Not everyone can grab a sign and go out and protest something that would effect society or the planet in a negative way. Many people need some other way to be activated towards helping with a cause. David Nicol has created a way people can be involved at a spiritual and energetic level.

Subtle Activism is an activity of consciousness or spirit, such as prayer, meditation, or ecstatic dance, intended to support collective healing and social change. 

I first became aware of the term Subtle Activism through the Lorian Association which is comprised of people who have been involved in the spectacular work of the Findhorn intentional community in Scotland. Subtle Activism for the Findhorn community involved working with the land to produce tremendous crops where it was thought nothing of note could be grown. However, through their working with subtle “beings” and “energies” they were able to create fabulous gardens that kept their community afloat to this day. The community eventually was able to purchase land, buildings, and create structure and attract wonderful people to create a model spiritual community in Northern Scotland.

Who is David Nicol?

David Nicol took a bit of a different pathway here. The Australian moved to the US in 2000 but his activities in this spiritual realm began at 19 with a sort of existential crisis. He says that he realized that he could never be happy from external things and was looking for something more “fundamental.” He had and existing interest in politics and history or as he put it “our collective journey.”  Through his story he was looking for a way to bring the spiritual and the political together as a whole. Before his American move he worked in Australia as an environmental lawyer and while it seemed like he was doing a tremendous amount of good he fell out of step with that field due to a personal spiritual transformation. When he arrived in America he began studying at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He studied philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness.

Out of those studies he wanted to be more active in politics and got his feet wet with the Dennis Kucinich presidential campaign in 2004. He worked to create policies based on wholeness and interdependence rather than doing things the way we’ve always done them. He started to use the internet to pioneer global meditations to support the Kucinich campaign and worked to create a sort of Planetary awareness and field that sprung the depth of meditation, mindfulness, and the responsiveness of people who felt that while they couldn’t knock on a door or make a call, they could create a pathway for success. Out of this formative experience spring Subtle Activism.

Now, David is focused on creating pathways to change individual’s inner world and utilize that for political transformation. He studies on the Diamond approach to spirituality on which the Enneagram is based and also regularly reads Almas and his fusion of spiritual and psychological methods peppered in with eastern mysticism in an lineage similar to the popular eastern teacher Osho.  His latest project is called: the Gaiafield Project. Through this platform is offers the kind of classes and group meditations that he pioneered in 2005.

By linking groups and though leaders together in a common vision he has become the blue ribbon standard in creating globally synchronized meditations and using the viral power of social media to help people find a group that is suitable for them. The goal with Gaia field is to allow fluidity and connection on a global scale. One of his signature meetings occurs every friday. There are 10 leaders on the project and they meet every Friday and meditation and they have done so since 2008. Meditation topics range from environmental concerns to places of suffering. David let it grow organically and let it vibrancy shine through.

For the general public he talked about helping people become subtle activists. through Creativity and participation he encourages people to be engaging in a contemplative way with these practices and issues. But it is also very personal. The work of subtle activism helped him find his soul’s work to heal rifts between the developed world and the indigenous world and to help heal deep racial issues.

“We’re not pretending we have all the answers. We’re looking for creative and effective ways to bring healing.
These (indigenous/minority) people carry trauma, they need sensitivity.”

 It’s a Calling

David says that Subtle Activism is a particular calling, not on a crusade to make everyone a subtle activist. It is in essence the holding of an issue of concern to you with others in a field of activism, not being extroverted in action, but creating change in a different way; creating an authentic sense of hope. Sometimes thoughtful inaction is an action. Mindfulness can be an action. Connecting to a creative life force, intelligence in the response, compassionate holding. He encourages us to really feel in touch with what is going on and what change can be caused while focusing in on creating real results. Subtle Activism is adjunct to creative forms of action. Gaiafield is engaged in a campaign around global water day which included a meditation on water. But they also raised money to build wells in Africa. This added a dimension between subtle meditation and real world action.

And it wasn’t just that, they meditated around a logging project using subtle practices and adding in activist practices and things turned so that they couldn’t log the land anymore in California. The group turned their attentions towards the Salish sea around the Orca whale group called “J pod” and now “J pod” is growing. “It’s not direct, it’s not trackable, but it is real.” David remarked.

 A New Activism

His question to the reader is simple, “Do you have the calling?” He believes that this is a seminal moment in the planet and that this is a chance to make some amazing and positive changes for the affect moving forward and creating a new kind of global consciousness. If you want to join him please visit the project, a join the email list and get involved.