The Matrix is all about waking up from the illusion—the outward appearance of what is real—what is important. It’s about how we can barely live with positivity and need a constructed world full of suffering to keep us “happy.” I think it’s about making a third to fourth order shift in meaning making. Becoming self-reliant and self-centered, in the best possible way. It’s about identity—knowing who we are and believing. Neo is The One, but he doesn’t know it. Until he believes, he’s stuck in a limiting worldview. The Wachowski brothers are expressing the importance of the left-hand quadrants, the interior individual and collective.

This film speaks to the mystical despite religious preference. The unseen world, the world behind the matrix, is real, but not for the faint of heart. Cypher just wants to be inserted back into oblivion where he enjoy steak, even though it’s an illusion. But we can’t go back. Once we realize the existence of the world unseen, it’s too late. We’ve already taken the red pill. It reminds me of Wilber’s second fall that he describes in Up from Eden. The first fall happened in the Garden or at the beginning of human history. The second fall is when we wake up to the original fall. We want to go back, but it’s impossible. Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is like taking the red pill. So, faithfully reporting on what I experience in the unseen world is an expression of Integral Art. Just like the Wachowskis, creating a film version of this myth, this neo-myth, I too must report what I’ve seen—the things I’ve learned.

I don’t know that much about Taoism, but what I read about it in Benjamin Hoff’s primer, makes a lot of sense in the integral way of looking at things. There’s a sense of calm in letting things be what they are instead of trying to make them into something else. This seems a pluralistic/integral view of existence, with a focus on being, rather than doing. Not to the exclusion of doing, but just to even out the scales a bit. Having our life  (identity, creative process, etc…) instead of being had by it. A few things that struck me, in regards to art: The uncarved block, or P’u in Chinese, has obvious correlations to sculpture—and when DaVinci said the statue already exists in the stone, I just have to remove the extra bits (my paraphrase). That reveals to me a sense of ultimate, or underlying truth, which, whether or not we uncover it, the “shape inside” is there anyway. (p. 11) In the case of identity, the Taoist way recommends finding out my place and function, then operating within my limitations—knowing that my weaknesses may very well turn out to be my strengths. (pp. 48-49) Emptiness and loneliness look a lot alike. (p. 147) From this I distill a couple of principles that might be applied to the practice of making art. 1) Don’t try so hard. Let the art be what it is and try not to get in the way of that flow. 2) Let my unique expression have its own parade. So I’m not technically or realistically skilled? Who cares? Do what I do REALLY well. 3) Slow down and clear out some of the brain/life clutter. Entertaining emptiness will help me stay connected to the Ground of Being—the source of creative inspiration.

Integral Art is a map for both creating and evaluating art using the framework of AQAL’s four quadrants. In his Journal of Integral Theory and Practice (JITP) article introducing Integral Art, Matt Rentschler quotes Ken Wilber’s definition of art: anything with a frame around it. “Regardless of medium, style, genre, or school, art can generally be defined as anything selected, arranged, or framed for its significance.” (Rentschler, 2006, p. 41) But, who decides what is significant. Building on four main schools of art critique, Rentschler takes the reader on a quadrant tour, showing the importance of taking as wide a perspective as possible.

From within my individual experience (UL), I want to express something artistically. Perhaps it is my joy at being alive, or a painful issue over which I hope to connect with others who struggle similarly. Perhaps I seek to expose an injustice, or bring awareness surrounding a tacit shared blind spot, á la The Emperor’s New Clothes. Suddenly, my subjective perspective on a social phenomenon is pushed out into the collective (LL). I hope not merely to express something, but to have impact on others—even stimulate individual and/or collective action (LR). Perhaps my art will affect institutional thinking in education, politics, or another overarching social system. Rounding the quadrants to the individual, exterior I perform certain actions with specific media to get my inside vision to the outside (UR). My art is an artifact, judged by different criteria (realism, balance, color theory) and having different effects on different viewers. And, this is only the quadrants. Renschler takes on the other four elements in his companion article in the same issue of the journal.

I've been reading Rick Riordan's Olympians series "with my 11-year-old nephew, Adam." Truth be told, I may be enjoying this far more than he is. I like mythology, but it's really coming alive for me as the half mortal/half divine children of the gods fight the forces of evil. It's crucial for them, despite the learning difficulties cause by their tell-tale dyslexia, to know the stories of Greek mythology. I just wanted to note a couple of really cool things I've run across so far:

1. In The Lightening Thief (Book 1) not only is Zeus' Lightening bolt stolen from Mount Olympus, but so is Hades' Helm of Darkness. Cool. Percy's quest is to find and return them.

2. Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon are referred to as The Big Three; as in The Good, The True, and The Beautiful; Buddha, Dharma, Sanga; I, We, It(s). Another trinity to add to the list.

3.    "Celestial bronze, Percy. An immortal weapon. What would happen if you shot this at a human?"

"Nothing," I said. "It would pass right through."

"That's right," [Chiron] said. "Humans don't exist on the same level as the immortals. They can't even be hurt by our weapons. But you, Percy—you are part god, part human. You live in both worlds. You can be harmed by both, and you can affect both. That's what makes heroes so special. You carry the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal." (Sea of Monsters, p. 252)

The human condition. Part god, part human. A foot in each realm. A spark of divinity--Christlikeness, Buddha nature, Spirit--embodied, drawn by the gravity of the soil from which we spring. No wonder the angels are jealous. Thanks Rick!