Rivera Sun's Blog: From the Desk of Rivera Sun, page 9

10 Ways To Make the Change You Want

By Rivera Sun

As the editor of Nonviolence News, I collect 30-50 stories of nonviolence in action each week. Each story offers us a take-away lesson for our own work for change. These lessons offer us best practices and pro-tips from our fellow human beings who are working for change around the world. We can learn from their successes and their set-backs.  We can let their brilliance inspire us and we can stand on their giant shoulders as we strive to make a difference in our own way.  

Nonviolence is one of humankind’s greatest achievements – and it’s just getting started. It’s up to us to take it further, use it more skillfully, and discover how nonviolence can help us be -and make – the change we wish to see in the world. 

Here are ten pointers for change makers from this week’s news: 

1. The Ripple Effect of the LA Teachers Strike

In the wake of last year’s strike by Los Angeles teachers, random searches of students are coming to an end district wide — landing a blow against racism and racial profiling in schools. The LA teachers strike was a successful campaign for a set of economic justice goals, but its impact continues, showing how powerful strikes can have an on-going effect. Sometimes, this is true even when campaigns don’t succeed in achieving their stated goals. The 2011 Occupy protests didn’t end inequality, but they did break the issue through mass consciousness in an unprecedented way that continues to affect everything from wages to presidential campaigns. 

2. #NotAgainSU Students Show Why Making (And Revising) Demands Is Important 

Amidst hate crimes, Syracuse University students are pressing for major changes in the institution’s approach to diversity and inclusivity.  An earlier campaign created and achieved 9 out of 12 demands. After that success, they revised some of the remaining demands, added a new set, and launched a new occupation of buildings. The checklist of demands shows clearly how direct action is succeeding, where the university is dragging its feet, and what work remains to be done. Demands can be powerful – as these students are proving.   

3. Climate Victory Gardens Embody the Power of Constructive Program 

Gandhi would appreciate the thousands of people who are fighting climate change one backyard garden at a time. It’s a constructive program – a type of action that everyone can do, builds strength and community, and addresses the problem all at the same time.  Constructive programs, like the 2,000 Climate Victory Gardens, have the added benefit of involving people who might not otherwise get involved in the movement. Plus, you get fresh veggies. What’s not to love?

4. Sunrise Activists Tell Us To Quit Playing By the Rules

More than 150 middle-and-high school students from across the United States gathered to demand that senators “stand up or step aside” on the climate crisis. “We’re done playing by the rules,” they say. Their boldness reminds us that when the rules of the game are meant to make some people the perpetual winners and others the losers, it’s time to quit playing by the rules – and perhaps it’s time to change the game entirely. Nonviolent action puts the ball in our court and gives us a whole different way to push for change than through conventional channels. 

5.Spain’s Women’s Soccer Shows Us the Power of Organizing for Everyone  Following the players’ strike in November, female soccer players in Spain have won the league’s first ever collective bargaining agreement and league-wide contracts.  Their story shows the power of organizing for – and with – everyone instead of petitioning for individual pay raises. It’s a team sport, after all.

6. Extinction Rebellion’s “Lawngate” Shows How Property Destruction Can Backfire

The notorious climate emergency rebels stirred up controversy by digging up the lawn of Cambridge University. The press dubbed the blowback as “Lawngate.”   Was “Lawngate” nonviolent direct action or vandalism? Did it serve the climate justice movement or backfire on Extinction Rebellion? Property destruction is often controversial both inside movements and among the general population.  When considering its worth as part of an action, it’s important to consider how it will be perceived by your society.  Will the reaction serve your cause . . . or detract from it? Did the property destroyed have a negative image which would make the public sympathetic, or was the action taken seen as simply inchoate destruction?

7. Red-state Utah’s Climate Crisis Plan Proves Speaking Beyond the Choir Matters:  

In a surprising shift, Utah Republicans are supporting a plan that aims to reduce emissions over air quality concerns and global warming. “If we don’t think about it, who will?” they say. How did that happen? By talking “common cents,” economic sustainability of ski slopes, and clean air quality. When we’re organizing for change, it’s helpful to speak the language of the people we want to change, not our own framings and phrasings.  After all, we’re convinced. It’s the other people we’ve got to persuade to make a shift. 

8. Colombian National Strike Committee’s Renewed Protests Teaches Us to Go Beyond Single Actions

Colombians have been campaigning for change for months.  They’ve used a wide variety of tactics, mobilized rotating sectors of the populace, and launched several waves of mass action.  Why?  Because single marches or one-up demonstrations aren’t enough.  Real change comes from sustained, creative, strategic sets of actions designed to achieve specific goals, and then keep building. 

9. Sudan Reminds Us to Protect Those Who Refuse to Hurt Protesters

Sudan recently had a successful nonviolent revolution.  The victory did not come without sacrifice – more than 100 people were killed in just one of the violent crackdowns by the regime.  Recently, they’ve been campaigning to protect soldiers who were fired for refusing to hurt the people. Why does this matter?  Because it’s helpful to build allies with the very people who are ordered to crack down on your movement.  And, it’s important to make sure that soldiers who refuse to hurt their people are rewarded, not punished. It sends an important message to their fellow soldiers, leaders, and others about the society’s expectations around mass movements. 

10. Anti-Gentrification Fight Demonstrates Why Collecting Solutions Helps

 Half the battle is finding a better option. The effort to halt and end gentrification recently shared a set of best practices for fighting gentrification, including everything from Community Land Trusts to Tenant Buy Options. The list highlights success stories, offers solutions to entrenched injustices, and comes in handy when you need to come up with an alternative for your community

These are just 10 of the 50+ stories in this week’s issue of Nonviolence News. There’s a lot to learn from our fellow human beings’ efforts toward peace and justice. If we pay attention, stay alert, and take notes, we might find our own work for change grows in power, strength, and wisdom.

__________________

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.

Beyond Changing Light Bulbs: 21 Ways You Can Stop the Climate Crisis

Image by Leonhard S from Pixabay

Here’s the good news: The debate is over. 75% of US citizens believe climate change is human-caused; more than half say we have to do something and fast. 

Here’s even better news: A new report shows that more than 200 cities and counties, and 12 states have committed to or already achieved 100 percent clean electricity. This means that one out of every three Americans (about 111 million Americans and 34 percent of the population) lives in a community or state that has committed to or has already achieved 100 percent clean electricity. Seventy cities are already powered by 100 percent wind and solar power. The not-so-great news is that many of the transition commitments are too little, too late. 

The best news? The story doesn’t end there.

We can all pitch in to help save humanity and the planet. And I don’t mean just by planting trees or changing light bulbs. Climate action movements are exploding in numbers, actions, and impact.  Groups like Youth Climate Strikes, Extinction Rebellion, #ShutDownDC, the Sunrise Movement, and more are changing the game.  Join in if you haven’t already. As Extinction Rebellion reminds us: there’s room for everybody in an effort this enormous. We all make change in different ways, and we’re all needed to make all the changes we need.

Resistance is not futile. As the editor of Nonviolence News, I collect stories of climate action and climate wins. In the past month alone, the millions of people worldwide rising up in nonviolent action have propelled a number of major victories. The University of British Columbia divested $300 million in funds from fossil fuels. The world’s largest public bank ditched fossil fuels and said it would no longer invest in oil and coal. California cracked down on oil and gas fracking permits halting new drilling wells as the state prepares for a renewable energy transition. New Zealand passed a law to put the climate crisis at the front and center of all its policy considerations (the first such legislation in the world). The second-largest ferry operator on the planet is switching from diesel to batteries in preparation for a renewable transition. Re-affirming their anti-pipeline stance, Portland, Oregon city officials told Zenith Energy that they would not reverse their decision, and instead would continue to block new pipelines. Meanwhile, in Portland, Maine, the city council joined the ever-growing list endorsing the youths’ climate emergency resolution. Italy made climate change science mandatory in school. And that’s just for starters.

Is it any wonder Collins Dictionary made “climate strike” the ?

Beyond planting trees and changing lightbulbs, here’s a list of things you can do about the climate crisis:

1. Join Greta Thunberg, Fridays for the Future, and the global Student Climate Strikes on Fridays.

2. Not a student? Join Jane Fonda’s #FireDrillFridays (civil disobedience is the latest workout fad; everybody looks good saving the planet).

3. Take to the field, like the students who disrupted the Harvard-Yale football game to demand fossil fuel divestment. You can’t play football on a dead planet, after all.

4. Stage an “oil spill” like these 40 members of Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard (FFDH) and Extinction Rebellion. They staged an oil spill in Harvard’s Science Center Plaza to call attention to the university’s complicity in the climate crisis.   

5. Get in the way with city-wide street blockades like #ShutDownDC. People from an alliance of groups blockaded the banks and investment firms in the nation’s capital to protest the financing of fossil fuels, and the ways the banking industry drives the climate migration crisis while profiting from the devastation.

6. Rally the artists and paint giant murals to remind people to take action, like this skyscraper-sized Greta Thunberg mural in San Francisco.

7. No walls handy? Print out a scowling Greta and put it in the office to remind people not to use single-use plastic.

8. Crash Congress (or your city/county officials’ meetings) demanding climate legislation, climate emergency resolutions, and more. That’s what these climate justice activists did last week, protesting legislative inaction and demanding justice for people living on the front lines of the crisis. 

9. Occupy the offices: Sit-ins and occupations of public officials offices are one way to take the protest to the politicians. Campaigners occupied US Senator Pelosi’s office and launched their global hunger strike just before US Thanksgiving weekend. In Oregon, 21 people were arrested while occupying the governor’s office to get her to oppose a fracked gas export terminal at Jordan Cove.

10. Organize a coal train blockade like climate activists in Ayers, Massachusetts. They made a series of multi-wave coal train blockades, one group of protesters taking up the blockade as the first group was arrested. Or rally thousands like the Germans did when they gathered between 1,000-4,000 green activists, made their way past police lines, and blocked trains at three important coal mines in eastern Germany.

11. Shut down your local fossil fuel power plant. (We’ve all got one.) New Yorkers did this dramatically a few weeks ago, scaling a smokestack and blockading the gates. In New Hampshire, 67 climate activists were arrested outside their coal power plant, calling for it to be shut down.

12. Of course, another option is to literally take back your power like this small German town that took ownership of their grid and went 100 percent renewable.

13. Like Spiderman? You could add some drama to a protest like these two kids (ages 8 and 11) who rappelled down from a bridge with climbing gear and a protest banner during COP25 in Madrid.

14. Ground the private jets. Extinction Rebellion members went for the gold: they blockaded a private jet terminal used by wealthy elites in Geneva.

15. Sail a Sinking House down the river like Extinction Rebellion did along the Thames to show solidarity with all those who have lost their homes to rising seas.

16. Clean it up. Use mops, brooms, and scrub brushes for a “clean up your act” protest like the one Extinction Rebellion used at Barclay’s Bank branches.

17. Blockade pipeline supply shipments like Washington activists did to stall the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. 

18. Catch the eye with a Red Brigade Funeral Procession like this one during the Black Friday climate action protests in Vancouver.

19. Tiny House Blockades: Build a tiny house in the path of the pipelines, like these Indigenous women are doing to thwart the Trans Mountain Pipeline in Canada. 

20. Make a racket with a pots-and-pans protest. Cacerolazos – pots and pans banging protests – erupted in 12 Latin American countries last week. The media focused on government corruption and economic justice as the cause, but in many nations, including Chile and Bolivia, climate and environmental justice are included in the protesters demands. 

21. Share this article. Action inspires more action. Hearing these examples – and the successes – gives us the strength to rise to the challenges we face. You can help stop the climate crisis by sharing these stories with others. (You can also connect to 30-50+ stories of nonviolence in action by signing up for Nonviolence News’ free weekly enewsletter.)

Plus! Here’s a bonus idea from friends at World Beyond War: Connect peace and climate, militarism and environmental destruction, by pressuring your local government to divest from both weapons and fossil fuels, like Charlottesville, VA, did last year, and Arlington,VA, is working on right now. 

Remember: all these stories came from the Nonviolence News articles I’ve collected in just the past 30 days! These stories should give you hope, courage, and ideas for taking action. There’s so much to be done, and so much we can do! Joan Baez said that “action is the antidote to despair”. Don’t despair. Organize.

__________________

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.

The Apology & Forgiveness Song – An Excerpt From Desert Song

Image by Bruno Glätsch from Pixabay. CCO

Author’s Note: This excerpt is an example of the kind of compelling fiction we can write when we integrate the current best practices and experiments in conflict resolution. In the story, the Atta Song (Apology and Forgiveness Song) is part of Harraken culture, a way of admitting wrongs and making them right. This tradition is inspired by many sources, including Truth & Reconciliation Commissions, restorative justice, and several other Indigenous practices of reconciliation.

The Atta Song at the Crossroads
An excerpt from Desert Song, a novel by Rivera Sun.
You can get a copy through our Community Publishing Campaign.

Voices twittered like birdsong under the
arching boughs of the orchard. In the shade, rows of stalls and booths
displayed crafters’ goods and artisans’ wares. Between the summer rains and
autumn harvests, smiths and metal shapers, weavers and silk spinners, potters
and stone carvers gathered at the Crossroads to barter and trade. Harraken
journeyed from the distant corners of the desert to place orders and pick up
promised goods. Messengers hawked a lively trade, delivering and returning.

Beyond the green of the trees, the blazing
white of the Deep Sands Valley encircled the Crossroads. The dunes sparkled with
stark beauty. Every year, the prevailing wind shoved the sand’s edges closer to
the eastern flank of the vast orchard. Each year, the crafters’ apprentices
shored up the massive retaining walls that held it back. For centuries, that
had been the honor-bargain between orchardists and crafters: shade and water in
exchange for cooperation in holding back the dunes. The aqueduct that carried
the sluice of water from Turim through the Deep Sands Valley was a marvel of
engineering. It carried and protected the lifeblood of the seasonal city of
fruit and arts.

Along a spider web of footpaths, people
gathered for games and meals, gossip and story. Low stools and spread rugs
formed open air sitting rooms. A sense of repose and ease marked the banter, negotiations
halted for songs. At night, laughter rose with a festive spirit.

Today, however, a buzz
of rumors swarmed the market like the hives of bees that lined the orchard
edges. A plume of dust rose along the northwest section of the Market Road.
People claimed that an army of women approached, not the Black Ravens, but the
unarmed women who rode from village to village reinitiating the village sings. Three
days ago, the Harrak-Mettahl had ridden in and slept curled up in his cloak under
the trees. Over breakfast, he’d told the potter next to him that he envied the
strength of the potter’s wares. Harrak, he had said, was easier to lose or
break . . . and harder to repair.

“Whose harrak are
you restoring today?” she’d asked him amiably.

“All of ours . . .
starting with my own,” he’d replied, looking so mournful that wild
whispers of gossip speculated that he must have murdered someone.

All through the first
day, Tahkan Shirar went from one person to the next, asking their views on
warriors-rule versus village sings. The artisans tended to support the sings.
They weren’t warriors, after all, and what did warriors know of their trades? Last
year, the warriors had levied a goods-tax on the Crossroads to support the fighters.
The artisans resented it bitterly. In times of peace, why should they pay for
warriors who rode around eating food and swinging swords and doing nothing?

On the second day, he
gathered them together and made a request that sparked roars of outrage and indignation.
It took the Harrak-Mettahl hours to explain what he meant, why it mattered,
what he’d learned from the women who rode with his sister toward the
Crossroads, and why the artisans should honor his unusual request. He talked
long into the evening, persuading and cajoling. At last, he struck a bargain, a
daring wager to which they all agreed.

By morning, the buzz of
tension, gossip, and excitement reached a fevered pitch. One by one, the
haggling fell off. The hammering of horseshoes halted. People wandered toward
the westbound Market Road to watch the growing plume of riders’ dust.

Would
he really do it, they wondered?

Bets were placed. Nails
were bitten to the quick. Toes tapped nervously. When the company of riders
reached the edge of the Crossroads, Tahkan Shirar walked out to meet them.
Hundreds of crafters and artisans followed in his footsteps, curiosity burning
like a fever in them.

He stood beyond the
overhang of fruit trees, sleeves rolled to elbows, skin dark with summer sun.
He looked thin, his usual wolf-leanness whittled down. A quietness clung to
him, the stillness that comes from deep reflection. His face curved with
smile-creases as he saw the riders. Ari Ara jumped down from Zyrh’s back
at a run, greeting him after the week of travel. Just as she threw her arms
around him, she caught a glimpse of his sorrow darting behind his smile.

“What is it?”
she asked.

“Nothing to worry
about,” he said, gently touching her cheek. He had missed her this week.
It seemed she had grown taller since they last parted, and the speed of passing
time struck him strongly. He’d lost her for most of her life and mourned every
moment they had to spend apart.

As Mahteni dismounted
and walked across the open space between riders and waiting crafters, swirls of
dust chased her heels like tiny dogs. Tahkan stepped out to meet her. The first
words of his song struck the space between them and she paused. Her face fell
open like a book. Surprise and shock wrote volumes across the pages of her
features. The Harrak-Mettahl was singing the Atta Song, the ritual chant of
apology and forgiveness. He held out his hands in supplication, palms up. He
dropped to one knee, then two, then sat back on his heels with his palms on his
thighs and his head bent.

I am sorry, he sang,
for all the wrongs done,
for every slight and every silencing,
for every bruise and tear,
for the honor lost by men and warriors,
for all my faults and failures.

The Harrak-Mettahl had
a responsibility to uphold the honor of his people. If they lost their way, he
had failed his duties. Tahkan Shirar offered his apologies for his part in the
problems and for the ways his actions had made the situation worse. It was
wrong to silence anyone, he sang.

We are born equally of our mothers,
our feet rest equally on the sands,
the Ancestor Wind flows equally
through each person’s song,
the rain bestows its blessing,
equally upon all our heads.

Ari Ara sensed the
crafters behind him tightening like a bowstring, as if the outcome of this
moment decided their fates and futures. From the look of shock on their faces, Ari Ara
guessed that the Harrak-Mettahl didn’t often get down on his knees. She had
once seen her father gather power like lightning to his chest and stride into a
hall full of enemies like a tiger showering white sparks. He pulled that same
power to him now; she felt it crackling in the air. His words sang of what it
meant to be a man, a Harraken man. The Ancestor Wind stirred above them,
bringing a sense of time and culture, antiquity and ancestors, to the ritual.
Gestures of greeting fluttered from one Harraken to the next as the Ancestor
Wind spiraled into a whirlwind, reaching down between the Shirar siblings,
whipping their clothes and hair with its spinning winds.

If it is time for you, Tahkan sang to Mahteni-Mirrin,
to be our harrak-mettahl,
I release the wind to you.

The gasps of the
Harraken made the wind spout waver, swaying on their in-drawn breaths.

Forgive
me? Tahkan
asked his sister.

Mahteni bent her head
as if listening to the hushed whispers of the swirling wind that Tahkan held
out like a flower on the palm of his hand. Ari Ara made herself breathe
mechanically, frozen as the rest as her heart galloped madly in her chest.

At last, Mahteni spoke.

“Keep the Ancestor
Wind, brother. We need you to call the spirits of the ancient grandfathers to speak
to their grandsons and descendants.”

She made a small
gesture. The wind spout dropped to touch the earth at their feet, stirring the
dust. Everyone flinched and covered their eyes, waving the plumes away as they
coughed. When the dust cleared, Mahteni clasped her brother’s hands and lifted
him to his feet, the reply of the Forgiveness Song on her lips.

Ari Ara joined in
with the rest of the women, moved to tears. In the second refrain, she heard
the men’s voices joining from among the crafters. She thought she’d never heard
anything so beautiful as the full spectrum of voices, low and high, honoring
their honor keeper as his sister lifted him to his feet. When he rose, the
heads of his people rose with him and the weight of shame and anger lifted from
their backs. Tahkan Shirar, thin from fasting, trembling with power, stood both
humble and proud, a man of his desert culture, a keeper of honor once more.

Ari Ara couldn’t
keep it back: the Honor Cry broke loose from her throat, high as a piercing
hawk’s scream, sharp and clear. It unlocked the throats of others and like a
storm, the sound charged into the air. Tahkan’s eyes shot to his daughter, and
he nodded his thanks to her. When the cry quieted, Tahkan turned to the
crafters still hidden in the shade of the trees.

“My part of the
bargain has been met,” he announced. “Now you must honor your end of
our deal.”

With that, Tahkan
gestured and the crafters filed out from under the trees. The astonished women
parted to let them pass, out of the market and into the dust of the road.

“There are as many
Atta Songs to sing as there are people,” he told Mahteni, “and we
hope you will do us the kindness of hearing them. The Crossroads is yours. Each
person must reconcile before entering again.”

Ari Ara watched
the crafters step out into the road with resigned and determined looks. It was
as if they had placed and lost a wager. Only later, when the moon rose high
across the sky and the fire embers burned low, did she hear the whole story
from her father.

“I did make a
wager with them,” he told her, practically translucent with the energy of
the day’s events shimmering in his exhausted body. “I wagered everything I
had: my honor, integrity, dignity, even my position as harrak-mettahl.”

“On what?” Ari Ara
asked breathlessly.

Tahkan smiled wearily.

“I told them that
if we offered these women a sincere apology for ignoring this situation too
long, that if we apologized deeply and truly, and committed to being part of
the solution, the women would forgive us.”

When he said the word, atta – to forgive – it shivered in the
air. Ari Ara sensed meanings beyond her Marianan translation. The
Harrak-Tala word for forgiveness had no sense of forgetting to it, no returning
to what was before, no action-less remorse. The Harrak-Tala word was
inseparable from change, from doing differently, from repairing harm. It
reverberated with the willingness to be a different person and to live a different
way. And because it was Desert Speech, the word for forgiveness bound the giver
and receiver like an oath.

“They were afraid
– or resistant – to try,” Tahkan confided, “so, I told them I would
go first. It is my duty as Harrak-Mettahl, after all, to go first where others
fear to walk . . . even into the Atta Song, which frightens men more
than charging into battle.”

If he was forgiven, he
wagered, all of the crafters had to leave the Crossroads marketplace, giving it
over to the women, and enter only after singing the Atta Song.

“But what if you
were not forgiven?” Ari Ara asked in awestruck horror at the stakes.

Tahkan shrugged, a wry
smile on his face.

“Then I would not
be fit to lead my people, anyway, and Mahteni would be a better harrak-mettahl
for these times.”

Tahkan had spent days
listening to the Ancestor Wind, fasting, thinking. The women had just
grievances. In the desert, everyone held up the Harraken Song. Everyone earned
praise when things went right; everyone shared blame when things went wrong. If
two brothers quarreled, the whole village took responsibility for their part in
the argument. If a disagreement came to blows, everyone acknowledged how they
either aggravated the dispute, or did nothing to try to help find a resolution.
If they had turned one brother against the other, they admitted it. If they had
ignored a chance to help the brothers reconcile, they acknowledged it. It was
not just the person who flung a punch who was at fault for an injury, but those
who cheered on a fight, or did not reach out to stop it.

Because of this, the
Harrak-Mettahl needed to find a path forward that restored the harrak of all
his people. No blood debts or honor challenges could solve this dispute. No act
of violence could heal this rift. So, Tahkan sat and listened for a long time, staring
out into the shimmering horizon. At last, the answer had come. In a flash of a
memory, he saw his daughter practicing the Way Between. An old song about
Alaren leapt to mind, reminding him of the root of the word, atta.

“Atta,”
Tahkan told Ari Ara, “is the word for reconciliation. It is not a Harraken
word. It is a Fanten word from times long forgotten. Alaren brought it to our
people in the days of healing from the pain of the first war.”

Atta meant apology,
forgiveness, and reconciliation. It was the same word backwards and forwards.
The Atta Song was a call-and-response, a question seeking an answer, a cry
awaiting its echo. So, the answer to Tahkan’s question was the very question he
had posed: atta for his people, starting with the man who must lead where
others feared to go.

The Atta Song at the
Crossroads went on for days. Tahkan had shown that anyone could sing it; that
everyone played a role in letting the injustice fester, and everyone could help
resolve it. Some had more to apologize for than others. A few sang the song but
were not forgiven on their first try. These people – men and women both – had
ignored complaints from relatives or supported the unjust decisions of
warriors. Tahkan sat with them outside the gate and spoke with them. Mahteni
sat with the women inside the market and talked with them. The Atta Song rose
again, and sometimes a third time, until the people’s willingness to change
rang honest and clear in the notes.

There were some who
refused to sing and rode off to other places. There were many who felt they had
done no wrong. To them, Tahkan was firm and clear: if the Harrak-Mettahl could get
down on his knees and sing Atta for his people, so could they.

“It will build
your harrak,” he pointed out, and no one could deny that Tahkan Shirar had
shown great courage, walked through the fire of the Atta Song, and emerged
stronger than ever before.

The season turned swiftly toward autumn. A touch of coolness hung on the night air. Soon, the Harraken would gather to bring in the crops. When all were reconciled at the Crossroads, the Harrak-Mettahl rode out again, this time toward Turim City to make the same request of those who dwelled within those walls. It was time to apologize, forgive, and change.

__________________

This is an excerpt from Desert Song, a novel by Rivera Sun. You can get a copy through our Community Publishing Campaign.

Throw-the-Bones – An Excerpt from Desert Song

Image by Jody Davis from Pixabay CCO

This is an excerpt from Desert Song, a novel by Rivera Sun. You can get a copy by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign.

Up a long, winding ravine, tucked into a pocket meadow, lived a seer named Throw-the-Bones. Her home – if you could call it that – was a hide-covered lean-to half dug into the earth. A sod roof of desert grass grew above it; a rangy, horned goat bleated at them from on top. A desert chicken scratched in the dirt out front, scraggly-feathered with a flopping ochre comb. A dry bone-and-branch fence ringed the hut, white and stark, bleached by the blazing blue sky. Tala nudged Zyrh through the listing gate then slid off to push it shut.

“Leave it
open,” a voice croaked out, dry as a spiny toad.

A hunched figure
staggered toward them. Dangling locks of hair masked her face. Her grotesque
cloak of rodent skulls, crows’ beaks, birds’ feet, and shed snakeskins lurched
with every step.

“You’ll be leaving
quicker than you came,” the woman rasped. “They all do.”

“Not Tala,
Throw-the-Bones, you know that,” Tala called out soothingly.

“What’s
that?” the figure cried with surprise, pushing back her matted hair and
shading the sun from her eyes. “Tala? Well, that changes things. Come in
for tea!”

Ari Ara blinked as
the bedraggled figure dropped the rasping voice and tossed off a tangled wig.
The slender, middle-aged woman cast aside the cloak with a look of disgust. She
patted the stray wisps of brown hair back into place and straightened her
spine. She wore a clean tunic and a bright blue belt. The wrinkles around her
eyes creased at Ari Ara’s astonished expression and she burst out laughing
merrily.

“The ole
cloak-and-croak act is just to scare away unwanted visitors,” she said,
“but a friend of Tala’s is a friend of mine.”

She winked and squeezed
Tala around the shoulders. Ari Ara dismounted and followed the other two
toward the hut. The woman turned with a brisk, no-nonsense attitude and eyed Ari Ara.

“You must know I’m
Throw-the-Bones, but who are you? Potential Tala-Rasa?”

Ari Ara shook her
head.

“Ari Ara
Shirar en Marin.”

Throw-the-Bones’ mouth
dropped open. Her eyes rolled back in her sockets. A tremor shuddered through
her. Tala calmly pinched the woman’s nose, held her mouth shut, and counted to
thirty. At thirty-three and a half, Throw-the-Bones threw Tala off, gasping.

“Thanks,”
Throw-the-Bones coughed out. “Ack. That was a strong one. Good thing she
didn’t come on her own.”

Tala let the wheezing
seer lean on zirs shoulders and lurch into the shade of the hut.
Throw-the-Bones settled in a chair as the young songholder gathered a trio of
small cups along with a little clay teapot. The youth opened the lid and
sniffed cautiously.

“Just a bit of
spring mint,” Throw-the-Bones told the youth. “Nothing to worry
about.”

She threw back her
first cup and gestured impatiently for another while Ari Ara stood frozen
in the doorway with an appalled look on her face, wondering what had just
happened.

“Visions,
love,” Throw-the-Bones explained, pointing to a three-legged stool and
gesturing for the girl to sit. “Such a bother, really.”

“Wh-what would
have happened if Tala hadn’t held your nose?” Ari Ara asked, tentatively
sitting down.

Throw-the-Bones
shrugged.

“Maybe I’d wake on
my own a few hours later . . . or not.”

She shivered despite
the red flush on her skin and sweat beads on her brow.

“Given the
strength of these visions, I might never have come out of them, though old
Stew’s trained to peck me back to life if I don’t feed him his grain on
time.”

She pointed to the
chicken, which stretched his neck and crowed before strutting out of sight.
When Ari Ara turned back, Throw-the-Bones’ sharp eyes were fixed on her
face.

“What did you
see?” Ari Ara asked, clutching the edge of the stool and steeling
herself. There was already one prophecy about her and it wasn’t pleasant. To
her surprise, the middle-aged woman simply rolled her eyes and shoved her cup
across the rough surface of her table for more mint tea.

“Oh no, it doesn’t
work like that. Not even for you, though I’m sorely tempted to make an
exception.” Throw-the-Bones leveled a stern look at Ari Ara.
“No, no, if I risk death to see your future, you’ve got to pay prettily
for that knowledge.”

“But I didn’t ask
you to see my future!” Ari Ara objected.

“Precisely. Which
is why I don’t charge for seeing, only for telling. I’ll be keeping my vision
in my silence until you’re ready to pay.”

“You won’t tell
anyone else?”

“Certainly
not!” Throw-the-Bones retorted, looking insulted. “That’s unethical.
Didn’t you explain?”

The last was directed
accusatorily at Tala, who simply shrugged. The woman blew an exasperated sigh
and turned back to Ari Ara.

“The bone fence,
the skull cape, the raspy voice; that’s all for show. Idiots come to me to find
their true loves or destinies. Most of them have lives so dull it pains me to
wade through the visions.”

She rubbed her temples.
People lived. They tended goats. They met a girl. They married a boy. Children
were born.

“Everyone
dies,” Throw-the-Bones sighed, “and I always see that. It’s where I
get most of my knowledge, though no one likes to hear that. I peek in at the
funerals, count the wedding rings and scars, notice how many children have
gathered, and look for any telltale callouses on people’s hands. That’s enough
to hint at a life . . . though occasionally, I see more. Wars and
famines. Bold lives and cowardly deaths. Simple existences and perfect
happiness. Long-living elders and easy exits. Short flickers and sudden
snuffing outs.”

Throw-the-Bones’ face
grew shadowed. Her fingers clutched the clay cup hard enough to turn her
knuckles white.

“I can see why you
wouldn’t want too much company,” Ari Ara said gently. “I’m sorry
if hearing my name caused you distress.”

The brown-haired woman
looked up. Her eyebrows lifted.

“In all my
years,” she murmured, “no one has ever said that.”

She held out her hand
and squeezed Ari Ara’s palm in gratitude.

“When the day
comes that you face a crossroad of no clear choices, come to me, and I will
tell you which way you went.”

“You could tell
her now,” Tala pointed out, “and spare her the trip.”

Throw-the-Bones
snatched the teapot away and sloshed some more in her cup.

“You are both too
young to know the wisdom of anything,” she grumbled. “Especially you,
cheeky Tala. Such impertinence! Do I tell you how to sing the old songs? No.
You do your job and trust me to do mine.”

Tala looked
sufficiently chastened . . . at least until the youth tossed Ari Ara
a hidden wink behind the seer’s back.

“But none of this
is the question you came to ask, is it?” Throw-the-Bones asked suddenly
with a sharp astuteness, looking from one to the other.

“I need to find my
friend Emir Miresh,” Ari Ara explained.

“The Marianan
warrior?” Throw-the-Bones asked in surprise.

Ari Ara nodded and
related the tale of how she lost him.

The woman listened with
a troubled expression. She tapped her fingers on the wooden table in agitation.
She grimaced.

“Oh, I hate
this,” she groaned to Tala. “Take the cups and fetch the bones.”

Tala cleaned everything
off the battered table. Ari Ara stared at the surface . . . the
blackened gouges looked like a map . . . ah! She tilted her head; it
was the desert. There were the mountains, the foothills, the winding streams
and rivers. Thin red lines wove in intricate patterns through it all,
perplexing her. She reached out to touch the web. Throw-the-Bones slapped her
hand away.

“Don’t meddle. I’m
going to find your friend’s bones, living or dead.”

Ari Ara blanched.

Tala returned with a
basket of old bones, large and small, some shiningly clean, others with bits of
gristle still attached. Throw-the-Bones began to ask her a series of questions
about Emir.

“Short or
tall?”

“Tall.”

She picked out the tiny
fish and bird bones and discarded them to the side.

“Old or
young?”

“Young,” Ari Ara
answered, watching the woman’s hands fly as she tossed out the cracked and
yellowed old bones.

“Color of
eyes?”

“Uh, blue, I
think,” Ari Ara stammered. She hadn’t really thought about it.

“Hmm, not clear
enough,” the seer answered. “Stout or slender?”

“Slender.”

“Water or
fire?”

“Water. He’s like
a river when he moves.”

Each time she answered,
Throw-the-Bones sorted out more bones until the choice was down to two. She
weighed them in her palms, thinking, then set aside one.

“Here, hold
this,” the older woman ordered, tossing the other vertebra to Ari Ara.

“Ew!” she
screeched, dropping it with a disgusted grimace. There were still red tendons
attached to it.

Throw-the-Bones eyed
her, shook her head, and picked the bone up.

“Hmm, how about
this, then?” the woman asked, turning suddenly and snatching something off
the high shelf behind her.

It was a strange stone,
smooth with time and a river’s touch, black as ink, and warm against Ari Ara’s
palm.

“What is it?”
Ari Ara asked, holding it up to the light.

“An old thing from
long ago,” Throw-the-Bones answered. “A tree’s heart turned to stone
by lightning. A bone that is not a bone.”

She stretched out her
hand. Ari Ara gave it back. Throw-the-Bones nodded approvingly as she rolled
back her sleeves and weighed the lightning stone in her palm.

“Your friend has a
very old soul and a truly good heart. If we find him, don’t lose him
again,” the seer advised her. “You do not find friends like him every
day.”

Ari Ara nodded
silently, suddenly hot with embarrassment over the way she’d treated Emir. Throw-the-Bones
began to chant in a low voice, cupping her hands around the lightning stone.
She shook her hands, slowly at first, then rhythmically, chanting faster and
faster until she opened her palms above the table. Her eyes traced the arc of
the fall to where the stone landed squarely with a single thump, no bounce, no
spin.

“This is Moragh’s
Stronghold,” Throw-the-Bones stated, pointing to a black mark slightly
east of the stone. “You last saw Emir here, just to the northwest.”

Ari Ara nodded.
Throw-the-Bones picked up the lightning stone. She repeated the chanting and
shaking, though the words changed slightly. A crackle of energy snapped through
the hut. Her hands split open. The stone fell. It hit the mark northwest of the
Stronghold then spun and spun and spun along the red lines, wavering from one
side of the table to the other, traveling the length from north to south.
Finally, it came to rest in the Middle Pass of the Border Mountains.

Throw-the-Bones scowled
and harrumphed in surprise. Ari Ara opened her mouth to ask, but the woman
lifted her hand for silence.

“Tala, sing the Truth-Telling
Song.”

“But – “

“Do it!”

All the hairs on Ari Ara’s
arms rose up as the two voices joined, one singing, one chanting. The air
tightened as if bound by an invisible noose. Throw-the-Bones shook the stone
between her palms. Her whole body rattled with the gesture, quicker and
quicker. Then, the woman’s hands flew open. The lightning stone hit the table
and spun in place for a long moment. It fell at the exact same spot as before
in the middle of the Border Mountains.

Tala squinted at the
table. Throw-the-Bones scowled and folded her arms over her chest.

“That,” she
stated flatly, “was not what I was expecting.”

Ari Ara couldn’t
stay silent any longer.

“What? What does
it mean?” she blurted out.

Throw-the-Bones’
fingers stretched out.

“There is where you left him.” She
pointed to the first spot then moved, tracing the wandering pathway of the
second toss. “This is where he has been . . . or will be,”
she said. “It’s never exactly clear.”

“So, he’s alive!” Ari Ara
cried in relief.

“Maybe,” the
woman answered with a scowl. “Maybe not. A spinning bone indicates that
someone is on the edge of life and death, spirit and mortal life. I have never
seen a bone dance the threshold line as long as that. It is strange.”

Throw-the-Bones tapped
her chin.

“The third toss is
where you will meet again. Here in the Border Mountains. But your friend still
spun the spirit-mortal dance. Why would anyone move him over all that distance
if he were sick or injured or near death? That, I cannot understand.”

She had thought the
bones hid the truth on the second toss; that’s why she had Tala sing the Truth-Telling
Song. The melody made the bones fall honestly.

“Whatever that
was, it’s speaking the truth.”

“When should I
meet him there?” Ari Ara asked, pointing to the mountains.

Throw-the-Bones looked
up, eyes clouded and distant.

“Do not seek him.
Your paths will find each other.”

Then she shivered out
of her reverie, stoked the fire, and refilled the teapot. She bustled about the
hut, ignoring Ari Ara’s pestering questions, packing away the bones,
replacing the odds-and-ends on the table, tossing a handful of grain to Stew
the Chicken. Tala quietly rose and gestured to Ari Ara to follow; they’d
get no more out of Throw-the-Bones.

“Wait.”

The woman’s voice
stopped them as they left. She snatched the lightning stone off the table.

“Take this.”

“I couldn’t,”
Ari Ara protested.

Throw-the-Bones shook
her head.

“It is tied to him
now. I can’t use it again.”

She grabbed Ari Ara’s
wrist, turned her hand over, and placed the black stone in the girl’s palm.

“There is the
matter of payment, too,” Throw-the-Bones said sternly.

“I have little –
” Ari Ara began.

The woman held a finger
up to her lips and tilted her head as if listening . . . or
remembering.

“You will travel
the dragon ranges, the desert ridges, the marshlands, the desert sands,”
she chanted in an odd, distant tone. “Your paths will crisscross past the
Crossroads, but your eyes will not meet until after the women and warriors
collide, and the exile is exiled from exile.”

Throw-the-Bones’ eyes
rolled back in her head. She shivered. The woman’s limbs shook from head to
toe. She gasped as if she was resurfacing from a deep dive into a cold lake.
She braced her trembling palms on the table.

“For
payment,” she croaked, “you will promise me something.”

“What?” Ari Ara
asked warily.

“When the young
warrior returns, the old warrior will ask for your help. You will give
it,” Throw-the-Bones stated firmly.

A shiver and tingle ran
through Ari Ara’s spine. She nodded.

“No more questions now,” the seer insisted. “I have no more answers for you.” She hustled them out the door, onto Zyrh, and beyond her gate. As the latch clicked into place, she eyed the redheaded girl riding away. She had no more answers for Ari Ara Shirar en Marin, not until they next met on the long road called life.

____________________

This is an excerpt from Desert Song, a novel by Rivera Sun. You can get a copy by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign.

Blind Date w/ a Book; Take Home an Adventure! Get a FREE Rivera Sun novel.

Note: The Blind Date w/ a Book Sale is limited to the United States.

We like to have fun around here. Hence our “Blind Date with a Book” sale. This weekend, Thurs-Mon (Nov 21-24), for every book you buy on my website or publishing campaign, I’ll send you a FREE surprise  “Blind Date Book”.  Wrapped in hand-drawn paper, each book is one of my novels – but you won’t know which until you open it!  And yes, these make really fun holiday gifts.  Stick them in your local Little Free Libraries, throw them into the office gift swap, put them under the tree … whatever you do, enjoy them! 

The Blind Date with a Book Sale lasts Thurs-Monday only.  Every person who buys a book from my website OR through the Community Publishing Campaign for my newest releases will get a free “Blind Date Book”. 

Blind Date Book titles include:

The Dandelion Insurrection
The Roots of Resistance
The Way Between
The Lost Heir
Billionaire Buddha
Steam Drills

Hiding under these Blind Date Book hand-drawn covers are limited editions, slightly off-kilter prints, and original edition book covers.  All of which you can auction on ebay when I’m someday as famous as J.K. Rowling.  (I’m working on that part, with a little help from all of you.)

It’s a wild adventure, being a Community-Supported Writer.  It’s an adventure I wouldn’t trade for the world. Thank you all for being a part of it.  What other publishing operation offers a Blind Date with a Book? 

With laughter and a sense of mischief,
Rivera

It’s time. End the draft, once and for all.

Image from SnapwireSnaps on Pixaby

We may be months away from ending the US military draft, once and for all.  After a court ruled that the male-only draft was unconstitutional, a Congress-appointed Commission has been studying whether or not to draft women into the US military. They make their report in March, and will likely either advocate for expanding draft registration to women or abolishing the draft, once and for all.

Instead of expanding the draft to women, it’s time to end the draft for all genders.

Drafting women is a deeply unpopular idea. For months, people have been testifying against it to the Commission. Even the former director of the Selective Service thinks it’s time to get rid of draft registration altogether. Currently, the US military draft is in a state of dysfunction. For decades, millions of men have refused and/or failed to register. The consequences can and do impact men’s lives, including everything from being barred from government jobs to being denied drivers licenses. This situation is deeply unjust and has been opposed for decades by several generations of draft resisters.

Expanding the draft to women will only deepen its unpopularity and make it even less functional as women join the ranks of draft resisters.

Some people, particularly men, say that if women want equal rights, they should be equally drafted.  Feminists of all genders reject this idea.  There’s nothing feminist about drafting women. While we support equal access to opportunity and employment in all sectors of the economy, gender equality cannot be achieved by forcing women against their will into the military. Involuntary conscription – for anyone – is an affront to liberty. No one should be forced into servitude against their will. There are words for that, slavery and exploitation among them.  

The only moral form of equality is to end the draft for all genders.

Women, specifically anti-war feminists, have opposed the draft for centuries. They have robustly critiqued war and militarism, and continue to do so to this day. In solidarity with women around the world, they refuse to support wars and decry the specific ways that war disproportionately harms women civilians and their children. True gender equality does not mean forcing women to fight wars they oppose. It means including women’s voices – in balance with people of all genders – at all levels of policy making. It means waging peace, not war. It means incorporating the practical and effective tools of peacebuilding, diplomacy, unarmed peacekeeping, civilian-based defense, civil resistance, and more into our approaches to conflict.

We stand at a crossroads. This is a moment where the United States could take a step forward in ending a policy that is deeply disliked and resisted by millions of men. The military draft is unenforceable, unpopular, unsupported, unequal, and unjust. It’s time to call for the end of the military draft. The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service is soliciting comments on all forms of national service. They need to hear from people urging them to end the draft and draft registration for all genders. Make your comments to the Commission until December 31, 2019.

Here are the three main points many people are making:

1)    Draft registration should be ended for everyone, not extended to women;

2)    All criminal, civil, federal and state penalties for failure to register must be ended and overturned for those currently living under these penalties; and

3)    National service should remain voluntary. Compulsory service, whether civilian or military, is in conflict with the principles of a democratic and free society.

Speak up. Raise your voice. This is an important moment, one that might prove to be a breakthrough moment if we speak decisively and urgently.  Tell the Commission: it’s time to end the draft for all genders, once and for all.

__________________

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.

What Song Will You Sing?

This is an excerpt from Desert Song: A Girl in Exile, A Trickster Horse, and the Women Rising Up. You can get this new novel through our Community Publishing Campaign here.

When the first touch of lengthening shadow broke the afternoon heat, Ari Ara forced herself through a set of training exercises in the Way Between. She missed Emir and Shulen so strongly that the world blurred, but she blinked her tears back and kept going. She couldn’t risk losing her edge; her encounter with Moragh had demonstrated that. She finished the exercise and paused to catch her breath. She reached for the waterskin and noticed Tala watching her with a blend of awe, mystification, and wistful yearning.

“The exercise
makes more sense with two people,” Ari Ara explained, “but you
can practice with the wind or the sunlight or anything, really.”

“Could I
learn?” Tala asked, eyes alight with curiosity.

“Oh, yes!” Ari Ara
cried, thrilled that the youth had asked.

Thus began a routine
that shaped their days: rise before dawn, ride to the next water source, rest
through the midday heat, practice the Way Between, and travel at dusk for a few
hours. They crossed a crumbling salt flat of blinding white dust. They tread
through an eerie dead forest of charred and burned branches. They climbed
winding switchback paths over an obsidian ridge of shining black stone. The
desert unfolded, step by step, strange and magnificent, no two places alike.
Ari Ara had always imagined her father’s land as flat and dry, but the
reality filled her with wonder. She had thought there would be no water, but,
in truth, water shaped the culture of the desert, sparse and sacred. Villages
clustered along the handful of rivers – streams, really – that snaked through
the land. She enjoyed traveling with Tala, who knew hundreds of tales. The days
flew by swiftly. The young songholder was fascinated by the riverlands and
plied Ari Ara with questions. The Fanten intrigued Tala, who referred to
the elusive forest-dwelling people as distant cousins of the Tala-Rasa . . .
at least, that’s what Ari Ara thought the Harrak-Tala words meant. Her
vocabulary was growing daily, but Tala’s speech was the most poetic and complex
she’d encountered. It was a mark of the Tala-Rasa’s calling, her friend
explained.

“We never forget a
word, and we keep them alive for others,” Tala explained, building a
small, grass-fed fire to cook a powdered stew for dinner.

“Has it always
been like this?” Ari Ara asked, flopping onto the grass with relief,
splaying her limbs into the soft greenness of the pasturelands. Tomorrow, they
would reach Tuloon. “With the warriors meets cancelling the village sings
and making all the decisions? And is it like this everywhere in the
desert?”

“No, and no,”
Tala answered, voice rough with bitterness. “The War of Retribution
changed everything. I will sing the ballad for you.”

Tala’s clear voice rang
out like a reed pipe, high and bright. The youth’s range was startling, soaring
high like silver bells and bird’s whistles, then dropping low as a man’s all
the way down to the rumble of shaking mountains. The words Tala evoked shivered
with time and history. It was believed that when the Tala-Rasa sang, the
ancestors spoke through them.

From the time beyond
memory, men and women had always been equals in Harraken culture. This was the
world that Ari Ara’s mother, Queen Alinore, had encountered when she first
visited. This was the way of life upon which the peacebuilding young queen had
forged the basis of trust between the two populaces of long-time enemies. Queen
Alinore’s marriage to Tahkan Shirar opened a golden era of exchange and peace.
Trade flourished. Youth programs initiated host exchanges and built friendships
across borders. Tala’s song illuminated the hope of these times, almost
unfathomable to those born during or after the bitter War of Retribution. The clouds
of darkness closed in from both sides of the border. Shadows cast by fear,
hatred, and violence dashed the hopes of a generation.

The Harraken swore they
were not like the riverlands people.
Fathers forbade daughters from acting like the “uncouth Alinore, so forward
and manipulative”. Husbands told wives to stay home with the children –
unlike Alinore’s monstrous cousin Brinelle who left her young son at home to
ride into battle against them.

But it was more than
hatred of the Marianans that fueled the current tensions. As the war dragged
on, the strong men were called to fight. The women were sent to hide and flee
with the children. The warriors meets made emergency decisions, quick choices
to save lives and protect their people.

“It was necessary
for survival, but the balance of our culture was tipped,” Tala added on a
worried note. “The warriors did not let go of power after the war ended.
Not all the village sings were started again. Because most warriors were men,
the women’s voices were slowly silenced.”

The power of Desert
Speech brought the scenes to life as Tala sang the story in a long ballad.
Swirling in the smoke of their grass-fed fire, Ari Ara saw visions of the
vicious cycle of warriors making choices to support young men’s trainings and war
preparations. She saw people – mostly women – objecting and being silenced and
pushed to the sidelines. She saw the warriors meets growing in strength and
authority as the sullen and resentful glares of women spread from face to face.
She saw women fleeing to Moragh’s Stronghold and women weeping in the dark,
fists to mouths to keep silent sobs from waking those around them. Then,
abruptly, as if waking from a nightmare, the vision halted. Tala’s face came
back into focus. The fire had burned down to embers.

“Why’d you
stop?” Ari Ara asked, a plaintive note creeping into her voice.

“The Tala-Rasa
tell the past, not the future. We are not soothsayers. What comes next is up to
the people.”

Ari Ara’s eyes
narrowed as she caught a faint sense of rote phrases in her friend’s words.

“Is that what you truly
believe? Or is that just what you’re supposed to say?” she challenged,
crossing her arms over her chest.

Tala threw her a
startled and uncomfortable look.

“I have been
warned – repeatedly – to listen and recite, not speak and meddle,” Tala
answered with a grimace. Ze picked up a stick and stoked the coals back to
life, tossing a few twigs in with angry strength. “But, what is a voice if
not to sing? Every story is woven out of many strands of possible stories.
History is not neutral. Many of the thirteen Tala-Rasa would have sung a
different song than I did tonight. If the Tala-Rasa can create new songs out of
the present, why not sing warnings of the future, too?”

The youth’s bright eyes
gleamed across the fire.

“If warriors-rule
or Moragh’s violence are the only answers, what is someone like me to do?
Neither seem like good songs!”

Tala shuddered. Neither
male nor female, what place would ze have in this new culture? Would Tala be
the dominator? Or the dominated?

“Is that why you
came looking for me?” Ari Ara asked. “Seeking the girl who is
neither this nor that?”

Tala nodded vigorously,
a grin spreading wide.

“I came looking
for the daughter of our Harrak-Mettahl, the one who restored our water, honor,
and people, the follower of the Way Between.”

Tala’s laughter rang
out. From the lopsided grin, Ari Ara suspected that her life sounded like
a legend to most people. Suddenly, her father’s words came back to her from a
letter he had written her last year.

You
will find, Ari Ara Shirar en Marin, that your legends grow far taller than
you. You will catch up to them in time.

A silence fell. Tala’s
sharp gaze stayed fixed on Ari Ara. The fire danced. A night bird hooted
in the distance. The breeze carried a slip of cooler air across the pastures.

“If you were
allowed to sing a future song,” Ari Ara said quietly, “what
story would it tell?”

A shimmering intensity
burned in the youth’s eyes as if the music pressed suddenly against the
confines of zir chest.

“It would
tell,” Tala began, speaking the story instead of singing it, swallowing
back emotion, “of two youths who did not fit into the world as it was . . .
and so set out to change it, together. It would tell of a girl who knew little
of her father’s culture, but recognized wrong when she saw it. It would sing of
the Way Between, a legend among us, returning like the water and nourishing our
harrak, our honor, until it grew green and strong again.”

Tala’s face flushed,
neck burning red like a boy’s, long eyelashes fluttering like a girl’s, teeth
biting lips like all nervous young ones who reveal their fierce vulnerabilities
like first crushes then wait for disaster or euphoria to strike. Ari Ara said
nothing for a long time, thinking about the words. Tala turned redder and
redder. At last, the youth drew the cloak hood over zes tight crop of black
curls with their iron-ore edges, hiding zirs face.

“Just think it
over and tell me in the morning,” came the muffled comment.

“I don’t need
until morning,” Ari Ara answered, blinking as she realized her friend
was waiting in agony for her reply.

The hooded figure
stilled.

“And?”

So much weighed on that
one word.

Ari Ara smiled and
curled on her side.

“I like the sound
of your song,” she said.

A muted squeal of excitement leapt out of the youth. Ari Ara’s grin gleamed in the darkness. Then the two closed their eyes without speaking further, letting sleep pull their thundering hearts and racing minds into visions and dreams.

______________

This is an excerpt from Desert Song: A Girl in Exile, A Trickster Horse, and the Women Rising Up. You can get this new novel through our Community Publishing Campaign here.

9 Reasons To Love The Ari Ara Series

by Leah Cook

You can find the Ari Ara Series, including the two new books, via our Community Publishing Campaign . If you’re new, check out the Whole Series supporter level. Just looking for the first book in the series? Visit my online store.

Let me tell you what’s really cool about this series:

1. It’s written for young adults (the kid characters are ages 11-13 so far), and the kids feel *real* to that age. They don’t magically understand things and they struggle with their emotions and frustrations and they leap and whoop with their excitements. Sometimes they think the solutions are simple, and sometimes they’re right, but not always.

My niece and nephews (ages 8-12 now) *love* these books. Some kids who read the books dressed up as two of the main characters for Halloween, and made their own costumes right down to the details described in the books.

2. It’s about the complex, challenging, important work of finding the ways of peace without violence, and it’s not some flakey version of that that’s all sunshine and roses. The stories of Ari Ara, a shepherd girl, learning about this show both the natural instincts we have to mediate conflict resolution, and the discipline that’s required to be creative if we want to find solutions that will work without falling back into stubborn win-lose dynamics.

It takes ideas like Aikido and Capoeira and finds ways to embody them in the Way Between, which is both a way to fight without trying to inflict harm, and a way to think about how to find peace between people. Some parts of it are easy for Ari Ara, and some she really struggles with. As she learns, we do too.

3. It takes place in lands where pain exists. The histories of the kingdoms include war and distrust, and things done that were wrong on both sides. The people in the stories have experienced searing personal pain, or the loss and pain of being alone on the outskirts of belonging, and these books have a place for that in a young adult’s world.

For children who may not have words for things they have experienced or who may not realize what the adults around them have been hurt by, the characters are shown in their own lives and histories without wounding the reader. It gives place for the existence of real pain and hurt in a story world where it is safely treated and safe for the kid (or adult) to read. You’ll have to read for yourself to understand what I mean, but it’s an important feature of the books (to me). It teaches compassion, both for others and for one’s self.

4. There is an unforgettable scene in the first book, The Way Between, where the most revered Warrior in the Riverlands is seen literally fighting his ghosts. It is searing and agonizing to read, and is a surprising and devastating portrait of PTSD and the legacy of violence that goes beyond an acronym and the news. It shows the toll and the exhausting cost of the battles that this Warrior has to fight privately every day of his life, long after the events that started it.

Again, it is a powerful scene, but will not harm the reader. The character is inspired by one of our own Warriors in the US who helped found Veterans for Peace, opening a nuanced conversation about war and what it does to those who fight it.

5. Ari Ara’s friends are diverse and their own people. They aren’t tag-alongs on the hero’s journey. They’re their own people, with their own desires, impulses, and lives. They’re interesting, from Minli, the crippled monk’s assistant, to Rill, the Urchin Queen in the capital city of Mariana. None of them *need* Ari Ara, let alone need saving by her. They are *friends* to *each other*. That kind of friendship and relationship to each other is a healthy, good thing for kids or us to see.

6. Ari Ara is not good at everything. She doesn’t magically become effortless at everything at any point in the books. She struggles with some things, excels at others, and covers up what she doesn’t know at different times. She hides her weaknesses out of insecurity, and she gets hurt and frustrated with the only adults who expect her to meet her capabilities. Feels true to me, I don’t know about you.

7. They are stories about identity and family–the longing to know who you are, to belong, to be loved, and what a tumultuous thing it is to learn new pieces of your own story and have to adapt what you tell yourself your story is. They are about learning to open your mind and your heart to hear who the people are in your story and what they felt and feel, not just your own pounding heartbeat. They’re also stories about honoring yourself *and* the people you come from, and how that’s not always an easy thing.

8. In these worlds, there are so many ways of giving meaning and words to things. In the second book, a desert woman shares a rite of passage ceremony with Ari Ara when she gets her menses. In the first book, the Fanten grandmothers’ whole lives are tied to a seasonal cycle. The urchins of the capital city make meaning from the scraps of cloth they are ‘paid’ with for their work, and it becomes a way of reclaiming agency and dignity instead of just being indigent. The Mariana city people use coded languages of fashion to send political messages. The desert people must import their words with truth and the *nature of the thing they speak* in order to actually be speaking their language.

These books offer young readers (and older) entirely new modes of meaning and ritual and language. In an increasingly multicultural, non-monotheistic society and country, this introduces something very important for any person. Churches used to (and still do) provide this for their parishioners. These books offer many ways for readers to think about observing important moments in their lives or imparting meaning in what they do.

And lastly, 9. They’re just damn good stories. Magic, real emotions, ups and downs, conflicts and exhilaration, brand new worlds with new cultures to learn, growing up… they’ve got them all. They’re just good reads.

So, if you haven’t checked them out, I highly recommend them! Check ’em out.

___________________

You can find the Ari Ara Series, including the two new books, via our Community Publishing Campaign . If you’re new, check out the Whole Series supporter level. Just looking for the first book in the series? Visit my online store.

Desert Horses

This excerpt is from Desert Song, Rivera Sun’s newest novel. You can get a copy by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign . Thank you!

A stunning view spread before them. The city’s dwellings ended abruptly at a chest-high stone wall. Cliffs plummeted down a hundred feet to a narrow lake fed by the river that cascaded over the precipice in a thunderous waterfall. A strip of green meadow followed the lakeside. Beyond that, a sea of white sand dunes rose and fell to the western horizon. Ari Ara and Emir leaned over the stone wall that ran the length of the cliffs. At the bottom were the horses.

Chestnut, roan, dappled
grey, shining blacks: they dotted the green meadow as far as the eye could see.
Fillies and colts gamboled beside nursing mares. A pair of stallions raced
along the edge of the white sands. Untethered, fenceless, they grazed on the grass
and gathered by the edge of the lake, magnificent, tall, and proud.

“Do all these
horses belong to people in the city?” Ari Ara stammered, awestruck by
the sheer number of animals.

“There is a
centuries-old debate on who belongs to whom: horse or rider?” Tahkan
replied. “I would guess that a third of the horses down below look to
someone in the city. Another third will travel with a human when they feel like
it. The rest would never deign to carry a human about.”

He led them to a hidden
staircase carved into the cliff. The steps zigzagged down a chute, opening onto
railed landings that overlooked the plain. Toward the bottom, narrow balconies
served as viewing platforms during horse races – and defensive balustrades in
times of siege. The staircase ended beside the lake. A line of storage rooms
had been carved into the base of the cliffs to provide space for tack and
grooming tools.

Ari Ara and Emir
stared in awe at the horses. The creatures rose even taller than they had
looked from atop the cliffs. These were not the shaggy ponies, placid and
patient, that Ari Ara had seen the High Mountain villagers using to pull
carts and plow fields. Long-legged and powerful, the desert horses rippled with
strength. They crowded around the humans, curious and massive. The shortest one
stood as high as Tahkan’s shoulder – and he was not a small man. The rest
towered over Ari Ara, bumping their flanks up against her and narrowly
missing her feet with their stamping hooves. The horses’ manes rippled with
hints of fire and wind. Under the familiar grassy aroma, the scent of heat and
dust clung to their hides. Their black eyes reflected the blue of the sky. Mahteni
whistled through her fingers. A mare with a jet black mane and a misty coat shoved
through the pack to reach her, head bobbing in delight.

“Good to see you,
too, old friend,” the desert woman murmured.

Mahteni’s farewells
were brief. She hung her saddlebags over the horse’s back, slung her waterskin
over her shoulders, urged her niece to avoid trouble, and repeated back
Tahkan’s last instructions. He sang a safe journeying song to bless her travels.
Then she sprang to the back of the grey horse with a leap Ari Ara couldn’t
follow. As she rode away, she swiveled and called back to her brother.

“She needs a
horse, you know.”

Tahkan blinked in
surprise.

“I thought it was
too late,” he murmured.

Mahteni’s laugh rang
out.

“It’s
tradition,” she reminded him. Then she waved her arm in one last farewell
and cantered off.

“What tradition?”
Ari Ara asked.

Tahkan’s slow smile
grew.

“Harraken custom
holds that a father chooses his daughter’s first horse. I thought I had missed
my chance, finding you so late in life, but Mahteni thinks you’ve never had a
horse?”

Ari Ara tossed him
a wild-eyed look and gulped, muttering under her breath as she flushed red as
an apple.

“What was
that?” Tahkan asked.

She shook her head and
wouldn’t answer.

Emir leaned close and
murmured an explanation to Tahkan: she’d never
ridden a horse – not once in her entire life. The older man threw an askance
look back at the youth.

Well,
she’ll have to learn, Tahkan thought. The daughter of the
Harrak-Mettahl must be able to ride.
It was a matter of harrak, a point of honor and pride.

He whistled. A tall,
black mare by the river lifted her head. Her ears flicked toward the figures by
the high cliff. She shook her dark mane and paced over.

“She is annoyed at
me for leaving her for so long,” Tahkan chuckled.

Tahkan’s mare sniffed Ari Ara
from foot to head, sneezed twice, and turned her fine-boned head in Tahkan’s
direction with a long-suffering expression.

“Stop that,”
Tahkan chided. “This is my daughter – of course she’s a rival for my
affection. Go find a good friend for her among your four-legged relatives,
would you? And this is Emir Miresh, a great young warrior from the riverlands. If
Tekli is about, tell him I request a favor.”

Ari Ara and Emir raised
their eyebrows over the man’s conversation with the horse . . . but
when the mare trotted away and returned with two other horses in tow, their
mouths fell open.

“She understood
you?” Emir blurted out in disbelief. “What magic is this?”

“Only our
language,” Tahkan answered simply. “Or perhaps her
intelligence.”

He shrugged. It was
difficult to interpret whether a stubborn horse couldn’t or wouldn’t understand your requests. Who
was he to judge? He welcomed a short, piebald horse with a black mane and tail,
and introduced him to Emir.

“You are both from
the riverlands. Tekli will know your Marianan words for stop and go, and
respond to your style of riding. He has run with our horses for years since we
rescued him from Marianan merchants.”

He left Emir and Tekli to
get acquainted and turned to the second horse with a skeptical look. The black
mare had chosen a golden blonde stallion with a distinctive white mane.

“Are you mad?
He’ll kill her,” he objected in a low hiss to his mare.

The mare stared
steadily back at her human, nostrils puffing, lips curling back from her teeth
in what Ari Ara suspected was a horse-laugh. Then the mare quieted and
nudged Tahkan with her forehead.

“You’re
certain?” he asked her, eyeing the golden horse with a father’s worried
disapproval.

Desert children grew up
on horses, riding behind or in front of their parents or older siblings, taking
turns riding solo on the more tolerant horses. When they grew old enough, the
mothers chose their sons’ first horse and the fathers chose their daughters’.
The friendship might last only a season or two, though insightful parents tried
to find horses that would make lasting bonds with their humans. Tradition held
to pairing complementary qualities: a headstrong boy was given a cautious
horse; a shy girl was offered a confident one. The pair learned from one another
and the two grew into balanced members of the desert society. Even so, Tahkan
had known many protective fathers who selected the sweetest, most even-tempered
old mares for their daughters.

This was not what the
black mare had in mind for Tahkan Shirar’s daughter.

“What’s his
name?” Ari Ara asked.

“Zyrh,” he
answered, reluctant to pair his daughter with this horse.

Zyrh meant trickster.
He was the pride and horror of the desert, infamous for his pranks. He would
flirt with a dignified warrior until he had the proud man on his back. Then
he’d fling him off. Zyrh would let vain young women climb up. Then he’d dump
them in the mud. He’d do the opposite of whatever the young men ordered,
turning them into the laughing stock of their village. On the other hand, Zyrh
had carried village matriarchs with a gentleness that eased their old joints.
He had pulled a drowning child from a river. He had freed a pen of horses
rounded up by foreign merchants who wanted to sell them in Mariana. For all his
faults, Zyrh had a sense of justice and an intelligence unmatched among the
desert horses.

“I make no
promises,” Tahkan warned, “but we could give it a try.”

Zyrh nickered and
pointed his ears. Ari Ara ducked as he swatted his tail in her face. She
grabbed it and held it still.

“Stop that!”
she chided, shaking her finger at his nose.

Zyrh replied with a
horse-laugh and yanked his tail – still gripped in her hand – hard enough to
tug her off balance. The golden horse spun around and bit her shirtsleeve.

“That’s
gross,” she told him. “Do you know how much you slobber?”

His rear flank bunched.
His hoof lifted. Ari Ara darted backwards in case he kicked.

“This horse is
trying to kill me,” she hollered as Zyrh spun to face her, legs wide like
a dog playing a game.

Tahkan broke into
laughter. He looked at the mare. She bobbed her head.

“You’re
right,” he answered. “They deserve each other.”

“What?!” Ari Ara
yelped.

Tahkan hid a smile.
This might work, after all. The girl had gone from an orphan shepherdess to a
royal heir in one short year. She needed someone to keep her humble, to stop
the whirling dizziness of her life. She stood on the cusp of adolescence,
exiled from one country, a stranger to the other. If Zyrh would let her ride
him, he would keep her sane, even if she hated every minute of the horse’s
mischievous lessons.

“I’m not getting
on this thing,” Ari Ara protested.

“I will have a
talk with him,” Tahkan promised, stepping forward to hold his hand under
the golden stallion’s velvety nose. Zyrh fidgeted as the Harrak-Mettahl pinned
him with a stern gaze. Tahkan began to sing in a low murmur of a chant. Zyrh’s
head dropped. He chuffed his breath through his nostrils. His long lashes
blinked slowly. When Tahkan’s song ended, the horse shook his mane as if
breaking free of a spell.

“What did you tell
him?” Ari Ara asked, impressed.

“I reminded our
friend that he comes from an ancient desert lineage . . . as do you.
I told him what we tell all our daughters’ first horses: I expect him to save
your life, brave all dangers, fly faster than the wind, alert you to
approaching storms, and bite any uncouth boy who dares to insult you.”

Ari Ara laughed.
Tahkan grinned and spoke further.

“I told him that if
a time comes when he must run like no other horse in the history of the world,
he must do it even if it breaks his heart, even if his hooves turn to molten
fire from the speed of his gallop, even if time parts and the wind gaspingly
surrenders the race.”

Tahkan’s expression was
severe. He meant every word.

“Well, that’s not
asking much,” Ari Ara replied, rolling her eyes.

He beckoned her closer
and laid a hand on the short bristles of the horse’s hide.

“I had thought to
begin with saddling your horse,” Tahkan remarked with a grimace, “but
there are two ways of riding in the desert, and Zyrh does not surrender to a saddle
and bridle.”

“You mean I have
to ride bareback?!” Ari Ara exclaimed, eyes wide.

“Zyrh will keep
you on . . . or not,” Tahkan added. “No reins or saddle
will change that.”

“Can’t you give me
another horse?” Ari Ara questioned as Zyrh stamped his hoof and eyed
her with devilish anticipation. “A dull Marianan horse?”

“I could,” he
replied, reluctantly.

“But what?” Ari Ara
wondered, sensing his hesitation. “Will you lose harrak if I won’t ride
Zyrh?”

“Er, yes,”
Tahkan confessed with an uncomfortable sigh, “though, it’s nothing a Harrak-mettahl
cannot spare.”

She caught the unspoken
truth, however: a true daughter of the desert would not ride like the river
dogs.

“Alright,”
she groaned, her pride spurring her into action, “show me how to get on
him.”

Tahkan’s grin lit up,
delighted at her courage. He eyed her height and pointed to a large boulder. He
suggested she climb on top of it until she could leap into the saddle like Mahteni
had done.

“Show me,” Ari Ara
said. “I bet I can do it.”

He whistled for his
mare and demonstrated the three leaping mounts: one from a standing position
with hands on the horse’s back, one with no hands, and one from a running
start. His horse stood proud and still, showing off her excellent manners. Then
he dismounted and held Zyrh by the sides of his head so the horse wouldn’t
dodge away as she practiced.

“Be good,” he
muttered to the creature. “Let her gain some confidence, at least.”

Ari Ara’s head
barely reached Zyrh’s withers, so she stepped back several paces, bolted into
pounding strides, and took a hurtling leap. Her hands pushed off his back to
give her enough height to swing her leg around and over.

“Like that?”
she asked, clutching Zyrh’s neck as he jolted at her sudden weight.

“That will
do,” Tahkan answered with a smile.

“Now what?”

The two sides of the
horse had names, he told her: alshun and saak, courage and trust, the two
virtues that guided desert riders. He showed her how to use her legs to signal
to Zyrh.

“Excellent,”
he encouraged her as the horse began to move like rippling water under her. He
could see her knuckles turning white as they clutched the horse’s mane, but a
smile broke out on her face.

“We’ll make a
desert rider out of you, yet,” he boasted.

Zyrh snorted and sidestepped.
She slid off his back with a shocked ‘o’ of consternation hanging on her lips.
Tahkan helped her up from the dust.

“Perhaps I spoke
too hastily. Let’s try again.”

“Wouldn’t it be
easier with reins?” she asked.

“No doubt, but in
battle, you’d need to hold a sword in one hand and a shield in the other.”

Ari Ara swiveled
to face her father.

“No, I
won’t,” she retorted hotly. “I’m not ever fighting in war. Who would
I fight for or against? My father’s people or my mother’s? I’m going to use the
Way Between to stop wars.”

“Lakash
en kelay,” Tahkan vowed softly under his breath, “may
it be so.”

He gestured to her to
get back on the horse. This time, however, Zyrh bolted away as she leapt,
whinnying and shaking his head.

“He’s laughing at
me!” Ari Ara protested, landing in the dust.

She tried again. Zyrh
dodged her. She stuck her tongue out at Emir as he laughed. The third time, her
father held the horse still. Then he put her through her paces, showing her how
to ride at a walk, a canter, and a trot. Zyrh taught her how to fall.
Fortunately, her training in the Way Between had already taught her how to
protect herself from hard landings.

By late afternoon, her
temper was as sharp as her hunger. Tahkan was pulled away by a huddle of
anxious-faced men requesting his intervention in a brewing conflict. He told Ari Ara
and Emir to brush their horses down and then come up for dinner. At the first
balcony, he leaned over the rail, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called
back to them.

“Stay out of
trouble!”

They waved to show
they’d heard. He nodded and trudged up the steps behind the men. At first, Zyrh
stood still and let her brush him down with a currycomb. Then the devilish
beast shot a stream of piss at her feet. She jumped back and threw the brush at
his flank. He raced away and promptly rolled in the dust.

“Fine!” she
hollered. “See if I ever brush you again!”

“He’s just doing
it because he knows you’ll react,” Emir told her, picking up the brush.

Ari Ara made a
face and let him use the brush on Tekli.

“I should use it
on you,” he teased, picking bits of dried grass out of her hair. “You
look like you spent the day rolling in the dust like Zyrh.”

“I did,” she reminded
him grumpily, slapping his hand away.

A burst of laughter
rang out from behind them. They whirled. A group of desert youths drew close,
led by the young warrior Gorlion.

“A real Harraken would know how to ride
that horse.”

The sneering comment struck
her like an arrow. She tensed, trying to hide the hurt his words caused her.
Her face flushed red. She knew she wasn’t a true Harraken, but he didn’t have
to rub it in! She glared back at Gorlion as he leaned against the rough-cracked
trunk of a nearby tree, his arms crossed over his chest. Beside him, a handful
of young warriors and skinny younger brothers imitated his posture.

“Ignore him,”
Emir advised her in an undertone.

“I bet you can’t
even make it down to the end of the lake without falling off,” he scoffed.

“I can, too,”
she shot back, indignant. “I’d even beat you there.”

“Ari Ara,”
Emir began in a warning tone.

“What’s the
matter, river dog? Worried she’ll lose harrak?” another youth jibed. He
flung his head back and woofed like a dog, mocking Emir and setting off a
chorus of howls from the others.

Zyrh came dancing over,
skin quivering and nostrils flaring. He snapped at the warrior youths and hung
his head over Ari Ara’s shoulder in a surprising show of solidarity.

“Let’s race then,
riverlands girl,” Gorlion challenged. “Harrak to the winner.”

The others repeated the
last phrase in a chant. Ari Ara set her chin. She may not be a skilled
rider, but she’d seen Zyrh galloping. He was fast. She waved aside Emir’s
protests and took a running leap to the golden horse’s back. He let her land –
which she took as a sign that he wanted to race as much as she did.

Gorlion’s stallion
pranced and paced, pawing the ground impatiently. Zyrh held stark still, except
for the twitching ripple of tension that shivered in his flank. One of the
youths drew a line in the sand. Another held up his scarf. A third counted
down.

“Three
. . . two . . . one . . . go!”

The two horses burst
into motion. Ari Ara clutched fistfuls of Zyrh’s ivory mane. The horse
morphed into a mass of muscle and thundering energy. He moved in long, leaping
strides. The ground beneath her blurred. Gorlion’s stallion sprinted, lithe and
swift. The desert youth rode well, tucked low to his horse’s back. As they
pulled ahead and left her in the dust, he ducked his head under his elbow and
laughed mockingly.

“Go,” Ari Ara
urged her horse, refusing to give up.

Zyrh bolted forward,
doubling the length of his stride. Ari Ara clutched the band of muscle at
the arch of his neck and clenched her legs tight around the horse’s torso. His
legs stretched forever as they flew across the sand. The shore of the lake sped
past. Despite her white-knuckled grip, a surge of thrilled excitement whipped
through her. She let out a whoop of exhilaration. Zyrh sensed her enthusiasm,
lengthened his neck, and exploded. Ari Ara’s eyes widened. The golden
horse galloped as if he was made of wind. They gained on Gorlion. They caught
up to the stallion. Then they passed the other horse and pulled ahead. The
sound of the competing racer’s hoof beats fell back. Ari Ara cheered as Zyrh
reached the end of the lake yards ahead of the other horse.

And then he kept on running.

____________________

This excerpt is from Desert Song, Rivera Sun’s newest novel. You can get a copy by supporting the Community Publishing Campaign. Thank you!

In Fact and Fiction, Women Resist the War Machine – Rivera Sun Takes Action

Wage Peace! Women vs. the War Machine.
How women – in fact and fiction – push back against war.

As I ship out stacks of books that celebrate the heroics of waging peace, I’m struck by how relevant and real these stories are. On the pages of Desert Song, women are rising up to keep a war culture from undermining their rights. Yesterday, in real life, I represented CodePink in testifying to a congressional commission against expanding the military draft to women. As I told the commissioners:

“Women’s equality cannot be achieved by including women in a draft system that forces civilians against their will to participate in activities (such as war) that harm others in such large numbers.  When it comes to the military, we believe that women’s equality and, indeed, gender equality is better served by simply ending draft registration for everyone.”

Yesterday was a reminder of why fiction matters – and why it’s important to support peace novelists in our world.  A novel about women standing up to war culture feeds our souls as we strive for equality, justice, and peace in our real world. Take Desert Song, for example: characters like Ari Ara and Mahteni model how to be strong women and mighty girls.  Characters like Tala remind us that gender is more than a checkbox and that we need to include those who don’t fit into society’s boxes in our quest for justice. Characters like Tahkan teach us how men can also be feminists, and how true feminism is not about superiority of any one gender, but rather equality for all genders.

Curious about this book? Here’s where to find it.

My testimony to the National Commission on National, Public, and Military Service also spoke truth to power: that the fields of peace and nonviolence have effective and pragmatic alternatives to war and violence.  Our tools are viable.  We deserve a seat at the table that decides how our nation will deal with conflict. Writing the stories in The Adventures of Alaren taught me this. Each story is based on a real life example of how people wage peace.  Researching over 40 case studies as I wrote fictional adaptations taught me this truth: we can abolish war; we now have better tools and approaches for working towards peace. This knowledge was what gave me confidence to tell military commanders to their faces that if they want equal rights for women, the answer is not drafting us to fight their wars, but rather inviting us to craft foreign and domestic policy that is rooted in the practices from the fields of peace and nonviolence. 

It was a powerful day for me. It was a powerful day for all of us. It was proof that stories matter. The fictional sheroes and heroes I write about gave me role models as I spoke.  They gave me articulation of ideas and points to make. They gave me case studies and research that I drew upon. And these stories can give all these things to you, your friends, and most importantly, the young people. 

Here is where to find the two newest books in Ari Ara’s Series, as well as the Whole Series if you’re new to them or want to give them as a holiday gift to a young person, school, library, teacher, or friend!

It won’t be long before our children are draft age. When the time comes, will they have the courage to resist? I hope so. I also hope this commission recommends abolishing the draft so they won’t have to wage this struggle.  I choose to strive for justice now on behalf of all of them. This is the story I live; this is the story I write, as in this passage in Desert Song:

“‘It may take generations before our great-granddaughters lift their voices to demand their rightful places. If so, those young women will be exactly where we are today. They will shoulder the same burdens we face, and brave the same dangers to lift their songs. I will not wait for them. I will not let them take on such an impossible struggle because of me. I will not let my name be remembered as the woman who let our songs go silent.’ Will you? Her unspoken question hung in the air as loudly as a sand lioness’ roar. One by one, the women rose. One by one, they sang.”

If you like what I’ve written in this newsletter, you will love Desert Song and The Adventures of Alaren. Please support stories – both on the page and off – of women resisting the war machine. Our actions save lives. Literally.

Yours in the movement for peace,
Rivera Sun

PS  You can read my whole statement and watch a video of it here.  Also, if you wish to submit a comment to this commission, here is where to do so.  For background (and to counter the disingenuous cover images on the website), this commission was court-ordered and congress appointed to study if the military draft should be expanded to women, expanded to all citizens in the form of a national mandatory service program, or abolished altogether. (Guess which option I support.)