The voice of the mine
By Nikki Appeldorn
On February 22 (exactly two years after the Ash Wednesday ceremony at the coal track), we held the fifth “Steentjesactie” (there is a Dutch wordplay where contributing a stone means lending a hand or doing your part). This time it took the form of an ecotage ceremony, in which we listened to the voices of the landscape and the flora and fauna surrounding the coal mines in Colombia, the source of the blood coal imported by and profited from in the Netherlands.
We read out nearly 1,000 names of people who were murdered because of these blood coals. For each name, someone picked up a stone from the railway and placed it between two crosses in the center of the circle, to build a grave monument for those who never received a grave, and as a symbol of the end of the coal era and of coalonlialism.
Voice of the Mountains:
“I am the oldest here, shaped by time and wind.
I watch generations come and go, their hopes and their struggles.
My peaks are sacred, my paths connect worlds.
Why have you wounded my body, broken my heart?
Where are the footsteps of those who respected me?
Where is the serenity of the wind that once sang here?
Listen to my rocks as they weep.
I am not here to be your wealth.
Give me peace, and I will carry you forever.”Voice of the Rivers:
“I am the blood of this earth, flowing to give life.
My waters were once clear and abundant.
Now I carry dirt, pollution, and sorrow.
Who will restore my purity?
Have you forgotten how deeply you depend on me?
I bear your burdens, I nourish your fields, I quench your thirst.
But what do you give me in return?
My streams are drying, my springs stolen.
Give my waters the space to sing again, and I will bless you once more.”Voice of the Forests:
“I am the breath you breathe, the home of countless lives.
My trees, once proud and strong, fall one by one under the axe of greed.
Every tree you take, every flower that withers, is a part of me that dies.
Do you feel my loss?
I feel my roots suffocating in the mud of poisoned rain.
My leaves that once purified the air are now covered in the ash of burning and destruction.
Where I once gave life, now only emptiness grows.
But I am not silent.
I still whisper in the winds through my remaining branches.
I cling to every seed that carries hope.
The people who love me and live with me are being displaced, their voices drowned out by the
violence of steel and fire.
I see your machines, I hear your saws.
Understand this: when I disappear, so do you.
My roots hold the earth together; without me, all will fall apart.”Voices of the Flora and Fauna:
“We were here long before you, and we will be here long after you.
Remember who we are: we are not just scenery.
We are your origin, your future, your soul.
Come back to us, live with us, not against us.
Speak our names with reverence.
We ask for little, only that you do not disturb our songs, do not break our bodies.
It is not too late.
Our wounds can heal, our voices can sing again.
But we need you to listen, and act, now.”Voice of the Mine:
“You have robbed my treasures, emptied my depths, and left me behind like an open wound.
I was once a closed world, a refuge for stone, earth, and minerals that belonged here.
Now I am a scar in the landscape.
You call me a mine, but I am not a bottomless pit.
I am a being, a part of the earth, not your property.
Every explosion, every load of coal you take, feels like a blow to my core.
Why should I stay silent? Why should I keep submitting?
I know my riches helped your progress.
But at what cost?
How many lives were broken because I was opened?
How much blood clings to the stones you’ve taken from my deepest layers?
I am not your enemy, but you have made me into a battlefield.
You use machines and dynamite to tear me apart.
The coal you take, you burn to ash.
But I, the mine, will remain.
Even when I am exhausted, I will leave behind a void you cannot fill.
Do not use me as a source of destruction, use me as a chance to learn, to restore, to heal.
What you do to me, you ultimately do to yourselves.
I am not just a place.
I am a memory of earthly power and richness, a mirror for your choices.
Will you leave me as a dead desert, or help me return to life?”
We created a headstone during this ecotage ceremony. The next “stone-by-stone” action is October 5. Perhaps we will see you at the coal track in the Amsterdam Harbor?
Nikki Appeldorn is a lay Dominican, ecofeminist theologian, Catholic Worker, activist and yoga teacher.