Peacebuilding Global Consulting

The Energies of Conflict

I was listening to a great talk by James O'Dea on transforming conflict through four sacred skills of peacemaking (see http://theshiftnetwork.com/course/JamesODea/intro/recording) and something struck me about accessing energies to sustain the peacemaker.

Conflict Composting: Microbes

Conflict Composting: Elements

In this blog series I am likening conflict transformation to conflict composting. We have seen that this process of composting is actually taking the dead matter, adding some elements of air and water and finally putting some little critters called microbes into the mix and the result is rich blend that regenerates the soil. I suggested that the dead plant matter we added first might be analogous to the trauma and brokenness that violent conflict leaves in its wake and be seen as an opportunity for new growth.

This week we add air and water which will make the composting a transformative work. They are but two elements of four (earth, air/sky, water, fire) that are sacred to indigenous spiritualities and necessary to all life on earth. They should not be owned by any individual but freely available to all. These two elements of air and water are analogous to the very foundations of our social lives.

The first element air, I suggest, corresponds to the rich tapestry of communications within our relationships. Communicating with those around us happens by pheromone, body language, emotion, oh and yes, voice. Add to that the disembodied means of communicating like the phone, email and social networking. This essential ingredient is a resource for composting conflict. While violence alienates, communicating reconnects. With our compost pile, not enough air pockets throughout means that the microbes charged with breaking down the refuse will not breathe well enough and be stifled in filling their function. If air is analogous to communication, then too little of that element will leave us with unresolved and/or uncomposted residuals from damaging conflict.

The second element necessary for proper composting is water. The right amount of water is crucial for microbe health and makes our compost bind together. This is analogous to our bonds clan or tribe. Understanding our valued place within the more complex social structures surrounding us binds us to that community in healing ways.

Cut off from those elements, we are quickly incapacitated by isolation and eventually cease developing just as our soil composting process would stop. Tending to a balance of these two elements results in a conflict composting process thrives.

Conflict Composting: Refuse

I have always has some discomfort with the term conflict transformation because it is so nondescript and sterile. The word transformation reminds me of transformers (see Schematics for Peace Blog posting in February and March) or worse evokes the image of those awful transformer toy movies in which mechanical things can reassemble themselves into robot war machines. Perhaps likening transformation to composting is a much more organic metaphor including that which is intrinsic to the processes of life, death and regeneration.

To summarize what?s necessary for a good composting enterprise we need:

1. plant refuse/bio trash

2. elements (air and water)

3. microbes (from soil or manure)

Put these three together in proper balance and the outputs are nutrient rich humus and heat.

To start a conflict composting venture we will look at the so called rubbish that destructive conflict can leave in its wake. Individual or community experience with violent conflict leaves trauma, disconnection, fear, and mistrust among other things. These impacts are often seen as bad and to be ?gotten over? as quickly as possible with the pat phrases like ?moving on? and ?turning a new page.? In a post war context the litter of brokenness is often covered up like so much garbage and the open wounds and scars are actively kept out of sight.

This attitude toward the ?refuse? is a lost opportunity when left uncomposted. In its organic parallel, uncomposted bio refuse will dry rot losing much of its potential value. Likewise, the unacknowledged pain and brokenness, left uncomposted, will lose its potential for growth unless it is mixed with the elements of air and water as well as microbes.These negative experiences can be cast in a positive light when they are seen as resources for conflict composting.

In coming postings I will make analogies for the elements and microbes. For now, the key to conflict composting is recasting the painful residue of conflict as a necessary part of regeneration, an opportunity for growth and a necessary component of creating life from death.

Conflict Composting: Composting Essentials

Twenty-five years ago I was studying International Development at Bethel College in Kansas. One required course was International Agriculture. This was a practical class with a real garden containing real soil and plants. While the instructors, Paul and Mary McKay, incorporated all the ?state of the art? sustainable agriculture practices known in that day, what I remember most was making a compost pile. It has stuck with me all these years that what I would rather do is grow soil than food.

Compost needs a few essential things to work really well. Those include green matter providing the nitrogen (fresh grass clippings work well here), brown matter providing the carbon (leaves, cornstalks, sawdust) and some source of the microbes (either rich soil or manure of some kind). The right amount of moisture is needed as is some air. If conditions are right the microbes start to eat the other matter and can create enormous amounts of heat.

I spent the morning helping my brother-in-law make a compost pile from his years of accumulated yard waste. Grass clippings, wood chips from a downed tree, leaves, vegetable stalks, husks and cobs were all heaped in separate piles. He had gotten a steaming pile of cow manure complete with swarming flies for the composting venture. We layered these materials together in a wire bound bin in the garden. In the center of the compost pile was a chimney to let the center breathe and let heat escape. The picture to the right is the composting 'layer cake' we made.

While laboring to bring these materials together, I began to think of conflict transformation as actually conflict composing. In the next few blog postings I will attempt to spin this metaphor out. Stay tuned . . .