Day Three of the Integral Without Borders Conference was the first day of presentations. I am not going to attempt to recap each presentation in its entirety. I will give you the interesting points that stood out to me.

Vernice Solimar - Integral Spirituality and Social Change

Love = expansion = transcend and include

Love = capacity for presence

How love is expressed at various altitudes:

• Red - Love is power. Domination/submission.
• Amber - Helping, serving, loyalty
• Orange - Self-love, self esteem, self reliance, values freedom & justice
• Green - Love another by empathizing with their path, dialog, holding space for another
• Teal - Understand levels of love, interconnection of all beings, each person’s truth is a partial truth
• Turquoise - Everything as a dynamic unfolding of consciousness

Carissa Wieler - Integral Perspectives on Resilience

Resilience = Being present to paradox

In individuals resilience looks like bouncing back from challenges and being present to ambiguity and loss.

In systems this is the capacity to absorb resistance, to change and develop.

Panarchy: growth -> conservation -> release -> reorganization. Think of a forest. It grows and settles. Then a fire comes along and it has to restart. It’s capacity to thrive in this cycle is its resilience.

Lisa Chacon & Julian Gonzalez - Towards an Integral Theory of Human Needs

This was a very interesting presentation of Manfred Max-Neef’s fundamental human needs as an alternative to Maslow’s hierarchy. I’ve always been sort of fascinated by Maslow’s nifty pyramid, but lately it hasn’t been sitting well with me. After Lisa and Julian’s presentation I have a lot of new ideas on this topic. Let’s begin by looking at Max-Neef’s needs, which arise simultaneously, not hierarchically (with the possible exception of Subsistence for obvious reasons); in no particular order:

• Understanding
• Identity
• Freedom
• Affection
• Transcendence
• Subsistence
• Protection
• Creation
• Idleness
• Participation

A person can have a poverty in any of these areas which they will attempt to fill with satisfiers and sometimes false satisfiers. For example, to satisfy my need for affection I might find a fulfilling relationship. Or I might sleep with a prostitute, which would be a false satisfier; I’d feel better for a little while, but the poverty would not really be alleviated.

I have a lot of thoughts on this topic that I will dedicate a full post to. I look forward to hearing more from Lisa and Julian at the Integral Theory Conference in August.

Emine Kiray - Integral Politics: The Islamist Movement and the Recent Political Crisis in Turkey

This was fascinating, but very complicated. The best I can offer is a post by Emine on this topic from last year and my encouragement to come to the Integral Theory Conference so you can hear her talk firsthand.

Karen O’Brien - Climate Change Adaptation

Karen is trying to bring an Integral awareness to her work on climate change. Essentially, until we address the problem through all four quadrants, we will not be able to solve it. Again, you can hear more about this at the Integral Theory Conference. Can’t plug it enough.

That’s it for Day Three! See you tomorrow for Day Four.