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certain that the faculty and staff, especially those who are new, take the Appalachian tour so that they may better understand our region, have an opportunity to meet this amazing man of integrity who stands for all that is right and wonderful in a democratic country. Taking the tour provided me an opportunity to meet Mr. Morgan, to be in his presence, to learn from his knowledge. Even before he opens his mouth, the strength and stillness of his being radiates glory. In Buddhist tradition the student learns that it is transformative just to stand in the presence of a great teacher.
    Both by his presentation and in my short dialogue with Mr. Morgan, I saw in his visage and heard in his own words the extent to which fighting mountaintop removal wears on his spirit, wears him down, especially when that resistance must take the form of challenging relatives who would surrender the land, their legacy to big business. Before meeting Daymon Morgan, I had learned from his writing about the tens of thousands of years it takes for the organic matter of the forest to biodegrade and make rich. When this earth is attacked he mourns: “It’s very disturbing to me to see the things that I love being destroyed. I got my medicine and my food from these mountains, and I still do. There’s a place down here where I can lay down and drink out of this creek and I want to keep it that way because it’s clear above. I feel like I’m being pushed into a corner.” Just two years later hearing Morgan speak we hear the emotional toil resistance takes. Yet he tells with pride that there is joy in struggle, that he continues to struggle because of the debt he owes this Kentucky land. He honors the mutual relationship between him and the earth be working to protect and preserve the world around him. I ask him about protecting this legacy beyond the grave. No matter the steps he does not take to still be resisting beyond death, his presence is making a difference in the here and now.
    Unlike other Appalachian tour groups who have visited at Morgan’s home, we were not able to make it up the mountain in our bus. He came down the mountain to talk with us. We were watched by coal mining hired hands sitting in vehicles. Subjected to a level of surveillance that bordered on harassment, their intent was to block us using roads that would enable us to see first hand the devastation. Their intent was to keep us from seeing the work of mountaintop removal. Concern for our safety was paramount to Mr. Morgan. Still we were able to witness and experience the threat he faces daily from those who could care less about the survival of our Kentucky land, culture, and the lives of folks who are mostly poor and working class. The lack of empathy for the lives that are devastated by mountaintop removal reminds us of the overall crisis in human values generated by dominator culture, by imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
    In dominator culture the will to power stands as a direct challenge to the cultural belief that humans survive soulfully because of a will to meaning. When the will to meaning is paramount, human life retains dignity. The capacity of humans to create community, to make connections, to love, is nurtured and sustained. For those us who believe in divine spirit, in higher powers, the issue of mountaintop removal and all practices wherein the earth is plundered and the environment wasted is as much a spiritual issue as it is a political issue. In order to justify dehumanizing coal mining practices, the imperial capitalist world of big business has to make it appear that the plant and human life that is under attack has no value. It is not difficult to see the link between the engrained stereotypes about mountain folk (hillbillies), especially those who are poor, representations that suggest that these folk are depraved, ignorant, evil, licentious, and the prevailing belief that there is nothing worth honoring, worth preserving about their