Rivera Sun's Blog: From the Desk of Rivera Sun, page 22

“As Magical as Tolkien and as Authentic as Twain” – Review of The Way Between

by Tom Hastings, Director of PeaceVoice, Professor of Conflict Studies at Portland State University

(Find The Way Between here. Ebooks available here.)

This novel should be read aloud to everyone, by everyone, from childhood onward. It is an auspicious beginning to a new mythology of peace, of justice, of inclusion, of conversion and transformation. Rivera Sun’s care for the unobtrusive embedding of the theories of change, of the principles of conflict transformation, and the way of the human heart all conspire to allow for a tale that will inspire. It is ancient and magical and legendary. It flips the glory of big men waging war into the valorization of “powerless” ‘tween girls waging peace, the sacralization of bloody combat into the lionization of nonviolent heart and mind power. It does so credibly, which is the stumbling block to most fiction writers trying to achieve what Rivera Sun actually does manage to do here.

If the reader were told at the outset that an 11-year-old girl would defeat the mightiest warrior of the nation without inflicting any pain or harm—this is in a medieval time of swords and teapots, warriors and monasteries—you would not continue reading. But by the time it happens, you have been prepared by Sun’s artful storytelling to accept—even expect and demand—just that outcome. Like any good plotmaster, Sun describes many setbacks, much potential, lots of inner conflicting emotions, but it’s all undergirded by the unflinching idealism of youth. The girl is mixed ethnicity and raised by a third people, thus bearing the strengths—and some of the challenges—of all three peoples, all of whom have been either in conflict or avoiding one another.

What is so poignant is that the girl is not accepted too much by any group—the forest people raise her but she is not one of them and cannot follow them to their wintering place, the village boys torment her, the monastery warriors-in-training taunt her and even beat her in her early training phases—but her idealism and her potential push her toward her own special destiny. The girl is the underdog at every turn but we learn to expect her to rise to meet all challenges. Her flash of serendipitous and even accidental brilliance convinces a great warrior to take her as apprentice and he teaches her the ancient, all-but-forgotten, Way Between—neither the violence of the warrior nor the avoidance of the coward.

No, there is no didactic artifice to teach us the particulars of principled negotiation, CLARA de-escalation, peer mediation, Sharpian or Kingian strategic civil resistance or any other of the researched competencies in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies, even though Sun is in her professional life profoundly knowledgeable of all this. Rather, Rivera Sun writes in a style as magical as Tolkien and as authentic as Twain. The reader is not once bludgeoned with the zealot’s pontificating but rather is drawn to love the characters and the conclusions.

This book, along with her instant classic The Dandelion Insurrection will be on the reading list next time I teach Peace Novels, my favorite summer class.

Sun’s appendices carry all the theoretical, competency-based, and practical teachings that she wove invisibly into her tale. She helps the reader achieve the education necessary to reify her yarn and it makes it an invitational, educational, volume. Required reading for those wishing to be the countervailing message and meaning as we head into the Age of the Avenging Autocrat. Read it soon. We need you to pass it along.

(Find The Way Between here. Ebooks available here.)

The Great Warrior’s Apprentice – an excerpt from The Way Between

(Excerpt from The Way Between by Rivera Sun. Find it on Amazon.com or signed copies here.)

The Horns of Monk’s Hand Monastery shook the rocks as she raced out of the Fanten Forest and across the lower meadows. At the crossroads, Ari Ara halted and stood defiantly in the buffeting wind. The trail down to the village stretched out, wide and predictable. She cast a glance up toward the black peaks of the High Mountains. She had spent the second half of last winter up there . . . but the deep snows nearly froze her at night – and that was after the coldest months had already passed. She turned reluctantly to look at the village. The thatched roofs huddled together like a cluster of haystack sheep. The villagers spent cramped winters inside, bickering and teasing each other. She made a face. She would not go to the village and apologize. It wasn’t her fault – not all of it. The very idea of asking for forgiveness rankled her. She’d rather winter in the mountains.

The Horns of Monk’s Hand roared again. Ari Ara pivoted toward the sound. A laugh leapt out of her throat and echoed off the black rocks. She wouldn’t go to the village. She’d go to the monastery! If it was a choice between a cold winter in the mountains or humiliation in the village, she chose neither! Wasn’t that her name? Ari Ara. Not this. Not that.

Ari Ara shifted her fate in a single determined stride. She ran over the rough stones of the boulder slide. A thrill tingled in her blood. The monastery was not forbidden, not exactly, but the Fanten disapproved of the warrior monks and their endless preparations for battle. Ari Ara had been told to steer clear of them. She shivered with rebellious anticipation and increased her pace as she hurtled down the series of switchbacks that carved across the jagged slope.

She leapt onto the carved steps that stretched from the village all the way up to the monastery. The ancient buildings at the top crouched low to the ground, chiseled out of the mountainside and rumored to stretch deep into the rock behind the tiled roofs. Ari Ara remembered sneaking in once, years ago, only to be chased out by the monks. It was a place of severe angles and rambunctious orphans, serene meditations and fierce fighters. Monk’s Hand Monastery brimmed with fascinating contradictions . . . but Ari Ara was determined to carve out a spot for the winter. That would show the Fanten Grandmother, she thought. Ari Ara climbed the stone steps two at a time, chuckling delightedly.

The Horns rumbled in her bones as twilight fell. She threw back her cloak as she reached the top, hot but barely winded. The steps were nothing compared to a lifetime of scaling the High Mountain slopes.

Minli, the one-legged orphan she’d met once in the village, was standing at the top. He was a slight boy with dark brown hair that stuck out in several directions, looking like a bird’s nest atop his thin neck. The cuff of one leg of his pants was tied in a knot where his knee should have been. He had lost his limb from a sword’s blow before he could even walk, one of the villagers had told her in a hushed tone. Someone had bundled him up and left him on the stone steps of the monastery in the dead of night, his leg gone, but skillfully healed. Most likely by the Fanten, the villager had speculated.

Unlike the other orphans who had been sent up from the overcrowded orphanages in Mari Valley and were originally from the Border Mountains, Minli was considered one of two Monk’s Hand orphans – Ari Ara being the other. She felt an odd kinship with the one-legged boy and had made small gestures of friendship whenever their paths crossed. Neither knew who their parents were or where they had come from before appearing in the crater valley. They were simply considered part of Monk’s Hand, along with craggy mountains and sweeping mists.

“Look who showed up for the autumn feast,” he said, grinning.

Behind him, the monastery bustled with motion. Grey-robed warrior monks scurried across the three-sided courtyard. Small orphans shrieked with excitement and bounded in all directions. Dusk deepened over the shoulder of Old Monk Mountain, the looming giant peak that rose high above the monastery. Lights had already been lit inside. Ari Ara sniffed the air.

“Are they baking bread?” she asked.

“Yes, and sweet rolls.”

“It’s the bread I like best!” she enthused. The Fanten made nothing like it. During the summer season, she fared on porridge boiled from High Mountain grain. She reached out and ruffled the loose ends of his cropped hair. “How goes it, you old monk?”

“I’m not a monk and I’m not old . . . and you should be nice to me,” he advised her smugly.

“Why’s that?”

“There’s a visitor.”

“Who?” she asked, immediately curious.

“That’s why you ought to be nice to me,” Minli teased.

“Pfft, there’s a hundred monks who’d tell me,” she shrugged, but when he said nothing, she cajoled him, “I’ll give you my next sweet roll if you tell me now.”

“Shulen.”

Ari Ara’s eyes widened and she nearly toppled down the steps.

“No!” she exclaimed, craning her neck to see if she could spot the man.

Shulen was the greatest warrior on record in a thousand years. He had been the First Guard of Queen Elsinore, and then to her daughter, Queen Alinore. He had commanded the War of Retribution against the Desert People after Queen Alinore’s death. In the Capital, he trained the nation’s fiercest fighters. Now he was here at Monk’s Hand!

“He’s searching for candidates for the Guard. Rumor says that Shulen is looking to train up another Emir Miresh.”

Ari Ara whistled. Emir Miresh was a legend across Mariana . . . and he hadn’t even grown facial hair. He had been chosen as Shulen’s apprentice at age eight and had swept the Trials every year since he was ten. No warrior stood a chance against him -except Shulen.

“So, they’re searching for Guards. Any likely candidates?” Ari Ara mused.

Minli shrugged.

“Who knows? He might have simply come here because we have so many orphans. You know how the saying goes . . . ”

“Good soldiers make orphans,” she quoted.

“And orphans make good soldiers,” Minli finished.

Ari Ara shivered at the saying. The villagers muttered it in tones that promised revenge against the Desert People for the numbers of Marianan orphans that poured out of the Border Mountains. They didn’t seem to consider that the saying rang true for both sides of the conflict, and the Desert People had orphans that they might be training into soldiers, too.

Mariana and the Desert People had been fighting since the dawn of time. For a brief moment, when Queen Alinore fell in love with Tahkan Shirar, the Desert King, there was a shocked and wild hope of peace. People spoke of that time with a tone of wistful yearning . . . and an acrid bitterness for its loss. Those times sang of prophecy and legend. The coming of a golden age was on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but then, swift as a thunderstorm over the mountains, their hopes were dashed. Power-hungry factions – no one knew whose – attacked the Queen, stole the Heir to both thrones (or so it was said), and vanished. The Queen died and for over a decade, violence had reigned, each side blaming the other for the Lost Heir and the dead Queen. The western border was littered with orphans, and many of them were sent to Monk’s Hand Monastery to be trained into fighters.

“So, when are the Trials?” Ari Ara asked, certain that Shulen would test the trainees.

“Tonight.”

“Before or after supper?” she asked, more interested in bread than fighting.

“Soon. Let’s grab you a bowl of soup and bread. You can eat while we watch.”

Minli hobbled quickly on his single crutch. One shoulder bunched up higher than the other, reminding her of a small crow she had once found with its claw caught in a twist of string. His black orphan’s tunic flapped loosely at the sides, several sizes too large. Ari Ara followed behind him as they threaded through the brimming crowd. Spectators had already packed under the overhangs that ran along the sides of the rectangular sand-filled courtyard. No one paid attention to Ari Ara in the commotion.

Inside the kitchen, the kitchen monks chopped and argued. The two head cooks were an unlikely pair. One was thin as a broom handle and twice as knobby; Ari Ara secretly nicknamed him Nobstick. The other was round as a kettle with a shiny bald head. Teapot Monk – as Ari Ara irreverently decided to call him – hollered at them as he barreled through with a tray of sweet rolls ready for the oven.

Ari Ara closed her eyes. If there was a heaven, she imagined it to be the monks’ kitchen with all its chaos and glorious smells, mouth-watering dishes and steaming heat. She could boil porridge, crack nuts, and scrounge for apples, berries and herbs in the High Mountains, but the arts of the kitchen were sheer miracles to her. Minli thrust a spoon in her hand and slopped a bowl of soup into the other. He snatched up a small loaf of bread, then nudged Ari Ara out of the kitchen before they were caught.

“Hold on,” he warned her.

The last bellow of the Horns accompanied the final streak of the sunset. The monks, blowing through the huge carved instruments that stretched the entire length of the buildings, made the droning sound reverberate on and on. Ari Ara’s soup rippled in the bowl and spilled over the edges. Her marrow rattled inside her bones.

When they stopped, the darkness and silence were absolute. Then she heard a flurry of rustling as the senior monks settled into cross-legged positions along the three sides of the courtyard. A torch flared and the carved face of Shulen illuminated in the gateway of the monastery.

“Are there any warriors here?”

His voice rang out in the old ritual challenge of the Trials, carrying with it echoes of all warriors since time immemorial.

Around the courtyard, the monks lifted torches into the holders on the stone pillars that held up the tiled overhang roofs. The younger monks stepped forward, along with all the trainees, and some of the boldest orphans. Ari Ara scanned their faces curiously as she licked the spilled soup from her fingers. She knew a few of the boys by sight. The rest were unfamiliar, as were the two girls who stood in the line. One of the monks dragged a tiny little boy back under the overhang. Ari Ara grinned. Usually the orphans were sent to apprentice in various trades when they reached ten years of age; that eager lad would undoubtedly be kept at Monk’s Hand to train as a warrior.

Minli pointed out the ones who had come up from the Capital hoping to qualify for the coveted training positions at Monk’s Hand Monastery. They ranged in age, the younger ones wishing to join the entry-level cohort, and the older youths seeking to join the intense trainings of the warrior monks.

A monk shifted his position and blocked her view.

“Psst!” Minli hissed. “Up here.”

He had hopped up onto the open window of an inside room. The wide stone ledge provided just enough space to perch upon. She passed her soup and spoon up to him then jumped up in one fluid motion, twisting in midair as she did on the large boulders in the High Mountains. Minli returned the soup, spoon, and bread. They fell silent as the Trials began.

The first round was for the beginners. Ari Ara watched with only half an eye. The warm, flaky bread occupied most of her attention. Minli nudged her to watch. The older warrior monks – the ones that ran the trainings and drills – surrounded the hopeful youths. Each carried some humorous or unusual object in his hands: a plate, a wooden sled, a woven basket, one of the kitchen monks’ enormous stew pots, a mattress cot, even a rolled up carpet. They brandished them at the trainees who ducked and dodged. The oldest monk leapt into action with a feather duster and a ferocity that soon had the trainees backpeddling. While the onlookers laughed, Ari Ara quickly noticed that the older monks weren’t just fooling around with those objects; they were rapidly encircling the trainees, trapping them inside a solid ring.

“Those knuckleheads better break out soon or they’ll be caught,” she muttered as she slurped her soup.

Two of the boys and both girls broke through. The rest were caught – except for one audacious boy who leapt into the stewpot and then over the monk’s startled head. Everyone cheered for that one. A gong sounded. The monks broke apart, bowing and brandishing their implements. Scores were assessed and recorded for each participant. Highest marks went to the five who had broken free.

“Now the ruckus,” Minli informed her in a whisper just as a storm of movement broke out. Unarmed monks and trainees wheeled around each other in a bewildering whirlwind.

“See the poles with red scarves?” Minli explained, murmuring in her ear. “They’re supposed to capture one of those scarves while the warrior monks try to block them. There’s one white scarf, too. The match ends as soon as someone snags that white one. Anyone not holding a red scarf gets points taken off their score.”

Ari Ara quickly sat up and scanned the poles for the white scarf.

“It’s not there,” she grumbled.

“It doesn’t have to be on a pole,” he clarified. “Sometimes it’s on a belt or tied around a leg or arm.”

Ari Ara searched again. She blocked out all the other sights and sounds. She narrowed her vision to find the white scarf . . . just like searching for a lost lamb on a distant hillside. A sudden flash of motion caught her eye.

“There!” she cried, elbowing Minli. “Shulen’s got it. Look at him!”

Ari Ara had never seen such a sight. Shulen moved like water, grace and strength pouring off his every gesture. The white scarf was audaciously tied around his head, but no one seemed to notice him. He prowled tiger-like through the ruckus then stood stock still in the center of the courtyard. It was the hush of the spectators that alerted the trainees. They turned on Shulen, chasing him here and there.

Why were they moving as if stuck in honey? Ari Ara wondered. Then she rubbed her eyes. It was simply that Shulen moved so fast! Her mouth fell open. The ruckus continued. One red flag after another was snatched from the poles. Shulen stayed several steps ahead of even the fastest trainees. When the last red flag was pulled down, he leapt backward and held the white scarf aloft. The gong sounded.

“No one was ever going to catch him!” Ari Ara commented in an awed voice. He was a tiger playing with butterflies.

The monk in front of them turned around with a scowl and motioned for them to be silent. In the courtyard, pairs were squaring off for sparring matches. The applicants were paired according to skill levels and would work their way up in rank, moving from challenger to challenger. Ari Ara and Minli watched, whispering to each other and betting on the winners. Neither child had coins, but each carried the obligatory pocketful of polished river stones that all the young people collected. By the second stage of the matches, Minli had acquired most of hers.

“How do you know?” she complained in disgust.

“I watch them practicing,” Minli explained. “I know who’s steady or clever or fast or just plain strong.”

“Who’s the best?” she asked him.

“Of the trainees? Brol, probably,” Minli answered, pointing to a powerful, dark-haired boy who had just heaved his opponent off his feet. “He’s already training with the younger warrior monks.”

Ari Ara shivered slightly as Brol beat his challenger back with ferocity that made her uneasy. She began to watch everyone more carefully, noting the foolish mistakes and stupid moves. Everyone is an expert from the sidelines, Ari Ara thought, grinning at her own impudence in critiquing the warriors-in-training.

“You ought to train,” Minli suggested. “I can’t, not with my leg, but you’re quick and strong.”

“And get whacked in the head? No, thanks,” Ari Ara objected with a frown.

They flinched as a trainee took a painful blow and one of the girls swept her opponent off his feet with a swift kick.

“I’m interested in dodging blows,” Ari Ara stated, “hopefully by a mile or more.”

The sparring rounds made her increasingly queasy as long wooden poles replaced unarmed fighting, spears followed poles, and sword duels brought the individual trials to a climax. There were other weapons that the monks trained with, Minli informed her, but they would not be using them tonight. Ari Ara winced, watching a close shave with the sharp edge of a sword. No one was clumsy enough to be seriously hurt this evening, but Minli told her about other times when people had received painful injuries.

“Has anyone ever died?” she asked.

“Not recently,” he answered in such a somber tone that she decided to stop asking questions.

Soon, the closing gong sounded and the sparring pairs exchanged ritual handshakes and salutes. The aroma of sweet rolls wafted as the roster of scores was carefully compiled. She saw Brol standing with the other trainees, looking pleased. He had done very well in the sparring matches and stood a good chance of receiving the highest score of the Trials.

Ari Ara leaned forward precariously as a monk walked by with a tray of sweet rolls held aloft over his shoulder. She snagged one as Minli hauled back on her belt to keep her from falling over.

“Here,” she said, handing it to him and keeping her earlier bargain.

He offered her half, but she shook her head, taking another bite of the small loaf of bread. The roster of accepted trainees for this year’s session at Monk’s Hand was announced.

“No surprises there,” Minli commented.

Most had passed, including the two girls. There were few women warriors, Minli informed Ari Ara when she asked, but they did exist. In the Capital, there was a women’s cohort who were ranked at the highest levels. The two girls who passed today would likely study for a few years at Monk’s Hand, then go to the Capital to complete their training as apprentices of the warrior women. Only three applicants failed the Trials: a very small orphan who could stand again next year and two youths who shrugged amiably at the news.

“They received word last week that they could apprentice to the tanners in Mari Valley,” Minli told her. “They only stood Trial because they said they would. Neither showed much aptitude.”

Shulen stepped calmly to the center of the courtyard.

The craggy, weathered warrior wore his iron-grey hair long, tied at the nape of his neck. His face bore more scars and crevasses than the rocky mountain slopes. The deep folds of his eyes were lined with wrinkles carved less by age than by his relentless battling with the world. He was as dark as the forest, half-shadowed in secrets, skin tanned to a gleaming shade of old bronze. He turned to the Head Monk.

“Perhaps it is time for the announcement?”

“Yes, of course,” Head Monk said with a respectful bow.

A quiver of excitement ran through the crowd. The Head Monk smiled genially at them. He was a round and comfortable man who no longer trained with the warriors, though his battered nose attested to his past. A slight limp plagued him on damp days and he now preferred the warmth of a fire rather than the heat of a battle; but he was respected among the warrior monks, kind to the orphans, and skilled at managing the complex details of the monastery.

“It is our honor,” he said, “to welcome the Great Warrior Shulen who will be in residence at Monk’s Hand Monastery this entire year, training monks and students of all levels, and preparing the most dedicated to enter the Guard.”

The crowd gasped and broke out in excited chatter.

“Unbelievable!” Minli exclaimed. “The Stone One? Here?”

“The who?” Ari Ara asked.

“The Stone One – that’s what they call Shulen down in Mariana Capital.”

It was an apt nickname. The hardened man had a carved quality to his presence, almost as if he had been chiseled out of the mountainside. He looked like an ancient statue awakened by magic. He neither smiled nor frowned, simply stood in the center of the courtyard with an infinite patience, waiting for the noise to die down.

Head Monk waved his hands for silence. Gradually, reluctantly, the monks, orphans, and trainees calmed.

“Let this be an inspiration to all,” Head Monk said. “Hopefully, you will listen to your teachers better this year, and perhaps certain students will stop avoiding the drills that give them the strength to follow such an honored path as that of the warrior.”

He shot a pointed look toward a pack of young trainees. From the darkness, a student groaned. The gathering laughed.

“Now,” Head Monk continued, “it is time to honor our little orphans. Tonight, as by tradition, some will be moving into the trainees’ wing to begin their paths as warriors-in-training. Others will be leaving tomorrow to start new lives in apprenticeships. Many of the ten-year-old girls will journey to the Sisters in Mari Valley to finish their upbringing with those gentle exemplars of modesty and charity. It is a night to celebrate a great many changes. Would all the orphans come forward?”

The crowd stirred as the shortest heads squeezed through to the front. Ari Ara offered Minli assistance down from the ledge then gripped his elbow.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” she asked.

“No worries, there,” he assured her confidently. “I’m the best scribe they’ve got! I’ll be at Monk’s Hand until I’m older than Shulen.”

She breathed a sigh of relief and let him go. He made his way out into the courtyard and lined up next to the others. She peered curiously at the young people her own age, wondering at how different their lives had been. The girls had never chased wolves away from the flocks, she guessed, just as Ari Ara couldn’t imagine being sent away from Monk’s Hand to study with the Sisters. She shuddered at the thought.

Head Monk spoke to each in turn, assigning their new positions, gently teasing the more mischievous ones. The boys went first, followed by the girls who had been assigned to apprenticeships. Lastly, he stood before the girls who were to be sent to the Sisters, reflecting for a moment.

“Hang on,” called the monk in front of Ari Ara. “You’ve forgotten one!”

He spun and plucked her from the ledge.

“What! No – you can’t – I’m not -” she bellowed furiously.

“Not an orphan?” the monk laughed, hauling her onto the courtyard.

“Yes, I’m an orphan, but I’m not your orphan.” She twisted in his hands, slid through his grip, and wrenched free.

“Catch her!” someone called.

Ari Ara dove to the side as the monks lunged. She rolled across the sands of the training area and leapt back to her feet just in time to spring away. Someone snatched at her cloak and she spun, throwing the end over his eyes in a trick she used on the sheep, blinding him until he let go. She whipped away. A warrior monk tried to grab hold of her – she dove head first through his wide-legged stance. As she scrambled to her feet, a trainee snatched her belt from behind and hauled her backwards. She tensed against his weight, digging her toes into the sands, then unexpectedly released, sending him flying onto his bottom. She rolled out of the tumble. She darted left . . . then right. A pair of trainees collided. A few spectators cheered her on. Someone dove for her legs; she leapt over his head. She dodged another. A circle formed around her. She imitated the little boy in the Trials and took a running leap to spring off a startled monk’s shoulder out to the other side. Ari Ara whirled, not thinking, just moving, looking for an escape.

“Enough.”

Shulen’s voice cut through the noise like a gong. The monks and trainees froze. Ari Ara leapt at her chance. Shulen calmly caught her by the arm.

“Don’t,” he advised as she tried to break free.

He regarded her with an odd expression that bordered on a smile.

“Who might you be?” he demanded.

“Ari Ara,” she answered hotly.

“Is that a name?” he asked, incredulous. “Not this, not that?”

She glared at him and didn’t answer.

“And you say you’re not an orphan?” he asked.

“No,” she corrected. “I said that I’m not their orphan. I don’t belong to Monk’s Hand Monastery and they can’t send me to the Sisters.”

Shulen stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Whom do you belong to, then?”

“No one,” she answered, boldly and truthfully. She tossed her wild red hair out of her eyes. “I belong to myself . . . and only I tell myself where to go.”

“Indeed,” Shulen commented, raising an eyebrow. “And why didn’t you show up for Trials?”

“I’m a Fanten shepherdess,” she answered indignantly, “not a solider.”

Shulen’s face grew stern.

“There are no soldiers here. Only warriors.”

“What’s the difference?” she spat out with an irate shrug. “They both make wars and orphans.”

The monks cried out angrily at her words. Shulen held his hand up for silence.

“A soldier is hired by the nobles and battles for their causes. A warrior takes an oath to defend the defenseless, even at the cost of his own life.”

Ari Ara shrugged . . . such distinctions made little difference to the dead. It was cold consolation to orphans whether their father died under the sword of a warrior or a soldier.

“A Fanten shepherdess,” Shulen repeated with a scowl. He stared at her for a long moment. An expectant hush fell over the assembly. Then he pinched a lock of her hair between his thumb and forefinger, easily blocking her incensed attempt to knock his hand away.

“Fanten do not have hair like yours,” he pointed out.

“I am not Fanten,” Ari Ara replied with a defiant tilt of her chin.

“Then what are you?”

“Ari Ara.”

Not this. Not that.

Shulen tilted his head back and roared with laughter.

She blinked at him in surprise. He can laugh? she thought, stunned.

The old warrior held her at an arm’s length and regarded her from head to toe. A strange expression crossed his face. His eyes narrowed with questions and a spark of light she could not interpret, as if hope and despair fought a battle behind his eyes. Finally, he said,

“You will be my apprentice.”

“No.”

The monks and orphans gasped at her defiance. Shulen raised an eyebrow.

“I’m only taking one.”

“I’ve heard the Great Lady only has one dancing rat terrier – but that doesn’t mean I want to be it,” Ari Ara retorted, using a common Fanten saying.

Shulen hid a smile.

“Show some respect,” Head Monk insisted, bustling over to them.

“Not until he does,” Ari Ara muttered. She ducked under the cuff aimed at her head.

“I’m so sorry, Master Shulen – ” the Head Monk started to say.

Shulen cut him off.

“Ari Ara of Monk’s Hand, Fanten shepherdess of the High Mountains,” he addressed her formally, “I will be standing here at daybreak tomorrow, ready to offer my skills and trainings,” his lips twitched in wry humor, “which are not insignificant. If you should deign to grace me with your presence, I will rise to the challenge of teaching you.”

Their gazes met and locked.

“I will only wait for you once,” he added warningly.

Stone-grey and blue-grey eyes matched wills. Then she broke contact, twisted free, darted from the courtyard, and ran off into the black shepherd’s cloak of night.

Read the rest of the story by getting a copy of The Way Between! Find ebooks here. And get a copy directly from the author here.

Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Way Between, The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the co-initiator of Live Share Grow: A Movement for the 100%. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Counterpunch, Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com

The Earth Is Singing Her Revolution – Excerpt from Steam Drills

“The Revolutionary Table”

Chapter Fourteen of Steam Drills by Rivera Sun

Patrick, Louisa, Hank, Wanda, and Ford all crowded around the kitchen table in Henrietta’s two-room cabin. Old Moses Nelson’s mother gave birth to him on that table. Strong and sturdy, rugged as the ancient oak that formed its boards; the table’s grains held a wildness within them, as if the gale storm that had felled the tree had etched itself through the rings.

Wanda placed her elbows on the table’s edge. Her bosom leaned against her father’s birth-stains. Wanda thought for the five thousandth time since childhood that the house would crumble around that table and it would stand alone among the other trees, solid as a rock and twice as hard to move.

Her brother Ford leaned way back in the tilting manner he had learned as a boy around that table. Patrick stood stoically beside it with one fist curled and waiting on the edge. Hank sat his fanny on the corner and put his feet up on a chair. Henrietta bounced Jerome upon her hip, stirring up Wanda’s memories of the long lineage of aunts and mothers who had also paced that kitchen. Louisa carefully arranged and rearranged her thin and dirt-etched fingers on the tabletop.

“That Motherhood Today article has given us -and you- a chance to lay siege to coal using national attention,” Louisa began. “That photo grabbed the heartstrings of the country.”

“Yeah, but to keep them, we need a plan of action,” Henrietta pointed out. “I can’t just spew off at the mouth.”

“‘Course you can,” Hank snorted. “You do it all the time.”

Henrietta whacked him on the arm. He grinned. She relied on his ruthless honesty for sanity and he knew it. They’d been friends since Hank Crawley’s guts (and a twenty dollar bet) had propelled him into No Man’s Holler last winter, collecting signatures on yet another petition. Her last name stuck out on the page of scrawling Nelson signatures, and he struck up a friendly conversation.

“You have to give them the facts,” Louisa said. “Bio-diversity loss, a million acres of irreparable damage, four thousand miles of streams destroyed, the carbon emissions from the coal itself-”

“I think she has to speak more about the injustice going on,” Patrick interrupted. “I think she’s got to call out those greedy bastards who’ve been screwing everybody over.”

“Hey,” Hank added, “if she’s going to pluck those heartstrings, she could give us hillbillies a better reputation while she’s at it.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Patrick snapped. “When was the last time you shaved?”

“Get off my back, old man. You’re the one with a hole in your shirt.” Hank poked it. Patrick slapped his hand away.

“Enough,” Louisa warned them. “Wanda? Ford? Would you like to say anything?” She graciously tried to include them in the conversation, though she felt their presence was inappropriate. Neither had been active in the movement before. Wanda had just showed up at the door with Ford in tow. Henrietta had been fine with them staying, so Louisa tried to include them.

Two heads shook. Henrietta paused in her pacing. She didn’t like that look on Wanda’s face. Wanda wasn’t happy about something. Henrietta shot her a questioning look. Wanda shrugged and folded her arms tightly across her chest. Henrietta waited five seconds. Wanda burst out,

“What you think Henrietta is, huh? Some dumb parrot for the same old lines everybody’s tired of hearing? Statistics ain’t keeping those mountains standing.”

Louisa began to object, but Wanda cut her off. Henrietta groaned inwardly as she saw irritation zip across the thin biologist’s face. Louisa was such a stickler for communication protocol.

“Mmm-hmm, y’all want folks to feel sorry for you, huh? Well, I don’t. Don’t need nobody’s charity or pity. And injustice? Huh. Screaming for justice ain’t done nothing in a thousand years ‘cept make us all tired of screaming and getting screamed at.”

“You were singing a different tune in the sixties,” Patrick muttered. Wanda snorted.

“That was personal.”

“Tap water running out red isn’t personal?” Louisa argued.

“Ain’t no protest gonna fix my tap water now,” Wanda said defensively. “Sides,” Wanda added, “I ain’t getting jailed over no environmental hooplah.”

Louisa bristled up to deliver a lecture on ecology. Henrietta cut in,

“Wanda! What if they told you that you couldn’t live here anymore and just had to leave?”

“Over my dead body!” She slammed her hands down on the table that had raised her family. “Ain’t nobody making me leave. We Nelson’s own our land here. We ain’t never sold it off like them white folks in the other hollers. We’d rather starve.”

“Some did,” Ford interjected softly, “back in the Depression.”

“In a few more years,” Louisa put in huffily, “you’ll all start dying of cancer from the exposed minerals and the chemicals in the air. No use owning land if the mines over the next ridge start choking you to death with poisonous dust.”

“And those mines won’t be slowing, stopping, or shrinking,” Patrick said, “only growing bigger each year. We’ll all get swallowed up by pit mining machines or buried by the landslides.”

“And it won’t stop there,” Hank put in his two cents. “Those mines will keep spreading until they run right up to the suburbs.”

“Global warming from carbon emissions doesn’t stop anywhere,” Louisa said severely. “Coal is going to kill us all, one way or another.”

“Might as well make a stand here, then,” Hank declared. “It’s as good a place as any.” He posed dramatically. “If I die today, I fall in the hills that birthed me and lie alongside my forefathers.”

“Son,” Wanda glared at him, “you best get your scrawny white hide over the ridge if you’re gonna do any dying. This holler’s only good for killing black folks.”

“Nobody’s getting killed, Wanda,” Henrietta said. She could almost see the hairs standing straight up on Wanda’s back. Wanda twisted round in her chair and gave that young mother a look.

“Henrietta Owens, you’re a real bright girl, but you don’t know nothing about history. You stick your head out agitating like Dr. King and JFK and Gandhi, and you’re gonna end up just like them. Dead. D-E-A-D. Dead. You got that?”

“Wanda, those mountains are the civil rights of our time!” Henrietta protested.

“Humph. Girl, you ain’t even got half the rights that was promised to us in the sixties,” Wanda retorted.

“Fine then, Wanda, I only got half as much to lose.” Henrietta tensed her tougher-than-Moses-Nelson’s-moonshine bristles, but Wanda was a Nelson, through and through, and that kind of spitfire wasn’t gonna curl her hair any more than it already was. She shook her head.

“Henrietta, you are as stubborn as Buella’s mule and I don’t even try to talk sense with that ass.” She glanced up at Henrietta’s set face and rolled her eyes.

“There ain’t but one thing I can do about someone as young and stupid as you,” she spat at Henrietta.

“What’s that?” Henrietta asked.

“Pray.”

With that, Wanda folded her fingers together and bent her head.

“Uh, Wanda?” Hank began.

“Shut up, I’m praying,” she snapped. One eye popped open and looked around at them. “Y’all gonna send Henrietta up against the almighty coal company without getting your Savior on your side?”

No answer came from the table except for a few awkward looks. They tended to leave religion out of things . . . less trouble that way. Wanda sniffed at them,

“Y’all need a miracle and you ain’t even asked nicely for it?” She shook her head and muttered, “Lord, what is the matter with these people? First thing I gotta pray for is some common sense.” She glanced up from her hands. “Y’all can pray to whoever you feel like, but if you’re putting that girl on the front line, I’m gonna get my Creator on her side.” With that, she lowered her head to bend God’s ear.

The long moment of silence was broken only by a cheeky squirrel’s chatter. The organizers looked from one to the other and glanced a little guiltily at Henrietta. When everybody realized that this was no short conversation Wanda was having with God, each surrendered to their own private oasis of the spirit.

With a feeling of relief, Louisa quickly sought the quiet void from which the web of all creation springs. A moment of silence might clear the air of argument from the room . . . and from herself. Louisa quietly thanked Wanda for this reminder. As an organizer, she should have remembered how essential this time of centering was for any meeting. She breathed in and out and watched the ripples of her breathing shake the dewing beads of change throughout the universe. She called on pure potential to help humanity, envisioning a host of what if’s and it could be’s and maybe we could’s swooping into every person’s mind.

Patrick danced his awkward dance with spirit. He never prayed direct to God, but to an unseen angel whose wafting wing beats brushed against him from time to time. Like Jacob wrestling in the dark, Patrick’s soul grappled with his angel’s challenges. He was tried and tested and left counting his blessings for one more day of life. Patrick quietly listened for the angel’s passing, hoping to grab it by the robe and ask for guidance.

Hank, who would surprise you if you peeled off his Appalachian overcoat, launched with gusto into prayer. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and, in his mind, called upon the old Taoist sage, Lao-Tzu. He had a real affinity for the guy. Hank fancied himself a holler sage of sorts, a hermit in the mountains unless he got a hankering for life. Then he substituted mountain moonshine for Taoist wine and went in search of what pulls all holy men from high-horse hermitages: women. Yes, Hank had an affinity for Taoist philosophy and all its earthly forms of wisdom. He respectfully asked Lao-Tzu what course they could take to save the mountains and mankind.

In his mind, Hank saw the Old Sage stroke his beard and pull upon his ear.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Hank begged him for another answer. The wise one added,

“You must let everything take its course . . . and that, of course, might end up saving you.”

Hank pulled his hair and asked for further illumination. The Sage drew an enormous breath to launch into a lecture. Hank interrupted,

“I don’t have a thousand years. Can you just give it to me as a sound byte?”

Lao-tzu scowled with the disgust of one who had already condensed a universe of operations into eighty-one short poetic verses and now this impudent young man wanted a haiku?

“Well, actually,” Hank admitted, “even a single sentence is too long.”

Lao-tzu’s wrinkled eyes flew open in delight.

“Ah, yes! You understand!” He bowed to the bewildered Hank. “Words are wasted breath beside the infinite suchness of the wordless Tao,” the Sage commented.

Hank groaned in utter confusion.

“So . . . what do we do?” the young man pleaded.

“Do nothing . . . and something comes from that.” Lao-tzu handed Hank a sound byte on a platter and hoped the young man’s American palate could appreciate its subtle meanings. Hank’s skepticism twisted up his face. Lao-tzu sighed. “Go ask the Immortal Sisters for an answer.”

Hank perked up at the mention of wisdom-laden ladies.

“Are they cute?” he asked.

“Gorgeous,” Lao-tzu replied and gave the young man directions to the Celestial Heavens.

We could write volumes on Hank’s journeys through the inner mysteries of the Immortal Sisters who teach the sagest of the sages everything they know, but we don’t have a thousand years, so we’ll skip to the important part: at long last, when the Sisters bid Hank a fond farewell, one of them graciously rephrased Lao-tzu’s single esoteric sentence into a simple kiss.

Hank’s blue eyes flew as wide open as the sky. The kiss popped the cherry of his spiritual virginity. He tumbled through the intercourse of yin and yang, male and female, night and day, and saw the world collapsing into nothing and then just as quickly springing back into a something-ness that formed and grew and lived and died by fractions of a moment.

His mind spiraled back to No Man’s Holler and he sprawled on the table clutching a single shard of sanity. He had no idea how to save humanity, but the why of it clung sweetly to his lips. He burst from quiet and startled them all from their prayers.

“Holy smokes and Mother of God, y’all, we’ve got to turn this ship around! Extinction?! Hell, that’s like an eternity without an orgasm! Imagine it: No sex! No chocolate! No moonlit madness! Are we insane?!”

He leapt up on the table and laid out mans’ options with the deep bellow of an auctioneer.

“On the one hand . . . we can die in an agonizing process of extinction involving carbon emissions, ozone depletion, global warming, famine, war, nuclear fallout, disease, and societal collapse. On the other hand,” his grin exploded across his freckled face, “we’ve got women! Beautiful, lusty, healthy women! And food! Bread and collards and ripe ole tomatoes and pecan pie and god-the-list-is-endless! Did I mention dancing? Next to women?”

He was crude and crass and utterly honest and impassioned. He was twenty-two and the whole world was one mad orgasmic organism ejaculating copulation: birds and bees and garden hoses and well pumps and break waters and tidal plunges and thunder spouts and pines exuding aphrodisiac aromas while the slugs were foregoing all genders in their passions and the flowers were making wild love with pistol penises and petal labia and little buzzing vibrator bees.

“We’d be mad to give this all up!” he shouted on the tabletop. “Men are crazy not to pit our every working, waking effort to keep humanity a part of all of this!”

He stared at the startled, upturned faces. The table’s soapbox urged him on. He paced it searching for solutions.

“Something. Nothing. Something. Nothing.” The words exploded from him. His hand pumped gestures in and out, female embracing male in a fluid expression of the universe of love until, finally, it came! Hank groaned in ecstasy; in the release of thought; in the solution to mankind’s conundrum; in the simplicity of the primal act that creates us all.

“Love.” He sank onto the table in collapse and rolled onto his back. Henrietta’s bemused expression stared down at him as he said, “All we gotta do is learn to love.”

The group consensus grunted, “Huh?”

Hank sprawled his youthful lusty worldly understanding out, “We gotta love so much that we’d do anything –anything– to keep on loving.”

He tried to find the words to express the power of this simple concept. “Our lust for love, our lust to live; that is what propels this world around! Love is what has run the motor of the universe since time began. It got each of us where we are today.”

He rolled upright and put his face in front of Patrick’s.

“Old man, what sent you into those black mines way back when?”

“A job,” Patrick answered testily.

“What did you need a job for?” Hank asked.

“My wife-”

“What did you need a wife for?”

“I love her!” Patrick exclaimed indignantly.

“You mean you went into Hell each and every day because of love?” Hank gaped and laughed and smirked all at the same time. Patrick scratched his head.

“I guess, when you put it that way . . . ”

“Yep. I do,” Hank said. “This whole world is propelled by love. It’s the fuel that got us where we are today, not coal or gas or oil.” He rolled over to Henrietta and said directly to Jerome, “What got you here, little guy?”

“Love,” Henrietta answered for him. And sometimes that’s all that keeps us here, she added silently, glancing around her kitchen. Hank sprang up into a crouch.

“Everybody preaches morality and godliness. I say fuck it! Literally. It’s the craving for unity that turns this world around each day. And if we don’t want to miss out on all the action, we got to get our butts into gear, quit hanging around like a bunch of wallflowers, and love this world like she deserves!”

“Amen, son!” Wanda shouted out unexpectedly. Hank whirled to face his unlikely supporter who stood beside the birth-stains of her father and testified, “If y’all men treated me the way we been treating this earth, I wouldn’t just walk out on you . . . I’d run your lousy, no-good, two-faced, lying, crazy, drugged-up asses off the face of this planet!” She slammed the table with her palm. It kicked back a shudder that jolted Hank. Everyone jumped and saw a vision of a righteously inflamed Wanda scouring the earth of abusive men.

“I think Mother Earth will stand up for herself, Wanda,” Louisa said. “She’s doing it already; hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, heat waves, droughts, floods. We can’t count the rapidly increasing number of natural disasters that are sending us the message.”

“Can’t blame Mother Earth,” Wanda sniffed. “It’s self-defense.”

“Yeah?” Patrick grumbled dourly. “That’s what the coal companies say when you threaten their profits. Self-defense. Makes ’em feel justified in threatening your life.”

“We are just talking about some interviews here,” Louisa reminded him. “They’ll probably spend most of it asking about Henrietta’s romantic life.”

“That oughta be a short conversation,” Henrietta snorted. “I’ll have plenty of time to talk about coal.”

Patrick commented,

“That’s where it gets life and death.”

“Oh, living, dying, who cares?” Hank erupted in impatience. He threw his hands up and stated, “You live until you die. Don’t y’all want to have some fun while we’re at it?”

His grin spread from ear to ear. Hank Crawley, in and out of scrapes his whole life, was daring them to risk everything as if tackling the coal company was just a long rope swing into a pond, or a no-hands sled race down the steepest hollow slope, or borrowing the neighbor’s car for a joyride when you’re only ten.

Patrick, gray in head and stout in waist, reflected on his earlier days railing full-force against injustice. Fun? Humph. He was too old to consider police with clubs, tear gas, or riot gear fun. But as he thought about those early days, he realized a gray cloud of seriousness and survival was coloring the pallor of his memories. He blinked at the bright sunshine of Hank’s suggestion. Fun? He was older now, with nothing but retirement and death stretching out before him. His grimness began to lighten up. Fun, huh? Well, he had nothing to risk but his own last few years and heck, who knows, maybe another lifetime, if those Hindus turned out to have it right. Shoot, if that were true, he’d best risk it all right now! Next time the skies might not be so blue, nor the air breathable at all. Make it fun, huh? He’d be down there at the protest singing Yankee Doodle instead of chanting angry slogans. Lighten it all up! Yep, he decided, this time around, let’s have some fun.

Louisa calculated risks. Pain and suffering clung to snapping rope swings and smashing sleds and reckless joyrides that rolled into ditches. Prudence learned to take the slow and cautious path so nobody got hurt. Too late for that, she thought, with melting icecaps flashing through her mind. Louisa looked at the long and winding road before them. She saw the sunset of the human species. She realized that, fun or not, there wasn’t time to not take risks. They’d have to leap and pray.

Quiet Ford, who had sat listening through it all, started chuckling in his chair. All the gods, goddesses, angels, saints, and sages blessed his patient silent prayer with an epiphany,

“What do we got to lose except life itself?”

His words struck lightning into Louisa’s tangled web of thoughts. Suddenly electrified, illuminated, bursting with energetic understanding, she cried,

“Yes. Yes! YES! That’s exactly it!”

No one remembered later if she leapt up in her hiking boots and thick wool socks or if that table itself hoisted her up onto its shoulder. Henrietta had long suspected it of revolutionary leanings. No chairs ever sat quite right beside it. The table flung them back, calling out for pacing and impassioned speeches, fist poundings and declarations of independence. Its wood had emerged from roots that had soaked up the blood of generations of mankind. It had grown its beams from the bones of natives, whites, and black people alike. It had breathed in the stench of fear and hate and love and lust and drunken moonlight serenades. It had caught the reverberations of the last wolf’s howl and the final touch of Lenape Indian hands. The dust of coal was newly on its leaves when a wild storm had knocked it to the ground. Now Louisa stood on it and assailed them with a speech so patriotic it sounded un-American.

“We are citizens of this nation,” she proclaimed, “but even beyond the invisible borders of our cities, states, and country, there is a supreme geo-political body that claims our foremost allegiance. Even as the city yields to state, and the state yields to national authority, so is there yet one more governing body that claims the highest ranking among all the nation-states of man.” She hesitated, almost afraid to say it. Then Henrietta dared,

“The Earth.”

It was a matchstick in a haystack of insurrection, a traitorous statement in the current notions of the United States of America. It was treason to the laws of the country of their births. They were on the verge of declaring themselves to be, first and foremost, citizens of the Earth.

Of course! Of course! Hank groaned. Why had he never seen it? Who else granted them their human rights to air, water, sleep, shelter? Certainly not the U.S. Government. What other nation, state, county, or city negotiated the crucial laws of space and gravity and tidal currents, and coordinated the sun and clouds in a constitution that made a mockery of international boundaries and interstate commerce clauses? What other geo-political body gave all people liberty with their lives and taxed them only for reverence and respect?

The group of six humans -no, seven, for while the youngest one knew nothing of the concept of America, he already lived and breathed his citizenship with Earth- sat slightly stunned and suddenly robbed of national identity by this revelation.

You are my people, the Earth had just declared. The Earth, herself, had called them round her table and knighted each of them as champions.

“Can you hear it?” Louisa whispered, for suddenly the whole forest trumpeted its leaves. The branches clacked sharply in the beat of snare drums. The fife of birdsong whistled out its tune. Patrick’s face turned ashy gray. He whispered the most patriotic of all American declarations,

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another . . . ”

The Earth was singing her revolution. She was calling her brave men and courageous women to her defense.

” . . . a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that he should declare the causes that impel them to separation,” Patrick quoted.

“Not separation,” Louisa said. “Reunion. I call for a declaration of our allegiance to our entire globe as our Earth calls now for the United States to end its abusive practices.”

“Its long train of abuses and usurpations, repeated injuries and Tyranny,” Patrick recited, grumbling.

“Yeah,” Hank added, “we’re waging sneaky underhanded terrorism against the Earth.”

“Whose citizens are you?” Louisa challenged them. “When the battle lines are drawn, where will you stand?”

The house shook now with a gust from the storming forest and Henrietta held Jerome close. The tension built in the atmosphere. The course of events swirled madly around the wildness of this table.

“When in the course of human events,” Patrick repeated, “any form of government becomes destructive of the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness; it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”

He paused as a tremble shuddered him.

“This is treason,” he said.

Hank scoffed, “It’s only treason ’til you win the revolution.”

The wind thrashed around the cabin. Henrietta turned on the lights against the darkening world.

“We must decide,” Louisa said, with the ring-lined planks of an ancient tree beneath her feet. “Are we puppets of a mad empire or citizens of the Earth?”

Henrietta sighed. She held Jerome tight against her as the storm darkened the room.

“We must make the choice,” Louisa insisted. The first crack of rain smacked onto the roof. “Without the life support of Earth, the principles of this country -justice, liberty, pursuit of happiness- all mean nothing!” The rain tapped drumbeats of revolution on the tin and tar. “If we want to be loyal to our country, we have to start by being loyal to all the people, plants, places, and animals that keep us all alive!”

A billion raindrops broke deafeningly against the roof. They thundered on the canopy of leaves, the forest floor, anything they could find. Their wild clapping overwhelmed the humans. Six hearts pounded madly. The seventh heartbeat pulsed against his mother’s. The one lamp barely held off the dark blue shadows from the storm. Louisa’s face shone gold and midnight as she turned toward them.

“It is all for one, and one for all, like the old stories of democracy. We must shift our table to be round and offer the entire world a seat. No longer can man be king of beasts, nor the lion, nor any other. We must recognize our perfect union, our true democracy with all of Earth.”

She stood and the light strove to catch up with her as she towered and cried out to all that hammered at the cabin walls. The moment called her passions howling from her throat. Louisa, white and thin, with dark brown hair that hung straight around her enigmatic frame, called upon her bloodlines that stretched back to the first peoples of this continent, the colonists who later came, and the immigrants who followed them. She called upon the elements that had given the breath of life to all of them.

“Rain!” she cried, for water gave her blood its form. “Come sit at this table! Wind! Join us with your breath. Clouds! Draw close and trees as well! Gather round and grace us with your presence.”

Louisa chanted out a list of names, calling the rocks, grasses, mountains, field mice, and tiny creeping insects through the storm. She welcomed microbes, parasites, worms, and spiders, lichens, ferns, mosses, reeds, and seaweeds. She called on sun and warmth, snow and ice, frosts and glaciers. She made room for all the aspects of the Earth.

Her wide-eyed listeners felt suddenly the immensity of this new democracy. No longer were they lonely rebels, seven small humans against the world. They had the allies of the elements, the support of all creatures great and small. The rain slowed and the Earth drew closer, listening. The trees hung their leaves down to hear the murmured words beneath them. The mice crept underneath the porch. Seven humans leaned in together.

“We must give voice to all that has no human languages to speak in,” Louisa said. “Henrietta, you must speak not just for the mountains, but for the trees, the rain, and all the creatures. You must speak-” she touched Jerome’s head, “-for all the human babies and the ones that are to come. Their fate hangs by the thread of your words.”

Henrietta shivered. There is a story that must be told. It was just as her mamma had sensed. Arellia had received the sign, a book with nothing written in it. Earth’s creatures used no written language.

“It is a web, see?” Louisa said and interlaced her fingers. Jerome watched her cat’s cradle fingers weaving in and out.

“Imagine all the people, animals, plants, and elements,” Louisa invited them, ” . . . imagine them like gossamer spider webs, strung out across the expanse of the Earth. Every issue, every field, every person is a part of this. Here, if we tug at this sticky spot of the dying Appalachian Mountains, the whole web puckers and wrinkles, but it’s all too sticky with injustice. We’ve got to break the old web and build a new one that grows from the democracy of Earth, itself. Henrietta, do you understand?”

“Oh, yes.” She touched the cross sections of Louisa’s white and bony knuckles with the dark and light shadow play of her own. “Here, here, and here. I start to break the threads of fear that hold us back. Here, I slip the new connections and understandings into place. Here, I bring two hands together,” she smiled at Louisa and laced her fingers into the other woman’s.

Hank’s slid out to join them.

“Not just two hands,” he said, “all of them.”

“And not through fear, but through hope,” Patrick added, as his flesh and age came under theirs and lifted up their burden. “We’re building a new citizenship with all of Earth. We’re becoming true Americans.”

“Well,” came Ford’s slow voice as he rose from his chair. His dark, earthy hand joined the pact, “I never thought today would lead me to become a citizen of the Earth, or foment a revolution, or hear anything like what’s been said today.” He paused and thought a moment, “But all my life I’ve protected things; women, children, men, small animals, and I guess now mountains and the whole earth. It’s like the old song says . . . ” His deep baritone drew breath to moan out,

“Are you a protector of the meek?”

“Yeeeeeesssss, Lord,” Wanda’s voice shot out of darkness, trilling the response.

“Are you a follower of the Lamb?”

“Yeeeeeessss, Lo-oh-ord!” she rocked as she sung the reply.

“A soldier of the cross?”

“Yes, Lord!” Wanda sang the last notes and fell to silence. The others felt the hairs rising on their arms as they sensed that God was listening. Ford’s face lifted up in supplication and his voice fell into the cadence of prayer,

“We’re being asked today to make some mighty difficult choices. Asked to take up sides and try to make a mess turn out right. Lord, I can only do my best and I ask forgiveness if You see any wrong-doing in my actions. I hope You won’t, Lord, no, I hope You see that Your ole Ford here is just a protector of all Your creations, yes, and all these other folks are, too. I ask Your blessing, Lord, for them, and for me.”

“Amen.” Wanda’s hand joined theirs and sealed the prayer. The rippling air currents settled in the kitchen. Hank slid off the table. Birds resumed their callings in the trees outside.

They all looked at Henrietta. The course of action hung on her. She would be marching front and center. She would become the face for the force that strode behind her. She would step into the targets of the powers that lined up against them.

“Do you know what we’re getting into?” Patrick asked Henrietta. “I’ve been jailed and beaten for doing no worse than holding up a picket sign against the coal company.”

“Yeah,” Hank chortled like the devil, “this is like sticking your shining face right out in front of their cannons.”

“There may be death threats,” Louisa added pragmatically. Jerome leaned against Henrietta’s chest, playing with the buttons on her blouse. She looked down thoughtfully at him.

“I’ve been thinking lots and praying,” she glanced at them, shadowed and gray in the rainy evening light. “But when I pray, I just send my hope out like messages in bottles. I got no idea whose shore they’re washing up on, because I feel like I’m floating in the middle of an inky dark ocean of my life without any rudder or sails.”

A rush of emotion pressed up inside her; fear, loneliness, worry. The wind rattled against the loose shingles on the roof. Henrietta swallowed and continued,

“The truth is; every day, we risk dying just to live. Tyrell and I, we risked this baby’s life just bringing him into the world. I don’t need to start splitting the hairs of courage now. I been in equal danger of dying since the day that I was born. In fact, death may be the only promise I know is gonna be kept. That makes it real simple.”

Henrietta looked a long time at her son.

“I can die trying to live,” she said softly to him as if making a bargain on their future, “or we’ll all just die.”

“Or,” Louisa gently pointed out, “you could just live.”

“Well,” Henrietta replied as she started to chuckle, “I guess that would be the point of all this, wouldn’t it?”

She looked at Louisa, who started laughing with her. A ripple of relief ran through the room. The storm sent a drip-dropping patch of sunlight into the room as the clouds slipped over the hollow ridge.

“What do you say, Henri?” Hank asked, brimming with eagerness. “Do you want to jump out of the bushes and make faces at the coal company?”

Henrietta laid one hand on the table as if for strength. The grains of wood sent wild rhythms running through her bloodstream. The risk of living life at all pounded in her heart and made her willing to take a chance. She raised the strong lines of her face. Her eyes shone hot in the dusky twilight.

“Oh no,” she said, soft and serious, “I’m gonna do much more than that. I’m going to have a heart to heart with every household in this nation. I’m gonna sit down at their TV dinners. I’m gonna serenade them on the radio. I’ll swap secrets in their beauty parlors and shout headlines at the checkout counter. We got to wake this nation up and it’ll take every alarm clock that we’ve got. The first thing we’ve got to do is- ”

“Pray,” Wanda interrupted. “First and last and all the while in between, you got to pray.”

Henrietta smiled. Sometimes, our prayers are chants or songs or ecstatic cries of lovemaking or poems or quiet energies inside us. Henrietta was going to sing a lullaby to wake the whole world up. Some would call it rabble-rousing. Others would simply call it prayer.

________

Find the whole book here: http://www.riverasun.com/online-store/steam-drills-treadmills-and-shooting-stars/

Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the co-initiator of Live Share Grow: A Movement for the 100%. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Counterpunch, Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com

Schoolyard Bullies on Capitol Hill

An Essay of the Man From the North

by Rivera Sun

Image from Creative Commons CCO. Support the Commons!

Politicians have devolved into nothing more than schoolyard bullies stealing lunch money from small children, harassing the defenseless, and expecting to receive rewards and gold stars of approval.

They plunder the public coffers, destroying shared wealth that we, the People, have worked arduously to build. With social justice movements, one after another, we have labored to defend these systems that protect and support our mothers, children, elders, families, the differently-abled, the down-on-their-luck, the hurt and abused. We have demonstrated our compassion for one another through insisting that our politicians institute these social programs. We have stood up for one another by defending them from the greedy plundering of bullies.

But politicians and their corporate, oligarchic cronies pervert media to their purposes and deceive the unsuspecting. They lie through their teeth to take lollipops from kindergarteners. They twist truth to get snacks from first graders. They strong-arm suspicious kids to get ahold of their goodies. They flat-out attack their peers to steal public lands, sweet deals of contracts and the sustenance of subsidies.

If they don’t get what they want, they throw tantrums. If they sense defiance, they beat it back into submission. If they get caught in the act, they turn on false charm to sway the authorities into letting them off with a wrist slap. If that doesn’t work, they threaten to send in their big daddies of lawsuits, leverage, and clout.

These are the people running our country. We all know them – or at least, we’ve all encountered the grade school forerunners of this archetype. We’ve been slammed up against lockers, had gum stuck in our hair, been taunted and mocked, and tripped up in the halls of life.

We must deal with this problem of bullies occupying Capitol Hill. Bullies do not vanish by avoiding them . . . they simply go pick on someone else, grow bigger, and ultimately come back to haunt us from corporate offices and political seats. Wherever there is power, the abuse of power can exist. And inside each abuser is a bully that must be rousted.

It takes courage to stand up to bullies. They are strong and powerful. We feel weak and small. But, we are many and they are few . . . and when a whole schoolyard unites against tyranny and injustice, no bully can withstand our opposition.

We cannot use violence – it would turn us into the very monster we are seeking to transform. We must use noncooperation. We must refuse to be allies to bullies, pawns in his game, or part of his group. We must refuse to consent or comply to his demands. Neither fear nor ambition should sway us to give him what he wants to take through force. We must use collective protest: whenever and wherever we see a bully shaking down a first grader or snatching something from a kindergartener, we must collectively raise our voices and shout: Stop! No more! All eyes should turn on the bully. All voices must denounce the behavior.

We must courageously intervene, throwing our bodies over the defenseless, taking blows meant for another, and staring down hatred and violence. We must use de-escalation, distraction, and all the skills that can thwart a bully in his attempt to abuse others.

Together, we must lift up our shared values of kindness, compassion, and respect. We must treat one another as we wish to be treated. We must assert that these are the rules of our playground. We must insist that all who share our schoolyard and community play by the common rules of human decency. We must be willing to transform ourselves from isolated victims into collective movements for change.

And we must be willing to allow bullies to transform back into ordinary human beings. They are not monsters. They are humans. We must stand, as Dr. King said, against the injustice, yet not against the person. This may be the hardest task for us all. But at the end of the day, our schoolyard is part of our home, our community, and our nation. All of us – bullies, victims, scapegoats, bystanders, and defenders – will continue to live and work here. So, we must challenge and change the dynamics at play. We must end the bullying of others in our halls, seats, and offices of power. We must do so nonviolently with equal measures of courage and compassion. And we must strive to help everyone emerge from the gauntlet of change with our humanity, dignity, and heads lifted high.

_________________

 

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrectio n. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here .  

 

Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the co-initiator of Live Share Grow: A Movement for the 100%. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Counterpunch, Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com

 

Coming up! Special Webinar on The Dandelion Insurrection

On February 11th at 1pm ET, Author/Activist Rivera Sun will offer a free online presentation on fact and fiction in The Dandelion Insurrection. At a time when her words are leaping off the page and into reality – for better or for worse – she will discuss the real life events that inspired the writing of the novel, what has “come true” since then, what’s looming on the horizon, and the take-to-heart lessons on nonviolent movements, change, and organizing that are in the novel. Rivera Sun brings her experience as movement organizers and strategist for nonviolent campaigns into the conversation . . . and she’ll also speak about the plot of the forthcoming sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection, titled The Roots of Resistance. 

The online event is free, but you must RSVP to get the call-in info: https://zoom.us/meeting/314203574

The Dandelion Insurrection novel and accompanying study guide to nonviolent action can be found here. The study guide was recently released in ebook version, which can be found here, along with the ebook of the novel.

This webinar is presented as part of a four-part series on nonviolent action sponsored by the Netherlands-based groups SVAG – Foundation for Active Nonviolence and ToNoWo – Towards a Nonviolent World. Learn more about upcoming and past webinars here: http://www.riverasun.com/winter-webinar-series-nonviolent-change-with-rivera-sun/

Review of The Dandelion Insurrection by Angela Parker

Photo by Briton Donahue

Special thanks to Angela Parker for this gem of a review! You can find The Dandelion Insurrection here. 

This brilliant and instructional novel is prophetic in its story line. With stunning parallels to today’s corporate dictatorship, this novel begins at the American-Canadian border with Zadie and Charlie, the primary, but not only heroines of the Dandelion Insurrection. This novel takes place in a dark time where the politicians are cowardly corporate minions, and the military and police are brutalizing anyone who dares to stand up to the endless extraction of earth. Death to wildlife and mass poverty are regular business casualties imposed on all people and living things. Social services have been slashed and 70% of the government budget goes to the military that exists only for corporate power. Mass surveillance keeps everyone in constant fear, brutal repression and hopelessness. The faux Christians are beating the drums of war, propaganda rules the corporate news and journalists who tell the truth disappear under the martial law which has been imposed on our country.

“Terrorism. The family groaned in collective exasperation. Everything was because of terrorism these days, the unending wars overseas, the soldiers on the streets at home, the restrictions on gatherings, the censoring of newspapers, the police checkpoints, the ballooning military budgets, searches without warrants, and now, the closure of a peaceful border after hundreds of years of open travel.”  – The Dandelion Insurrection, page 4.

Through their strategized peaceful resistance, courage, love, kindness, hope, and beautiful inspiration, the Dandelion Insurrection turns the tide from a hopeless and demoralized citizenry to a hopeful, informed, loving, organized and empowered people.

We, Charlie realized. It is always we who are ultimately culpable. He thought about the subtle shift that was occurring. Thousands of people had recognized their complicity in destruction, and were now taking a stand for life. Ah, Charlie thought when we stop blaming Them and take responsibility for our actions… when we consciously withdraw our cooperation from injustice… that is when real change begins to occur. Not from the top and not just from the bottom, but from all sides at once as every person wakes up and makes a conscious choice to preserve the goodness of life on this earth.” – The Dandelion Insurrection, page 260-261.

As a result of the courageous efforts taken against our tyrannical and corporate militarized government, Zadie and Charlie are detained and a trial begins wherein they are ultimately found Not Guilty. After the verdict, Zadie and Charlie walk to our nation’s capital, followed by antagonizing drones of fear and throngs of revolutionary nonviolent insurrectionists of love. The Dandelion Insurrectionists of love and revolution save the day and capture the hearts of the previously hopeless people, as a direct result of their vision, dedication to act only in love, and clever strategy.

“We are one people, indivisible, not by allegiance or by force, but entwined through the love in our hearts. Through our pulse, and our breath, and our frail human skins, the body of the people stands immortal. We rise and we fall; we sweep by in waves of faces; we roll in the rushing tide of life. We are foolish, we are proud, we are loving, we are tired; we weep for beauty, laugh in sorrow, cry out lonely in the night; we hurt and cause harm; we are lovers and beloveds; we shall live, we shall die, we shall pass, and still remain; for the body of the people lives forever.” – The Dandelion Insurrection, page 345.

This novel is brilliant, inspirational and instructive in its clear strategic vision of what it will take to return democracy to the people of America, using the tenants of nonviolence in the task of healing our democracy, trust, hope and country. There is also an optional study guide for nonviolent strategy and organization that accompanies The Dandelion Insurrection novel.   The Study Guide has clear and simple instructions to assist with any nonviolent effort and mobilization. The Dandelion Insurrection novel and Study Guide will provide both hope and skill to the many, many nonviolent mobilizations occurring in our country at this very time. In addition, Rivera Sun often offers an online workshop for anyone interested in strategizing/organizing a local nonviolent mobilization.

Nonviolent Resistance to Trump: Creative, Powerful . . . and Growing

By National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Daniel Gagnon, JTF-DC

The rise of Donald Trump has been infuriating, horrifying, and ridiculous all at once. Meanwhile, what we, the People, are doing to resist injustice, oppression, discrimination, hate, bigotry, and authoritarianism is downright inspiring. Nonviolent action is reaching new heights of creativity in the United States, widening in frequency and participation. Here’s just a sample of how ordinary, extraordinary people have mobilized for justice in the past month.

4.5 Million People (3.3 Million In US) March for Women’s Rights on Inauguration Weekend

The Women’s March and Sister Marches exploded across the US and around the world the day after the inauguration. March turnouts doubled or tripled expectations, and the number of solidarity or related marches far exceeded expectations. From senior citizens marching with walkers around nursing homes to 30 freezing souls in Antarctica to hundreds of thousands in the major US cities to ex-patriots overseas, people marched in support of women and against the demeaning rhetoric and discriminatory proposed policies of Pres. Donald Trump. In addition to organizers, civil resistance researchers Jeremy Pressman and Erica Chenoweth worked with a network of people to catalogue the sheer massiveness of these actions.

Photo via Ann Wright

Greenpeace Welcomes Trump to White House with RESIST Banner Drop

Welcome to the White House, Mr. President. Soon after the inauguration, Greenpeace activists dropped a photo-bomb of a banner drop off a giant crane parked behind the White House. The one-word banner said it all: RESIST.

Federal Workers Noncooperation and Resistance to Trump Administration

Bureaucratic obstruction may be par for the course in Washington DC during a change of presidential administrations, but levels of noncooperation and resistance to the Trump Administration from federal workers are reaching new heights of political significance . . . and creativity. From collective resignations, letters of opposition, refusal to cooperate with assignments and orders, the federal workers (the ones who don’t change with every election) are taking subtle, but powerful action on behalf of civil and human rights, and protection of public programs. And, 180 federal employees signed up for a workshop where experts will offer advice on workers’ rights and how they can express civil disobedience.

@AltNatParkSer Turns Park Rangers Into Unexpected Climate Heroes

Tweet from @AltNatParkSer

Speaking of federal workers, our favorite story of resistance comes from the unlikely heroes of the National Park Service. Yes, the park rangers. When a climate change gag order was sent out, the employee who ran the Badlands National Park Twitter account went rogue, disobeyed, and tweeted truth to power about climate change and the threat it poses. When the employee was shut out of the account and the tweets deleted, alternative Twitter handles popped up. @AltNatParkSer tweeted: You can take our official twitter, but you’ll never take our free time! In 36 hours, they had over one million followers and 50 other @AtlGov accounts had been opened.

Sanctuary Cities Pick Up Steam, Defy Threats

The Sanctuary City movement is spreading like wildfire, rallying local, county, and state opposition to immigration and deportation plans. Mayors, City Councils, Police Departments are all pledging to refuse to assist ICE in deporting immigrants. The Trump Administration has threatened to cut off federal funding to Sanctuary Cities, but many of them remain determined and resolute. The Mayor of Boston even offered his office and City Hall as a sanctuary. According to some reports, the State of California (the ninth largest economy in the world) has threatened to cut off funding to the federal government if the Trump Administration cuts off federal funding to the state over their many sanctuary cities.

Oh, and About That Wall . . .

Trump’s infamous Mexico Border Wall has set off a flurry of choice words from both the former and current Presidents of Mexico who are outraged about the arrogance of the wall proposal and the threat to make Mexico pay for it. For this and other reasons, Mexican citizens have organized boycotts against prominent US companies – Walmart, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and others – rallying support under #AdiosProductosAmericanos. Meanwhile, the tribal nation of Tohono O’oodham vows that it will never build a wall across the 75 miles of its land that spans the US-Mexican border. By the way, if this border wall is built, it will end up costing every US household $120.

Muslim Ban Catalyzes Massive Airport Demonstrations, 1000s of NYC Bodega Protest Strikes, Taxi Driver Strikes and #DeleteUber

When President Trump closed entry to the US to seven Muslim-majority nations, he unleashed a storm of opposition from US citizens. When immigrants were detained at airports, massive airport demonstrations flooded airports nationwide. The airport taxi drivers went on strike . . . and when rumor went out that Uber would continue to provide airport service, citizens launched #DeleteUber and to encourage users to delete the Uber App from their phones. The ACLU waded into the fray and won some important victories for immigrant rights. Then thousands of bodegas closed early in New York City in protest over the Muslim Ban. Hundreds of DC officials have made public declarations of opposition to the ban. Overseas, Iraq and Iran took steps to ban US citizens from entering their countries.

818 Companies Drop Advertisement on Breitbart

Did you hear about how Rush Limbaugh was edged off the air by a quiet, persistent nonviolent campaign to get advertisers to withdraw from stations that carried his show? Well, that nonviolent strategy strikes again . . . this time at the right-wing journal Breitbart. Eight hundred and eighteen companies have dropped their advertising with the site – which has as much news creditability as the Onion, according to a recent poll. The campaigners have succeeded in getting major companies to pull out, including key companies overseas as Breitbart plans an international expansion.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Objects to #AlternativeFacts

You know you’re in trouble when even the dictionary takes umbrage. After Kellyanne Conway referred to falsehoods as “alternative facts”, Merriam-Webster Dictionary retorted on social media, “A fact is a fact, and calling falsehoods “alternative facts” doesn’t make something a fact.” Thanks, dictionary people! Now that that’s clarified . . . let’s talk about science and facts.

Scientist March on Washington, #ScienceNotSilence

Women’s March in LA by Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles

Scientists and science-supporters are marching on Washington DC after a series of Trump Administration actions pushed them into a phase transition state. No longer confined to laboratories, they’re taking action on Earth Day with a March for Science in DC and everywhere. With the slogan #ScienceNotSilence, they’re protesting the threatened erasure of climate science databases at NASA, the attempt to take down the climate data pages on the EPA website, the muzzling of officials on the subject of climate change (such as the Park Rangers), and the general dismissal of scientific fact by politicians and power holders. Some scientists have even formed a group to run for public offices: 314 Action . . . named for the first three numbers in pi.

That’s just some of the incredible nonviolent actions that have happened recently. Take heart. Resistance in 2017 is off to a powerful and provocative start . . . and the movements are growing daily.

__________

Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the co-initiator of Live Share Grow: A Movement for the 100%. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Counterpunch, Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com

 

 

Defending Against the Unknown

Photo from Creative Commons. Support the Commons!

An Essay of the Man from the North

by Rivera Sun

The challenges that confront us loom imminent, yet still unknown. Like dangers in the dark, we can sense but not clearly see them. Our government is preparing new assaults upon our rights and maneuvering more regressive unjust legislation through the machine of the political apparatus. The wealthy scheme up new ways to rob and impoverish us. Corporations craft increasing ways to profit, even if it means destroying our water, air, land, and health. We are facing dangers on all sides, in shapes and sizes we can barely imagine.

To wait for each new offensive to roll out puts us in a risky and vulnerable position. We must prepare our communities to respond with versatility and courage. In every town, neighborhood, city block, and rural region, we must gather in groups and form strong connections, networks, and coalitions. We need to bring people together to learn the basics of nonviolent struggle, the tactics and types of actions, the strategies and the how of what makes it work. We must show the dynamics of participation, noncooperation, repression, and the need for nonviolent discipline.

In our local communities, every member of the Dandelion Insurrection needs to put our golden minds and beautiful heads together. We must articulate the unknown. We must speak the uncertain. We must identify as much about what we think is coming . . . and then we must prepare to meet it.

Craft plans to thwart each threat. Train every member of your community in numerous contingency plans and strategies. From the oldest grandmother to the children who have just learned to read, every person should have knowledge of the many ways we can meet the many types of challenges we might face. Your neighbor should know that if X happens, we will boycott Y. The schoolteachers should be able to explain that if such-and-such a piece of legislation passes, then we will mobilize such-and-such mass civil disobedience against that unjust law. For every possibility, we can prepare a basic strategy of resistance.

And in preparing for the unknown, we become able to confront all possibilities.

The muscles of our nonviolent people-power gather strength. The knowledge of this type of resistance becomes as common as the knowledge of how to use can openers and light switches. Our leaderless movements transforms into leaderfull. Every person knows how to act. We build the skills in our friends and neighbors for analyzing the dangers and strategizing the response.

As our preparation builds, our well-prepared defense begins to serve as a deterrent against attack. If those who would harm our communities know that we have the ability to thwart them, the chances of their assault decrease. Even if they move ahead, we are now prepared to resist.

We can thank our predecessors for the theory of nonviolent-based defense. To deter fracking, citizens of Quebec strategized and trained their villages to such a degree that the industry was held at bay for over a decade. The gas company had been warned – right down to the dollars and cents it would cost them to “invade” – how well-prepared the citizens were to stop them. They mapped out roads and rural routes to proposed drilling sites and planned exactly how to launch blockades. They trained hundreds of people in the skills of locking down, setting up roadblocks, peaceful protest and noncooperation. An emergency phone system was set up to alert citizens if the fracking industry began to drive into the area again. Strategies for banning the gas company from accessing the water sources required for hydraulic fracturing were prepared by both citizens and public officials. An announcement of the millions of dollars, day-by-day, the citizens were prepared to make the gas company pay in delays, fees, and hiring police or other agents of repression was sent to the shareholders and investors in the drilling project.

We need to know our history. Our forbearers in nonviolent struggle gained hard-won lessons that we should learn and apply in our own situations. Far too many struggles failed because they reacted instead of initiated. They allowed the opposition to lead the charge, and never regained the timeline or the high ground of social change. We do not need to wait for what is coming . . . we can rise to meet the times. Like sentinels, we can be watchful, wary, and well prepared.

The Dandelion Insurrection in every corner of this country can train, strategize, mobilize and stand at ready. Then, our opponents will feel the rumble of our actions. They will hear the roar of our determination rising. Those dangers looming in the dark will hesitate.

And if the forces of destruction and injustice dare to launch their attacks, our nonviolent defense will be ready to defeat them.

______________

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrectio n. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here .  

 

Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the co-initiator of Live Share Grow: A Movement for the 100%. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Counterpunch, Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com

Emergence: Revolution Within and Without

Photo from Creative Commons. Support the Commons!

An Essay of The Man from the North

by Rivera Sun

A self-organizing movement like the Dandelion Insurrection relies on the collective and individual capacity of our participants. We are only as strong as the synergistic sum of our parts. The weaknesses of each person affect the effectiveness of the whole movement. The wisdom or folly of every individual contributes to either the intelligence or foolhardiness of our shared strategies and decisions.

Everything matters to this equation – our short tempers, hard won experience, creativity, grounded awareness, our respect for one another – and most of all, our knowledge of nonviolent action as the tools of change with which we are dismantling injustice and building a new world.

It matters because of the nature of our movement. The Dandelion Insurrection did not emerge from a single point. We never had a solitary leader or central command. It began by following the actions of ordinary people, telling their stories, and weaving a web of awareness about the dispersed resistance that was growing. We marked a map full of pushpins and described it as an insurrection. The dandelion grew up as a symbol . . . people started using it, and thus, the Dandelion Insurrection emerged.

Emergence is the jaw-dropping, beautiful arising of complex systems in an ever-changing, interconnected world. It is as old as the origins of life in the primordial soup. It is as enduring as each chapter of evolution. It unfolds daily, moment-by-moment in every plant, animal, and ecosystem. It blossoms in each one of us. Whether the powerful like it or not, it is at work in the very systems of economics and politics they are trying to dominate and control. It is entwined in the practices of real, participatory democracy . . . and in nonviolent movements for change.

Emergence has been the co-creative mechanism of the story of the world since the dawn of time. And, if humanity wishes to have a future on this planet, we will need to get cozy with emergence.

In the work of reconnecting with the emergent nature of our world, the Dandelion Insurrection serves as both training ground and mechanism of transformation. We are the means of eternity in the making. We have planted our seeds in the ground of existence. Our roots stretch into the very same soil from which all that we know has grown. We are organizing in alignment with the vast processes of the universe. When one participates in the Dandelion Insurrection as one of the participatory members of this leaderfull movement, one must unlearn old behaviors of dominator culture and relearn the practices of being human, being real, and a part of this beautiful, ever-changing, interconnected world.

The Dandelion Insurrection is a nonviolent movement challenging and transforming injustice, domination, authoritarian control, and the corporate take-over of our government and structures of power. But more than that, we are a tidal wave of life and change sweeping through the hearts, minds, and actions of our populace. We are a process that makes participants out of subjects; people out of consumers; and human beings out of victims, oppressors, and bystanders locked in old patterns.

We are rooted in nonviolence because it is integral to this process. Violence is fundamentally based in disempowering someone, holding power over them with the willingness to cause pain to get one’s way. The effectiveness of nonviolent action rests in withholding participation and cooperation, by placing our resources in new systems; and by intervening and disrupting the functioning of unjust systems. It stands upon the recognition that we are all connected to the vast ecosystems, economies, societies, and cultures that churn in our world. Whether against our will or with our willing consent, these systems rely on our continued active participation (or passive acceptance). If we, individually and collectively, shift our interaction in those systems, they also must shift and adapt to that change. The larger we make our shifts, the greater the system will feel the pressure to adapt to that change. The more strategically we can either withdraw participation or intervene in the system, the more likely that we can achieve the exact changes we desire.

Skillfulness counts . . . and because the Dandelion Insurrection is not a top-down movement with commands coming from leaders on high, the skillfulness of each person is critical to the success of the whole. Like barn raisers, we each must know how to swing a hammer and where to place the nail; when to lift and hold, and when to lower and release. There is no substitute for training ourselves. If we want an effective movement, the seeds of skillfulness must be planted in each participant.

This means you. Along with your friends, family members, and community, you must know the hundreds of methods of nonviolent action (our toolbox of tactics). You must know the basic dynamics of nonviolent struggle (the architectural principles of building change with those tools). You must know the goals that the Dandelion Insurrection collectively seeks (the sketch of the house we wish to live in). You must train to build your muscles for action. You must gather in small groups to gain practice in our versions of swinging the hammer and hitting the nail on the head. Then, when we move into action, we can move with trust and respect. We know the task we wish to accomplish is achievable. We know that the barn will be raised as safely, efficiently, and smoothly as possible. The work we do is dangerous by nature, and our skillfulness individually and collectively can be the factor that saves – or risks – thousands of lives, including our own.

There is a one thing more: every emergent system – from a sprouting seed to a newborn galaxy – is guided by organizing principles. These principles shape how it is formed and the formation that it takes. They make trees green and leafy with trunks, limbs, branches, and twigs. They give fish scales, gills, and tailfins. They determine that human babies will grow up into human adults while tiger cubs grow up into tigers. The Dandelion Insurrection has four guiding principles for our actions. Take them to heart as you act as part of this movement. They have emerged along with the Dandelion Insurrection. We saw them emerging, identified them, articulated them, and adopted them consciously. They give us strength, beauty, and grace. They have served us well in the past and the present. With your participation, they will serve us well into the future we’re building.

Nonviolence: don’t cause physical harm to anyone or anything.
Create connections: build community, open dialogues, organize action.
Use our civil liberties of speech and assembly to stand up for democracy.
Keep humanity and the planet alive: stop destruction; support the life affirming.

And, of course . . . be kind, be connected, be unafraid!

_______________

  The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrectio n. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here .  

Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the co-initiator of Live Share Grow: A Movement for the 100%. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Counterpunch, Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com

 

Love the Earth. Lift Up That Love Now.

 

Rivera Sun in Aspen Cathedral, Taos, New Mexico

The Earth is crying out for our love, for humanity to return to loving the contours, complexity, and exquisite beauty of our world. We have forgotten, turned away, hardened our hearts, and closed our ears. We have fallen into the terrible habit of thinking of this Earth as an object, a resource, or the backdrop to our lives.

Now, the Earth is calling for us to love, and as lovers, to hold up her beauty to the ignorant and destructive, so humanity can fall down on our knees together and weep. For the end of our long nightmare is dawning, and the fog of our human delusions might break . . . but only if some of us hold up the fierce light of our passionate, relentless love and break through that which obscures our fellow human beings’ understanding.

Remember, remember, the sidewalks of suburbia, the towers of the cities, the pavement, the smell of concrete and tar, the strip malls, the traffic jams . . . one half of our US population now lives in such a world. Remember, remember, the powerful speak in the language of profit margins and resources sitting in boardrooms in office buildings under artificial lights. Remember, remember, there are backwards ideas that still think in terms of former centuries, when the Earth was large and humanity small and weak. Now, we are seven billion and more, and our human ways impact the world on the scale of atmospheric shifts, and climate changes, and mass species extinction.

We must speak to all of these human perspectives and more. In love, with love, lovingly, we who adore this planet’s infinite complexity and beauty must show our beloved Earth to those who have forgotten. It is not about right and left . . . don’t fall for that trap. There are plenty on both ends of the spectrum who think only in terms of streets and screens and convenience. There are people from all walks of life who love the land with an intimacy so raw and visceral that it gives new depths of meaning to the very concept of the human being. There are some who love the Earth as God’s creation; there are some who simply love the Earth. The message is shared between them: love the Earth, love the Earth, love the Earth.

For love to happen new hearts, we must introduce the Earth to those who have never met her, to those who have only seen her as an object, to those who understand her only as an abstraction on television, to those who have forgotten her, to those who have feared her, to those who have fought with her.

We who live so intimately with our beloved Earth can use the common ground of our social media, emails, phone calls, letters, media, and more to share why we love the land, air, water, animals, plants. We can post our photos, or those of others and speak up, write our passionate adoration down and send it to those who have not heard those kinds of expressions in a while. We can share our shameless, oblivious teenage love, or our older, considerate love; or our lifetime committed love. Every day, we can post some intimacy, such as a tree blossoming and budding, or the flock of songbirds resting for a while on the long migration route. Lift it up. Make it real and felt for our human brothers and sisters who live estranged from the rest of the Earth.

Love the Earth. Love the Earth. Love the Earth.

Step out your front door. Reach down and touch the Earth. Use the powerful human capacity to envision and imagine to see the truth: your fingers touch the Earth that stretches underneath us all. You have a voice, a mind, language, and means of communication. The Earth is asking you to love her, and to speak to your human brothers and sisters on her behalf.

Our love has always been our saving grace. I place my faith upon it: our love can save us now.

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Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the co-initiator of Live Share Grow: A Movement for the 100%. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Counterpunch, Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com