That essay by Davor Löeffler looks super interesting and worth a dive in. It feels like it has more of a materialist edge, which might complement the ascending idealist currents of other recent reading. I also like the typography and aesthetics of the document, and am curious about its provenance. I have not yet read it, but perhaps we could put it on the menu for a future week?
I’ve also gotten in, through interlibrary loan, Jorge Ferrer’s newish volume, Participation and the Mystery, and was suprised to see my name referenced in the introdution (via his critique of Integral Life Practice). I was recommended to his work by the dialogue around the previous week’s café on postformal pedgagogies, and listened to the talk he did with Erik Davis, which @hfester shared. I already feel pretty sympathetic with his ideas, including his critiques, so it would be interesting to engage his actual texts more deeply.
I think we’ve cleary seen the limitations of the mental integral approach. The maps are useful because they provide us with some anchoring in the infinite—it is possible to organize experience through a mental ordering of ideas, insights, and methods. This provides some sense of health, safety, and sanity for a while. But the incursions of the monstrous / divine / infinite continue—and we need deeper ways to embody the immense and subtle energies that move through us. For me, it is more of an artistic process than it is one of grasping an ever-more complex cognitive map.
However, maps are useful and can also be pretty and fun; and they help us imagine the places we might go. And if we DID have map of a future integral world, would it tell us how to get there? How would we determine or divine the directions? A flock of migrating birds might attune to the earth’s magentic fields as they navigate to a precise mating spot thousands of miles away. How will we find our own way through these vast world structures?
I wish we could pick up again on an impulse @KPr2204 shared in this exchange with @achronon:
from: Mindful Sex and Human Development [CCafe 7/3] - #59 by KPr2204
I feel this sense of urgency and also a sense of overwhelm, knowing how much needs to be done (or undone), and I’m also appreciating the amazing beauty of the journey. I don’t know what happens tomorrow, but I’ll be glad to join y’all to find out.