Peace Is Here with Avis Kalfsbeek

In this episode, we explore Gandhi’s choice to scatter his ashes rather than preserve them, and his guiding Talisman—a moral test rooted in care for the poorest. We prepare to turn toward new frontiers, carrying Gandhi’s test forward into new discussions of commons, power, and humility.

Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follow the Peace Stuff: Enough journey is here: AvisKalfsbeek.com

More on Gandhi's Talisman:

Music: "Dalai Llama Rides a Bike" by Javier "Peke" Rodriguez

Thich Nhat Hanh: Breaths of Peace

In this episode, we celebrate the life of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay)—Zen monk, poet, peace activist, and pioneer of Engaged Buddhism. We reflect on how mindfulness and action can be the same gesture, how every step can carry peace, and how breath can anchor us when the world is loud.

Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follow the Peace Stuff: Enough journey is here: AvisKalfsbeek.com

Recommended Reading: The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

Music: "Dalai Llama Rides a Bike" by Javier "Peke" Rodriguez

In this episode, we kick off The Architects of Enough series with the Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Lisette Norman), a woman who gave up everything she owned to walk over 25,000 miles for peace. We reflect on the Inner Path to Enough: what it means to walk without material burden, speak without anger, and live without excess. Includes a powerful reflection prompt and a small pop-in from Pedro the Water Dog!

Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follow the Peace Stuff: Enough journey is here: AvisKalfsbeek.com

More on Peace Pilgrim: Find the free booklet Steps Toward Inner Peace and more about her life:https://www.peacepilgrim.org/fopp-quickstart

Music: "Dalai Llama Rides a Bike" by Javier "Peke" Rodriguez

Avis Kalfsbeek takes a pause between series for a meditation on grief, war, and liberative compassion. She shares that she does a monthly creative project in her mini, free Shakespeare Sherpa Club (link below).

As part of my monthly Shakespeare Sherpa project, I turn toward poetry and performance as a quiet ritual of peace. Today, that takes the form of two voices in deep lament:

In this episode, I also briefly reflect on a teaching from Ram Dass (Ep. 283 of Be Here Now) and the difference between righteous helping and liberative helping. Can we mourn and still be spiritually free? Can we serve peace while holding the full weight of what we feel?

Awkward Alert: I read Shakespeare not because I am a Shakespearean actor, or ever plan to be, but because this is my podcast and I can. As such, I remind listeners of the fast forward button.

Peace and love,

Avis

Texts Featured:

Shakespeare Sherpa Club (free): AvisKalfsbeek.com/ShakespeareSherpa

Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter

Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com

Music:

“Dalai Llama Rides a Bike” by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

• Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

• Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

The Great Disarmament Part 14: A Future Retold. What Comes Next? In the final episode of The Great Disarmament – The Great Disfarmament, peace storyteller Avis Kalfsbeek invites listeners to reflect on the journey so far—and to imagine what comes next.

From ancient farming to nuclear warfare, from compost to chemical weapons, this 14-part podcast series traces the parallel histories of agricultural violence and militarized conflict—and the courageous movements working to undo them.

A Future Retold offers a poetic, historical, and deeply human recap of the series. It revisits the voices that have shaped this work—Rachel Carson, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, adrienne maree brown, and many more—and names the everyday actions that make peace not just possible, but already underway.

We explore the symbolism of the Doomsday Clock, the myth of perpetual war, and the dream of a Peace Clock that points to something new: a world where disarmament becomes part of daily life.

If you care about climate justice, nuclear disarmament, regenerative agriculture, nonviolent resistance, or simply the possibility of a livable future—this episode is for you. Because peace is not a gimmick. It’s a choice. A story. A path.

This is #TheGreatDisarmament.

Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide

Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter

Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com

Music:

“Dalai Llama Rides a Bike” by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

• Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

• Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

The Great Disarmament Part 13: Seeds of Peace. What does disarmament look like today?

It may not be on the news. But it is happening—everywhere.

In this final episode of the historical timeline, we trace disarmament from the early 2000s to the present. From gang-intervention programs to post-conflict organic farms, from library circles to peace walkers, we explore how peace is being built—not by treaties alone, but by people. Quietly, daily, defiantly.

Weapons still exist. Wars are still waged. But in homes, classrooms, gardens, and songs The Great Disarmament is already underway.

Featuring the voices of Malala Yousafzai, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Father Gregory Boyle, adrienne maree brown, and Arundhati Roy.

Inspired by Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown, we reflect on how small acts—like composting, listening, or holding a moment of peace—are not peripheral. They are the strategy.

Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide

Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter

Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com

🎵 Music by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

The Great Disarmament Part 12: Arms & Arguments – When Peace Learned to Speak Up. In an era dominated by Cold War brinkmanship, something remarkable happened. Peace became public. From the Nuclear Freeze movement to televised debates, this 100th episode of the Peace is Here Podcast tracks how citizens learned to speak up, protest, and challenge the very premise of global militarism.

We explore the 1980s and ’90s not as a triumph of treaties, but as the moment peace gained fluency—in arguments, in law, and in imagination.

We also remind ourselves: disarmament is not a speedy process, and it is never guaranteed. But it happens. And we are still part of it.

Featuring historian Howard Zinn and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.

Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide

Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter

Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com

🎵 Music by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

The Great Disarmament Part 11: Fallout & Flower Powers. As nuclear fire darkened the sky, a global peace movement took root. This episode explores the cultural birth of The Great Disarmament—from Hiroshima to Haight-Ashbury, from anti-war protests to international arms control treaties, from monks on fire to flowers in rifles.

We mark the year 1963—the year of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—as the beginning of The Great Disarmament.

Not the beginning of bombs. But the beginning of refusal.

This turning point in Cold War history reminds us that resistance is not the opposite of despair. It is the antidote.

Featuring the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the voice of Kurt Vonnegut through Slaughterhouse-Five, we trace how conscience, courage, and creative protest began to build a counterweight to destruction—and a new peace culture began to rise.

Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide

Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter

Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com

🎵 Featured Music:

“Dalai Llama Rides a Bike” by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez on Spotify

The Great Disarmament: Gas & Conscience – When the World Said Never Again

World War I ushered in the age of mechanized killing—from mustard gas to machine guns. But amid the devastation came something new: organized resistance, international treaties, and the first serious conversations about disarmament. In this episode, we mark the moment when the world’s conscience awoke—and disarmament began.

Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide

Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter

Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com

🎵 Music by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

• Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

• Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez on Spotify

The Great Disarmament: Powder & Principles – When Conscience First Spoke

As gunpowder redefined the global balance of power, another force quietly emerged—conscience. This episode explores the 1600s to 1800s, when the rise of modern empires was met by the first organized refusals to fight. From the Quaker Peace Testimony and early abolitionist resistance to Enlightenment philosophers imagining peace as policy, we follow the voices who rejected war, empire, and extraction as the price of civilization.

We trace the moral origins of nonviolence through:

Through these stories, we ask: When did peace stop being passive? And how did disobedience become a sacred act?

This episode is part of The Great Disarmament – The Great Disfarmament, a 14-part podcast series on the deep history of war, agriculture, and the movements to end them.

📚 Get my latest book Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante

💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter

🎵 Music by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

• Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com

• Spotify: Listen here