Peace Is Here with Avis Kalfsbeek
 

Peace Is Here with Avis Kalfsbeek

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Peace Is Here explores global peace light-hearted touch and a scholar’s heart. Join Avis Kalfsbeek, writer of environmental fiction, for a layperson's curriculum of peace. She explores peace treaties, nature’s quiet wisdom, and the down-to-earth creativity required for #TheGreatDisarmament. From deep-dive series on peace heroes to fiction stories and personal riffs, Avis looks beneath the surface to see the peace that is already here.

Episodes

Ep 248 Peacewarts Summer Break & Bullet Poof Bulletins Launch

5 days ago

5 days ago

Ep 248 Peacewarts Summer Break & Bullet Poof Launch

In this personal riffing episode, Avis shares an update on the Peacewarts curriculum, reflects on the first three departments of the series, and introduces the upcoming Resonant Charms classes beginning later this summer. He also discusses the launch of his new novella, Bullet Poof, releasing during National Gun Violence Awareness Month.

The episode moves between curriculum reflections, satire, personal storytelling, and broader questions about fear, normalization, and the systems that sustain gun culture and war culture. Avis shares experiences from workplace active shooter trainings, real estate safety seminars, and family tragedies involving firearms, while explaining why satire can still serve as a human response to systems of fear and absurdity.

Beginning June 1, the podcast will feature daily Bullet Poof Bulletins with the return of Kitty O’Compost broadcasting from the fictional Spoke Easy Community Forge and Makerspace.

Topics covered include Universal Understars, Living Roots, Chronicled Courage, the overview effect, peace as biological reality, Indigenous peace traditions, Vasily Arkhipov, Bayard Rustin, systems of militarization, war budgets, satire and social critique, active shooter culture, National Gun Violence Awareness Month, and the upcoming Resonant Charms department.

Resources & Links

National Gun Violence Awareness Month: Wear Orange WearOrange.org
Bullet Poof by Avis Kalfsbeek: Bullet Poof Aviskalfsbeek.com/bullet_poof
More books, podcast episodes, and Peacewarts classes:  AvisKalfsbeek.com
Podcast music: Javier Peke Rodriguez on Bandcampe https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com/

Ways to Take Action

The book Bullet Poof is book is fiction. The work is real. If you want to help reduce gun violence, support survivors, volunteer, learn more, or safely surrender firearms, these organizations are a place to begin.

These are places to begin, not a full inventory of everyone doing good work. 

Turn In or Repurpose Firearms

Support a gun turn-in or repurposing effort, donate to one, or attend a local event.

  • Guns to Gardens (https://rawtools.org/swords-to-plowshares/) A national movement that provides a safe, legal, and community-centered way to discard unwanted firearms. Working through local networks, they host safe-surrender events where weapons are permanently disabled according to federal ATF guidelines, preventing them from ever causing future harm.
  • RAWtools (rawtools.org) An organization dedicated to turning weapons into gardening implements, literally guiding the modern-day execution of beating swords into plowshares. They take the steel from disabled firearms and hand-forge it into tools that cultivate food, life, and community growth.

          •     The Humanium Metal Initiative (humanium-metal.com) — A global program

transforming illegal firearms into peace metal for watches, pens, and art, reinvesting all proceeds into survivor support programs.

  • Art is My Weapon (org) A community initiative that takes decommissioned firearms from safe-surrender programs and distributes them to artists to create expressions of peace and healing.
  • Robby Poblete Foundation (org) Founded by Pati Navalta Poblete after her son was killed by gun violence in Vallejo, California in 2014. Runs community gun buybacks and distributes decommissioned parts to artists to create works of healing and remembrance through the Art of Peace exhibition series.
  • Fonderie 47 (com) A global initiative that has destroyed over 70,000 AK-47s and assault rifles in Africa, transforming the metal into luxury products whose proceeds fund weapons removal programs in conflict zones.

Support Survivors and Prevention Work

Take action, volunteer, donate, organize locally, or support survivors and prevention programs through these groups. Many have targeted initiatives.

Learn the Facts

Read the research. Share accurate information. Support independent reporting and legal analysis.

  • Giffords Law Center (org/lawcenter) Law center to prevent gun violence. Legal and policy analysis, including state-by-state gun law information.
  • The Trace (org) Independent nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in the United States.
  • Gun Violence Archive (org) Real-time incident data and reporting.

Contact Your Representatives

Call, write, or meet with your elected representatives. Many advocacy organizations also provide simple online forms that help you contact your representatives in a few minutes such as Everytown.org’s Action page: https://www.everytown.org/actions/

Or, write your own letter in your own words. If you use AI to help draft, here’s a sample prompt:

Help me write a short, respectful message to my elected representative explaining why reducing gun violence matters to me personally. Keep it under 200 words and grounded in my own experiences and values.

U.S. Senators directory (senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm)

  • U.S. House directory (house.gov) • Capitol switchboard  (202) 224-3121

Get Crisis Support

If you or someone you love is in crisis, reach out now. Free, confidential support is available any hour of the day.

  • 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (org) Call or text 988 for immediate support in the U.S.
  • 988 Lifeline Chat (https://chat.988lifeline.org/ ) Online chat is also available through the official 988 website.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.

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Ep 247 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Future as History, The Year 2126 (Class 14)

Monday May 18, 2026

Monday May 18, 2026

Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Future as History, The Year 2126 (Class 14) Episode Summary: In our final session for the Department of Chronicled Courage, we reframe our current actions as the historical record for the next century. We explore the "Normalization Trap," the shift toward ancestral responsibility, and the importance of creating legible systems of peace that outlast their creators.

Homework

  1. Look up a current 100-year project, such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault or the Great Green Wall of Africa, and identify one "material trace" it is leaving for 2126.
  2. Write down one question about any of this episode’s topics. If you don’t have a question, write "no question."
  3. Optional: Complete this sentence from the perspective of a historian in 2126: "In the year 2026, when it was inconvenient and difficult, they chose to protect _________."

Learning Topics: Ethical Time Travel: Reframing 2026 actions as the ancient history of 2126; The Normalization Trap: Analyzing how future generations judge the systemic choices of the present; Systems Inheritance: Understanding the difference between emotional legacy and infrastructural legacy; The Witness Question: The role of public records and truth in the architecture of long-term stability; The Quiet Wins: Why durable peacebuilding often produces "boring" but vital historical records.

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Ep 246 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - Truth and Reconciliation (Class 13)

Monday May 11, 2026

Monday May 11, 2026

Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - Truth and Reconciliation (Class 13) Episode Summary: We explore the history and mechanics of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. We examine how restorative justice breaks the cycle of revenge and why public truth-telling is a technical requirement for a durable peace.

Homework

  1. Look up the Family Group Conferencing model in New Zealand and find one detail about how the community participates in the "reintegration" phase.
  2. Write down one question about any of this episode’s topics. If you don’t have a question, write "no question."
  3. Optional: Journal. Is there a secret conflict in your life—something unsaid that is poisoning your relationships? What would happen if you performed a radical truth-telling?

Learning Topics: Restorative versus punitive justice: The structural shift in international law’ The Maori Model: Accountability, reparation, and the logistics of reintegration; Amnesty for truth: Analyzing the tradeoff of the South African TRC; The shock absorber: How public testimony interrupts the physics of revenge; The great graft: The process of binding a wounded society together through transparency.

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Ep 245 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - Realism vs. Moral Imagination (Class 12)

Monday May 04, 2026

Monday May 04, 2026

Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - Realism vs. Moral Imagination (Class 12) Episode Summary: We deconstruct the cultural addiction to dystopia and reclaim the word Realism. We explore the psychological pros and cons of dystopian media and introduce Kevin Kelly's concept of Protopia as a tactical alternative to hopelessness.

Homework

  1. Look up Kevin Kelly’s definition of Protopia and find one example of an incremental improvement in your community that happened because people chose to cooperate.
  2. Write down one question about any of this episode’s topics. If you don’t have a question, write “no question.”
  3. Optional: Journal. Think about a piece of media you consumed recently. Did it act as a "warning" that inspired action, or did it foster a sense of "inevitable" hopelessness?

Learning Topics: The Double-Edged Sword: Benefits and dangers of dystopian fiction according to academic research; Desensitization vs. Preparation: How media consumption shapes our readiness for peace or war; Protopian Thinking: Why Kevin Kelly’s model of incremental improvement is more "realistic" than utopia or collapse; The Outlier Bias: Challenging the dystopian news cycle with the 99% reality; Tactical Optimism: Why optimism is a discipline of the courageous, not the naive.

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Ep 244 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact (Class 11)

Monday Apr 27, 2026

Monday Apr 27, 2026

  • Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact (Class 11) Episode Summary: We re-examine the 1928 attempt to outlaw war. We deconstruct how this pact shifted the legal architecture of the world from "Might makes Right" to "War as a Crime," using the 2026 abduction of Nicolás Maduro and the proposed purchase of Greenland as modern case studies in legal friction.

    Homework

    1. Look up the Stimson Doctrine and find out how it used the logic of the Kellogg-Briand Pact to respond to the 1931 invasion of Manchuria.
    2. Write down one question about any of this episode’s topics. If you don’t have a question, write “no question.”
    3. Optional: Journal. Think about a "right" you feel you have in a conflict—the right to be angry or the right to have the last word. What would it look like for you to outlaw that behavior as an instrument of your personal policy?

    Learning Topics: The Sovereign Right to War: The pre-1928 legal landscape and the "Right of Conquest;" From Kant to Levinson: The long intellectual history of outlawry and the American Committee for the Outlawry of War; Operation Absolute Resolve (2026): The stress test of international law in the capture of Maduro; Non-Recognition as Enforcement: Why physical control does not equal legal sovereignty; Contract vs. Conquest: Analyzing the Greenland purchase strategy through the lens of international law.

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Ep 243 Systems of Peace: A Conversation with Claude AI on How Societies Stop Killing

Tuesday Apr 21, 2026

Tuesday Apr 21, 2026

In this impromptu episode, with kitty Edward Abbey "Eddy" beat boxin' her litter box in the background, Avis reads three questions she posed to Claude AI about violence, peace cultures, and indigenous governance, and shares Claude's responses. The conversation explores how humans might return to a core belief that killing sentient beings is simply not something we do, examines countries that transformed from violent societies to peaceful ones within the last 500 years, and looks at how indigenous female leaders in North America handled violence and rose to positions of authority. Along the way, Avis adds her own reflections on capitalism, media, and the work of the Peacewarts curriculum.

Questions Explored:

  1. How might humans get back to a core belief system that killing sentient living things is just not something we do?
  2. Are there countries that had violent groups and societies in the last 500 years that progressed to fully peaceful societies with a deeply ingrained philosophy of killing as unfathomable?
  3. How did indigenous female leaders in North America handle violent members of their communities, rise to positions of leadership, and maintain their authority?

Key Topics Discussed:

  • Proximity and Personalization: Why it's difficult to kill what you know by name, and why dehumanizing language always precedes organized violence
  • Nonviolent Conflict Resolution Structures: The importance of respected processes for grievance, mediation, and restorative justice
  • Economic Sufficiency: How scarcity accelerates violence and sufficiency dampens it
  • Generational Transformation: Why peace cultures invest in how children understand conflict, personhood, and belonging
  • Costa Rica's Military Abolition (1948): A complete transformation from civil war to constitutional pacifism
  • Iceland's Journey: From medieval clan violence to the most peaceful nation on earth
  • Bhutan's Gross National Happiness: Measuring well-being and minimizing suffering for all sentient beings
  • Post-WWII Japan: One of the most dramatic cultural shifts from militarized violence to interpersonal peace
  • Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers: How indigenous women held constitutional authority to nominate and remove chiefs, control declarations of war, and manage social consequences for violent behavior
  • Power Through Relationship: How indigenous female leaders maintained authority through webs of interdependency rather than physical force

Learning Topics:
Peace Cultures, Violence Prevention, Costa Rica's Demilitarization, Indigenous Governance, Clan Mothers, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Economic Sufficiency and Peace, Generational Peace Education, Nonviolent Conflict Resolution, Restorative Justice

Why This Episode Matters:
As Avis notes in her questions, we live in a time when violence feels overwhelming and peace can seem naive. This conversation offers historical proof that societies can transform, and have transformed, from violence to peace. It also demonstrates that the work Avis is doing with Peacewarts (teaching peace to those still forming their understanding of what's possible) is operating in the most effective register for change.

Resources & Links:

A Note on AI Collaboration:
This episode features responses generated by Claude AI (Anthropic) in conversation with Avis. The questions are Avis's own, posed during her daily peace study practice. Claude's role is that of a research partner and thinking companion, offering historical context, cross-cultural examples, and structural analysis to support Avis's ongoing work as a peace scholar and educator.

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Ep 242 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Near Misses (Class 10)

Monday Apr 20, 2026

Monday Apr 20, 2026

Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Near-Misses (Class 10) Episode Summary: We explore moments where war was politically and militarily cued, only to be refused through deliberate human agency. We study the "ethics of stopping" in the U.S., South Africa, Costa Rica, and Northern Europe.

Homework

  1. Research the “Cuartelazo” attempt of April 1949. Even after Figueres Ferrer took the sledgehammer to the walls of the military headquarters, a high-ranking official tried to use the remnants of the military to seize power. Find out who led this "near-miss" coup and how the lack of a traditional military response actually helped resolve the crisis.
  2. Write down one question about any of this episode’s topics. If you don’t have a question, write “no question.”
  3. Optional: Journal. Think of a conflict you are currently in. What would it look like for you to "lose face" in order to gain a durable peace?

Learning Topics: The "Pen-Pal" Protocol: How Kennedy used a time-buffer during the Cuban Missile Crisis; The Boipatong Pivot: Why Nelson Mandela chose a "Sunset Clause" over a final battle; The Sledgehammer Choice: Costa Rica’s 75-year success as a nation without a military; Nested Identity: How the Åland Islands used legal arbitration to solve a sovereign border dispute; Agency over Luck: Moving from a narrative of "lucky breaks" to "deliberate overrides."

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Ep 241 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - Bayard Rustin (Class 9)

Monday Apr 13, 2026

Monday Apr 13, 2026

Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - Bayard Rustin: The Invisible Professor (Class 9)

We recover the history of Bayard Rustin, the master strategist of the Civil Rights Movement. We explore non-violence not as a sentiment, but as a logistical and technical science that requires immense discipline and preparation. 

Homework

  1. Look up the Nashville Sit-in workshops or Bayard Rustin's "Manual for Organizers" and find one specific instruction given to the participants about how to maintain their composure.
  2. Write down one question about any of this episode’s topics. If you don’t have a question, write “no question.”
  3. Optional: Think about a project or a goal you have. How much of your energy is going into the "speech" (the public-facing idea) versus the "logistics" (the actual preparation and discipline needed to make it work)? What would it look like to treat your personal peace as a technical problem to be solved with preparation?

Learning Topics: The Logistics of Peace: Organizing the 1963 March on Washington; Sociodramas and simulations: Building muscle memory for non-violence; Strategic Sacrifice: Navigating identity and orientation for the movement; Bayard Rustin as the "Policy Translator" of Gandhian principles in America; The organizational manual as a blueprint for living architecture

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Ep 240 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Christmas Truce of 1914 (Class 8)

Monday Apr 06, 2026

Monday Apr 06, 2026

Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - The Christmas Truce of 1914 (Class 8) 

We explore a case study in horizontal peace. By examining the 1914 Christmas Truce, we see how proximity, shared ritual, and the refusal of abstraction can temporarily dismantle the machinery of war. 

Homework

  1. Look up the letters of soldiers from the 1914 Christmas Truce and find one description of a conversation between a British and German soldier.
  2. Write down one question about any of this episode’s topics. If you don’t have a question, write “no question.”
  3. Optional: Think about a situation in your life where you have been told to see someone as an opponent or an enemy. How much of that is based on a war map given to you by someone else? What would happen if you ignored the map and looked at the horizontal reality of that person’s life?

Learning Topics: Horizontal Peace: When lateral connections overrule vertical authority; Proximity and the dissolution of the enemy image; Ritual as a communication protocol: The role of music and shared food; The institutional reaction: Why high command feared the truce; The lesson for peace scholars: Faces vs. Abstractions

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Ep 239 Peacewarts: Chronicled Courage 101 - Indigenous Peace Traditions (Class 7)

Monday Mar 30, 2026

Monday Mar 30, 2026

Peacewarts: Dept. of Chronicled Courage - Indigenous Peace Traditions (Class 7)

Episode Summary: We deconstruct the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace as a masterclass in constitutional design. We examine the 1142 CE founding, the role of Jigonhsasee, and how the Seven Generations principle created a system where peace was the operational norm.

Homework:

  1. Look upthe Women's Nomination Belt (part of the wampum records) and find out how it protected the power of the Clan Mothers.
  2. Write down one questionabout any of this episode's topics. If you don't have a question, write "no question."
  3. Optional: Think about a decision you have to make this week. If you applied the Seven Generations principle to that decision—asking how it would affect your descendants 200 years from now—how would your choice change?

Learning Topics: The 1142 Founding: Breaking the "Mourning War" cycle through legal reform; Jigonhsasee and the Clan Mothers: Structural gender-balancing and the power to depose aggressive leaders; The Great Law of Peace: A participatory democracy that influenced federalism; The Eagle on the Tree: Peace as an early warning and diplomatic buffer; The Seven Generations Principle: Moving from short-term reaction to long-term stewardship.

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