Hi, I’m Joe Perez. An author, philosopher, & Integral Minister in Seattle.
My Message
You know the score if you’ve been paying attention: the world is facing multiple simultaneous catastrophes and nobody has all the answers. Those that say they do usually offer obsolete paradigms or rigid ideas that are woefully inadequate for so many wicked problems: the cruelties of late-stage capitalism, environmental wreckage, social isolation, and a decay in values such as honesty, fairness, and altruism.
Many of us can imagine a better world filled with smarter, more ethical individuals and more enlightened communities that love one another, forgive one another, and live in harmony with the Earth and the Transcendent Spirit. So why don’t more of us do what we can to create that better world and a brighter future?
For a long time, I have been thinking about these things as a failure of imagination and a crisis of consciousness. But I refuse to remain powerless in the face of our nightmarish landscape. Fortunately, some years ago I discovered the existence of a movement of people called Integralists or Metamodernists or Evolutionaries who are meeting these challenges head-on, and they welcomed me in.
We are calming down by embracing the Ground of Being and rising up to meet the Spirit of Conscious Evolution. It’s as if there’s a mysterious Daoist principle at work that is uniting the yang of our spiritual aspirations with the yin of the world’s urgent cries. I have been actively working to address these concerns and have chosen ordination as an Integral Minister so that — with the help of the Spirit — I can do my best work going forward for everyone and everything that needs it.
Read my “Welcome!” blog post.
Joe’s life is being artfully lived in the very fact of its truthfulness, its deep embrace, shadows and warts and worms and all, woven unhesitatingly into the tapestry of a lustrous display, a deep peace, an abiding love… and therein, surely, a lesson for us all.
– Ken Wilber in the Foreword to Soulfully Gay
Background
After completing my Bachelor’s with Honors in The Comparative Study of Religion with Philosophy as Allied Field at Harvard University, I attended The Divinity School at The University of Chicago, and then completed my Master of Divinity (M.Div.) in 2018 through the Esoteric Interfaith Theological Seminary. I have focused my recent studies in Integral Theory.
Experience
As Principal of Writing Wolf for approximately a decade, I provided career coaching and resume development services for several hundred clients, often helping them to know their unique strengths more clearly while overcoming obstacles to achieving their life goals, sometimes resolving conflicts between their passions and their necessities.
Leadership
After developing my skills in entrepreneurship and with a Certificate in Integral Leadership from Pacific Integral/L.I.O.S., I sought to pioneer a shift in human meaning-making by inventing a metalanguage called Lingua-U, a sort of Kabbalah of the International Phonetic Alphabet, and by combining it with Integral Theory through Worldview Artistry.
Topics
My story of transforming my own life into a “progress and successes” story by overcoming difficult obstacles is the inspiration behind my passion for helping others do the same within the Integral Tradition. I enjoy writing books, actively participating in social media, building community, and working with individual clients from diverse backgrounds.