July 2024 | Part II: Interview with Aaron Hargrove
Canine Companion puppy raiser, founder of the Peaceful Unity Community Coalition, and a former inmate.
A Story of Transformation
Part II
I was a little nervous with my first puppy… They’re full of life, full of unconditional love!
A lot of guys feel, “Woe is me.” Prison saved my life. Prison is a necessary evil. Prison will help you transform if you choose the right road. There’s no way that I could have lived those 25 years I spent in prison in my former lifestyle. Because of prison, they caught my cancer. I probably wouldn’t have had health insurance or seen a doctor on a regular basis. Early detection is a key to surviving cancer. Prison also gave me a chance to mature, it pulled me out of a lifestyle. So, prison saved my life.
I got involved with the BARK (Behavior, Attitude Rehabilitation, Knowledge), a puppy rehabilitation program, in 2019 until the day I left. I joined the program, thanks to Tina Morales who sponsored a lot of the groups I was facilitating. I approached her, “I want a puppy.” She said, “Getting involved is a lot deeper than it seems.”
My first pup was Layla. I shadowed someone who was raising a puppy for a couple of months and then got Layla. I read a ton of material and did a lot of in-person training. You’re up at 4:30-4:45 am every day to take the puppy out. The model is, “The puppy comes first!” If you’ve got to get on the phone, make sure the puppy’s fed. When you go to take a shower, make sure your puppy’s settled.
In the program, there are 8 to 10 guys raising puppies. We want to see the puppies be successful and go to people that need them. We want to give them everything they need, all the tools, and especially the confidence. It then makes it a breeze for the professional trainers. We receive puppies at 4 to 4 ½ months. We used to keep them for a year. We have them 3 months at a time and then they go to outside puppy raisers who socialize them for buses, cars, malls, babies, etc.
There are programs in several State prisons in California. Raising the pups takes a lot of time. For the first couple of days, you’re building a relationship. There’s no training, you’re just bonding. You have to be patient. It can be repetitive. Some dogs have a natural confidence and for some dogs, you need to build their confidence with tasks. Then they pick things up faster. They’re not so afraid of sudden sounds or challenges. The training takes on a different light.
Prison saved my life. There are victims of the crime I committed, people who never want to see me. But I’m not the same person I was then. I’m making amends daily. It’s the only way I can pay society back.
People can be rehabilitated. We are a population that can be useful in society. Much of the time, people are skeptical, or they’re still afraid. Everyone has different obstacles in life. It’s what you learn that counts. Some people do make a change. There are many good people in prison who never get out. Take some time to get to know me, hear my story, and maybe that will help other folks when you come in contact with someone with similar circumstances.
I have a vision and have started a non-profit, Peaceful Unity Community Coalition. I came up with a logo. I was going to get a tattoo and I looked at it and was thinking, African-Americans don’t have a flag that represents us. My fiancé and cousin did some research. The purple represents perseverance and royalty. The color black represents the people and the continent of Africa, and within that is the state you live in, in my case, California. This is surrounded by a circle representing the sun, the very powerful, with gold which also represents wealth as in education, community, thinking, generosity, etc.
I watch the news and see how African Americans are portrayed. Often the emphasis is on the violence we inflict on each other. People need to see that we actually care about ourselves and each other.
Because of my experience, I’d like to start by helping At-Risk Youth and stopping people from going to prison, and providing the resources to support people who get out of prison. If you don’t have a plan, it can be like entering a whirlwind!
As a coalition, we will be open to whatever the community needs. For example, there are areas of squalor in Stockton, California. When you show a little bit of care, it goes a long way!
I welcome any people or organizations who would like to collaborate with me. I would like to see the Peaceful Unity Community Coalition (PUCC) grow past me and have a coalition of people involved so we can serve the community’s needs.
Please visit Aaron’s new Peaceful Unity Community Coalition (PUCC) site to learn more and support his goals.
In September’s issue of Earth-Love, I’d like to share my experience of an event in February 2024, “The Healing Power of Forgiveness,” with six speakers, two of whom were victims and four of whom were perpetrators. I hope this will give a broader context to some of the restorative justice movements in California.
Middle East Peace
I found When Olive Trees Weep a heart-breaking documentary. So, if you don’t want your heart broken it’s probably best to draw the blinds and turn over, although some friends’ sensitivity and nervous systems may make this one necessary to skip. It was made in 2022 by film producers Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo, who have long organized Science and Non-DuaIity (SAND) events and conferences, and happen to live in Sebastopol.
Feeling unsure about the film? You can always watch the trailer first at https://whereolivetreesweep.com/
June’s newsletter covered a meeting with the Pope of Maoz Inon, Israeli; and Aziz Abu Sarah, Palestinian; and the dreams that inspire both to work for peace. The Pope signed a letter along with 160 Israeli and Palestinian peacebuilding NGOs, and over 200 civil society organizations from around the world, urging the G7 to prioritize civil society peacebuilding.
The G7 leaders released this statement: “We affirm our commitment to working together —and with other international partners—to closely coordinate and institutionalize our support for civil society peacebuilding efforts, ensuring that such efforts are part of a larger strategy to build the foundation necessary for a negotiated and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.”
John Lyndon, Executive Director of Allmep (the Alliance for Middle East Peace) writes: “After decades of international deprioritization, civil society is demanding a seat at the table. Their efforts– when combined with the sort of focused diplomacy that has been absent for too long– can create a path toward genuine conflict resolution, giving people on the ground both a stake and a role to play, while also helping to generate the new ideas, leaders, and bottom-up energies that a lasting peace will require.”
Let’s see what happens, inshallah.
In this podcast, The Third Narrative, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gazan living in the US, gives a scathing critique of Hamas and outlines a vision for a Palestinian future based on non-violence and self-determination. Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib asks searching questions of his people and expresses his views with deep thought and passion.
A Time for Tea
Although it took place last November, I’ve only just watched this heartfelt conversation between Mia Zimman and Hanan Huneidi, a Palestinian American. It took place at Ner Shalom synagogue, Cotati, Sonoma County, California, with Reb Irwin as principal tea-pourer and host, and additional input from Sam Tuttleman. It’s still very current and runs deeply into our shared humanity.
You can find it on this page: https://www.nershalom.org/peace
Shawl-Dance
My people wrap themselves in shawls of sorrow
protecting their hearts with silk and wool.
Some wear prayer scarves, some ponchos
to shield against rain and cold.
Sorrow, my most frequent visitor,
your corner of the heart has grown into a vast chamber.
You don’t mind joy and laughter because you know
they will leave and you will stay.
Blues is your color and today you dance—
a willow bent low.
Sorrow, you scatter your seeds in the furrows
of my songs—I cannot live without you.
Raphael Block
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Stories for a Living Future, Series 4: My Own Story
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee returns with a new podcast series. Here is a powerful vision Llewellyn shares in Walking Between Worlds:
Last night I saw the whole of creation like a seed, like a small round object. Everything—all the oceans and stars, all the trees and people and promises and dreams—was contained in this small round object. Everything that existed was there. In many ways, my vision echoed the experience of Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century anchorite:
“In this vision, he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought ‘What may this be?’ And it was generally answered thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasts and ever shall because God loves it.’”
But in my own experience, I was then shown that around this small object was a vast ocean of nonexistence, a primal emptiness that was far beyond the world of what is created. This emptiness I have known for most of my life through meditation and inner experience. It is the nothingness before and after creation, empty of form and yet more full than creation. It is the deep bliss of our own nonexistence and a reality beyond the constriction of form. And the small round object that was creation swam in this vastness like a small planet in empty space.
And then I was shown further…
https://workingwithoneness.org/podcast/walking-between-worlds
The Nightingale’s Song
Emergence Magazine is featuring four films over the summer. In this film, award-winning British folk singer Sam Lee opens us to an experience of beauty and wonder through singing with the nightingale. Each night during the nightingales’ mating season, Sam heads into the forest to entwine his song—drawn from an ancient lineage of traditional folk music—with that of the nightingale. Offering a practice of devotion and an act of rebellion for a more-than-human being that may soon be lost from this land, he invites people to connect with voices beyond our own that await should we only listen.
https://emergencemagazine.org/film/the-nightingales-song/?utm_source=Emergence+Magazine&utm_campaign=8ec52f8dd4-Emergence%E2%80%9420240616&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_73186f6259-8ec52f8dd4-42372573
What Does Love Have To Do With It? Bringing Mystery to Peacebuilding
The New School at Commonweal offers three interviews, hosted by Serena Bian, an amazing 27-year-old. In Part I, Sian talks with Deepa Patel, a Sufi who works in African refugee camps and brings a very open approach to life. In Part II, Sian is in conversation with Aljosie Aldrich Harding, an elder whose lifelong social justice and peacebuilding work is rooted in a profound relationship with Love. And Part III will be a meeting of souls with Kalyanee Mam, a documentary filmmaker. Born in Battambang, Cambodia, during the Khmer Rouge regime, Kalyanee and her family were displaced from both their land and their home. Kalyanee has spent most of her life trying to understand the root cause of war, destruction, and displacement and how we can return home again. I found Parts I and II gentle and inspiring, and I look forward to Part III.
Part I: https://tns.commonweal.org/podcasts/patel-bian/
Part II: https://tns.commonweal.org/podcasts/harding-bian/
Part III: https://tns.commonweal.org/events/mam-bian/
“Climate, Psychology & Change” by Steffi Bednarek and others
This book launch conversation with Thomas Hübl, Nora Bateson, Bayo Akomolafe, Francis Weller, and Steffi Bednarek is a fascinating discussion on our present paradigms and how to enter the unknown. The discussion includes feedback from three “listeners,” James Vaccaro, Caroline Lucas, and Deepa Mirchandani, who are actively working with corporations and non-profits. Caroline Lucas is running for re-election as the first Green Party member of Parliament in England and Wales.
https://iframe.mediadelivery.net/play/257385/ab85a220-d137-4d9e-b572-bc3036e7b835
Marin Poetry Center Traveling Show
July 6th, 2-3 pm, The Dance Palace, Point Reyes Station.
Dear Bay Area friends,
You are warmly invited to the Summer Traveling Show with host Sandra Cross and poets, Virginia Barrett, Dotty LeMieux, Doreen Stock, Judy Crowe, and Raphael Block.
Warmly,
Raphael
Earth-Love Break
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The next issue will be in September, inshallah!
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