David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2022 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.
World Embracing
I’m always exploring and playing with words when it comes to describing the ways in which we can interact with the non-physical, “subtle” dimension which form the other half of our world. It’s easy to pin down most phenomena in the physical world and give them a name: “that’s a fireplace,” “that’s a glass,” “that’s making a cup of tea.” Such things have clear boundaries that define them in time and space. But spiritual and subtle phenomena and activities exist beyond time and space as we experience them–this makes their boundaries, if they have them, harder to perceive.
We are an example of this. Each of us is well-defined physically by our bodies. I can say without any doubt that as I write this, I am sitting here in my house in the Pacific Northwest and nowhere else. I’m not in Ukraine. I’m not in the American Southeast where floods are ravaging the countryside. I’m not anywhere else in the world but here. This is a very clear boundary.
However, in my subtle nature, physical boundaries are less important. My spiritual, energetic presence can be in a war-torn Ukrainian city, seeking to bring qualities of comfort and blessing to the subtle and psychological environments there. My spiritual, energetic presence can be in places where floods, fires, heat waves, and other disasters are occurring, acting as a lens through which blessings can be added to the situation. Whether through prayer, imagination, ritual, or meditation, I can make use of the comparatively boundaryless nature of my subtle being to participate in healing or supportive ways anywhere in the world, something my physical body cannot do.
I know where the boundaries of my physical body are. Where the boundaries of my soul or my subtle energy field may lie are harder to discern.
This ability to project into areas of need anywhere on the planet qualities of love, compassion, calm, courage, healing, creativity, and so forth is something I have called world work. My friend, David Nicol, coined the term subtle activism and wrote a book about it by the same title. Subtle activism is a phrase I have used many times as well.
But I don’t find either of these terms, useful as they can be, completely satisfying when it comes to describing what is going on. “World Work” suggests a task, something hard to do. It conjures up images of having to make an effort, even of having to strain at it. It’s the opposite of play. Yet, the actual process of performing this kind of subtle activity is grounded in joy and a kind of creative playfulness. Effort or strain can get in the way. Yes, one is working (in the sense of expending subtle energy) on behalf of the world, but it’s not a “job.” Thinking of it as such can prove limiting.
There is a similar objection to the idea of subtle activism. Being active in using one’s subtle resources and nature to bring help to world conditions is a wonderful thing, but the idea of “activism” can also conjure up expectations and images that get in the way. For many people, being an activist means taking an adversarial stance. It carries the flavor of protests and opposition to the status quo. These may be effective ways of working in the physical world where confrontation may be the only way to initiate change, but it can backfire in the subtle worlds where thoughts and energies of imposition and opposition create the very resistance and inertia they are trying to overcome.
The real problem here is one of identity. Whereas in the physical world, acting and doing create change, in the subtle world, it is the quality or nature of one’s presence or beingness that does so. If I think of myself as a “worker” or as an “activist,” I am substituting a mental concept for a quality of being. I may find myself trying to “manufacture” qualities through my imagination that I will then “send” into the world, rather than experiencing qualities that I can be in the world. While the former can have an effect, it’s the latter that has the greatest impact and does the real work.
This brings me back to exploring just how to give language to the process that “world work” and “subtle activism” seek to describe and name. Both terms have their uses and benefits, but both are lacking. Perhaps something like "world embracing," which suggests that, in this subtle energetic process, I am gathering the world into the embrace of the qualities that I am holding and embodying in that moment. There is joy in such an act and a sense of love and caring for the world as our partner.
Or maybe we might call it "world being." It’s a clumsy phrase, but at least it suggests that I become and embody the qualities of the world I wish to bring into manifestation. Thus, in a situation of crisis where the subtle and psychological environments are filled with anxiety, fear, and confusion, the energetic presence I project into that condition is that of a world of calm, of help, of strength, and of blessing.
I think my search for the perfect phrase may be fruitless, as there may be no single term that fully captures what we are about when we commit ourselves to bringing love and blessing into our world, especially through the ability of our subtle nature to act at a distance. For each of us, the reality of this act comes through the experience of it, not through what we call it. In the end, it is our loving relationship with our world that is the name.
An Experiment
One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.