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RUNNING HEAD: MYTHOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY IN HOLISTIC EDUCATION

TOWARDS INTEGRAL ECOLOGIES: MYTHOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY IN

HOLISTIC EDUCATION

A Thesis

Presented to the Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Master of Arts Degree

by

Jessica Fuhr Nichol

June 12, 2019

Josette Luvmour, Ph.D. Faculty Mentor Sam Crowell, Jr., Ed.D. Faculty Advisor Fionn Wright Learner Colleague

Copyright 2019

Jessica Fuhr Nichol, All Rights Reserved

MYTHOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY IN HOLISTIC EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

This intuitive inquiry explores the potentialities of ancient cultural mythologies, the universe story

as a new mythology, and technology with its role in community connection in the context of

holistic education. Intuitive inquiry is a qualitative research methodology that invites an

engagement with the unique interests and passions of the researcher. This study looks through the

lens of the emerging field of archetypal cosmology to examine how and why mythology and

technology can strengthen the soul dimension of holistic education and lead toward integral

ecologies.

Key words: holistic education, archetypal cosmology, mythology, technology, integral ecologies,

the universe story, Journey of the Universe


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With appreciation and thanks to:

My family: Brad, Lance, and Zoe, for your patience, support, and participation in this project.

My faculty mentors: Josette Luvmour and Sam Crowell, whose guidance shaped this inquiry in

ever-appreciated ways.

My learner-colleague: Fionn Wright, for your affirmative interest in technology.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………….................……… i

Chapter Page I INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 The Situation .......................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................... 3 Archetypal Cosmology ..................................................................... 3 Integral Ecologies ............................................................................. 4 The Approach to the Study ..................................................................... 5 Important Definitions ............................................................................. 6 Cycle 1 .................................................................................................... 7 II LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................... 8 Systems Thinking: The New Paradigm of Science ................................ 9 The Field of Holistic Education ........................................................... 11 Archetypal Principles ........................................................................... 12

Our Place in Time and Space ............................................................... 14 From Ancient Civilizations to the Axial Age and Beyond ............ 14 The Triphasic Pattern, the Spiral, and the Fractal .......................... 16 In Consideration of a Second Axial Age ........................................ 18 Integral Philosophy and Integral Consciousness .................................. 19 Structures of Consciousness Throughout Childhood ........................... 22 Myth and its Role in Culture ................................................................ 22 The New Story to Journey of the Universe .......................................... 24 Look to the Stars: A Path Toward Integral Ecologies .......................... 27 The Historical Dialectic of Archetypal Principles ......................... 30 Understanding Archetypal Principles in Childhood ...................... 31 Care of the Soul in Education ........................................................ 32 Mythology in Holistic Education ................................................... 33 Technology in Holistic Education .................................................. 35 The Potential of the Adult/Child Relationship ............................... 37 Summary and Cycle 2 Lenses .............................................................. 38

III METHODOLOGY ............................................................................... 40 Intuitive Inquiry as a Qualitative Research Methodology .................... 40 Research Questions ........................................................................ 42 Context of the Study ............................................................................. 42 Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning ............................ 42 Fourth Industrial Revolution .......................................................... 43 Positionality .......................................................................................... 44 Procedure .............................................................................................. 45 Triphasic Pattern ............................................................................ 48 Hypnogogia .................................................................................... 48 Study Participants ................................................................................. 50 Data Collection ..................................................................................... 51 Validity ................................................................................................. 55


IV FINDINGS/CYCLE 3 ......................................................................... 56 Open Intake .......................................................................................... 56 Open Intake for my Children ................................................................ 58 Sleep/Digestion .................................................................................... 65 Skill/Mastery ........................................................................................ 67 V DISCUSSION ...................................................................................... 82 Cycle 4 .................................................................................................. 82 Cycle 4 Lenses ............................................................................... 83 Open Intake Lenses ........................................................................ 83 Sleep/Digestion Lenses .................................................................. 84 Cycle 2 Lenses ............................................................................... 84 Comparison of Triphasic Cycle 2 and Cycle 4 lenses .......................... 84 Concept: Adult/Child Relationship ................................................ 84 Concept: Technology ..................................................................... 86 Concept: Mythology ....................................................................... 89 Concept: System ............................................................................. 91 Concept: The Unseen ..................................................................... 92 Concept: Our Place in Time and Space .......................................... 97 Concept: Earth/Human Relationship .............................................. 99 Summary ...................................................................................... 101 Cycle 5 ................................................................................................ 102 Integration of Cycle 4 Lenses with Literature Review and Findings ..................................................................................... 102 What is Left Unsaid? .................................................................... 104 Procedures and Plans That Did Not Work ................................... 106 Mistakes Made ............................................................................. 106 The Researcher’s Apprehensions and Puzzlements About the Study and Findings ................................................... 107 The Style of Intuitive Interpretation Used ................................... 108 What Remains Unresolved or Problematic About the Topic or the Method? .......................................................................... 111 Summary ............................................................................................ 112 Summary Implications and Visionary Trajectory ........................ 112 Implications for Practice .............................................................. 113 Limitations of my Research ......................................................... 113 Future Research ............................................................................ 114 Recommendations ........................................................................ 115 Final Reflections .......................................................................... 115

Appendix A ......................................................................................................... 116 Appendix B ......................................................................................................... 117 Appendix C ......................................................................................................... 118 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 119

MYTHOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY IN HOLISTIC EDUCATION 1

Prohibited though it may be from an objective point of view to make statements out of

the blue – that is, without sufficient reason – there are nevertheless some statements

which apparently have to be made without objective reasons.… Since the archetype is not

just an inactive form, but a real force charged with a specific energy, it may very well be

regarded as the causa efficiens of such statements, and be understood as the subject of

them. In other words, it is not the personal human being who is making the statement, but

the archetype speaking through him.

-Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The Situation

When my son was a toddler, he would look out the window on certain dark evenings and

point his chubby young finger towards the sky. "Moonah," he would proclaim. "Moonah!" His

fixation on the moon was the beginning of his interest in space. When no moon is present in the

night sky of the rural area in which I live, the stars twinkle brightly against a backdrop of

darkness. These glittering points of light soon captured the attention of my son’s inner yearning.

Like so many before him, he longed to know more. What are the stars? How far away are they?

His father and I procured a variety of children’s books and began to read aloud Bob Berman’s

Secrets of the Night Sky (1995) in an attempt to satiate his hunger for meaning-making. We

learned together about Betelgeuse. We gazed upon Orion’s Belt, located the Pleiades, and

contemplated the vastness of the Milky Way. My small daughter began to look to the sky as

well, noticing Orion’s constancy in winter whether she was star-gazing from the island of Maui


or a mountain valley in Colorado. This story of wonder at the depth of creation within the

cosmos is not unique to my family. This story has permeated humanity throughout the ages.

Richard Tarnas and Brian Thomas Swimme, professors in the Philosophy, Cosmology,

and Consciousness (PCC) Department at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) gave a

talk entitled The Stars Lead us to Wonder in November 2018 that captures the essence of my

children's experience and this study. Tarnas provided two meanings of the title word "wonder":

1) Numinous mystery (numinous is defined (Merriam-Webster, 2019) as 1) supernatural,

mysterious; 2) filled with a sense of the presence of divinity: holy; 3) appealing to the

higher emotions or the aesthetic sense: spiritual)

2) The feeling of wanting to know something that has caused us curiosity or perplexity.

An urge to understand or solve a mystery.

Tarnas explained that the religious sense of the first definition and the scientific sense of the

second have led to the main worldviews of today. “Lead” in the title focuses attention and

intention.

Through the course of their talk, Tarnas and Swimme spoke about how the stars have (a)

evolved into us over a 14-billion-year period, (b) been crucial through each stage of evolution

and consciousness as they draw forth new capacities and cosmologies at each transition, and (c)

been key to our intellectual development. Swimme stated that we live in a time where we are

ruining the planet with tremendous intelligence and power. His hope that evening was for the

discussion to make a difference to the planetary situation in which we, as humanity, find

ourselves. The PCC program at CIIS echoes this hope in their dedication "to re-imagining the

human species as a mutually enhancing member of the Earth community” (Philosophy,


Cosmology, and Consciousness, 2019). This intuitive inquiry is conducted in the spirit of the

above-stated re-imagining.

Purpose of the Study

As we float in the midst of such mysterious immensities, is there any deep wisdom that

might help us align our consciousness with the grain of cosmic evolution?

-Brian Thomas Swimme, Journey of the Universe film

This study explores the potentialities of mythology and technology within holistic

education in our current context. In the recently published International Handbook of Holistic

Education (Miller, Nigh, Binder, Novak, & Crowell, 2019) (The Handbook), Bruce Novak

identified an overarching soul dimension of holistic education. Miller (2008) defined soul in his

book The Holistic Curriculum as “a vital and mysterious energy that gives meaning and purpose

to one’s life” (p. 178) and identified mythology, the universe story, and community connections

as among the ways to nurture the soul and allow the self to emerge. What is missing from the

literature as well as The Handbook, and what this study attempts to provide, is a transdisciplinary

look at how and why (a) mythology in its original relationship to ancient civilizations, (b) the

universe story as a new cultural mythology, and (c) technology with its exponentially expanding

role in community connection provide care to the soul and encourage the emergence of the true

nature of the individual. This study posits that the soul dimension will be strengthened by

incorporating mythology and technology into education based on holistic principles for reasons

illuminated by archetypal cosmology.

Archetypal Cosmology

Archetypal cosmology is “a distinctive vision of psyche and cosmos, of the human

being’s co-creative participation in an ensouled, evolving universe” (Tarnas, 2011, p. 65) that


arose during the 1970s and 80s at Esalen Institute in California and from the 1990s to the present

at CIIS. Tarnas writes of the early days at Esalen:

The unusually profound encounters with the deep unconscious that we were studying

frequently involved direct experiences of an archetypal dimension of reality – whether in

the form of mythic figures and narratives from various cultures, gods and goddesses,

transcendent Platonic Ideas, or Jungian archetypes. (Tarnas, 2011, p. 66)

Academic scholars and researchers began to recognize the larger implications of the evidence for

correlations between planetary movements and patterns of human experience. In response to

extraordinary evidence, the research was pursued more systematically and then integrated into

“relevant ideas and conceptual frameworks from both the admired past, such as the Platonic-

Pythagorean tradition or the work of Johannes Kepler, and the cutting-edge present, from depth

psychology to the new paradigm sciences” (Tarnas, 2011, p. 65). The astrological research

paradigm has “proved highly promising in the study of history and biography, psychology,

philosophy, religion, mythology, culture, and the arts” (Tarnas, 2011, p. 65). Implications of

archetypal cosmology are being considered by scholars within the PCC department at CIIS to

further understanding of the relationship between the psyche and the cosmos (About the MA,

n.d.). Considerations of the relationship between psyche and cosmos, “inner and outer, between

self and world,” (Tarnas, 2007, p. 17) are intrinsic to holistic education and are seen throughout

The Handbook using different vocabulary.

Integral Ecologies

This study aims to encourage transdisciplinary research and dialogue between the field of

holistic education and the multidisciplinary fields within and associated with the PCC

department at CIIS to further a shared interest towards integral ecologies. Integral ecologies are


“a variety of emerging approaches to ecology that cross disciplinary boundaries in efforts to

deeply understand and creatively respond to the complex matters, meanings, and mysteries of

relationships that constitute the whole of the Earth community” (Mickey, Kelly, & Robbert,

2017, p. 1). Edward Brantmeier explores this shared interest in The Handbook through an

examination of the subfields of holistic, sustainability, and peace education to “shed light on

their confluence and also reveal divergent approaches to ensuring quality of life for the human

species during our tenure on earth and also for planetary well-being for the long haul” (Miller et

al., 2019, p. 80). The transdisciplinary nature of this study may contribute to numerous fields in

addition to holistic education, including depth psychology, the field of religion and ecology, and

ecopsychology. Ecopsychology holds that “the psyche is rooted inside a greater intelligence once

known as the anima mundi, the psyche of the Earth herself that has been nurturing life in the

cosmos for billions of years through its drama of heightening complexification” (Roszak T.,

1995, p. 16).

The Approach to the Study

Over the five chapters of this thesis, I utilize the qualitative lens of the five iterative

cycles of intuitive inquiry. Cycle 1 is listed at the end of Chapter I Introduction. Cycle 2 lenses

are listed at the end of Chapter II Literature Review. The next chapter is III Methodology.

Indications for future research and gaps in the literature situate a case study utilizing purposeful

sampling as the ideal research methodology for data collection within the parameter of my

intuitive inquiry. Specifically, the case study explores the incorporation of digital media

(digitized content transmitted over the internet or electronic networks including text, audio,

video, and graphics) and the interweaving of Journey of the Universe (Our Story, n.d.) as a new

cultural mythology for our time into the Live Education! (Live Education: Creative and Caring


Waldorf Guidance, n.d.) fifth-grade curriculum. The descriptive findings of the Cycle 3 research

are reported using embodied writing accompanied by illustrative examples of participants’ art

and writing in Chapter IV Findings. Chapter V Discussion includes the Cycle 4 lenses, a

comparison to Cycle 2 lenses, and Cycle 5 of the intuitive inquiry.

Important Definitions

Two key terms identified within the focus of this study that can have a variety of

meanings are mythology and technology. The specific ways they are utilized here are defined as

follows:

Mythology - this study defines mythology as a sacred story set within the unfolding universe.

Mythology describes in poetic form the fundamental truths of nature and human life and gives

body to invisible and eternal factors that reach beyond the personal to express imagery reflective

of the archetypal dynamics that shape the universe and every human life.

This definition incorporates the new cultural mythology of Journey of the Universe

(defined in the literature review) and is drawn directly from Thomas Moore's description in his

book Care of the Soul:

A myth is a sacred story set in a time and place outside history, describing in fictional

form the fundamental truths of nature and human life. Mythology gives body to the

invisible and eternal factors that are always part of life but don’t appear in a literal,

factual story…. Myth reaches beyond the personal to express an imagery reflective of

archetypal issues that shape every human life. (Moore, 1994, p. 220)

Technology - is defined in this study as any technology potentially available to create

community connection and “aid the young to identify themselves in the comprehensive


dimensions of space and time” (Berry, 2003, pp. 86-87), specifically but not limited to digital

media and devices, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics.

Cycle 1

The inspiration for this work came through my graduate studies and specifically from

coursework offered through the Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning:

• Holistic Education: Roots and Praxis - with a Focus on Adolescence, mentored by David

Marshak, Ed.D.

• Catalytic Memes: The Transformative Power of the “New Story,” mentored by Jonathan

Tayler, Ph.D.

During this parallel coursework, I read for the first time Thomas Berry’s 1978 essay The New

Story: Comments on the Origin, Identification, and Transmission of Values (2003). I reread the

text repeatedly, sensing a depth of meaning that was not immediately discernable to me. Several

months later I became familiar with intuitive inquiry as a research methodology, and I re-

engaged with The New Story essay as my Cycle 1 text.


CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This study explores through the lens of archetypal cosmology the potential of mythology

and technology to strengthen the soul dimension of holistic education and lead towards integral

ecologies. The Cycle 1 text, Berry’s The New Story (2003) essay, catalyzed the literature review.

The coverage approach was guided by the exercises of Cycle 2 of the intuitive inquiry, as

described in Chapter III Methodology. The transdisciplinary nature of the study provided too

vast a landscape to present an exhaustive review within a single thesis chapter. Therefore, a

purposive sample of literature representing the voices associated with (a) theories that provide

guidance and influence across the fields, (b) the International Handbook of Holistic Education

(Miller et al., 2019), (c) the PCC Department at CIIS, and (d) the faculty members of the

Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning (GIFTLearning) whose teachings influenced my

own meaning-making in relation to the study have been included.

The transdisciplinary nature of this study requires a systems approach, and the literature

review begins with an overview of systems thinking as the new paradigm of science. Organized

conceptually, the review next outlines the field of holistic education, followed by archetypal

principles as a concept fundamental to both archetypal cosmology and this study. Our place in

time and space is situated by connecting historical periods identified across the fields and

exploring the triphasic pattern and spiral as discussed and illustrated in Sean Kelly's (2010)

work. The view of the evolution of human consciousness known as integral philosophy and the

structures of consciousness throughout childhood are related to the previously discussed triphasic

pattern and the spiral. A key concept to this study is mythology. A purposive sample of present


and past voices within the literature summarize myth's role in culture and the rise of a new

cultural mythology in the universe story.

Finally, the review attempts to synthesize the literature and offer a new perspective as it

attends to Swimme and Tarnas’s indications in their talk The Stars Lead us to Wonder (2018).

Kelly (Mickey, Kelly, & Robert, 2017) identifies evolution and (re) enchantment as the guiding

principles of integral ecologists Swimme and Berry. When viewed through the lens of

archetypal cosmology, the principles of evolution and (re) enchantment position the potentialities

of mythology and technology as a viable study within holistic education. Holistic education is

poised to play an essential role in returning an awareness of soul to twenty-first-century

education as post-modern and integral thinkers examine methodologies with which to move

away from the prevailing mechanistic worldview towards a systems view of life (Capra & Luisi,

2014). The literature highlights advantages of the adult/child relationship for the use of

technology in our current Western educational context; archetypal cosmology links our current

period to the period five hundred years ago that was shaped by the printed book. A co-evolution

of the child and the adult in relationship with each other is emphasized in the literature in light of

the new-science paradigm. A summary and identification of the intuitive inquiry Cycle 2 lenses

conclude the review.

Systems Thinking: The New Paradigm of Science

In the twentieth-century scientists came to realize that analyzing the parts of a living

system does not allow an understanding of the behavior of the whole. “In the systems approach,

the properties of the parts can be understood only from the organization of the whole” (Capra &

Luisi, 2014, p. 66). Systems thinking concentrates on basic principles of organization and is

“contextual,” situating the object of study into the context of a larger whole. The conceptual


framework of systems thinking is elucidated in The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision

(Capra & Luisi, 2014). Systems thinking “includes and integrates life’s biological, cognitive,

social, and ecological dimensions” (Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. xii) with broad implications for

humanity’s continued quest for answers regarding the origin, nature, and meaning of life. “Some

systems theorists, including Capra, Erich Jantsch, and Ervin Lazlo, suggest that the universe

itself can be conceptualized as a vast living system that can be analyzed and explicated using

systems concepts” (Le Grice, 2012, p. 101). Capra and Luisi (2014) emphasize that the shift in

perspective to systems thinking does not eliminate “one perspective in favor of the other, but

rather that there is a complementary interplay between the two perspectives, a figure/ground

shift” (Capra & Luisi, 2014, pp. 79, 83). By including mind, consciousness, and meaning within

the central concepts, systems theory brings understanding to the interior psychological structure

and organization in addition to the material structure and organization (Le Grice, 2012).

Thomas Kuhn introduced the concept of a scientific “paradigm” in his 1962 book The

Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Capra & Luisi, 2014). According to Kuhn, a scientific

paradigm includes not only concepts and techniques but also values, which are the basis and

driving force of science and its applications to technology. Kuhn described a discontinuous,

revolutionary break in the concepts, values, and techniques shared by a scientific community and

the wider community as a paradigm shift. In recent decades the concepts of a paradigm and a

paradigm shift have been used increasingly within the social sciences where the change in values

can also be observed. Capra and Luisi write:

“The Zeitgeist (“spirit of the age”) of the early twenty-first century is being shaped by a

profound change of paradigms…. The new paradigm may be called a holistic worldview,


seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts.”

(Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 12)

Capra and Luigi say that it can also be called an ecological view in the sense that deep ecological

awareness recognizes the interdependent relationship of individuals and societies embedded

within the cyclical processes of nature. Whichever name one chooses, the new paradigm view

and sciences offer support to the field of holistic education, the emerging field of archetypal

cosmology, and the shared transdisciplinary goal of integral ecologies.

The Field of Holistic Education

The literature suggests that “indigenous peoples were the first holistic educators” (Miller

et al., 2019, p. 5) and the concept of holistic education traces back to Ancient Greece and Rome

(Miller J. P., 2008) in the West, and centuries earlier in the East with Buddhist and Taoist

spiritual traditions (Nakagawa, 2000). Holistic education recognizes the whole person, including

the mind, body, and spiritual aspect (Miller et al., 2019; Miller J. P., 2008; Nakagawa, 2000;

Nava, 2001). An essential element of the holistic perspective is that, in viewing the whole

person, it also includes the context (ecosystem or system) the person is situated within.

Everything is interrelated and cannot separate into parts. By implementing holistic perspectives

in education, educators and learners gain awareness of the systemic nature of our world. There

are many influential teachers in the history of holistic education. Ron Miller (1997) provides

background on the originating theorists: Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Alcott, Channing,

Emerson, and Thoreau. Miller includes Francis W. Parker, whose career took place in the public-

school system, and John Dewey, whose writing has inspired twentieth-century holistic educators.

More recent educators and theorists who contributed to holistic education are Maria Montessori,

Rudolf Steiner, Sri Aurobindo, Howard Gardner, and Jiddu Krishnamurti. All of these theorists


and educators contributed to the many educators who are teaching with a holistic worldview

today.

In the preface of the International Handbook of Holistic Education (Miller et al., 2019)

John P. Miller links the field of holistic education to the new paradigm, referring to it as the

Holistic Age. The term holistic education arose in the 1980s. Recent decades have brought

relevant publications and developments within the field including conferences around the world

where educators come together to share their work. The Handbook intended to provide an "up-to-

date picture of the field, as it exists around the globe, its theories, practices, and research" (Miller

et al., 2019, p. xxiii). Miller states that perhaps the most significant challenge has been in the

area of empirical research since that area is less developed than others. Miller cites the example

of Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm: Exploring New Ways of Knowing, Researching, and

Being (Lin, Oxford, & Culham, 2016) as a recent book that has started to address the need for

innovative research methods for holistic educators to utilize. The Handbook’s section on research

in the field includes the qualitative methodologies of phenomenology, arts-based, poetic and

narrative inquiry, action and participatory action, and a quantitative study using scientific

methods. This intuitive inquiry aligns with a spiritual research paradigm (Appendix A) and is

presented as an innovative research methodology within the field of holistic education.

Archetypal Principles

Fundamental to archetypal cosmology and this study is the concept of archetypal

principles. The origin of this concept traces back to ancient Mesopotamian, Greek, and

Hellenistic thought. Significant figures of Western intellectual history have contributed to the

developing understanding of the nature of archetypes, including Plato, Aristotle, Ficino, Kant,

Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Freud, Jung, Hillman, Grof, and Tarnas (About the MA,


n.d.). A present definition of an archetype is “a universal principle or force that affects – impels,

structures, permeates – the human psyche and the world of human experience on many levels”

(Tarnas, 2007, p. 84). The archetypes have been correlated with planetary movements, and

Tarnas explains the Platonic-Jungian lineage of the astrological thesis in his 2007 major work

Cosmos and Psyche. Tarnas describes the nature of these correlations as an orchestrated

synthesis that combines the “precision of mathematical astronomy with the psychological

complexity of the archetypal imagination, a synthesis whose sources seemingly exist a priori

within the fabric of the universe” (p. 85).

In Jungian terms, the astrological evidence suggests that the collective unconscious is

ultimately embedded in the macrocosm itself, with the planetary motions a synchronistic

reflection of the unfolding archetypal dynamics of human experience. In Platonic terms,

astrology affirms the existence of an anima mundi informing the cosmos, a world soul in

which the human psyche participates as a microcosm of the whole. Finally, the Platonic,

Jungian, and astrological understandings of archetypes are all complexly linked, both

historically and conceptually, to the archetypal structures, narratives, and figures of

ancient myth. (Tarnas, 2007, p. 86)

This study is based on archetypal cosmology’s premises that (a) the archetypes are linked to

ancient myth and planetary movements, (b) the planetary movements are synchronistic with the

archetypal dynamics of human experience, and (c) the anima mundi as World Soul exists a

priori, with the human psyche as a microcosm of the whole. To further situate this study, themes

in the historical periods identified across the fields are examined next, followed by the

consideration of an underlying dialectical pattern in both interior and material structure and

organization.


Our Place in Time and Space

Ancient Civilizations to the Axial Age and Beyond

As Bruce Novak reflected on the six written pieces that constitute Part 1 Foundations of

The Handbook, he arrived at “seven integrated dimensions of holistic education: three related to

our organic nature; three related to the beginnings, middle, and prospective fulfillment of our

being in the world; and a final, single overarching dimension” (Miller et al., 2019, p. 1). The

overarching dimension - the soulful dimension, was introduced in Chapter I of this thesis. The

three related to our organic nature are the neurological dimension (mind), the incarnated

dimension (body), and the aesthetic dimension (feeling/heart/spirit/soul). The three related to

time are of interest here:

• The anthropological dimension: before “civilization” when all human education was

holistic. “Indigenous Worlding” is relayed by Four Arrows aka Don Trent Jacobs in The

Handbook and is now being introduced to holistic educators to encourage a reconnection

to the natural world as it acts as a co-participant in our being and doing, just as it did in

humanity’s early existence.

• The historic dimension: diverse wisdom traditions provide educational resources to

recover our natural wholeness within "civilization." The Axial Age, a term coined by

philosopher Karl Jaspers which refers to the period from @900 to 200 BCE brought

peace and what can now be recognized as holistic consciousness to stem the violence that

arose near the beginning of the historical period in the late second millennium BCE.

During the Axial Age, world religions and the perennial philosophy arose, and great

teachers appeared on the earth including "Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao-tzu, Confucius,

Socrates, Plato, and the Israelite prophets" (Miller et al., 2019, p. 6).


• The philosophical dimension: “bringing the left brain to know what the right brain can

do” (Miller et al., 2019, p. 3). Novak writes:

this tradition of both teaching and thought, which might be called “The Empathic

and Ecological Enlightenment,” seeks, at its foundation, to engage feeling and

embodied minds in a lively and restorative dance with one another and the world.

And it provides new left-brain conceptual support for a general holistic worldview

in which the full intuitive power of the right brain is reinstated. (Miller et al.,

2019, p. 3)

Sean Kelly, professor at PCC at CIIS, explores the same historical themes as Novak and

articulates an in-depth thesis in his book Coming Home (2010). Kelly provides multiple visuals

that align with this study. In the first diagram, note the three periods arcing towards the same

goal.

(Kelly, 2010, p xi)

In the following diagram, note the historical periods of the inner spiral and the influences coming

from the differing thought streams indicated by the upward-moving arrows located along the

bottom of the diagram.


(Kelly, 2010, p. 162)

The Triphasic Pattern, the Spiral, and the Fractal

Kelly relays Hegel’s logic of the Absolute, known through the concept of the “dialectic

as the movement which leads from an initial position through opposition or negation to a new

position that includes (or, to be more precise, simultaneously transcends, includes, and negates)

the initial position along with its apparent opposite” (Kelly, 2010, p. 15). There are multiple

triads of terms which Hegel associated with the logic of the Absolute: Kelly utilizes identity,

difference, and new identity (see diagrams: I. identity, II. difference, III. new identity). Kelly

explains that the manifestation of the triphasic pattern of separation, initiation, return as

encountered in the hero's journey within mythology is not a return in the literal sense, but rather

a new identity. "The Hegelian triad can also be seen as the deep structure of other – and arguably

all – developmental processes," writes Kelly (2010, p. 17). Numerous examples are provided

from both the East and the West, including Jung’s process of individuation in which self-

actualization occurs and recent variations in the work of Ken Wilber, Stanislav Grof, and Jean

Gebser.

In Coming Home (2010) Kelly narrates a historical account of the triphasic dialectical

pattern (as seen in his diagrams) and explains that the spiral path “can be understood as an


expression of the dialectically generative potential of the fundamental pattern” (Kelly, 2010, p.

65). The movement towards the modern and postmodern “proceeded by way of a fractal

repetition of the fundamental pattern. A pattern is fractal when there exists a “self-similarity”

between the properties of the overall or larger-scale shape and the parts or regions” (Kelly, 2010,

p. 45) that make up the shape. Mathematical support for the concept of the fractal is credited to

Benoit Mandelbrot who began to study the geometry of irregular shapes in the late 1950s.

Mandelbrot invented a new type of mathematics which he called fractal geometry to analyze the

common features of the shapes. “The most striking property of these fractal shapes is that their

characteristic patterns are found repeatedly at descending scales, so that their parts, at any scale,

are similar in shape to the whole” (Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 117). Capra and Luisi report that

Mandelbrot uses cauliflower to illustrate “self-similarity” as a property. By breaking a small

piece out of a cauliflower, it looks like a small cauliflower. Kelly (2010) uses the example of a

tree branch looking just like a tree. This study draws on the triphasic dialectical pattern and the

concept of the fractal in relationship to (a) the evolution of human consciousness, (b) structures

of consciousness throughout childhood, and (c) the process of learning (detailed in Chapter III

Methodology). Before addressing (a) and (b), an additional diagram from Kelly is offered about

our place in time and space. The final chart includes the concept of a Second Axial Age with the

principal arc as a middle term between the origin and goal.

(Kelly, 2010, p. 163)


In Consideration of a Second Axial Age

In Cosmos and Psyche (Tarnas, 2007), Richard Tarnas discusses the Uranus-Neptune-

Pluto triple conjunction that extended in the 590s to the 550s BCE, the very heart of the Axial

Age.

In light of the great triple conjunction of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto during the Axial

Awakening period of the sixth century BCE, it is striking that many of the impulses

established at that time more than 2500 years ago have been moving toward a climactic

moment of transformation in the course of the past hundred years. Reflecting this epochal

historical development, prophetic voices in the 1990s, such as the theologian Ewert

Cousins, began to suggest the possible coming in our time of a second Axial awakening

comparable to the first.” (Tarnas, 2007, pp. 450-451)

Mythology’s triphasic pattern of separation, initiation, return as experienced in the hero’s

journey (also referred to in the literature as the monomyth) is discussed by Kelly in his article

Gaia and a Second Axial Age (Kelly, 2016). Kelly describes our current moment in time and

space: “For the first time in sixty-five million years, the Earth community is being drawn into a

collective, planet-wide Near-Death-Experience (NDE)” (Kelly, 2016, p. 1). Kelly explains that

NDEs can occur spontaneously or be cultivated in rites of passage or initiation by intentional

processes toward a specific goal and are therefore teleological in nature (telos meaning purpose

or goal). After an explanation of how “the first Axial Age sets up the conditions of possibility for

the eventual emergence of the second” (Kelly, 2016, p. 3), Kelly returns to his theme of

initiation:

We can note that an essential component during the liminal (“threshold”) phase of many

rites of initiation involves introducing the initiate to the sacred stories, myths, and


symbols of the community into which they are being inducted. In contrast to the situation

in both archaic or indigenous societies and in first Axial traditions, the stories and

symbols required for this collective initiation into a new Gaian identity need to include a

genuinely common narrative core, regardless of language and ethnicity. (Kelly, 2016, p.

4)

A description of the universe story, which Kelly identifies as the only candidate for a

common narrative, is upcoming in the literature review. Kelly affirms the value of existing

stories, myths, rituals and religious doctrines for continued insight into the cosmos, humanity,

and how to navigate forward. In summary, this study is in agreement with Kelly’s view of our

place in time and space as “straddling, or crossing and recrossing, the threshold between” (Kelly,

2010, p. 99) the initiation stage (second phase) of the mythological hero’s journey and the return

(third phase), which requires the shaping of a new identity. This review now returns to the

triphasic dialectical pattern and the concept of the fractal as it relates to (a) the evolution of

human consciousness and (b) the structures of consciousness throughout childhood.

Integral Philosophy and Integral Consciousness

"Integral philosophy is a new understanding of how the influences of evolution affect the

development of consciousness and culture" (2007, p. 2), writes Steve McIntosh in Integral

Consciousness and the Future of Evolution. Integral philosophy began to emerge into a coherent

whole beginning in the late 1990s and is described by McIntosh as “a self-organizing dynamic

system of values” (2007, p. 153). The result of this philosophy, posits McIntosh, is the

worldview of integral consciousness. McIntosh traces the various thought streams that have

contributed to integral philosophy and credits the following founders: Georg Hegel, Henri

Bergson, James Mark Baldwin, Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jean


Gebser, Jurgen Habermas, and Ken Wilber. Developmental psychology is foundational to

integral philosophy because it reveals “the stage-wise development of all historically significant

worldview structures. That is, the structures that organize consciousness are directly related to

the stages of human history” (McIntosh, 2007, p. 29).

The psychologist Clare Graves's research demonstrated that the sequentially emerging

stages organize within a larger dynamic system; a dialectical spiral of development or living

system of evolution (McIntosh, 2007). Spiral Dynamics (1996), authored by Don Beck and

Christopher Cowen, popularized Graves's work and introduced the spiral of development to a

broader audience at a generalized level that facilitates its usefulness. McIntosh qualifies that the

stages of consciousness are "better compared to ocean currents than to architecture…a pattern of

relationships that exhibit systemic properties" (McIntosh, 2007, p. 33). The stages include

archaic, tribal, warrior, traditional, modernist, postmodern, integral, and postintegral. Integral

consciousness is the first stage that recognizes “how the real values of every historically

significant worldview must be included within our larger estimates of what is good and

worthwhile” (McIntosh, 2007, p. 79). “Transcend and include” has become the catchphrase of

integral consciousness and the value of evolution itself is the prime directive.

Critics of the spiral dynamics model point out that its focus is on values and the model

does not adequately account for the other “lines of development” that have been identified by

psychologists and developmentalists. McIntosh acknowledges this claim yet argues that “these

various lines of development are themselves organized within a larger holarchic structure

wherein three primary lines of development encompass the rest” (McIntosh, 2007, p. 241). The

“center of gravity” phenomenon supports McIntosh’s claim. McIntosh points out that integral


theorist Ken Wilber, who insists that the lines of development are separate, also recognizes a

center of psychic gravity.

McIntosh identified feeling, thought, and will as the three primary lines that

consciousness is organized around before becoming aware of the spiritual paths of Hinduism and

Theosophy as supporters of these same three aspects. Readers familiar with the work of Rudolf

Steiner or Waldorf education will immediately recognize the triad of thinking, feeling, willing,

also referred to as head, heart, and hands, that structures the associated literature and pedagogy.

The interested reader will find an insightful overview and critique of the many contributors to

this discussion of consciousness and human development in Chapter 9 Structures of the Human

Mind in McIntosh’s book Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution (2007), as well as

a more in-depth handling of the metastructures of emotion (feeling), cognition (thought), and

volition (will). To conclude, McIntosh's model provides a visual of his integration of the spiral of

evolving values into the three primary lines of development:

Figure 9-4. The spiral’s influence on consciousness through its effect on the lines of development within the human will.

(McIntosh, 2007, p. 264)


Structures of Consciousness Throughout Childhood

Developmentalists Josette and Ba Luvmour co-created the Natural Learning

Relationships (NLR) theory and program based on “fieldwork and extensive research in child

development, family systems, and pertinent psychological” (Luvmour J., 2016, p. 9) and spiritual

disciplines. With NLR as a ground, J. Luvmour (2016) proposes as ontogeny “recapitulates

phylogeny in the formation of a human fetus, structures of consciousness also manifest in

humans in shorter forms through childhood” (Luvmour J., 2016, p. 283). Luvmour links the

stages of child development as detailed by NLR to each stage of Gebser’s structures of

consciousness (see Appendix B). The emphasis here is that human development is comprised of

predictable stages in childhood that exhibit the dialectical, spiral, and fractal pattern that can be

discerned by the adult for optimal learning. This concept is expanded in relationship to this study

in the upcoming section regarding understanding archetypal principles in childhood.

Myth and its Role in Culture

Drawing from the work of Joseph Campbell, Le Grice outlines the four main functions of

myth (2012, pp. 40-43):

• mystical or metaphysical function – to reconcile the waking consciousness to the universe

as it is, to adapt the human to the numinous mystery that is interior and exterior

• cosmological function – the forming and rendering of an image of the universe

(cosmological image) that is in alignment with the science of our time

• sociological function – that of supporting and maintaining a functioning social moral

order by shaping the individual to the current geographical and historical context


• pedagogical or psychological function – to initiate the individual into the order of

realities of his or her own psyche, guiding the individual toward spiritual enrichment and

realization

The mythologies of ancient civilizations provided meaning for people about their place in

time and space. The myths of indigenous cultures provided a connection to the universe not only

in the past but also today. The literature suggests the universe story as an appropriate mythology

today and encourages the integration of ancient cultural mythologies, indigenous mythologies,

and religious doctrines (Kelly, 2010). In The Origins of History and Consciousness (Neumann,

1995) Erich Neumann, a student of Jung, provides an analysis of mythology’s archetypal stages

as they relate to the developing ego, both on an individual and historically collective level. One

mythological theme already discussed in this thesis and identified by Neumann is the hero’s

journey. Correlating the archetypal dynamics within each, Neumann identifies the hero myth as a

second cycle embedded within the creation myth.

Additionally, Neumann details the transformation myth. "The development of

consciousness in archetypal stages is a transpersonal fact, a dynamic self-revelation of the

psychic structure, which dominates the history of mankind and the individual" (Neumann, 1995,

p. xxii). Neumann defines transpersonal factors as internal structural elements that are collective.

Neumann states “The archetypes that determine the stages of conscious development form only a

segment of archetypal reality as a whole” (Neumann, 1995, pp. xvi-xvii). Archetypal cosmology,

which emerged as a field of study decades later, gives new meaning to Neumann’s statement. In

The Archetypal Cosmos (2012) Le Grice writes:

Fundamental to this next great movement, I believe, will be an understanding of the

archetypal-cosmological basis of the ‘single symphony’ of our biological and spiritual


history. It is my contention that a recognition of the archetypal matrix, as the foundation

of an archetypal cosmology, is congruent with the emergence of integral consciousness

and might therefore mark a next stage in the evolution in our understanding of the nature

of myth and its function in human experience. Archetypal astrology, I propose, could

support a new integral mythic world view for our time, addressing each of the four

functions of myth, and presenting a viable alternative to the currently dominant

approaches to understanding myth and religion – as well, of course, as offering a radical

alternative to the modern disenchanted world picture. (Le Grice, 2012, p. 283)

The New Story to Journey of the Universe

In 1978 Thomas Berry (2003) wrote an essay titled The New Story: Comments on the

Origin, Identification, and Transmission of Values about the human story coinciding with the

Earth story. Berry stated that after two centuries of scientific analysis, humanity has mostly lost

touch with the need for a sustainable system in relationship with the earth. As a way forward,

Berry identified three fundamental values that continue to influence current thought streams:

(1) Continued differentiation - likened to the primordial intentions of the Earth process

and seen in the variety of all things.

(2) Subjectivity – also called interiority. Each being has its interior, inner self. Berry

attributes the destruction of the Earth over the last centuries to the loss of this vision of

wholeness and reverence for each being's interiority.

(3) communion – the interrelationship of the universe within itself and of each part to the

whole.


In conclusion, Berry suggested with optimism that the Earth’s guiding process of evolution is the

very process at work in our present moment, bringing awareness to humanity of the Earth-human

connection. Berry wrote:

This web of relationships throughout the universe is what first impinges on the waking

consciousness of the human from the beginning…. It is the destiny of our present and all

future generations to develop this capacity for communion on new and more

comprehensive levels.” (Berry, 2003, p. 86)

Berry continued his part in this destiny of greater communion, authoring The Dream of

the Earth (Berry, 2015) in 1988 and then co-authoring The Universe Story (Berry & Swimme,

1994) with Brian Thomas Swimme in 1992. Berry and Swimme explain that “‘The Universe

Story’ refers of course to the book we have written, but only in a secondary way. The primary

referent of our title is the great story taking place throughout the universe” (p. 5). The Universe

Story unites science and the humanities into “a coherent narrative of the origin and the long

sequence of transformations of the universe and of the planet Earth” (Berry & Swimme, 1994, p.

5). The authors posit that the most significant change in the twentieth century may be the passage

from “a sense of cosmos to a sense of cosmogenesis” (p. 2). The cycle of seasonal renewal that

oriented the consciousness of every past human culture has now given way "to a dominant time-

developmental mode of consciousness, where time is experienced as an evolutionary sequence of

irreversible transformations" (p. 3). The authors go on to explain:

We are now experiencing that exciting moment when our new meaning, our new story is

taking shape. This story is the only way of providing, in our times, what the mythic

stories of the universe provided for tribal peoples and for the earlier classical civilizations

in their times. The final benefit of this story might be to enable the human community to


become present to the larger Earth community in a mutually enhancing manner. We can

hope that it will soon be finding expression not simply in a narrative such as this but in

poetry, music, and ritual throughout the entire range of modern culture, on a universal

scale. Such expressions will sensitize people to the story that every river and every star

and every animal is telling. The goal is not to read a book; the goal is to read the story

taking place all around us. (Berry & Swimme, 1994, p. 3)

Berry continued his work as an eco-theologian until his death in 2009, contributing two

important additional books: The Great Work (1999) and Evening Thoughts (2006).

Journey of the Universe (Journey) is a project more than three decades in the making, and

2011 marks the first time the story is told in a film (Our Story, n.d.). Swimme and Mary Evelyn

Tucker, a senior lecturer and research scholar at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental

Studies and Yale Divinity School, wrote the film script and book in a ten-year collaboration

while working with scientists and scholars from the history of religions. Journey allows an

update to the science included in The Universe Story (Berry & Swimme, 1994) and provides a

platform for development which consists of an interactive website, online community, the film,

the book, a conversation series, a monthly newsletter, and online courses. Quoting from the

website:

Journey, then, is a cosmological story of the unfolding of the universe and Earth in which

life and humans emerge. This story is told in a poetic manner while relying on our best

knowledge from modern science. Scientific facts and poetic metaphors are interwoven so

that viewers of the film or readers of the book can understand how they arose from these

creative processes and participate in them. This weaving is in the spirit of Loren Eiseley,


the American anthropologist and nature writer, whose books and voice are a major

influence on Journey of the Universe. (Our Story, n.d.)

Journey of the Universe is the functional cosmology that Thomas Berry suggested in his 1978

“New Story” essay. This study posits that the functional cosmology of the universe story is best

introduced in childhood, in a repeating triphasic dialectical pattern. This position is touched on in

the next section and expanded in the Methodology chapter of this thesis.

Look to the Stars: A Path Toward Integral Ecologies

“Look to the stars” in the title of this section attends to Swimme and Tarnas’s indications

that the stars have (a) evolved into us over a 14-billion-year period, (b) been crucial through each

stage of evolution and consciousness as they draw forth new capacities and cosmologies at each

transition, and (c) been key to our intellectual development (Swimme & Tarnas, 2018). The new

discipline of archetypal cosmology does “look to the stars” in its central supposition “that one

can gain a deep insight into the archetypal dynamics underlying human experience by

interpreting the meaning of the positions of the planets in relationship with each other” (Le

Grice, 2009, p. 4).

Archetypal cosmology includes the study of the correlations between cyclical alignments

of the planets and archetypal patterns in human experience (archetypal astrology), but

goes beyond this to address the theoretical basis of these correlations and their

implications for the wider contemporary world view. Consequently, archetypal

cosmology is a multidisciplinary subject drawing on scholarship from many other areas

such as depth psychology, history, philosophy, cosmology, religious studies, cultural

studies, the arts, and the social and natural sciences. (About the Journal, n.d.)


This study utilizes the term “integral ecologies” in its plural form to acknowledge and

emphasize the underlying value of differentiation in the evolutionary unfolding of the earth itself

and “different ways of knowing, and the effort to respect but also overcome differences in

searching for solutions” (Mickey et al., 2017, p. xi). This section summarizes multiple thought

streams of integral ecologies to highlight the relationship of the universe story as a part within

the whole of the field. In defining the five principles of integral ecologies (for further reading see

Chapter 8 Five Principles of Integral Ecology (Mickey et al., 2017, pp. 189-227)). Kelly uses the

adjectives evolutionary, planetary, transdisciplinary, (re) enchanted, and engaged to guide the

reader toward the consideration of how a more integral understanding of each begins to emerge

only after considering all five. Kelly goes on to explain that although “each of the five principles

is active in one way or another with all of the integral ecologists considered in this chapter, one

or two tend to take center stage” (Mickey et al., 2017, p. 221). Kelly provides the following

examples:

• Esbjorn-Hargens and Zimmerman – transdisciplinarity (as a system) is primary

• Morin – transdisciplinarity (as method) is primary, with the support of evolution and re-

enchantment, which then have planetary and engagement as support.

• Berry and Swimme – evolutionary is primary, bound intimately with re-enchantment

• Macy – engagement is primary with the other four principles channeling directly through

the primary principle.

Berry and Swimme’s work in bringing forward the universe story, known in its more

recent evolution as the Journey of the Universe (Swimme & Tucker, 2011), has potential to

connect individuals, including children, to their place in time and space. The value of this

evolutionary view has been recognized and implemented in the existing form of holistic


education known as Montessori education. Montessori trainer Pottish-Lewis describes Cosmic

Education:

Cosmic Education is a way to show the child how everything in the universe is

interrelated and interdependent, no matter whether it is the tiniest molecule or the largest

organism ever created. Every single thing has a part to play, a contribution to make to the

maintenance of harmony in the whole. In understanding this network of relationships, the

child finds that he or she also is a part of the whole, and has a part to play, a contribution

to make. (Lillard, 2007, p. 130)

This study recognizes the ability of Cosmic Education to connect children to their place in time

and space. However, this study posits that an elucidation of our place in time and space that

includes the spiritual aspect of numinous wonder is intensified when the orientation to the

cosmos includes mythology.

Bridging the exteriority of the cosmos with the interiority of the psyche in the education

of the child is at the heart of this study. Archetypal cosmology is a term that manifested via

dialogue within the PCC department at CIIS to bridge the multiple disciplines of cosmology and

psychology with astrology as a meeting point (Tarnas, 2011). This study posits that the

integration of mythologies from multiple ancient civilizations alongside the universe story

encourages the experience of numinous wonder and provides the foundation for an ever-

deepening personal experience of the archetypal dimension of reality. Furthermore, this study

posits that an experience of the archetypal dimension of reality strengthens the soul dimension of

the individual psyche, and therefore the cosmos, in their interrelationship of the microcosm

embedded in the macrocosm (Tarnas, 2007). John P. Miller has written that mythology, the

universe story, and community connections are among the ways to nurture the soul and allow the


self to emerge. This study posits that the emergence of the true nature of the individual will lead

towards efforts to understand and respond to “our crisis-ridden planetary context” (Mickey et al.,

2017, p. 209). The “insightful analysis of the teleological, evolutionary dimension of history as it

unfolds through the archetypal planetary cycles described in Cosmos and Psyche” (Tarnas, 2011,

p. 69) and Kelly’s (2010) presentation of the Hegelian triad as the deep structure of possibly all

developmental processes provide context and guidance for the procedure of this study.

The Historical Dialectic of the Archetypal Principles

Archetypal cosmology’s foundational concept of archetypal principles can be understood

in three different senses:

in the Homeric sense as a primordial deity and mythic figure; in the Platonic sense as a

cosmic and metaphysical principle; and in the Jungian sense as a psychological principle

(with its Kantian and Freudian background) -with all of these associated with a specific

planet. (Tarnas, 2007, p. 86)

Tarnas provides an example in the archetype of Venus, understood on the

• Homeric level as the Greek mythic figure of Aphrodite (goddess of beauty and love),

Mesopotamian Ishtar, and Roman Venus

• Platonic level as the metaphysical principle of Eros and the Beautiful

• Jungian level as the “psychological tendency to perceive, desire, create, or in some other

way experience beauty and love, to attract and be attracted, to seek harmony and aesthetic

or sensuous pleasure, to engage in artistic activity and in romantic and social relations”

(Tarnas, 2007, p. 87).

Tarnas distinguishes the different levels to acknowledge the complexity inherent to the

archetypes and to emphasize that archetypes are not concrete and definable or restricted to a


specific dimension. This study considers the three levels identified by Tarnas in relationship to

the education of the child.

Understanding Archetypal Principles in Childhood

As Tarnas and Swimme articulated in The Stars Lead us to Wonder (2018), the stars have

drawn forth new capacities and cosmologies through each stage of evolution and consciousness.

This study has summarized the role of myth in culture and acknowledged the dialectical spiral in

the evolution of consciousness and the structures of consciousness throughout childhood. The

concept of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, or that the growth and development of the

individual will go through the same evolutionary stages as the species has been considered by

developmentalist Josette Luvmour and is described by Marshak in his book Evolutionary

Parenting (2016). Marshak writes:

As the child unfolds and grows, the evolution of his or her individual consciousness

recapitulates the evolution of the homo sapiens consciousness throughout its evolutionary

history so far, as described by the spiral dynamics model: from archaic to tribal/magical,

to warrior, to traditional, and, with the necessary nurturance and social and cultural

opportunity, to modernist, post-modern, and integral. (Marshak, 2016, p. 18)

Developmentalists have been working toward an increased understanding of

developmental stages in childhood concerning the emerging consciousness of the child. "Kegan's

articulation of the lifelong process of development set the stage for the idea of movement

through the structures of consciousness and emergent self-knowledge as set forth by Gebser, who

mapped the structures of consciousness through historical representations" (Luvmour J., 2019, p.

5). “Developmental knowledge can inform educators about the optimal age for appropriate

communication strategies, for relationship, and for environments that provide the best needed


support for development of the child’s innate capacities” (Luvmour J., 2019, p. 4). The middle

stage of childhood, from approximately age 8-12, is recognized as a stage nourished by

mythology (Luvmour B., 2006). Mythology correlates with an understanding of the archetypal

principles on the Homeric level and is addressed in the case study research of this intuitive

inquiry. An understanding of archetypal principles on a Platonic and then Jungian level would be

developmentally suited to later structures of consciousness as supported by the dialectic pattern

of development.

Care of the Soul in Education

An underlying theme of the literature across disciplines is a return to interconnection and

wholeness rather than the mechanized view of separation. Care of the soul in education is

directly related to connecting the material of study with the people studying it. “A soul-oriented

education aims at making you a person of character, love, connection, and the creativity that

comes from being a true individual” (Miller et al., 2019, p. 54). Moore focuses on the phrase

“intimately connected” as part of the dictionary definition of “holistic.” The Greek word “eros”

might be used to describe this intimate connection, with examples from nature including gravity

and the orbiting of the planets. Moore emphasizes the use of the entire environment and all of

one’s time as potential resources for learning. Moore points out that his descriptions “stem from

a sense of soul. Soul is that element in us that is our mysterious depth and makes us an individual

while feeling connected to others and to the human community” (Miller et al., 2019, p. 54). As

identified by John P. Miller, mythology, the universe story, and community connections are

among the ways to nurture the soul and allow the self to emerge.


Mythology in Holistic Education

In the chapter "Care of the Soul in Education," Thomas Moore attributes his use of the

phrase "care of the soul" to Werner Jaeger's Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture and asks, with

the Greek polytheistic imagination in mind: which gods are neglected in twenty-first-century

education? Years earlier, Moore's mythology class had determined that Saturn was the only

discernable god and "ruled the campus with his love of hierarchies, authority, exclusive

masculinity, order, testing, and tendency toward depression" (Miller et al., 2019, p. 51). Moore

suggests "One interesting way to imagine holistic education is to picture it mythologically,

rooted in all the gods, not just one" (Miller et al., 2019, p. 51). Through the lens of archetypal

cosmology, Moore could be speaking directly of the archetypes.

If archetypes pertain to nature, the world, and perhaps the universe at large as well as to

the psyche, and if myths arise from archetypes, then we can perhaps say that myths

themselves are expressions of the world, of nature, of the universe. (Le Grice K. , 2016,

p. 107)

Moore shares:

Many readers who have noticed my use of mythology as a means of taking many issues

deeper tell me that the little mythology they learned in school had no relevance to their

lives. But now they see how that subject could have helped them deal with many

significant turning points in their lives. We could say the same about every subject. It

isn’t that the subject matter is not relevant to the student, it’s that the teaching fails to

connect the material of study with the people studying it. (Miller et al., 2019, p. 52)


Expanding on the stages of child development and the articulation of the common vision

of Steiner, Aurobindo, and Khan, Marshak writes of the second era of childhood: age six through

12-14 years:

As the child learns through his senses, feelings, and imagination in these years, he needs

to be spared from theories and other abstractions that have little meaning for his. Instead

he needs to experience stories and pictures that convey aesthetic and moral values, that he

can visualize and take within himself for guidance and enduring meaning. He has the

capacity to learn profoundly from stories of great and wonderful personalities from myth

and history. Such stories evoke inner imagery, grounded in feelings of reverence and

veneration, and arouse a spirit of emulation in the child’s spiritual being that aids the

growth of his character and moral nature. (Marshak, 2016, p. 22)

Referring to popular science books on the new physics and cosmology Keiron Le Grice

writes "What is notably absent from these and most new paradigm perspectives, however, is an

engagement with and appreciation of the mythic and archetypal dimensions of existence" (Le

Grice, 2012, p. 39). As a new paradigm perspective, holistic education manifests a spectrum of

attunement to the mythic and archetypal dimensions of existence to which Le Grice refers.

Waldorf and Enki Education (Enki Education, n.d.) are examples of holistic pedagogy that utilize

both ancient creation stories and the natural world as primary sources from which to draw forth

learning. However, neither currently includes an interweaving of the universe story as a new

cultural mythology. The Live Education! fifth-grade curriculum, inspired by Waldorf education

and based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, is utilized in the case study research of this

intuitive inquiry.


Technology in Holistic Education

Marian de Souza, recognized for publication in the field of spirituality, well-being, and

education (Miller et al., 2019), acknowledges in The Handbook the positive outcomes and

challenges of media and communications technology for children. De Souza's states "As

teachers and parents have found, when used with care and wisdom, media and technology

provide superb and stimulating ways to open up new worlds to children and young people"

(Miller et al., 2019, p. 304). Tony Eaude has written extensively on children's spiritual, moral,

social, and cultural development and the implications for teachers (Miller et al., 2019). Eaude

comments in The Handbook "While technology may bring significant benefits, for instance in

understanding other cultures, children have come to expect immediate responses and might be

uncritical of what they see and hear without explicit guidance" (Miller et al., 2019, p. 62). In

summary, Eaude and de Souza suggest care, wisdom, and guidance from the adults in

relationship with children for technology use to align with holistic principles.

The children who comprise today’s youngest generations are often engaged with

emerging technologies, especially digital media. Karl Mannheim is credited with generational

theory and wrote about it in his 1923 article titled The Problem of Generations (Van Eck

Duymaer van Twist & Newcombe, 2017). As individuals continuously emerge into the cultural

process, they "come into contact anew with the accumulated heritage" (Mannheim, 1952, p. 293)

and assimilate and utilize the events, data, and material they encounter. People who share a birth

period and common location "in the historical dimension of the social process" (p. 290)

experience highly similar mental data. The result is a socializing effect. Mannheim credits the art

historian Pinder with the concept of each generation having an entelechy of its own. “According


to him [Pinder], the entelechy of a generation is the expression of the unity of its ‘inner aim’ – of

its inborn way of experiencing life and the world” (Mannheim, 1952, p. 283).

Aristotle, a great naturalist, coined the term entelechy to describe how wisdom expresses

itself in humans. Distilled to its essence, entelechy means the essential informing

principle of a living thing.… Froebel, and later Montessori, referred to entelechy to help

describe the vital nature of the child and then developed pedagogies designed to

maximize this vitality. Carl Jung, Gregory Bateson, Thomas Merton and many others

have used entelechy as a springboard to deepen appreciation of the source of knowledge,

of awareness, of self-reflexivity. (Luvmour B., 2005, pp. 6-7)

In light of the astrological research paradigm of archetypal cosmology, this study posits that the

archetypal dynamics of the universe that shape human experience are likely at play in the

concepts of generational theory and each generation having an entelechy of its own.

In his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab (2016) states that a

“transformation of humankind” (p. 1) began at the turn of the century. “The changes are so

profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater

promise or potential peril” (Schwab, 2016, p. 2). The scale, scope, and speed of new

developments and technologies as “they leverage the pervasive power of digitization and

information technology” (Schwab, 2016, p. 14) is already an aspect of the worldview of the

youngest generations (Generation Z and Generation Alpha). Are educators, specifically holistic

educators who base their view in educating the whole person, holding the technologies and

context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in their conscious awareness as they strive to bring

community connection and meaning within the world to today’s children? Additionally, Tarnas

states that “our present moment in history is most comparable, astronomically, to the period


exactly five hundred years ago… – a period shaped by the rapid spread of a powerful new

medium of universal communication, the printed book” (Tarnas, 2007, p. 482). Tarnas writes

that humanity, aided by technological advances in communications media, is “more able to think,

feel, and respond together in a spiritually evolved manner to the world’s swiftly changing

realities than has ever before been possible” (Tarnas, 2007, p. 483). Digital media provides

community connection on a local and a global scale.

The Potential of the Adult/Child Relationship

“Fritjof Capra has noted that we are living at a crucial time in the history of humankind, a

time of crisis that embodies both conflict and opportunity, a point of bifurcation to either

overcome our dilemmas or to drown in them” (Nava, 2001, p. 20). A review of the literature

indicates that a paradigm shift is underway. Ramon Gallegos Nava (2001) describes what this

means for holistic education:

The new-science paradigms provide holistic education with a vision of a dynamic,

complex, open reality and with a human sensitivity that goes beyond the fragmented,

mechanical, positivist, reductionist, dualist vision of eighteenth-century mechanical

science. Developments in the new science, such as the holographic theory of the brain,

implicate order, chaos theory, morphogenetic fields, synchronicity, the Gaia hypothesis,

and quantum physics have afforded holistic education a more accurate and open vision of

our universe. (Nava, 2001, pp. 31-32)

“The paradigm shift that is emerging now, in this time of our lives, is focusing on the

relationships and interconnections among all things. Knowledge itself is evolving and emerging

in the context of relationships” (Luvmour J., 2016, p. 209).


Luvmour’s (2016) research confirms that adults and children develop in relationship with

each other, and by doing so, access wisdom – each in relationship to their developmental

moment. Luvmour describes the adult’s access to wisdom as “the ability to see and accept

multiple perspectives with an awareness of change and uncertainty in life” (Luvmour J., 2016, p.

245). Marshak echoes Luvmour's research in his discussion of evolutionary parenting and his

research on the common vision as "a path to follow that will nurture this growth for ourselves

and our children, a path that leads both to survival and to co-evolution" (Marshak, 2016, p. 47).

In his 2019 book The New Childhood, Jordan Shapiro emphasizes the importance of the

adult/child relationship within the current technological landscape, as opposed to the child

navigating the new technologies without adult guidance. Diana Graber, a digital literacy educator

and advocate, offers a curriculum designed for digital citizenship (www.cyberwise.org) and

emphasizes the importance of learning to navigate the digital world in her book Raising Humans

in a Digital World (2019). This intuitive inquiry will utilize Shapiro and Graber’s indications for

adult participation with children in the use of technology during the Cycle 3 research.

Summary and Cycle 2 Lenses

Systems thinking as the new paradigm of science offers support to the field of holistic

education, the emerging field of archetypal cosmology, and the shared transdisciplinary goal of

integral ecologies. Our place in time and space is situated not only by common themes across the

fields but by a triphasic dialectical pattern that suggests the formation of a historical new identity

for humanity. The triphasic spiral of development can also be seen in the evolution of human

consciousness in relation to values and structures of consciousness throughout childhood.

Mythology fulfilled mystical, cosmological, sociological, and pedagogical functions in ancient

civilizations and now a new cultural mythology is offered in the universe story. Journey of the


Universe is a living cosmology that weaves the entire evolution of the universe, Earth, and

humanity into a unifying story of creation and connection. With the prevailing mechanistic

worldview of separation called into question, educators who sense the shift towards wholeness

have been calling for attention to the soul. Mythology strengthens the soul dimension in

education when the images it brings to the child correspond to the child's structure of

consciousness and stage of development. With community connection identified as a way to

nurture the soul and allow the self to emerge, technology warrants the care, wisdom, and

guidance of an adult within a holistic learning environment. The Cycle 2 lenses of this intuitive

inquiry are (a) archetypal cosmology, (b) the soul dimension of holistic education, (c) integral

ecologies, (d) our place in time and space, (e) triphasic pattern, (f) Journey of the Universe, (g)

mythology in holistic education, (h) technology in holistic education, and (i) the adult/child

relationship.


CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Intuitive Inquiry as a Qualitative Research Methodology

Qualitative research encompasses multiple philosophical orientations and approaches,

including constructivism and phenomenology, the antecedents of which can be traced back to

anthropology, sociology, and applied fields of study such as journalism, education, social work,

medicine, and law (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Emphasis on experience, understanding, and

meaning-making are features of qualitative inquiry. According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016),

the four primary characteristics of qualitative research are:

• a focus on process, understanding, and meaning

• the researcher is the primary instrument of data collection and analysis

• the process is inductive

• the product is richly descriptive

Intuitive inquiry is a hermeneutical process of interpretation that joins intuition to

intellectual precision (Anderson, 2004). Anderson began developing this methodology in 1995 in

a doctoral-level research course that emphasized feminist approaches to research and heuristic

research (2011). Over time, Anderson included elements from biblical hermeneutics, philosophic

hermeneutics, embodied phenomenology, and scholars’ descriptions of intuitive and embodied

practices among indigenous peoples. According to Anderson and Braud (Anderson & Braud,

2011), the method seeks to make known new ways of being human in the world.

In honoring the archetypal, symbolic, imaginal, and the possible latent in all human

experience, the analysis and interpretations provided by an intuitive inquiry tend toward

wholeness and wellness, regardless of the topic chosen. Often, intuitive inquirers explore


topics that require attention by the culture at large, as though they are called to envision

anew. What may seem like a researcher’s zeal for a topic may be the tip of an iceberg of a

call for change from the culture at large.

Epistemologically, intuitive inquiry is a search for new understandings through

the focused attention of one researcher’s passion and compassion for her- or himself,

others, and the world. In so doing, intuitive inquiry affirms a world reality in flux and

mutable and, therefore, challenges conventional notions of a static worldview that is

separate and distinguishable from the knower. (Anderson & Braud, 2011, pp. 17-18)

Several of Anderson’s students working with intuitive inquiry have referred “to the five cycles as

a “sacred” container because each cycle gives directions on what is and what is not needed to

complete that portion of the method and move the study forward successfully” (Anderson &

Braud, 2011, p. 18).

As researcher, I remained committed to the five iterative cycles of intuitive inquiry while

becoming increasingly aware of the triphasic pattern shaping Cycles 1, 2, and 3. This chapter and

Chapter IV Findings provide descriptions of the interplay of the triphasic learning process with

the cycles of intuitive inquiry. The interplay is further elaborated within Cycle 4 in the

comparison of Cycle 2 and Cycle 4 lenses. In an intuitive inquiry, the researcher identifies a

topic based on unique interests and passions. Topic identification in this method is in contrast to

established research practice where a researcher reviews the current research in a scholarly area

of interest and then identifies a relevant next study. The following questions were formulated

concerning the topic:


Research Questions

• Does the study of Journey of the Universe as a new cultural mythology aid the 8-12-year-

old child in situating themselves in time and space?

• Does Journey of the Universe as a new cultural mythology, when studied in relationship

with the mythologies of ancient civilizations, invoke numinous wonder in the 8-12-year-

old child or in the adult guiding the study?

• What experience(s) of an archetypal dimension of reality does the interweaving of

technology, ancient cultural mythologies, and the study of Journey of the Universe

invoke for the participants of the study?

Context of the Study

As I am engaged in a distributed learning program, I conducted my intuitive inquiry in

the location of my home on the Western Slope of Colorado, USA as well as in locations of

family travel.

Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning

The Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning (GIFTLearning) is a low-residency

interdisciplinary program with a distributed and relational learning model grounded in learner-

driven inquiry (Vision, Mission, and Goals, n.d.). Moreover, GIFTLearning is an interactive

learning experience that responds to the personal and professional lives of learners. Faculty

mentors are accessible and available after facilitating courses for questions and consultations.

The GIFTLearning community of scholar-practitioners addresses personal, societal, educational,

and ecological concerns in pursuit of a more sustainable world.

GIFTLearning’s mission is to nurture each learner’s authoring of his/her learning and life

within a learning community of scholar-practitioners. GIFTLearning builds on two hundred


years of cultural evolutionary legacy, the transcendentalists in the 19th century, Maria

Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, Sri Aurobindo, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Jean Gebser, Teilhard de

Chardin, A.S. Neill, humanistic psychology and Spiral Dynamics, and Ken Wilber’s Integral

Model (About Us, n.d.). The Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning offers a Master of

Arts in Transformative Learning and a Certificate Program. Every learner in the M.A. Program is

invited to self-design their program. Faculty mentors and colleagues support each learner in this

effort as they use the knowledge and tools gained in their MA program to become active agents

of change who make a difference in their world.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

A basic premise of this study is that education and the social-economic system are

intricately interconnected. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is happening right now. Although

many people may be aware of the latest smartphone release or read an article or two about self-

driving cars, they likely remain unaware of the magnitude of impact that the Fourth Industrial

Revolution is predicted to have. This study proposes to elevate awareness among holistic

educators of the importance of the adult /child relationship in cultivating care, wisdom, and

guidance in the engagement of digital media as a form of community connection and new

technologies as a way to situate the child in time and space. Klaus Schwab (2016) describes the

Fourth Industrial Revolution as different from the Third Industrial Revolution because the pace

is faster, it is more extensive in breadth and depth and has a broader systems' impact. Schwab

states that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will combine physical, digital, and biological worlds.

The technology he refers to is artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of things (IoT),

autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, material science, Energy

storage, and quantum computing.


Positionality

I am a parent homeschooling my children per the laws of the state of Colorado. My

position as a homeschooling parent provides me with the unique opportunity to learn and

interweave holistic principles of education from multiple pedagogies, established curriculum

providers, and emerging sources. I have explored a variety of educational and developmental

philosophies including Waldorf Education, Montessori, Enki Education, Charlotte Mason,

SelfDesign, Natural Learning Relationships, and Partnership Education. My studies have

allowed an evolution of my worldview from the modern mechanistic paradigm to a systems view

of life.

To homeschool my children, I have drawn on my art background, musical education

through secondary school, an undergraduate degree in finance, and my own knowing of the

world. I have gained knowledge about child development and learning through self-study,

parent/child classes at the local Waldorf school, Enki Teacher Training courses and curriculum,

the Live Education! curriculum, and my graduate studies with the Graduate Institute for

Transformative Learning. My exposure to diverse methodologies has provided the insight to

follow my children's self-inquiry as well as create and implement my own curriculum at

appropriate intervals to meet my children's unique interests. I consider myself engaged in a

continuous co-evolution with my children.

David Marshak wrote in his book The Common Vision that he believes that it was

Steiner's

understanding of the relationship between the freedom of the child as an ideal and each

teacher’s own unfoldment as a limitation that led Steiner to develop the original Waldorf


School as he did. The teachers in his school in 1919 needed a teacher-centered pedagogy

and a detailed curriculum, given their levels of unfoldment, and Steiner provided them

with both. This same understanding also helps to make sense of the movement towards a

more teacher-directed pedagogy at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

Over time the teachers in the school learned about how much freedom they could offer to

students, given their own levels of unfoldment. (Marshak, 2016, p. 187)

I draw on Steiner’s indications as a foundation in my use of the Live Education! fifth-grade

curriculum as a current source of study with my children. Additionally, I have the freedom to

explore the relationship of Journey of the Universe and digital media alongside a Waldorf based

curriculum to provide data for future educators and researchers to consider.

Procedure

In this research project, I conducted an intuitive inquiry by engaging in the five iterative

cycles of hermeneutic interpretation that comprise the methodology of the approach (Anderson

& Braud, 2011). Basic instructions for all experiential exercises include a quiet time and place

with art and journaling supplies and specific directions to come into a relaxed, meditative state.

The steps of each cycle are outlined as follows:

• Cycle 1: The researcher clarifies the topic via the specified creative process (experiential

exercise 1). The intended audience is identified (experiential exercise 2). After a

continued imaginal dialogue with the “text” (anything that represents the topic to the

researcher in some way such as an “art object, sculpture, painting, photo, poem, reading

from scripture or prose, movie, statistical equation, or graph” (Anderson & Braud, 2011,

p. 33)), the researcher articulates a precise statement of the research topic at the end of

Cycle 1.


• Cycle 2: The researcher articulates in words his or her values, assumptions, and

understanding of the research topic as preliminary interpretive lenses before the data

gathering of Cycle 3. Cycle 2 consists of three stages:

1. The intuitive inquirer becomes familiar with theoretical, empirical, historical, and

literary texts relevant to the topic and chooses a set of texts that are directly related to

the topic.

2. A unique set of texts is identified (experiential exercise) from among the

literature and research on the topic for the Cycle 2 imaginal dialogue. During this

time a literature review is written up on the topic, as in regular research reports.

3. After an ongoing imaginal dialogue with the texts, the researcher prepares a list

of preliminary interpretive lenses that express an understanding of the topic before

data collection.

Note that in intuitive inquiry, the articulation of lenses is not intended to identify

and separate pre-understandings from influencing the research process. Rather,

the method is boldly hermeneutic in nature. Lenses are articulated in order to

track and record how they change and transform in the course of the study.

(Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 44)

• Cycle 3: Utilizing an experiential exercise for (a), "the researcher (a) identifies the best

source(s) of data for the research topic, (b) develops criteria for the selection of data from

among these sources, (c) collects the data, and (d) presents a summary report of data in as

descriptive manner as possible” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 45). Some interpretation of

the data is explicit in the summary report, yet interpretation should be minimized so that

the reader can draw their own conclusions before reading Cycle 4.


• Cycle 4: The researcher refines and transforms the preliminary interpretive lenses

developed in Cycle 2 per the data gathered in Cycle 3. The lenses are then revised to

reflect the researcher’s more advanced understanding of the topic. Changes are

anticipated and elaborated in detail. The researcher’s intuitive style is illuminated by an

experiential exercise.

• Cycle 5: “Based on working the hermeneutic process of Cycles 1 through 4, in Cycle 5,

the intuitive inquirer presents authoritative theoretical speculations and theory related to

the topic of study” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 58). The researcher returns to the

literature review done before the data collection and reevaluates it in light of the findings.

An experiential exercise guides the researcher to ask: What is left unsaid? What

unimagined possibilities are there? What are the visionary trajectories based on this

study? The research discussion will also include “(a) mistakes made, (b) procedures and

plans that did not work, (c) the researcher’s apprehensions and puzzlements about the

study and findings, (d) the style of intuitive interpretation used, and (e) what remains

unresolved or problematic about the topic or the method” (p. 59).

Five types of intuition are: (a) unconscious, symbolic, and imaginal processes, (b) physic

or parapsychological experiences, (c) sensory modes, (d) empathetic illumination, and (e) the

illuminating presence of wounds in the personality (Anderson, 2004, 2011). Four distinctive

features of intuitive inquiry are (a) the transformative potential for the researcher and others,

(b) auspicious bewilderment (being taken entirely by surprise by unanticipated insights, likened

to the trickster’s energy), (c) writing in the researcher’s voice, and (d) theory-building potential.


Triphasic Pattern

The triphasic pattern has been recognized within the literature as described in Chapter II

of this thesis. Intuitive inquiry as a methodology recognizes the triphasic pattern of “the dialectic

process of each of the five cycles. Each cycle of intuitive inquiry is explicitly dialectic, requiring

ongoing reflection and engagement with either texts or data” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 61).

Specific attention is drawn to the triphasic pattern of the dialectic within the parameter of this

study due to its pervasive influence throughout Cycles 1, 2, and 3. I was introduced to the

triphasic pattern in learning through Waldorf curriculum materials and further attuned to the

pattern through engagement with the Enki Education curriculum and participation in Enki

Education teacher training courses. Beth Sutton, the founder of Enki Education, describes

learning as a three-fold process: (a) open intake, (b) sleep/digestion, (c) skill/mastery (Sutton,

2005). This terminology is utilized within Chapter IV Findings to illuminate with honesty the

three-fold learning process that pervaded this study as a dialectical overlay, at times crossing the

cycle boundaries of the intuitive inquiry.

Hypnogogia

In addition to the experiential exercises, I utilized hypnogogia (Anderson & Braud, 2011)

to guide my Cycle 2 literature review to completion. As mentioned, the three-fold learning

process permeated this study. Once I had brought the literature review to what I thought was

near-end two times, I recognized the process for what it was: three-fold. I experienced the duality

of energization at the realization of arriving at the third stage as well as fatigue from the arduous

process already undertaken. I genuinely enjoy listening to Dennis Klocek read Rudolf Steiner’s

work aloud, and it was at this moment in time that I reviewed rudolfsteineraudio.com for

material that might have some relevance to my study. I came across the lecture series Dying


Earth and Living Cosmos. Lecture 3 given in Berlin, February 5, 1918, was of interest to me. In

the talk, Steiner describes the moment of falling asleep and the moment of waking as

intermediate states that are “extremely important in our overall consciousness” (Steiner, 2015, p.

35). Steiner describes the way to enter into correspondence with an individual disembodied soul

during these states:

I’ll describe this very specifically. In the sensory world you speak to another person and

the other replies. You are aware that you are creating the words you speak with your

voice, and that these words originate in your thoughts. You feel that you are the creator of

your words. While you are speaking, you hear yourself; and then hear the other when he

replies. And you know that as the other speaks you are listening, you have fallen silent.

We become very accustomed to this form of interpersonal communication, to awareness

of it. Communication with disembodied souls is different. However strange it sounds, it is

the very opposite. When you yourself communicate your thoughts to a disembodied soul,

it is not you who speaks but the other. It is just as if you were speaking with another

person and he, not you, expressed what you were thinking and wished to communicate.

And what a so-called dead soul replies to you, does not come towards you from without,

either, but rises from within you: you experience it as your inner life. Clairvoyant

consciousness first has to accustom itself to this: to being a questioner within the other,

and to receiving his reply within oneself. (Steiner, 2015, pp. 36-37)

Anderson and Braud describe hypnogogic (sleep-entering) and hypnopompic (sleep-

leaving) states as a way to access “information that otherwise might remain unconscious”

(Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 235). The authors refer the reader to Mavromatis 1987 for further

reading, and briefly summarize an encouragement of hypnogogia:


One way to use a hypnogogic state for accessing previously unconscious material is

simply to pay greater attention to your mental content, especially your imagery, whenever

you are drifting into sleep. You can use specific intentions for fostering greater awareness

and memory for what happens during the hypnogogic state. (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p.

235)

In summary, I was able to cultivate much greater awareness and duration of the sleep-entering

and sleep-leaving states during the writing of my “skill/mastery” review of the literature. I did

this with intention over approximately two weeks, and I do believe the process provided

guidance towards the resources I then utilized to complete the literature review. I continued to

encourage hypnogogia at various intervals throughout the remainder of my study.

Study Participants

Per Cycle 3 instructions, I identified the best source of data for my research topic to be a

qualitative case study. “A case study is an in-depth description and analysis of a bounded

system” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 37). The unit of analysis, in this case, is the learning

community of The Meadow School, which consists specifically of me and my two children in

our home learning environment. The Meadow School was created as a learning community eight

years ago when I began to “homeschool” with attention and intention. The name creation filled

an immediate need to provide my children with an answer to the never-ending question from

friends and strangers alike of “Where do you go to school?”

As previous playmates started preschool, I began to shape the days with my children

using indications from Waldorf-oriented curriculum sources. I utilized Live Education!

Kindergarten for a year and then Enki Education Kindergarten for two years before I began Enki

Education Grade One with my son. My daughter, 28 months younger, did not engage in the same


academics as my son at this time, yet was better met being present with us rather than separated

during “school” time. I continued to use the Enki Education curriculum as my primary source for

grades 1-3. With the Enki Education curriculum currently available to purchase only through

grade three, I returned to Live Education! as a central resource for fourth and fifth grade. Over

these many years, I at times provided separate main lesson stories to meet the developmental

needs of each child. The majority of the time, however, the children were met either listening to

both sets of stories or a back and forth to meet one age and then the other. Regular exposure to

museum exhibitions has cultivated our knowledge of culture, nature, and space.

At the time of this study, the participants are: (a) an eleven-year-old boy, (b) a (just-

turned) nine-year-old girl, and (c) me, a forty-one-year-old woman. The participants have been

in a relationship for the entire duration of the children’s lives and together in an intentional

learning community for eight years. In the months leading up to the research cycle, the children

came into coordinated study across all areas of learning. The use of this single significant case in

combination with self-study as purposeful sampling (Ravitch & Carl, 2016) allowed the

deliberate selection of individuals with whom to explore the research questions.

Data Collection

Cycle 3 step (b) is to develop criteria for the selection of data from amongst the sources.

Data collection consisted of embodied writing, participant artwork and participant writing to

present the data in as descriptive a manner as possible. The three-fold learning process provided

a thematic organization for the data.

Epistemologically aligned with philosophic phenomenology and phenomenological

research methods, embodied writing seeks to portray experience from the point of view

of the lived body…. The researcher collects, analyzes, and presents research findings,


fully intending to invite readers to encounter the narrative accounts for themselves and

from within their own bodies through a form of sympathetic resonance…. The readers’

perceptual, visceral, sensorimotor, kinesthetic, and imaginal senses are invited to come

alive to the words and images as though the experience were their own. (Anderson &

Braud, 2011, p. 268)

Seven distinctive features of embodied writing that a researcher may choose to employ are:

• True-to-life, vivid depictions intended to invite sympathetic resonance in the readers or

audience.

• Inclusive of internal and external data as essential to relaying the experience.

• Written specifically from the inside out.

• Richly concrete and specific, descriptive of all sensory modalities, and often slowed

down to capture nuance.

• Attuned to the living body.

• Narratives embedded in experience, often first-person narratives.

• Poetic images, literary style, and cadence serve embodied depictions and not the other

way around. (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 269)

As this study proposes that mythology and technology can strengthen the soul dimension

of holistic education, I will seek to illuminate basic elements of soul within the study. In the

chapter “Care of the Soul in Education” in The Handbook, Thomas Moore lists ten qualities

associated with soul and considers their role in education. I will utilize Moore’s ten soul qualities

to discern elements of soul as experienced during the research process. The qualities are:

1. Home and Family: The base of the soul’s life. Qualities of home and family can be part of

all learning – the setting and means of relating.


2. Friendship: Historically the basic way to relate with soul. The spirit of friendship could be

in all contacts between teachers and learners.

3. Poetics and Metaphor: Go deeper into facts by perceiving the layers of meaning through

an appreciation of narrative, poetics, and metaphor.

4. Dream: Dreams reveal the deep stories lived now at the level of soul. Regular, simple

dream telling and discussing would deepen any form of education.

5. Spirituality: Every aspect of education has a spiritual dimension and relates to (holism)

infinite mystery, the sublime, strong values, and an expansive sense of community.

6. Nature: In the ancient teaching of anima mundi (soul of the world) the natural world is

alive with presence and metaphorical meaning. Experiences in nature are indispensable to

a soul-oriented, holistic education.

7. Art: Both an appreciation of all arts as sources of meaning and fulfillment, as well as

creative experiences in painting, music, building, dancing, photography, and all the arts

make for an educated and sophisticated person.

8. Service: Essential to the soulful life is service to humanity – both local and in an

increasingly larger sense. You learn some things only through the experience of service.

9. Life’s Work: Soul offers a strong individual identity that is not superficial but rises from

deep currents and inspirations. A soul-based education is interested in a job as an element

in the larger quest for a meaningful and contributing life work.

10. Learning for Learning’s Sake: Holistic education is lifelong and may change in style over

the course of a life. It reaches maturity when a person loves learning for its own sake.

(Miller et al., 2019, pp. 54-55)


In the final chapter of The Handbook, in the section titled “Future Directions,”, Tobin

Hart provides “five gateways – approaches to knowing or inquiry” (Miller et al., 2019, p. 340). I

will utilize Hart’s gateways to illustrate my perception of their presence within my Cycle 3 data

collection. The gateways to knowing or inquiry are:

• Contemplation – to develop strength and flexibility of attention, to witness one’s own

consciousness which leads to metacognition, a steadier mind, and balanced emotions.

“This opening of consciousness can bring vitality, depth, and meaning to existence”

(Miller et al., 2019, p. 340).

• Empathy – a capacity to put oneself in another’s shoes, to close the gap between self and

object, to resonate with the other and experience interconnection.

• Imagination – a process fundamental to our knowing, a source of insight that opens new

possibilities to change both consciousness and culture.

• Beauty – to appreciate, behold, or encounter, “beauty embodies something both

immanent and transcendent that resonates deep within us” (Miller et al., 2019, 342).

Nature is a primary source.

• Embodiment – contemporary cognitive science has affirmed the connection of the body

as central to knowing, returning the body to education. 4E cognition refers to enacted; we

shape and activate the world we perceive, embodied; we know through our bodies,

extended; our consciousness extends beyond our physical self into the environment; and

embedded; we exist within a context.


Validity

Anderson and Braud offer investigator validation and participant validation as ‘the most

straightforward and direct ways to determine the validity or trustworthiness of the results of a

qualitative study” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 290). Anderson and Braud cite Moustakas:

The question of validity is one of meaning: Does the ultimate depiction of the experience

derived from one’s own rigorous, exhaustive self-searching and from the explications of

others present comprehensively, vividly, and accurately the meanings and essences of the

experience? This judgement is made by the primary researcher, who is the only person in

the investigation who has undergone the heuristic inquiry from the beginning [through its

various phases]. (Moustakas 1990 as cited by Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 293)

Participant validation, an important supplement to investigator validation, is achieved in this

study by including participant writings and artwork within the research findings to fully honor

each participants’ view.


CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS/ CYCLE 3

My experience of the three-fold learning process has led me to believe that the process

can be undertaken with intention or arise naturally as an aspect embedded in the nature of the

universe itself. In the case of my intuitive inquiry, I experienced an initial stage of Cycle 3

research findings, which I refer to in this chapter as open intake, without intention. Several

weeks later I began my research stage of incorporating digital media and Journey of the Universe

alongside the Live Education! fifth-grade curriculum, only to discover that it was in fact step 1)

open intake of learning for my children. In this chapter I use the triad of terms utilized by Enki

Education for the three-fold learning process: 1) open intake, 2) sleep/digestion, 3) skill/mastery.

Following each embodied writing is an indication of which of Moore’s basic elements associated

with soul pertain to that moment as well as an identification of Hart’s gateways to knowing or

inquiry, if present (Moore’s elements of soul and Hart’s gateways are defined under data

collection in Chapter III Methodology).

Open Intake

“Earth is the basic curriculum” (Frabel & St. John, 2003, p. 99) writes Mary Evelyn

Tucker. The warm ocean breezes caress my skin and ruffle my hair as I sit alone on the balcony

that has become a familiar yearly retreat. The sunlight is hot on my back, but not too hot. I cross

my legs at the ankle and elevate them on the outdoor table. My mind and my body feel relaxed.

My notebook and pen seem to request engagement. Each breath is a co-mingling of Pacific air

and words from Teilhard in the 21st Century: The Emerging Spirit of Earth. “The narrative story

of evolution provides the most comprehensive context for any curriculum, especially for an

understanding of world history, literature, and religion” (Frabel & St. John, 2003, p. 99).


Moore’s elements of soul: Nature, Poetics and Metaphor

Hart’s gateway to knowing or inquiry: Embodiment

I hear the celebratory voices and laughter of birthday revelers on the balcony below. The

screen door is the only barrier between me and whatever the night has to offer. The song of the

waves is just beyond my neighbors’ chatter, and from the other room drifts the low buzz of

television commentary narrating a surfing competition recorded earlier today. The lamp casts a

soft glow onto the pages of my open book. I read while the activities continue beyond the

periphery of my own space. First a man, and then a woman sings and plays guitar. The woman’s

voice is especially passionate and beautiful, and I’m engaged in her expression of emotion at this

moment, though I cannot make out many of her words. Teilhard felt that the evolutionary

process is in one of its most significant transitions. “As the movement of human affairs enters the

supreme transformation experience toward its final convergence a new intensity of psychic effort

is required” (Frabel & St. John, 2003, p. 61). Berry writes about the human struggling with

identity now more than ever; that no model exists from past cultures. “Only when science and its

associated technologies take on this activating role in following and fostering the spontaneities of

nature will science have discovered its true identity” (Frabel & St. John, 2003, p. 71).

Moore’s elements of soul: Spirituality, Service, Life’s Work

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Beauty

The day is early. The sand is cool beneath my bare feet yet already the children are at

play in the rhythm of the waves. This is what we come for. As of yet, no other landscape has

invoked the depth of immersive play in my son as that of the sand and surf. A small crab


emerges from its hole in the sand and just as quickly retreats. I anticipate the cold water

enveloping me later when the heat of the sun reaches the beach. I’ll kick down and swim with

the humuhumunukunukuapuaa and yellow tangs. One inner image has been constant for me

throughout the fall season: swimming under water. I’m comfortable there. I was a mermaid in

my childhood. Now as an adult, at play with my children, I may be the shark, or I may be the

prey. Today I’ll swim alone under the waves.

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Poetics and Metaphor, Spirituality, Nature

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Imagination, Embodiment

One week later: I’ve traced the lineage of Thomas Berry’s essay The New Story to the

Journey of the Universe film.

Moore’s elements of soul: Life’s Work, Learning for Learning’s Sake

Open Intake for my Children

“Lay on your mat.” My dog has successfully caught every piece of tossed popcorn, and I

want to enjoy my own snack in peace. The blanket feels wonderfully cozy to me after coming in

from a dog walk in the gusting north wind. I settle in, my children nestled beside me, to watch

the Journey of the Universe film. I’ve seen it once recently, with my husband. I feel confident

that my son will enjoy the film because he loves to learn about space. Brian Swimme begins his

narration:

Many of the world’s greatest stories begin with a journey, a quest to answer life’s most

intimate questions. Where do we come from? Why are we here? From the dawn of time,

all cultures have created stories to help explain the ultimate nature of things, and perhaps

a new story is emerging in our time. One grounded in contemporary science and yet


nourished by the ancient religious wisdom of our planet. What if the universe, even the

earth itself, has its own unique story to tell? One in which we play a profound role?

(Journey of the Universe film, 2011)

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Poetics and Metaphor, Spirituality

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Empathy (my children and I resonate with others and

experience interconnection through our own knowing of the mythologies of ancient civilizations)

I’m sitting between my children at their school table. I have my laptop, and they each

have an iPad with a newly added keyboard. Both children have used the iPads in small time

durations (20-40 minutes) once or twice a week for a couple of years to watch a NASA video or

explore a health app, star constellation app, or more recently, Google Earth. We’ve also used the

iPads for the Scratch Jr. programming app and for Lego EV3 and Lego Boost programming. In

the past, both children have wandered onto shopping sites if left unsupervised or would use the

iPads without permission, so only my husband and I know the security code to open each device.

A feeling of burden washes over me as I type in the code for each of our three separate devices.

It is our first day using OneNote. The WIFI does not work as quickly in our school space as it

does in other parts of the house. I feel tension gathering between my shoulder blades as I wait for

OneNote to sync the newly added sections and pages between the three devices. The children’s

voices express impatience. I didn’t anticipate this intense contraction when I observed the

children proudly carrying their “new” iPads with keyboards up the steps to our school space

earlier this morning. I announce that we will spend only one hour on this, and then we will move

on to something else.

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Service, Life’s Work


I’m sitting between my children at their school table. I have my laptop, and they each

have their hands hovering over their own keyboard, typing into our shared OneNote project. I

scroll through the images and brief descriptions that my children and I have compiled as a

summary of key historical contributors to the unfolding universe story. I enjoy the art images that

portray the historical figures of the past, especially Edwin Hubble’s picture with his pipe. I’m

reminded of my maternal grandfather, Papa, enjoying his pipe on the back porch during the

muggy summer evenings in Missouri. I can almost hear the cicadas singing. I review the page

dedicated to Chapter 2 Galaxies Forming. We’ve collected some beautiful images that begin to

orient us within our own galaxy. No ideas come to me for visual orientation of our place in space

that would be more effective than the images we’ve collected from the internet. I feel that any

attempt to accurately draw these images would have been extremely contracting.

Moore’s elements of soul: Friendship, Art, Learning for Learning’s Sake

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Beauty

Written by my eleven-year-old son in OneNote: The center of things: Humans like to

orient themselves by determining the center of things. This is seen in sacred cities as the center,

the previous notion the Earth was the center which then changed to the sun as the center.

Through science, we have come to realize that there is not one center, but millions! This is

compared to raisin bread rising where each raisin is the center with everything else expanding

away from it. The Milky Way galaxy is one of several dozen galaxies revolving around each

other (picture the cookies orbiting around each other). This system (cookies) moves around the

Virgo Cluster of galaxies, along with other groups. This entire system is called the Virgo


Supercluster. Science shows that the Virgo Supercluster is at the very center of the cosmic

expansion. There are also other superclusters at the very center of the cosmic expansion (like the

raisins in the bread).

The Milky Way is a spiral. The spiral structure enables it to continue making stars.

Moore’s elements of soul: Poetics and Metaphor, Nature, Learning for Learning’s Sake

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Imagination

Written by my nine-year-old daughter in OneNote: I believe that there’s no city that’s the

middle of the universe. And I like that Brain Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker talked about an

object to explain whatever it is, like the raisin bread which explained the galaxies moving away

from each other.

Moore’s elements of soul: Friendship, Spirituality, Nature

In Journey’s Chapter 1 Beginning of the Universe, Swimme and Tucker describe the

transformation that a proton and neutron undergo in order to bond. “The proton and the neutron

each give over part of their mass, which becomes a flash of light released into the universe. Who

could have imagined this?” (Swimme & Tucker, 2011, p. 8). As my children and I paint this

moment of creation, I contemplate the flash of light that begins many ancient creation stories as

well as this new story based in the science of our time.

Moore’s elements of soul: Poetics and Metaphor, Spirituality, Art

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Contemplation


daughter, age nine son, age eleven myself, age forty-one watercolor on paper

As a child, I was considered a good student. I was very obedient, and this very nature

provided a drive to learn the material presented to me. There are many synonyms for obedient

that match up with my inner feelings toward the various school subjects I encountered as a child.

In art class, I was devoted. In math class I was respectful, and in history class I was compliant. In

science class I was subservient. I often struggled in science to achieve my desired high grade

because many areas of science held no meaningful connection for me to other areas of my

knowledge. Connecting the elements to the stars during the study of Journey of the Universe has

provided a new context of meaning for me. What a revelation!

Moore’s elements of soul: Poetics and Metaphor, Art


repurposed water color paintings, paper collage

We are gathered together at the center of

our circle rug, pressing close, and closer,

generating heat. We are hydrogen nuclei,

then we are so close to each other,

generating even more heat, we transform

into helium! Our fusion releases energy so

that we expand outward, avoiding collapse.

Again, gravity brings us together, closer,

hotter, until we transform into carbon.

Expansion occurs once again, a noticeable

cooling, but gravity is bringing us in,

closer, closer, hotter. Our cheeks are pink,

and then we reach the billion-degree

temperature necessary and we fuse into

oxygen. The same process transforms us

into silicon and on through the heavier

elements until we become iron. With only

iron in our core, there is nothing left to do

but implode inward, and then explode into

a supernova!

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry:

Imagination, Embodiment


Supernova explosions: repurposed watercolor paintings

“The supernova is the most spectacular display of destruction and creation in the universe. What

are we to make of this, as our very existence – indeed, the very existence of life – depends upon

it?” (Swimme & Tucker, 2011, p. 34), from Chapter 3 The Emanating Brilliance of Stars.


“He shouldn’t be touching the cave walls!” both of my children proclaim as we watch the

film clip of Brian Swimme narrating about the evolution of eyes from inside Pythagoras’s cave

on the Greek island of Samos. I’ve already concluded that this cannot be the full Cycle 3

research period of my intuitive inquiry because I have become aware of additional work to be

done on my literature review. I realized a few days ago that my literature review is following the

three-fold learning process. An intuitive inquiry has distinct cycles. Cycle 2 lenses should be

identified before beginning the Cycle 3 research. There’s no way I’m going to halt our

homeschool study of Journey of the Universe entirely so we will carry on with the book chapters

and corresponding film clips as arranged in the Coursera online course by Yale University. I’ve

enjoyed doing the Coursera lessons myself in advance, and then I like to share with my children

the clips and child accessible content that corresponds with each book chapter. I’m not worried

about the change. I guess my research is destined to be a three-fold-learning process too! I

answer my children “Yes, I noticed that. Maybe touching the walls is not an issue since that cave

is already open to the air.”

Moore’s elements of soul: Learning for Learning’s Sake

Sleep/Digestion

I’m watching the little white lamb that my daughter was just holding rejoin its mother.

“Baa!” The bleating of sheep and lambs momentarily separated (for petting of the babies!) is an

intense auditory experience. “Baa!” As mothers and babies rejoin, a more neutral level of sound

returns to the barnyard. Standing in the sunshine at the local biodynamic farm is a blessing on

this late February morning. I came to the farm for my weekly milk pickup and have delighted in

holding one of the early pre-spring arrivals. The newborn lambs find their places in the hay. A


mother cow, who has also recently given birth, grazes nearby. I can feel a small smile on my lips

as my gaze moves from animal to animal. I’m on the opposite side of the fence, observing

alongside the farm’s co-founder. We watch the cow graze nearer to the little white lamb,

enjoying the hay. The cow is right beside the lamb, grazing, and she starts to lean over the lamb,

happily grazing. Will the foot step forward and crush the baby? The co-founder acknowledges

that an accident could happen. I feel engaged in the near-death-experience of the little lamb, who

is oblivious to the danger. The co-founder gathers an armful of hay and tosses it strategically to

the cow, who steps toward the food-offering, and away from the lamb. The danger has passed.

Moore’s elements of soul: Spirituality, Nature

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Empathy

I reflect on Kelly’s writing

about humanity as engaged in

a collective near-death-

experience in our current

moment. My observation of

the lamb and cow illuminated

the power of nature to bring

forward many experiences of

the archetypal-nature of

reality.


I’m gathered at the breakfast table with my family. “Last night I dreamed that…,” I share.

“Oh!” exclaims my daughter, “I dreamed…”. My son and husband might also have a dream to

share, if not today, then soon. This is not an uncommon breakfast conversation.

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Friendship, Dream

Skill/Mastery

“How can people not have known that longer?” my daughter exclaims, her nine-year-old

voice ringing out in genuine amazement. It is the first day of revisiting Journey of the Universe.

The scent of candle smoke hangs in the air between us as we move away from the familiar nest

of sofa and chairs. I turn my head to take in her body movements: slender arms raised in gesture,

head thrust slightly forward, eyes open wide and lips agape, showing off a mouthful of gaps

amongst her incoming teeth. Moments earlier the three of us had brought our story ritual to a

close. This first day invited a short reading since I had felt an inner tug, partly in my belly,

somewhat like an emptiness in the back of my throat, alerting me to the importance of the

timeline of human knowledge between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Spirituality

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Embodiment

I move with my children to our school tables and chalkboard. Despite the early morning

frost, spring is discernable in the warmth of the mid-morning sun streaming in through the glass

door. Our daily learning rests with me, as both mother and teacher. Today we came together on

our circular rug to reawaken spring songs from earlier years and warm up our recorders with


body heat and breath after a year-long hiatus. A sense of ease fills my core as I pick up the chalk.

“Let us recall Journey of the Universe from yesterday.” The children’s voices ring out with:

“We are in the story.”

“This story brings attention to each individual”.

“It’s like everyone is the main character.”

“Everyone from all of time is in the story.”

“It is miraculous that we are a part of this planet.”

“It’s crazy the way humans evolved the way we did, as opposed to being huge

towering slugs or fish with human hands.”

Calendar time has been a recent companion to me, whispering inside my head, reminding me to

“do this, do that.” I quieted that voice yesterday when I found the natural stopping place.

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Friendship, Poetics and Metaphor, Life’s Work


“That which is given up unwillingly by submission becomes the source of defiance” is a

proverb found written on the clay tablets from Akkad and Sumer circa 2000 BC (Bischof, 2006,

p. 43). In between the first and third stages of our learning cycle with Journey of the Universe,

my children and I studied Ancient Mesopotamia. This proverb continues to catch my attention. It

has taken me a long time to become aware of and then start to heal the wound of submission.

Submission to the authority figure. Submission to the perceived authority figure.

Thomas Moore writes in Chapter 6 Care of the Soul in Education in The International

Handbook of Holistic Education that sado-masochistic situations are “archetypal, deeply buried


in the process of teaching/learning itself” (Miller et al., 2019, p. 55) and holistic educators are

not immune to the situation.

A teacher has to deal with this inherent tendency to dominate the student, no matter how

subtle that domination may be. One way is to help the student teach himself, become an

independent learner and go off in his own directions. Then the teacher and student remain

whole in themselves, not split into a single pattern of dominator-subject. A certain degree

of strength and influence on the part of the teacher is necessary, but there is a line that

should not be crossed, where the student loses his power and can no longer be an

independent and free learner. (Miller et al., 2019, p. 55)

I became aware of my wound of submission right around the time I began my graduate studies. It

feels like it is healing, but it still sometimes breaks open a bit. I have to be careful.

I have become entirely unable to make my children do things they don’t want to do. That’s what

I notice most about my own healing process.

Moore’s elements of soul: Learning for Learning’s Sake, Home and Family, Friendship


What archetype am I experiencing now? I’m tired. I know that it is the return to greater

physicality that brings this cloud of fatigue to my whole being. It is always this way when I take

a break from physical fitness and then return to it. For me, this return to physicality is a necessity

to reach the third stage of the hero’s journey (separation, initiation, return). I had no idea how

little I knew about qualitative research and academic writing when I approached this study.

Entering the unknown terrain of academic writing was my symbolic entry into the land of the

unknown (separation), or as it is sometimes described, a descent into hell. Raucous laughter


resounds silently within me as I reflect because the phrase “descent into hell” so appropriately

captures the psychological hardship I experienced in the fall.

When GIFTLearning faculty member Hilary Leighton led a webinar in the autumn of

2018 about heuristic inquiry and associated it with the hero’s journey, I knew that it was just

such a journey that I had begun. Very close to this time, my inner trickster had become present in

full force. I’m well acquainted with the trickster, both from Beth Sutton’s revelatory pairing of

trickster tales with modern sages in Enki Education Grade Two and from my graduate studies

with Elaine Decker, who teaches a course entitled “The Hermeneutics of Humor.” In the fall, I

acknowledged my trickster and opened myself up to what would please that mischievous force.

I’ve learned now that the trickster, too, can have a part to play in the development of

consciousness.

The trickster figure taps on the rigid shell of the ego, cracking apart, as it were, the

ordered structures of life in order to open us to the living reality of the larger psyche. The

trickster disrupts and sabotages that it might move consciousness into a fuller awareness

of the transrational direction of life beyond the control of reason and personal willpower.

(Le Grice, 2016, p. 64)

It was the archetype of the trickster that guided me to give up a certain level of physicality as I

endeavored in the task of writing this thesis. Now, as I attempt to find my way towards the path

of return (new identity), I feel called back to a deeper sense of embodiment. For me, this

necessitates a return to greater physicality. I know from many years of direct experience that

getting my blood and breath flowing (Sutton, 2005) integrates my mind and body in a way that

allows my sense of embodiment to deepen.


I sit tucked into my bed at 7:52pm. I struggled to be fully present during our school time

today. I experience this as a paradox; seeking embodiment leads to a numbing of my awareness.

I’ve been perplexed about how to create the timeline for our Journey study, yet I sense its

importance as a visual orientation of our place in time and space. This puzzlement is interrupting

the three-fold learning process that my children and I are used to each day (main lesson, natural

sleep, recall the next day and then skill/mastery often in the form of both writing and artwork).

As we’ve moved forward through additional chapters, I noticed that I’d like the timeline to

visually orient our prior learning as well as the new learning from this study. My son and I

decided today that we’d enjoy working on one timeline together instead of each doing our own.

Collaboration has been underutilized in our learning community. My daughter agreed. The

children are tired too. We’re coming out of last week’s birthday and local spring break week.

Tons of sugar. We need our rhythm. We need spring songs together. I let that fall through today.

Moore’s elements of soul: Learning for Learning’s Sake


As a holistic educator and parent, I spend the majority of my waking hours in direct or

peripheral observation of children at play. “Play is the modus operandi of learning – the way to

knowledge, to intimacy, and to relationships with the world and the people in it” (Luvmour B.,

2006, p. 24). I’m filled with delight when I realize that Journey’s Chapter 5 Life’s Emergence is

directly observable via this morning’s play:

Written by my eleven-year-old son in OneNote: A living cell has to make decisions about

what molecules to let in and what molecules to keep out, but still sometimes a cell will make

mistakes. The cell is just like some castles. The main thing some castles do is let your friends in


and keep your enemies out. Let’s also use the American Girl doll’s new apartment as an

example. The apartment lets in the American Girl dolls, me, and my sister. Sometimes the

apartment makes mistakes, because it sometimes lets in Katie (our dog). When Katie gets into

the apartment, she makes everything chaos. That is what happens when unwanted molecules get

inside of the cell. The outside of a cell is called the membrane.

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Poetics and Metaphor, Nature

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Imagination

“With each passing decade, the life process is increasingly affected by the influence of

human consciousness. Perhaps human consciousness has a much larger significance within

evolution than earlier philosophers could imagine.” (Swimme & Tucker, 2011, p. 66). I ponder

these words from Journey’s Chapter 6 Living and Dying.


Everything is contained within the story of the universe. I know this on a new level. My

cheek is against my pillow, and my body is tired once again from my return to physicality. I

know from past experience that the only way to disperse the fog of this profound physical fatigue

is to rest, or better yet, to sleep. The afternoon coffee continues to activate my brain, so I tune

into the sensations of my body and open to the stream of images pervading my mind: A spiral

notebook lies open; 14x17 inches. My hands are creating the timeline, and it will need three

pages, not two. No wonder I couldn’t make the timeline this week. I’m struggling each day for

ways to nourish my youngest child’s soul against the “adult-oriented,” in the words of my

daughter, description of the universe’s beginnings. Yes, the difference in perception of the nine-


year-old child and the eleven-year-old child has been apparent. This difference in attitude is

taking its toll on our learning community. Images continue to unfold in my mind’s eye. I can use

the roll of white paper for the longer timeline. How many pages? It looks like a lot. I know that

I’ll be able to move forward with creating the timeline in the physical world tomorrow.

Moore’s elements of soul: Art, Service

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Imagination (opening to the images for the timeline as they

unfold in my imagination to reach a solution for my dilemma)

But what of death? Death presents us with one of the most fundamental

challenges to the human spirit….

We pay respects in memorials for the dead and in visits to ancestral graves. These

occasions draw us together in the presence of suffering and loss, assuaging personal grief

and channeling it into a shared communal experience. But they do more than this.

Such rituals often situate individual death in relation to the great cycles of nature.

They place us within the vast community of the living and the dead and in so doing we

enter into the processes that nurture future life. (Swimme & Tucker, 2011, p. 69)

I’m reflecting on Chapter 6 Living and Dying and thinking about my niece and nephew’s

father, who is expected to pass from this world soon. Through each month since his terminal

diagnosis, I have been acutely aware of nature’s progression through the seasons. Now a full

year has passed, and the new growth of spring surrounds me. The sun is warm on my face as I

kneel on the moist earth. I already have a blister on my hand from yesterday’s weeding

extravaganza behind the new fence.


Death is a familiar subject in my family of four. My husband is a general surgeon, so

when we ask about his day at work or about what happened between his sudden departure from

us and his return, death may be included in his answer. I work the hand-weeder into the soil from

multiple directions and try to reposition my grip on the handle. Beyond the fence, the ground

looks reasonably weed-free, and I feel inspired as I tackle the stretch before me. There is no way

I’ll finish today or even this month. I’ve never been out in April before, but I know that the

weeds that came in the grass seed or were disturbed in the soil are growing each day and keeping

out the grass. Monster weeds, that’s what these are.

In years past, we occasionally sprayed the weeds. I reflect on two-and-a-half-years of

once-a-week farm chores at the local biodynamic farm. During that time, I experienced a shift in

my perception. I became more aware of which actions are life-generating for “the farm as “an

individuality” or a self-contained organism,” (Steiner, 2005, p. 12) and this knowledge has

carried over into my actions at home. For a while, I felt as though I was standing with one foot in

the realm of modern consciousness, into which I’d been deeply enculturated, and the other foot

in the realm of new possibilities. Now I’m wandering in that new land and what I notice is a call

towards collaboration. There is also an invitation to slow down and notice. I need to get more

hand-tools so that my children and I can join in this endeavor together; no need to ask their

young hands to engage in this task without the proper tool.

The morning is absolutely gorgeous. In fact, the weather is the most beautiful it’s been

this spring. As I continue to hold both life and death in my heart, I listen as the western

meadowlarks sound their repeated song nearby. I’m reminded of how weeding this land several

springs ago first brought me into an awareness of embodiment, and I tried to describe the

experience in writing during an Enki Education teacher training course. It’s funny to think that


these weeds repeatedly get more credit for nurturing my feeling of connection with the earth than

my long daily dog walks or the garden. Hopefully not forever though! I’m no longer sure who is

benefiting more from incorporating the universe story as a new mythology into our studies:

myself, the children, or the hawks who will be able to better spot the mice soon. I’ve been

continuing with the next Coursera course (Journey Conversations: Weaving Knowledge and

Action, which does not developmentally appeal to either of my children), and I feel a more

profound sense of place as well as a new intensity to steward this land I call home.

Moore’s elements of soul: Spirituality, Nature, Service, Life’s Work

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Contemplation, Empathy, Beauty, Embodiment

Written by my nine-year-old daughter in OneNote: The only thing that I don’t like about

this study unit is that it talks about microbes a lot and I am very sensitive to the thought of how

much microbes are killed every second.

Moore’s elements of soul: Nature


son, age 11, beeswax crayon on paper daughter, age 9, beeswax crayon on paper


My children explore evolution through artwork: my son’s drawing is of the emergence of multi-

cellular organisms (Journey’s Chapter 5 Life’s Emergence). My daughter chooses to draw her

favorite wild cat alone after wrestling with the fact that an evolutionary-timeline-drawing would

trace the sand cat back to the shrew-like creature believed to be the earliest mammal (Journey’s

Chapter 7 The Passion of Animals).

Moore’s elements of soul: Art

We do not want or need to just catalogue our life; we need to enter it. In so doing, we are

transformed.

-Tobin Hart, International Handbook of Holistic Education

I’ve realized that it is time for the third stage of the learning process to be brought to a

close. I sense the restlessness of my own soul and the children’s souls to get on to Ancient Egypt

and then onto our summer studies of Greek mythology and botany. In this case, step 3 will

suffice with “skill” and will move closer to mastery over time, in the triphasic dialectic of the

spiral. I’ll reread the remaining chapters (8: The Origin of the Human, 9: Becoming a Planetary

Presence, 10: Rethinking Matter and Time, 11: Emerging Earth Community), but I don’t think

we will spend much time expanding our learning of the content.

Metaphorically speaking, I feel like I put the butterfly in the kill jar. Not for my son, who

often wore the expression of a dreamy smile when I read aloud from Journey of the Universe

(2011). My daughter has not been happy though. She said there are no gods in this story. I’ve

released the metaphorical butterfly now. The wings are twitching. My intuition tells me that this

butterfly has every chance to recover. This study cannot be rushed.

Moore’s elements of soul: Poetics and Metaphor, Spirituality, Learning for Learning’s Sake



My throat is aching, and the tears spring up. I am deliberately drawing a deeper breath,

and then another. I have noticed that the writing about bringing the third stage of the learning

process to a close already encompasses the answer: “I sense the restlessness of my own soul and

the children’s souls to get on to Ancient Egypt and then onto our summer studies of Greek

mythology and botany.” What does the soul want? That really is the central question.

Earlier tonight I was gathered at the dinner table with my husband and children. Through

conversation, I realized that my son no longer feels that the name “Mother Earth” is applicable.

“Maybe Mother Nature,” he said. I’ve been deeply immersed in the Journey conversation series

available on the website and also presented in the second Coursera course. I notice that I’m

having a completely different experience than my children. I see that I have incorporated my

own form of digital media into this study by utilizing the online courses. I remain committed to

the research and know that this thesis is going to contain a fractal of the whole. I think of

Rosemarie Anderson’s words:

“Beloveds” are not only intimates but those occurrences, places, and curiosities in life

that claim a person before he even knows them well. This yearning to understand is Eros

or love in pure form because the intuitive inquirer wants to know his beloved topic fully.

(Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 16)

Moore’s elements of soul: Life’s Work

I’ve “rediscovered” that Awareness Through the Body (Marti & Sala, 2006) has an

evolution chapter, and I would like to bring this study to a close in a way that feels complete for


all of us. I guide my children through the experience that a colleague guided me through about a

year ago. The guided experience feels like a perfect reflection of Journey’s Chapter 8 The Origin

of the Human, and a healthy way to close our universe story exploration.

Written by my nine-year-old daughter on notebook paper: At the beginning my mom told

my brother and I to think of a muscle and make the muscle tremble and send that tremble to the

other muscles in my body. The first movement that we were supposed to do was the electron.

Trying the moves of the electron was interesting, but I personally felt helpless because it was

pretty hard to move. The second activity, which was the amoeba, was the same as the first one

for me because I could barely move. The third one was more interesting than the first two

because of the fact that I could move more easily. The fourth one was a fish which was odd and

entertaining. The snake was the same as the fish because both of them are spine animals. The

lizard was fun because I could climb over things easier than the first five. The mammal felt

normal because I crawl on my hands and knees all the time. The monkey felt like a mammal with

some human in it (this feeling is pretty hard to explain). The ape felt like a half-human and half-

mammal animal. The Neanderthal was three-fourths human and one-fourth mammal animal.

Last but not least was the homo sapien, which of course is what we are today.

Written by my eleven-year-old son on notebook paper: The vibration for being an

electron started in my shoulder and spread through my body. It was a combination of fun,

relaxing, and enjoyable. Next was the amoeba, which felt almost the same as the election. Then it

was the multi-cellular organism, and my sister and I latched onto each other. As we moved

together, I felt like my sister wanted to get away from me, so I moved with her. Then came the

fish. My sister and I “swam” around on the rug. The snake was about the same as the fish. Next

was the lizard, during which my sister sat on me most of the time, so I didn’t experience


crawling in this way. Finally came the mammal, where my sister and I had a fight, and she

seemed to be a cat. Then two of my least favorite animals: the monkey and ape. I don’t know

why; I’ve just never liked them. Then the Neanderthal: all I had to do was walk around with very

bad posture. Finally, the Homo Sapien, or human, and I could do whatever I wanted.

Moore’s elements of soul: Nature

Hart’s gateway to knowing/inquiry: Embodiment

As I reflect on the overwhelm of emotion that engulfed me several days ago, I can hear

the wise words of Enki Education developer Beth Sutton. “Read the stories first before sharing

them with your children,” she always advises. I did read the Enki stories first, and I never

experienced an emotional block that I had to work through before moving forward. I realize now

that the wall I came up against the other night was of the nature Beth cautioned about. The

conversation at the dinner table was simply a reflection of each child’s stage of development and

was utterly appropriate. I realize that the universe story did not rob my child of the concept of

Mother Earth, my child is merely developing. I have been deeply engaged in the depth of sharing

contained in the Journey conversation series, and that experience has brought a different lived

experience to me. The different stages of development and structures of consciousness in my

small learning community have been a reminder of the importance of contemplation as a

gateway to knowing.


Written by my nine-year-old daughter on notebook paper: On 4/16/2019 my mom said

that we’re going outside to pick up trash, so we went around the neighborhood and this is what


we found: a glass bottle, some underwear, Styrofoam, paper, and plastic bags. When we were

coming back from the big cul-de-sac, it started getting windy, the big cul-de-sac had this small

valley and there was a lot of trash in that valley! When we were heading back, I wanted to go

into the field behind our house because I knew of some trash there. I must say that I probably

missed some pieces!

Written by my eleven-year-old son on notebook paper: I am getting my gloves on and

going outside to pick up trash around the neighborhood using a black trash bag. First, we go

across the street to look for some trash and come across the bones of a fox that died there last

summer. I bring the fox skull into the garage. We go around the circle and the big cul-de-sac.

There is more trash than I thought there would be. The bag is heavier after my sister throws a

glass bottle from the field into it. Near the end of our excursion, the trash bag is getting very

heavy. From the lower part of the circle, I can see my sister riding her bike, but she should be

cleaning up trash from the field.

Moore’s elements of soul: Home and Family, Nature, Service

Our Journey of the Universe book is bound, and we are ready to learn about ancient

Egypt. I think we will refer to our historical-period timeline with each new study we undertake

and perhaps add to it. I delight in the fact that I can point to Neil Armstrong as the first man to

walk on the moon and say, “that was the year Daddy was born.” Next, I can point to Ilya

Prigogine and say, “he won the Nobel prize in chemistry the year I was born, and his work has

led to an understanding of self-organizing dynamics.” My children may not understand today

what self-organization and emergence in dynamic systems have to do with them, but I believe

that one day they will.


Pictured below are my children on the circle rug with our historical timeline and our

evolutionary timeline. Though we are tough to see, in the timeline on the right our family of four

is holding a string timeline (created and provided to me by Pille Bunnell and Fleurette Sweeney,

faculty at the Graduate Institute for Transformative Learning) that marks the entirety of Earth’s

evolution.

(Photo credit for evolutionary timeline: Brad Nichol)


CHAPTER V

DISCUSSION

We are at a critical point of transition between the still dominant secular-scientific

worldview and a more integral worldview struggling to take hold.

-Sean Kelly, The Variety of Integral Ecologies: Nature,

Culture, and Knowledge in the Planetary Era, 2017

The discussion chapter of this thesis includes Cycle 4 and 5 of the intuitive inquiry and a

summary section. Upon review of and reflection on the intuitive inquiry methodology as

presented by Anderson & Braud (2011), I have concluded that formulating research questions

regarding the topic is not specified in an intuitive inquiry. This realization is an example of the

auspicious bewilderment (Anderson & Braud, 2011, pp. 62-63) identified as a distinctive feature

of the methodology. As a living aspect within my study, the research questions moved me

“deeper into the intricacies of the topic” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 63) during my Cycle 3

research, and again during Cycle 5 when I noticed that they remained unanswered. I have

incorporated answers to the research questions within Cycle 4 in the comparison of lenses under

the concepts of the unseen and our place in time and space.

Cycle 4

In Cycle 4 of an intuitive inquiry, the inquirer refines and transforms the Cycle 2 lenses

“in light of his engagement with the data gathered in Cycle 3. Cycle 2 lenses are modified,

removed, rewritten, expanded, etc. – reflecting the researchers more developed and nuanced

understanding of the topic at the conclusion of the study” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 53). The

detailed elaboration of changes between Cycle 2 and Cycle 4 lenses allows the reader of the

inquiry to evaluate the researcher’s transition in the understanding of the topic throughout the


study. Anderson emphasizes that the purpose of the research is to expand and refine the

knowledge of a topic. Significant changes should be anticipated between Cycle 2 and Cycle 4

lenses and elaborated in detail. Intuitive inquiry requires honesty. The nature of this intuitive

inquiry consisted of the dialectical three-fold learning process interwoven with the repeating

dialectic of the five iterative cycles of the methodology. The Cycle 4 lenses generated at the end

of the study are as follows:

Cycle 4 lenses: (a) the potential of the adult/child relationship for a co-evolution of the structures

of consciousness, (b) the archetypal dimensions of reality, (c) the universe story as a new cultural

mythology, (d) bringing attention and intention to the triphasic pattern of thinking, feeling,

willing, (e) building an archetypal vocabulary in service to the soul dimension of life and toward

integral ecologies, (f) the role of technology in transformative learning.

The inclusion of three sets of lenses during Cycle 2 is not described in the literature for

intuitive inquiry. Nonetheless, Anderson’s requirement of “telling the entire truth about the

course of the research project” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 59) necessitates the incorporation of

these additional lenses in order to communicate the three-fold learning process that I experienced

between the time of initial engagement (Moustakas, 1990) during my graduate coursework and

the conclusion of my literature review. The lenses, expressed in the terminology of the three-fold

learning process, are as follows:

Open Intake lenses, interpreted from my thesis proposal submitted in December: (a) how

technology is influencing the development of children, and therefore the adults they are in

relationship with, (b) generational theory, (c) the Fourth Industrial Revolution as context, (d)

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems Theory as a theoretical framework, (e) Riane Eisler’s

partnership education alongside the Earth Charter to guide 21st century curriculum towards


systems recognition and value identification for a sustainable Earth-human relationship, (f) the

New Story paradigm, (g) paradigm shift

Sleep/Digestion lenses, taken directly from a literature review draft submitted for review in

January: (a) Journey of the Universe, (b) integral philosophy and spiral dynamics theory, (c)

stages of child development through a holistic lens, (d) mythology as care of the soul in

education, (e) technology as care of the soul in education, (f) Second Axial Age.

Cycle 2 lenses (Skill/Mastery): (a) archetypal cosmology, (b) the soul dimension of holistic

education, (c) integral ecologies, (d) our place in time and space, (e) triphasic pattern, (f) Journey

of the Universe, (g) mythology in holistic education, (h) technology in holistic education, and (i)

the adult/child relationship.

Comparison of Triphasic Cycle 2 Lenses and Cycle 4 Lenses

I am utilizing a conceptual organization of the lenses to convey the changes between the

triphasic Cycle 2 lenses and the Cycle 4 lenses. The embodied experience of sorting the cycle

lenses into conceptual categories was like sorting laundry with my children. Loads, or in this

case concepts, had to be chosen. Each lens is not limited to a single category. Like articles of

clothing, the cycle lenses work well in multiple conceptual categories: advice I often share with

my children as we sort the laundry. The organizational schema includes some lenses in more

than one category. In some concepts, the lenses have more flow from one to the next than in

others because these categorical headings were chosen only to facilitate discussion.

Concept: Adult/Child Relationship

Open intake lens: (a) how technology is influencing the development of children, and therefore

the adults they are in relationship with

Sleep/Digestion lens: c) stages of child development through a holistic lens


Cycle 2 lenses (Skill/Mastery): (b) the soul dimension of holistic education, (g) mythology in

holistic education, (h) technology in holistic education, (i) the adult/child relationship

Cycle 4 lenses: (a) the potential of the adult/child relationship for a co-evolution of the structures

of consciousness, (b) the archetypal dimensions of reality

This study began with the recognition that the adult/child relationship in our context of

exponential-technology-growth is worthy of consideration. The triphasic Cycle 2 lenses show the

progression from a focus on technology to looking at the concept holistically, then considering

mythology and technology from the view of holistic education where the whole child (body,

heart, mind) is recognized as situated in the environment. I can now see how the literature review

and the case study description of incorporating the study of Journey of the Universe into the Live

Education! fifth-grade curriculum initially skewed my attention towards the children, though

embodied writing captured my experience throughout the Cycle 3 research.

At the outset of the case study research, I was interested in how my children would

respond to the incorporation of digital media and Journey alongside the mythology from ancient

civilizations. As the inquiry progressed, I began to discern the direct effects of the dialectic

nature of the study on my own perceptions. At times I was able to observe my children with

clarity, and in other instances, I could only discern my personal meaning-making or lack thereof.

Especially during step 3) skill/mastery of the three-fold learning process, my own experience

frequently dominated my sensory awareness. As relayed in Chapter IV Findings, I had gained

recognition of my personal development as concurring with the “hero myth” (Le Grice, 2016, p.

43), and I found myself once again in the company of the shadow as I explored my wound of

submission to the perceived authority figure. The primary Cycle 4 lens became the potential of

the adult/child relationship for a co-evolution of the structures of consciousness. The


development of both the adult and the child, together in relationship, has been a topic of

continual interest to me before and during my graduate studies (Luvmour, J., 2016; Marshak,

2016). I did not realize until the research stage how much developmental potential the case study

held for me, as an adult. The Cycle 4 lens of the archetypal dimension of reality pertains to the

adult/child relationship because if the adult recognizes the archetypes as existing and valid, this

perception will influence the adult’s way of being (with the child) in the world.

Concept: Technology

Open intake lens: (a) how technology is influencing the development of children, and therefore

the adults they are in relationship with

Sleep/Digestion lens: (e) technology as care of the soul in education

Cycle 2 lens (Skill/Mastery): (h) technology in holistic education

Cycle 4 lenses: (b) the archetypal dimensions of reality, (f) the role of technology in

transformative learning

A catalyst for this study was my contemplation of adolescents and how the exponential

growth of technology is influencing their development. Initial research encouraged my reflection

on their worldview, which led to a consideration of specific generations. The open intake lens of

generational theory reflects the concept of individuals born in a particular time and place as

having a shared worldview and perhaps even a shared entelechy, or inner aim. Before this

research, my perception of children using smart devices was shaped by various holistic

educational resources, which in general recommend limited use. This new consideration of

technology as the possible entelechy of the youngest generations opened my mind to new

possibilities. The idea of technology as care of the soul, providing nourishment through the

recognition of the entelechy, became a consideration in the sleep/digestion lens, yet was reigned


in as possibly too esoteric to consider within the broad scope of this transdisciplinary study. The

Cycle 2 lens became technology in holistic education.

The primary Cycle 4 lens for the concept of technology is the archetypal dimension of

reality. Over the course of this inquiry, I observed my children using multiple technologies that

were new to them. The children emanated joy and quick understanding (except during slow

WIFI moments!) and I perceive a different demeanor about them, a sort of embeddedness and

assurance that I could detect almost immediately after they received their iPod touches and a

limited timeframe to play each day. Tarnas’s research indicates that our present moment in

history is most comparable to the period five hundred years ago that was shaped by the rapid

spread of the printed book. Printed books allowed the dissemination of ideas and created

connections that were previously not possible, just as digital media does today. When considered

in light of archetypal cosmology, technology is an essential consideration for those educating

with attention to the learner’s entelechy and a holistic worldview.

My perception of technology echoes the view of Klaus Schwab: we stand at a pivotal

moment of peril or opportunity. One opportunity is for technology to serve as a tool for

community connection from the micro level of the family to the macro level of our global

civilization. The peril rests in the hands of today’s adults. Without adult guidance, the four types

of intelligence that Schwab emphasizes are unlikely to manifest in full potential in the youngest

generations’ (Generation Z and Generation Alpha) use of technology; “We can only

meaningfully address these challenges if we mobilize the collective wisdom of our minds, hearts,

and souls. To do so, I believe we must adapt, shape and harness the potential of disruption by

nurturing and applying” (Schwab, 2016, p. 106) contextual, emotional, inspired (soul), and

physical (body) intelligence. Schwab’s words take on new meaning for me after my research as


he writes about the possibility to flourish in the emergent environment. The adult finds him or

herself “standing at the precipice” as reflected in the title of six teachers’ exploration of teaching

in our time in the book Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Standing at the Precipice

(Doucet et al., 2018). Either we are willing to embrace the time and effort required to navigate

(digital media) with wisdom and care or risk a continuation of the mechanistic view that does not

allow an understanding of emergent technologies and how they interrelate with the whole of the

earth system.

The secondary Cycle 4 lens is the role of technology in transformative learning.

Transformative learning requires a shift in worldview, and the term is used increasingly today

concerning adult development. A standard citation throughout the literature is Dean Elias 1997:

Transformative learning is the expansion of consciousness through the transformation of

basic worldview and specific capacities of the self; transformative learning is facilitated

through consciously directed processes such as appreciatively accessing and receiving the

symbolic contents of the unconscious and critically analyzing underlying premises.

(Transformative Learning, n.d.)

I posit that technology encourages transformative learning by enabling a global worldview and

connecting learners and educators who do not share physical proximity yet share a desire to

“open new pathways and inspire transformative action for the flourishing of the Earth

community” (Mickey et al., 2017, p. xiv). Through the use of technology, the adult can

potentially engage in a more effective life-long learning process while providing ever-expanding

wisdom and guidance regarding technology to children in their care.

I was very inspired by Jordan Shapiro’s engagement with technology in relationship with

his children as told in his book The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected


World (2018). Shapiro writes that video games are the newest form of narrative and describes

playing video games with his children as a way of connecting after school. He describes the

virtual world of gaming where players interact as the new sandbox. As a homeschooling parent

already immersed with my children throughout the day, I did not find this same dynamic easy to

manifest while engaging my new skill of academic writing. However, I can sense my children’s

eager excitement for my husband and me to enter their brand-new worlds in Minecraft (available

to them only once my perspective shifted during this study). When I do play, my daughter

perches at my elbow and guides me through every uncertainty while my son provides advice

from nearby as we all interact in the digital environment. My children know that I have plans to

delve further into Minecraft and programming Ozobot EVO, Anki Cosmo, and Lego EV3 after

this thesis is written. I was impressed with Diana Graber’s cyber civics, as described in Raising

Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology (2019).

Graber has developed a three-year middle school curriculum in addition to her book that

emphasizes a strong foundation of social and emotional skills and then building with the pillars

of reputation, screen time, relationships, and privacy. I plan to begin utilizing Graber’s

curriculum with my children in the coming months. Shapiro and Graber inspire consideration of

the role of technology in transformative learning in both the adult and the child, in relationship.

Concept: Mythology

Open intake lens: (f) the New Story paradigm

Sleep/Digestion lenses: (a) Journey of the Universe, (c) stages of child development through a

holistic lens (d) mythology as care of the soul in education

Cycle 2 lenses: (f) Journey of the Universe, (g) mythology in holistic education


Cycle 4 lenses: (b) the archetypal dimensions of reality, (c) the universe story as a new cultural

mythology

My graduate studies introduced the term “New Story” with a focus on the work

manifesting at The Findhorn Institute in Scotland. The main website for this work is called The

New Story Hub (The New Story Hub, n.d.). The contributors and content form an interconnected

message towards the theme “change the story, change the world.” During the writing of my

proposal, my original concept of the New Story as a new cultural mythology became a new

cultural narrative instead. “Narrative” is a term more widely accepted today, and I was not

finding a basis for claiming the New Story as mythology. I submitted my proposal to the thesis

committee, and while awaiting their feedback, I was reading the Live Education! fifth-grade

curriculum book Ancient Mesopotamia (Bischof, 2006). I noticed that what seemed to be

missing from my proposal was the concept of mythology. I received feedback from my

committee to narrow my focus to achieve my desired outcome, and immediately after that, I

discovered the methodology of intuitive inquiry. I reengaged Berry’s The New Story essay as my

Cycle 1 text and began exploring the concept of mythology again. I quickly traced the lineage of

Berry’s work, connecting it to Swimme and then Tucker and the most recent evolution of the

work as the Journey of the Universe project. The sleep/digestion lenses and then Cycle 2 lenses

reflect my focus on Journey and incorporating it into holistic education, specifically with ancient

mythology.

The primary Cycle 4 lens for the concept of mythology is the archetypal dimension of

reality. The literature supports mythology manifesting in direct relationship to archetypal

dynamics throughout human history. After this research, I claim that the relationship is

reciprocal in that mythology can also centralize the archetypes in an individual’s awareness. The


secondary lens, the universe story as a new cultural mythology, arises from the first lens as

archetypal dynamics situate our place in time and space (illustrated by Sean Kelly’s figures in

Chapter II Literature Review). Throughout this thesis, there is a reference to both the universe

story and Journey of the Universe. Journey is one manifestation of the universe story, so either

phrase describes the new cultural mythology. The phrase “the universe story” acknowledges the

many expressions that this new cultural mythology might take to appeal to developmental stages

in childhood and structures of consciousness throughout the lifespan.

Concept: System

Open intake lens: (d) Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems Theory as a theoretical

framework

Sleep/Digestion lens: (b) integral philosophy and spiral dynamics theory

Cycle 2 lenses: (c) integral ecologies, (e) triphasic pattern, (f) Journey of the Universe,

Cycle 4 lens: (b) the archetypal dimensions of reality (d) bringing attention and intention to the

triphasic pattern of thinking, feeling, willing, and (e) building an archetypal vocabulary in

service to the soul dimension of life and toward integral ecologies.

The recognition of systems thinking was present from the initial engagement period, yet I

found myself without a well-formed vocabulary to express my inner knowing. Enki Education’s

emphasis on the “ecosystem of education” (Sutton, 2005) had already provided me with the

conviction that everything is interconnected, yet I needed a broader framework for my study.

Bronfenbrenner’s theory of human development has been widely utilized, and his bioecological

systems theory incorporating time as well as space seemed like an appropriate framework. In my

review of the literature, I began to come across Capra’s name, and I realized that his work was

often associated with the new-science paradigm. With my topic entirely situated within the new


paradigm, The Systems View of Life (Capra & Luisi, 2014) became a foundational text to bridge

the transdisciplinary nature of my study.

As mentioned in the introduction to this section, the concepts were identified to facilitate

discussion. The Cycle 4 lenses of (b) the archetypal dimensions of reality (d) bringing attention

and intention to the triphasic pattern of thinking, feeling, willing, and (e) building an archetypal

vocabulary in service to the soul dimension of life and toward integral ecologies were not

formulated directly to illustrate the systems concept; what I notice is that a systems view is

inherent to these lenses.

Concept: The Unseen

Open intake, Sleep/Digestion, Cycle 2: all lenses

Cycle 4 lenses: all lenses, with a focus on (b) the archetypal dimensions of reality, (d) bringing

attention and intention to the triphasic pattern of thinking, feeling, willing, (e) building an

archetypal vocabulary in service to the soul dimension of life and toward integral ecologies

The concept of the unseen is central to this study. All of the other concepts and every lens

could integrate into this one. The dialectic process of three-fold learning and the cycles of

intuitive inquiry provided the necessary containers within which to explore and expand my

understanding of the intuitive knowing that catalyzed the study. The triphasic Cycle 2 lenses

reflect the three-fold progression of the literature review. Two research questions and three Cycle

4 lenses are discussed concerning this concept:

Research question: Does Journey of the Universe as a new cultural mythology, when studied in

relationship with the mythologies of ancient civilizations, invoke numinous wonder in the 8-12-

year-old child or in the adult guiding the study? My intention in using the term “numinous

wonder” in this question is to refer to Tarnas’s first meaning of wonder as described in the


Introduction: numinous mystery, with numinous defined by Merriam-Webster as appealing to the

higher emotions or the aesthetic sense; spiritual. In essence, my research question inquires if the

participants experienced spiritual wonder, or spirituality when studying Journey of the Universe

in relationship with the mythologies of ancient civilizations. I did experience numinous wonder,

or a spiritual aesthetic, often during my Cycle 3 research. Most notably, I experienced wonder

during my day at the farm as the archetypal dynamics present in nature revealed themselves (a

moment of which is relayed in the sleep/digestion stage of Chapter IV Findings). I reflected on

Journey’s Chapter 6 Living and Dying in Chapter IV Findings, and then when my children and I

began our study of Ancient Egypt, I experienced numinous wonder during our weekday

repetition of a verse from the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Bischof, Ancient egypt, 2006). The

verse resonated with truth for me about life and death.

Had I further incorporated Natural Learning Relationships (NLR), the work of

developmentalists Ba and Josette Luvmour, into my Literature Review, I may have reworked this

question early on. Ba Luvmour states that there is “absolutely no need for any parent or educator

to concern themselves with these unseen forces. The child’s spiritual potential can be fully

realized by meeting the needs of the organizing principle, wisdom, and relationship” (Luvmour

B., 2006, p. 77). NLR refers to the 8-12-year-old child as FeelingBeing. The organizing

principle for FeelingBeing is trust, with a secondary organizing principle of reciprocal

cooperation. “Wisdom is the medium in which well-being resides” (Luvmour B., 2006, p. 67).

“The essence of existence – of being – is relationship. It is the way we know, the reality we live,

the pattern that connects. And the sacred is immanent within those relationships” (Luvmour B.,

2006, p. 76). As I reflect on the insight provided by NLR, I have a snapshot in time of each child

in my mind: my 11-year-old-son with a perceptible smile on his face while listening to me read


aloud from Journey of the Universe (2011), and following the official research stage, my 9-year-

old daughter referring to Journey of the Universe as a mythology to justify her current

worldview. Did the study invoke numinous wonder for the children? I cannot name specific

instances, but I can affirm that their developmental trajectory remains intact. My change in

understanding over the course of the study is that I would no longer ask this question.

Research question: What experience(s) of an archetypal dimension of reality does the

interweaving of technology, ancient cultural mythologies, and the study of Journey of the

Universe invoke for the participants of the study? In answering this question, I’m also

interpreting my Cycle 4 lens (b), the archetypal dimensions of reality. By studying ancient

mythologies as outlined in the Enki Education and Live Education! curriculums, the study

participants have had repeated exposure to the creation myth, the hero myth, and transformation

myth. Tarnas writes that “archetypal cosmology’s foundational concept of archetypal principles

can be understood in three different senses” (Tarnas, 2007, p. 86). The archetype of Venus is

provided as an example, understood as Mesopotamian Ishtar or Greek Aphrodite on the Homeric

level, the metaphysical principle of Eros and the Beautiful on the Platonic level, and the

psychological tendency towards beauty, love, and attraction on the Jungian level. Before and

during the Cycle 3 research, the participants did not discuss the concept of archetypes directly,

yet the repeated exposure to archetypal principles on the Homeric level has established a

familiarity that can be connected to the universe story. The flash of light as a commonality in

creation mythology and in Journey was discussed by the participants and is depicted in the

participant artwork in Chapter IV Findings.

Anderson and Braud (2011) write about archetypal experiences as an aspect of the

intuitive mode of knowing they call unconscious, symbolic, and imaginal processes. I credit this


kind of intuition with catalyzing this study and discuss this further in Cycle 5 in relation to

intuitive modes of knowing. I began the investigation without an established familiarity with

archetypes as they correlate across Homeric, Platonic, and Jungian levels. As I continued my

literature review and initial research into archetypal cosmology, I often felt frustrated by this lack

of knowledge. However, I did have a basic familiarity with Jung’s work and the ancient

mythologies. As described in Chapter IV Findings, I identified the trickster archetype and the

hero mythology as a sensed reality in the fall. I read an account by Le Grice of Joseph

Campbell’s description of “a typical dream image that reflects the individual’s reconnection with

the long-submerged child within – that of looking down into the sea and seeing there, strewn on

the sea-bed, an assortment of old toys and childhood paraphernalia” (Le Grice, 2016, pp. 43-44).

I recognized the child archetype in my own imaginal processes and reflected on the lack of

paraphernalia in my underwater swimming images from the fall. I theorized that perhaps my

immersive engagement with my children for the entire duration of their lives had yielded this

difference in imagery for me. Later, I came to realize that the psychological hardship I

experienced with my lack of knowledge about qualitative research mirrored the description of an

encounter with the shadow archetype (Le Grice, 2016, pp. 44-48).

I generated the Cycle 4 lens (e), building an archetypal vocabulary in service to the soul

dimension of life and toward integral ecologies, to emphasize the potential within holistic

education to connect the concept of archetypal principles over time as described in the Literature

Review. The change from Cycle 2 to this lens is a shift from broad, categorical concepts to a

very specific action plan. Building the vocabulary over time and relating new knowledge to what

is already known, provides care to the soul, as defined by Thomas Moore in Chapter II.

Additionally, Moore writes:


Soul-oriented teachers need wisdom rather than information and a strong imagination.

They have to be open to the deepest archetypal thrusts at work in human life and also

focused on the absolutely unique individuals in front of them…. You educate for soul by

giving it the things in life it needs: love, beauty, spirit, pleasure…. You create the

conditions and allow the soul to manifest itself. (Moore, 2005, p. 15)

I perceive Moore’s guidance as aligned with Luvmour’s writing about the child’s spiritual

potential being realized by meeting the needs of the organizing principle, wisdom, and

relationship (Appendix C). NLR’s developmental sequence leads toward integral consciousness

(Appendix B), a consciousness structure which I perceive as an adjuvant for integral ecologies.

Integral consciousness leading to integral ecologies is further discussed in the concept: earth-

human relationship.

The third lens of focus within the concept of the unseen is (d), bringing attention and

intention to the triphasic pattern of thinking, feeling, willing. Thinking, feeling, willing is the

triad of terms identified by Steve McIntosh (2007) as the primary lines that consciousness is

organized around before he became aware of Hinduism and Theosophy as supporters of the same

three aspects. Again, the shift from Cycle 2 lenses to this lens is a shift from concept to action

thinking. As a reader of Steiner and Waldorf education curriculum, thinking, feeling, and willing

is familiar to me. I specified bringing attention and intention to the triphasic pattern of thinking,

feeling, willing as a Cycle 4 lens because I believe it warrants conscious attention from the adult

concerning their own development and the development of the child. If this triad of terms is held

consciously for the child throughout childhood, and even throughout adult life if an individual

can identify which line of consciousness is taking center stage, it has potential to act as a catalyst

for transformative learning and the evolution of consciousness.


Concept: Our Place in Time and Space

Open intake lenses: (c) the Fourth Industrial Revolution as context, (g) paradigm shift

Sleep/Digestion lenses: (b) Integral philosophy and spiral dynamics theory (f) Second Axial Age

Cycle 2 lenses: (d) our place in time and space, (e) triphasic pattern, (f) Journey of the Universe,


mythology

In my initial engagement with The New Story essay (Berry, 2003), I was intrigued by

Berry’s description of a new mythic age and the relationship between humanity and the earth:

…the human appears as the moment in which the unfolding universe becomes conscious

of itself. The human being emerges not only as an earthling but also as a worldling.

Human persons bear the universe in their being as the universe bears them in its being.

The two have a total presence to each other.

If this integral vision is something new both to the scientist and to the believer,

both are gradually becoming aware of this view of reality and its meaning for the human.

It might be considered a new revelatory experience. Because we are moving into a new

mythic age, it is little wonder if a kind of mutation is taking place in the entire Earth-

human order. A new paradigm of what it is to be human emerges. This is what is so

exciting, yet so painful and so disrupting. One aspect of this change involves the shift in

Earth-human relations, for the human now in large measure determines the Earth process

that once determined men and women. In a more integral way we could say that the Earth

that controlled itself directly in the former period now to an extensive degree controls

itself through human beings. (Berry, 2003, pp. 83-84)


The emergent technologies invited my further consideration of Berry’s insight, and I focused on

the Fourth Industrial Revolution as our current context.

My literature review changed significantly once I formally engaged The New Story essay

as my Cycle 1 text. I repositioned the Fourth Industrial Revolution as context into Chapter III

Methodology. The sleep/digestion lenses begin to reflect the current literature review section

entitled Our Place in Time and Space, but it was not until after the generation of these lenses that

a further inquiry into the definition of the Second Axial Age led to the inclusion of Kelly’s

(2010) work in Chapter II Literature Review. As I refined and transformed the Cycle 2 lenses, I

found that fewer lenses were necessary for Cycle 4 because the archetypal dimension of reality

had begun to figure so prominently in my perception. The archetypal dimension of reality

became the only lens needed to capture the essence of our place in time and space. In the

literature review, I quote Kelly (2010) in his description of our current moment as at the liminal

stage between the initiation (second stage: initiation or difference) of the mythological hero’s

journey and the return (third stage: return or new identity). The second lens of the universe story

as a new cultural mythology further confirms the first lens as “the human psyche participates as a

microcosm of the whole” (Tarnas, 2007, p. 86). As the universe moves towards ever-increasing

complexity (Chapter 1 The Universe, n.d.), Berry and Swimme (1994) capture the first moment

in time and space that the story of the universe can be told, and now technology enables the story

to be shared on a global scale through multiple digital formats and by storytellers engaging an

integral structure of consciousness.

Research question: Does the study of Journey of the Universe as a new cultural mythology aid

the 8-12-year-old child in situating themselves in time and space? Educators within the Journey

conversations indicated teaching the universe story at the high school level. My research, as well


as Montessori’s incorporation of Cosmic Education, confirms that children younger than high-

school-age can connect with and benefit from the universe story. Initially, Journey’s book, film,

participant artwork, embodied-action of the star process, and the OneNote project contributed to

situating my children in time and space. As the study participants re-engaged Journey in the final

step of the three-fold learning process, creating a timeline became the focus. The two timelines

created during the case study were directly inspired and influenced by Journey, and further

situated the children in time and space.

Concept: Earth-Human Relationship

Open intake lenses: (e) Riane Eisler’s partnership education alongside the Earth Charter to guide

21st-century curriculum towards systems recognition and value identification for a sustainable

Earth-human relationship, (f) the New Story paradigm

Sleep/Digestion lens: (b) integral philosophy and spiral dynamics theory

Cycle 2 lenses: (a) archetypal cosmology, (c) integral ecologies, (f) Journey of the Universe,


mythology, (e) building an archetypal vocabulary in service to the soul dimension of life and

toward integral ecologies

Berry refers to both the “Earth-human order” and the “cosmic-Earth-human process” in

The New Story (2003). During the period of initial engagement, I wrestled mightily with how to

acknowledge and explore this aspect that I felt should not be left out. Berry focuses on creating

and identifying values and offers differentiation, subjectivity, and communion. This triad is

referred to as differentiation, autopoiesis, and communion in The Universe Story (Berry &

Swimme, 1994). The evolution of the universe is characterized by these three terms, which “refer

to the governing themes and the basal intentionality of all existence” (Berry & Swimme, 1994, p.


71) across time, space and all levels of reality and together form the cosmogenetic principle. I

concentrated on Eisler’s partnership education and the Earth Charter as current forms that I could

link to these values. It wasn’t until I became familiar with the concept that values are contained

within the paradigm (Capra & Luisi, 2014) that I realized I could narrow my study by letting

Eisler’s partnership education and the Earth Charter go. The progression of the sleep/digestion

lens to Cycle 2 lenses illustrates my continued research into the work of faculty in the PCC

department at CIIS.

I began to understand integral ecologies in the period between the Sleep/Digestion lenses

and Cycle 2 (Skill/Mastery) lenses. During my graduate studies, I was introduced to the Earth

Charter by Sam Crowell, who designed and mentored a new course at the request of the learners

entitled Teaching What Really Matters: How Perspectives of Holism and Sustainability

Transform the Educational Landscape. I read part of The Tao of Liberation: Exploring the

Ecology of Transformation (Hathaway & Boff, 2009) during that course. I returned to The Tao of

Liberation during this study and found that I could discern its message with profoundly more

understanding. I embraced the term “integral ecologies” in its recognition of Berry’s value of

differentiation, which for me, translates to multiple approaches “to respond to the critical

urgency and gravity of current ecological, or more generally, planetary, problems” (Mickey et

al., 2017, p. 2).

Cycle 4 lenses about the earth-human relationship center around archetypes and

mythology following the data collection. The archetypal dimension of reality affirms an Earth-

human relationship in the very nature of the microcosm of the psyche embedded within the

macrocosm of the world soul, or anima mundi. The lens of the universe story as a new cultural

mythology tells the story of the Earth-human relationship in scientific and poetic form, and the


literature suggests that it addresses the four functions of myth: mystical, cosmological,

sociological, and pedagogical. The third lens, building an archetypal vocabulary in service to the

soul dimension of life and toward integral ecologies, relates to the Earth-human relationship

through every stage of human development and changing structures of consciousness. Holistic

educators can build an archetypal vocabulary by incorporating ancient mythologies and the

universe story into the curriculum.

While the Earth’s increasing complexity evolves very slowly in time-developmental

sequence, a developing child’s perception grows in complexity at multiple intervals before

reaching adulthood. My nine-year-old daughter stated that there “are no gods” in the universe

story, yet I wonder if she will make this statement after studying Greek mythology, or after

progressing through another stage of child development. Building an archetypal vocabulary in

service to the soul dimension of life and toward integral ecologies speaks to the adult utilizing a

repeating three-fold learning process on the micro-scale of day to day up to a larger dialectic that

corresponds with the child’s stage of development. This type of adult wisdom and care towards

the child increases the likelihood of the child developing to the increasingly complex structure of

consciousness known as integral consciousness. At the level of integral consciousness, the

relationship among all things becomes clear and therefore leads toward the manifestation of

integral ecologies.

Summary

The triphasic Cycle 2 lenses illustrate a journey towards understanding the literature in a

review that justifies the numinous wonder experienced in the initial engagement of The New

Story (2003). The pervading influence of the triphasic pattern allowed the resulting series of

lenses to be included in the Cycle 4 discussion, which I believe highlights the literature review


process in an appropriate manner for this study. By the third and final phase of the literature

review, a theoretical basis for the study had been outlined. The shift from Cycle 2

(Skill/Mastery) lenses to the Cycle 4 lenses was not drastic in concept. Instead, the research

confirmed the ideas as valid, and the Cycle 4 lenses shifted toward recognition and action.

Cycle 5

In Cycle 5 of an intuitive inquiry, “the researcher presents an integration of the Cycle 4

lenses with the empirical and theoretical literature of the topic and discusses the implications”

(Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 28). The inquirer engages in an experiential exercise to ask: What

is left unsaid? Possibilities unimagined? Visionary trajectories based on this study? The reader is

invited to understand the intuitive style of the researcher and how the intuitive processes and

manner of manifestations shaped the “flow of the unconscious journey” (Anderson & Braud,

2011, p. 59). The discussion includes “(a) mistakes made, (b) procedures and plans that did not

work, (c) the researcher’s apprehensions and puzzlements about the study and findings, (d) the

style of intuitive interpretation used, and (e) what remains unresolved or problematic about the

topic or the method” (p. 59). Intuitive inquiry recognizes the transformative potential for the

researcher and others and asks the researcher to unapologetically “speculate about the

possibilities implicit in the data that draw us closer to understanding the deeper and more

restorative and transformative elements of human experience” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 59).

Integration of Cycle 4 Lenses with Literature Review and Findings

The comparison of lenses in Cycle 4 already held an invitation for partial integration of

the Cycle 4 lenses with the empirical and theoretical literature on the topic. I will summarize and

expand as necessary here. Cycle 4 lens (a), the potential of the adult/child relationship for a co-

evolution of the structures of consciousness is directly addressed in the Review section entitled


The Potential of the Adult/Child Relationship. The view maintained in the literature was

confirmed in the research, and this lens fully reflects the literature with the certitude of the

empirical data from Cycle 3. Cycle 4 lens (d), bringing attention and intention to the triphasic

pattern of thinking, feeling, willing reflects a similar pattern. The triad of thinking, feeling,

willing is discussed in Chapter II under the heading Integral Philosophy and Integral

Consciousness. An in-depth analysis was beyond the scope of the literature review itself.

However, my familiarity with thinking, feeling, willing from my studies of Steiner and holistic

curriculum was alive throughout the research cycle, and this lens affirms the triad, encouraging

conscious attention and intention to support the evolution of consciousness structures.

The Literature Review provides the background of archetypal cosmology and archetypal

principles and links these concepts to our place in time and space, mythology, technology, and

soul in education. The Cycle 4 lens (b), the archetypal dimensions of reality, offers a full

embrace of these concepts following the empirical research. The remaining three lenses derive

from and support this one. Lens (e) building an archetypal vocabulary in service to the soul

dimension of life and toward integral ecologies links back to the following sections in Chapter II:

• Look to the Stars: A Path Toward Integral Ecologies

• The Historical Dialectic of Archetypal Principles

• Understanding Archetypal Principles in Childhood

• Care of the Soul in Education

The research generated initial steps towards actualizing this lens. Cycle 4 lens (c), the universe

story as a new cultural mythology exudes the same essence as the above discussion regarding (a)

and (d). The concepts are within the review and then certified in the research cycle.

The universe story as a new cultural mythology is strengthened by interrelation to lens (b), the


archetypal dimensions of reality. Finally, lens (f), the role of technology in transformative

learning is not specific to the review of the literature. Instead, it arose as an extension of the

literature’s technology discussion and has more reach into the review’s consideration of

technology as the possible entelechy of the youngest generations and related by archetypal

dynamics to our period in history.

What is Left Unsaid?

As mentioned by Moore in the International Handbook for Holistic Education (2019),

holistic education happens anywhere and anytime. The incorporation of digital technology into

my children’s learning was not limited to our school-time. Inspired by this study to reconsider

the role of technology in the lives of my children, I shifted my perspective from one of limited

technology use to one of allowing regular engagement with select apps and robotics. Outside of

specific school-time together, I observed my children using their new iPod touch devices with

joy and enthusiasm, interacting together and with friends and family in digital worlds. I could

discern the additional level of knowledge they gained about our study of Ancient Mesopotamia

after they engaged in the Dig-it! Games Excavate! Mesopotamia app. My children continue to

articulate detailed plans and analysis of their time spent in Minecraft worlds and collaborate to

gain knowledge.

During this study, my family interacted with the AI (artificial intelligence) of Alexa and

the Anki robot Vector, and I interacted with AI in Grammarly. As a family, we enjoyed the

visual effects of 4D rides at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Florida and the VR

(virtual reality) ride and games at Denver Museum of Nature and Science. My children and I saw

the IMAX film Amazon Adventure 3D, which tells the true epic story of naturalist Henry Bates in

the 1850s. Because I have had an immersive nature experience in many ecosystems, I felt like I


was in the rainforest and I pondered the potential of 3D films of this quality to invoke an

understanding of ecosystems around the planet that need protection from human destruction or

restoration. During this study, I also experienced the necessity of monitoring and limiting screen

time to balance the child with time in nature and engagement of the body in the physical world.

This study guided a complete shift in my perspective regarding technology use with children,

and I will proceed forward with curiosity and care as I continue to observe and then apply my

own wisdom to each engagement with technology as it arises.

Another aspect of this study that has been left unsaid is my growing awareness of the

depth-psychological perspective and its alignment with my topic. I began reading The Art of

Inquiry: A Depth Psychological Perspective (Coppin & Nelson, 2017) during my Cycle 3

research. The authors describe depth psychology as more than a scholarly discipline. “It is a way

of being in the world” (p. 7) that is in alignment with this study. A depth-psychological

perspective calls for writing from an archetypal/imaginal perspective, the source of which may

be personal or collective, conscious, or unconscious.

Our approach is archetypal, in that we welcome the spontaneous images that arise in our

thinking and writing as animated persons rather than dead objects and, following Jung

and Hillman, actively seek relationship with them. This relationship is expressed in two

distinct postures that anyone engaged in inquiry can adopt: seeking knowledge and being

receptive to knowledge that seeks us. (Coppin & Nelson, 2017, p. 17)

The depth-psychological perspective (a) deepened my understanding of the archetypal principles

defined by archetypal cosmology and the principles’ relationship to Jung’s work; (b) affirmed

my attention to the connection of mind, body, and soul; and (c) focused my attention toward the


unanswered questions of my ancestors, specifically my maternal grandmother, that my own work

can take forward.

Procedures and Plans That Did Not Work

During my review of the literature I came across The New Childhood: Raising Kids to

Thrive in a Connected World by Jordan Shapiro and Raising Humans in a Digital World:

Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology by Diana Graber. I planned to

utilize indications from both sources during Cycle 3 research. Shapiro’s mention of OneNote

inspired me to use it to collaborate notes and writing for Journey of the Universe. OneNote,

internet research, and the Coursera Journey courses were reported in my Chapter IV Findings,

and I have included additional insight into my technology plans as they relate to these sources in

Cycle 4 Concept: Technology. In summary, I had plans to incorporate more indications from

these books that did not manifest during the research cycle.

Mistakes Made

I tend to view mistakes as learning opportunities; therefore, a step backward is required

in my own meaning-making to arrive, once again, at the consideration of the event in question as

a “mistake.” The glaring mistake I made according to the instructions of intuitive inquiry was to

begin my Cycle 3 research only to realize that my literature review was not done. The concept

that required further definition was the Second Axial Age. I had included the term in a quote by

Tarnas (Cosmos and psyche, 2007). My search for a description became all important (rather

than editing it out) and led me to the work of Sean Kelly. Kelly’s work (2010) with the triphasic

pattern became integral to the entire study and allowed me to embrace the concept of the

triphasic pattern that was already pervasive in Cycles 1, 2, and 3 of the inquiry. I feel that this

“mistake” was a pivotal moment that shaped the entire study. The triphasic pattern is included in


the Literature Review, the Methodology, the presentation of the research findings, and the

comparison of lenses in Cycle 4. For me, Kelly’s work (2010, 2016) was the catalyst for a new

perspective of our place in time and space, a place I now view through the lens of archetypal

cosmology.

The Researcher’s Apprehensions and Puzzlements about the Study and Findings

As this research project draws to a close, I hold opposing sensations inside of me. On the

one hand, this study has come to its natural end, and I recognize the wisdom in bringing it to

completion. On the other hand, my research has barely begun, and I envision continuing forward

with a conviction that additional insight is yet to come. I view this intuitive inquiry, specifically

the Findings, as a fractal of the larger fundamental pattern with which I am engaged. I perceive

my next duration as a continuing engagement with my children over the next three years. I plan

to use the Live Education! curriculum as a foundational base from which to explore the concepts

of this study. By giving myself over to the dialectic process of each cycle as well as the three-

fold learning process, I have constructed a review of the literature that will guide my way

forward.

Puzzlement is not a word I would choose to include at this moment of Cycle 5 as I draw

“a still larger hermeneutic circle around the entire study” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 62), yet

Anderson invites this consideration in the outline of what to include in the discussion. What I can

offer is the embodied sensation of working a giant jigsaw puzzle at my dining room table. The

table is not essential to utilize, so there is an open timeframe yet a creative tension to engage

with the puzzle at self-chosen intervals. The archetypal dynamics alive at this moment in time

are like the puzzle sections that begin to catch one’s eye, available to be discerned within the

smaller pieces. The archetypes are there, within the fragmentary shapes, and once perceived, take


on an image more akin to holographic theory (Hathaway & Boff, 2009) than the aforementioned

two-dimensional jigsaw. The archetypes have a living dimension and seem intimately aware of

my attitude. Therefore, a current dynamic between psyche and cosmos is decisively shaping

these final words.

The Style of Intuitive Interpretation Used

Five types of intuition are identified by Anderson and Braud (2011) and listed in Chapter

III Methodology of this thesis. The primary kind of intuition utilized in this study was

unconscious, symbolic, and imaginal processes. This type of intuitive knowing has been

explored in Jungian and archetypal psychology, imaginal psychology, and visionary experiences.

“Individuals who experience such intuitive processes tend to have active symbolic lives, often

accompanied by numinous dreams, active imagination, archetypal experiences, and the like”

(Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 22). While Westerners in industrialized countries tend to describe

imaginal processes as “embedded within the human collective psyche in the play of symbols and

archetypes” (p. 23), indigenous cultures often experience these as “embedded in the sensorium of

the Earth, experienced as patterns, symbols, and visions…in the activities or movements of the

natural environment” (p. 23).

Just as I sense the archetypal experience of the present moment, my initial engagement

with Thomas Berry’s The New Story (2003) essay felt archetypal. Before encountering a literary

description of unconscious, symbolic, and imaginal processes as a type of intuition, I described

my engagement with this activity as “listening to the universe” or “asking the universe.” The

universe appeared to have a message for me within The New Story (2003). The essay was

unassigned yet linked into an article that had been recommended for class discussion. My first

encounter with the piece came in the five days when I was doing nothing besides reading and a


bit of writing while I waited for my children each day in a beautiful mountain setting while they

participated in art camps. I enjoyed the time for slow and thorough reading. Numinosity gripped

me as I read and reread Berry’s essay, unable to grasp the more profound meaning that I

perceived within it. I engaged with Berry’s text in a video assignment several weeks later yet

was still unable to discern the essence, so I quoted parts of the essay. A section that I quoted in

the video is included in Cycle 4 Concept: Our Place in Time and Space.

As described by Jung in the opening epigraph of this thesis, it is not an unusual sensation

for me to feel that an archetype is speaking through me. My encounter with Berry’s The New

Story essay was a synchronicity that allowed a process of individuation to begin, which I have

described in this study as following the archetypal pattern of the hero’s journey. “Synchronicities

seem to serve the unfolding of the Self and its engagement with the conscious ego, so they tend

to manifest when a deeper life meaning, initially unbeknownst to the ego, is trying to break

through into conscious awareness” (Le Grice K. , 2016, p. 133). The concept of synchronicity

began to populate the field of my awareness in the later stages of my study, and I firmly set the

idea aside each time, refusing to welcome it into the broad landscape already before me. Finally,

as I “imagine the possible, as though seeking to find trajectories for new and more refined ways

of being human in the world,” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 59) I welcome the concept of

synchronicity to center stage. To keep this section respectable in length, I refer the reader

unfamiliar with individuation and synchronicity (as explored by Jung) to Archetypal Reflections

by Kieron Le Grice (2016) for summaries of both. Synchronicity is defined by Le Grice (2016)

as “the meaningful coincidence in time of an inner state of consciousness with an event in the

outer world” (p. 127).


To a lesser degree, the other types of intuition were present during the study, and each is

worth mentioning. Braud and Anderson (2011) describe psychic or parapsychological

experiences as encouraged by heartfelt connections to a topic or participants. “The fact that we

are able to access information at a distance, through space and through time, suggests that in

some subtle and profound manner, we are interconnected with…those remote places, times, and

their content” (Braud as cited by Anderson & Braud, 2011, pp. 23-24). I considered the three-

fold learning process as a thesis topic about a year before I began the study, and then experienced

Anderson’s “auspicious bewilderment” (pp. 62-64) when the process revealed itself as

permeating Cycles 1, 2, and 3. I also thought I would conduct a case study that included my

children, then I put that idea entirely aside for months until it once again made sense when I

became aware of intuitive inquiry as a methodology.

Sensory modes of intuition are described as beyond the five senses and include

kinesthetic (movement in space), proprioceptive (orientation in space), and the “visceral sense

arising from sense receptors in the organs and tissues of the body [that] may serve as intuitive

receptors, conveying subtle forms of information usually unavailable to the thinking mind”

(Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 24). As previously mentioned in this thesis, during the fall

(proposal stage), I experienced the visceral sense of swimming underwater. My body had the

felt sense of swimming underwater whenever the picture was with me. I became familiar with

the kinesthetic and proprioceptive senses and the sense of embodiment through my work and

training in Enki Education. For me, these senses are a living part of educating holistically.

Kinesthetic and proprioceptive awareness are always present in our opening activities via

movement; therefore, these senses were utilized frequently during my Cycle 3 research.


Empathetic identification as an intuitive mode of knowing is woven into my experience

of both Waldorf and Enki Education. Each story is an opportunity to “inhabit the lived world of

another person or object of study” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, p. 24) and this “living into”

experience is magnified by incorporating movement and the three-fold learning process.

Empathetic identification was a part of this study throughout because “living into” the stories we

engage with has become second nature to each of the study participants. Descriptions in the

Chapter IV Findings illustrate empathetic identification when viewing the Journey of the

Universe film, the near-death-experience of the lamb, and my contemplation of death-rebirth as I

reflected on Chapter 6 of Journey.

The study of Ancient Mesopotamia during the sleep/digestion stage of Journey of the

Universe led to the type of intuitive knowing that Anderson and Braud name through our

wounds. “From a spiritual perspective, these wounds are also openings to the world, enabling

personal and research explorations along the fault lines of the personality to invite change that

transforms these wounds to sources of inspiration for others” (Anderson & Braud, 2011, pp. 25-

26). For some researchers, their topic centers around their wounds. My experience of the through

our wounds intuition appeared in the Skill/Mastery stage when we re-engaged with Journey of

the Universe. What I have now identified as a reencounter with the shadow archetype ultimately

allowed the potential for transformative learning in the adult to become obvious to me and has

been articulated in a Cycle 4 lens.

What Remains Unresolved or Problematic About the Topic or the Method?

A common language does not yet exist for an open discussion of archetypes across the

fields. This difficulty is mirrored as Robert Greenway searches for a language to describe the

human-nature relationship in The Wilderness Effect and Ecopsychology:


It became crucial to communicate what happened to people in the wilderness. Thus, the

wilderness experience gave rise to a search for a language that could reveal the dynamics

of the human-nature relationship; the growing public concern over environmental

degradation became the motivation. (This reveals my central bias: both ecology and

psychologies are, at base, languages, and thus the search for an “ecopsychology” is a

search for a language as well.) (Roszak, Gomes, & Kanner, Ecopsychology: Restoring

the earth healing the mind, 1995, p. 123)

Is archetypal cosmology also a search for a language? In the new-science paradigm, accepted

concepts are abstract. As transdisciplinary research and dialogue become more prevalent in

academic scholarship, common terminology will aid understanding across the fields. While it is

possible for holistic educators to learn about archetypes on the Homeric, Platonic, and Jungian

levels in all of their complexities and nuances, a primary language will at least aid an initial

understanding. Perhaps a starting place for developing a transdisciplinary dialogue is with the

archetypal symbols offered as a focus by Thomas Berry in The Great Work (1999) as applicable

to our times: the Great Mother, the Great (hero) Journey, Death-Rebirth, the Cosmic Tree, and

the Sacred Center.

Summary

Summary Implications and Visionary Trajectory

As holistic educators, we value the education of the whole person, mind, body, and soul.

The health of the earth is also a common concern. Some of our curriculums are based on ancient

civilizations and their mythologies. Others situate our place in time and space through science.

The new technologies may be a part of our learning environment, or we may keep our focus on

nature. This thesis offers an interweaving of mythologies from ancient civilizations, the universe


story as a new mythology for our time, and technology as a form of community connection as a

way to strengthen the soul dimension of holistic education and lead towards the integral

ecologies that can actualize humanity as mutually enhancing to the earth community. I presented

Miller’s (2008) definition of soul in the Introduction: “a vital and mysterious energy that gives

meaning and purpose to one’s life” (p. 178). Moore’s description is in the Literature Review:

“Soul is that element in us that is our mysterious depth and makes us an individual while feeling

connected to others and to the human community” (Miller et al., 2019, p. 54). I believe that it is

the soul that wonders at the depth of creation throughout the cosmos, generation after generation.

Soul, both individual and collective, in both embodied and disembodied forms, connects

humanity across time and space and manifests the soul dimension of every human endeavor. The

visionary trajectory that I offer is to open to the concept of “the stars lead us to wonder” and

embrace archetypal cosmology as a legitimate lens through which to view the practices of

holistic education.

Implications for Practice

This study demonstrates that mythology and technology within holistic education have

the potential to encourage development in structures of consciousness across the lifespan.

Introducing the universe story alongside ancient mythologies during middle childhood allows an

understanding of archetypal principles on the Homeric level to be established. Montessori

education and my research demonstrate that there is no need to wait until adolescence to

introduce the universe story. The lens of archetypal cosmology invites the consideration of

technology as an essential form of community connection in our time.

Limitations of my Research


My case study consisted of three participants: a nine-year-old girl, an eleven-year-old

boy, and a 41-year old woman. This is a small sample size. I’ve also determined that the duration

of my research was shorter than I’d recommend for future studies.

Future Research

Additional studies are necessary to determine the potential for transformative learning

within the proposed structure. Studies of a longer duration will also yield results of greater depth

since the thesis suggests building an archetypal vocabulary over time. While Journey of the

Universe (2011) was well-received by my eleven-and-a-half-year-old son, my nine-year-old

daughter was not so well met. Curriculum specific to various developmental moments within the

middle-age of childhood would greatly benefit the implementation of the universe story in poetic

form alongside ancient mythologies. Future research could include proposed models of

application that relate developmental age to specific concepts within ancient mythologies, the

universe story, and emerging technologies. Studies could also examine technology as an

expressive aspect of the learning experience.

The literature offers an expansion of this study’s concepts. As mentioned in the

introductory paragraph of the Literature Review, the transdisciplinary nature of the study made

an exhaustive review impossible for a single thesis chapter, and the exercises of Cycle 2 guided

the coverage approach of the intuitive inquiry. During my Cycle 3 research, I utilized Tobin

Hart’s gateways to knowing or inquiry, as included in the International Handbook of Holistic

Education (Miller et al., 2019). As this thesis nears completion, I’ve realized that Hart’s

additional published works cover topics directly related to the framework of this thesis, including

children’s spiritual nature, technology and education in our time, and education for the evolution

of consciousness. The cycles of an intuitive inquiry shape the study and the resulting Cycle 2 and


Cycle 4 lenses; therefore, I include Hart’s publications as one example for further consideration

within the literature. A second example is the work of Clifford Mayes, who has written

numerous works on what he has termed archetypal pedagogy. Mayes’s research also came into

my awareness only recently.

Recommendations

This study demonstrated potential benefits for holistic educators and children in their

care. For educators who already have an established base of ancient mythologies, determining an

appropriate age for which to incorporate a study of the universe story is well within reach. All

teachers can consider how the research and literature review, or even the lens of archetypal

cosmology, might be of benefit to their teaching.

Le Grice (2016) calls for a depth-psychology for psychospiritual transformations and the

psychological experience of archetypal patterns. A repeating triphasic pattern of learning could

aid a child or an adult in building knowledge of the historical dialectic (Homeric, Platonic,

Jungian). This archetypal base of knowledge would benefit the depth-psychology to which Le

Grice refers and could aid therapists as well as educators.

Final Reflections

This intuitive inquiry has created a guide with which I will move forward with my

children in our home-learning endeavors. The evolution of human consciousness has been a

central theme in my graduate studies and will remain central to my life’s work in whatever form

that takes. I am inspired by the vision of archetypal cosmology to further our understanding of

the relationship between psyche and cosmos. My own transformative learning during this study

was a possibility unimagined, and I am especially thankful to my children for their participation

in my research, and who enable my continual path of unfoldment.


Appendix A

Key Points of a Spiritual Research Paradigm

As explored in the book Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm: Exploring New Ways of

Knowing, Researching, and Being (Lin, Oxford, & Culham, 2016)

• ontogeny – all reality is multidimensional, interconnected, and interdependent

• epistemology – integrates knowing from both outer sources and inner contemplation,

acknowledges integration of body, mind, soul, and spirit

Three additional useful aspects include:

• axiology- what is valued, good, and ethical

• methodology – an appropriate approach to systemic inquiry

• teleology – “an explanation of the goal or end (telos) to which new knowledge is applied”

(p. x)

Thoughts toward developing a spiritual research paradigm (SRP):

• SRP is relevant for examination of inner experience and promotion of meaning, purpose,

inner experience of nature and other beings, compassion, tranquility of mind and heart.

• To explore deep experiences related to sacred, divine, intuitive knowing, profound

revelations, interconnection. Interrelation of quantitative, qualitative, and SRP (example:

“new findings in neuroscience have provided intriguing insights regarding the role of

numinous experiences in our lives” (p. xi)).

• New and creative ways to research spiritual knowing, which is personal and internally

focused.

• A focus on the elevation of our energy that results from contemplative practice:

expansion and elevation of outlook and an integration of body, mind, soul, and spirit.


Appendix B

Natural Learning Relationships in Relation to Jean Gebser’s Structures of Consciousness Throughout Childhood

Integral Mental Mythic Magic Archaic Aperspectival Perspectival Uniperspectival Preperspectival Nonperspectival

Toward the end

of Reasonable Being

and beyond Transcendent opportunity in

parenting.

IdealBeing

13 - 17 and

ReasonableBeing 18 - 23

“I am my perspective”

FeelingBeing 8 - 12

“I and others are in relationships;

I feel.”

BodyBeing Infancy - 7

“The world is an extension of me; I belong, and I have a place.”

Newborn baby (no differentiation)

there is only I-experience

Organizes

interconnected relationships and

systems.

Self-transforming the self toward an

integral perspective on

life.

Autopoetic self

Organizes Individual agency. I am an individual.

I can think abstractly.

Freedom in a self-authoring and self-

governing self

Organizes values with

broader ideas and themes, such as

“trust.” “I have the

complexity to internalize and

identify with the values of my

social environment

(tribe) and the cycles of nature.”

Learns best from myth and story.

Organizes the belonging of

the self in the world as

I and other are interconnected.

Label objects with words and come to

understand the immediate world.

“I and others are a

continuum.”

Organizes no subject-object

distinction between self and

others. Parent & self are

one

Embeddedness “I enter into meaning and

purpose”

Integration of all previous stages of development into a unified “I,” who lives in optimal

well-being

Embeddedness

“I name myself—I am an individual.”

The child is embedded in learning to

self-govern and navigate social peer

relationships

Embeddedness “I engage

relationship”

The child is embedded in

feeling relationships

with others and with a community.

Embeddedness “I am the center of

the world—the world is an

extension of my body.”

The child is embedded in the

moment and in his or her world.

Embeddedness no separate I.

“The world and I are one.”

Meaning-making

is time-free integrity in the

moment between subject and

object, as one unity with the

intelligent energy of the whole

Meaning-making I in relation to other. IB has the ideal of someone who can

make a great contribution to

others. “I become self-

authored with an internal authority.”

Meaning-making new

subject- object relationship

between I and other. This relationship

opens potential for love, trust, and

spiritual devotion.

Meaning-making is subject-object

relationship between

I and object. “I can give objects meaning.”

Meaning-making existence

and survival

(Luvmour, J., 2017, Appendix J, p. 289)


Appendix C

Natural Learning Relationships (NLR)

Table 5-2 Developmental Table with Nourishments

Characteristics of Each Stage

BodyBeing FeelingBeing IdealBeing ReasonableBeing

Primary Nourishment

Loving touch Feeling mentors

Sensitive respect

Mature recognition, recognition of: commitment, equality, achieve- ment, recognition

Secondary Nourishment

Security, warmth, tex- tured sensory environments, flexibility

Fairness, justice, caring, concern, honesty, adventure, adaptability

Challenges, adventure, peer sensitivity, personal space, opportunity to explore ideals

Comparison, exploration, experimentation, discernment, reca- pitulation

Primary Organizing Principle

Rightful place

Trust Autonomy, self-governance

Interconnected- ness, humor, humility

Secondary Organizing Principle(s)

Boundaries, strength

Reciprocal cooperation

Identity con- struction, personal power, freedom

Systems creation, intentionality, incisiveness

(Luvmour B. , 2006, p. 79)


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