David's Desk 178 The Light Bank

For many reasons, including jobs lost due to the COVID pandemic, there are many people in our area who are experiencing food insecurity. To meet this challenge, neighborhood food banks gather and distribute food to those in need. These food banks are invaluable not only as a place from which to receive help but also as a central place, a hub to receive donations of food and money. If I contribute to my local food bank, that’s a way for me to reach and help those families who have needs but who are unknown to me personally. Our local food bank does know these specifics and can distribute aid accordingly.

This past week, along with millions of others around the world, I’ve been filled with sorrow for the events transpiring in the Ukraine. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainians and for the average Russian, who has no more desire to invade another country and wage war than I do to invade Canada. One man’s megalomania is adding millions of victims to the ranks of an already too-large number of those suffering from the many ways humans can persecute each other.

As most of you know, my experience embraces the reality of a subtle, non-physical dimension of spirit and energy in which we are all profoundly interconnected, even, to borrow a word from quantum physics, “entangled.” What affects one can affect all, and vice versa. I don’t write about this dimension much here in David’s Desk; I leave that to my classes and workshops. But today, I feel I want to offer an insight from that side of my life and work.

Consciously or unconsciously, we all participate in the subtle dimension of the world. When we are aware of this as a reality in our lives, we discover we have the ability, through thought, feeling, imagination, and embodiment, to create a field of energy around ourselves that can hold a spiritual quality such as love, peace, courage, compassion, and the like. Such a field of energy, when shared with another, can be a source of vitality and blessing, transferring that quality from our life to theirs. As part of their life and subtle energy field, that shared quality can make a difference. 

What we create through our love and caring can be shared through our love and caring. Most importantly, where the subtle dimension is concerned, distance is not a factor. Resonance is. If I can feel connected with someone in my mind and heart, then it doesn’t matter where that person is in the world. As far as transferring that energy field of quality from my life to theirs is concerned, they might as well be standing next to me.

Sharing a helpful, vital, spiritual, emotional, or mental quality with another who is in difficulty or who is suffering somewhere in the world, in order to enhance their ability to deal with and change that difficulty, is called subtle activism. It can envelop a person who is in despair with hope, with courage, with clarity, and with attunement to their own sacred core. Such subtle activism can be directed towards individuals or towards environments or towards collective fields of thought and feeling. 

The more specific one can be when doing subtle activism, the easier it is to establish resonance between yourself and another (even when that “other” may be a collective field of energy shared by many). Simply put, a general rule of thumb is that you can share best with whom or what you know best. For example, if I know a family who is suffering from food insecurity, then I can bring them food directly, and more importantly, I know exactly the kind and amount of food that they need. I can tailor my response to their specific situation.

But when it comes to subtle activism, more often than not, I don’t have that kind of specific connection or information. Here is where the example of the food bank is a useful metaphor. There are “Light Banks” in the subtle dimensions held and managed by various spiritual beings whose purpose is to do exactly what a food bank does: to receive “donations” of Light, of prayers, of goodwill and blessings from individuals who wish to help but don’t know specifically where their good energies should be directed.Such Light Banks do know and can “distribute” or share these blessings specifically with other individuals and situations that are reaching out for spiritual help, for guidance, and for blessing. In my own subtle activism work, therefore, I connect with an appropriate Light Bank and know that by adding my intention and blessing to it, help will be given where it is needed, even when I don’t know who or what that recipient may be.

To help you visualize this process, here is a sample example of how I might go about this. If you wish, you can adapt this example to your own unique style and way of engaging with subtle and spiritual dimensions.

A SUBTLE ACTIVISM EXAMPLE USING A “LIGHT BANK:”

I begin by imagining what quality of subtle, vital energy I’d like to share with people in the Ukraine and thus which I’d like to “donate” to the Light Bank. Let’s say, I’d like to share the qualities of courage, steadfastness, hope, and resilience with the citizens of Kiev as they live through the siege of their city and seek to protect their homeland. The first thing I do is imagine as fully as I can what I feel like when I embody these qualities. I don’t want this to be just a mental or imaginative image but something I really feel in my body. This aspect of embodiment is important. We generate subtle energies and qualities as a full person, not just as an act of thought or feeling, a mind or a heart. Our body is definitely a participant in the process.

Therefore, I want to discern in myself the felt sense of the quality or blend of qualities I want to share. I want to know myself as an embodiment of these qualities.

Once I have this felt sense and I can feel the quality or qualities I wish to share as mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical realities in and around me, then I put my imagination to work. I know what a Light Bank feels like in the subtle dimension, but I don’t know what it looks like in any physical sense. But I don’t have to. Subtle allies can read my intention. What I need is a pictorial or imaginal language that demonstrates my intention and enables me to connect with the proper subtle ally.

So, I picture a building (and it could be anything: a person, a place in nature, an abstract geometric form, etc.) over which hangs a sign: “Kiev Light Bank: Donations Welcome!” I’m using the physical model of a local food bank to give shape to my subtle intention. This image of the Kiev Light Bank is a symbol of where I want my blessing to go, and those in the subtle realms who are in charge of such a Light Bank can easily read this symbol and discern this intent.

In my imagination, I go up to this building, holding steady in myself the felt sense of the quality or qualities I am bringing to the Light Bank, and there I meet its “Custodian,” the being who receives my “donation.” I can imagine this Custodian anyway I wish; again, I’m working with symbols here that connect my physical mind with the non-physical reality of the subtle and spiritual dimension. Standing with this Custodian, I visualize my package of energy, the felt sense of qualities I’m holding in my whole being, shifting from me to this representative of the Light Bank. If you are doing this, you can see this happening in any manner that gives you a felt sense of the reality of what you are doing. 

Once this sharing and exchange has taken place, I give thanks to the Custodian and to the Light Bank, affirming that it knows how to both magnify and distribute my blessing and contribution of energy to the city of Kiev, to its over-lighting angel, and to the people who are part of that city.

At this point, I let it all go, bringing my awareness fully back to my everyday self, my everyday life, and to my own wholeness and balance.

This is a simple example, one that, as I say, you can adapt however you find useful to yourself, should you wish to work with a Light Bank. In this context, I would also remind you that you can do this work with Light Banks connected to the Russian people. They are as much victims of this tragedy as the Ukrainians. Perhaps, if their Light, their resolve, their courage is empowered by subtle activism, they will find a way to bring balance and justice back to their country and peace to the world.

The important point about subtle activism is that it is rooted in the fact that we are all part of one world, which includes a shared ecology of spirit and energy. None of us is without the power to contribute to this shared world and help nudge it in directions of wholeness. We are all citizens of every country on earth, part of nature, part of Gaia. Subtle activism is a finger pointing to this reality as well as offering a way of acting from that connectedness for the blessing of all.

May all our Light Banks be filled to overflowing, their blessings advancing goodwill and peace on Earth.

Editor's Note: Here are some of Lorian's resources on subtle activism if you would like to learn more:

Webinars and classes, including:

(the latter class and webinar are not directly about subtle activism, but provide an excellent foundation for all subtle activism work)

Books and Card Decks, including:

The above book links lead to Amazon.com via Lorian’s affiliate link, which allows Lorian to receive a small commission on the sale at no extra cost to you. Most of the books are also available through Barnes and Noble online or can be ordered through your local bookstore.