energies · VIII / XX · Sphere B · Body & Field · All 20
The eight vMemes are not a diagram.
You walk them: sometimes forward, sometimes backward, often in several domains of life at once. And you return, but never to the same spot: one coil higher. Not a staircase. A spiral.
Do you know the phenomenon of working professionally at the Yellow stage, then falling back to Red in a family quarrel? That is normal. Stages are not identity. They are an access repertoire through which you move.
I · Structure · Measurable
Cook-Greuter (2013, 2024 update) shows via the Sentence Completion Test: adults of the same vMeme stage can act 1-2 stages below or above depending on the situation: stages are not fixed boxes, they are preferred resting points.
II · Flow · Tradition
Sufi teaching: Maqāmāt (stations) on the path the seeker passes through. Hindu teaching: Āśramas (life stages). Christian mysticism (Teresa of Ávila): the Seven Mansions of the inner castle.
III · Breadth · Synthesis
Spiral instead of staircase: growth is not linear. You return to earlier stages, but on a higher coil. In Wilber's phrase: transcend and include.
the great spiral · eight vMemes
- 1 · Yellow at work, Red in a family quarrel. The editorial desk confirms: reproducible.