 I'm an anti-war activist and during the Obama administration, when the anti-war movement and the peace movement were tripled to nothing because no one would listen, I realized that we couldn't end war until we ended the war economy. The war just served the war economy. And that's the extractive destructive oppressive economy that is killing us, our communities and the planet. If I looked at it, I realized that at this time in history, it is our mythological flood, every culture has a flood. This one is going to be a tsunami. The effects of global inequality, the effects of climate change, the effects of $2 trillion worth of weapons sold each year and coming AI, those experiences on what we call humanity are going to be a violence like we have never seen before. We've witnessed it in whole cities being burned down by fires. We've witnessed it in a flood in Pakistan that displaced 100 million people. We are witnessing it right now as wars are erupting around the world and countries are becoming more fascists because the answer historically to this level of violence and disruption of the very fabric of society is fascism and violence. So I was like, what if it's a flood? Would the arc look like? And the arc to get through this flood because there's no such thing as an apocalypse is cultivating our local peace economies. A peace economy is the giving, sharing, caring, thriving, resilient economy without which we would not be alive. We have destroyed the very concepts of these economies through the United States of America has destroyed the very concept of these economies by the enslaving of Africans and the genocide of indigenous peoples who lived in a way that sustained life and humanity. This process has been going on for over 400 years. We are here at the pivot point. If we are a thinking human being, we see the costs of these violences, and they have risen to be this this crescendo of violence and destruction and and the court torsion of humanity. And it makes us feel small and fragile and incapable as we look out at it. But we didn't create that. We are a part of it. We are all a part of the war economy. It has forced our habits. It has forced our behaviors. So the first thing that we can do is recognize that I had to recognize as a peace activist is that I am co-creating the war economy, even as I want peace. And so we've created 22 ways to divest yourself from the work on me. And as you do that, it is going to make you smarter about the world you live in. COVID did a very good job of teaching what's essential for life and teaching us how locked we are in an enslavement to the war economy. And many people are finding their way out and these are tools to help us a take responsibility for co-creating the war economy, breaking our habits and patterns that do that. And spending the extra energy that we will have cultivating our local peace economy. And I call that home sweet home. You know, for us to be healthy, contributing, peace-loving, sharing humans, you kind of need a home sweet home and it's in the brain. There's actually the way our brain works is when it doesn't, when it's afraid, and when it's, it goes into patterns that are destructive to us. Because yes, you know, when you were afraid you had to run from the tiger, but we've taken those primal activities and they're kind of on steroids. They're not even relational to the moment we live in. So how do we find a way to create home sweet home for those closest to us? Because essentially the people that you can affect are the people closest to you. And those are the people that you're going to need when we are at the effects of all the things that we have put in motion. That no one seems to be doing anything to take out of motion. I mean, we've watched Congress be pretty much useless for, since, except to build the war economy for the last 40 years. And we know what the problems are. We suffer them daily. And people who are poor, people of color in the United States and around the world are suffering them the worst. So it is up to us in the empire in the evil, you know, terror, most terrorist, you know, the terrorist on the planet empire. It is up to us. If we feel a responsibility to that to pivot, to change our habits, and to cultivate a local peace economy. Now, it's not a linear path, because the time we know comes out of the war economy. We know time as a tyrant. Time isn't a tyrant. Time is actually quite feminine. It's the circular it moves from past to present to future. And it can teach us if we can be in the dance with it, instead of being in the prison of it. Part of how the work on me works is imprisoning us in things. Time being one of them. We have to take time back. When we're imprisoned. That takes us away from that space inside of our, I call it, you know, in our belly in our brains because we're our body, our mind and our hearts and how to get back to being in relationship with all of them so that we can use all the tools we're gifted with to serve life. Because at the core, cultivating a local peace economy is about serving life. How did we get to this moment where we are so ungrateful, unrelational with this very thing that we are, which is life. You know, I think about the millions of years of life forming itself in various organisms and then in a form of this human and how many forms of life to fight for me to be here had to be had to think about how to create the space so life could thrive and expand and and live in the fecundity of what it is this planet is in joy and wonder and discovery. Well, you know, part of what the work on me does is it crushes our very capacity to experience this. It crushes our imagination and our creativity. We are creation. Creativity is who we are. And yet that's just been stolen and enslaved again by the war economy. And, you know, I always look at voting, you know, like why do people vote against themselves. And then I realize we literally live life against ourselves. We live the war economy in the peace economy. Of course, we're trained to do that in this form. We're, you know, we're told lies into the behaviors that have become addictions that we salivate at, even though they're at the risk of our own destruction. We're really creating the past to our own destruction. And it's not a person. It's a system that we're all participating in us in some way worse than others. Some less educated, some. And I mean, I want to say not less educated because lots of people are educated that are pretty stupid. I want to say, we have a lot of information, but you know, education at the core is supposed to be about how we live together, how we learn together, how we create thriving for everyone. So, education has been perverted to teach us how to destroy each other. So let's throw that education out. You know, we need education that helps us think critically, and that helps us think with all of us with our mind with our hearts and with our bodies. And that's been literally violently extracted from humans that are born, you know, and we in the in the edges, we can find it. You know, the powers that be in the structures that want to survive work to destroy it. So it's a you know, even a good, it's like how do we find new lenses to see with. And one of those is when you get information, finding out what uses this information. Does it serve life. Does it serve thriving, does it serve peace. Is it cultivating that home sweet home that gives us the place where we literally can be the humanity that is our destiny. Before others tried to enslave and kill. So at the root of the war economy is enslaving and genocide. That isn't the root. And that is spreading. And it has horrific consequences, but you only need to pivot. You only need to practice. And I promise you that after the six months of hard work of practice I call it the birthing process, because breaking habits aren't easy. They bring up grief. They bring up the traumas of what living in a war economy are, but cultivating a community of caring and sharing cultivating a place where those can arise where we can be cared for, where we're all moving between caring and building and cultivating and thriving. So that there's this circle of all rising together where we remember that if it's it's not together. It's, it's not going to happen. It's going to devolve into violence. It's going to devolve into fascism. And that we just need to look at that and turn around and there's so much that we can do all day every day that will keep us very engaged, it will keep us very connected, and that will nourish our hearts to that sense of fulfillment that it longs for that the war economy can never give it. So join us. There's lots of ways to enter. I suggest reading a little practicing a little coming back to reading a little finding partners. It's a circle. The whole thing is a circle. You're on it it's a spiral it moves it takes you backwards it takes you forward. And each time you get more that you're able to nourish the world with that you're able to nourish those close to you with. nourishing, we will change what's happening. We just need to remember, we need to reconnect, we need to all the reason that we have been in, and that we know nourish the earth, also nourish humanity. So remember, and come back to who you are this amazing gift on the planet. In this moment of history. There are so many ways to be in a complex relationship with. There are no problems to solve the solving of problems. God is here. Every time we think it's a problem to solve, we create more problems. We need to manage the complexities of humanity. A thing that we will never understand that it is so complex. It's a relationship with in all of and in celebration of. So join us. We'll take you on a beautiful journey.