How would you like to have more peaceful relationships with others?

You can, and though the work is not easy, the process is simple, and today Ethan Hughes shares with us how he and others put this idea into practice day to day at The Possibility Alliance, as well as in the Permaculture Design Courses held at the Peace and Permaculture Center. T

his audio comes from the first video session with Ethan, recorded while I was at The Possibility Alliance. For those of you on mobile, if you'd like to watch this video, I’ve included a direct link to the YouTube page in the resource section.

These conversations with Ethan, a beautiful synthesis of the wisdom of others with his own experiences of living in community, continue to change and transform my life and lead to new discoveries. As I apply the lessons learned along the way I find that they work. There is less strife and more understanding of others, while also decreasing the sense of other or enemy identity. I won’t say it is perfect, and we call these things practices for a reason, but the improvement is there. By changing ourselves, we change the world. Now imagine all the possibilities.

If there is anyway I can assist you on your road, wherever you are in that journey, get in touch by leaving a comment below.

Resources
Conflict Transformation video (YouTube)
Ethan Hughes - Necessary Simplicity

Our conversation is based on his forthcoming book The Gandhian Iceberg: A Nonviolence Manifesto for the Age of the Great Turning. We talk about nonviolence and the three parts to the Gandhian model: self-purification, constructive programs, and satyagraha. I became aware of Chris and his work through conversations with Ethan Hughes, who gave me a rough copy of The Gandhian Iceberg.

Through that, and time spent at The Possibility Alliance, meeting with members of the Catholic Worker Movement, and those practicing nonviolence and building egalitarian communities, a light went off in my thoughts on how nonviolence is a required component of creating the world espoused by permaculture. That lead to this conversation with Chris on how to move from a place of anger and fear, to one of compassion and love. As discussions emerge about how the third ethic of permaculture is the least discussed and most confusing to understand and implement, nonviolence and the Gandhian model provide a way to return this ethic to a proper place in our practice.

You can contact Chris at moorebackman@gmail.com and find more about his work via the links in the resource section in the show notes. Creating a more bountiful world requires peace and nonviolence.

To continue to exist under old methods and modes that create feelings of scarcity and result in violence and oppression don’t fit within the ethics of permaculture. A new revolution is required, lead by the practice self-purification, constructive programs, and satyagraha. Should you choose to embrace this path, and I suggest you explore it further at the very least, there are additional resources in the notes for this episode that include links to the Metta Center for Nonviolence, a series of free books on nonviolence from the Albert Einstein Institute, and further articles on satyagraha and the power of nonviolence.

Along the way if I can assist you, wherever you are, get in touch by leaving a comment below.

Resources
Chris’s Email: moorebackman (at) gmail.com
Bringing Down the New Jim Crow
Chris’s Articles at Truth-Out
Dr. Michael Nagler, author of The Search for a Nonviolent Future Martin Luther King
The Inconvenient Hero by Vincent Harding
Brene Brown
Gene Sharp
Michael Brown
“The Presence Process” Charles Eisenstein

Peace Projects
Be the Change Reno, Nevada
The New Community Project Harrisonburg, Virginia
Canticle Farm Oakland, California

Additional Resources
Nonviolence: Working Definitions (Metta Center for Nonviolence)
Satyagraha (Wikipedia)
Non-violence, the appropriate and effective response to human conflicts
Collection of free books on nonviolence (Albert Einstein Institute)
The Power of Nonviolence
/r/nonviolence (reddit)