Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: Jazz as Integral Template for Music, Education, and Society

Chapter 1: The AQAL Framework

Chapter 1 The AQAL Framework This chapter introduces the AQAL framework and closely related first-, second-, and third-person perspectives or realities as primary tools that map the interior and exterior dimensions of the human being and cosmic wholeness. The purpose of human development is to realize oneness with this totality, which is synonymous with growth of creativity and consciousness, or spiritual evolution. By gaining a sense of not only the overarching scope of this wholeness but also its highly differentiated nature delineated through the AQAL lens, we begin to grasp the inclusive and transformational power of the integral vision. We also gain an appreciation of the importance of process diversity in navigating this scope, to be taken up in the next two chapters, and the complex evolutionary dynamics inherent therein in the final chapter of this opening section. Integral Structural Maps The integral structural realm construed most broadly spans the interior (subjective experience) and exterior (objective, physical) dimensions of human nature and the cosmic totality—from galaxies, mountain ranges, and ecosystems to belief systems and structures in consciousness. It is important to emphasize the unified nature of this wholeness and the foundational role consciousness plays in it. “Kosmos”—spelled by ­ Wilber to reflect Pythagoras’ conception of the universe—is neither reducible nor epiphenomenal, as materialists would have it, to exterior, physical reality, nor is it adequately understood, as dualists hold, as consisting of ontologically separate subjective/interior and objective/exterior domains.2 Rather, these are inextricably linked within a nondual wholeness, the capacity for oneness with—as posited by the world’s wisdom traditions— is the driving force for human spiritual development. Spirituality, then, is not limited to interior experience and growth but involves interior and exterior integration, the very inner-outer synthesis that defines the creativity-­ consciousness relationship as previously noted. Unfortunately, 25 26 Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness the ­ nonduality premise has not always assumed the centrality in integral discourse that it warrants, and in hopes of addressing this, I propose general and strong nonduality premises to bring a more nuanced approach to this realm. The first acknowledges the inextricable link between individual consciousness and cosmic wholeness; the second takes a further step and posits that individual creativity and cosmic creativity are rooted in the same underlying mechanics, an admittedly provocative proposition that I believe not only exhibits strong coherence on localized scales but poses extraordinary ramifications for creativity-consciousness understanding and development.3 The inner-outer integral scope enables entirely new approaches to emerge in specific disciplines as well as education at large. Underscoring this point in the field of ecology, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens and Michael Zimmerman note that whereas conventional “ecology and ecological discourse,” in their emphasis on the physical environment, “have mostly excluded an explicit recognition of interiors and their development . . . Integral Ecology studies interiors in addition to exteriors (and) how those interiors develop within organisms in general and humans in particular.”4 The fact that the integral approach does not exclude exteriors but integrates them within a broader inner-outer scope—thus exemplifying the integral principle of “transcend and include”—cannot be overemphasized , for this will be key to the broader educational transformation that is needed.5 As Esbjörn-Hargens, Gunnlaugson, and others point out, the integral approach, unlike other alternative educational visions, does not jettison conventional approaches but situates the best of these within an expanded and inclusive vision.6 And as briefly noted in the introduction , what I propose as Integral Jazz Studies similarly differs from Conventional and New Jazz Studies by including their terrain within a broader interior-exterior scope. The AQAL Framework The integral structural range is commonly mapped through a model Wilber calls AQAL, which is short for all quadrants, lines, levels, states, and types. Quadrants pertains to his Four Quadrant map of the cosmic wholeness . As Wilber emphasizes, this is useful as long as one keeps in mind the age-old adage that “the map is not the territory,” but rather a representation of the territory. As illustrated in Figure 1.1, Upper Right pertains to exterior, objective reality, Lower Right to interobjectivity, Lower Left to intersubjectivity, and Upper Left to interior, subjective realms. Inasmuch as Figure 1.1 Four Quadrants (after Wilber). 28 Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness the Quadrants are interpenetrating—within each one can locate all four— they are best understood in relationship with one another. The individual physiology, for example, is...