What's the real treasure in a community much sought after (and often badly treated) for the minerals it's got buried deep in the ground?

 

It's the people who continue to love and care for their home place, no matter what happens to it.

 

On Saturday, September 12 people in a dozen communities on six continents joined together for The Ground Beneath Our Hearts and loudly and colorfully showed one another and the world just how much their home place means to them.

 

In Australia, Azerbaijan, South Africa, the Philippines, the Colombian Amazon, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Durango and Boulder Colorado, West Virginia, and California, people facing extremely difficult circumstances because of the mineral extraction activities they live with met their challenges not with protests but with art, ceremony, parades, and music. To see photos and videos of the events, visit our Facebook page and website.

 

What all these brave and passionate people have demonstrated is really the message of Radical Joy for Hard Times: that with the increased threat of familiar ecological problems like deforestation, over-development, and industrial pollution and new, unfamiliar ones associated with global warming, we will all face challenges to the places we love. Even as we strive to prevent harm to these places... and even as we work tirelessly for a better future... we are still bound to where we live. And we can live more meaningfully, creatively, and joyfully if we regularly come together to bring attention and beauty to the ground beneath our hearts.