Peace and Possibility with William Ury
Join us today for an extraordinary conversation with William Ury, one of the world's most respected voices in negotiation and conflict transformation. In this powerful episode, William shares insights from decades of peacemaking work, exploring how imagination, deep listening, and inner peace can transform seemingly intractable conflicts.
A founding member of the Harvard Negotiation Project, William has served as a negotiation advisor to corporations, governments, and international organizations. He has mediated complex conflicts from family disputes to high-stakes international conflicts, including work in the Middle East, Russia, and other challenging global contexts.
William holds a B.A. in industrial engineering from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University. He is a sought-after speaker and consultant who has dedicated his career to helping people and organizations transform conflict into cooperation. Through his work, he continues to inspire individuals and leaders to find innovative paths to peace and understanding.
He is the author of several groundbreaking books, including the international bestseller "Getting to Yes" and his latest work "Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict".
Listen now and expand your vision of what's possible.
In this episode, we cover:
Introduction to William Ury
Early Influences that sparked his interest in Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking
The Importance of Inner Negotiation and the Role of Personal Transformation in Achieving Outer Peace
The Power of Listening and Inner Negotiation
His experience in Venezuela with former President Hugo Chavez showed the Power of listening and not reacting
Polarization and the Role of Media
Why Walking is Important?
Why the Essence of Humanity is Hospitality?
The Abraham Path Initiative
The Benefits of Walking and Pilgrimage
What Should Someone Do in the Middle of a Crisis
The Role of Imagination in Overcoming Conflict and Envisioning a Better Future
The Role of Poetry in Peace
Helpful links:
William Ury - Author, Mediator, and Co-Founder, Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
Follow on LinkedIn
Instagram @williamlury
Facebook @williamurygty
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Transcript
William Ury 0:01
In negotiation, even though it's goal oriented behavior, trying to get somewhere, we're acting in the ways that go precisely opposite to what we're trying to achieve. And it's because human beings, we are reaction machines, and it's just natural to react, and as the old saying goes, when you're angry, you'll make the best speech you will ever regret.
Christine Mason 0:24
Hey everybody. It's Christine Marie Mason, your host for the rose woman podcast. It's on love and liberation in the broadest sense, which means it's about clearing our lens of perception to see most clearly what is in front of us without our stories and our cultural adaptations and our biases so that we can be in choice, not in reaction. I came to this work in large part because I love asking questions, having conversations, being the exploration of ideas with very brilliant people, uplifting voices of others, and in some cases sharing ideas that I deeply research and presenting them to you in a more solo narrative form. The podcast was started as a spin off of a company that I began, Rosebud woman, which is@rosewoman.com that specializes in intimate and personal care items for women, but has expanded into body care, reverent lifestyle offerings, ritual offerings, and will probably keep expanding into more things. So, much like Rosebud woman expanded so did the show, because my interests are vast, and my prior work was in technology. Was a tech CEO, many times, started and sold many companies, and in yoga and tantra, where I've been pursuing a PhD course of study in unity consciousness, and because my ongoing explorations into how do we be free, how do we clean the lens of our perception have taken me deep into work in the prisons, deep into studying with Thomas Hubel on collective trauma, deep into my devotional pursuits of How we live as light in the body with Patrick Connor, as well as starting and running an eco village on the Big Island of Hawaii, that is just a incredibly gorgeous living art project of both people and plants culture learning how to live together more beautifully. I think it might be also helpful for you to know in terms of where I come from, that I grew up in Germany and Chicago and a little bit in France and a little bit in Iran, and speak French and German as a result of that that I moved 15 times before I graduated from high school and I started college At 16, and met my husband the first day, and we had three children by the time I was 21 I went to one of the best, if not the best at the time, business schools in the country with kids three, two and one years old, and then went on to work in a traditional business environment, International Business, Finance, tech and somewhere in my early 30s, I got the hankering, or the call that had been present in my life, my whole life, long, to the mystical and and to Eastern spirituality, which upended everything I have been on That path of the integration of my interests in the mystical, the space in between the spiritual and the body, business, technology, how we live well together, how we have so much more fun and more beauty and more peace and ease than we ever thought possible for a very long time. So what you see in the show, as it's evolved, is a mirroring of the expansive thinking on what it takes to live a fully integrated life, where the material and the spiritual aren't separated, where the technological and the ecological are not separated. But we really are looking at how we be with it in the soup of its beautiful complexity, how we include everything and love everything. So there is much more to say about my background, but I feel like I'm coming at the questions we talk about with a unique bridging perspective a woman of a certain age with a strong interest in seeing a better future for my children and grandchildren, with a deep understanding of the practical limitations and the drivers and capitalism, what is possible and impossible with technology, and also sort of a curiosity or a posilitarian mindset. The last thing I'll say about me, since it's the first time I'm doing this weird little intro, I just published my ninth book, and I'll be publishing a 10th book in January. This ninth book was just awarded a Kirkus star and named the Kirkus indie Book of the Month for August. It's on women's sexuality and reproductive life over the course of nine. Nine stages of development, from birth to 100 so very inclusive, also well researched, just like the pod science stories, I write a lot. I write two newsletters a week, one for rosebud, one for radiant farms. I write a substack almost every week, something called the newsletter, which is more, little bit more on the Unity Consciousness stuff. And then I do this, plus many op eds and interviews for other people's shows. I teach classes twice a year, two six week courses in living Tantra that are about touching into the body fully and living as fully as you can. And I lead some retreat weeks every year as well. So if you are moved by the content of the show, and you want to drop in or dive in with me in a container that is curious and loving and expansive, restorative, restful. We do that in multiple ways. People always come out of these containers saying that they have grown, learned a lot about themselves, made new friends, and so I would really encourage you to think about engaging with me in one of these environments. I also do a free monthly group call called good community, which you're also welcome to join me on so you can find out about all of that stuff at my site. Christinemariemason.com, all right, I hope you learned a little bit about me, and let me now prepare you for today's show. Today, I have the deep honor of welcoming someone who has devoted his life to the work of peace, not just as a concept, but as a daily practice and a sacred possibility. William Ury, he is one of the world's most respected voices in negotiation and conflict transformation. In fact, he might be considered one of the fathers of this field. His groundbreaking and bestselling book, Getting to Yes, helped reshape the way we think about resolving conflict, and his influence has extended far beyond a negotiating table at a government environment, into war zones, corporate boardrooms, communities and of course, inside of individual human hearts. He co founded the Harvard Negotiation project. Has advised presidents rebel leaders and families in distress. And in his most recent work, particularly impossible, He invites us into a deeper vision of peacemaking, one that includes imagination, presence and even sacred walking. William has a special love for pilgrimage, another topic we've been covering this season for the clarity and humility it brings and for the way it allows us to walk with others, literally and metaphorically towards something new. Today, we're talking about present imagination, Hugo Chavez and Hugo Chavez, I don't know how to exactly get that language right. El presidente, as I joke with him at the end. It's kind of a motivational speaker, sort of show. He leaves us feeling that there are infinite possibilities for peace, even in the most intractable seeming situations, all we have to do is shift the way we imagine our future together. So let's go. William Ury, I wanted to talk about pilgrimage, because I'm doing this big episode on pilgrimage, which is now turned into like it's so gorgeous, I'll tell you how I got to the episode. First of all, I'm doing them all the time. Did the humpy pilgrimage, obviously Tiru all this, that Magdalen pilgrimage, but I was in Barcelona, and I got to sit with Rupert Sheldrake over breakfast, and he told me that he joined the British pilgrimage trust. Then he dropped this historical fact that in the 1600s pilgrimage was made illegal in England, that when King Henry was separating from the Catholic Church, they made it illegal and like, completely removed the idea of the sacralization and connection to the earth as part of prayer. And then, you know, that took me down a whole path on the fractal of our disconnection in anywhere that current UK leader colonized. So that started, and then I started thinking about you and the route that you did, that you planned and retraced in the Middle East. And was thinking, I would love to talk to you. So do you consider that your life's work being a peacemaker, and if so, how do you think you came into that calling or awareness? Were there influential factors in your childhood that made you want to do that? Yes, multiple questions in there.
William Ury 9:45
When I was five, my family moved to Switzerland for a year, and then I ended up spending half my childhood in Switzerland with kids from around the world in various kinds of international schools. The. But it was into a Europe that was still recovering from the Second World War, and the World War a very different Europe than the Europe you go to today, and where the wounds of these two horrendous wars were very kind of present. I mean, there were still graveyards everywhere. There were still ruins in like Germany or in France and so on then. And there was every expectation of a third world war. That was the sense that we were just, they were just waiting for the Third World War, the atomic war. You know, every kind of, like substantial chalet in Switzerland, like a school chalet had an atomic bomb shelter that, you know, was where the skis were started, saying you visited with this big, massive iron doors. So there was this kind of feeling like we were kind of recovering, but there was this kind of feeling like, you know, that the future was uncertain. So that, for me, that that was kind of that posed, it. That was my kind of question, was, how do we all get along? How do we and then, as I grew up later, you know, there was a Cuban Missile Crisis. I couldn't quite, you know, understand it. And so anyway, that's, that's how I ended up becoming an anthropologist, which was, I thought I'd let me study this, our species, our tribe. Because, you know, you know, as brothers, often study endangered tribes, but what if the endangered tribe is us? What's endangering us is ourselves? You know, from an anthropological point of view, there's like the signal event of this, of this era, was that humanity, after all these 1000s of generations of evolving through our technological genius had evolved the capacity to destroy itself and the world, and much of the world, the biosphere in the process. And then the question is, there's a race of like, how do we live with that knowledge, and how do we? How do we get to yes, how do we? How do we coexist with all these different cultures and all these conflicts around the planet. And so that became my life question, and I went into anthropology. And then, of course, I wasn't just satisfied with the books. I wanted to really apply it in a very practical way. So I entered into the field, which was still a very nascent field of negotiation, of how do we talk to each other? How do we how do we resolve these issues, or how do we transform these conflicts from these destructive spirals which lead to Gaza and Ukraine and and add the possibility of atomic war to a thriving, flourishing humanity that was my that's been my lifelong quest.
Christine Mason 12:42
I want to just go a little bit deeper into this tender space where you realize that we haven't quite recovered from the prior war, and we're sitting on the expectation of another conflict happening. And when you said it, it opened up for me, like all the way back in human history, that at any point, all prior conflicts create a kind of crouch in the subconscious, ready to spring a scanning the horizon all the time that primes us for being in the next conflict. If that's in us, then how do you not respond that way as a culture when a threat appears? So it Yeah, it feels like it's very deeply embedded in even the biology of being human.
William Ury 13:31
It is. And then there's all the trauma, right, which I was so much more about these days that from past wars and conflicts and the individual trauma, the collective trauma, the ancestral trauma, all combined, that actually creates a pattern that self replicates as we're now seeing right now in the Middle East right in front of our eyes is just self replicating trauma.
Christine Mason 13:57
Yeah, do you feel like between the first book that you wrote, like many people will know, you from getting to yes, but do you feel like your arc of your journey from that to possible to even your current understanding, you know this integration of the trauma worldview, how has your understanding of conflict and its origins shifted over these decades with with these fields of study emerging after
William Ury 14:21
getting Yes. I mean, I think, you know, the single biggest realization for me was realizing people asked you, okay, but how do you get to yes with people who don't want to get to yes? So I started working on, quote, difficult, the most difficult situations and the most difficult people I'm always going for. What's the hardest? You know, where's the heart of the of the problem? And what began to dawn on me was that the single biggest obstacle to us negotiating anything, whether it's in our families or in our businesses or in our communities and certainly in the world, the single biggest obstacle is not the difficult person on the other side. Side of the table, however difficult they might be. The most difficult person that we have to face is this. Watch right here.
Christine Mason 15:08
The most difficult person is me.
William Ury 15:11
I'm the problem. And you know, it's like, wow, that's re that's the first negotiation, really is the negotiation with ourselves. It's the inner negotiation. We can't get to yes with ourselves. How can we possibly expect to get to yes with others? And then I think that, over time, broadens out into like field of trauma, which is, of course, part of, it's part of the inner, the deep inner psyche. But then it, there's a collective sense of it as well. And so I've come to realize that the foundation of successful negotiation, and negotiation I just think of very broadly, is something we do every day. All of us, you know, have our time. We're negotiating with our family, our you know, our friends, our colleagues all the time. It's it's not something that you just do when you're buying a house or selling a house, but it's like the key to it, the foundation, is this ability. I like to use the metaphor going to the balcony. It's like you're negotiating on a stage, you and the other person, and maybe other players and so on. And part of you goes to a mental or an emotional or your spiritual balcony, kind of a place that we all know, which is a place of calm and perspective, where you can, for a moment, keep your eyes on the prize. What is it that you want? Because so often in negotiation, even though it's goal oriented behavior, trying to get somewhere we're acting in the ways that go precisely opposite to what we're trying to achieve, and it's because human beings, we are reaction machines, and it's just natural to react. And as the old saying goes, when you're angry, you'll make the best speech you will ever regret. Humans
Christine Mason 16:54
are reaction machines. Wait a minute. You mean I'm not sitting in my full presence and looking at things neutrally and bonding, not reacting what
William Ury 17:07
that's it. You know, if you change stimulus and response, there's a huge gap and and particularly in these conflict situations where there's trauma and where there's just just, you know, there's all this fear, there's this anger, there's this rage, there's there's so much humiliation and shame and guilt, and you name it. If we don't find a way to address that, then sure we can reach an agreement on the surface. But you know, as we know, ceasefires, you know, they break down. Just, you know, things, things are very fragile. So there's a way in which we need, we're invited to go to the bottom of things. And that's what has led me, you know, to really go into the into the so called, you know, the Inner peace is essential to outer piece. And it's a funny thing that there are a lot of us work in outer peace, and then there's a whole community inner peace. But the but the real potential is in the synergy of those two.
Christine Mason 18:08
Yeah. I mean, I could see how the outer peace negotiations might temporarily create a little bit of physical safety, but then all of those resentments and those identity based questions must continue to boil inside of each person who thought they got the short end of the stick, or whose father was harmed, or mother was killed, or child was hurt, like it doesn't go away. So this inner, this inner call to pieces, as you said, it's been kind of the realm of the mystics and the psychologists. So how does the dominant culture receive this message when you're just trying to, like, stop the bombs from falling.
William Ury 18:44
Well, part of my job, I think maybe this goes back to my training as anthropologist, is to translate things culturally, right? So in ways that people in policy circles, leaders, people who make the decisions that lead to war. Can understand these things. And they do. I think they grasp it. I mean, that's why, you know, like, like a metaphor, like using, like, the balcony, is like, okay, yeah, I get it. And, and people, people can incorporate that. It's concrete, it's practical. It's like, oh, yeah, I get that. And, I mean, I'll just give you a story one of the earlier instances when I realized the power of this in that kind of world that you're talking about. It was about 2025, years ago. I was in Venezuela, and I'd been asked to go there by former President Jimmy Carter, because Venezuela was on was gripped by political polarization and was on the verge of what many people feared would be a civil war. There were a million people on the streets of Caracas de Meli the immediate resignation of Hugo Chavez, the president. There were a million people supporting him. Fights were breaking out. Anyway, I ended up having a number of conversations. Conversations with Chavez and his palace, and one of them, in particular, he liked to meet at night. So nine o'clock at night, I show up there with my friend Francisco and from the Carter Center, and we wait patiently, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock midnight, rushing in to see the President, expecting to fight him below. And he has his entire cabinet arrayed behind him, and he kind of motions me to a chair. He says, oh, so Yuri, so tell me what you what do you what's your impression of how things are going here in our country on the political front? And I looked at him, but I looked at his ministers, and I said, Well, say no, presidente, I'm, you know, I've been talking to some of your ministers here and some of your leaders the opposition, and I believe they're making some progress. Well, progress wasn't the word he wanted to hear. Is it progress? What are you talking about? Are you a fool? You third party. You know nothing. You know you don't see the dirty tricks those traders are up to on the other side. And leaned in very close. You know, I could heal his hot breaths, it's like a spit and he proceeded to shout at me for approximately 30 minutes. First, I was kind of in shock, you know, because, like, oh, you know. And I could feel like I'd been working in Venezuela for about a year, all the work down the drain, feeling embarrassed in front of, you know, the whole scene. And then I remembered a simple technique for like, going to the balcony, which a friend of mine, who was a kind of a shame, and I think maybe back in Ecuador, said, You know, he said, William, if you're ever trouble, just pinch the palm of your hand. I said, on one moment, or do that. He said, because it will give you little give you a little pain. It'll make you temporarily alert. For some reason. In that moment, I remembered to pinch the palm of my hand, and I could, I just went inside, just for a split second, did a little like, wow. Okay, here are all these emotions inside of me. Here I'm feeling like, I'm, I'm, I'm feeling all that, and I'm thinking, my mind's racing. What am I going to how I'm going to respond? How do I either defend my what defend myself? What's going on here? Instead by listening and just listening and even just interiorly, like naming some things just in a second, everything just relaxes for a second, just like for a second, and then I'm able to ask the question, What am I here for? Am I here to get into an argument with the president of Venezuela? Which was that really going to serve my purpose? I'm here to try pacify the situation. So then I just bit my tongue and having listened to myself, that created a little bit of space that I could actually listen to him from a balcony perspective. What's going on here? Who's he trying to impress what's, what's really going on, what's, what's really irking him here? And I was watching him, and I didn't say a word, and he was someone who could go on all night, I mean, you know, in a fury, but after 30 minutes, he started to, you're like, run out of steam, because I'm just nodding, and I'm, you know, listening and really intently, just paying attention to him, and finally, I just watched his body language and his shoulders slowly sink and in a very kind of weary toned voice, he says, Erie, what should I do? Well, that is the faint sound of a human mind opener. Okay. Zeno, presidente, it's December. All the festivities for Christmas have been canceled like they were last year in this crisis. Why not just give everyone a break, you know, a truce, you know, until January, let them enjoy the festivities for their families, and who knows, maybe they'll be in a better mood to listen. Well, he stopped for him, he looked at me, and then he clapped me on the back, and he said, That's a great idea. Without that my next speech and his mood had completely shifted. What I learned then and there was that maybe the greatest power that we have in negotiation is simply the power not to react. It's to pause, take a breath, go to the balcony, think about where you want to go here. And by me going to the balcony, I was able to help him for a moment go to the balcony. And then in that speech, he was able to help the whole country go to the balcony. And so it's like just, it just spreads out like a little, you know, ripple. And I'll tell you, I told that story once on a podcast last year when my book came out, possible and and then at the end of the podcast, the the host said, Hey, could you stay around for a moment? The producer wants to talk to you, because he's been crying this whole show. He said, Well, why? He said, because he's from Venezuelan and he and he got on the thing, he said, you know, at that moment, I was seven years old, and my. Mother said, We've got to flee into the forest, because there's going to be war and we're not safe. And then suddenly, President Chavez went on national radio TV and said, there's going to be a truce, and we could all just relax and just and he was, I mean, I
Christine Mason 25:16
remembered the moment he was there. You didn't even know the ripple effect. So so this, I I love that you're pointing to, before you can even listen to another, you have to listen within Sure. Have to create the spaciousness, then you could really be present for him and that, and that even drawing a fine point on this, when someone is deeply listened to and they feel you listening to them undefended. They chill out themselves. When someone is received without judgment. That's the motion. It's beautiful,
William Ury 25:51
and that's exactly it is that is that once someone feels listened to, which is a deep form of respect, of seeing the dignity, the humanity, the heart in another human being. Then guess what? They relax. They can listen to you. And guess what? Then other people can start listening. And then it gets deeper and deeper, because it's listening, not the way we usually listen, which is, you know, I listen to your words, that I can then react, respond, refute what you're saying. No listening from within their perspective, from their perspective, yourself in their shoes, just I'd listen to them, and that actually suddenly that shifts the the the energy, the vibration, the frequency, the tone of that situation. And that's where new possibilities can emerge only that it doesn't emerge in the confrontation. That
Christine Mason 26:44
must have been a beautiful moment for you personally, to hear that story reflected back sometimes when the conflicts are ongoing and are we ever really making progress? Just just to know that you made an impact for that child, must have also been beautiful for you. It
William Ury 27:02
was. And, I mean, it was funny because it was after the podcast, and the the host and the Venezuelan and I were all kind of like tearing up three man here, cheerio. And then, is that this is the best thing, and then they just decided to play that in the pump of the because the tape had been running. But it's no it was deeply touching. And you know, it's so one reason it was touching is in that moment when I went I remember when I went in to see Chavez, I I had, I kind of spent a little time meditating before my meeting with him, and I visualized a child, like a Whalen child as kind of like, okay, who am I? Who's my client here? Who am I representing? Who? And it's like, I find that that's a way to just really bring me into my heart and bring out the best in me. Is, okay, that's, that's,
Christine Mason 28:06
that's who I'm working for, yeah, and that's the interrupting that pattern we're talking about in the transgenerational fabric of trauma, you serve that child, and we have a chance, you know, to break, to break the to break the pattern. So, have you noticed a shift in the level of polarization, or is that sort of a feeling that we have because of the instantaneity of information now? Do you think we're more polarized?
William Ury 28:34
I think we are more polarized than maybe we can remember, like, you know, 10 years ago or 20 years ago there, I think there is polarization is part of the function, as you just mentioned, perception. I mean, the truth is, actually, if you take polls of, say, Republicans and Democrats in the United States, they believe that things are much more polarized than they actually
Christine Mason 28:57
are. You mean, you mean they think more alike than they actually,
William Ury 29:01
Oh, absolutely. I mean, Americans. I mean, it's astonishing that there is so much more common ground in what Americans believe, and they have this perception of the other that is so off. Democrats think Republicans, you know. I mean, it's amazing, issue after issue after issue way off and the Republicans are the same misperceptions of Democrats. Why? Because of the way that our media, the way we're communicating with, obviously, cable TV, but social media in particular, and and the algorithms of social media feed the outrage. They feed the outrage because that gets engagement, and that gets profit. So the algorithms are just designed to amplify any anger, fear, resentment, hatred, and so our what we're seeing, we're blinded by what we're seeing on our screens. The reality if you actually say. Down with your neighbors is very different.
Christine Mason 30:02
I think that we should just go down that road for a little while, because the sense of being manipulated by agents that have an interest in you being outraged and offended by your theoretical neighbor, we need to decouple from we need to get out of the sphere of influence of those people. Get back to our real life, connections with the people we know
William Ury 30:25
we do. And one very, very, very simple way to do that is to go for a walk. Not just go for a walk with yourself, which is great, but actually find someone in your media might be a family member. Might be someone at work who thinks a little or feels or is different from you in some way, but just go for a walk half an hour and 45 minutes. The fun, and if you possible, do it in nature, but doesn't have to be in nature, but it's like walking is the most ancestral. Our ancestors walked. We were we were hundreds together. We rove to planet. So you walk, and as soon as you start walking, you know you're not face to face, you're side by side, you're shoulder to shoulder, you're actually almost touching each other, your your breath, your rhythm, starts co regulating. You're moving in a common direction, and that creates an environment in which you sort of well, tell me about yourself and tell me about you, whatever, and, and it's astonishing that, you know, you can have these brilliantly facilitated meetings, but people didn't what was the best part of the meeting, the walk, you know, a totally unstructured walk that Where someone just me who fights while they walk? I mean,
Christine Mason 31:43
is it that's what you would do with your political negotiations?
William Ury 31:46
Oh, definitely, Oh, definitely. I, I'm a big believer in walking. Walking, you know, goes back to pilgrimage. Walking is, is walking. You're touching the earth, you're breathing. Your eyes are on the horizon. All of that subtly influences and okay, how do we move in the common direction here? How do we talk about these things? It's just you create the propitious environment in which then you can talk about delicate things.
Christine Mason 32:18
Yeah, I heard, I heard that in dog psychology, think that, like you never look at a dog straight on you, kind of getting the side eye, then he knows you're safe.
William Ury 32:27
That's exactly it. The thing is, because so much of our we sit down, how do we sit down to deal with an issue? People are on one side of the boardroom table, lined up on the other side. Look like armies facing each other, right? Like, wait a minute, side by side. The whole methodology of negotiation is to take what is so often a face to face confrontation and turn it into side by side. You're sitting on the same side of the table, facing the problem and all the challenge and all these difficulties, but you're facing it jointly, rather than as as enemies, adversaries, you know, going into
Christine Mason 33:03
battle. I That's, I love the the physical structure creating a psychic framework together in the same direction, in curiosity, not in conflict. That's beautiful. And also, I remember reading somewhere, then maybe this was an early conversation that you and I had in Malaga about when you're walking in a pilgrimage context, or you're walking as a as a journeyer, there was a hospitality that said you provide for one another on the road. You feed each other, you provide safety you provide safe passage. That kind of was the undergirding of culture in the walking time. So I feel like that might also be summoning back this ancient inner hospitality.
William Ury 33:50
Absolutely, there's a there's a French philosopher who survived the Holocaust whose name was, his name was Emmanuel Levinas. His philosophy, you know, time of star Trevor, he had a whole philosophy, and at the heart of his philosophy was the idea that the essence of humanity is hospitality. Huh? Start to the hospitality industry. The essence of humanity's hospitality. And what does hospitality mean? It's essence. It's taking care of the other, taking care of the stranger in need. That's it. What's so interesting is because I've worked, you know, in the Middle East for almost 50 years. And you know, we associate the Middle East with, you know, sanctuary, media with hostility, right? It's all we see is hostility. Gaza, Syria. I mean Iraq. I mean, just the whole thing is real. But if you actually go to the Middle East, as I have been many times, and you walk from village to village, and I've walked in maybe 10 countries in the Middle East, what you find is hospitality, not hostility. The poorest person feels compelled. To give you something. You know, there's a boy, a little poor boy, climbing a tree. He has to get give you an olive or, I think, or, you know, I remember walking with a group of, like 10 people, and we passed a Bedouin tent, and there was a woman there, and she, she insisted we have to come inside her tent. I mean, 10 of us, you know of our and our backpacks and like, like, No, we said, Thank you. Thank you. No absolutely existed. And then she got out 10 teacups and 10 thing and she insisted on giving us coffee. And it was just like it is the obligation of people to take the stranger, and why? Because, in their faith traditions, the stranger is a symbol of God. The guest is God. And, you know, and so much of this, you know, the this long time ago, I, I had this crazy idea of developing a helping to develop a pilgrimage path, or recreate a pilgrimage path in the Middle East that would follow the footsteps of Abraham, who's kind of the legendary, kind of forefather of all the peoples and all the faiths. And what's he known for in that region is he's a patron saint of hospitality. He's known for having a tent which is open in all four directions, to welcome the stranger in need and and that's that's the essence of the Middle East. That's the what people are proudest of in their cultures. And that is a lesson, not just for them, but it's a lesson for the entire world right now, where we have refugees and all the people you know, like, how do you show proper hospitality as as a sacred act of welcoming in the guests in need?
Christine Mason 36:51
Beautiful inquiry. I think the idea of the welcome field, which you have as sort of an attitude, becomes policy in times of massive migration, climate driven migration, and and people arrive there. One of the saddest things is when you see someone who's like a physician or a great philosopher or mathematician or something like that, and they're like sweeping the floor at the 711 because the immigrant, the immigration officials that could not invite their full gift. They are forced to go back to the bottom and and like, just be grateful for anything instead of being like, welcome. Who are you? What do you have to offer? How do we magnify you? How do we include you? How do we create space for you? Something is gone awry where you can't welcome and include the stranger, even though they're different, and feel their gifts. That's true. So we're going to have a lot more of that as climate migration and displacement continues. So we should learn that skill. Yeah, I want to ask you about this pilgrimage route, the one that you envisioned the walking in the footsteps of Abraham. What happened with that?
William Ury 38:00
So it was an idea that arose out of a conversation under the stars, a dinner of the stars in Colorado under the in in August of 2003 in the wake of 911 and the Afghan War and the Iraq war just broken out, and some friends had just gotten back from Gaza, actually, and we're talking about the Middle East, and just asking, just feeling like the whole world like a tectonic shift fear and this kind of separation between, let's call it the Western world and the Muslim world, or whatever. But it was like all this fear and just asking what could bring people together. And these friends of mine had had been leading people, kind of on pilgrimage to Syria. And I said, well, has anyone ever, ever thought about like a pilgrimage like in Santiago de Compostela, but like a pilgrimage route of retracing the footsteps of Abraham and trying to remember what the origin story is of this whole place, and what does it mean. Because it's mythologically, archetypically, the figure of Abraham is really interesting because it's, it's a kind of come it's a it's a reminder that it's, we're all family here, that we could fight with each other. But there's a larger context of family there's a family system here, a dysfunctional family system, like many of our family systems, it's a dysfunctional and and the what's, what was the message that this legendary kind of ancestor left for us? And the one message is, all is always one. That's the message is that is that, you know as a boy, these stories about him that he would say, well, people are worshiping, I know the sun and the stars and the idols and things like that, saying, Well, what's behind that? What's what that there's this invisible, indivisible force. Force, creative force, in the universe, that all is one. All is connected, and therefore we're all family, and we need to treat each other with hospitality, as family. That's the, that's the whole, that's the whole message, right there. And it's like, oh, well, that's that would be, that would be good for us to remember and so, and, you know, I've been working politically on the Middle East for decades, you know, in negotiation rooms. But the question was, what about bringing the power, superpower of walking a pilgrimage, very humble on the earth, step by step, you know, walking into villages, staying with villagers, and that was the idea. And would that take off? And so, you know, people said, That's a crazy idea. It's not gonna happen to me. I kept walking with work going on, and, you know, you know, as a pipe dream. But the idea kept on coming back. And so finally, I asked some two divinity students, students, graduate students, if they could do a little due diligence on this and, and they did this report, beautiful report. These two, Stephanie and Rachel, are their names, and they where, where, where's Abraham believed the legend it believed to have walked and he and his family and and, and what borders would you have to cross? And what, what do we know about pilgrimage routes, and what are their beneficial effects in terms of bringing people together, social cohesion, mutual understanding, economic, you know, tourism and all these things. And they said, You know what? It's not impossible. It's not impossible. And so, so we started. I went there with some friends of mine, invited a friend who was a Sufi from Pakistan to come with me. Began to explore what you could cross, for example, from Turkey into Syria. I mean, this was the time of the Iraq War, still going on, and there was resonance, division, resonance. And people said, No, but you can never do it. So then I said, Okay, well, let's just do an experiment. Let's, let's, let's organize a little study tour and invite people. And I invited 25 people from around the world, 12 different countries, including a priest, an Imam, a minister, Christian minister, and approved. And a rabbi from Brazil sounds like you're telling a joke. Oh, she knows like a joke. And we we went from the birthplace of Abraham. Over two weeks we went. We'd retraced the steps of Abraham from the birthplace, from the womb to the tomb, from Turkey, across Syria, across Jordan into Israel, Palestine into Hebron, where he's repeatedly buried, and along the way, we just listened to people along the way and said, Is there interest in creating this as a pilgrimage route for humanity? And the one thing we found is that everyone disagrees about everything in the Middle East, but the one thing they agree upon is they all want tourists. Their economies dent on tourists and and when we got to outside the tomb of the patriarchs there in Hebron, we brought a little piece of Earth from every one of these places. Oh, that's so beautiful. So we decided to leave it around a little olive tree just outside the tomb and and we set we stood in a circle around it, and kind of a moment of silence. And then there was a old Palestinian gentleman who was watching us, and he came up to one of us, and Eric said, That's my tree. What are you doing with my tree? And then when we explained, what, where the earth had come from, he said, Oh, I'm gonna take care of this. You know, you know, he was very honored and blessed, if he said, But next time, don't just bring Earth. Bring people.
Christine Mason 43:57
Bodies, exactly, bringing,
William Ury 44:01
bring people, because that's what they want. They wanted people. And on that response, we we helped set up partner committees, groups in four or five different countries along the path, because the path needed to be theirs. And over the decades, now they've mapped out, and with our help, several 1000 kilometers a path all across Palestine, all across the West, the north to the south, all across Jordan, from the north to the south in Egypt, up to Mount Sinai across Turkey. We did some work in Syria, and now the latest work that's happening is work in Iraq, which no one would have imagined, or the war was going on, that you could actually walk in northern Iraq. So it's happening, you know, I told people, this is 100 year project. Don't just, you know, we're in a very difficult situation, but step by step, bit by bit, create this network of paths. Paths, and that of of existing paths, and 1000s of people have started walking.
Christine Mason 45:07
Do you have an eight an organization that's shepherding the completion of the path? We do?
William Ury 45:13
It's called the Abraham path initiative, and it supports it, and and then there are individual organizations in each of these countries that support their local pests.
Christine Mason 45:26
I had a hit as in, a lot of people will walk the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail, and they'll do it in segments, and that even if there's a portion of the trail that's incomplete or portion that's in the middle of active conflict, that there's some way of doing it in time space, like metaphysically, that you could walk the portions that are walkable, and then you could, like, trace them in your in your mind and in your heart and do acts of service remotely for those areas to make a contact. So you can complete the whole ritual in a different way than physically walking, if needed.
William Ury 45:59
Such a beautiful idea. And you know, a lot of people may never go to the Middle East to walk, but they can walk in their own communities. And for example, the path inspired to walk like in the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil, from the Lebanese Athletic Club to the Syrian leopard club to the Jewish club and and the hospitals. And like 10,000 people would walk, and they put up big signs of places in the Middle East. So they were effectively walking down the streets of Metropolis. And there were big sculptural letters, blocked letters, of the values of the path, peace and love and solidarity and respect and and and it got a lot of play in Brazil, and I went on for years, but it was inspired by the Abraham, Oh, I love this so
Christine Mason 46:47
much. I mean, you, you, you have such a vivid imagination at the root of this. You write about imagination impossible that it's a requirement for moving beyond conflict or into the new Can we talk a little bit about imagination, like, as a gateway to peace? I mean, right now, I think the collective imagination around Gaza is like, and Israel is exhausted, like it just seems intractable. And then, of course, we have some leadership in the US who's talking about a resort where Gaza once was, and it's difficult to imagine it so. So what should someone do in the middle of crisis to hold the light for something better?
William Ury 47:28
Well, just as you said, it's imagination is the key. Imagination is in every one of us, every every human being, is born with imagination and the ability to imagine. Just do a little imaginary experiment of Imagine, for a moment, maybe it's 10 years out or 15 years out, but imagine a Gaza that's thriving in peace, the people there, you know, Israel, the whole Middle East is actually that actually has gone through a process. Imagine if you'd been in the in the ruins of London or Berlin in 1945 and you said, You know what, in 30 years, this is going to be one of the most peaceful, prosperous parts of the planet. War will be unthinkable. Uh, people would have thought you were, you were smoking something or whatever, and and yet, that's what happened. And the same thing could happen in the Middle East. But imagine something like that, or just in this experiment, uh, this thought experiment, with a friend of mine, who's Egyptian, an Israeli and an Egyptian, having conversation with Israeli and Egyptian just, just, uh, two days ago, and I asked, I said, okay, so imagine it's 2035 and the Middle East is uniting. There's actually room for everyone, for Israel, for Iran, for Egypt, for Turkey, for the Palestinians, for Hama, for everybody. No one's excluded. And imagine there was an article that was written, and let's say it's, let's say it's, this is 2035 just 10 years from now, an article, and it's kind of like the magazine cover. It says 10 decisions that changed the Middle East forever. Now tell me practically, what were those 10 decisions? And this guy, he was hopeless in the beginning of the conversation, because it now looks so absolutely hopeless. He's, you know, he's Egyptian and, and he was just talking, you know, they just talked to their Palestinian friend just an hour earlier, and everyone's hopeless. And in like, he said, Well, okay, let's take 10 decision makers. I said, take any 10 decision makers. You got a magic wand. Okay? Trump does this. Then MBs, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia does that. Then, you know, the leaders of Israel do this, and Turkey and Iran, they say this. And you know the Palestinians, he had like, in like 10 minutes. He hadn't even thought about it, but he just led him through 10 decisions in some kind of sequence, and each one opens the door. For another one, maybe began. His began with President Trump. Recognizes the state of Palestine with a true social post. You know. You know, whatever it is, you know. And it's not impossible to imagine. I mean, after all, the French president just did that, and, and, but it's like, but that each thing opens up a door, you know. Then you know, the Crown Prince says, I'm open up to normalizing with Israel of Saudi Arabia. Then you know, the Iran say, We're open up to, we welcome those initiatives, and we're, we're opening up to nuclear talks, and the Israelis say, we welcome those initiatives. And, you know, we'll, we'll do this. And, you know, and so it's like, each one does, it's a little bit and sent me. He said, You know what, it's not impossible, it's not easy, but it's not impossible. So that's the that's the power of imagination.
Christine Mason 50:49
I mean, your framework, if I you could apply that in your personal life and anything. Like, here's the headline I want to see, and then the article is 10 decisions that were made that made that possible. Like, I mean, it could immediately see how that would ripple into almost any container
William Ury 51:04
you got it. That's it. And it's so it's not so hard to imagine. And, you know, I'm working right now on a lot, on Russia, Ukraine, it's not hard to imagine. You know, 10 decisions that would bring about, you know, peace and and a long term peace between Ukraine and Russia
Christine Mason 51:20
when you're actively negotiating or working on a project, are you kind of getting a download on what those steps are? Are you actively listening to others? Are you like, how is it do you see the map and then start working toward the map? I mean, how does that happen for
William Ury 51:35
you? Good question. I think I just go in with a question and a question, what is possible? What is possible? Where is the realm of possibility? And I take, you know, people say, okay, that's only a 5% possibility. I'll take it. I mean, if you just take, you know, if you, if you view, just put out a business ad, and you say, there's a 5% possibility of saving a trillion dollars and and a million lives, every investor in Silicon Valley would snap to it. I mean, because it's like, wow, the the return on investment is huge. So, so, but just be open. If there's a 5% even if it was a 1% possibility, take it, but just But then, once you're in that mode, you've got the 1% possibility. Then, you know, how do we grow until 5% how we grow into a 10% How do I you know? And suddenly, everywhere you look, there are possibilities. Everywhere you look,
Christine Mason 52:32
possibilities is the realm of the mystic, by the way. It is like shifting timelines, right? You're like in this timeline, we have 100% chance of being successful. Here's the secret
William Ury 52:44
and the realm of the mystic. Guess what? Peace is inevitable. It's not just. And why is peace inevitable? Because peace is the inherent in the realm of the mystic. Peace is the inherent reality of the universe,
Christine Mason 52:59
beautiful. Ah, okay, we've been talking for over an hour. I caught you talk to you forever. So I think everybody should read possible get to know your work. I want to close with something completely unrelated, and that is that I know that you can recite poetry out loud, like from memory. And so I want to ask you about your relationship to poetry, what felt like for you? What role does it play in your life?
William Ury 53:25
I've always loved poetry ever since I was a boy. Poetry, somehow is a way of you know, going beyond the mind you know, and speaking the things that can't be spoken. I'm just speaking to this particular subject we've just been speaking about. There's a little poem that I've always loved that was recited to me by a man who was a 95 year old peacemaker, an old Quaker, worked in the Middle East, and he had heard it in the 1930s in a Tennessee schoolhouse. Tennessee schoolhouse from the poet himself. Poet himself is in the 1930s his name was Edwin Markham. Came from Illinois, and he had a big shock away here, and he came in and he said, you know, the poem is called outwitted. It's a very short poem. It goes, they drew a circle and the poet kind of drew a circle in Tracy in the air Pedro circle and shut me out rebel, heretic thing to flout, but love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle, and he drew this enormous circle, and took them in at me that little poem, which I actually have in the in the poet's handwriting on a little postcard from over 100 100 and 100 years ago, that poem really has the essence of what's needed right now in the world today, which is, live in a world where at the root of every conflict thing. Reasons everyone's feeling excluded, somehow excluded, humiliated, rejected, heretics, revels the thing to flout. The only secret to that circle is to draw a wider circle and take the ball in
Christine Mason 55:15
love. And I love loving you love, and I let that be the way we walk in the field of unconditional love and inclusion and see what we can do here. Missed off Yuri,
William Ury 55:29
we're all possible is, I mean, I have grandchildren. Neither do you know, three years old, human beings were born as possible as we're all possible. So we just need to awaken the possible list within and and there's no end to what what we can do in this world.
Christine Mason 55:48
Love and I, we drew the circle bigger. I will put that on a t shirt. Okay, maybe that'll be the first rose woman t shirt. Here are some actions we can take. We can go look at the Abrahamic pilgrimage initiative site and make a donation or look at the route. We can craft a local pilgrimage for peace that crosses over seemingly disparate identity groups in our own community. We can look at the most radical possibilities in our own lives and environments and imagine the decisions that we would have to make in order to make those come true, we can live into the slight possibility of the most unbelievable future we could imagine coming true, and then magnify and magnify and magnify our actions in the direction of that. So I hope that you have gotten something out of this show, and that you will go and check out William's book, possible, the most recent work, and let me know what you think my own course begins on September 16. If you are listening to this in 2026 we'd love to have you join us for living Tantra, for how do we drop in more and more into our own bodies and possibilities. And of course, visit rosewoman.com for all your body care needs and gifting needs, for reverent and ritualized lifestyle, to more love, to more peace and to everyone's deep and joyful liberation.
