The Daily Evolver

“While we can easily plateau in our adult development, we don’t have to. In fact, there seems to be no upper limit to how much we can grow. The latest stages of human development remain a Mystery waiting to be lived.” … so says Thomas McConkie, founder of Lower Lights, a spiritual community that is practicing a new approach to integral spirituality. Based in Salt Lake City as well as operating virtually, Lower Lights seeks to integrate the three pillars of mindfulness, adult development and the wisdom traditions to discover Universal patterns of growth and transformation. In our conversation, Thomas discusses the doctrines, practices and rituals he and his community have developed to, as he says, “address the whole human being, always in relationship to a larger whole.” I consider Thomas to be one of the brightest young innovators in the emergent field of integral spirituality. I hope you enjoy our conversation! Thomas McConkie has joined with Integral theorist Terri O’Fallen to create Spectra, a 9-month “journey of transformation” for a cohort of 20-25 people. You can find out more about the program here.

President Trump has given us a taste of his America-First foreign policy by withdrawing from Syria, and his Trump-First foreign policy by arm-twisting Ukraine for political dirt. In all of the chaos there are patterns of a new integration arising in the way US voters think about who we are and our place in the world. This is edited from my live weekly webcast, hosted on Integral Life, every Wednesday at 1pm MT, 7pm GMT. If you’d like to participate with a question or comment, use this link: https://zoom.us/j/392949640. Or you can watch without participating here: https://integrallife.com/live

The culture war heats up and President Trump is fighting with gloves off, trashing precedent, propriety — and apparently the Constitution. Liberals can’t fathom how conservatives have chosen a lying, cheating philanderer as the standard-bearer for traditional values. In this episode I try to shed some integral light on the subject. This is edited from my live weekly webcast, hosted on Integral Life, every Wednesday at 1pm MT, 7pm GMT. If you’d like to participate with a question or comment, use this link: https://zoom.us/j/392949640. Or you can watch without participating here: https://integrallife.com/live

In this week’s episode, edited from the live webcast, I focused on listener response to my earlier podcast on Greta Thunberg and the environmental movement. Enjoy these highlights and tune in live when you can!

Many integralists are fans of Otto Scharmer, MIT professor and developer of “Theory U”, a brilliant tool for activating higher stages of consciousness that has gained wide acceptance in organizations. As a leading public intellectual Dr. Scharmer also writes about politics and culture. In this episode, integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt and I discuss Scharmer’s political theory as presented in a popular and much-shared article, Axial Shift: The Decline of Trump, the Rise of the Greens, and the New Coordinates of Societal Change. Enjoy the episode! – Jeff Salzman

In this episode I share some thoughts on the evolutionary power of Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish climate activist, and her visit (via sailboat!) to the UN Climate Summit.

This week I examine the roster of Democratic contenders vying to unseat Donald Trump. It’s fascinating to watch them trying to create a larger public identity and harness the cultural forces they need to stand out. For my jumping-off point I consider two articles in last week’s Sunday Review in the New York Times: “Donald Trump Is Not A Sinister Genius”, by Ross Douthat, which makes the case that Trump is beatable, and “Tinder the Vote”, by Eve Peyser, a comic take on each of the Democratic candidates in the form of a quick dating profile. If article #1 is correct then one of the people profiled in article #2 will be the next President of the United States. In this episode I share which of them is – and isn’t – getting my heart fluttering. Let me know what you think at [email protected]!

This summer marks the finales of two multi-chapter fantasy epics that have both reflected and shaped our evolving culture. HBO’s Game of Thrones presented its eighth season, earning a record-breaking 32 Emmy nominations (it has 161 overall). Over at the movies, the Marvel franchise based on The Avengers comic books released its eighteenth and final installment, Avengers: Endgame, which has already become the world’s highest-grossing movie of all time. What are the cultural forces behind these entertainment juggernauts? Today I bring an integral lens to that query with my guest, Los Angeles-based filmmaker and evolutionary guide Jason Lange. Jason wrote and directed the award-winning sci-fi short film SHARE, and is currently crowdfunding a new webseries, Stuck in Development. (See if you can find the integral easter egg in the background of the kickstarter video!)

“We have to accept the reality that to one extent or another everyone has chronically amped-up distress, and a persistent negativity that generates confusing, distorted stories and emotional pain.” This statement kicks off another fascinating conversation with my pal, integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt. What makes our distress difficult to accept, Keith says, is that we live in a culture that preaches zero tolerance for emotional pain. We have convinced ourselves that when we feel it we should be able to fix it — with therapy, pills, spiritual practice or one of the thousands of products that promise to make us happy. And if/when we can’t fix it we are a failure. It’s a double-bind that contributes to psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression, now at record levels. In this episode of our ongoing series, The Shrink and the Pundit, Dr. Keith and I talk about evolving a more mature relationship with our own – and other peoples’ – emotional discomfort and pain.

Today’s guest, Sebastian Siegel, is the screenwriter and director of the upcoming movie, Grace and Grit. The film tells the true love story of iconic, Integral philosopher Ken Wilber and his wife Treya. Based on the acclaimed book that chronicles Treya’s journals, they fall madly in love in 1980’s California and are immediately faced with illness and challenges that tear them apart. They overcome by finding a connection beyond this world, and love beyond life. The film stars Mena Suvari and Stuart Townsend as Treya and Ken, and features supporting performances by Frances Fisher, Rebekah Graf, Nick Stahl, and Mariel Hemmingway, In our conversation, Sebastian, who is an integral practitioner, friend, and long-time fan of Ken’s work, talks in depth about many elements of making the film from writing, development, and casting, to directing, storytelling, and production, and his overriding mission to serve not just this epic love story, but also the emergence of Integral consciousness itself. Sebastian Siegel is author of the book, “The Consciousness Revolution”, and is the creator of two documentaries: “Awakening World” and “Spirit of Evolution.” You can find out more about Grace and Grit at the movie’s website, Sebastian’s instagram account. , and his website.