Zoosphere

Quantum Playground is the newest website I have designed to go online. Read more about this project.

“It’s the end of the year—almost. A time for reflection, before the resolutions of 2008 send us all scrambling once again. So what did we read this year that kept us up at night, broke our hearts, opened our
minds, made us fall in love? Three thousand books are published daily in the U.S., and PW reviewed more than 6,000 of them in 2007, in print and online. From that astounding number, we’ve culled a best books list covering our favorites in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, comics, religion, lifestyle and children’s—150 in all.” Read more…

We're proud to annouce the launch of the Integral Recovery website.

Integral Recovery is a bold and totally new approach to the treatment of alcoholism and addiction. We say “totally new” not because it breaks with other approaches past or present, but because it unites—or integrates—them, preserving what is best of existing modalities, while negating their weaknesses.

At the core of Integral Recovery is Integral Life Practice™, a sophisticated system of personal development that engages body, mind, heart, and spirit to produce extraordinary health and awakening on all levels of our being. Also central to Integral Recovery is the AQAL Map, a conceptual framework that helps illuminate the disease of addiction—and the journey of recovery—in comprehensive and compassionate terms.

Integral Recovery’s founder and lead practitioner is John Dupuy. He combines two decades of on-the-ground addiction counseling experience with the cutting-edge tools offered by Integral Life Practice and the AQAL map, to offer a fresh and extremely promising approach to treatment for chemically-dependent individuals and their families.

I met John Dupuy in April 2007, when I had the opportunity to assist him during a month-long Integral Recovery retreat in Southern Utah. This pilot program brought together a small group of men who were struggling with alcohol and drug dependency. My background in Integral Life Practice (I was writing a book about it), and my years working with Integral Institute, were a perfect fit for John's program, which is completely based in the Integral approach.  read more »

Cool news! Ken Wilber’s new book The Integral Vision is now available from Shambhala’s online store. It will be available from Amazon.com and other retailers on August 14.

This is a very different kind of Ken Wilber book. For one, it’s
pocket-sized and comes in at just over 200 pages. It’s also his most
accessible book, introducing the AQAL model, along with Integral
Spirituality and Integral Life Practice, in the most user-friendly
terms. If you’re new to Ken Wilber, Integral Theory, or AQAL, this is
the book you want to read. If you’re a veteran of Integral studies,
this is the book you want to give to your friends, family, and
co-workers.  read more »

[I wrote this review for the Integral Institute newsletter, HOLONS.]

Barack Obama is like the iPod iPhone of American politics. There’s something new and cool and user-friendly about him—something that captures the political zeitgeist with its sleek aesthetics and intuitive design. Obama launched onto the national scene with his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The Audacity of Hope expands upon the themes of that speech, in effect laying the intellectual groundwork for his presidential campaign.

The Audacity of Hope is a remarkable book on many levels. First (and significantly to me, as a writer), it’s a beautifully written book. For example, Obama describes the experience of attending Rosa Parks’ funeral—a soaring symbol of racial reconciliation that he contrasts with an ugly reminder of enduring inequalities:

And yet, as I sat and listened to the former President [Clinton] and the procession of speakers that followed, my mind kept wandering back to the scenes of devastation that had dominated the news just two months earlier, when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and New Orleans was submerged. I recalled images of teenage mothers weeping or cursing in front the New Orleans Superdome, the listless infants hoisted to their hips, and old women in wheelchairs, heads lolled back from the heat, their withered legs exposed under soiled dresses. I thought about the news footage of a solitary body someone had laid beside a wall, motionless beneath the flimsy dignity of a blanket; and the scenes of shirtless young men in sagging pants, their legs churning through the dark waters, their arms draped with whatever goods they had managed to grab from nearby stores, the spark of chaos in their eyes.

“Listless infants hoisted to their hips.” “The flimsy dignity of a blanket.” “The spark of chaos in their eyes.” A poetic sensibility pervades The Audacity of Hope. Obama describes the loneliness of living in Washington D.C., away from his wife and daughters, in terms of “aching for the warmth of their hugs and the sweet smell of their skin.” I love the sensuality of that last image, evoking the longing of a man for the simple touch of his wife and children.

But a poet does not a president necessarily make. Beauty and goodness must be grounded in political truth. The real significance of The Audacity of Hope lies in the vision it presents for American politics. It’s an integrative vision. Obama’s peculiar gift is an ability to take multiple perspectives and weave them together into a coherent and compelling whole. His book articulates a post-postmodern meta-narrative about American identity and our role in a complex world.  read more »

I walk into the night with my wife     and our dog.
The moon is bright and the air chilled, like a glass of white wine.
Like snails, our home is our shell     that we take with us.
Where are we going? I don’t know.

We’re taking the dog for a walk, and never coming back.