A new fire

The morning of my departure from London, I saw that the chairman of Standing Rock, David Archambault II, had requested for people not to travel out to the camps. At the same time, some of the elders were asking people to remain, saying people were needed. All were united in supporting those who were prepared to stay through the harsh winter conditions. What was clear was that the camps had been substantially stretched by 10,000 people coming through, including 2000 veterans. My flight was due to leave in a few hours. What to do? My stomach tightened. I breathed, reflected, and asked for guidance. As I was booked into the casino hotel and was going to be self sufficient, I decided to continue with my journey. It felt like a yes. 

In the weeks before I left for Standing Rock, I had an image of a maelström moving fast around a still centre. Arriving here, I did see chaos. It was disheartening to see the heaps of clothes in the snow, most of them not nearly warm enough, to see the abandoned tents, half buried in snowdrifts. I heard stories of theft. A couple had a fight in the hotel room next to mine. It was clear that this is a time of major transition. The sacred fire, where prayers were said, was put out on my first day. Many were sad about that. Someone lit it again the next day. The elders asked for trust in their ways, even if they are not understood. They put the fire out again. People huddled in the hotel, rumours spreading like Chinese whispers. Plans were made for moving on to protect water in other places.

'Oh you should have been here when the veterans got here to support the water protectors. You should have been here for the celebrations, it's all different now,' I was told. Had I got my timing wrong?

I saw people reorganising, cleaning and clearing up, I saw people helping each other out. There were meetings, there was talk. There were prayers. I continued to wash up in the Navajo hoghan and to talk to people. Many asked me where I had come from and thanked me for travelling such a long way to be here to protect the water. 

Yesterday, I met with James Wop, from Hawaii, to talk about funding some straw bales and panels for insulating the kitchen and pantry at Rosebud camp. We talked in his cosy, insulated cabin. Rosebud camp is on the other side of the Cannonball river from Oceti Sakowin. It's on Reservation land, unlike Oceti, which is on land taken over by the Army Corps. If Oceti is a big town, then Rosebud is a village. 

James has been here for the last three months. 'I was clean shaven when I got here!' he said, touching his beard. He is a carpenter and has been supporting those on the frontline by winterising structures. He is much in demand all over the camp, building compost toilets and sorting out stoves, roofing and insulation. His eyes are clear hazel, his presence is calm. 

'I find myself in the mid generation. I'm old enough to be experienced and yet young enough to be physically strong.' When I asked him why he is here now, why he continues to stay at Standing Rock, he told me, 'sometimes I have felt like leaving. I mean, I could get on a plane and be in Hawaii!' He smiles. 'But you know, on the very same day we heard the news about the court decision not to allow drilling, as everyone was celebrating and whooping, I could see through my binoculars that works were continuing. The lights were up. ETP were putting in fence posts and barbed wire. They were drilling. They were digging and moving the earth. You know, that's sacred burial ground.' James said he's found that there is often one moment that turns people into a spiritual warrior. For him it was seeing the image of the man in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. 'I recognised the truth of that. I wanted a piece of that non-violence and that honour.'

Regarding Archambault's request for people to leave, James said, 'He has a responsibility and is thinking of people's safety. Some people were so unprepared for the cold weather, going around in jeans and tennis shoes, as if they were at a festival. That's how someone could die in this weather. They had to go. Archambault would be the first person to have a finger pointed at him if that happened. You know, the blizzard really filtered people out. There were 10,000 of us. Now we are more like 3000. The core crew here are some of the most resilient people I have ever met. We are prepared in every way to be here, not just to endure it, but to enjoy it. We are staying.' He rolled a cigarette. 'You know, the seven council fires are burning over at Oceti. They represent the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation. And a new sacred fire has been lit by the group from the Youth Council of Standing Rock.' They are the ones who ran all the way from North Dakota to Washington DC to present a petition against the pipeline to the Army Corps. 'They are the seventh generation,' said James. 

The prophecy of the seventh generation, attributed to Black Elk, tells among other things, that seven generations after contact with Europeans, after seeing birds falling from the sky and fish dying in the water, the tribal youth would rise up and provide leadership to all those who previously failed.

We hugged goodbye. 'So glad you listened to your call and came out,' he told me. 

James by the orange pulled tension cable which has been stretched across the frozen Cannonball river, so that people could get across in a blizzard.

Back at the hotel, I met Bohemia, a beautiful young woman from California, part Cherokee, part English. She is staying at the camp for the winter, and needed to take a shower, so I let her and a friend use my bathroom. As she was drying her hair, she told me how she had seen the youth laying the foundation for the new sacred fire while the women were singing and drumming. 'The guys were so respectful in how they were digging, putting the soil carefully to one side, checking they weren't disturbing anything. I could feel a lot of spirits around. It was an emotional moment. There are fires which burn for generations.'

Speaking about the seventh generation, she said, 'you know, the elders needed rest and refuge. It's too much to ask them to mediate every little thing. It's time for the young people to step up and carry the weight. As the seventh generation, we need to mediate ourselves. We still love the elders, but they have their own things to look after. We say that we are all leaders. When all those people left the camp, it made a hole. The energy has to come back together. It's through nurturing each other that we get that community running again, by practising the seven Lakota values of prayer, respect, compassion, honesty, generosity, humility and wisdom. If things seem messy sometimes, it's because camp will bring up your stuff. If you have prejudice or snobbishness, it will come out. The water will make us heal ourselves. There's a parallel there with our turning towards clean energy and getting away from fossil fuels. We are turning towards a new spiritual energy too. It's all so new. It's like a baby deer has been born and is blinking in the sunlight.'

In the evening, at Oceti, the moon rose huge, orange and perfectly full in the sky. A cry went up from one end of the camp into the freezing air, 'Mni Wiconi!' Venus shone brightly in the West. Mni Wiconi!' came the answer, again and again from all over the camp. Mni Wiconi. Water is Life.

I know that I am here at the right time.