The Relationship Revolution Notes

Introduction

  1. Active Peace: A Mindful Path to a Nonviolent World. Available through the Active Peace website, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

Chapter One

  1. See “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries,” ScienceAdvances, vol. 9, no. 37, Sept. 13, 2023; William Rees, “The Earth Is Telling Us We Must Rethink Our Growth Society,” Post Carbon Institute, April 7, 2020; and William R. Catton, Jr., Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, 1982.
  2. Humans Are Driving One Million Species to Extinction, Scientific American, May 6, 2019.
  3. Joanna Macy crossed over on July 19, 2025, at the age of 96. She left a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire people around the world. A full biography of Joanna can be found at joannamacy.net, the website dedicated to uplifting and continuing her work. I consider her seminal book to be Coming Back to Life. From David Korton I recommend The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.
  4. U.S. Empire Named Most Murderous Killing Machine In History, CovertAction Magazine, May 30, 2023. See also Caroline Elkins, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, 2022.
  5. G. Scott Brown, “Unlearning the American Myth,” Active Peace, Substack, December 9, 2024.
  6. Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, 2019. Grandin is here quoting Loren Baritz, an earlier historian.
  7. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons For Our Own, 2020.
  8. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, 2016 interview. The comment referenced comes toward the very end of the interview.
  9. See Requiem for the American Dream, Gravitas Documentaries, Feb. 25, 2023. In this video, professor Noam Chomsky offers a clear and encompassing explanation of one of modern capitalism’s defining features: the deliberate concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
  10. The Secret History of Neoliberalism (w/ George Monbiot), The Chris Hedges Report, Substack, October 9, 2024. See also George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison, Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism, 2024. The back cover of the book reads, “We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental well-being; the planet we inhabit—the very air we breathe. It is everywhere. Yet for most people, it has no name. It seems inescapable, like natural law. But trace it back to its roots, and you see this ideology is neither inevitable nor immutable. It was conceived and propagated—and then concealed—by the powerful few. Our task is to bring it into the light—and build a new system that is worth fighting for.”
  11. Noam Chomsky on Canadian war criminals and a world after capitalism, The Breach, April 19, 2023.
  12. See Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, 2007.
  13. Alicia Kennedy, “Vandana Shiva is still mad,” FoodPrint, Nov. 22, 2024.
  14. Dawn Stover, “AI Goes Nuclear,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dec. 19, 2024.
  15. “Wired, Wired West: What happens when AI data centers move in,” Colorado Public Radio, Oct. 14, 2025.
  16. Naomi Kleinand Astra Taylor, “The Rise of End Times Fascism,” The Guardian, April 13, 2025.

Chapter Two

  1. This Third World view of nonviolence came to be challenged by the examples of the Cuban Revolution (and U.S. attempts to undermine it), successful armed liberation struggles in Colonial Africa in the 1970s, and, most importantly, the viciousness (and ultimate defeat) of the U.S. in southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) in 1975. See Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, 2007.
  2. Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, 2007.
  3. “Growing List of Successful Nonviolent Actions Used Instead of Wars,” World Beyond War.
  4. “Civil Resistance and the 3.5% Rule: An Overview,” The Commons Social Change Library.
  5. Two organizations offering contemporary, psychologically-informed rites of passage are the School of Lost Borders and the Animas Valley Institute. See also Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, 2008.

Chapter Three

  1. You can watch The Eternal Song at theeternalsong.org.
  2. See “What Really Happened at Standing Rock | I Was There,” YouTube, uploaded by VICE, Sept. 25, 2020; Fault Lines, “Standing Rock and the Battle Beyond,” YouTube, uploaded by Al Jazeera, Dec. 27, 2016. As a former employee of Greenpeace USA it feels noteworthy that, in a continuation of the Standing Rock story, Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline’s parent company, filed huge lawsuits against Greenpeace International and Greenpeace entities in the U.S., claiming that Greenpeace defamed the company and orchestrated criminal behavior by the protestors (see Nina Lakhani and Rachel Leingang, “Fossil fuel firm’s $300m trial against Greenpeace to begin: ‘Weaponizing the judicial system’, ” The Guardian, Feb. 20, 2025).
  3. “‘We Need to Be Heard’: Indigenous Amazon Defender Alessandra Korap Munduruku on COP30 Protest,” Democracy Now!, Nov. 18, 2025; and “Indigenous Leaders Converge in Belém, Brazil, Demanding Greater Role at U.N. Climate Talks,” Democracy Now!, Nov. 18, 2025.
  4. “Land Back: How Two Tribes are Re-Acquiring and Leveraging Community Forests,” First Nations Development Institute.
  5. Aziz Abu Sarah and Moaz Inon, TED Talk, April 2024. See also Another Side of Peace, a film depicting similar initiatives aimed at bridging the divides in Israel and Palestine. The Parents Circle Family Forum is another group dedicated to dialogue and reconciliation.
  6. Leonard Pitts, “Remember What They Told You To Forget: The Campaign To Erase Black History,” Black Past, May 18, 2025.
  7. G. Scott Brown, “An (Incomplete) Outline of U.S. Interventions in Latin America,” Active Peace, Substack, January 8, 2026.
  8. G. Scott Brown, “Decolonizing the Mind,” Active Peace, Substack, January 6, 2026.
  9. G. Scott Brown, “The Shadow King Enthroned,” Active Peace, Substack, January 30, 2025. See also Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, 2018.
  10. See Rebecca Grant, Access: Inside the Abortion Underground and the Sixty-year Battle for Reproductive Freedom. Simon and Schuster, 2025.
  11. Restoring Hope is an engaging film which shows restorative justice in action in New Zealand. This interview with Mike Butler, the former Chief of Public Safety in Longmont, CO offers a beautiful take on the spirit and practice of restorative justice. The best single resource that I know of for information on restorative justice is The Zehr Institute.
  12. For understanding the necessity of a complete transformation of the criminal justice system and its underpinning assumptions, Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, gave a powerful lecture that offers a good starting point.
  13. See the Active Peace website for an overview of restorative justice-inspired Active Peace Circle.
  14. The Crucial Role of Global South Leadership in Climate Advocacy, Nonprofit Quarterly, May 31, 2024.
  15. Missing Voices: The violent erasure of land and environmental defenders, Global Witness report, Sept. 10, 2024.
  16. 2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history; almost 70% killed by Israel, Committee to Protect Journalists report, Feb, 12, 2025.
  17. 2025 Round-Up of journalists killed, detained, missing and held hostage worldwide, Reporters Without Borders.
  18. G. Scott Brown, “Decolonizing the Mind,” Active Peace, Substack, January 6, 2026.
  19. See Mutual Aid Disaster Relief and their manual for creating a resilience hub.
  20. G. Scott Brown, “The Shadow King Enthroned,” Active Peace, Substack, January 30, 2025. See also Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, 2018.
  21. Joanna Macy’s three dimensions of the Great Turning are covered at the Work That Reconnects website. 

Chapter Five

  1. My understanding of trauma has been greatly informed by the work of Thomas Hübl and Dr. Gabor Maté.
  2. Maternal Mental Health: Understanding the Impact on Fetal Development, NewYork-Presbyterian.
  3. Dr. Gabor Maté writes very movingly about this and other forms of trauma in The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, 2022.
  4. See Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins, The Guardian (book review), March 13, 2022. By linking Old World trauma and violence with American trauma, violence, and racism, Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Handscontributed a lot to my understanding of the origins of American trauma and racism.
  5. Mice Pass Epigenetic Tweaks to Pups, The Scientist, Feb. 17, 2023.
  6. See Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, 2022.
  7. See Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, 2022.
  8. Ibid.
  9. See Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, 2022.

Chapter Six

  1. Why Emotional Attunement is so Important, and so Healing, Psychology Today, Feb. 8, 2023. See also Amy Banks and Leigh Ann Hirschman, Wired to Connect: The Surprising Link Between Brain Science and Strong, Healthy Relationships, 2016.
  2. Restorative justice has its own Five Rs: relationship, respect, responsibility, repair, and reintegration. I will be forever grateful to my restorative justice mentors, including Beverly Title for teaching me these life changing principles. Beverly’s book, Teaching Peace: A Restorative Justice Framework for Strengthening Relationships, brings the Five Rs of restorative justice to life.
  3. Needs Inventory, Center for Nonviolent Communication. For information about Active Peace Circles, see the Active Peace website.
  4. Specific resourcing practices are included in Active Peace as well as my e-book, The Relationship Roadmap.

Chapter Seven

  1. “The Freedom Riders,” PBS documentary, 2010.
  2. See Beverly B. Title, Teaching Peace: A Restorative Justice Framework for Strengthening Relationships, 2011.
  3. Robert Gonzales, Reflections on Living Compassion: Awakening our Passion and Living in Compassion, 2015. This is a beautiful little book that encapsulates a lot of Robert’s teaching.
  4. Needs Inventory, Center for Nonviolent Communication.
  5. Transforming Pain audio practice from the Active Peace website.
  6. Attachment theory provides a powerful complement to co-regulation by helping us understand the importance of how our earliest needs and longings were, or were not, met by caregivers. Early experiences of unconditional love and consistent physical nurturing resulting in a secure sense of safety and belonging lead to the development of a nervous system that is calm, and a person that feels worthy of love and care. Those without such formative experiences will be wired differently, have limiting core beliefs, and very likely not feel fully worthy of love and care. For an excellent resource that blends both co-regulation and attachment theory, see Marion Solomon and Stan Tatkin, Love and War in Intimate Relationships, 2011.

Chapter Eight

  1. 1. Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story, 1984.
  2. 2. Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life, 2002.
  3. This definition is pulled primarily from my notes from a course taught by the spiritual teacher Adyashanti.
  4. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance, 1951.
  5. 5. Chris Moore-Backman, The Gandhian Iceberg: A Nonviolence Manifesto for the Age of the Great Turning,
  6. The Martin Luther King Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change.
  7. Ibid.
  8. King protégé moves leader’s vision of non-violence forward, CBS News, Jan. 19, 2015.
  9. The Martin Luther King Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change.
  10. John Dear, The Beatitudes of Peace: Meditations on the Beatitudes, Peacemaking, and the Spiritual Life, 2016.
  11. Stephen Bross initiated an inspiring project called The Power of Us.
  12. Powerful movies have been made about the lives and the sacrifice of both Óscar Romeo and of these men and I highly recommend both Romero and A Hidden Life.
  13. 13. John Welwood, On Spiritual Bypassing and Relationship, Feb. 10, 2024.