Today is an internationally declared Day of Peace. For years I have done a special Conflict Done Well class on or around this day to illustrate Peace Practices. If you'd like to see one please feel free to visit https://youtu.be/IsuUQd3-I70. Today I'd like to lift up my Teacher, Kayla Feder, because sustainable peace is made, even internationally, by people who practice peace in their daily lives and community. Only a few people may occupy the archetypal My Teacher position in my psyche, and Kayla is one of those people who not only teaches well but models for others what it is to be a Teacher in the best sense. She has encouraged me since the first minute I saw/met/was amazed by her spirit and martial expertise, and has never failed to love me in public and private, and operationally value the possibilities we hold in our hands together. I had to move my family to Texas. She invites me back to teach in her dojo, Aikido of Berkeley, most recently in June of 2021 (pictured). Her other students, my colleagues in the martial arts, love and welcome me too, both as a teacher and friend. Almost always we are Good Weird, and very seldom Bad Weird, as in "That Just Got Weird." I find that very rare.

 

 

Most of the time, in my experience as a facilitator/participant, Peace happens because the players involved arrive at a transformed shared experience of trust after exhausting many of the understandable but stereotypical othering and diminishing patterns humans tend to repeat. I have watched Kayla turn the corner away from the casual devaluation of others in person, every day, holding on to many of the people around her in a gentle way that allows them to see how it works without condescending or demanding that they do likewise. That too is very rare. Someday I'll learn how to do it. In the meantime, I thank my teacher for her example.

 

 

How will you make today an #InternationalDayOfPeace?