Author: Rivera Sun

As I’m riding the overnight train from Chicago to New Mexico, an elderly African-American man in a wheelchair is taken off the train by paramedics, police, and the conductor. Earlier, I had heard the car attendant say something about a minor heart attack. The man, a double amputee, shivers in the cold night air as […]

In the past 36 hrs, I have watched and listened to hundreds of reactions of ordinary people to the attacks in Paris. With a clenched gut, I feared the reiteration of the sequence of 9/11: anger, shock, fear, calls for vengeance, war, and more violence. Instead, I saw the unexpected, and a tendril of hope […]

Know Your Nonviolent History (You’re Gonna Need It) According to Wikipedia: “A cacerolazo, cacerolada, or casserole is a form of popular protest practiced in certain Spanish-speaking countries – in particular Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Cuba, Spain – and more recently English and French-speaking countries, most notably Québec, as well as in Turkey during the […]

Do animals have sentience? How about trees? What about rocks? Or ecosystems? In Billionaire Buddha, I tell a story about a man who makes a fortune from trees and then questions the morality of wealth, property, ownership, and an economic system that destroys people and the planet. The central character wonders how humanity can justify […]

Recent Talks & Travels Along the West Coast Last week, I traveled the West Coast, speaking at several events and offering a few workshops on nonviolent change. With former-CIA intelligence analyst (turned anti-nuke activist) Elizabeth Murray and anti-drone, peace activist Sr. Megan Rice, I spoke about US imperialism and militarism, and the need for pro-democracy […]

The day begins with the sun rising over the Sangre de Christo Mountains, which stretch from the distant southwest horizon clear to the northeast corner of the round bowl of our sagebrush mesa. Snow clouds gather, grey and heavy, draping a mist over the mountains as the light slides into the glass bottle walls of […]

Every fifteen minutes, I leave my work behind and dance. For five minutes, I move, stretch, spiral, spin. I shake my body free of the tensions of typing and the linear quality of online work. I release the news, the calls-to-actions, the cries of human suffering. I leave it all behind and dance. Like a […]

Rivera Sun shares these short ‘n sweet video clips, each presenting a single thought on strategy for nonviolent movements. Enjoy, and find all of Rivera Sun’s videos on Youtube.     Above: Rivera Sun, author of The Dandelion Insurrection, discusses one of the concepts from strategic nonviolent struggle that helped her craft the plot of […]

Dear Friends, Life is full of surprises . . . including this unexpected, delightful new volume of poetry: Skylandia!  As we eagerly approached the much-anticipated release of Billionaire Buddha, we had an opportunity to feature an afterword from a much-respected researcher and policy advocate in the field of wealth and income inequality. In the spirit of including […]

Dear Friends, As you know, I am the author of a delightful little piece of fiction, The Dandelion Insurrection, which is winning friends across the nation. It is an eerily prophetic story, one which posited a mass surveillance system in a United States “just around the corner of today” months before our friend Snowden told […]

Author/activist Rivera Sun kicked-off her 40 city speaking tour by traveling through Florida for ten days, teaching nonviolence workshops, speaking about Campaign Nonviolence and building a culture of active nonviolence, connecting with local organizers, and reading from her novel, The Dandelion Insurrection, which depicts a nonviolent movement in a fictional United States. At each of […]

Author/Activist Rivera Sun visits Gainesville, Florida on Feb 3rd, 2015, speaking about “Love In Action For the Times We’re In” at the Civic Media Center at 7pm. Suggested donation $3-5. Cosponsored by the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding and RealLifeScripts. Join Rivera Sun as she shares inspiring stories of nonviolence in action and reads from […]

One year, my relatives gave me a cow for Christmas … not a real cow – a Project Heifer Cow. As a kid, I’ll admit to scratching my head over that one, but, now that I’m an adult who has outgrown pink foot pajamas, dolls, and toys, gifts for social change make me really excited! […]

Locked Down, Locked Out, Truthout Editor-in-Chief Maya Schenwar’s nonfiction book on mass incarceration arrived in the mail last week. I opened the first page and did not stop reading until the very last word. From the moment my eyes made contact with Schenwar’s gripping confession of her complex relationship with her often-incarcerated sister, I was […]

Resistance, rabble-rousing, rebellion: a maturing empire such as ours has no room for these. Unquestioning obedience is required. Every standardized test, multiple choice question, regimented schedule, gold star, or failing grade trains us to obey authority. The curriculum that is laid out in yearly tests leaves no time for free thought, only a frantic rush […]

  Here at the foot of the Sangre de Christo Mountains, the desert is promising winter. The sagebrush mesa is dotted yellow with autumn flowering shrubs. Soon, the aspens high on the sides of the peaks will turn shocking gold with the bite of cold air. Our field of winter squash ripens orange, red, and […]

Dear Friends, Certain things fall by the wayside while the squash and weeds proliferate and our US tax dollars go to work bombing children in foreign countries. Updating my website and sending out newsletters lose significance as the power mongers maneuver for a stronger stranglehold on our lives. Yet, the crises grow into constants, and […]

by Rivera Sun The current struggle between democracy and oligarchy in the United States traces its roots back to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention where the wealthy elite pulled off a counter-revolutionary coup to stifle democracy. Oligarchs are as American as poisoned apple pie. Their wealth and power look mouth-wateringly good, but with every bite, democracy […]

by Rivera Sun Occupy Radio cohosts Rivera Sun and David Geitgey Sierralupe interviewed Ben Page, coauthor of the new study on how politicians ignore the people. Listen here. If a dictator moved into the White House and condemned the populace into servitude, the US political situation might be a lot clearer. But beneath the lies, […]

by Rivera Sun Depending on one’s proximity to wage and workplace issues, the term Labor Movement may conjure up images of 19th century Wobblies with rolled-up shirtsleeves, Detroit autoworkers, or Walmart strikers. The face of labor evolves through the decades and with each change in the workplace, our identity as a populace of laborers has […]

by Rivera Sun Surfing is an art. Life today sweeps us up in the swells of tremendous change. Terrifying undertows and riptides are brewing beneath the surface of our socio-political situation. The rise and fall of waves of change palpably upheave beneath us. And like dedicated surfers, we are all waiting to catch the perfect […]

by Rivera Sun The recent Supreme Court ruling removing limits to campaign financing should be the final straw on the camel’s back of the American people. Democracy in our country is a standing joke . . . and the trend of politics-for-sale is no longer funny. Wealthy elites and mega-corporations have created a modern day […]

Please enjoy this 1:30min excerpt from Rivera Sun’s talk at Unity of Taos on the stepping into the lineage of nonviolent struggle.

Extinction is no joke. Climate scientists say we have ten years, at most, to make a massive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. If we do not, climate change will signal lights out for the human species. I am thirty-one years old. Climate change and global warming have been making headlines since I was […]