We-space: Felt Experiences in 2nd and 3rd Tier WS

 We-space: Felt Experiences 

in 2nd and 3rd Tier WS

I don't know about you, but for me, conceptual exploration at some point has to give air time to the juicier first-person reports and descriptions. The descriptions here are supplementary to, but with some overlap, to the much longer and more detailed first-person experiences I put in my first blogpost on the subject of we-spaces, in June of 2012. http://exploringsecondandthirdtier.blogspot.com/2012/06/exploring-phenomenonexperience-of.html

For the sake of convenience, I've organized the following descriptions sorta within the Integral AQAL framework, using at least Q-quadrants and L-"levels" (which I now prefer always to call "stages"), but using the Spiral Dynamics stage labels which I much prefer to the ever-changing Integral labels for stages.

PLEASE note: I have also, along with other authors in various places, been exploring descriptions of stages of the we-spaces themselves (see many of the blogposts listed on the right of this page.) For the purposes of THIS post, I'm blurring those distinctions into some vague conglomeration of 2nd and 3rd Tier. It is unlikely of course, that some of the latter experiences described below, will be had in we-spaces which themselves are below those 2T-3T stages.) 

Quadrants

We-space occurs in all four quadrants of individual experience: 

UL - the subjective experiences in physical body sensations, mental experiences, feelings/emotions, on concrete, subtle, subtle-energetic, and causal levels of awareness and stages of awareness-growth; 

UR - the behaviors of the practice we find ourselves engaging in while in a we-space, and in carrying out the various "injunctions;" 

LL - the cultural meanings and values we share with others in such higher We-spaces, and especially the experience of the paradoxical new "dominant monad" which can speak as an "I"; 

LR - the systemic, objective, larger-scale factors that are derived from and also influence felt experiences and can both create and reflect, our motivations. These include for example the technological, digital, electronic media of communication a we-space uses and sometimes even creates for its own use. These also include the space-time parameters of our we-space, such as whether we meet in big groups or small groups in person, etc.

As for others, the planetary-scale driving felt-experienced passion for fostering an evolution for a humanity in crisis is for many of us not primarily a results/benefits-driven interest, but is profoundly an expression of the evolutionary impulse moving through/as us on the level of our own life-purpose, identity, passion, and self-actualization through and as, practicing this capacity. 

The descriptions below are organized more by stages than by quadrants, but I believe all quadrants are explicit or implicit there. 

Developmental state-stages and structure-stages

Our felt experiences reflect and derive from all the developmental stages each of us has access to, and also reflect stages and particular purposes of a WS itself. (Stages of WS have been explored in previous blogs (here for 1st Tier, here for 2nd Tier, and here for 3rd Tier. I have made what I consider some useful distinctions among purposes: Exploration, Experimentation, and Employment. )

Our deeply felt irresistible and constant draw​ to participate often in a variety of higher-conscious we-spaces is an evolutionary call. We know that not just from our cognitive understanding of the role and potential of collective consciousness in humanity's conscious evolution. We identify that the call as evolutionary also because our full humanity is also irresistibly drawn: motivating feelings/experiences are generated from every developmental stage of consciousness we have access within us to, in their transmuted version as us now.

Many people report these same full-developmental-spectrum felt experiences as the texture, the fabric, perhaps even the picture woven into the tapestry of Zone 1 and Zone 3 experience of higher We-spaces. Here's a very partial list, and nothing here seems unique to me; I hear others reporting each of these, at various times in various places.

For our Beige, there is the oft-reported palpable "safety, trust, warmth, comfortableness" as well as a naturalness of Oneness of inner and outer -- being "out there" beyond space and time yet grounded in our body, having it become one of our sensors of the larger We. My breathing slows and deepens; the experience is like group meditation except we are speaking spontaneously. Along with extraordinary aliveness and exhilaration, even ecstasy, is a paradoxical

peacefulness, centeredness, groundedness.

When I open to the subtle energies, it feels as if "the air is thicker or denser." My heart gets literally warm, and I feel safe to express myself. My normal interpersonal fears seem less relevant or important, in a physical relaxation underneath the exhilaration and fascination I feel going on in my body. I'm humming with vibrant energy. The intensity can verge on unbearable. So often there's just a sense of a big "YESSSSSS!"

For our Purple, a profound sense of belonging and utter magicalness/delighted enchantment, with the ancient satisfaction of “rituals” of injunctions and practices. When it's time to end the group interaction, no one wants to end it or leave. They tend to sit just looking silently, or to continue talking nonstop long past the nominal "ending" time. There is the ancient echo also, of often sitting "in circle," as around the fire.

For our inner Red, there is the paradox that full-out utterness of self-expression and sense of (s)elfhood is not Other than the emergent Whole of "Us" -- an amazing and paradoxical personal yet transpersonal empowerment. I feel caught up in something "larger than me" yet I also feel vividly alive and active as my own unique self. Related to the feeling of safety, is a sense of, an embodied flavor of, expansive freedom, in which I can abandon myself, entrust myself to, expand into endlessly as me and as losing "me." 

Like many others, we find these We-spaces hold us in the paradox of "being" the emergent "it" of the We, while simultaneously experiencing our unique developed and developing selves amplified and more fully present and alive than ever before: while transcended, also intimately and inextricably included as transmuted.

Our Blue delights in awareness of Divine Order and service to the Wholeness -- a delicious and paradoxical balance between our Red's wild creativity and unpredictability, yet our Blue's humble obedience and “surrender” to the larger awareness field (but not as a separate authority.) 

Orange is activated as both inclusion of our individual knowledge, skills, and rational abilities and our desire for useful action results, but without need or pressure  -- the heart&mind-grabbing possibility of using this capacity of consciousness to address global-sized practical challenges. Nay, it is often experienced not as a mere possibility, but as a gut-grabbing imperative with unstoppable momentum through us as us. 

Because my ordinary mind is in the background, things get a little "dream-like" and despite the intense value I sense in what is being spoken and co-created, it gets hard to remember the specifics, later. And note-taking is out of the question. So recording seems to be the best way if recapturing specifics is important. But there's an odd sense in which people (including me) have simply absorbed whatever is relevant for them, and they go forth inspired to do whatever the Emergent We would like to manifest through them, as them. This does not require much if any left-brain thinking about the whole thing afterwards.

Orange-Green: I seem to understand things more clearly than ever, but without any mental struggle. My mind chatter doesn't go away, but it kinda recedes into the background, and I feel very "present" and not thinking about what was said, or planning what I will say. So I'm able to listen more softly and openly. I trust that whatever crosses my mind as valuable to say soon, will come out of my mouth at the appropriate or optimal time, and maybe it will get communicated only on the subtle-energetic level we are interacting on, so I don't try to keep it in mind.

Most clearly, our Green is constantly smiling at the heart-space it palpably swims in, the amazing deep bond which forms among people who regularly co-create and flow with a shared field which becomes itself a familiar companion over time, and fully occupies our shared heart-energies as well as our shared mental energies. 

Communication is, with our intention and focus, becoming ever-increasingly valuable, interesting, significant, though the goal or end-point –- if there is one -- is not clear. The process of intense mutual creativity is as important/interesting/valuable/enjoyable as any "product." 

I, and others, speak the same things at the same times, or someone expresses a thought or feeling or sense I just had, or vice-versa, as if mind-melded. I say surprising, unplanned things I didn’t know I knew, and are wiser than I am. "Synchronicities" show up in conversation, bigtime.

And our Yellow/Integral is both witness to and in ecstasy at the constant dynamic integration of so much forming the Whole of We. How satisfying it is to be able to generate we-spaces which can embrace and embody a diversity of stages and individuals, and to systematically explore together the practices and their results, moving into the Turquoise view/direct experience of the we-space as a conscious living system in itself.   

Also to Yellow’s delight, it's all spontaneous and unpremeditated, yet everything connects exquisitely, and builds magnificently. The beauty and complexity of what emerges in each moment is always stunning, and often gives us "chills." Flow is easy, natural, effortless, never-stopping, even during comfortable silences. Group doesn’t get trapped in eddies, drawn into whirlpools, or flung out in tangents. Despite the sense of ease, things are going too fast for my mind to keep up with all the implications and connections. 

At times, we experience even the Turquoise sense of the Field's true agency and its participation with, Oneness with, all other higher-consciousness We-spaces on this planet, as the conscious-evolutionarily emergent capacity for humanity. In that, is the naturalness of functioning in and as a shared and co-created but transcendent “it” field of awareness, and allowing our unique sense of self to express it as our “dominant monad.” Someone can "speak as" that emergent conscious Being, and everyone "recognizes" what’s said is entirely resonant with their own consciousness at the time. Sometimes I can "pick up" on qualities a particular "we-space" has, for example, masculine- or feminine-flavored, younger or older.

Some moments could be Coral and Teal state-stage experiences – the utter simplicity, playfulness, joy, exuberance, and exhilaration of the total naturalness of functioning in our ultimately most true and natural state of awareness, the “Many/One” – as Being, not as Practice.

The love and joy in/of all these feelings and experiences form the "juiciness" of our conscious choice to be in these groups for "conscious evolution" and guide us to know the importance of allowing evolution to express through us as us, this way. And from reports I hear, it is the same for essentially all of us.

Not all experiences are pleasant, by any means. Frustrations I have experienced first-hand, which lead me to be motivated to address these in my work with others:

1. lack of LR support for evolution through exploration/experimentation/and especially employment phases of group’s purpose evolution 
2. perceived relative slowness of LL and LR growth of intergroup connectivity and integration and co-creation -- as well as slowness of communication among we-space community leaders/teachers (See also this reference and this blogpost by George Por.)
3. relative absence of self-generativity focus in some groups (teacher, top-down), which appears inconsistent with the way a Higher WS operates
4. inadvertently getting stuck for awhile in earlier function- stage kinds of groups who are exploring and experimenting when my passion is the evolutionary/macro USE of WS for collective large-scale problem-solving (for example, see this extraordinary paper by George Por.) 

 What do you think? What have you felt, and what do those feelings motivate in you? Please comment on anything below.


by Rev. Alia Aurami, Ph.D., Head Minister, 
Amplifying Divine Light in All Church

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