Greetings from Santa Barbara -- and again, thanks to those of you who participated in the Dawn of Interspirituality conference.

We are continuing to unfold an exploratory approach to an "Interspiritual Alliance" intended to identify and strengthen the common ground inherent in the religions and spiritual traditions of this world, and we thought some of you might want to participate.

THE MYSTIC HEART

As you know, Bro. Wayne Teasdale, generally credited with coining the term "interspirituality", subtitled his Mystic Heart book "Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions".

For some of us, this process of discovery is a critical agenda. In an evolving world threatened by confusion and misunderstanding, it seems essential to identify our common foundations in simple clear ways.

Of course, we need continuing conversation on this subject. And this conversation is happening all over the world. But many of us believe that we also need clear insight into this common ground -- perhaps in the form of an "agreement" -- perhaps similar to the Snowmass Agreements that were featured at the Dawn of Interspirituality conference.

If you have a passion for this vision -- if you have something to say, an idea, something to contribute, a perspective on this critical issue that you believe can help the world -- maybe you should consider participating in our co-creative/collaborative work on the Interspirit Alliance.

PUT THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE TOGETHER

Yes, it's true that face-to-face encounters are in many ways far superior to what can be accomplished in writing over the internet. Personal contact can be essential. But on the other hand -- personal contact on a global issue can be expensive, and sometimes too brief. Interspirituality can be a complex subject, with a lot of "moving parts". There are real advantages in complementing our in-person work together with in-depth approaches based in writing.

We do want holistic solutions. We want integral solutions. We want collaborative solutions. We want to be absolutely inclusive. We want to hear every voice, in a balanced way. We want "space enough and time" to contain the full depth and range of this work. The internet and our emerging new Alliance can support us in this objective.

A PASSION FOR SPIRIT

The Interspirit Alliance is divided up into independent groups, some of which are private (including the Dawn of Interspirituality group), and others which are open to anyone or by invitation or application, such as this Alliance Plenary group. To pull our broad conversation together, we've created an internet format we call a "Comment Stream", which combines 5 different message sources into one stream. It's new, but it's proving to be very convenient.

If you have a little time to explore something new, and a passion to advance the broad interspiritual agenda, take a look at our growing conversational framework. We've got almost 500 messages posted into our system since we started coming together, and we're exploring highly innovative new integral approaches to some of the most critical issues facing the human community. We'd love to have your perspective. It might just be essential...