Rivera Sun's Blog: From the Desk of Rivera Sun, page 6

How Nonviolent Action Is Protecting the Earth

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By Rivera Sun for Campaign Nonviolence, originally published at Waging Nonviolence

In our efforts to build a culture of active nonviolence, Pace e Bene/Campaign Nonviolence has always urged people to practice nonviolence toward oneself, all others (including socially, culturally, economically and politically) and toward the Earth.

Violence toward the planet and ecosystems takes uncountable forms: blowing up mountains for coal mines, churning out pollutants and toxins from smokestacks, landfills of plastic and garbage spilling into the Pacific Gyre, clearcutting the rainforest to raise cattle and soybeans, wiping out continent-wide swaths of insects with pesticides and monocrops, oil wells erupting into the oceans, fracking that pumps toxins into aquifers, spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that heat up the planet to devastating levels — to name just a few of our destructive habits. 

It is increasingly evident that practicing nonviolence toward the Earth is not merely a “nice” idea — it is a cornerstone of human survival. As Dr. King said, “The choice before us is no longer violence or nonviolence. It’s nonviolence or non-existence.” Centuries of extreme violence toward the ecosystems, paired with the violent conquest and genocidal violence toward Indigenous Peoples, have led humanity to the brink of extinction. If we do not change our behavior, our species will not be able to continue on this planet. 

So, how do we practice nonviolence toward the Earth?This can take a number of different forms — all of them hopeful, inspiring and necessary. Nonviolence News stories from 2021 gives us a glimpse of what this might look like. There are myriad examples of how people are both practicing nonviolence toward the Earth andusing nonviolent action to protect the Earth.

In the transition from violence to nonviolence, stopping, blocking and dropping fossil fuel infrastructure projects is critically important. It’s a major form of nonviolent direct action used by climate activists. This past year saw some long-awaited victories, including a blow against tar sands extraction when the Keystone XL Pipeline was cancelled, a Black-led effort to thwart the Byhalia Pipeline, the PennEast Pipeline was ended after a seven-year campaign, and Mi’kmaq First Nation grandmothers stopped the Alton Natural Gas Storage Project. Fracking was banned in the five states of the Delaware River Basin. Los Angeles voted to shut down its 1,600 oil and gas wells. Quebec banned all oil and gas extraction in the province. Jordan Cove Energy Project was defeated. Denmark blocked all new oil extraction projects.

When it comes to thwarting fossil fuels (and indeed, defending their long-standing approach of nonviolent relationship with non-human beings), Indigenous Peoples have been at the forefront — and their decades of efforts have added up impressively. A new report shows that Indigenous-led campaigns have been responsible for stopping and stalling 3 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions — the equivalent of 25% of the U.S. and Canada’s annual emissions.

In another arena of climate action, divestment campaigns have been picking up steam, making the point that it’s immoral (and counterproductive) to profit from violence toward the planet. A new report shows that divestment campaigns have shifted $40 trillion away from fossil fuels, including major portfolios from Harvard University, New York State Pension Fund, Rutgers University, the state of Maine, University of Minnesota, Europe’s largest pension fund, the Ford Foundation and Boston City Council. Meanwhile, renewable energy use is smashing records and must exponentially grow as we make a rapid climate transition.

But practicing nonviolence toward the Earth doesn’t just mean halting the violent and abusive systems through which we exploit and extract. Nonviolence toward the Earth also describes how we repair the harms we have caused, make space for other species to flourish, clean up our mess, acknowledge the sentience of other beings, and recognize the necessity of health for all parts of the interconnected web with which we are inextricably bound. 

To this end, restoration and regeneration are key components of moving into nonviolence with the Earth. One good example is the largest seagrass replanting effort that is bearing fruit in Virginia. It took two decades, 75 million seeds, over 9,000 acres and an army of volunteers, but the ecosystem is flourishing and supporting fish, crustaceans and myriads of other sea creatures. A similar 20-year effort has led to the Atlantic Rainforest offering a bright spot in restoration efforts as the area regrows from clear-cut pastures to full-grown forest. Thanks to some far-ranging, visionary restoration projects and native plant efforts, the Colorado River, famous for no longer reaching the ocean, actually did meet its final destination this year. Dam removals also saw an uptick, with 69 dams demolished on rivers across the United States. Building on a successful program, the U.S. doubled the largest — and healthiest — marine sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico, expanding protections for thousands of sea creatures.

Addressing the dire need for homo sapiens to rethink its relationship with other animal species, the United Kingdom passed bold new laws for the protection of pets and farm animals, and also recognized the sentience of octopi, squid and lobsters. After years of pressure from animal rights activists, the Islamabad Zoo is closing down and transforming into an animal conservation sanctuary. Kazakhstan bolstered protections for rare animals in an effort to cut down on poaching and trafficking. (Kazakhstan also celebrated rebounding populations of endangered saiga antelope herds.) In Nepal, thanks to the human practices of conservation, community and collaboration, the rhino population is climbing. In Finland, where reindeer are a leading cause of death for motorists and vice versa, a creative solution is saving both species’ lives: spraying the antlers with reflective paint.

Sometimes, in order to adopt a more nonviolent relationship to other creatures, humans need to engage nonviolent conflict transformation among their own factions — as was the case in Denmark. When the first wolf pack in 200 years re-established its family in the forests, it set off antagonistic conflict between environmentalists and the hunters and farmers who feared the wolves. It took a concerted effort of using “high conflict skills” to de-escalate the situation and protect the wolves. The approach was rooted in nonviolent conflict transformation, showing that navigating our human conflicts is an essential step for rewiring our relationship to other species.  

Other examples of how people can practice nonviolence toward the Earth include halting toxic pollution (such as these efforts around chemical dispersants and contamination from jet fuel tanks); banning glyphosate pesticides, halting old-growth and other logging, legally recognizing the Rights of Nature and legal personhood for rivers and other natural systems, legally establishing the causes of the climate crisis as human rights violations, phasing out gas-powered vehicles, redesigning cities for low-traffic and car-free neighborhoods, ending the use of single-use plastics (as Chile, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia have done), transitioning farmland to organic practices, and much more. 

In order to meet the demands of the climate crisis, stories like these need to become the norm, rather than the exception. They serve to show the way forward, however, and to activate our imaginations in the direction of the way of life we must embody. Nonviolence toward the Earth is neither a lofty dream nor a utopian vision. It is practical, necessary and our only choice.

4 Good Reasons Not To Go To War In Ukraine

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The last thing any of us need is a war with Russia over the Ukraine. You don’t need to know much about foreign policy to know that. Let the pundits and talking heads argue about the nuances of NATO and war maneuvers at the border of Russia. For most Americans, there are at least four sensible reasons (beyond the basic horror that is war) to oppose escalating this conflict with Russia.

First, we’re still reeling from the pandemic. Across the United States, many hospitals are facing staffing challenges as nurses get sick. They’re also struggling with bed shortages as their wards are packed to capacity with COVID patients. Our families are still grappling with long COVID and multiple deaths of relatives. We’re struggling to stay in our houses, keep the lights on, get the kids to school (or not) and so forth. We can’t even get groceries delivered across the country because our truck drivers are calling-in sick. Who has the bandwidth to fight a war with Russia? 

Second, we’ve got other ways to spend our money. With 140 million citizens at or below the poverty line, we don’t need to spend trillions on war. We could spend those tax dollars on school lunches, heating bills relief, job training programs, affordable housing vouchers, student debt cancellation, living wages, better healthcare, or even social security increases. If it’s a choice between a pointless war none of us really understand and giving We, the People, a fighting chance of a good life, I know what I’d choose. 

Third, if we need a global emergency, let’s not invent one. Instead of going to war with Russia, let’s join forces with Russia (and China, for that matter) and tackle the climate crisis head-on.  With wildfires burning a thousand homes in Colorado, heat domes blistering the Pacific Northwest, hurricanes wreaking havoc up and down the eastern seaboard, drought depleting the west’s water supply, insects and disease killing off our forests, and so forth, we’ve got enough on our plate at the moment. 

Fourth, we’re 100 seconds to midnight. According to the scientists who run the Doomsday Clock, we’re closer to utter disaster than we’ve ever been. Going to war with Russia is like playing chicken and pressing the throttle down harder. Do we really need to get to 10 seconds to midnight to realize this is a terrible idea? Instead of rattling the sabers (or nuclear warheads), let’s roll back the Doomsday Clock by getting serious about abolishing nuclear weapons and ending our shameful status as a rogue nation with thousands of terrifying, illegal nukes. 

How many reasons do we need to not go to war with Russia over the Ukraine? Instead of a foolhardy plunge into yet another military conflict, let’s look closer to home and take care of the many crises we face in the United States. Be sure to tell your elected officials this – they may not have gotten the memo.

________end________

Rivera Sun , syndicated by  PeaceVoice ,  has written numerous books, including  The Dandelion Insurrection . She is the editor of  Nonviolence News  and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

Seasonal Insomniacs In Times of Climate Chaos

It snowed, finally. We’ve been waiting for months, restless and agitated. Have you ever seen your child settle more deeply into slumber after you tuck them under the blanket? That’s how it feels here. I live in the high-altitude desert of Northern New Mexico. Deserts often invoke images of Saharan sands, but this desert sprawls atop black, volcanic basalt. Perched at 7,000 feet, it snows here in the winter. Or, it used to.

Because of the human-wrought climate crisis, it rained on Christmas Eve. 

This is a fierce and fragile region, rugged and imperiled all at once. Deserts endure an existence one step closer to death’s scythe than other regions. Their inhabitants are wily survivors. The toads wear dragon’s spines. The cacti guard their precious water with miniature swords. The junipers twist upon themselves, the size of small children despite being centuries old. 

The Native Puebloan cultures and their ancestors have spent more than ten thousand years in this drought-prone region. They’ve never seen anything like this. 

Usually, everyone in our desert town exalts at the start of rainfall. We lift our heads in praise and welcome the sweet touch of water. But when we woke to the shush of rain on Christmas Eve, an uneasy hush twinged inside us. This is not normal. This should be snow. 

We know it’s too warm. All December, the neighbors have walked their dogs in shirtsleeves. We’ve crossed paths on the bare, dusty mesa and cracked jokes about keeping our tans. We laugh, but warily. Such warmth is unnatural. We can practically hear the plants gasping in distress. The tips of the apricot trees are flushing red in fever-dreams of spring. We’re all insomniacs of the season, stirring restlessly when we should be tucked in, sleeping.  

From raising children, we know the importance of naps and sleep at regular intervals. We’ve seen the cranky toddler, the meltdowns, the screaming tantrums. Their whole bodies crave sleep. Unable to get it, they shudder in stress and strain. So it is with this desert ecosystem when December doesn’t fall below freezing, when the snows are nowhere to be found, or when the only precipitation falls as spits of rain, far and few between.

It’s our fault. Humans are responsible for this mess. The science is clear: the crisis is caused by our addiction to fossil fuels, overconsumption, excessive animal meat production, and pollution. The unseasonable warmth will continue unless we drastically change our way of life. 

Last week, a young bull snake slithered out of its burrow, groggy and confused by the balmy weather. I halted in shock. These creatures hibernate when the autumn frosts give way to deeper freezes. I shouldn’t see this cold-blooded snake until April, heralding spring’s return. She shouldn’t even be able to move at this time of year. Our eyes met and I felt the full weight of my human responsibility. We are the ones who made this problem. We are the ones who must fix it. 

This year, 2022, we must change, shedding the skin of our old existences as surely as a snake, shifting toward more respectful ways of living on this beloved and imperiled planet. Right now, my friends are writing New Year’s Resolutions. They’re turning the page on their calendars and examining their 2022 planners. We need to put climate action onto our schedule in 2022. We cannot wait another five years. We’ve already procrastinated for decades too long. This must be the year when systemic change ramps up. Our family, friends, banks, businesses, schools, shops – everyone and everything should be undergoing massive transformation.

Last year showed us a glimpse of the horrors that loom from doing nothing: tornadoes, hurricanes, catastrophic floods, heat domes, raging forest fires. And the dangers are not just in the shocking disasters. They also lurk in the eerie, uneasy times of unseasonable warmth that stress and strain our ecosystems. We can sense the subtle warning signs if we pay attention. It’s in the thirsty gasp of trees. It’s in the soul-piercing eyes of a groggy snake. It’s in the painful restlessness of a high-altitude desert that cannot sleep.

When the snow finally came, relief fell with it. We are all grateful for the blanket of winter that curls over the quiet sagebrush. For the trees, snakes, and toads, these are times of rest and dreaming. For humanity, these must be times of reckoning and change. 

________________

Rivera Sun , syndicated by  PeaceVoice , has written numerous books, including  The Dandelion Insurrection . She is the editor of  Nonviolence News  and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

Journey Through Snow & Dreams

This is an excerpt from The Crown of Light, the fourth novel in the award-winning Ari Ara Series.
You can get the book by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign here.

Note: The Paika are a group of clans that live in the Border Mountains between the two nations of Ari Ara’s world. In this scene, Ari Ara, after being taken hostage by them, agrees to travel with them to their homes to help protect them from attack. The Fanten Grandmother, like all Fanten, has the ability to walk through the dream realms.

Paika routes were legendary in their secretiveness, following elk trails over backsides of mountains, cutting across roadless ravines, and skirting through hidden tunnels. She only knew that they headed south and west . . . and up, always up.  The party numbered eight, including Finn. The first night, they camped under the sheltering boughs of a pine forest then met up with their pack of beasts and the woman who tended them. Ari Ara eyed the huge, curly horned goats and massive elk nervously, but she was told to ride Finn’s shaggy, sturdy pony with him. They climbed trails so steep her neck stiffened and her thighs ached from clinging to the pony’s back. The Paika’s mounts were bold, balking at little and finding footholds in bare rock. They were a breed apart from the desert’s long-legged racers; they bore more resemblance to the wild goats perched on the sheer cliffs overhead.

The air thinned and snow began to fall. At these higher altitudes, autumn storms bit cold and hard. Rain in the valley became snow on these towering ridges. First, a few gentle flakes spiraled down as if bewildered. Then, the storm thickened into white swirls that lifted and plummeted, revealing invisible currents of air that poured like cataracts through the sky. Ari Ara watched the snowfall thicken uneasily. Soon, their tracks filled as swiftly as they passed. If not for the beasts, they could have floundered in the drifts and frozen in the night. The long-legged elk broke the trail. The shaggy goats tramped it down. The short-legged horses brought up the rear. The Paika’s odd steeds weren’t a mismatch after all, but carefully balanced to form a company of varied strengths and abilities.

Twice, they paused to let the goats pick a path across a sheer cliff. On the far side, the animals lowered light, wooden drawbridges when their riders whistled, stepping onto the bases and pushing with their weight. The bridges sprang back as they slipped off onto the opposite embankment, leaving the ravines impassable to all who followed. When they reached a network of well-packed trails, the elk fell to the rear, resting while the horses led the way.

At dusk, they halted. The company built a windbreak shelter out of snow and led the beasts behind it. Then the Paika set to work, piling the snow into another mound and packing it down. Ari Ara watched, mystified, then joined in, doing whatever Finn did. She hadn’t a clue what they were up to, but the motion warmed her blood, beating back the chill that pinched her fingers and toes. When the mound stood as tall as a small shed, the Paika dug out the interior, forming a cave of snow.

The storm started to clear. The clouds parted and the sky opened above them, black and harsh. The temperature plummeted. Grindle Spireson eyed the glinting stars. Snowstorms held back the worst of the deadly cold, but a clear sky threw down the gauntlet of its icy eternity and challenged their mortality to a test of wills. Everyone except for a single lookout would sleep in the snow cave tonight, sharing warmth in the battle against freezing.

Several of the Paika worked together to build a fire and boil up a stew. From the scent, Ari Ara suspected they traded with the Harraken for the powdered beans and vegetables; Tala carried a pouch of this mix. Each Paika carried a small wooden bowl that also doubled as a drinking cup. Most of the men simply passed a flask of burning whiskey around, but Ari Ara had learned her lesson at High Summer. Finn boiled an herbal tea and offered her some in his bowl. It would keep her body temperature up while she slept, he said.

The tea made her drowsy and she curled up gratefully on the heap of sleeping rolls that covered the floor of the cold cave. She didn’t even see Finn pulling more blankets over her, nor notice when the rest of the Paika crawled in like a family of bears, lending their heat to one another as the night shone hard and frigid beyond.

In her dreams, she soared, her dreambody flying through a light snowfall like a messenger hawk. Somewhere, Shulen was worried about her. This knowledge groaned in her bones like a toothache. In the dreamworld, she followed her sense of his worry like a signal tower gleaming in the night. She spun through the storm in a curious dance, moving back to move forward, her motions delicate as wind, light as tiny flakes. There was no earth or sky, just blackness and white snow. She dodged the snowflakes with the Way Between, slipping over, under, around, and through. It slowed her journey, but she sensed that if she touched one cold, crystalline flake, she’d wake. And she had to reach Shulen before she did.

Then she saw him. He spun slowly through the snow, searching for something . . . her.

“Shulen!” she cried.

His head whipped up. A snowflake hit her nose.

She woke.

“No!” she groaned.

A drop of snowmelt from the roof had hit her face. The Paika slumbered on in a chorus of snores and wheezes. Finn curled in a ball like a little fox, one mitten cupped over his nose to keep out the cold.

Ari Ara shut her eyes. She had been so close! Pulling the hood of her cloak over her face to prevent further drips from startling her, she slowed her breathing. If she could just drop back into the dream . . . .

She drifted. All was quiet. Silent. Motionless. Black. She’d slipped into a dreamworld that unfolded smooth as the surface of a still lake before dawn. When Ari Ara pivoted to look for Shulen, silver rippled from her feet. She stood on water-that-was-not-water. Directionless, she hesitated. A shimmer caught her eye, gliding and sliding like an ice skater. It was the Fanten Grandmother. Ari Ara called out to her and suddenly – instantly – the old woman was inches from her nose, frowning as usual.

“How did you get here?” she grumbled.

“I used the Way Between.”

“Huh. Of course, you did,” the Fanten Grandmother said, snorting with sudden understanding. “Why?”

“I’m looking for Shulen,” Ari Ara answered. “I have to tell him something.”

“Can’t it wait until morning?” the Fanten Grandmother questioned her sharply.

“He’s not here. I mean, I’m not there. We’re not in the same place.”

The Fanten Grandmother studied her for a moment as if weighing all the options, none of which she liked. At last, she sighed.

“Tell me your message. I will deliver it.”

Ari Ara scowled, skeptical. She didn’t exactly trust the Fanten Grandmother. There was always a price for a favor . . . and often a trick in the bargain.

“What do you want in return?” she asked warily.

“You will keep our meeting a secret,” Fanten Grandmother said. “No one can know that you dreamwalk, especially Shulen.”

Ari Ara blinked. That was a small thing. Shrugging, she agreed. She had no idea why the Fanten Grandmother wanted her silence about dreaming. The old woman didn’t elaborate.

“Tell Shulen that I am fine,” Ari Ara said, “that I went to visit the Paika, and that I will return.  He shouldn’t worry or send anyone in search of me. I am safe and unharmed.”

“Anything else?” the Fanten Grandmother replied with a yawn, stretching catlike.

“Just make sure he believes the message is true, not just a dream.”

“Oh, he’ll believe,” the old woman answered with a glinting smile that made Ari Ara uneasy. “Now, run along.”

The Fanten Grandmother gave her a nudge. Ari Ara toppled backward and fell through the black water-that-was-not-water. It parted like a pile of featherdown. Silver shimmered in the wake of her passage.

She woke to a beam of dawn light sparkling through the entrance of the snow cave.

After three days’ journey over hidden paths, far from the eyes of anyone, they had reached the Spires. The Paika’s homes were heavily guarded, defensible perches chiseled into huge needles of stone. At the base, each Spire stood round as several buildings before narrowing to a single person’s width at the top. The clan dwellings were carved into the stone two thirds of the way up. Rope bridges linked the eighteen Spires together.

They’d left the beasts in cozy, straw-covered stalls at the base of a perilous set of stairs built into the rock. Some of the near-vertical steps switch-backed up the cliff; others spiraled around the outside, hidden behind outcroppings and chimney ledges, tucked in dark fissures and concealed by walls that looked like eroding stone. If you didn’t know where to find the next twisting step, you’d never make it up. Some stairs were little more than toeholds and ladder rungs hacked into the damp, slick rock. Ari Ara refused to look down. She kept her eyes pinned to Finn’s feet in front of her. She placed her hands where he placed his hands. She put her boots where he put his boots.

When they reached the top, he tossed her a glance of unabashed admiration and offered her a hand up the last step. With his help, she clambered onto a narrow porch that encircled the Spire around the dwelling space. There were easier paths, Finn confessed in a whisper, even a lift lowered with ropes and pulleys. The Paika did not reveal those to newcomers, however. Taking them up the hard way deterred them from returning.

“I’ve seen grown men turn green with fright and refuse to climb,” he told her. “You’ve a stomach like a goat.”

She decided to take that as a compliment.

The door of his home bore a spiral carving like the one she’d traced at the waterfall. Ari Ara followed Finn inside. A crowded entryway, dark and windowless, opened between two doors. Here, they kicked off their damp boots and removed their outer clothes. Finn gestured for her to drop her cloak on the hook beside his, then opened the inner door.

A screech of delight startled her. A small body flung through the air. Finn caught a slight imp of a girl – his sister from the look of her – and whirled her around. Ari Ara ducked the girl’s feet and snatched a felted slipper from the air as it flew off.

“Who’s she?” the girl asked when Finn set her down.

She eyed Ari Ara with a suddenly wary stare. The girl’s attitude was mirrored by the entire room. A tautness crept up Ari Ara’s spine. They’d entered a common area – the Hearthroom, Finn told her – half-kitchen, half-gathering space, centered on a large fireplace carved into the stone. Drying herbs, pots and pans, and storage flasks hung from the rafters of the low ceiling.  A pile of carpets formed a sitting area. A woman stood facing her, arms crossed over her ample chest, her acorn-shaped face hinting at kin relationship to Finn. A passel of children stood frozen like deer, wary at the sight of a stranger. Behind them, a pair of older grandaunts, twins straight down to their wrinkles, set their knitting down.

Finn pulled his kerchief from his neck and wrung it in his hands, looking uneasily from one woman to the next. Even Grindle looked nervous.

“Things being as they are,” Grindle mumbled gruffly, “we thought she ought to stay with us awhile.”

He avoided saying the word hostage, but everyone knew Ari Ara was security against attack.

A stony silence met his words. No one moved. Ari Ara was measuring the distance to the door when Finn’s sister gripped her brother’s arm and shrieked.

“You have a girlfriend!“

The room burst into sound. One of older children clapped a hand over the girl’s mouth. Another hissed at her in an unintelligible mountain dialect. The grandaunts cackled merrily. Finn protested.

The tall, broad woman held up her hand and silenced them all. She towered over the rest of the clan. Her head ducked slightly at the rafters. Her mouth drew into a thin line below her narrowed eyes. Ari Ara caught the sharp look she shot at Finn and knew this was his mother.

“Truth?” she asked her son, jerking her chin at Ari Ara.

“Just a friend.”

The woman put her hands on her wide hips, cleared her throat, and eyed him expectantly.

He sighed.

“Ari Ara Marin en Shirar, meet my mother, Tessa Paikalyn, granddaughter of The Paika, first mother of the Spires clans, head among women, healer and midwife.”

He recited his mother’s credentials over the exclamations of the others. Suddenly, Ari Ara found herself surrounded, poked in the ribs, red hair fingered, her clothes lifted at the edges in observation. Only Tessa remained still and unmoved, glaring at her sister’s husband, Grindle.

“And you brought her here? Why?”

The room fell silent at her chilly tone. The hand patting Ari Ara’s head froze.

“These are uncertain times,” Grindle began.

“And you thought stealing the Lost Heir would help? Did you miss the War of Retribution?” she retorted sternly. “We’ll be attacked by all sides.”

“I just thought – “

“No, you didn’t think, fool,” she hissed at him. “That’s the problem.”

“I wanted to come,” Ari Ara blurted out. Every head in the room swiveled back to stare at her. She swallowed. “I’ve wanted to meet the Paika since spring. How can we build peace without you?”

The women around the room exchanged looks. They’d said the very same thing all summer. The Paika had to be part of the peace effort or it would fail. Round and around in circles, the clans had argued, some for making contact with the Peace Force, some against it. The Paika sent her great-grandson to spy on the trainings in Moscam, and, if possible, befriend the Lost Heir. Some, including, Grindle Spireson, thought it a fool’s errand. Better to kidnap the girl and hold her hostage for protection, he’d grumbled.

And now, Tessa thought sourly, the idiot had done just that.

She gestured for Ari Ara to continue.

“Yes, Grindle Spireson knocked me out with some nasty herbs,” Ari Ara admitted. A few chuckles broke out. Tessa silenced them with a sharp glare. “But I agreed to come and will tell my friends that I am here willingly, for your protection and safety.”

“Why?” Tessa asked, eyebrows furrowing.

“Why not?” Ari Ara answered with a shrug. “I’ve heard that if you come in friendship to the Paika, you are met with friendship.”

She’d also heard that the Paika were backstabbing liars, but she didn’t mention that.

“Please allow me the honor of being your guest,” she requested formally. “At least until the Peace Force uncovers who is burning villages and pretending to be you.”

Tessa shot Grindle a scowl of a glare. He matched it with a shaggy glower. No one else breathed or moved.

“Take her to The Paika,” Tessa commanded her son. “If she decides to welcome the Lost Heir, I will too.”

_____________________

This is an excerpt from The Crown of Light, the fourth novel in the award-winning Ari Ara Series.
You can get the book by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign here.
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The Changes & The Crossings

This is an excerpt from The Crown of Light, the fourth novel in the award-winning Ari Ara Series.
You can get the book by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign here.

Note: The Paika is the name and title of the elder who leads the Paika clans. In this scene, she offers some advice to the lovestruck, 15-year-old Ari Ara.

The Paika teased out her braid to comb her white hair, watching Ari Ara steadily, running her silver-backed, boar’s bristle brush through her tresses. The old woman said nothing as the girl feigned curiosity in the ancestor statues she’d already examined three times. The Paika counted the number of stretched-out sighs Ari Ara issued, waiting for the question or outburst that she sensed would soon erupt. She winced as she tried to reach behind her head to untangle the snarl at the nape of her neck.

“Can I help?” Ari Ara offered, turning to her.

The Paika nodded and lowered her arms with a sigh. She held out the comb to the girl. The elder tried to rise and stretch daily, but each day, it took longer to massage the stiffness out of her joints. She tried to totter out and join the family in their work. She would curl her gnarled hands around a knife and pretend to peel potatoes while the younger ones discretely did the bulk of the work. The time of chores and childrearing had passed for her. She participated to keep herself from collapsing in on her aching bones, but oh, how they ached, ever more so as the years weathered her away like the Grandmother and Grandfather Mountains.

These days, her duties lay more in remembering and reflecting, advising and directing. The Paika clans turned to her wisdom in troubled times. While the mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles had the task of caring for children and beasts, larders and tools, homes and hearths, they needed her to stare at the dancing flames until the answer to their problems came. In the Paika culture, each person played their part in the community’s well-being and heroes came according to the needs of the times. They were given poets in eras when poetry was needed and warriors in periods when fighters were required. The Paika watched the current crop of children singing and dancing and took it as a good augury for their future. When a generation spent more time telling stories than stick fighting, it boded well.

The girl combed carefully, her hands surprisingly gentle, easing the tangles out so as not to yank out a single strand of the elder’s thinning hair. The Paika was appreciative – she had seen Ari Ara wrenching at her own curls, her face screwed up in a grimace, a determined set to her jaw.

The girl should learn to care as tenderly for herself as for others, the old woman thought, drifting in the warmth and light touches of comb and nimble fingers. She fell into a half-lull until a sharp tug snapped her out of her musings.

“Ouch!” she cried out, more startled than hurt.

Ari Ara tumbled out of her thoughts, apologizing. She had been thinking of Finn, his pointy acorn chin, the shape of his muscles pressed against his shirt as he hefted an armload of wood, and his weirdness this evening. She began to comb again, but The Paika reached out a wrinkled hand and stopped her. She tugged the girl around to face her. The elder gestured to the carpet and bade the girl sit, trying not to envy the ease with which Ari Ara folded her legs beneath her and plopped down. If the old woman tried a motion like that, she’d break a bone.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” The Paika invited.

Ari Ara’s eyes turned the color of granite in a rainstorm. She wrestled with her words, the questions barraging her faster than she could express them. Her thoughts jammed up and spilled out of her eyes instead. She wanted to pick up a pillow and throw it across the room in one big, answerless question about everything.

The Paika waited with the patience of one who has spent long hours listening for answers to hard questions. The old woman gave the girl her complete attention, as if she didn’t have dozens more pressing problems to think over. One never knew how important the smallest detail might be to the survival of the clans. Listening to a confused youth might seem less significant than determining the fate of the Paika, but time might prove her wrong. She had lived long enough to understand that, at least.

“Why is it so hard to grow up?” Ari Ara groaned out, at last. Her eyes swept up in an anguished appeal. “Is it always this confusing?”

“How many years have you seen?” the wrinkled, white-haired elder asked the girl.

“Fourteen – no, wait,” Ari Ara corrected, remembering. “Fifteen.”

Her birthday had come and gone. She wasn’t used to celebrating it; the Fanten never did. Unless other people thought of it, she forgot that the frosts marked the completion of another year in her life. She certainly didn’t feel a minute older. Everything still felt as confusing and frustrating as it had before. Ari Ara looked up at The Paika expectantly, hoping for some sympathy or wisdom or something to make her feel less miserable.

“Have you ever seen a caterpillar?” The Paika asked her.

Ari Ara blinked. Whatever answer she had expected, it hadn’t involved bugs. She nodded. She’d seen those green, inching creatures chewing holes in leaves, forming cocoons, and emerging as glistening butterflies. Sensing where this conversation was headed, she rolled her eyes.

“Are you going to tell me I’ll be a beautiful butterfly someday?” she grumbled. “Because I won’t. I’ll crawl out of the cocoon round, slimy, and still hungry.”

The Paika chuckled at the thought. She doubted that very much. Ari Ara was more likely to break all the rules of nature and crawl out as a tiger.

“No. I was going to tell you about turning into goo.”

Ari Ara let out a bark of laughter. She knew all about that! She’d felt gooey and weird all year long.

“Inside the cocoon, a caterpillar doesn’t just grow wings. It dissolves completely. It turns to mush and then, only then, does it reform into a butterfly.”

Ari Ara scrunched up her nose; that sounded gross.

“I thought I was supposed to be done growing up,” she complained. “I sang my Woman’s Song. I completed my druach, my proving task. Why am I still goo?”

The Paika bit her lower lip, trying not to laugh. No youth enjoyed being laughed at . . . but no elder who had made the Crossing from child to adult to elder could help it.

“You’re never done growing,” she told the girl.

“You mean I’m going to feel like this forever?” Ari Ara screeched with horrified alarm. “I won’t. I can’t.”

“Calm down,” the old woman chided. “No, you won’t always feel like you do right now. This is special to your age, I assure you. Nothing lasts forever. The Changes are the only thing that is constant. The Changes and the Crossings.”

“What are those?” Ari Ara asked, mystified.

It was The Paika’s turn to blink. But, of course, no one else talked of these any more. Not the Marianans nor the Harraken. And, evidently, not the Fanten . . . though perhaps the girl had been too young for this lesson when she lived with them.

The Paika clans believed that life was a long series of Changes and Crossings. It wasn’t a journey with a destination. One did not arrive at adulthood like a town at the end of a road. Every person made endless Crossings through the Changes, from infant to toddler to walking child to adolescent to youth to adult to the first touches of silver in one’s hair to the heat that rushed through a woman’s body as she aged to a wrinkled elder like The Paika. The Wrinkling Crossing traded vigor for wisdom, and The Paika had not minded making the bargain.

“You’ve made the beginning of your Crossing from girl to woman, with your monthly blood arriving, your woman’s song, and your druach,” the old woman shared with a twinkle in her eye, “but think how many more lie before you on life’s path. You may make the Mother Crossing one day and have a child. You may go through the Fire Crossing that will trade your monthly blood for the heat that burns away your foolishness and makes you smart like me. If you’re lucky, you’ll live long enough to go through the Elder Changes, and grow wrinkled and wise. But for certain, you will make the Last Crossing, the one that goes into the Unknown.”

“Death?” Ari Ara asked, frowning. “I thought you joined the Ancestor River or Ancestor Wind when you die. I know you do. I’ve seen the spirits, spoken to them, dreamed with them.”

The Paika shrugged. Every culture had their stories about what lay on the other side of the Last Crossing. But who really knew? Not her. Not yet. When she left this old body, she’d find out. The Paika grinned. It was something to look forward to, a new adventure that didn’t require aching bones.

She fell quiet, though, sobered by how many people never lived through all their Changes and Crossings. Cut down by war. Felled by disease. Shot by arrows in bandit raids. Violence was always a tragedy, cutting short the journey through the Changes and Crossings. Far too few got to live like her, with a long life and the hope of a gentle Last Crossing. Even among the Paika, the wisdom of the Changes and the Crossings was being forgotten. One had to grow as old as she to truly understand this knowledge, to have experienced the profundity of its gifts. When she welcomed the clans’ newborns, she always prayed for them: May you make all your Changes and Crossings before the Last.

She shook herself as an invisible draft traced an icy line down her back. The girl still stared at the hearth fire, lost in her thoughts. Sensing the elder’s gaze, she turned her head with a determined look.

“So, how do I stop being goo?”

This time, the old woman laughed merrily. The answer was simple.

“Stop resisting your Changes and grow through them. Make your Crossings with courage.”

This is an excerpt from The Crown of Light, the fourth novel in the award-winning Ari Ara Series.
You can get the book by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign here.

Alaren and the Huntress

This is an excerpt from The Crown of Light, the newest novel in the Ari Ara Series.
You can get it by supporting our Community Publishing Campaign. Find it here.

“Tell her the first Alaren tale, great-grandmother,” Finn cajoled, tossing a grin in Ari Ara’s direction. “The one about the Paika Huntress.”

“I have told you many times,” The Paika chided Finn, “they are not Alaren tales. They are the stories of how the Paika used the Way Between to survive.”

Ari Ara’s heart thumped loudly in her chest, excited. The old woman’s voice was scarcely louder than the shushing wind beyond the window. She had to listen carefully not to miss a word.

“Please,” Ari Ara pleaded softly. “I would love to hear the tale. Alaren’s book of stories makes no mention of the Paika.”

“We Paika,” the old woman responded curtly, “are all through that book. You will not find our name, but we are the villagers, the bandits, the children, the shepherds, the refugees, and more.”

She turned her gaze to the fire. The Paika had their own versions of these stories, no two quite the same. She cast her memory back across the decades, back to a time when she sat on a different carpet by the same hearth, back to when her ears were younger than the red-haired girl’s, back to when she was wiry as her dark-eyed great-grandson. Back then, she was just Olena, and her great-grandmother was The Paika, old beyond belief. She cackled quietly to herself. She believed now, oh yes. She believed how time could erode one’s face like a mountain, and how each furrow held a decade’s worth of living. She believed how one’s bones could ache from carrying the weight of history and how the vast library of story cracked one’s voice through the telling and retelling of tales to children too young to understand how this story might save their lives.

“Once, long ago,” The Paika began in a tone that bridged the past and present, and stretched into the future yet to come. Her words were her great-grandmother’s. One day, the rhythm of her storytelling would drum in the cadence of Finn’s great-granddaughter’s tales. “In distant times, Alaren was young in these lands, a newcomer, always racing against time, often stumbling around, lost in these mountains.”

She spun out the story, suspended between times, her memory sitting where Ari Ara sat, wide-eyed, leaning forward, eager for the next word. The snow had danced outside the window then, mesmerizing.

“Getting from here to there sounds simple until there’s a mountain in the way. Then, you’ll want a companion who knows these ridges and ravines like their own hand.”

Her great-grandmother had held out her wizened and trembling hand, palm down, and now The Paika did the same. Ari Ara’s eyes traced its contours then fell to her own smooth hand. Her gaze grew distant, thinking of the maps of the area. The rise and fall of the closest five peaks formed a sort of hand, she realized.

“Alaren tried to take a shortcut from here to there, and nearly broke his neck,” the old woman continued. “He got so tangled in thickets and briars that he made his life twice as hard. He floundered and bumbled until a Paika huntress heard him. Well, to be fair, every creature with ears could hear him between this mountain and the next.”

She tapped the knuckles of her fourth and fifth fingers. Ari Ara thought of the map. If that gesture had been handed down accurately over the centuries, this story would have taken place near where the Spires stood.

“The Huntress stepped out of the forest and couldn’t help but laugh. Those briars had Alaren caught in their little snares, sweating and scratching, bleeding and cursing. Where was that man’s Way Between now, eh?”

She chortled. The Huntress had asked Alaren this and the jibe stung him worse than the thorns. But, hung on tiny tenterhooks, tangled to the roots of his hair, snarled by his shirt, Alaren couldn’t deny the truth of her words. He started to laugh, too. It was ridiculous to be in such a predicament, a fellow like him, trained in the Way Between by the Fanten Daughter herself.

“The Huntress,” the old woman went on, “studied him. She looked him up. She looked him down. And, by and large, she liked the look of him. There was a beetle crawling up his cheek and a bird had landed in his hair. When a mouse sat, trembling, on his left foot, she decided: if the animals liked Alaren, he was worthy of helping.”

The Huntress set him a challenge. If Alaren could use his Way Between to get out of that thicket, she’d show him the paths through the mountains. The young man agreed. Slowly, he quieted his heart. He felt the sun gently stroking his face. He noticed the thorns sending him their pinprick warnings: no further, come no closer. Carefully, he eased back, lifting cloth and skin away from their barbs.

Sometimes, he thought, one had to go backward to go forward.

Cautiously, carefully, Alaren slid between the thorns, over, under, around, and through the brambles. He lifted them up between the spines, holding the smooth part of the stalks. He ducked beneath one vine and curled between the next two. It was a tender, peaceful dance, finding the Way Between those thorns.

“Come now,” The Paika told Ari Ara and Finn, “do it with me.”

She lifted her arms and imagined those brambles, mimicking Alaren’s forward and backward motions, lifting and ducking, stepping and bending. Ari Ara joined in. Finn watched, smiling even if he did keep his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

“At last,” The Paika finished, growing still again and nodding approvingly at the girl, “Alaren was free. The Huntress gave him balm for his scratches and spring water to slake his thirst. Then she kept her promise. She showed him the ways through the mountains, traveling with him on many adventures, helping his Peace Force vanish and appear, slip away unseen, and follow invisible roads over ridges and ravines.”

The Paika Huntress became a friend for life, the old woman told the two youths, for anyone who could find his way out of a thicket of thorns could find a way to work for peace. Indeed, many times, they felt caught in the sharp briars of violence with the barbs of swords and the pricks of arrows all around. But, backward and forward, forward and backward, over, under, around, and through, Alaren, the Huntress, and the Peace Force found the way out of their troubles.

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This is an excerpt from The Crown of Light, the newest novel in the Ari Ara Series.
You can get it by supporting our Community Publishing Campaign. Find it here.

Ari Ara’s Books Challenge Violence – She’s The Hero We Need In These Times

The Ari Ara Series Challenges The Glorification of Violence & War
We need these stories now, more than ever before.

In a culture addicted to violence, your support of Ari Ara’s novels is powerful. Ari Ara doesn’t just live in a utopia of peace. She and her friends challenge the culture of war. They use active nonviolence to halt the violence they face. They offer a radical, profound, thought-provoking counter-narrative to the ways our culture fetishizes guns, lauds war, and arms teenagers. In light of recent news, the enthusiastic response to the Community Publishing Campaign for Ari Ara’s newest novel, The Crown of Light, is all the more heartening. In one week, we’ve reached 90% of our goal. More than 100+ books are on their way to readers across the country and around the world. Every book that goes out offers a visionary challenge to the problems we face. Every person, young or older, reading Ari Ara’s adventures is one more person who breaks free of the culture of violence.
 

Find The Crown of Light here.

This week’s news reminded me of why it is critically important to disrupt and interrupt the culture of violence. Left unchallenged, the glorification of fighting, the intense propaganda of war, and the normalization of brutality leads to ever-escalating cycles of violence. The Ari Ara Series is designed, on each and every page, in all of her stories, to rip the veil off the glamorization of war and violence in fantasy and fiction. I’ve heard from young readers that this approach is not only working, it’s having a lasting impact. During a virtual visit at a public library, one youth said, “I never really realized how much violence is in the other books I read, but after reading Ari Ara, I see it everywhere.”

This kind of awareness is priceless. It’s exactly what young people (and everyone else) need to recognize that we’re in a “frog in boiling water” moment with violence in our culture. We’re getting so used to it that we’re encountering extreme examples and pretending we’re just taking a cozy bath. 

In a world that lets a teenager literally get away with murder, in a culture that puts an assault rifle in his hands from childhood onward, in a society that defends his “right” to protect property over the right of protesters to stand up for racial justice safely, we need to intervene in the horrific cycle of violence. We have to stop the onslaught of gun fetishization and violence glorification, especially in the books, movies, and games that our kids absorb like sponges. Weapons are not “cool”. Violence is not an acceptable way to “save the day”. War is not “heroic”. They are tragic when they occur, traumatic and horrific. Until our fictional stories reflect this reality, we will continue to see young people imitating the assassins, fighters, zombie apocalypse, video game characters, etc. that they are viewing. 

I write to disrupt the culture of violence, to challenge it, to provoke reflection, and to propose a different way. My stories draw upon the real-life work of thousands of nonviolent activists, peacebuilders, and peace teams. From stopping wars to ending injustice, Ari Ara shows the power of these tools and practices. Once we read her series, we see the world – and our role in it – differently.
 

Get The Crown of Light here.
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Thank you for your support in this effort. I couldn’t do it without you. I am so grateful that you pitch in to the Community Publishing Campaign, send the books to young friends, get the series as holiday gifts, pick up extra copies for your local library, tell your circle about the newest book, and so much more. Together, we are building a culture of peace and nonviolence that is desperately needed in our times. 
 

With deep respect and appreciation,
Rivera Sun
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Ari Ara’s Newest Adventure Is Here!

The Crown of Light is here!
Ari Ara’s newest adventure needs YOU.

Hip hip hooray! The newest book in the award-winning Ari Ara Series is finally here! The latest, thrilling story weaves love and danger, friendship and peace into an exciting tale that will keep you turning page after page. With all the fun of a high fantasy, but without the violence, The Crown of Light weaves a breathtaking story with young peacebuilders and a gripping mystery at its heart. You can pick up yours today by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign. 

Get The Crown of Light here.

The Community Publishing Campaign brings together a community of readers to fund the publishing costs of releasing The Crown of Light. Exciting and fun, this crowdfunded launch relies on the beautiful web of people like YOU to help bring this great book into existence.

From covering printing costs to offering discounts to classrooms, the Community Publishing Campaign supports an entire year of making magic happen. Author Rivera Sun visits dozens of classrooms and public libraries each year, speaking with young readers and teaching peace. The Community Publishing Campaign makes it possible to place books in school libraries, send gift novels to the young beta-readers who offered feedback on the manuscript, and much more.

In the jagged peaks of the Border Mountains, Ari Ara revives the ancient legend of the Peace Force, gathering friends and strangers to stop violence and prevent war. With the Way Between guiding their footsteps, they set out to wage peace. Before long, an unexpected threat makes them take drastic action.

Mysterious raiders are attacking the villages, burning homes and terrifying families. Fingers point to the secretive Paika. After all, their clans have survived centuries of war by double-crossing and backstabbing everyone else. But when young Finn Paikason is caught spying on the Peace Force, he swears the raiders are imposters. Ari Ara wants to believe him, but can she trust him? She can’t be certain – especially since this boy with storm-tossed eyes might be stealing her heart.

Stopping clan feuds and thwarting bandit ambushes, Ari Ara and her friends seek the truth amidst a web of lies. Old enemies come back to haunt them. Friendships are strained to breaking. Tensions heighten between the two nations. When the Lost Heir is taken hostage, the Peace Force races to solve the mystery before the sparks of violence erupt into a raging inferno of war. (Read an excerpt from the first chapter on the Community Publishing Campaign.)

The Crown of Light delivers a powerful message of peace
along with all the action, adventure, magic, and fantasy that readers love!

The award-winning Ari Ara Series has been taking the fantasy genre by storm, winning acclaim from peace activists, parents, teachers, and readers of all ages. Boldly challenging the narrative around violence and war, the series is taught in schools, celebrated in book clubs, and highly recommended by librarians, families, and activists. 

Get The Crown of Light here.

A Gift For The Future

Image by SeppH from Pixabay

Today, a child was born, tiny hands curling and unfurling with the startled shock of cool air on wet skin, oxygen flooding into newly-opened lungs as she cries upon entering this strange new world.

This child will likely live to see 2100. The date hangs, inconceivable, futuristic, but now within the span of a single lifetime. The child will be older by then, close to 80. She will have lived through every dire climate prediction modeled by modernity’s soothsayers, the scientists. She will have seen the full weight of our failures in the times she was too young to remember, these next few years when an immediate transition away from fossil fuels is an imperative for the survival of humanity.

I hope she remembers the story about to unfold, a story that began decades ago and is rapidly approaching the climax of its epic, the story in which billions of human beings rise up for their shared love of this Earth. Like thwarting monsters of old, we will wrestle fossil fuels back into the ground, dethrone the titans of industry, and stop the headlong plunge into the hell realms of the Sixth Mass Extinction. These times are the star-stuff of legends, if we survive long enough.

If we don’t turn this story around, the tiny newborn arriving today will grow up in the greatest tragedy ever to hit our species, the catastrophic collapse of all we know and love. As an 80-year-old grandmother, she will see the dawn of a new, bleak century, awash in the wreckage of nuclear waste, plastic pollution, ruined cities, dust bowls of barren farmlands. Hers will not be the Silent Spring of which Rachel Carson warned. It will be the Silent Century.

She will be tough, this old woman in 2100. She will have survived decades of horrors: heat waves roasting the corn on the stalk and melting the onions in the fields, superstorms that slam the coastlines and flatten cities, torrential flooding that sweeps whole towns away, vanishing ice caps, rising seas that swallow Florida in a gulp, early frosts that lead to crop failures and empty grocery store shelves, desperate wars fought for water amidst unrelenting droughts.

It reads like a Biblical curse. We are the ones hurling it in her fragile, newborn face. We are the wicked fairy godmothers hovering over her cradle, poised to ruin her life. But we don’t have to be.

In these next few years as she learns to crawl, speak, count, walk, we still have time to change the story of her life. As an 80-year-old in 2100, she may be able to tell a vastly different tale than the apocalyptic tragedy that awaits. But, before she even learns to read, we must take immediate action.  We must declare a climate emergency, demand a swift transition away from fossil fuels, defund polluting industries, invent in and deploy clean renewable energies, overhaul destructive agricultural practices, and more.

If we do all this with vision and conviction, as a grandmother in the new century, she will speak of our courage and sacrifice. She will tell her grandchildren how everything changed as she grew up. She will speak of her career in restoring ecosystems alongside so many of her generation. She will have seen upheavals, yes, and the lingering instability of our damage to the Earth, but she will be able to speak with hope and pride.

The newborn in her parents’ arms today will live to see the birds return in vast flocks. She will see the whales rebound in great proliferating pods that sing across the slowly-cooling seas. The aerial photo maps of her world will change color as she supports global reforestation projects to reverse desertification. She will taste the harvest from her local farms and know the journey her water took to reach her. She will have a hope that seems impossible to us today. She will have hope because of us.

And that is what we can do with our lives, right here and right now, to bless this child and all the others entering the world today, tomorrow, and the next day. We can take action for climate justice and give the young ones a gift unparalleled by any fairy godmother.

We can lift the curse that sits upon them. We can give them cause for hope, instead.

Joy for this child or misery for this child. To choose joy is to commit to action.

________________

Rivera Sun , syndicated by  PeaceVoice , has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection . She is the editor of Nonviolence News and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

Make Memorial Day About Peace

Make Memorial Day About PeaceWe live in a war culture. Let’s change it to a peace culture.
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The rumble of 20,000 motorcycles roars up the highway to an annual festival across the mountains. It’s Memorial Day Weekend. The dual anthems of US militarism and consumerism are playing across the country. Meanwhile, I’ve got the volume turned up on a different sort of tune: peace. 

As I gathered stories for Nonviolence News this week, I noticed a recurring theme of compassion under fire, and people who strive for peace amidst war. An Idaho schoolteacher disarmed a school shooter and hugged her until help arrived. A soldier hijacked a school bus and the kids asked him so many questions, he let them leave the bus. Farmers in Colombia carved out a peace village in the midst of civil war. The women of Liberia blended civil resistance and peacebuilding to end the Second Liberian Civil War. In West Papua, civil society is protesting against months of violence in the latest flare-up of the longstanding conflict between government forces and pro-independence insurgents. In Israel, thousands of Jews and Arabs marched to demand a lasting peace with Palestinians. (Find Nonviolence News here.)

I’m impressed by these stories. I’m awed by how people can dredge up empathy even amidst violence, or how they find they courage to call for peace when everyone around them is barreling deeper into war. There are a surprising number of them. I’ve been finding these as I co-facilitate a course on “Disarming Conversations, Connecting Across Divides” and listening to stories about how people who virulently dislike each other find their common humanity. The work of peace is hard and challenging, but when we remember that the alternative is war and violence, it suddenly seems worth it. 

I always dream of a culture of peace, one where Hollywood makes movies about people who stop wars rather than win them. A culture where we teach the skills of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and nonviolence in video games, novels, and the type of history we study in the classroom. A society that is universally horrified at the prospect of going to war rather than accustomed to endless, borderless wars. An economy where profiting from weapons is illegal, and peace work is considered invaluable to economic wellbeing. In this vision of a culture of peace, 20,000 motorcyclists are roaring up the road to demand we defund the military, bring the troops home, dismantle nuclear weapons, and end the endless wars. To me, Memorial Day should be a day when we mourn those who have died in wars – soldiers and civilians on all sides of the conflict – and renew our efforts to prevent the travesty of war from ever happening again.

How are you honoring and recommitting to peace on Memorial Day Weekend?

Toward peace,
Rivera

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Speaking of the peace economy … all my novels oppose war and violence and promote peace and active nonviolence. You can find them all on sale this week on my website. At 20% off, you can pick up summer reading for yourself and friends! Check it out here>>