John was a guest on season six of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, a podcast from Pendle Hill hosted by Dwight Dunston.
Excerpt from Episode Details on Apple Podcasts
What does love look like when it moves beyond sentiment and becomes a force for healing, justice, and transformation?
In this Season Six finale of The Seed, we welcome John Calvi, a Quaker healer, certified massage therapist, and longtime advocate for survivors of trauma. John began offering healing touch during the AIDS crisis in 1983 and has since worked with survivors of war, torture, sexual abuse, and incarceration—always centering presence, compassion, and deep listening. He is also the founding convener of the Quaker Initiative to End Torture.
The conversation is grounded in All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks, including her insistence that “there can be no love without justice.” From there, Dwight and John explore how love is experienced somatically—in the body—and how it becomes power when it refuses domination and instead fosters dignity, accountability, and repair.
Reflecting on decades of healing work, John describes moments when the boundary between stranger and kin dissolves, when tenderness reveals both suffering and possibility at once. He speaks candidly about power—how “power over” wounds and constricts, while power rooted in love expands our capacity to remain present even in the face of immense pain.