iAwake Technologies and Integral Cinema Project Partnership

Announcing the Integral Cinema Project's newest research partner, iAwake Technologies, creators of advanced Brainwave and Biofield audio entrainment tools and pioneers in the emerging field of spiritual technologies.

As part of this partnership, iAwake Technologies has graciously donated their entire library of leading edge transformational brain/mind audio tools to support Integral Cinema Project research into using the iAwake audio technologies with the advanced transformational visual technologies that the Integral Cinema Project is developing and experimenting with.

Stay tuned for the results of this cutting edge research...and in the meantime check out iAwake's amazing tools for transformation at: http://www.iawaketechnologies.com/

Robin Williams Multimedia Tribute at MetaIntegral

Robin Williams and the Complex Loss of Fallen Star

MetaIntegral Foundation wanted to pay tribute to the late Robin Williams from an integral perspective, so they asked me to create it as their resident integral movie expert. I was deeply honored by their invitation and jumped at the change, since I was already exploring this loss from an integral and complex thought perspective for myself.

The experience of writing this work was a deeply personal one because the loss of Robin Williams touched me profoundly, as it did for so many. As this piece evolved it became both a deeply heartfelt and reflective work and a sort of multimedia virtual wake experience as I was drawn to and included relevant video clips of Robin.

I am deeply grateful for this opportunity and thank MetaIntegral for their encouragement and support.

Rest in peace, Robin.

ROBIN WILLIAMS TRIBUTE

Introduction to Meta-Movieology Course Back by Popular Demand

MetaIntegral Academy is excited to once again offer the wonderful and ground-breaking 8-week course in Meta-Movieology created and facilitated by Mark Allan Kaplan beginning on September 4, 2014. Mark is widely recognized as "the preeminent theorist and practitioner of integral cinema" so you are in for a real treat. If you are a movie enthusiast and into integral and evolutionary approaches to personal growth and development, this course is for you!

Register Today...

Meta-Movieology I

An 8-Week Course in Using Movies to More Deeply Understand and Fully Embody an Integral and Evolutionary Perspective

PUT DOWN THE BOOKS, PICK UP THE POPCORN 
AND ENTER THE WORLD OF EVOLUTIONARY ENLIGHTENTAINMENT

From: September 4, 2014 (Thursday) at 12:00am PDT
To: November 9, 2014 (Sunday) at 12:00am PDT

What Is It?
Meta-Movieology is a groundbreaking meta-approach to learning Integral Theory through a transformative moving image viewing practice. In this course you will develop a deeper and more visceral understanding of the basic elements of the Integral approach by using the aesthetic and multisensory power of the moving image for embodied learning and evolutionary growth.

Location:
This event takes place online.

DETAILS:

The moving image in all its evolving forms has a unique capacity for affecting multiple aspects of our being. Movies can make us think and feel deeply; they can give us new perspectives on self, other and world; they can immerse us in other worlds and give us rich and deep embodied experiences. In fact, recent research has revealed that immersive and virtual moving image experiences can actually produce the same neurological and biological responses in our brains and bodies as actual lived experiences.

Over the last several years Mark Allan Kaplan has discovered a profound and fun approach to using the power of movies to help us see, feel, and viscerally experience the integral and evolutionary perspective. This approach includes special viewing practices to help us experientially observe Integral frameworks within any moving image work and extend the profound theoretical concepts and perspectives of the Integral-evolutionary approach from the mind into our emotional and energetic bodies. These experiential perspective-taking exercises help us make the abstract concrete and make it easier for us to extend these perspectives into our everyday lives.

This course is for anyone interested in Integral Theory, for those interested in the transformative power of the moving image, and for anyone who loves movies and is interested in their own personal growth and development. For those unfamiliar with Integral Theory it will offer a simple, powerful, and intuitive way into the integral-evolutionary perspective.  For those already familiar with the Integral model, this is a wonderful opportunity to revisit and viscerally deepen your understanding of integral theory and see and feel how it can be applied to just about any interest, activity, or pursuit that you may have. For those who are interested in their own personal growth and development and love movies, either as a viewer or creator, this work will give you a deeper appreciation and understanding for the medium, along with a greater capacity to use it for healing and growth of self, other and world.

Join Mark for this introductory course, which explores how the six basic Integrally-informed lenses of holons, quadrants, levels, lines, states and types can be utilized as powerful transformational practices for using any moving image work, from movies to video games, for your own evolutionary growth and development. This course will be taught through 8 weekly 2-hour conference calls (recordings for the calls will be posted for participants who are not able to join a call). The first week you will be introduced to Meta-Movieology in general. Each of the subsequent 6 weeks will be devoted to a single Meta-Movieology lens and practice. The final week will be a reflection and wrap up week. Each week Mark will assign practices for you to do that week using that week’s lens. There will also be weekly readings and movie viewing assignments, along with online threaded discussions to connect with fellow participants and deepen your understanding of this work. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity – Integral Theory and the movies will never look or feel the same.

Dates: 8 weeks: Aug. 31st – Sept. 21st; Sept. 28th – Oct. 12th; and Oct.19th – Nov. 9th

Cost: $345.00 USD plus $12.50 handling fee (includes a free download of the Meta-Movieology meditation video “The Pond”)

Number of Participants: Up to 20

Instructor: Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Weekly Conference Calls:  Thursdays 1-3pm Pacific Time

September 4 – Week 1: Introduction
September 11 – Week 2: The HOLONIC Sense
September 18  – Week 3: I Heart QUADRANTS
October 2 – Week 4: LEVELS of a Groundhog's Day
October 9 – Week 5: The Imaginarium of Developmental LINES
October 23 – Week 6: Altered STATES
October 30 – Week 7: TYPOLOGY Code
November 6 – Week 8: Conclusion

Note there is no call on September 25th or October 16th.

Weekly Movie Viewing Assignments:*

Week 2: "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
Week 3: "I Heart Huckabees" (2004)
Week 4: "Groundhog Day" (1993)
Week 5: "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (2009)
Week 6: "Altered States" (1980)
Week 7: "Source Code" (2011)

*Participants will be required to either rent or buy the movies listed as Weekly Movie Viewing Assignments. All other materials will be supplied by the instructor.

COURSE TESTIMONIALS

"I was surprised at how deep the Meta-Movieology practice goes. After completing the course, I have a richer experience with films, which has cascaded into other areas of my life."
– Heather, San Carlos, CA

"I can't say enough good things about the Meta-Movieology course. It was delightful and profound. This course enabled me to see integral concepts in movies that I had not recognized before and that's saying a lot because I have followed Ken Wilber since his first publications." 
– Dennis, Silver Springs, MD

"Mark is a great teacher! I am out of my league as far as my experience with integral is concerned, yet the materials, movies and weekly discussions in this course met me right where I was at. I found the meditations mind blowing and key to the shifts I am experiencing in my expanding awareness. I feel so fortunate to have stumbled on this opportunity."
– Anne, Charlotte, NC

"The Meta-Movieology course is at the theoretical, practical, and pedagogical cutting-edge of integral and evolutionary film theory and practice – it is a sophisticated training in how to experience film, and therein how to deepen one’s experience of the world within and around us. While being theoretically advanced, this course is taught in a manner that anyone, beginner or advanced practitioner, can readily get and do so with transformative results. I very highly recommend this course of study."
– Michael, Augusta, GA

PRESENTERS

Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an independent award-winning filmmaker and the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts.  Mark has a B.A. in Motion Picture and Television Production from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, an M.F.A. in Motion Picture Directing from the American Film Institute, M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and a Certificate in Integral Studies from Fielding Graduate University. He has worked professionally in the entertainment industry as a producer, writer, director, editor, researcher, and consultant. Mark’s creative works have been shown on television, in theaters, schools, and colleges, and at film festivals and expositions around the world. He has also conducted seminal research in Integral, transpersonal, transformative, and transdisciplinary approaches to film, video, and multimedia at Interval Research Corporation, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and as founder and lead researcher of the Integral Cinema Project, an independent research, production, and educational initiative sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society. Mark received Integral Institute's 2008 Integral Life Award in recognition of his continuing groundbreaking research into the application of Integral Theory to cinematic media theory and practice.

“Mark’s work is the first mature application of Integral Theory to any domain of art.” 
– Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Ph.D. (Founding CEO of MetaIntegral)

“Mark is the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of integral cinema and his work represents one of the most advanced and profound meta-theory’s of art and media to date.” 
– Michael Schwartz, Ph.D. (Professor of History and Philosophy of Art, Georgia Regents University)

“Mark’s passionate quest to explore the further reaches of film and media theory and practice is inspiring and holds great promise.”
– Jean Picker Firstenberg (President Emeritus, American Film Institute)

Click here to register - join Mark and other integralists, evolutionaries, and movie enthusiasts in this enlightening and entertaining course!

Integral Cinema Studio Published in the Russian Journal "Eros and Kosmos"

The Integral Cinema Studio article series, originally published on Integral Life is being translated into Russian and published in "Eros and Kosmos" (Эрос и Космос), a contemporary online Russian language journal exploring integral, transdisciplinary and postmetaphysical perspectives.

The first article in the series, the Holonic Lens, is available at: http://eroskosmos.org/integral-cinema-act-1-holarchic-prism/

Integral Cinema Movie and TV List (Updated)

The latest Movies and TV shows to pass the Integrally-Informed Movie and TV Test have been added to the Amazon Integral Cinema Movie and TV List. New listings include:

The Dark Knight Trilogy - An epic Integral journey from a pre-modern to modern to post-modern to transmodern society spurred on by the evolution of an archetype and the individual beneath the archetypal form as he heroically evolves from egocentric to kosmocentric circles of care and concern.

Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen's masterful integrally-informed temporal shifting adventure into the present and historical and creative streams of Paris and the artist's and lover's inner and outer evolution.

Looper - A trippy Integrally-informed journey that uses a multi-temporal template to spur the evolution of a character through the interaction of the character's older and younger self.

The Sixth Sense - A holonic masterpiece, exploring the subtle meaning streams between realities and the evolution of a little boy from a frightened child to a kosmocentric medium between worlds.

The movies and television shows on this list have integrally-informed elements to varying degrees according to my findings in my article "Toward an Integral Cinema: The Application of Integral Theory to Cinematic Media Theory and Practice" in the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice (2010).

My Behance Portfolio

A selection of my drawings, photographs, and movies are now available for viewing on Behance at: https://www.behance.net/markallankaplan

Introduction to Meta-Movieology

The word “movieology” is traditionally defined as the study of the movies. Meta means “beyond” or “greater than” and Meta-Movieology refers to an approach that goes beyond the mere study of movies to a practice of using the viewing of moving images in all their evolving forms for personal growth, transformation, and evolutionary development.

 Meta-Movieology practice is effective because of the moving image’s unique capacity for affecting multiple aspects of our being. Movies can make us think and feel deeply; they can give us new perspectives on self, other and world; they can immerse us in other worlds and give us rich and deep embodied experiences. In fact, recent research has revealed that immersive and virtual moving image experiences can actually produce the same neurological and biological responses in our brains and bodies as actual lived experiences.

Another factor that makes the movie image a potential tool for transformation is the complex connection and communication between creator, moving image work, viewer, and world. Since all human-made works are the partial product of the human imagination, the imaginary is embedded in all human-made artifacts including and especially, the moving image (2005a). Because humans imagine through imagery (mental images, dream imagery, etc.), and the moving has the unique capacity to concretize or reify imaginary dimensions, in a sense doubling the inner image with an outer image, the moving image is inextricably and uniquely bound with the human imagination. This produces a complex symbiotic-metamorphic web of interaction between the inner images of cinematic creators and viewers and the outer cinematic form, which makes the moving image a potential catalyst for individual and collective evolutionary growth and development (Kaplan, 2013; Morin, 2005a; 2005b).

By means of the [moving image] machine, in their own likeness, our dreams are projected and objectified. They are industrially fabricated, collectively shared. They come back upon our waking life to mold it, to teach us how to live or not to live. We reabsorb them, socialized, useful, or else they lose themselves in us, we lose ourselves in them. There they are stored ectoplasms, astral bodies that feed off our persons and feed us, archives of soul. – Edgar Morin, 2005a, p.218

I have developed the Meta-Movieology practice over the last several years during my research into the application of Integral Theory to cinematic theory and practice. During these explorations I discovered this profound and fun approach to using the power of movies to help us see, feel, and viscerally experience the integral and evolutionary perspective to produce personal transformation and growth. This approach includes special viewing practices to help us experientially observe Integral and evolutionary frameworks within any moving image work and extend the profound theoretical concepts and perspectives of the Integral-evolutionary approach from the mind into our emotional and energetic bodies. These experiential perspective-taking exercises help us make the abstract concrete and make it easier for us to extend these perspectives into our everyday lives.

I discovered that this practice is not just for those of us who watch movies, but for media makers as well. While it is true that you cannot teach someone to have talent, but beyond mastering the craft of media making, I believe that through this practice we can develop the structures of consciousness that are common to all creative masters, and that is the capacity to see multiple aspects of reality with a deeper and more expansive view.

On this coming Thursday, May 15th, 2014, I will be teaching an introductory course in this practice sponsored by MetaIntegral Academy. In this course we will be exploring the basic practices related to the Integral framework elements of HOLONS, QUADRANTS, LEVELS, LINES, STATES and TYPES. In the follow-up advanced course we will explore the advanced Integral perceptual frameworks of ZONES, ALTITUDES, ENERGIES, METHODS, COMPLEXITY, and ARCHETYPES.

You can find out more and sign up for the introductory course at: www.metamovieology.com

References

Kaplan, M. A. (2013). Integral cinematic analysis: Mapping the multiple dimensions of the cinema and the co-evolution of cinema, consciousness, culture, and society. Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 8(3&4), 255-276. Available at: https://foundation.metaintegral.org/products/integral-cinematic-analysis

Morin, E. (2005a). The cinema, or the imaginary in man. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Morin, E. (2005b). The stars. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press

A Course in Meta-Movieology

MetaIntegral Academy is excited to offer you a new 8-week course created and facilitated by Mark Allan Kaplan. It's called Meta-Movieology and it starts next month. If you are a movie enthusiast and into integral and evolutionary approaches to personal growth and development, this course is for you!

Register today.

Meta-Movieology I

An 8-Week Course in Using Movies to More Deeply Understand and Fully Embody an Integral and Evolutionary Perspective

PUT DOWN THE BOOKS, PICK UP THE POPCORN 
AND ENTER THE WORLD OF EVOLUTIONARY ENLIGHTENTAINMENT

From: May 15, 2014 (Thursday)
To: July 6, 2014 (Sunday)


What Is It?
Meta-Movieology is a groundbreaking meta-approach to learning Integral Theory through a transformative moving image viewing practice. In this course you will develop a deeper and more visceral understanding of the basic elements of the Integral approach by using the aesthetic and multisensory power of the moving image for embodied learning and evolutionary growth.

Location:
This event takes place online.

DETAILS:

The moving image in all its evolving forms has a unique capacity for affecting multiple aspects of our being. Movies can make us think and feel deeply; they can give us new perspectives on self, other and world; they can immerse us in other worlds and give us rich and deep embodied experiences. In fact, recent research has revealed that immersive and virtual moving image experiences can actually produce the same neurological and biological responses in our brains and bodies as actual lived experiences.

Over the last several years Mark Allan Kaplan has discovered a profound and fun approach to using the power of movies to help us see, feel, and viscerally experience the integral and evolutionary perspective. This approach includes special viewing practices to help us experientially observe Integral frameworks within any moving image work and extend the profound theoretical concepts and perspectives of the Integral-evolutionary approach from the mind into our emotional and energetic bodies. These experiential perspective-taking exercises help us make the abstract concrete and make it easier for us to extend these perspectives into our everyday lives.

This course is for anyone interested in Integral Theory, for those interested in the transformative power of the moving image, and for anyone who loves movies and is interested in their own personal growth and development. For those unfamiliar with Integral Theory it will offer a simple, powerful, and intuitive way into the integral-evolutionary perspective.  For those already familiar with the Integral model, this is a wonderful opportunity to revisit and viscerally deepen your understanding of integral theory and see and feel how it can be applied to just about any interest, activity, or pursuit that you may have. For those who are interested in their own personal growth and development and love movies, either as a viewer or creator, this work will give you a deeper appreciation and understanding for the medium, along with a greater capacity to use it for healing and growth of self, other and world.

Join Mark for this introductory course, which explores how the six basic Integrally-informed lenses of holons, quadrants, levels, lines, states and types can be utilized as powerful transformational practices for using any moving image work, from movies to video games, for your own evolutionary growth and development. This course will be taught through 8 weekly 2-hour conference calls (recordings for the calls will be posted for participants who are not able to join a call). The first week you will be introduced to Meta-Movieology in general. Each of the subsequent 6 weeks will be devoted to a single Meta-Movieology lens and practice. The final week will be a reflection and wrap up week. Each week Mark will assign practices for you to do that week using that week’s lens. There will also be weekly readings and movie viewing assignments, along with online threaded discussions to connect with fellow participants and deepen your understanding of this work. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity – Integral Theory and the movies will never look or feel the same.

Dates: 8 weeks: May 15th – July 6th

Cost: $345.00 USD plus $12.50 handling fee (includes a free download of the Meta-Movieology meditation video “The Pond”)

Number of Participants: Up to 20

Instructor: Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Weekly Conference Calls:  Thursdays 1-3pm Pacific Time

May 15 – Week 1: Introduction
May 22 – Week 2: The HOLONIC Sense
May 29 – Week 3: I Heart QUADRANTS
June 5 – Week 4: LEVELS of a Groundhog's Day
June 12 – Week 5: The Imaginarium of Developmental LINES
June 19 – Week 6: Altered STATES
June 26 – Week 7: TYPOLOGY Code
July 3 – Week 8: Conclusion

Weekly Movie Viewing Assignments:*

Week 2: "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
Week 3: "I Heart Huckabees" (2004)
Week 4: "Groundhog Day" (1993)
Week 5: "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (2009)
Week 6: "Altered States" (1980)
Week 7: "Source Code" (2011)

*Participants will be required to either rent or buy the movies listed as Weekly Movie Viewing Assignments. All other materials will be supplied by the instructor.

PRESENTERS

Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an independent award-winning filmmaker and the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts.  Mark has a B.A. in Motion Picture and Television Production from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, an M.F.A. in Motion Picture Directing from the American Film Institute, M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and a Certificate in Integral Studies from Fielding Graduate University. He has worked professionally in the entertainment industry as a producer, writer, director, editor, researcher, and consultant. Mark’s creative works have been shown on television, in theaters, schools, and colleges, and at film festivals and expositions around the world. He has also conducted seminal research in Integral, transpersonal, transformative, and transdisciplinary approaches to film, video, and multimedia at Interval Research Corporation, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and as founder and lead researcher of the Integral Cinema Project, an independent research, production, and educational initiative sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society. Mark received Integral Institute's 2008 Integral Life Award in recognition of his continuing groundbreaking research into the application of Integral Theory to cinematic media theory and practice.

“Mark’s work is the first mature application of Integral Theory to any domain of art.” 
– Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Ph.D. (Founding CEO of MetaIntegral)

“Mark is the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of integral cinema and his work represents one of the most advanced and profound meta-theory’s of art and media to date.” 
– Michael Schwartz, Ph.D. (Professor of History and Philosophy of Art, Georgia Regents University)

“Mark’s passionate quest to explore the further reaches of film and media theory and practice is inspiring and holds great promise.”
– Jean Picker Firstenberg (President Emeritus, American Film Institute)

Click here to register - join Mark and other integralists, evolutionaries, and movie enthusiasts in this enlightening and entertaining course!

Announcing the Publication of "Integral Cinematic Analysis: Mapping the Multiple Dimensions of the Cinema and the Co-Evolution of Cinema, Consciousness, Culture, and Society"

The journal article "Integral Cinematic Analysis: Mapping the Multiple Dimensions of the Cinema and the Co-Evolution of Cinema, Consciousness, Culture, and Society" has just been published in the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. Winner of the Complex Thought Engagement Award at the 2013 Integral Theory Conference. Available at: https://foundation.metaintegral.org/products/integral-cinematic-analysis.

ABSTRACT

This article provides an introduction to the application of integral and transdisciplinary approaches to cinematic media theoretical analysis. The theories and works of Jean Gebser, Edgar Morin, and Ken Wilber are used to potentially integrate major cinematic theoretical and analytical approaches into a comprehensive meta-approach that covers the objective, subjective, intersubjective, and interobjective dimensions of the cinematic arts. Specific integrally informed lenses of cinematic analysis are introduced as part of this meta-approach, based on Gebser’s perspectival structures, Morin’s cinematic complexity, and Wilber’s Integral framework. Potential benefits for the meta-approach are presented, including a deeper and more expansive understanding of the complex interrelatedness of the experience, form, language, and context of cinematic works, collective works of individual cinematic artists, genres and styles, and collective movements within the medium, along with the evolution of the cinematic medium itself and its relationship with the evolution of individual and collective consciousness, culture, and society. 

The Integral Cinema Project is one of 11 Finalists in the 2014 MetaIntegral Projects in Action Grant Series (DONATE AND VOTE)

The Integral Cinema Project's MIRACLE OF WE (A Kosmic Love Story) is one of 11 finalists in the 2014 MetaIntegral Foundation's Projects in Action grant series.

THE MIRACLE OF WE (A Kosmic Love Story) is an integrally-informed interactive narrative short video by the Integral Cinema Project and integral cinematic artist-scholar Mark Allan Kaplan.

THE MIRACLE OF WE will attempt to tap into the capacity of the moving image to produce real-world transformation by creating a powerful and engaging short video to help foster the emergence of integral philosophy and culture on a potentially global scale. Using a traditional narrative structure as its foundational through-line in the form of a fictional love story, we will follow two strangers from their first meeting, through their courtship, and to their first kiss, unpacking their journey with various Integral lenses to reveal the rich and staggering complexity of the numerous dimension-perspectives, development structures, states, and typological patterns within, between, and around us that makes our capacity to transcend and include all this and connect with each other a truly miraculous occurrence. Integrated within and around this integrally-informed narrative will be abstract, experimental, meditative, and documentary elements that will include vignettes of other relationships representing the myriad of dimension-perspectives of self, culture and world, along with informational and experiential explorations of the Integral perspective itself. Through live action, stock imagery, animation, and interactive elements, THE MIRACLE OF WE will interweave all these elements into a hybrid dramatic, comedic, inspirational, contemplative, and sensual work with the intention to create an entertaining and transformational visceral experience of the integral perspective in the form of a potentially globally-viral interactive video.

Lead creator of THE MIRACLE OF WE, Mark Allan Kaplan, an independent award-winning filmmaker and the preeminent theorist-practitioner of the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts, will attempt to break new ground with this work by applying Integrally-informed methods and practices that he has developed over the past several years to the design and execution of this production, including the application of Integrally-informed approaches to narrative, visual, sound, and editorial design, and to pre-production, production, postproduction, and distribution practices. This approach includes the application of Integral practices by all members of the cast and crew to help facilitate an integrally-informed creative field and assist in putting Integral principles into practice to support the transformational intent of the creative work and the potential transformation for creative team members as well.

Donate and Vote for THE MIRACLE OF WE (A Kosmic Love Story) and for the other great projects up for funding and support at https://secure.qgiv.com/for/pow/

Preparing for a Mystical Passover

On the physical or outer level, preparing for Passover includes the cleaning of the house and the removing of leaven. On the spiritual or inner level, these physical rituals can be transformed into a clearing away of our inner obstacles to personal freedom, through conscious intention, ritual and prayer.

Cleaning the Inner and Outer House

Beginning on the new moon, two weeks before the start of Passover, we begin to simultaneously clean our physical house (spring cleaning) while we begin “…a serious exploration of the meaning of freedom, creativity, the birth and rebirth of identity” (Waskow, 1982). We ask ourselves: What mitzrayim, what tight spots, do we need to leave behind us this year? What buds and sprouts of inner change do we see in ourselves and in the world around us?

As we clean our physical home of dust and dirt, we can imagine we are cleaning our inner home (inner being) of the perceptions and habits that keep us from living life fully…our narrowness of mind and heart. Depending on your level of observance, this house cleaning could also include changing over your entire kitchen to include Kosher for Passover foods, dishes, silverware, utensils, etc.

The Search for Chametz

At the same time as we clean our inner and outer house, we search for and remove all the leaven from our homes. On the physical level, leaven or Chametz, refers to “…any mixture of flour and water that has been allowed to ferment for more than 18 minutes” (Rabinowicz, 1982); this includes all breads, cereals, and other foods made from wheat, barley, spelt, oats, rye and corn. On the spiritual level, leaven refers to those aspects of ourselves that lead to self-inflation, possessiveness, competitiveness, jealously, and lust (Waskow, 1982).

The process of this inner and outer removal of the leaven begins with a search throughout the house for any physical leaven while we search within ourselves for our psycho-spiritual leaven. Once we collect the leaven, we nullify it through ritual and prayer, and then remove it from our possession either by selling it, burning it or donating it to charity. As you collect each piece of leaven in your home you can imagine that it is a part of your self that is inflated, selfish, forgetful or fearful, and that as you remove it from your home, you are also removing it from your psyche.

Excerpt from A Mystical Passover: A Transformational Passover Haggadah by Mark Allan Kaplan Ph.D. with mandala art by Maja Apolonia Rode. Available at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, and other sources.

"The Pond" Meditation Video Now Available Online for Video on Demand

Experience the audiovisual transformative experience of THE POND now available to rent online Video-on-Demand at Amazon:

THE POND

THE POND is a short video meditation for relaxation, personal growth and transformation. Transformative approaches to audiovisual expression are used to capture the presence and atmosphere of the natural environment of a pond and the state of consciousness one can acquire when meditating in this environment. The gentle movement and presence of swimming fish and the interplay of earth, water and light, combine to create a healing and calming energy, while subtle shifts in perspective and consciousness-altering audiovisual elements help stimulate the expansion of both inner and outer awareness.

"The Pond" Meditation Video Now on DVD

Experience the full audiovisual transformative experience of THE POND now on DVD at Amazon:

THE POND DVD

THE POND is a short video meditation for relaxation, personal growth and transformation. Transformative approaches to audiovisual expression are used to capture the presence and atmosphere of the natural environment of a pond and the state of consciousness one can acquire when meditating in this environment. The gentle movement and presence of swimming fish and the interplay of earth, water and light, combine to create a healing and calming energy, while subtle shifts in perspective and consciousness-altering audiovisual elements help stimulate the expansion of both inner and outer awareness.

"The Pond" Selected for Screening at the Hygienic Art Gallery Screening Room 21 Film Festival

"The Pond" was selected for screening at the upcoming Hygienic Art Gallery Screening Room 21 Film Festival in New London, Connecticut on January 24th, 2014. Screening Room 21 is New London’s premier indie film festival features works from both emerging and established filmmakers.

For more on information visit:
The Hygienic Art Gallery Website
Screening Room 21 Event Page
Screening Room 21 Facebook Event Page

Announcing the Online Exhibition of "The Pond" on the Integral Life Art Gallery

This month Integral Life Art Gallery offers their first presentation of video art. The first gallery in this medium is from Mark Allan Kaplan, the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of integral cinema, who has produced on Integral Life a remarkable series of articles titled “Integral Cinema Studio.” For the gallery this month he offers us a work of Integral video art — this designation not simply about the kinds of technological device used (here a mini-DV camera) but also about the work’s tacit referencing of modes of display that are not centered in movie theatres, as well as its length (5 minutes) and contemplative-meditative mode of artistic expression. The piece is titled THE POND and dates from 2002.

Kaplan’s video draws knowingly on the sundry lineages of moving images (mass media cinema, experimental film, artistic-exhibition), essayed into affecting in the viewer a series of shifts in consciousness. As the artist reports, he entered into meditative states in both the shooting and the editing of the video. In its gorgeous poetically integrative form, many of the frames approaching the beauty of standalone photographic art, as well as the modes of consciousness it evokes, we are privy to a shining instance of integral video art.

In the artist's own words:

As a cinematic/video artist I see myself as a creative inquirer, exploring the potentials of the medium to effect growth and transformation, and attempting to push the medium’s own evolutionary boundaries. My recent video work has focused on explorations of the potential effects that a video artist’s consciousness can have on a video art work; the potential capacity of the medium to communicate that consciousness; and the capacity of the medium to capture and express individual and collective sentient presence, human and other species, along with objective and atmospheric presence or the felt-sense of being in the presence of certain physical objects and within various physical environments.

In THE POND I used Integral transformative practices before, during, and after all aspects of the creative process, exploring if and how an Integrally-informed state of creation consciousness would affect the creative process and work. During the filming of THE POND this Integrally-informed state appeared to give me the ability to alternately and simultaneously hold the awareness of the individual and collective sentient presence of the koi fish swimming in the pond and the physical and environmental realities of the pond itself. This Integrally-informed creation state also seemed to give me the capacity to transcend and include my awareness of my own body, consciousness and the creative technology and become an Integrally-informed mirror for these multiple dimension-perspectives. As I continued using this creation state through the post-production process I felt a force within my own being and within the material itself guiding me toward my goal of attempting to translate and share this deep and transformative Integrally-informed lived-experience of THE POND.

Mark Allan Kaplan

Mobile Art: Reflections on Making Art on Mobile Devices

Drawing on paper has a tactile feel to it. Drawing on a mobile device like a large smartphone or tablet is tactile as well but in a completely different way for me. 

When I draw on paper I have a feeling of connection to the objective physical world and a sense of being able to alter or augment it on an abstract or existential level by channeling an inner creative force through my physical form and onto another physical form...

When I draw on a mobile device I also have the sense that I am drawing onto a physical form but instead of feeling as though I am altering or augmenting the physical world, I have the sense that my work is heading into the ether or being transmitted onto some other plane of existence, as though the device is like an etch-a-sketch-like window to another dimension. The ability to share my images instantly to various social networks adds to this sensation of creating in a realm beyond form. 

Edgar Morin on the Cinema's Effects on the Individual and Collective

The complex connection and communication between creator, cinematic work, viewer, and world is deeply explored by Edgar Morin, whose complexity approach to the cinematic medium holds the potential for offering us a way to more fully analyze and understand this complex interconnectedness.

"By means of the cinema, in their own likeness, our dreams are projected and objectified. They are industrially fabricated, collectively shared. They come back upon our waking life to mold it, to teach us how to live or not to live. We reabsorb them, socialized, useful, or else they lose themselves in us, we lose ourselves in them. There they are stored ectoplasms, astral bodies that feed off our persons and feed us, archives of soul." - Edgar Morin (in The Cinema, or the Imaginary in Man)

Evolutionary Guidance

In evolutionary or integral psychology and spirituality, the evolution of consciousness is a key element. Taping into and consciously working with the evolutionary process is also a key element, and an essential way of tapping into the evolutionary process is by attempting to connect with the guiding force of evolution itself.

Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen call this force the “evolutionary impulse:”

“The evolutionary impulse is the consciously experienced choice-in-action to take form and become the whole universe. It is the energy and intelligence that burst out of nothing, the driving impetus behind the evolutionary process, from the big bang to the emerging edge of the future. And that impulse is active right now, throughout the life process, and at every level of your own human experience. In fact, that life-pulsation is the most important part of who and what we are. When you locate that impulse in the depths of your own self, you will become aware that it is inherently free and explosive in its freedom. It is dynamic and completely unrestrained in its nature. While Being feels like eternal peace, Becoming feels completely different. The evolutionary impulse is felt as a sense of tremendous urgency, an ecstatic urgency. At the level of consciousness, it is experienced as a sense that something unthinkably important must occur NOW” (Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment).

Jean Gebser called this guiding force the “inner commission” and saw it as pointed to a greater force or intelligence at work within our lives:

“How do we live? Whichever way we may live, we need to remember that we are also lived by an authority or a power for which there are many names. And, above all, we must remember one thing, namely that whichever way we live, we follow, whether we know it or not, an inner commission that points beyond ourselves” (Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin).

When we explore the teachings of the various spiritual traditions and the personal anecdotes of those who have attempted to seek, receive and follow guidance from a perceived Divine Source, we discover that at the heart of the guidance experience is that the guidance always appears to be guiding us toward a higher stage of evolutionary development. Each tradition has their practices for seeking, for receiving, and for following, from purification practices that attempt to help us remove the obstacles in our personality and consciousness that keep us from accessing and receiving the guidance of the “evolutionary impulse” to mindfulness/awareness practices to help us be fully open and present to receive to discernment practices to help us understand, clarify, validate, and act on the guidance received. This evolutionary guidance appears to be communicated through many different forms, including 1st Person inner promptings, like hearing an inner voice or getting a “gut feeling;” 2nd Person messages from a higher “Thou” or outer “others,” like receiving a message through the presence of a Divine other or having something that someone else says resonate into a deeper and higher meaning; and 3rd Person lessons from external events and circumstances.

One of the simplest and most universal ways of connecting with Divine or evolutionary guidance is attempting to be in the present moment and holding all that is happening as the guidance you need in that moment…

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment” (Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth).