We post this manifesto in what feels like a moment of calm before the storm. It is March 2012, just a few weeks into a year rich with social, political, and spiritual significance. In the US, of course, it's an election year, with all the media-induced madness this will spawn. According to the Chinese calendar, it's the Year of the Dragon, a symbol of dynamism and power. In the ancient Mayan calendar... well, we know about that.

The sense of calm is perhaps due to it being winter in the Northern hemisphere. But more so, it seems to be the quiescence or exhaustion following a complicated year. From revolutions in the Middle East to the Occupy protests in the US and globally, there is an upheaval brewing... and spilling over.

We are four years into the global economic crisis, yet the fundamental issues relating to sustainability, debt, inequality, and so on have not been truly addressed, let alone resolved.

Our political systems are in stalemate. Environmental signals are growing more distressing. Not only melting ice caps, but also the nuclear disaster in Japan highlight the size of the hole we are digging for ourselves. It would be fair to say that people are stressing out.

No doubt, there are plenty of encouraging things happening too. New technologies, new awakenings, new forms of creativity and cooperation, and all that jazz. That's what makes it such an incredible time to be alive.

Of course, we can look back 10, 500, or 2000 years and find similar stories of humanity on the edge of crisis and transcendence. Yet there's an exponential intensity to the way in which our situation has been complexifying and accelerating (in other words, evolving) in recent decades, and there's little doubt we're on a steeper slope now.

This might be why it seems like a moment in which consciousness is bracing or conserving its energy for the unknown that's to come—that strange X that's conjuring a higher order out of the chaos.

It's a moment that intuitively feels... pregnant.

We find this pretty amazing.

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Yet so long as we remain fixated on our daily news feed, we miss the full depth and richness of the moment. Likewise, the big picture of the evolution of consciousness can feel removed from our everyday lives, if our mode of relating to it is only intellectual.

We wake up each day, do our work, connect with each other, and find meaning in so many different ways. Yet there is a sweet spot where our being-in-the-world combines with what we might call the zeitgeist or "spirit of the age." Our existence becomes activated, like a yeast in the dough of the world. And the question of what's "really going on"—or how we're responding to and incarnating that transcendent and immanent X, drawing us into the future—matters in a whole new way.

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As Integralists—or people dedicated to the healthy evolution of consciousness, culture, and the systems that make up our world—we all feel called to awaken to, understand, engage, enjoy, and serve this miraculous moment. Yet there is a perception that as a community, tribe, or "we-space," we integral enthusiasts lack a depth of engagement in the world, or what might be called a social commitment. It is said we're more interested in the "map" than the "territory." We are accused (or we accuse ourselves) of "meta-doing" and "integral inaction."

Needless to say, such perceptions are only partially true, and we could easily point to many integral projects and practitioners who defy these assertions. Yet they are not baseless, and it's worth becoming curious about why this is the case.

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The crux of the problem seems to be as follows:

On the one hand, we don't feel comfortable identifying with or investing our energy into the kinds of activism often associated with progressives, environmentalists, and other left-leaning groups (much less right-wing groups like the Tea Party). We find them too ideological, too rigid, and not dynamic, innovative or creative enough. Culturally, they appear too polarized, often unwilling or unable to respect opposing points of view. Though many of us sympathize with the progressive agenda, we simply don't feel that the cause reflects our spirit and understanding of things. Thus we label these movements as "green," "first tier," or "postmodern" in a pejorative sense.

On the other hand, integral consciousness hasn't yet generated a coherent cultural movement that could become its own force for socio-political change. In fact, its early expressions almost seem to deemphasize the importance or urgency of social activism. Instead, it has tended to prioritize the evolution of the self. Moreover, integral culture (especially in its more awkward attempts at marketing) often blurs across a line of credibility, and risks becoming a sub-section of the new-age, new-thought movement.

Our expression of social commitment would seem to boil down to the phrase, "Be the change you want to see in the world." That's a beautiful and profoundly true slogan, of course, yet the focus remains on the individual, which is only half the equation. When we invoke "being the change," it often feels driven by a need to ease the tension that arises with idea of social struggle. This is ironic, of course, since Gandhi was such a monumental rabble rouser. Thus, despite the partial truth of the phrase, its new-age usage has the effect, not only of sidestepping critiques of power and injustice, but, on an existential level, of taking us out of the fight.

Before we go any further, let's be clear. There is nothing in integral theory that precludes a more activist expression of integralism. Quite to the contrary, the model blatantly calls for it! Specifically, it describes a path of individual, social, and cultural evolution toward greater wholeness, depth, consciousness, complexity, intelligence, and of course, good ol' goodness, truth, and beauty. There is a deep critique of existing institutions implicit in our holistic/evolutionary view of things.

That's why this manifesto calls for a reappropriation of Ken Wilber's AQAL matrix. To those who would dismiss it—or its chief architect and the integral scene he helped spawn—as overly theoretical and out of touch with real-world concerns, we say, occupy it! More than anyone, Ken Wilber has given us a conceptual framework for having the conversation about a "post-postmodern" approach to social transformation in the first place. And not only did Ken gives us the map, but he also connected thousands of us in a community of discourse that speaks a common, multidimensional, radical evolutionary language—one that's fundamentally adaptive and vital. That's why he remains an indispensable cultural figure; why we must find our way to a mature, yet not uncritical, appreciation of his work; and why it's still invaluable to learn AQAL. (We can even forgive the occasional integral geeking out that sometimes giddily arises among hardcore students of Ken's work.)

That said, it's no longer an option for people who identify as "integral" to dissociate, at a practical level, from the concerns that grip so many of our brothers and sisters on this planet....

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