“What if we … look for the light … and amplify it?”
— Pancho Ramos Stierle of Casa de Paz (House of Peace)
I ran across this challenging and inspiring quote upon looking through yesterday’s posting from the DailyGood.org website ( a wonderful positive alternative news site, btw. Sign up for their daily emails!). The video below tells the story behind the quote:
A film by Michelle Moore.
Video from KarmaTube
Oh my goodness, what a better world we would have if we all adopted their five guiding principles:
●Make a commitment to service, individually and as a group
●Engage directly with our local community, with no walls between us and them
●Support and engage directly with the existing activist work of The Canticle Farm
●Each dedicate ourselves to service in a way that is unique to us, and make it known to the
others for community and support
Spirituality (spiritual striving)
●Gather for a group meditation practice together each morning and evening
●Reserve silence and space for spiritual practice in our house
●Maintain the house as a temple: clean, ordered, free of the energy of alcohol or other
●Frame our agreements together as being of spiritual benefit, rather than as limitations or
●Live together as a family, making time for relationship and sharing
●Come together regularly for house meetings/eatings, and we will share a regular meal
●Use consensus-based decision making; non-hierarchical horizontal decision making
●Honor Art and Music, Joy and Celebration as essential elements of community
●Build together, work on our community as a common project, contributing to the reinventing
●Participate according to principles of gift-economy: each gives according to her/his ability
and receives according to her/his need
●Practice kindness/loving kindness with one another
●Model nonviolent living and contribute to nonviolent energy and structures in our
●Address our conflicts through restorative practices
●Assume nonviolence as the foundation in our communication with one another and with
●Simplicity: Live simply, taking only what we need
●Trusteeship: Use what we have only in the name of the greater good
●Permaculture: Learn from and honor its principles –respect the Earth, respect the people
and share the surplus– at the house and farm
●Healthy food: Strive to maintain our food vegetarian, corporate-free, free of suffering, and
as local as possible
— La Casa de Paz webpage
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Yes, let’s look for the light and make it brighter!
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Comments on: "Sunday Morning Quote (8/24/14)" (1)
thanks Neal for the Daily Good reference….looks great! Look forward to seeing you guys again soon….with love, Mary Ellen and Dwight