History of my contacts with David Nicol
To get the whole picture on this, you would need first to review the two following documents:
A Call To Spiritual Action & Wake Up Torchbearers (February 5, 2004)
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2004/SpiritualAction.htm
And ...
“International Spiritual Support for Dennis Kucinich - Project Update” which is the item #2 in...
The Light Series #58: Massive Spiritual Stimulation Underway http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2004/LightSeries58.htm
posted on February 14, 2004
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The following is the relevant correspondence exchange between me and David Nicol in 2004...
Hi David
Thanks for this update which is now included in my next Light series compilation. Excellent complementary suggestions!
There is a statement you made above on which I'd like to comment:
"Our vision is that, over time, we will establish a robust international network of spiritual activists who will continue to be engaged in this sacred work as an ongoing practice to support the greater movement of global transformation (as well as our own personal spiritual evolution), regardless of the outcome of the US primaries and general election."
May I humbly suggest to your attention that, most interestingly, the "robust international network of spiritual activists" you propose as a long term goal already exists.
If you would please give your attention to what is available at http://www.aei.ca/~cep/focusgroup.htm and, amongst other things, if you look at the history section at the bottom of that webpage, you will see that the Global Meditation Focus Group was proposed in March 2000 and formally created in April 2000 with an active collaboration of a core group of dedicated Lightworkers from several countries (Canada, Cyprus, UK, Mexico, Sweden, USA) and with endorsements and support from many others around the world. A charter, criteria for the selection of Meditation Focus topics (see a compilation of email discussions on this and other subjects at http://www.aei.ca/~cep/CompilationCriteria.htm), Guidelines for Focus Group Members and several other complementary aspects to this global healing and peace fostering work were thoroughly discussed, meticulously analyzed and adopted by the founding core group over a period of several months involving a considerable amount of email exchanges, and lots of time was devoted to set this up as best as it could possibly be within the constraints we each had to work through at that time.
Ever since, weekly at first and them bi-monthly Meditation Focus were selected, written and networked in English (without interruption - the next one will be Meditation Focus #105 in addition to several Special as well as Solstice/Equinox Meditation Focus that were issued), most of them were translated in French (except last summer), and up to Meditacion Focal #70 in Spanish (networked through Ricardo Ocampo's vast Spanish worldwide network - he still occasionally networks the English version but no longer has translators available to prepare a Spanish version) and up to Foco de MeditaÁ„o # 28 in Portuguese for Brazil and Portugal (we also lost our translator and could not find anyone willing to do it since). The English Meditation Focus are networked twice a month to over 4000 first recipients (the 2650 subscribers to the Earth Rainbow Network list, the 500+ subscribers to the Planetary Awakening Network, each member of this list being at the head of his/her own network with tens of thousands of other recipients potentially getting a copy, and the separate e-list of 569 Focus group subscribers, plus over 800 subscribers to another separate French-only e-list with susbcribers in Quebec, France, Belgium, Switzerland and all other French speaking countries around the world.
I wanted to broach this subject somewhat exhaustively to help you and your partners better appreciate what already exists.
So I would urge you to consider perhaps adding your inputs, contribution and support to this this tool for global transformation that has been set up and which I obviously intent to perpetuate for the foreseeable future (I believe it will be necessary to keep it going until 2012) based on the methods and aims initially conceived and adjusted over time for this unique service for which no equivalent - as far as I know - exists anywhere else on Earth. Sure, there are other groups promoting ad hoc global meditations such as your group, around specific issues or based on certain spiritual concepts, but I know of no other group that has such a diverse and global reach and whose aims and topics have been so diverse (review the Meditation Focus titles at http://www.aei.ca/~cep/focusgroup.htm to have an idea), always with the intent of motivating as many people as possible to participate regularly, each with their own unique perspective, inner guidance as to what comes into play during the meditation and personal spiritual practices, rituals and modalities.
This work has been done during all this time without any other promotional effort than simply preparing and networking on an ongoing basis the Meditation Focus material and letting each individual choose when and how to join if they are so inspired and whether to pass it on to others as they so choose. I mention this because it is the first time that, in my role as facilitator for this service, I try to bring to anyone's attention what it represents and invite any other existing group to consider adding their support to this rather than creating yet another Meditation Network, which of course you are perfectly entitled to do if you, Gus, Amara and Stephen so choose to do...
Finally I should point out that over the course of the first 2 years, it became increasingly difficult to get and rely upon the sustained participation of the initial founding core group members and the few others who joined in afterwards when, for various personal reasons, they gradually dropped out, overwhelmed by the task, needing to give their time to other projects and in some case for lack of enough interest to continue working towards selecting and preparing ever more Meditation Focus on an ongoing basis.
So what I'm trying to say is that after I initially proposed the concept and got great support and stimulating interactions to put this together and get it going, as well as getting occasional contributions from some of the core group participants to actually propose a topic, draft and finalize it, I eventually ended up, after a period of about 16 months, being the only one with enough resolve to keep it going. It is of course simpler for me to be able to pick and prepare a Meditation Focus without having to submit every word to the screening process of a group of other persons and finalize a proper draft early enough for a timely issuance, always a challenge in the initial days and still demanding today with all the other things - ERN compilations, etc. I also do. But I must say that the way I do it is, I sincerely believe, faithful to the spirit and methods that came into focus through these 16 initial months of intense interactions, while I always strive to put myself in a spiritual receiving mode when the time comes, usually late at night, after a long process of gathering useful relevant reading material on the topic that got my attention (which I also pick based on our initial guidelines), to draft the actual inspirational summary statement at the top of each Meditation Focus that encapsulates in a (sometime longish) nutshell the crux of the matter suggested to the attention of potentially tens of thousands of people.
I welcome any input you and your friends - and anyone else - may have to offer to improve on what exists, and if you are so motivated to pitch in suggestions and ideas for future Meditation Focus - even drafting them of course - once the priority focus with Dennis is no longer necessary (although on that, I believe he will ALWAYS need ongoing spiritual support, even more so if he succeeds in his current goal...) and if your group indeed wants to do what you indicated in the paragraph I quoted from you.
Please understand that if I took over an hour of my limited time to write this to you, it is because I'm open to other people's contributions and ideas -- as long as it is within the context defined on the website and with an acknowledgement for the process and methods that have been established and which I strive to honor as faithfully as I possibly can.
Love and Light to you, Gus, Amara and Stephen
Jean
P.S. I have only Gus' email address. Please feel free to forward this comment to Amara and Stephen and anyone else you feel should be aware of this. I must say that if you respond favorably to this overture, your group will be the first one to openly support this service. Usually, as far as I know, other New Consciousness leaders and groups simply ignore the existence of the Meditation Focus and it has not come to my attention that they have recommended any of them to their own subscribers list, although it may have happened without my knowledge. I must say though I never formally and directly solicited anyone else or any other group's support or endorsement or acknowledgement before and so I'm curious to see how and if you will respond to this letter.
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On 24 Feb 2004, David Nicol <davidnicol@sbcglobal.net> replied:
Dear Jean,
Thanks so much for taking the time to bring to my attention your existing network of spiritual activists for global peace and healing. I have looked at the website you mentioned and am excited to see the alignment between our vision and what you have already developed. I believe that your approach is very well put together, and sufficiently inclusive and non-sectarian to correspond with our vision as well.
As I mentioned in my email, while our efforts are currently focused on the Kucinich campaign, we would very much like to continue to grow this network beyond this election. I also feel that it is important that this work continue through to 2012-2013. As you suggest, one possibility might be simply to join in with the work your network is already doing.
I am currently involved at the very beginnings of a funded research project that will explore how best to support and grow existing communities and networks, with a special focus on the emerging field/network of "spiritual activists." My colleagues in that project are on the leading edge of research in the field of network development, and, in particular, how to use on-line tools (in addition to face-to-face gatherings) to support and sustain robust networks. I think there is a lot of potential to use these tools to build more robust and sustainable networks, but also to support greater collaboration and information-sharing between the many organizations and initiatives promoting "spiritual activism" - e.g., the Global Renaissance Alliance, "Transmission" global meditation circles, PlanetWork, the United Religions Initiative, and many others. Perhaps this is a contribution we could make to your project to help it to become even more effective.
I have forwarded your email to my colleagues and will soon discuss these matters in more detail with them. I very much look forward to continuing a dialogue with you about how we might find synergies in our respective projects.
Best wishes
David Nicol
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And several days later I replied:
Dear David
First my apologies for taking so much time to reply. I've been buried into work here with a book translation and all the ERN work, but now I have a little bit of time.
I very much appreciate you took time to look into what is on the website and I'm also happy you find it all enough in line with your vision to want to explore how we may join our efforts.
I have been hoping to hear also from my long-time friend Gus as to how he feels about this idea and I'm also interested also to hear from you what the response was from your colleagues and if you could indeed discuss this with them.
I receive a couple minutes ago an invitation to join the new Yahoo group you've set up - which I gladly did - and visited your new International Spiritual Alliance for Global Change site - which I'm recommending to everyone's attention in my next compilation. Great site (good thing the material you networked so far is available on this site!) and I was glad to read yours as well as Amara and Stephen résumés - all three very impressive! Incidentally if you'd like to review mine its is posted at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/jean.htm
Incidentally, I've just verified you have still not subscribed to the ERN e-list and I'd like to renew my invitation to you and your associates - see the relevant details below - so you may be able to be appraised of many important developments through this networking service I've been maintaining for the last 5+ years with over 12,000 pages of material networked archived at the ERN site at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com
So in conclusion, for now, let's say I'm interested to hear from you how you see any possible cooperation based on what I've suggested (see copy of my previous email below) and on what you'd like to propose. If you'd like we discuss this over the phone, that would probably be a good way to quickly explore the possibilities at hand. Just let me know you phone number and when is a good time to call and I'll ring you up. I should mention that I'll be travelling (I'm taking vacations) from March 8 to March 24. So if we are to discuss this, it would be better before I leave or a week after I'm back.
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In conclusion:
Soon after we had together a wonderful phone conversation which David mentioned in his September 1, 2006 email to me.