The Soul of Nonviolence Podcast: Recent Episodes
Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service
Welcome to the Soul of Nonviolence Podcast with Pace e Bene nonviolence educator, trainer and author Veronica Pelicaric. Each week Veronica shares a short reflection based on one of the daily nonviolence quotes Pace e Bene sends out to help each of us live the nonviolent life.
This week’s quote from Bishop Oscar Romero provides a unique take on how to counter polarization with affirmation. He discusses that fine line between opposing someone and standing in integrity with one’s own conviction.
Veronica highlights how this quote encourages us not to conform to things we don’t believe in, but to affirm ourselves while still making an effort to be a listener instead of an enemy. Then, when conflict arises, we can be poised to see past the confrontation to the common ground we share with people on the other side.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week’s quote from Representative Jamila Jayapal helps us to undo common misperceptions of nonviolence and explore its true meaning. As is clear in the quote, it is a concept often not easily understood since it first requires a person to shed cultural conditioning that has us view violence as the default, allowing us to see the values underneath.
Veronica explores some definitions of what nonviolence is and is not, quoting Michael Nagler from his book The Third Harmony, quoting Gandhi, and challenging our tendencies to define things by putting them in neat little boxes. She discusses how those boxes may help with making sense of the world in some ways, but distract us from the underlying connection between ourselves and every other thing in this universe. That underlying connection—which we discover by immersing in the unknown—helps us to truly understand the force of nonviolence.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica comes to us with a short and sweet reflection on a quote by Maya Angelou. Many of the quotes we consider from great artists, thinkers, and leaders of people-powered movements are aspirational, asking us to rise above our own expectations and strive for something exceptional. How to get there can be another matter altogether.
This quote from Maya Angelou lays it out for us: courage is the key to unlocking all these virtues that help us to consistently be our best selves. Veronica highlights the matter of consistency, noting that we might get a fleeting grasp of kindness, mercy, and honesty. But if we want to embody these traits on a regular basis, we depend on courage to develop these virtues.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica remembers Thich Nhat Hanh and his incredible contributions to the world with one of his quotes. In his 95 years, Thich Nhat Hanh worked to share methods of mindfulness and speak out for peace around the world, encouraging others to join the path with him.
In the podcast we explore how deep love for someone—friend, family, partner, pet, or anyone—expands to encompass everything. Extraordinarily, these moments of deep love not only affect us when we feel it, but also affect those who receive it. These moments of love become moments of unity, eliminating separation between us and everything around us.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Building on the themes of last week, today’s podcast features a quote from Carlos Castaneda that considers what it means to follow a path with heart. As Veronica explains it, a path with heart constantly invites us to grow and evolve. It leads us on the adventure of discovery, and brings us closer to who and what we really are.
To follow this path requires vigor, strength, and courage to lean into the mystery and take on the unknown. Veronica discusses how these elements mark the difference between a warrior and an average person. One fights for and will take risks for the truth, while the other is not drawn to inquiry or discovery. The path with heart becomes self-motivating because these risks are rewarded with connection and integration along the way.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this podcast, Veronica reflects on a quote from Chris Moore-Backman to help us consider the path towards authenticity. As it connects to the nonviolent journey, authenticity gives us a sense of peace and purpose, while encountering an authentic person gives us permission to be authentic too. In this way, nonviolence towards the self radiates out to become nonviolence towards others.
Veronica describes the process of self-purification as helping us understand what we need to do for the world with our lives. Beyond the personal benefits, this helps us to fulfill the unique role we have to directly impact the larger world.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica dives into a quote by Medea Benjamin to reframe this time of crisis as a collective opportunity. She discusses how in our current times of uncertainty about the climate, the economy, public health, and more, it is natural to want to go back to how things were. But these crises we face are a result of how things were.
In order to create lasting change, Veronica discusses how we need to look forward to a new way of thinking, one that includes collaboration and dialogue. Including diverse opinions makes sure the new future we build will be inclusive, addressing issues from as many sides as possible. From there, we can integrate these changes into our daily lives.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Start off the year by looking ahead to your nonviolent path with the latest Soul of Nonviolence Podcast. Using a quote from Pace e Bene, Veronica explores where we as a society typically start, and how we can get where we want to go. She encourages us to observe the way life moves and learn from it, with patience and presence instead of attempting to force things to be linear.
Some highlights of this process include ways to grow past othering by practicing deep empathy, and creating space to include people with different ways of thinking. Veronica explains how seeing nuances, leaning into the confusion and discomfort, can help us collectively move away from polarizing and take on bigger questions: What is best for the whole? How can we challenge our habits to discover what’s healthy for the planet, and for each other?
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this final podcast for 2021, Veronica explores a quote from Ursula K Le Guin about how all we have is what we are and what we give. This conclusion goes against the tendencies of consumerism that pressure us to own more in an attempt to add more value to our lives.
Veronica discusses how the process finding who we really are frees us from this desire to possess more. We can experience the relief of overcoming that conditioning and the illusion of material importance and get down to what is essential—connecting with and giving to others.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
As we move just past the darkest day of the year, Veronica uses a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke to discuss a productive way of turning our inner darkness into a place of strength. She suggests that in order to fully integrate and become whole, it is necessary to face the things that scare us. We can take steps to reframe the frightening into invitations to act bravely and with love.
This quote also highlights the responsiveness of the obstacles we face, challenging us not to respond with fear even if that’s a natural impulse. If love is the essence of who we are, Veronica says, then digging deep to find courage to face fears is also uplifting the essence of what connects us all.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week Veronica jumps into one of the deepest questions humans face with a quote from Pamela Eakins. She jumps right in: What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? And while no one else can provide that answer for you, this quote suggests that on order to find out, we need to embrace our whole selves, including the shadow parts.
This, naturally, is no simple feat. It involves facing shame and fear, moving past the impulse to justify or make excuses. Embracing the whole self and letting go of conditioning that teaches us we are not good enough allows us to create a state of receptivity in ourselves and foster the ability to love and accept ourselves and others. Thea beautiful result, as Veronica puts it, is to be able to reflect your piece of the truth to the world.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
As we get closer to ending a year that has been difficult for many reasons, Veronica invites us to explore a Gandhi quote connects prayer, heart, anguish, and soul. When hearing about inspirational leaders, many of us wonder: Where do people find the strength to stand up to oppression and destruction? How can they find the commitment to on such huge risks? Gandhi gives us the answer: anguish.
When injustice becomes too painful to live with, that suffering creates a force within a person. From there, Veronica says, prayer allows anguish to move a person into action. She ties in an anecdote about a worn-down Martin Luther King Jr. finding the inspiration to “Do what you know is right.” In that way the strength and commitment we admire in leaders doesn’t have to come from an explosive revelation, but can be found in beautiful simplicity.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
With this week’s quote from Joanna Macy, Veronica guides us in considering the upside to feeling collective pain. From the climate crisis to the fight for social justice, we are immersed in the pain of the world due to our interconnection. Pretending that’s not the case might save us from some of this pain, but also isolates us from life’s loving flow.
In this podcast, Veronica turns our attention to the beauty that comes with that connection by growing into pain and allowing vulnerability to strengthen us collectively. In the end, this quote affirms our resilience rooted in hope, love, and belonging.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week Veronica deepens her exploration of truth, transformation, and nonviolence with a quote from James Douglass. She explains how as the power of nonviolence grows in us, it begins to transform us, which in turn transforms others and grows the movement for change.
Veronica discusses this through the lens of “Six interrelated layers of knowing and learning” from Tobin Hart: information, knowledge, intelligence, understanding, wisdom, transformation. This process maps out how we start with input and work with it through our experiences, growing and changing along the way.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Furthering the movement of noncooperation, this week’s quote from Shelley Douglass discusses the practice as fundamental to the discipline of nonviolence. Approaching the process one step at a time allows us to grow respect and compassion for ourselves along the way to see the kind of growth we are capable of.
Veronica points out that in the discipline of nonviolence, we are called to be architects of peace. And tying in a quote from Michael Nagler, she discusses how we do not need different individuals in power so much as we need different power in individuals. That power involves gentle patience with ourselves and with the unfolding of this story.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica expands on the discussion of of being faithful to the truth with a quote from Gandhi. His description of the still small voice of and the pillar of fire as ways God reveals himself is in another sense, as Veronica puts it, the way that the truth is revealed to us.
One way of framing this quote is by seeing it as putting into words how we are in communion with the divine all the time, and how for various reasons we sometimes ignore that communication. In stillness and silence—and noncooperation with our own tendencies to close our eyes and ears—we can learn again to foster that connection and fide our way to a more nuanced understanding of truth and love.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week we explore the concept of freedom and its effect on those around us with a quote from Anne Lamott. Veronica illustrates how everything is connected by discussing how we learn from our teachers, then pass along those lessons to others. Likewise, she says, as we work towards our own freedom by opting out of keeping secrets, we in turn liberate those around us.
The quote from Anne Lamott discusses this liberation as a result of telling your story, which Veronica elaborates leads to the ability to live with presence and joy. Doing so can be a way of leading by example, teaching others how to find the same freedom..
In the process of telling stories and bringing secrets to light, we can sometimes see those around us facing their own discomfort and insecurities about the change this creates in the status quo. Veronica explains how others’ insecurities lead us in turn to face old beliefs from childhood about people pleasing as necessary to feeling safe and loved. As we grow, we realize we cannot be pleasers and at the same time be faithful to the truth. So as Ann Lamott asks, “What are you going to do?” we find a more specific question: Will you choose hiding and security, or living out loud with the truth?
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica invites us to explore a revolutionary idea based on a quote from Marshall Rosenberg—that anger can be strategically used to encourage us to go deeper. First we explore the danger of blaming other people. In that context, Veronica discusses how the most powerful thing we can do is to spend time getting to know what is happening within ourselves when we feel inclined to focus on the other. Cultivating awareness and non-reactivity takes practice to be able to move past the instinct to hit back at whatever has caused us discomfort or pain. Those skills are foundational to practicing nonviolence.
Veronica goes on to speak about how cultivating awareness can empower us to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Gandhi said he used his anger to fuel his soul force. With meditation and training in nonviolence, we too can learn how to channel difficult feelings into something more productive and get out of a pattern of blame that holds us back.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe speaks to the moment when we feel things may be too hard to keep going and encourages us to never give up. Veronica discusses how the world within us and around us moves to the extremes, and that sometimes we must let go of our expectations and ride out the struggles to get to the change we desire.
Veronica speaks about the concept of letting go, and how in this context it means letting go of resistance to things being the way they are so we can be truly present and vulnerable, and make use of the strength that comes with that vulnerability. She explains how we cannot force change into happening just because we don’t like how things are, but we can breathe ourselves through the difficulty.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica uses quotes from Pablo D’Ors and Thomas Merton to demonstrate how silence and contemplation create change. Through stillness we build awareness, which in turn affects those we interact with.
Thus to begin creating change, we must plunge deep, past the noisy, busy mind that distracts us with trivial matters. And the deeper you go, the higher you reach unto God, as Veronica tells us.
In the second quote for this week, we see it from Thomas Merton’s perspective: “When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life but in the living of it, I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively no distraction. My whole life becomes a prayer. My whole silence is full of prayer. The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer.”
Without silence, any reform we attempt stays superficial because it lacks the authenticity of the true self. With silence, our spiritual being gets a chance to expand and help us to create profound change.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week’s quote from Pema Chodron invites us to redefine courage by considering the value of a change of heart. Veronica uses this quote to help us reconsider our notions of courage and what is beneficial to ourselves and those around us. Instead of harshness and hardening our hearts, softening and embracing sensitivity requires the strength of vulnerability.
Veronica goes on to discuss the courage involved in breaking the habit of armoring and learning instead to open and surrender. Additionally we can learn to move through the tendency to fight, flee, and freeze toward acceptance with tenderness.
When we invest in the skill of embracing what makes us uncomfortable, we can strengthen our capacity compassion and gain wisdom about the next step to take toward building peace.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
A quote from Mira Alfassa this week extends an invitation to wake up and step into our potential as changemakers. Veronica discusses the historical connection between consciousness and social change, and how these sometime go hand in hand with turmoil and catastrophe. And as we have heard in previous podcasts, growing consciousness does not happen by accident or by magic. It takes work, and a daily decision to be an agent of change.
Veronica also talks about the importance of intention, as it can immediately awaken in us an ability to collaborate with life. With intention we become aware of opportunities to walk our talk, and what we change in ourselves ripples out into the world to spread change. With this knowledge comes an invitation to us to challenge business as usual to build a better world.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Guided by a quote from Rev. James Lawson, this week Veronica discusses how social change and ecological healing are the same work. Together we can reflect on the idea that no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it, inspiring us to look deeper for an effective way to solve the issues threatening the planet.
A good place to start is in questioning how we are living and contributing, perhaps unknowingly, to the climate crisis. Only by revealing the root cause, obscured for our comfort and so we don’t disrupt the systems of power currently destroying the planet, can we can break free of this cycle. Veronica describes this process as doing the despair work of owning and honoring our pain for the world and finding a way to be the antidote.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this podcast, Veronica discusses a critical element of nonviolence—honesty. Using a quote from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, we can see how avoiding issues in the hopes that the problem will resolve itself often ends up making resolution harder in the long run.
Veronica points out that in the effort to make change, the first thing we need to transform is ourselves. But that is only the first step—from there we can take these skills out into the streets and into the world. To walk the nonviolent path requires consciousness, and a lot of hard work to get there.
Pursuit of the truth and courage required for nonviolence also requires that we resist the pull towards comfort, for ourselves and for others. Digging deep is more important so that we can do the more profound work of not trying to fix things, but to heal instead.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica explores the experience of conflict with a quote from Helena Cornelius and Shoshana Faire. Understanding that most of us are afraid of conflict and potential negative outcomes can help us ride out feelings of fear and consciously choose to pursue constructive outcomes while we’re in it.
Transforming conflict is an art requiring special skills. The art is in being able to embrace conflict, to ride out discomfort, and to learn to listen instead of focusing on being right. Deeply listening allows us to avoid the othering that can take place when we desire to be right, and in turn to prove the other person wrong. Veronica suggests that by taking a step back from conflict, we can assess what it is that we really want out to achieve, and extend that same listening and compassion to the person in conflict with us to arrive at the conclusion where each of us has a piece of the truth.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica uses a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. to help us get a bird’s-eye-view of nonviolence. Often the focus of discussions on nonviolence can be on how to approach public action and movement. With this quote, we get to explore the why of nonviolence. This motivation can keep us strong when loving our enemies goes against what we think or feel. With this understanding, we can choose whether or not we want to add deeper darkness
Veronica calls attention to a simple fact that we, as a species continue to struggle with: retaliatory violence does not end in peace. We are conditioned by the world around us to think violence works, and most of us have not trained our minds to keep us from falling into violent patterns that have been modeled for us. With some practice and time spent developing our emotional intelligence, we can learn to act from a place of centeredness instead reacting, and pursue redemptive nonviolence and peace.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
The impact of the climate crisis is more evident and unavoidable than ever, and this week’s quote from Vandana Shiva suggests how we can go about correcting our course. Tying together the experiences of Gandhi’s Salt March with the Chipko Movement, Veronica leads us in exploring the differences we can make with people power.
Key to the success of these movements is finding parts of life that are truly essential, like salt to the imperialists in India. What could be essential in our modern lives? Making a difference is not about big acts of heroism, but about waking up to our individual and collective power.
Julia Butterfly Hill provides another example of how love—in her case for the Earth and for the Redwood tree, Luna, in which she lived for two years—and commitment can fuel successful efforts to make a difference.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica shares a quote from Miles Davis in support of the creatives who help the rest of us to adapt. Knowing that the only constant is change, Veronica suggests that creating change of one’s own is actually an act of oneness with the world around us.
For the situations we may want to change, Veronica offers an important reminder that things happen when we risk going into the unknown. She explains how somewhere between the comfort zone and the alarm zone, there is a space of growth and potential. In order to create a better world, we will likely feel fear, but need to keep going anyway.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Getting in the spirit of For Goodness Sake, our online music festival, this week Veronica shared a short and sweet quote from Sarah Dessen about the power of music. Explore music’s transcendent ability to bring people together and dissolve differences. Veronica compares the power of music to that of poetry in taking us beyond our thoughts to exist fully in our life force.
On August 20, join Veronica, Rivera Sun, and Henry Cervantes for Turn It Up: Music in the Movement, an online interactive training where you can learn more about how to use music to elevate the impact of your nonviolent efforts. Then tune in for the festival next day featuring 40+ musicians, speakers, reports from our co-sponsors, and more!
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this week’s quote, Robert Ferrell explores what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of Beloved Community would look like and Veronica discusses who is included. Consider how Beloved Community positions itself to support global healing, and how to achieve that it must involve more than just like-minded people. In fact, Veronica says, it needs to include everyone.
After a moment of grounding, follow along for an exercise in by dissolving negative entrenched feelings, and extending Greek agape love for people you feel neutral about, and even people who feel like enemies to you. In this way, you can take the first steps toward creating a Beloved Community of your own where every person is treated with respect and love.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Take a few minutes to consider Margaret Wheatley’s reminder about the power of stories that connect us. Veronica ties in additional facts from recent studies that show interacting face to face with a group you consider to be “other” can help to reduce prejudice. How? By learning each other’s stories and earning each other’s trust.
In a society deeply divided into tribalism, rehumanizing is the first step towards opening communication and forging a way forward together. Veronica highlights how very often what keeps us separated is our ideas about other people, so letting go and deeply listening, enjoying the revelation of another person, can be transformative for people on all sides.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Take a few minutes to consider Margaret Wheatley’s reminder about the power of stories that connect us. Veronica ties in additional facts from recent studies that show interacting face to face with a group you consider to be “other” can help to reduce prejudice. How? By learning each other’s stories and earning each other’s trust.
In a society deeply divided into tribalism, rehumanizing is the first step towards opening communication and forging a way forward together. Veronica highlights how very often what keeps us separated is our ideas about other people, so letting go and deeply listening, enjoying the revelation of another person, can be transformative for people on all sides.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week’s quote from Mubarak Awad invites us to step out of black-and-white thinking and embrace the messy truth of our humanity. Faced with a natural tendency to judge a person based on their actions—especially those that harm others—this quote gives us a challenging and important task: separating the action from the person.
Veronica uses this quote as a guide to explore how we can fall into a pattern of tying someone’s actions to their very identity, when in reality identity lies much deeper than just what a person does. Identifying someone by their actions can have a dehumanizing effect, leaving their self worth in the hands of external judgment. Seeing beyond actions to who an individual truly is allows for a healthier self esteem and gives them a point of reference about themselves independent of others’ opinions. With this, we can see our own value and that of every person not solely for what they do, but also to see the value in their being as well.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
As we head into summer, Veronica shares a beautiful quote from Barbara Deming about the urgency of rediscovering our connection to the earth. Together we dive into some of the questions explored in last month’s Summer Solstice retreat: What does the earth have to teach us? How can we be more present to the lessons of nature? What does it look like to be in connection with the earth?
In our individualistic society, we can sometimes struggle to create community amongst ourselves, and Veronica highlights how it can be even more challenging to be in community with this planet. But she has a suggestion for where to start: be silent and listen. Practice turning down the volume on your inner monologue and truly hear other people and the environment around you—trees, birds, ants, and all the creatures we coexist with have lessons to share. By listening, we have the chance to learn what it is others need, and how we can live peacefully together, even with the wasps and others we might fear.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this week’s quote from Gandhi, we explore a simple definition of happiness—not dependent on external circumstances— that is rooted in a sense of integrity. Living in alignment with our values allows us to tend our inner garden, providing us with resilience to life’s hardships and the root of a strong practice of nonviolence.
Veronica goes on to share some deep wisdom from one of her teachers: “When you do not live the truth that you have understood, that same truth will become a poison.” So we discover that as integrity can become the foundation for happiness, lack of integrity can eat away at us. The tension between who we really are and who we appear to be in the world can split us apart, moving us farther away from the meaning, connection, significance, loving and being loved that sustain us.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week, Veronica discusses a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. about one of the strongest motivations a person can experience: doing what’s right. Of course, what’s right is often not the easiest path. To get by we may choose safety and political correctness, choose belonging to the mainstream and being complacent with what’s wrong instead of forging a path of our own. And while it’s not comfortable to go against the grain, doing what we know to be wrong gives us only a false sense of belonging.
Veronica expands this concept to consider the societal implications of turning our back on what’s right. She explores how we are culturally at a crossroads on matters of race, war, the environment, and even our relationships with our neighbors. At this crossroads, we face a matter of living in integrity: We can hide from the issues and deny our role in these systems, but not being true to ourselves; or we can honor ourselves and the truth by doing what’s right, and maybe even find a value that’s larger than life.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In the search for identity and a connection to something larger, this week’s quote from Gwendolyn Brooks points us in the direction of what matters: each other. Veronica explains how a sense of meaning is inherent in the relationships we have with each other as we are all connected in a network of mutuality, as Martin Luther King Jr. says.
In light of these important connections, it becomes clear that what we do for each other is what matters. Investing in each other gives us meaning. This interconnection amplifies the best of us, making small acts profound and contributing to purpose that extends beyond our own individual lives. Every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this week’s quote from Chief Seattle, we build on the soul force—satyagraha—of last week and consider how finding soul force can show you who you are and give purpose to your life.
Veronica discusses how once a person does the work to find out who they truly are, they no longer have hunt for scraps of feeling important. She goes on to say that this deep knowing, this inner fire makes a person invincible to the common pitfalls of daily life. Once living with soul force, obstacles, struggles, and pain cannot bring you off your path. Instead, we can share in life, rejoice, and live fully.
For this week’s homework, Veronica encourages us all to bring our awareness to the present and feel for what it means to be fully alive. In getting to know the embodied feeling of aliveness, we can tend to our own inner fire and keep it burning bright.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this week’s quote, Badshah Khan highlights two sides of Satyagraha—which Gandhi used to help lead the people of India to liberation from the British Empire. Veronica uses this quote to guide us in exploration of soul force. She explains how a journey towards nonviolence begins with a grappling with the truth, and that grappling can cause sparks that wake us up from the distractions of everyday life.
A part of the process is struggling with truth, deeply engaging with the things that challenge us, and finding the sensitivity, openness, and clarity along the way that help us see where to go from here. Finally, Veronica invites us to dive into the effort to see what it ignites in us.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Today’s quote from Angel Kyodo Williams makes clear that repairing what’s broken in our world requires going to the foundation and healing ourselves. But how can one go about repairing the human spirit? Veronica suggests we begin by looking to what has broken the human spirit in the first place: losing the sacred—through injustice, racism, division, dehumanization, and all the other ways we suffer from separateness—and living a life reduced to materialism and busyness.
From there we can seek repair through meditation and learning how to trust the inherent goodness in our own hearts. We can undo division and dehumanization by seeking true vulnerability and connection with other human beings. We seek wisdom from the earth by looking to nature and its ways, learning from its patience and flow of seasons. We can choose kindness, armed with mindfulness and presence.
For those of us feeling stuck or overwhelmed by the challenges we face, Veronica offers up many options for how to start training ourselves to create an inner atmosphere of repair, which then helps to heal societies, bring change, and foster justice.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Before diving into this week’s discussion of violence and the ways it self-perpetuates, join Veronica in a moment of tenderness towards yourself to explore the connection between thoughts and emotions. Through this quote from Ken Butigan, we can see the subtle roots of violence in the stories around us and, as Veronica points out, in the neural pathways these stories create in our minds.
From there it’s easy to see the cycle—violence often provokes new violence. So to break the cycle, to give us a chance at peace, it’s time to revise these stories. By taking in stories of nonviolence, and sharing with those around us, we can make use of our neuroplasticity to orient ourselves towards kindness, and to understand that there’s a better way.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
What happens outside, happens inside. Through this week’s quote by LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Veronica explores how violence against the earth and interpersonal violence are intimately related, each shining light on the other. The root of this problem lies in disconnection and objectification, the way we separate ourselves from others and justify harmful behaviors..
The solution, then, is to reconnect to the sacred, allowing us to see how interconnected our existence is on this planet.
Change starts with vision. As Veronica says, we can change the platform on which we stand to nourish an attitude of cooperation with all of life, creating more peace. Through changing our thoughts and rehumanizing the people we share this planet with, we can create nonviolence in our interpersonal relationships and in our interactions with the earth.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In response to the killing of Daunte Wright, Kazu Haga wrote of the importance of compassion in the movement, and how holding is the key in holding others accountable.
Veronica discusses this compassion and its roots in real experience, and ties it to Desmond Tutu’s explanation of “ubuntu”: “my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.”
Finally, take a moment to learn about the two hands of nonviolence, which guide a person in stopping injustice and inviting an opponent to join in making better choices.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
This week’s episode begins with a moment of centering that invites you to be a friend to yourself. Then consider a quote from Martin Luther King, paired with a buddhist quote that echoes: “Hatred is not appeased by hatred. Hatred is appeased by love alone. This is the Eternal Law.”
Join Veronica in exploring how hatred self-perpetuates, and how looking inward can empower us to make different, more effective choices for change.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In this episode, Veronica reads a quote from Gandhi about the practical applications of nonviolence in daily life. She goes on to discuss win-win situations and dismantling enmity with CLARA (Centering, Learning your truth, Articulate your truth, Receive the other’s truth, and Anchoring/Accomplishing—putting the two truths together).
So take a few deep breaths, tune in, and invite nonviolence into your daily interactions.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Welcome to the first episode of Pace e Bene’s Soul of Nonviolence podcast hosted by Veronica Pelicaric. Each week Veronica will be offering a short 5 to 10 minute reflection based on one of the daily quotes Pace e Bene emails out for our “This Nonviolent Life” email series that you can sign up for on the main podcast page.
The intention behind this podcast is simply to provide a short respite in your day to reflect on how you can go deeper into living nonviolence and, as Veronica says in this episode, “help keep us connected to what matters in life.” We hope you enjoy them!
This first episode features a quote by Fr. Richard Rohr on the importance of contemplative practice. At the end, Veronica offers a simple invitation for you to practice during the week.
At Pace e Bene we believe that nonviolence reaches the into the depths of life in all areas, personal, social and global. The Soul of Nonviolence will provide a small glimpse into these different facets of life so we can all bring the spirit of nonviolence with us throughout our day.
Thanks for listening and helping to build a culture of peace and nonviolence.
Music: Moments by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com