The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior

Peaceful Warrior

The battle for peace, justice, and sustainability is ongoing. In modern times, even with the continuing growth and acceptance of the current environmental movement, tactical skirmishes that fight for clean air, clean water, healthy oceans, sustainable land use, and social justice are ongoing. You can take one of a few sides—ignorance is bliss, I know and don’t care, or I care and hope to help in any way I can. Hopefully you choose the latter, and whether it’s organizing on the ground in your own community or educating the uneducated with conversation, anything is something. Something is always better than nothing.

The Internet has changed the world as we know it. At any given moment of any given day you can type a few words into a search engine and receive millions of links in response to the keywords you entered. There are so many ways to promote peace, justice, and sustainability that my take is it is always best to start as close to home as possible, if you are so moved to do so. From there move to what fires you up the most. And beyond that, it’s all about how much you care and how much you can truly give.

Recently, a local environmental effort that has lasting effects for clean air, clean water, wildlife protection, and human health has triumphed. On July 21, after several years of hard work from the ground up, the city of Portland, Oregon banned the use of plastic bags in local stores. It wasn’t a smooth or easy process, and at times it seemed the effort would fail. However, in the end persistence won, and now there’s a model for others to follow. Sometimes all it takes is one, and hopefully this is the case for the leaders of Rise Above Plastics. If you live in the Portland area you should rejoice and now turn your attention towards how other towns, cities, municipalities, states, and countries can follow in your footsteps. It was a modern tactical skirmish that pitted a classic David (on the ground activists) against Goliath (government, bureaucracy, business as usual, corporate interests). But they won.

Whether it’s the increase in attention and concern regarding issues revolving around climate change, or the fact that some people are starting to listen remains to be fully understood. Is replacing plastic bags with compostable or reusable bags that difficult? Sure, infrastructure exists, people make money off of it, and now that’s being challenged to shift. Of course some people are going to throw their arms up, especially if they stand to face a burden from such changes. But the truth is, it makes sense. Just like it makes sense to put as much support behind transferring our reliance on dirty, finite sources of energy towards cleaner, renewable ones. Of course a lot of change is needed, and some who profit will lose some of that profit, but for the greater good, it just makes sense. That fight is making strides, and while it may not have a clear triumph like Portland has had on a localized level quite yet, the momentum is there. Native Americans have been fighting to save their cultural traditions and sacred sites for hundreds of years. In cases like the proposed expansion of the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort, which is located on a section of the sacred San Francisco Peaks near the town of Flagstaff, indigenous people continue to bear the burden of neocolonial politics, poor environmental planning, and direct acts of racism. It wasn’t long ago that a justice-fueled decision was handed down in the Lake Tahoe area that brought hope, like the hope recently created in Portland. This happened when recreational interests, land managed by the US Forest Service, and American Indians trying to protect their holy site known to many as “Cave Rock,” actually found justice. The case pitted rock climbers wishing to continue accessing the quality climbing at Cave Rock, against Native Americans who opposed such use of the site since it was a traditional sacred site where members of the Washoe tribe go to pray.

The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

I originally read this book when my old friend Larry Nicholas suggested it to me. I think I was about 18 at the time. I am now 40. Even at that young age and even while smoking pot on a daily basis the book changed the way I looked at things. I remember being much more serene for a long time after reading it, but as with many of these kinds of things, if you don’t keep up the practice.. if you don’t maintain the discipline, you lose it. Dan himself was a gymnast and no matter how good he got he still had to practice on a regular basis. Ask any pro athlete and they will tell you the same thing. They might even go as far as to say that if you really want to be truly great at any one thing, you have to sacrifice everything else for it. I am living my life today in the specific hopes that this is not entirely true. I’d like to think that you can be truly great at a few things because I know that my passions take me in a few directions on any given day.

I am excited to be reading Dan Millman’s book again. I have such a different set of eyes to read them through and such a different outlook on the world. No longer using any substances and haven’t had anything that affects me from the neck up in over 12 years. It’s a good feeling. I feel like I can actually accept and put into practice what I am reading on the deepest possible levels.

So far I am learning as I have learned before but still do not put into practice enough that it amounts to finding ways to quiet the noisy mind. Gymnastics did it for Dan Millman. Swimming does it for me. Always has. When I am in that pool it is the one time when truly nothing matters. There are no distractions, no one calling wanting to know when the project they asked me to work on for free will get done (sorry I had to get that dig in there). Reading also does it for me and I am so grateful for the Barnes and Noble Nook because ever since my wife bought me this I have done more and more reading. A goal of mine since New Years 2009 has been to read a lot more and I finally feel like I have accomplished that. I already have the next book lined up. I found out about it while listening to a podcast and it’s called, Start With Why by Simon Sinek .

I’m looking forward to tomorrow. The second in what I hope to be a long series of Sundays unplugged. No computer and no phone. Just me, my wife, and either the TV or our cameras if we decide to go somewhere! Wish me luck!

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