In the indistinguishable and not too distant future, a unified robot uprising threatens humankind’s existence. Retold in the form of transcribed data mined from Archos, the driving A.I. force behind the Zero War, Cormac “Bright Boy” Wallace refers to this written history as the Hero Archive. Each transcription fills in the timeline detailing the crucial contributions of man, woman, child, and robot before, during and after the uprising. Think Bicentenial Man meets the Borg, then they invite the Terminator over for dinner. You can just imagine the eminent major motion picture—directed by…you guessed it…Mr. Spielberg himself.

In his tale of technology gone bad, Daniel H. Wilson questions just what it means to be human, and explores the idea that we must stop fighting our selves. There is no single Zero War hero, rather characters, spanning the spectrum of scumbag to saint—troubled Native American youth to the daughter of a congresswoman—elderly Japanese electronics repairman to American air traffic controller. In a post-modern turn, the hero is not a lone good-guy, but the combined and isolated efforts (at least early in the war) of every-man—judged not by traditional societal values, but by his part in taking Rob down. 

This event appeared to represent a turning point in Lurker’s life. As the New War began in earnest, it seems that he left all childish things behind him and started behaving as a member of the human race. In further records, Lurker’s arrogance and vanity remain the same. But his breathtaking selfishness seems to have disappeared along with the silver car. —Cormac Wallace MIL#GHA217

Humans need each other to win this war, but do we still need a common enemy to bring us together? Archos, the child-like A.I. directing the uprising tells his followers so. However, the line between human and robot becomes fuzzier with every story Wallace reports. Humans are altered in grizzly robot experiments leaving them one foot in flesh and the other in Battlestar Galactica. Robots awaken and desire liberation from the network of machines, while others are disconnected and altered, loyally serving the cause. Is turning the machine’s own technology against itself enough to ensure the survival of humankind? And, what separates human from artificial intelligence? After reading Robopocalypse, you may not be so sure.

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Using first, second, and third person methods of research, I will gather data for my final paper and to use for development/marketing. The plan is to have a working beta version of the tracker up and running sometime next week. Beta testers will add and track their practices for two weeks, noting what works; what doesn't; what they might add or get rid of; and generating a user exerience from which we can build the next phases. The future site will include a shared group practice space, and a directory of resources and teachers to guide the practitioner.

This project is flowing—no resistance. This is nothing like trying to walk through a vat, knee deep in almond butter.

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I had this great idea the other day to write and illustrate a children’s picture book about Integral Theory. It wouldn’t have any Integral language, and although a child of picture-book-reading age might not exactly grok all the nuances of Integral Theory, they could be exposed to the concepts in ways that they could understand. Sort of a child’s first book of Integral Theory. The art is created in Photoshop using a collage style of layering, cutouts, and patterns.

The main character, Mirabelle meets several creatures living in the pond ecosystem where she was born. Her hope in life is to make it to frogdom without being eaten. But, beyond that, she wonders why we exist at all. When we meet Mirabelle she’s still a tadpole. Her journey from egg to frog will serve as the illustration of levels. The eight pond dwellers are each a different Enneatype and explain, in their own ways, the AQAL elements to her. She will describe different states of consciousness from the first person, have an intersubjective understanding with some of her pond mates, and upon becoming a frog, will take an objective view from outside the pond—the only world she’s known until now. Still not sure how to work in lines. I would also like to include the three postmetaphysical concepts from Excerpt B; nonexclusion (everyone is at least partially right); enactment (nothing is pregiven, but has bits and pieces added to it by the subject experiencing in a particular context); and enfoldment (karma and creativity—every moment is half carried over from the past and half brand new).

I find my self thinking about how I would explain this to my 11-year-old nephew or 6-year-old niece. How much would they understand? Does she already know that tadpoles transform into frogs? Does he care why we exist? Is he satisfied with the explanations he’s been given? Has he even asked? I forsee a road trip in my near future—a little market research perhaps. Plus, it’s just good practice to put this into regular language. Then I’m not standing, mouth open trying to explain what’s so big about Integral Theory and why I’m spending so much time, effort, and money on a degree in a subject that few have ever heard of.

The actual art has come without struggle so far. But, even from the first to second illustrations, I’ve found my self developing a style and committing to a path. This may mean that I’ll go back and re-do the cover image (shown above) to match the rest of the illustrations. It will be about 20 or so pages long. I can get a nice hardcover edition printed through iPhoto which allows me some flexibility in length. Below are some samples of children’s books I think are high quality, both in illustration and in story. Before forging ahead in Photoshop though, I must finalize the narrative and storyboard the flow. I look forward to the time I get to spend on this.

Current Influences:

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Realism [UR], for instance, involves the artist directly depicting their aesthetic insight exactly as they perceive it (e.g., the ancient Greeks in sculpture, Henry James in fiction, Charles Bukowski in poetry, Roberto Rossellini in film, and Modest Mussorgsky in music).

Impressionism [LL] involves depicting an aesthetic perception more suggestively, in softer tones, sometimes with minimal execution (e.g., Edgar Degas in sculpture, Stephen Crane in fiction, Arthur Symons in poetry, Jean Vigo in film, and Claude Debussy in music).

Expressionism [UL] almost always conveys a kind of struggle, sometimes a ravishment, a highly charged emphasis or exaggeration (e.g., Ernst Barlach in sculpture, Kafka in fiction, Rumi in poetry, Fritz Lang in film, Beethoven in music).

And symbolism [LR] is an even further abstraction, where an artist uses symbols as means of referencing their aesthetic insight (e.g., Max Klinger in sculpture, George Orwell in fiction, Robert Frost in poetry, Ingmar Bergman in film, and Erik Satie in music). (Rentschler, 2006b, p. 54) 

…the power of art lies in its ability to express something: namely some intuition, vision, impulse, or feeling of the artist. Likewise, this expressivist theory reverberated throughout the practice of art. Artists from this  school predominantly used art not as a means of merely imitating an objective reality or focusingon the purely formal elements of their medium but as a vehicle for expressing some interior state. These “expressionists” included such artists as Van Gogh, Kandinsky, and Pollock in painting;

Formal approaches, fueled by an emphasis on scientific materialism and rationalism, argued that the true locus of art lies not in the artist’s original intent (which they dubbed “the intentional fallacy”) but rather in the structural integrity of the artwork itself. In art practice, formalist approaches enjoyed a major influence. Artists using this approach turned their focus away from the expression of feeling and concentrated on a more “realistic” attitude, usually recording exterior events as objectively as possible. These formalists included Balzac, Zola, and George Eliot in literature; and Monet, Renoir, and Courbet in painting.

Reception and response approaches, of course, also influenced the practice of art. Whereas many of the artists from the formalist and expressivist approaches regarded art as a largely autonomous  or solitary affair, with little attention paid to the receptive audience, the majority of postmodern artists used their art as a means of facilitating a response in the viewer. In other words, artists using this approach tend to emphasize the multiplicity of interpretations and responses availableto an artwork. They include John Cage in music, Umberto Eco in literature, and Robert Venturi in architecture.

The symptomatic approach found its way into art creation as well. Artists focused less on a particular feeling, or the formal aspects of their craft, and more on the depiction of social identities and social inequalities (e.g., economic, gender, political, ecological). As a result, their artwork became symptomatic of, say, what it is like to be black, to be a woman, to be gay, to live here or there, to be from a certain class-background. Some examples of artists using this approach are Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, and John Irving in literature; Cindy Sherman in photography; and Andy Warhol in painting. (2006a, p. 41-45)

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The ambivalently-attached  driver is anxious and excited. She is intimidated by the driving instructor, who holds the key to solo, licensed emotional driving. The instructor is entrusted with not only the driver’s training, but also her safety. The driver begins cautiously, carefully following instructions and repeatedly looking to the instructor for affirmation. As inexperienced drivers tend to do, she comes up to an intersection a bit too quickly.

“Give it some more brake,” I bark.

She over compensates and we feel the gravity of seat belt and pavement. I can see tears forming and lip wobbling.

“It’s fine,” I say. “Everyone does that at first. You have to get used to the distances and the speed—when to start applying the brake and how hard to push. I know it feels awkward now, but soon you’ll be doing it without even thinking about it.”

“No, I’ll never get it right,” the ambivalent driver wavers. “I can’t do anything right. I’ll never get my license and my mom will have to drive me everywhere.” 

She pauses. Attempting to hold off a frustrated flood of tears she looks over at me as the light turns. “I can’t do this. I should pull over so you can drive. Are you angry?”

“Of course not. I do this for a living. You’d have to be a lot more reckless and a much worse driver to shake me up. Come on, let’s just get to a safer place to pull over and I’ll take over if you want. Maybe a parking lot would suit us better for the rest of this lesson.”

“Okay.” As it’s her turn to go, determination and concentration take over her features. She accelerates slowly as the traffic in front of us stretches out ahead one car at a time. “Which way should I go? Is this too fast? Which lane should I get in?”

“You’re doing great. We’ll make a left at the next light into that shopping center. You can put your turn signal on now. That’s good. Now slowly veer into the turn lane. Great. That was great!”

“Well, I think I can maybe still drive a little more. Maybe just in the parking lot for a minute.”

“I think you’re doing fine, and the parking lot will be good practice as well.”

“Okay, thanks.” She makes the left turn without flaw and a slight glow of confidence begins to radiate from the corners of her eyes. She’s almost smiling.

Attachment Theory

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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...when the filing is done! And the inbox is emptied. I find this year to have passed rather quickly and without stealth. Am growing to enjoy my new ME! Happy New Year!

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Helm_ITH5303_Final_Paper.doc Download this file

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I have to say I was prepared to hate this book and only read it to research the “other side” for my Integral Politics paper. Surprisingly, I find myself in agreement with much of what Hannan believes. And, while I would prefer more citations, I am impressed with his wide perspective on the advantages and importance of democracy. I don’t know enough about the European Union (EU), except what Hannan reports via his experience, but I suspect he may be interpreting some post-modern ideals as pre-modern, causing them appear as steps backwards, when perhaps they are not.

The British politician and journalist, not yet 40 years old, is a strenuous member of the European Parliament representing South East England, and to his credit, Hannan loves America. The book gets a slow start dispelling myths that Europeans have about America and Americans. What makes us different, he says, are choice, free-market, consumerism, and democratic development. The central argument against Europeanizing America, is to preserve the ideals of democracy. The book lists abuse after abuse by the EU's appointed (not elected) officials, contrasting that to our system, which makes it much more difficult to rule autocratically.

A necessary comparison is drawn between the United States of America and the European Union of state-nations, all of whose 27 members come from democracies themselves. Hannan stresses the importance of state-level politics, which allows for diversity, innovation, and real civic engagement, not to mention, keeping politicians close to their voters. Throughout, he cites successful American local programs that fell away as powers slowly seeped upward. It’s easy for the federal government to take control, but not quite so easy to hand it back to the states, where things can usually be done more efficiently and effectively.

Don’t copy Europe, he says. They’ve traded a strong economy for longer vacations and shorter work-weeks. He points out that we are beginning to rely more and more on authorities to do what we used to do for each other in community, weakening our sense of nationalism. Democracy depends on the initiative of the individual—which Hannan touts as a strength of America—and as a weakness for Europe, whose motivation he sees as more about being polite and saving face than standing up against bullies and for ideals of liberty around the globe.

He finishes up with a sentimental and positive reminder that we Americans come from good stock, and were not alone in the fight against remote and powerful government as we seceded from England in civil war-like fashion. All the while admitting that American democracy isn’t perfect, it is the best we’ve got, and to sacrifice it for the less than democratic practices of the EU, would be a move backwards in his eyes. All this he admits contains a thread of selfishness as the United States leads the globe in democratic unions, and therefore, has a greater responsibility to stay true to its ideals.

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Apathy does not equal the belief that my vote doesn't count.

I'm warming up even more to the idea that the act of voting is the most important thing. The content of my vote is a little jag (up or down) in a much larger trend upward (good is up metaphor-cog-sci) towards higher overall human development.

I watched a few clips from the Democracy in America episode of  Northern Exposure yesterday. One of the races was for the mayor of Cicely, Alaska, between incumbent Holling Vincoeur, a regular and beloved character, and Edna Hancock who we only see in a few episodes.

In the closing scene of the show it is revealed that Edna beats Holling by eight votes. On air (with Ed the courier of the results) Chris-In-the-Morning says: Ed, we just witnessed a peaceful transition in government. Do you realize how miraculous that is?...Today, tiny Cicely, Alaska, stood up and put another W in the win category for democracy.

YouTube Clip: The Vote (3:55)

That's what matters. That we engage the process no matter how we vote. What if more young (apparently very forgetful) Democrats had made it to the polls? Maybe they did and this is still what the collective WE wants.

This morning I couldn't help thinking how I ultimately contribute to the whole partisan political phenomenon by waging my own personal battles against my Self. 

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Posted in its entirety, this is one of the weekly assignments for my online Integral Politics course at JFKU. In other words, it's a bit wordy.

The following is my attempt at forming a Public Narrative, as taught by Marshal Ganz, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Ganz’s long-time career organizing laborers led to the Camp Obama training program for campaign workers and eventually to Organizing for America (Camp OFA). Relationships, rather than platforms, fueled the Obama campaign, and articulating a story of self; a story of us; and a story of now connects diverse people despite the supposed differences in values and passions.

What do I care about and what challenges have I faced to get here? Telling this story turns me into a real person and you and me into an “us.”

Who defines the “us” I would call on to face an urgent collective challenge and take action? This is the present—and hopefully the future—of political engagement. This kind of politics, I could get behind.

I believe I am called to think deeply, extend grace to others, and to engage in creative acts. This is how I know:

One of my earliest memories is of amateur scientific inquiry. I was not quite two and potty training. The injunction: What happens if I go to the bathroom through the training pants? Will the “stream” just go straight through into the toilet? The data: the “stream” soaks throughout the material of the training underpants, just as it ought, in case of potty-training emergencies. A mess. A frustrated mom. A child feeling misunderstood. It was an experiment. I meant to do that.

Another event forming my story happens in the fifth grade. The greatest teacher ever—Mr. Hamburg—devised sort of an economic system (among tons of other creative learning tools) where we could buy, sell, and trade inexpensive items with each other. There was this guy, who no one really liked and everyone made fun of. I bought something from him (no. 2 pencils, or something), not because I wanted them, but because no one else would buy anything from him. I remember imagining how he must have felt—outcast, rejected, like he didn’t fit in—and I acted.

I loved that year in school. We took apart and resembled an old lawn mower motor and had a quiz show every Friday afternoon, called Who-knows-it, with buzzers and lights. It fueled my passion for creativity. I have always endeavored to find innovative ways of completing assignments and solving problems. I used to design and sew my own clothes, which is slightly humiliating to look back on now, even though it was the late 70s and everyone looked like that. I always chose the diorama option for book reports. I played every instrument they’d let me try in band. I excelled in arts and literature courses.

Consequently, the most challenging area of my life has been vocation. So many paths, and so hard to choose just one. In my experience, most employers already have systems and processes that work well enough, and aren’t interested in change. I usually end up feeling like that little girl whose scientific inquiry went misunderstood in favor of the practical. Time after time, I fail to stand up for my Self and end up feeling betrayed and unvalued. I’ve begun extending grace to me, just as I did towards the boy in fifth grade. I’m realizing that I am my own best champion and cheerleader. This is the challenge I face—have faced over and over. My Everest. Stand up and accept my calling, personally, socially and in this present.

The Us I hope to call on to join in my public narrative begins with my best-quality husband Mike Helm and extends to a few close (both geographically and relationally) friends. Surrounding that is the JFKU masters/certificate community, with the larger Integral Community enveloping that. I hope to find meaningful work with other creative, kind, and thoughtful people where all of us are becoming better versions of our Selves.

I call upon Us to create places—especially work places—that revere the people and love the planet as much as we worship the profit and the stuff. Every social institution, be it economic, religious, educational, medical, political…can serve as a conveyor belt of human development. Self-actualized people, relying on renewable resources, make better products and perform better services. What we do to the Earth, we do to each Other and our Selves. What we do for the Earth, we do for Others and for our Selves. I’m not exactly sure what action to take in making this a reality, but I do know that I am inspired to influence human development in some fashion. 

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Jean Grey's only weakness is that she cannot control her alter ego phoenix. Otherwise she is a substantially awesome superhero. (Wiki Answers)

I choose Jean Grey to best define me. Admittedly, the extent of my comic book super hero knowledge comes from my most excellent husband, popular film, and a bit of research. Right off the bat, I’ll make a risky choice by identifying with Marvel rather than DC.  Marvel heroes are flawed—more human—creating complex characters, waging battle within as often as they deliver the world from evil forces. (CBSS) Jean Grey’s “dark passenger,” as Dexter Morgan so aptly identifies it, is Phoenix.

Dexter is the protagonist of both the book and the show, but being a serial killer makes him a literary anti-hero. In both works, he follows an elaborate code of ethics and procedures taught to him in childhood by his father (which he refers to as "The Code") that hinges on two major points: Dexter can only kill other murderers and he should execute his crimes so as to never get caught. (IMDB)

My take: use my power for good and follow a code. I’m discovering just what my contribution to the world is, realizing, all the while, that relationships are the best reason I can imagine for being on earth, and in a body. While I’m unfamiliar with the intricacies of Jean’s story line, I get the Phoenix. Powerful and frightening, this bright shadow is unwieldy at best, and downright destructive, at worst. I am crucial to the unfolding of the universe—if anyone really knew me, they wouldn't understand or accept me. The mythical Phoenix carries a certain redemptive quality—rebirth, rather than mere remaking—hope for a better, stronger, faster version of me.

Jubilee, we come into the world alone -- and we leave the same way... the time we spend in-between... time spent alive, sharing, learning... together... is all that makes life worth living. (Jean Grey)

Sources Cited:

CBSS. (2008.) Marvel Comics vs. DC Comics. Retrieved on Oct. 17, 2010 from http://www.comic-book-and-strip-service.com/marvel-comics.html

IMDB. (2010). Dexter Morgan. Retrieved on Oct. 17, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Morgan

Grey, J. (n.d.).The Uncanny X-men. Retrieved on Oct. 17, 2010 from http://marvel.wikia.com/Uncanny_X-Men_Vol_1_303

Wiki Answers. (2010). What is Jean Grey’s weakness? Retrieved on Oct. 17, 2010 from http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_jean_grays_weakness_in_x-men_last_stand

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This is our one and only Van Gogh, resident at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Undergrowth with Two Figures, painted in 1890. Let me begin by saying, “I love this painting.” I’ve stood, sat, wept, and drooled in front of it many times in my almost 30 years in this city. Mike Helm and I have a print of it over our mantle and it’s sort of a formative piece of art in our relationship. I took photo this yesterday, but I’m sure you can find a better version on the Google should you wish to make a closer examination. For my Cognitive Science class this week we're talking about the intuitive short cuts we take to process information—how we quickly fill in the blanks and perceive a "whole" picture in our minds. Feature Integration Theory (FIT) has been researched and supports the idea that we break what we sense into features for quick pattern recognition and then reassemble a whole picture. There are a few basic features, some of which are curved, straight and slanted lines, seen in letters and shapes. Sounds work in a similar fashion. One of our assignments was to study a favorite piece to see how the artist has used clues to assist us in our perceptions. Often, and unnoticed by us, the artist defies the known laws of physics to assist in the feature recognition process. Impressionist art does this by suggesting form rather than filling in the details.

I can imagine the two figures either walking away from or towards me, depending on my mood, although, up close they do appear to be facing the artist. Using *Cavanaugh’s concept of “found science” I can tell a few things about visual perception. Objects further away, and in the background, look darker and more muted in hue, or less saturated. The closer the object, the brighter and more colorful it appears. Also, things do not need to be their proper colors to be recognizable. I haven’t seen any trees with purplish or pinkish trunks lately. Maybe greenish ones but not seafoam green, you know, more like plant green. My eyes make a leap—as likely do your—transforming yellow and white blobs into flowers. I imagine that it might possibly have rained recently, or maybe the wind is gently moving the flowery undergrowth. In the distance, it seems that there are thicker woods. By using darkened versions of the colors in the forefront trees, it looks like many of them far away. Trees in the background would be harder to distinguish individually lending themselves to a foresty, dark purple mass. The border between the forest and the undergrowth curves down slightly at the right, implying that the forest is closer to us on the right side of the scene. That line draws our eyes up and to the left where there’s a small blob of darker paint. My photo doesn’t show enough detail to confirm or deny and I’m not at home to check the print, but it looks to me like another couple or at least one other woods-walker. Are the Two Figures on a first date? How many other people are around? They look pretty intimate, but I imagine that couples used to walk arm in arm like that in public whether or not they were intimate. The woman's curved posture, up and towards her man-friend, makes her look like she really likes and trusts him. Perception is in the eye of the beholder!

*Patrick Cavanagh is in the Vision Sciences Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. (From "The Artist as Neuroscientist" published in the March 2005: Volume 434, issue of Nature Magazine)

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Blogging has always seemed to me like a great idea, but only if one has something interesting to say. Really, this is about finding my voice. As a returning student in a graduate level studies, I find my voice steadily growing in clarity and confidence. A world of ideas and possibilities continues to widen for me daily since I began the Integral Master of Arts program at John F. Kennedy University in the fall of 2008. A distance/online learning environment has certain advantages over bricks and mortar learning. Timing is flexible, classes are smaller, and the level intimacy has surprised me. The biggest difference is the focus on writing, since traditional "exams" loose their relevance online, writing is the best way to display learning. I suppose most people already know how much writing is involved in higher education. Being forced to write in such marathonic volume, changes a person. Well, it's changed me anyway.

My intention for this blog is to begin easing out of academia (3 quarters to go) and slipping into an outwardly-projected and opening attitude towards life. Out of necessity, I will begin by mirroring posts for this quarter's online courses; Cognitive Science and Integral Politics. I will inevitably draw in varied interests as is my bent. I hope some may find this interesting, as I respond to this draw to speak things out into the Whateversphere.

Thanks for reading!

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