds, disintegrated into
nothingness, and vomited on a plummeting rollercoaster. And, I would not have
missed it for the world. The wisdom journey has been my rocky road to
happiness.
The inconvenient truth about the wisdom journey is that you have to keep
letting go of what you thought you knew and loved in order to reach a new,
broader understanding. That letting go can be very painful, scary, and/or
exhilarating! The cycles of letting go (release, surrender) and realization
(reintegration, synthesis) can be thought of as an winding trek along a mountain
path: two steps forward, fall into a crevasse, clamber back out, two steps forward,
and so on. I describe this Spiraling growth process in more detail in the next
chapter.
As I have clambered along, I have gradually developed a broader view of
what is really happening in our society. It has also become easier to recognize the
filter of the Anglo-American cultural lens that I have been unconsciously seeing
31
through. I have discovered that Anglo-American civilization is caught in a waking
dream of infinite economic expansion without regard to the practical capacities
and relationships of life on a finite planet. There are many names for this short-
sighted social illusion, but I follow in the footsteps of philosophers Charlene
Spretnak (1997) and Ken Wilber (2000, 2006) in using the term modernity.
The Illusion of Modernity
Modernity is the ideology underlying much of our Anglo-American
existence. One of its fundamental principles is that economic success is our
primary goal in life: that the human is essentially an economic being, homo
economicus (Spretnak, 1997, p. 40). Not only do we personally need to keep up
with our neighbors, but we base our success on financial wealth. Another key
characteristic of modernity is that humanity is above nature; the earth and other
species are at humanity’s service. Indigenous cultures that value the earth can be
seen as backwards and simple-minded. The past is unimportant old news, the
present is geared for progress, and the future will take care of itself. The
indigenous American value of acting for the good of the seventh generation is
rarely found.
In the modern world, technology is king, and technology is the solution to
everything, even problems caused by technology. We do not need to worry about
nuclear waste, for instance, because someone will invent a solution. In the
modern world, logic and the intellect are valued. Intuition and holistic thinking
typically are not. “Modern life is compartmentalized into discrete spheres:
family life, work life, social life, political life, love life, and spiritual life, the last
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of which is devalued for being the furthest from rationalism” (Spretnak, 1997,
p. 41). The studies and institutions of science, education, law, medicine,
government, and religion are sectored into disciplines.
It is a dog-eat-dog world. Every man for himself. May the best man win.
These separatist, defensive sentiments characterize our modern sense of isolation
and aloneness. The amazing thing to me is that this worldview is so pervasive and
so ingrained in our upbringing that we often cannot see it. When I first read
Spretnak’s (1997) description of modernity, I literally cried with relief that other
theorists had already diagnosed the malaise that ailed me.
Until I learned the apt name for this malaise, I had not realized that the
separatist, rational worldview has only been the predominant Western worldview
for the past few hundred years. All of the foundational movements that
contributed to the birth of modernity—Renaissance humanism, the Reformation,
the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment—were revolutionary reactions
against various constraints imposed by the church–state lock on power in the
medieval world, as I learned in philosopher Rick Tarnas’s (1991) The Passion of
the Western Mind. The danger in a reactionary mode is that much of value is
destroyed in the process of installing the new (Spretnak, 1997, p. 43). While
these movements were important steps in establishing new paradigms of personal
liberty and rational thinking, they have created a deep sense of alienation. People
have largely lost their sense of deep connection to other people, other species, and
the earth. The consequences for this seemingly simple separation are shockingly
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profound and severe. We pride ourselves on having escaped from the Dark Ages,
but the age we have created as we fled our past is a Dark Age of the Soul.
Yet, there is healing for this soul sickness. Healing lies in expanding our
consciousness.
An Integral Worldview: Holoconsciousness
As we Holo sapiens spiral along the wisdom trail, we evolve toward a
more inclusive worldview based on our emerging sense of interbeing. Charlene
Spretnak (1997) calls this worldview ecological postmodernism. Barbara Marx
Hubbard (1998) calls it conscious evolution. Martin Luther King (1986) called it
the brotherhood of man (p. 139). Jean Gebser (1949/1985) called it integral
consciousness.
I call it holoconsciousness. The holo terminology invites us to stretch past
existing homo sapien concepts that can engender resistance. For instance,
holoconsciousness reaches beyond the religious concept of communion, which
historically has sometimes been available to select groups and thus can be
accompanied by unconscious cultural judgments that serve to foster separation
and war. The Buddhist concept of enlightenment values all forms of life, but its
path involves transcending the emotional self, which in my experience can be
interpreted as a form of body denial. Holoconsciousness goes beyond a single
cultural worldview of ethics or morality, respecting the diversity of cultural
perspectives. In the Ideogram (Figure 2), Miguel’s field of view is holoconscious:
a 360° panoramic view that extends throughout the wholeness of consciousness
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into the Great Mystery. Miguel has perspectival freedom to “see” wholeness from
any view.
Holoconsciousness reestablishes our connections to what is most real.
What is reality? What does a holoconscious worldview tell us about our ecosocial
psychological dilemmas?
Beyond Denial: Reality as a Vibrational Living System Relationship
Modernity’s separatist nature is rooted in its ideological premise that the
world is made of building blocks of “stuff” that can be fully understood and
ultimately controlled. Within the past fifty years, the sciences of both physics and
biology have come to agree with the ancient wisdom traditions that reality is
actually not made of “stuff” at all. Reality is, instead, a dynamic process of
evolving systemic relationships among concentrations of a mysterious living
universal energy that I call unergy (a topic of Chapter 4). Let us explore the
quantum physics view of reality as vibrating relationship and the biological view
of reality as living systems.
Reality as vibrating relationship. Quantum research indicates that
everything is made of vibrating waveforms with concentration probabilities,
which we perceive as particles. These particle-waveforms are physically
interconnected in some way as shown in John Bell’s Theorem and subsequent
experimental measurements of a specially split atomic particle (Greene, 2004),
further discussed in Chapter 4. “When two particles whose spin is correlated in
direction and velocity are shot off in different directions, any change in the spin of
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either particle is instantaneously matched in the other” (Spretnak, 1997, p. 25).
There is no such thing as pure locality. Locality is relative.
The particle aspect of reality is our physical reality as living beings on
earth in the universe. The waveform aspect of reality is what I call subtle reality:
the underlying intangible “operating system” below the surface of physical
reality. Process theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1959) calls physical reality
the without of things and subtle reality the within of things that is coexistent with
the without:
Properly observed, even if only in one spot, a phenomenon necessarily has

an omnipresent value and roots by reason of the fundamental unity of the
world…
Since the stuff of the universe has an inner aspect at one point of
itself, there is necessarily a double aspect to its structure, that is to say in
every region of space and time - in the same way, for instance, as it is
granular: co-extensive with their Without, there is a Within to things.
(p. 56)
Interdependence between physical and subtle reality is increasingly
accepted. At the individual body level, allopathic medical researchers are
conceding that our bodies are not the purely mechanical machines many have
long perceived them to be. The experimental evidence of physical-subtle body
interaction is insurmountable: yogis able to control body functions such as blood
pressure and heart rate, healing caused by prayer, lucid dreaming, and so on. I
myself have walked on fire. I crossed an eight-foot circle of red-hot 1200 degree
coals without getting burned, going back and forth six times just to convince my
engineering brain that I had done it. I am now living proof that the classical
scientific paradigm does not have all the answers.
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Beyond the corporeal realm, other physically inexplicable phenomena
abound: synchronicity, remote viewing, near death experiences, and so on. Two
instances from the plant and mineral kingdoms are homeopathy and the fact that
water treated by magnets and healers makes plants grow faster (Gerber, 2001,
p. 79).
Most theories about subtle reality involve unseen energy fields such as the
human aura, Sheldrake’s morphic fields, or a universal field of holograms. Again,
these theories are discussed in more depth in Chapter 4. There is a hidden
systemic subtle patterning at work from “within” that dances with the physical
“without” of what many have perceived to be reality.
Reality as a living system. Biologists were among the first to recognize
that classical science could not explain how life behaves. Austrian biologist
Ludwig von Bertalanffy said that the “then prevalent mechanistic approach…
appeared to neglect or actively deny just what is essential in the phenomena of
life” (as cited in Macy, 1991, p. 72). Systems theorists across many disciplines
have now developed a widely respected view of reality as a self-organizing
system. Buddhist scholar and wisdom society visionary Joanna Macy (Macy &
Brown, 1998) provides a clear, succinct definition of the key tenets of living
system theory:
1. Each system, from atom to galaxy, is a whole. That means that is

not reducible to its components. Its distinctive nature and
capacities derive from the interactive relationships between its
parts. This interplay is synergistic, generating “emergent
properties” and new possibilities, which are not predictable from
the character of the separate parts—just as the wetness of water
could not be predicted from oxygen and hydrogen before they
combined, or just as the tensile strength of steel far exceeds the
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combined strengths of iron and nickel. This property of open
systems challenges the universal applicability of the Second Law
of Thermodynamics, that cornerstone of classical science on which
rest notions of entropy, the running down of all life.
2. . . . . Open systems are able to maintain their balance; they self-
stabilize. By virtue of . . . flux-equilibrium, systems can self-
regulate to compensate for changing conditions in their
environment. This homeostatic function is performed by
registering/monitoring the effects of their own behavior and
matching it with their norms, like a thermostat . . . (via) negative
feedback . . . . This is how we maintain our body temperature, heal
from a cut, or ride a bicycle.
3. Open systems not only maintain their balance amidst the flux, but
also evolve in complexity. When challenges from their
environment persist, they can fall apart or adapt by reorganizing
themselves around new, more responsive norms (via) positive
feedback . . . . It is how we learn and how we evolved from the
amoeba. But if our changing behaviors are not compatible with the
challenges we face, and do not achieve a new balance with them,
the positive feedback loop gets out of control and goes into
“runaway,” leading eventually to systems breakdown.
4. Every system is a “holon”—that is, it is both a whole in its own
right, comprised of subsystems, and simultaneously an integral part
of a larger system. Thus holons form “nested hierarchies,” systems
within systems, circuits within circuits, fields within fields. Each
new holonic level—say from atom to molecule, cell to organ,
person to family—generates emergent properties that are
nonreducible to the capacities of the separate components. Far
different than the hierarchies of control familiar to societies where
rule is imposed from above, in nested hierarchies (sometimes
called holonarchies) order tends to arise from the bottom up . . . .
Order and differentiation go hand and hand, components
diversifying as they coordinate roles and invent new responses.
(p. 41)
I also recommend Ken Wilber’s systems theory summary in Chapter 2 of
Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality (1995) and Fritjof Capra’s The Web of Life (1996).
Reality is a wildly unpredictable living relationship. Reality is essentially
interrelationship on both visible and invisible levels that is beyond understanding.
An important implication of both living systems theory and quantum theory is that
reality is beyond anyone’s control or prediction. Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics

38
uncertainty principle says that certain property pairs such as position and
momentum cannot be measured precisely at the same time, implying that
observation changes results (Greene, 2004, p. 95). Living systems theory says that
life is inherently unpredictable both due to systems’ emergent properties and to
the immense complexity of highly differentiated systems (Macy & Brown, 1998,
p. 41). Even if we tried to predict all possible future scenarios for any given
situation, there is an emergent “Great-Mystery-factor” scenario set created during
the cocreation of life that cannot be foreseen. We cannot predict the future.
In living system theory, increased diversity is necessary to maintain
system equilibrium as complexity increases. The coherent unity in the whole
requires individuation in the parts for survival (Macy & Brown, 1998, p. 41).
The living relationship view of reality is such a drastic shift from our
mechanistic modernity model that the implications are still entering our collective
awareness. Worldview transformations take time, even for Albert Einstein. When
Einstein first derived the theory that the universe is still expanding, he mistakenly
added his famous cosmological constant because he literally could not imagine an
expanding universe (Swimme, 1996, p. 6). If Einstein can take years to shift his
perspective, we can respect the scope of our challenge and allow ourselves time to
adjust our view of reality. Which do we choose: to ignore or to face reality?
Beyond Shame: Appreciating the Immensity of Our Evolutionary Journey
Next, we address the paralyzing role of shame and explore possible
insightful antidotes. Shame is a hidden, embarrassing, and insidiously powerful
emotion. There are two levels of shame: healthy and toxic. Healthy shame is an
39
innate sense of limits that provides the foundation for useful, flexible boundaries.
Toxic shame, or shamelessness, occurs when these boundaries of privacy and
dignity are violated. Philosopher and counselor John Bradshaw (1995) notes:
We take on a false, pretend self that is shameless. Shamelessness takes

two forms. We act shameless by attempting to transcend our limits as
human beings; we try to be more than human: perfect, needless,
righteous, authoritarian, and patronizing . . . . At the other extreme, we act
less than human. We let others violate us or we violate ourselves. We
become shameful, failures, victims, addicts—the dregs of society. We are
so hopeless, we lose all sense of limits. (p. 29)
Bradshaw (1988) claims that toxic shame is the root and fuel of all
compulsive/addictive behaviors (p. 15). Toxic shame is shame in denial form. It
is the core of the cycle of violence where the abused become the abusers. It is the
core of the trap of perfection where a person is never good enough. Given the
rampant addiction in our society, toxic shame appears to be raging out of control.
We are individually addicted to sex, substances, eating, violence, and other
uncontrolled behaviors. We are socially addicted to consumption in the illusion
that “more, more, more” will fill our emptiness. Homo economicus’ level of
secrecy concerning money is a telling indicator of the shame of our economic
addiction. Our financial assets, salaries, and negotiations are all shrouded in
secrecy lest someone invade our privacy or question our identity.
Origins of toxic shame. Our toxic shame as a human species has two main
sources. The first source is our experience and inner knowing that we are
disconnected from our interbeing. Living in the collective illusion of modernity
exacts a severe toll of a false sense of personal self. The second main source for
many of us is cultural or religious teachings of certain behaviors as sinful. Guilt
40
and over-responsibility are corollaries of shame. To recover our sense of dignity
and self-esteem, we must overcome the paralysis of toxic shame.
Antidotes for toxic shame. The realization that humanity is a very young
species has helped to ease my sense of shame. In the geological sense, humans
are truly children. We are not stupid. We are not evil. We are essentially toddlers
who have not learned how to properly use our power. Do we consider little
children evil? I am reminded of the Superman movie (Donner, 1978) when Clark
Kent as a child was able to wreak havoc on earth with his superpowers from
Krypton. He had to learn how to manage his abilities wisely. So do we.
Another realization that has helped to ease my shame is to develop an
appreciation for the significance of the power of the human and the
transformation that the human is undergoing. I have been astonished to learn that
visionary thinkers consider humanity’s ability to think to be a major quantum leap
in the evolution of the universe. Given the interconnectedness in the universe, the
human’s ability for self-reflection ultimately means that the universe can see
itself. Humans have created a mirror for the universe to experience its own
evolution.
Teilhard de Chardin (1959) coined the concept of the noosphere, a new
“thinking layer” of the earth (p. 182). The earth’s core has a central metallic
barysphere, surrounded by the rocky lithosphere. On and above its surface are the
fluid layers of the hydrosphere and the atmosphere. The biosphere is the living
membrane of the plants and animals on the earth. Teilhard de Chardin views the
noosphere as a new membrane outside and above the biosphere.
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In reality, another world is born. Abstraction, logic, reasoned choice and
inventions, mathematics, art, calculation of space and time, anxieties and
dreams of love— all these activities of inner life are nothing else than the
effervescence of the newly-formed centre as it explodes onto itself.
(p. 165)
Part of our shame is our resistance to being judged as bad or wrong.
Theodore Roszak (1995) writes of the coercive “fear and guilt” tactics of the
environmental movement and the amount of anger, negativity, and emotional
burnout in the “grieving greenie” movement (p. 2). Resistance is a fear-centered
reaction. Respecting our evolutionary birth inspires love-centered attraction to co-
create a thriving future. Which do we choose: love or fear?
Beyond Fear: Empowering a Thriving Future
Well, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that there is no
way around it; the earth’s living ecosystem is losing its life force at a dizzily
frightening pace. Some of what we hold dear will have to die whether we give it
up voluntarily or not. It is not a matter of whether; it is a matter of when. The
longer we continue to sleep, the more damage is done, and the more will perish.
If we do not pay the price personally, our children’s children will. We pay now, or
we pay more later.
Embracing the unknown. The good news is that the process of change is a
natural phenomenon. It is called evolution, and the universe has been doing it
successfully for billions of years. Buddhists call the syndrome of resisting change
“attachment.” Their path to enlightenment requires letting go of attachments.
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Similarly, addiction recovery models promote detachment as a necessary healing
step. Letting go of the illusion of control is a key wisdom journey lesson.
Our fear of the impending metamorphosis is understandably intense.
What we are facing is nothing less than a total transformation of the world as we
know it. As geologian Thomas Berry (2001) says, we are reinventing the human
(p. 12). As we expand our sense of identity, we fear a loss of self as we merge
into greater wholeness. We fear not belonging to the modern “tribe.” As we
create sustainable life practices, we fear the destruction of our familiar lifestyles
and institutions. We do not have a clear vision of where we are going that can
sustain us. We simply cannot know where we are going. Teilhard de Chardin
(1959) uses the concept of groping as a natural part of a species’ evolutionary
process (p. 110). As we grope our way, our path will unfold.
Heaven or hell: Looking in the crystal ball. Are we doomed or not?
Prophecies range from apocalypse to nirvana. The Bible predicts destruction
except for a saved few. Teilhard de Chardin (1959) predicts a successful
evolutionary Omega Point because of the inherently convergent nature of space-
time’s rising consciousness. As we each become more centered within ourselves
and aligned with all the other centers around us, the super-centration of
consciousness converges in holoconsciousness.
In the perspective of a noogenesis, time and space become truly

humanized—or rather super-humanised. Far from being mutually
exclusive, the Universal and Personal (that is to say, the ‘centred’) grow in
the same direction and culminate simultaneously in each other. (p. 260)
Yet, Teilhard de Chardin also says that there are no summits without abysses
(p. 288).
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The prediction that seems the most likely to me is the hybrid hypothesized
by Ray and Anderson (2000). They assume that humans will take the middling
path between stupid and wise, between lucky and unlucky. They envision a
“muddling through” scenario where the transformation occurs at different rates at
different places so that both peaceful and violent transitions exist (p. 240).
No matter which scenario you are drawn to, there is no escaping the
knowledge that what people believe has a strong impact on which future actually
happens. Belief influences reality. Teilhard de Chardin (1959) states that
without a taste for life, mankind would soon stop inventing and
constructing for a work it knew to be doomed in advance. And, stricken at
the very source of the impetus which sustains it, it would disintegrate from
nausea or revolt and crumble into dust. If faced by the work involved we
can say: “What’s the good of it all?” our efforts will flag. With that the
whole of evolution will come to a halt—because we are evolution. (p. 232)
The truth is that we are powerful. Each of us is so incredibly powerful that we can
make what seem like miracles happen. The visions of such individuals as Gandhi,
Mandela, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King have literally transformed
societies. Jesus said that anyone can walk on water. I know I can walk on fire.
Which do we choose: to run from or to own our power?
Coalescing: Exploring HoloConsciousness
We may reach a point on the wisdom journey where we integrate our
holoconscious worldview into our own identities as an organic, natural part of
who we are. We consistently experience the subtle awareness, the intellectual
knowing, the emotional compassion, and the physical embodiment of being part
of a collective whole. We begin to recognize that we are Holo sapiens.
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The following sections introduce the Holo sapien model of our interbeing,
as well as the Holo sapien Compass and Wisdom Systems tools, which can
support our journey to holoconsciousness.
An Integral Identity as a Holo sapien
A Holo sapien consciously senses that their very being, their life force, is
made up of their participation in broadening social layers from their siblings to
the stars. A person is whole and complete “alone” because their being already
contains an unseen part of everything else. There is no such thing as truly alone.
Each Holo sapien is an intimate holographic interbeing as I graphically illustrate
in the Holo sapien model in Figure 5. The Holo sapien model is an “embodied
AQAL” model that orients the personal in the midst of the collective. It spatially
matches a Holo sapien’s experience of being in the center of the world around
them. The first-person Holo sapien model embraces dual perspectives of the
personal holon from the inside-out and the social holon from the outside-in. Table
2 describes the set of Holo sapien rings (in two-dimensional language) or spheres
(in three-dimensional language) with their Holo sapien color map (see Chapter 2).
The Holo sapien model represents the physical, emotional, mental, and
spiritual participation of a person in all the levels of eco-society. In a real-world
sense, some aspect of each person is present everywhere in the universe at all
times. We are each as deeply imbedded in the human social environment as we
are in the natural environment. I invite you to take a moment to sense into your
own Holo sapien self as you read the following descriptions.
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Figure 5. Holo sapien model. Author’s image.
When someone in your family is happy or sad, an aspect of us is there
with them. When someone is getting married or is cremated each day in your
community, an aspect of you (and I) is there in them, and in the witnesses. When
a tree falls in the forest, maybe somewhere in your country or in the Amazon, an
aspect of us is there in the falling tree and in the forest to hear it fall. When the
United Nations meets, an aspect of us is there speaking and listening. The Holo
sapien model is an image of our interbeing that can help us see our true nature.
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Table 2
Holo sapien Rings of InterBeing
# Color Ring name Relationships
1 red me exoteric (flesh and blood) and esoteric (aura)

body
2 orange family close family, friends, circles, and pets
3 yellow groups smaller interactive social and working groups

and neighborhoods
4 green local local communities and organizations of all

species
5 blue cities larger single-hub communities: cities, counties,

small regions, etc.
6 indigo nations distributed multi-hub communities: bioregion,

nation, network, etc.
7 violet earth global ecosocial community: society, sectors,

species, eco-spheres
8 ultraviolet universe cosmic community of solar system, galaxy,

and universe
# clear Great Beyond Newtonian space-time: such concepts

Mystery as Source, heaven/hell/deities, multiverse,
A-field, n-dimensions, nothing
My observation is that people’s sense of self-identity is expanding rapidly
as their global interconnections become increasingly real to them. The pace of
conscious awakening is truly quickening. To support this awakening, the next
sections present brief introductions to wisdom journey tools that are further
developed in later chapters.
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The Holo sapien Compass
The Holo sapien Compass in Figure 6 translates wisdom principles into a
visual model to help orient a Holo sapien along their wisdom journey. It is an
intuitive tool to guide a person’s integral life choices, to test whether they are
growing in a balanced way as they imagine their path through WisdomSpace.
The Holo sapien Compass has a center, a directional intention, a process
time spiral toward an intention, and three-dimensional spatial axes: identity, felt
experience, and attention. It can be a bit challenging to visualize, but please do
your best to imagine the compass in three spatial dimensions over time. In this 3D
AQAL model, the axes are oriented to match our life experience so that we are
facing the physical world with ourselves at the center of our universe. Wisdom
principles correspond to the Holo sapien compass as follows.
The Heart Center of Essence
The heart center represents a person’s core essence. The heart symbolizes
love that embraces fear. It reflects someone’s natural resonance where they are
attuned with their unique personal presence.
The Star of Intention
A person’s intention is illustrated in the form of a star. It is an indicator of
the focus of someone’s purposefulness, which influences the direction of their
journey, their scope of perspective of their path, and their capacity to stay the
course.
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Figure 6. Holo sapien compass. Author’s image.
The Spiral of Process Shift
The model is a snapshot of the present moment of someone’s wisdom
journey. It represents the time of now, one breath’s worth of time, when a person
exercises their freedom of choice. If one were to look at a moving time sequence
of this model, time would be indicated by the spiral toward the intention. I
propose imagining a microphase spin within the macrophase spiral to represent
someone’s motivation to change. If the person metaphorically spins to the left as
they move, they are focused in the past. If they move straight forward, they are
focused in the present. If they spin to the right, they are focused on the future.
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The X-Axis of Identity: As Go I, So Goes the World
The x axis reflects the scope of a person’s sense of self. The more you
experience your kinship with the various levels of community, the more you can
act for the good of all because you intrinsically know that all is really… you.
The identity axis represents relationship with other beings. It measures
someone’s “lovespace” in units of care and concern. Its growth message is to
walk in someone else’s shoes or paws as much as possible.
The full range of identity represents full interbeing participation. Our goal
is freedom of range of motion of our identity as a cosmic microcosm within the
macrocosm.
The Y-Axis of Felt Experience: As Above, So Below
The y axis represents how people experience their relationship to universal
life energies: soul, head, heart, and body. Wisdom is a wideband phenomenon that
occurs in the more refined energy realms of spirit and thought as well as in the
vital realm of emotion and the physical realm of the body.
The felt experience axis represents relationship with the universe. Its
“lifespace” dimension is measured in energy units of frequency hertz. Its growth
message is to participate in the full spectrum of life experience.
The full range of felt experience represents full energetic coherence. Our
goal is freedom of range of motion of our coherent energetic life flow.
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The Z-Axis of Attention: As Within, So Without
The z axis represents where a person focuses their attention. On a personal
level, being practices range from meditating and praying, learning, dialogue, and
therapy, to whole body awareness disciplines such as martial arts and yoga. Doing
practices include volunteering, planning business meetings, and planting a garden.
On a social level, being practices could be involvement in political parties and
spiritual services, international chat forums, or conflict resolution. Doing practices
include participation in organization roles, corporate sustainability projects, and
watershed monitoring.
The attention axis represents relationship within oneself. Its “units” are
measured in “near” or “far” focal distance within “attention” space. Its growth
message is to balance interior with exterior focus. It honors being in harmony
with doing.
The full range of attention represents full power. Our goal is freedom of
range of motion of our attention along the axis of our being–doing power.
Wisdom Systems: Practical Tools for the Trail
A wisdom system is a tangible set of expressed principles and applied
practices being used to support wisdom development in the world. Today, there is
an overwhelmingly rich treasure trove of wisdom systems readily accessible to
the general public. Time-tested wisdom tradition practices, more recent
interdisciplinary methodologies, unprecedented global network connectivity,
millions of social sector organizations providing structured ways to make a
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difference: the wealth of caring and hard work is truly heartwarming and
heartening.
Wisdom systems expand a person or a group’s engagement in their heart
center, intention, process shift, and at least one wisdom dimension of identity, felt
experience, and attention. Principles are wisdom intentions. Practices are
methodologies for creating spaces for our wisdom to emerge. Wisdom systems
meet the following criteria.
1. Heart Center: A wisdom system supports the participants’ natural
essence. It offers space for people to feel comfortable and appreciated.
It includes practices that support personal heart centering.
2. Intention: A wisdom system pays attention to why people care and
what is important to them. It includes creative practices to elicit and
remember the visions, dreams, and goals of the participants.
3. Process shift: An effective wisdom system requires continuing
participation in order to allow time to integrate the learning and to
provide consistency through the ebbs and flows of organic unfolding.
It includes feedback loops to adapt to changing conditions.
4. x-axis of Identity: A wisdom system increases a person’s sense of
interrelatedness by creating interaction with “the other” either across
multiple identity rings or in both directions (more personal and more
collective).
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5. y-axis of Felt Experience: A wisdom system is designed to bridge
multiple felt experience modes—caring (heart and soul), knowing
(heart and head), and living (heart and body).
6. z-axis of Attention: A wisdom system expands a person’s attention
either further inward, further outward, or bridging between interior and
exterior.
Throughout the rest of this work, examples of wisdom systems will be
presented as tools to support the birth of a wisdom society.
The Birth of a Wisdom Society
The dawn of the Holo sapien marks the birth of a wisdom society. I define
a wisdom society as a socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually
fulfilling global community of people learning to live as mutually interdependent
beings so that the great-great-grandchildren of all species can thrive.
The all-inclusive holoconscious worldview of a Holo sapien is a necessary
ingredient in the cocreation of a wisdom society. A Holo sapien who can
personally identify with their participation in the full ecosocial matrix plays an
essential leadership role as visionary, architect, and translator for those of all
worldviews (including themselves) in cocreating a world that works for all.
The next three chapters explore wisdom development from three
perspectives. Chapter 2 addresses personal wisdom using the perspective of the
Holo sapien from the inside-out of the Holo sapien model. Personal wisdom
corresponds to the Integral Upper quadrant in the AQAL model. Chapter 3 studies
collective wisdom using the perspective of the Holo sapien from the outside-in.
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Collective wisdom corresponds to the Integral Lower quadrant in the AQAL
model. Chapter 4 discusses subtle wisdom, the interior wisdom of the Holo
sapien, corresponding to the Integral Left quadrant. Chapter 5 synthesizes these
perspectives in concluding reflections.
Note that physical wisdom (Integral Right) is not specifically analyzed in
this work because it is the most visible manifestation of Anglo-American wisdom
and is sufficiently represented in the discussion of personal and collective wisdom
systems.
Let us embark on this wisdom journey guided by the inspiring words of
Holo sapien visionaries Barbara Marx Hubbard, Joanna Macy, and Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin.
The Universal Human (Barbara Marx Hubbard)
Social philosopher Barbara Marx Hubbard’s (1998) term for a Holo sapien
is the Universal Human. She sees Universal Human emergence as a birth story.
As humans, we are all members of the larger planetary body, living

through a period of time analogous to a birth, our planetary birth. Our
crisis is a birth! Our personal emergence as Universal Humans is
occurring at the time of the planetary crisis of birth, when we suddenly
have to shift from non-renewable to renewable resources, handle our own
wastes, get food to all our members, and coordinate ourselves as a global
system. And we must do this quickly, just as a newborn baby must
immediately learn to breathe, nurse, and eliminate. (p. 11)
A Life Sustaining Society (Joanna Macy)
Joanna Macy (Macy & Brown, 1998) considers it crucial that we know
that we can meet our needs without destroying our life-support system.
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To choose life in this planet-time is a mighty adventure . . . that elicits
more courage and enlivening solidarity than any military campaign. From
high school students restoring streams for salmon spawning, to inner city
neighbors creating community gardens on vacant lots, from forest activists
sitting in trees …. to delay logging until environmental impact studies are
done, to windmill engineers bringing their technology to energy-hungry
regions—countless groups are organizing, learning, taking action. This
multifaceted human activity on behalf of life may not make today’s
headlines or newscasts, but to our progeny it will matter more than
anything else we do. (p. 16)
A New Era (Teilhard de Chardin)
Teilhard de Chardin (1959) concludes:
We are, at this very moment, passing through a change of age….the future

will decide what is the best name to describe the era we are entering. The
word matters little. What does matter is that we should be told that, at the
cost of what we are enduring, life is taking a step, and a decisive step, in
us and in our environment. (p. 214)
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CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPING PERSONAL WISDOM
Opening Reflections
to my beloved companions along my personal wisdom journey
my blood and marriage family: Mom, Dad, Patrick, Lisa, Karen, Geoff,
Chris and Alana, Keith and the Meehan clan, the Reardons, our
ancestors, and our descendents
my soul family: near—Geri, Denise, Pam, Tricia, Diane, Jeri, David,
Brooks, Sandy, Carla, …
and far—Dawn (South Africa), Jinni (New Zealand), B’lou Kele-
kele (Fiji), …
my mountain and town neighbors, the village who has nurtured my family
so very well: Maria and Mitch, Dick and Doris, LOMA playgroup,
bunco babes, soccer folks, Summit Fitness, Skyland Church, Loma
Prieta School & Community Foundation, BSA Troop 501,
Children’s Musical Theatre, Center for Spiritual Enlightenment
my inner journey guides: Lynn, Gail, Stephen, Ellen, Michael, Sue, Jett
my teachers in Whitney Point, Union College, Stanford University, and
CIIS, and work colleagues at IBM, Bell Labs, ROLM, and Acuson
Figure 7. Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary. Sister Karen, brother Chris, Mom,
daughter Lisa, Dad, son Patrick, and me. Author’s image.
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Centering Poem
Falling into Myself
here I go again
drawing a deep breath
choosing to brave the unknown inside myself
grateful for dear guides and companions by my side
descending toward the dangerous depths within
the inner journey is the hardest trip I’ve ever taken

what a long, strange trip it has been
how can there be so much
wilderness, wasteland, and wonder
inside one small being?
ah, but my small being is not so small

in reality, an invisible whirlwind of cosmic stardust
funneling supernovas and black holes
into human form
no wonder it’s so dangerous in here…
slowly, slowly, with delicate skill and fierce intention,

the whirlwind has been brought to dance seen on the earth
quivering, flickering, cowering,
shuddering, glowing, thundering
in the light of the sun and the stars

in the circle of warrior sisters and brothers
in the safety of gentle compassion and wisdom
I am coming to know my pain

I am coming to know my body
I am coming to know my goodness
I am coming to know my power
the gift of this journey is my true self
bless you for interbeing with me
- Leslie C. Meehan
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Introduction: Becoming a Holo sapien From the Inside Out
Chapter 2 tells the tale of the Holo sapien from an individual’s
perspective, through the lens of my own personal quest for healing and
transformation as a white, female U.S. citizen. My lens is being forged in blood,
sweat, tears, and joy on my journey to Wisdom Mountain: the journey poignantly
described by poet Mary Oliver (1986, p. 38) as the determined struggle through
the wild night, leaving the shouting voices behind as you slowly recognize your
own voice keeping you company. I treasure the wisdom and love of all my trail
companions, including you. Thank you for witnessing this Holo sapien birth story.
Using the WisdomSpace and Holo sapien Models from Chapter 1, I delve
into the personal wisdom journey of becoming a Holo sapien from the 1st-person
central core: from the inside out. Imagine a person situated in the center of their
Holo sapien self, “looking out” at their collective self all around them.
I first discuss the transpersonal nature of the Holo sapien self. I then
present an interdisciplinary survey of stage and state development, introducing
simple Holo sapien stage and state models. Rather than a linear progression, I
characterize the developmental pattern as a toroidal butterfly—expand and
embrace. Next, I propose general personal wisdom development principles and
translate them into principles applicable from an individual’s perspective. My
own journey is offered as a case study of wisdom development from the interior
perspective. The story themes from my life overview and two episodes (trauma
recovery and facing the reality of climate change) are set in the context of general
wisdom principles. Finally, I describe wisdom systems for the personal journey.
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The Personal Wisdom Journey
The personal wisdom journey is my tradition-neutral term for the personal
development process known by such diverse names as enlightenment/awakening
(spirituality), evolution of consciousness (philosophy), transformative learning
(education), and personal healing/growth/recovery (psychotherapy).
What Is Personal Wisdom?
As seen in Chapter 1, personal wisdom is a person’s multidimensional
experience of wholeness. But what is a person? The Holo sapien model
represents the transpersonal nature of human existence, illustrating a person’s
intimate interrelationship with the collective.
Opening to the Transpersonal
Transpersonal theory is the study of the trans (beyond or through)
personal nature of human “concerns, motivations, experiences, developmental
stages (cognitive, moral, emotional, interpersonal, etc.), modes of being and other
phenomena that include but transcend the sphere of the individual personality,
self, or ego” (Ferrer, 2002, p. 5). A transpersonal model is fundamentally
different than the Cartesian model of a personal subject that is separate from an
objective world. Chapter 1 describes how the Cartesian illusion of independent
existence has been effectively invalidated by quantum physics. The Cartesian
fixed subject–object view of the field of consciousness has similarly been
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rendered obsolete by such disciplines as phenomenology, cognitive science,
linguistics, and feminist critical thinking, among others (p. 29).
Transpersonal Perspectives
Let us use the Holo Sapien model to look at a person from several points
of view, or perspectives, to illustrate transpersonal relationships. Recall from
Chapter 1 that the Holo Sapien model is described as an embodied AQAL model,
representing an integral AQAL view of interbeing with an embodied person at the
center. Figure 8 shows dual Holo Sapien perspectives. First, focus your attention
on the person in the heart-center of their Holo Sapien self, imagining them
“looking out” at their collective self around them in all directions. As you look at
the person in the diagram, you have an observer’s view (3rd person) of the
person’s awareness (1st person) of their individual, relational, and broader social
experience (integral 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person or AQAL).
I call the inside-out 3rd person perspective of the Holo Sapien the
embodied personal view. This is the perspective of the personal wisdom research
in the next section. Now shift your perspective to an outside-in view of the Holo
Sapien, by imagining moving yourself to an observation point out in the universe
looking back in at collective society as in Figure 8. Individuals are still in there,
but they are much harder to see from the macrocosmic perspective. We will be
using this outside-in embodied collective view in Chapter 3. Next, shift your
perspective so that you yourself are the person in the center of the model. This 1st
person embodied experiential view might look something like Figure 9.
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Figure 8. Holo sapien perspectives (3rd person). Author’s image.
Figure 9. Embodied experiential perspective (1st person). Author’s image.
My intention is that you use an experiential perspective when you are
working with any of the WisdomSpace models. What does this concept look like
to you? How does it apply in your life? In particular, the Holo Sapien Compass
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and exercises are meant for 1st-person personal wisdom practice. I use the
experiential view in the personal case studies later in this chapter.
The distinction between a personal perspective and personal experience
can be confusing. How can there be a person at the center if the Upper half of the
AQAL model is called personal? The reason is that a shift in perspective of a
perceiver shifts their entire experience. In making a choice, for example, a person
weighs the tradeoffs for themselves both personally and relative to others. Using
this model, weighing the personal implications corresponds to metaphorically
focusing on the Upper personal hemisphere. Weighing the implications for the
groups they belong to corresponds to focusing on the Lower collective
hemisphere. Interior values and feelings are considered in the Left, and exterior
impact in the world is considered in the Right. From the transpersonal
perspective, the Upper hemisphere represents individual diversity and the Lower
hemisphere represents group unity. A healthy Holo sapien balances both.
Transpersonal Wisdom
Personal wisdom, then, is actually personally perceived transpersonal
wisdom, derived from a person’s transpersonal view of the more encompassing
world. It is a microcosmic fractal of macrocosmic wisdom. The subject–object
distinction remains a useful orientation, as discussed below, but in a relative
rather than an absolute way.
The WisdomSpace model reflects the relative point-of-view matrix
relationship between personal and collective wisdom. For instance, a value or
belief in an individual (Upper Left) becomes a value or belief of the individual as

62
a member of a group in the Lower Left. Participating in the group may well affect
the individual’s value or belief, back in the Upper Left. The matrix model, then,
illustrates the unique and dynamic nature of a person’s wisdom field of view,
which is continually changing based on their sensory experience, their close
family and small group relationships, and their broader cultural experience.
Personal Wisdom Journey Patterns
Understanding the patterns of how a person grows and develops has been
a complex topic debated by philosophers and theologians for thousands of years.
With today’s global knowledge base, we have a more panoramic view of the
different models of how a person’s wisdom develops during their lifetime. To
frame the discussion, I use Ken Wilber’s (2000, 2006) Integral Approach, with
gratitude for his comprehensive summary of growth patterns from an observer’s
viewpoint.
The Integral Approach
The Integral Approach presents a map of five elements of human
evolution: quadrants, levels or stages, lines, states, and types. The aim of the
Integral Approach is “to cultivate body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and
nature” (Wilber, 2006, p. 32). By using an integral lens, each of us is able to
understand how the different areas of our lives fit together and to accelerate their
integration into wholeness on our wisdom journey. Quadrants are the four
I/It/We/Its domains described in Chapter 1. Stages and states are the next key
aspects of the personal journey.
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States of consciousness are the 1st-person inner experience of awareness:
whatever I am thinking, feeling, and sensing. States are primarily detectable from
the inside. State descriptions either directly or indirectly describe someone’s
current attitude or perspective, which usually depends on their life priority at the
time. States are transitory patterns that are often but not always cyclical, and they
recur throughout someone’s life.
Stages, on the other hand, represent a permanent shift in a person’s
worldview. “We have all lived in several worlds and have been a number of
different people by the time we have grown up, each representing a different stage
of development” (Combs, 2009, p. 24). Stages describe someone’s stable
perspective on life as a whole. Stages are not detectable from the inside; they are
an exterior view of a person, visible to an outside observer familiar with stages.
As an example of stages versus states, a retired executive learning a new career
would likely be at a mature life stage but might be in a more chaotic Searching for
Wisdom state during this time.
In the WisdomSpace model, wisdom journey phases are actually states
because they correspond to a persons’ primary current felt experience. I have been
referring to the term wisdom journey in the singular, but there are really many
journeys within a person’s life involving the learning spiral around each of their
life’s core lessons or milestones. Recall that Wisdom Journey states are typically
cyclical, but they can overlap and can be transitory. Holo sapien rings of identity
are stable worldviews that can be correlated to a simple stage model, as shown in
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the Holo sapien Stage Model section. Once a person’s identity has expanded to
embrace a sense of care and concern for the next ring, that identity is never lost.
Stage Development
Stage development is now described from several perspectives, beginning
with Wilber’s (2000) “Waves of Existence” comparative analysis of stage
progression models from various disciplines, followed by key concepts from two
of these models: self-identity and orders of consciousness.
Waves of Existence (Ken Wilber)
Ken Wilber’s (2000) evaluation of stage development models from more
than one hundred different researchers found a remarkable coherence in the
evolutionary story of consciousness. These stage models are theories well
grounded in real-world evidence-based research. There are worlds of differences
in the details, but the overall pattern is that development is a series of unfolding
stages or waves (p. 5). A person’s worldview is largely dependent on their stage.
In psychologist Clare Graves’ words,
the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding,

emergent, oscillating, spiraling process marked by progressive
subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer,
higher-order systems as an individual’s existential problems
change. Each successive stage, wave, or level of existence is a
step through which people pass on their way to other stages of
being. When the human is centralized in one state of existence,
he or she has a psychology which is particular to that state. His
or her feelings, motivations, ethics and values, biochemistry,
degree of neurological activation, learning system, belief
systems, conception of mental health, ideas as to what mental
illness is and how it should be treated, conceptions of and
preferences for management, education, economics, and
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political theory and practice are all appropriate to that state.
(Graves as cited in Wilber, 2000, p. 6)
Everyone starts at the beginning and goes through the same stages one at a time,
where the next stage, in Wilber’s words, “transcends and includes” the prior ones
(p. 11). Stage progression demonstrates a person’s expansion in their sense of
identity, corresponding to increasing care and concern, which Wilber describes as
summarized in Table 3.
Table 3
Wilber’s Simple 3-Stage Progression Model
Identity Ages Interior Domain (UL) Exterior Domain (UR)
Egocentric 0-7 Gross physical body (survival): Reptilian brain stem

(Me) Food, sensation, movement
Ethnocentric 7-14 Subtle mind (relationships): Mammalian limbic

(Us) Feelings, emotional–sexual system
impulse, dreams
Worldcentric 15+ soul (interconnectedness): Triune brain with

(All of Us) creativity, compassion neocortex
Note. Author’s table; data from Wilber (2006), pp. 6–18.
As might be expected when characterizing the similarity and diversity of
Holo sapien growth, the multiplicity of stage development models reflects
common themes with many differences in the details, depending on the
researcher’s perspective. Stage names and descriptions can vary widely. For
instance, there are currently several different popular color spectrum maps used to
characterize stage progression.
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Stage progression models typically focus on a particular development line.
A line describes a developed skill or particular area of knowing: cognitive,
emotional, interpersonal, moral, or aesthetic, and so on. Because we each tend to
become skilled in those areas where we have more experience, we each exhibit
our own unique pattern of line development (Combs, 2009, p. 37). Wilber’s
excellent stage development diagram (2006, p. 69) summarizes a complex
delineation of stage development across several major development lines, using
an Integral rainbow color spectrum to relatively align each line’s progression with
the others. Susanne Cook-Greuter’s wonderful online Ego development diagram
(2009) synthesizes the AQAL map with both Spiral Dynamics and her Ego
Development stage models. In the next sections, Cook-Greuter’s and Robert
Kegan’s development lines are further examined.
Self-Identity Ego Development Stage (Susanne Cook-Greuter)
Based on her research of ego development, Susanne Cook-Greuter (2005)
has developed a Self-Identity model of how someone’s mental model (worldview)
evolves over time. She reminds us that the progression is not to be seen as a
simple hierarchy or linear progression but that it evolves in a spiral fashion with
movement possible in all directions (p. 2). She says that most growth is of the
horizontal, expansion kind, where people learn new information but their mental
model remains the same. The ego stages represent permanent worldview shifts as
people rebalance their need for differentiation and integration throughout their
lives. I have described this balancing act as the diversity and unity shift between
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the Upper and Lower halves of the Holo sapien model. Table 4 summarizes the
key concepts of the Self-Identity model using Wilber’s Integral color map.
Table 4
Self-Identity Model
Stage (color) Description Examples
Symbiotic Presocial, dependent on Infants, severe autism
(infrared) others for survival
Impulsive Others are source of need Children
(magenta) gratification
Self-protective Competition, “Your Temper tantrums,
(red) problem, not mine” mercenaries, Archie Bunker
Conformist Group acceptance, respect Fundamentalism, Singapore
(amber) for law and order
Conscientious Independence, rational, Democracy, technologists
(orange) scientific
Individualistic Egalitarian, relative truth Systems thinkers
(green)
Autonomous Walk their talk, Metasystems thinkers
(teal) interdependence
Construct- Centered, acceptance of Mentors
aware paradox
(turquoise)
Unitive Reality is chaos, Enlightened launderers
(indigo) Holoconsciousness
Note. Author’s table; self-identity data from Cook-Greuter (2005), pp. 7–27; color
data from Wilber (2006).
Subject/Object Orders of Consciousness (Robert Kegan)
Transformative learning is another stage model of development. It is also an adult
educational methodology and field of study which supports changes in the frame
of reference of how we know, not just the information content of what we know.
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Transformative learning distinguishes between “in-form-ational” learning and
transformative learning. Informational learning is the invaluable process of
increasing our knowledge within a person’s existing frame of reference.
Informational learning might include learning a new skill like driving a
car or studying a subject like history. Using the WisdomSpace lens analogy,
information fills in the area within a person’s field of view.
“Trans-form-ative” learning explores and shifts a person’s frame of
reference: their habits of mind and resulting expressed points of view that act as a
filter for how they make meaning of their experience. According to Mezirow
(2000), habits of mind include
conservative or liberal orientation; tendency to move toward or away from

people; approaching the unknown fearful or confident; preference to work
alone or with others; ethnocentricity (seeing people different from your
group negatively or as inferior); tendency to respect or challenge authority
. . . approaching a problem analytically or intuitively; focusing on a
problem from whole to parts or vice versa; introversion or extroversion;
patterns of acting as a perfectionist, victim, or incompetent . . .
occupational, disciplinary, religious, educational, capitalist, Marxist, or
postmodernist; and many other orientations and worldviews. (p. 18)
Our inner habits of mind become expressed as outer points of view; we are often
unaware of either one. In WisdomSpace terms, learning that is transformative
changes the size and shape of a person’s field of view by adjusting their lens
properties. Transformative learning occurs either through objective reframing,
where we critically reflect on others’ assumptions and expectations, or through
subjective reframing, where we study our own. I had considered myself an open-
minded, informed global citizen until transformative learning classes showed me
the extent to which my so-called personal beliefs were still unconsciously
constrained by my cultural beliefs and blind spots.

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Kegan (2000, pp. 60–65) identifies five major life stages which shift what
had been the subject (“it has me”) in the prior stage to the object “I have it” in the
new stage. An example of the transition from socialized mind to self-authoring
mind is when a teenager starts to make wise decisions not because they are
externally driven (i.e., their parents told them to; “They make me”) but because
they are motivated by more mature internal priorities (“I want to do this”). The
capacity to shift perspectives demonstrates the fluid nature of the subject–object
relationship. Each shift involves an evolutionary increase in complexity, a
hallmark of transformation as distinct from other types of learning, as shown in
Table 5’s Order of Consciousness Model.
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Table 5
Order of Consciousness Model
Order Subject Object
1 Perceptions (e.g., fantasies) Movement

social perceptions/impulses sensation
2 Concrete (e.g., facts) Perceptions

point of view (e.g., attitude) social perceptions
enduring dispositions (e.g., sense of self) impulses
3 The socialized mind (traditionalism)

abstractions (e.g., beliefs) Concrete
mutuality/interpersonalism (e.g., Me/Us/All point of view
of Us) enduring Dispositions
inner states (e.g., self-awareness of wisdom
journey)
4 The self-authoring mind (modernism)

abstract systems (e.g., belief systems) Abstractions
institution (e.g., ecosocial systems) mutuality/interpersonalism
self-authorship (e.g., wisdom journey inner states
discipline)
5 The self-transforming mind (post-modernism)

dialectical (e.g., Holoconscious) Abstract system ideology
interinstitutional (e.g., cocreative systems) institution
self-transformation (e.g., interbeing ) self-authorship, regulation,
and formation
Note. Author’s table; data from Kegan (2000), p. 62.
Kegan aptly describes the emotional trauma of these worldview shifts as “mutiny”
(2000, p. 67). I appreciate his wry comment that the cognitive act of “distinction”
is a bloodless word that fails to capture the human wrenching from its cultural
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surround. In my own life, divorce was an agony of wrenching myself from my
tribal beliefs about marriage, family, and parenting to recover my personal self.
My integral graduate study was the trigger for the recovery of my collective self,
which felt like an earthquake that ripped apart my secure beliefs about the social
institutions and planetary ecology which govern my life.
In summary, stage development is the stable life-long progression of the
wisdom of our worldview in discrete steps as variously described by numerous
methodologies.
State Cycles
Holo sapien states refer to the personal felt experiences of the wisdom
journey: the 1st-person awareness, understanding, feeling, and action along the
trail. They correspond to the transitory felt experiences of the growth spiral that
can occur at any development stage. Sometimes a person can catch a glimpse of
the way ahead, but they have not incorporated the vision or experience into their
stage identity until they have walked there, often over and over. States are the
winding steps to and around each stage plateau.
Many cultures and wisdom traditions have maps of the major states. Table
6 correlates the Integral Wisdom Journey with state maps from several traditions
in my experience, summarizing a primary feeling quality of each state that will be
used throughout this work. Each feeling quality could exist in any of the states,
but it is likely to be a more prolonged experience during the state with which it is
identified
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Table 6
Comparative Analysis of State Transitions
Holo sapien Integral

Journey State spiritual Zen: Walking the Vital/Psychological:
Experience researcha ox homeb Al-Alon’s 12 stepsc Felt experienced
Waking up 1 awakening/ 1 searching for the ox 1 Admitted we were powerless over alcohol Stillness, numbness !
Troubled initiation Fear, shame, despair, anger
Searching for 2 purification/ 2 finding traces 2 Came to believe that a Power greater than Yearning to grow,
Wisdom pacification 3 seeing the ox ourselves could restore us to sanity Honesty, groping
3 Decided to turn our will and lives to care Determination, intention
Yearning of God
Spiraling into 3 illumination 4 catching the ox 4 Made a searching inventory Openness , Vulnerability
an integral 4 dark night 5 taming the ox 5 Admitted our wrongs Action Cycles:
reality 6 riding the ox home 6 Were ready to have God remove character Breakthrough (Security,
defects Creativity, Determination)
Energetic 7 Humbly asked
8 Made a list of those we’d harmed Breakdown (Dissonance,
9 Made amends Turmoil, Anguish,
10 Took inventory, admitted wrong Uncertainty)
Coalescence 5 unification 7 forgetting the ox 11 Improved conscious contact Intimacy, hope, trust
8 transcending the ox 12 Having had awakening, carried message Security, confidence,
Radiant 9 returning to the source and practiced principles compassion, joy, bliss
10 entering marketplace
a Data from Underhill, as cited by Wilber (2006), p. 95.
b Data from Loori (1999).
c Data from Al-Anon (2009).
d Data from Miscellaneous collective sources.
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The State–Stage Dance
States in some ways seem similar to stages. It is all too easy to confuse the
transitory peak experience of a state (peaceful serenity, for instance) with a
similar stage plateau experience. Peak states used to be considered higher stages.
It took years for Ken Wilber and Alan Combs to independently arrive at the
Wilber–Combs State–Stage Lattice (Wilber, 2006, p. 90). Figure 10 uses an
equivalent matrix concept to build a Holo sapien state-stage lattice for Holo
sapien states and rings (correlated to stages in a later section).
States -> Waking up Searching Spiraling Coalescence

Stages \/ (Troubled) (Yearning) (Energetic) (Radiant)
Universe
(Holoconsciousness)
Earth
(Awareness)
Region
(Insight)
City
(Collaboration)
Community
(Relationships)
Group
(Cognitive will)
Family
(Vitality)
Me
(Will to live)
Figure 10. Holo sapien state-stage lattice. Author’s image.
The state–stage lattice has significant implications for patterns of personal
wisdom development that are summarized here and expanded in the next section.
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First, the horizontal state progression of the wisdom journey is a natural, essential
pattern of growth. We must wend our way forward, backward, up the cliff-faces,
and into the crevasses along the path to the next plateaus. Second, a person at any
stage can have a peak experience of any state, but a person’s interpretation of that
experience depends on their stage altitude. For example, an individual’s
understanding of a peak experience of oneness with nature or the divine depends
on whether they have an ego-centric, ethnocentric, or worldcentric perspective.
Beyond Vertical Transcendence
The preceding wisdom pattern discussion tends to indicate a progression
toward an ultimate personal developmental goal, whether it be called Buddhist
enlightenment or Kegan’s Fifth Order consciousness. I myself had not fully
recognized the depth of my hidden assumption that an ultimate goal even exists
until digesting Jorge Ferrer’s and Carol Christ’s work on embodied participatory
process.
Participatory Knowing (Jorge Ferrer)
Ferrer (2002) claims that traditional transpersonal theory has been founded
upon the perennial philosophical belief in a knowable Absolute, however
variously conceived (“God”, Brahman, Buddha Nature, etc.). While belief in an
Absolute developed for valid historical reasons, he contends that the notion of a
single absolute or ultimate reality is obsolete, a by-product of the demise of the
absolutist character of objectivism. He describes several varieties of perennialism
and cites an array of arguments against their validity. For instance, he refutes the
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circular logic of the a priori philosophical stance that gnosis, or the direct
experience of reality, must be universal because it is sensing universal Truth.
Ferrer (2002) posits a vision of transpersonal phenomena as multilocal
participatory events which occur outside the control of any one individual (p.
117). Recall from Chapter 1 that he defines participatory knowing in a similar
way to how I define wisdom. Such knowing involves a
multidimensional access to reality that includes not only the intellectual

knowing of the mind, but also the emotional and empathic knowing of the
heart, the sensual and somatic knowing of the body, the visionary and
intuitive knowing of the soul, as well as any other way of knowing
available to human beings. (p. 120)
Participatory knowing has crucial implications for personal development
patterns. First, it confirms the reliance of personal growth upon a person’s unique
experience within the collective. This explains, for example, the significance of
culture as a determining factor in personal development patterns because of its
impact on how someone interprets their experience. Second, it reinforces the
value of all modes of experience. Intuitive soul-knowing is not necessarily closer
to the truth of wholeness than body-instincts or emotional empathy.
Panentheism (Carol Christ)
Process theology extends the concept of participatory knowing to include
God. Process theology conceives of God as “not exactly of the world of physical
reality, but participating in it processually—everywhere teaching, affecting, and
informing its operations” (Rescher, 2008, Section 9). By virtue of participating,
God is influenced by the world. Thus, God is both transcendent (beyond the
world) and immanent (existing within) (Christ, 1997, p. 101). I concur with
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Christ’s description of panentheism (all is in God, and God is in all) as a way of
understanding God that moves beyond the polarities of the immanence of pan-
theism (all is God) and of the transcendence of theism (God is above or beyond
all). For process theologists, who are panentheists, God/Goddess is intelligent
embodied love, the ground of all being, and the earth is the body of God (p. 104).
Christ (1997) echoes the transformative learning view that our experience
is shaped by lenses of interpretative assumptions of which we are both aware and
unaware, and thus our experience is limited. Embodied thinking (thinking through
the body) is an empathic expansion of our experience of the earth as divine.
Holo sapien Stage Model
New integral wisdom models are required to reflect increasingly inclusive
worldviews that respect multiple ways of knowing. I offer a simple, inclusive
Holo sapien stage model to reconcile the difficulties I have had relating to the
Power versus Force and Spiral Dynamics vertical models in particular.
I struggled years ago with a strong attraction coupled with a sharp
resistance to Hawkins’ (1995) Power versus Force map of consciousness (p. 52).
Hawkins’ map is an obviously well researched, respectable model of a linear
progression from the depths of shame and guilt to the pinnacle of peace and joy. I
first read this work when I was waking up to my own inner depths of shame and
guilt, and I was quite disturbed to find these unsavory hidden feelings so readily
dismissed as the bottom of the consciousness scale. At the time, I did not
understand the stage–state lattice or the cyclical nature of the wisdom journey, so
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I was paradoxically trapped by my newly fierce trust in the validity of my inner
feelings in the face of a low evaluation from outer, respected authority.
I had the good fortune to be walking the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral
the next day, so I took my anguished dilemma with me into my walk. How could
feeling shame and guilt be healthy or good growth? As I sat in the labyrinth
center, a frightful inner vision of Medusa came to me. I watched Medusa’s hair
grow down into the ground as she began to explosively disintegrate into blood
and gore. As she disappeared, green tendrils and leaves began to shoot up into
plants and then babies and then whole thriving village scenes as I witnessed the
profusion of life unfolding. I left the labyrinth quietly stunned with the insight that
the depths of grief and despair can be fertile roots of creativity and rebirth.
I have struggled with Spiral Dynamics’s and Power versus Force’s
limiting description of “lower” stages that did not match my experience of wise
and wonderful people at those stages. I was stymied as to why beloved close
friends and family can express such profound wisdom, serenity, and compassion
with what seem to be more narrowly focused, “lower” fields of view than mine. I
now notice that the Spiral Dynamics and Power versus Force models’ descriptions
of lower stages tend to emphasize their limitations rather than their capacities.
When I compare these stage models with the chakra development model, I more
readily see the positive attributes of the lower stages. In Table 7, I mesh these
three models into a simple Holo sapien Stage model using a Holo sapien color
scheme and inclusive stage description that I use throughout the rest of this work.
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Table 7
Holo Sapien Development Stage Comparison Chart
Holo sapien Consciousness map Spiral Dynamics map

Level color inclusive stage levelsa: Emotions (color) and themesb Chakra mapc
Me red Will to live Guilt, shame, apathy: (beige) Survivalist, food, water (red) Survival awareness
Humiliation, blame, despair Primal feelings, passion
Physical senses and empathy
Family orange Vitality Grief, fear, desire: (purple) Allegiance, sacred (orange) Creativity, Vitality
Regret, anxiety, craving rituals “softer” feelings, empathy
Female life energy & power
Group yellow Cognitive will Anger, pride, courage: (red) Do what you want, (yellow) Will, cognition
Hate, scorn, affirmation self-gratification, control/ Mental empathy
domination Male life energy & power
Local green Relationships Neutrality: Trust (blue) Self-sacrifice to truth, (green, pink) Relationships
guilt, everyone proper place, Compassion, healing energy
discipline builds character Dreams, harmony
City blue Collaboration Willingness, acceptance: (orange) Competition, use earth (blue) Truth, wisdom
Optimism, forgiveness resources, technology Responsibility, expression
Nation indigo Insight Reason, love: (green) Inner peace, share (purple) Vision, insight
Understanding, reverence resources, community caring Direct perception
Earth violet Awareness Joy, peace: (yellow) Live fully, natural (white) Divine awareness
Serenity, bliss knowledge over rank Wisdom of your essence
Universe ultraviolet Holoconsciousness Enlightenment: Ineffable (Turquoise, coral) … (Silver, Gold) …
a Data from Hawkins (1995).
b Data from Beck and Cowan (1996).
c Data synthesized from Dale (2002, 2009), Judith (2004), and Goodman (lectures and notes, intuition class, 2003).
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Toroidal Butterfly State–Stage Model
The potential for unhelpful judgments about a simple spiraling vertical
model of transcendence lead me to propose a Toroidal Butterfly model as a spatial
model of personal wisdom development. This panentheistic model acknowledges
the typical, discrete, step progression in an increasingly inclusive direction but
shifts the direction of expansion to be a variable, cyclical, orbital rotation. I first
describe the model and then give an example.
Toroidal Cycle of Expand and Embrace
Instead of a vertical and horizontal growth lattice, I introduce the notion of
a toroidal movement of expand and embrace to describe the cyclical process of
expanding our identity and returning to our core in the same way that our arms
wrap around in an embrace and come back toward ourselves. A torus is a
geometric shape defined by Webster’s Dictionary as a “doughnut-shaped surface
generated by a circle rotated about an axis in its plane that does not intersect the
circle” (Woolf, 1974, p. 1233). Oranges and doughnuts are tangible examples of
toruses. The toroidal axis in this case consists of a person’s core: their physical
body and auric field. The Holo sapien field radiates around the person in a
toroidal shape, as in Figure 11.
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Figure 11. Human torus. Author’s image.
Toroidal Cycle Illustration
Figure 12 illustrates one wisdom journey cycle within the community
stage of our Ideogram (Figure 2) friend Giovanni as he finishes high school,
locating the position of each state in the wisdom quadrant with which it is most
commonly associated in my experience. Giovanni’s first step of Waking Up to the
excitement and dread of leaving home takes him into the LL (inner collective)
quadrant, the domain of family and friends (shown as Step 1 in Figure 12). Next,
he moves into the inner personal (UL) quadrant to Search for Wisdom within
himself about his path (Step 2). Once he embarks on his college or job search, he
shifts into the LR quadrant to explore his options for Spiraling into the Reality of
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the adult world (Step 3). As he gets feedback from his ecosocial environment, he
heads to the UR quadrant to analyze his practical choices (more Step 3). He
continues to spiral around, probably several times, through more feedback from
family and friends, new feelings and values, and other worldly options and factors
to consider. Finally, he settles back into his core as he coalesces a decision about
the next phase of his life (Step 4).
Figure 12. Holo sapien first career ring. Author’s image
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Holo sapien Growth Rings
Giovanni’s first career personal-growth circuit involves enough time,
emotion, thought, work, and inspiration that it becomes a growth ring in
Giovanni’s Holo sapien subtle being, just like the annual seasonal cycle creates
growth rings within the trunks of trees. Other significant life cycles might create
new patterns within that development stage. For example, Giovanni could be
considering whether to marry, adding the life partnership growth ring to that stage
of development, certainly altering the shape of the first career ring. If Giovanni
does not consider marriage until a later stage, the life partnership growth ring will
appear in a different growth ring of his subtle being. If Giovanni’s future mate has
a life-threatening illness or is unable to have children, that wisdom journey will
trace a different path as it engages different aspects of Giovanni’s worldview.
Eventually Giovanni’s growth path will likely shift his identity to the nation stage,
where new cycles of growth will weave a different pattern into his being. Over
many years, the ring pattern in Giovanni’s subtle body might begin to resemble
the wings of a butterfly, as in Figure 13.
The Toroidal Butterfly
Rather than a simple spiral, I imagine that cyclical development patterns
resemble butterfly wings around the strange, chaotic attractors of primary wisdom
events in a person’s life. This is an intuitive insight based on the synchronistic
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Figure 13. Holo sapien as a toroidal butterfly. Author’s image.
facts that I began sitting with the question of the nature of the spiral pattern,
started spontaneously drawing butterfly wings patterns the next day, and followed
my hunch to investigate terminology and symbols for seemingly random factors
in chaotic behavior the day after, only to find—the butterfly effect. I do not have
the chaos theory or psychology expertise myself to be able to cognitively justify
this intuition, but I look forward to discovering collective wisdom on the matter.
The organic wing metaphor serves well to illustrate two aspects of
personal development that are indicated by stage research and psychological
study. The first is the correlation between rings of self-identity and the healthy
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psychological boundaries of privacy and dignity referred to by John Bradshaw
(1988) in Chapter 1. I propose that the rings in this model might represent
boundaries, and that ring or boundary structures might better be thought of as
semipermeable membranes that provide the stability of containment with
openness of information flow.
The second aspect is the impact of life’s stress on the subtle being
structure. Shadow is the Jungian term for repressed, disowned, or dissociated
aspects of the self (Wilber, 2006, p. 120) arising from psychological trauma or
injury. Where the butterfly wing is marked by trauma or shadow, it may form
holes, cracks, scars, or tears that influence the wing growth patterns and possibly
the flying abilities of the butterfly as a whole.
Goal of Freedom of Motion
As an alternative to the goal of reaching the top, I introduce the goal of
increased freedom of motion. How do we describe the process of learning and
growing? We commonly use such phrases as removing blocks, taking off our
blinders, expanding our horizons, releasing trauma, surrendering, going with the
flow, and so on. If we believe that we all have our own unique place and
contribution to make in the universe, then the goal of our growth must be to free
ourselves to find that unique place of our own.
The freedom of motion metaphor applies to all the wisdom domains. It
means freedom to love, to discover our deepest essence, to set our intentions, to
go our way, to develop our worldview, and to make choices and take action. The
previously discussed freedom to shift perspectives is a practice of freedom of

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motion throughout our interbeing. It develops our capacity to stay in equilibrium
within our own unique center in harmony with the whole.
Personal Wisdom Journey Principles
With immense respect and gratitude for the thoughtful and considered
wisdom teachings of the ages, I now weave the preceding third-person wisdom
development stage research into wisdom journey principles for a Holo sapien.
How do the “I from the outside” development patterns translate to “I from the
inside” principles useful to individuals as growth guideposts?
Center and Open Your Heart
The reason why people grow and develop is shrouded in mystery. What
motivates someone to embark on the wisdom trail at all? I use the word grace to
describe the source of the hidden impulse toward wholeness. Grace flows from
our inner essence as a seed of inspiration.
The initial preparatory step for growth is to prepare and open oneself to
participating in wisdom emergence with the mysterious source of grace. Most
wisdom traditions begin a new step on the wisdom journey with an inner
reflective practice: ritual, prayer, meditation, energy balancing, a moment of
silence, writing, reading, chanting, and so on. The purpose of this practice is to
align your heart within your personal body, which I call centering, and to align
yourself with your collective Holo sapien body, which I call opening.
The journey to wisdom seems to have no end. There is always something
new to learn, another peak to climb. Grace is a well that does not run dry.
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Hold a Steady Intention
Seeded by grace, growth is fed by intention. People grow and develop
through both interior and exterior practices and experience. Growth cycles can be
triggered either by the power of attraction (love) or by resistance (fear) on both
the interior and exterior planes. For example, inspiration and desire can be interior
attraction forces. Exterior behavioral motivators include incentives and rewards,
new tools, and new skills. Interior resistance can be generated by unhappiness and
conflict. Exterior resistance forces include disease and poverty.
Fear is often described as the absence of love. I believe that fear is,
instead, a natural balance to love. Fear is the contraction of resistance before the
expansion of attraction. Without fear, we might expand so quickly that we would
not be able to successfully integrate change. Fear is a useful guidepost to
imminent change. Rather than fighting fear, I invite you to lean into it. Do not be
afraid of your fear.
Social psychology experiments have shown that people are more
effectively motivated by the fear of loss than by the pleasure of gain (Aronson,
1999, p. 130). My hypothesis is that optimal motivation depends on one’s
development stage in any particular line. The higher up the line, the more one is
drawn by attraction. The lower down the line, the faster one moves from fear. An
integral social change approach would therefore apply both motivational forces.
The wisdom traveler will inevitably experience growth pains of love and
fear that will create inner and outer barriers to change. Waking Up and Searching
are important beginnings, but the Spiraling long-distance journey requires
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discipline. Disciplined commitment to personal growth over time is a crucial
factor in reinforcing long-term change in habits. More practice creates more
room for shadows to come to light, for insights to arise, for reflections to sink in,
and so on. Meditating for 20 minutes a day does not create the same depth of
space as meditating for an hour. In my experience, fortunately, practice does
make wisdom easier to access. The path is already well worn, which allows an
ongoing practice to carry you further down the trail.
Go With the Flow
The freedom of choice to adapt and shift through the dynamic,
unpredictable process of growth is important. Letting go of the illusion of control
allows the wisdom traveler to resiliently adjust to the inevitable surprises and
barriers along the trail. Plans, expected outcomes, the form of the traveler’s
practice, and the speed of the journey will need to be flexible. Lest we be misled
to believe that intention will lead us straight through a logical progression of
stages and states, I offer dark nights and the Jungian shadow as chaotic factors in
the growth equation.
Dark Nights
Both stage and state transitions are frequently heralded by unexpected
experiences of compression (being squeezed) and expansion (being stretched). A
breakdown in an existing structure is necessary before the breakthrough to the
next level can occur. The term dark night is frequently used to describe this
release of attachment to or identification with the current stage or state. I have
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noticed that dark night experiences have shifted over time for me, from being
more compressing to more stretching. Lately, I more often feel as though I am
being stretched in uncomfortable ways than painfully squeezed as I used to feel. I
hypothesize that growth driven by the pull of love feels more like a stretch than
the constrictive growth driven by the push of fear.
Shadow
Recall that shadow is the Jungian psychological term for dynamically
dissociated impulses. In Wilber’s (2006) words, 1st-person (I) impulses, feelings,
and qualities can become repressed, disowned, or dissociated. When they do, they
appear as 2nd-person (you) or even 3rd-person (they) events in 1st-person
awareness. He uses an excellent example of repressing anger when it threatens a
person’s identity: “nice people don’t get mad” (p. 120). In this example, he says
that denying the anger does not eliminate it. It simply moves the anger outside the
boundary of a person’s sense of self so it appears somewhere else as a foreign
event. If the anger is projected, the world begins to appear full of angry people,
who naturally seem angry with the person, which makes them feel sad. The
secretly angry person will never get over the depression without owning the
repressed anger.
A main goal of psychotherapy is to re-own shadow feelings as mine: not
yours, theirs, his, hers, it, its, and so on. Meditation does not help with shadow
reintegration because it practices relating to feelings from a detached “it”
perspective. It increases awareness but not ownership. Actually, witnessing anger
with detachment can even make ownership harder to restore. If the feelings are
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transcended before they are acknowledged, then they remain in the shadow. The
“it” anger must be connected to “me” so it can become “my” anger before it can
be fully released.
Since our shadow is cognitively invisible to us, we cannot know how to
navigate through its reintegration, and thus our path becomes intellectually
unpredictable. We need to employ our intuition and community mirrors to help
us navigate through the healing of our own shadow.
Embrace Others as Part of Yourself
Expanding our sense of relatedness to the various levels of our Holo
sapien being helps us develop our capacity for empathy, respect, care, and
concern. As our sense of identity grows, our thoughts and actions are better
balanced for the highest good personally and collectively.
We are not all meant to develop to the heights of a hierarchical spiral. A
judgmental attitude of “higher is better” can stunt a person’s growth within and
without. I call this judging tendency altitude sickness, a relationship dis-ease that
limits how people interact with others. Using Spiral Dynamics terminology,
Wilber (2000) describes altitude sickness as follows:
Blue order [level four] is very uncomfortable with both red [level three]
impulsiveness and orange [level five] individualism. Orange individualism
thinks blue order is for suckers and green [level six] egalitarianism is weak
and woo-woo. Green egalitarianism cannot easily abide excellence and
value rankings, big pictures, hierarchies, or anything that appears
authoritarian, and thus green reacts strongly to blue, orange, and anything
post-green. (p. 12)
In addition to limiting relationships with others, altitude sickness can limit
a person’s interior growth and felt experience. We may not fully appreciate and
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develop the different aspects of our identities (i.e., rings of our Holo sapien
interbeing) that are required to effectively feed our families, find work, perform
CPR, make love, run a meeting, and so on. A person who claims spiritual altitude
without walking their talk mentally, emotionally, or physically is sometimes
described as suffering from spiritual bypass. Ferrer (2002) calls it spiritual
narcissism: the misuse of spiritual practices, energies, or experiences to bolster
self-centered ways of being (p. 35).
Note that I am not questioning the ordered nature of growth evolution. I
have no doubt that discrete levels of development exist. I am arguing against what
Riane Eisler (2002) calls power-over judgments about hierarchy. Hierarchy’s
evaluative connotation appears in some dictionary definitions and not others,
reflecting the social dilemma with rank. I prefer viewing hierarchy as a form of
holarchy, where one holon is a nested part of another (Koestler, as cited in
Wilber, 2000, p. 40). I like David Spangler’s (2008) definition of a holarchy:
In a hierarchy, participants can be compared and evaluated on the basis of

position, rank, relative power, seniority and the like. But in a holarchy
each person’s value comes from his or her individuality and uniqueness
and the capacity to engage and interact with others to make the fruits of
that uniqueness available. (“Holarchy and Holism”)
The social discomfort with ranking others is at work in the controversy I
encounter in my family life about educating “gifted” children differently than
“ordinary” children. The world clearly needs all children’s gifts. As a mother
who dearly loves her academically gifted children, I will say for the record that a
world full of only academically gifted children would be a disaster. And yet, so
would a world without any of them. Academically gifted children have uniquely
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complex talents that require special nurturing and training so they can fulfill their
natural, essential niche in the holarchy, along with every other Holo sapien.
Treasure Multiple Modes of Experience
Most of us are familiar with a variety of ways to describe human senses or
modes of perceiving reality. Table 8 below shows several simple to complex
systems commonly used to define the range of experiential modes.
Table 8
Experiential Mode System Comparison
Number of ranges Range type System
3 Body, mind, spirit Early Greek

triad concept
4 Body, heart, head, soul Eastern/

Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual Western
philosophy
5 Body vital heart mind spirit Holistic

Integration
7+ Root, abdomen, solar plexus, heart, throat, Simple

forehead, crown chakra
My personal journey has greatly benefited from working with the more
complex systems, but in the interests of common ground, I use the four-level
range system as the simplest system that addresses what I consider to be the core
experiential elements: body, heart, head, and soul. The heart represents emotions,
a strong determinant of human behavior that for me is an essential focus for
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balanced growth. Each person has their own unique experience of the body–
heart–head–soul spectrum where they feel most “at home.” Restrictions in any
range affect the rest.
The tendency to consider the more refined, “higher” vertical realms of
transcendent experience as more valuable than the “lower,” earthly realms of
primal feeling and body experience is a side-effect of altitude sickness seen
throughout much of Anglo-American cultural and religious history. Process
theologians, transpersonal theorists, and embodied spirituality practitioners such
as Christ, Eisler, and Ferrer argue powerfully for the need to honor the wisdom of
the earth within us. I was so steeped in hierarchical, patriarchal, religious tradition
that I was astonished to be completely transfixed for an entire day reading
Anderson and Hopkins’s (1991) The Feminine Face of God. Their stories of
female spiritual development showed me to my amazement that my organic
contemplative journey, wandering aimlessly in the world rather than sitting
serenely on a mountaintop, was a valid embodied spiritual path. That validation
was so transformative that I had a life-changing mystical experience that very
night where I awoke bathed in indescribable light and heard a deep voice, coming
from both within my head and from the far distances of the light, welcoming me
home. That voice rings within me still.
Balance Inner–Outer Attention
We have seen the developmental trend of increasing complexity in stage
development models. Following Teilhard de Chardin’s complexity/consciousness
law, Wilber (2006) contends that every level of interior consciousness is

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accompanied by a level of exterior physical complexity (p. 17). As shown in
Table 3, Wilber correlates individual body/mind/soul awareness (UL) with human
brain evolution from reptilian, to mammalian limbic, to triune neo-cortex (UR).
On the social level, he says that unfolding levels of greater group awareness (LL)
from me, to us, to all of us, allow the evolution of more complex ecosocial
systems from tribe, to nation, to global (LR).
When people change their behavior, their new exterior structure supports
growth in their interior belief and value structure. When people change their
beliefs and values, their new interior structure supports growth in their exterior
behavior. The inner–outer dance implies that growth in either inner or outer
dimensions must be balanced with the other. If the majority of our time and
energy is spent in inner being reflection, our outer relationships can atrophy. We
might never manifest our worldly intentions and can get lost in random dreaming.
If our life focus is on constant doing activity, we can lose touch with our dreams,
values, and purpose and get lost in random busyness.
Given the typically outward focus of Western culture, we Anglo-
Americans often need the most assistance developing our interior structure to stay
in balance. Developing our inner awareness through regular practice is similar to
developing our outer muscles through regular exercise. Strong inner muscles help
us carry our hidden, unaware beliefs into the light of day. The more we are aware
of what is operating within us and can compare those inner beliefs to our outer
ecology, the more choices we can make about whether our beliefs serve us and
those around us. Instead of being at the effect of our beliefs as a subject, inner
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muscles give us the strength and skills to help turn our subjective “It has us” into
objective “We have it.”
Personal Case Studies: Leslie’s Personal Wisdom Journey
Eavesdropping on my inner dialogue:
Amazing. I am beginning to squirm uncomfortably in my chair, feeling

like a different person writing about the wisdom journey from my inner
perspective as a person than when I write about people (including myself)
from my outer perspective as a scholar. Who do I think I am, a wise
teacher? What a joke! Stop stalling, gather your guts, and write, silly…
And so I offer my own life journey as a case study of a personal wisdom
journey, the only story that I feel I have any hope of telling the truth about. My
self-analysis consists of a retrospective life summary with two episodes. The
retrospective is an overview of my life path through narrative and summarizing
reflections. The two episodes examine wisdom principle application to two
specific themes, trauma recovery and climate change.
Personal Case Study Retrospective: Leslie’s Odyssey
My life retrospective is intended to show how wisdom journey principles
have applied to my personal wisdom journey. I did not have these principles to
guide my way. I had to stumble across them, many only visible now in hindsight.
I begin each lifecycle narrative with a summary of my age range and my main
growth spiral(s) and state(s) during that time. For example, the first section
describes my first lifecycle from ages 0-21, my growth spiral of birth to young
adulthood, and my primary states from Waking Up to Coalescence.
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LifeCycle One (ages 0–21): Birth to Young Adulthood, Waking Up to Coalescence
From an external observer’s perspective, my life looks like a fairly easy
path of a stereotypical middle-class white U.S. small-town girl made good. My
ancestors are from all over northern Europe. Some came to America on the
Mayflower, some to the United States just before World War I. I was raised in a
rural village in upstate New York, the oldest of four children of educator parents
who nurtured our family’s religious and intellectual development. My identity
expanded from my roots as an outdoor tomboy into a model student and musician,
then into a loyal employee and steady girlfriend in high school: all of which have
become life-long patterns.
In the inner world of my childhood and college days, my ways of knowing
were firmly rooted in the modern Western tradition. Science was truth, and
reason was law. If something was not logical, it was not real. Emotions were for
sissies and weak females. My spiritual beliefs were conflicted. As a child, I
believed in Jesus and God, but in my teens I became an atheist, both because
Biblical gospel truth was rationally unbelievable to me and because I could not
give my heart to an angry patriarchal god. Yet while my mind believed that
religion was an opiate for the masses, I wondered about the unshakeable faith of
my fundamentalist best friends.
LifeCycle Two (ages 21–41)
Early 20s, engineering and travel: Waking up. I was a top student in
college all the way along the straight and narrow path through a master’s degree
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in electrical engineering, then through a successful software career, followed by
early promotion into management (still with a steady stream of boyfriends). My
main deviation from cultural conformity was to travel abroad whenever I could.
Travel created the initial large cracks in my Western belief-system shell. I
lived in Italy for a college term and then traveled around the world twice.
Traveling outside the United States taught me that jobs do not define identities,
that there are multiple cultural views of right and wrong, that religious faith is a
life anchor for much of humanity, and that Earth is a small, beautiful planet with
suffering and social injustice the world over, especially for women and children.
When I came back to my engineering management career after my first
trip around the world, I just did not fit in anymore. I found it very hard to have a
weekday routine. Even wearing shoes was difficult. I did not recognize until later
that I was mildly depressed, never having consciously experienced this degree of
emotional pain before. My wise friends sent me to a large group-awareness
training called Lifespring. While I have reservations about the general advisability
of emotionally intense training formats for large groups, the training was very
effective for me. The experiential learning was a vivid demonstration of the
power of unconscious meaning schemes, as our conscious belief systems were
repeatedly shown to be inconsistent with our experiential behavior. In days, my
depression was gone and my hope for the world was restored as I went through
the pain to glimpse a world where my engineer’s head could live in harmony with
my heart.
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Late 20s, beyond the mind: Searching for wisdom. I went on to explore
this new world beyond the intellect through more experiential and metaphysical
workshops, meditating, and reading such authors as Carolyn Myss (1996), Shirley
MacLaine (1985), and Chris Griscom (1988). I was still dabbling in the search,
for these adventures were well beyond my scientific comfort zone. During my
first meditation class, we gathered each week in an entry area where experienced
meditators helped us to balance our energies before class. One night I walked in
with a day-long stubborn headache that was immune to aspirin. Without my even
mentioning that my head hurt, the energy healer noticed it and helped it disappear
within minutes. I was so shaken that I left the meditation class never to return.
Not long after, I picked up an amethyst crystal at a seminar booth and felt a wave
of calm gently flow through my whole body. I dropped it in shock. I conducted
an impromptu random test, closing my eyes and rummaging through the whole
pile of crystals, only to repeatedly find the same crystal. I even dared to research
and visit a psychic, who unsettled me with her uncannily detailed accuracy in
tracing my life story, including referring to thoughts I had had while driving alone
in the car to see her. These inexplicable phenomena were intriguing but
terrifying, since I intuitively knew that heading further down the metaphysical
path meant abandoning my cultural and scientific roots, and I simply was not
ready to become one of “those” gullible California New Age crystal worshippers.
Without consciously being aware of it, I turned away from the terrors of tribal
mutiny and headed for matrimony, little knowing that danger to my root system
still lay ahead.
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Early 30s: finding heart in marriage (Spiral) and motherhood
(Coalescence). When I got married, I left my telecommunications career hoping
for more humanitarian satisfaction in a medical firm designing ultrasound
machines. This attempt to bridge my head and my heart within the corporate
world failed. Disillusioned, I left the corporate profit life when my son was born,
discovering the wisdom and strength of the society of mothers and nonprofits. I
became increasingly happy, taught by my children and community service that
truth and transformation come from the heart more than the head.
Late 30s: exploring my heart; Waking up/Searching. But alas, this calm
was not destined to last, as my marriage became increasingly troubled by my
husband’s emotional distance and drinking. I tried therapy and Al-Anon, and in
the process of learning more about the emotional realm, discovered that the sexual
advances made by my paternal grandfather when I was a teenager had been a
form of sexual abuse. Amazingly to me now, I had interpreted his behavior so
personally and privately that I never associated it with the social issue of incest
that I learned of when I got older, including never imagining that he may have
abused others too. I did forgiveness therapy work and checked on my sister (who
did not remember any abuse), but I noticed that any sense of forgiveness did not
seem to last long. The realization was also dawning that I was escaping my
marital discomfort at home by being overly involved in community service, which
was becoming less rewarding over time due to group dynamic and bureaucratic
issues familiar from the corporate world.
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LifeCycle Three (Ages 41–50)
Early-mid 40s, diving into inner depths: Spiral. As my children grew
older, my inner dis-ease led me deep into the inner spiral in earnest, triggered by a
retreat with a mystical epiphany. I was running along the wisdom path now,
engaging all dimensions at once. Within six months, my spiritual awakening led
to regular meditation, embodied intuition training, integral graduate school, and
divorce. Divorce was an agonizing recovery of my splintered personal self that
required much personal and family tending. I became fiercely committed to
finding the place within me that needed the mirror of an unhealthy marriage, so I
branched out beyond mental therapy and Al-Anon into more full-spectrum, inner
experiential work.
This is the era of my stories of waking up to the global ecosocial crisis and
of walking on fire. Another significant embodied awakening occurred during a
shamanic ceremony in Peru, when I spontaneously traveled into the earth with
absolutely no intellectual understanding of what was occurring (until later study).
I could see the aura around my hands when I came back out of the earth. Still true
to my scientific form, I tested different eye/hand positions to confirm I was really
seeing an aura and not a shadow or some other rational explanation.
This is also the period when, looking back, I can trace the emergence of
more childhood sexual abuse body memories in the safe space of small group
holotropic breathwork. I did not understand at the time why my experience was
so much more violent than that of those around me, but the excellent facilitators
stayed right with me, probably recognizing better than I what was emerging. Over
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the next few months, I resisted committing to the next level of intuition training or
to a regular shamanic drumming practice, but I followed the quiet voice inside
that said, “You need to do this. Make time. It is important.”
My intuition teacher Lynn Goodman, who is also a therapist and interfaith
minister, deliberately starts advanced intuition training using lower chakra
meditations to begin surfacing any hidden foundational cracks. Safe in this
supportive group, unmistakable body memories of earlier sexual abuse by my
grandfather emerged during our first chakra childhood meditation. I spent the rest
of the weekend in shock and tears, but the group supported me well, and my
teacher made me promise to find a therapist to work through the healing. The
next few months were even more painful and disorienting than the time right after
my divorce. I held my outer world together as a mom, student, friend, and lover as
I fell apart in my inner world, descending into hell driving to my therapist’s office
each week to essentially re-live the abuse. It was devastatingly difficult to face
and reconcile my mental denial with my heart’s heavy grief and with the
sickening physical sensations that arose during the recovery process. This is not
the place to delve into that dark night, but I do want to share my hard-won lesson
that trauma recovery works. I believe the best practice involves skilled
professional support, trusted family and/or friends, and utter courage and
commitment from the survivor to heal. I am so grateful for the immense love and
talented help I received. Many of us are survivors traumatized to some degree in
the natural course of life, so we can all use skilled and loving support to reach our
wholeness as thrivers.
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Late 40s, dawning peace: Coalescence. Once the trauma wound was
largely healed, I began to experience the healing effects ripple increasingly
quickly through the rest of my family and other rings of my Holo sapien self. I
eventually told my family the gist of the incest story, resulting in a closer family
emotional bond. Another drinking incident was a healing crisis for my children
and me, supported by therapy and Al-Anon. Telling the truth and supporting my
children to have the skills and wisdom to help take care of themselves was hard
but empowering for all of us. After a romance sabbatical, I am enjoying meeting
wonderfully dear Holo sapien men. I confess that I am saving the juicy details of
my romantic life for a less academic conversation, but I can assure you that the
wilderness trail of integrating the minister and the minx within me follows the
same wisdom principles as other paths.
My work in the world through community service, consulting, and even
writing this dissertation is engaging my full experience and my whole community.
As my personal sense of self is coalescing, I am growing more conscious of the
dynamics across the semipermeable membranes of each of my rings of identity.
I discovered while spending a quiet day in the woods recently how much my
guilt, shame, and fear about my part in humanity’s damage of the biosphere was
inhibiting my personal sense of connection with nature; I suddenly saw how my
angst about being a member of the human species who destroys forests has kept
me from feeling intimately close to the trees that I love so much.
I trust that my journey will continue to take me through panoramic scenery
and adventures along the Wisdom Mountain trail.
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Odyssey Principle Reflections
From a birds-eye view, wisdom principles are visible throughout my life
as follows.
Opening to love and grace (heart center). I cannot really explain where
my growth has come from, and I see no end in sight. Granted, my inordinately
active curiosity leads me on many strange learning adventures, but where does my
curiosity come from? My deep yearning for peace and intimacy? My willingness
to take the dark scary road? The mystery of grace is still my best answer. New
growth cycles continue, appearing in various rings and dimensions of my being. I
am early in a cycle of embodying the planet, as shown in my climate change case
study below. I am still growing new wings, if not repeatedly disintegrating into a
cocoon and re-emerging to grow new ones.
Labors of expansion and compression (intention). In practically any
challenging situation that I can remember, whether big or small, there has been a
tension between the expansion of love and the compression of fear. I can get
caught in this tension without a committed intention to move forward. Writing
this dissertation, for instance, has required steady commitment to face and nurture
myself through my fears of revealing my vulnerabilities to an unknown public and
conscious attention to whether telling my story was appropriately centered
authenticity and not venting unhealed trauma on an unsuspecting public. Specific
examples of this tension are portrayed in the next two episodes.
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I consider trauma to be any life shock or injury that restricts our capacity
to be fully open to love. It does not have to be such a dramatic situation as incest.
Ordinary life circumstances can create inhibiting subtle constraints for people,
depending on their sensitivities and experiences. For example, the leading theory
for my lifelong pattern of ending romantic relationships after about two and a half
years is that my sister was born when I was two and a half, creating an
abandonment crack in my subtle being’s intimate relationship spiral at that
juncture that has been hard for me to cross each time I head down that trail.
Clearly, not everyone has that particular sensitivity, but it seems almost inevitable
that everyone would be marked by their journey. I share an excerpt from my
poetic musings upon whether violent trauma is a necessary path to wisdom:
Violence as a Wisdom Journey Path
what would I have been? done? become? without this trauma?

could I have cured the common cold? lived happily ever after with my
first boyfriend?
or am I ultimately more sensitive, more empathic because of this

wounding?
would I have my caring capacity and commitment without it?
did I choose this path before I was born? was it divine will? just random
life?
many of my highly skilled intuitive healing friends have similar wounds -
I’d like to believe that a wisdom society is a world beyond rape,

but maybe incest is just another breaking-open path to enlightenment
maybe starvation is just another trail, fatal disease just another crevasse,
maybe the road to war will always be a necessary path to peace
or maybe breaking-open will become kinder and gentler as we do

so not being hugged good night will be all the trauma we need to evolve
may it be so.
–Leslie C. Meehan
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All in its own time (process shift). I have learned that growth occurs in its
own time, beyond my cognitive control. In retrospect, I see that I needed to be
ready for embodied spiritual practices to recover my full sensory function. Certain
fears and dreams once led me to suspect that I remembered only the tip of an
incest iceberg, so I went diving for the iceberg through hypnosis. I could not see a
thing. The iceberg did not come into view until years later during the safe
environment of intuition training. Until I am ready, I cannot hear the message.
Appreciating interbeing (x-axis identity). The main tools for expanding my
identity have been international travel, transformative studies, and my subtle
reflection practice. When I trace a wisdom nugget, I notice its trail connecting
insights from multiple rings of my interbeing, weaving the tapestry together. I
have recognized, for instance, that a good part of the genesis of my altruistic
Wisdom Mountain vision to help reduce social violence for the good of our great-
great-grandchildren is merely so that I can feel safe at home because of my fear of
violence. Even with a fairly wide sense of self, I needed to return to focus on my
identity within my close circles of family and friends for my deepest personal
trauma recovery.
Roaming the head/heart/body/soul spectrum (y-axis felt experience).
Regular meditation was a crucial first step to connect my head and heart with my
soul, followed by the body connection made in intuition training. I thought I was
quite comfortable in my body until I realized during intuition training how
quickly my body awareness literally disappeared as I went “unconscious” when
fear hit. It was a running joke in our group that past a certain stress point, I would
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not remember anything that our teacher said, and yet I would come back to
awareness to end the meditation with everyone else. My teacher always reassured
me that I was still aware at some level, but it took years for me to stay fully
present under duress. Now, it only takes seconds to align my energy through my
core and to tune into my awareness.
Dancing with being and doing (z-axis attention). Inner consciousness
practices were the key to balance and happiness for my externally focused and
rational self. An equally complex interior structure built from spiritual practice,
integral study, emotional therapy, and embodied practices was necessary to allow
me to move more freely between essence and form.
Interior events in one Holo sapien ring often trigger exterior events in
another, and vice versa. In one recent example, my discomfort over fighting with
my son about undone chores (exterior family) reminded me to be gentle because
we were all grieving three recent student deaths in his high school (interior family
and community), which led me to donate to teen services (exterior city), which
contributed to our healing circle focus on community teenagers’ families (interior
group). I continue to be active in the world to satisfy my desire for daily, living,
grounded action and results, but I recognize the connection between the essence
of a situation on the inner plane with its form on the outer. I have become
passionate about bridging interior and exterior work, as described in the next
chapter.
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Personal Odyssey Episode One: Do I Tell?
Deciding whether to share my incest story as a case study in this work has
been an excellent synchronistic opportunity to explore how a wisdom nugget
arises from deep inner space. Many of my life journey themes and corresponding
wisdom principles can be seen in this event. I documented my experience as it
was happening, so I now tell the story in present tense.
The Journey Never Ends (Heart Center)
I woke up this morning with a racing heartbeat and the dawning awareness
of why I have a slight cold. Yes, I was up dancing outside all night at a party and,
yes, my daughter is sick, but I tend to stay healthy unless some inner dis-ease is
being released. Sure enough, I woke up remembering that I have long wondered
whether my incest healing would ever involve going public, and lo and behold,
this chapter is the answer.
I am smiling at how unaware I really am about myself. This is a perfect
example of my body working to heal without my mind knowing a thing. Grace
works. I might be tempted to think that, after all my inner work, I would be aware
of everything most of the time, but here I am still going through the same journey
of waking up, searching for wisdom, and so on.
My Body–Head–Heart–Soul Dance (Y-Axis Felt Experience)
I see my typical pattern of awareness arising first in physical discomfort,
then cognitive insight, then emotional feeling. Despite my sniffles, my mind had
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been driving me to write this chapter in time for an upcoming dissertation group
meeting. As I finally relaxed after I had an insight about compassion, I could
sense my heart’s yearning for help from my friends with whether to tell. I
realized that I had written every section except the incest-relevant section, the
most important section for them to review, because of my subconscious denial. It
took another night’s sleep for the emotional and physical impact of going public
to hit home, and now I am ready to write. Each person must have their own
awareness pattern, but this is certainly mine.
Navigating Through Love and Fear (Holding a Steady Intention)
As I sit and listen inwardly to the question of whether to tell, I notice a
steady calm focus on the best choice for all concerned as my emotions shift back
and forth between love and fear:
1. Deep gratitude for myself and my trusted friends who will help me sort
this out;
2. Fear that I will hurt my family and upset my teenagers (especially my
daughter);
3. Desire and commitment to be honest—how could I withhold such a
central life theme?
4. Worry that my baggage will “look bad” to past or potential lovers;
5. Hope that telling the truth will help someone with the same injury heal
just as other courageous women’s stories have helped me;
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6. Fear that scholars and skeptics (including men in my family) will seize
on this “female stuff” story to dismiss the rest of my work and to
debate false memories;
7. Love for myself, wanting to be gentle and not expose myself to further
emotional and verbal abuse than I am ready to handle;
8. A vision of wordless compassion for me and everybody just spilling
out faster and brighter as the blockage of the secret is released.
I listen, holding the intention of wisdom and compassion, confident that
the answer will arise.
Appreciating My Wisdom Mirrors Everywhere (Z-Axis Attention)
I would not have come anywhere near this far on my journey without my
wise friend and teacher mirrors to help me accurately see myself. Sometimes the
reflection looks gorgeous, and sometimes it is painfully ugly. The people I love
the most are the best mirrors, including my ex-husband, who is one of my most
important life teachers. Without his unyielding reflection, I may not have learned
to stop hammering on mirrors, and I may not have ever found the broken places
within myself. Without him, I may not have two beautiful children as life teachers
or the freedom to do this work. Thank you, Keith, Patrick, and Lisa.
Wisdom is everywhere. When I shared this dilemma, my hairdresser
shared his own truth-telling experience and helped me connect the dots between
breaking social taboos and being a minister. I am grateful every day to my
parents, siblings, aunt, and many close friends who help me keep my feet on the
ground. My friends at the gym constantly share profound wisdom about

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everything from poison oak remedies to climate change. My community is my
compass. If people’s eyes glaze over when I speak, I know I am off my path.
Healer, Heal Thyself to Heal Anyone Else (X-Axis Identity)
My daughter Lisa is home sick from school today. Is she ill because I am?
She just came into my office where the words “childhood rape” were right in front
of her eyes on the computer (I instinctively closed the file). Should I tell her the
truth? I will wait until I am clear.
I believe that a major reason I had the courage and commitment to face my
trauma is so that it would end here and not be carried down to my children. Will
my going public help more people, too? Is the best healing verbally explicit as
well as subtly implicit?
I told my teen-aged son Patrick a hint of the story years ago when I was
signing a Boy Scout sexual abuse prevention form. Lately, he yells and acts
physically intimidating when he is mad at my rules, pushing the “no touching in
anger” family law to the limit. It is a real test for me to stay present without
bringing any unresolved past trauma into the situation. As cosmic justice would
have it, Patrick has debated like a lawyer since he was two years old, so he argues
his case that I am overreacting because of my past. Thanks to my inner work, I
can empathize with Patrick and still stand in my center holding the nonviolence
line.
How much of my injury is really “mine?” What level(s) of my Holo
sapien being does it connect to? How much of my experience is happening to me
physically now? In the past? To my ancestors? In my daughter’s future? To my

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soul sisters in Zambia? To the whales? In my inner world, I am amazed and
touched to see my grandfather becoming an ally protecting me, my children, and
my great-great-grandchildren. I have no words for how wonderful that feels.
The Journey Gets Easier in Time (Go With the Flow)
I have come quite a long way in going with the flow. I am feeling a bit
energized but not scared or upset at all. I have enough faith in myself and my
friends by now that I trust I will make the best choice I can when the time is right.
What a gift that is! How much easier and lighter this choice feels than a few
years ago, when it took two years to decide to tell my parents a little of the incest
story. I only chose to speak when I thought it might help a pressing family
concern. I was truly astounded at how physically terrified I was, forty years later,
to even hint at what had happened to me as a child. I intellectually knew that
secrets hold a lot of energy, but I would never have imagined how much. My
adrenaline was so high before I told them that I felt ill all day and needed to go for
walks and call on friends and Jesus for help.
The conversation was difficult but went well. My parents believed me and
were shocked and supportive. I was so exhausted afterwards that I slept for almost
two days. It was soon apparent that the healing was at least as much for me as for
my family. Over time, I sensed a deep lightening and opening, the freedom of
energetic motion described in journey principles.
I wonder what the healing effect of going public would be for me. I
thought there was nothing left in me to heal, but the idea of telling the world has
surfaced twinges in arenas that apparently need more care.

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Bodhisattva Training (Open Centered Heart)
I used to think I was very emotionally even-keeled. I now realize that my
feelings were just numbed into emotional frostbite. They are thawed now, with
my gratitude and apologies to those mirrors who hung in there through my slow
painful struggles for words and tears. Through the ups and downs of life today,
there is a steady center at my core.
This steady core is not always comfortable. For many months, I have often
felt like I was on fire, roasting in the flames. It is not a brief, sweaty heat like
what I hear of a menopausal hot flash; it is an internal furnace roaring like
kundalini energy. My temperature rises as more energy runs through me, then
lowers as I learn how to surrender and expand. Is this what is happening to the
earth’s climate too? Will I/we burst into flame? How much can I/we handle?
Reflecting on the secrecy question during meditation today, I saw an
image of a shell partway around my heart breaking open. Unspeakably bright
light poured out as the shell fell away, like the images I hold of Jesus’ heart
blazing love. I see that I cannot fully embrace the world with a shell covering part
of my heart. So, I offer you my story and my whole heart.
Personal Case Study Episode Two: Leslie’s Climate Passage
The final episode is my personal microcosmic story of macrocosmic
climate change. It has taken me several years of traversing wisdom journey trails
as a young Holo sapien to be ready to brave the dangerous climate change
passage. Before I begin, I should confess that I am rather embarrassed to tell this
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story. Interesting: I would have imagined that I would feel more ashamed to
reveal being molested. This seems like an indicator that I am further along the
incest-healing journey, whereas here I am still struggling with my early Waking
Up phase of denial, shame, and fear about what feel like selfish, earth-harmful
lifestyle choices. Yet, maybe my ecosocial paralysis reflects a global one, and I
am waking up because the world is. I hope that my true confessions can help free
myself and others to move along through the passage.
My Climate Change Confessions
For me, climate change has meant “green” living within a sustainable
ecofootprint (a measure of environmental impact on the planet). Green living has
felt like an impossible task, a failure in my life where I personally feel out of
integrity with my social values. I work at green living day-to-day, but I am quite
sure that I have a large ecofootprint because of my rural lifestyle, my nonlocal
carnivorous eating habits, and my air travel. I feel especially guilty knowing I am
a citizen of the United States, a nation that most greatly exceeds a sustainable
ecofootprint, and yet helpless as a U.S. resident to have a deciding influence on
planetary climate change, which will be largely determined by the most populous
developing countries. I read and hear an overwhelming onslaught of conflicting
ideas about what I or we humans should do. For example, I have one wise friend
who thinks that geoengineering (technically altering oceans or the atmosphere) is
a necessary stopgap climate change solution; another wise friend considers the
idea to be a horribly unethical violation of the earth. Caught between guilt and
helplessness, I have felt powerless and unwilling to make hard, unpleasant life
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choices, not even daring to calculate my ecofootprint. Telling this story may mean
I am ready.
My Search for Climate Wisdom
I avoided watching Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim,
2006) for two years. I kept telling myself I was too busy, but I was simply too
afraid to face the facts and the deep grief that would surely follow. Observing my
wisdom journey patterns leads me to believe that I had to work through healing
my personal relationships closer to home before I was ready to plumb the depths
of climate change. In particular, my inner conflict about the glory and the grief of
being a U.S. citizen was largely healed during my participation in a presidential
election subtle-activism program a year ago. Subtle activism is the practice of
meditation, prayer, or other spirit or consciousness activities primarily intended to
support collective healing and social change (Gaiafield, n.d.). Immediately after
the election, my subtle-activism practice spontaneously shifted to focusing on the
earth’s core and climate spheres. I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth
(Guggenheim, 2006), which did trigger conscious grief and sadness for over a
month but did not overwhelm me like my initial planetary grief cycle, thanks to
my more stable center. A series of insights and synchronicities led me to co-host
a WiseClimate 2009 subtle-activism program, linking the 2009 UN Climate
Change Conference with the simultaneous Parliament of World Religions
conference. I started researching climate change with the goal of informing
myself and other subtle activists about the subtle field we would be working with.
I then followed my late-hour irrational intuition to include this research in my

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dissertation. Having decided to honor this intuition, my dissertation feels more
grounded and relevant to planetary healing: more than a personal intellectual
luxury.
I am embarking on climate change research in earnest now, headed from
the Searching state into the Spiral. This story is continued in Chapter 3.
Personal Wisdom Systems: Tools for the Trail
Recall from Chapter 1 that a wisdom system is a tangible set of expressed
principle and applied practice being used to support wisdom development in the
world today. Personal wisdom systems expand a person’s engagement in their
heart center, intention, process shift, and at least one wisdom dimension of
identity, felt experience, and attention. We will see how the wisdom principles
already presented are applied in such personal wisdom system practices as inner
contemplation, outer action, and group work.
Personal wisdom systems are not necessarily solitary pursuits. They often
involve other people as mirrors or coparticipants. A wisdom system involving a
group of people is still considered personal if its intent is personal development of
each individual (such as increased personal serenity) as opposed to a collective
purpose (such as increased group cooperation).
If you are on a personal development path that works for you, wonderful!
Stay with it! And as Wilber (2006) says, supplement it with any missing elements
revealed through an integral lens (p. 115). For interior growth, a combination of
subtle contemplative practices like meditation and discursive mirroring practices
like psychotherapy is most productive. Claims have been made that meditation
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accelerates stage progression by as much as four years. While that specific claim
may be controversial, it is generally accepted that higher-states training helps
release attachment to lower stages, which opens the door to the next higher stage.
In my opinion, such heart-centering practices as meditation are essential
for sustained personal growth. Examples of other centering techniques are
focused breathing practices from many disciplines, biofeedback, centering prayer,
silence, and being in nature.
Personal Wisdom Systems Matrix
The Personal Wisdom Systems Matrix in Table 9 is my synthesis of
common themes in wisdom system principles and practices, shown in alignment
with the Holo sapien Compass.
Personal Wisdom System Survey Orientation
This section presents an orientation to the Wisdom System Survey in
Appendix A. The Wisdom System Survey is a small sampling of wisdom systems,
primarily U.S.-based, that I or trusted colleagues have rated highly in our personal
experience. No doubt you have your own favorite list to supplement this one. You
may even disagree with a recommendation, either because you had a different
experience of the same system at a different time and place or because each
person’s unique wisdom journey calls for a unique support system. No system
works for everyone. I dream of an online wisdom system rating system to develop
collective wisdom about wisdom systems! Ideally this is a small seed kernel for
an ongoing collection.
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Table 9
Personal Wisdom Systems Matrix
Holo sapien compass Personal Wisdom principles Personal Wisdom practices

Center Essence Love, love, love. Heart centering techniques
Presence Center and open heart. Rituals
Wherever I go, Open to mystery of grace.
here I am.
Intention Go, go, go. Vision and dream big.
Follow your passion. Know your motivation.
Purpose Stay steady through Set intentions.
I will get there. love and fear. Consistent practices.
Do no harm.
Discipline.
Process shift Flow, flow, flow. Feedback systems
Expand and embrace.
Resilience Follow synchronicity.
Go with the flow. Nonattachment to outcome.
x-axis: identity Include, include, include. Ecotourism
Respect. Study abroad
I -> cosmos Walk in others’ shoes or Multicultural activities
paws. Group diversification
As go I, Meet the “other” outside your Volunteer/serve/give
comfort zone.
so goes the world.
y-axis: felt experience Stretch, stretch, stretch. Balance of:
Seek a full-spectrum life. soul, e.g., prayer
head/heart/body/soul Grow inner muscles. head, e.g., integral learning
Explore your feelings. heart, e.g., support groups
As above, so below. Get comfortable in your skin. body, e.g., martial arts
z-axis: attention Dance, dance, dance. Balance reflection/action:
Pay attention in and out. Engaged spirituality
Being/doing Walk your talk. Structured Journaling
Find mirrors: inner and outer Dream manifestation
As within, so without. community, support systems, Embodied intuition
and friends.
I use the Holo sapien Compass orientation to organize wisdom systems
relationships, beginning with the all-important heart center practices. Wisdom
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suites are full-spectrum systems that explicitly engage body, heart, mind, and
spirit. Other systems focus on:
1. x-axis Identity: interaction across multiple rings or both directions;
2. y-axis Felt Experience: caring (heart-soul), knowing (heart-heart),
living (heart-body);
3. z-axis Attention: expanding further inward, outward, or both.
By virtue of their principles and practices, all these systems demonstrate an
integral intention. However, each system can be identified with a home
dimensional center of gravity. In the x-axis identity dimension, personal wisdom
systems tend to involve center (personal) or near-field (family to local) work.
Note that hybrid and far-field systems are discussed in the next chapter. In the y-
axis felt experience dimension, embodied spirituality engages caring, integral
education enhances knowing, and people and places involve everyday living. In
the z-axis dimension, embodied spirituality is centered in the Interior (Inner) Left
hemisphere because it is oriented most directly in the inner realm.
Table 10 highlights the wisdom system organization into Domains (z-axis
Inner Left or Outer Right; and y-axis Caring, Knowing, and Living) and
Categories.
Concluding Reflections on Developing Personal Wisdom
Imagining the effort involved to consider all the wisdom domains at each
of the various levels of community before choosing how to invest your time and
energy can be rather daunting. Let us put it in perspective.
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Table 10
Wisdom System Domains and Categories
Domain Category
All Centering practices
Silence, meditation, centering prayer, breathing, biofeedback, etc.
Personal wisdom suites
Integral centering and transformative practices explicitly engaging
body, emotions, mind, and spirit
Inner Embodied spirituality
caring Subtle wisdom practices, centers, and programs of spiritual,
consciousness, and indigenous communities
Creative expression
Transformational contemplative and artistic practice and centers:
music, visual arts, writing, etc.
Inner Integral learning
knowing Transformational stories, schools, centers, networks, forums, etc.
Integral process
Communication and facilitation: dialogue, nonviolent
communication, empowerment, circle work, etc.
Inner Emotional vitality
living Emotion and shadow work: Transpersonal therapy, forgiveness
projects, eco-psychology, etc.
Physical resonance
Movement and celebration (inner/outer synthesis):
martial arts, yoga, festivals, somatics, etc.
Outer Ecosocial rights
caring Collective principles and equity values
Inspired giving
Integral philanthropy, corporate giving, civic spending, socially
responsible investing
Outer Just governance
knowing Civic policy creation, engagement, advocacy, and agreements
Ecosocial tools
Ecosocial action research centers, measurement and mapping tools
Outer Sustainable sectors
living e.g., health, justice, transportation, land/forest/water stewardship,
building, clean tech, finance, energy, etc.
People and places
Integral LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and
place-based communities of practice
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Learning how to live as a Holo sapien is the journey of a lifetime, not an
overnight excursion. Most of us, especially in the West, have been raised in a
culture of competition and aggression. Although peace and harmony are
potentially available right now, it may be the journey of several lifetimes to be
able to sustain health and harmony as the human way of life. In a sense, many of
us are wisdom journey toddlers in preschool. We need to respect our learning
process and measure our progress accordingly.
Therefore, I offer no definitive wisdom test. The true test will ultimately
be given by our great-great-grandchildren. I consider personal growth work to be
wise if it does its best to practice what I call 360° Vision and the Wisdom Attitude.
360° Vision
You are probably already participating in multiple dimensions of
community in your own life. Maybe you do environmental work with your child's
school, belong to a prayer circle in your spiritual community, and play bridge
with your neighbors. Do you need to run for political office so that you are doing
something in every quadrant to pass the wisdom test? Do the community
organizations that you care about need to feed the homeless and save the whales
and cure cancer to qualify as wise?
I say, not. The WisdomSpace model demonstrates that there is a place for
everyone and that no one needs to be every place. I certainly honor the work in all
the directions but have discovered the hard way (through temporary insanity…)
that I cannot do it all. If you are like me and sometimes have the tendency to feel
guilty for not doing enough (or feel overwhelmed by not knowing where to start),
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it can be a relief to see that whatever we love to do is an important, necessary
piece of the overall puzzle and that we do not have to do it all. Once we develop a
broader perspective of how what each of us is doing fits in to the bigger picture,
we can relax into walking our own path of wisdom while appreciating and
respecting the journey of those on the path beside us. I call 360° vision our
capacity to stay centered from the inside-out while aware of our interbeing
surrounding us 360° from the outside-in, as illustrated by our Ideogram friend
Miguel. With 360° vision, we can easily shift our perspectives to walk in anyone
else’s shoes. I will, however, add that while you can live happily ever after
wherever you feel at home in WisdomSpace, I invite you to consider paying a
visit to other domains. For example, your bridge club could organize a road
cleanup, or your lobbying group could quietly reflect about the intention of its
work for two minutes (one step at a time!).
Wisdom Attitude
Wisdom develops more from an attitude than from factual knowledge.
Wisdom involves an intention and a commitment to deliberately grow step by step
toward being more inclusive, more comprehensive, and more compassionate. On
the one hand, learning to see with a wisdom-systems lens can be challenging
because it often requires relearning what we have been taught by our culture of
specialization and compartmentalization. On the other hand, once you begin to
see the whole puzzle, life tends to make intuitive sense since our worldview
reflects the true interconnected nature of how things really are.
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I summarize the wisdom attitude in the form of the WisdomSpace mascot,
a bear cub named LARS, which stands for: Listen with love, Act with
appreciation, Reach out with respect, and Share with systems.
Recommendations for Developing Personal Wisdom
In summary, the key message for developing personal wisdom is to follow
your heart, set your intention, and get to work. Take hope, take heart, and dig in.
Find your wisdom systems and community support to maximize your potential.
Look for and work with signs of hidden shadow: recurring patterns, triggers, and
turbulence. Shrink your ecofootprint.
In your community life, be a wisdom leader. Bring your personal wisdom
fully into your world: right into the conference room, the courtroom, the
wilderness, and so on. Practice 360° vision and a wisdom attitude.
I dream of more wisdom suite systems supported by online communities
and local practitioners. I dream of more alliances between interior and exterior
personal-growth networks such as earthdancenetwork (Earthdance Global, 2008)
and care2 (2010). Listen to your dreams and bring them to life.
We can do it. We must do it. Our great-great-grandchildren are depending
on us.
The Pathless Path
I have come to know that there is not just one specific “right” path to
follow, one inner voice to heed that is distinct from others, one wisdom system
that works for all. The deepest voice of wisdom is a collective voice, a voice that
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incorporates the amorphous sense of intuition, learning of the intellect, the
guidance of emotional response, and the gut instinct of the body. It resonates with
the knowing of the soul and the felt experience of the body. It is an internally
grounded voice informed by trusted community. It is a voice of balance, of
wholeness, of integration. May you find your voice as you travel your path.
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CHAPTER 3: DEVELOPING COLLECTIVE WISDOM
Opening Reflections
With Deep Appreciation
to my visionary wisdom society teachers, friends, and colleagues everywhere,

particularly at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Integral Institute
To the Beauty of our Journey Together
Figure 14. World peace pole and flag ceremony (2009). Author’s image.
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Centering poem
it's 3:23 in the morning

and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren

ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something

when the seasons started failing?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once
you
knew?
– Drew Dellinger, from Hieroglyphic Stairway
Reprinted with permission of author from Dellinger (2010).
Introduction: Becoming a Holo sapien From the Outside In
This chapter takes us along the path to collective wisdom as a society.
How are Holo sapiens creating a socially just, environmentally sane, spiritually
fulfilling world that works for all? How are we seeding a future where great-
great-grandchildren of all species thrive? This journey is Thomas Berry’s (1999)
Great Work underway, the Holo sapien experiment in holoconsciousness.
Learning to live in harmony as interbeings is an evolutionary rite of passage. It is
a labor of love, reflected in such joys as increasing standards of living, the
sustainability movement, and global interconnectivity; however, it also means
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facing such pain and darkness as poverty, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and
climate change.
As we take a moment to shift our perspective from the personal inside-out
to the social outside-in, we begin to explore the Holo sapien through the lens of
our shared wisdom as a social collective. I first discuss the nature of the
collective, defining my view of collective wisdom and a wisdom society, and then
describe the action research methodology through which I identify overall
patterns in wisdom society evolution. These patterns are explored using a theory
and model of wisdom society healing and development and an analysis of wisdom
society principles and practices. Collective wisdom systems at the varying levels
of society are examined, primarily focused on the social not-for-profit sector in
the United States. Finally, a case study on navigating the collective passage
through climate change is presented.
The Nature of the Collective
The embodied AQAL Holo sapien model embraces the dual perspectives
of the personal holon from the inside-out and the social holon from the outside-in.
The model addresses the practical participatory interrelationship of the personal
with the collective without necessarily pinpointing the nature of the collective.
Keeping in mind this integral framework, let us briefly explore various concepts
of the collective.
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What Is a Collective?
The Webster’s Dictionary definition of a collective is “a number of
persons or things considered as one group or whole” (Woolf, 1974, p. 220). It
defines a group as “multiple individuals assembled together or having some
unifying relationship” (p. 508), a community as “a unified body of individuals”
(p. 228), and a society as:
a) an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have

developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one
another.
b) a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common
traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests. (p. 1103)
The consistent theme of the collective, therefore, is a pattern of common
interactions and systems of relationship. This theme reflects the 3rd person
perspective, focusing on the shared cooperative experience of members within
groups. It does not address either the interior felt experience of the member within
a group or any of the unique nonshared behaviors of a member within a group.
What is the complex relationship between the member and the group, which Ken
Wilber (2000, 2006) frames as the relationship between the personal holon and
the social holon? How do unique individuals form a collective?
The nature of the collective involves perhaps one of the hottest scholarly
debates, with passionate proponents of two opposing themes I call club and
organism. The organism contingent, represented here by James Lovelock’s Gaia
theory (1979), sees the earth eco-system as a single living system of which we
humans are a part. The club contingent, represented here by Ken Wilber (2006),
argues that a society has no dominant control structure as does an organism: that it
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is more like a voluntary club made up of the shared understanding and structure of
its members. Wilber (2006) uses the analogy that his dog, as a personal holon,
leaves a room at its brain’s command because the brain rules the dog’s behavior,
but members of a group can follow their own desires which may not follow club
norms (p. 145).
By contrast, I support the idea of a chaordic entity. I use the term entity
because of my humbling experience of the collective as a cocreative group
intelligence greater than the sum of that of its members. Chaordic is a term coined
by Dee Hock (1999) to mean “the behavior of any self-governing organism,
organization, or system which harmoniously blends characteristics of order and
chaos” (p. 2). I agree with the club analogy that a collective is like a club in that
it operates as the mutual common ground of its constituents, but I also agree with
the organism analogy because I do not feel that an organism has a dominant
control mechanism. Speaking as a personal holon, my own behavior is chaordic:
ordered enough to be able to walk out of a room as reliably as Wilber’s dog, but
chaotically run more by my inner committee of intelligent cells, reptilian instincts,
shadow emotions, dueling desires, and cultural influences than my brain or mental
ego would like to admit. An organism’s holonic behavior can be dictated by
runaway cancer cells in a similar way that a society’s social holonic behavior can
be dictated by terrorists or fascists, at least temporarily. In the long run, I believe
that there are dominant controlling social forces within a social holon if one takes
a broader view. For example, a citizen can break a nation’s law, but their behavior
will ultimately be constrained by other individuals, international law, planetary or
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cosmic influences, or the grim reaper. Dominant control is a matter of your frame
of reference.
In the sense that social patterns reflect agreements and actions among
collective members, a collective might seem more of a club than an organism.
However, since the collective common ground must be constructed from that of
its member organism’s values, some aspects of that shared ground must mimic the
values of its members in an organismic fashion. For example, there may not be a
collective organism per se with security needs, but since the individuals within the
collective have security needs, the social systems must have a security “organ”
that performs that function for its member “cells.” In this chapter I show how the
sector domains of social experience correspond to the felt dimensions of personal
experience, since the society is experienced by and addresses the needs of the
individual organism.
Wilber (2006) contends that personal wisdom develops through mandatory
stages, but society does not. “There are simply no invariant structure-stages for
groups, collectives, or societies” (p. 151). This is still an open question for me. I
wonder if our social identity is evolved enough yet to discern what our social
evolutionary stages might be. Duane Elgin’s informal audience polls (speech,
Prophets conference, Sedona, AZ, 2004) consistently indicate that about half the
people think that humans are in a toddler stage of development and half think that
we are teenagers. This could be considered an indicator of collective intuition
about social stages.
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What Is Collective Wisdom?
Collective wisdom involves the development of both direct, intuitive
awareness and cognitive knowledge of the shared “WE” and shared “ITS”: the
Lower Left and Lower Right quadrants of the AQAL model. How does a “We”
develop and apply wisdom? Is it experienced by a group member? The whole
group? Some of the group? Given the diversity of knowledge and experience
within a group, how does a group discern which ideas are wise?
I define collective wisdom as deliberately searching for the
multidimensional experience of wholeness together with other people. However,
this is a deceptively simple definition of a tremendously complex phenomenon. I
once spent a whole graduate school semester studying collective wisdom,
working closely in a small team within a larger class. As the class ended, our
team’s collective wisdom was the awareness, with confidence, that we did not
know what collective wisdom was. The more we studied the process of
developing wisdom together, the more complex and confusing it became.
Highlights from our team’s coauthored reflections on our collective wisdom
experience, with deep appreciation to teacher Robert Kenny and my teammates,
are summarized below in collective voice single-spaced format.
We agreed that the experience of collective wisdom included a group felt

sense of resonance (p. 3), a quality of shared perception (p. 7), and exciting
insights and synchronicities (p. 7). We sensed that collective wisdom relates to the
shift of the collective consciousness “becoming aware of itself” and with the
possibility that there could be a “higher-level aware collective entity (field?)” that
has its own experiences (p. 5). This framework matched Leslie’s idea of the
particle-wave dimensions of collective wisdom and some of our experiences in
our group project.
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If there is a higher-level aware entity (field?) which we occasionally sense
or consciously participate in, then it makes sense that we could experience
collective wisdom both as a less tangible, felt-sense of being part of a
greater whole (Leslie’s “wave”) and sometimes as an explicit, directly
perceivable insight, or “nugget” (Leslie’s particle). (p. 5)
We concluded that
the energy developed by and characterizing collective wisdom is

directional, leading toward inclusive experience of the group field and
consensual concern for the collective good, and in this way is healing,
both for the individual and for the group. Collective wisdom as a journey
leads toward compassion and concern for the common good. (Van Meter,
Meehan, Isen, & Nicol, 2006, pp. 3–7)
What Is a Wisdom Society?
Where is our collective wisdom journey headed? I regard the collective
wisdom journey as our evolutionary path to a wisdom society. I am interested in a
mid-range, seventh-generation perspective of a wisdom society: a one hundred
and fifty year vision, rather than where we might possibly be five hundred or a
thousand years from now. I assume that even if every person could or should be a
“mature” Holo sapien eventually, we will not be there yet in only one hundred
and fifty years.
Drawing upon the language used by a wide range of wisdom communities,
I define a wisdom society as an environmentally sustainable, socially just, and
spiritually fulfilling community of people learning to live as mutually
interdependent beings so that the great-great-grandchildren of all species can
thrive. In this vision, each person does their best to do no harm and to balance
their personal needs with those within their collective worldview, whether they be
ego-centric, ethnocentric, or worldcentric. While diverse worldviews exist among
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the human population, ecosocial systems at the community level and above are
designed at the worldcentric level by Holo sapien community leaders.
Along with this general view, specific questions arise: What is peace?
Does it mean no more war? Do children still play with toy guns, or is violence
completely obsolete? Will anyone starve to death? Will anyone still eat meat?
I wish I knew. I do not believe that we are at a high enough altitude along
the WisdomSpace trail to be able to see a panoramic view. Yet, it is useful in
setting our intentions to be conscious of where we are and which way we are
headed. Let us explore what is visible at this altitude: the methodology maps we
are using to get there, the inner reflections of our hopes and dreams, and the outer
behavioral patterns in the wisdom society movement that I believe are the signs of
healthy wisdom society evolution.
Collective Wisdom as Action Research
The collective wisdom journey through a social architect’s lens can be
viewed and explored as a form of action research that I call integral appreciative
community action research (IACAR). IACAR blends the assets of the integral
approach (I), appreciative inquiry (A), and community action research (CAR) to
form an integral pluralistic methodology. Each methodology component is
described below.
Community Action Research (CAR)
Recall from Chapter 1 that action research (AR) is a “participatory,
democratic process [of action and reflection] concerned with developing practical
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knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes” (Reason & Bradbury,
2001, p. 1).
Action research comes in many flavors. One which applies directly to our
inquiry is called community action research (CAR). CAR focuses on:
• fostering relationships and collaboration among diverse organizations,

and among the consultants and researchers working with them;
• creating settings for collective reflection that enable people from
different organizations to ‘see themselves in one another’;
• leveraging progress in individual organizations through cross-
institution links so as to sustain transformative changes that otherwise
would die out. (Reason & Bradbury, 2001, p. 238)
Community action research places as much emphasis on building cross-
organizational learning communities as on undertaking action research projects.
A learning community is a diverse group of people working together to nurture
and sustain a knowledge-creating system, based on equally valuing three
interacting domains of activity: research, practice, and capacity-building (Reason
& Bradbury, 2001, p. 240). Research and practice are directly familiar from AR,
but capacity-building is an additional step beyond simple participation. It implies
that the participation has supported people’s growth in their knowledge and
ability to create something meaningful to them. Creating and using tools is the
core activity in the domain of capacity-building. As Buckminster Fuller says, if
you want to change how people think, give them a tool the use of which will lead
them to think differently (as cited by Reason & Bradbury, 2001, p. 240).
Learning communities have a common purpose, a set of common
principles, and a common understanding of how the community learns.
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Appreciative Inquiry (A)
Appreciative inquiry is yet another flavor of action research central to a
wisdom culture.
More than a technique, appreciative inquiry is a way of organizational life

—an intentional posture of continuous discovery, search and inquiry into
conceptions of life, joy, beauty, excellence, innovation, and freedom . . . .
Appreciative inquiry is premised on the belief that it is much faster and
more straight-forward to go through the front door of enthusiasm.
(Ludema, Cooperrider, & Barrett, 2001, as cited in Reason & Bradbury,
2001, p. 191)
The traditional approach to change is to look for the problem, do a
diagnosis, and find a solution. The primary focus is on what is wrong or broken;
since we look for problems, we find them. Appreciative inquiry focuses on
what’s working. What we focus on becomes our reality. Outcomes of the
problem-solving approach simply do not have the same inspirational, creative
potential as those arising from positive synergy.
Integral Approach (I)
Leading community-action researchers across civic, corporate, and social
organizations contend that an integral, whole-systems approach is an essential
factor in developing long-lasting collective wisdom (e.g., Brown, 2005a, 2005b;
Hochachka, 1999; Meadows, 2001; Reason & Bradbury, 2001; Senge, 2006;
Wheatley, 2005; Wilber, 2006). They consistently point to interiority as a primary
social development need.
Integral Sustainable Developer Gail Hochachka (1999) claims that a
wisdom society integrates exterior needs (e.g., economic growth, resource
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management, and decision-making structures) with interior needs (e.g., cultural,
spiritual, and psychological well-being (p. 113). She defines an integral
development framework she calls the “Big Three:” Practical (action/application),
Interpersonal (dialogue/process), and Personal (self-growth/reflection). The
Practical domain of action/application corresponds to the right hand IT/ITS
quadrants, “fulfilling ecological, economic, social, and political needs through
various types of 3rd person perspective interventions, such as infrastructures,
management plans, institutional designs, and technical capacities” (p. 113). The
Interpersonal domain corresponds to the WE lower left quadrant, focusing on
2nd-person shared meaning development
using various communicative processes, participatory frameworks, and

social capacity-building activities. By including dialogue in development,
local people become active subjects in, rather than passive objects of the
development process. This “We” space in community development not
only fosters political empowerment but also creates space to explore
concerns, ideas, and goals with each other, and to really hear each other’s
situations, values, and stories. (p. 113)
The Personal domain of self-growth/reflection is the personal wisdom
journey, which as we have seen involves the development of a broader
worldview. During Hochachka’s (1999) sustainable development project research
in El Salvador, facilitators “created conditions for personal growth, self-
empowerment, and self-reflection throughout all phases of the project” (p. 120)
through house-to-house visits, focus groups, and their own reflective practice.
She cites a fascinating expansion of project participants’ worldviews within just
months (p. 121).
Hochachka’s research results also indicate that an integral approach leads
to more effective sustainable results than nonintegral forms of development.

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Integral Sustainable Developer Barrett Brown (2005a) declares that we have
typically underestimated the role that our personal psychology, mental models,
and worldview play in the success or failure of our work (p. 28). Our inner frame
of reference determines both our capacity to engage with the situation at hand and
others’ capacity to respond.
Brown (2005a) draws impressive parallels between inner work and “one’s
ability to handle increasingly complex situations, hold contrasts, synthesize
positions, dissolve paradoxes, create connections between ideas, understand
others and oneself on increasingly subtle levels, and access information beyond
the rational mind and exterior world” (p. 30).
Brown (2005a) uses similarly striking examples of the impact of inner
beliefs on others’ capacity to respond:
If a group of children is terrified of needles and refuses to be vaccinated,

how does that affect the success of an immunization program? If a
development project manager feels jealous of the media attention other . . .
leaders are getting, what role does that play? If someone feels degraded,
excluded, and unheard during a training, but never says anything, what
consequences ensue? If an analyst holds a strong bias toward rationality,
and dismisses other ways of knowing, how does that influence her report
and suggestions? (p. 18)
Integral Ecologist Sean Esbjörn-Hargens notes that “interior development (UL) . .
. is the crucial ingredient in moving humankind toward different kinds of (and
more ecofriendly) attitudes, practices, beliefs, institutions, politics, and
economics” (as cited in Brown, 2005b, p. 9).
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The Personal-Collective Journey
The collective wisdom journey, then, is inextricably linked to our personal
wisdom journeys. Unfortunately, personal worldviews do not change overnight.
Robert Kegan estimates that it takes about five years for an adult to shift to a
completely new way of seeing the world, if conditions are right (Kegan, as cited
in Brown, 2005b, p. 9). Expecting such a drastic shift of someone else (e.g.,
wanting someone to live sustainably by downsizing their home, trading their car
for a bicycle, and becoming a vegetarian) not only places major challenges on the
relationship between you but also may increase the person’s stress. If someone is
motivated to change but has not had enough time to make their own inner
transition, more pressure may just add to their guilt, resistance, and fear, further
miring them in the troubled Waking Up emotional state familiar from the personal
journey (and described in detail in Chapters 1 and 2).
Brown (2005b) suggests two different approaches to working together on
the personal–collective journey (pp. 11–17). The first, transformation,
encourages people to shift into new values that are more caring of others and the
environment. The second, translation, works with people as they are,
communicating in a way that resonates with the values that they already hold and
not requiring or motivating them to change. Translation harnesses the power of
presence by accepting what is. Transformation harnesses the power of evolution
by inspiring what can be, in its own time.
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Patterns in a Wisdom Society
During 2003 and 2004, my friend and colleague David Nicol and I
conducted an IACAR project to study what we call the wisdom society movement.
We performed literature and Internet research, talked with several wisdom
community leaders, developed an integral model of wisdom society healing and
development, and cohosted a wisdom community pilot project in my community
in the Santa Cruz mountains in California. Our project findings can be found at
www.wisdomspace.net, which was updated based on this dissertation reflection
cycle. For the remainder of this chapter, our original project’s collective wisdom
is represented as a collective voice in the single-spaced format typical of
referenced work. My revisions and additions during this dissertation reflection
cycle are presented in the standard personal voice, in double-spaced style.
As David and I studied this movement, we identified the following
patterns in principles, practices, and systems that we believe are key systems
drivers in wisdom society evolution.
The WisdomSpace Theory of Wisdom Society Evolution
The tension between individual autonomy and the collective good has long
been a cultural dilemma that has been balanced differently throughout time and
place in human history. As we study wisdom society behavior around the world
today, we are heartened to find many success stories of people in communities
everywhere that are pioneering patterns for healthy integration of the needs of the
individual and of the group.
These wisdom society patterns seem to reflect how people relate to each
other as much as what they do together. Healthy coexistence appears to depend on
a way of being together from which wise doing just naturally happens. For the
sake of simplicity, we summarize these patterns in the form of our WisdomSpace
mascot, a bear cub named LARS (Listen, Act, Respect, and Share). LARS
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represents the attitude of curiosity, commitment, openness, and compassion that
creates the safe space required for wisdom to flourish at any social level.
We believe that some of the most mysterious experiences of deep
connectedness and collective wisdom in a community occur when attention is
paid to building connections between community members on the "being" level,
or what we call the "subtle" plane of consciousness. We call building these
connections community "healing." We believe that community healing is
necessary before healthy community development (or growth or transformation)
can occur.
Wisdom Society Mandala of Healing and Development.
In Figure 15, we have integrated Ken Wilber's (2000, 2006) four-quadrant

model, Brian Eddy's Eco-AQAL model (2006), and our own wisdom to illustrate
a dynamic, four-quadrant, circular mandala of wisdom society healing and
development.
The model is intended to highlight the many different ways people can
make a contribution to the wise evolution of their communities. There are two
main axes of community participation. The north–south axis represents the locus
of attention of the wisdom society development activity from the individual at the
top to the general public on the bottom. The west–east axis measures the arena of
the community's primary focus, or center of gravity, from the inner human to the
left all the way to the broadest planetary “ecosocial” systems on the right.
You will see that we have attached more than one word to each axis. This
is to acknowledge that the various aspects of community life are more fluid,
multivalent, and organic than can be captured by a solitary word. We want to
convey a “felt sense” we have for these different dimensions. While the axes
generally correspond with Wilber's (2000, 2006) AQAL model, we have added
the extra descriptors to suggest how these dimensions specifically manifest in the
context of communities. The model is our first pass, best approximation of
people's community experience, and we look forward to refining it in dialogue
with other wisdom society theorists.
One principal integrating theme is the addition of a circle in the middle of
the quadrant model. This circle allows us to more clearly represent integral
approaches that are deliberately intended to affect multiple quadrants
simultaneously. A good example is Worldwork, developed by psychologist
Arnold Mindell (2000). This work often takes place in the context of a public
event attended by a large and diverse cross-section of a community. The
facilitators establish a context in which participants are encouraged to bring up
issues that may be underlying community tensions, particularly issues related to
social power and status, such as class, race, gender, and so on. Then these issues
are processed by the group using methods informed by depth psychology that can
effect powerful inner and outer changes in the individual group members and the
group as a whole (Process Work Institute, n.d.). Worldwork is clearly an integral
approach in that it can affect all the dimensions simultaneously. Profound inner
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Figure 15. Wisdom society mandala of healing and development. Author’s
image, also available from www.wisdomspace.net.
personal and outer behavioral change can occur in individuals, relational and
cultural dynamics within the community can be transformed, and social systems
can also be affected, especially if community activists and civic leaders are
present at the workshop. Thus Worldwork could not be placed in any one of the
four quadrants without misrepresenting its intrinsically integral impact.
Hence we propose the circle in the middle as the proper place for integral
processes and perspectives. We call it "Integral Circles" because most of these
integral approaches incorporate the circle format in one form or another, and we
see circle work as being at the heart of wisdom society healing and development.
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Another integrating theme is to specifically include ecological work in the
right hand quadrants. Our rationale is that, at least from the conventional Western
perspective, engaging with the “environment” is engaging with that which is
“exterior” to us. Of course, that perspective is precisely what is challenged in
many eco-spiritual approaches such as Integral Ecology, which invite us to
recognize both the interior, subjective dimension of the plants, animals, creeks,
mountains, and so on, that make up "the environment" and the fact that we are not
essentially separate from them. In our model, such approaches belong in the
integral circle in the middle. However, ecological work that does not explicitly
recognize or focus on the interior dimension, such as many private permaculture
projects, community gardens, or certain types of environmental lobby groups,
belongs on the right hand side of the map.
A final integrating theme is to use arrows and an outer circular
"membrane" to represent the dynamic flow of wisdom throughout the wisdom
society field.
This model is not merely a picture of the connections between a static set
of community particles. Wisdom society healing and development is a vibrant,
endless wave of impulses that ripples through people, their intimate groups, and
their larger communities. It is a constant dance of an incomprehensibly
interwoven web of relationships. If we could trace one sample dance step, we
could imagine that one person's private decision to start a community recycling
program might lead their local school to study their recycling patterns. Imagine
that one of the school parents just happens to run the regional community
recycling program. After listening to their son's school news report of the day
over dinner, they are inspired to start a campaign to pay clients to radically reduce
waste in the whole region. This leads the school to recycle more and earn money
for new textbooks, eliminates the need for two new landfills which saves four
endangered marshland species, and motivates the original recycler's daughter to
choose a career in waste management during which she solves a critical issue in
nuclear waste disposal, which. . . and the dance goes on and on.
It is highly unlikely that most of the people involved in this dance are
aware of the tremendous impact that they are having on each other. We never
know where wisdom will lead. All we have to do is to decide to be willing to take
that next dance step of our own.
Exploring the Quadrants
Let us take a brief look at each quadrant.

The Upper Left quadrant is that dimension of community life that
concerns our own inner, personal healing and development. As noted on the map,
the practice of meditation and individual psychotherapy are examples of work in
this dimension. Psychotherapy group work is included here too, because it is very
often focused primarily on the inner process of individuals, but it is located
further down the private–public axis because the work is done in a group context.
We consider inner, personal work an important and relevant aspect of integral
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community development work because, as noted above, healthy individuals are
typically the ones most capable of making an authentic contribution to
communities, and a healthy community is one that allows its members to mature
and individuate, which usually requires some kind of inner process.
The Upper Right quadrant concerns those aspects of community life
related to our outer personal development and personal ecological interests.
Personal coaching is listed as an example because, in contrast to individual
psychotherapy, it tends to be more focused on helping the client achieve external
goals and shift external behavior. Similarly, 12-step groups are listed because
their focus is typically on supporting group members to not engage in a particular
behavior, that is, their addiction. (Both personal coaching and 12-step groups also
clearly work with the inner dimension, but their bottom-line focus is on external
behavior, which is why they belong in this quadrant.) As noted above, we
consider ecological work to belong to both of the right hand quadrants when that
work is mainly focused on the exterior task, rather than the interior process (such
as in Deep Ecology). Ecological work belongs in the Upper Right, rather than
Lower Right, when the work is done in a relatively personal context, such as work
on a private permaculture project, small community garden, or with individual
animals.
The Lower Left quadrant is the realm of culture, family, and relationships.
In contrast to the official, task-oriented nature of groups belonging to the Lower
Right quadrant, groups in the Lower Left are relationship-oriented and can tend to
be more informal. Social and recreational groups belong here, such as our
example of a bridge group. A public religious ceremony, such a church service,
also belongs in this quadrant, but further “south” because of its more public,
collective nature. Other examples of community development work belonging in
this quadrant include community arts (e.g., community theater), community
celebration (e.g., community fairs), and community understanding (e.g., cultural
forums).
The Lower Right quadrant is the dimension of Ecosocial Systems. The
Social Systems part of the quadrant is the same as Wilber's (2000, 2006) model—
those formal, external collective systems that organize society: governance, legal
and justice systems, the economy, media, the military, and so on. Professional
associations, paid work itself, and civic interest groups, such as road associations
and political lobby groups, belong here, since these are fundamentally task-
oriented groups engaging with the social, political, and economic infrastructure of
society. What we want to highlight here is the Eco-Systems side of this quadrant.
The Earth Community as a whole has its own collective organizing systems, of
which human social systems can be seen as but one expression. These mighty
systems include the world's forests, oceans, rivers, mountain ranges, and so on.
There are also local and regional systems, such as local water cachement areas,
local rainforests, local food chains (not fastfood chains!), and so on. Work to
steward these ecological systems belongs in this quadrant.
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Applying the Model
Traditional approaches to community development have tended to be

heavily weighted toward external solutions, such as developing innovative
economic policies, housing programs, sustainable technology, and so on. They
have also tended to focus on making changes at the systems level, and have paid
less attention to nurturing the individual development of community members,
especially their inner, personal development. Thus traditional approaches have
tended to focus on the exterior-collective dimension of communities (lower-right
quadrant). While these approaches are crucial, what this model makes clear is that
a truly integral approach needs to take into account the importance of the
individual and interior dimensions of communities, such as the quality and depth
of community dialogue or the interior moral and spiritual healing and
development of individual community members.
Different kinds of community healing and development interventions are
called for once we acknowledge the existence and importance of the individual
and interior dimensions. For example, integral community asset mapping and
citizen-developed quality of life indicators are approaches that include more
qualitative dimensions in their assessments of community health and prosperity.
Circle work, dialogue groups, and various forms of conscious community
conversations are practices that acknowledge the qualitative dimension of how
people relate to each other. It's not just the mere fact of getting people to talk
together that's important, but the quality, depth, and openness of the dialogue that
counts—and can also nurture the inner personal growth of participants.
Community healing circles bring the inner personal and collective dimensions
together by providing a space for people to engage in spiritual practices (such as
prayer, meditation, or ritual) with the intention of sending healing energy or
blessings to the community at large. Steward councils bridge the lower left and
right quadrants by bringing together those community leaders who are willing to
hold a big picture, systems view of their communities for regular quality
dialogues.
The Interior “Subtle Body” of a Wisdom Society
The interior Left Quadrant patterns of a wisdom society are reflected in
our shared dreams, visions, stories, music, and art as elicited through our group
processes of caring, knowing, and living. Setting our fiercely compassionate
intention and commitment to birthing a wisdom society is one of the most
important things we can do to cocreate it. I deeply honor and appreciate the gifted
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visionaries who are shepherding the birth of a wisdom society through their work
as theologians, philosophers, science fiction and fantasy writers and artists,
moviemakers, social architects, subtle activists, and so on. The wisdom society
visions in Marianne Williamson’s Imagine (2000); Starhawk’s Fifth Sacred Thing
(Simos, 1993); Doris Lessing’s The Marriage Between Zones Three, Four, and
Five (1980); Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Emergence (2001); and the societies
fantasized by Ursula LeGuin (e.g., The Earth-Sea Trilogy, 1972) and Sheri
Tepper (e.g., The Family Tree, 1997) have been fertile inspirations for me.
The future is seeded by the power of such interior reflective practices as
imagining, dialogue, art, reading, and meditating. Reflective practices can be
performed alone or in groups, with or without words. I distinguish subtle
reflective practices of interior nonverbal attunement (e.g., meditation) from
discursive reflective practices of exterior verbal articulation (e.g., dialogue).
Specific examples are listed in Appendix A.
As we have seen, community action researchers advocate inner work as
crucial to social change. I emphasize the need to connect the I and WE types of
interior experience. Bridging personal and collective interior practice reinforces
our ability to know ourselves as reflected by others and to experience our place in
a richly diverse collective interbeing. For instance, sharing amazingly similar
meditative visions in my subtle activism circles reminds me that I am part of a
collective oneness, and discussing conflicting sustainability values in town hall
meetings reminds me that I am part of a collective differentness. These interior
experiences carry over into more effective exterior action.
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The Exterior “Anatomy” of a Wisdom Society
The exterior Right Quadrant patterns of a wisdom society are visible in
articulated principles, practices, and applied systems. Wise groups and
communities are emerging all over the world to form what may be the largest
social movement in history. Paul Hawken (2007) calls this movement “Blessed
Unrest.” In the United States, thousands of grassroots community-development
projects, intentional community experiments, civic renewal initiatives, and public
dialogue processes are making wonderful contributions to our knowledge about
how to wisely organize our lives together. The range of group sizes within the
movement can be correlated to the Holo sapien rings, so I now discuss the Holo
sapien “anatomy” of a wisdom society.
Wisdom society anatomy can be described in terms of a fractal holarchy.
The entire wisdom society spectrum is experienced at each level of community.
For example, we saw in Chapter Two how the different social levels exist within
an individual Holo sapien, from the inside out. In her marvelous book Integral
City, Marilyn Hamilton (2008) uses a remarkably similar set of rings to describe
the nested holarchy of city systems from the city inhabitant’s perspective (p. 62).
Individual
A wisdom society begins within an individual. It takes a person

committed to the wisdom journey to do their own inner, personal work so that
they have the skills and the capacity to work with both the interior and the
exterior dimensions at the group and larger community levels.
Wisdom society evolution begins in the interior dimension within an
individual. It starts with a personal yearning for healing, for wholeness, for
interconnection.
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As the person learns to listen, appreciate, respect, and share more deeply
in their personal life, the deeper wisdom effects ripple throughout all the
communities in which they participate. The reverse is also true. As communities
grow wiser as a whole, the deeper wisdom effects ripple through each of their
members’ lives.
Family and Friends
Healthy intimate relationships are a precursor to social wisdom. Without
the formative and foundational support of close family and friend ties, Holo
sapiens cannot evolve or thrive in full health, and thus neither can the broader
social collective.
Groups
Groups are the fundamental “cell structure” where social evolution
happens. Group systems support intimate groups of two or more people: a
couple, family, circle, and so on. Think about all the community-oriented
activities you have been involved in. I suggest that they are typically sustained by
a core group, even if they were initiated by one person: management teams,
church trustees, town councils, knitting circles, presidential cabinets, and so on.
Collective wisdom development requires the coherent energy and diverse talents
of a group.
The ways in which individuals work together within groups must support
growth in all the wisdom dimensions. Communication systems like circle work,
dialogue, and process work (see Developing Collective Wisdom in Groups) can
help transcend the modern group culture to cocreate a wisdom culture.
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Communities and Organizations
A community or organization is a medium- to large-size group of people
who share a common area of passion. It might be a geographic, place-based
community like a town or small city, an interest-based community like a not-for-
profit animal shelter organization, or a business community like a medical
equipment sales company. A community feels local; it may be active across a
wide geographical area but typically has a single organizational hub.
A wisdom community is a community of practice whose members not
only share a passion but also deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by
interacting on an ongoing basis. According to Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder
(2002), communities of practice may take many forms, but they all share these
elements:
1. The domain—the common topic of interest that brings people together
and guides their learning;
2. The community—the group of people who care about the domain and
who create the social fabric of learning, based on mutual respect and
trust;
3. The practice—the specific knowledge, tools, and processes the
community develops to be effective in their domain (p. 45).
Communities of practice tend to form spontaneously among people who share a
common area of passion. They have existed naturally since humans first gathered
around a fire to discuss hunting strategies, but have recently attracted closer
attention as a business knowledge management tool.
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Cities and Corporations
The city/corporation ring represents very large, single-hub communities:
cities, counties, small regions, and so on. This scale of ecosocial complexity is
significantly higher than in a smaller community. The majority of the world’s
population lives in cities, so this level of community plays an important role in
ecosocial evolution.
Distributed Community: Broad regions, Nations, Networks, and Social Sectors
I consider the distributed community ring (more simply called the
nation/network ring) to be crucial to broader-scale wisdom society evolution. A
distributed community is a formal or informal set of communities with a shared
decision-making structure rather than a single hub. A formal distributed
community could be a geographically large, place-based civic or social
organization like a regional alliance, a national state or province, an entire nation,
or the United Nations. Or, it could be a large formal corporation or organization
with multiple centers of responsibility.
An informal distributed community system is a community network such
as MoveOn.org (n.d.) or the Internet itself. A community network tends to be a
more open, organic, peer relational structure either within a formal distributed
community or a virtual interest-focused network.
Community network theory. In the last few years, an exciting new science
has emerged that is revolutionizing our understanding of the phenomenon of
networks. Network theory has discovered that all networks (whether made out of
molecules, nerve cells, electrical grids, web sites, or human beings) operate
according to the same simple but powerful rules. For example, in all networks
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(human and non-human), a few nodes stand out as extraordinarily better
connected than average nodes. These nodes are called hubs. A healthy network
has multiple hubs, all well connected to each other.
However, a network’s health also depends greatly on those nodes located
at the “periphery” of the network, with a weaker affiliation or “tie” to those in the
“center.” Network members with “weak ties” are important connection points to
the world outside of the network. The knowledge emerging from network theory
enables us to more precisely build resilient, healthy networks.
A community network uses the knowledge emerging from networking
theory to “knit” a specialized type of network that focuses on sharing and
developing community knowledge, tools, and processes that support the long-
term health of the whole community network. A community network illuminates
the existing resources and connections among the communities and provides a
forum for new connections to be made and creative community projects to be
developed.
In a certain sense, a community network might be seen as a potential
community of practice—one that focuses on sharing and developing community
knowledge. However, not all members of the network may want to be involved in
sharing and developing community knowledge. For example, some people may
just want to participate in community events. Therefore we think it is better to
understand a community network as a network that may catalyze one or more
communities of practice within it.
Leading resource books include Linked, The New Science of Networks by
Albert-László Barabási (2002), Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking
Science of Networks by Mark Buchanan (2002), and Cultivating Communities of
Practice by Etienne Wenger et al. (2002).
Distributed community network types. I categorize three types of
distributed community networks: grassroots, organization, and hybrid. Grassroots
distributed communities are live or online peer networks of individuals with a
common interest such as care2 or The Climate Project (see Appendix A for
reference links). Organization networks are partnerships of organizations with a
specific common interest, such as the Sustainable Communities Network.
One of the most interesting and powerful emerging distributed community
systems is a hybrid network of both organization partners and grassroots
participants such as the Earth Day Network or 350.org. A hybrid network tends to
support a more informal, organic collaborative structure among both its grassroots
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and organization members, while harnessing the joint power of grassroots
numbers and structured organization capacity. A hybrid live-online network like
The Climate Project combines the relational spark of personal gatherings with the
power of online connectivity. The USA green economy coalition between Green
for All, Apollo Alliance, 1Sky, and others is another good hybrid network
example. The agile, open structure of a hybrid network positions it as an
especially responsive force in spearheading wisdom society evolution.
Earth Community
The earth community consists of the entire human, nonhuman, and
planetary ecosocial matrix of planet Earth. The human community is the human
population around the globe and the informal and formal social systems whose
interests span the whole globe such as the United Nations. The nonhuman
community refers to other life species. The planetary community refers to the
planetary eco-spheres such as the lithosphere.
Cosmic Community and Beyond
The cosmic community and the Great Mystery beyond are not addressed
in this chapter. A subtle theory of cosmic dimensions beyond Newtonian space-
time is presented in Chapter 4, but speculation about collective life in the Great
Mystery is beyond the scope of this work.
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Patterns in Collective Wisdom Systems
This section analyzes the patterns in the collective wisdom principles and
practices developed by the social architects and organizations cocreating our
wisdom society today. Pattern themes with specific examples are discussed first
and then summarized in the Personal-Collective Wisdom System Matrix.
Wherever a thematic subset of an architect’s or organization’s principles is given,
the complete set is accessible by checking the source given in the References.
Patterns of Living Systems
Leading community action researchers such as Donella Meadows (2001),
Meg Wheatley (2005), and Peter Senge (2006) view communities as living
systems. Their community organizing principles all echo a coherent theme of the
dynamic, mysterious personal–collective dance of interior relationship and
exterior behavior.
Dancing With Systems (Donella Meadows)
In her article, “Dancing with Systems,” the late and beloved Donella
Meadows (2001) speaks to the mystery at the source of quest for wholeness.
Self-organizing, nonlinear, feedback systems are inherently unpredictable .

. . . As soon as we stop being blinded by the illusion of control . . . there is
plenty to do, of a different sort of “doing.” The future can’t be predicted,
but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being . . . . We can’t
control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them! (p. 59)
The overarching themes of Meadows’ Dancing with Systems principles include:
1. Respecting the wisdom of the system,
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2. Exposing your mental models to the open air,
3. Open, quick and accurate information and feedback,
4. Sharing, learning, and caring with each other, and
5. Whole systems thinking
In Meadows’ words, “go for the good of the whole. Enhance creativity, stability,
diversity, resilience, and sustainability, whether they are easily measured or not.
Keep expectations high. Talk about love” (p. 58).
Paradox and Promise of Communities (Meg Wheatley)
Organization consultant Meg Wheatley (2005) defines successful
communities as those that connect to others through their diversity, creating long-
term, sustainable ecosystem webs of relationships. She describes the inherent
paradox in life’s two imperatives to be both free to create and to belong to
community. Her observation is that individuals are learning how to be together in
ways that support themselves. They make choices that serve themselves while
considering their neighbors.
When an individual changes, its neighbors take notice and decide how
they will respond. Over time, individuals become so intermeshed in this
process of coevolving that it becomes impossible to distinguish the
boundary between self and other, or self and environment. Rather than
defining what’s inside and what’s outside, boundaries in living systems
become the place where new relationships take form. (p. 47)
Clarity of purpose transforms the tension of belonging and individuality into
energetic and resilient communities. One junior high school Wheatley describes
bases all behaviors and decision on just three rules: “Take care of yourself. Take
care of each other. Take care of this place” (p. 51) She relates the story the school
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principal tells of being the last to come back into the school after a rainstorm
evacuation, only to discover 800 pairs of shoes in the hallway. The students had
decided on their own how to best take care of their school (p. 51).
Wheatley’s (2005) core community principle is that the solution to
anything is each other. If we can rely on one another, we can cope with almost
anything. Without each other, we retreat into fear (p. 118). Suggested practices to
build these strong relationships include:
1) Nourish a clear organization identity. . . .

2) Focus people on the bigger picture. . . .
3) Communicate honestly and quickly. . . .
4) Prepare for the Unknown. . . .
5) Keep meaning at the forefront. . . .
6) Use Rituals and Symbols. . . .
7) Pay attention to individuals. (pp. 118–122)
The Fifth Discipline (Peter Senge)
Management consultant Peter Senge’s (1990) five principles of the art and
practice of learning communities resonate with those above: systems thinking,
personal mastery (proficiency), mental models, building shared vision, and team
learning. He offers many detailed systems and practices for each principle,
including models for feedback-loop design, creative tension, dialogue, and zero
waste. In his closing reflections, he writes of his eventual realization that the core
principle underlying the others is “simply to develop a system of management
consistent with nature—human nature and the nature of the larger social and
natural systems in which we always operate” (p. 367). When he asked a young
Chinese woman why his book was so popular in China, she told him that
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We see it as a book about personal development . . . . So much of
management theory from the West contradicts our basic belief in
developing our deepest nature as human beings. Your book reinforces this
belief and gives us hope that this can be consistent with building
successful organizations. (p. 367)
The oldest Chinese symbol for business translates as “life meaning.” Senge
believes that when we rediscover organizations as living systems, we will also
rediscover what it actually means to us as human beings to work together for a
purpose that really matters (p. 271).
Patterns in Wisdom Community Principles
Wisdom community principles are the set of articulated shared intentions
and commitments of a community, reflecting the heart and soul of the group.
They are generated by the whole community, often with serious effort. We invite
you to listen to the heartbeats of the following wisdom communities representing
collective wisdom across the full wisdom felt-experience spectrum: caring,
knowing, and living.
Knowing: Seven Patterns of a Healthy Community
From March until November of 1999, more than four thousand people
took part in the Healthy Community Agenda Campaign. They participated in one
of 300 dialogues using the Healthy Community Agenda Dialogue Guide. The
Dialogue Guide had two purposes. The first was to stimulate action on the local
level to build healthier communities. The second was to articulate a message to
the nation from the nation's communities about what creates health and improves
quality of life. Seven patterns emerged from what was said.
A healthy community:
• Practices ongoing dialogue
• Generates leadership everywhere
• Shapes its future
• Embraces diversity
• Knows itself
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• Connects people and resources
• Creates a sense of community. (Adams & Pittman, 2000,
para. 4)
Caring: United Religions Initiative
United Religions Initiative (n.d.) is a global community with spiritual

heart including thousands of members in over 50 countries representing more that
100 religions, spiritual expressions, and indigenous traditions. Its purpose is to
promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated
violence and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all
living beings.
The URI Charter was developed through a four-year global chartering
process by several hundred women, men, and youth representing a diverse array
of religions, spiritual paths and indigenous traditions. It inspires, grounds, and
guides all URI activity. The themes of its principles include respect for each
other’s diverse traditions, nonviolence, respectful equitable nondiscriminatory
practices, environmental stewardship, local autonomy, and ongoing learning.
Living: Earth Charter Principles
The mission of the Earth Charter Initiative (n.d.) is to promote the

transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared
ethical framework that includes respect and care for the community of life,
ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic
justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. Created by the largest global
consultation process ever associated with an international declaration, endorsed
by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals, the Earth
Charter seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and
shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family and the larger living
world. The Earth Charter is an expression of hope and a call to help create a
global partnership at a critical juncture in history.
The primary EarthCharter Principles are:
1. Respect and care for the community of life
2. Ecological integrity
3. Social and economic justice
4. Democracy, nonviolence, and peace
Living: Future Search
Future Search (n.d.) is a planning meeting that helps people transform

their capability for action very quickly. The meeting is task-focused. It brings
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together 60 to 80 people in one room, or hundreds in parallel rooms. Future search
brings people from all walks of life into the same conversation—those with
resources, expertise, formal authority, and need. They meet for 16 hours spread
across three days. People tell stories about their past, present, and desired future.
Through dialogue they discover their common ground. Only then do they make
concrete action plans. Future search criteria for success include:
• Get the "whole system" in the room. Invite a significant cross-section
of all parties with a stake in the outcome.
• Explore the "whole elephant" before seeking to fix any part. Get
everyone talking about the same world. Think globally, act locally.
• Put common ground and future focus front and center while treating
problems and conflicts as information, not action items.
• Encourage self-management and responsibility for action by
participants before, during, and after the future search.
Patterns in Systems Practices
Practices are the ongoing tangible habits of the community that stem from
its principles. Practices represent the community on the physical plane. Where
and when does the community gather? What do they do together? How do they
organize roles and responsibilities? The following themes can be consistently
found in the habits of wisdom communities across all domains.
Collective Being (Relational) Practices
Community-building is a birth, not just a project. To birth a wise

community, we need to work and play together as whole beings. To relate as
whole beings, we must treat our communities as living system families with
interior qualitative needs.
What does a wisdom community need on a relational level?
Trust and safety agreements: Confidentiality, openness, honesty,

permission to make mistakes. Nonjudgmental relationships build trust and a sense
of safety. A mutual attitude that we are all pioneers doing our best to explore
uncharted wisdom territory together allows people to be themselves, mistakes and
all. An attitude of inquiry and acceptance creates space for real people.
Personal connections: Gatherings, rituals, projects, food. A collective

home isn't a happy healthy home without allowing room for becoming friends.
These personal connections are forged through regular gatherings, sharing food,
group reflection, or action work such as joint projects. For me, sharing chocolate
is a favorite way to make friends.
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Creativity: Art, music, stories, poetry. Creativity is spirit speaking.
Creative expression is necessary to whole knowing. Creative expression must
consciously be encouraged and integrated into face-to-face gatherings. It can
even be nurtured in long-distance environments by creating space for online art
galleries, playing music, and so on.
Open-hearted emotional expression: Love, joy, laughter, fun, fear,

sadness, anger. Emotion is energy in motion. Love and fear are equally valid
energetic fuel for heart opening.
Collective Doing (Behavioral) Practices
A collective being has to develop an infrastructure before it can breathe

and move. It needs the spark of life, a home, and identity. To create a healthy
social organism, we need to create membranes strong enough to hold yet
permeable enough to empower.
What does a wisdom community need on a behavioral level? What are the
material practices and tools required to work together as an effective community?
Spark of life. A wisdom society needs a common passion or a drive to find

one. A community must listen deeply to hear its inspiration, its song, and then
manifest its passion in conscious, tangible form. People are most energized by
having a challenging goal to work toward. Gandhi's non-violence campaigns are
prime examples of the power of focused, organic coalitions.
Home-base structures. A community needs a sense of home to sustain and

nurture its members. People need to feel welcome and safe there. People need to
be energized there. When steam is contained inside a kettle, the water boils much
more quickly than when the steam dissipates into the air. To boil, community
steam needs a kettle.
The community needs a place to gather physically on a consistent basis.
Given the broad vision and the difficulties of frequent large gatherings, we must
also find more humane and efficient ways to work in virtual community, through
Internet, audio, and visual media. Real working models already exist to support
fully-featured online community work. Phone conferencing, Web audio
conferencing, and WebTV are existing technologies that can add a more human
audio or visual dimension to the connection.
Organic, informal social structure. The core of the community must rest
in people and their relationships: the human network. Formalizing the human
network in a hierarchical organization structure can compromise its capacity for
wisdom listening and organic growth. Keep structures as loose as possible. Use
members' existing communities of practice and organization affiliations
appropriately as vehicles for action.
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The collective home must be built with new-paradigm relational practices
that support partnership and diversity, which Riane Eisler (2002) calls power-with
instead of power-over practices. Many excellent working models such as
Baldwin's (1994) circle practices, Rosenberg's (2003) nonviolent communication,
and Bohm's dialogue (Isaacs, 1999) are described in the section on Developing
Collective Wisdom in Groups.
Identity systems. A community needs infrastructure to support people’s

sense of belonging to the group without losing their sense of personal identity.
Community identity first comes from commitment to common principles and
practices that respect the individual. Membership is a useful means of signifying
community alignment. Useful models include intentional living communities and
the United Religions Initiative (URI).
Individuals and organizations need to preserve their identity autonomy.
The identity and relationships of individuals as well as organizations within the
community (and ideally their members) must be available within the community
knowledge base, which has major information management implications. The
core in any community is its people, not the community as a whole. Organizations
do not act; people do. By creating a structure open to both individuals and
organizations, a community can touch the direct source of an individual's passion
and also leverage the passion already aligned in groups.
An essential ingredient in the community recipe of trust, partnership, and
far-flung relationships is for each person to have control over their own identity
and relationships. This seemingly subtle principle is a direct antithesis of today's
existing information systems. Existing information systems are hierarchical
and/or commercially driven. People's identities can be cogs in commercial
machines; email spam and telemarketing are now part of daily life. To enable
trusted peer relationships, emerging user-centered social networking systems are
helpful.
The Personal–Collective Wisdom Systems Matrix
The preceding patterns in principles and practices can be mapped into a
collective wisdom system matrix similar to that in the personal wisdom journey.
As with the personal journey, the collective journey has an integral path of
developing the domains of the center, intention, process shift, identity, felt
experience, and attention.
Personal principles and practices can be extended to fit the social context,
adapting the language from personal to social terminology. Using a personal lens,
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the boundary between interior and exterior is the interface between the person and
the rest of the world. The personal interior is whatever is apparent only to the
person (1st-person subjective); the personal exterior is apparent from an external
observer (3rd-person objective). Using a collective lens, the boundary between
interior and exterior is the interface between group members and the group as a
whole as seen by the rest of the world. The collective interior is whatever is
apparent only between members of a group (2nd-person intersubjective). The
collective exterior is apparent from an observer external to the group (3rd-person
interobjective).
Table 11 illustrates that the Holo sapien compass domains apply to both
personal and collective wisdom and that the personal wisdom principles are
directly translatable to collective wisdom. This consistency implies that an
individual can navigate their community terrain using the same fundamental skills
and capacities developed in their personal life. It also confirms that personal
wisdom development is essential to effective collective wisdom development.
Collective Wisdom Systems: Tools for the Trail
Similar to a personal wisdom system, a collective wisdom system is a
tangible set of expressed principle and applied practice being used to support
wisdom development in the world today. Wisdom systems expand a person or a
group’s engagement in their heart center, intention, process shift, and at least one
wisdom dimension of identity, felt experience, and attention.
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Table 11
The Personal–Collective Wisdom System Matrix
Wisdom principles
Holo sapien compass Personal Collective Collective wisdom Practices
Center Essence Love, love, love. Integral/systems thinking: seeing wholes (many) Rituals
Center and open heart. Be with what is (many) Centering
Presence Open to mystery of grace. Translate, not transform (Brown)
Get the beat, listen to the wisdom (Meadows)
Wherever I go, here I
am.
Intention Go, go, go. Shape your future (HC) Nourish spark of life: collective
Follow your passion. Shared vision, clear purpose (many) vision/mission/
Purpose Stay steady through Go for the good of the whole (Meadows) Focus on the big picture.
love and fear. Look for common ground (FS)
I will get there. Do no harm. Expand time and thought horizons (Meadows)
Discipline. Explore the whole elephant (FS)
Process shift Flow, flow, flow. Honor and protect information (Meadows), Organic fluid structures
Expand and embrace. communicate quickly (Wheatley) Regular gatherings
Resilience Follow synchronicity. Build resonant feedback (many) Communicate honestly and
Nonattachment to outcome. quickly
Go with the flow. Prepare for the unknown
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Wisdom Principles
Holo sapien compass Personal Collective Collective wisdom Practices
x-axis: identity Include, include, include. Leadership everywhere (HC) Power-with relational practices
Respect. Embrace diversity (HC) Open, honest, respectful
I -> cosmos Walk in others’ shoes or Know your community (HC) communication
paws. Solution to anything is each other (Wheatley, 2005) Nonviolence
As go I, Meet the “other” outside your Whole system in the room (FS)
comfort zone.
so goes the world. Respect (URI)
Expand the boundary of caring (Meadows, 2001)
y-axis: felt experience Stretch, stretch, stretch. Expand thought horizons (Meadows, 2001) Being/Relationship tending:
Seek a full-spectrum life. Team learning (Senge, 1990) creativity, emotion, food
head/heart/body/soul Grow inner muscles. Develop and balance:
Explore your feelings. caring: sense of community (HC) Doing/Action:
As above, so below. Get comfortable in your skin. knowing: dialogue (many) Learn group process
living: connect people and resources (HC) Do meaningful work together.
Go green.
z-axis: attention Dance, dance, dance. Pay attention to individuals (Wheatley, 2005) Safe home base infrastructure
Pay attention in and out. Expose your mental models (Meadows, 2001) Trust and safety agreements
Being/doing Walk your talk. Self-mgmt and responsibility (FS) Balance personal/group practice
Find mirrors: inner and outer Personal mastery (Senge, 1990) E.g. centering, identity systems
As within, so without. community, support systems, Stay humble. Stay a learner (Meadows, 2001)
and friends.
Note. Author’s table. Data from other sources is indicated in table and following abbreviations. HC = Healthy Communities (Adams &
Pittman, 2000), FS = Future Search (n.d.); URI = United Religions Initiative (n.d).
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Human and Social Scale Systems
I define two ranges of collective wisdom systems based on the scope of
participation. Human-scale systems are those systems that focus on the near rings
(Family through Local), and society-scale systems are those systems that focus on
the far rings (Cities through Earth). Human-scale systems address personal and
local lifestyles, where people tend to feel more “at home.” Society-scale systems
address what I call social sectors: large ecosocial infrastructures involving
humans and earth materials or energy including business, medicine, agriculture,
power, transportation, forestry, government, etc.
Collective Wisdom System Overview
The following sections present wisdom systems research by David Nicol
and myself through our combined Anglo-American-Australian lens. This material
with expanded resource descriptions is available 0at www.wisdomspace.net.
Now, let us look at a progression of collective wisdom systems, starting with
small groups.
Developing Collective Wisdom in Groups
What are the conditions that maximize creativity and learning in a group?
What principles of group process help create those moments of magic when
collective insight, clear decisions, and decisive action emerge within groups?
What is needed to support groups becoming greater than the sum of their parts?
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Circle Work
One of the simplest, most ancient, and profound methods for helping to
elicit a group's collective intelligence is circle work: the practice of people sitting
in a circle listening deeply and speaking from the heart. The circle format
encourages a focus on dialogue - people learning and exploring together in an
open-ended way - rather than on getting through an agenda or completing tasks.
Many circles invite in the presence of the sacred through a simple ritual of
lighting a candle or taking a few minutes of silence to begin the meeting. As Tom
Atlee (founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute, www.co-intelligence.org) says,
"Even the simplest, most unsophisticated circles are experienced as revolutionary
by people who've known little more than the hectic, banal, adversarial or
repressed communication modes typical of our mainstream culture" (Atlee, n.d.,
“Listening Circles”).
Leading resources include the book Calling the Circle by Christina
Baldwin (1994) and organizations www.wisdomcircle,org,
www.fromthefourdirections.org, and www.peerspirit.com.
Dialogue
Dialogue is at the heart of circle work, and it is also used in many other
forums. There are many definitions of dialogue. We like this simple one:
"Dialogue is a conversation in which people think together in relationship”
(Isaacs, 1999, p. 19). Dialogue is often contrasted with other forms of
communication such as discussion or debate in which participants typically assert
their well-defended opinions and positions back and forth with a goal of finding
flaws in the other's arguments and affirming the superiority of their own view.
Dialogue, on the other hand, is a shared exploration toward deeper levels of
understanding and meaning in which all participants reflect on their own
assumptions and allow them to be re-evaluated. David Bohm, the late quantum
physicist who pioneered the modern understanding and practice of dialogue,
observed that through dialogue "a new kind of mind comes into being, based on
the development of common meaning." Bohm’s new kind of mind appears similar
to what we are calling the collective wisdom of the group.
Leading resources include the book Dialogue by William Isaacs (1999)
and organizations www.thataway.org and www.co-intelligence.org.
NonViolent Communication
Marshall Rosenberg's (2003) Nonviolent Communication (NVC) offers a

simple but profound approach to resolving differences peacefully. NVC is an
interpersonal practice that can help us to develop non-judgmental consciousness
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through bringing awareness (and providing alternatives) to our habitually
judgmental ways of thinking, as mirrored by our habitually judgmental ways of
talking. The basic NVC process to resolving conflicts is to express:
• the concrete actions we are observing that are affecting our well-being;
• how we feel in relation to what we are observing;
• the needs, values, desires, etc that are creating our feelings; and
• the concrete actions we request in order to enrich our lives.
In our experience, the capacity to work through differences consciously through
NVC or similar approaches has been the single most important factor in eliciting a
group's collective wisdom.
Leading resources include the book Nonviolent Communication by
Marshall Rosenberg (2003) and the organization www.cnvc.org.
Group Dynamics
The hidden psychological dynamics inherent to participation in groups can

often prevent them from functioning effectively. For example, we all tend to
negotiate between conflicting feelings of wanting to belong, yet wanting to
maintain our individual identity, whenever we join a new group. What do we have
to give up in order to belong? Becoming more aware of dynamics such as these
can help us to not act them out unconsciously, but rather to use them to deepen
our own self-understanding, leading to more freedom in how we relate to groups.
Also, groups have been shown to typically follow distinct stages of development,
e.g., the well known "forming, storming, norming, performing" stages.
Understanding these stages can help us to maintain our equilibrium and
perspective during challenging moments in the life of a group. Group theory is a
huge field and we are not experts in it. However it is an important component of
building collective wisdom in groups which we want to at least flag for attention.
The following resources are ones we have found helpful.
Leading resources include the book Paradoxes of Group Life:
Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics by
Kenwyn Smith and David Berg (1997), as well as the organization www.sct-
institute.org.
Working With Differences
A common principle of many contemporary approaches to working with

groups is the need to acknowledge and then integrate differences between group
members. Particular mindfulness is called for when working with differences in
social rank and power, such as differences in sex, race, class, sexual orientation,
and so on. Individuals who are members of groups that historically have been
systematically mistreated by society-at-large often face special challenges in
finding their voice in a group and having their contributions respected. Working
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with these issues can be challenging, since it usually involves bringing to the
surface very painful feelings and deeply ingrained habits of thought. Since many
people have only ever experienced these issues being dealt with in highly charged
conversations or public forums mainly characterized by blame, guilt, and
defensiveness, many groups tend to minimize or avoid these issues. Yet it is
possible to create a space in which all group members can intelligently participate
in freeing themselves from these limiting patterns of thought and behavior.
Neither the role of victim nor oppressor serves our best interests as human beings.
It can be profoundly liberating to participate in encounters that heal, in a small yet
significant way, some of the ancient divisions and wounds that have split
humanity. As Martin Luther King Jr. (1986) taught, we all have a stake in
building "the beloved community."
Leading resources include the book Sitting in the Fire: Large Group
Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity by Arnold Mindell (2000), as well
as the organizations National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI, www.ncbi.org),
Commonway (www.commonway.org), and National Coalition for Dialogue and
Deliberation (NCDD, www.thataway.org).
Working With Intuition
We believe that some of the most mysterious experiences of deep

connectedness and collective wisdom in a group occur when attention is paid to
building connections between group members on subtle levels of consciousness.
For example, practicing meditation together can open deeper channels of
connection between group members. In our experience, this practice makes
subtler group dynamics more readily discernible and also helps to develop greater
harmonic or empathic resonance in the group field. We have also found that when
the intuitive capacities of group members are explicitly welcomed and cultivated
through intuitive sensing practices, a group can experience a quantum leap in the
number of powerful collective insights that emerge, and group members may
experience in their lives a higher-than-usual amount of uncanny synchronicities
that seem to suggest mysterious, nonlocal connections having been made with
each other. Research suggests that the development of intuitive ability may play a
crucial role in the development of collective consciousness and wisdom. As
Robert Kenny (1999, 2004) notes, with a refined intuitive capacity, individuals
may be able to directly experience their union with the interconnected wholeness
of life, and directly apprehend the unspoken thoughts and feelings of others in the
group, leading to levels of coordination and wisdom in group functioning that far
surpass the individual capacities of its members.
Leading resources include the books Frequency by Penney Peirce (2009),
Blessing by David Spangler (2001), and the organization Collective Wisdom
Initiative (www.collectivewisdominitiative.org).
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Developing Collective Wisdom in Communities and Cities
We serve the vision of a world in which place-based communities become

increasingly wise, sustainable, and self-reliant. Rather than relying on the
government to authorize change from the top down, we believe that the shift to a
global wisdom culture must also be initiated from below through the efforts of
ordinary citizens within their home communities and cities.
Dozens of innovative approaches to community growth have been
developed and successfully applied in real communities to bring the diverse
voices of the community together to produce wise, collective visions and actions.
The fundamental goal of these approaches is not to achieve an ideal state for a
community but to develop an optimal process through which a community can
constantly recreate itself by mobilizing its own resources and collective wisdom
in response to the challenges and opportunities it faces. We are particularly
indebted to Tom Atlee's (n.d.) great work in community wisdom-building and
highly recommend the “Community” resources on his website, www.co-
intelligence.org.
Discovering Your Community
Many recent approaches to community development challenge the

traditional focus on identifying a community's needs and argue instead for the
benefits of mapping a community's assets. Mapping assets helps to connect
people and resources within a community, stimulates the local economy, and
provides a great foundation for community visioning or strategic planning
processes. Furthermore, many communities have used an asset-mapping process
as a springboard to develop their own Quality of Life indicators, another
innovative way for a community to know itself better and to track its progress by
its own standards.
Leading resources include the book Building Communities from the Inside
Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets by Kretzmann
and McKnight (1997) and the organizations Integral City (www.integralcity.com),
Sustainable Seattle (www.sustainableseattle.org), and Redefining Progress
(www.rprogress.org).
Convening Community Conversations
Bringing community members together for respectful, inclusive

conversations is fundamental to building healthy communities. Conscious
community conversations can take the more free-wheeling form of a community
salon or the more deliberate and meditative form of a talking council or circle in
the spirit of indigenous wisdom traditions.
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Leading resources include the World Café (www.theworldcafe.com),
Commonway (www.commonway.org), Conversation Café
(www.conversationcafe.org), Open Space (www.openspaceworld.org), and Future
Search (www.futuresearch.net).
Healing Divisions and Conflicts
Bringing people closer together in community inevitably involves

encountering our differences—different political views, educational backgrounds,
communication styles, cultural assumptions, and so on. Our communities are
healthy to the extent that they can allow these differences and integrate them in a
higher creative synthesis. Easier said than done! Many of us have painful
associations with conflict and tend to avoid it where possible. Others of us may
tend to jump right in but later wish we didn't. Furthermore, many of us have had
disheartening experiences of our current legal and political approaches to
resolving conflict, which, because of their adversarial frameworks, often
exacerbate the tensions between the people involved, involve a huge amount of
time and money, and leave lasting rips in the fabric of community. Yet with the
right kind of “container” (and plenty of courage and commitment), sitting in the
fire of conflict can bring communities much closer together and unleash
tremendous creative energy. Many innovative approaches have been developed
that offer intelligent frameworks for dealing with conflict and differences within
communities.
Working with diversity. Please refer to the previous section on working

with differences in groups.
Community mediation. Community mediation involves the use of trained

community volunteers to provide mediation services as an alternative to the
judicial system. Community mediation offers many advantages over traditional
legal approaches to conflict resolution, such as:
• It provides a forum for dispute resolution at the earliest stage of the
conflict;
• It uses mediators who reflect the diversity of the communities served; and
• It is committed to providing services to clients regardless of their ability
to pay.
According to the National Association for Community Mediation (n.d.), a typical
community mediation program has 1.5 equivalent full-time staff, 30 active
mediators, and a $40,000/annum budget. Many community mediation centers
have well established programs for schools that help to create a culture of
nonviolent conflict resolution among the children and teachers.
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Leading resources include the book Peace Skills: Manual for Community
Mediators by Kraybill (2001) as well as the National Association for Community
Mediation (www.nafcm.org).
Restorative justice. Restorative justice is an umbrella term for community-

based approaches to criminal matters that emphasize repairing the harm caused by
the crime. In a restorative justice circle, victims and offenders meet face to face,
along with key members of their communities and a skilled facilitator, to address
what happened in the crime. Victims are thus given an opportunity to express
their pain, and to feel heard and understood. Offenders are given the chance to
realize the full impact of their crime and to make amends. Both victims and
offenders tend to rate this process a "highly satisfactory" way to deal with crime.
Since 1989, New Zealand has made restorative justice processes the hub of its
juvenile justice system (Restorative Justice Online, n.d.).
Leading resources include The Little Book of Restorative Justice by
Howard Zehr (2002) as well as Restorative Justice Online
(www.restorativejustice.org) and the Centre for Restorative Justice
(www.sfu.ca/crj).
Community Healing Circles
In indigenous cultures, the primary role of the shaman was to maintain the
delicate balance between the human and nonhuman worlds through rituals and
trance journey work, for the health and harmony of the community. Through their
rituals the shamans would remind the human community to honor the sacred
dimension of the greater Earth Community of which the humans were just one
part. In the modern secular West, we have largely forgotten this perspective or
usually reject it as primitive superstition. Yet the consequences of our failure to
respect the intrinsic worth and sacredness of the nonhuman worlds have, of
course, become alarmingly clear in the reports of the mass extinction of species,
vast deforestation, global warming, and other deeply troubling dimensions of the
global ecological crisis. Furthermore, there is now considerable research from the
field of consciousness studies that strongly suggests that our prayers, meditations,
and intentions do have nonlocal healing effects (Nicol, 2010).
Accordingly, we believe that convening community-healing circles that
explicitly honor the sacred dimension of ourselves, our communities, and our
natural environment is a vital element of a truly integral approach to community
development. These circles could involve shamanistic healing ceremonies,
collective prayer and/or meditation, or any other form of spiritual practice that
resonates with you and is directed toward healing and blessing the community at
large. Like many things in life, the most important elements are the intention you
bring to the work and the consistency of your practice.
Leading resources include the book Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy
and Molly Brown (1998) as well as Deep Ecology.org (www.deep-ecology.org)
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and Permanent Peace (www.permanentpeace.org).
Shaping Community Governance
Tom Atlee (n.d.) and others have argued persuasively that our current
democratic processes need to evolve to reflect the holistic worldview emerging
from advances in both the natural and social sciences over the past century and to
make our democracies more truly representative of the voice of the people. As
Atlee says, truly participatory democracies that tap into the collective intelligence
of the people would do more than measure opinion polls or simple majority votes.
They would devise processes that, firstly, built the capacity of the whole
community or society to reflect on itself and, secondly, elicited the collective
wisdom of the whole for the benefit the whole. Innovative democratic approaches
that invite a deeper level of participation from ordinary citizens in the governance
of their communities include citizen deliberative councils, wisdom councils, and
stewardship councils.
Leading resources include the book Tao of Democracy: Using Co-
Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All by Tom Atlee (2002) and the
websites for citizen deliberative councils (http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-
CDCs.html), the Center for Wise Democracy (www.wisedemocracy.org), and
America Speaks (www.americaspeaks.org).
Community Arts, Play, and Celebration
Community fairs, festivals, and parties are fun ways to build connections
between community members in relaxed, informal settings. Artistic expressions,
such as community theater productions or local talent shows, can also be
memorable ways to knit the fabric of community. Some creative approaches have
been developed that work with art and/or play to intentionally foster community
transformation at a deep level. Leading websites include Earthdance Network
(www.earthdancenetwork.com), InterPlay (www.interplay.org), and Burning Man
(www.burningman.com).
Distributed Community Wisdom: Regional, Network, National
For those of us working to pioneer an integral approach to social change

and community development, it is helpful to know who our allies are. Since the
early 1990s, numerous community development movements have emerged across
the United States that focus on transforming the whole community system (as
opposed to focusing on solving specific problems). Taken as a whole, these
efforts have been loosely grouped together as the "American Communities
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Movement." Alongside this movement a complementary "Civic Renewal
Movement" has emerged to transform the civic sector—those voluntary
associations and informal networks through which ordinary citizens help shape
the public decision-making process. Numerous regional and national networks
have formed to link these efforts and to support them with stories, tools, and
research. In this section we list some of the leading networks and resource centers
supporting these movements.
American Communities Movement
In the 1990s, a large movement emerged (though relatively unnoticed) in

the United States to revitalize local, place-based communities. Arguably in
response to the fragmenting effect of economic globalization (and other
conditions of modern life) on local communities and the failure of government
bureaucracies to adequately respond to the situation, a spontaneous, largely
grassroots movement arose to reactivate the creative potentials of local
communities by reconnecting local people and resources. This "movement" is
comprised of hundreds of local initiatives and numerous national networks which
bring diverse perspectives to the work of community transformation but which
also share many common aims and approaches. Kesler and O'Connor (2001)
identify common themes among a variety of U.S. community-based movements:
• An emphasis on developing a shared sense of community
• A concern for social justice
• An emphasis on caring for the natural environment
• A commitment to the process of community building, in particular
through supporting:
• ongoing, inclusive dialogue; community-based indicators; and
• collaborative decision-making processes to shape public policy.
While there really is no one all-embracing U.S. "Communities Movement"
with which all community-based initiatives and networks identify, below we list
some of the major networks that share these aims and values.
Healthy Communities Movement. The Association for Community Health

Improvement (2006) approaches community development through the framework
of personal and community health.
For an excellent article describing the principles and origins of the Healthy
Community Movement, see “The Healthy Communities Movement and the
Coalition for Healthier Cities” (Norris & Pittman, 2000).
Sustainable Communities Movement. The Sustainable Communities

Movement emphasizes the interconnection between personal, collective, and
environmental flourishing. More than the other community-based movements, the
Sustainable Communities Movement stresses the importance of natural ecologies
both for their intrinsic value and for human community development.
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Leading resources include the books The Transition Handbook by Rob
Hopkins (2008) and Creating Community Anywhere by Shaffer and Anundsen
(1993), and the websites Transition Network (www.transitionnetwork.org),
Sustainable Communities Network (www.sustainable.org), Business Alliance for
Local Living Economies (www.livingeconomies.org), and Fellowship for
Intentional Community (www.ic.org).
Civic Renewal Movement
Alongside and complementing the American Communities Movement a

large number of initiatives have emerged aiming to transform the civic sector—
those voluntary associations and informal networks through which ordinary
citizens help shape the public decision-making process. The Civic Renewal
Movement works to establish neutral forums for public deliberation on critical
community issues, increased public involvement in the development of regional
community indicators, and more collaborative approaches to local and regional
planning processes. A distinction has typically been made between efforts to
revitalize citizen involvement in public life (the "Civic Renewal Movement") and
efforts to build more personal connections to support greater intimacy and
creativity in community life (the "Communities Movement"). However, with the
increased recognition by the Communities Movement of the need to enhance the
civic sector within communities, and the simultaneous recognition from the civic
sector of the need to develop the underlying relationships between participants in
its processes, this distinction is increasingly becoming artificial. Nevertheless, we
are retaining the division here to highlight those organizations and initiatives that
particularly emphasize and support citizen involvement in the public arena.
One of the more significant recent developments in the Civic Renewal
Movement has been the emergence of state and national networks of "Regional
Stewards," who are leaders committed to the long-term health of their region.
These networks play important roles in addressing complex issues that cut across
multiple political jurisdictions and constituencies.
Leading resources include the book Civic Revolutionaries: Igniting the
Passion for Change in America's Communities by Douglas Henton, John
Melville, and Kimberly Walesh (2004), as well as the websites Civic Practices
Network (www.cpn.org), National Civic League (www.ncl.org), and
www.regionalstewardship.org.
Developing Collective Wisdom as an Earth Community
As a growing consensus of scientists, scholars, and spiritual visionaries

recognize the unprecedented challenges facing the Earth Community, many
innovative global initiatives have been launched with the aim of helping to
catalyze a global wisdom culture. Samples include:
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• Global wisdom councils and networks: The Club of Budapest
(http://www.clubofbudapest.org/wwc.php), Alliance for a New
Humanity (www.anhglobal.org), TakingItGlobal (www.tigweb.org),
Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions (www.cpwr.org)
• Forums and Conferences: State of the World Forum
(www.worldforum.org), Bioneers (www.bioneers.org)
• Toward a Global Ethic: The Earth Charter (www.earthcharter.org),
Charter for Compassion (www.charterforcompassion.org)
• Global Think Tanks: The Club of Rome (www.clubofrome.org),
Dialogue Institute (http://global-dialogue.com)
• Integral Institutes: California Institute of Integral Studies
(www.ciis.edu), John F. Kennedy University (www.rjku.edu),
Integral Institute (www.integralinstitute.org)
Wisdom Systems Mandala
The Wisdom system mandala in Figure 16 maps the personal–collective
wisdom systems terrain from the embodied perspective of a Holo sapien situated
in the center. It roughly corresponds to the integral circle center of the Wisdom
society mandala in Figure 15. (For AQAL experts, this mandala is an embodied
Big Two model: shifting from the AQAL Wisdom Systems Mandala through
Hochachka’s Big Three (I, WE, IT/ITS) into an embodied Holo sapien Big Two
(I/WE, IT/ITS) model). A Left-Hand I/WE hemisphere more readily depicts how
each person participates as both a personal I and a part of a collective WE.
The Wisdom system mandala shows a few examples of the wealth of
wisdom systems of each type, primarily in the United States. The mandala uses
the wisdom system orientation from Table 10 in Chapter 1. Recall that each
system has a home center of gravity, which I have selected based on my
perception of the orientation of the the participants. Note that my perception may
not match yours, so please imagine each system in the orientation that fits yours.
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Figure 16. Wisdom system mandala. Author’s image.
The mandala shows the Holo sapien Rings in which system-types most
directly operate (near or far) and the experiential Range with which I consider
them to be identified (heart-soul caring, heart-mind knowing, and heart-body
living). More examples are given in the Wisdom Systems Survey in Appendix A.
The Wisdom system mandala can serve as a collaboration model by
highlighting wisdom development patterns. Using the mandala’s structure, I
suggest the following principles for wisdom society systems developers.
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1. Build bridges within your system sector. Make alliances between local
and social-scale systems. Grassroots “David” and corporate/civic
“Goliath” pioneers must hold hands to support the gentlest transition to
a wisdom society. Neither system scale can afford to demonize the
other. Remember, organizations do not do things. Only people do.
Reach through organization boundaries to find like-hearted Holo
sapiens with whom you can collaborate. The Great Bear Rainforest
case study in Integral Ecology (Esbjörn-Hargens & Zimmerman, 2009,
pp. 454–476) is a superb example of land stewardship collaboration.
2. Strengthen your hemisphere. Expand your system’s capacity or make
close ties with partners in other sectors in your interior or exterior
hemisphere. If your system operates primarily in the knowing realm,
for instance, find allies in the caring and living realms to engage your
participants’ full-spectrum experience.
3. Balance your sphere. Develop loose alliances or use available tools
from sectors in your complementary hemisphere. If your work focuses
in the interior realm, support its manifestation by creating a “ballast”
place-based balance in the exterior realm. If your work is primarily
exterior, establish “ballast” practices to address the interior dimension
in aspects of your work. A well-balanced example is The Regeneration
Project’s (2010) Interfaith Power and Light campaign, which is
mobilizing a national religious response to climate change while
promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation.
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Case Study: Our Birth Passage Through Climate Change
A primal, social, driving impulse to develop collective wisdom is the
increasingly urgent environmental concern commonly described as “climate
change.” I consider climate change to be a labor pain contraction of our wisdom
society evolutionary birth canal. A related labor pain contraction is peak oil,
which has been a key impetus for the “green” sustainability movement.
At the end of my personal climate change/green living case study in
Chapter Two, I was embarking on the research trail. This socially oriented
research quickly led to personal insights that have been healing for my own peace
of mind and motivating for my lifestyle choices. The personal–collective
dimensions of the wisdom journey are absolutely intertwined!
Climate Change + Sustainability => Resilient Wisdom Society
This section offers my current perspective about climate change and about
sustainability. It then explores how we can navigate our rite of passage transition
to a resilient wisdom society.
What Is Climate Change?
Climate change, sometimes called global warming, is a complicated,
controversial topic. There are many diverse perspectives on the causes, problems,
and solutions of a hotter climate, but there is now overwhelming scientific
consensus that the climate is getting hotter and that human behavior is the primary
cause (Monbiot, 2007, pp. 2–19).
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By climate change response, I mean the social shift that brings human
ecosystem impact within planetary ecosystem boundaries. The framework of
Integral Ecology (as represented by Wilber [2000, 2006], and Esbjörn-Hargens &
Zimmerman [2009]) is used to describe the development of collective wisdom
about complex planetary issues.
What Is Sustainability?
Climate change response can be considered an aspect of the broader
ecosocial goal of sustainability. Sustainability is another catch-all phrase that
contains a multiplicity of meaning, including environmental responsibility,
corporate social responsibility, sustainable entrepreneurship, corporate
citizenship, and sustainable development (Varey, 2004, p. 4). The framework of
Integral Sustainability, a close cousin to Integral Ecology, holds the integral
perspective that every sustainable approach is partially right, addressing a real
component of a real issue (Brown, 2005a, p. 7). The meaning of sustainability is
filtered by each stakeholder’s lens within a range of economic, political,
ecological, and systems worldviews.
The notion of sustainability, then, is a matter of perspective. For example,
in Table 12 William Varey (2004) presents a telling example of the implications
of different perspectives, graphing the wide variation in points of view about
important sustainability timeframes that can matter to someone. This simple
illustration of diverse perspectives only addresses time through the human time
lens (not other species or planetary time scales), and it only addresses the single
factor of time (not the innumerable other sustainability factors such as carbon
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limits, toxic waste, biodiversity, etc.). To glimpse the true complexity of
sustainability, imagine a labyrinthine table incorporating all the perspectives
generated by multiplying this table by each sustainability factor and then by
multiple worldviews.
Table 12
Generational Time Frames for Sustainability
(Holo
Timeframe sapien)
in years Description Example Stage
Now Instant The time needed to become hungry again Red
1 Seasonal The time until the next annual harvest cycle Orange
1-3 Present The term of rule of the present leader Yellow

Leader
3-10 Existing The continuation of the present government Green
Order
10-40 Current The end of the fossil fuel based economy Blue
Paradigm
30- 80 Generational The lifetime of our children’s’ children Indigo
100-300 Future- The emergences in intergenerational equity Violet

Generational
300-1000+ Gaia- Transition to the next planetary epoch Ultraviolet
Lifestage
Note. Table reprinted with permission from Varey (2004), page 26. Stage column
adapted from Spiral Dynamic to Holo sapien color map.
Using Varey’s context, we can now see that we have been working with a
Violet Holo sapien wisdom society perspective: the one hundred and fifty year
view.
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Varey (2004) thankfully rescues us from getting lost in the sustainability
morass by providing a context for shared meaning.
When we seek sustainability we are in fact seeking the “ability to sustain”

something. Knowing what the “thing” to be sustained is, provides the key.
Having a framework to think about and manage the alternatives then
provides us with the much needed missing perspective . . . . Sustainability
may be about your own basic needs, a way of life, control over resources,
an existing social order, a position of economic advantage, community
values, the future of humanity or the future of the global biosphere as a
whole. It may be about all of these things. It can also be about those things
now, or in the future, or both . . . . A sustainability definition is the way to
translate that vision into action—to define the path through the maze.
(p. 6)
By sustainability, I mean the dynamic ongoing process of bringing human
culture and systems into social and environmental health for the benefit of all
beings. This human-scale and social-scale process includes both social
sustainability, as represented by the UN Millenium Development Goals, and
environmental sustainability, as represented by ecofootprint measures. The UN
Millenium Development Goals (MDG) are quantified global targets to eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote
gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality and improve
maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure
environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development
(United Nations Development Programme, n.d.). Note that they reflect the link
between social and environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability is
measured by ecofootprint calculations of a person or community’s environmental
impact based on diet, transportation, energy consumption, and so on.
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A Resilient Wisdom Society
An emerging integral descriptor for a wisdom society is resilience, a
concept that links sustainability and climate change response. The Transition
Handbook by Rob Hopkins (2008) defines a resilient culture as one with the
ability to function indefinitely and to live within its limits, and able to thrive for
having done so (p. 12). In highlighting thriving, resilience includes the positive
impact of healing our interior ecosocial disease as part of the typically exterior
sustainability conversation. Resilience speaks more directly to the healthy
regenerative nature of living systems to absorb shock and adjust while still
continuing to function. Hopkins echoes other systems thinkers’ characterizations
of resilient systems (p. 55): diversity, modularity (local–global networking rather
than mutual dependence and its resulting vulnerability), and tightness of
feedbacks (quick and strong change consequence and response).
Our Transition to a Resilient Wisdom Society
The wisest path before us is the transition to a resilient society. To glimpse
this transition, I draw most upon (and highly recommend reading) the collective
wisdom of Hopkins’ (2008) Transition Handbook, George Monbiot’s (2007)
Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, and John Michael Greer’s (2008)
Long Descent. Each of us has a different view, yet our consensus is that we really
can make it through the rough road ahead.
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The Long Descent (John Greer)
John Greer (2008) predicts that we will find a wide middle ground
between preserving the modern industrial system intact and a rapid descent into
primal chaos (p. 128). He describes a catabolic collapse that more closely
resembles a long descent of rolling down a bumpy slope than falling off a cliff. In
such a descent, it becomes possible to meet each wave of crises as they come,
using resources that are already on hand. The four symptoms of a catabolic
collapse are declining energy availability, economic contraction, collapsing public
health, and political turmoil, all of which humans have survived before (p. 132).
He expects the next few decades to see a great deal of economic volatility and
wrenching change (p. 93) but that human civilization will re-establish a new
equilibrium with a gradually-reduced population within a couple hundred years
(p. 34).
Fair, Practical Ways to Keep the Planet from Burning (George Monbiot)
Both Greer (2008) and George Monbiot (2007) liken our ecosocial denial
to Faustus’ pact with the devil to sell his soul for 24 more years to “live in all
voluptuousness” (p. 2). Monbiot, however, has a somewhat more detailed and
optimistic analysis of middle-ground scenarios to cut carbon emissions without
bringing modern civilization to an end. He acknowledges the value of the lifestyle
freedoms and choices available to many people in developed countries today for
the first time in human history, thanks to the abundant energy from fossil fuels.
Instead of living in fear of hunger, predation, weather, and disease, much of the
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human population is warm, secure, replete, and at peace (p. xi). He believes that it
is politically necessary to discover the means of sustaining this “soft life” while
using the least painful means of achieving a 90% cut in carbon emissions. After
significant analysis of ecosocial systems, he now believes that it can be done
(p. xii). The necessary changes will be painful, requiring significant lifestyle
restrictions for richer countries that he believes can best be achieved through
carbon rationing of fuel and electricity. He says that self-enforced abstinence is
not sustainable. “What is the point of cycling into town when the rest of the world
is thundering past in monster trucks?” (p. xiv). For the changes to be the least
painful and the most effective, they will have to be fairly applied to everyone. He
reminds us how quickly and dramatically the U.S. will and economy transformed
to face World War II. Since we have done it before, we can do it again.
The Transition Movement (Rob Hopkins)
Rob Hopkins’s (2008) Transition Handbook is a prime example of a felt-
experience wisdom system due to its integral organization of an introductory,
broad, storytelling perspective followed by sections for the head, heart, and hands.
Hopkins begins with his embodied perspective nicely balancing the love–fear
dance.
Rebuilding local agriculture and food production, localizing energy

production, rethinking health, rediscovering local building materials in the
context of zero energy building, rethinking how we manage waste, all
build resilience and offer the potential of an extraordinary renaissance—
economic, cultural and spiritual. I am not afraid of a world with less
consumerism, less “stuff” and no economic growth. Indeed, I am far more
frightened of the opposite. (p. 15)
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In the head section, Hopkins (2008) stresses the need to consider peak oil
and climate change as two intertwined problems resulting from our social
addiction to fossil fuel (p. 17). Both problems “categorically state that fossil fuels
have no role to play in our future, and the sooner we can stop using them the
better” (p. 37). Will we get the message, or will we hang on to fossil fuels until
the bitter end? He quotes George Monbiot’s warning
of the danger of filling the gap that emerges as liquid fuels decline in
availability with other fuels each far worse in terms of their climate
impacts than oil was—the turning of coal into liquid fuels, tar sands,
biodiesel and so on. If we don’t fill the gap with conservation and . . .
relocalisation . . . and if we refuse collectively to acknowledge the reality
of energy descent (the downward trend in the net energy underpinning
society), we will rapidly drive ourselves beyond the climatic tipping points
and will unleash climate hell. (Monbiot, 2007, as cited in Hopkins, 2008,
p. 37)
Hopkins also warns that “unless we plan for peak oil, the recession caused by
runaway oil prices will blow responses to climate change out of the water. An
economic recession—or worse, collapse—will make keeping the lights on our
priority” (p. 39).
In the heart section, Hopkins (2008) introduces the phrase “post-petroleum
stress disorder” (p. 80) to characterize the psychological shock and stress that
people go through in what he calls their “End of Suburbia” moment (which I call
the Waking Up state of the collective wisdom journey). Symptoms can include
nausea, bewilderment, an irrational grasping at unfeasible solutions, fear, denial,
and exuberant optimism or nihilism (pp. 80–83). He presents DiClemente’s
Stages of Change model, a useful state model similar to the wisdom journey, and
the FRAMES model to shed insight on how to support people along their
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resilience trail (pp. 84–93). Hopkins speaks to the need for a positive vision and
shares several inspiring visions he has gathered (pp. 94–130).
In the hands section, Hopkins (2008) offers transition wisdom systems for
local resilience-building (pp. 134–212). He describes tested principles, practices,
and case studies from England’s Transition Town movement that is now virally
spreading around the world.
The Resilient Holo sapien
Climate change response and sustainability impulses dance together
throughout the Holo sapien, creating both attraction and resistance forces of
resilience. Sustainability can be an attractive force (for those motivated by care,
justice, or economics) or a resistance force (for those motivated by fear of peak
oil or global collapse). Climate change has been primarily a resistance force of
fear. Perceiving sustainability and climate change as evolutionary growth
catalysts empowers us to rebalance the power struggle toward a balanced position
of maximum potential energy. For the purposes of this discussion, I consider
sustainability and climate concerns mirror images of each other. I imagine the
desire for sustainability as a centrifugal expansion force from the inside out of the
Holo sapien, and the threat of climate change as a centripetal constriction force
from the outside in as seen in Figure 17.
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Figure 17. The resilient Holo sapien. Author’s image.
Responses to climate change tend to be most discussed in social-scale
sectors centered in the far Holo sapien rings (Cities through Earth). Climate
change occurs more indirectly outside the realm of typical human awareness over
longer periods of time, so it is more difficult for an individual to experience their
personal relationship to climate change than to sustainability (Riedy, 2005,
p. 163). Sustainability has tended to be most discussed in human-scale lifestyle
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practices centered in the near (Family through Local) rings. The concept of
sustainability can be used in the far rings as well, but it seems to me to be more
effectively applied in human-scale systems. Hopkins’s (2008) Transition Town
experience shows that people in developed countries perceive themselves to be
more affected by oil prices than by climate change. He quotes peak oil educator
Richard Heinberg’s social crisis analogy to a car: “. . . Climate change is an end-
of-tailpipe problem, while peak oil is an into-fuel-tank problem” (p. 39). Hopkins
finds that peak oil, if constructively presented, can do more to engage and involve
people and communities than climate change.
Sustainability practices and climate change response strategies are
mutually supported by and constrained by each other. For example, people can
only buy the housing materials, cars, appliances, and so on produced by the
business sector. They must comply with existing building codes and tax
regulations. If a sustainable product costs ten times as much or is not legal or
available, it is not a viable option. Similarly, climate change response strategies
are influenced by personal sustainability preferences. Popular demand and
entrepreneurial ingenuity influence what business produces. People vote for and
populate the government that enacts the codes and regulations. Inside-out
sustainability and outside-in climate change response birth each other.
The road to resilience requires extensive human-scale and social-scale
transformation. Human-scale change is not enough. Our social systems must
become life-sustaining. The majority of waste production and water consumption
occurs in industry and agricultural systems. The residential building and
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infrastructure eco-footprint is a small fraction of the eco-footprint for coal plants,
nuclear reactors, and commercial and civic buildings and infrastructures. Let us
examine resilience through personal (inside-out) and collective (outside-in)
lenses.
The Resilient Holo sapien From the Inside Out
How does an individual view and participate in our ecosocial challenge?
What is the dance of interior being and exterior doing that leads to resilience? For
collective wisdom systems to guide us as individuals, see the near ring resources
in Appendix A, especially the Sustainable World Sourcebook and the Cool
America Campaign.
Resilient personal being. The Resilient Holo sapien Identity Map (Table
13) illustrates our intricate ecosocial identity, correlating our Holo sapien ring
identities with Integral Ecology Eco-Self/Eco-Crisis identities. The self-identity
associated with each Holo sapien ring seems to fit the worldview reflected by that
stage’s Eco-Self personal motto and the Eco-Crisis social stage commentary.
Each stage reflects a valid yet distinct relationship with the natural ecology.
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Table 13
Resilient Holo sapien Identity Map
Holo sapien ring Eco-self Eco-crisis
Name Systems patterns & examples Stages Ethos and “motto”a Perspective Famous quotesb
Me Lifestyles/ Eco- Survival Survival …gotta save myself...

(will to live) practices Survival “I don’t want to die.” –Leslie Meehan
LOHAS, prayer,
voluntary
simplicity
Family/Friends Shared lifestyles Eco- Romantic Harmony …save the children to save the
(vitality) Recycling, Guardian “I love whales and imagination to save the planet
dialogue, don’t want them to all –James Hillman
intentional die.”
community
Groups/Circles Co-operative Eco- Heroic Power Are you tired of namby-pamby
(cognitive will) practices Warrior “I need to save the environmental groups?.... Our front-
Carpools, coops, whales.” line, direct action approach…. gets
councils results. –Earth First!
Local Co-operative Eco- Stewardship Management Faced with widespread destruction of

Communities & programs Manager “Whales are important the environment…. a new ecological
Organizations Local green to our community’s awareness is beginning to
(relationship) business, livelihood and must be emerge….The ecological crisis is a
farmers markets protected.” moral issue. –Pope John Paul II
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Cities/ Co-efficient Eco- Rational Resources Besides exhausting the unrenewable
Corporations programs Strategist “Whales are valued by and impairing the renewable
(collaboration) Sustainable people for many resources, we have left unused vast
cities, laws and reasons so we should resources which are capable of adding
regulations work together to save enormously to the wealth of the
them.” country…. –Gifford Pinchot
Nations/ Co-located programs Eco- Equality Biodiversity The richness and complexity of the
Networks Sustainable/clim Radical (same as strategist) natural world is declining at an ever-
(insight) ate networks, accelerating rate. –Yvonne Baskin
institutes,
alliances,
initiatives
Earth Spheres Global forums Eco-Holist Holistic Global ….There is no single vital problem,
(communion) Global “Whales have rich lives Systems but many vital problems, and it is this
governance, and have a right to complex intersolidarity of problems,
treaties, carry on, though we antagonisms, crises, uncontrolled
ecosphere must also honor human processes and the general crisis of the
stewardship, needs.” planet that constitutes the number one
geo-tools vital problem. –Edgar Morin
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Universe Universal Eco- Inclusive Perspectives Gaia’s main problems are not
(holoconscious experiences Integralist (same as holist) industrialization, ozone depletion,
ness) Archetypal overpopulation, or resource
astrology, depletion…. (it) is the lack of mutual
deva gardening understanding and mutual
agreement…. about how to
proceed…. –Ken Wilber
Great Mystery Beyond space-time Ego-Sage Unity No Crisis We are losing a nice local version of
(nondual bliss) Subtle activism, “Whales are an reality we’ve been basking in for
process ecology amazing expression of several million years…. but we won’t
Eros. I hope they are miss (it) for long….The….wildness
around for a long time.” that lies at the heart of co-arising
emptiness-luminosity will not
disappoint us….–John McClellan
Note. Author’s table. Holo sapien ring names from Chapter 2; Eco-Self stages, ethos, and mottos from Integral Ecology (Esbjörn-
Hargens & Zimmerman, 2009, pp. 236–238); Eco-Crisis perspectives and quotes from Integral Ecology (Esbjörn-Hargens &
Zimmerman, 2009, pp. 301–304).
a Quoted mottos as cited by Esbjörn-Hargens & Zimmerman (2009), pp. 236–238.
b All quotes as cited by Esbjörn-Hargens & Zimmerman (2009), pp. 301–304.
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The Integral Ecology authors portray the range of eco-self worldviews as
centers of gravity within different people. They describe an eco-self tour practice
of imagining yourself walking in the shoes of those with other viewpoints
(Esbjörn-Hargens & Zimmerman, 2009, p. 325). I find that I can enjoy a complete
eco-self tour within my own shoes, suggesting that the full range of eco-self
identity is available within each of us. I can personally relate to every single one
of the eco-self descriptions. I can also embrace the Integral Ecology motto that the
environment is getting better, worse, and is somehow already perfect (Esbjörn-
Hargens & Zimmerman, 2009, p. 307). As shown by the oscillating axis in Figure
17, I believe that the human-scale issues and systems are getting better, the social-
scale issues and systems are getting worse, and to some degree I trust that the
climate crisis is an inevitable and necessary process in our planetary evolution.
Validating the diverse views within myself helps me to move through the Waking
Up paralysis of confusion, fear, and denial. Embracing the paradox helps me to
hold contradictory beliefs and decisions more lightly, so that I can honestly agree
with and act upon opposing viewpoints without feeling quite so crazy.
I suggest that this eco-self diversity map might also be useful in
illustrating paradoxes in our social identities. If the phrase “homeless people” is
substituted for “whales,” I recognize my own internal conflicts in feelings and
behaviors regarding taking care of my human brothers and sisters whenever the
cost to me is high. Monbiot (2007) speaks of this conflict in personal–collective
priorities throughout his book. He considers social rationing a necessary
complement to self-regulation because restricting our own freedoms severely
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enough will be too difficult to maintain. “In fighting climate change, we must
fight not only the oil companies, the airlines and governments of the rich world;
we must also fight ourselves” (p. 212).
As we have seen, working through our interior conflicts expands the
capacity and creativity of our exterior behavior. As I continue to face my own
inner climate paradox, I notice that I am more willing to reduce my ecofootprint
in ever more creative ways, with much less angst. The transition to resilient
behavior is happening naturally in the flow of my intention.
Resilient personal doing. Sustainable lifestyle transitions by large numbers
of people will make a tremendous difference for our children’s future. Most of us
recognize the impact of our transportation, recycling, and energy use. Our eating
habits, however, may matter even more. The significance of eating locally grown,
more natural foods is becoming increasingly well known. What is perhaps less
well known is the impact of eating meat. At least 20% (Steinfeld, Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, & Livestock, Environment and
Development Initiative, 2006) and as much as 50% (Goodland & Anhang, 2009)
of greenhouse gas emissions are directly and indirectly due to the livestock
supporting our meat-eating habits. It may be that a vegetarian driving an SUV is
more eco-friendly than a carnivore riding a bike. Flying is also a very carbon-
expensive habit: the only ecosocial sector for which Monbiot (2007) failed to find
a viable solution. His chapter on “Love Miles” describes the dilemma faced by
those of us who hurt the earth by flying to visit the people and places we love.
Greer (2008) speaks directly to my fear that those of us with beautiful rural
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lifestyles just may have to move (p. 137). And so, I have found myself naturally
beginning to make the harder choices with a lighter heart: eating much less meat,
flying fewer love miles, and reconsidering where I live.
The Resilient Holo Sapien From the Outside In
How does society as a whole view and participate in its journey to
resilience? What is the collective wisdom of our ecosocial rebirth? My research
on climate change and sustainability is summarized here, based upon the
resources in Appendix B.
Global climate change and sustainability debates have been largely in the
exterior realm: scientific analyses of statistics and dire forecasts. While the
situation looks grim, the technology already exists to solve carbon emissions. The
will does not. Ethics is not yet even a serious part of the conversation. At the core
of climate negotiations, the developed countries and developing countries are
pointing fingers of blame and distrust at each other, wanting the other to pay costs
or to promise compliance before they will act. This pessimistic, oppositional
stance creates barriers to participation by fostering fear, guilt, and despair, which
as we have seen can be useful catalysts but cannot sustain us on the wisdom path.
The global civic policy and funding process is moving too slowly to
respond to climate change in time. We need major top-down corporate and
philanthropist funding, strong grassroots lifestyle-shift movements, intense civic-
policy grassroots pressure, and a serious focus on interiority healing. Scientific
analyses and technical solutions can only take us so far. People’s willingness and
dedication to adapt their lifestyles and social systems are the more crucial factors.
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To engage human creativity and commitment, we need to involve the interior
domain of caring and relationship. The conversation must “liven up” with
incentive carrots of abundance and inspiration along with the daunting sticks of
dire consequence.
Resilient collective culture. Climate change is a crucible for global
reconciliation. It can be a catalyst for healing the relationship conflicts between
developed and developing countries by “preserving the right of all people to reach
a dignified level of sustainable human development free of the privations of
poverty” (Earth Island Institute, 2009). The United Nation’s official position in
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (2007) is that developed
countries are responsible for and should pay climate response costs, which
basically tells the developed countries to not only accept blame but to pay
reparations. Reconciliation efforts on the national level, let alone reparations,
have proven to be very challenging, requiring visionary leadership and grassroots
support. This arena seems a high priority for reflective practice in our
communities. The UN Millenium Development Goals, the Earth Charter, and the
emerging Charter for Compassion are other opportunities for forums to address
global social justice.
Resilient collective systems. There is no single magic answer for climate
change. Mitigation (greenhouse gas reduction) must occur in every social sector:
building, agriculture and land use, energy, and so on. Using Redefining Progress’s
(n.d.) formula (available at www.rprogress.org), a sustainable ecofootprint is 43
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global acres per person. The ecofootprint of the United States alone would require
more than six earths.
Appendix B lists my current key sources on potential climate response
strategies. With new and updated sources being published continually, I do not
attempt to cite specific solutions or statistics here. Consistent themes include the
need for carbon sequestration and capture (stripping carbon from power plant
emissions and trapping it underground) to carbon-neutralize the impact of the
inevitable use of coal for the foreseeable future, the overhaul of agricultural
practices and restoration of soil vitality, a whole new distributed energy
infrastructure, and stringent social regulations. Resilience will take all of us
cocreating our wisest and bravest communities.
Transition Strategy: Wisdom Network Initiatives
How do we shift the climate change debate to a flexible, open, living
system? I propose that we look at the intersection of concerns for sustainability
and climate change in the form of what I call wisdom network initiatives at the
distributed community level as the most effective climate change social
intervention point. My hypothesis is based on sociocultural research and systems
theory. Sociocultural research points to the transformative effectiveness of
cultural networks.
Jaeger et al. (1993) developed a socio-cultural model that took into

account exposure to cultural rules favouring climate-relevant
environmental action, involvement in social networks emphasizing
problems like climate change and interest in political affairs. They found
that this model was a “dramatically better” predictor of climate-relevant
action than the knowledge-focused and socio-demographic models
(Jaeger et al. 1993, p. 206). (Riedy, 2005, p. 162)
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Systems-centered theory uses the concept of a core system, a three-level
variable window within hierarchical human systems that shifts depending on the
goal of the change intervention. The middle system within the three-level core is
the most efficient point of change because it has to cross only one boundary to
influence the levels above and below it (Gantt & Agazerian, 2004, p. 151). For
climate change, our goal is to change social-scale behavior. Using the Holo sapien
system model, the three-tier core system set would be the planet, distributed
communities, and cities. The distributed community is the middle system,
implying it would be the climate change fulcrum. For sustainability, our goal is to
change human-scale behavior, whose middle system is the group (in the family,
group, and local community set). Building distributed networks supports and
aggregates the power of grassroots groups. Therefore, hybrid distributed
communities of both human-scale grassroots groups and social-scale
organizations might be the best transition catalysts for the wisdom society birth
process.
Wisdom Network Initiative Principles
A wisdom network initiative cultivates an active presence in both the
interior and exterior realms. For instance, the active alliance partner Green for All
demonstrates interior awareness in their core principles, a diverse staff that
reflects their green economy community, and a personal storytelling focus that
helps bring social-scale change down to human-scale care and concern. On the
exterior side, they use a “Four Pillar” approach to work at the top-down federal
policy and coalition level, the bottom up local initiative level, the inside-out
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personal and community level, and the corporate partnership level (Green for All,
2008). The interior alliance network Gaiafield Project (www.gaiafield.net)
focuses the intentions of its reflective subtle activism practice on exterior world
events and situations (GaiaField, n.d.).
A wisdom network initiative also cultivates an active presence across the
three major organizational sectors: civic, social, and corporate. Rather than
strategic climate change response being seen as a civic responsibility that drives
corporate and social cooperation, I propose that we directly harness and synergize
the power of each sector’s strengths. For instance, the civic sector is skilled at
participatory decision-making. The religious and education social sectors are
uniquely positioned to influence people’s behavior by virtue of their historical
role in developing personal ethics and lifestyle traditions ranging from
childrearing to funeral practices. In today’s world, corporations and foundations
have much of the financial and responsive organizational capacity to mobilize
quickly and effectively.
The UN’s Millenium Development Goal (MDG) program is an excellent
example of a cross-sector wisdom initiative. The UN is to be commended for
cocreating a meaningful global vision, setting a tangible, practical intention, and
getting to work to make it happen. While the goals were sufficiently ambitious
and the funding commitments insufficiently met such that the vision will likely
not be achieved on schedule, I contend that the program has motivated and
accomplished more progress along the resilience journey than would have been
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achieved without it. It has inspired and focused the global will toward achieving
wisdom society objectives that practically anyone could support.
I suggest that climate change response requires a similarly coherent,
cooperative social and corporate agenda. I am far from being a climate expert,
and I know far too little of the extensive activities of the UN and its social and
corporate partners, so much of what I suggest may already be happening. Whether
they are validation of current projects or inspiration for future ones, I offer these
themes of social-scale collaboration:
1. Link the MDG funding and strategies with climate change mitigation
and adaptation funding and strategies. Climate change is more likely to
severely impact developing countries, at least initially, due to their
higher vulnerability to weather, food, and water issues and to their
lower capacity to fund adaptation to such impacts as higher sea levels
or lower water supply. Thus, climate change affects the MDG, and
vice versa. Addressing these interdependent concerns together could
lead to greater progress for both. This integral perspective of
immediate human development goals with strategic climate change
response goals could be described as MDG/CC or what I call Human
Resilience Goals (HRG).
2. If long-term planning stalls, shift to short-term results. Set fast,
believable program goals: for example, a four-year initiative to reduce
ecofootprint by 40%. This strategy provides the time to develop
relationships, capacity, trust, and confidence to tackle the next steps.
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3. Create an inspiring high-profile funding network across sectors that
allows people and organizations to support the HRG their way.
Provide a global mechanism to be seventh-generation heroes. One
sample scenario is an “Earth Charter Trustee Fund” that could fund the
MDG and the climate change mitigation and adaptation costs for
developing countries based on the eco-equity formula. Contributions
of 1% of income from participating people and organizations could be
specified for approved projects, leveraging freedom of choice within a
coherent global framework.
IMAGINE…
I envision wisdom network initiatives that create a nexus between civic,
business, and grassroots social sectors to target a resilient common enterprise. The
enterprise scope should be broad enough to span all the Holo sapien rings but
focused enough on a tangible outcome, such as a reduction in ecofootprint size, to
motivate and justify participation.
As I write, I am sensing glimmering visions of goal-oriented initiatives
emerging from alliances bridging the wisdom spectrum across such networks as:
• (I: near) grassroots transformative learning networks e.g.,
awakeningthedreamer.net
• (I/WE: near/far) hybrid engaged spirituality networks e.g.,
gaiafield.net
• (I/WE: far) organization integral process facilitator networks e.g.,
solsustainability.org
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• (IT: near) grassroots sustainability social networks e.g., care2.com
• (IT: near) grassroots cooperative social networks e.g., craigslist.com
• (IT/ITS: near) grassroots climate change advocacy networks e.g.,
climateproject.org
• (IT/ITS: near) grassroots sustainability place-based networks e.g.,
livingeconomies.net
• (ITS: far) organization sustainability place-based networks e.g.,
sustainable.org
• (IT/ITS: near/far) hybrid sustainability/climate change networks e.g.,
350.org
Imagine the magnified collective healing and transformative powers of wisdom
network initiatives. Just imagine…
Morphnets
Wisdom network initiatives that incorporate systems from all of the
wisdom domains are specially positioned to act as wisdom society transformation
catalysts. I call these special initiatives morphnets, for “transformation networks,”
based on my belief in their transformative potential. My musings about possible
alliances are in Chapter 5.
Coalescing Reflections on Developing Collective Wisdom
The following reflections highlight metapatterns of collective wisdom
development.
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Birthing a Wisdom Society Needs Every Head, Heart, and Hand
Navigating our passage through the labor pains of climate change and
peak oil requires each of us to be the Hercules and Hera of our age of the Great
Turning. Joanna Macy (Macy & Brown, 1998) defines the Great Turning as the
process of shifting from the current Industrial Growth Society through the Great
UnRavelling to a Life Sustaining Society (p. 17). She describes three main types
of activism as simultaneously necessary for its success:
1. “Holding actions” in defense of life on Earth: the actions to slow the
damage to Earth and its beings. Examples include direct action,
environmental protection legislation and lobbying, and providing for
the poor and homeless.
2. Creating “Gaian” life-sustaining ecosocial structures: analysis of
structural causes and creation of structural alternatives such as study
groups, integral economic indices, green living, nonviolent
communication, and the Internet.
3. Transforming our cognitive and spiritual perception of reality: a
fundamental shift in worldview and values through systems theory,
integral spirituality and learning, simple living, and holistic art.
These forms of activism correlate to what I call wisdom system spin: the
orientation of the wisdom system in the process-resilience domain.
The first form of “Holding actions” preserves the best of the past, acting as
a resistance force to stem the tide of ecosocial destruction. Holding actions were
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the earliest, most visible form of wisdom-society healing, garnering the broadest
public participation.
The second form of Gaian life-sustaining structure development refers to
what Barrett Brown (2005a, 2005b) would call translation activism: those
activities which people can relate to from within their current worldview. This
second wave has become more visible in the past few years as an astounding
multitude of working, sustainable, ecosocial systems have entered mainstream
consciousness. Gaian life-sustaining structures have largely been driven by the
grassroots and community sustainability movement and are rapidly becoming a
more active concern of the city through global far-field rings.
The third form consists of transformation in our perception of reality: the
multiyear process that Brown (2005a, 2005b) concurs is necessary but not
sufficient for wisdom society development. The third wave has historically been
driven by the personal-growth process supported by faith, therapy, and education
communities: a phenomenon of the interior I realm. Wisdom society architects
agree that this process must expand to become a collective phenomenon of the
interior WE realm. Collective wisdom must become as valued, sought, and
socially acceptable as personal wisdom. Collective therapy must become as
valued, sought, and socially acceptable as personal therapy. Any remaining taboos
of exploring the interior in the public realm must be broken.
Birthing a resilient wisdom society requires this full spectrum of activism
from our full collective society. Collective wisdom requires an emergent shift in
learning to think together as participants in a personal–collective holoconscious
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living system. Macy (1994) calls this shift in decision-making from a personal to
a personal-collective level of self-interest the holonic shift. She believes that
learning to think together in holoconscious rather than competitive ways is crucial
to human survival. “Present modes of collective decision-making, like the ballot-
box or consensus circles, are simply too corruptible and too slow for the swift,
responsive self-guidance that we as societies need now” (Macy, 1994). She
reminds those who might fear fascism that self-organizing social systems fail
without diversity and open communication. “The holonic shift does not sacrifice,
but instead requires, the uniqueness of each part, the distinctiveness of its
functioning and its perspective” (Macy, 1994).
Recommendations for the Collective Journey
At the human-scale, increase the resilience of our communities. Use
wisdom systems tools, especially group process, to expand the wisdom skills of
our families, organizations, communities, and networks. As a wisdom leader,
nurture and support younger Holo sapiens. Collaborate by reaching out to allies
within your domain and hemisphere on the Wisdom Systems Mandala.
At the social-scale, catalyze wisdom system development. Support
wisdom society pioneers who are often outside the mainstream infrastructure:
training, funding, and so on. Create wisdom network initiatives, especially
morphnets. Link climate change with UN MDG funding and strategies.
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Personal Reflections on the Wisdom Society Within Us
As I spiral along, I am accepting that I simply cannot foresee how best to
navigate the wisdom society path ahead. I surrender to sitting in the fire of climate
change, peak oil, and the green revolution. I am finding a steady courage, trusting
and committing to the evolutionary forces of climate change and the quest for
sustainability that will help us through this wisdom society birth with grace,
wisdom, compassion, and hard work.
I seek the capacity to more authentically and accurately think collectively
while alone as an individual. The more we can personally attune to collective
consciousness, the more we can discern the “sweet spot” of the best outcome for
the highest good of the one and of the many. I explore the subtle wisdom journey
of personal attunement to collective consciousness in the next chapter.
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CHAPTER 4: DEVELOPING SUBTLE WISDOM
Opening Reflections
to the many beloved companions along my subtle wisdom journey
Jesus, Michael, Kwan Yin, Sophia, Dalai Lama, Gandhi
my subtle teachers and friends in counseling, intuition training,

the cottage circle, and the Gaiafield circle
inspirational authors and subtle wisdom pioneers, especially

those in integral spirituality, education, and medicine
Figure 18. Whale mandala (2010) by Tom Pipinou. Reprinted with permission.
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Centering Poetry
The day will come when,

After harnessing the winds, the tides, and gravitation,
We shall harness for God the energies of love.
And on that day,
For the second time in the history of the world,
Man will have discovered fire. –Teilhard de Chardin (1934)
Discovering the fire in just several of thousands of subtle wisdom

communities today, let us take a moment to attune with the following excerpts…
“Planetary healing through self-realization and spiritually motivated

activism…. There is an inherent perfection and sacred worth in the
universe, all of creation, and every individual.”
–Association for Global New Thought (n.d.; located at www.agnt.org)
“Creating social and environmental harmony through science-based

applications of collective consciousness…. We see clearly a world of
harmony and peace amongst nations, races, genders, ideologies and
religions.”
–CommonPassion (2007; located at www.commonpassion.org)
“Uniting our strengths to build a culture of peace for future generations.

The path to peace begins here.”
–Culture of Peace Initiative (2010; located at www.cultureofpeace.org)
“Linking subtle activists for collective healing and social change….

We the people, the ancestors of our great-great-grandchildren, call forth
our deepest wisdom and our highest compassion, on behalf of the entire
earth community, and the next seven generations.”
–Gaiafield (n.d.; located at www.gaiafield.net)
“Hearing each other, healing the earth”

–Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions
(2007; located at www.cpwr.org)
“Spreading the Universal Peace message and prayer far and wide to
embrace the lands and people of this Earth… May Peace Prevail on Earth”
–World Peace Prayer Society (2009; located at www.worldpeace.org)
“Our practice is peace embodiment; our inspiration is the Sacred Feminine

Our purpose is service to Divinity, Humanity, Earth.”
–Vessels of Peace (2003; located at www.vesselsofpeace.com)
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Introduction: Dancing with Holo sapien Systems Theory
Chapter 4 focusses on the subtle wisdom of the Holo sapien. I define
subtle wisdom as intuitive awareness and resulting cognitive insights arising from
attunement to holoconsciousness. Subtle wisdom is accessed through
contemplative practices such as meditation and prayer, study, journaling, and
energy healing work. It is studied by disciplines that explore dimensions beyond
Newtonian space and time including spiritual mysticism, quantum physics,
consciousness theory, and subtle healing. My subtle wisdom lens has been shaped
through traditions that span the spiritual, consciousness, and indigenous spectrum:
interfaith kriya yoga and Christianity, graduate engineering and philosophy
studies, extensive energy intuition training, and a regular subtle-activism practice
of shamanic meditation.
Subtle wisdom systems have already been described in the last two
chapters as part of both personal and collective wisdom. I devote this chapter
specifically to subtle wisdom because I consider subtle wisdom skills essential for
a healthy future. I believe subtle awareness of our interconnectedness is the
fastest and most enjoyable path to transformation since it is how we most directly
experience our wholeness. I also believe that stronger coherence in the Holo
sapien subtle field is a crucial factor in healing social trauma and reducing
violence during our impending, long energy descent as described in Chapter 3.
I now propose a new Unergy (Universal Energy) Theory and a Holo
sapien Unergy Model to provide a theoretical framework for models of a Holo
sapien as a live human antenna. The Unergy model is then used to develop a
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subtle healing theory. A discussion of patterns in subtle healing principles,
practices, and systems is concluded with subtle wisdom case studies.
Unergy Theory
Unergy is my term for the concept of “Universal Energy,” a synthesis of
ideas from contemporary physics and certain strands of metaphysical speculation.
Unergy is defined as the fundamental essence from which everything in the
universe is made: rocks, people, ideas, auras, and so on. In keeping with the
physical, subtle, and Great Mystery description of reality, unergy is the essence of
both the subtle and Great Mystery realms, supporting diverse interpretations of
the distinction between the two domains. As with the personal–collective shift in
perception, unergy can be viewed from both microphase and macrophase
perspectives. For instance, a proton is a form of unergy that can be considered
both a localized mass and an unbounded systemic interaction. According to
Swimme and Berry (1992),
To speak of a proton as a separate particle restricted to a certain patch of

space-time is to speak of its microphase mode of being, a valid though
limited understanding. The macrophase mode or presence of the proton
includes all particles with which it is correlated, which includes those
particles it has interacted with at any time in the past. Since the universe
bloomed from a seed point, this means that a full understanding of a
proton requires a full understanding of the universe. (p. 28)
This dual microphase–macrophase perspective supports the notion that an
individual unergetic entity has its own integrity while also recognizing the
broader social view (similar to the inside-out and outside-in views of a Holo
sapien) and that the unergetic field interactions inherently create interrelationships
among literally everything that exists over time.

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Unergy Macrophase Principles
Unergy theory proposes principles that describe the behavior of the
universe at both microphase and macrophase levels of interaction. Unergy
theory’s macrophase principles of unergy essence, fields, structures, and
dimensions are discussed below. Its microphase principles of resonance,
efficiency, entropy dynamics, and consciousness are not addressed in this work.
Unergy Essence: Everything Is Made of a Wave-Particle Called Unergy
The essence of the universe is a mysterious energy dynamic of a particle-
form with a wave-form oscillation. Every unergy entity behaves strangely like
both a wave and a particle. In describing long-term experiments with beams of
electrons, physicist Nick Herbert (1985) says that an electron when it is not being
measured can later be shown to have traveled as though it were a wave. When it is
being measured, the electron always looks like a particle (p. 66).
Whenever a measurement occurs anywhere in the world, something like a

ghostly whale (immense, insubstantial, permeable, and wavelike) turns
into something like a real wasp (minute, substantial, and particle-like.
(p 114)
This paradoxical behavior has led to several major theories about the exact
nature of unergy, each with its own following of reputable physicists who have
focused on different aspects of the quantum dilemma.
One leading contender is superstring theory. Physicist Brian Greene
(1999) describes strings as follows:
Like an infinitely thin rubber band, each particle contains a vibrating,

oscillating, dancing filament that physicists . . . have named a “string.”
The particles that we see represent the different ways that a string can
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vibrate. “The electron is a string vibrating one way, the up-quark is a
string vibrating another way, and so on. Far from being a collection of
chaotic experimental facts, particle properties in string theory are the
manifestation of one and the same physical feature: the resonant patterns
of vibration . . . of fundamental loops of string. The same idea applies to
forces of nature as well. We will see that force particles are also
associated with particular patterns of string vibration and hence
everything, matter and all forces, is unified under the same rubric of
microscopic oscillations—the “notes” that strings can play. (p. 15)
Another leading theory is David Bohm’s model where quantumstuff is not
conceived as a single substance combining both wave and particle aspects but as
two separate entities: a real pilot wave plus a real particle. Changes to the pilot
wave in one location are able to immediately push a particle at a distant location
(Greene, 2004, p. 206). The exchange of information between the wave and the
particle, in one view, or the fluctuation of energy during emission and
reabsorption of virtual “string intensity” particles, from another perspective, was
defined by Einstein to be the Zero Point Field, the energy present at the
temperature of absolute zero. The Zero Point Field is carried in what has long
been thought of as a quantum vacuum but is instead more like a cauldron
brimming with tremendous energy. Physicist Richard Feynman made the analogy
that the energy in a single cubic meter of space is enough to boil all the oceans of
the world (as cited in McTaggart, 2002, p. 23). I consider Bohm’s particle-wave
theory to be the macrophase view of systemic patterns of concentration emerging
within a field that can alternatively be described from a microphase view as
individual superstring oscillations coalescing as field concentrations. My
personal belief is that the core reality of unergy is the magic of creativity. We
might as well consider unergy to be “mystery dust” with the innate desire to
create that comes from a realm that we cannot know.

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Unergy Fields: Everything Is Connected by Unergy Fields
The cosmic sea of unergy can be described as a field. Webster’s
Dictionary (Woolfe, 1974) defines a field as a region of influence between two
points where one point is affected by activity at another point by some sort of
force (p. 426). As with energy, the language of fields and forces varies
tremendously. I prefer energy psychologist Fred Gallo’s (2002) distinction
between field regions, energy forces and information structures:
Elemental particles . . . are actually energy held together in, and by, forces
and fields. The four known forces—gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear
force, and strong force—are distinguishable from matter and energy in
that they function as blueprints. The structure of the energy can be referred
to as information—literally in formation—which comes about as a result
of the interaction of energy and fields, “packing” energy into specific
shapes and arrangements (matter) . . . . Envision matter as a still pond,
energy as the force that disturbs the stillness by tossing in pebbles and
rocks, and information as the ripples created by the impact. (p. xxv)
The unergy field principle addresses the phenomenon of instantaneous
connectivity throughout the unergy field “pond.” Physicist John Bell
mathematically theorized and experimenters Clauser, Aspect, and others later
proved that objects could behave as if they are connected even if they are on
opposite sides of the galaxy (Greene, 2004, p. 113). This analytical finding that
relationship can be impervious to distance has been the most astounding and
profound revelation to me in my life as a scientist. Experiments typically involve
transmitting electrons that are initially “entangled” (connected by coming from
the same source or by intersecting at some point) in opposite directions and
discovering that no matter how far apart they get, one of their dynamic attributes
(such as spin) consistently shifts to match that of its partner in perfect
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synchronicity: with no time delay to allow for any communication. Brian Greene
(2004) gives a concrete example of the behavior of a photon (light particle):
If you are wearing a pair of sunglasses, quantum mechanics shows that

there is a 50-50 chance that a particular photon—like one reflected toward
you from the surface of a lake or from an asphalt roadway—will make it
through your glare-reducing polarized lenses: when the photon hits the
glass, it randomly “chooses” between reflecting back and passing through.
The astounding thing is that such a photon can have a partner photon that
has sped miles away in the opposite direction and yet, when confronted
with the same 50-50 probability of passing through another polarized
sunglass lens, will somehow do whatever the initial photon does. Even
though each outcome is determined randomly and even though the
photons are far apart in space, if one photon pass through, so will the
other. (p. 83)
The extrapolation of these quantum results to everyday classical reality is
controversial, but the implication is generally agreed to be that reality is nonlocal.
For more in-depth discussion, I recommend Greene (2004, pp. 104–123), Herbert
(1985, pp. 211–246), and Radin (2006, pp. 225–239).
What connects these far-flung particles? One theory is that the photons are
connected through “tachyonic” signals that are faster than the speed of light.
Physicist Bill Tiller (e.g., 1997) describes the physical space-time universe as the
realm that exists at velocities less than light speed. His work proposes that there
is a world of negative space-time with particles that move faster than light
Mindell (2000) describes the interaction as the “quantum flirt” phenomenon of
entangled photons that is a subliminal process of waves communicating forward
and backward in time (p. 215).
In contrast, Bohm’s theory of the implicate order holds that no photon
communication is required because everything everywhere is already connected.
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For Bohm, quantum events—like the relationship of the paired photons—are
interconnected from the beginning.
Rather than saying, “Let’s put the noodles and the peas in the water, cook
it, and get soup,” Bohm postulated that the great soup in which all things
are mixed is the crucial reality, and this unfolds itself, so to speak, into
individual noodles, peas, electrons, and people. (as cited by Mindell, 2000,
p. 240)
Herbert (1985) echoes this participatory view that any photon that has interacted
within another in the past has left some of its phase in the other’s care, affecting
them both forever (p. 223).
Does communication between areas within this unergetic field happen at
speeds faster than the speed of light, or does a change in one part of the
interwoven field “fabric” automatically register in another? As with the potential
coherence in our two theories of unergy essence, the two theories of unergy
relationship are theoretically compatible, possibly representing microphase versus
macrophase perspectives.
Unergy Patterns: Unergy Space Is a Dynamic Holographic Information Structure
Unergy fields exist at every level of existence, ranging from elemental
essence, through atoms, cells, sentient beings, and rocks, all the way to the
universe as a whole. The interference patterns within these unergy fields create
something like holograms. A hologram is an image created by the interference
pattern of waveforms created when a laser light is split into two beams so that one
beam intersects with the other beam’s reflection off an object. A significant
characteristic of a hologram is that any single piece of it contains information
about the whole image of the object. If you cut off any piece of a holographic film
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of an image, instead of seeing a piece of the original image, you see the entire
image (although with less resolution).
Experiments have shown that there are many examples of holographic-
type behavior in nature. Talbot (1991) cites studies where rats can still remember
how to run mazes when massive pieces of their brains are removed (p. 13) and
can still perform complex visual tasks when 90% of their visual cortex is removed
(p. 18). People can enjoy a movie when 90% of the movie screen is missing
(p. 19). Brain cells in the visual cortex respond not to the actual patterns of an
image, but to the Fourier mathematical translations of the patterns. This means
that, instead of processing the image, the brain processes the frequencies of the
waveforms of the image (p. 28).
Reality is a vast ocean of waves and frequencies, and reality looks

concrete to us only because our brains are able to take this holographic
blur and convert it into the sticks and stones and other familiar objects that
make up our world. (p. 54)
The sticks and stones are still “real,” but they look different through different
lenses. Through an optical cell lens, they appear as holographic interference
patterns; through a brain cell lens, they appear as physical objects.
Scientific philosopher Ervin Lazslo (2004) speculates not only that the
quantum vacuum transports light, energy, pressure, and sound but also that its
torsion waves, vortices, and interference patterns effectively create a history of
quantum interactions that constitute a universal holographic information record
that he calls the Akashic or A field (p. 50). He says that the brain is not a storage
mechanism at all but simply a retrieval and read-out mechanism of the A-field.
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So, like the microphase–macrophase interpretation of unergetic fields,
unergetic information patterns can be viewed both in terms of physical objects as
interpreted by our brains and as the web of interference patterns of a cosmic
hologram as seen by our optical cells.
Unergy Dimensions: Unergy Exists in More Than Four Dimensions
The latest physics and mathematical theories propose that the universe has
at least ten dimensions. The exact nature and number of dimensions remains a
matter of hot debate and conjecture. Naming conventions and definitions for
space, time, and physical/subtle dimensions vary widely in the literature. There is
even an increasingly popular “multiverse” theory involving the idea that there are
many universes instead of just one. In seeking common ground for this
dissertation, I use the phrase “universe and beyond” to refer to all dimensions and
all universes, and sketch one scenario here.
My preferred theory is that there are 11 dimensions because that number
best matches both my subtle experience and superstring M-theory. M-theory says
that each “point” in our familiar space has, in effect, seven additional dimensions,
all tightly curled-up into a complex shape called a Calabi-Yau space (Greene,
2004, p. 367). Note that the holographic model of the universe also has hidden
dimensions. When a holographic image is shifted to a different angle, each angle
presents new information in a new shape. There is conceptual synergy, then,
between the model of a universe composed of multidimensional Calabi-Yau
forms at each point in space and the model of a universe composed of holographic
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patterns at each point in space. In these models, only a subset of unergy
dimensions manifest as the physical universe.
Navigating Rocks in the Subtle Wisdom Journey Trail
The unergy essence, fields, space, and dimension principles all indicate
that there is much more to the universe than meets the eye. Why is it so difficult
for many to embrace the concept of subtle dimensions beyond space-time? I offer
three explanatory themes.
First, there is an incredibly large difference between what we can normally
see and the true complexity of physical and subtle reality. The immense diversity
of unergetic reality from a holoconscious outside-in cosmic perspective can be
difficult to grasp in relation to the more limited physical observations available
from the personal inside-out view, even for many quantum physicists. I claim that
this discontinuity in perception of subtle reality blinds many of us to the full
extent of subtle reality. People can have a tendency to resist belief in anything
beyond what they can see or what the cultural consensus tells them to believe.
Physicist Bill Tiller (2007) calls the tendency to resist subtle reality the boggle
effect, where someone’s eyes roll and glaze over as their conscious brain shuts
down when confronted with evidence it can’t fathom (p. 42). History shows that it
typically takes many years to shift worldviews. Recall from Chapter 1 that even
Einstein suffered from the boggle effect until he saw the universe expanding with
his own eyes through Hubble’s telescope. My personal retrospective in Chapter
Two shows that it took more than fifteen years of sensing physiological effects
from crystals and energy healers, walking on fire, seeing auras, learning Bell’s
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Theorem, and other unforgettable experiences to integrate my new holoconscious
worldview of subtle dimensions.
The second reason is that there is often a professional and/or personal
price to pay for the subtle wisdom pioneer who steps off the culturally acceptable
path. Galileo was put under house arrest for heresy. Tiller’s Stanford career
advancement was limited. In my case, I face the worldview conflict in my family
life with my ex-husband and children. My ex-husband says that his loss of respect
for my “woo-woo gullibility” was one of the reasons we divorced, and he warns
that I risk losing the respect of our children, too. My children are caught between
two conflicting parental worldviews with major effects on their medical care,
education, and spiritual upbringing. I encourage them to explore both paths and to
find the worldview that works for them, yet I cringe inside in fear of their making
hurtful life choices (and of their anticipated derisiveness as they read this
chapter). Still, here I write, as I remember that the integral parenting journey is as
least as challenging and worthy as climbing Mount Everest.
The third reason for resistance is the prospect of having to abandon trust in
the scientific paradigm, even in quantum physics. Why do the quantum physicists
I know seem to give little credence to the subtle experiential evidence of esoteric
dimensions? There are two key insights that have particularly helped me reconcile
the physicist and the psychic within me.
Subtle Frequency Measurement
The first insight involves the paucity of subtle energy measurements. For
many scientists, if something cannot be measured, it is not real. Energy medicine,

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however, refers to two kinds of fields: “veritable, which can be measured, and
putative, which cannot be measured” (Dale, 2009, p. 95)
I suspect that subtle frequencies are not scientifically validated because we
simply do not have sophisticated enough instrumentation to measure their
influence in the veritable realm either directly or indirectly. I wonder if the subtle
waveforms detectable by some sensitive people include lower octave harmonic
echoes of higher frequencies, similar to how a piano key in a lower octave sounds
faintly when that key in a higher octave is struck. Vibrational medicine physician
Richard Gerber (2001) presents a similar theory, describing measured subtle
energies as lower harmonics of the true higher frequency range signals (p. 134). I
am also interested in the lower subtle frequencies of denser matter.
The boundary between veritable and putative energy is shifting. As our
interior Holo sapien subtle sight evolves, our exterior instrumentation evolves to
match it. Subtle energy frequency-measuring devices are becoming increasingly
available (e.g., Dale, 2009; Gerber, 2001; Oschman, 2000; Tiller, 2007).
Quantum Imaginary Math
The next insight involves discovering the quantum mathematical
justification for subtle dimensions that has been misinterpreted by those with
boggled eyesight. de Broglie won the Nobel Prize for his 1920s claim that every
particle had a pilot wave-group envelope enclosing it and moving at the particle’s
velocity, as described in Figure 19.
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Figure 19. deBroglie pilot wave/particle. Reprinted with permission from Tiller
(2007), p. 113.
This core assumption that matter exists simultaneously as both a particle and a
wave-group is the basis for all quantum mechanics, including Schrödinger’s
probability wave equation.
Yet, no one has ever actually seen a pilot wave-group. Waves that we
typically see are really field disturbances caused by moving particles (Tiller,
2007, p. 113). Pilot waves are instead derived from a mathematical formula that
represents waves as complex numbers (Mindell, 2000, pp. 166–182). A complex
number is a combination of a real number and an imaginary number, where the
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imaginary number is in a different dimension that has different rules than the real
number dimension. In other words, a complex number is in a different field than a
real number. This mathematically derived mix of real and imaginary dimensions
within matter has significant implications about reality that are often missed.
Psychologist and physicist Arnold Mindell (2000) provides a useful
context to help us understand the practical meaning of complex numbers. Since
numbers are ways to describe characteristics of what we see, observing matter
means that we are seeing a mathematically complex entity. Mindell says that
matter has real shared consensus observation (consensus reality, or CR)
characteristics and imaginary non-consensus interpretation (nonconsensus reality
or NCR) characteristics. Mindell uses the example of a tree that everyone agrees
is a birch tree (its CR component) and some but not all people think is motherly
tree (a CR description that symbolizes an NCR personal opinion about a tree). He
represents the awareness or observation of reality as:
Awareness = CR + NCR
Awareness of the birch tree = a + ib, where
a = the real or CR part of the birch tree (its height, etc.)
i = the imaginary or NCR dimension sign
b = the CR description of an NCR part of the tree,
like its motherliness (p. 101)
Mindell’s analogy beautifully illustrates the personal diversity (NCR) and
collective shared consensus (CR) aspects of perception. Perception spans physical
and subtle dimensions.
Tiller (1997) claims that physicists should not have used the same
dimensional frame of reference for particles and waves. He says that quantum
mechanics has imposed a wave/particle time constraint to make the concept fit
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comfortably with relativity theory in the direct or D-space (x,y,z,t) of our
conventional reality. That is, quantum mechanics makes a simplifying assumption
that the wave and particle are different energy forms that do not exist at the same
time. Tiller contends that since relativity requires that the wave velocity times the
particle velocity is the speed of light squared, the wave velocity is much greater
than the speed of light. Because the wave moves orders of magnitude faster than
the particle, the wave cannot be a side-effect field perturbation due to the
particle’s movement or a time-dependent alternate form of the particle. The pilot
wave is instead a simultaneous waveform of a continual “information” nature.
Tiller (1997) resolves the quantum mechanics inconsistency by proposing
a duplex reference frame model of direct/inverse space-time. Tiller’s 11-
dimensional reality model resolves some of the main conceptual dichotomies in
present quantum mechanics, including the concepts of wave/particle duality and
of nonlocal forces.
The Tiller–Einstein Model of Direct/Inverse Space Time
Tiller (1997) describes de Broglie waves using a reciprocal space or R-

-1 -1 -1 -1
space system (x , y , z , t ), where each of these coordinates is a frequency.
He identifies physical reality as dual 4-dimensional physical D-space (x,y,z,t)

-1 -1 -1 -1
mirrored by 4-dimensional conjugate physical R-space (x , y , z , t ). R-space
corresponds to the notion of etheric subtle reality in the esoteric traditions.
Gerber (2001) diagrams positive-negative space-time as follows in Figure 20.
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Figure 20. Tiller-Einstein positive-negative space/time model. Reprinted from
Gerber (2001), p. 146 with permission from copyright holder W. Tiller.
D-space and R-space are mirror or inverse reflections of each other,
separated by the speed of light barrier (the Dirac energy gap). D-space is a
“positive” space-time domain; R-space is a “negative,” pure frequency domain
independent of space and time. D-space particle/waves are electrical in nature,
have positive mass and energy, travel at velocities slower than light, and curve 4-
space in a way that produces gravitational forces. R-space particle/waves are
magnetic in nature, have negative mass and energy, travel at speeds greater than
light, and curve 4-space in a way to produce antigravity levitational forces where
mass moves up instead of down. R-space particles are clearly difficult to measure!
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While there are many models of n-dimensional reality, Tiller’s D-space R-
space theory is particularly resonant with WisdomSpace theories of unergy and
wisdom. One such resonance involves compatible theories about dimensions.
Tiller, Dibble, and Kohane (2001, p. 25) illustrate an 11-dimensional model
reprinted in Figure 21: four D-space dimensions, four R-space dimensions, and
three more as described below.
Figure 21. Tiller’s 11-dimensional model. Reprinted with permission from Tiller
(2001), p. 25.
Since the light barrier isolates the D-space and R-space systems, particles and
waves cannot interact directly. Tiller proposes that the systems are connected by a
coupling substance outside the scope of relativity theory that he calls a deltron
(p. 24). Tiller envisions deltrons emerging without any human intervention from a
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ninth dimension of emotion, adding a nine-dimensional coordinate for C(d),
where C(d) is the cosmic background activated deltron concentration. The
concept of a cosmic background deltron concentration correlates to a cosmic
background collective consciousness in Wisdomspace. Where human conscious
mental intention is activated, Tiller adds a 10th-dimensional coordinate I for the
intensity of human intention. This concept is similar to the WisdomSpace
distinction between unintentional collective consciousness and intentional
collective wisdom. Tiller imagines these 10 dimensions imbedded in the domain
of spirit, a construct that is thought to be 11-dimensional and higher, which
corresponds to the Great Mystery. Note that the existence of 11 dimensions is
consistent with both M-superstring and unergy theories.
The Holo sapien Unergy Field
Unergy Theory can be used as a theoretical framework for a Holo sapien’s
relationship to reality. What is a person’s relationship with unergy fields? I
propose a Holo sapien Unergy Model that is an integral energy band and
consciousness model, designed to bridge scientific and philosophical views. This
integral model of the relationship between human and cosmic unergy fields is
developed by extending Tiller’s (1997) R-space/D-space model in the following
metaphoric dimensions:
1. Detailing the human subtle body’s chakra/endocrine R-space/D-space
antenna design;
2. Adding the concept of fields of consciousness
3. Correlating the consciousness spectrum with the frequency spectrum.

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The Human Subtle Body
Let us begin with a study of the human subtle body design. In Figure 22,
Gerber (2001) adapts Tiller’s diagram of the entire human energetic spectrum to
show each of our subtle bodies as a bell curve distribution of seven bands of
10
energies. Note that each band jumps in frequency by a factor of 10 as we
proceed through the subtle domains, another illustration of the order of magnitude
transition between subtle domain frequency ranges and thus of its difficulty of
measurement.
The Human as a Live Antenna
Every atom, molecule, cell, gland, animal, and so on has at least one
resonant electromagnetic (EM) energy band of some bandwidth at which it will
both emit and absorb energy (EM radiation) in some pattern. The transmitting and
receiving bandwidth are the same for a particular system: its resonant frequency
spectrum. Thus, each system is in communication with the outside world
(transmitting and receiving) via its resonant frequency spectrum. This particular
spectrum is like a unique fingerprint by which one can identify the specific
material.
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Figure 22. Human subtle body frequency model. Reprinted from Gerber (2001),
p. 156 with permission from copyright holder W. Tiller.
6-7
The human body radiates EM energy in the 10 Hz frequency range
from electron orbit changes, molecular motion, cell and organ pulsation, and body
movement in general. Human cell tissue also emits indirect sonic resonances in
the 1-10 MHz range. Since a human body has this inherent resonant frequency
spectrum, it basically functions as a transmitting/receiving antenna.
The design of this human antenna system is marvelously complex,
including the living cellular matrix, the chakra-endocrine system, and the near-
field region antenna known as the human aura. I focus on the chakra-endocrine
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system, which I feel is uniquely qualified to be the R-space/D-space gateway
based on its subtle/physical anatomical structure, its broad-spectrum design, and
its integration with the emotional body.
The Chakra-Endocrine System
The chakra system consists of the spiritual unergy centers of the body
which function at subtle energy levels. Each chakra is traditionally associated
with a particular part of the physical and emotional anatomy. The endocrine
glands are the master hormonal and thus chemical factories of the body. Each
chakra–endocrine pair functions as transducers of energy from the subtle to the
physical plane (Tiller, 1997, p. 122) as shown in Figure 23.
The Chakra–Endocrine Detailed Antenna Design
A chakra is typically described as a single entity, but my subtle healing
experience is that each chakra has a back side and a front side with distinctly
different yet related functions. Subtle author and healer Cyndi Dale describes two
energy cones connected in the center, where the cone in the back of the body
spirals counterclockwise into the body, and the cone in the front of the body
spirals clockwise out of the body as illustrated in Figure 24. The front and back
sides of each chakra meet in the spine, except for the seventh chakra, which links
into the cranium. Note that there are more chakras not addressed in this work.
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Figure 23. Tiller’s chakra-endocrine pair. (a) The seven major subtle chakras and
physical endocrines (b) schematic of a chakra-endocrine pair tuning and
transducing subtle unergy. Adapted with permission from Tiller (1997), p. 122.
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Figure 24. Front and back of chakras. Author’s image.
According to Dale (2002), the front side of the chakra system relates to
our day-to-day physical reality (p. 113). It contains information and imprints from
this life. The front side is where the earthly connections are made. For instance,
the cord connecting the astral body to the physical body during astral travel is
attached at the front of the third chakra. The front side of the first chakra connects
the person to planetary geomagnetic energy.
The back side of the chakra system is our subtle reality connection to the
realms beyond the physical, including information and imprints from past lives,
dimensions of the Great Mystery, and other worlds (Dale, 2002, p. 113). The back
side contains our denied feelings, awarenesses, powers, dreams, premonitions,
and beliefs. It is the side of our repressed memories, unacknowledged
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knowledge, long-held secrets, and unrealized desires (p. 113). The back side of
the first chakra is located in a lower dimension that is difficult to see intuitively.
The soul is thought to enter the body through the back of the fifth chakra. Cosmic
spirit or the divine is thought to enter through the back (top) of the crown chakra.
My intuitive experience is that the back of a chakra feels more amorphous,
“beyond-human,” and larger than its more focused, human-scale front side.
Front to Back Antenna Operation
My premise is that the chakra system performs the R-space/D-space
attunement (using subtle language) or conversion (using physical language) from
the back through the center to the front of the body. The backs of the chakras
function as R-space receive/transmit magnetic antennas, and the fronts of the
chakras function as D-space receive/transmit electrical antennas. The shift from
imaginary magnetics to real space electronics happens in the center of the chakra.
This transition involves both a transducer shift from magnetics to electronics and
a step-down transformation shift in velocity to shift from etheric to physical
space. The endocrine system then does another velocity shift into a lower
frequency range to control the physical body functions.
Top to Bottom Antenna Operation
The upper chakras resonate at a higher frequency than the lower. Valerie
Hunt (as cited in Gerber, 2001, p. 133) has found that the lowest chakra currently
measurable harmonics resonate in the 100 Hertz range and the highest chakra
currently measurable harmonics are in the 1600 Hertz range.
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The Center
So what happens in the center of the chakra? The human energy field is
not just a passive transmit/receive antenna for cosmic energy. A human being is
also an active field generator with a unique frequency spectrum of his or her own.
The center of the chakra is where human soul, intention, emotion, mind, and body
enter the field, as it were. A person who is content, compassionate, and effective
is often said to be operating “from their center.” A trained subtle practitioner can
even intentionally control many of their autonomic body functions.
Fields of Consciousness
Now let us add the concept of consciousness to the emerging Unergy
Model, recalling Chapter 1’s definition of consciousness as the field of wholeness
from which everything emerges. I consider personal consciousness to be the
awareness of one’s personal self as well as one’s self as part of a collective reality
beyond personal awareness. In my view, personal consciousness includes physical
cognitive awareness, subtle intuitive awareness, and unawareness.
The Personal Conscious Field
The personal conscious field is the unergy field unique to that person, both
subtle and physical. In frequency terms, the personal conscious field corresponds
to the near field of the person, also known as their aura. I suggest that D-space
energy fields of physical reality are related to cognitive awareness, and the R-
space fields of subtle “imaginary” reality are related to intuitive awareness. Fields
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are pervasive, but our antenna sensing-apparatus is directional. As a corollary to
the physically back/front placement of the R/D field portals, it follows that the
near field of R-space would be sensed behind a person, and the near field of D-
space would be sensed in front. Thus, we can imagine that a person’s cognitive
conscious field would be in front of them, and their intuitive conscious field
would trail behind them. This is consistent with my energy anatomy training and
experience that literally locates cognitive aura phenomena physically in front of a
person and those yet to emerge into cognitive awareness behind them. The closer
that something in the backfield is to the body, the sooner it will become
cognitively perceptible. Figure 25 shows a model of the near field of the personal
conscious with its frequency spectrum.
Figure 25. Personal conscious antenna with frequency spectrum (near field).
Author’s image.
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For me, the personal conscious is equivalent to the notion of self or
psyche. Pioneering U.S. psychologist William James (1902) describes the
physical aspect of self-consciousness as a “wave” or field of objects present to
awareness at any time (p. 231). “It lies around us like a “magnetic field,” inside of
which our centre of energy turns like a compass-needle, as the present phase of
consciousness alters into its successor” (p. 231). He then contends that,
So vaguely drawn are the outlines between what is actual and what is only
potential at any moment of our conscious life, that it is always hard to say
of certain mental elements whether we are conscious of them or not.
(p. 231)
If the transition from subtle to physical consciousness involves a dimensional
shift, its ineffable nature would be quite understandable.
Physical perception also depends on signal intensity. Subliminal
perception deals with stimuli below the threshold of ordinary neural sensing
(Tiller, 1997, p. 150). There are two separate neurological paths in the brain: a
fast one for larger signals perceivable by the cortex and a slower one for smaller
signals processed by the more primitive brain. An inverse/direct dimensional shift
that increases the order of magnitude of the signal could correlate to the signal
strength shift from subtle to physical consciousness.
The Collective Consciousness Field
The immensity of the cosmos generates an unfathomably complex set of
collective fields with similar characteristics as personal fields: near and far fields,
real and imaginary space, and the various degrees of consciousness. An
individual’s energy field is an inextricable part of this cosmic energy sea, which I
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call the collective conscious. Transpersonal psychologist Carl Jung (1938) uses
the terms self and psyche in a collective sense, defining the self as the totality of
the psyche, the sum total of conscious and unconscious existence (p. 100). He
says that the psyche reaches so far beyond the boundary line of personal
consciousness that the latter could easily be compared to an island in the ocean. I
agree with Jung that it is “quite impossible to define the extension and the
ultimate character of psychic existence” (p. 100). In the unergy field model, there
is no place where one person’s energy field stops and another’s begins.
The Consciousness Spectrum
The final component of the model is to orient consciousness with the
frequency spectrum. The frequency spectrum is a linear construct. The slower
frequencies of the physical realm are accessed through the lower chakras; the
faster frequencies of the soul realm are accessed through the higher chakras.
Consciousness is not really a linear construct, but its language has
overlapped somewhat with frequency terminology. Slower frequencies are often
called the subconscious (lower, inferior) and faster frequencies the superconscious
(higher, superior). Since the concept of consciousness attempts to articulate an
inherently mysterious universal property, it has a long history of conflicting
definitions using almost every conceivable prefix: sub, un, pre, super, and so on.
To avoid value connotations, I add another ingredient to the consciousness
terminology soup by defining a Holo sapien collective consciousness spectrum
called the treble, mid-range, and bass ranges of the paraconscious, where para
means “beside and beyond” instead of “better” or “worse.”

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Holoconsciousness is a full spectrum phenomenon, not solely a treble
warble. Just as the infinity of wholeness must contain separation, the infinity of
consciousness must contain both resonance and dissonance, coherence and
interference. James’s (1902) “sick soul” who has integrated the suffering of the
dark night of dissonance is a healthier, broader-bandwidth individual than the
person who cannot resonate with the lower frequencies. The collective conscious
and consciousness spectrum are added to the personal conscious near field in
Figure 26 to complete the Holo sapien Unergy Model from the personal view.
Figure 26. Holo sapien personal unergy antenna model. Author’s image.
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Holo sapien Unergy Antenna and Butterfly Models
The Holo sapien Unergy Antenna Model is a metaphor for the physical–
subtle unergy dance of the Holo sapien antenna in (relatively) physical particle-
form graphics, as if we were looking through D-space eyes. Figure 27 presents a
montage of Unergy Butterfly Models in more subtle wave-form graphics, as if we
were looking through R-space eyes. Both views are valid for Holo sapiens, who
recognize that we are particle-wave people.
The montage illustrates the fractal dynamic between personal inside-out
and collective outside-in unergy fields. Imagine the personal conscious of each
individual with their personal frequency spectrum radiating out from their
personal Holo sapien antenna with its unique toroidal butterfly growth pattern.
Imagine every being’s unergy field interweaving in an endlessly shifting dance of
interacting social frequency spectrums. In the social model, the Holo sapien
growth rings represent social chakras that correspond to the resonance of the
population at that development level. Each social chakra resonates with the
corresponding personal chakra ring in each individual. Imagine the constant
interplay and influence of the personal and collective fields upon each other and
how the intensity and coherence of near fields affect the collective field.
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Unergy Butterfly Model
(near-field)
This model corresponds

to the Unergy Antenna
near-field model in
Figure 25. Each person
contains the whole
collective.
Unergy Butterfly Model

(inside-out)
This model corresponds

to the Unergy Antenna
model in Figure 26. Each
person has their own
resonant frequency with
the collective field.
Unergy Social Butterfly

(outside-in)
This is the outside-in

view of the collective
unergy field. Each social
ring has its own resonant
pattern with a wide
variation throughout the
whole.
Figure 27. Holo sapien unergy butterfly montage. Author’s image.
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Subtle Healing: The Subtle Wisdom Journey
The Holo sapien Unergy Model can be used to theorize the mechanism for
subtle healing, the process of returning to wholeness. Subtle healing can be
thought of as the subtle wisdom journey. In the language of wisdom traditions, it
is called becoming present. From the unergy perspective, it is the practice of
attunement with your natural resonant frequency spectrum. I use the perspective
and language of healing to describe the subtle wisdom journey because it best
speaks to me of our heart’s yearning behind our search for health and wholeness.
What Is Subtle Healing?
Subtle healing is a very interesting aspect of the human experience that is
under intense exploration in scientific, medical, and spiritual communities today.
The interested reader is encouraged to see the works of Dale (2009), Gerber
(2001), Harner (1980), Jonas and Crawford (2003), Oschman (2000), Peirce
(2009), and Tiller (1997). Subtle healing directed toward the collective realm can
be called subtle activism: practices of spirit or consciousness intended to support
ecosocial transformation (see Kelly, n.d.; Nicol, 2010; Spangler, 2010). Subtle
activism can be considered a form of collective subtle wisdom in the
WisdomSpace model. The interested reader is invited to visit the websites in this
chapter’s opening reflections and to see the works of Ardagh (2005), Global
Coherence Initiative (n.d.), McTaggart (2007), Spangler (e.g., 2001, 2008, 2010),
and Vaughan-Lee (2005). Here I briefly describe subtle healing and its proven
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experimental efficacy, delineate a theory for how it works, and discuss several
implications and perspectives.
Healing is defined in Webster’s Dictionary (Woolf, 1974, p. 528) as being
made whole, or restoring to health. Webster’s defines health as the condition of
being sound in body, mind, and spirit (p. 528). The term subtle healing is used to
describe any form of healing beyond direct manipulation through physical or
chemical means including prayer, meditation, noncontact therapeutic touch,
distant healing, psychokinesis, energy healing, spiritual healing, Qi Gong,
sound/music, and reiki. Within the past fifty years, a wide range of high quality
scientific experiments have produced statistically significant results
demonstrating the efficacy of subtle healing. The effects have included faster
growth of seeds and plants, changes in water pH, variation in a random event
generator (REG) output, faster wound healing, pain relief, fewer AIDS symptoms,
and general well-being (Jonas & Crawford, 2003). Jonas and Crawford (2003)
describe the healing presence as having components of love, good intention,
spiritual grace, focused awareness, belief, openness to healing, listening,
creativity, reconciliation, imagination, and connectedness.
An Overview of Subtle Healing Theory
From a subtle healer’s perspective, dis-ease happens when a person’s
unergy field is out of resonance with their natural, personal, and collective
resonant frequency spectrum. A person heals by returning to their natural
frequency spectrum through a process I call centering. Centering typically
involves any interior reflective process that brings the person’s energy field into
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coherence using such techniques as those described in Chapter Two. The
duration and effectiveness of the centering process depend on the stage and state
of the individual.
Almost all of us can use a little help in the healing process at some point
or other. Using the integral unergy model, imagine that person A (the facilitator)
is centered with a coherent unergy field and has the intention of helping another
willing person B (the seeker) to heal. A’s intention acts as a signal amplifier of
their human antenna to increase the strength (intensity) and coherence of the field
around B that resonates with A’s field. This matching resonance entrains B’s field
to become more coherent, since two oscillating fields will tend to synchronize
(Dale, 2009, p. 14). The coherence facilitates B’s return to their natural frequency
spectrum: a state of health in harmony with cosmic resonance.
A coherent resonant field is what I call the healing field: a humanly
inspired field resonance effect cocreated by the conscious intention of humans in
concert with the cosmos. In a sense, the entire universe could be considered a
healing field because its coherence creates a background resonance that is a
constant inherent healing force. However, in this work healing field refers to the
universal field activated and amplified by human intention, a more powerful
coherent field than the background cosmic unergy field. A healing field of mental
intention that is coupled with emotional compassion is believed to be even more
coherent because it engages more of the frequency spectrum resonance.
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Patterns in Subtle Healing Principles
Subtle healing principles are consistent across a diverse range of
practitioners and organizations and are also consistent with the general personal–
collective wisdom principles described in Chapters Two and Three. An excellent
healing principle compendium can be found in the anthology Healers on Healing
(Carlson & Shield, 1989). Editors Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield ask many
well known and respected nontraditional healers (most of whom also have
impressive traditional credentials) to answer the question: What, in your
experience, is the key element or golden thread that unites healing processes?
Their answers are woven through this tapestry of principles framed in the loom of
the Holo sapien Compass.
Center: Love Is the Healer
Love is the golden thread woven most brightly throughout the entire
healing matrix. The healer is a channel for love transmission, a facilitator rather
than the source. Bernie Siegel (1989) contends that “love is so important in
healing because it is the most significant thing in human life” (p 9). According to
Louise Hay (1989), “the current of love is what flows through everything. All the
healing techniques in the world won’t really help unless love goes with them” (p.
43). Jack Schwarz (1989) writes of unconditional love:
I believe that the common denominator of all healing methods is

unconditional love—a love that respects the uniqueness of each individual
client and empowers the client to take responsibility for his or her own
well being. (p. 19)
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Intention: Go for the Best Outcome for All
Healers hold intentions that gently, strongly serve the best outcome for all
concerned. In the words of Hugh Prather (1989):
No one can say in advance which changes a person needs or which bodily
conditions are best. If our highest duty is to follow wholeness, peace, and
the kindness of our being, to treat others fairly, and to help where we can
help, then the condition of the body is only meaningful as it makes
concentration on love easier or more difficult.
To truly heal, to deeply and permanently affect the mind, a healer
must have no goal but innocence—to see it and to be it. To accomplish so
great a feat, the mind has to shift away from mere pictures and beliefs to
the quiet, still knowing that is love. Harmlessness, absolute and complete,
is the ultimate power. When healers immerse themselves in harmlessness,
what to say and what to do is gently known. (p. 16)
The effectiveness of facilitating healing is a complex topic. First, a
measure of effectiveness must be agreed upon, which raises the question of how
to define successfulness of a healing interaction. ÒLaoire and Jonas (as cited in
Jonas & Crawford, 2003) present a model of six sources of illness: genetic
predisposition, environment, personal lifestyle, personal belief systems, karma,
and the bodhisattva dimension (where an illness is a gift for society’s learning or
compassion). “Prayer that seeks to undo any illness occasioned by the last two
sources is obviously ‘kicking against the goad’ and may be unsuccessful”
(ÒLaoire and Jonas, as cited in Jonas & Crawford, p. 214).
Process Shift: Surrender Control
Healing must be a ceaseless process or relationship and rediscovery,
moment by moment. Healing is in the deepest sense a mystery out of our control.
Richard Moss (1989) cautions against attempting to automate the healing process.
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If we apply a formula, we get a result, but often the response is transient, a
shifting of symptoms, a deferment of the problem for a period of time.
This is what I refer to as perturbation. But in a deeper sense, this is not
healing; the circle hasn’t really grown larger. We can end up even more
vulnerable to a new disease, because the very process of trying to change
things on our terms blinds us to listening more directly to life. We become
fixers, rather than life-lovers. (p. 40)
Nonattachment to outcome is not just a desirable intention; it is possibly a
necessary condition. Prather (1989) concurs with Joel Goldsmith’s observation
that healers can lose their healing gifts (p. 15). Prather believes that the healer’s
pride can become invested in overcoming the illness. What you resist persists, so
the healers eventually can get caught in the power of the illness of anxiety and
distress.
X-Axis Identity: Respectful Collaboration With Others
Healing is a partnership between a healing facilitator and a healing seeker.
Healers do not heal by themselves. The term healer is imprecise and implies that
the practitioner wields more personal power than is actually the case. A healing
practitioner is more of a channeling antenna whose personal energy field can
resonate with coherent universal energy. In one survey of energy healing
practitioners, respondents described themselves most often as healing facilitators.
“I don’t do any healing whatsoever, nor do I do any curing. I am totally there to
facilitate the client’s abilities to heal themselves. And I believe that with every
atom in my body” (Warber, Cornelio, Straughn, & Kile, 2004). Jack Schwartz
(1989) says:
A healer “walks the territory” with clients, showing them not only the
potential routes back to health, but also how to follow the trail on their
own, guided by their own innate resources of healing knowledge. A
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therapist does not create dependence and does not profess a monopoly of
wisdom, but instead becomes a facilitator who shows people how to
access their own inner wisdom and maintain certain states of energy so
that transformation can take place. (pp. 19–21)
Y-Axis Felt Experience: Healing Is a Whole-Body, Full-Spectrum Phenomenon
Healing is healing is love. Serge Kahili King (1989), Ph.D., a Kahuna
shamanic healer, lists four categories of healing with a partial list of techniques:
• Physical. Herbs, drugs, and other medicines; diet and nutritional

supplements; surgery and bone-setting; chiropractic and massage; deep
breathing; enemas and colonics; fasting; electricity and magnetism.
• Emotional: Affection and attention, laughter and play, anger release,
fear confrontation, color, aroma, and music.
• Mental: Placebos, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, psychotherapy, guided
imagery, visualization, and affirmation.
• Spiritual/Metaphysical. Pyramids, crystals, orgone devices, aura
cleansing, psychic surgery, therapeutic touch, homeopathy, flower
remedies, acupuncture, acupressure, applied kinesiology, telepathy,
radionics, prayer, faith, positive thinking, and “spontaneous
remission.” (p. 26)
Healing involves resonance along the whole frequency spectrum and
engages all the chakras. People who “read” energy are typically using only their
higher chakras. People who facilitate healing activate their whole chakra system,
although their primary resonating chakra may vary. In my healing experience with
Anglo-Americans, my most common and useful role is to help a person to be “in
their body” by grounding their lower chakras. This requires that I be grounded in
my own body, not always an easy task…
Z-Axis Attention: Healer, Heal Thyself
A healing facilitator cultivates humility and self-care, aware that they are
merely a healing channel with the potential to be affected by their own history,
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their judgments, and their emotions. A healer does not really heal; a healer can
only present a mirror. “You can never really help anyone; you can only help
people to see themselves” (Andrews, 1989, p. 43). Louise Hay (1989) believes:
The best thing [facilitators] can do to help [seekers] the most is to really
love who they are, it’s easy for them to teach that love to their clients.
Instead of being a great “fixer,” you can teach others to love themselves,
they wouldn’t have problems to fix. The problems are areas where we
are not yet in harmony: beyond fixing, beyond therapy. (p. 23)
The Personal–Collective–Subtle Wisdom Principle Matrix
Table 14 summarizes the subtle wisdom principles in an integral matrix of
personal–collective–subtle wisdom principles.
Patterns in Subtle Healing Practices
This section focuses on patterns in subtle healing practices involving
preparation, collaboration with others, and the healing process. Applications of
subtle healing and other subtle wisdom systems are presented in Appendix A.
Healing facilitators begin the subtle healing process by cocreating a field
through which healing can occur by virtue of the mystery of grace. They develop
their grace capacity by clearing their own fields, setting their intention, and
surrendering to the healing field before practicing their healing techniques of
working with the field. Clearing and surrendering practices vary based on the
individual and their training. Intention is an act of will that can be either a focused
specific healing goal, an unfocussed intent to heal, or simple presence. Many of
the subtle healing experiments set very specific focused intentions; others do not.
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Table 14
The Personal–Collective–Subtle Wisdom Principle Matrix
Wisdom principles
Holo sapien compass Personal Collective Subtle
Center Essence Love, love, love. Integral/systems thinking: seeing wholes (many) Open, open, open.
Center and open heart. Be with what is (many) Center.
Presence Open to mystery of grace. Translate, not transform (Brown) Align with grace.
Get the beat, listen to the wisdom (Meadows) Innocence.
Wherever I go, here I Trust.
am. Mystery.
Intention Go, go, go. Shape your future (HC) Best outcome for all concerned.
Follow your passion. Shared vision, clear purpose (many) Do no harm.
Purpose Stay steady through Go for the good of the whole (Meadows)
love and fear. Look for common ground (FS)
I will get there. Do no harm. Expand time and thought horizons (Meadows)
Discipline. Explore the whole elephant (FS)
Process shift Flow, flow, flow. Honor and protect information (Meadows), Nonattachment to outcome
Expand and embrace. communicate quickly (Wheatley) Nonjudgment
Resilience Follow synchronicity. Build resonant feedback (many) Surrender
Nonattachment to outcome. Creative involvement
Go with the flow.
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Wisdom principles
Holo sapien compass Personal Collective Subtle
x-axis: identity Include, include, include. Leadership everywhere (HC) Inclusiveness
Respect. Embrace diversity (HC) Collaboration; ask permission.
I -> cosmos Walk in others’ shoes or Know your community (HC) Respect.
paws. Solution to anything is each other (Wheatley, 2005)
As go I, Meet the “other” outside your Whole system in the room (FS)
comfort zone.
so goes the world. Respect (URI)
Expand the boundary of caring (Meadows, 2001)
y-axis: felt experience Stretch, stretch, stretch. Expand thought horizons (Meadows, 2001) Honor all healing domains.
Seek a full-spectrum life. Team learning (Senge, 1990)
head/heart/body/soul Grow inner muscles. Develop and balance:
Explore your feelings. caring: sense of community (HC)
As above, so below. Get comfortable in your skin. knowing: dialogue (many)
living: connect people and resources (HC)
z-axis: attention Dance, dance, dance. Pay attention to individuals (Wheatley, 2005) Humility.
Pay attention in and out. Expose your mental models (Meadows, 2001) Healer heal thyself.
Being/doing Walk your talk. Self-mgmt and responsibility (FS)
Find mirrors: inner and outer Personal mastery (Senge, 1990)
As within, so without. community, support systems, Stay humble. Stay a learner (Meadows, 2001)
and friends.
Note. Author’s table. Data from other sources is indicated in table and following abbreviations. HC = Healthy Communities (Adams &
Pittman, 2000); FS = Future Search (n.d.); URI = United Religions Initiative (n.d.).
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Once a person is prepared to begin healing work, they establish a
connection with the field that they wish to influence. Someone cannot help heal
someone else without his or her cooperation. The receiving antenna must be
active if the resonance is to take effect. Energy healing best practice involves
receiving either verbal or subtle permission of the healing receiver before any
healing work is begun. In colocated healings, the receiver’s readiness for healing
can be enhanced by establishing a solid connection of communication and trust
with the transmitter (Warber et al., 2004). In healing situations where the receiver
does not consciously know about the healing, an ethical facilitator will still work
with the receiver’s subtle body in a similarly cooperative way.
The numerous subtle healing techniques and methodologies typically
involve the following phases: opening/centering, setting intention,
resonating/attuning, and closing/blessing. The opening and intention phases often
occur so rapidly that they seem to overlap. The following sections describe the
healing journey as seen through the perspective of a healing facilitator.
Opening/Centering the Healer’s Personal Field
Centering is the initial step of creating coherence in your personal field.
This step may also be called being present, being in the zone, living in your skin,
or sitting in the fire. I describe being centered as being heart-centered and
balanced along the center axes of the x, y, and z dimensions in the Holo sapien
compass: breathing consciously, aware of both your personal identity and your
web of relationships to your near and far community (x); allowing energy to flow
freely through your spirit, mind, heart, and body (y); and being at rest between
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being and doing (z). Useful techniques include meditation, attention to breath,
heart coherence biofeedback, and many other practices listed in Appendix A.
Setting the Healing Field Intention
Setting intention is the conscious act of casting your will into the unergy
field. An intention can be personal (e.g., physical health or serenity), or collective
(e.g., disaster recovery or disease cure). Applying biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s
(n.d.) theory of thoughts and ideas forming morphic field patterns, the intention
has a magnetic effect of creating a morphic field in the personal–collective
consciousness field. Intention literally molds a unergy space resonant with the
frequency spectrum of the spirit, thought, emotion, and guts of the intention.
Setting intention is also known as creating a channel, container, or membrane. I
think of it as folding wisdomspace. The frequency spectrum of the intention’s
morphic field creates a resonance with a participant’s frequency spectrum,
aligning their subtle body antenna with the intention field.
The framing of the intention serves as the important metaphorical knife
that sculpts the morphic space. I describe intentions as directed (a narrow-angle
focus on a tangible outcome such as a peace treaty agreement), diffuse (a wide-
angle, intangible goal such as peace on earth or the pure presence of being with
what is), or soft focus (a medium-angle, intangible goal that is weighted toward a
tangible outcome such as the highest good for a peace treaty negotiation). The
appropriate type of intention depends on the situation. Any type can produce
strong field effects. I suggest that the morphic field strength is influenced by both
the clarity of the intention and the coherence of the participants’ fields. Intentions
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that are more intangible, or more diffuse, can tend to produce less visible near-
term results, although they may be very influential in the background (far field).
Intentions that are more tangibly directed, such as those targeted toward healing
an individual’s disease or a geographic disaster or war zone, may tend to produce
more visible near-term results. Note that Transcendental Meditation programs
known as "Peace Assemblies" or "Super-Radiance" programs (that measure the
effect of large group meditations on indicators of social health in nearby cities)
have no directed intentions yet seem to produce statistically significant
improvements in social indicators (Wallace & Marcus, 2005). I attribute this to
the high coherence of the meditators’ personal unergy fields.
I also believe that a special form of intentional practice called holding
space amplifies the morphic field strength. Space holding creates a neutral, loving
presence to “bear witness” to a person or group’s healing, similar to a doula
witnessing a birth or a hospice worker witnessing a death (Terry, 2005). The
added presence provides diffuse energetic support surrounding a more focused
healing process, thereby reinforcing field coherence.
The framing of the intention defines the participation in the field as well as
the content. It explicitly or implicitly calls the circle of all those in resonance with
that intention. Please see the chapter Opening Reflections and the following
WiseClimate Case Study for examples of intentions.
Resonating/Attuning
Once your antenna is open and aligned with an intention field, you release
yourself into healing resonance mode. Most healing facilitators describe this as a
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receiving rather than a transmitting mode: a surrendering to a greater universal
resonance. They usually describe themselves as passive channels that need to get
out of the way of the healing process (Carlson & Shield, 1989).
The attunement phase can be relatively quick or it can take some time.
Someone’s prayer can be as short as “Help!” or they could meditate for hours. I
believe the field coherence of the participants and the duration of the practice both
contribute to its effectiveness. I find that the time required to sense resonance
increases as the number of participants increases and the scope of the intention
increases. When I am working with an individual on something specific,
resonance might occur in anywhere from seconds to a few minutes. A general
personal energy balancing might take fifteen minutes or more. Gathering with a
group of people focused on healing a far-scale ecosocial system might take at
least thirty minutes. In contrast, the time required to reach a sense of resonance
decreases with continued practice so that experienced participants can tune more
and more quickly into their increasingly strong intentional field.
Closing/Blessing
The subtle healing practice ends with some form of appreciative closure,
often gratitude and blessing for the participants and for their intentions. The
closing seals the field with a parting dose of love, which is subtly nourishing to
the participants and may serve to extend the life of the healing intention field once
the practice ends.
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Subtle Healing Case Study: Leslie’s Subtle Wisdom Journey
It has been a long, strange road exploring my subtle energy body.
Learning how to live as a heart-centered person rather than an intellectual with
my head often in the clouds has been hard enough. Learning how to live as a
conscious subtle energy being with so much of my personal unergy field largely
invisible to me as it stretches infinitely far and interacts with everything in its path
has been incredibly challenging and exhilarating.
My personal wisdom journey tale in Chapter 2 traces my long-term
practices of experiential learning, intuition training, and shamanic journeying in
small groups. These practices literally helped shape my awareness of my subtle
energy body. The evolution of my awareness is visibly reflected in the following
series of self-portrait sketches of my unergy field taken from my journals over the
past ten years.
My Personal Subtle Journey From Waking up to Coalescence
The first deep growth ring in my subtle journey was the development of
my near-field awareness and coherence within myself and with my close
relationships. I first began intuition training with Lynn Goodman in the year 2000
with several weekend workshops where we meditated and practiced sensing our
own energy fields and those of our classmates. When we began, my sense of my
subtle body was very weak. My grounding channel into the earth was a thin cord
with a candle at the bottom. I could not expand the size of my energy field for fear
of damaging someone else’s, and I lost conscious awareness any time meditation
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approached anything challenging. Yet, my sense of inner essence grew and helped
me to stay calmly centered during my divorce. A small group embarked on a
several year training of in-depth intuition work where we drew pastel images of
each chakra after an introductory meditation as depicted in Figure 28.
2003 First Chakra Sketch

The First Chakra image is very
spare in detail and quite
colorless. My grounding to the
planet is tenuous. My forms are
structures floating in space
somewhere that do not involve
the roots or colors or chaos of
earthly life.
2004 Third Chakra Sketch

As inner growth proceeded, my
subtle body awareness evolved
into images with more dynamic
form and color as in this Third
Chakra sketch.
2005 Ninth Chakra

By the Ninth Chakra, my subtle
body image includes my whole
body and near field aura with
connections to both lower
frequency and higher frequency
energy fields. There is no white
space left on the paper! and the
images and symbols are quite
freeform.
Figure 28. Leslie chakra sketches. Author’s image.
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In a subsequent Source Painting workshop, I enjoyed expanding my subtle
body image into a six-foot square expression of vibrant color with a wide variety
of forms shown in Figure 29. I was happy to artistically verify that my days of
tentative subtle invisibility were over.
2006 Source Painting

My source painting was balanced in both
etheric and earthly realms in forms,
dimension, and color. I used the whole
color palette, including browns and
yellows and oranges, which was unusual
for me. I painted the light in the form of
crowns, trees, angels, and goddesses, and
I painted the dark in the form of demons,
raging men, scaffolds, and bugs.
Figure 29. Leslie self-portrait from source painting. Author’s image.
During my shamanic journeys, I experienced nonhuman aspects of being as I
swam through the earth, shapeshifted into eagles and other species, and flew in
outer space.
It took several years of practice and group feedback about the accuracy of
my energetic perceptions before I was able to trust and be comfortable in my
personal subtle energy skin. As my skills and confidence grew, I began to
experiment as a healing facilitator with the connection between my own near-field
subtle body and that of the broader collective world around me.
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My Collective Subtle Wisdom Journey: The Cottage Circle and Gaiafield
My collective subtle healing work started several years ago with a circle of
friends at our neighborhood healing cottage. We met weekly as a healing circle
for ourselves and our community and at full moons and other special occasions as
a shamanic drumming circle. The members of the healing circle each used our
own diverse healing methods to focus on a variety of intentions together. Our
intentions tended to be more personal and local, such as family issues, school
conflicts, sick neighbors, land stewardship, or highway accident reduction.
However, since everything is connected, we were sometimes called to work with
such regional or global concerns as Hurricane Katrina, underwater sonar, the
tsunami, or national elections.
It is difficult to prove a correlation between our work and healing results,
but there are many stories of seemingly unlikely positive family shifts and
community breakthroughs occurring within hours or days after a healing session
focus. We found a strong consistency in our subtle insights about a situation,
often with different people hearing similar inner words or seeing similar inner
symbols. It was also common for us to discover that we were working together on
the subtle plane. One person might appear in someone else’s journey, or we later
discovered that we had subtly traveled to the exact same place, or someone ended
up working with a situation while everyone else essentially got the message that it
was being taken care of. As I write, I am appreciating how much I casually accept
what used to seem so extraordinarily unbelievable and how much healing, peace,
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and inspiration came from being in the circle. The form of the circle practice is
currently in transition, but the work continues to expand.
My far-field collective subtle healing work also started several years ago
when colleagues David Nicol, Sean Kelly, and I cofounded the Gaiafield Center
for Subtle Activism at CIIS, an action research center to link subtle activists for
collective healing and social change. The Center’s Gaiafield Project is a
networking hub of many subtle activist organizations that collaborate on global
meditation and prayer programs welcoming people across spiritual,
consciousness, and indigenous traditions. Gaiafield Project programs use soft
focus intentions during weekly subtle listening teleconferences, where we enter
into a meditative space to “listen” into the field for intuitive guidance in relation
to a real-world event or issue (such as climate change). After about half an hour of
silent listening, the circle opens to allow us to share insights from the meditation.
Gaiafield Project subtle activism tends to address far-field regional,
national, and global issues. However, since everything is connected, sometimes
we focus on personal and local concerns. In the WiseClimate 2009 program, for
example, we saw a direct subtle connection between personal health, national
health as represented by the health care reform legislation then under
consideration, and climate health. As in the local circle, the regular deep listening
sessions yield coherent collective subtle wisdom beyond the discernment of any
individual and are profoundly healing for the people involved in the practice.
Examples of WiseClimate practices and subtle insights are presented in the next
case study.
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Coalescing My Subtle Wisdom Dance
Within the past couple years, my diverse subtle practices have organically
coalesced into an integral practice that expands and embraces the original
practices into a new adventure that is taking me places practically beyond my
ability to describe. The original techniques began spontaneously shifting in ways
that I am still exploring. For instance, instead of sending my subtle body either up
or down into separate shamanic realms, I noticed that my energy body began to
expand in all directions to encompass multiple realms. I spent several months
experimenting with my new subtle-being form as shown in the following Figure
30 sketches.
2008 Leslie as an early Collective Holo Leslie as a slightly older Collective

sapien Holo sapien
Figure 30. Discovering my collective subtle body. Author’s image.
After doing energy work in this expanded form for a few months, I noticed
some difficulty and concern with maintaining the integrity of my personal subtle
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field. My search for wisdom led me to self-realization teacher Judith Blackstone,
who taught me a different method of staying in my personal-scale energy body
and sensing the collective field with my awareness, which was quickly helpful.
Not long afterward, I found myself disintegrating during my subtle
practice. I remained aware as a witness that I was somewhere, but my essence was
dissolved into what I imagine to be a unergy-level awareness. I saw no visions
and heard no sound; I simply was. That phase seems to be shifting into a state of
focused presence lately, as I find myself inhabiting all the rings of my Holo
sapien being in my meditations, scanning through them to see what catches my
attention. I am now beginning to see folds in space around someone’s auric field,
actually sensing the fluidity of space. I wonder what could possibly be next! I
imagine I am due for yet another rude awakening as I move into the next cycle of
expanding and embracing…
Subtle Activism Case Study: Gaiafield WiseClimate 2009
Subtle healing work directed toward the collective realm can be seen as a
kind of subtle activism: practices of spirit or consciousness intended to support
ecosocial transformation (see Kelly, n.d.; Nicol, 2010; Spangler, 2010). Subtle
activism can be considered a form of collective subtle wisdom in the
WisdomSpace model. The WiseClimate program was a collaborative subtle
activism program in the Fall of 2009 to connect spiritual practitioners and
communities with those working for climate change through a series of
teleconferences and webcasts that coincided with critical climate change events in
the world (GaiaField, n.d.)

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Collective subtle activism is led by the inner guidance of a circle. The
WiseClimate program arose from the collective subtle wisdom of the Gaiafield
Council and friends during a January 2009 retreat. We gathered first in meditation
and then in a roundtable with live and teleconference participants to hear the
themes emerging in each of our communities. Several groups chose to cocreate
the WiseClimate program and began weekly deep listening calls to discern the
program energy field.
The subtle energy of WiseClimate was fascinatingly different than the
energetic signature of the WiseUSA 2008 transpartisan national election program.
WiseClimate as a global ecosphere program called for fewer words and more
sound, so we incorporated sound healing as a core element of the program. Other
species were more obviously present during the deep listening than in WiseUSA,
so we designed the intention invocation to explicitly welcome all species and
organized a Council of All Beings event. We got the subtle message to connect
the Parliament of World Religions gathering in Melbourne with the simultaneous
UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, so we held that intention through
much planning turmoil until the best scenario clicked into place.
Several climate-healing themes emerged during the deep listening
practice. One of the first was a collective “sitting in the fire” experience of
surrendering to the uncomfortable whirling chaos of climate change: the grief for
those already in trouble, the fear of letting go of any certainty about the future, the
confusion around the complexity of the problem, the weariness of the struggle.
There was a strong recurring awareness that climate destabilization was the
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consequence of not taking care of each other and the planet. We were repeatedly
drawn to the relationship between an unhealthy climate and the struggling U.S.
healthcare reform bill proposal, symbolizing our collective need to commit to our
ecosocial health. We subtly felt the climate’s suffering as it chokes for breath,
with a hole being ripped in its body in the sky. Another theme was the care and
concern of many species of birds, plants, bees, bunnies, fish, whales, and so on,
and at the same time a sense of detached care and concern from Gaia herself, like
a mother who is teaching her toddler to behave or else. The ancestors and the
great-great-grandchildren were also consistently present as allies for global
reconciliation. Finally, the heartbeat of love echoed through each session: a trust,
an imagining of not only what is but what can be, a sense of deep support and
appreciation for each other and for the wisdom and compassion of our gathering
together to love ourselves as Gaia.
Coalescing Reflections on Developing Subtle Wisdom
The subtle wisdom journey is not for the faint-hearted. The Holo sapien
subtle field has changed. Our previous subtle wisdom systems do not map the new
terrain. We must be willing to chart new subtle territory to hold WisdomSpace for
birthing a wisdom society. The Holo sapien Unergy Model is offered as a possible
new subtle compass.
Subtle Healing as Frequency Resonance Coherence
In the Unergy view, subtle healing is a phenomenon of unergy frequency
resonance coherence. Unergy is the fundamental essence of the universe.
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Frequency refers to the number of waves of unergy in cycles per second.
Resonance is the vibratory reinforcement that occurs when an oscillating body is
exposed to a vibration of a similar frequency. Coherence is the harmonious
synchronization of waves. Gallo (2002) uses the frequency resonance coherence
concept to describe the healing mechanism of meridian therapy such as
acupuncture. I contend that this concept applies to all subtle healing therapy.
I am intrigued by Tiller’s (1997) view of consciousness as a system
property that can be measured by its channel capacity, which depends on its
bandwidth, signal power, and noise power (p. 201). At a personal level, our
individual consciousness is best increased by developing our intuition, thereby
increasing our frequency range bandwidth. We can increase our signal power and
decrease noise by inner self-management techniques such as meditation. At the
ecosocial level, universal consciousness generates the unergy waves which
generate matter (Tiller, 1997). The matter of a place literally depends on the
consciousness of that place; therefore it is up to us humans to become stewards of
our places as well as ourselves and each other. We can develop our stewardship
through collective subtle practices like the Intention Experiment, the Global
Coherence Initiative, and the Sarvodaya Movement (see Appendix A).
The perspective of a coherent conscious universe with inherent capacity
for healing in cocreation with human resonators is both exhilarating and sobering.
I remain in awe and honor of my role as a fledgling healing facilitator and am
committing to improve my centering skills.
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Recommendations for Subtle Wisdom Development
Specific subtle wisdom systems are listed in Appendix A. Themes for
strengthening subtle wisdom development include:
1. An ongoing practice of inner reflection and intuition skills;
2. Strategic wisdom tradition and collective consciousness transformation
programs that span belief systems;
3. Circle networks for dreaming, visioning, imagining;
4. Transformational art: music, writings, and movies.
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CHAPTER 5: COALESCENCE
Opening Reflections
of the beauty of my brother and sister Holo sapiens
Figure 31. Celebrating with family and friends. Author’s image.
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The Holo sapien Invocation
I sang kirtan last night
Surrounded by loving strangers chanting from their heart and soul

Never to forget my vertebrae physically dancing to the music
As the rest of my body sat motionless, transfixed with awe and delight
I am re-woven by the music still rippling through me

Vibrating with fierce intention
To write the lyrics of the Holo sapien dance

To explore the mystery in words of science and spirit
To share the wonder with those who can hear
To invite those still lost in the noise
to close their ears to the clamor of fear and distraction
and to open their hearts to the
Eerie soothing
Peaceful exultant
Song of their being
Singing the harmony of the spheres

With every living breath
Every beating heart
Every pulsing nerve
Every dancing vertebra
Listen.
–Leslie Meehan
(with deep appreciation to Jai Uttal and friends for our kirtan experience 11/2007)
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Coalescence: Reflections on our Holo sapien Birth
Welcome to this resting place of coalescence along our journey together as
Holo sapiens! Here I weave together the perspectives of the previous chapters into
a tapestry of wisdom journey theory, principles, tools, and recommended next
steps in wisdom society evolution.
The weaving begins with an appreciation and respect for the glory and
gravity of our evolutionary birth passage as a human species. Birth is a dangerous
transition into new life that walks hand-in-hand with death. Death now walks at
the shoulder of countless species, including our own. The deeper wisdom beneath
our ecosocial dis-ease, as seen in Chapter 1, tells us that the likely price of
continuing down our modern path deadened to the scope of our Holo sapien
interbeing is extinction. We cannot afford to either ignore or wallow in our fear,
shame, or denial. The price of continued self-deception and self-indulgence is
self-destruction.
Surviving birth requires fierce love and stamina. I ask us all: How dare we
turn away from our labor pains? How dare we play along the path to extinction
and condemn our great-great-grandchildren to untold suffering? Our effort is a
small price to pay compared to the treasure of peace, health, and harmony that is
available along the Wisdom Mountain trail.
Birthing Peace
The prospect of discovering the peace of Holo sapien health is so
enlivening that it makes me shiver with wonder and yearning. I imagine peace as
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not just the placid perfect harmony of campfire songs, but as the gentle fierceness
of taking good care of ourselves and each other through any crisis. Peace, for me,
is a lively creative place of abundance of what is truly important, more than just a
self-sacrificing place of material limitations. Peace has existed in individuals and
communities throughout history, but it has not yet existed on the planetary scale.
We humans today have a glorious opportunity to participate in our
species’s Holo sapien evolution. Let us take heart with hope, endurance, and
courage.
Hope
The first source of my optimism is the knowledge that throughout the
history of the universe, the thread of evolution has successfully led to systems of
increasingly higher complexity and consciousness. Teilhard de Chardin’s law of
complexity/consciousness says that as a system becomes more complex, it
increases in consciousness and freedom (Hubbard, 1998, p. 49). The universe has
a solid track record of breakthrough to the next level of evolution.
Another source of my optimism is the current explosive trend of human
movements that are increasing communion while maintaining individual integrity.
Social justice, feminism, the Internet, the green movement, and integral education
indicate the growth of our transpersonal wisdom. Our addictive patterns are also
becoming more conscious. Cultural secrecy is on the wane with disintegrating
taboos about surfacing the topics of rape, family abuse, substance addiction,
eating disorders, racism, and so on. Ironically enough, the “social decay” of
cultural mores bemoaned by many may really be a positive indication of evolution

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in progress since chaos and crisis are the inevitable beginnings of transformation.
The noosphere is at work.
Endurance
Evolution is not readily visible from the perspective of daily life. It is not
a typical topic on the evening news. Becoming holoconscious takes the time and
work of at least one lifetime. There is a natural process that cannot be speeded
up, no matter how many weekend workshops in a row one attends… Disciplined
personal practice is an essential component of maturation.
At the species level, evolutionary progress can be even harder to spot.
However, the cultural shifts described in the previous section are good indications
of evolutionary stirring. Humans in the last century have witnessed such seminal
events as world-wide wars, atomic bombs, and moon landings. All these events
are the initial milestones in the emerging human global project: human endeavors
that ripple through the whole planetary community. Teilhard de Chardin (1959)
states that
we cannot expect to see the earth transform itself under our eyes in the
space of a generation. Let us keep calm and take heart. In spite of all
evidence to the contrary, mankind may very well be advancing all around
us at the moment—there are in fact many signs whereby we can
reasonably suppose that it is advancing. But if it is doing so, it must be—
as is the way with very big things—doing so almost imperceptibly.
(p. 255)
Courage
The wisdom society movement is already a strong “resistance movement”
against modernity. In Cultural Creatives, Paul Ray and Sheryl Anderson (2000)
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describe a U.S. subculture of fifty million people who are not yet self-aware as a
whole people. Many of them think that their holoconsciousness views are shared
by only a few of their friends. They have little notion that there are fifty million
of them (p. 39). These ecosocial pioneers are already creating the scaffolding for
a new wisdom culture. Hawken’s (2007) Blessed Unrest makes a similar
argument.
Once a significant enough part of a population gets an idea, everything
shifts. For example, when Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in 1962,
fewer than 20% of U.S. residents considered the environment a serious concern.
Today, at least 85% are concerned. During the 1950s, people simply accepted
nuclear weapons. By 1982, 82% of the population wanted to get rid of them (Ray
& Anderson, 2000, p. 110). Peter Russell (1992) estimates that 10 billion seems to
be the approximate number of units required in a system before a new level of
evolution can emerge. It takes 10 billion atoms to make a cell and 10 billion cells
to make a brain. One more doubling of the human population will make 10 billion
people (Hubbard, 1998, p. 45). Maybe this will be the level of our species shift to
holoconsciousness.
Living systems theory tells us that no matter how dire a situation appears,
the cocreative emergence factor means that anything is possible. Since we cannot
control or predict the future, let us get to work to cocreate the future we dream of.
Our children are depending on us.
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For the Children of All Species
This journey is ultimately for the great-great-grandchildren of all species.
Our children are inheriting the ecosocial dis-ease and must lead the way through
the passage. They need us to listen to and support them to become Holo sapiens.
They live in a different world, where their sense of identity and subtle mystery is
greatly expanded through the Internet, television, cell phones, virtual reality,
fantasy, and science fiction. What do The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien, 1954) and
Harry Potter (Rowling, 1997) mean to them about how they live their lives and
see their future? Ask them.
What many young people do not have is the sense of mystery and wonder
with respect to physical reality. Youth are often disengaged from the Great
Turning, but they do not see the limits that adults do. Inspire them! Do not infect
them with the fears and limitations of the past. Guard and steward their
innocence, their passion, their bodies, their creativity, and their power.
Holo sapien Wisdom
So, what now? How can we be clear that we are following our wisdom
journey path, and ideally even pick up the pace? Let us review the collective
wisdom shared in the previous chapters to highlight the wisdom journey trail
markers. Figure 32 brings the Holo sapien into the Wisdom Mandala to create a
Holo sapien Wisdom Mandala, integrating wisdom themes from the prior
chapters. An integral description of a Holo sapien is then summarized.
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Figure 32. Holo sapien wisdom mandala. Author’s image.
In summary, wisdom is the multidimensional experience of wholeness.
A Holo sapien (inside-out) is a human antenna of wholeness, consciously
aware of their participation in broadening social layers from their siblings to the
stars. A Holo sapien commits to the wisdom journey to do their own inner
personal work so that they have the skills and the capacity to work with both the
interior and the exterior dimensions within themselves and society. They develop
integral life practice with abundant heart–soul, heart–mind, and heart–body
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experience. They have 360° Vision and the Wisdom Attitude of hope, endurance,
and courage.
A wisdom society (outside-in) is a socially just, environmentally
sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling global community of people learning to live
as mutually interdependent beings so that the great-great-grandchildren of all
species can thrive. A wisdom society contains Holo sapien-designed social
systems with an ecosocially inclusive perspective. It develops integral Great
Turning systems of service, justice, and transformation. It practices 360° Vision
and the Wisdom Attitude of listening, action, respect, and sharing.
The Wisdom Intuition Toolkit
WisdomSpace models are intended as intuitive tools to support wisdom
development. With their accessible, somatically centered orientation, they can
serve as intuitive maps for anyone to assess life situations and choices through an
integral lens.
The Holo sapien Wisdom Principle Compass and the Holo sapien Wisdom
Terrain Map integrate personal–collective interior–exterior guidelines from the
prior chapters. A sample experiential exercise can be found in Appendix C.
The Holo sapien Wisdom Principles Compass
Each successive chapter has shown that wisdom journey principles are
coherent across personal, collective, and subtle perspectives. Table 14 in Chapter
4 contains an integral table matrix of wisdom principles that are highlighted here
in Figure 33 and then summarized below.
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Figure 33. Holo sapien wisdom principle compass. Author’s image.
Heart Centered Essence
The heart center represents the holoconscious essence of a Holo sapien. It
is love that embraces fear. It is personal presence open to collective
consciousness. Personal essence has a natural frequency resonance and a healthy
permeable membrane between the unique personal aura and the shared collective
consciousness.
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Steady Intention
Intention represents our essence carried into the future: our desired
presence, our holoconscious will. What do I care about, what is my gift, and what
am I standing for? What do I intend to become and cocreate? It is Wisdom
Mountain: our deepest yearning of the moment.
Resilient Process
Resilient Process represents our essence in the moment: our choices and
our surrender to the now. It reflects the process of growth, change, healing,
learning, and feedback adjustment inherent in living life. It reflects our capacity to
go with the flow, spin with the tides, shift gears, change tacks, and flex: all while
still holding true to our steady intention.
X-Axis Holoconscious Identity
Holoconscious identity is reaching out with care, concern, respect, and
appreciation to our beloved collective self from our siblings to our stars. It
represents our freely-shifting participatory relationship between our personal self
and each of our Holo sapien rings of identity.
Y-Axis Full-Spectrum Felt Experience
Full-spectrum felt experience is full engagement with our soul, head,
heart, and body in the rhythm of life. It represents our freely shifting coherent
relationship between our personal self and the Universe.
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Z-Axis Being–Doing Attention
Our dance between being and doing allows us to remain aligned with our
deepest values and visions as we simultaneously concentrate on manifestation. It
represents our freely shifting empowering relationship within our personal selves.
The Holo sapien Wisdom Terrain Map
The Holo sapien Wisdom Terrain Map in Figure 34 can be used to support
choices that balance the personal and the collective at both individual and group
levels. Wisdom society complexity can be bewildering and overwhelming, so use
your intuition to sort out the noise from true signal to find your path.
In the Terrain Map, an individual Holo sapien is wandering the wisdom
system terrain, finding their own place in the social landscape. Notice the
relatively small size of the personal field compared to the size and diversity of the
social field. Note the distinction and interface between the person’s conscious
field and each wisdom system field. There is a unique degree and type of
resonance between each person and each wisdom system.
I invite you to take a centering breath and then practice scanning the map
with your “intuitive eye.” If you think you do not know how, I encourage you to
try it anyway! Notice which mandala domains and categories catch your attention.
Are you already involved in that area? You might pursue how you could connect
with that particular group or practice. Are you not involved but have wished you
were? Consider getting started. Are you noticing some active resistance to a
system? You could check it out to discover what that might teach you.
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Your intuition is arguably the best guide to navigating the Wisdom Terrain
in any format. For instance, please scan the dense information in the Wisdom
System Survey in Appendix A as an exercise in practicing your intuitive sense in
the chaotic social system field. After you take a centering breath, notice what
catches your attention and what feelings and thoughts of attraction and resistance
arise. Listen to your heartbeat and follow where it leads.
Figure 34. Holo sapien wisdom terrain map. Author’s image.
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Wisdom Systems Recommendations and Visions
A synthesis of wisdom system recommendations from each chapter is
highlighted here.
(Personal) Calling all Holo sapiens: Do Your Growth Work Now!
My key recommendations for personal wisdom development are:
1. Love. Practice Centering. Take your gentle fierce heart into the fire,
and dig in.
2. Find your wisdom systems with ongoing support to maximize and
sustain your growth.
3. Look for and work with signs of hidden shadow: recurring patterns,
triggers, turbulence.
4. Be a wisdom leader. Bring your open, respectful wisdom fully into
your collective life.
5. Stretch your heart–soul, heart–mind, and heart–body. Eat, pray, love,
laugh, dance, learn.
6. Balance being reflective with taking action. Study what is real. Shrink
your ecofootprint.
My deepest dreams for personal growth are to have many more body–mind–soul
wisdom suites offered by both local and distant teachers with online communities.
I would love to see more alliances between such interior and exterior networks as
earthdancenetwork and care2.
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(Subtle) Strengthen Our Inner I/We “All of Us” Muscles
My top recommendations for subtle wisdom development are:
1. Personal: Practice inner reflection and intuition skills on a regular
basis. Learn and cocreate the stories of the Great Turning. Get
comfortable in your emotional skin.
2. Near: Cocreate and share the future we want in circles of dreaming and
visioning.
3. Far: Develop long-term wisdom tradition and collective consciousness
transformation programs that span belief and consciousness spectrums.
4. Far: Calling all wisdom society entertainers: moviemakers, television
producers, artists! Bring our inner wisdom society to life!
My brightest visions for subtle wisdom growth in our society are to have
two or more visionary blockbuster movies and television shows (and many
YouTube videos) that show inspiring visions of a resilient wisdom society. I
imagine more globally coherent subtle activism networks and at least one annual
subtle activism global event with over a million people.
(Human-Scale Collective) Increase the Resilience of Our Communities
My primary recommendations for human-scale collective wisdom
development are:
1. Use wisdom systems tools, particularly group process, to develop the
capacity of your families, organizations, communities, and networks.
2. Nurture and engage young Holo sapiens in the Great Turning.
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3. Collaborate. Reach out to potential or current allies within your caring,
knowing, or living domain and within both interior and exterior
hemispheres.
4. Build a wisdom community where you live.
One favorite vision is the evolution of integrated online toolkits to support
local communities to share wisdom and resources through barter, carsharing,
cooperatives, and so on. The many wonderful single-function tools such as
Craigslist (www.craigslist.org) and MeetUp could (www.meetup.com) cocreate
even more effective wisdom systems by working together. Another favorite
vision is the evolution of morphnets to jumpstart local transformation; I share one
glimpse in the next section.
(Social-Scale Collective) Catalyze Wisdom System Development
At the social-scale level, my recommended focus areas are as follows.
1. Shepherd (inspire, train, fund) wisdom society pioneers.
2. Link the UN funding and plans for climate change and Millenium
Development Goals.
3. Create wisdom network initiatives that bridge wisdom domains,
especially morphnets.
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Imagining “WiseUSA” Morphnets
Building a Wisdom Culture in Mainstream America
Imagine that your community has…
• regular community festivals, celebration, and vigils

fabulous music, food, and meditation and prayer vigils
• wisdom society councils

diverse gatherings of community leaders and citizens for dialogue
• schools that teach wisdom practices

centering, conflict resolution, & planetary stewardship
• no tolerance for violence

restorative justice, mediator circles, community policing
• no hunger and abundant local food

farmers markets, community gardens, food bank
• energy self-sufficiency from solar & wind power
• local manufacturing and reduced consumption
• neighborhood care groups

welcomers, emergency action plans, security watch
• stewardship process and tools

disaster plans, resource strategies, asset mapping, online hub
What if every U.S. community was like this?
What would it be like to live there?
Designing “WiseUSA” Morphnets
What would it take to jump the wisdom society movement to the next
development stage? How do we power it à la Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim,
2006)? How could we build engine and support teams for local leaders?
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Imagine collaborative U.S. wisdom society movement initiatives cohosted
by alliances of trusted wisdom society leaders, nonprofits, governments, and
corporations to build cross-sector wisdom society practices into the fabric of
mainstream U.S. community life.
Caring Sectors
• music and the arts, community celebrations
• interfaith meditation and prayer circles
• rights for all living beings
Knowing Sectors
• wisdom society councils
• integral education and justice practices
• integral facilitation
Living Sectors
• sustainability and relocalization planning and practices
• stewardship tools: asset mapping, complementary currency/trade,
online trust network hub
Initiatives would be rooted in pragmatic, financially sustainable systems that fill a
vital-emotional practical need, especially survival or economic. Scenarios might
include:
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• seed-money funding by philanthropists, grants, and invited
corporate member/partnerships
• programs addressing the community’s known goals, such as school
funding, disaster preparation, and so on
• ongoing revenue source options: online service fees and affiliate
media and product sales, local complementary currency,
community banking systems like microcredit, invited NGO and
corporate sponsors with ongoing profit percentage commitments,
local community council endowment funds
Intuitive Vision of WiseSFBay Morphnet Partners
Recall that a morphnet (transformation network) harnesses the power of
all wisdom system domains. I hesitate to present just one scenario of WiseUSA
morphnet partners given my limited individual view of wisdom system wealth.
However, I do see a resonant pattern among a set of wisdom systems where I live
in the San Francisco Bay Area. If I were to imagine a “WiseSFBay” pilot project,
the organizations in Table 15 are among the first I would talk with to explore our
visions of an integral transformative practical initiative that might, for example,
lower San Francisco Bay Area violence (murders, domestic violence, and teen
suicides) or ecofootprint by a specific percentage by 2020.
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Table 15
WiseSFBay Wisdom Domains and Potential Ally Organizations
Wisdom domains Potential ally organizations (from Appendix A)

centering HeartMath
hybrid network initiatives Summer of Peace

Green for All Alliance
inner caring Interfaith network hubs: Center for Spiritual
Enlightenment, InnerLight, Grace Cathedral, Skyland
Church, Glide, Global Coherence Initiative (Heartmath)
inner knowing Awakening the Dreamer
Nonviolent Communication
Integral City
CIIS, JFK, IONS, Wisdom University
YES!
inner living Work that Reconnects
EarthDance
outer caring Community Legal Environmental Defense Fund
Local/Regional Banks, Foundations, and Corporations
outer knowing Bay Area Regional Government networks, e.g.,
San Jose Partner Cities
Bioneers’ Dreaming New Mexico methodology
State of the World Forum Global Transition Initiative
GoogleEarth
outer living Transition Network
Cool American Campaign
BALLE
Online networks: freecycle, trade/barter, craigslist,
meetup
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Closing Inspirations: The Journey of the Wisdom Warrior
The wisdom journey is a healing process of becoming stronger in our
broken places, recognizing that we each play many roles over time in our various
interbeing relationships. I thought it was rather odd that I was drawn to write
about seemingly unrelated case studies on incest and climate change. I did not
realize until after I had finished writing that both are stories of violence: one on a
human scale, the other on a planetary scale. In one case, I was the victim; in the
other, I was the abuser. Yet, in my nightmares, I have been an incest abuser and a
climate victim. We are all victims and we are all abusers. Have compassion, for
we are all connected.
The first step in the journey is waking up. Just as no one else can force an
addict to recover, no one can be forced to face collective reality before they have
“hit bottom.” Others can provide trigger points such as an intervention with an
alcoholic or a cross-cultural adventure for a modernoholic, but each person must
wake up on their own.
When we are ready to begin, we can use the wisdom journey healing
model as a guide, noticing and supporting our own progression through the
phases. The expression of feelings and thoughts is to be honored and respected.
Processes that surface emotions and build community such as experiential
workshops, transpersonal therapy, reading, and heart-to-heart chats are
particularly useful. As we move through the spiral, we can empower ourselves by
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walking our talk: taking responsibility for how our actions fit our new expanded
sense of self.
The path through recovery to selfhood is not an easy one. It takes work.
It is full of joy, and it hurts. “Everyone who is intent upon surviving—not only
the earth but also life—with worth and dignity, and living rather than passively
accepting life, must sooner or later pass through the agonies of emergent
consciousness” (Gebser, 1985, p. 73).
I know that holoconsciousness exists, because I am encouraged to glimpse
the sustained peace of a balanced center and freedom of motion emerging within
me. Wisdom principles reassure me that it is emerging elsewhere, too, since they
remind me that I am a microcosm of the macrocosm. I feel more intimately and
joyfully connected with people, governments, my body, wind currents, and
centipedes than ever before. Most of the time, I know that I am enough. I am
becoming unafraid of my fear, although that does not mean that I do not feel fear
anymore. The more experience I have with deep intimacy and presence, the more
I am brought face-to-face with my hidden primal terror of rejection and
abandonment. Since this is a strong synchronistic pattern, I know that this is really
about me: my opportunity to discover a deeper trust, safety, and belonging no
matter what happens around me. Whenever I feel terrified, I bring my attention
right into the broken place and metaphorically sit down to hold space there,
centering and calling my spiritual guides there with me. As I sit, the terror seems
to fade away as I discover a calm eye in the center of the storm.
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I am moved by Joanna Macy’s story of finding herself curled up shaking
in despair under her desk repeatedly for a year after a seminar triggered her
awakening to global reality (Ray & Anderson, 2000, p. 297). Joanna went on to
create what is now called the Work that Reconnects to help people through this
grieving process. Her experience is that only through facing what people feel is
unbearable can they begin to bear it. Joanna tells the story related to her by
Tibetan friends who believe that our era is the time of the prophecy of the
kingdom of Shambhala (Macy & Brown, 1998, p. 60). Shambhala is a subtle
place existing in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala Warriors, who know that
the dangers threatening life on Earth arise from “our own decisions, our own
lifestyles, and our own relationships” (p. 60). The Shambhala warrior goes into
the very heart of these mind-made dangers with their own weapons of compassion
and insight.
The compassion gives you the juice, the power, the passion to move. It
means not to be afraid of the pain of the world. Then you can open to it,
step forward, act. But that weapon by itself is not enough. It can burn you
out, so you need the other—you need insight into the radical
interdependence of all phenomena. With that wisdom you know that it is
not a battle between “Good guys” and “bad guys,” because the line
between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart.
With insight into our profound interrelatedness—our deep ecology—you
know that actions undertaken with pure intent have repercussions
throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern. By
itself, that insight may appear too cool, too conceptual, to sustain you and
keep you moving, so you need the heat of compassion. Together these two
can sustain us as agents of wholesome change. They are gifts for us to
claim now in the healing of our world. (p. 61)
And so, let us claim these gifts now, my friends, in honor of our great-great-
grandchildren. With gratitude and blessings for our Holo sapien journey together,
Leslie.
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APPENDIX A: WISDOM SYSTEM SURVEY
Table 16
Interior Wisdom Systems
Domain Rings System category, type, and names of specific systems
All Center Centering practices
Silence, meditation, centering prayer, breathing, biofeedback, etc.
Buddhist meditation (www.how-to-meditate.org), yoga meditation (www.csecenter.org), realization
process (www.realizationcenter.com), Transcendental Meditation (www.tm.org), centering prayer
(www.centerprayer.org), HeartMath (www.heartmath.org), Institute for Applied Meditation
(www.applied-meditation.org), Journey to the Wild Divine (www.wilddivine.com), Undefended Love
(www.undefendedlove.com)
Personal wisdom suites
Integral centering and transformative practices explicitly engaging body, emotions, mind, and spirit
Eco-ILP (Integral Ecology), Integral Life Practice (www.myILP.com), Sounds True (www.soundstrue.com),
Integral Transformative Practice (www.itp-life.com), Transformational Leadership Council
(http://www.transformationalleadershipcouncil.com/index.html)
Inner Embodied spirituality
Caring Subtle wisdom practices, centers, and programs of spiritual, consciousness, and indigenous communities
Ctr/Near Engaged churches, sanghas, synagogues, covens, sweat lodges, circles, etc., in your neighborhood
Far Centers/networks
The Interfaith Alliance (www.interfaithalliance.org), Engaged Buddhism (www.dharmanet.org), United Religions
Initiative (www.uri.org), CommonPassion (www.commonpassion.org), Religious Society of Friends
(www.quaker.org), Foundation for Shamanic Studies (www.shamanism.org), Vessels of Peace
(www.vesselsofpeace.com), 13 Indigenous Grandmothers (www.grandmotherscouncil.org), Association for
Global New Thought (www.agnt.org), Gaiafield Center for Subtle Activism (www.gaiafield.net), Lorian
Incarnational Spirituality (www.lorian.org), Ridhwan School (www.ridhwan.org)
298
Inner Far Global Programs/Forums
caring Parliament of World Religions (www.cpwr.org), World Wildlife Fund Earth Hour (www.earthhour.org),
(con’t) International Day of Peace (www.cultureofpeace.org), 11 Days of Global Unity (www.wetheworld.org),
Global Coherence Initiative (www.glcoherence.org), The Intention Experiment
(www.theintentionexperiment.com), Integral Enlightenment (www.integralenlightenment.com)
Creative Expression
Transformational contemplative and artistic practice and centers: music, visual arts, writing, etc.
Ctr/Near Painting, music, community cultural development
Far Networks and centers
Wisdom of the World (www.wisdomoftheworld.org), Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (www.cosm.org),
Damanhur (www.damanhur.org)
Inner Integral Learning
knowing Transformational stories, schools, centers, networks, forums, etc.
Ctr/Near Transformational stories (communications and media)
Sustainable World Sourcebook (www.swcoalition.org), YES (www.YESmagazine.org),
Ode (www.Odemagazine.com), Kosmos Journal (www.kosmosjournal.org), Awakening the Dreamer Symposium
(www.awakeningthedreamer.org), What’s Your Tree (www.whatsyourtree.org)
Far Integral graduate schools
California Institute of Integral Studies (www.ciis.edu), John F. Kennedy University (www.rjku.edu),
Wisdom University (www.wisdomuniversity.edu), Bainbridge Graduate Institute (www.bgiedu.org),
Integral programs at Stanford, MIT, etc.
Integral Institute (www.integralinstitute.org), Institute of Noetic Sciences (www.ions.org),
Esalen (www.esalen.org), Zambuling Institute (www.silentpeacemeditation.com), Alliance for a New Humanity
(www.anhglobal.org), International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine
(www.issseem.org), Passageways Institute (www.passageways.org)
299
Inner Integral process
knowing Communication and facilitation: Dialogue, nonviolent communication, empowerment, circle work, etc.
(cont’d.) Far Nonviolent Communication (www.cnvc.org), Circle Work (www.peerspirit.org), YES! (www.yesworld.org),
National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (www.thataway.org), The Co-Intelligence Institute (http://co-
intelligence.org), Center for Appreciative Inquiry Commons, (www.appreciativeinquiry.case.edu),
Knowledge Sharing Toolkit (http://www.kstoolkit.org/), The Change Handbook (thechangehandbook.com)
WorldCafe (www.theworldcafe.org), GlobalProcessInstitute (www.worldwork.org), The Berkana Institute
(www.berkana.org), FutureSearch (www.futuresearch.org), Integral City (www.integralcity.org), SoL Sustain-
ability Consortium (www.solsustainability.org), Commonway (www.commonway.org), Empowerment Institute
(www.empowermentinstitute.net), Deliberative Democracy (www.deliberative-democracy.net)
Global forums/programs
State of the World Forum (www.worldforum.org), Bioneers (www.bioneers.org)
Inner Emotional vitality
living Emotion and shadow work: transpersonal therapy, forgiveness projects, eco-psychology, etc.
Ctr/Near Transpersonal therapy, support groups
Far Work that Reconnects (www.joannamacy.net), forgiveness and reconciliation projects (many, e.g.,
Australian Apology to the Stolen Generations http://www.aph.gov.au/house/rudd_speech.pdf),
emotion ecology conferences (www.psysr.org)
Physical resonance
Movement and celebration (inner/outer synthesis): martial arts, yoga, festivals, somatics, etc.
Ctr/Near Martial arts, ecstatic dance, yoga, somatics, sports in the zone, festivals, concerts, etc.
Far EarthDance (www.earthdancenetwork.com), BurningMan (www.burningman.com)
Note. Survey focuses on U.S.-based systems, limited scope. Domain = Z-axis Inner (Upper/Lower Left) and Y-axis caring (Heart/Soul), knowing
(Heart/Mind), living (Heart/Body); Rings = X-axis Ctr or Center (Person), Near (Family - Local), Hybrid (Family – Earth), Far (City - Earth).
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Table 17
Exterior Wisdom Systems
Outer Ecosocial rights
Caring Collective principles and equity values
Far Community Legal Environmental Defense Fund (www.celdf.org), EarthCharter (www.earthcharter.org), right to
nature laws, e.g., Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights to Nature (http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3480)
Inspired giving
Integral philanthropy, corporate giving, civic spending, socially responsible investing
Personal donations and volunteering, e.g., Habitat for Humanity, Heifer International, microfinance
Community funding, e.g., Living Cities (www.livingcities.org), Ecotrust (www.ecotrust.org)
Outer Just governance
Knowing Civic policy creation, engagement, advocacy, and agreements
Near Practices
Citizen Deliberative Councils (www.co-intelligence.org/P-CDCs.html),
Wisdom Councils (www.wisedemocracy.org)
Far Centers/programs
Peace government movements (e.g., U.S. Dept. of Peace, www.thepeacealliance.org)
Global Transition Initiative (http://www.worldforum.org/2009global-transition.htm),
Integrated Assessment (http://www.tias.uni-osnabrueck.de/index.php), Redefining Progress (www.rprogress.org)
Grassroots networks
The Climate Project (www.climateproject.org), MoveOn (www.moveon.org), Avaaz (www.avaaz.org)
Organizations and alliances
Alliance for Climate Protection (www.climateprotect.org), 1Sky (www.1sky.org),
Apollo Alliance (www.apolloalliance.org) , Climate Action Network (www.climatenetwork.org)
Hybrid Hybrid networks
350 (www.350.org), Earth Day Network (www.earthday.net),
Empowerment Institute (www.empowermentinstitute.net), Green for All (www.greenforall.org)
301
Outer Just governance, continued
Knowing
(cont’d.) Far Forums
United Nations (www.un.org), The World Future Council (http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org),
Global peace government movements, e.g., Integral World Government (www.integralworldgovernment.org)
Climate change/sustainability agreements
American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org),
Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement (www.usmayors.org/climateprotection),
Green Cities (www.greencities.com), Clinton Global Initiative (www.clintonglobalinitiative.org),
UN Kyoto Protocol (http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php),
UN Millenium Development Goals (www.un.org/milleniumgoals)
Outer Ecosocial tools
Knowing Ecosocial action research centers, measurement and mapping tools
Near Genuine Progress Indicator, Big Box Calculator, Ecofootprint (www.rprogress.org)
Far PostCarbon Institute (www.postcarbon.org), Earth Policy Institute (www.earth-policy.org),
Asset-Based Community Development Institute (www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.html),
Pew Center on Global Climate Change (www.pewcenter.org), WorldWatch (www.worldwatch.org),
WiserEarth (www.wiserearth.org), GoogleEarth (earth.google.com),
climate simulation tools (www.climateinteractive.com)
Outer Sustainable sectors
Living e.g., health, justice, transportation, land/forest/water stewardship, building, clean tech, finance, energy, etc.
Integral energy/power survey (alternative energy, energy efficiency & retrofits, sustainable power generation)
Hybrid Cool America Campaign (www.empowermentinstitute/lcd/lcd_files/cool_america.html), Energy Action Coalition
(www.energyactioncoalition.org),
Far Carbon sequestration (CCS) power plants http (http://www.fossil.energy.gov/sequestration/overview.html),
Regeneration Project and Interfaith Power and Light (www.theregenerationproject.org)
302
Domain Rings System Category, type, and names of specific systems
Outer People and places
Living Integral LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and place-based communities of practice
(cont’d.) Ctr/Near Personal practices
Recycling resources (Earth911.com), LOHAS products (life.gaiam.com)
Near Intentional communities (www.ic.org)
Hybrid Hybrid networks
Transition Movement (www.transitionnetwork.org), Four Years Go (www.fouryearsgo.org),
One Million Acts of Green (http://green.cbc.ca), Earth Day Network (www.earthday.net)
Far Grassroots networks
TakingItGlobal (www.tigweb.org), Care2 (www.care2.com)
Cities/regions
Navigating our Future (www.navigatingourfuture.org), Sustainable Seattle (www.sustainableseattle.org),
Dreaming New Mexico (www.dreamingnewmexico.org), Nature Conservancy (www.nature.org),
Great Bear Rainforest British Columbia (www.savethegreatbear.org), Sarvodaya (www.sarvodaya.org)
Organization alliances
Global EcoVillage Network (http://gen.ecovillages.org), Catalytic Communities (www.catcomm.org),
Alliance for Regional Stewardship (www.regionalstewardship.org),
Local Governments for Sustainability (http://www.iclei.org/), BALLE (www.livingeconomies.net)
Geoengineering (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=geoengineering-and-climate-change)
Note. Survey focuses on U.S.-based systems, limited scope. Domain = Z-axis Inner (Upper/Lower Left) and Y-axis caring (Heart/Soul), knowing
(Heart/Mind), living (Heart/Body); Rings = X-axis Ctr or Center (Person), Near (Family - Local), Hybrid (Family – Earth), Far (City - Earth).
303
APPENDIX B: CLIMATE CHANGE RESOURCES
Government
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (2007), from the
United Nations IPCC agency coalition, is the best reflection of the mainstream
will of the people and thus of global government policy; located at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf, it summarizes
climate change data, discusses mitigation (greenhouse gas reduction) and
adaptation (social adjustments to climate change consequences), and concludes
that developed countries should pay climate change costs. At the December 2008
Poznan conference, leading edge climate change experts Bill McKibben, James
Hansen, and Al Gore advocated a greenhouse gas goal of 350ppm (parts per
million). This is significantly lower than the prior 450 goal and means we have to
seriously cut, not just maintain, emissions levels.
NGO/Philanthropic Reports
Design to Win (California Environmental Associates, 2007) is a scientific
advisory report for major philanthropic foundations, synthesizing the Stern
Review, McKinsey’s Vattenfall map, and IPCC Reports. This report can be found
at http://greengrants.org/pdf/design_to_win.pdf. Their key conclusions include:
• First, don’t lose - the battle could be lost in the next decade. We must
prevent a massive “lock-in” of emissions from new coal-fired power
plants, long-lived industrial infrastructure, inefficient building, car-
centric cities, and irreversible deforestation.
• A goal of 2° and 450ppm (ed. note: now 350ppm) meant reducing
emissions by 30 gigatons by 2030, 80% of which can be achieved with
304
existing technologies. There is no silver bullet. Mitigation must be
found in every sector.
• Concentrate efforts geographically: US, Eur Union, China, & India
(for carbon reductions, nearly half the global potential) and Amazon,
Congo, & Indonesia (for deforestation).
• Policy reform is essential: meaningful carbon caps, policy
implementation, & R&D cooperation strategies presented.
• Also target five sectors: power, industry, building, transportation, &
forestry. Specific strategies given.
Ecoequity.org offers an NGO/philanthropic report for mitigating climate
change while ensuring an equitable path to development for the Global South.
Located at http://www.ecoequity.org/docs/TheGDRsFramework.pdf, the report
(Baer, Athanasiou, Kartha, & Kemp-Benedict, 2008) describes the need for an
interior “trust-building period” (p. 24) process to overcome the “international trust
deficit” (p. 86) to make real progress.
Social
These sources offer clear information on climate facts and social
equity/climate change issue impact.
Climateinteractive.net is an accredited climate simulation tools
collaborative that offers the following information (Climate Interactive, n.d.).
• As of March 2009, projected UN Climate Change Conference
commitments regulated greenhouse gases to 750ppm!! nowhere near
350. Call participants felt that more effective stringent limits could be
developed at G2/G5/G8 summits, especially between the US & China.
• Populous developing countries’ emissions will drive the climate, but
the US has to walk its talk to have any credibility in any negotiations.
“We all have to jump in together holding hands.”

305
Climateproject.org offers training in what are essentially updated
Inconvenient Truth presentations (Climate Project, 2010).
1Sky.org is a hybrid network policy advocacy partner with Green for All,
Apollo Alliance, and others. Their goals include the following.
• Create 5 million new jobs with a sweeping (USA) national
mobilization for climate solutions, energy independence, and
investment in a new energy economy.
• Conserve 20% of our energy below 1990 levels by 2015, 25% by
2020, and 80% by 2050.
• End new coal plant development (1Sky, n.d.).
350.org (n.d.). is a hybrid network that held a huge October 2009 global
climate change day and offers a great online resource list, including NASA’s Jim
Hansen and ecoequity links.
Personal Conversations
The numbers are complex and controversial, but it is very likely that we
are already at or above the sustainable human population level. We need on the
order of two orders of magnitude (say 20-50 times) efficiency improvement in
how we use matter and energy. The rich will need to use much less energy; the
poor can only use a little more (Jim Fournier, personal communication, May
2009).
306
APPENDIX C:
EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE—A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A HOLO SAPIEN
Imagine waking up in the morning and stretching your subtle body both to
balance and to sense into your intention for the day. First, use your heart centering
practice - feeling gratitude, flowing with your breath. Now focus your awareness
in both directions left to right along your identity x-axis, letting your awareness
flow through each of your rings of community, noticing blocks or extra energy.
Next tune into your sensory and energetic experience, your spirit-head-
heart-body y-axis, letting the energy flow along, noticing any blocks or extra
energy. Where is your energy more intense? Less intense? Can you feel a
connection down into the earth? Up into the cosmos?
Now focus your awareness on your goal for the day. Imagine it in front of
you in the form of a flower or star. Imagine changing your scope of view along
the z-axis of attention, bringing your focus back to get a wide-angle view and then
bringing it forward to a close-up view. This reflection-action axis helps you stay
in touch with your visions and thoughts as you move into creating your intention.
Now bring your awareness back to your center. What do you notice?
Where do you feel most at home along each axis? Where do you feel in balance?
Out of step? Now imagine being able to see all around you 360° as well as above
and below you. What does that feel like? What do you notice? Has anything
shifted around your intention for the day?
307

LeslieMeehan Holosapien

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OUR BIRTH AS HOLO SAPIENS

NAVIGATING OUR PASSAGE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of

the California Institute of Integral Studies

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities with a concentration in Philosophy and

Religion and an emphasis in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness

California Institute of Integral Studies

I certify that I have read OUR BIRTH AS HOLO SAPIENS

NAVIGATING OUR PASSAGE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE by Leslie C.

dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of

Philosophy in Humanities with a concentration in Philosophy and Religion and an

emphasis in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute

Received email confirmation April 21, 2010

Written request sent March 23, 2010

Dear Bill and colleagues,

I’d appreciate an email response to document your permission to reprint the

• Figure 3.16 Chakra-Endocrine Pair (Tiller, 1997, p 122)

The requested permission extends to any future revisions and editions of my

Received online March 15, 2010

Request sent March 15, 2010

I am now completing my dissertation and would like your permission to reprint

The requested permission extends to any future revisions and editions of my

From: Drew Dellinger's Office [mailto:drew@drewdellinger.org]

love letter to the milky way

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Leslie Meehan <LeslieM@whitelight.ws>

that you have as much fun in Canada.

I’m now slogging through the administrative details of publishing my CIIS

and am delighted to be formally requesting your permission to reprint the

following excerpt from hieroglyphic stairway:

my great great grandchildren

surely you did something

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

what did you do

The requested permission extends to any future revisions and editions of my

|From: tompipinou@comcast.net [mailto:tompipinou@comcast.net]

The requested permission extends to any future revisions and editions of my

OUR BIRTH AS HOLO SAPIENS

linking personal, collective, interior, and exterior growth.

Wisdom is defined as the multidimensional experience of wholeness.

Wisdom development is an embodied, participatory process of healing and

transformation called the Integral Wisdom Journey. Wisdom systems provide

diversity within collective unity. Wisdom systems guide us toward a sustainable,

and the next seven generations.

This work illustrates perspectival freedom by examining wisdom

view, as seen through action research and through my personal experience.

across these simultaneously occurring perspectives. Climate change is a case

study focus for each perspective.

A wisdom toolkit of intuitive models is provided to aid our perspectival

sapien Compass is a guide to personal wisdom development in identity, felt

The Holo sapien Unergy Model hypothesizes Holo sapien as an eleven-

dimensional human antenna that subtly attunes with collective consciousness

through frequency resonance coherence. These patterns coalesce in Holo sapien

Wisdom models of today’s wisdom society.

In summary, recommendations are made for personal wisdom systems,

collective reflection programs, community resilience networks, and strategic

wisdom system development to best assist wisdom society maturation.

Gratitude to my family, friends, colleagues, and guides

is expressed at the beginning of each chapter

Digital Graphics Design of Author's Images by Brooks Cole

Art by Tom Pipinou and Janelle Vasche

Poetry by Drew Dellinger

Selected diagrams by William Tiller and William Varey