Note: I wrote this introductory piece in the days leading up to the Emerge Gathering in Austin, Texas. Daniel Schmachtenberger proposed framing the conference around the question of a “third attractor,” while Jeremy Lent clarified this attractor involves the creation of an ecological civilization. My readers might appreciate some of the themes cohering below. This…
Category: Writing
A Gebserian Note on the Word “Map”
There’s a diminutive, crumpled-in-the-back-pocket, food stained and salt sprayed sensual richness to this word’s history that intuitively feels of some import to us.
Notes on Designing Aperspectival Containers
This piece is an interesting permaculture/regenerative take on the 1969 Eames “Design Diagram.” I was initially struck by how it resembles the Calabi-Yau manifold I often use to illustrate the relational wholeness of Jean Gebser’s consciousness structures (archaic through integral). Many of us in the Mutations community are, in some way, working with design. We’re…
Notes in Transit
En route from New York to Tampa Bay. It was great to (finally) reconnect with my family and friends after 1.5 years of lockdown. A homecoming! New York has changed, and hasn’t. The same, but different; intermingling melancholy and triumph. Refitted subways. Towering cyberpunk architecture completed during lockdown’s interlude. Masks and sanitizer kiosks and outdoor…
Appearances: Recent, Rumored and Forthcoming
2021 has kept me busy! I’m sharing a brief note about recent appearances and what’s coming next. First: high weirdness. Artist, musician, filmmaker, podcast host and longtime integralist Stuart Davis had me on his show, Aliens and Artists for a proper metaphysical conversation on non-human intelligences. I guess I’m coming out of my weird closet….
Integral as Participatory and Phenomenological
I’m listening to Daniel Thorson’s conversation with Zak Stein today and feeling deeply receptive to it. Zak’s mention of McLuhan was particularly revelatory. It made me think of the loss/gain character of any new medium. New media extend us, but they also cut us off—like the car replacing the foot. Social media extends communication, but…
On Superordinate Goals and the Integral World
Recently I was asked by a reader and colleague to comment on a letter written by Dr. Don Beck, “Looking Beyond the Midterm Elections In Quest for Humanity’s Master Code.” It was written in 2018, and now, halfway through 2020, it holds a certain prescience worth commenting on and responding to at some length. Dr….
MEA Conference: Media Ecology as Remediation
Next Thursday, June 18th, I have the honor of presenting a paper at the Media Ecology Association’s annual conference. This year the theme is “Communication Choices and Challenges,” and my paper is entitled: “Media Ecology as Remediation: Marshall McLuhan and Jean Gebser in Dialogue”. My abstract is shared below: In this essay, I draw from…
Talking Temporics, Gebser on Integral Life
As Gebser says, timing is knowing when to make happen and when to let happen.
The Mutations Project
What is the Mutations podcast all about?