Peace Is Here with Avis Kalfsbeek

Agnes Martin: Quiet Grids of Spirit In this episode, we honor Agnes Martin—a painter of silence, repetition, and inward vision. We explore her life, artistic philosophy, spiritual leanings, and how empty space can be full of meaning. Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follow the Peace Stuff: Enough journey is here: AvisKalfsbeek.com Recommended Reading: Agnes Martin:...

Fumio Sasaki: Minimalism in Practice In this episode, we explore Fumio Sasaki’s journey toward minimalism: how he pared possessions, redefined identity, and reclaimed space. We reflect on letting lightness become not absence, but invitation. Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follow the Peace Stuff: Enough journey is here:  AvisKalfsbeek.com Recommended Reading: Good...

Ikkyu Sojun: Wild Mind, Clear Heart This episode explores the bold life of Ikkyu Sojun, the 15th-century Zen monk who defied convention and insisted that spiritual clarity could not be faked. From temple reform to sake-soaked poems, Ikkyu lived with piercing honesty and unforgettable style. Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follow the Peace Stuff: Enough journey is...

Satish Kumar: Pilgrim of Peace and Soil Satish Kumar walked across continents without money to bear witness against nuclear arms. In this episode, we trace how that pilgrimage shaped a life devoted to ecology, justice, and spiritual humility. His journey reminds us that trust and simplicity may be the deepest form of richness. Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follo...

Mahatma Gandhi: Ashes, Talisman, and the Poorest Face In this episode, we explore Gandhi’s choice to scatter his ashes rather than preserve them, and his guiding Talisman—a moral test rooted in care for the poorest. We prepare to turn toward new frontiers, carrying Gandhi’s test forward into new discussions of commons, power, and humility. Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you...

Thich Nhat Hanh: Breaths of Peace In this episode, we celebrate the life of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay)—Zen monk, poet, peace activist, and pioneer of Engaged Buddhism. We reflect on how mindfulness and action can be the same gesture, how every step can carry peace, and how breath can anchor us when the world is loud. Find the Books, Podcast & Kickstarter: Everything you need to follow the Peace St...

Peace Pilgrim: The Walker with No Belongings In this episode, we kick off The Architects of Enough series with the Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Lisette Norman), a woman who gave up everything she owned to walk over 25,000 miles for peace. We reflect on the Inner Path to Enough: what it means to walk without material burden, speak without anger, and live without excess. Includes a powerful reflection pro...

Avis Kalfsbeek takes a pause between series for a meditation on grief, war, and liberative compassion. She shares that she does a monthly creative project in her mini, free Shakespeare Sherpa Club (link below). As part of my monthly Shakespeare Sherpa project, I turn toward poetry and performance as a quiet ritual of peace. Today, that takes the form of two voices in deep lament: Constance, from K...

The Great Disarmament Part 14: A Future Retold. What Comes Next? In the final episode of The Great Disarmament – The Great Disfarmament, peace storyteller Avis Kalfsbeek invites listeners to reflect on the journey so far—and to imagine what comes next. From ancient farming to nuclear warfare, from compost to chemical weapons, this 14-part podcast series traces the parallel histories of agricultura...

The Great Disarmament Part 13: Seeds of Peace. What does disarmament look like today? It may not be on the news. But it is happening—everywhere. In this final episode of the historical timeline, we trace disarmament from the early 2000s to the present. From gang-intervention programs to post-conflict organic farms, from library circles to peace walkers, we explore how peace is being built—not by t...

The Great Disarmament Part 12: Arms & Arguments – When Peace Learned to Speak Up. In an era dominated by Cold War brinkmanship, something remarkable happened. Peace became public. From the Nuclear Freeze movement to televised debates, this 100th episode of the Peace is Here Podcast tracks how citizens learned to speak up, protest, and challenge the very premise of global militarism. We explore...

The Great Disarmament Part 11: Fallout & Flower Powers. As nuclear fire darkened the sky, a global peace movement took root. This episode explores the cultural birth of The Great Disarmament—from Hiroshima to Haight-Ashbury, from anti-war protests to international arms control treaties, from monks on fire to flowers in rifles. We mark the year 1963—the year of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Trea...

The Great Disarmament: Gas & Conscience – When the World Said Never Again World War I ushered in the age of mechanized killing—from mustard gas to machine guns. But amid the devastation came something new: organized resistance, international treaties, and the first serious conversations about disarmament. In this episode, we mark the moment when the world’s conscience awoke—and disarmament beg...

The Great Disarmament: Powder & Principles – When Conscience First Spoke As gunpowder redefined the global balance of power, another force quietly emerged—conscience. This episode explores the 1600s to 1800s, when the rise of modern empires was met by the first organized refusals to fight. From the Quaker Peace Testimony and early abolitionist resistance to Enlightenment philosophers imagining...

Spears & Surrender – When Peace Was Older Than Progress Before nations, before bombs, before “progress,” there was another kind of peace—one rooted in ritual, kinship, and restraint. In this episode, we trace the earliest forms of disarmament: warriors who buried weapons before councils, spiritual leaders who practiced nonviolence, and poetic traditions that chose mercy over might. With voices...

This episode marks the turning point between The Great Disfarmament (Parts 1 - 6) and The Great Disarmament (Parts 8 - 13). We look back across centuries of agricultural violence—fertilizer bombs, chemical dependency, and genetic control—and begin to see a new story taking root. We recap key voices: the ecological grief of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the defiant poetry of William Blake, the wartime wit...

In this episode, Avis Kalfsbeek marks the final chapter of The Great Disfarmament—and the quiet rise of a different kind of power. As war tactics evolved from Cold War standoffs to post-9/11 surveillance and global contracting, the logic of control continued to infiltrate the land. Seeds were genetically modified, patented, and, in some cases, designed never to reproduce. Farmers were no longer gr...

In this episode, host Avis Kalfsbeek examines the Cold War’s eerie balance between restraint and escalation. While world powers held their fire through Mutually Assured Destruction, another kind of battle intensified in the fields. The Green Revolution promised to end hunger, but often delivered dependency. With hybrid seeds, fossil-fuel fertilizers, and pesticides drawn from wartime chemistry, ag...

What happens when chemical warfare doesn’t end at the battlefield—but follows us home? In this episode of The Great Disfarmament – The Great Disarmament, we travel from the trenches of World War I to the poisoned fields of mid-century agriculture. We explore how the same compounds used for mustard gas and explosives were rebranded as fertilizers and pesticides—and how the Green Revolution masked a...

What happens when the hunger for yield becomes an imperial mission? In this episode, we travel to the 18th and 19th centuries to explore two seemingly unrelated substances—gunpowder and guano. One shaped the battlefield. The other reshaped the farm. But both emerged from a growing belief that nature could be extracted, measured, and conquered. We trace the rise of nitrogen obsession, colonial fert...

What if we remembered the wisdom buried in the soil? In this second episode of The Great Disfarmament – The Great Disarmament, we go back—before fertilizers, before bullets, before the conquest of land and people. We trace the quiet origins of farming and war, when both were bound by ritual, proximity, and care. We explore ancient practices of composting, communal stewardship, and restraint—method...

What if I told you The Great Disarmament has already begun? Not as a headline, or a treaty, or a dream—but as something quiet. Ongoing. Something you might not have noticed. In this opening episode, we trace the overlapping histories of agriculture and war—and ask what it means to disarm a system built to dominate. We start with a simple truth: for most of human history, farming and war were oppos...

Welcome to The Great Disarmament – The Great Disfarmament. Host Avis Kalfsbeek, peace storyteller, ecofiction author, leads us in this 14-part nonfiction podcast tracing how violence became embedded in agriculture, policy, and culture—and how people across history have resisted it. From soil to soul, this series blends history, science, activism, and hope. 🔹 First: The Great Disfarmament explores...

On her 63rd birthday, author and peace storyteller Avis Kalfsbeek takes a break between creative seasons to reflect on what peace really means—on Earth, in words, and in action. In this intimate episode, she reads Mark Twain’s The War Prayer, a searing and ironic satire written during America’s imperial turn but withheld during Twain’s lifetime for fear it would be “not publishable.” Twain was Vic...

What happens when your granola comes with spin instead of oats? In this bonus satire bulletin from Peace Is Here, Kitty O’Compost reports on Syndown Industries’ latest inventions: Gaslit Granola™ and Syndown Syrup™. With ads promising “freedom from inconvenient nutrition” and products boasting “pre-canceled fiber,” watchdogs warn breakfast may now contain 85% less reality than advertised. Each box...