I have focused a lot lately on the specifics of Active Peace Circles. So it seems like a good time to point out that the path of Active Peace is ultimately much bigger than any specific process. To help make that point, here are the bigger picture principles of Active Peace. As always they are subject to evolution and I welcome your comments and feedback. What does/doesn’t resonate and why?
And remember–it’s not about being perfect. It’s about staying staying present to who and what you want to be in this Great Turning.
Principles of Active Peace
As an active peacemaker your highest intention is to wake up to your True Nature—to become more and more conscious of your spiritual essence.
You know that healing the divisions within yourself is your greatest contribution to peace and justice in the world. You do this right in the midst of life with all its challenges and embrace the process as a great adventure.
In this natural unfolding of love and wisdom you unleash your fullest expression of life energy and become a true force for transformation.
You see the basic goodness of each person—No Exceptions! As your sense of self expands, so too does your circle of care.
You hold the Big Picture and embrace Paradox. You bear witness to injustice, violence, and desecration. You also allow yourself to be uplifted by all the beauty and wonder of the world.
You trust the unfolding of life and humbly do what’s yours to do. Your action flows from love (not guilt or shame) and you are not attached to outcome.
You take 100% responsibility for every aspect of your experience—all your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You are not a victim!
You prioritize relationships, respect, and healthy communication. When you cause harm you clean it up. When someone hurts you, you don’t take it personally.
Active Peace is a way of being that you honor and hold with sacred intention.
Active Peace remains an important part of the big (and expanding) picture for me.
Because of my involvement with racial justice and the reparations movement as a white person I am made aware of the impactful role trauma has on those who experience first-hand racial trauma and the effects of intergenerational trauma.
These impact the possibilities of the ones harmed for seeing the basic goodness in each person without exceptions when that basic goodness is deeply self-suppressed by the oppressor’s own harmful belligerence toward other people including the sincere peacemaker. Especially the peacemaker of a marginalized group such as people of color.
Similarly so for other marginalized groups.
These traumas also impact one’s ability to expand one’s circle of care and concern because the internalized trauma warns of further potential harm while existing harm remains unacknowledged and therefore unhealed.
One may avoid or refuse to play the victim out of resolve for resilience, and yet still be deeply wounded and victimized. Living examples abound within the African American, Native American, and immigrant communities in our country; examples of resilience in the face of ongoing trauma and prejudice experienced not just in isolation but collectively in this society.
In this experience the one traumatized cannot take 100% responsibility of their experience. That would seem to be accepting injustice against one’s conscience. That would not be the same as paradox. It is contradiction and negation.
Self care is critical to recovery and healing for the traumatized. But in this context it is not enough to achieving justice and healing predicated on that justice.
The circle of care considers that the Active Peacemaker is sometimes the one traumatized and will be the one that needs special care. The one who has caused harm cannot know their own basic goodness until they are brought into that restorative process that leads them into facing their harm in a way that also leads them into at least some perception of their latent basic goodness which they may have never known themselves; or which has been distorted by the effects of persuasions regarding superiority and separation.
This means the Active Peacemaker can believe there is a basic goodness in each person and still not be able to see it for all these reasons.
This alludes to a more complex process that needs further definition. It has association with the reparations movement which is primarily initiated by the aggrieved. It is not linear in that justice is interpersonal and thus interdependent for the very reason that injustice is interpersonal.
But that the movement is driven forward by the aggrieved does point to the deep impulse toward healing, not retribution.
It points to something with great potential for the aggrieved and the society as a whole.
Active Peace remains integral to my involvements as I find it useful to not only expanding my circle of care and concern, but also the circle of considerations on its applications. Perhaps Active Peace can be further defined with these considerations reflecting a broader range of experiences among its expanding universe of participants. 💛
This is rich Ken. Thank you. I appreciate your experiences in the territory of white supremacy, racial healing, and trauma. As you indicate, it is complex territory with lots of layers and nuance. No one set of principles is going to capture everything and I’m happy to hear you are still resonating with the essence and intention behind the AP principles. 100% personal responsibility as I understand it will always apply, since it only asks one to take the responsibility that is truly theirs to take and it goes with the personal power that we all have, always. It’s not about sweeping anything under the rug or disregarding context. In my experience these principles support my ability to be and stay present and resourced and that’s been foundational, especially in challenging circumstances.