Author: Rivera Sun

On April 30, 1977, Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti and a dozen other mothers gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina’s capitol city to demand justice for their children, who had been “disappeared” by the military junta early in the Dirty War period – a reign of terror that would last from 1974 to […]

On April 6th, 1930 at 6:30am after morning prayers, Mohandas K. Gandhi raised a lump of salty mud and declared, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.” Salt was an unexpected choice for the revolutionary nonviolent movement. Earlier that year, the Indian National Congress had boldly issued a declaration of self-rule, […]

An Essay of the Man From the Northby Rivera Sun Curse the war culture! It leaves us at a loss for words, bereft of metaphors to describe our situation. Our minds become blank slates, unable to recognize dangers at the door unless they carry assault weapons or drop bombs on our heads. Poverty and poverty-related […]

An Essay of the Man from the Northby Rivera Sun There are those who would have us fold up our banners and take down our protest signs. They urge us to be reasonable and polite. They expect us to cram our dissent into narrow boxes of occasional grumbling comments and take our frustration out at […]

(Excerpt from The Way Between by Rivera Sun. Find it on Amazon.com or signed copies here.) The Horns of Monk’s Hand sounded as the sun touched the western shoulder of Old Monk Mountain. The Fanten drums halted for a breath, acknowledging the Horns through silence. Ari Ara shivered at the lingering reverberations of the low […]

(Excerpt from The Way Between by Rivera Sun. Find it on Amazon.com or signed copies here.) The days turned cold and the nights colder still. Frost drew its icy hand over the monastery, the forest, and the village. Ari Ara crept with trepidation around Shulen, haunted by what she had seen that night in the […]

by Tom Hastings, Director of PeaceVoice, Professor of Conflict Studies at Portland State University (Find The Way Between here. Ebooks available here.) This novel should be read aloud to everyone, by everyone, from childhood onward. It is an auspicious beginning to a new mythology of peace, of justice, of inclusion, of conversion and transformation. Rivera Sun’s […]

(Excerpt from The Way Between by Rivera Sun. Find it on Amazon.com or signed copies here.) The Horns of Monk’s Hand Monastery shook the rocks as she raced out of the Fanten Forest and across the lower meadows. At the crossroads, Ari Ara halted and stood defiantly in the buffeting wind. The trail down to […]

“The Revolutionary Table” Chapter Fourteen of Steam Drills by Rivera Sun Patrick, Louisa, Hank, Wanda, and Ford all crowded around the kitchen table in Henrietta’s two-room cabin. Old Moses Nelson’s mother gave birth to him on that table. Strong and sturdy, rugged as the ancient oak that formed its boards; the table’s grains held a […]

An Essay of the Man From the Northby Rivera Sun Politicians have devolved into nothing more than schoolyard bullies stealing lunch money from small children, harassing the defenseless, and expecting to receive rewards and gold stars of approval. They plunder the public coffers, destroying shared wealth that we, the People, have worked arduously to build. […]

Special thanks to Angela Parker for this gem of a review! You can find The Dandelion Insurrection here.  This brilliant and instructional novel is prophetic in its story line. With stunning parallels to today’s corporate dictatorship, this novel begins at the American-Canadian border with Zadie and Charlie, the primary, but not only heroines of the […]

The rise of Donald Trump has been infuriating, horrifying, and ridiculous all at once. Meanwhile, what we, the People, are doing to resist injustice, oppression, discrimination, hate, bigotry, and authoritarianism is downright inspiring. Nonviolent action is reaching new heights of creativity in the United States, widening in frequency and participation. Here’s just a sample of […]

February 25th commemorates the victory of the People-Power Revolution in the Philippines, in which nonviolent civil resistance (people power) overthrew President Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos had been elected in 1965, and again in 1969. When barred from a third term campaign for re-election, he declared martial law, arrested his opposition leaders, and dissolved congress. His primary […]

An Essay of the Man from the Northby Rivera Sun The challenges that confront us loom imminent, yet still unknown. Like dangers in the dark, we can sense but not clearly see them. Our government is preparing new assaults upon our rights and maneuvering more regressive unjust legislation through the machine of the political apparatus. […]

An Essay of The Man from the Northby Rivera Sun A self-organizing movement like the Dandelion Insurrection relies on the collective and individual capacity of our participants. We are only as strong as the synergistic sum of our parts. The weaknesses of each person affect the effectiveness of the whole movement. The wisdom or folly […]

  The Earth is crying out for our love, for humanity to return to loving the contours, complexity, and exquisite beauty of our world. We have forgotten, turned away, hardened our hearts, and closed our ears. We have fallen into the terrible habit of thinking of this Earth as an object, a resource, or the […]

  When times are bleak and darkness deepens, ancient yearnings of humanity stir in our hearts. We long for the simple things that our ancestors always sought: safety for our families, roofs over our heads, food in our bellies, rest for our weary bodies. In other words, we yearn for the basic human rights have […]

You must believe that pockets of resistance exist. As America plunges into darkness, some people burn with resistance like fires in the night, aglow with respect for the civil liberties that define the modern ideal of freedom. The quiet murmur of their impassioned voices will call to you as they discuss nonviolent strategy and struggle, […]

The Christmas Day Truce is one of the more memorable stories of peace. During World War I, nearly 100,000 French, British, and German soldiers participated in an unofficial ceasefire around the Christmas holidays of 1914. Wikipedia reports, “In the week leading up to the 25th, French, German, and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal […]

An Essay of The Man From the Northby Rivera Sun We are serving ourselves up on silver platters to the oligarchs and giant corporations. We have apples of misinformation in our mouths and sprigs of patriotic parsley tucked behind our ears. Must we complacently acquiesce to being pot-roasted pigs? Rise up! The situation is more […]

Christmas shopping season was in full swing on December 17th, 2012 when the sound of drumbeats and singing broke out at the crowded Cornwall Centre shopping mall in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Surprised onlookers craned over their shoulders as they rode up escalators while an indigenous round dance circled around the Christmas tree in the center […]

When truth and reality are shattered into a thousand shards of deception, skewed and slanted into vicious weapons for power and control, how can we in the Dandelion Insurrection move forward? Cautiously. Gandhi said, “We all have a piece of the truth.” Ideally, we would use our diverse perspectives to build a home for all […]

An Essay of the Man From the Northby Rivera Sun Corporate demons possess our nation’s soul. They crept in stealthily, full of trickery and deception, but now they’re lodged in place, as surely as if they had stormed our homes and halls of power with guns and tanks. Perhaps we’d recognize their coup if they […]

On December 10th, 1997, Julia Butterfly Hill ascended into the upper branches of a 180-foot tall, 1000+ year old redwood tree in Humboldt County, California. She would not come down for 738 days. For over two years, despite dangerous conditions and much hardship, she maintained a tree-sit that ultimately resulted in saving the old growth […]