In 1971 I traveled in a wave of troubled youth to Washington, DC for the bold if bone-headed purpose of shutting down the US government. Even the most optimistic of my fellow travelers had to admit that our chances were slim, and when we failed to levitate the Pentagon — we held hands, we chanted, and it still didn't rise — the whole affair went rudely off the rails.
I remember feeling an enormous let down, not that we had failed to stage a real revolution, but that we, the peace movement, had proven so unpeaceful. Racism, sexism, several flavors of elitism, a scary tendency toward anger-stoked violence, buffered by an even scarier tendency toward constant intoxication — all the destructive attitudes and behaviors of the dreaded establishment seemed second nature in this, the movement to end all that.
It marked an end to outward social activism for me and started a long period of looking inward for answers and the resolution of conflicts. I camped on the fringes of the New Age and experimented with a potpourri of self-improvement techniques and practices. Along the way I published four books and mostly succeeded in my goal of making the world a more peaceful place by becoming a more peaceful person.
With the election of Bill Clinton I felt invited back into the political process. I began looking outside myself again, started volunteering in non-profit groups, sitting in meetings, dealing with group process, developing consensus. My writing also turned political, expressing mostly dissatisfaction with shortcomings in American culture. All of which has gotten a thousand times more intense since the election of Bush and the events of 9/11.
ThinkingPeace offers a shared peace-think through the major issues
of the day. Come awake to the war-think that fills our world. Think peace.
—Michael Sky, July 2003
thinkingpeace.com is the creation of writer, editor,
and peace activist Michael Sky. Michael is the author of Breathing
and The Power of Emotion, two books
that offer practical, proven methods for becoming more peaceful individuals. His first
book, Dancing With the Fire,
was an in-depth exploration of the practice of firewalking. It is currently out of print,
as is his third book, Sexual Peace, a study of the roots of violence
written during the first Gulf Slaughter.
Or snail mail to:
12 Opal Commons
Eastsound, WA 98245
