Category Archives: Nonviolence

Music, Nonviolence, Nonviolent Communication, Peace, Royal Song of The Day

Feelings and Friendship: Peace Song of the Day for 10/12

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“How To Save A Life” by Fray is the Royal Peace Song of the Day. The song is beautiful and soulful. The video is full of images of real people showing the full range of emotions from fear, sadness, and grief to happiness, joy, and release.

Why is this a peace song? Being in tune with your own feelings, and understanding how important feelings are to yourself and others, is an important key to Nonviolent Communication.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjVQ36NhbMk&ob=av3e] Continue reading Feelings and Friendship: Peace Song of the Day for 10/12 →

Nonviolence, Peace

#AfghanistanTuesday Protests. Discuss.

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Ok tweeps, between the planet-wide protests of the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War, and the flowering of the planet-wide Occupy movement, there is much to discuss.   Scarry Thoughts in his post  #AfghanistanTuesday World Report – October 11, 2011 gives a suggested schedule for this twitter discussion.

The schedule is geared to the peak hours we have been experiencing to date for #AfghanistanTuesday conversation, approx 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern U.S. time.  Continue reading #AfghanistanTuesday Protests. Discuss. →

Nonviolence, Peace, Royal Book of the Week

Power of Nonviolence Thoreau CD: Peace Book Chapter 4 10/10/11

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The Power of Nonviolence Writings by Advocates of PeaceThe fourth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace brings us to Henry David Thoreau‘s seminal 1849 essay on Civil Disobedience.  This is the essay that turned words into action.  It turned the future into right now.  This essay educated two of the most powerful leaders of the 20th century, Gandhi and King.  It provided the foundations for their nonviolent movements.

Like many of his fellow transcendentalists, Thoreau was an abolitionist. He reacted strongly to President Polk’s incitement of the Mexican War in 1846. The war was intended to annex territory for slavery. Congressman Abraham Lincoln’s outspoken opposition to the war essentially ended his political career for 8 years.

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Thoreau took it a step further.  He saw that living in a the the free state of Massachusetts and speaking out against slavery did not absolve him of involvement in the war, and in furthering slavery.  Thoreau saw that his support of the government — his payment of taxes — made him complicit.  Despite having coined the phrase in the beginning of this essay that teeters between libertarian and anarchist:  Continue reading Power of Nonviolence Thoreau CD: Peace Book Chapter 4 10/10/11 →

Music, Nonviolence, Peace, Royal Song of The Day

Love men and love women: Peace Song of the Day for 10/7/2011

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“Everything Possible” by Fred Small is the Peace Song of the Day for Friday, October 7th. You can find this song at Rise Up Singing on page 239.

Excerpt:

You can be anybody you want to be
You can love whomever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And know I will love you still…

Don’t be rattled by names, by taunts, by games
But seek out spirits true
If you give your friends the best part of yourself
They will give the same back to you.

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The Royal Song of the Day is a project of Duke Augustus and Duchess Susanna, The Duke and Duchess of Peace. The Duke and Duchess recognize that one of the paths to peace is to find soulful and nonviolent entertainment, and to express oneself with art and song.

Nonviolence, Peace, Uncategorized

Occupy #AfghanistanTuesday

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October 6, 2011 are the protests on the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War.  In the blog post The hour is approaching: Make a commitment!, we are asked to focus this week’s tweets on organizing for that day:

Tuesday October 4 … #AfghanistanTuesday! We have wide-ranging conversations every week on #AfghanistanTuesday, but I #AfghanistanTuesday tweetswant to suggest that this week we need to give special attention to the protests themselves. With protests just days away, now is the time we must: Get people to find their local action! When people join up with others near them, protesting the war ceases to be solely theoretical and begins to become a reality. There is a list of many actions nationwide (and worldwide) on the website for the Chicago protest; I predict that as the hours pass, the number of local protests will grow too fast for this list to keep up with!

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Music, Nonviolence, Peace, Royal Song of The Day

Looking for sunshine: Peace Song of the Day for 10/3/2011

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“The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow”, from the play Annie, is the Royal Peace Song of the Day for Monday, October 3rd. This song is full of hope and easy to sing. I remember all of my friends and myself loving this growing up. So, it has a special place in my heart. (As schmaltzy as it is.) – Susanna, Duchess of Peace

Continue reading Looking for sunshine: Peace Song of the Day for 10/3/2011 →

Nonviolence, Peace, Royal Book of the Week

Power of Nonviolence Emerson War: Peace Book Chapter 3 10/3/11

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The Power of Nonviolence Writings by Advocates of PeaceWe continue with the third chapter from the The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace This week we discuss the third chapter of the book which is an excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s essay entitled War. This chapter is in the Pre-Twentieth Century section of the book . Last week we discussed an excerpt from a 1693 essay by William Penn entitled Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe.

Shall it be war, or shall it be peace?

The discussion in this chapter is, unfortunately, as modern as the Duke’s recent Facebook discussion with childhood schoolmates. The other participants in the discussion brought up every possible reason why the war they opposed is an acceptable course of action.  The lesser evil. The corruption of money in politics. The current state of affairs.  The Duke kept returning the discussion to the phrase that ends the selection from Emerson’s essay, and serves as this paragraph’s pull quote.  Continue reading Power of Nonviolence Emerson War: Peace Book Chapter 3 10/3/11 →