About Vincent:

Integral Arising follows the work of Vincent Brown, a Doctorate student at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in San Francisco, California. He is inquiring into the lived life experiences of a group of men who participated in an experiential group practice/theory called the Work That Reconnects (WTR). Vincent is asking what meaning has been made from these experiences and what are the lived benefits? While studying the benefits for men who experience the Work That Reconnects, created by Joanna Macy (Buddhist Scholar, Systems Scholar, ecophilosopher), Vincent is interested in the emergence of a holistic, wholistic, integrated human relationship with self, each other, wild nature, and the Earth.

Vincent promotes and discusses a model of experiential group practices, using dialogue, imagination, movement, poetry (arts), and ceremony to inquire into our inner-landscape and share what we find with others. The Work That Reconnects is his exemplar of this kind of group work and is the focus of his PhD research.

 a healthy, aware masculinity, and the emergence of an integral stage of human consciousness. Integral, or Aperspective Consciousness is a consciousness of the whole, an integral consciousness encompassing all time and embracing both man’s distant past and his approaching future as a living present” (Gebser, 1985, p. 6). To embrace a integral way of being, people, especially men, will need ways and means to traverse their inner-landscape, discover their values and core beliefs, and to share what they find in community. The mechanisms and benefits of doing it is the focus of Vincent’s current research.

In addition to Vincent drawing from the work of Joanna Macy and associates, one will find the thoughts of thinkers such as Jean Gebser, German philosopher and phenomenologist; Ken Wilber, developmental psychologist; David Bohm, physicist; Jiddu Krishnamurti, spiritual teacher; Mathew Fox, spiritual leader and social activist, and; Michael Meade, mythologist and storyteller, to name but a few.