Missing July but Finding My Way

July almost escaped me entirely without even a single blog post. It's been such a high speed, world traveling month for me that writing has been mostly of the private note-taking variety in hopes that I might sort it all out later and make some sense, or better yet, some use of it all. I attended the International Peace Research Association, IPRA, conference early this month in Sydney Australia. It was my first time in the Southern hemisphere, and my first time mingling in the international peace community. Both firsts were expansive and exhilarating for me.

Elise Boulding was one of the founders of the field of Peace Research and of IPRA. She passed away June 24th after an amazing life brimming with contributions to our understanding of ourselves and how relate with one another. I'd heard of her through many friends and colleagues. She was one of the first financial contributors to Nonviolent Peaceforce, and the inspiration to many of the original founders and supporters. The more I learn of her the more I continue to feel her hand changing my life's trajectory. I'd all but given up on getting a PhD, but when I learned she received hers at age 50, I realized I too might be able to do it. Who knows, I might even finish by age 50. The global reach of her work has further erased borders from my imagination. I hope to work in a global capacity, raising my little wonder girl to see the world as one large home with plenty of room and food for all. Looking at pictures of Elise, her sparkling eyes and warm smile convinced me to dust off the feminist hat and fit it squarely and proudly back on my head. Women and children are key to opening the doors of peace in this world.

As I began to consider various career paths from here, I found myself perusing the classes being offered at Portland State University this Fall. As I scrolled through the Psychology I notice the class, "psychology of women" and I had to wonder why we need to study that and not the "psychology of man", which wasn't listed. It seems to me that it's the abnormal psychology of man that has put us on the brink of extinction. If we could get some better understanding of that psychology we just might be able to save ourselves. I suspect that this class was designed by men for men - feels very Fruedian.

There was no point to that last paragraph, just an amusing aside as I ponder this passing month. I try to find the unifying theory of my lifeline. I still love technology, discovery, science, both social and physical, and I can only wonder at where all these passions will lead me as they churn and swirl around with peace and social justice issues in a world gone mad with war and the suffering it brings. I wonder if humans can learn to enjoy the benefits of technology without destroying each other and the planet in the process. What a terrible shame if we can't. Our entire food system, and likewise our health, has been ruined by the technicians approach to raising crops and animals. Now our food poisons us, millions of animals live in misery without ever seeing the sun or touching grass only to die at the hands of a frustrated and under paid immigrant trying to make his own way in life by taking this dangerous unwanted work. Technology at it's absolute most evil sees its anniversary in a week, the dropping of the first atomic bomb. August 6th, 1945,  America dropped the bomb, instantly killing over 100,000 human beings and slowly killing in excruciating pain another 100,000 in the days following.  If you haven't read John Hersey's account of that terrible event, you must.  That day, 65 years ago, Americans danced and celebrated in the streets. The day the Twin Towers fell in Manhattan, Muslim fundamentalists and others wounded by America's policies and actions abroad, danced and celebrated in the streets. We do unto others as they do unto us, over and over again in a retributive dance of death. And now technology makes it all the easier.   We can watch each other die and dance on YouTube, or get instant messages and Tweets as events unfold for our brothers and sisters.  And it also allows me to sit here and ramble on in this public forum or to say "I'm sorry" for America's horrible sins against humanity.

Each public event I attended in Sydney was started with solemn recognition of the First People of the area, the aboriginal tribe who had once lived on that land.  There was even a public apology from the white community to the aboriginal community for the missing generations, including a march that filled the Harbour Bridge with apologetic people.  The first event was followed by an annual "Sorry Day".  It will take a long time to restore the dignity to the First People just as it will for the First Nations here in America.  We haven't even begun the process of healing in America.  White America has never offered an apology to the African Americans or the First Nations, much less offered any reparation to ease the hardships faced by over a century of subjugation, abuse and treaty violations.  I for one am very sorry and will continue to work for an equal and just world. 

Communication is another key to unlocking the puzzle of peace in this world. I met Birgit Brock-Utne in Sydney. She was friends with Elise and has been a global researcher since the beginning of IPRA. She's studying the relationship between security and language. She's also looking at how histories are being rewritten with the radical changes taking place in South Africa. Language, communication, technology, dignity, respect, indigenous wisdom, equality, women, children...these are the rubrics of change that we must strive to satisfy. Somewhere in this matrix I will find my way. We must learn to bridge the barriers of culture, gender, language in order to build a better world for all our children and their great great grand children. Let's not allow the human race to end with us just because of some abnormal male psychology that we forgot to study before it was too late.

Killing from a Distance

The age of heroes
warriors
brave men
Fades with the parchment their stories are told on

Murder is mechanized
computerized
fun
In graphic color and surround sound war hums a new song

Only that dot blinking
A heart beat
A soul
A glassy eye can not see the tears
Cannot see the young of years

Sit safe in a bunker
while she cries
While he dies
And another dot on your screen goes out

Another dream ends
a nightmare begins
You play unseeing God with joystick in hand
As you spray the blood and brains of one "could-be" terrorist
You seed the ground to sprout a hundred more

You think you're safe
And for now you are
But we are all less safe for what you do
And who you give your dogged obedience to.

Pavlov is dead
Bite the hand
Put down the game of death
And come home.

War is over.

A Forest of Peace

What we plant
in the soil of contemplation,
we shall reap in the harvest of action.

~ Meister Eckhart

Nine strong.  That's the number of Redwood sprouts growing in pie dishes at the Whitefeather Peace House.  Seeds from small cones collected beneath the shade of two giants at a nearby park were gently persuaded to awaken.  These fragile beings are filled with the potential of the ancient Goliaths, once the most plentiful trees on earth.  The oldest known Giant Sequoia lived for 3500 years.  It makes our 90 year life span seem rather puny.  Yet, in our brief time we have even greater potential to reach amazing heights of awareness through action. 

No More Guns

Well it was Sunday bloody Sunday
When they shot the people there
The cries of thirteen martyrs
Filled the Free Derry air
Is there any one amongst you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin lids!

—John Lennon and Yoko Ono "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

My first trip out of my own country was to (London)Derry Ireland in October 2001.   It was also my first experience in a conflict zone.  From the moment I arrived I was confronted by a new reality of what it means to live with the constant threat of violence and the remnants and artifacts of the violence both past and present.  The city of Derry is a walled city, surrounded by a medieval, defensible fortress. Armored police vehicles crawl the streets after dark.  The shop windows close their eyes at night, cold metal eyelids shuttering out the world.  Any windows not covered have spiderwebs of cracks or shattered holes.  Concertina wire adorns the tops of fences and walls.  Surveillance equipment seems to follow your every step along these ancient streets.  Graffiti and vandalism scar much of the visible facade of Derry, never letting you forget that death and violence are walking nearby in the hearts and minds around you.

There is sanctuary from the street, the pub.  At night the residents of Derry take solace in jolly camaraderie.  I joined in, eager to imbibe the stories of these people.  How did this happen to them and why?  And more importantly why does it keep happening?

By the late 60s the "Troubles" of Northern Ireland found the Roman Catholic nationalists and the protestant unionists openly fighting one another.  January 1972 the people on the bogside of Derry organized a peaceful protest against the violence.  The protest ended in bloodshed when the British soldiers opened fire on the protesters.  These were fatal shots for 11 people, while two others were run down by armored vehicles.  By firing on a peaceful gathering the British radicalized the youth of Northern Ireland, sending them to the doors of the IRA (Irish Republic Army) to pick up guns for their retaliation.  Violence began to escalate, spilling the blood of many innocents.  No one felt safe in their yards and homes.  Everyone became suspect and neighbors lost trust and hope of each others humanity.  If only Nonviolent Peaceforce, or other unarmed civilian peacekeeping, had been available to them then, much suffering might have been avoided.  The walls of this city have witnessed bloody battles since the 1600s, and it was clear that it was not yet to see peace.

Few in Northern Ireland have escaped the harm of the Troubles.  Nobel Laureate Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams were deeply affected by the violence in Belfast when the three children of Mairead's sister, Anne, were run down by a member of the Provisional Irish Republic Army (PIRA).  Betty Williams witnessed the event.  the grief stricken mother, Anne, ended her own life.  This event galvanized the women to action and they began "Women for Peace" which later became the "Community of Peace People", winning them the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976.  The group began the modest work of re-education, planting the seeds of peace and nonviolence in hopes that one day these concepts would grab hold the collective imagination of the people.

I sat in my hotel room in Derry in 2001, watching the local news.  Martin McGuinness, a Derry local and leader of Sinn Fein,  was making an announcement to the people of Northern Ireland.  McGuinness is highly respected in the local community, he was also one of the youth that had been driven to join the struggles as a member of the PIRA after Bloody Sunday.  After so many years of violence, he stated, the IRA was ready to begin disarming and handing over their weapons.  I sat in disbelief.  As I spoke with locals I found this skepticism to be the norm.  Yet there was hope.  Could these people, after so many decades of fear and mistrust, learn to live in peace?  Most seemed weary of violence and ready.  This was a big moment.  As time passed it has happened, but not until 2006.  I guess it takes time for those seeds to sprout, but unless they're planted nothing will ever happen.

My five year old daughter brought in the mail the other day.  Inside was a coupon booklet from Bi-Mart.  It had hearts on the front for Valentine's Day.  She flipped through the book to find other sweet gifts of love on the pages.  She came up to me with a very concerned look on her face and showed me the page that earned this sad look.  There were guns.  She said "Aren't guns for war, for killing people and animals?"  I told her yes, that is what guns are intended for.  We both agreed that guns should not be a gift for a day dedicated to love.  We will write a letter to Bi-Mart, stating of protest of their sale of guns.  The members of the IRA had to obtain guns illegally, yet in our country we have the "freedom" to walk into a large box store and buy a lethal weapon.  Some claim that owning a gun keeps them free, but I'd suggest that the people of Derry discovered otherwise.  That the more guns on the streets, the less free they were.  The more concertina wire, surveillance equipment and shuttered windows are the cost of that kind of freedom and it's not the kind of freedom we should be asking for.  Let's disarm our hearts and our homes, and truly be free.

The Culture of War and Lipstick

The sexy singer from Barbados, Rihanna, has a new video for her song "Hard".  I have to wonder if she wasn't paid by the military recruiters to make this video.  If she wasn't, she should have been.  It attempts to make war itself desirable and sexy.  It's an appeal to the "bad-ass" mentality.  To me it represents so much of what is wrong with the American war culture.  The real bad-asses are the ones standing unarmed in front of the guns and tanks, demanding justice and security for the innocent civilians caught in all the red-blooded, testosterone driven nationalism.  I'd rather see Rihanna using her sex appeal to get the boys to put down their guns, rather than adding more bullets to an atmosphere already heavy with lead and death.

The message to young women is clear, that by adopting the "hard" violent persona you are somehow more sexy, desirable and secure.  There's also the implication that your sex is itself a weapon, and that a girl can use it to control and manipulate the man's world.  It's far from a new message.  I got the same message when I was a young woman from Cher, Madonna, Tank Girl, etc.  The messages are that "we have what they want and can use it to get what we need" and that it's somehow safer to join "them" in the game rather than to play by our own rules.  What exactly is it that we need from men that we can't get from a sperm bank?   R-E-S-P-E-C-T as Sister Aretha spelled it out for us all.  This is the clearest message being delivered in this video, that if your woman enough to straddle a pink tank, you will have that desired respect from all men.  It's a tragically flawed message. 

The reality of our war on terror is that more of our soldiers have died by suicide than have been killed by the "enemy".  War is not sexy.  It is wholesale murder, mostly civilian.  A greater percentage of female soldiers are raped while in service, Enemy within: rape in US military ranks.  Their sexuality and acceptance of violence as a way of life did not protect them.  They did not even get the respect of the men that they were fighting side by side with.  Please, my beloved sisters, do not join this team.  It can only bring suffering.

How does war affect a woman?  Does she bring a soothing quality to combat?  Or can she kill another woman and her children as cold-bloodedly as a man?  Turns out that she can.  Women have proven to be just as, if not more so, brutal than men.  Often they claim that they have to be to prove that they aren't "soft".  Some of the worst atrocities in the Rwanda genocide were waged by a woman,

Mother of atrocities: Pauline Nyiramasuhuko's role in the Rwandan genocide

At age 18 Israeli girls must serve in the military.  They are speaking out on how that service has changed them. 

Female Soldiers Break Their Silence

Sure, we can be like the famed Amazons, we have warrior hearts, but let's use that courage and ferocity to wage peace.  Of the two genders women should best understand what it takes to bring a beautiful human being into this world.  Let's not break each others hearts by killing those precious beings we've worked so hard to nurture.  Let's own our sexuality sisters.  What is more sexy than a mother nursing her child, or playing hide and seek in the park, or the mother holding the peace sign outside the White House demanding a better, safer life for all mothers everywhere.  Let's make peace the sexiest game in town.

Here's a better video, join the tribe.

A Decade Late

Most of my life I've had the feeling that I was born a decade late.  As a child of 1966, born to parents unconcerned with the larger world picture, the turmoil, the successes, the frustrations and the anger of the times were largely lost to me.   Our parents were the disillusioned, and many passed this sense of hopelessness and helplessness on to us.  The Generation X, post Vietnam babes like me, were fed on the fears of atomic obliteration, just as we began reaching out via a new super highway of 1s and 0s.  Most of us came home to empty houses at the end of the day, the first latch-key generation of the dual income household.  We learned what we knew of our world and how to navigate the complex spectrum of human emotion watching the Mod Squad, Star Trek and Giligan's Island.  We are also the best educated of the first 13 generations in America, but we make less money as the economic pie has been plundered by the elite.  The first presidential election I remember clearly was that of Ronald Reagan.  I found him plastic, laughable and way too ancient to be running my country.  Yes, I was exhibiting the sarcasm and cynicsm often attributed to GenXers.  But like many of my generation, there was a fascination with the 60's.  We listened to Jimmi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, and I wore out more than one cassette tape of Janis Joplin.  We all knew who John Lennon was and it was in his music that I could best feel the energy, passion and dreams of that earlier generation and movement.  Last night I watched the movie The U.S. vs. John Lennon with a dear friend who did experience that time first hand.  It made me feel much closer to that experience and see my own generation in a new light.  Maybe I wasn't born too late after all.

Peace is a Mother

At our recent Adventure in Nonviolence we read the following poem in unison:

Peace Is A Woman And A Mother

By Ada Ahroni

How do you know peace is a woman?

I know, for I met her yesterday

on my winding way to the Wold's fare.

She had such a sorrowful face

just like a golden flower faded

before her prime.

I asked her why she was so sad?

She told me her baby was killed in Auschwitz,

her daughter in Hiroshima, and her sons in Vietnam,

Ireland, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Rwanda,

Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya...

All the rest of her children, she said,

are on the nuclear black list of the dead,

all the rest, unless the whole world understands -

that peace is a woman.

A thousand candles then lit

in her starry eyes, and I saw cherubim

bearing a moonlit message:

Peace is indeed a pregnant woman -

Peace is a mother

As we read, the memories of birthing my own daughter filled my heart and threatened to bring tears to my eyes.  At age 37 I was quite surprised to find myself with child, a very pleasant but unexpected surprise.  I located midwives to help me through the prenatal, delivery and postpartum experience.  I was determined to have a natural home birth, using the water tub for pain management.  Some have called me a stubborn woman, while those more generous have labeled me tenacious.  This quality has served me well in many circumstances and I've only questioned it once, childbirth was the moment.  After 14 hours of laboring my baby girl emerged from the water, but there was a problem, she wasn't breathing.  For the briefest moment I held her, calling to her by her name, "Alexa Rose, please breathe, please breathe for Mommy".  I could hear the panic rising in my shaky voice.  Still connected by the umbilical cord the midwives and their assistant hurried us to the bed and the midwives went to work on little Alexa.  With each tick of the second hand a new fuse lit in my heart, threatening to demolish all that I was if that beautiful light had gone out.  But at last a cry emerged and they brought her to my arms and we, mother and child, mixed our tears together as I choked out a song to her, for the first time face to face.

Winds of Change

As the days grow longer and the holi-daze fades into crisp edged reality once again, I peer into my future, willing in to form what change I wish to bring into my life. Since our tragic descent into the abysmal role as worlds primary war addict, I've felt nothing but shame each time I pull into a gas station. I see that the love of freedom on wheels that I have ignorantly enjoyed since my teens is also death and misery to hundreds of thousands who just by chance were born on top of the oil we hunger for. We literally destroyed an entire country on a lie and are in the process of obliterating yet another. Each time I press down the gas pedal a new widow mourns, and other widows starve with their children in dangerous streets. The SUV craze that has grasped the hearts of American Soccer Moms is causing the suffering of so many other mothers in the world. Just as it was when I learned of the mass slaughter and misery of beautiful life forms we call "food" animals created in me the vegetarian heart, so this too has taken my will and pleasure of driving the roads across my beautiful country.

The decision to stop driving takes preparation, both logistically and emotionally. Like all young Americans I couldn't wait to get my drivers license. I learned how to feed and car for my car, changing my own oil, spark plugs, points (yes I'm that old) and tires. I loved everything about cars. I liked to go fast on the highway, but I also loved to crawl over the back country slow in a Jeep. I never would have imagined a day would come that I would voluntarily give up my four wheels. It is like the story often told of a conversation between George Fox (founder of The Religious Society of Friends) and William Penn (founder of the Province of Pennsylvania) where William expresses concern over wearing a sword, a common practice in the time. Fox responded saying "Wear it as long as thou canst". On a subsequent meeting Penn announces "I have taken thy advice; I wore it as long as I could". To be true to my principles of nonviolence I must admit that I have driven for as long as I can. The time has come to learn a new way which just happens to be healthier in many ways.

I am now the proud owner of three bikes, a trailer bike for longer rides with my daughter and her bike as well. Between the three I'm well equipped for many types of travel. One is set up as a grocery runner with large panniers on the back and a big produce basket on the front. My Kona Smoke is set up as my hauling bike, with attachments for trailers. My Kona Dew Plus is my run around ride, with a seat on the back that my daughter can use until she gets to 70lbs. I also get a monthly pass for the light rail and buses. The area that I live currently is not the easiest for this, so to make this transition even easier I will be moving to a more mass transit friendly area of the city.

My lease vehicle goes back to Toyota in May. I'll be posting more on this experiment then. I had felt some dread, but as the day gets closer I'm getting more excited. It's getting almost unbearable to drive my car now. Being on the bike feels much more like freedom to me than the smothering enclosure of the car. And physically I feel so much stronger and healthier. Admittedly, Portland is one of the most bike friendly cities in the U.S. but hopefully more cities will catch on.

I wish all beings everywhere a happier, healthier New Year. May we all find the path of peace easy to tread, but if not get a mountain bike and enjoy a challenging ride.

New Nonviolent Peaceforce Video