Spring Rain 6/17/2025:

“By sunrise, in our conversations, we begin a better nation.” — Kim Stafford

Jun 17, 2025

“Spring Rain” posts are a collection of time sensitive or unique opportunities that we should take advantage of if we can. Past spring rain posts can be viewed here.

For a more complete view of ongoing ways to be involved, find the most recent Dandelion Repot here.

Need inspiration rather than action at this moment? Take a look at my Sunflower posts here.

This Spring Rain Includes:

“Dew & Honey” a poem by Kim Stafford
My Experiences Being a “Peacekeeper” at a No Kings protest
What’s next?
Quick emails to your representatives, using Resistbot Codes.

Hiking a river in Zion National Park. Photo by me.

“Dew & Honey” a poem by Kim Stafford

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Sip by sip in thimble cup
the meadow bees will drink it up
then ferry home to bounty’s hive
by flowers’ flavor hum and thrive
to show us how through word and song,
by gesture small and patience long,
in spite of our old foolish ways
we may fashion better days.
 
So, my friend, come sip and savor
syllables as crumbs of pleasure.
By sunrise, in our conversations,
we begin a better nation.

Prompt: Write a little spell with rhyme and sweet words to invite your people to the hard work we will do…

My Experiences Being a “Peacekeeper” at a No Kings protest

During the No King’s protests on June 14th, I had the privilege of volunteering at a large and successful local No King’s event.

Through this experience, for the first time, I was able to see how critical event coordination is for these events to be safe, non-violent, and effective. So for anyone who has been to a protest, and has wanted to help future ones to be better, bigger, and safer — here is my experience as an event “Peacekeeper”.

A “Peacekeeper” is a protest volunteer that has been trained in how to de-escalate arguments and situations to prevent violence, how to manage and direct the flow of many protesters, and ultimately, how to have a safe event.

To get involved, I reached out to my local indivisible group, who are the primary organizers of the events in my area. They sent me a link to a pre-recorded training session, this takes between one and two hours (one-time). Once I had watched and understood the training, I was added to their list of Peacekeepers. Then I was able to sign up for the No King’s event. We had a 40-minute strategy meeting over zoom a week and a half before the event, and met a week ahead of time to get vests and radios for the event (another 30 minutes). We also arrived at the event location an hour early to be in position for people to start arriving, and stayed a half-hour late to debrief.

In total, I would expect being a peacekeeper to take 1–2 hours for initial training, and to add 2–3 hours of preparation for large events you plan to attend (no extra time expected for small events, like our local weekly Tesla Takedown and Avelo protests).

I was trained to expect that 99% of the time you will be answering simple questions (“where is the bathroom”), and to be prepared for the 1% of time you may need to interrupt an argument between a protester and a counterprotester to prevent escalation.

At our event of 6,000-8,000 people, we had around 25 peacekeepers, only 2 of us saw the need to intervene in an argument to avoid escalation. We had no issues of violence, and hundreds of people expressed how they thought the event was handled very well!

However, we were still very much on our toes. With a large event like this, it was not surprising that the crowd took to the streets to march. It was not a planned part of the event, but we were prepared for it to happen. Much of our focus shifted to managing traffic safely so that people wanting to march could do so safely.

So for our event I would say it was 1% de-escalation, 4% coordinating simple first-aid (falls and heat), 55% simple questions, 40% making sure traffic was managed safely.

Without peacekeepers managing traffic, this could have resulted in injuries and conflict with drivers. And this only required less than 0.4% of people attending to be trained peacekeepers!

So if you are passionate about the role of large, safe, and non-violent protests in challenging authoritarianism and changing the narrative of the moment, I would encourage you to consider being a peacekeeper! Everyone who attended the event was so kind, and appreciative, it was a satisfying way to support these actions if you have a couple of extra hours to add.

Additional Ways Volunteers Helped Support the Event:

Water and Sunscreen Station Volunteers (We had 4-6 of these tables throughout the event)
Greeters (Directing and welcoming attendees, handing out flags, answering questions — if you are uncomfortable de-escalating an argument, this is a helpful way to reduce the number of distractions peacekeepers have to deal with)
Medic / First Aid (Even without violence, our event did deal with people tripping and overheating).

Being a peacekeeper is like being a lighthouse. Your presence keeps people safe, and you help provide direction. Photo by me.

What’s next?

The No King’s protests were a crucial milestone, and now the work continues. For long-term improvement, we need to develop long-term involvement.

The No King’s website highlights actions to take next after the protests.

Likewise, my Dandelion Report is still a resource for finding ways you can consistently be involved in the coming weeks and months. You can also reach out to me to discuss one-on-one for more ways to get involved, specific to your needs or wants.

Here are some additional actions I participated in last week from

Chop Wood, Carry Water

We the People Dissent

, and

Rogan's List

Emailed CEO’s of companies that are major advertiser’s of Fox News.
See how many people attended your no King’s event, if no numbers are listed, help report your event here (if you have a source for how many attended).
Use this toolkit to call your local sheriff to protect your community from ICE raids.
Write to Investment Groups that own Signature Aviation to stop supporting ICE deportation flights with the GroundICE campaign.
Contact your representatives about the Travel Ban using this petition.

We will continue down this beautiful trail together. Photo by me.

Resistbot Emails to Representatives

Resistbot is a tool to quickly send emails to your representatives. Click the link to learn how to set up your account. Emails are much less effective than calling (I have seen some estimate that a call is worth 10 emails), but with Resistbot templates it is so fast it is worth doing in addition to calling.

I often will be able to send these emails while I make calls using The 5 Calls App.

To save space and to organize codes from all the past Spring Rains, all my used Resistbot codes can now be found in this Google sheets form.