Peace In the Ozarks is an independent festival series for the arts and culture.
Peace in the Ozarks is a public-private collaboration managed by Ozarks Community Trusts, a cooperatively owned corporation registered in the State of Missouri andheld by open membership, which came about in 2026 through individuals and community-based partners who recognize collaboration around shared resources is essential for life to sustain in this region… and we are part of the same struggle facing regions around the world.
Transparency and accountability are foundational to the work of Peace In the Ozarks festivals. Advisory Members are people who have character and imagination to develop plans and keep them on track. Advisors for the festivals and/or for the Ozarks Community Trusts commit to their role for specific appointments.
In the weeks and months ahead we are excited to announce these allies, stakeholders, curators, visionaires and friends along with their role in the ongoing work here!
Peace In the Ozarks is an independent festival series for the arts and culture.
MISSION Especially with contemporary influences from centralized sources of information, arts, and culture production upon all aspects of life including business, culture, social relations, ethics, environmental care and the arts …
Peace In the Ozarks seeks to influence and reach outcomes and conditions for collective peace by facilitating communication and intercultural exchange to discover common interest and addressing those felt needs at the decision making levels which are necessary to affect change.
We pursue this work by creating space for meaningful conversations around common ethical issues facing local communities today.
At each step where this process of communication reveals collective interest, or collective needs… we will work to resource and advance these interests at appropriate levels where decision-making power abides to decide shared outcomes. Especially so when relevant positions of decision-making are demonstrate lack of transparency, or gate-keeping.
We are working to improve access to this table where decisions are made for the collective in order to guide these processes which are too often shaping our lives unilaterally. Specifically, we are working to improve access for the people and parties who are being most heavily affected by the decisions made.
Mission statement:
” Through collective processes for identifying common interest, and with intersectional analysis of how shared issues are affecting local communities and working class people around the world, our work exists to develop and strengthen connectivity, coordination, and capacity of coalitional support around these common interests with integrity to grass roots democratic process in order to gain influence in the strategic avenues necessary to reach accountable outcomes which materially benefit our collectively shared environment and quality of life. “
VALUES The values which guide this process are consistent with ideals of life, liberty and pursuits of happiness which are not only shared by many in the United States, but are values held near to the hearts of people of every nation and tongue.
It is freedom. It is peace which is the condition to live and to pursue the flourishing of the human spirit. Love, self-determination, fairness, legal recognition, justice, community, inclusion, food, dignity, reciprocity and respectful relations. In the midst of today’s madness, these values never cease to exist because they are held deep within the human spirit. We didn’t just learn this from American history (with all its bigotry)… It is a sense of justice and fairness and respect which goes even deeper… beyond borders…
Our work reflects values such as integrity to democratic representation which is born from sacred values of equality and individual liberty and which extends beyond borders and political lines which are dropped upon democratic populaces like a net or a snare by our would-be puppeteers from above… Representation to the people who live and work in our communities – which is the threshhold of inclusion; Representation which does not give undue weight to individuals hiding behind corporate entities; Democratic participation inclusive of the human family;
We value respect for the ability and right of communities and individuals to have a voice in the collective consensus – especially when that consensus is already to date drastically shaping the outcomes of our shared near future.
That’s why we are working with our partners in both private public avenues to ensure environmental sustainability and security for local communities and their residents, as well to raise economic capacity, improve infrastructure that is centered on environmental sustainability including human well-being, and to secure or improve public benefits and human rights as determined by each community for themselves at the grass roots.
THIS IS OUR STORY…
~ 5-7 min. read
In this epoch of history, it is true as ever; Water is one of the essential ingredients of life. Neither is it possible to exist outside of a connection to community. If it is, perhaps it isn’t worth it. We need each other.
The rolling hillsides of the Ozarks are laden with springs welling up from reservoirs deep in the earth, filtered through limestone rock to deliver some of the most pristine water you can find anywhere. Alley Springs, for example (pictured) produces around 81 million gallons of water every day. For ages before even our awareness… These waters have had the power to bring people together, to work together and to forge a community.
The river-ways which carry this water are designated as a National Treasure – literally! They are beloved by all who call the “Show-Me State” home, where the Peace in the Ozarks Festival originates
Their enjoyment and conservation is a heritage which many have shared with their children – and hope to continue to share for generations to come on this planet.
As threats which face our continued survival and enjoyment of life on this planet become increasingly stark (for some of us more than others!), Peace In the Ozarks represents an intuitive counter-weight to the prevailing philosophies of technological progress as the most important factor which can allow life on the planet to continue to sustain and flourish.
The irrational fervor with which data centers are being pursued is one example of the economic organization which serves the few at the expense of – everyone and everything!
In this era, Peace of the Ozarks is a call back from the brink of madness, to a more simple, time-tested approach; An approach that does not short-circuit our brains, or the health of our communities. It is an approach which some have forgotten, or become disconnected out of seeming necessity…
Many of us still remember how to get together, and have a good time! To remember the experiences and the skills such as dancing, laughing, grieving, and having a good conversation.
To recognize the integral relation we have with our planet cannot – and should not – be broken. Especially not for unproven theories of young lads who have dollar signs in their eyes, and unchecked theories based in egoic error. As more of us are recognizing, this is a madness bent on destruction and death.
Sure, the planet will continue to spin around the sun, regardless of who is consuming the resources, or consuming the other forms of life we share this planet with – even if a few parasitic gluttons are sharing it with a lack of recognition, respect, or regard… But it would be a lot cooler if they didn’t!
Such destruction is based in ego and militaristic escalation which will surely not lead us to the outcomes we hold in our hearts, our minds, our deep human remembrance, and our souls… No matter how much manipulation or story-telling is provided.
As humans who seek to spend the days of our lives in meaningful ways – including the pursuit of a respectful balance with our communities and our ecosystems; Humans who raise babies, who cook food and share meals together; who play instruments, and maintain an integrity to collective reality through stories and language, through songs and ritual, and all forms of culture. We will continue to feel the tension as we betray these time-tested approaches to life.
Just like the river-ways that flow through these hills, and the mists that rise up from the soft and living earth on a fresh Missouri morning, our integrity to these ways of life cannot be betrayed.
As organization of all life forms on the planet are uni-laterally and nonconsensually subjected to coercive violence in the name of “progress“, the points of imbalance have become so undeniable – even in our first-hand experience – we must encourage one another to come to our senses, to take a moment of pause. We need space to pause, to rest, to take a deep breath and remember (or even to learn) the ways of de-escalation as vital to our shared survival.
We are inter-dependent! Even while the societal organization under capitalism has brought many conveniences and “nice things”… It is time to admit: it’s not so much the corporate greed at the end of the day, as much as our continued submission or even willingness to forfeit our human rights in exchange for convenience. It is the hard realization of an addict to admit; the way i am seeking pleasure or even coping to survive is not arriving at what is truly desired. We are all people with choice in the situation.
From the place we are in, will take hard work and collaboration and cooperation to rebuild infrastructure in a time when infrastructure is being eschewed. Workshops facilitated by community teachers, workers, and keepers of knowledge will host space where we can kindle our collective knowledge of history and skills that can help to benefit our communities at the grass-roots – like a REAL democracy!
Pursuit of profit and it’s counterpoint; “cheap-ifying life” together have reached a position of supremacy over the respect for life and human dignity – even common sense! This unbridled pursuit of profit enjoys a status of ultimate bearing that has lost all integrity to this natural order which informs a reality that cannot be denied, or cheated. It has even lost accountability to the laws which protect our well being in this country.
As leaders of nations act with short-sighted self interest; As traders on Wall street hand in hand with CEO’s and legislators pursue an economic organization grounded in fraud, greed, and pseudo-religion… Perhaps it is time to take a moment, and ask; Is this really making sense?
Are we truly wise to continue trusting the mainstream assumptions and narratives of corporate monopolies which seem polite… yet need to be enforced by coercion and deceit at the end of the day?
It has become more clear than ever before… Perhaps this path will not lead to “optimal” outcomes by the measures of many people, as wars and data centers and exploitation threaten the very foundations upon which our life forms rest; Our water; Our bio-diversity; Our culture; Our sense of community and belonging.
Peace in the Ozarks is a brave space for our communities to gather and entertain our moral, social, and economic imaginations – as we also entertain each other.
Amidst the prevailing spirit of the times, people of the Ozarks have courageously chosen to come together and claim a much-needed space based on vulnerability, and honesty – which perhaps we have not forgotten after all.
Not only are we taking this step for peace in our neighborhood, we are reviving an old, old tradition of hospitality. We are showing we are more than the ignorant stereotype we have become known for around the world due to the mass media and antics of corrupt leaders not worthy of representing us.
We are people who have character. We came from someplace. We have not forgotten our traditions, ancestral remembrance and instinctive trust or become so disconnected in this generation that we will ever enjoy betraying ourselves, or these beloved hills we inhabit. We have respect for our elders who worked hard to pass down what they have earned through costly sacrifice. Not only generational wealth… Also wisdom.
We know how to have a good time in the Ozarks, and we are inviting YOU! Come on down to the Ozarks, and we will rosin up the bows of our fiddles. We would like to show you how we get down with a good old-fashioned Ozark jamboree!
And we hope you will surprise us, too, as you remember… As you share with us who you are, and where you came from.
It is this counter-intuitive vulnerability that truly has the power to bring peace – no short-cuts!
Join us for a festival in the hills where we will have music, dancing, and town-hall style conversations facilitated by some of the hottest leaders in our land!
It’s not guaranteed, but it is said in these hills you may even have a deeply mystical experience, which may change your life. And you may make a new friend.
… And take this spirit back with you to the valleys and the hills, the rivers and the lakes from whence you came!
As jaded as we have to be in this post-modern, neo-industrial, imperial age of disconnected, dis-oriented cynical futilism…
There is no shame to remember the joy of being a child, and believe… something good is possible.
The Ozarks are more than just a valley that was dammed to make a lake for high-end vacation homes…
The Ozarks a region rich in culture and natural resources, extending from the Missouri River Valley in mid-Missouri down into the Arkansas River in Arkansas, East where the watershed meets the Mississippi River & the Black River, West to the path of the Grand River where it flows through Oklahoma and Kansas. It is a place many come to visit and enjoy, and it is a place many call home.
This is the story of Peace in the Ozarks.
TALK WITH US
Have questions? Want to know more? We are available to talk with you!
