James Souttar, my apologies for taking so long to reply, but I’ve been mulling over your comment.

And yes, I am very familiar with the things you exemplify here. Back in 1997, for example, I accompanied my brother on what subsequently became referred to as The Nashville Trip.

He was on a healing mission, which lasted a number of weeks, to help our stepfather who was hospitalized. We had both recently relocated from New York to the mountains of Virginia. I hadn’t yet begun my new job, so I was able to carve some time open. He had been telling me for some years that I needed to spend some extended time with him. We saw each other often, both personally and in training environments. But this was the first time we’d been together non-stop for what became weeks. This and this essay are among the hundreds of things that occurred on that trip. I have one or two thick notebooks stuffed with my handwritten notes from back then.

One of the things he quickly helped me attune to was this notion you pointed out: that even things like billboards, stripes on a sidewalk or the unexpected comment of a seemingly random stranger are all tied together. Frankly, I was so utterly astonished at what I was experiencing that I sobbed uncontrollably when I had to leave Nashville, return home and begin a new job. What I had been exposed to had a strong and permanent impact.

With all that in mind, I’d like to share with you something that I’m only sharing with a handful of people. I wrote it a few days ago, and maybe it will resonate with you. I would be thrilled, of course, if you agreed to help do this through your writing.

…

We are quietly preparing to go after funding for a consciousness endeavor, which will likely mean setting the monastery up as a non-profit. In preparation for that, I’m developing a website, which will do a better job of explaining and organizing. Our writing, however, will remain on Medium.

My initial concept for the funding effort is to gather several strategic partners and create a team, possibly including a major university which has several scholars who are champions of consciousness research.

My brother’s Great River Institute (in Virginia) will also be a partner. Don’t be fooled by their somewhat nondescript website. He has extraordinary facility with respect to consciousness.

To get funding for a monastery is a big lift. But if we can put a compelling team together, as well as a compelling narrative, we may have a chance.

In my opinion, one aspect of creating a good team is having a set of talented and insightful writers. With funding there may even be opportunities to get paid for writing. Who knows? But the point is, a big part of raising consciousness is actually telling people how it’s being done. That takes a unique type of writer.

Anyway, if any of this is interesting to you, please let me know.

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So, James, there is a bit more but that’s the essence. Who knows? If we get funding there would likely be money available to pay our writers. I am thinking back to the days of Hidden Recesses and Eternal Awareness. And while we’ve all put some life on since then, old passions still run deep. And I’m convinced we weren’t ready then for what seems momentus and proper now.