Training with Meta Peace Team’s Mary Hanna at the Metta Center… Lou leans into the kitchen, “If we need more room, we can do this training at my house.” “We’ll be fine,” I reply with a grin. Walking back into our office, I see that all the chairs have been filled, and some people… read more
Usually I prefer not to work on Sunday evenings. It’s my one chance for a day to myself, to work on my weaving or sewing projects or even get more involved in a book that I’ve been salivating to read all week long. (Currently on my table is Kamala Subramaniam’s version of The Ramayana.) There… read more
We’ve all seen and heard kids playing out violent scenarios–mostly because they have not learned enough about how nonviolence works and what other options they have. In this podcast I share the story of how one mother was able to gently show her son the power of rehumanization while playing his game with him. Listen… read more
Since mid-March we’ve been moving into a new office in downtown Petaluma. Now that we’ve vacuumed up the last bit of sawdust from the floor (all our shelves were hand-built and crafted by our own Michael Nagler), placed the final book in our Gandhi library, arranged the last piece of furniture for our nonviolence home—and… read more
Conflict is natural and healthy. Violence is avoidable. In this podcast I talk about a practical approach for understanding conflict as a necessary part of developing our most humane qualities and the art of engaging conflict without resorting to violence. Podcast time: 5 minutes. Listen here or at with the player below the bio… read more
How do we express to children we are working together as a team and what effect can it have? In this episode, I explore the power–and challenges of– working together on setting boundaries with children in a respectful way that models for them a productive way of saying ‘no’ as well. Episode length: Six Minutes… read more
“Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.” ~ Gandhi, Harijan, November 1938 The 1930s were not a very hopeful time in the history of world politics, yet here we have Gandhi echoing across the years with a… read more
“Woman is more fitted than man to make explorations and take bolder actions in ahimsa.” ~ Gandhi, Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 294 Certainly one can do without the gender essentialism in the 21st century, but that’s the problem when you take quotes out of their time and context. What we have to understand here… read more
“…[P]eople will never be able to live in peace with each other in towns and palaces. They will then have no recourse but to resort to both violence and untruth. We can realize truth and nonviolence only in the simplicity of village life. ~ Gandhi, Letter to Nehru, October, 1945, in Bhoodan, March 26, 1960… read more
“My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.” ~ Gandhi, Harijan, August 30, 1939 Instead of setting his sights… read more
