The house at 1730 MLK in Berkeley that the Metta Center has been settling into and fixing up for almost one year now has a new addition! It’s our new sign, lovingly crafted by local artisan Bill Denham, who formerly resided in the cottage next to the Metta house. When we first moved to 1730, last October, Bill was an instant member of Metta’s extended family, inviting us to join in the monthly poetry readings he hosted in the garden between the two houses. Over the path leading into the garden was a hand-carved wooden sign reading “Take hope, all who enter here”—a nonviolent reversal of Dante’s famous warning. We instantly recognized a kindred spirit!

A woodworker and printer by trade, Bill hand-carved the intricate cedar sign over a period of months. It now hangs over our front porch, welcoming all who enter to join our growing nonviolence community.

Now that’s swadeshi!

Michael Nagler speaking at Sonoma State University, December 2009.

** UPDATE: The Metta Mentors 2010 application is available now! Click here to know more… **

Dear Metta Community,

May this find you grounded in peace and gratitude as we prepare together for the transition to a new decade, one full of promise and potentiality for the continued movement toward an ever-more-nonviolent future!

We are writing today to update you on the status of our Metta Mentors Nonviolence Mentorship program for the year 2010, and to ask for your support and advice.

Metta Mentors: the 2009 Mentees!

As you may know, the Mentors program is one of Metta’s most successful and concrete projects. The feedback from our former mentees and partners affirms that participation in the program can be a life-changing experience. As one of our 2009 mentees wrote,

“I wanted to formally thank you for what was easily one of the most transformative summers of my life. …I have realized how much room there is for change within myself. I have learned to approach problems differently than I used to, and I am getting better at recognizing the needs and fears of others and responding accordingly.”

Metta Mentors is changing lives. Nevertheless, after three incredible summers, we find our program for the first time without funding for the coming year, as our previous funder has discontinued its grantmaking activities. Thus, we are now searching for creative ways to put this unique program together for summer 2010. Fortunately, what we lack in conventional currency, we have in abundance in the forms of social capital, creativity, and passionate belief in the transformative power of nonviolence education!

And as we have told a number of people recently (including a few potential participants who have already requested applications for the 2010 program), we are dedicated to putting on the program this summer, with whatever resources we have, in whatever size and shape we are able to make it, and to make it even more thoughtful and transformative than it has ever been.

Fortunately, we already know that our program expenses will be lower this year, as we have made some changes that will allow us to be more efficient with our resources. (Please see the P.S. for more information about these new developments.) But we know that you — our amazing, supportive community and network — can help us to find even more creative solutions to fill our needs, and so we are asking for your help! Below are three ways you can be of great help to us as we plan for a successful 2010 program:

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We are so pleased to invite you to stop by our lovely new office on — yes! — 1730 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in Berkeley (betw. Francisco and Delaware).  Our phone number and emails remain the same but we have much more room and can have meetings of our own.  The front room will soon serve as a Nonviolence Resource Center for the Community.  We have already held a film screening there (see the attendees, from a recent hope tank) and a visit from two Iraq veterans on a bicycle tour across the U.S.

It gives us great pleasure to note that Rick Stein, owner of Just Carpets in San Rafael, has donated a beautiful new carpet for the main, office room.  We have also received a full set of kitchen ware — and our own copy of the long lost documentary, Mahatma Gandhi, Prophet of the Twentieth Century, which Michael considers the best of its kind.  It had fallen from view for forty years until its recent rediscovery by an Indian researcher.  Help us housewarm! While we get ready for a party for you, here are things that we could still use:

• a microwave
• a small couch
• folding chairs
• the services of a good electrician!
• …and of course, your company.

Pulling an All-Nighter to Transform the UC by some students, workers and faculty of UC Berkeley.

On September 24th, called to direct action by university faculty, workers and students, thousands walked out of the classrooms, offices, and labs at the University of California, Berkeley. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder on Sproul Plaza, in numbers not seen for decades. Our message bears repeating: “Whose university? Our university!”

Now, in defense of our university, in defense of public education, and in defense of our community, we’re opening the doors—and opening the books! As the Daily Cal reported on Monday, many campus libraries are being forced to close on the weekends due to budget cuts. We aren’t only losing our study space; major staff layoffs across the UC system mean that people are also losing their jobs. These libraries are the symbolic heart of the university. And the university will simply not survive if its heart beats only six days a week.

In response to this attack on education we are calling a “study-in” On Friday, October 9, at 4:30 pm in the anthropology library in Kroeber Hall. On this crucial weekend before midterms, when the doors of many campus libraries are supposed to close, we will say NO! We will stay, we will keep the doors open—and we will study for our midterms.

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