The Next Wave of Men’s Work: From Mythopoetic to The Transpersonal

by Gary Stamper

As I’ve begun my book tour for Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, one of the benefits I’m seeing for myself is to be once again immersed in integral community. I knew I was missing the “we” space of SeattleIntegral, the salon I helped found and moderated for five years, I just didn’t realize how much.

Over the last few weeks I’ve done a book talk with the combined  Atlanta and Roswell, Georgia Integral Salons, I’ve just returned from doing talks with DC Integral Emergence and Integral New York City Meetups, and I’m getting ready to head out to the west coast with a series of book talks for book stores, salons, meetups, and workshops  in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

It’s very different talking with integral groups as opposed to book stores and Mankind Project I-Groups. When I’m talking with a group  that hasn’t been exposed to Integral Theory or Spiral Dynamics, I have to give a different talk, and make vague references to “integral and developmental systems theory” as part of a larger picture of what I do in the Integral Warrior Men’s Process. There’s a learning curve around language that begins the first weekend of the workshop that sets the context around both these systems sometimes, if not presented in a way that minimizes the appearance of hierarchy that can turn men off.

Part of this is because my target audience of men are, in Spiral Dynamics terms, “green” emergent to “yellow,” and green level of consciousness generally rejects hierarchy, not yet understanding the difference between natural and dominator hierarchies.

But when I’m talking with an audience who already gets “integral” and Spiral Dynamics, there’s something that happens with everyone firing on all cylinders, mutual capacities, and a common language that just makes everything connected and we all get to fall in love. With men and the integral Warrior Process, one of the goals is to create that same kind of connection as quickly as possible so that a new awareness and consciousness can emerge within the group, and the way to get there as quickly as possible is to practice with individual and group meditations.

Integral groups ask really good questions and one of the questions I was recently asked at the DC Integral Emergence meetup was, “How is your work different from the men’s movement of the 80s?”

The first and obvious answer is that the mythopoetic men’s movement does not include integral and developmental systems theory. Nor does it include the Sacred Activist as described by Andrew Harvey in his book, The Hope.

The “men’s movement” of the 80’s was, and continues to this day, to be what I’m calling the first wave” of men’s work, which is, as Wilber says, “necessary, but not sufficient.” It relies heavily on the mythopoetic, using mythology and analytical psychology, and consists mostly of psychological self-help groups which tend to stay away from explicit stances around psychospiritual and sociopolitical issues, or Sacred Activism, which the Integral Warrior dives right in to, as would be necessitated by taking an integral approach.  This requires being able to take and hold multiple, bigger, and sometimes paradoxical perspectives.

Another way to describe this is that the Integral Warrior requires the Monk to come out of his cave and to be involved in the world.  Simply retreating inward is not sufficient with the global problems we face today. The Integral Warrior workshop and the book allows men to transcend (and include) mythology into the transpersonal, and to then allow that to inform their Sacred Purpose. Transpersonal  development includes both rational and transrational faculties, as well as a sense of oneself as an individual organism, while simultaneously expanding to embrace all phenomena, including a larger “we.”

It is, quite simply, the move from 2nd stage masculine to 3rd stage masculine: the shift from the mythopoetic to Integral, and Integral is the bridge to the next level of consciousness.

Please like Awakening the New Masculine‘s Facebook Page

See where Gary is appearing on his national book tour link

 

2012 – What Do You Mean, the 3rd Dimension Is Going Away? by Jim Self

As many of you know, Multi-Dimensionality is a current passion of mine. I find that spiritual teacher Jim Self has a masterful way of describing the dimensions and the great Shift we are experiencing, so I will be posting a 2010 article here and then another recent2-part article soon. Come join me this weekend at the Nourished Soul Conference in Atlanta where I will be presenting a keynote address on Multi-Dimensionality. Thank you Blue Star Sister Charla for sending me this article this morning!

Blessings,

Anyaa

P.S. Art by Kanyen Waters of the Sacred Sisters of The Morning Mist Shamanic Priestess Circle

As 2012 approaches (it’s here!) there is an increasing urgency to this message because we’re all, literally, running out of time to play in the third dimension.
In simple terms, the habit of thinking and feeling and behaving that we know of as the third dimension is going away. Everyone is shifting into a fourth dimensional consciousness and experience, and then into a fifth dimensional consciousness and experience.
However, most people on the planet are not prepared for this Shift. But it is happening nonetheless, and for those who are unaware of what’s going on it will not be an easy or comfortable experience.
Yet this can be a wonderful, enjoyable time as well. With some basic information about what the Shift is, and what “dimensions” are, and with simple tools to help manage our thoughts and feelings, everyone has the ability to evolve their consciousness and move gracefully and joyfully into these higher vibrational realms.
If you don’t know what dimensions are, you are not alone. Most people playing the game of life as we know it in the third dimension are playing without a “rule book” that would explain what the game really is and how one can play it successfully.
This article provides these basic, missing rules. It explains what the third, fourth, and fifth dimensions are, and why they are the most important consideration of your life right now.
If you can understand the structure and play of these dimensions, you can begin to move fluidly through the unprecedented changes of this Shift without fear, without effort, without the tension and anxiety that is, for the most part, the daily habit of our lives.
So, first of all, let me define what dimensions are not.
Dimensions are not places or locations, and they are not a linear progression – 3, 4, 5, 6 – stacked up like pancakes.  And the 3rd dimension, or the 4th dimension, is not the chair you’re sitting in, or the walls that surround you, or even the Earth itself. That is form, which exists predominantly in the 3rd and 4th dimensions, and which will still be very much part of the play in the 4th dimension when the 3rd dimension is no longer an option.
In general, dimensions are states of consciousness available to anyone who vibrates in resonance with the specific frequencies and opportunities available within each dimension.
In a way, you could think of each dimension as a different game with a different set of rules as to what is possible and not possible for the beings that choose to play and create there.

So what is the 3rd Dimension?
The third dimension (3D) is a box of rigid beliefs, more or less, with a relatively inflexible set of rules and limitations. Most of us have been playing this game for lifetimes, so we tend to think it is the only game available to us.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  One of the rigid 3D beliefs that structure our lives – our thinking and feeling and actions – is linear time.
Linear time is an optional belief and structure that let’s us “live” an experience of past and a future… and then we die.  Because this belief is the default assumption of mass 3D consciousness, and events seem to validate the belief, most of us think and act as if it’s true.
But now we are all waking up from the illusion of this ubiquitous belief. And as you become more conscious, you realize that time in 3D is actually a time loop. What you experience in “the past” is pretty much what you put your attention on now, and you project that reality into “the future,” and therefore you experience it over and over again.
So the structure of time is quite specific (and limiting) in the 3rd dimension, but your experience of time is quite different (and empowering) as you move into higher dimensions.
Everything in a 3D consciousness is also very conditional. The concept of, for example, ‘unconditional love,’ does not exist in the 3rd dimension. If you experience ‘unconditional love’ or ‘unconditional peace’ you have actually moved into a fourth dimensional (4D) consciousness.
You see, in the earth experience now, we have access to both 3rd and 4th dimensional consciousness, but most of us rarely step out of the well-grooved habits of 3D thinking and feeling.
The 3rd dimension also offers no possibility of choice. We don’t choose our thoughts, feelings, and actions in every moment (that’s a skill of 4D and 5D), instead we react from unconscious beliefs and training to the people and situations that pop up in our space.
Duality provides another rigid structure for 3D experience. Up/down. Left/right. Should/shouldn’t. Since the fall of Atlantis 12,500 years ago, we have become very fearful as a way of life, and in that fear we have learned to narrowly define good and bad, right and wrong, etc. Unconscious judgment permeates 3D thinking.
Moreover, we perceive our 3D experience predominantly with the left hemisphere of the brain, home of the rational mind, and so we use only about 5 to 10 percent of the brain’s capacity to play the 3D game. Most of us suspect the rest of our brain must do something but have no idea what it actually does and how it functions.
In fact, what the rest of the brain enables us to do is function in the higher 4th and 5th dimensions, and beyond.
We already have the potential, all the necessary equipment and wiring, right now, to be fully conscious in all these dimensions. But our habits of thinking and feeling, grooved over many lifetimes, dumbs= us down and limit us to 3D experience.  Our left-brain, rational mind only knows what it knows, and doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, and it works tirelessly to keep us within a thin range of objective 3D thinking and possibilities.  And we, for the most part, have gone along for the ride. But no longer.
The increasing light energies and frequencies of the Shift are rewiring our brains to allow us access to a much wider range of information and possibility than is available in the 3rd dimension.  These light energies are preparing us for 4D and 5D experience, even as they are clearing the rigid 3D “rules” from our consciousness.

So what is the 4th Dimension?
The “rules” of 4th dimensional consciousness provide an enhanced sense of ease, possibility, and capability than the structures of the 3rd dimension.
Time in 4D, for example, is always present time. The focus is only ever this moment, what is happening right now. Our bodies already know only this present time; they can’t know ‘yesterday’ or ‘tomorrow,’ and as conscious beings in our natural alignment in the higher 4th dimension, we function absolutely in this “Now” of present time awareness and attention. When our attention point becomes present time awareness, choice becomes possible again. We can observe any and all events with a sense of detachment, merely as information to consider, and from that still, uncluttered platform we are then, and only then, free to choose our response. In the higher 4th dimension we become response-able.
A concept and possibility known as paradox also becomes available in the present time of 4D consciousness. Paradox simply means that what was true just a moment ago may not be true right now. And what was false a moment ago may no longer be false. Instead of applying rigid, pre-existing definitions to any experience, we choose our preferred version and vibration in every moment.
So as we move into 4D consciousness in present time, with the power of choice and response-ability, and the flexibility of paradox, the ability to alter the game to enhance our happiness and wellbeing becomes available.
Interestingly, 4D consciousness will not be a long-term option after the Shift clears away the rigid structures of 3D consciousness.
The 4th dimension is serving as an essential, but short-lived, stepping stone or vibrational platform from which we will all move into 5th dimensional consciousness. 5D is the target for Earth and all her inhabitants. The archangels have said the entire consciousness of Earth will be a fifth dimensional consciousness by the year 2015.
But although the 5th dimension is the target, the experience of the 4th dimension is essential.  We cannot enter 5D directly from 3D. All mental and emotional baggage from the 3rd dimension must be left at the door to the 4th dimension, and we can only enter the 5th dimension after we have become masterful of our thoughts and feelings in the 4th dimension.
Some assembly is required.

So what is the 5th Dimension?
The 5th dimension operates, to a great extent, in a completely differently fashion from the 3rd and 4th dimensions.
Time in 5D is instantaneous time, meaning that everything (all possibilities) occurs in the same place at the same moment. In 5D, you focus your attention and the answer or experience is given to you exactly when and where you focus.
Ask and you shall receive.
In 5D, you don’t have to move or go anywhere for your answers or experiences; everything comes to you easily and effortlessly based upon the attention point and vibration you choose to hold in every moment.
When you are vibrating in 5D consciousness, you don’t create with form as you do in the 3rd and 4th dimensions, you create with light and light patterns and light frequencies. You apply sound and color and geometric shapes. You consciously interact with the Creator and all the Beings of Light.
In this heightened consciousness, the rational mind plays a very minimal role. It returns to a small, specific focus it was intended to have, namely the wellbeing of the physical body.
But before we can move into our vibrational home that is 5D consciousness, we must first become masterful of the vibrations and possibilities of 4D consciousness. This is the focus of the Shift for most people as we head into the ever-accelerating events of 2012.
So how do you become masterful in 4D consciousness?

The Tools of 4D Present Time
As I mentioned, 4D is the ‘right now’ of ‘present time.’ But present time actually has four different levels.
In 2010, we all stepped into the third level. As we move through 2012, we step into the fourth, and final level.  In that level, when you think, ‘I would like an apple,’ the apple is going to appear in your hand. Usually when I say that people get very excited. And it is exciting. However … there is a however.
The vast majority of people on this planet are not prepared to be the masters of their every thought, feeling, and action in every moment. But there’s no option. It’s a required, baseline skill of higher 4D and 5D consciousness.
One of the reasons the 3rd dimension was created was to provide a “playground” in which we each can practice and hone the vibration of our thoughts and feelings. To accomplish this, the 3D playground has a time buffer. Instead of ‘instant manifestation’ there is a time lag between the thought we think and the manifestation or experience of that thought.  For the most part, we are very sloppy with this buffer.
Instead of focusing on what we want, and allowing this to unfold over time, we spew anger, frustration, boredom, worry, anxiety, blame, guilt, fear – all kinds of lower, disharmonic thoughts and feelings. We behave as if we can think and feel anything with impunity because we do not see the instantaneous results of our thinking.
But no longer. As 3D linear time is collapsing into a single point of present time, the time buffer is collapsing too. We have less opportunity to practice being aware of our mental and emotional habits before what we think is what we get. This is a very big deal.
Fortunately, some simple energy tools can help you manage your thoughts and emotions in every moment so that you can be prepared for the unprecedented opportunity and challenge of living and creating in present time in the higher dimensions.
These basic energy tools are available for free on our website www.masteringalchemy <http://www.masteringalchemy/>  .com but let me explain a few of them here by way of example.

Allow the Shift to clear your unconscious thoughts & feelings

In simple terms, the Shift is using one wave of light frequencies to clear away who we are not, and another wave to remind us who we are. The Shift knows where we’ve stored unwanted, unconscious habits of thought and reactionary emotion, and the light is clearing all this from our vibration.
However, as these lesser thoughts and feelings are cleared, they will come into our awareness, and magnetize people and circumstances to us that mirror these chaotic energies. How do you handle these often-powerful energies when they appear.  You allow them. If you can simply observe them with a sense of detachment as they come up – knowing that they are just coming up to be cleared they will clear quickly, and you won’t even remember what the fuss was all about.
But if you grab hold and engage these chaotic thoughts and feelings, if you insist on feeling guilty or worrying, if you continue to argue that ‘I am not OK’ or ‘They are not OK,’ these energies will not be cleared from your space – and the Shift, as it accelerates ever faster, will become a very bumpy, very ‘not OK’ road for you.
Remember most often what comes up is not even yours; it does not belong to you. Acknowledge it and know that it’s coming up to be cleared… forever. Take a couple of deep breaths, go for a walk, listen to music — but turn your attention point to something of a higher vibration.

Understanding the Lower and Higher 4th Dimension
To simplify another important aspect of the Shift, let’s imagine that the 4th dimension has just two parts to it – a lower 4th dimension and a higher 4th dimension. (This is not technically true, but it’s a useful distinction.)
As I mentioned, form will remain when 3D disappears. We’ll still experience houses and cars and trees. But fear, judgments, blame and guilt, the rights and the wrongs, will disappear. All this dense emotional energy, which is the only thing that prevents us from playing in the higher dimensions right now, will simply be cleared from our space.
However, depending upon the vibration of the thoughts you are thinking as 3D disappears, you will find yourself in either the lower 4th dimension or the higher 4th dimension.
The lower 4th dimension, which is also called the astral plane or dream space, holds all the thoughts ever thought by anyone in the 3rd dimension.
You see, thoughts don’t just disappear after we think them. They live on in the lower 4th dimension, with specific weight, texture, density and emotional charge. And they bond and cluster with all the other thoughts of similar character.
Some thoughts – such as rape, domination, slavery, war, hatred – feel heavy, dense and dark. Conversely, thoughts such as ‘butterflies,’ ‘children playing in the park,’ and ‘flowers blooming on a warm spring day’ feel light and have a simple, airy vibration.  Lighter thoughts like these rarely linger in a 3D consciousness. Because in order to align and feel the vibration of, for example, ‘beauty,’ we must step out of 3D consciousness into present time, a higher 4th dimensional space.
Wait, you say, I know ‘Beauty!’ You do, because we’re now living in both the third and fourth dimensions simultaneously, but how often do you align yourself with, and linger on, the feeling of beauty?
It’s a 4D, present-time skill to take thoughts like ‘light,’ ‘airy’ and ‘beauty’ to heart. These vibrations don’t even exist in the hurry up, past/future of the 3rd dimension where it’s very difficult to pause in present time and smell a flower.

But, on the other hand, have you noticed that heavy, uncomfortable thoughts such as ‘I’m not good enough.’ or ‘They don’t like me.’ or ’I’m never going to succeed.’ tend to linger quite a bit longer in 3D consciousness? This is because thoughts are electric and emotions are magnetic. A set of light, airy vibrations like ‘beauty’ or ‘graciousness’ has a low, soft, electrical charge that is expansive and fluid. Whereas heavier, uglier thoughts come highly charged and wrapped in highly magnetic emotions. These thoughts are not only harder to clear than kind, loving thoughts; they also bond magnetically to all other thoughts like them in the lower 4th dimension.
So much of the magnetic field we walk around in – I’m not OK, You’re not OK – has very little to do with who we really are. It’s just the magnetism of one heavy, unconscious thought attaching itself to the magnetism of similar heavy, unconscious thoughts.
You begin to see why it’s vital to become conscious of the thoughts you think and the emotions you throw into your vibrational mix.
Fortunately, the second wave of the Shift is making this easier and easier. As we let go of the heavier energies of Who We Are Not, the light is rewiring us, stepping us up into a higher 4th dimensional vibration where lesser thoughts and emotions are not such a distraction in our general experience.
We start to live in alignment with the heart, and experience the vibrations and consequences of concepts such as ‘I like me,’ ‘I’m happy,’ ‘I’m pleased with myself.’
The alignment with the heart becomes natural because it already is our natural alignment in the higher fourth, fifth and sixth dimensions.
However, some assembly is required.
Any limitations, judgments, denials, blame, guilt, or resentments that we each still argue for, in one way or the other, become like weights on a hot air balloon. They limit how far we can rise within the fourth dimensional range of vibration.
Each of us is 100 percent in charge of the process. The more weight – lower-vibrational patterns of words, thoughts, and emotions – we remove, the higher we rise into the expansive experience of the higher 4th dimension.  Here, it is as if we look past the boundaries and limitations, which were always just a habit of observation in 3D. It’s a wider view, a calmer view, and a quieter view. In the upper 4th dimension, you can choose fear or worry, and drop into the lower 4th dimension… but you won’t.
As you begin to align with the heart, very naturally – ‘I Like Me’ – you’re going to find there’s no reason or compulsion to choose an uncomfortable attention point in the lower 4th dimension.  It comes naturally and readily because it is the language and vibration of you’re natural well being – if you let it, and if you focus upon it.
It’s a choice. As the shift accelerates and time collapses and everything is in the present moment, you could still choose your thoughts and feelings unconsciously, out of 3rd dimensional habit, and you would have the opportunity to live that discomfort immediately and fully in your experience.
Or you can choose your thought and emotion in every moment, with focus and awareness, and live the fullness of that experience.
In other words, it’s to your benefit to practice and integrate the ability to choose the contents of your consciousness right now, before it really counts – and that moment is not very far away.
It’s all up to you.
Until now, the center of your head, the place from where you can choose your thoughts and attention point, has been pre-occupied by the thoughts of others. Your Mom-Dad-Teacher-Minister loved you and had an opinion about the best way for you to live your life, and as their thoughts moved in to your head, “You” moved out.
Now it is time to take back ownership of the center of your head. As you recognize and let go of the unnatural thoughts that say, ‘Oh, I can’t do this’ and ‘I can’t do that’ and ‘I must do this,’ you’re going to find that soon all those thoughts, with their sticky interlocking connections in the lower 4th dimension, disappear.
Just putting your attention in present time on ‘beauty’ and ‘well-being‘, or just being ‘happy’ in a state of ‘ease‘, eliminates the lesser vibrations stored within the lower astral fields of the 4th dimension.
Start by playing with the vibration of what I call Living Words. The Archangels very deliberately and precisely selected these words – words such as Certain, Capable, Commanding, Present, Senior, Graciousness and Happy – so that you can most easily clear all the unconscious vibrations from your space.
Choose one word each day and live with it all day, think it and feel it often.
If you practice thinking and feeling these vibrations now, when it doesn’t absolutely count, they will become your habit when it does count.
You begin to gracefully realign with the fullness of “You,” and your natural state of wellbeing lifts you into the higher 4th dimension.
Easy?  Kind of.
Simple? Yes.
Does it require awareness and a choice from a present time space? Absolutely.
Can you sit on the sidelines and hope it all turns out? No.
Increased levels of electromagnetic light from the higher dimensions are now flowing within all of us. Many people in the 3rd dimension cannot handle this surge, and they are choosing to step out of their bodies.
And many, many more will follow as the Shift accelerates

You see, everyone is going home to the 4th and then 5th dimensions, but not everyone is going home on the same timeline, and with the same ease and grace.
How do you choose?

Blessings.

<http://lightworker.com/Spectrum//articlerss/author/28>    Jim Self

Featured on the Virtual Light Broadcast in 2009 and 2010 and a co-creator of the 10-10-10 Event, “The Next Convergence – Spirit into Human” with Steve Rother, Jim is often introduced as a teacher’s teacher and a healer;s healer. He has been leading seminars and teaching healing, clairvoyance and higher dimensional energy management tools throughout North America since 1980. As an author of Spirit Matters: Down-to-Earth Tools for a Spirited Life, Jim’s Spectrum column includes excerpts from this book, his free tele-classes, seminars and his second upcoming book.
Since childhood, Jim has had a conscious awareness and ability to remember his experiences within the sleep state. Over the last ten years, this awareness has expanded into relationships with the Archangels, Ascended Masters and Teachers of Light. The tools and information presented in the Mastering Alchemy programs are co-creations of these relationships.
Jim walks with a foot in both worlds. At the age of twenty-six, he was elected to his first of two terms to the San Jose, CA City Council and later became the Vice Mayor. Before completing his second term, he was asked by President Jimmy Carter to be the Director of Governmental Operations for the Dept. of Energy. As an entrepreneur, he has successfully built and sold two corporations, and is the founder and current Board Chairman of a third.
View all articles by Jim Self <http://lightworker.com/Spectrum//authors/28/Jim-Self>