“A system that has differentiated components linked together as a functional whole is integrated.”
—Siegel
Connecting
Is
Activism
“There is a capacity within every person to maintain their individuality and to integrate all of their own and all of the planet’s wisdom. That capacity we call The Grand Integrator.”
– Myers
A sample of the more than 500 links available to explore from this gathering
****************
Samsara
as indicated at www.krishna.com
(Birth, Life, Suffering, and Death)
The soul on this journey across the sea of suffering requires inspiration and knowledge to stay safely afloat and guidance to stay on course
************
We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is a ‘Grand Integrator’ within everyone that is capable of integrating all the linked yet differentiated components that make us human.” —Myers
“Wellness is the result of a human being becoming integrated” —Siegel
The Grand Integrator
The Vision and Mission.
(Medicine For Our Souls)
As we attend to the dominant public media, our senses are assaulted by stories and images of human tragedy, suffering, death and social dis-integration. Although our attention is captured, momentarily, by pictures of bleeding victims and bombed buildings in flames, our nervous systems can be overloaded with the simultaneous attraction and revulsion. In this situation, our most primitive mental and physical impulses are for fight or flight.
When our senses are bombarded with these stories, are there alternative responses? Are there options besides helpless fascination, reflexive outrage, detached numbness or fear and anxiety? Are we trapped between only the choices of fight or flight? Are there alternatives to automatic elevation of blood pressure and knee-jerk flight into one form of numbness or another?
The emotional conditioning (i.e. automatic reactions and/or numbness) that happens to our neurological system can infect the way we relate to people in our everyday life. Without realizing it consciously, all sorts of defeatist and depressive thoughts can reside in our ordinary thinking.
How we think about what we see and hear and feel can make a huge difference in the quality of our life and our relationships. The reactions and ideas and conclusions to which we play host can impair us or they can empower us. How we think can imprison us. How we think can set us free.
If we have it together individually and if we act together, we are fully capable of meeting the challenges calmly, intelligently and wisely. We are connected. We are in this together. But, how do we integrate our different talents and capabilities? Everybody talks about integration, but does anybody know how to do it?
To start, it helps by putting the evocative stimuli and emotional triggers in context.
Although there is disintegration and decadence in our society, there is also an abundance of alternatives to contend with it, to deal with it, to counter it, to heal it’s effects. There are hundreds of references on this site to provide an introduction to activities, experiences, organizations, ideas and individuals who offer many choices. If you are curious and spend a bit of time, you can discover a rich treasure of knowledge and suggestions for action in the following pages and through the links we have gathered here.
The core mission of this site is to activate our inner capacity for integration and personal wholeness. How do we each become integrated and fully awake and fully functioning? What do we each need to do? What actions or non-actions are important for us to be fully functioning and integrated human beings?
Opening your eyes, orienting your senses, and focusing your curiosity on the wisdom of great minds over many thousands of years (who have discovered how integration, cooperation, collaboration and peace, are, in fact, possible) is to access a sense of hope for our future. This site is intended to inform and inspire you, as an individual, to be open to your own personal integration. That capacity, we all have, to integrate all our diverse inner resources is called our “Grand Integrator.”
Beyond Inspiration
You can also find on the Therapeutic Strategies Page references and resources offering integrative therapeutic resources, methods and practices.
The information is organized in a general way using the meta model, “metanomics”, of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, in itself, an integrative way to view evolving social systems.
What About Integration On A Global Scale?
The idea that there is a group, global, or universal intelligence within the aggregate of humans on the planet is no more outlandish than the idea that there are conscious and unconscious “multiple intelligences” in the single mind. The global dynamics of mind are, perhaps, identical to the dynamics of the individual mind.
Give Your Grand Integrator Something to Do Immediately.
If we think of a single mind, it is impossible to deny the existence of unconscious intelligence. Consider that while we sleep, an unconscious script writer, director and cast of characters write, direct and act out spontaneously the most creative, elaborate and intelligent plots and dramas.
There is a metaphorical language in the dream that puts it all together. The unconscious integrator does it automatically. Sometimes the dream is mysterious and symbolic and sometimes it is brilliantly clear; but it is always human and it reflects our capacity to creatively solve problems and to integrate our whole experience. The capacity for integration is clearly within us.
And…..if we ask our Grand Integrator, as our inner dreamer, to dream therapeutically or to dream the solution to a personal problem, we will dream wonderfully and surprisingly integrative and creative dreams.
Study and Practice
We live as part of an evolving, ever changing, living system and so we need to continually, in every moment, renew our resources and utilize our integrative abilities in order to develop them.