THE GREAT TURNING. ONE HEART. ONE HOME. ONE BLOCK AT A TIME.

Canticle Farm developed slowly, but after several months, they had fifteen community members living in five houses connected by a large backyard. That backyard became the center point of transformation. Like every other house in the neighborhood, their little houses were separated by fences. . . .

“When we took down the fences between our yards, we were also taking down the fences in our hearts. That’s when we really began to know and love our neighbors and make peace with one another. At the center was the garden. Mother Earth was transforming us.” . . .

Rooted in spiritual practice, Canticle Farm manifests this commitment by engaging in the “Work That Reconnects,” integral nonviolence, gift economy, restorative justice practices, urban permaculture, and other disciplines necessary for regenerating community in the 21st century.

The Farm is a comprised of five houses on three lots between 36th Avenue and Harrington Avenue in the Fruitvale District of Oakland, California. Canticle Farm manifests this commitment to living and working towards more sustainable alternatives through spiritual practice, integral nonviolence, gift economy, restorative practices, urban permaculture, education and other work necessary for regenerating community in the 21st Century.

The mother of five, a lifelong peace activist, and secular Franciscan, Anne, along with her husband, Terry, founded Canticle Farm, a peace and nonviolence community right smack dab in one of the most violent, run-down blocks in the country. They wanted to explore the connections between poverty, racism, violence, guns, prisons, war, and environmental destruction and seek a viable alternative right there in the thick of everything. . . .

They knew that making peace in inner-city Oakland meant going deep into contemplative nonviolence, and that meant somehow connecting with Mother Earth. They decided to hold hour-long silent meditation sessions every day. . . .

Then they launched Canticle Farm Sundays. They started with a Eucharistic liturgy. While doing this, they reached out to their neighbors and invited them to lunch and to help out with the organic garden. And they offered them seeds to start their own gardens. As they got to know their neighbors and heard their concerns, they began afternoon programs on various practical items such as cooking, growing medicinal plants, and making herbal medicines. In the process, their neighbors became their teachers. . . .

Canticle Farm’s powerful mission statement:

Inspired by the life of St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle Farm is a community providing a platform for the Great Turning—one heart, one home, and one block at a time. The Great Turning—the planetary shift from an industrial-growth society to a life-sustaining society—is served by Canticle Farm through local work that fosters forgiveness in the human community and compassion for all beings. Canticle Farm primarily focuses on the poor and marginalized as those who most bear the burden of social and planetary degradation, as well as being those who are first able to perceive the need for the Great Turning. Rooted in spiritual practice, Canticle Farm manifests this commitment by engaging in the “Work That Reconnects,” integral nonviolence, gift economy, restorative justice practices, urban permaculture, and other disciplines necessary for regenerating community in the 21st century.

[video:https://vimeo.com/211422978]

Authentic journalism has been virtually absent from American airways for so long that too many of us may never have heard it with out own ears. But, thanks especially to the gift of podcasts, you CAN find it IF know where to look. One such place is ABC Radio National ... the Aussie version of public broadcasting. I have been a fan for years. It is far superior to what corporatized NPR and PBS have deteriorated into offering us.

If you have never treated your ears to ABC Radio National's podcasts, LATE NIGHT LIVE is a grand place to start.

Affectionately known as ‘the little wireless program', Late Night Live has been presented by Phillip Adams for a record breaking 25 years. He says, and many an envious broadcaster and journalist agrees, 'I’ve got the best job in Australian media.' That’s because the little program isn’t so little, casting the widest net in wireless, gathering its guests and topics from around the planet—the best and the brightest discussing history, current affairs and the world's most challenging ideas

The program is for the listener who’s interested in everything—from local and international politics to the nooks and crannies of philosophy, theology, science, archaeology and the arts. 'Anything of interest,' says Phillip, 'and everything's interesting.'

Adding even more interest, the program’s style is famously friendly, good humoured and irreverent. Listen and you’ll learn why Phillip calls his listeners ‘gladdies’ and ‘poddies’.

Bruce Shapiro reports this week on American Jews, Israel and Trump after the opening on Monday of the US Embassy in Jerusalem. And new questions are raised about the nomination of Gina Haspel as CIA director after her testimony to Congress.

Bruce Shapiro's USA

Homelessness is a global crisis, so much so that it's almost become invisible. In his series of portraits of those who live on the streets, artist Andres Serrano is trying to get viewers to look again

The Art of Homelessness

Kurdish writer Behrouz Boochani was a journalist in Iran before he fled the country after several of his colleagues were arrested. His timing was fateful as he arrived 4 days after the immigration laws changed and he was shipped to Manus Island never to set foot in Australia. He has spent his time in Manus writing newspaper articles, filming a documentary on an i-phone which has shown in film festivals around the world, studying remotely and writing a novel which will come out this year. Unsurprisingly he says he no longer wants to come to Australia.

Hopes Fade on Manus for Behrouz Boochani

The humble jellyfish has been around for at least 500 million years. It has survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, a feat which that makes them older than trees – even older than leaves. Science writer Juli Berwald calls them "a ghost from our true garden of Eden", and ghost-like they are, with their transparent, brainless, spineless, eyeless, bloodless bodies. Their propensity to breed fast and prolifically, means they can disrupt ocean eco-systems in a flash. Some scientists think their numbers are increasing as the climate changes.

The Science of Jellyfish

Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb (1968) caused great controversy with its predictions of mass starvation in the 70s and 80s as a result of over-population. Forty years later, with the world's population almost doubled in that time, Ehrlich's main message is increasingly relevant -- that the earth has a finite carrying capacity and it cannot sustain the current rate of human population growth and resource depletion. In this conversation, Paul Ehrlich talks about the escalating environment pressures and some potential solutions.

Paul Erlich

Chilean playwright and author Ariel Dorfman (former adviser to President Allende who was toppled in a coup d’etat by Pinochet) expresses delight at the arrest of Chile’s former dictator.
Dorfman sees Pinochet's downfall as the result of too strong a belief in his own power, and the thought that he would never be held accountable. He predicts the overall effect this will have on Chileans—who didn’t attempt to try Pinochet themselves. At the time Pinochet, aged 82, was in London to receive medical treatment. He ruled Chile for 17 years.

Arrest of General Pinochet

They loved books, they revered the written word, they wrote poems, plays, romance novels and political treatises, a lot of long, very poorly structured, very boring political treatises. They were dictator authors and their ranks include Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Mussolini.

Reading, Writing, Ruling Absolutely

As a young child in pre-WW2 Malaya, GP Dr Ulita Nair watched three of her siblings die from preventable illnesses. It was the motivation for her to become a doctor, and 2008 was her 50th year as a qualified GP, having practised medicine in some of the most challenging health environments in the world: Malaysia, rural Pakistan and remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

Dr Ulita Nair

Is Venice the Cinderella story of cities? How did a swamp develop into a city that attracts not just millions of tourists each year, but the world's renowned artists, composers and writers? A city whose very name conjures up unique images. But will its own popularity be its demise, or will Venice simply survive because that's what it does?

Life behind the facade of Venice

Rock writer Bill Wyman tells the back story to the long and amazing life of Chuck Berry. He started out from humble beginnings in St Louis and survived numerous scandals to produce an amazing output of remarkable music and a performance style like no other.

A glimpse into Chuck Berry's long life

War, sexual liberation, civil rights. In the 1960s student presses on university campuses were far more outspoken than their mainstream media counterparts. And far more influential. Then things went quiet.

When student presses were radical

Catholic terrorists arrested in a plot to blow up the King and massacre politicians and innocent people. At the same time, a playwright, a mouthpiece of the moods and fears of a country is in a rut and desperate for a new story in a country wracked with conspiracies and disease. 1606 is the year of Lear, William Shakespeare's most powerful play.

Tumult of the times: William Shakespeare's King Lear

Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs formed in 1958 with George Tomsco playing lead guitar, Stan Lark on bass, Eric Budd on drums, and Chuck Tharp singing lead vocals. They all grew up in Raton, New Mexico. Jimmy grew up in Amarillo, Texas, and met the others when they were all at the Norman Petty studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Jimmy joined as lead singer when Chuck left the group. Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, reached number 1 on the Billboard chart with "Sugar Shack", which remained at that position for five weeks in 1963, becoming the biggest song of 1963.

[video:https://youtu.be/V0YPMgWPXUc]

To learn more about Jimmy Gilmer and The Fireballs, as he shares memories of what was going on back then, please follow the video link below.

See you next Tuesday. The conversation is in your hands ....