<[link removed]>Dear John,

Moving from summer to fall feels filled with nostalgia for me. The leaves on my dogwood tree are tinged with red, my children have returned to college, and people are making plans for fall gatherings and cozy evenings by the first. But, for me, the nostalgia is especially sharp this year because so many people who were lights in the world have passed in the last two weeks or so, many of whom have been inspirations for a lot of the work of building peace. Jodie has some thoughts to share with you all on that (see below), but the feeling of loss is palpable in the air.

In case you missed it: we had a really special guest last week on the Local Peace Economy call. Savitri D., who is an inspiring cultural creative, joined us to share how the work of building peace and joy in a complicated world has shaped her and her creative community. The recording of the gathering can be found at this link <[link removed]>if you are curious.

Our next Local Peace Economy Gathering features Keith McHenry, the Founder of Food Not Bombs. This powerful, inspirational, and effective mutual aid group has grown to a very large, world-wide phenomena, but has done so without formal leadership. Their non-hierarchical structure empowers local communities to respond to hyper-local needs, and provide aid, food, and comfort to people in the ways that meet what is emergent. We hope you will join us this Wednesday for the conversation. The link to RSVP is here. <[link removed]>

Cultivating Peace and Love, 





Circles

<[link removed]>Our Next Gathering: 

Our guest this week is Keith McHenry, Founder of the international mutual aid group Food Not Bombs. Keith has worked for 46 years to end the exploitive systems of the war economy. He has watched in amazement as his simple aim to feed people has taken on a life of its own, with over 1000 autonomous chapters providing nourishment all over the world.

Won't you join us and be inspired?

Wednesday, September 16th @ 8PM ET | 5PM PT  RSVP Here <[link removed]>

Community



Carrying the Community Torch, by Jodie Evans


It has been a hard few weeks. So many bright lights that inspired and enlivened our lives have left the earth.

I was with Jane Fonda last night. She lost 3 of her best friends —Dolly, Gloria, and Robin Morgan. She said, "I feel hollow, but we must pick up the torch and carry it forward." She is 88 and had just returned from Venice, Italy, where she was collecting money for her Climate PAC. Before that, she was speaking at a film festival in Vermont with her new film Gaslit. We talked about how engagement helps us navigate, not only the horrors we witness daily from our government and the billionaires, but also personal loss.

Three people who left us in the past two weeks lived the values of the peace economy, and I would like to highlight them and speak a little about their work in the world.

Dolly Parton stayed rooted in her community. She never really left home. The soil of her childhood was her soil until the day she died. She served her local community, her family, and beyond. She denounced billionaires as a failure and gave her wealth away. She built Dollywood, which raised money to deliver books to children under five. She saw what life needed and did what she could to give to others, care for those around her, and nourish relationships. She respected everyone; there was not an "us and them," yet she was excellent at exposing and highlighting bullies through her brilliance and kindness.  And she could always make us laugh with her effortless smile and heart-melting laugh. Joy and celebration were core to her offering.

Wendell Berry championed the peace economy through all his writing. He was deeply rooted in the soil. As a Kentucky farmer, he knew what life needed to thrive. His words were touchstones for many people and a path to follow for people who felt lost. Even as he saw our folly as a culture, he never lost his faith in his vision -- that some of us would lead people forward to the fields and places of a future where life thrived. He gave me his vision (see below) when I visited him in his home, and it now hangs on the wall of my farm house. I honor him for his brilliance, his wry sense of humor, and his deep capacity to see how our choices as a culture were leading us to a certain hell while always calling us to the better angels of our nature. He never gave up on us. He never told us lies. 

Just days ago we lost David Lynch Cobb. He was a committed activist who was dedicated to community, engaging others in making change, and doing it all with joy and love. He celebrated everyone he met with an open heart and an invitation to create a more beautiful future together. He thrived on community and created one no matter what he was called to do, including running for President of the Green Party. As a Founder of the People's Network of Land and Liberation and the Resist and Build Community, he was an active Local Peace Economy cultivator and more. He inspired others and raised up voices who were doing the work on his Redneck Gone Green radio show, including mine <[link removed].>. He lived a life of compassion and generosity and had boundless energy for creating a future rooted in the values of peace. He was our guest last year at the August 13th, 2025 Local Peace Economy gathering <[link removed]>.  

All three offered a torch you can carry forward. Their passing is a reminder to us all of how brief life is and how lives lived in such a meaningful way can be deeply inspiring to others. Cultivating a local peace economy is what they all lived for. At the heart of the work is the connection to life, a connection that in turn enriches your life and your community. Their lives were a rich bounty offered to the present and the future. What torch do you want to pick up and carry forward as you feel the hollowness that their loss leaves behind?













Connection



Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer movement that recovers food that would otherwise be discarded. They share free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities in 65 countries in protest to war, poverty, and destruction of the environment. They also provide food and supplies to the survivors of natural disasters, and people participating in occupations, strikes, marches and other protests. Find out more about them here <[link removed]>.

Culture

Wendell Berry's VISION


If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it...
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides...
The river will run
clear, as we will never know it...
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields...
Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality.

Catalysts



Our LPE interns have been hard at work this summer. These are to use on Youtube and social media to help educate a wider audience about the work of building peace and community locally. Check out two of these videos here <[link removed]>and here <[link removed]>.

The interns have been creating social media content for the Summer of Peace And Love Camps. Here are some IG slides that the team produced on "Community Awareness <[link removed]>," "Community Engagement <[link removed]>", and "Historical Awareness <[link removed]>."  Help us spread them on your social media.

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