Spiral Dynamics is a gift from the ancestors through which the clouds of the future become a little clearer behind us. The ancestors have given us this knowledge that we might best know how to live.

The ancestors bring love to our hearts that we may share with one another the spirits of desire as they sing though us whilst the hollow tree beats out its heartbeat upon our hands.

The ancestors show us that when the goddess of the loins wishes to bring more among us than the deities of the forest are willing to share with us, then the spirit of the monkey may come amongst us and we will fight with our blood and entrails and feast upon those who walk the path of spirit.

When the snake speaks through a young man who is possessed to walk alone, then he is no longer of our family and he dies even though his ghost still walks and breathes in the forest.

The man snakes attack us, they do not fight in the way the ancestors proscribe. They kill all, and only to eat the fish that the spirits had deigned to us, then move on, leaving the spirits unrecognised.

I am alone now. The man snakes confuse me. But I feel I am becoming one of them.

I am going to start with a B-O explanation. Which I have never had to do, as B-O as a dominant system simply does not really exist in the modern world. It is going to be a challenge and I will have to use a little creative licence.

Don’t worry if you don’t know what ‘value systems’ or the different letter pairs mean yet, that will come clear in time. It might be interesting for you to note down your response to each description, e.g. a) how much do you like/dislike the sound of it. b) did you have trouble wrapping your head around it. c) after reading it, how well could you explain it to someone else. I’ll be very surprised if you relate strongly to B-O, and I won’t be surprised if you wonder what I’m on about, stick with it and come back to this system later if it makes no sense to you now.

Important note: All of these different descriptions are biased and stereotyped towards one particular expression of the value system being expressed. They are not necessarily representative, I have to some extent purposefully veered away from the more common stereotypes – but all the expressions are still stereotypes. This will become clearer in the later value systems. These systems do not really exist, they are simply artefacts of the theory and the manner in which our minds latch onto information to make sense of it. There are many contradictions from one description to another. This is on purpose to highlight some of the contradictions within the theory; take all factoids with a pinch of salt and try to let the overall picture of the theory settle in.

(edited 22/05/08 – added important note)