As the sun rises along the long horizon of the Dakotas, I am taking a moment to simply breathe, and be. Morning prayers are being sung at the main camp, and the speakers strain and crackle, to get the sound across the river, and into our little enclave in the trees. I woke up early this morning. Restless. Feeling the need to do something dramatic. Something audacious. It's a feeling that has permeated camp the last few days. When I first arrived at Standing Rock, the night sky was dark, and the stars shone forth in all their brilliance. Today, there are massive lights along the northeast ridge, providing pipeline workers with the capacity to work through the night. Like a baseball field in the middle of corn fields, the power of their light drowns out the darkness, and along with it, the stars that watch over us each night. Ironically enough, this whole thing began with prayers that were answered in a way not too dissimilar from James Earl Jones' voice whispering - if you build it, they will come. Though those of us who came, did so in search of the night sky. In this story, the lights are from the intruders. Two months ago, cars lined up nearly every morning, and together we would drive twenty or thirty miles, to the different work sites along the long pipe they call the Black Snake. Like a war party, hundreds of filthy trucks and cars, filled with people from every corner of the world, would fly down dirt roads toward some unknown set of challenges. The goal? Shut down work for the day. The strategy? Peaceful people, standing together. The weapon? Prayer. Today, the pipeline is in our backyard. Across sacred sites and treaty land, massive machines have carved a long and winding black hole in the earth. For months, people camped at the Frontlines, guarding the land where we would make our final stand. A couple weeks ago, that camp was raided by hundreds of police. Prayer circles were forcefully ripped apart. Men and women were torn out of sacred sweat lodges. Old and precious tipis were destroyed. A man was shot in the face by a rubber bullet. A grandmother had a gun placed against her heart. (see below)
