campsparrow

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary--Memoir of the Protest Prayer Camp

Preface

     I went to Standing Rock because it was finally time for me to do something that I really believed in.  Although I had many opportunities in the past to become active in environmental issues, this time there was an additional subject I felt very strongly about: the rights of American Indians. The Standing Rock Sioux people were asking us all to come and be part of their protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. I took the invitation almost personally.

I intended to write this as a diary of my week-long visit that would amount to about seven pages. It is not a work of art. After my return home, I woke up each morning with the same compelling thought that I had to write down everything that I remembered. Even after I had this book professionally edited, I added many more events, stories, and details. Therefore, any errors in punctuation, syntax, or grammar are purely  my own.

Initially, when I wrote, I did not have an intended audience or purpose. At times I censored myself. I don't want my participation in ceremonies to be mistaken for belief. I value my personal rituals, equating spirituality with psychological strength, but action is usually required to manifest my intentions. This became clearer to me by being at Standing Rock: I believe the pipeline must be stopped. I joined in the ceremonies and prayed with the people, listening to their stories of oppression, gaining compassion, knowing that the color of my skin has its own privileges. I went home and wrote a letter to President Obama; the next day the Army Corps of Engineers halted the construction of the pipeline.

Since I asked very few questions while I was there, I found myself researching sources on the internet during the process of this remembering. I did not document these with footnotes or bibliography. This wasn't intended to be an essay, a research paper, a manifesto, or a propaganda piece. Every piece of  new information led to a search for more information.  My interest in the history, geography,  geology, news, legal issues, personal stories, and tribal stories is almost without bounds. If I were to keep up with my research, this short diary might turn into an encyclopedia. I have to stop somewhere. Trust that my sources were reliable ones: mainstream press, official websites, scientific journals, blogs, and a few books.

There are probably dozens of people documenting their unique experiences and thoughts about living at the Standing Rock camps. Many are doing this with their cellular phones, filming, photographing, and taping. I imagine that at this writing, it's just too cold there for ink to flow out of a pen, and that no one is plugged in to their personal computer long enough to  write at length. They are more likely to be documenting in the form of direct messages: short emails and text messages, photos and videos, and posts on social media.

             This diary does not flow like a story I would tell over beers to a friend, or as private notes to myself.  At times my words give voice to some internal struggles of my own. But now it is time for me to finish the writing as I believe that it is timely. Finally, it does have a purpose: it is a call for Unity and for Action.  

                                                  Monica Lee Shimkus                                                                                                                                                          

January 2017

introduction

Bakken oil fields

The Bakken Formation is the name of a rock unit underlying parts of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba that is a natural source of crude oil. The oil is extracted by horizontal drilling technologies and by hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" during which water, sand and chemicals are shot underground to break apart rock and free the fuel. The result has been a boom in Bakken oil production since 2000. Production is near a million barrels a day and is conducted by over 35 different active companies and lease operators, including the Halliburton Company. The light "sweet" crude oil in the Bakken Formation is found “trapped” between layers of shale rock about 2 miles below ground with no surface outcropping that might allow volatile or gaseous compounds to escape. As a consequence, when the oil is extracted it often contains high levels of these compounds and is more prone to explosion than other types of crude oil. There have been many accidents in the field and in transport of Bakken oil resulting in explosions and fires. It is hazardous to extract and to transport by rail or by any other means.

Energy transfer partners

Energy Transfer Partners began in 1995 as a small intrastate natural gas pipeline operator and now owns and operates approximately 71,000 miles of natural gas, natural gas liquids, refined products, and crude oil pipelines within the United States. ETP is building the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 3.8 billion-dollar, 30-inch diameter underground pipeline intended to carry oil 1,172 miles from the Bakken oil fields across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois to an oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois, a hub that connects many oil pipelines.  This pipeline will transport 470,000 barrels of oil per day. An early proposal for the Dakota Access Pipeline called for the project to cross the Missouri River north of Bismarck, but one reason that route was rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers was its potential threat to Bismarck’s water supply. The population of the Bismarck metropolitan area is 130,000 people, of whom more than 90% are White. The new proposed route runs about 30 miles to the south, less than a mile from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation boundary (of which the population is 78% American Indian) at Lake Oahe, a 231-mile long reservoir on the Missouri River.

     In an audio recording from a September 30, 2014 meeting with Energy Transfer Partners, while the pipeline was still in its planning stage, Standing Rock tribal officials expressed their opposition to the pipeline and raised concerns about its potential impact upon sacred sites and their water supply.  On December 18, 2015, the United States Congress voted to put an end to its 40-year-old ban on oil export. Not all the oil from the Bakken fields is intended for U.S. consumption: in April of 2016, Hess Corporation sent 175,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. By May 23, 2016 construction of the pipeline was reported as underway in 3 states. Many of the construction permits were acquired through eminent domain. In a Wall Street Journal interview published on November 16, 2016, Energy Transfer Partner's CEO Kelcy Warren said that he wished that the Standing Rock Sioux “had engaged in discussions way before they did” about the new pipeline. He also said that obstacles will disappear under President-elect Donald Trump, who was at that time invested in ETP. In  a Reuters article dated October 16, 2016, Kelcy Warren had donated more than $100,000 to Donald Trump since June, according to campaign finance disclosure records.  

#nodapl

The Dakota Access Pipeline protests, also referred to as #NoDAPL, began in April 2016 and are, at this writing, ongoing. At the heart of the protest are the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and Tribe.  There are three reasons for Indian opposition to the pipeline. First, they want to protect their water supply from oil spills. Second, there are sacred sites in the path of the proposed pipeline: graves, stone prayer circles, stone cairns, some of which have already been destroyed by construction workers. Third, the pipeline is being built on some nearby land that Dakota Access bought but Standing Rock Sioux claims as their own.  The land was granted to the Sioux in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty which was signed by eight tribes and the United States government.  The Sioux say that they never ceded this land in any subsequent treaty.

The Sacred Stone Camp was formed on private land on Standing Rock Reservation. Situated on the south side of the Cannonball River, it was created to provide shelter to people who were coming in to pray and peacefully protest the pipeline at the construction site.  In July 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers to halt the pipeline's progression. The suit alleges that the “Corps” violated multiple federal statutes, including the Clean Water Act, National Historic Protection Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, when it issued the permits to Energy Transfer Partners. In a few months, the Sacred Stone Camp population grew and overflowed to the other side of the Cannonball River and the protests began to draw international attention.

The world is watching

         On September 20, 2016, David Archambault II, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland to garner international opposition to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the reservation. By late September, NBC News reported that members of more than 300 federally recognized Native American tribes were residing in the three main camps, a historic gathering, alongside an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 pipeline resistance supporters. In spite of the protesters' non-violent, prayerful stance at the construction site, police had responded with pepper spray, attack dogs, mace, tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. At this writing there have been hundreds of arrests during protests at the site of the construction and at other locations, such as banks that are funding the pipeline and Army Corps of Engineers offices nationwide.  Reporters, journalists and officials have also been arrested, including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now and Tribal Chairman David Archambault. Mainstream news reporting was sparse, but stories, photos and film footage were available to the public on social media. On October 31, 2016, a United Nations group was sent to investigate human rights abuses by law enforcement at the protests. Much of the pipeline has been completed as of late 2016, so the Missouri crossing has been an increasingly contentious issue. On December 4, under President Obama's administration, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not grant an easement for the pipeline to be drilled under Lake Oahe. In the meantime, the “Corps” will prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for alternate routes. However, many protesters continue camping on the site, in spite of the harsh winter conditions, not considering the matter closed. On their website, Energy Transfer Partners vows that they "fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting."

pipelines leak

Throughout the United States, there are 1,079 different crude oil pipelines that cross inland bodies of water, including eight that cross the Missouri River, amounting to more than 38,410 existing river and waterbody crossings. In 2016 alone, there have been 30 reported major crude oil and natural gas pipeline breaches and accidents in the United States, causing property damage, fires, death, harming wildlife, and fouling water. On December 5, a leak was reported to regulators that an estimated 4,200 barrels of oil spilled from the Belle Fourche Pipeline with an estimated 3,100 barrels going into the waters of the Ash Coulee Creek about 150 miles from Standing Rock. On March 23 2017, an updated report in the Bismarck Tribune states that the leak was more than four times that amount, 529,830 gallons, and began on December 1 and was discovered by a landowner. Almost four months later, the cleanup is still underway.

A complicated way to prepare for a journey

It took a relatively long time for me to get there, from the time my friend in Arizona, Frank DePonte, sent me a message, “My wife, a journalist, is covering the Dakota Access Pipeline story for a Russian magazine. We will be at Sacred Stone Camp in ND for the holiday weekend. Will you be there?” That message came to me before Labor Day weekend when the action was beginning to get heavy and the press was beginning to take notice. I had not been following the story, and I was learning that a pipeline was being built that the local Indians did not want. That was the short version of the issue as it was known to me then. Of course I should be there.

Autumn is my usual travel time. I have always been financially strapped, but I love to plan travels. In reality, I get out the door with some psychic difficulty. Indecision is a state of mind I have accepted but nevertheless struggle with. There are so many choices of where to go, how to get there, where to stay, people to visit, and what I might want to do along the way. Two months passed while I agonized over taking what was going be my “Summer Vacation.” When I travel, I am usually going to be working or studying. Sipping a cocktail on the beach is not my image of Somewhere Else. Occasionally it is quite clear to me what I want to do, and where I want to go, and then I just do it.  When I make up my mind I can be on a bus out of town first thing tomorrow. I began to foresee that this year my destination was going to be Standing Rock. I wasn’t sure for how long, or what I would be doing, or if I would enjoy being there. The way I see it,  American Indians have every right to hate me and the entire White race for the vast amount of irreversible damage we have inflicted on them. If I went, I would be camping out in cold weather, and there was plenty of reason for me to believe I would be in a situation where I could be arrested as there were reports of protesters and police colliding.

I learned that protesters were planning to camp out on the land over the harsh winter and I came to rationalize that I needed to assist with building housing for the people who would be staying. I have some knowledge of construction, architecture, native structures, and small experience with Habitat for Humanity, and I was growing excited with the idea of being busy using what I know. I spent my mornings researching the people who lived in North Dakota when the Europeans arrived, the Arikaras, the Mandans, the Hidatsas, before the Sioux came to live there. I studied quickly-built sustainable as well as temporary housing forms that could protect people from the cold: quonset huts, straw bale, earth lodges, yurts, and insulated teepees. I began reading Grandmothers Counsel The World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision For Our Planet by Carol Schaefer and Rolling Thunder by Doug Boyd. I was becoming conscious from the contents of both books that Spirituality and Environmental Stewardship are interconnected in the minds of many indigenous people. The current events coming to a head a Standing Rock were pointing my attention to the legal and diplomatic struggles for the Indigenous peoples of the whole earth.   It was becoming more evident that I needed to go. Even if my presence was not going to effectively help the people who live there or the campers or the protest, then I simply I needed to go to fill an educational gap in my own life’s experience. I would go to learn.

**********************************

Late in September and still in an aggressive state of indecision about making the trip, I packed up my tent and went camping  about 30 miles from my home, at the New Jersey shore. It took a few attempts to actually make it to the beach due to self-sabotage, including leaving my wallet at home, setting out too late in the day, and locking my keys in the car. Finally, the day I picked to go camping happened to be very windy with rain in the forecast. When I finally arrived, I found that I had the whole lonely campground to myself.  I took a walk on the beach; there were a few brave or crazy surfers on the especially rough-breaking waves. Before I picked my campsite I found a dead sparrow. Should I be superstitious since “Sparrow” is my nickname? I picked a site and set up my tent. The wind was unrelenting and provoked a kind of misery; I slept badly and the weather prevented me from making my own coffee in the morning. At dawn I renounced sleeping out of doors. I left my tent and stood in the wind and prayed out loud. I never know what good praying does but I asked to be decisive, to know my purpose, and to use my gifts to make a difference in the world.  

But the wind was preparing me for the conditions at Standing Rock.

***************************

In October I wrote a letter to my friends in a few places who had been expecting that I might visit them, explaining that I was considering going to North Dakota instead. I had credit card points that would convert into free or cheap flights, but would limit my airline choice.  Inexpensive voyages often happen during the off-season, away from holidays, midweek, and during off-peak hours.  Bismarck Airport did not appear to be conveniently situated.  I would have to arrive by airplane sometime late at night and leave very early in the morning. I was having a hard time visualizing a pleasant or easy passage. The autumn days were growing shorter and I was running out of time for  the advance planning required to ensure the best bargains. At the same time, tensions were escalating at the site; the pipeline construction was growing nearer to the Missouri River as I kept watching the weather report. The summer season was apparently having an extended stay in North Dakota, just as in New Jersey. It would be a good time to go; if I waited too long I would miss the best building weather.

I had read that there were two camps at the site and the one called Sacred Stone was on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on private land owned by LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. They were calling themselves a “Prayer Camp” and were accepting money and material donations over the internet. From the pictures I was seeing on social media, I imagined that in the future this place could one day become a permanent educational facility. There was also a public fund for legal aid which was growing steadily and had already far exceeded its fundraising objective. There was another camp, as I understood it at the time, that was called Red Warrior, and my impression was that it was for activists who were planning to participate in civil disobedience actions. I had decided that if I went, I would be staying at Sacred Stone Camp, although I kept picturing myself at the "front line" carrying a sign that read, "This is your water, too. Join us." But I still had not made up my mind to go.

I had a few remaining things to do around my home to get ready for winter. I had to repair my garage door that had been damaged by snow plows last winter. I sold off a few things on eBay to raise money. And then an opportunity came to buy a good used car for very cheap. The actual purchase was quite a hassle, full of anxious days, as the car had been sitting in a driveway and not driven for five years, the original title was missing, and the owner being disabled, could not assist me. It was a lot of footwork, money I didn’t have, insurance, towing, mechanical repairs. But, if I wanted, here was an alternative way to get to Standing Rock, that is if I didn’t mind adding six days of driving to and from North Dakota to my travel plans.

*****************************

Then, I  had a sudden flash of a long-ago memory of my seeing the Missouri River for the first time. It was around the 24th of June, 1981. I had just spent a month in St. Paul, Minnesota working to pay my way during my first cross-country road trip. While I was at work one day listening to the radio, I heard that the Sioux Indians were planning to occupy the Black Hills in an ownership dispute and I wanted to be part of the experience, somehow. It was time to pack up my car and head toward Wounded Knee, South Dakota. I was driving with very little money and some camping gear. I picked up a hitchhiker earlier in the day and we stopped in to check out the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. We continued driving on I-90; night fell, and I was getting tired from driving. My hitchhiker suggested that we pull over at the nearest rest stop and just roll out our sleeping bags, and so we did. I remember the night being comfortably warm and lightly breezy. I looked up to see a sky filled with thousands of bright stars. It was my first time sleeping under an open sky at night. In the morning I woke to the strange and beautiful song of a meadowlark. I also saw that I had been sleeping on a hillside, and down below, way down at the foot of the hill, was a river that I found on my map to be the great Missouri. It was impressive, about half a mile wide, surrounded by green, grassy hills of early summer.  In researching for this preamble to my Diary, I learned that the Missouri is the longest river in North America. There are many dams along the river that make it wider than it is by nature. They were built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the purposes of irrigation, flood control and the generation of hydroelectric power. The Pick-Sloan plan for the development of the Missouri River  included the construction of four dams between 1946 and 1966.  The Oahe Dam at Pierre, South Dakota, created the 231 mile-long Lake Oahe, where the Dakota Access Pipeline is designed to pass underneath.  In addition to flooding forest and farmland, and reducing the size of  Indian lands along the Missouri, the construction of the four dams forced the relocation of nearly 1,000 Native families. The damming of the river  “caused more damage to Indian land than any other public works project in America.” I now know that the river at this point  where I was seeing it was the Eastern border of the Great Sioux Indian Reservation that covered the western half of South Dakota according to the original Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. The Sioux still claim that land as their own.

***********************

On November 1, I phoned Frank with my dilemma of being crippled by indecision. I needed to be talked into going to Standing Rock. First Frank offered to fly into Bismarck himself and rent a car to facilitate my journey.  Then he said his wife would come with him and gather more research for her article.  But the final tipping point came when  he started singing the song “Chicago” by Graham Nash to me:

"...In a land that's known as freedom how can such a thing be fair?

Won't you please come to Chicago for the help that we can bring ..."

With this, my decision was made.  I hung up the phone and immediately made my one-way airline reservation to North Dakota. I would meet Frank in Denver to get our connecting flight on the same plane to Bismarck. I had already been packing for this trip, and a large part of my anxiety had lain with my bringing the right versatile gear, yet not too much for me to carry without help. This was all going to be remedied by Frank’s renting a vehicle to transport us to Standing Rock, which was 50 miles south of  Bismarck. I finished the repair of the garage door and in the process cut my hand, a short gash. I cleaned it and bandaged it so it was not going to be a problem but it was later to become an image that would represent my journey.

On November 2, I went out and voted in our upcoming national election. Later that day I was in a store that had a television on, and as I was shopping there was a news broadcast showing film footage of a violent clash between protesters and police that had taken place only a few hours earlier in North Dakota. In the scene people were wading in the Missouri River at the pipeline construction site.  Police dressed in military riot gear were streaming mace at protesters and shooting them with rubber bullets. I wanted badly to see these police put down their weapons and join the people. My decision was still to go in support of the protest, and not with the intention of getting arrested. My hope, although unrealistic, was that the issues would all be resolved before I returned home and that no one would have to camp over the winter and no one would have to show up and protest anymore.  

Thursday, November 3, 2016                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Before I left home, I made a return flight reservation. I wasn't sure how I was going to manage to be on an airplane out of Bismarck at 6:20 in the morning, but I trusted that somehow it would happen. I was going to be gone eight days and nights. Packing is normally difficult business for me and I can alternate between being very fussy and very adaptable. The day was warm so I wore a long black skirt and sports sandals. It felt like I might be carrying too much, but I was greatly relieved to find that my bags were easy for me to handle. My life partner, Howie, said he wished that I was not going, but he said he respected me because I was going and this made me feel really good. He drove me and my bags to the train station.  I didn't have to wait more than a few short minutes before the train to Newark airport arrived. I was early for a change and I had plenty of time before take-off. When I got to the gate there was a little bit of a hassle regarding the manner in which I had loosely packed my sleeping bag, but I got it onto the airplane just fine.  I visited the United Airlines VIP lounge for some free soup and salad and a glass of wine. I had brought a book with me to read, Marquee Moon, by Bryan Waterman, the story of the making of the 1977 LP by the band Television. It was a conscious choice for me, a small portable book about the 1970s New York City art and punk music scene. I knew that where I was going was going to be far removed from the story contents of this book, but I felt I might need a reference, a touchstone, connecting where I was going with where I am from. Then I boarded the plane, flew  into Denver and met up with Frank and his wife, Radjana, a Russian anthropologist who was working on the story of the pipeline and the resistance for the Russian press. After leaving Denver, I was not going to have any cell phone reception so I sent out a few final text messages. On the connecting flight from Denver to Bismarck I was seated next to a peace activist, Reverend Patrick McCollum, who told me he was in contact with the United Nations and President Barack Obama, and that on that day over 500 clergy had converged at Standing Rock. He told me that a Peace Pole was being shipped from Japan and that he was going to carry it to the site.

We arrived in Bismarck at around 8:30 p.m. Frank rented an SUV and got us a hotel room. The neighborhood was not far from the airport, full of chain hotels and restaurants presumably designed to serve business people and travelers.  I was hungry and requested that we get something to eat so we picked out a restaurant very nearby. We walked in and were greeted by girls about 18 years old, wearing football jerseys as their work uniforms.  We took our seats at the bar.  There were at least 70 very large televisions on the walls, surrounding us on all sides, all tuned to broadcasts of different sporting events. When I travel I like to get a feel for the locals. I looked around to study the clientele, mostly white males, about early 20s in age, mostly wearing sports clothes, as if they had come in from a game themselves, and all very well-fed.  If there were cowboys among them, they were out of uniform. It was after work hours. There was a feeling of familiarity among patrons and staff alike.  I would take a wild guess that there was a university nearby and these were students, possibly of agriculture, mining, or business. For the next seven days this was going to be my last contact with mainstream white American culture. I ordered a hamburger because it seemed like the most local food choice, and a beer.  By the time we finished eating it was about 10:00 p.m.  We went back to the hotel and I took what I expected would be my last shower for the next week and I went to bed.

Friday, November 4, 2016

First thing in the morning, I turned on my laptop to look at a map, the weather report, and find out what news there might be from the front lines or the camps. Frank had heard rumors of roadblocks and communications jams. I already had no phone reception, and I knew I would not have internet connection for possibly the whole week. The mainstream press was not fully committed to reporting the story of the pipeline or about the conflicts that were regularly occurring between armed police and unarmed demonstrators. I sent a message to my family that I had arrived. I was following several Facebook pages that posted news from Standing Rock daily, often up to the minute, mostly in the form of videos, some of them posted live. There I found news and photos of the 524 interfaith clergy that had arrived the previous day, publicly demanding justice for indigenous peoples. As part of their demonstration, they renounced the Doctrine of Discovery, a concept that allowed European colonial powers to lay claims to lands inhabited by indigenous and non-Christian peoples, enslave or kill the natives, and take their resources under the guise of discovery and spreading Christianity. The idea of the Doctrine goes back as early as the Crusades in the 11th century and over time was written into official documents and laws.  At their demonstration the clergy sang hymns and burned a copy of the Papal Bull “Inter Caetera,” that was issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, declaring Spain's rights to lands discovered by Columbus the previous year.

It was a beautifully sunny and cool morning. We got some breakfast and set out for the Reservation. The cities of Bismarck and Mandan, on either side of the Missouri River, were old prairie towns, and had been sites of settlement over thousands of years by different waves of people. There is archaeological evidence of 11,000 years of human occupation in North Dakota. The Mandan Indians were the inhabitants of the Bismarck area and totaled an estimated 15,000 in number when the Europeans arrived in the 16th century.   Lewis and Clark passed through the area in 1804 on their Expedition.  A series of smallpox epidemics reduced the number of Mandan to about 125 by 1845.  Today, White northern European descendants, mostly Germans and Norwegians, make up the largest ethnic group in North Dakota.

The direct highway to the reservation, ND 1806, was indeed blocked, presumably by police, as Frank had anticipated and we had to take a detour. The landscape as we drove out of the city was grassland with very few trees. There was an occasional small farm with corn growing, and some small cattle ranches. But mostly the land appeared to be fallow, or grazing land for cattle and buffalo, or else the grass itself was harvested as hay which was rolled in large bales scattered around the countryside. I wondered what it might be like to live there.

When we arrived at the junction of roads near a place called Cannon Ball on the Standing Rock Reservation, there was a tribal police mobile command post. We could not guess what their presence signified, but we pulled our car over and checked our directions. When we had ourselves set on the correct trajectory, we found signs pointing to Sacred Stone Camp at a roadside convenience store. We followed the signs until we found a gate that had its own camp with a big army tent and many people roving around. A woman approached our car and we rolled down our windows to talk with her. She spoke with an Australian accent and questioned if we were agents of the FBI or other government agency or the press and what we were planning to do here. She told us that no drugs, alcohol or firearms were permitted, and photography was not allowed unless we asked for permission, and then she let us proceed on into the camp.

We parked the vehicle and walked through the camp which was a mix of tents and teepees, and tarp structures built into the shrubbery. I was interested in the primitive tarp shelters, but looking into the shrubs I saw that they had lots of big thorns, and I was glad that I had a free-standing tent with me. Being situated on a series of hills, it was not possible for me to see the extent of the camp or to guess how many people there were. Everyone was friendly and many were dressed colorfully. Although there was no running water, no one appeared as if in dire need of washing. I soon encountered that same Australian woman who had greeted us at the entry gate while walking on a path. I asked her to give me a quick tour and she showed me the kitchen. In the midst of the kitchen was a Sacred Fire with seats around it.  She explained the rules to be observed:  no cursing, no gossip, and no political talk. Praying was welcome. There was a dishwashing station. Although I saw no open food about--except for whole fruits--I noticed quite a number of common houseflies landing on the tables. I asked about winter housing structures and she brought me to a spot where people were constructing what they called “Waginogans”--Quonset-style longhouses made of bent saplings that were going to be covered with blankets and tarps. I was looking forward to helping out.  

However, the Sacred Stone Camp was not the same center of activity that Frank and Radjana had visited the last time they were here.  It was a completely different camp. We walked on and came to another gate that closed the road to vehicular traffic. It was another formal checkpoint with a large canvas tent, a few chairs around a small fire, a young man who had been awake too long with a walkie-talkie, and his dog. We talked with him about the logistics of this gate, and I got the vague sense that it could be locked at any time, as a defense in the case of a raid. I did not understand much of what he was trying to tell us because he spoke in “warfare” terms  that were unfamiliar to me. We continued to walk along past the gate and there in front of us was the Cannonball River. The river gets its name from the spherical sandstone concretions, rocks resembling cannonballs that were formed  over time in a whirlpool that was at the junction of the Missouri River. The Lakota name for the Missouri is  Mnisose,  "swirling waters" which refers to the eddies that occur at the confluences of its many tributaries. According to LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, since the damming of the Missouri, and the Army Corps of Engineers' dredging the Cannonball in the late 1950s, the current is changed and the spheres are no longer formed. The cannonballs are the  "Sacred Stones" that the camp was named after.

On the other side of the Cannonball River was a huge camp, as far as I could guess, a mile from one side to the other. I noticed a surveillance airplane flying overhead, circling the big camp. I would find this was a constant presence that people tended to ignore.  At times  there was also a helicopter hovering over the camp, and often there were drones above us presumably taking photographs. Many of the drones  belonged to people in the camp with press credentials.  We kept walking, passing many small campsites with more teepees and tents set up along the river, and another largish camp called "Rosebud" which was established by the Lakota people of Rosebud reservation in South Dakota. We came to another checkpoint at a bridge with a paved roadway that crossed the river. There were a few vehicles and many people crossing on foot. I thought it was curious that although the weather was warm and there were no showers in the camps, I did not see anyone in the river washing, swimming, or wading.

On the other side of the bridge, on the north side of the river, there was yet another checkpoint, the official camp exit. As we waved and passed through I could see far ahead that there was an unpaved road with hundreds of flags on both sides of it that represented over 300 Indian tribes and about 100 countries from around the world. Even though Frank and Radjana had been here only two months before, the landscape did not look familiar to them. In September this camp had 500 people living in it. Now there were easily 5,000. My estimate was that the total population of the camps on both sides of the river was somewhere between 7,000 and10,000 people.

We approached what appeared to be another activity center where people were gathered. There was a Sacred Fire burning, the first one that was lit back in April that had been burning continuously. There was an altar with cow skulls, baskets of tobacco, sage, cedar, braids of sweet grass and other ceremonial objects on the northeast side of the fire (later there would be questions about this position… altars were usually placed on the east side of a fire) and about 10 folding chairs encircling it. There was an area that I referred to as "The Stage" where there were three canopies set up in front of a long army tent. There was a man speaking into a microphone connected to an amplified public address system. He was telling a story. When he finished speaking, another man came up and took the microphone. He addressed the crowd as "Relatives," spoke a few words in an Indian language, and then, in English, thanked everyone for being there. Then he said, “We are one family.” I looked around and saw many people with brown skin and long black hair and I got choked up. I wished I could pass a DNA test and be in this family. The microphone was passed around to a few more people who told us we were in ceremony, we were in prayer, and we had to respect and love one another. Furthermore, we were asked to pray for the people who were building the pipeline and for the police who were defending them and reacting with violence toward demonstrators. Instead of “Protesters” he referred to all of us as “Water Protectors.”

Radjana stopped to interview people whenever possible, and we eventually found ourselves at a great Buckminster Fuller-style geodesic dome. Outside the dome was a mobile flatbed unit with an array of solar panels and a full bank of batteries. There were hanging LED lamps inside the dome but I never did find out what else was plugged into this large system which I estimate could generate enough electricity to run a household refrigerator or two throughout the day. Inside the dome a meeting was about to begin. It was a support group for people who had been arrested. We had heard a few horror stories about a recent Action (or was it the recent raid on the  North Camp?) where people were arrested and confined in what looked like dog kennels, and women were reportedly strip searched. There were people who had physical and psychological post-traumatic stress symptoms  who needed to come forward and be cared for. Radjana went in to collect information for her article. Frank walked with me to the spot where in September they had camped in their vehicle. It was far away from the crowd and near a small creek or pond. I could not see the source of the water. Frank said it was a good place to camp. Curiously, there was a large house on a flatbed truck nearby that I could use as a landmark. It was somewhat isolated, like a cleared cul-de-sac in a field of tall prairie grass. We went back to tell Radjana that we were going back to get the car and bring my camping gear and we would pick her up in about half an hour. We walked back over the bridge to the Sacred Stone Camp. Hungry, I stopped in  the kitchen for a bowl full of venison stew left over from lunch. It was very good. I felt a little sad that this was not where I was going to be staying, but it was a place I could explore and spend time at later.

By this time it was late afternoon. Frank and I got into our vehicle and drove back out the way we came in. The road lead us around the small town of Cannon Ball on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and back past the convenience store where we turned right this time, onto route 1806, and crossed the river on that same bridge we had walked over. Heading north on the road, about a half mile away, there was an official main entrance to the large camp with its own checkpoint guarded by a person who asked if we were new or returning. This was the same dirt road lined with the four-hundred-and-growing flags. We parked and dropped my camping gear at my campsite and walked back to pick up Radjana who was still inside the dome listening to people’s stories. Not wishing to disturb them, Frank gestured to Radjana that we would be waiting outside for her.

In that same instant, a man walked up brandishing a big camera with a long telephoto lens. He was an Indian and I didn’t feel like it was necessary for me to police him about photographing. He asked us “What is going on in here?” I told him it was a meeting for protesters who had been arrested. He stood near us and inquired why we were there. He introduced himself as Frank White Bull, and said that he was on the Standing Rock Tribal Council. He told us that he questioned “all this Green stuff” gesturing to the solar array. He seemed serious, but I couldn't tell if he was. It wasn’t as if we were at a trade show, no one was selling anything, but there were solar panels and wind generators on the site. He said that the stuff was detracting from the main issues: Water and the Children who were not born yet--the Future as it is often referred to by the Indians with the expression "The Seventh Generation." I didn't feel that the “Green stuff” was distracting at all, rather it was powering the camp and serving to demonstrate that oil is not the only way to produce electricity. But he was making his point that he felt that people's focus in the camp had gotten side-tracked. Energy and climate change is not the first issue here; water is. Then he told us that the camp was going to be closed down in a week. Oh, it would take about a month to clear everyone out, but it was not a legal camp and it was not necessary for us to be there. For one thing, the Tribe was paying for our toilets and trash removal. The Standing Rock Tribe would manage the Pipeline issue as a legal one themselves. The effort had been made, and the Dakota Access Pipeline had been legally stopped for now. The current issue was that "business is disregarding government."

 "Let Standing Rock handle it, "  he said.

I didn't challenge him or ask questions. On the surface, I would have argued that the protests and the subsequent violent police reactions were garnering media attention and support from the public. But to him, I think, it may have seemed an unnecessary waste of time, energy, and resources.  I kept trying to second-guess why he was telling us these things; maybe he was trying to test our sincerity. In the very near future I would be able to tell him that by being here I learned a lot about the struggles of the Indians and a lot of other things. I could tell him now that this was a historic camp, that this gathering of people all appreciated his hospitality.  He gave us his business card. By this time, Radjana had joined us. She had a press pass and asked White Bull a few questions.

Then he showed us some photographs that he had taken that were stored on his cell phone. They were beautiful and skillfully taken photos; one was of the Milky Way, a bright mass of stars in the night sky, the other was of the green-hued Northern Lights, taken “right from that bridge over there, last month” the same one we had walked over. But we would not see these things in the sky at this time, he told us, because the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site was lit up at night, with bright stadium lights that polluted the night sky in order to discourage protesters from chaining themselves to equipment or other “mischief” on the work site.

My reaction was both disappointment and relief at the same time. My understanding of what White Bull had said was that we were not needed to go on the “Front Line” of protest action, did not have to camp out over the winter, I was not needed for support. But here was my opportunity to learn, help out, and report what the people back home were not seeing because the news was not covering most of what was really at the heart of what was going on.  It had taken a lot for me to get here, and I was expecting to take something back with me. "So I should go home?” I asked.   White Bull said, “No, you don’t have to go home,” and I thought, but where else can I go now? I was having a vision of roaming around on foot on the Great Plains for the next week. I felt like my whole reason for being was challenged. I was stunned and confused. Two months later I am still wondering what his intention was by imparting this "information" to us; why did he single me out? I wondered who else he might have approached with these questions and information. It was to be my only encounter of this kind during my entire stay.

It was going to take a long time for me to  process the words. In those moments, my mind felt poisoned, and I wanted to share what White Bull had said to me with other people. But I did not. I had a feeling that if I did, his words, if repeated, would have had the effect on the camp like an oil leak running over the territory that the Missouri River feeds, all the way down to the Mississippi, and on to the Gulf of Mexico, before it could be stopped and corrected. I asked around if there were Tribal Council members on site that I could talk with. I was also told-- and would have suspected anyway--that there were "plants," and agents provocateurs, and untrue rumors being spread, and that I needed to be aware of these things. I wanted to find out if what he said was for real, that the Indians did not want us there. Everything else he said sounded legitimate, practical, and realistic. I was trying to gauge what he told us and why. Was there division within the Tribe itself about  having this pipeline go through?  Was there money to be made, if not by the whole Tribe, then possibly by some who had invested in it? These were only my speculations, but I knew nothing. I was I was going to have to keep quiet and listen.  

Sundown was approaching and Frank and Radjana walked with me back to my campsite. I took note of landmarks so I would not become lost when I needed to find my way back to my tent alone. My touchstone would be the house on wheels nearby. While finding my way back to my base, I looked around me and I felt like I was on a peninsula covered with two-feet-deep coarse grass and a few mid-sized trees. Other than the nearby body of water, I was pretty much alone with about 75 feet to myself on all sides. I didn't have access to internet mapping at the time,  but now I know now that I was camped on the sediment delta of the Cantapeta Creek. There were some wide pathways through the grass that had been made by some kind of vehicle. I hastily set up my tent in the middle of a pathway. My travel companion, Frank, offered me his sleeping bag as an extra, and with some deliberation I took it. I didn't yet know how glad I would be to have it inside my own down sleeping bag. We said good night; my comrades would be back the next day. I rolled out my sleeping bags and put on a sweater, and despite that my flashlight was not working I walked the longish distance, maybe about a quarter mile, back to the center of activity, the Sacred Fire, just to get my thumb on the pulse of things. My psyche felt infected with White Bull’s words and I needed to reconnect. On my way to the fire, I took note of where the “Spiffy Biffs” (the portable toilets) were and inspected them for toilet paper and cleanliness. Everything checked out fine, which was remarkable given how many people were using them.

It was dark by the time I got to the fire.   Someone was talking on the microphone over the public address system, which I could see was hooked up by thick wires to a battery bank on another mobile trailer with solar panels. I had located the coffee station, on a couple of long tables about 30 feet away from the Sacred Fire on the west side. I asked about kitchens, where I would find food. I learned about a kitchen called Winona’s “over there behind that brown teepee” where I could get fry bread and native dishes. From the “stage” about 30 feet to the north of the fire, Native persons took turns speaking, making announcements about such things as available rides to Bismarck, found items, lost items, keeping your dogs away from this circle, women please wear skirts, please check in if you are with the press and receive a press pass, please attend the Community Meeting and Orientation at 9:00 a.m. at the Community Hall in the big army tent over there. We were addressed as welcome Relatives; we are all family, thank you for being here to support us; Hello, my name is ___________ and I came out from _________ reservation in ________; prayers, songs, stories. I saw two people under the canopy conversing using their hands, not speaking. Could it be Indian sign language like I saw in the movies when I was a little kid? Often someone took the microphone and introduced themselves as '"Nobody." I was still feeling unsure about what was going on, and after what White Bull had told us, to me everything I was experiencing had taken on an aura of being contrived. I could not shake it but I was still not going to repeat what I had been told. I was standing on the outside of the immediate circle of chairs around the fire, just observing, trying to know my own feelings. I could sense that everyone around me was enjoying a meaningful and connected feeling, and there was an effort to nurture this unity. At the same time I felt like it was O.K. for me to be alone in my skepticism. I noticed an unmistakable style in the way that many American Indians speak when they are delivering a monologue. They take on an air of authority, deliberation, and articulation. They seem to get to the heart of the matter quickly. I had heard Indians speak before at pow-wows, sweat lodges, and in movies.  Each speaker ended their soliloquy with “Mitakuye Oyasin,” which means “All My Relations” in the Lakota language. A speaker announced that some runners from Arizona would be arriving on foot in a few hours.

A black woman came into the circle crying.  She was very distressed, and I thought I heard her say something about her brother. I felt like she needed help immediately, but I didn't know what was the right thing to do. Someone walked right up to her and put their arms around her and walked her to the fire, and someone gave her their seat. I went behind her chair and put my hands on her shoulders. I don't remember anyone asking her what was wrong, but she stopped crying and everyone gave her their loving attention. I could feel it; everyone cared. I had never experienced anything like that before. In another group circumstance,  people might have felt like it was not their business, but in this place, I was finding that none of us were strangers and we were here to care for one another.

Suddenly there was a ruckus around the fire. I was nearby but I did not see what caused it. Someone -- undoubtedly a tribal outsider -- had thrown cremated ashes of his friend into the fire. This person had now desecrated the Sacred Fire and an effort was made to extract the remains from the ashes in the fire. A Native woman exclaimed, "We don't  know if this cremated person had been a good person. We don't know what kind of life they led.  If they were a bad person, this fire has been desecrated." The person who threw them in had already vanished back out into the camp. The man at the microphone kept asking the person to come forward and collect his friend, repeating, “No, we aren’t going to hurt you, or offend you,” and telling us all that requests for corrections to our behavior were not acts of aggression. I reasoned to myself that whatever the deceased person had been like in life, they were now purer because of being put into the Sacred Fire. But that was just my point of view. I was still an outsider, a colonizer, a settler, and a guest to these kind people who were feeding me, letting me camp with them, giving me coffee and stories and prayers and, most of all, educating me.

I walked from the circle back in the direction of my tent. I stopped by a crowd that had gathered around a big drum where there were people singing in some Indian language. I didn’t ask anything, I just stood and listened. I was not a stranger to Indian drumming and singing, but I am slow to learn songs or I would have been singing along with the strange syllables, melodies, and heart-beat rhythms. Nothing about this small gathering felt artificial. These were Indians who had either come from a few miles away or had traveled a great distance carrying their drum and their songs.

Walking back toward my tent I encountered a group of people set up nearby around a small campfire.  I approached them an introduced myself. I said, “Hello, my name is Monica, I am camped here,” and pointed to my tent.  I then retired to my tent and changed into my night clothes.  I did not fall asleep right away. I could still hear the drumming and singing, and I could hear musicians taking turns at the open microphone which had turned from information and prayers and added entertainment into the mix. I was still feeling like there was something wrong, something unreal and weighing on me, but I eventually fell asleep and slept well.  I did not remember having any dreams.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

I was awakened by a loud voice, “KIKTA PO! KIKTA PO! WAKE UP! WARRIORS, SMUDGE YOUR PIPES! CHRISTIANS, POLISH YOUR CROSSES. PRAY! THEY HAVE BEEN UP FOR THREE HOURS ALREADY WORKING ON THAT BLACK SNAKE! KIKTA PO! WAKE UP! IT IS GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY!” The sound was coming through the amplified public address system. The air was cold and it was still dark. I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag. I turned on my phone to see what time it was. It was 6:00 a.m.  I changed into my day clothes and navigated in the darkness to the Sacred Fire. On my way I passed by the Spiffy Biffs just as a truck pulled up to clean them out. Later I would find that at 6:00 a.m. sharp every day, the toilets were emptied and cleaned and new paper was placed in them, enough to last all day and night. I found then  always reasonably clean.

There was a camp set up around the Sacred Fire, that made it like a kind of town square. A big winter army tent on the north side with three canopies connected worked as a kind of stage and shaded a sitting area for elders. On the east side there were open canopies with folding chairs underneath, and on the south side there was a large dry-erase board that served as a message kiosk.  There was the coffee station on the west side, with a lattice fence behind it. The coffee was always fresh, if weaker than what I was used to, but with just enough caffeine to keep away pain and fatigue and contribute to our mental clarity.  Around our coffee, I was meeting people from all over the world: Maori from New Zealand, a group of founding members from Black Lives Matter, people from Japan and France and Indians -- from India! There were a lot of people newly arriving.

The old man holding the microphone identified himself as a medicine man from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He continued by saying morning prayers in Lakota and in English. He thanked the Great Spirit for a new day to make himself into a better person. He sang to the rising sun. He passed the microphone  to a Navajo man who had driven out from Oregon, who also prayed in his own native language. Again we were thanked for being there in support, and again told we were all related, and that we were fostering a spirit of forgiveness and respect, and if we had just arrived, to please attend the Community Meeting at 9:00 a.m. at the dome. "Mitakuye Oyasin! Mni Wiconi!" Throughout my stay the cry "Mni Wiconi"--"Water is Life" could be often be heard in sudden bursts of call-and-response throughout the camp.

As the horizon grew pink with the rising sun, the crowd of worshipers (and coffee drinkers) grew. Someone announced that a women’s water ceremony was going to take place at 7:00 a.m. I was going to discover that some events or ceremonies had strict time structures and exact locations, but others did not. Anyway, I was not wearing a watch and seldom turned on my phone. By the time seven o'clock came our crowd had grown to about 200 people.  We formed a large circle. A group of women, maybe as many as ten of them dressed in winter jackets and long skirts, went up to the front "stage" area. They began singing a water song in English; one woman carried a hammered copper pitcher. She went around the circle and stood in front of each person and poured a little water into our cupped left hands from which we drank. The water tasted very sweet. I read later on that the tap water at the nearby town of Cannon Ball is also sweet. The taste of the water, as if there had been fresh peaches floating in it, was more reason to protect it. Then the women lined up and we walked down the dirt road with some men following behind to the bank of the Cannonball River, about a quarter mile away, singing along the way, and giving water to people who came up for a handful. Our walking ceremony consisted of about a hundred people. When we got to the bank of the river, the men lined up along both sides of the steep pathway to help the women down the bank to a small dock where the ceremony continued. It was chivalrous and felt so respectful to see these strangers putting out their hands to offer assistance. I have heard that Sioux men are told they have to respect all women. In the line I saw a man who looked like my friend, David, who had died very young, six years ago. I thought of him and his depression and addiction. I wished that he could have been there. In that brief moment I also thought about the suicide epidemic among young people that had taken place not long ago on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. When we got to the bottom of the bank, we women were each, one at a time, given a small amount of tobacco to sprinkle into the river followed by water poured from the pitcher. Next, men who identified themselves as women, women who identified as men, and people who identified as both or neither were all invited to pour water.  As I understood this ceremony, it was to thank the Creator for giving us Water, in an open group setting, in a formal way. Although this ceremony was sexually segregated, both sexes were needed to participate, and there was more than one way for a person to define herself as “female.”

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After this ceremony was over, I went to Winona’s kitchen for breakfast. I was already finding that I was often not so hungry, and that one small helping of whatever was available two or three times a day was plenty of food to sustain me. When I got back to the main circle I found a table with folding chairs and I thought to sit down to roll a cigarette. I had brought a pouch of organic tobacco with me for the purpose of giving away and for having a smoke myself if I found occasion to sit still for five minutes. An Indian man sitting at the table greeted me, and told me his name was Rudell Bearshirt, that he had come from Wouned Knee on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  I told him that I had been there twice before and we began talking but before our conversation got deeper, Frank and Radjana showed up.  (I never did get to roll that cigarette, but I did manage to connect with Rudell later on Facebook.)

Frank told me that the house that was my landmark was gone! (Where do you move a big house on wheels in the middle of nowhere to? Anywhere, I guess!) We spent the next few hours roaming the camp and found some yurts that had been erected.  Radjana conducted a few more interviews while we took turns posing for our own photos to post on Facebook. I picked one for Frank to post of me when he got back to internet lands to let my friends know I was O.K.

The weather was beautifully warm, high in the low seventies and sunny. I was told that usually by this time of year there was snow on the ground. Behind the bulletin board kiosk, there was a large army tent where there was a big stash of winter clothing and blankets being sorted and given out.  I was still harboring hope that no one would feel a need to stay the fierce winter. Of course it would be kind of an adventure, but I was feeling that the camp was not going to be sustainable. It was not easy to realistically prepare for the eventual reality of arctic conditions, especially with the deceptive tease of a seemingly everlasting summer.

At noon there was a commotion: People were coming into the camp on horseback. They were Indians  and they were headed to the next ceremony to light the 7th Council Fire.

Oceti Sakowin means “Seven Council Fires,” and is the proper name for the people otherwise known as the Sioux. The Akta Lakota Museum website explains, “The original Sioux Tribe was made  up of  Seven Council Fires. Each of these Council Fires was made up of individual bands, based on kinship, dialect and geographic proximity. Sharing a common fire is one thing that has always united the Sioux people. Keeping of the Peta Wakan (Sacred Fire) was an important activity. On marches coals from the previous council fire were carefully preserved and used to rekindle the council fire at the new campsite.” My sense now is that probably those who came in on horseback were another band of Sioux arriving. The ceremony began with a few people gathering around a fire pit that was in the middle of a ring of teepees. A thousand people gathered in an outer circle.  People rode around on horseback on the 20-foot-wide track between the inner and outer circles of people.  Everyone was quiet, even the babies. All photography had been strictly forbidden at this ceremony. A drone flew above us. Many people shouted at it and waved it away. Someone at the inner circle began to speak. I had to strain to hear what was being said. Even if I could not hear most of it, I felt like it was an honor just to be present. The fire was lit, I heard a cheer, and saw the smoke rise. People around the fire who had pipes held them up; someone was praying. Soon coming up the pathway there was a parade of children who entered the circle. There were more cheers, and songs, and shaking hands with the youth, and then the pipe carriers came out of the circle to offer us a toke from their pipes. I shared a sacred pipe with probably a hundred of people that day. When the ceremony ended, I found Radjana again and I saw Reverend David McCollum, the man who sat next to me on my plane ride from Denver; he was carrying his peace pole that had come all the way from Japan.

Frank, Radjana and I milled about some more; Radjana continued to interview people, and I followed. Not used to being idle, I was still looking for work to do. Eventually we returned to the car and took a ride to the Prairie Knights Casino, seven miles south, for a buffet supper. While we were having dinner we found that Frank’s phone had internet reception so I turned on my laptop and dashed off a message. I began, “What a great time and place to be in History!” Frank disappeared for a short while and came back to the table and tossed me a hundred dollar bill he had just won on a slot machine. He possibly didn’t realize how much I needed and appreciated the money.  I found a pay phone in the lobby where for a dollar I could make an outgoing four-minute call and Frank told me that it was easy to get rides to and from the Casino. Plenty of people at the camp went there.  Those who took a room let many others come to share their shower, internet and other amenities. It was probable that I would be going back there over the next few days. I made a couple of phone calls from Frank’s cell phone to let people at home know I had arrived.

We drove back to camp and I said goodbye to Frank and Radjana. They were flying back home to Arizona the next day. I crawled into my tent and although it was still early I went right to sleep.

Sunday November 6, 2016

Of course I woke up early. It was still dark and although I was used to waking up at 4:00 a.m. back east, I was in a different time zone and had no idea what time it was.  Still in my pajamas, I walked over to the Sacred Fire where there were a few men sitting in the circle of folding chairs around the fire. Unfortunately there were very bright stadium-type lights shining in our direction from the pipeline construction site which was about three-quarters of a mile away. Many of the more distant and dimmer stars were obscured by the glare, but the position of bright Orion was still a reliable way to tell the time at night. We took turns guessing what time it might be, and then someone looked at his cell phone and told us it was 2:50 a.m.  That seemed kind of early until we realized that this was the night when we set back the clock an hour for the winter, and the cell phone reset itself automatically, so in keeping with my own circadian rhythm I was actually right on schedule. The men expressed how tired they were and how they all wanted to go to sleep, but keeping the Sacred Fire going has to be done by a designated Firekeeper. A Firekeeper was the only person allowed to place logs on the fire ensuring that people treated the fire respectfully and that they didn’t throw anything foreign into it.  The only exceptions were for tobacco, cedar, sage or sweetgrass, while praying.

A Firekeeper also kept everyone mindful that nothing bad was said in front of the fire, that we kept our intentions as well as our language pure: no gossip, no politics, no cussing. I told them that I was an old Girl Scout, knew how to keep a fire going, and was familiar with ceremonies.  I volunteered myself for the role of Firekeeper, and they accepted. To me, this was a great honor, and was something that I had always wanted to do. They all left to go to sleep. I saw how quickly firewood was being consumed so I took a conservation approach, allowing the fire to burn down a little before adding another split log. I ended up being mostly alone under the stars for a few hours, just feeding the fire and feeling grateful to be there. Occasionally someone came and sat.  A few people asked me, “Who is keeping the fire?”  I was joined by a woman who told me her name was April and that she was from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. She was very friendly and identified herself as Sioux; she had driven all day and night to get here and had not yet been to bed. I asked her about life on her reservation, and she told me there was a problem there with methamphetamine abuse. It was a story I was going to hear again from other Indians from other places. I asked April one of the few questions I asked during my entire visit: did the Sioux have a story about how the human beings lost their fur? I had been thinking about what could be the possible biological reasons we humans had evolved to not have body hair to keep us warm like other animals did. The story might be told that either through trickery, arrogance, gambling, or some other means, they lost their coat. April said that no, there was no such story. We talked a little before she eventually left the fire to go to sleep. After some time had passed, an Indian man inserted himself between me and the fire, moved some logs around, and threw a big handful of cedar needles into the fire, accidentally dropping a glove in as he did so. As the glove started to smolder I pointed to it and he pulled it out; then, just as quickly as he had come into the circle, he left. I reasoned that he probably thought that the fire was not being tended to just because it was not blazing and because there was a lone white woman sitting by.  He had simply made an assumption and didn’t think to ask if anyone was keeping the fire.

Eventually the old Lakota Medicine man came into the circle, and he asked me, “Who is keeping the fire?” “I am,” I replied. He chuckled. Soon by asking “Is the microphone on?” he revealed himself as the person who calls out the morning wake-up prayers. A man with technical experience appeared and turned on the electricity that came from the solar battery bank. The coldest part of night was noticeably just before sunrise. There seemed to be an extra gust of cold wind that I felt just as the old medicine man was thanking the Creator for a New Day.  Gradually and steadily the wind was, in fact, increasing. A small crowd was gathering; someone came to the fire to gather some coals to light another fire for making fresh coffee. He introduced himself to me as the Firekeeper and he thanked me for keeping it going. I took leave for the latrine. On the Spiffy Biffs door was a leaflet that read that there would be a Peace Walk to Mandan at 8:00 a.m. today.  The Peace Walk was intended to surround the Morton County courthouse and to forgive the police force for its brutality during a raid on a Water Protector’s camp on October 27. I wanted to be a part of the walk. In spite of my intention to come here and be helpful building winter housing, I was finding that there was a lot going on to witness, be part of, and learn from. I didn't know anything yet about that particular raid, but there had been enough police brutality in the news that I thought it could have been a collective forgiveness gesture. I wanted to walk in support of the group to see how forgiveness looks in action.  I also thought it could be a way to learn how to heal some wounds from my own past and a way to move forward in whatever I might be doing in my future.

I went back to my tent to change into my day clothes, and on my way not far from my tent I noticed a sweat lodge, a dome shaped structure covered with tarps with a fire ring  a few feet in front of it. This would be one of my landmarks, and I wondered if I would be welcome to join in a sweat bath.  After I had changed my clothes and got back to the main area, I found that I had missed my ride with the cars going out to Mandan. Someone made an announcement that a hunter had killed and brought in a deer, and there would be a demonstration on how to skin and butcher the animal outside the refrigerated rations tent.  He also announced that a local farm family killed and donated a pig. I stayed at the circle as the women prepared to perform the water ceremony as they had the day before, but did not follow them down to the river this time.

It was my third day in camp and it had been highly advised that everyone attend the daily 9 a.m. Community Meeting and a workshop on non-violent Direct Action. The first meeting was supposed to take place in a big Army tent that was the designated Community Center, but I was re-directed to the geodesic dome, which was big enough to comfortably hold well over a hundred people. A small crowd had gathered outside the dome. After about a hundred of us seated ourselves inside,  our facilitator, Johnnie, opened the session by thanking us for being there, told us how the formal process of these meetings worked, that each session began with a prayer and ended with a prayer. He asked us all to agree with that precept and went around the circle to find out if anyone had an objection to it. How many of us were newcomers?  We raised our hands showing there were about 40 of us who had arrived in the last few days attending the meeting. How many planning to stay the winter, raise hands, please?  At least 10 indicated they were planning to stay.  He told us about a place they called Facebook Hill where there were better prospects of receiving cell phone signals and internet, and that in a few days the camp was going to have its own internet connection. He told us where to go to be issued a media pass if we represented the press;  he explained there was a school if we had kids who need to be in school. He suggested going out and picking up trash, volunteering to help out at kitchens, and helping to erect winter tents.  There would be a “Wellbriety” meeting at the Emotional Wellness teepee.  Wellbriety, I learned, is a movement much like the 12-step addiction recovery programs “advocating for Native American Recovery and Wellness.”  All of us newcomers were then sent out to receive orientation instructions in another place inside the aforementioned big army tent they called Community Hall.

I left with the large group of newcomers to attend that next meeting. The facilitators were Occupy Wall Street-trained people, who gave us a crash-course on racism, colonialism, cultural appropriation, and to correct other misconceptions we might have. I had been to meetings with seasoned activists before, but here we were all basically being reminded that if we were not natives, then it would be disrespectful to dress and behave as if we were.  Wearing feathers was mentioned as being frowned upon. I didn't ask any questions, but I should have. Inspired by the pretty ribbon shirts I had seen Indian men wearing at pow-wows I’d made one for myself. I brought it with me on this trip; to me it is much more than just a decorative piece of clothing. I endowed it with spiritual intention while I was sewing it, and I wore it on my own personal vision quest years earlier.  I didn't ask if I could wear it, I just didn’t.  I wasn't going to take the chance if it could possibly make the wrong statement.  

The facilitators asked us to introduce ourselves and to explain a little about why we came here.  It was made clear that those of us who had come to participate in the Direct Actions that we should expect to be arrested and that it was mandatory to attend a Direct Action training. We should attend training even if we were not going to be involved on the front lines of protest. They suggested that we also go to a few other meetings, one on media, one on legal and arrest issues.

On our way out, I briefly connected with a few people who wanted to attend the Direct Action meeting. I went in search of some labor to do while I waited for the time of the training. There was a big wooden shed nearby being built to shelter a water supply truck for the winter. It had windows facing south, using passive solar principles so it would be more likely to stay above freezing inside. The construction people were busy but were short on tools so they couldn’t use my help. I wandered. The clothing donation tent was very busy sorting through donations. I rifled through the sweaters and found a really nice periwinkle-colored fleece jacket that fit me. It was what I needed to wear now that the wind was increasing and although there was no mirror to admire myself in, I knew that the color was perfect.  I picked up a broad scarf, too, big enough to cover my head and neck. Whatever clothing surplus there was, items not appropriate for the winter needs of the camp, were being bagged and sent out to other communities on the Reservation.

I passed by the tent where the deer was being skinned and butchered. It was splayed on a white plastic tarp on the ground. There was a person demonstrating with a knife, pointing out its parts, and about 5 people gathered around watching. It reminded me of a biology lab, or a hospital surgery.

Across the road there was a roped-off enclosure with all kinds of stuff in it.  They were the possessions of people who had been arrested in the October 27 raid or who fled because of it.  The “North Camp” also known as the "1851 Treaty Camp" had been erected in direct line of the pipeline construction on land purchased only a month before by Dakota Access Pipeline. During the raid, peaceful demonstrators were praying as the police sprayed pepper spray and made arrests. The protesters’ abandoned belongings, tents, clothing, sleeping bags, had been rescued and here were being neatly folded and sorted until the owners came to claim them. I gave a little help there, but the wind was growing stronger and changing directions, so it was difficult to fold things.

It was then time for the Direct Action meeting and I went looking for the place where it was supposed to have been held. Directions were vague; there were no longer signs pointing the way and I had to ask for directions.  When I got to the assigned location I found the meeting had been canceled.  Places and times for some meetings seemed changeable, but I still always managed to show up in time for another experience.

Since I happened to be near to my own tent, I thought to just hang out by myself for a while. I stopped and stood still near the sweat lodge that was on my way, sending in my own silent prayers.  A white woman walked up to me told me not to stand there.  I didn't ask why.  At my site, I found that the strong wind had blown my tent into a slanting position, so I removed the poles and flattened it so that it would not be blown away completely. Nearby I saw a small rodent, a mouse, a vole, or a shrew nibbling on grass seed on a stalk. I got up close to watch it, but I scared it, and it burrowed into some flattened grass, but not very deep. I reached out and touched its back between the blades of grass with my finger, and stroked its fur. This little guy is the real native here, I thought, who might set the example on how to really prepare for winter.

After I had dismantled my tent, I looked across the creek, past a big grassy field, at a hill about a half mile away. I saw that the crest of the hill was covered with a line of uniformly dressed military-outfitted police. Below, there were about 30 people climbing up the hill. I saw a line of people on horseback riding up behind and around the people climbing. I wished that I had brought binoculars and a telephoto lens for my camera. I could see well enough to guess what was going on. There were demonstrators attempting to occupy the hill. From behind me I heard someone at the open microphone shouting, “Tell those people to get back here! This is not a sanctioned action!” and I saw people rushing off on foot to the hill to bring the protesters down, but not before I saw the police, or whoever they were, rolling canisters of tear gas down the hill, upwind from the people.

It was not clear to me what a “sanctioned action” meant; who did the sanctioning? Who was invited or who would one ask if one wished to volunteer to go along? How were the rest of us in the camp to know, if only to pray for this demonstration? There were only a total of five of us watching the unsanctioned Action unfold from a spot that seemed to have the clearest view. There were both an airplane and helicopter circling the hill and I took many photos. Within a half hour there were several pickup trucks full of people returning to the camp from the Action. They all looked triumphant, but I still don’t know what had happened. I read later that the hill, a place called Turtle Island, was a historic burial site in need of protection from the pipeline construction.  Later I was told that whenever there was a Direct Action planned, the trainings would be canceled, and my guess is that  because the teachers would be at the Action. An Action was often a group of Indian Water Protectors going to a site to pray.

I had been thinking I wanted to move my tent somewhere closer to the main circle for convenience since I was spending a lot of time there already, and so I was scouting for a possible new site. My current area had now blossomed with more tents and a teepee.  I was accustomed to being alone when I camped but I got friendly with the carload of men that came up from Colorado who camped near me. They would be leaving the next day, and I was going to be staying only a few more days myself. I still had plenty of space. Looking around nearer to the fire, if I moved to another spot it would be likely I would be crowding myself and someone else. Anyway, I would still be a stranger anywhere inside the camp. I was afraid that “Somewhere else” would not necessarily be a better place for me, so why make an unnecessary effort to move? There was nothing at all wrong with where I already was, yet I felt the urge to uproot myself. I was experiencing the same kind of indecisiveness I had before I made the commitment to come to Standing Rock in the first place.  My personal dilemma about a simple act of moving was feeling like a metaphor for my life in general.

Whenever I didn't have another inclination, I ended up at the Sacred Fire. There was always a prayer, a song, a story, an announcement, and bottled water.  I posted my message on the dry-erase message kiosk that I was going to need a ride to Bismarck on the coming Thursday, but how would anyone find me? My cell phone did not work and my tent was set up in a vague and non-descript location. Probably in a few days my tent location area would have its own name, or I could have even given it one myself. Maybe that little body of water had a name? In the meantime, I wrote on the board that they could leave a message for Monica in the lost and found box. I went up to the fire and met up with Elsa, a woman who was at the morning orientation meeting. She had taken a room at the casino and invited me to come and have a shower. We had a car ride with Henri, a school teacher from San Diego. I offered to buy us all dinner at the buffet. I got some clean clothes and toiletries and joined them for the ride. At the Casino, we heaped our trays with food and took a table. There was a group of people at the next table, one of whom began conversing with us. He was a young Indian man, very articulate in Indian and business matters regarding the pipeline. We introduced ourselves and he told us his name was Freedom.  He told us that his mother, sitting right there at the table next to us being interviewed, was LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, the same woman who had loaned out her land for the Sacred Stone Prayer Camp. Freedom could rattle off business names, figures, statistics, and details about treaties.  I asked him if he wrote, and he said no. But he was quite a good talker! When LaDonna finished with her interview she turned to us and greeted us and we all shook her hand.  On our way out of the restaurant I overheard someone say that someone had been arrested that day.

We went upstairs to Elsa's room to take turns showering.  Henri told us he was camped at the Two-Spirits Camp. One way to describe "Two Spirits" in Western terms is “Native LGBTQ” although that is not an accurate description. Two-Spirits also have a sacred, spiritual and ceremonial role in their communities. When we rode back to Oceti Sakowin I asked if it would be all right if I moved my tent to the Two-Spirit Camp. Henri said it should be fine and I said I would be over tomorrow to check it out and get permission. Henri dropped me off near where I thought my tent was, but my area had grown in population and in the dark I didn't recognize the place. I was actually about a hundred yards from my own tent, within an area of family camps with horses. Still, without a flashlight, I found my way. Yurts, teepees and big canvas tents had randomly been erected around my tent. I did not recognize my own “neighborhood.” I was feeling even less “at home” here and still trying to figure out why.  Moving to Two-Spirits seemed like a good idea for me.  When I found my site again, I had to put my tent back up. I was grateful to be clean and I put on my pajamas. Before I dropped off to sleep, I could hear some young people who had taken over the microphone and were rapping and singing.  I thought to myself, this is kind of a nice pow-wow.

Monday November 7, 2016

When I woke up, it was cold and windy again. I tried to gauge which direction the wind was coming from. It kept changing directions, an "all-directions wind" I call it, but the prevailing wind direction was different from yesterday. I put on my day clothes, and collapsed my tent again to prevent it from blowing away. I went to the Sacred Fire, as I did first thing each morning at camp, to participate in the morning prayers. I was always inspired by the praying, even when the prayers were not in English. Before the sun came over the hills, the Lakota medicine man always gave thanks for a new day in which to become a better person. Someone took the microphone and scolded the kids for rapping the night before because the lyrics were political. "This is not a pow-wow!" he said. "This is a Prayer Camp."

The fire to cook the coffee on was started each morning with a few coals from the Sacred Fire. Coffee grounds and water were boiled together in a big pot, cowboy style, five gallons at a time, and then the mixture was strained and put into giant plastic thermal dispensers. I have no idea how many times a day coffee was made, but it always tasted fresh. During the morning praying, while it was still dark, people regularly gathered to get coffee. This particular morning, as the dawn was breaking, I busied myself tidying up the big table set up with cream, sugar, cups, spoons and snacks which was almost always in a state of disarray.   All of the water was brought in in half-pint to five-gallon sized bottles so there was no running water to use for cleaning.  The garbage was under some control, but it was filled with plastics: styrofoam cups, plastic spoons and water bottles. This was not a sustainable situation, and I felt that people coming into camp to visit or stay needed to be told to bring their own cups and spoons.

While I was busy wiping down a table, the person at the microphone making prayers announced that a dog had come into the Sacred Fire circle and that this was a strictly prohibited.  More than once I’d heard remarks on “dog soup” although I selectively brushed it off as a kind of joke. "Please come and get your dog," our morning emcee announced. Someone picked the dog up by the scruff of his neck and brought him through the kitchen area out a back doorway through the lattice fence and tied it up to a post. One of the Firekeepers, in a very hushed tone, commanded me to follow and get the dog out of there, “before it got killed.” I wasted no time in untying and walking off with the dog.  It wasn’t the poor creature’s fault it was running loose and had come into the circle.  It was wearing a collar and was clearly someone’s pet.

I walked praying, as I was now in the habit of doing, to find the dog’s owner. The entire camp was covered with frost that looked like a light snow had fallen and was tinged pink with the dawning light. Smoke was rising from a few teepees. I would not be able to take a dog home with me so I needed to find someone who wanted this one or find its owner. Many people I passed stopped and remarked how cute the dog was. It was very distinctive looking, with short legs and a spotted coat, as if it were a mix of Dachshund and Australian sheep dog. It was hungry and eating everything it saw. Then two Indian men came up to me and said what a cute dog it was. Could they have it? I said yes, and one of them remarked aside that he had only had “puppy soup” twice that year. I let the dog go with them but I was very uneasy and sure I had made a stupid mistake. I walked back to the coffee kitchen. About five minutes later the man who had taken the dog from me came through the back door of the kitchen.  I looked through the back doorway and found the dog tied up again to a post. I gestured to the Firekeeper who frowned. Now I had no doubt that killing a dog was not a joke.  I untied the dog again. This time when I took it away, I ran faster, farther, until I found a camp with dogs in it. I asked a woman there if they could take care of this one, and she pointed to a horse trailer at the top of a hill, and said “The owner was looking for it, she is up there at Hunkpapa Camp.” I marveled that in a place with thousands of strangers it was possible to know the owner of one dog. It was not yet 9:00 in the morning; here I was being frantic while other people were still sleeping.  The Hunkpapa Camp was a circle of tents around one big red horse trailer. I walked around shouting that I had a dog and it belonged to someone. Finally someone inside a red tent called out sleepily, "Does it have spots?" I said that it did, and she unzipped her tent door, and the dog went right inside. I didn’t know if the Hunkpapa Sioux ate dog meat and I didn’t know whether this dog would end up in a pot.  I am not a vegetarian, and my culture raises animals designated for food. To me, it would be hypocrisy to raise objection to eating any animal at all.  

(Over a month later, I saw a photograph online of someone walking that very same dog in the snow, so I feel somewhat confident it did not end up in a “medicine soup.”)

At the 9:00 a.m. Community Meeting, I brought up the subject of “dogs” as I was still shaken. I didn’t talk about the incident or ask the vital question if there would possibly be a dog killed in Oceti Sakowin.  Johnnie, our morning moderator, simply explained that everyone had to keep their dogs under control. It didn’t answer my concern, but then I didn’t state my issue directly. I came here to help a people keep their way of life, and that might mean that I would have to defend some customs that I saw as unseemly and unnecessary.  This was hardly different from any other religion. I was going to have to just sit with this topic until I felt I could ask the right people in the right situation.

Since I had already been to the orientation meeting, I was able to stay at the Community meeting and hear what other people wanted to say. A Sioux lawyer stood up to speak.  She recited a list of treaties that DAPL was in violation of and told us that she had received a death threat.  I saw her tears and felt her fear.

She walked around the circle and shook hands with each one of us.  She looked into my eyes and I gave her a hug. There were a few other people with ideas about how to make the camp more sustainable. One person mentioned “Net Zero” building; another said she wanted to make composting toilets. Someone else wanted to install rocket stoves. These were all subjects I knew something about. I wanted to be in on the conversations and help out in construction. I also knew that I would not have very much time. If we were going to suggest something that would improve the camp, we were asked to make a realistic dedication of time to see it through. It was an issue that was filed under “Honesty”; we had to be honest about our ability to commit. At the end of the meeting, two men stood up to speak. They were two chiefs from Arctic tribes, Inupiat perhaps, but the tribal name that I heard was one that I did not recognize. One spoke only in the language of his people, while the other translated into English. They expressed joy in being able to support the Standing Rock Sioux in their fight against the pipeline. They donated a portable winter building that they had brought it on the plane with them.  It hadn’t been easy, the chief explained. The airline staff wanted to know what he was doing with this big thing. He told them he was taking it to a pow-wow. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the shelter.

The meeting was about to end and I found Elsa again. I approached the person who brought up the topic of Net-Zero building. He had come all the way from Australia. We walked over to the construction that was going to shelter the water truck, but before I could find out what he would suggest could be improved in the design, he left the site and I never saw him again. The building was right behind the Portland, Oregon Two-Spirits Camp which was identifiable with its big rainbow flag. I approached the “leaders”-- two women whose names were Candi Brings Plenty and Dandilion--and asked if I could camp there.

They asked if I was Two-Spirit, and up until this time I thought it was just a blanket term for LGBTQ. Then I learned that the "Two-Spirits" are specifically natives who identify with more than one gender and who fill a sacred, spiritual and ceremonial role. I knew a little bit from the movie "Little Big Man," in which a Cheyenne male character called Little Horse wore women's clothing and was not expected to fight. A traditional Two-Spirit must be recognized as such by the Elders of their Indigenous community. I am not native, but in the scope of alliance and support, yes, I could set up my tent with them. I felt accepted and free to make myself at home.

Up until now I’d felt paralyzed with indecision about moving.  I had not brought a lot of things with me so the move wasn’t daunting in that respect.  However, I’d had no place better to go. It occurred to me now that I might have been lonely where I was, and that this loneliness could well have been the unfamiliar feeling which had been bothering me since the first day. It would also be nice to be closer to my changes of clothes, since the temperature over the course of the day changed by 40 degrees. I didn't want to be carrying a backpack with me all day.

Elsa wanted to help me move my camp so we went to my site and packed up my tent, sleeping bags and everything, and walked it all over to the Two-Spirit Camp. We sat around and socialized for a while before I set up my tent. There were about 20 people living in that camp who identified themselves as having two gender spirits. They had their own fire and their own kitchen. For my short stay here I was going to get a little bit of schooling in the language of Queer Politics, as well as more Native American spirituality. I made an announcement that I would need a ride to Bismarck on Thursday and someone said that if I didn’t find a ride he would give me one. This was a very generous offer. Someone else said that he was going to pick someone up at the airport Thursday at 2:30 and I could get a ride with him.

Very soon after I got my tent set up, Elsa and I saw a man driving around in a solar powered golf cart. He gave us a demonstration, showing us that it plugged in to that same battery bank at the dome that I had I wondered about. So, they weren't powering a refrigerator, after all, and this must have been all that "Green stuff" that Frank White Bull was talking about.  Then I went to I get some lunch at Winona's kitchen, a small mobile Native kitchen connected under a tarp to a travel trailer, which served Indian soul food. I ate almost all of my camp meals there. I ate only when I was hungry, and ate everything on my plate. I'm not even sure if I ever met the person known as “Winona." Someone told me they made fry bread which is an Indian treat: a leavened dough that is flattened and fried like a doughnut, and can be served with sugar or fruit, or savory with meat and taco toppings. I made a pest of myself asking at every meal if they were making fry bread, but the fry bread specialist had been away at a funeral. For lunch they were serving a delicious chicken soup.

After I finished eating, it was time for me to go to Direct Action training which was beginning at 2:00 p.m. near the Red Warrior Camp. There were about 80 people in the workshop. The facilitators had experience from all over America with civil disobedience, demonstrating and protesting. The first thing they told us was that every great American social movement, such as civil rights, women’s suffrage, and ending the Viet Nam war  had been achieved through peaceful civil disobedience, marches, sit-ins, and included people getting arrested and risking injury and imprisonment. This teaching showed us how to avoid getting hurt, how to communicate with and not antagonize law enforcers, what to do if we get arrested, what to do if we get sprayed with mace, and how to keep the demonstration going on for as long as possible. We were invited to add our own ideas. Then we had a mock action. We locked arms, sang, and walked very slowly. The meeting lasted from 2:00 until the sun was noticeably sinking in the west.

After I completed my training, I went back over to Winona's to help out before supper. I did a little chopping preparation, a little dish washing, and I realized how very difficult maintaining a clean kitchen would become once the temperature dropped below freezing.  It was already nearing sundown,  and the temperature was noticeably falling. There were other helpers. The one I struck up conversation with was named Jesus, a young musician from Los Angeles who helped me out by keeping a pot on the fire to heat up water for washing dishes. There were a few very large pots to wash, including one that had been used for the chicken soup that I had eaten for lunch. The pots had quite a lot of grease in them and it was extremely difficult to get them clean before the water cooled down.  Winter was going to be challenging in ways that we were beginning to foresee.

After all of the big pots were finally washed, the cook announced that she would make fry bread. There were three different people involved in this endeavor, each with a different approach and recipe creating an amalgamation of the quintessential fry bread recipe: flour, water, powdered milk, salt, yeast or baking powder, warm water, sugar, and everything was measured by eye.  Mixed together and allowed to rise for about an hour, the dough was shaped into little pillows and dropped into hot oil until it turned light brown.  I felt exceptionally lucky to have made fry bread alongside some "pros." As my personal reward I took away an empty pretty Blue Bird Flour Bag. Blue Bird flour is milled in Colorado and is the preferred brand by makers of homemade fry bread. The menu that night was authentic homemade menudo, buffalo soup, and a wild blueberry compote. There was a long line for the fry bread.

I ate a little bit of everything and went back to my tent to go to sleep very early. The people camping behind my tent were either throwing lots of tobacco on their fire or else smoking a lot of cigarettes. I was being “smudged" all night.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

It was very cold that morning and I wanted to stay inside my sleeping bag for as long as possible before I would inevitably have to get out. “KIKTA PO! KIKTA PO!” came over the public address system. I went to the main circle as usual for the morning prayers and coffee.  (Today someone had brought some half and half!) Prayers and songs went around as usual and, as before, I felt something in my chest where my heart resides when I looked at the growing rosy glow on the horizon. “Thank you for another day, another opportunity to make myself into a better human being.” This morning the microphone came to a woman who took on a more remonstrative tone. She had heard of or seen alcohol being consumed in the camp. “If you are here to party," she said, "you should go home. This is a Prayer Camp.” She had overheard some cussing. “This is a sacred place. If you hear someone using bad language or gossiping, please remind them that we are praying. I see some gang kids wearing their colors. This is not the place for that. If you are not here to pray with us, go home.” It felt as if she were correcting her own misbehaving grandchildren instead of a bunch of unmindful White adults. In fact, a lot of the camp’s composition was Indian and young.

      There was an announcement of found items in a box on the "stage": keys, wallets, phones, a love letter.  Someone, an anonymous donor, had paid for the release of cars that had been impounded from the raid on a North Camp 10 days earlier. All that was needed was for the owners of the autos to take a ride with someone who was offering a lift, and they could go retrieve their cars.

        I didn’t know much then about the raid, but I have since learned that it was a violent assault on a camp named “1851 Treaty Camp." In September 2016, Energy Transfer Partners bought the  9,000-acre Cannonball ranch, which was part of land that the Sioux were granted as part of the Great Sioux Reservation in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty. In later treaties, the United States government offered the Sioux 15.5 million dollars for  North and South Dakota lands, shrinking the reservation into five separate smaller reservations. The Sioux never accepted the money, and, therefore, never ceded the land.  The 1851 Treaty Camp had been set up in protest on October 23rd on the newly purchased land in the direct path of the pipeline. Four days later, 300 police in military riot gear conducted the brutal attack on unarmed protesters using mace, tear gas, beanbag guns, and noise concussion devices on them. 141 people were arrested and some cars were impounded.

        There was another announcement about a delivery of wood stoves and tents. Volunteers were needed to help unload them and help to set up the tents. Elders, women and children were advised to get into the winter tents immediately.  As I started to leave, someone was talking on the microphone about the annual Sundance ceremony.  He mentioned the words dog, sacrifice, medicine, and soup all in one sentence. I thought it must be true, then. But again, I didn't ask anyone.

        I went over to Winona’s where they served up some bacon and eggs and home fries. She always had a thermal jug of sage tea and another of mint tea in addition to fresh coffee. I kept forgetting today was Election Day.

I stopped again at the donations tent to help a little bit, and there I saw a man from behind wearing a beautiful vintage plaid woolen bathrobe, obviously picked up here at donations. I thought the visual effect was beyond fashionable in camp, where practicality, durability, and warmth were quickly taking consideration before beauty. Once I had all the boxes sorted and neatly displayed I went back to my tent. I spent the rest of the morning with the Two-Spirits erecting a winter army tent and covering the top with heavy plastic tarps. This was expected to be their supply tent. They already had a heavy canvas tent set up for sleeping with luxurious beds and colorful blankets. It had an outlet for a stove pipe and they were planning to get a wood stove for inside. Around the larger camp I was noticing that firewood was being used up very quickly although the weather was still relatively warm. There were no forests nearby and wood was being imported from as far away as Washington State and was being trucked in.

    People who were leaving usually cleaned up their sites, but all around the camp there were shallow holes in the ground from their fire pits. The facilitators asked us to help out by filling them in with dirt. I kept thinking about what an archaeologist might find here a hundred years from now. I also kept thinking about the ancient Mandans: How big were their camps? Where were their forests? And how did they stay warm over the frigid winters?

      Elsa came to find me and invited me back to stay over at the Casino so I packed up and made up my bed and offered it to anyone who might want to sleep in it. We went to the Medic tent to meet our ride. On the way over, I found my dish-washing buddy, Jesus, walking down the road wearing a long coat: it was that same beautiful vintage plaid bathrobe I had seen earlier. I told him he had impeccable taste. He was giving away beads from a necklace that he loved and had broken. I gave him a hug sure that I would see him again. We got to the Medic tent only to find that our ride had already left. Elsa told me that there were several people who had reported lost dogs… We each hitched another ride--I got a ride with some Lakota Indians who had come from Pine Ridge in South Dakota and Elsa rode with another family--and we arrived at the Casino at the same time. We enjoyed another buffet dinner and I used the pay phone to call Howie back at home. I took a shower and put on my pajamas. I plugged in the computer, propped up the bed pillows, and sat myself under the blankets. Elsa flipped through television stations on the monster wall TV to find out how the election was going. It took a while before we found a station that was showing the news.

       I wrote on Facebook: “I could probably write a short book about all this,” as I looked up at the TV to see Donald Trump ahead in the race. "In spite of the downgraded intensity of conflict, I attended the Direct Action training, so now I know how to be a peaceful protester, a skill I should have learned a long time ago. I have heard from several people that 2 LOCAL COPS HAVE TURNED IN THEIR BADGES AND QUIT THE POLICE FORCE,” over mistreatment of Water Protectors who had been arrested.  While I still had my computer on, I did a search on Sioux eating dogs, and I found that to them, the dog is/was a sacred animal. Before the introduction of the horse, the dog was their beast of burden, carrying their loads when the people lived a nomadic life. Sometimes a young puppy was killed and its meat boiled to be consumed as part of a special healing ceremony. It still didn't sit well with me and I wasn't sure how to include this in my diary. I really didn't want people from "my" world to dismiss the Sioux on this count. While I still had my computer on I booked a hotel room in Bismarck for the coming Thursday night as I would be flying out early Friday morning. The hotel had airport shuttle service and continental breakfast. By the time I quit the computer and turned off my light, Donald Trump was just about to be named the winner of the U.S. presidential election.  I had a feeling of disgust, but I was finding resolve in my recent surroundings. There had always been a lot of work to do in our country, in our communities, in the world, but now it was clear we were going to have to roll up our sleeves and work harder to become unified.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Elsa had to leave for the airport at 5:30 a.m. I was awake when she turned on the TV and Trump was announced as having won his bid for the Presidency. I was shocked, but Elsa seemed even more affected by the news. We pulled ourselves together and exchanged phone numbers. I was thinking maybe I should ride with her to the airport and rent a car to drive back in. But the clock was ticking, there was no time to be indecisive, and it was time to say goodbye to Elsa. I took a relatively long time writing emails before I would check out. I went downstairs to breakfast and put in another call to Howie. I got dressed and took my bags downstairs and hailed a ride. The person who opened his car door to let me in was named Ray. He was an Indian originally from Lame Deer, Montana, now living in Seattle. He was friendly, and we exchanged camp observations. I found that I was not the only person who had ideas that one of the camps ought to become a permanent public site for educating people on American Indian affairs.  

Ray dropped me off right at my tent and I changed into work clothes. I had in mind to go over to Sacred Stone to see what was going on with the waginogans.  I crossed the bridge over the river and it seemed that the Rosebud Camp, another prayer camp near the Sacred Stone Camp, had grown as well. I saw a dome-shaped sweat lodge structure, made of bent saplings and covered with blankets. A sweat lodge ceremony is something like a sauna, used for physical and spiritual purification and is usually conducted in groups. Stones are heated in a fire and brought into the center of the lodge and water is poured over the rocks, creating steam. I went over to talk with a woman who was sitting nearby. She was a water-pourer, a person who has been trained to conduct the sweat lodge or Inipi ceremony. This was not her lodge; that is, there was someone else who scheduled the sweat ceremonies, probably the person who built it. She ran women’s lodges here, and in addition they held community mixed lodges. While we were talking, a young Indian man came up and asked if he could use the lodge for his family who had traveled from Chicago. He had a water-pourer among his travelers. They had encountered some trouble along the way and wanted to sweat and pray about it. She directed him to come back and talk to the person who maintained the lodge. After he left, I took my own leave of the woman and wandered some more. I strayed from the well-used road and walked through the tall grass toward a patch of trees. I needed to enjoy some alone time and admire the landscape and the beautiful weather. I laid down among the trees, not really engaging in any thoughts. I needed some open meditation for a change, to let go of my judgments, plans, and any notions about what I thought that I had come here to do. I had not really been closed to demonstrating but the possibility of getting arrested, having to come up with bail money, court dates, lawyers, and all the other possible hassles would be beyond inconvenient. Even so, I had still been daydreaming about carrying a big sign to that front line that had printed in bold letters, “I am your Aunt. We are family. Don’t shoot,” or some words to appeal to the militarized police to put down their weapons and join the side of protecting the people instead of the pipeline. While I was lying there, I looked across the large stretch of grass to the hillsides beyond. I could see large pieces of that monstrous excavating equipment: drills, backhoes, and bulldozers. And suddenly I saw moving dark shadows across the hillside. I squinted. BUFFALO! There were about 200 of them moving as if one morphing silhouette. I watched for a while until they moved out of sight over a hill.

It was time to pick myself up and move on to my mission of finally making myself useful. I found some people erecting yurts. There was one person laying out lines for their sites along a Kabbalah tree-of-life plan. It seemed like a tedious detail given that in preparation for winter, the time had already come to move inside.  We all were being urged to take shelter in the large army tents, teepees and yurts; our summer tents would be useless against the menacing wind, cold and snow. It seemed to me like a better idea to place the yurts according to the landscape contours, and in close proximity to amenities, and to get them up as quickly as possible. They were not my yurts so instead of handing out my common-sense critique, I pitched in by picking up cow dung and sticks off the sites that had been mapped out already. I did as I was asked and piled them up under a tree for future use as fuel. Although I thought it was very resourceful as an idea, I could see that this small pile would keep a few people warm for at most a few hours, even in the most fuel efficient wood-burning stove.

I hadn’t been working for very long when a truck with a couple of people in it came along.  The driver, an Indian man, stopped the truck and got out. Then he shouted, enunciating his words very clearly, that there were going to be four concurrent women’s sweat lodges later that day, to honor, comfort, pray with and heal women who had been arrested and traumatized during an Action. The place of the lodges and time were not given. Of course I was going to go, but for now there were cow pies to pick up and I still had not made my way back to Sacred Stone. If the fires for the lodges were not already started, it would still be a few hours before the purification ceremony.  I continued with my work helping the group lay out a giant plastic tarp that was going to be the ground cloth.

Soon, another pick-up truck drove up with a driver delivering a message: the roadblock had been cleared and there was a possibility of an impending raid on Oceti Sakowin Camp.  We had been warned about rumor mongers, so I didn’t regard his words as an actual emergency. In any case, on this side of the river everyone was safe. This was the Standing Rock Indian reservation. I asked the driver about the women’s sweat ceremonies and he said they had already lit the fires. I stopped my work and hitched a ride back to the sweat lodge that I had passed on my way over. In my haste I had lost both my skirt and my blue fleece jacket somewhere. There was no time to go back to find them. At the lodge site, there were a few men there building a fire but they told me the women’s lodge was going to be on the other side of the river, at the Oceti Sakowin Camp. I crossed the bridge again. First, I did not want to miss the ceremony, and just in case there really was a raid, I did not want to be caught away from my tent and my belongings, in case I might have to flee.  I stopped by my camp and told the people about the sweat ceremony I was planning to attend and then went over to the clothing donations tent because I was required to wear a skirt into the lodge. There were plenty of sweaters, jackets, hats and scarves, but no skirts.  To improvise, I was furnished with a clean bed sheet which I would wrap around my waist.

At Oceti Sakowin, no one seemed aware that there might be a raid. I was not going to raise alarm by saying something about which I had no real knowledge.  No one could tell me exactly where the Inipi, the sweat lodge, was going to be. It was growing late and I didn’t want to miss it. I passed by a large dumpster and saw that some of the garbage needed to be sorted from the recycling. I pulled out some plastic water bottles and put them into the recycling bin. When I found cases of unopened canned vegetables in the dumpster, I was horrified. I checked the expiration dates and they were all good. A man came along to throw his trash into the dumpster and I told him about the cans of food I found.  He suggested that they may have been from the camp raid and were possibly contaminated with mace. Then he expressed that he felt really awful, and he began to cry, about the election results, I surmised. I asked him if he needed a hug, and he said he did. I gave him a deep, heartfelt hug and told him not to fear.  He told me he was on his way to a Sustainability meeting. I knew I belonged there because it was obvious this camp was not in any state of preparedness to be sustained over the winter and I knew I could add a few ideas that would be simple to implement, but I was going to the lodge. I had made my decision and had a purpose. When I got back home I planned to attend a lodge on Long Island a day later with some people I used to sweat with.   My purpose was to connect these two communities with their prayers. My input and learning at a Sustainability Meeting would not turn out to be part of my Standing Rock experience. This was, after all, a Prayer Camp.

The lodge location was not well known so there was to be a lot of walking, back and forth, to find the right person who could direct me to it. I finally went up to the main circle stage area and walked right up to a person who looked like an authority because he was holding the microphone. In an anxious  tone of voice, I blurted out, "Can you tell me where the sweat ceremony is?" He looked at me, paused, and held out his hand and said, "Excuse me. My name is ______.  How can I help you?" I apologized for being impolite; he then laughed and said "That's OK." I took his hand and said, "Hi, my name is Monica. I would like to know where the sweat ceremony is going to be held." He directed me to go to where the water ceremony had been down at the river's edge. "Then turn right," he said. "You'll see it." Although the site was not exactly where I thought it would be, I ended up there just in time anyway. There were about 60 women waiting outside of two lodges, each with two fires burning. There were men guarding our space facing out in each of the four directions. I heard one of them talking about a line of vehicles he could see far away. I felt a little apprehension, but not fear. If the police were  to commence a raid on Oceti Sakowin camp, I would be inside of a lodge praying so I would probably be safer.

Four women water-pourers were going to lead the ceremonies; each had come forward when the call for a women’s lodge went out through the camp and each came from a different tribal tradition. The water-pourer that I met earlier was one of them. As we stood waiting, the leaders prayed at the same time, each in a different language, smudging their pipes in the smoke from burning sage. There were going to be two rounds for each lodge, one round for each group of about 15 women.  A "round"  or "door" was the period of time between bringing in a load of hot stones from the fire and closing the door,  pouring water on the stones creating steam,  praying, and then opening the door again.  When it finally came time to go in, it was very crowded. I had once experienced a panic attack during a sweat ceremony, in fact that was the last time I had gone to one. Having been in an Inipi at least fifty times before, I had no reason to panic.  I rationalized that I was "given" the experience in order to understand and have some empathy for people who suffer from extreme anxiety. How can I have compassion for people’s misery if I have never felt it myself? In this lodge, I had to sit cramped, I fidgeted a lot, I was right up against the rock pit, I realized that my “skirt” was polyester and I feared it might melt onto my skin.  It was time for the rocks to be brought in, and I could feel it was getting hotter and hotter.  The leader gave a teaching, prayed, we each took our turn with a silent or spoken prayer.  My prayers are always the same: to know my purpose, to make decisions, and to make a good difference in the world. It was a relatively short round. After we finished with all the rounds and exited the lodge, I walked back to my camp.  On the way I heard people all around the camp yelling, “Look up! Eagle!”  I looked up and saw there was a distant large dark bird flying over our lodges. There were people taking this as a good sign.

Back at my tent, I took off my wet clothes and put on some dry things and went over to Winona’s for dinner. Tonight they were serving lengua and venison stew. The cook made fry bread again. After supper I lingered by the Sacred Fire, as usual. Someone told me that the youth were very angry at the outcome of the presidential election. I wished I could stick around, hang out with the kids, sit by the drum for one more night, but I was tired and went off to bed.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

I was awake early and went to the fire long before the 6:00 a.m. wake-up prayer. I heard two different packs of coyotes calling, howling, and singing, from the south and the west of the camp. A few camp dogs joined in. Around the fire there was more storytelling, some personal stories, and some Indian stories. I gave away my pouch of tobacco to a regular attendant at the fire, a tribal elder, although I doubted he was much older than I.  The Old Man who took the microphone every morning for the wake-up call that I felt inclined to call “Grandfather” was in fact younger than my own parents. It was starting to become obvious to me that I was becoming an elder myself.

I had brought my Minidisc digital sound recorder concealed inside my jacket pocket to the fire circle. I wanted so badly to have a recording of the prayers, possibly to marry with some of the few photos I took. The recording attempt failed. I rationalized that it must have been for the right reasons: I was supposed to be here now, and not be fussing with electronic devices that would divorce me from the present moment, especially without permission.

This would be my last time hearing the morning ceremonies. I had been feeling a bit empty and ineffectual for not participating in a Direct Action, or building the waginogans, or washing more dishes. I didn’t eat a lot of food, but I handed over money at the kitchen. There was no donations jar. No one ever asked me for a cent. There were many hands pitching in and none of the work seemed difficult. We were constantly being reminded that this was not a vacation, but everything made it easy to be leisurely, as if on a religious retreat. The firewood took hard work to chop, and great effort to get it here, but there was always someone who came forward and picked up the axe and chopped.

At the coffee station, I found that a couple of cases of ceramic coffee mugs had been delivered, and though I had offered to give my beloved enamel coffee cup to Odie, a Firekeeper and coffee attendant, he wasn’t going to need it after all. I was secretly relieved that I could keep my travel mug that had been with me for 35 years, at least.  I hoped that no more styrofoam cups would be used ever again in this camp. Styrofoam is a petroleum product that takes a very long time to degrade. The trash bins were full of plastic water bottles and styrofoam coffee cups. The local landfill was not going to be a good reflection of the camp.

While the regular morning prayers were going on, and as the day was growing brighter, an Indian couple came into the center of the circle dressed in formal regalia, both with combed hair in long braids, and wearing no hats like the rest of us were. They laid out a colorful blanket in front of the fire. The man knelt down and produced a long stemmed pipe out of its deerskin fringed carrying bag. He held it up toward the sun and the altar and the fire. The woman then did the same with another pipe. There was an announcement that we were having a pipe ceremony and that anyone who wished to participate should form a circle, men on the west side, women on the east. The Pipe Ceremony is the most important ritual to many American Indian people. There were more prayers.  The pipes were filled with tobacco which is a sacred plant to many Indians, and we were instructed how to handle the pipe, hold the wooden stem--representing the male--in the right hand, and the stone bowl--representing the female--in the left. The pipe ceremony is a ritual that joins these two parts together restoring harmony and balance. The pipe, called a Chanupa in the Lakota language, was going to be given to each of us four times, separate pipes for the men and women. There was a teaching in English, I wish I could remember all of it, but the part I remember most went something like this: “Depression comes from living in the Past; Anxiety comes from fear of the Future; we must live fully in the Present.” Then the pipes were brought around to us. I made my own prayer.  I inhaled the smoke and blew it to the sky.

After the ceremony was finished I went back to my tent and changed into my day clothes. I saw the person named Rudy who had offered me the ride to Bismarck and we firmed up our departure plans. I went over to Winona’s for a breakfast of eggs, sausage, potatoes, and tea. I chatted with a cook named Karen. She said that the regular cook had injured her ankle and I offered an Ace bandage that Elsa had left behind. I went to my tent and brought it back. I told Karen that I was flying back home tomorrow, and thanked them for feeding me, and I asked her what message she would like me to take back to the people back home. She paused for a moment and then said, “Tell them that We are Prayerful People; We are Peaceful People; We are Powerful People, and we will win this with Prayer."

    Back at the Two-Spirit Camp there was a media presence happening with photo-ops, videos and interviews. They took a few photos that included me, and then before I knew it, it was time to leave. My driver, Rudy, looked South American Indian, possibly Peruvian, and spoke Spanish with his girlfriend, Sarah. I told him that I was not going to take my gear with me and he said an elder who was flying in could definitely use the two sleeping bags, and if I wanted to leave the tent he could give it to some Diné (Navajo) that he knew. Then I handed him my down jacket to try on and it fit him so I was happy that it, too, was getting a new home. I gave him my bag of Italian Roast coffee that I never used and I told him to make it strong! Sarah and two other of their friends were coming along with us to Bismarck. I overheard mention that they could use a shower and I told them they could use my shower at my hotel room. As we were loading the van, I noticed that it had New Jersey license plates. “Hey, I’m from New Jersey! Where are you guys from?” and Rudy said he lived in Jersey City, and his three other passengers were from all around the New York Metropolitan area, less than twenty miles from my home.  It's a small world.

Rudy's van was a vintage luxury touring vehicle, complete with a television set and a VCR, imitation wood interior,  curtains on the windows, and built-in beds. We drove to Bismarck listening to a CD of Andean flute music. I hadn’t heard any other music except Indian songs and big drums since I had left home a week ago. Rudy and Sarah dropped me off at the hotel and went to the airport to pick up their friends. I requested extra towels from the concierge, took my luggage up to my room, and returned to the lobby to wait for them. I went back to reading Marquee Moon. They returned with an Elder named Zubin, a Tewa who lived in New York City, and his friend, Fire, an Iranian woman. We all went up to my room and they took turns showering. It was as if the Oceti Sakowin Camp was continuing in my room, with more Indian stories. Guessing from popular music references that he mentioned, Zubin was about 62 years old.  Among other things, he told us that when he was a young boy his grandmother told him a story about a web that covered the Earth and made it possible for everyone to communicate with one another. Rudy admired my ribbon shirt that was hanging on the back of my chair. I should have asked him if he felt like it was appropriate for me to wear it at any time. I had only seen them worn by Indian men on formal occasions, but I liked the style. I had made mine to wear during the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City where I participated in the protest march with half a million other people.  

After everyone showered they invited me to come with them and eat dinner, so we found a Mexican chain restaurant nearby that I was able to say I liked. We ate our fill while sharing more personal stories. Paul McCartney’s song “Maybe I’m Amazed” came on over the dining room’s sound system, and I started singing along. I wanted to sing it to Howie when I got back home. I was feeling all around grateful for having made the journey and being there and for the support that I got from all my friends, and yes, amazed at positively everything.

Rudy and his friends drove me back to my hotel and we said our goodbyes. I asked the desk clerk for an early wake-up call. I went to my room, collected my dirty clothes, and washed them in the hotel laundry. I took a shower and turned on my laptop to send a message to Howie. Then I went to bed with my book.

Friday, November 11, 2016

I didn't sleep well knowing I had to be at the airport for a 6:20 a.m. flight.  And I’d chosen the wrong pillow to sleep on, so I was awake before the hotel wake-up call came. I was having a vision of my whole past week in the camp looking like a mile-long wound in a fleshy earth that was healing up, with teepees sticking skyward out of it. I realized that my trip was already quickly becoming a memory that could fade too fast into forgetting, to becoming just another week in my years of travel. I looked at the cut on my hand that had happened while I was still at home. It was healing up well and I told myself that the scar it was going to leave would always be a reminder of my visit to Standing Rock. This trip, like the scar, was going to become part of me. I packed and looked around my room and gave thanks for giving me a place to rest comfortably for the night. I went down to the lobby and grabbed a couple of hard boiled eggs and an orange to take with me since I didn't know when I would have a minute to buy something to eat later.  I waited for the 5:00 a.m. shuttle van to the airport. During my ride, the driver told me he was a Swede and that he had lived his whole life in Bismarck.

Bismarck has a very small airport. There are only about 40 planes flying in and out each day. Right in the middle of our security check line there was a display of a triceratops skull and other fossils inside a big glass case. Going through the security check I had to unpack my carry-on bag that holds all my electronics, just as I had on the way there. After I passed through the scanner, I saw a man with his shirt off and hands overhead.  A security officer holding a scan wand along his body was yelling at him to put his clothes back on, but the man was just standing there frozen with his hands high above his head. Of course I wondered what was going on. I saw that his bags were being examined by hand, slowing the others coming down the conveyor belt. When he picked up his bags I could see that his hands were shaking. I got my backpack back again and repacked it. (I now believe this to be the point at which I lost the microphone for my Minidisc recorder.)

When I got to my terminal, I saw that the man who’d had his hands in the air earlier was seated in the waiting area. I sat down next to him and asked if he was O.K. “You looked very shaken-up back there.” He proceeded to tell me that he was at Standing Rock two days before I arrived when the Water Protectors were crossing the river to Turtle Island, to pray at the burial ground, and were maced and shot at. It was the same scene that I saw on television the night before I left home. He told me it had been very scary until the following day when the circumstances became the opposite--prayerful and peaceful--the day when the clergy got there. He told me that he had been camped at Sacred Stone for the past week. I asked him whether he needed a hug and he said, “Yes,” and so we stood up and held him as strongly and said, "From my heart to yours." It was time to board our plane to Denver and we agreed we would talk more when we got there.  After I seated myself, I immersed myself into Marquee Moon once again. I was on my way home.

When I landed in Denver and got off the plane, the shaken man was waiting for me. He was visibly much more relaxed. He told me he was a farmer in California and we exchanged phone numbers. We then parted ways as I headed to my next terminal.

On my flight to Newark, I sat next to a man reading a book authored by Glenn Beck. The world in some ways had changed over the last week, and I could see that there were going to be reactions and backlashes. The chasm of a divided America could become deeper and I worry that it cannot be bridged. I see that there are two sides of this gap: one that cares only for itself, and the other that cares for everyone. Debate seems futile. Neither side is in the majority, but the side that cares for everyone and the planet is the side that needs to be fostered and that is the work that lies before us.

My first order of business would be to deliver the message I’d received from the people at Standing Rock.

Hindsight

These are thoughts that were percolating inside me that I did not express until this writing. I do not mean for the story of my personal experience to detract from the issue: an unwanted pipeline is set to go through what are legally Indian lands. This action expresses contempt and disregard for the lives and rights of Indians. Ever since  the Europeans arrived, the Indians have been fighting to live on and protect their land and preserve their dignity and ways of life. The objective for the pipeline is money. The resistance to the pipeline is about water. The fact that it was re-designed to circumvent Bismarck and cross the river so close to the Standing Rock Reservation is a declaration of racial inequality. It makes a statement that Indian lives don't matter.

We use petroleum consumption as a commodity. If we don't buy it and use it, it loses its demand and also its monetary value. This does not necessarily mean the drilling, transporting, and refining will stop. According to a report made by Oil Change International, "In 2013, the U.S. federal and state governments gave away $21.6 billion in subsidies for oil, gas, and coal exploration and production." The U.S. government also gives additional money, an estimated $11 billion annually, to lower the price to the consumers of oil and natural gas,  all of these subsidies using taxpayers’ money.

     We waste a lot of the fuels that we consume, no matter what the source. Our cars idle in traffic with us at the wheel (also a waste of our time.) We heat up our homes, schools, and workplaces when we are not in them. We heat rooms that we don't use. We leave our electrical appliances running. We throw away food.  We run clean water down the drain as if it were endlessly available only because we have the money to pay for it. If we stopped using oil and natural gas, we wouldn't need pipelines. It is only in these last hundred years that our demand and consumption are so high, and because these fuels are cheap to use, we feel free to waste. The same is true about our use of water, food, and manufactured goods.

Which brings us back to the issue of Water. It would be extremely difficult to avoid the vast watershed of the Missouri River in the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and that fact should have been considered a long time ago. Even a small leak in this pipeline would be a major catastrophe that would impact over 2,000 linear miles directly along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Every break in every pipeline is expensive, dirty, and disastrous to the ecosystem, including all living things in proximity.  Not only drinking water but also farm irrigation and wildlife are greatly affected.  All the People of the region have cause to raise protest against the construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River. It is not a matter “if” but “when” a breach will occur and foul their water and land.

The Standing Rock Tribe's successful fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline takes more than prayer: the Sioux have treaties, lawyers and public opinion on their side.  A Cherokee medicine man once told me that you can pray for corn all you want, but it helps if you plant the seeds. After I got home and began to write this diary, I decided I needed to write a direct letter to President Obama stating that it was necessary to stop this pipeline.  I sent the letter via email. The following day, the news reported that the Army Corps of Engineers denied easement for the Dakota Access to construct the pipeline at its present route, a small but important victory.

After I finished writing this diary, I found some short notes that I had made while I was speaking with Frank White Bull.  I included them in the revised text. At the time, I was brand new to the camp and full of impressions and this meeting was going to be part of a drama that would have to play itself out. I have since written with him, expressing my appreciation for the hard work of governing. His statement that the camp would be closed in a month was partly true. The Army Corps of Engineers issued an eviction notice to Oceti Sakowin Camp in early December, but it was worded that no force would be taken, that it was simply to notify the people there that emergencies could occur at the camp and that the Army Corps of Engineers would not be obligated to respond.  The camp is located on a flood plain. The danger of flooding during a sudden thaw is very real.  The Standing Rock Tribe also asked the people to leave due to the coming severe cold weather conditions, and they removed the portable toilets that the Tribe was paying for. They were replaced with more sustainable composting toilets. Also in accordance with what White Bull had said, the matter lies with the courts. As I stated earlier, an Environmental Impact Statement is being prepared by the Corps for consideration of alternative and less intrusive routes for the pipeline.  Clearly the protests have been successful in buying some time, but for many the battle is far from over. In a few short weeks president-elect Trump will take office, and there are fears that he could reverse the decision and grant easement to DAPL. For some, any pipeline at all is not acceptable. Meanwhile, at this writing there are about a thousand people remaining on the land and committed to the pipeline resistance. The Dome is still the center of the community.  Winter has come with its snow, wind and subzero temperatures and has at least three more months left, testing everyone who is staying to remain focused, united, and strong. The Water Protectors are setting an example for the rest of us to speak up, be heard, be peaceful, be resilient, remain unified and to take action before it is too late.  We are all related. Water is Life.

HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO

 On February 22, 2017, the Water Protectors' camps were forced closed by law enforcement agencies including the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The people were ordered to evacuate, or be arrested. Many teepees and buildings were torched by their occupants in a ceremony of leaving, rather than be disrespectfully and absolutely demolished by bulldozers. Many banks have divested of their holdings in the pipeline, although perhaps at a profit. However I keep the rest of my closing text as I wrote it originally, first because keeping the text preserves the history of the final days and the memory of the hope we still had. Second, the Water Protector Legal Collective is still accepting donations for the defense of arrestees, to provide legal counsel to some of the more than 800 people who have been arrested. Third, to remind us all, the Struggle continues throughout the world.

***************************************

At this up-to-the-hour revised writing, the U.S Army announced it would cancel further environmental study and allow the Dakota Access Pipeline to go through, following Trump's executive order to OK the pipeline. This does not render the Dakota Access Pipeline a non-issue.   Consider going as a peaceful protester in any capacity to Standing Rock and staying at the Sacred Stone Camp.  If you can't go,  it is easy enough to be effective from where you are right now.  Do a little bit of research: donate money directly to Sacred Stone Camp or their legal defense fund,  sign petitions,  and use  #NoDAPL on social media. Talk to people.  Take your banking to a credit union. Many  banks are invested in and will profit from the pipeline, including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, PNC Bank, TD Bank, just to name but a few major United States institutions.  Find out if your bank is invested; there is a list with their contacts online. If it is, you may wish to withdraw your funds,  contact the president of your bank, and let them know that you are doing so as an action against the Dakota Access Pipeline.  

There are many pipelines currently being challenged all over America. There are many indigenous peoples' rights  being violated worldwide. But there might be something going on in your own neighborhood that needs immediate attention and action.  Don't become overwhelmed by the number and magnitude of the causes there are to work on. Know your strengths and abilities, and choose your campaign with care. Issues that can be described as "Environmental" are often also justice and human rights matters. Determine the best line of action. It may take years or decades to see the fruits of your efforts, but you will learn a lot along the way. Your victories, no matter how small make a difference to  everyone involved in the effort to make a better and just world.

Further reading

This is not a formal bibliography but a short list of books I have read and recommend about and by American Indians. They are classics, and I mean to read many more. I am not a scholar. I started educating myself in 4th grade by reading a series of children's books about different tribes of American Indians that were available in my community  public library.

Vine Deloria, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Peter Nabokov, Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places.

John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks.

Peter Nabokov and Robert Easton, Native American Architecture.

Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman.

Doug Boyd, Rolling Thunder.

Leonard Peltier,  Prison Writings: My Life is my Sundance.

Fall Issue #122, Slingshot, “Inside the Protectors' Camp” and “Kill the Black Snake”

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary

In its entirety Pre-Edit, without photos

Standing Rock diary

is my memory of a week living with the Indians at the

Oceti Sakowin encampment near the  

Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, November 2016.

The Camp, located on Army Corps of Engineering land

at the junction of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers,

is a historic gathering of tribes of Indigenous Nations,

allies and people from all over the world

to join in solidarity to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline.

According to ancient Lakota prophecy,

a Black Snake would slither across the land,

desecrate sacred sites and poison the water before destroying the Earth.

To the Native Americans, that Black Snake is the Dakota Access Pipeline.

*****************************

"Humanity confronts a great dilemma:                        to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation, and death, or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life. "

- The People's Agreement    World People’s Conference on Climate Change     and the Rights of Mother Earth April 22nd, 2010 Cochabamba, Bolivia

*****

"Standing Rock is everywhere in the whole world."

-Chief Arvol Looking Horse

Preface

*******

I went to Standing Rock because it was finally time for me to do something that I really believed in.  Although I had many opportunities in the past to become active in environmental issues, this time there was an additional subject I felt very strongly about: the rights of American Indians. The Standing Rock Sioux were asking us all to come and be part of their camp of protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. I took the invitation almost personally.

I intended to write this as a diary of my week's visit that would take about 7 pages. It is not a work of art. I woke up each morning with one compelling thought, that I had to write down everything that I remembered. Even today more than two months later I remember a few details that I will be adding to this body of text before I print it out and send it to a few people for reading.

Initially, when I wrote, I did not have an intended audience, or purpose. At times I censored myself. I don't want my participation in ceremonies to be mistaken for belief. I value my personal rituals, equating spirituality with psychological strength. Intentions are a quantum of manifestation, but action is usually required. This became clearer to me by being at Standing Rock: I believe the pipeline must be stopped. I joined in the ceremonies and prayed with the people, listening to their stories of oppression, gaining compassion, knowing that the color of my skin has its own privilege. I went home and wrote a letter to President Obama; the next day the Army Corps of Engineers halted the construction of the pipeline.

Since I asked no questions while I was there, I found myself researching sources on the internet during the process of this re-membering. I did not document these with footnotes or bibliography. This wasn't intended to be an essay, a research paper, a manifesto, a propaganda piece. Trust that my sources were reliable ones: mainstream press, official websites, and a few books.

There are probably dozens of people documenting their unique experiences and thoughts about living at the Standing Rock camps. Many are doing this with their cellular phones, filming, photographing, taping. I imagine that right now, it's just too cold there for ink to flow out of a pen, and the no one is plugged in to their personal computer long enough to  write at length. They are more likely to be documenting in the form of direct messages: short emails and text messages, photos and videos, and posts on social media.

I have done a few proof-reads myself, checking for redundancies, errors, and sentence structure. It does not flow like a story I would tell over beers to a friend, but now it is time for me to finish this writing as I believe that it is timely. Finally, it does have a purpose: it is a call for Unity and for Action.  

Thank you to Frank DePonte for facilitating and funding

and to Howard Cohen for his constant support, tolerance and love.

Monica Lee Shimkus

January 2016

******************************************************************

Introduction

**************

Bakken oil fields

The Bakken Formation is the name for  a rock unit underlying parts of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Manitoba that is a natural source of crude oil. The oil is extracted by horizontal drilling technologies and by hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" in which water, sand and chemicals are shot underground to break apart rock and free the fuel. The result has been a boom in Bakken oil production since 2000. Production is near a million barrels a day and is conducted by over 35 different active companies and lease operators, including the Halliburton Company. The light "sweet" crude oil in the Bakken Formation is found “trapped” between layers of shale rock about 2 miles below ground with no surface outcropping that might allow volatile or gaseous compounds to escape. As a consequence, when the oil is extracted it often contains high levels of these compounds and is more prone to explosion than other types of crude oil. There have been many accidents in the field and in transport of Bakken oil resulting in explosions and fires. It is hazardous to extract and to transport by rail or by any other means.

Energy transfer partners

Energy Transfer Partners  began in 1995 as a small intrastate natural gas pipeline operator and now owns and operates approximately 71,000 miles of natural gas, natural gas liquids, refined products, and crude oil pipelines within the United States. ETP is building the Dakota Access Pipeline, a $3.8 billion, 30-inch diameter underground pipeline intended to carry oil 1,172-miles from the Bakken oil fields across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois to an oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois, a hub that connects many oil pipelines.  This pipeline will transport 470,000 barrels of oil per day. An early proposal for the Dakota Access Pipeline called for the project to cross the Missouri River north of Bismarck, but one reason that route was rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers was its potential threat to Bismarck’s water supply. The population of the Bismarck metropolitan area is 130,00 people, of whom more than 90% are white. The new proposed route runs about 30 miles to the south,  less than a mile from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation boundary(of which the population is 78% American Indian) at Lake Oahe, a 231-mile long reservoir on the Missouri River.

Dakota Access Pipeline executives say that they knew nothing of the tribe’s concerns about the new pipeline and continued to build it. However in an audio recording from a Sept. 30, 2014 meeting with Energy Transfer Partners, Standing Rock Tribal officials expressed their opposition to the pipeline and raised concerns about its potential impact to sacred sites and their water supply. On December 18th 2015 the United States Congress voted to put an end to its 40-year-old ban on oil export. Some say that all the oil from the Bakken fields is not intended for US consumption. In April 2016, Hess Corporation sent 175,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.

#nodapl

The Dakota Access Pipeline protests, also known by  #NoDAPL, began in April 2016  and are at this writing ongoing. At the heart of the protest is the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and Tribe.  There are three reasons for Indian opposition to the pipeline. First, they want to protect their water from oil spills. Second, there are sacred sites in the path of the proposed pipeline: graves, stone prayer circles, stone cairns, and some have already been destroyed by construction workers. Third, the  pipeline is being built on some nearby land that Dakota Access bought but Standing Rock Sioux claims as their own.  The land was granted to the Sioux in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty which was signed by eight tribes and the United States government.  The Sioux say that they never  ceded this land in a later treaty.

The Sacred Stone camp was formed on private land on Standing Rock Reservation. Situated on the south side of the Cannonball River, it was created to shelter people who were coming in to pray and peacefully protest the pipeline at the construction site.  In July the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers to halt the pipeline's progression. The suit alleges that the Corps violated multiple federal statutes, including the Clean Water Act, National Historic Protection Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, when it issued the permits to Energy Transfer Partners . In a few months, the Sacred Stone camp population grew and overflowed to the other side of the Cannonball River and the protests began to draw international attention.

The world is watching

On September 20, David Archambault II, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland to garner international opposition to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the reservation. By late September NBC News reported that members of more than 300 federally recognized Native American tribes were residing in the three main camps, a historic gathering, alongside an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 pipeline resistance supporters. In spite of the protesters' non-violent prayerful stance at the construction site, police had responded with pepper spray, attack dogs, mace, tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. At this writing there have been hundreds of arrests during protests at the site of the construction and at other locations, such as banks that are funding the pipeline and Army Corps Of Engineers offices nationwide.  Reporters, journalists and officials have also been arrested, including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now and Tribal Chairman David Archambault. Mainstream news reporting was sparse, but stories, photos and film footage are available to the public on social media. On October 31, a United Nations group was sent to investigate human rights abuses by law enforcement at the protests. Much of the pipeline has been completed as of late 2016, so the Missouri crossing has been an increasingly contentious issue. On December 4, under President Obama's administration the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not grant an easement for the pipeline to be drilled under Lake Oahe. In the meantime, the Corps will prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for alternate routes. However, many protesters continue camping on the site, in spite of the harsh winter conditions, not considering the matter closed. On their website, Energy Transfer Partners vows that they "fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting."

pipelines leak

Throughout the United States, there are 1,079 different crude oil pipelines that cross inland bodies of water, including eight that cross the Missouri River, amounting to more than 38,410 existing river and waterbody crossings. In 2016 alone there have been thirty reported major crude oil and natural gas pipeline breaches and accidents in the United States, causing property damage,  fires, death, harming wildlife, and fouling water. On December 5, a leak was reported to regulators that an estimated 4,200 barrels of oil spilled from the Belle Fourche Pipeline with an estimated 3,100 barrels going into the waters of the Ash Coulee Creek about 150 miles from Standing Rock.

***************************************

the complicated way to prepare for a journey

It took a relatively long time for me to get there, from the time my friend Frank DePonte sent me a message, “My wife, a journalist, is covering the Dakota Access Pipeline story for a Russian magazine. We will be at Sacred Stone Camp in ND for the holiday weekend. Will you be there?” That message came to me before Labor Day weekend when the action was beginning to get heavy and the press was beginning to take notice. I had not been following the story, and I was learning that a pipeline was being built that the local Indians did not want. That was the short version of the issue as it was known to me then. Of course, I should be there.

Autumn is my usual travel time. I am very poor but I love to plan travels. In reality, I get out the door with some psychic difficulty. Indecision is a state of mind I have accepted but nevertheless struggle with. There are so many choices of where to go, how to get there, where to stay, people to visit, and what I might want to do along the way. Two months passed while I agonized over taking what was going be my “Summer Vacation.” When I travel, I am usually going to be working or studying. Sipping a cocktail on the beach is not my image of Somewhere Else. Occasionally it is quite clear to me what I want to do, and where I want to go, and then I just do it. When I make up my mind I can be on a bus out of town first thing tomorrow. I began to foresee that this year my destination was going to be Standing Rock. I wasn’t sure for how long, or what I would be doing, or if I would enjoy being there. The way I see it, the Indians have every right to hate me and all my race. If I went, I would be camping out in cold weather, and there was plenty of reason for me to believe I would be in a situation where I could be arrested as there were reports of protesters and police colliding.

I learned that protesters were planning to camp out on the land over the harsh winter and I came to rationalize that I needed to assist with building housing for the people who would be staying. I have some knowledge of construction, architecture, native structures, and small experience with Habitat for Humanity, and I was growing excited with the idea of being busy using what I know. I spent my mornings researching the people who lived in North Dakota when the Europeans arrived, the Arikaras, the Mandans, the Hidatsas, before the Sioux came to live there. I studied quickly-built sustainable as well as temporary housing forms that could protect people from the cold: quonset huts,  strawbale, earthlodges, yurts, and insulated teepees. I began reading Grandmothers Counsel The World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision For Our Planet by Carol Schaefer and Rolling Thunder by Doug Boyd. I was becoming conscious from the contents of both books that Spirituality and Environmental Stewardship are interconnected to many indigenous people. The current events were pointing my attention to the fact that legal and diplomatic struggle for the Indigenous peoples of the whole earth is coming to a head at Standing Rock. It was becoming more evident that I needed to go, and if my going were not going to effectively help the people who live there or the campers or the protest, then I simply I needed to go to fill an educational gap in my life’s experience. I would go to learn.

**********************************

Late in September while I was still in an aggressive state of indecision, I packed up my tent and went camping at the ocean. It took a few attempts to actually make it to the beach due to self-sabotage, including leaving my wallet at home, setting out too late in the day, and locking my keys in the car. Finally, the day I picked to go camping happened to be very windy with rain in the forecast. When I finally arrived I found that I had the whole lonely campground to myself.  I took a walk on the beach; there were a few brave  or crazy surfers on the  especially rough-breaking waves. Before I picked my campsite I found a dead sparrow. Should I be superstitious since Sparrow is my nickname? I picked a site and set up my tent. The wind was fierce and provoked a kind of misery; I slept badly and was prevented from making my own coffee in the morning. At dawn I left my tent and stood in the wind and prayed out loud. I never know what good praying does.  I renounced sleeping out of doors.

But the wind was preparing me for Standing Rock.

**********************************

In October I wrote a letter to my friends in a few places who had been expecting that I might visit them, with my thoughts that I was considering instead going to North Dakota. I had credit card points that would translate into free or cheap travel, and this limited my airline choice.  Inexpensive voyage often only happens during the off-season, away from holidays, midweek, and during off-hours. Bismarck did not appear  to be a convenient airport and area to get in and out of. I could arrive by airplane sometime late at night and when I would leave it would have to be very early in the morning. I was having a hard time visualizing a pleasant easy passage. The autumn days were growing short, and I was not able to plan weeks in advance to insure the best bargains. Tensions were escalating at the site, the pipeline construction was growing nearer to the Missouri River, and I kept watching the weather report. Summer was having an extended stay in North Dakota, just as it was in New Jersey. It would be a good time to go; if I waited too long I would miss the best building weather. I had read that there were 2 camps at the site, and one  called Sacred Stone,  was on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on private land owned by LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. They were calling themselves a “prayer camp” and were accepting money and material donations on the internet. From the pictures I was seeing on social media I imagined that in the future this place could also become a permanent educational facility. There was also a public fund for legal aid, which was growing steadily, and had already far exceeded its goal. There was another camp, as I understood it at the time, that was called Red Warrior, and my impression was that it was for activists who were planning civil disobedience actions. I had decided that if I went, I would be staying at Sacred Stone Camp. I kept picturing myself at the "front line" carrying a sign that read, "This is your water, too." But I still had not made up my mind to go.

I still had a few things to do around my home to get ready for winter. I had to repair my garage door that had been damaged by snow plows last winter. I sold off a few things on ebay to raise money. And then an opportunity came to buy a good used car for very cheap. I did not need a car but I took the opportunity and bought it anyway. It was quite a hassle, full of anxious days, as the car had been sitting in a driveway and not driven for 5 years, the original title was missing, and the owner was disabled. It was a lot of footwork, money I didn’t have, insurance, towing, mechanical repairs. But, if I wanted, here was another way to get to Standing Rock if I didn’t mind adding six days driving to and from North Dakota into my travels.

*********************************************

Then, I had a sudden flash of a long-ago memory of waking up and seeing the Missouri River for the first time: it was around the 24th of June, 1981. I had just spent a month in St. Paul, Minnesota working to pay my way during my first cross-country road trip. While I was at work one day I heard that the Sioux Indians were planning to occupy the Black Hills in an ownership dispute and I wanted to be part of the experience, somehow. It was time to pack up my car and head toward Wounded Knee, South Dakota. I was driving with very little money and some camping gear. I picked up a hitchhiker earlier in the day and we stopped in to check out the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. We continued driving on I-90; night fell, and I was getting tired from driving. My hitchhiker suggested that we pull over at the nearest rest stop and just roll out our sleeping bags, and so we did. I remember the night being comfortably warm and lightly breezy. I looked up to see a sky filled with thousands of bright stars. It was my first time sleeping under an open sky at night. In the morning I woke to the  strange and beautiful song of a meadowlark. I also saw that I had been sleeping on a hillside, and down below, way down at the foot of the hill was a river that I found on my map to be the great Missouri. It was impressive, about half a mile wide, surrounded by green grassy hills of early summer.  In researching for this Preface to my Diary, I learned that there are many dams along the river that make it wider than it is by nature. They were  built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the purposes of irrigation, flood control and the generation of hydroelectric power. The dams flooded ancient Indian villages, resulted in the forced relocation of nearly 1,000 Indian families, and “caused more damage to Indian land than any other public works project in America.” I now know that the river at this point was the Eastern border of the Great Sioux Indian Reservation that covered half of South Dakota according to the original Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.

*******************************************

On November 1, I phoned Frank with my dilemma of  being crippled with indecision. I was needing to be talked into going to Standing Rock. Frank offered to fly into Bismarck himself and rent a car to facilitate my journey, his wife would come with him and gather more research for her article, and he started singing the song “Chicago” by Graham Nash to me:

"...In a land that's known as freedom how can such a thing be fair Won't you please come to Chicago for the help that we can bring ..."

This was the tipping point. I hung up the phone and made my one-way plane reservation to Bismarck. I would meet Frank in Denver to get our connecting flight on the same plane to Bismarck. I had already been packing for this trip, and a large part of my anxiety lay with my bringing the right versatile gear, and not too much for me to carry. This was all going to be remedied by Frank’s renting a vehicle to transport to Standing Rock, which was 50 miles away from Bismarck. I finished the repair of the garage door and in the process cut my hand, a short gash. I cleaned it and bandaged it, it was not going to be a problem but it was to become an image later that would represent my journey.

On November 2, I went out and voted in our upcoming national election. Later that day I was in a store that had a television on, and as I was shopping there was a news broadcast showing film footage of a violent clash between protesters and police that took place only a few hours earlier in North Dakota. In the scene people were wading in the Missouri River at the pipeline construction site.  Police dressed in military riot gear were streaming mace at protesters and shooting them with rubber bullets. I wanted badly to see these police put down their weapons and join the people. My decision was still to go in support of the protest, and not with the intention of getting arrested. My hope, although unrealistic, was that the issues would all be resolved before I returned home and that no one would have to camp over the winter and no one would have to show up and protest anymore.

Thursday November 3, 2016

Before I left home, I made a return flight reservation. I wasn't sure how I was going to manage to be on an airplane out of Bismarck at 6:20 in the morning, but I trusted that somehow it would happen. I was going to be gone 8 days and nights. Packing is normally for me difficult business and I can alternate between being very fussy and very adaptable. The day was warm so I wore a long black skirt and sports sandals. It felt like I might be carrying too much, but I was greatly relieved to find that my bags were easy for me to handle. My partner Howie said he wished that I was not going, but he said he respected me because I was going and this made me feel really good. He drove me and my bags to the train station.  I didn't have to wait more than a few short minutes before the train to the airport arrived. I was early for a change and I had plenty of time before take-off. I got to the airport and there was a little bit of a hassle regarding the manner in which I was carrying my sleeping bag, but I got it onto the airplane just fine.  I visited the United Airlines VIP lounge for some free soup and salad and a glass of wine. I had brought a book with me to read, 33 1/3 ’s Marquee Moon, the story of the making of the 1977 album by the band Television. It was a conscious choice for me, a small portable book about the 1970s New York city art and punk music scene. I knew that where I was going was going to be far removed from the story contents of this book, but I felt I might need a reference, a touchstone, connecting where I was going with where I was from. Then I boarded the plane, flew into Denver and met up with Frank and his wife Radjana, a Russian anthropologist who was working on the story of the  pipeline and the resistance for the Russian press. After Denver I was not going to have any cell phone reception so I sent out a few final text messages. On the connecting flight from Denver to Bismarck I was seated next to peace activist Reverend Patrick McCollum who told me he was in contact with the United Nations and President Barack Obama, and on that day over 500 clergy had converged at Standing Rock. He told me that a Peace Pole was being shipped from Japan and that he was going to carry it to the site.

We arrived in Bismarck, around 8:30 PM. Frank rented an SUV and got us a hotel room. The neighborhood was not far from the airport, full of chain hotels and restaurants presumably designed to serve business people and travelers.  I was hungry and requested that we get something to eat so we picked out a restaurant very nearby. We walked in and were greeted by girls about 18 years old, wearing football jerseys as their work uniform.  We took our seats at the bar.  There were at least 70 very large televisions on the walls surrounding us on all sides, all tuned to broadcasts of different sports events. When I travel I like to get a feel for the locals. I looked around to study the clientele, mostly white male, about early 20s in age, mostly wearing sports clothes, as if they had come in from a game themselves, and all very well-fed.  If there were cowboys among them, they were out of uniform. It was after work hours. There was a feeling of familiarity among patrons and staff alike.  I would take a wild guess that there was a University nearby and these were students, possibly of agriculture, mining, or business. For the next 7 days this was going to be my last contact with mainstream white American culture. I ordered a hamburger, because it seemed like the most local food choice, and a beer.  By the time we finished eating it was about 10 PM. We went back to the hotel and I took what might be my last shower for the next week and I went to bed.

Friday November 4

The next morning, I turned on my laptop to look at a map, the weather report, and find out what news there might be from the front lines or the camps. Frank had heard rumors of roadblocks and communications jams. I already had no phone reception, and I knew I would not have internet connection for possibly the whole week. The mainstream press was not fully ready to commit to reporting the story in general or about the conflicts that were regularly occurring between armed police and unarmed demonstrators. I sent a message to my family that I had arrived. I was following several Facebook pages that posted news from Standing Rock daily, often up to the minute, mostly in the form of videos, some of them posted live. There I found news and photos of the 524 interfaith clergy that had arrived yesterday, publicly demanding justice for indigenous peoples. As part of their demonstration, they renounced the Doctrine of Discovery, a concept that allowed European colonial powers to lay claims to lands inhabited by indigenous and non-Christian peoples, and enslave or kill them, and take their resources under the guise of discovery and spreading Christianity. The  idea of the Doctrine goes back as early as the Crusades in the 11th century and over time was written into official documents and laws.  At their demonstration the clergy sang hymns and burned a copy of the Papal Bull “Inter Caetera,” that was issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, declaring Spain's rights to lands discovered by Columbus the previous year.

It was a beautiful sunny cool morning. We got some breakfast and set out for the Reservation. The cities of Bismarck and Mandan, on either side of the Missouri River, were old prairie towns, and had been sites of settlement over thousands of  years by different waves of people. There is archaeological evidence of 11,000 years of human occupation in North Dakota. The Mandan Indians were the inhabitants of  the  Bismarck area and estimated 15,000 in number when the Europeans arrived in the 16th century.   Lewis and Clark passed through the area in 1804 on their Expedition.  A series of smallpox epidemics reduced the number of Mandan to about 125 by 1845. Today white northern European descendants, mostly Germans and Norwegians make up the largest ethnic group in North Dakota.

I looked at the houses as I passed by; and I wondered what it might be like to live there. The direct road highway 1806 to the reservation was indeed blocked and we had to take a detour. The landscape as we drove out of the cities is grassland with very few trees. There was an occasional small farm with corn growing, and occasionally a small cattle ranch. But mostly the land appeared fallow, or grazing land or else the grass itself was harvested as hay which was rolled in large bales scattered around the countryside.

When we arrived at the junction of roads near where Cannon Ball was on the map, there were Indian police units parked. We could not guess what their presence signified, but we pulled over and checked our directions. When we had ourselves set on the correct trajectory, we found signs pointing to Sacred Stone camp at a roadside shop. We followed the signs until we found a gate that had its own camp with a big army tent and many people roving around. A woman came to the car and we rolled down our windows to talk with her. She spoke with an Australian accent and questioned if we were agents of the FBI or other government agency or the press and what we were planning to do here. She told us that no drugs, alcohol or firearms were permitted, and photography was not allowed unless we asked for permission, and then she let us into the camp.

We parked the vehicle and walked through the camp which was a mix of tents and teepees, and tarp structures built into the shrubbery. I was interested in the primitive tarp shelters, but looking into the shrubs I saw that they had lots of big thorns, and I was glad that I had a free-standing tent with me. Being situated on a series of hills, it was not possible for me to see the extent of the camp or to guess how many people there were. Everyone was friendly and many were dressed colorfully. Although there was no running water, no one appeared as if in dire need of washing. I soon found that same Australian woman that had greeted us at the entry gate walking on a path. I asked her to give me a quick tour and she showed me the kitchen. In the midst of the kitchen was a Sacred Fire with seats around it and the rules to be observed there were no cursing, no gossip, no political talk. Praying was welcome. There was a dish washing station. Although there was no open food, except for whole fruits, there were a lot of common houseflies landing on the tables. I asked about winter structures and she brought me to a spot where there were people constructing what they called “Wagonagons” - quonset style long houses made of bent saplings that were going to be covered with blankets and tarps. I was looking forward to helping out.

However, the Sacred Stone Camp was not the center of activity that Frank and Radjana had visited the last time they were here. We walked on and came to another gate that closed the road to vehicular traffic. It was another formal checkpoint, with a large canvas tent, a few chairs around a small fire, a young man who had been awake too long with a walkie-talkie and his dog. We talked with him about the logistics of this gate, and I got the vague sense that it could be locked at any time, as a defense in the case of a raid. I did not understand much of what he was trying to tell us. These were “war” language terms that were unfamiliar to me. We continued to walk along past the gate and there in front of us was the Cannonball River. On the other side of the river was a huge camp, as far as I could guess, a mile from one side to the other. There was a surveillance airplane flying overhead, circling the big camp. I would find this was a constant presence that people tended to ignore, and sometimes in addition there was also a helicopter. Often there were photographing drones above us. Many of them belonged to people in the camp with press credentials. We kept walking passing many campsites with more teepees and tents set up along the river. We came to another checkpoint at a bridge with a paved roadway that crossed the river. There were a few vehicles and many people on foot crossing. I thought it was curious that although the weather was warm and there were no showers in the camps, I did not see anyone in the river, washing, swimming, or wading.

On the other side of the bridge, on the north side of the river, there was yet another checkpoint, the official camp exit. We waved and passed on and I could see far ahead that there was an unpaved road with hundreds of flags on both sides of it that represented over three hundred Indian Tribes and one hundred countries from around the world. Even though Frank and Radjana had been here only two months before, the landscape did not look familiar to them. In September this camp had 500 people living in it. Now there were easily 5,000. My guess was that the total population of the camps on both sides of the river was about 7-10,000 people.

camp with flags photo here

There appeared to be a center of activity, where people were gathered. It was another Sacred Fire, the first one that had been lit in April and had been burning continually. There was an altar with cow skulls, baskets of tobacco, sage, cedar, braids of sweet grass and other ceremonial objects on the Northeast side of the fire (later there would be questions about this position… altars were usually placed on the East side of a fire) and about ten folding chairs encircling it. There was an area that I refer to as "The Stage" where there were 3 canopies set up in front of a long army tent. There was a man speaking into a microphone connected to an amplified public address system. He was telling a story. When he finished speaking someone else came up and took the microphone. He addressed the crowd as "Relatives," spoke a few words in an Indian language and then in English thanked everyone for being there. Then he said, “We are one family,” I looked around and saw many people with brown skin and long black hair and I got choked up. I wished I could pass a DNA test and be in this family. The microphone was passed around to a few more people who told us we were in ceremony, we were in prayer, we had to respect and love one another. Furthermore we were asked to pray for the people who were building the pipeline, and for the police who were defending them and reacting with violence toward demonstrators. Instead of “Protesters” he referred to all of us as “Water Protectors.”

Radjana stopped to interview people whenever possible, and we eventually found ourselves at a great Buckminster Fuller-style Geodesic dome. Outside the dome was a mobile flatbed unit with an array of solar panels and a full bank of batteries. There were hanging LED lamps inside the dome but I never did find out what else was plugged into this large system which I estimate could generate enough electricity to run a household refrigerator or two throughout the day. Inside the dome a meeting was about to begin. It was a support group for people who had been arrested. We had heard a few horror stories about a recent Action (or was it the recent raid on the the North Camp?) where people were arrested and confined in what looked like dog kennels, and women were strip searched. There were people who had physical and psychological post-traumatic stress and they needed to come forward and be cared for. Radjana went in to collect information for her article. Frank walked with me to the spot where in September they had camped in their vehicle. It was far away from the crowd near a small creek or pond. I could not see the source of the water. Frank told me it was a good place to camp. Curiously, there was a large house on a flatbed truck nearby that I could use as a landmark. It was somewhat isolated, like a cleared cul-de-sac in a field of tall prairie grass. We went back to tell Radjana  that we were going back to get the car and bring my camping gear and we would pick her up in about half an hour. We walked back over the bridge to the Sacred Stone Camp. I was hungry so I stopped in to the  kitchen for a bowl full of  venison stew leftover from lunch. It was very good. I felt a little sad that this was not where I was going to be staying, but it was a place I could explore and hang out at later.

By this time it was late afternoon. We got into the vehicle and went back out the way we came in. The road leads around the small town of Cannonball on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and back past the convenience store, we turned right this time, onto route 1806, crossed the river on that same bridge we had walked over. Heading north on the road about a half mile away there is an official main entrance to the large camp with its own checkpoint, another that is guarded by a person who asks if you are new or returning. This is the road that is lined with the four-hundred-and-growing flags. We parked and dropped my camping gear at my campsite and walked back to pick up Radjana who was still inside the dome listening to people’s stories. Not wishing to disturb them, Frank gestured to Radjana that we would be waiting outside for her.

In that same instant a man walked up brandishing a camera with a big long telephoto lens. He was an Indian and I didn’t feel like it was necessary for me to police him about photographing. He asked us “What is going on in here?” I told him it was a meeting for women who had been arrested. He stood near us and questioned us why we were there. He introduced himself as Frank White Bull, and that he was on the Standing Rock Tribal Council. He told us that he questioned “all this Green stuff” gesturing to the solar array. He seemed serious, but I couldn't tell if he was. It wasn’t as if we were at a trade show, no one was selling anything, but there were solar panels and wind generators on the site. He said that the stuff was detracting from the main issues: Water and the Children who were not born yet--the Future as it is often referred to by the Indians with the expression "The Seventh Generation." I didn't feel that the Green Stuff was distracting at all, rather it was powering the camp and serving as an exhibition that oil is not the only way to get electricity, but he was making his point that he felt that people in the camp had gotten distracted. Then he told us that the camp was going to be closed down in a week. Oh, it would take about a month to clear everyone out, but it was not a legal camp and it was not necessary for us to be there. The Standing Rock Sioux would handle the Pipeline issue as a legal one themselves. For one thing, the tribe was paying for our toilets and trash removal. I didn't challenge him or ask questions. On the surface, I would have argued, that the protests and the subsequent violent police reactions were garnering media attention and support from the public. But to him, I think it may have seemed an unnecessary waste of time, energy, and resources. I kept trying to  second guess why he was telling us these things; maybe he was trying to test our sincerity. In the short future I would be able to tell him that by being here I learned a lot about the struggles of the Indians and a lot of other things. I could tell him now that this was a historic camp, that this gathering of people all appreciated his hospitality.  He gave us his business card. By this time, Radjana had joined us. She had a press pass, and asked him a few questions. He showed us some photographs that he had taken that were stored on his cell phone. They were beautiful skillfully taken photos; one was of the Milky Way, a bright mass of stars in the night sky, the other was of the green-hued Northern Lights, taken “right from that bridge over there, last month.” But we would not see these things in the sky at this time, he told us, because the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site was lit up at night, with bright stadium lights that polluted the night sky, in order to discourage protesters from chaining themselves to equipment or other “mischief” on the work site.

My reaction was both disappointment and relief at the same time. My understanding of what White Bull had said was that we were not needed to go on the “Front Line” of protest action, did not have to camp out over the winter, I was not needed for support. But here was my opportunity to learn, help out, and report what the people back home were not seeing because the news was not covering most of what was really the heart of what was going on.  It had taken a lot for me to get here, and I was expecting to take something back with me. "So I should go home , " I said. White Bull said, “No, you don’t have to go home,” and I thought, but where else can I go now? I was having a vision of roaming around on foot on the Great Plains for the next week. I felt like my whole reason for being was challenged. I was stunned and confused. Two months later I am still wondering what his intention was by imparting this "information" to us. It was to be my only encounter of this kind during my entire stay.

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My mind felt poisoned, and I wanted to share what Frank White Bull had said to me with other people. But I did not. I had a feeling that if I did, his words if repeated would have had the effect on the camp like an oil leak running over the territory that the Missouri River feeds, all the way down to the Mississippi, and on to the Gulf of Mexico, before it could be stopped and corrected. I asked around if there were Tribal Council members on site that I could talk with. I was also told and would have suspected anyway that there were "plants," and agents provocateurs, and untrue rumors being spread, and that I needed to be aware of these things. I wanted to find out if what he said was for real, that the Indians did not want us there. Everything else he said sounded legitimate. I was trying to gauge what he told us and why. Was there division among the tribe to have this pipeline go through,  was there money to be made, if not by the whole tribe then possibly by some who had invested in it? These were only my speculations, but I knew nothing. I was going to have to keep quiet and listen.

Sundown was approaching, and Frank and Radjana walked with me back to my campsite. I took note of landmarks, so I would not become lost when I needed to find my way back to my tent. My touchstone would be the house on wheels nearby. While finding my way back to my base, I looked around me and I felt like I was on a peninsula covered with 2-feet-deep coarse grass, a few mid sized trees. I could see the body of water nearby, but other than that I was pretty much alone with about 75 feet to myself on all sides. There were wide pathways all around that had been made by some kind of vehicle. I hastily set up my tent in the middle of a pathway. Frank offered me his sleeping bag as an extra, and with some deliberation I took it. I didn't know yet that I would be very glad to have it inside my other down sleeping bag. I said good night; my comrades would be back the next day. I rolled out my sleeping bags and put on a sweater, and found that my flashlight was not working. Oh well. Then I walked the longish distance, maybe about a quarter mile back to the center of activity, the Sacred Fire, just to get my thumb on the pulse of things. My psyche felt infected with White Bull’s words and I needed to adjust. On my way to the fire, I took note of where the “Spiffy Biffs” - the port-a-potties were and inspected them for toilet paper and cleanliness. Everything checked out fine, which was remarkable given how many people were using them.

By the time I got to the fire it was dark. Someone was talking on the microphone over the public address system, which I could see was hooked up by thick wires to a battery bank on another mobile trailer with solar panels. I had located the coffee station, on a couple of long tables about 30 feet away from the Sacred Fire on the west side. I asked about kitchens, where I would find food. I learned about a kitchen called Winona’s “over there behind that brown teepee” where I could get fry bread and native dishes. From the “stage” about 30 feet to the north of the fire, Native persons took turns speaking, making announcements about available rides to Bismarck, found items, lost items; keep your dogs away from this circle, women please wear skirts; please check in if you are with the press and receive a press pass, please attend the Community Meeting and Orientation at 9 am at the Community Hall in the big army tent over there. We were addressed as welcome Relatives; we are all family, thank you for being here to support us; Hello, my name is ___________ and I came out from _________ reservation in ________; prayers, songs, stories. Often someone took the microphone and introduced themselves as '"Nobody." I was still feeling unsure about what was going on, and after what White Bull had told us, to me everything I was experiencing had taken on an aura of being contrived. I could not shake it but I was not going to repeat what I had been told. However I could sense that everyone else was enjoying a serious connected feeling. It was OK for me to be alone in my skepticism. I noticed that there is an unmistakable style in the way that American Indians speak when they are delivering a monologue. They take on an air of authority, deliberation, and articulation. They seem to get to the heart of the matter quickly. I had heard Indians speak before at pow-wows, sweat lodges, and in movies.  Each speaker ended their soliloquy with “Mitakuye Oyasin,” which means “All My Relations” in the Lakota language. I was meeting people from all over the world: Maori from New Zealand, a group of founding members from Black Lives Matter,  people from Japan, and France, and Indians from India! There were a lot of people newly arriving. An speaker announced that some runners from Arizona would be arriving on foot in a few hours.

Suddenly there was a ruckus around the fire. I was nearby but I missed the cause of it: someone had thrown the cremated ashes of his friend into the fire. A really big fuss ensued, this person had desecrated the fire, who knows if the cremated person had been a good person? And an effort was made to extract the remains from the ashes in the fire. The person who threw them in had already vanished into the camp. The man at the microphone kept asking the person to come forward and collect his friend, repeating no, we aren’t going to hurt you, or offend you, and telling us all that corrections to our behavior were not acts of aggression. I reasoned to myself that whatever the person was like, whose ashes had gone into the fire, they were now purer because of being put into the Sacred Fire. But that was just my point of view. I am still an outsider, a colonizer, a settler, and a guest to these kind people who were feeding me and letting me camp with them and giving me coffee and stories and prayers and who would be educating me.

I walked from the circle back in the direction of my tent. I stopped by a crowd that had gathered around a big drum where there were people singing in some Indian language. I didn’t ask anything, I just stood and listened. I was not a stranger to Indian drumming and singing but I am slow to learn songs or I would have been singing along with the strange syllables, melodies, and heart-beat rhythms. Nothing about this small gathering felt artificial. These were Indians who had either come from a few miles away or had traveled a great distance carrying their drum and their songs.

I went to my tent, there was a group of people set up nearby around a small campfire, I said Hello, my name is Monica, I am camped here, and pointed to my tent.  Then I went into my tent, changed into my night clothes but did not fall asleep right away. I could still hear the drumming and singing, and I could hear musicians taking turns at the open microphone which had turned from information and prayers and added entertainment into the mix. I was again feeling like there was something wrong, something unreal, but I eventually fell asleep and slept well I do not remember having any dreams.

Saturday November 5  

I was awakened by a loud voice, “KIKTA PO! KIKTA PO! WAKE UP! WARRIORS, SMUDGE YOUR PIPES! CHRISTIANS, POLISH YOUR CROSSES. PRAY! THEY HAVE BEEN UP FOR THREE HOURS ALREADY WORKING ON THAT BLACK SNAKE! KIKTA PO! WAKE UP! IT IS GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY!” The air was cold and it was still dark. I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag. I turned on my phone to see what time it was. It was 6 AM. I changed into my day clothes and navigated in the darkness to the Sacred Fire. On my way I passed by the Spiffy Biffs just as a truck pulled up to clean them out. Later I would find that at 6 AM sharp every day, the toilets were emptied and cleaned and new paper was placed in them, enough to last all day and night. They were always rather clean.

At the main circle which was a camp around the Sacred Fire, a kind of town square with a big winter army tent on the north side with 3 canopies connected worked as a kind of stage and shaded sitting area for elders. On the east side there were open canopies with folding chairs underneath, and on the south side there was a large dry-erase board that served as a message kiosk.  There was a coffee station on the west side, with a lattice fence behind it. Their coffee was always fresh if weaker than what I was used to but with just enough caffeine to keep away pain and fatigue and contribute to our mental clarity.

The old man with the microphone was a medicine man from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He continued by saying morning prayers in Lakota and in English. He thanked the Great Spirit for a new day to make himself into a better person. He sang to the rising sun. He passed the mike to a Navajo who had driven out from Oregon, who also prayed in his native language. Again we were thanked for being there in support, and again told we were all related, and we were fostering a spirit of forgiveness, and respect, and if we had just arrived, to please attend the Community Meeting at 9 AM at the dome. "Mitakuye Oyasin! Mni Wiconi!" Throughout my stay the cry "Mni Wiconi" - "Water is Life" could be often be heard in sudden bursts of call-and-response throughout the camp.

As the horizon grew pink with the rising sun, the crowd of worshipers (and coffee drinkers) grew. Someone announced that a women’s water ceremony was going to take place at 7 AM. I was going to discover that some events or ceremonies had time structures and exact locations, but some did not. Anyway, I was not wearing a watch and seldom turned on my phone. By the time 7 o'clock came our crowd grew to about 200 people. A group of women, maybe as many as ten of them dressed in winter jackets and long skirts went up to the front "stage" area. They began singing a water song in English; one woman carried a hammered copper pitcher. She went around the circle and stood in front of each person and poured a little water into our cupped left hands from which we drank. The water tasted very sweet. I read later on that the tap water at the nearby town of Cannonball is also sweet. The taste of the water, as if there had been peaches floating in it, was more reason to protect it. Then the women lined up and we walked down the dirt road with some men following behind to the bank of the Cannonball River, about a quarter mile away, singing along the way, and giving water to people who came up for a handful. The walking ceremony consisted of about a hundred people. When we got to the bank of the river, the men lined up along both sides of the steep pathway to help the women down the bank to a small dock where the ceremony continued. It was chivalrous and felt so respectful, to see these strangers putting out their hands to offer assistance. I have heard the Sioux men told they have to respect all women. In the line I saw a man who looked like my friend David who died very young, six years ago. I thought of him and his depression and addiction. I wished that he could have been here. In that brief moment I also thought about the suicide epidemic among young people that had taken place not long ago on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. When we got to the bottom of the bank, we women were each, one at a time, given a small amount of tobacco which we sprinkled into the river and poured in water from the pitcher. Next men who identified themselves as women were invited to pour water, women who identified as men, and people who identified as both or neither. As I understood this ceremony, it was to thank the Creator for giving us Water, in an open group setting, in a formal way. Although this ceremony was sexually segregated, both sexes were needed to participate, and there was more than one way for a person to define herself as “female.”

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After this ceremony was over, I went to Winona’s kitchen for breakfast. I was already finding that I was often not so hungry, and that one small helping of whatever was available 2 or 3 times a day was plenty of food to sustain me. When I got back to the main circle I found that Radjana and Frank had returned. Frank told me that the house that was my landmark was gone! (Where do you move a house on wheels to?) We spent the next few hours roaming the camp, found some yurts that had been erected, Radjana conducted a few more interviews, we took turns posing for our own photos to post on Facebook. I picked one for Frank to post of me when he got back to internet lands to let my friends know I was OK

The weather was beautifully warm, high in the low 70’s and sunny. I was told that usually by this time of year there was snow on the ground. Behind the bulletin board kiosk, there was a large army tent where there was a big stash of winter clothing and blankets being sorted and given out.  I was still harboring hope that no one would feel a need to stay the winter. Of course it would be kind of an adventure, but I was feeling that it was not going to be easy to sustain. It was not easy to realistically prepare for the eventual reality of arctic conditions, especially with the deceptive tease of a seemingly everlasting summer.

At noon there was a commotion: People were coming into the camp on horseback. They were Indians, and they were headed to the next ceremony, to light the 7th Council Fire. Oceti Sakowin means “seven council fires,” and is the proper name for the people otherwise known as the Sioux. “The Sioux tribe was made up of

                                                    arriving on horseback photo here

Seven Council Fires. Each of these Council Fires was made up of individual bands, based on kinship, dialect and geographic proximity. Sharing a common fire is one thing that has always united the Sioux people. Keeping of the Peta Wakan (Sacred Fire) was an important activity. On marches coals from the previous council fire were carefully preserved and used to rekindle the council fire at the new campsite.” My understanding now is that probably those who came in on horseback were another band of Sioux arriving. The ceremony began with a few people gathering around a fire pit that was in the middle of a ring of teepees. 1,000 people gathered in an outer circle. There was a 20-foot-wide track between the inner and outer circles of people, where the horseback riders rode around. Everyone was quiet, even the babies. All photography had been strictly forbidden at this ceremony. A drone flew above us. Many people shouted at it and waved it away. Someone at the inner circle began to speak. I had to strain to hear what was being said. Even if I could not hear most of it, I felt like it was an honor just to be present. The fire was lit, I heard a cheer, and saw the smoke rise. People around the fire who had pipes held them up; someone was praying. Soon coming up the pathway there was a parade of children who entered the circle. There were more cheers, and songs, and shaking hands with the youth, and then the pipe carriers came out of the circle to offer us their pipes to smoke from. I shared a sacred pipe with probably a hundred of people that day. When the ceremony ended I found Radjana again and I found David McCollum, the man who sat next to me on my plane ride from Denver; he was carrying his peace pole that had come all the way from Japan.

Frank, Radjana and I milled about some more, Radjana continued to interview people, and I followed.  Not used to being idle, I was still looking for work to do. Eventually we returned to the car and took a ride to the Prairie Knights Casino seven miles to the south for buffet supper . While I was having dinner I found that I had internet reception so I dashed off a message. I began, “What a great time and place to be in History!” Frank disappeared for a short while and came back to the table and tossed me a hundred dollar bill. He had just won on a slot machine. He possibly didn’t realize how much I needed and appreciated it. I found a pay phone in the lobby and took note of the location as I might be coming back here over the next few days. For a dollar I could make an outgoing 4-minute call and I learned that it was easy to get rides to the Casino. Plenty of people at the camp came here, took a room, and let many people come to share their shower, internet, and other amenities. I made a couple of phone calls from Frank’s cell phone to let people at home know that I was OK.

We drove back to camp and I said goodbye to Frank and Radjana. They were flying back home to Arizona the next day. I crawled into my tent and although it was still early I went right to sleep.

Sunday November 6

Of course, I woke up early too. I had no idea what time it might be, although I was used to waking up at 4 AM in the Eastern time zone. I went to the Sacred Fire still in my pajamas and there were a few men sitting in the circle of folding chairs around the fire. There were unfortunately very bright stadium-type lights shining in our direction from the pipeline construction site which was about 3/4 mile away. Many of the more distant  and dimmer stars were obscured by the glare, but the position of bright Orion was a reliable way to tell the time at night. We took turns guessing what time it might be, and then someone looked at his cell phone and told us it was 2:50 AM. That seemed kind of early until we realized that this was the night when we set back the clock an hour for the winter, and the cell phone reset itself automatically, so in keeping with my own circadian rhythm I was actually right on time. The men expressed how tired they were, they all wanted to go to sleep, but keeping the Sacred Fire going has to be done by a designated Firekeeper. A Firekeeper was the only person allowed to place logs on the fire, insured that people respected the fire, and that they didn’t throw anything foreign into it, except for tobacco, cedar, sage or sweetgrass, while praying. A Firekeeper also kept everyone mindful that nothing bad was said in front of the fire, that we kept our intentions as well as our language good: no gossip, no politics, no cussing. I told them that I was an old Girl Scout, knew how to keep a fire going, and was familiar with ceremonies; I volunteered myself for the role of Firekeeper, and they accepted. To me, this was a great honor, and was something that I had always wanted to do. They all left to go to sleep. I saw how quickly firewood was being consumed so I took a conservation approach, allowing the fire to burn down a little before adding another split log. I ended up being mostly alone under the stars  for a few hours just feeding the fire and feeling grateful to be there; occasionally someone came and sat. Apparently traditionally a Firekeeper is usually a male and native, and a few people asked me, “Who is keeping the fire?”  I was joined by a woman who told me her name was April and that she was from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. She was very friendly, identified herself as Sioux; she had driven all day to get here, and had not yet been to bed. I asked her about life on her reservation, and she told me there was a problem there with methamphetamine abuse. It was a story I was going to hear again from other Indians from other places. She eventually left the fire to go to sleep. After some time had passed, an Indian man inserted himself between me and the fire, moved some logs around and threw a big handful of cedar needles into the fire, accidentally dropping a glove in as he did so. The glove started to smolder, and I pointed to it and he pulled it out; then, just as quickly as he had come into the circle, he left. I reasoned that he probably thought that the fire was not being tended to just because it was not blazing and because there was a lone woman sitting by; he just made an assumption and didn’t think to ask who was keeping the fire.

Eventually the old Lakota Medicine man came into the circle, and he asked me, “Who is keeping the fire?” “I am,” I replied. He chuckled. Soon by asking “Is the microphone on?” he revealed himself as the person who calls out the morning wake-up prayers. A man with technical experience appeared and turned on the electricity that came from the solar battery bank. The coldest part of night was noticeably just before sunrise. There seemed to be an extra gust of cold wind that I felt just as the old medicine man was thanking the Creator for a New Day.  Gradually and steadily the wind was, in fact, increasing. A small crowd was gathering, someone came to the fire to gather some coals to light a fire to make fresh coffee. He introduced himself to me as the Firekeeper, and he thanked me for keeping it going. I took leave for the latrine. On the port-a-potty door was a leaflet that read that there would be a Peace Walk to Mandan at 8 AM. The Peace Walk was intended to surround the Morton County courthouse and forgive the police force for brutality during a raid on a Water Protector’s camp on October 27. I wanted to be a part of the walk. In spite of my intention to come here and be helpful building winter housing, I was finding that there was a lot going on to witness, be part of, and learn from. I didn't know anything yet about that particular raid, but there had been enough police brutality in the news that I thought it could have been a collective forgiveness gesture. I wanted to walk in support of the group; it could be a way to learn how to heal some wounds from my own past and a way to move forward in whatever I might be doing in my future. I wanted to see what forgiveness in action looks like.

I went back to my tent to change into my day clothes, but when I got back to the main area I found that I missed a ride with the cars going out to Mandan, So I went to the 9 AM Community Meeting. It was my third day in camp and it had been highly advised that everyone attend a Meeting and a workshop on non-violent Direct Action. The first meeting was supposed to take place in a big Army tent that was the designated Community Center, but I was re-directed to the Geodesic dome, which was big enough to comfortably hold well over a hundred people. A small crowd had gathered outside the dome. After we seated ourselves inside, about a hundred of us, our facilitator Johnnie opened the session by again thanking us for being there, told us how the formal process of these meetings worked, that each session began with a prayer and ended with a prayer. He asked us all to agree with that precept and went around the circle to find out if anyone had an objection to it. How many of us were newcomers, raise our hands; there were about forty of us who had arrived in the last few days that came to the meeting. How many planning to stay the winter, raise their hands please; at least ten were planning to stay.  He told us there was a hill where there were better probabilities at receiving cell phone signals and internet, and to go up there to be issued a media pass if we represented press, there is a school if we have kids who need to be in school. He suggested going out and picking up trash, volunteering to help out at kitchens, erecting winter tents; there would be a “Wellbriety” meeting at the Emotional Wellness teepee, (Wellbriety is a movement much like the 12-steps addiction recovery campaign “advocating for Native American Recovery and Wellness”) and then all of the newcomers were sent out to receive orientation instructions in another place inside the aforementioned Community Hall big army tent.

I left with the large group of newcomers to attend that meeting. The facilitators were Occupy-trained people, who gave us a crash-course on racism, colonialism, cultural appropriation, and to correct other misconceptions we might have. I had been to meetings with seasoned activists before, but here we were all  basically being reminded that if we were not natives, then it would be disrespectful to dress and behave as if we were.  Wearing feathers was mentioned. I didn't ask any questions, but I should have. Inspired by the pretty ribbon shirts I had seen Indian men wearing at pow-wows I made one for myself. I brought it with me on this trip; to me it is much more than just a decorative piece of clothing. I endowed it with spiritual intention while I was sewing it, and I wore it on my personal vision quest.  I didn't ask if I could wear it and I wasn't going to take the chance if it could possibly make anyone upset.  

The facilitators asked us to introduce ourselves, why we came here, and to identify if we had come to participate in the Direct Actions. Someone announced that if we intended to participate that we should expect

                                  photo of ribbon shirt here.

to get arrested and that it was mandatory to attend a Direct Action training. We should attend a training even if we were not going to be involved on the front lines of protest. They suggested that we also go to a few other meetings, one on media, one on legal and arrest issues.

On our way out I briefly connected with a few people who wanted to attend the Direct Action meeting. I went in search of some labor to do while I waited for the time of the training. There was a big wooden shed nearby being built to shelter a water supply truck for the winter. It had windows facing south, using passive solar principles so it would be more likely to stay above freezing inside. The construction people were busy but were short on tools so they did not need my help. I wandered. The clothing donation tent was very busy sorting through donations. I rifled through the sweaters and found a really nice periwinkle-colored fleece jacket that fit me. It was what I needed to wear now that the wind was increasing and although there was no mirror to admire myself in, I knew that the color was perfect.  I picked up a broad scarf, too, big enough to cover my head and neck. Whatever clothing surplus there was, items not appropriate for the winter needs of the camp, were being bagged and sent out to other communities on the Reservation. Across the road there was a roped-off enclosure with all kinds of stuff in it. There had been a protest encampment that was raided a week before on October 27th, and these were the possessions of people who had been arrested or who had fled. The “North Camp” also known as the "1851 Treaty Camp" had been erected in direct line of the pipeline construction on land owned by DAPL. Demonstrators were praying as the police sprayed pepper-spray and made arrests. Their belongings, tents, clothing, sleeping bags, had been rescued and here were being neatly folded and sorted until the owners came to claim them. I gave a little help there, but the wind was growing stronger and changing directions, so it was difficult to fold things.

It was then time for the Direct Action meeting and I went looking for the place where it was supposed to be held. Directions were  vague; there were no longer signs pointing the way and I had to ask for directions. But when I got there, the meeting had been canceled. Places and times for meetings seemed changeable, but I still managed always to show up at in time for another experience. (Later I was told that whenever there was a Direct Action planned  the trainings would be canceled. ) I happened to be near to my own tent so I thought to just hang out by myself. The strong wind had blown my tent into a slanting position, so I removed the poles and and flattened it so that it would not be blown away completely. Nearby I saw a small rodent, a mouse, a vole, or a shrew nibbling on grass seed on a stalk. I got up close to watch it, but I scared it, and it burrowed into some flattened grass, but not very deep. I reached out and touched its back between the blades of grass with my finger, and stroked its fur. This little guy is the real native here, I thought, who might set the example on how to really prepare for winter.

After I had dismantled my tent, I looked across the creek, across a big grassy field at a hill about a half mile away. I saw that the crest of the hill was covered with a line of uniformly dressed military-outfitted police. Below, there were about 30 people climbing up the hill. I saw a line of people on horseback riding up behind and around the persons climbing. I wished that I had brought binoculars and a telephoto lens for my camera. I could see well enough to guess what was going on. There were demonstrators attempting to occupy the hill. From behind me I heard someone at the open mike shouting, “Tell those people to get back here! This is not a sanctioned action!” and I saw people rushing off on foot to the hill to bring the protesters down, but not before I saw the police, whoever they were, rolling canisters of teargas down the hill, upwind from the people.

taking the hill photo here

It was not clear to me what a sanctioned action meant; who did the approving? Who was invited or who would one ask if one volunteered to go along? How were the rest of us in the camp to know, if only to pray for this demonstration? There were only a total of five of us watching the Action from a spot that seemed to have the clearest view. I took many photos, and there were both an airplane and helicopter circling the hill. Within a half hour there were several pickup trucks full of people returning to the camp from the Action. They all looked triumphant, but I still don’t know what happened. I read later that the hill was a burial site.

I was still thinking I wanted to move my tent and camp somewhere closer to the main circle, food, coffee, for convenience and was scouting for a possible site. My current area had now blossomed with more tents, and a teepee, and I got friendly with the car-full of men that came up from Colorado who camped near me, but they would be leaving tomorrow. I was not fully motivated to move, simply because I didn’t think there would be a better spot; I questioned my reason for moving. I wasn't going to be staying more than a week, and I would be a stranger anywhere inside the camp. I was afraid that “Somewhere else” would not necessarily be a better place. I was having a similar kind of indecisive stalling to that which I had before I made the commitment to come to Standing Rock in the first place.

Whenever I didn't have another inclination, I ended up at the Sacred Fire. There was always a prayer, a song, a story, an announcement, and bottled water.  I posted my message on the dry-erase message kiosk that I was going to need a ride to Bismarck on the coming Thursday, but how could anyone find me? My cell phone did not work and my tent was set up in a vague non-descript location. Probably in a few days, my tent location area would have its own name, I could have even given it one myself. Maybe that little body of water had a name. In the meantime I wrote on the board that they could leave a message for Monica in the lost and found box. I went up to the fire and met up with Elsa, a woman who was at the morning orientation meeting. She had taken a room at the casino and invited me to come and have a shower. We had a car ride with Henri, a school teacher who lived in San Diego. I offered to buy us all dinner at the buffet. I got some clean clothes and toiletries and joined them for the ride. At the Casino, we heaped our trays with food and took a table. There was a group of people at the next table, one of whom began conversing with us. He was a young Indian man, very articulate in Indian and business matters regarding the pipeline. We introduced ourselves and he told us his name was Freedom.  He told us that his mother, sitting right there at the table next to us being interviewed, was LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, the same woman who had loaned out her land for the Sacred Stone Prayer Camp. Freedom could rattle off business names, figures, statistics, treaties. I asked him if he wrote, and he said no. But he was quite a good talker! When LaDonna got done with her interview she turned to us and said hello and we all shook her hand. On our way out of the restaurant I overheard someone say that someone had been arrested that day.

We went upstairs to take turns showering.  Henri told us he was camped at the Two-Spirits Camp. One  way to describe "Two Spirits" in Western terms is “Native LGBTQ” although that is not an accurate description. Two-Spirits also have a sacred, spiritual and ceremonial role in their communities. When we rode back to Oceti Sakowin I asked if it would be OK if I moved my tent to the Two-Spirit camp. Henri said it should be fine and I said I would be over tomorrow to check it out and get permission. Henry dropped me off near where I thought my tent was, but my area had grown in population and in the dark I didn't recognize the place. I was actually about a hundred yards from my own tent, within an area of family camps with horses. Still without a flashlight, I found my way. Yurts, teepees and big canvas tents had randomly been erected around my tent. I did not recognize my own “neighborhood.” I was feeling even less“at home” here, and yet still trying to figure out why. Moving was becoming more of my personal inclination. I was glad to be clean, though, and I put on my pajamas. Before I dropped off to sleep I could hear that some young people had taken over the microphone and were rapping and singing.  I thought to myself, this is kind of a nice pow wow.

Monday November 7, 2016

When I woke up, it was cold, and windy again. I tried to gauge which direction the wind was coming from. It kept changing directions, an "all-directions wind" I call it, but the prevailing wind direction was different from yesterday. I put on my day clothes, and collapsed my tent again to prevent it from blowing away. I went to the Sacred Fire as I did first thing each morning at camp to participate in the morning prayers. I was always inspired by the praying, even when the prayers were not in English. Before the sun came over the hills, the Lakota medicine man always gave thanks for a new day in which to become a better person. Someone took the microphone and scolded the kids for rapping the night before because the words were political. "This is not a pow wow!" he said. "This is a prayer camp."

The fire to cook the coffee on was started each morning with a few coals from the Sacred Fire. Coffee grounds and water were boiled together in a big pot cowboy style, 5 gallons at a time, and then the mixture was strained and put into giant plastic thermal dispensers. I have no idea how many times a day coffee was made but it always tasted fresh. During the morning praying, while it was still dark,  people always gathered to get coffee. This morning while the dawn was breaking, I busied myself tidying up the big table set up with cream, sugar, cups, spoons and snacks. It was almost always in a state of disarray. There was no running water to wash with; all the water was brought in in plastic bottles, in half-pint to 5-gallon sizes. The garbage was under some control, but it was filled with plastics: styrofoam cups, plastic spoons and water bottles. This was not a sustainable situation, and I felt that  people coming into camp to visit or stay needed to be told to bring their own cups and spoons. While I was busy wiping down a table,  the person at the microphone making prayers announced that a dog had come into the Sacred Fire circle. This was a strictly prohibited, and more than once I heard remarks on “dog soup” although I selectively brushed it off as a kind of joke. "Please come and get your dog," our morning emcee announced. Someone picked the dog up by the scruff of his neck and brought him through the kitchen area out a back doorway through the lattice fence, and tied it up to a post. One of the Firekeepers in a very hushed tone commanded me to follow and get the dog out of there, “before it got killed.” I wasted no time in untying and walking off with the dog. It wasn’t the creature’s fault it had come into the circle, and it was wearing a collar. It was someone’s pet.

The entire camp was covered with frost that looked like a light snow had fallen. I walked praying, as I was now in the habit of doing, to find its owner. I would not be able to take a dog home with me or I needed to find someone who wanted it. Many people I passed stopped and remarked how cute the dog was. It was very distinctive looking, with short legs and a spotted coat, as if it were a mix of Dachsund and Australian sheep dog. It was hungry and eating everything it saw. Then two Indian men came up to me and said what a cute dog it was. Could they have it? I said yes, and one of them remarked aside that he had only had “puppy soup” twice that year. I let the dog go with them but I was very uneasy and sure I had made a stupid mistake. I walked back to the coffee kitchen. About 5 minutes later the man who had taken the dog from me came through the back door of the kitchen and I turned around to find the dog tied up again to a post. Again I took it away, this time running faster, farther, until I found a camp with dogs in it. I asked a woman there if they could take care of this one, and she pointed to a horse trailer at the top of a hill, and said “The owner was looking for it, she is up there at Hunkpapa Camp.” I marveled that n a place with thousands of strangers it was possible to know the owner of one dog. It was not yet 9:00 in the morning, here I was being frantic while other people were still sleeping. Was I doing the right thing if I might be keeping a dog from becoming part of a ritual sacrifice for medicine? I didn’t know and I didn’t ask. If that Firekeeper asked me to take the dog away it meant that I was trying to do the right thing by saving the dog. The Hunkpapa camp was a circle of tents around one big red horse trailer. I walked around shouting that I had a dog and it belonged to someone. Finally someone inside a red tent called out sleepily, "Does it have spots?" I said that it did, and she unzipped her tent door, and the dog went right inside. I didn’t know if the Hunkpapa Sioux ate dog and I didn’t know for sure that this dog would end up in a pot, and I had not complained about the deer meat that went into the venison stew I ate the other day.

(At this writing, over a month later, I saw a photo online of someone walking that very dog in the snow, so I know it did not end up in a “medicine soup.”)

9:00 AM Community Meeting. I brought up “dogs” as I was still shaken. I didn’t talk about the incident or ask the vital question if there would possibly be a dog killed in Oceti Sakowin; Johnnie the moderator simply addressed the subject that everyone had to keep their dogs under control. It didn’t answer my concern, but then I didn’t state my issue directly. I came here to help a people keep their way of life, and that might mean that I would have to defend some customs that I saw as unseemly and unnecessary.  This was hardly different from any other religion. I was going to have to just sit with this topic until I felt I could ask the right people in the right situation.

Since I had already been to the orientation meeting I was able to stay at the Community meeting and hear what other people wanted to say. A Sioux woman lawyer stood up to speak.  She recited a list of treaties that DAPL was in violation of.  She also told us that she had received a death threat.  I saw her tears and felt her fear.

She walked around the circle and shook hands with each one of us.  She looked into my eyes and I gave her a hug. There were a few other people with ideas about how to make the camp more sustainable. One person mentioned “Net Zero” building; another said she wanted to make composting toilets. Someone else wanted to install rocket stoves. These were all subjects I knew something about. I wanted to be in on the conversations and help out in construction. I also knew that I would not have very much time. If we were going to suggest something that would improve the camp, we were asked to make a realistic dedication of time to see it through. It was an issue that was filed under “Honesty”; we had to be honest about our ability to commit. At the end of the meeting two men stood up to speak. They were two chiefs from Arctic tribes, Inupiat perhaps, but the name that I heard was one that I did not recognize. One spoke only in the language of his people while the other translated into English. They expressed joy in being able to support the Standing Rock Sioux in their fight against the pipeline. They had donated a portable winter building and had brought it on the plane with them. It wasn’t easy, the chief said. The people at the airline wanted to know what he was doing with this big thing. He told them he was taking it to a pow-wow.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the shelter. The meeting was about to end and I found Elsa again. I approached the person who brought up the topic of Net-Zero building. He had come all the way from Australia. We walked over to the construction that was going to shelter the water truck, but before I could find out what he would suggest could be improved in the design, he left the site and I never saw him again. The building was right behind the  Portland, Oregon Two-Spirits camp which was identifiable with its big rainbow flag. I approached the “leaders” - two women named Candi and Dandelion, and asked if I could camp there.

They asked if I was Two-Spirit, and up until this time I thought it was just a blanket term for LGBTQ. Then I learned that the title Two-Spirits are specifically natives who identify with more than one gender and fill a sacred, spiritual and ceremonial role. I knew a little bit from the movie "Little Big Man," in which a Cheyenne male character called Little Horse wore women's clothing and was not expected to fight. A traditional two spirit must be recognized as such by the Elders of their Indigenous community. I am not native, so my position could be as an Ally and yes, I could set up my tent with them. I felt accepted and free to make myself at-home.

                                                  photo of two spirits camp here

Elsa wanted to help me move my camp and up until now I had felt paralyzed with indecision to move and although I really had not brought a lot of things with me, up until now I had no place better to go. It occurred to me that I might have been lonely where I was, and this was an unfamiliar feeling that was not simple for me to identify.

We went to my site and packed up my tent, sleeping bags and everything, and walked it all over to the Two-Spirit camp. We sat around and socialized for awhile before I set up my tent. There were about twenty persons living in that camp who identified themselves as having two gender spirits. They had their own fire and their own kitchen. For my short stay here I was going to get a little bit of schooling in the language of Queer Politics, as well as more Native American spirituality. I made an announcement that I would need a ride to Bismarck on Thursday and someone said that if I didn’t find a ride he would give me one. This was a very generous offer. Someone else said that he was going to pick someone up at the airport Thursday at 2:30 and I could get a ride with him.

Very soon after I got my tent set up I went to get some lunch at Winona's kitchen, a small mobile Native kitchen connected under a tarp to a travel trailer, which served Indian soul food. I ate all my camp meals there. I ate only when I was hungry, and ate everything on my plate. I'm not even sure if I ever met the person known as Winona. Someone told me they made fry bread which is an Indian treat: dough that is flattened and  fried like a do-nut, and can be served with sugar or fruit, or savory with meat and taco toppings. I made a pest of myself asking at every meal if they were making fry bread, but the fry bread specialist had been away at a funeral. For lunch they were serving a delicious chicken soup.

                                                                                                                          Photo of winona's kitchen here

After I ate it was time for me to go to Direct Action training which was beginning at 2 PM near the Red Warrior camp. There were about 80 people in the workshop. The facilitators had experience from all over America with civil disobedience demonstrating and protesting. The first thing they told us was that every great American social movement such as civil rights, women’s suffrage, and ending the Viet Nam war  had been achieved through peaceful civil disobedience, marches, sit-ins, and included people getting arrested and risking injury and imprisonment. This teaching showed us how to avoid getting hurt, how to communicate with and not antagonize law enforcers, what to do if we get arrested, what to do if we get maced, and how to keep the demonstration going on for as long as possible. We were invited to add our own ideas. Then we had a mock action. We locked arms, sang, and walked very slowly. The meeting went on from 2 PM until the sun was noticeably sinking in the west.

After I got done with my training, I went back over to Winona's to help out before supper. I did a little chopping preparation, a little dish washing, and I realized how really difficult maintaining a clean kitchen would become once the temperature dropped below freezing. It was already nearing sundown, since we had turned back the clocks an hour, and the temperature was falling. There were other helpers. The one I struck up conversation with was named Jesus, a young musician from Los Angeles who kept helping me out by keeping a pot on the fire to heat up water; it was necessary to continually have hot water for cleaning dishes. There were a few very large pots  including one that had been used for the chicken soup that I had eaten for lunch. The pots had quite a lot of grease in them and it was REALLY difficult to get it off as the water kept turning cold before I could finish washing the pot. Winter was going to be challenging in ways that we could not now foresee.

After I got done washing the big pots, the cook announced that she would make fry bread. There were three different people involved in this endeavor, each with a different approach and recipe creating an amalgamation of the quintessential fry bread recipe: flour, water, powdered milk, salt, yeast or baking powder, warm water, sugar, and everything was measured by eye.  Mixed together and allowed to rise for about an hour, the dough was shaped into little pillows and dropped into hot oil until it turned brown.  I feel lucky to have made fry bread with some "pros."  As my personal reward I took away an empty pretty Blue Bird Flour Bag. Blue Bird flour is milled in Colorado and is  the preferred brand by makers of home made fry bread. The menu that night was real home made menudo, buffalo soup, and a wild blueberry compote. There was a long line for the fry bread.

I ate a little bit of everything and went back to my tent to go to sleep very early. The people camped behind my tent were either throwing lots of tobacco on their fire or smoking a lot of cigarettes. I was being  “smudged" all night.

Tuesday November 8, 2016

It was very cold that morning and I wanted to stay inside my sleeping bag for as long as possible before I would inevitably have to get out. “KIKTA PO! KIKTA PO!” came over the public address system. I went to the main circle as usual for the morning prayers and coffee. Today someone had brought some half and half!  Prayers and songs went around as usual, and as before I felt something in my chest where my heart resides when I looked at the growing rosy glow on the horizon. “Thank you for another day.” This morning the microphone came to a woman, who took on a more remonstrative tone. She had heard of or seen alcohol being consumed in the camp. “If you are here to party," she said, "you should go home. This is a prayer camp.” She had overheard some cussing. “This is a sacred place. If you hear someone using bad language or gossiping, please remind them that we are praying. I see some gang kids wearing their colors. This is not the place for that. If you are not here to pray with us, go home.” It felt as if she were correcting her own misbehaving grandchildren instead of a bunch of unmindful white adults. In fact a lot of the camp was Indian and young.

There was a lost and found box at the table on the “stage.” There were announcements of found items: keys, wallets, phones, a love letter. Someone, an anonymous donor, had paid for the release of cars that had been impounded from the raid on a North Camp ten days ago, and all that was needed was for the owners of the cars to take a ride with someone who was offering a lift and they could go and get their cars. I didn’t know much then about the raid but I have since learned that it was a violent assault on a camp named “1851 Treaty Camp,” a reclamation of unceded Sioux territory from the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.  The camp had been set up in protest on October 23rd in the direct path of the pipeline on land that had been recently purchased by DAPL. Four days later, 300 police in miltary riot gear conducted the brutal attack using mace, tear gas, beanbag guns, and noise concussion devices on the unarmed  camp and arrested 141 people.

There was another announcement about a delivery of wood stoves and tents. Volunteers were needed to help unload them, and help to set up the tents. Elders needed to get into the winter tents.

I started to walk away but someone who was talking on the microphone was talking about the annual sundance ceremony.  He mentioned dog, sacrifice,  medicine, and soup in one sentence. It must be true. But again I didn't ask anyone.

I went over to Winona’s where they served up some bacon and eggs and home fries. She always had a thermal jug of sage tea and another of mint tea in addition to fresh coffee. I kept forgetting it was Election Day.

                                                I stopped again at the donations tent to help a little bit, and there I saw a man from the back wearing a beautiful vintage plaid woolen bathrobe, obviously picked up here at donations. I wanted to comment that it was beyond fashionable,  but I didn't. Soon I had all the boxes sorted and neatly displayed so I went back to my tent. I spent the rest of the morning with the Two-Spirits erecting a winter army tent and covering the top with heavy plastic tarps. This was expected to be their supply tent. They already had a heavy canvas tent set up with luxurious beds and colorful blankets. It had an outlet for a stove pipe and they were planning to get a wood stove for inside. Around the larger camp I was noticing that firewood was being used up very quickly although the weather was still relatively warm. There were no forests nearby and wood was being imported from as far away as Washington state and was being trucked in.

Elsa came to find me, and invited me back to stay over at the Casino, and I packed up and made up my bed and offered it to anyone who might want to sleep in it. We went to the Medic tent to meet our ride. On the way over, I found my dish-washing buddy Jesus walking down the road wearing a long coat: it was that same beautiful vintage plaid bathrobe I had seen earlier.  I told him he had impeccable taste. He was giving away beads from a necklace that he loved and had broken. I gave him a hug sure that I would see him again. We got to the Medic tent only to find that our ride had already left. Elsa told me that there were several people who had reported lost dogs… We each hitched another ride--I got a ride with some Lakota Indians who had come from Pine Ridge in South Dakota and Elsa rode with another family--and we arrived at the Casino at the same time. We enjoyed another buffet dinner, I used the pay phone to call Howie and I took a shower and put on my pajamas. I plugged in the computer, propped up the bed pillows, and sat myself under the blankets. Elsa flipped through television stations on the monster wall TV to find out how the election was going. It took awhile before we found a station that was showing the news.

I wrote on Facebook: “I could probably write a short book about all this,” as I looked up at the TV  to see Donald Trump ahead in the race. "In spite of the downgraded intensity of conflict, I attended the Direct Action training, so now I know how to be a peaceful protester, a skill I should have learned a long time ago. I have heard from several people that 2 LOCAL COPS HAVE TURNED IN THEIR BADGES AND QUIT THE POLICE FORCE,” over mistreatment of Water Protectors who had been arrested.  While I still had my computer on, I did a search on Sioux eating dogs, and I found that sometimes a young puppy was killed and its meat boiled to be consumed as part of a special healing ceremony. It still didn't sit well with me and I wasn't sure how to include this in my diary. To the Sioux, the dog is/was a sacred animal. By the time I quit the computer and turned off my light, Trump was just about to become officially elected as our next president. I had a feeling of disgust, but I was finding resolve in my recent surroundings. There had always been a lot of work to do in our country, in our communities, in the world, but now it was clear we were going to have to roll up our sleeves and do more, work harder and become unified.

Wednesday November 9, 2016.

Elsa had to leave for the airport at 5:30 AM. I was awake and she turned on the TV and Trump was announced as the winner of the election. I was kind of in shock, but Elsa seemed more affected by the news. We pulled ourselves together and exchanged phone numbers. I was frantic, thinking maybe I should ride with her to the airport and rent a car to drive back in. But the clock was ticking, there was no time to be indecisive, and it was time to say goodbye to Elsa. I took a relatively long time writing emails before I would check out. I went downstairs to breakfast and put in another call to Howie. I got dressed and took my bags downstairs and hailed a ride. The person who opened his car door to let me in was named Ray. He was an Indian originally from Lame Deer Montana, now living in Seattle. He was friendly, and we exchanged camp observations. I found that I was not the only person who had ideas that one of the camps ought to become a permanent public site for educating people.

Ray dropped me off right at my tent, and I changed into work clothes. I had in mind to go over to Sacred Stone to see what was going on with the “Wagonagons.” I crossed the bridge over the river and it seemed that the Rosebud camp, another camp near the Sacred Stone camp,  had grown as well. I saw a dome-shaped sweat lodge structure, made of bent saplings and covered with blankets. A sweat lodge ceremony is something like a sauna, used for physical and spiritual purification and is usually conducted in groups. Stones are heated in a fire, and brought into the center of the lodge and water is poured on the rocks, creating steam. I went over to talk with a woman who was sitting nearby. She was a water-pourer, a person who has been trained to conduct the sweat lodge or inipi ceremony. This was not her lodge. That is, there was someone else who scheduled the sweat ceremonies, probably the person who built it. She ran women’s lodges here, in addition they held community mixed lodges. While we were talking a young Indian came up and asked if he could use the lodge for his family who had traveled from Chicago. He had a water-pourer among his travelers. They had encountered some trouble along the way and wanted to sweat and pray about it. She directed him to come back and talk to the person who maintained the lodge. After he left I took my leave of the woman and wandered some more. I strayed from the well-used road and walked through the tall grass toward a patch of trees. I needed to enjoy some alone time and admire the landscape and the beautiful weather. I laid down among the trees, not really engaging any thoughts. I needed some open meditation for a change, letting go of my judgments, plans, and any notions about what I thought that I had come here to do. I had not really been closed to going and demonstrating, just to the idea of getting arrested, having to come up with bail money, court dates, lawyers, and all the other possible hassles. I had still been daydreaming about carrying a big sign to that front line that had printed in bold letters, “I am your Aunt. We are family. Don’t shoot,” or some words to appeal to the militarized police to put down their weapons and join the side of protecting the people instead of the pipeline. While I was laying there I looked across the large stretch of grass to the hillsides beyond. I could see large pieces of that monstrous construction equipment: earth movers, backhoes and bulldozers. And suddenly I saw moving dark shadows across the hillside. I squinted. BUFFALO! There were about 200 of them moving as if one morphing silhouette. I watched for awhile until they moved out of sight over a hill.

It was time to pick myself up and move on to my mission of finally making myself useful. I found some people erecting yurts. There was one person laying out lines for their sites along a Kaballah tree-of-life plan. It seemed like a tedious detail given that in preparation for winter, the time had already come to move inside. Elders, women, and children were being urged to take shelter in the large army tents, teepees and yurts; our summer tents would be useless against the imminent wind, cold and snow. It seemed to me like a better idea to place the yurts according to the landscape contours, and in close proximity to amenities, and to get them up as quickly as possible. They were not my yurts so instead of handing out my common sense critique, I pitched in picking up cow dung and sticks off the sites that had been mapped out already. I piled them up under a tree for future use as fuel. Although I thought it was very resourceful as an idea, I could see that this small pile would keep a few people warm for at most a few hours, even in the most fuel efficient wood-burning stove.

                                                                            yurt interior photo here.

I hadn’t been working for very long when a truck with a couple of people in it came along and the driver, an Indian man, stopped the truck and got out. Then he shouted, enunciating his words very clearly, that there were going to be four women’s sweat lodges later that day, to honor, comfort, pray with and heal women who had been arrested and traumatized during an action. The place of the lodges and time were not given. Of course I was going to go, but for now there were cow pies to pick up and I still had not made my way back to Sacred Stone. If the fires for the lodges were not already started it would be a few hours before the ceremony. I worked on. The group laid out a giant plastic tarp that was going to be the ground cloth.

Soon another pick-up truck drove up with a driver delivering a message: the roadblock had been cleared and there was a possibility of a raid on Oceti Sakowin camp.  We had been warned about rumor mongers, so I didn’t regard his words as an actual emergency. I asked the driver about the women’s sweat, and he said they had already lit the fires. I stopped my work and hitched a ride back to the sweat lodge that I had passed on my way over. In my hurry I had dropped both my skirt and my blue fleece jacket somewhere. There was no time to go back to find them. At the lodge site there were a few men there building a fire but they told me the women’s lodge was going to be on the other side of the river, at the Oceti Sakowin camp. I crossed the bridge again. First I did not want to miss the ceremony, and just in case there really was a raid, I did not want to be caught away from my tent and my belongings. I stopped by my camp and told the people there would be a sweat ceremony and then went to the clothing donations tent because  I was required to wear a skirt into the lodge. There were plenty of sweaters, jackets, hats and scarves but no skirts. Instead I was furnished with a clean bed sheet which I would wrap around my waist.

At Oceti Sakowin, no one seemed aware that there might be a raid. I was not going to raise alarm. And no one could tell me exactly where the inipi, the sweat lodge, was going to be. It was growing late and I didn’t want to miss it. I passed by a large dumpster and saw that some of the garbage needed to be sorted from the recycling. I pulled out some plastic water bottles and put them into the recycling bin. I found cases of unopened canned vegetables in the dumpster. I was horrified. I checked the expiration dates. They were all good. A man was throwing his trash into the dumpster. We got to talking and I told him about the cans of food I found.  He suggested that they may have been from the camp raid and were possibly contaminated with mace. Then he expressed that he felt really awful, and he was beginning to cry, about the election I surmised. I asked him if he needed a hug, and he said yes. I gave him a deep heartfelt hug and told him not to fear.  He told me he was on his way to a Sustainability meeting. I knew I belonged there; this camp was not in any condition to be sustained over the winter and I could add a few ideas that would be simple to implement, but I was going to the lodge. I had a purpose. When I got back home I would be attending a lodge on Long Island a day later with some people I used to sweat with. I was going to connect these two communities with their prayers. My input and learning at a Sustainability Meeting would simply not be part of my Standing Rock experience. This was, after all, a prayer camp.

The lodge location was not well known, there was to be a lot of walking back and forth to find the right person who could direct me to it. And still the site was not exactly where I thought it would be. I ended up there just in time anyway. There were about 60 women waiting outside of two lodges with two fires burning. There was a male guarding our space facing out in each of the four directions. I heard one of them talking about a line of vehicles he could see far away.  I felt a little apprehension, but not fear. If there was going to be a raid I would be inside of a lodge praying.

Four women water-pourers were going to lead the ceremonies; each had come forward when the call for a women’s lodge went out through the camp and each came from a different tribal tradition. As we stood waiting the leaders prayed at the same time, each in a different language, smudging their pipes in the smoke from burning sage. There were going to be two rounds for each lodge, one round for each group of about 15 women. When it finally came time to go in, it was very crowded. I had once experienced a panic attack during a sweat lodge, in fact it was the last time I had gone to an inipi ceremony. I had no reason to panic but I rationalized that I was supposed to understand and have some empathy for people who suffer from extreme anxiety. How can I have compassion for people’s misery if I have never felt it myself? In this lodge, I had to sit cramped, I fidgeted a lot, I was right up against the rock pit, I realized that my “skirt” was polyester and I feared it might melt onto my skin! It was time for the rocks to be brought in, and it was getting hotter and hotter.  The leader gave a teaching, prayed, we each took our turn with a silent or spoken prayer.  It was a relatively short round. After we got done with all the rounds, and I was walking back to my camp, I heard people all around the camp yelling. I looked up and there was an Eagle flying over our lodges.

Back at my tent, I took off my wet clothes and put on some dry things and went over to Winona’s for dinner. Tonight they were serving lengua, and venison stew. The cook made fry bread again. After supper I lingered by the Sacred Fire as usual. Someone told me that the youth were very angry at the outcome of the election. I wished I could stick around, hang out with the kids, sit by the drum for one more night but I was tired and went off to bed.

Thursday November 10

I was awake early and went to the fire long before the 6 AM wake-up prayer. I heard two different packs of coyotes calling, howling, singing, from the south and the west of the camp. A few camp dogs joined in. Around the fire there was more storytelling, some personal stories and some Indian stories. I gave away my pouch of tobacco to an elder, although I doubt he was much older than myself. The Old Man who took the microphone every morning for the wake-up call that I felt inclined to call “Grandfather” was in fact younger than my young parents. It was starting to become obvious to me that I was becoming an elder myself.

I had brought my Minidisc digital sound recorder concealed inside my jacket pocket to the fire circle. I wanted so badly to have a recording of the prayers, possibly to marry with some of the photos I took. The recording attempt failed. I rationalized that it must have been for the right reasons: I was supposed to be here now, and fussing with electronic equipment was divorcing me from this moment, especially doing it without permission.

This would be my last time hearing the morning ceremonies. I had been feeling a bit empty and ineffectual for not participating in a Direct Action, or building the Wagonagon, or washing more dishes. I didn’t eat a lot of food, but I handed over money at the kitchen. There was no donations jar. No one ever asked me for a cent. There were many hands pitching in, and none of the work seemed hard. I couldn’t say why, perhaps there were so many hands willing to do the work that it all evened out. We were constantly being reminded that this was not a vacation, but everything made it easy to be leisurely, as if on a religious retreat. The firewood took work to chop, and great effort to get it here, as there were no forests nearby and very few trees. But there was always someone who came forward and picked up the axe and chopped.

At the coffee station, I found that a couple of cases of ceramic coffee mugs had been delivered, and though I had offered to give my beloved enamel coffee cup to Odie, a Firekeeper and coffee attendant, he wasn’t going to need mine. I was really relieved that I could keep my travel mug that had been with me for 35 years at least, and I hoped that no more styrofoam cups would be used ever again in this camp.

While the regular morning prayers were going on, and as the day was growing brighter, an Indian couple laid out a colorful blanket in front of the fire. The man knelt down and produced a long stemmed pipe out of its deerskin fringed carrying bag. He held it up toward the sun, and the altar and the fire. The woman then did the same with another pipe. There was an announcement that we were having a pipe ceremony and that anyone who wished to participate should form a circle, men on the west side, women on the east. The Pipe Ceremony is the most important ritual to many American Indian people. There were more prayers, the pipes were filled with tobacco which is a sacred plant to many Indians, and we were instructed how to handle the pipe, hold the wooden stem in the right hand, the stone bowl in the left. The sacred pipe parts represent the male and the female, and a pipe ceremony joins the two in a ritual that brings the male and female together. The pipe, called a “Chanupa” in the Lakota language, was going to be given to each of us four times, separate pipes for the men and women. There was a teaching in English, I wish I could remember all of it, but the part I remember most went something like this: “Depression comes from living in the Past; Anxiety comes from fear of the Future; we must live fully in the Present.” Then the pipes were brought around. I made my own prayer, I inhaled the smoke and blew it to the sky.

After the ceremony was finished I went back to my tent and changed into my day clothes. I saw the person named Rudy who had offered me the ride to Bismarck and we firmed up our departure plans. I went over to Winona’s for a breakfast of eggs, sausage, potatoes, and tea. I chatted with a cook named Karen. She said that the regular cook had injured her ankle and I offered an Ace bandage that Elsa had left behind. I went to my tent and brought it back. I said I was flying back home tomorrow, and thanked them for feeding me, and I asked Karen what message she would like me to take back to the people back home. She paused for a moment and then said, “Tell them that We are Prayerful People; We are Peaceful People; We are Powerful People, and we will win this with Prayer.”

                                                       winona kitchen banner photo here.

Back at the Two-Spirit Camp there was a photo-op, videos and interview with some media. They got me into a few photos, and pretty soon it was time to leave. My driver, Rudy, looked South American Indian, Peruvian? and spoke Spanish with his girlfriend, Sarah. I told him that I was not going to need my gear and he said an elder who was flying in could definitely use the two sleeping bags, and if I wanted to leave the tent he could give it to some Dine (Navajo) that he knew. Then I handed him my down jacket and it fit him so I was happy that was getting a new home, also. I also gave him my bag of Italian Roast coffee that I never got around to using. I told him to make it strong! Sarah and two other of their friends were coming along with us to Bismarck. There was a mention in passing that they could use a shower and I told them they could use my shower at the hotel. As we were loading the van, I noticed that it had New Jersey license plates. “Hey, I’m from New Jersey! Where are you guys from?” and Rudy said he lived in Jersey City, and his three other passengers were from all around the New York Metropolitan area.

Rudy's van was a vintage luxury touring vehicle, complete with a television set and a VCR, imitation wood interior and built in beds. We drove to Bismarck listening to a CD of Andean flute music. I hadn’t heard any other music except Indian songs and big drums since I had left a week ago. They dropped me at the hotel and went to the airport to pick up their friends. I requested extra towels from the concierge, took my luggage up to my room and returned to the lobby to wait for them. I went back to reading Marquee Moon. They returned with an Elder named Zubin, a Tewa who lived in New York City and his friend Fire, an Iranian woman. We all went up to my room and they took turns showering. It was as if the Oceti Sakowin Camp was continuing in my room, with more Indian stories. Zubin was about 62, was my guess, from popular music references that he mentioned. Among other things he told us that when he was a young boy his grandmother told him a story about a web that covered the Earth and made it possible for everyone to communicate with one another. Rudy admired my ribbon shirt that was hanging on the back of my chair. I should have asked him if he felt like it was appropriate for me to wear it at any time. I had only seen them worn only by Indian men on dressy occasions, but I liked the style. I had made mine to wear during the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City.

After everyone showered they invited me to come with them and eat dinner, so we found a Mexican chain restaurant nearby that I was able to say I liked. We ate our fill while sharing more personal stories. Paul McCartney’s song “Maybe I’m Amazed” came on over the dining room’s sound system, and I started singing along. I wanted to sing it to Howie when I got back home. I was feeling all around grateful for having made the journey and being there and for the support that I got from all my friends, and yes, amazed at everything.

They drove me back to my hotel and we said our goodbyes, I asked at the hotel front desk for a wake-up call. I went to my room and collected my dirty clothes, and washed them in the hotel laundry. I took a shower and turned on my laptop to send a message to Howie. Then I went to bed with my book.

Friday November 11, 2016

I didn't sleep well, knowing I had to be at the airport to fly out at 6:20 AM, I picked the wrong pillow to sleep with, but I woke up before the hotel wake-up call. I was having a vision of my entire trip looking like a wound that was healing up, with teepees sticking out of it. I realized it was quickly becoming a memory, that might fade too fast into forgetting, but nevertheless would become part of me. I looked at the cut on my hand that I had gotten while I was still at home. It was healing up well, and I told myself that the scar it would leave would always be a reminder of my visit to Standing Rock. I packed and looked around my room, said thanks for giving me a place to rest for the night. I went down to the lobby and grabbed a couple of hard boiled eggs and an orange; I didn't know when I would have a minute to buy something to eat, and waited for the 5 AM shuttle ride to the airport. The driver told me he was a Swede and that he had lived his whole life in Bismarck.

Bismarck is a small airport. There are only about 40 planes flying in and out each day. Right in the middle of our  security check line there was a display of a triceratops skull and other fossils inside a big glass case. Going through the security check I had to unpack my carry-on bag that holds all my electronics all over again. After I passed through the scanner, I saw a man with his shirt off and hands overhead, a security officer holding a scan wand along his body was yelling to him to put his clothes back on but the guy was just standing there frozen with his hands high above his head. Of course I wondered what was going on. I saw that his bags were being examined by hand, slowing mine coming down the conveyor belt. When he picked up his bags I could see that his hands were shaking. I got my backpack again, and I had to repack it. (I believe this is where I lost my Minidisc microphone.)

By the time I got to my terminal, and I saw that the man with his hands in the air was seated in the waiting area. I sat down next to him and asked if he was OK. “You looked very shaken up back there.” He proceeded to tell me that he was at Standing Rock two days before I got there, when the Water Protectors were crossing the river, got maced and shot at, the same scene that I saw on the television the night before  I left. He told me it was very scary, and then the following day the circumstances were the opposite--prayerful and peaceful--the day when the clergy showed up. He told me that he had been camped at Sacred Stone for the past week. I asked him if he needed a hug, and he said yes, and so I stood and held him as strongly as I could. I was becoming used to putting my heart next to other people's hearts, something I had never done before. It was time to board our plane and I said we could talk more when we got to Denver. After I seated myself on the plane, I immersed myself into Marquee Moon again. I was on my way home.

When I landed in Denver and got off the plane, the shaken man was waiting for me. He was visibly much more relaxed. He told me he was a farmer in California and we exchanged phone numbers. We then parted ways and I went to my terminal.

On my flight  to Newark I sat next to a man reading a book authored by Glenn Beck. The world in some ways had changed over the last week, and I could see that there were going to be reactions and backlashes. The chasm of a divided America could become deeper and I don't know that it can be bridged. I see that there are two sides of this gap: one cares only for itself, and the other cares for everyone. Debate is futile. Neither is in the majority, but the side that cares for everyone and the planet is the one that needs to be fostered and that is the work we have to do.

And I had a message to deliver  from the people at Standing Roc

Hindsight

*********

These are thoughts that were percolating inside me and I did not articulate until this writing. I do not mean to detract from the issue that an unwanted pipeline is set to go through what were legally Indian lands. Since the arrival of the Europeans, the Indians have been fighting to live on and protect their land, and preserve their dignity and way of life. Indigenous people all over the world have similar struggles. The bigger picture  and the message the native peoples have been trying to tell us is that we are abusing our home, our planet, stripping it of its resources and dumping poisonous waste into our own necessary elements of air, water, and earth.  We are disrespecting our fellow human beings, our relatives.

We use petroleum consumption as a commodity. If we don't buy it and use it, it loses its demand and also its value in money. This does not necessarily mean the drilling and transport and refining will stop. The United States government currently subsidizes drilling for oil and natural gas with $4 billion per year in taxpayer money. We waste a lot of the fuels that we use, no matter what the source. Our cars idle in traffic with us at the wheel (also wasting our time.) We heat up our homes, schools, and workplaces when we are not in them. We heat rooms that we don't use. We leave our electrical appliances running. We throw away food, we run clean water down the drain as if it were endlessly available only because we have the money to pay for it. If we stop using oil, and natural gas, we don't need pipelines. It is only in these last hundred years that our demand and consumption are so high, and because these fuels are cheap to use, we feel free to waste. The same is true about our use of water, food, and manufactured goods.

Which brings us back to the issue: Water. It would be extremely difficult to avoid the vast watershed of the Missouri River in the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and that fact should have been considered a long time ago. Even a small leak in this pipeline would be a major catastrophe that would affect over 2,000 linear miles directly along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Every break in every pipeline is expensive, dirty, and disastrous to the ecosystem that includes all the lives that would be affected farther from the shorelines. Not just the drinking water, but farm irrigation and wildlife would be impacted. The People of the region have cause to raise protest against the construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River. It is not a matter “if” but “when” a breach will occur.

The Standing Rock Tribe's successful fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline takes more than prayer: the Sioux have treaties, lawyers and public opinion on their side.  A Cherokee medicine man once told me that you can pray for corn all you want, but it helps if you plant the seeds. After I got home and began to write this diary, I decided I needed to write a direct letter to President Obama stating that it was necessary to stop this pipeline; I sent the letter in an email. The following day the Army Corps of Engineers has denied easement for the Dakota Access to construct the pipeline at its present route.

Franks White Bull's statement that the  camp would be closed in a month was partly true. The Army Corps of Engineers issued an eviction notice to Oceti Sakowin camp in early December, but it was worded that no force would be taken, that it was simply to notify the people there that emergencies could occur at the camp but the Army COE would not be obligated to respond.  The Standing Rock Tribe also asked the people to leave due to the coming severe cold weather conditions, and they removed the portable toilets which the tribe was paying for. They were replaced by sustainable composting toilets. Also, in accord with what White Bull said, the matter lies with the courts. An Environmental Impact Statement is being prepared by the Corps for alternative routes.  For many this appears as a victory, but for many the battle is not over. In a few short weeks president-elect Trump will take office, and there are fears that he could reverse the decision and grant easement to DAPL. For some, any pipeline at all is not acceptable. Meanwhile, there are about a thousand people remaining at camp committed to the pipeline resistance. The Dome is still the center of the community.  Winter has come with its snow, wind and subzero temperatures and has at least 3 more months left, testing everyone who is staying to remain focused, united, and constant. The Water Protectors are setting an example for the rest of us to speak up,  be heard,  be peaceful,  be resilient, and  take action before it is too late.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary: Afterthoughts

On social issues:

It is and was very tempting to adopt this Indian culture as my own. We were cautioned against such things. Appropriating culture, clothing ornament and other trappings, is seen by some as an arm of Colonialism. I was not ready to digest that concept fully. When I was young I had 2 dreams where I was wearing a full Plains-style Indian war bonnet, and in 2004 I made a beautiful ribbon shirt to wear a the Republican National Convention. The magical intention that I had put into that shirt while I was making it was to repel arrest. I had been part of a mass march past Madison Square Garden in New York and rioting was expected and there was military police presence. I had gotten used to this kind of scene after attending marches against the Iraq invasion. I felt that my own ribbon shirt was protection, if only because wearing it would remind me to behave peacefully. Was this cultural appropriation? I brought it with me to Standing Rock, but I was afraid that my wearing it might be frowned on.

Perhaps it is sad that I don't know a lot about my own mixed heritage. My European ancestors tried to assimilate quickly into their melting-pot communities in the coal mining region of Pennsylvania, and the New York Metropolitan area. Food is a good example of how our cultural boundaries got blurred. My ancestors used what was available to adapt their homeland traditional recipes, and borrowed recipes from their new neighbors who tended to be from all over Europe. That kind of assimilation is natural and has always occurred. In the 1970′s avocado was only a color used in decorating. Now we can eat avocados anytime. In my family there were no trappings of folkloric costumes, songs, and eventually even social customs were erased as they became inconvenient and inefficient. I personally was mostly happy about that. I for one felt that prescribed gender roles, for example, were an artificial construct that preserved a hierarchy. I looked forward to exploring the possibilities of our achievements if our arbitrary limitations were dispensed with. I knew for instance that the Lithuanian people were among the last to be Christian-ized, that they held onto their pagan ways until the 15th century. One side of my Lithuanian family fully embraced Roman Catholicism as their religion of choice. However some rules and traditions within the Catholic church changed during my own lifetime. The institution of “recycling” had come about during my adolescence as we became aware of the imbalance created by using up resources and creating pollution and landfills for waste products. When I was young, people went to college to be scholars, scientists or other professional. At that time during the 1970′s college had become egalitarian and affordable to all Americans. It seemed like our society was headed in the right direction, progressing to inclusiveness, acceptance, not merely tolerance. Within a few decades, though, cost for college attendance fast outpaced the rates of inflation and minimum wage increases, and curriculum became weighted on business studies. The prime focus of education has shifted to the study and acquisition of Money. These are examples of social changes I have observed in my own seemingly short lifetime: Food, Religion, and Education.

My point is that things change fast, and we forget quickly. 

I tend to ignore the ceremonies that take place in the here and now,  right around me, in my time and place, because they usually involve some kind of propaganda to uphold community values that do not resonate within me, whether they are religious, civic, or social. It's not that I choose to be a loner, it is simply that I regard the river that runs through my town and the patches of woods and the wild things that live there and the sky as the things that I feel a truer alliance with. My culture values money and commerce. My culture values houses that are too large and waste a lot of resources. My culture values appearance rather than content. I would rather foster the sub-culture that is highly influenced by Indigenous values of Stewardship and reverence of the Land and a mystical connection and awe in things that most of us just don’t experience with our five senses. I just needed to experience these things myself and that is part of the reason that going to Standing Rock was like a Vision Quest.

These are thoughts that were percolating inside me and I did not articulate until this writing. I do not mean to take away from the issue that an unwanted pipeline is set to go through what were legally Indian lands. The bigger picture is that we use petroleum consumption as a commodity. If people don't buy it and use it, it loses its demand and also its value in money. This does not necessarily mean the drilling and transport and refining will stop. The United States government currently subsidizes drilling for oil and natural gas with $4 billion per year in taxpayer money. One of the problems is that we waste a lot of the fuels that we use, no matter what the source. Our cars idle in traffic with us at the wheel (also wasting our time.) We heat up our homes, schools, and workplaces when we are not in them. We heat rooms that we don't use. We leave our electrical appliances running. We throw away food, we run clean water down the drain as if it were endlessly available only because we have the money to pay for it. If we stop using oil, and natural gas, we don't need pipelines. It is only in these last hundred years that our demand and consumption are so high, and because these fuels are cheap to use, so is our waste. The same is true about our use of water, food, and manufactured goods.

Which brings us back to the issue: Water. It would be extremely difficult to avoid the watershed of the Missouri River in the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and that fact should have been considered a long time ago. A leak, even a small one, in this pipeline would be a major catastrophe that would affect over 2,000 linear miles directly along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. A break anywhere in the watershed, indeed every break in every pipeline is expensive, dirty, and disastrous to the ecosystem. It does not take a far-reaching vision to include all the lives that would be affected farther from the shorelines. Not just the drinking water, but farm  irrigation and wildlife would be impacted. In the terms of nature and science, the People of the region have cause to raise protest against the construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River. It is a matter of the physical properties of construction materials that dictate not “if” but “when”a breach will occur.

I had not really been forming these thoughts around the fire. I was enjoying a rare experience of being present. I did not bring my journal book with me to take notes. I had many questions that I did not ask. Being in the moment I did not have time to process everything; my processing comes from remembering, writing this down, and having more questions, which lead to research. 

***********************************************

On Religion, rituals, and prayer:  

For myself, one Creator or Supreme Being has not revealed itself to me. I am simply cynical; religions were inventions to establish and maintain a social order. In some cultures, religions plays the role keeping of mutual respect and equality among its people. In many cultures, however, religion lays down an exclusive and cruel pecking order.  I question the meaning of rituals and ceremonies and the exact order and details which have to be followed: the timing and the personnel, the costumes, the props, the tools, the drama. Often I find intention, attention and spirit lacking. Prayer, however, can focus our attention to perceiving the opportunities, the “gifts,” when they come along. I pray a lot, but I don’t know who is listening. 

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary Friday November 11 2016

 Friday November 11, 2016.  

I slept not well, knowing I have to be at the airport to fly out at 6:20 AM, I picked the wrong pillow to sleep with, but I woke up before the hotel wake-up call. I was having a vision of my entire trip looking like a wound that was healing up, with teepees sticking out of it.  I realized it was quickly becoming a memory, that might fade too fast into forgetting, but nevertheless would become part of me. I looked at the cut on my hand that I had sustained while I was still at home. It was healing up well, and I vowed that the scar it would leave would always be a reminder of my visit to Standing Rock. I packed and looked around my room, said thanks for giving me a place to rest for the night. I  went down to the lobby and grabbed a couple of hard boiled eggs and an orange as I didn't know when I would have a minute to buy something to eat and waited for the 5 AM airport  shuttle ride to airport. The driver was a jolly Swede who told me that he has lived his whole life in Bismarck.  

Bismarck is a small airport, there are only about 40 planes flying in and out each day. There is a display of pre-historic artifacts, a dinosaur, arrowheads, inside a big glass case right in the middle of where our line-up was to go through Security. Going through the security check I had to unpack my carry-on bag that holds all my electronics all over again.  After I passed through the scanner, I saw a man with his shirt off and hands overhead, a security officer holding a scan wand was yelling to him to put his clothes back on but the guy was just standing there frozen with his hands high above his head. Of course I wondered what was going on. I saw that his bags were being examined by hand, slowing mine coming down the conveyor belt. When he got his bags I could see that his hands were shaking. I got my bags again, and I had to repack them. (I believe this is where I lost my Minidisc microphone.)

By the time I got to my terminal, and I saw that the man with his hands in the air was seated in the waiting area.  I sat down next to him and asked if he was OK. “You looked very shaken up back there.” He proceeded to tell me that he was at Standing Rock 2 days before I got there, when the Water Protectors were crossing the river, got maced and shot at. He told me it was very scary, and then the following day it was the opposite, that the clergy showed up. He told me that he had been camped at Sacred Stone for the past week. I asked him if he needed a hug, and he said yes, and so I stood and held him as strongly as I could. I was becoming used to putting my heart next to other people's hearts, something I had never done before. It was time to board our plane and I said we could talk more when we got to Denver. After I seated myself on the plane, I immersed myself into “Marquee Moon” again. I was on my way home.

When I landed in Denver and got off the plane, the shaken man was waiting for me. He was visibly in much better condition, more relaxed. He told me he was a farmer in California and we exchanged phone numbers. We then parted ways and I went to my terminal. We exchanged a few text messages.  

My ride to Newark was uneventful, I sat next to a man reading a book that had some kind of Glenn Beck title. The world in some ways had changed over the last week, and I could see that there were going to be reactions and backlashes, and the chasms of a divided  America could become deeper. But I had just come from a new school, with an old but time-tested message. I had a renewed commitment to struggle to protect resources and the Dignity of Indigenous People everywhere. Standing Rock Indian Reservation's successful fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline takes more than prayer: a medicine man once told me that you can pray for corn all you want, but it helps to plant the seeds. At this writing there are 2,000 United States war veterans showing up to defend the water protectors; treaties, lawyers and public opinion on their side. We need to remain focused, united, and constant, and we need to take action before it is too late. 

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary November 10 2016

 Thursday November 10, 2016

I was awake early and went to the fire long before the 6 AM wake-up prayer. I heard two different packs of coyotes calling, howling, singing, from the south and the west of the camp. A few camp dogs joined in. Around the fire there was more storytelling, some personal stories and some Indian stories. I gave away my pouch of tobacco to an elder, although I doubt he was much older than myself. The Old Man who took the microphone every morning for the wake-up call that I felt inclined to call “Grandfather” was in fact younger than my young parents. It was starting to become obvious to me that I was becoming an elder myself.

I failed to mention here that I had brought my Minidisc digital sound recorder inside my jacket pocket to the fire circle. I wanted so badly to have a recording of the prayers, possibly to marry with some of the photos I took. The recording equipment failed. I reasoned it must be for the right reasons: I was supposed to be here now, and fussing with equipment was divorcing me from this moment, especially doing so without permission.

This would be my last time hearing the morning ceremonies. I had been feeling a bit empty and ineffectual for not participating in a Direct Action, or building the Wagonagon, or washing more dishes. I didn't eat a lot of food, but I handed over money at the kitchen. There was no donations jar, no one ever asked me for a cent. There were many hands pitching in, and none of the work seemed hard. I couldn't say why, perhaps there were so many hands willing to do the work that it all evened out. We were constantly being reminded that this was not a vacation, but everything made it easy to be leisurely, as if on a religious retreat. The firewood took work to chop, and great effort to get it here, as there were no forests nearby and very few trees. But there was always someone who came forward and picked up the axe and chopped.

At the coffee station, I found that a couple of cases of ceramic coffee mugs had been delivered, and though I had offered to give my beloved enamel coffee cup to Odie, a fire keeper and coffee attendant, he wasn't going to need mine. I was really relieved that I could keep my travel mug that had been with me for 35 years at least, and I hoped that no more styrofoam cups would be used ever again in this camp..  

While the regular morning prayers were going on, and as the day was growing brighter, an Indian couple laid out a colorful blanket in front of the fire. The man knelt down and produced a long stemmed pipe out of its deerskin fringed carrying bag.. He held it up toward the sun, and the altar and the fire. The woman then did the same with another pipe.

There was an announcement that we were having a pipe ceremony and that anyone who wished to participate should form a circle, men on the west side, women on the east. The Pipe Ceremony is the most important ritual to many American Indian people. There were more prayers, the pipes were filled with tobacco which is a sacred plant to all the indians,  and we were instructed how to handle the pipe, hold the wooden stem in the right hand, the stone bowl in the left. The sacred pipe parts represent the male and the female, and a pipe ceremony joins the two in a ritual that brings the male and female together. I believe the ritual is to be seen as not merely symbolic, but in reality joining the parts of us that feel divided. The pipe, called a “Chanupa” in the Lakota language, was going to be given to each of us four times, separate pipes for the men and women. There was a teaching in English, I wish I could remember all of it, but the part I remember most went something like this: “Depression comes from living in the Past; Anxiety comes from fear of the Future; we must live fully in the Present.” Then the pipes were brought around. I made my own prayer, I inhaled the smoke and blew it to the sky.

After the ceremony was finished I went back to my tent and changed into my day clothes. I saw the person named Rudy who had offered me the ride to Bismarck and we firmed up our departure plans. I went over to Winona's for a breakfast of eggs, sausage, potatoes, and tea. I chatted with a cook named Karen. She said that the regular cook had turned her ankle and I offered an Ace bandage that Elsa had left behind. I went to my tent and brought it back. I said I was flying back home tomorrow, and thanked them for feeding me, and  I asked Karen what message she would like me to take back to the people back home. She paused for a moment and then said, “Tell them that We are Prayerful People; We are Peaceful People; We are Powerful People, and we will win this with Prayer.”

Back at the Two-Spirit Camp there was a photo-op, videos and interview with some media. They got me into a few photos, and pretty soon it was time to leave. My driver, Rudy, looked South American Indian, Peruvian? and spoke Spanish with his girlfriend, Sarah. I told him that I was not going to need my gear and he said an elder who was flying in could definitely use the two sleeping bags, and if I wanted to leave the tent he could give it to some Dine that he knew. Then I handed him my down jacket and it fit him so I was happy that was getting a new home, also. I also gave him my bag of Italian Roast coffee that I never got around to using. I told him to make it strong!  Sarah and two other of their friends were coming along with us to Bismarck. There was a mention in passing that they could use a shower and I told them they could use my shower at the hotel. As we were loading the van, I noticed that it had New Jersey license plates. “Hey, I'm from New Jersey! Where are you guys from?” and Rudy said he lived in Jersey City, Mia, another passenger lived in New York and was studying at the New School …  

We drove to Bismarck listening to a CD of Andean flute music. I hadn't heard any other music except Indian songs and big drums since I had left a week ago. They dropped me at the hotel and went to the airport to pick up their friends. I requested extra towels, took my luggage up to my room and returned to the lobby to wait for them. I went back to reading “Marquee Moon.” They returned with an Elder named Zubin, a Tewa who lived in New York City and his friend Fire, an Iranian woman. We all went up to my room and they took turns showering. It was as if the Oceti Sakowin Camp was continuing in my room, with more Indian stories. Zubin was about 62, was my guess, from popular music references that he mentioned. Among other things he told us that when he was a young boy his grandmother told him a story about a web that covered the Earth and made it possible for everyone to communicate with one another. Rudy admired my ribbon shirt that was hanging on the back of my chair. I should have asked him if he felt like it was appropriate for me to wear it at any time. I had only seen them worn only by Indian men on dressy occasions, but I liked the style. I made mine to wear during the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City. 

After everyone showered they invited me to come with them and eat dinner, so we found a Mexican chain restaurant nearby that I was able to say I liked. We ate our fill while sharing more personal stories. Paul McCartney's song “Maybe I'm Amazed” came on over the dining room's sound system, and I started singing along. I wanted to sing it to Howie when I got back home. I was feeling all around grateful for and yes, amazed at everything.

They drove me back to my hotel and we said our goodbyes, I asked at the hotel front desk for a wake-up call. I went to my room and collected my smoky dirty clothes, and washed them in the hotel laundry. I took a shower and turned on my laptop to send a message to Howie. Then I went to bed with my book.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary Wednesday November 9 2016

Wednesday November 9, 2016.

Elsa had to leave for the airport at 5:30 AM. I was awake and she turned on the TV and Trump was announced as the winner of the election. I was kind of in shock, but Elsa seemed more affected by the news. We pulled ourselves together and exchanged phone numbers. I was frantic, thinking maybe I should ride with her to the airport and rent a car to drive back in.  But the clock was ticking, there was no time to be indecisive, and it was time to say goodbye to Elsa. I took a relatively long time writing emails before I would check out, then I went downstairs to breakfast and put in another call to Howie. I got dressed and took my bags downstairs and hailed a ride. The person who opened his car door was named Ray. He was an Indian originally from Lame Deer Montana, now living in Seattle. It was a nice friendly ride and we exchanged camp observations. I found that I was not the only person who had ideas that one of the camps ought to become a public site for educating people.  

Ray dropped me off right at my tent, and I changed into work clothes. I had in mind to go over to Sacred Stone to see what was going on with the “Wagonagons.” I crossed the bridge over the river and it seemed that the Rosebud camp had grown as well. I saw a dome-shaped sweat lodge structure, made of bent saplings and covered with blankets. A sweat lodge ceremony is something like a sauna, used for physical and spiritual purification. I went over to talk with a woman who was sitting nearby. She was a water-pourer, a person who has been trained to conduct the sweat lodge or inipi ceremony. This was not her lodge, that is, there was someone else who scheduled the sweat ceremonies, probably the person who built it. She ran women's lodges here, in addition they held  community mixed lodges. While we were talking a young Indian came up and asked if he could use the lodge for his family who had traveled from Chicago. He had a water-pourer among his travelers. They had encountered some trouble along the way and wanted to sweat and pray about it. She directed him to come back and talk to the person who maintained the lodge. After he left I took my leave of the woman and wandered some more. I strayed from the well-used road and walked through the tall grass toward a patch of trees. I needed to enjoy some alone time and admire the landscape and the beautiful weather. I laid down among the trees, not really engaging any thoughts. I needed some open meditation for a change, letting go of my judgments, plans, and any notions about what I thought that I had come here to do. I had not really been closed to going and demonstrating, just to the idea of getting arrested, having to come up with bail money, court dates, lawyers, and all the other possible hassles. I had still been daydreaming about carrying a big sign to that front line that had printed in bold letters, “I am your Aunt. We are family. Don’t shoot,” or some words to appeal to the militarized police to put down their weapons and join the side of protecting the people instead of the pipeline. While I was laying there I looked across the large stretch of grass to the hillsides beyond. I could see large pieces of that monstrous construction equipment, earth movers, backhoes and bulldozers. And suddenly I saw moving dark shadows across the hillside. I squinted. BUFFALO! There were about 200 of them moving as if one morphing silhouette. I watched for awhile until they moved out of sight over a hill.

It was time to pick myself up and move on to my mission of  finally making myself useful. I found some people erecting yurts. There was one person laying out lines for their sites along a Kaballah tree-of-life plan. It seemed like a tedious detail given that in preparation for winter, the time had already come to move inside. Elders, women and children were being urged to take shelter in the large army tents, teepees and yurts; our summer tents would be useless against the imminent wind, cold and snow. It seemed to me like a better idea to place the yurts according to the landscape contours, and proximity to amenities, and to get them up as quickly as possible. They were not my yurts so instead of handing out my common sense critique, I pitched in picking up cow pies and sticks off the sites that had been mapped out already. I piled them up under a tree for future use as fuel. Although I thought it was very resourceful to collect cow dung and downed limbs and sticks for fuel, I could see that this small pile would keep a few people warm for at most a few hours, even in the most fuel efficient wood-burning stove.  

I hadn't been working for very long when a truck with a couple of people in it came along and the driver, an Indian man, stopped the truck and got out. Then he shouted, enunciating his words very clearly, that there was going to be four women's sweat lodges later that day, to honor, comfort, pray with and heal women who had been arrested and traumatized during an action. The place of the lodges and time were not given. Of course I was going to go. But for now there were cow pies to pick up and I still had not made my way back to Sacred Stone. If the fires for the lodges were not already started it would be a few hours before the ceremony. I worked on. The group laid out a giant plastic tarp that was going to be the ground cloth.

Soon another pick-up truck drove up with a driver delivering a message: the roadblock had been cleared and there was a possibility of a raid on Oceti Sakowin camp.  We had been warned about rumor mongers, so I didn't regard his words as an actual emergency. I asked the driver about the women's sweat, and he said they had already lit the fires. I dropped what I was doing and hurried back to the sweat lodge that I had passed on my way over. There were a few men there building a fire but they told me the women's lodge was going to be on the other side of the river, at the Oceti Sakowin camp. I crossed the bridge again. First I did not want to miss the ceremony, and just in case there really was a raid, I did not want to be caught away from my tent and my belongings. I stopped by my camp and then went to the clothing donations tent because I had just lost my skirt and I was required one to wear into the lodge. There were plenty of sweaters, jackets, hats and scarves but no skirts. I was furnished with a clean bed sheet which I would wrap around my waist.

At Oceti Sakowin, no one seemed aware that there might be a raid. I was not going to raise alarm. And no one could tell me exactly where the inipi, the sweat lodge, was going to be. It was growing late and I didn't want to miss it. I passed by a large dumpster and saw that some of the garbage needed to be sorted from the recycling. I found cases of unopened canned vegetables in the dumpster. I was horrified. I checked the expiration dates. They were all good. A man was throwing his trash into the dumpster. We got to talking and I told him about the cans of food in the dumpster. He suggested that they may have been from the camp raid and were possibly contaminated with mace. Then he expressed that he felt really awful, and he was beginning to cry about the election I surmised. I asked him if he needed a hug, and he said yes. I gave him a deep heartfelt hug and told him not to fear.  He told me he was on his way to a Sustainability meeting. I knew I belonged there; this camp was not in any condition to be sustained over the winter and I could add a few ideas that would be simple to implement, but I was going to the lodge. I had a purpose. When I got back home I would be attending a lodge on Long Island a day later with some people I used to sweat with. I was going to connect these two communities personally. My input and learning at a Sustainability Meeting would simply not be part of my Standing Rock experience. This was, after all, a prayer camp.

The lodge location was not well known, there was to be a lot of walking back and forth to find the right person who could direct me to it. And still the site was not exactly where I thought it would be. I ended up there just in time anyway. There were about 60 women waiting outside of two lodges with two fires burning. There was a male guarding our space facing out in each of the four directions. I heard one of them talking about a line of vehicles he could see far away.  I felt a little apprehension, but not fear. If there was going to be a raid I would be inside of a lodge praying.

Four women water-pourers were going to lead the ceremonies; each had come forward when the call for a women's lodge went out through the camp and each came from a different tribal tradition. As we stood waiting the leaders prayed at the same time, smudging their pipes, each in a different language. There were going to be two rounds for each lodge, one round for each group of about 15 women. When it finally came time to go in, it was very crowded. I had once experienced a panic attack during a sweat lodge, in fact it was the last time I had gone to an inipi ceremony. I had no reason to panic but I rationalized that I was supposed to understand and have some empathy for people who suffer from extreme anxiety. How can I have compassion for people's misery if I have never felt it myself?  In this lodge, I had to sit cramped, I fidgeted a lot, I was right up against the rock pit, I realized that my “skirt” was polyester and I feared it might melt onto my skin! It was time for the rocks to be brought in, and it was getting hotter and hotter. I only wanted it to be over, and indeed it was a short round. After we got done with all the rounds, and I was walking back to my camp, I heard people yelling, there was an Eagle and I looked up. It was flying over our lodges..

Back at my tent, I took off my wet clothes and put on some dry things and went over to Winona's for dinner. Tonight they were serving lingua, and venison stew. The cook made fry bread again. After supper I lingered by the Sacred Fire as usual and went off to bed.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary Tuesday November 8, 2016

Tuesday November 8, 2016

It was very cold that morning and I wanted to stay inside my sleeping bag for as long as possible before I would inevitably have to get out to pee. “KIKTA PO! KIKTA PO!” came over the public address system. I went to the main circle as usual for the morning prayers and coffee. Today someone had brought some half and half!  Prayers and songs went around as usual, and as before I felt something in my chest where my heart resides when I looked at the growing rosy glow on the horizon. “Thank you for another day.” This morning the microphone came to a woman, who took on a more remonstrative tone. She had heard of or seen alcohol being consumed in the camp. “If you are here to party, she said, you should go home. This is a prayer camp.” She had overheard some cussing. “This is a sacred place. If you hear someone using bad language or gossiping, please remind them that we are praying. I see some gang kids wearing their colors. This is not the place for that. If you are not here to pray with us, go home.” It felt as if she were correcting her own misbehaving grandchildren instead of a bunch of unmindful white adults. In fact most of the camp was Indian and young. 

There was a lost and found box at the table on the “stage.” There were other announcements of found items. Someone, an anonymous donor, had paid for the release of cars that had been impounded from the raid on a North Camp ten days ago, and all that was needed was for the owners of the cars to take a ride with someone who was offering a lift and they could go and get their cars. I didn’t know much then about the raid but I have since learned that it was a violent assault on a camp named “1851 Treaty Camp,” a reclamation of unceded Dakota territory from the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.  The camp had been set up on October 23rd in the direct path of the pipeline on land that had been recently purchased by DAPL. 300 police in miltary riot gear conducted the brutal attack using mace, teargass, beanbag guns, and noise concussion devices on the unarmed frontline camp and arrested 141 people.  

  http://sacredstonecamp.org/blog/2016/10/28/police-from-5-states-escalate-violence-shoot-horses-to-clear-1851-treaty-camp

I went over to Winona's where they served up some bacon and eggs and home fries. She always had a thermal jug of sage tea and another of mint tea in addition to fresh coffee. I kept forgetting it was Election Day.

I spent the rest of the morning with the Two-Spirits erecting a winter army tent and covering the top with heavy plastic tarps. This was expected to be their supply tent. They already had a heavy canvas tent set up with luxurious beds and colorful blankets. I believe that it had an outlet for a stove pipe and they were planning to get a wood stove for inside. Around the larger camp I was noticing that firewood was being used up very quickly although the weather was still relatively warm. There were no forests nearby and wood was being imported from as far away as Washington state and was being trucked in.

Elsa came to find me, and invited me back to stay over at the Casino, and I packed up and made up my bed and offered it to anyone who might want to sleep in it.  We went to the Medic tent to meet our ride. On the way over, I found my dishwashing buddy Jesus walking down the road with a beautiful vintage plaid bathrobe on as a coat. He was giving away beads from a necklace that he loved and had broken. I gave him a hug sure that I would see him again. We got to the Medic tent only to find that our ride had already left. Elsa told me that there were several people who had reported lost dogs... We each hitched another ride – I got a ride with some Lakota Indians who had come from Pine Ridge in South Dakota- and Elsa rode with another family and we arrived at the Casino at the same time. We enjoyed another buffet dinner, I used the pay phone to call Howie and I took a shower and put on my pajamas. I plugged in the computer, propped up the bed pillows, and sat  myself under the blankets. Elsa flipped through television stations on the monster wall TV to find out how the election was going. It took awhile before we found a station that was showing the news.

I wrote on Facebook: “I could probably write a short book about all this,” as I looked up at the TV  to see Trump ahead in the race.“In spite of the downgraded intensity of conflict, I attended the "Direct Action" training, so now I know how to be a peaceful protester, a skill I should have learned a long time ago. I have heard from several people that 26 LOCAL COPS HAVE TURNED IN THEIR BADGES AND QUIT THE POLICE FORCE,” over mistreatment of Water Protectors who had been arrested. By the time I quit the computer and turned off my light, Trump was just about to become officially elected as our next president. The proposition rather disgusted me, but I was finding resolve in my recent surroundings, there had always been a lot of work to do in our country, in our communities, in the world, but now it was clear we were going to have to roll up our sleeves and get to it.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary Monday November 7 2026

Monday November 7, 2016

When I awoke, it was cold, and windy again. I tried to gauge which direction the wind was coming from, but it kept on changing directions, but generally it was different from yesterday. I put on my day clothes, and collapsed my tent again to prevent it from blowing away. I went to the Sacred Fire as I did first thing each morning at camp to participate in the morning prayers. I was always inspired by the praying, even when the prayers were not in English. Before the sun came over the hills, the Lakota medicine man always gave thanks for a new day in which to become a better person.

The fire to cook the coffee on was started each morning with a few coals from the Sacred Fire. Coffee grounds and water were boiled together cowboy style, and then the mixture was strained and put into a giant plastic thermal container. I have no idea how many times a day coffee was made but it always tasted fresh. During the morning praying people always gathered to get coffee. This morning I busied myself tidying up the big table set up with cream, sugar, cups, and spoons. It was almost always in a state of disarray. While I was working, a dog entered the Sacred Fire circle. This was a strictly prohibited, and more than once I heard remarks on “dog soup” although I selectively brushed it off as a kind of joke. Someone picked the dog up by the scruff of his neck and brought him through the kitchen area out a back door and tied it up to a post. One of the Firekeepers in a very hushed tone commanded me to follow and get the dog out of there, “before it got killed.” I wasted no time in untying and walking off with the dog. It wasn't the creature's fault it had come into the circle, and it was wearing a collar. It was someone's pet.

The entire camp was covered with heavy frost that looked like a light snow had fallen. I walked praying, as I was now in the habit of doing, to find its owner, as I would not be able to take a dog home with me or I needed to find someone who wanted it. Many people I passed stopped and remarked how cute the dog was. It was a very distinctive looking dog, with short legs and a spotted coat, as if it were a mix of Dachsund and Australian sheep dog. It was hungry and eating everything it saw. Then two Indian men came up to me and said what a cute dog it was. Could they have it? I said yes, and one of them remarked aside that he had only had “puppy soup” twice that year. I let the dog go with them but I was very uneasy and sure I had made a stupid mistake. I walked back to the coffee kitchen. About 5 minutes later the man who had taken the dog from me came through the back door of the kitchen and I turned around to find the dog tied up again to a post. Again I took it away, this time running faster, farther, until I found a camp with dogs in it. I asked a woman there if they could take care of this one, and she pointed to a horse trailer at the top of a hill, and said “The owner was looking for it, she is up there at Hunkpapa Camp,” It was not yet 9:00 in the morning, here I was being frantic while other people were still sleeping. Was I doing the right thing if I might be keeping a dog from becoming part of a ritual sacrifice for medicine? I didn't know and I didn't ask. If that Firekeeper asked me to take the dog away it meant that I was trying to do the right thing by saving the dog. I didn't know if the Hunkpapa Sioux ate dog and I didn't know for sure that this dog would end up in a pot. And I had not complained about the deer that went into the venison stew I ate the other day.

(At this writing, over a month later, I saw a photo online of someone walking that very dog in the snow, so I know it did not end up in a “medicine soup.”)

9:00 AM Community Meeting. I brought up “dogs” as I was still shaken. I didn't talk about the incident or ask the vital question if there would possibly be a dog sacrifice in Oceti Sakowin for “medicine.” Johnnie the moderator simply addressed the subject that everyone had to keep their dogs under control. It didn't address my concern, but then I didn't state my issue directly. I came here to help a people keep their way of life, and that might mean that I would have to defend some customs that I did not see as necessary. I was going to have to just sit with this topic until I felt I could ask the right people in the right situation. 

Since I had already been to the orientation meeting I was able to stay at the Community meeting and hear what other people wanted to say. There were a few other people with ideas about how to make the camp more sustainable. One person mentioned “Net Zero” building; another said she wanted to make composting toilets. Someone else wanted to install rocket stoves. These were all subjects I knew something about. I wanted to be in on the conversations and help out in construction. I also knew that I would not have very much time. If we were going to suggest something that would improve the camp, we were asked to make a realistic dedication of time to see it through. It was an issue that was filed under “Honesty;” we had to be honest about our ability to commit. At the end of the meeting two men stood up to speak. They were two chiefs from Arctic tribes, Inupiat perhaps, but the name that I heard was one that I did not recognize. One spoke only in the language of his people while the other translated into English They expressed joy in being able to support the Standing Rock Sioux in their fight against the pipeline. The had donated a portable winter building used by arctic natives living “in the bush” and had brought it on the plane with them. It wasn't easy, the chief said; the people at the airline wanted to know what he was doing with this big thing. He told them he was taking it to a pow-wow.

Uunfortunately, I didn’t get to see the shelter. The meeting was about to end and I found Elsa again. I approached the person who brought up the topic of Net-Zero building, he had come all the way from Australia. We walked over to the construction that was going to shelter the water truck, but before I could find out what he would suggest could be improved in the design, he left the site and I never saw him again. The building was right behind the Two-Spirits camp and I approached the “leaders” - two women named Candy and Dandelion, and asked if I could camp there. We discussed how I would fit in to the community, since I was not myself Two-Spirits. The title "Two Spirit" is not interchangeable with "LGBT Native American" or "Gay Indian;" Two-Spirits are specifically natives who identify with more than one gender and fill a sacred, spiritual and ceremonial role A traditional two spirit must be recognized as such by the Elders of their Indigenous community. We concluded that my position was as an Ally and that yes, I could set up my tent with them. I felt accepted and free to make myself at-home.  

Elsa wanted to help me move my camp and up until now I had felt paralyzed with indecision to move and although I really had not brought a lot of things with me, it felt like I was making a commitment, something I do not do very easily. But I was going to a place that felt good, and in a flash I thought that *maybe* I had been lonely at this remote spot. Although I like to be alone a lot, and “loneliness” is a foreign feeling to me, for right now I wanted to be with other people. It was as if a big light had been turned on in my self-awareness. 

We went to my site and packed up my tent, sleeping bags and everything, and walked it all over to the Two-Spirit camp. We sat around and socialized for awhile before I set up my tent. There were about twenty persons living in that camp who identified themselves as having two gender spirits. They had their own fire and their own kitchen. For my short stay here I was going to get a little bit of schooling in the language of Queer Politics, as well as more Native American spirituality. I made an announcement that I would need a ride to Bismarck on Thursday and someone said that if i didn’t find a ride he would give me one. This was a very generous offer. Someone else said that he was going to pick someone up at the airport Thursday at 2:30 and I could get a ride with them.

Very soon after I got my tent set up I went to get some lunch at Winona's kitchen  a small mobile Native kitchen, connected under a tarp to a travel trailer, which served Indian soul food. I ate all my camp meals there. someone told me they made fry bread which is an Indian treat like a donut, but not round, though it can be shaped, it is usually squared about the size of a knish and generally not sweet and I could say it goes with eVeRyThInG? I ate only when I was hungry, and ate everything on my plate. I'm not even sure if I ever met the person known as Winona.  I made a pest of myself asking at every meal if they were making fry bread, but the fry-bread specialist had been away at a funeral. Today for lunch they were serving a delicious chicken soup. 

After I ate it was time for me to go to Direct Action training which was beginning at 2 PM near the Red Warrior camp. There were about 80 people in the workshop. The facilitators had experience from all over America with demonstrating and protesting. The first thing they told us was that every great social movement such as civil rights, women’s suffrage, ending the Viet Nam war-  had been achieved through peaceful civil disobedience, marches, sit-ins, and included people getting arrested and risking injury and imprisonment. This teaching showed us how to avoid getting hurt, how to communicate with and not antagonize law enforcers, what to do if we get arrested, what to do if we get maced, and how to keep the demonstration going on for as long as possible. We were invited to add our own ideas. Then we had a mock action. We locked arms, sang, and walked very slowly. The meeting went on from 2 PM until the sun was noticeably sinking in the west.

After I got done with my Direct Action training, I went back over to Winona's to help out before supper. I did a little chopping preparation, a little dish washing, and I realized how really difficult maintaining a clean kitchen would become once the temperature dropped below freezing. It was already nearing sundown, since we had turned back the clocks an hour, and the temperature was dropping. There were other helpers. The one I struck up conversation with was named Jesus, a young musician from Los Angeles who kept helping me out by keeping a pot on the fire to heat up water; as it was necessary to continually have hot water for cleaning dishes. There were a few very large pots  including one that had been used for the chicken soup that I had eaten for lunch. The pots had quite a lot of grease in them and it was REALLY difficult to get it off as the water kept turning cold before I could finish washing the pot. Winter would have challenges that we could not now foresee.  

After I got done washing the big pots, the cook announced that she would make fry bread. There were three different people involved in this each with a different approach and recipe creating an amalgamation of the quintessential fry bread recipe. Again I felt honored to help out and as my own personal reward I took away an empty Bluebird Flour Bag. I am now a fry bread initiate. The menu that night was real home made menudo and buffalo soup and a wild blueberry compote. There was a line for the fry bread!

I ate my fill and went back to my tent to go to sleep very early. The people camped behind my tent were either throwing lots of tobacco on their fire or smoking a lot of cigarettes. I was being “smudged”all night.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary Sunday November 6, 2016

Sunday November 6

Of course, I woke up early too. I had no idea what time it might be, although I was used to waking up at 4 AM in the Eastern time zone. I went to the Sacred Fire and there were a few men sitting around the fire. We took turns guessing by the position of the stars what time it might be, and then someone looked at his cell phone and told us it was 2:50 AM. We realized then that it was the night of turning back the clock for the winter, so I was actually right on time. The men expressed how tired they were, they wanted to go to sleep, but keeping the sacred fire going has to be done by a designated Firekeeper, who is the only person allowed to place logs on the fire, who insures that people respect the fire, and don't throw anything foreign into it, except for tobacco, cedar, sage or sweetgrass, while praying. A Firekeeper also keeps everyone mindful that nothing bad is said in front of the fire, that we keep our intentions good, no gossip, no politics, no cussing. I said I was an old Girl Scout, knew how to keep a fire going, and was familiar with ceremonies, offered myself for the role of Firekeeper, and they accepted. I ended up being alone at the fire for a few hours, occasionally someone came and sat down in one of the ten folding chairs that surrounded the fire. I saw how quickly firewood was being consumed so I took a wood conservation approach, allowing the fire to burn down a little before adding more wood. Apparently traditionally a Firekeeper is a male and native, so I probably raised a few eyebrows when it was asked of me, “Who is keeping the fire?” For the most part was alone under the stars from 3-6 am just feeding the fire and feeling grateful to be here. There were unfortunately very bright stadium-type lights shining in our direction from the pipeline construction site which is very close by. Many of the more distant stars were eclipsed by the light, but the position of Orion was a reliable way to tell the time at night. After some time had passed, an Indian man inserted himself between me and the fire, moved some logs around and threw a big handful of cedar needles into the fire, accidentally dropping a glove in as he did so. The glove started to smolder, and I pointed to it and he pulled it out; then, just as quickly as he had come into the circle, he left. I reasoned that he probably thought that the fire was not being tended to just because it was not blazing and because there was a lone woman sitting by. He just made an assumption and didn't think to ask who was keeping the fire.

Eventually the old Lakota Medicine man came into the circle, and he asked me, “Who is keeping the fire?” “I am,” I replied. He chuckled. Soon he revealed himself as the person who calls out the morning wake-up prayers by asking “Is the microphone on?” A man with technical experience appeared and turned on the electricity that came from a battery bank attached to an array of solar panels that was mounted on a flatbed. The coldest part of night was always noticeably just before sunrise. There always seemed to be an extra gust of cold wind that I could feel just as the old medicine man was thanking the Creator for a New Day. A small crowd was gathering, someone came to the fire to gather some coals to light a new fire to make fresh coffee, he introduced himself to me as the Firekeeper. I took leave for the latrine. On the port-a-potty door was a leaflet that read that there would be a Peace Walk to Mandan at 8 AM. The Peace Walk was intended to surround the Morton County courthouse and forgive the police force for brutality during a raid by police on a Protector's camp on October 27. I wanted to be a part of it. In spite of my intention to be helpful building winter housing, I was finding that there was a lot going on to witness, be part of, and learn from. Of course I had not been hurt by police in this incident, but I wanted to support a group that was making an effort and trying hard to be forgiving. It would be a way to heal some junk from my own past and a way to move forward in any thing that I would be doing in my own future. I wanted to see what Forgiveness looks like.

However, I missed the cars going out to Mandan, So I went to the 9 AM Community Meeting. It was my third day in camp and it had been highly advised that everyone attend a Meeting and a workshop on non-violent Direct Action. The first meeting was supposed to take place in a big Army tent that was the designated Community Center, but I was re-directed to the Geodesic dome, which was big enough to comfortably hold well over a hundred people.   A small crowd had gathered outside the dome. After we seated ourselves inside our facilitator Johnnie opened the session by greeting the newcomers, telling us how the formal process of these meetings worked, that each session began with a prayer and ended with a prayer. He asked us all to agree with that precept and went around the circle to find out if anyone had an objection to it. He told us there was a hill where there were better probabilities at receiving cell phone signals and internet and to go up there to be issued a media pass if we represented press, suggested going out and picking up trash, , volunteering to help out at kitchens, erecting winter tents, there would be a “Wellbriety” meeting at the Emotional Wellness teepee,  and then all of the newcomers were sent out to receive orientation instructions in another place inside the aforementioned Community Hall big army tent. I left with the large group of newcomers to attend that meeting. The  meeting was facilitated by Occupy trained people, who gave us a crash course on racism, and how to correct other cultural misconceptions we might be harboring. Then they asked us to introduce ourselves, why we came here, and to identify if we had come to participate in the Direct Actions. Someone announced that if we intend to participate that we should expect to get arrested and it was mandatory to attend a Direct Action training. There were a few other meetings that we were directed to, one on media, one on legal and arrest issues.

On our way out I connected with a few other people who wanted to attend the Direct Action meeting. I went in search of some labor to do while I waited for the time of the meeting. There was a big wooden shed being built to shelter a water truck, it had windows facing south, using passive solar principles it would be more likely stay above freezing inside. The construction people were busy but were short on tools so they did not need my help. I wandered. I found the clothing donation tent was very busy sorting through donations, and then there was a roped-off place where people's belongings were being held. There was a protest encampment that was raided a week before and these were the possessions people who had been arrested or who had fled. The “North Camp” had been erected in direct line of the Pipeline construction, demonstrators were praying as the police sprayed pepper-spray and made arrests. Their belongings, tents, clothing, sleeping bags, were being neatly folded and sorted. I gave a little help there.

It was then time for the Direct Action meeting and I went looking for the place where it would be held. It was kind of vague, at some point there were no longer signs pointing the way and I had to ask for directions. I found that today's meeting had been canceled. I found it a little bit odd that places and times for meetings were vague and changeable, but I still managed always to show up at the right place at the right time for another experience. I noticed that I was near to my tent so I went to just hang out by myself. I saw that the strong wind had blown my tent had into a slanting position, so I removed the poles and and flattened it so that it would not be blown away completely.

After I had dismantled my tent, I looked across the creek, across a big grassy field at a hill about a half mile away. I saw that the crest of the hill was covered with a line of uniformly dressed military-outfitted police. Below, there were about 30 people climbing up the hill. I saw a line of people on horseback riding up behind and around the persons climbing. I wished that I had brought binoculars and a telephoto lens for my camera. I could see well enough to guess what was going on, there were demonstrators attempting to take the hill. From behind me I heard someone at the open mike shouting, “Tell those people to get back here! This is not a sanctioned action!” and I saw people rushing off on foot to the hill to bring the protestors down, but not before I saw the police, whoever they were, rolling canisters of teargas down the hill, upwind from the people.

It was not clear to me what a sanctioned action meant; who did the approving? Who was invited or who would one ask if one volunteered to go along? How were the rest of us in the camp to know, if only to pray for this demonstration? There were only a total of five of us watching the Action from a spot that seemed to have the clearest view. I took many photos, and there were both an airplane and helicopter circling the hill. Within a half hour there were several pickup trucks full of people returning to the camp from the Action. They all looked triumphant, but I still don't know what happened. I read later that the hill was a burial site.

I was still thinking I wanted to move my tent and camp somewhere closer to the main circle, food, coffee, and the Spiffy Biffs port-a-potties. I was scouting for a possible site. My area had now blossomed with more tents, and a teepee, and I got friendly with the car-full of guys that came up from Colorado who camped near me but they would be leaving tomorrow. I was not fully motivated to move, simply because I didn't think there would be a better spot. “Somewhere else,” even for the ever-restless, is not always a better place.

Whenever I couldn't think of something I wanted to do I ended up at the Sacred Fire. There was always a prayer, a song, a story, an announcement. There was a giant dry erase board that served as the message kiosk. I went up to the fire and met up with Elsa, a woman who was at the morning orientation meeting. She had taken a room at the casino and invited me to come and have a shower. We had a car ride with Henri, a school teacher who lived in San Diego. I offered to buy us all dinner at the buffet. I got some clean clothes and toiletries and joined them for the ride. Back at the Casino, we heaped our trays with food and took a table. There was a group of people at the next table, one of whom began conversing with us. He was a young Indian man, very articulate in Indian and business matters regarding the pipeline. We introduced ourselves and he told us his name was Freedom.  He told us that his mother, sitting right there at the table next to us being interviewed was LaDonna Brave Bull Allard the woman who had loaned out her land for the Sacred Stone Prayer Camp. Freedom could rattle off business names, figures, statistics, treaties. I asked him if he wrote, and he said no. But he was quite a good talker! When LaDonna got done with her interview she turned to us and said hello and we all shook her hand.

Then we went upstairs to shower.  Henri told us he was camped at the Two-Spirits Camp, the camp where the the closest way to describe in Western Terms is “Native LGBT” although that is not an accurate description. The two-spirits also have a sacred, spiritual and ceremonial role in their communities. When we rode back  to camp I asked if it would be OK if I moved my tent to the Two-Spirit camp. Henri said it should be fine and I said I would be over tomorrow to check it out and get permission. Henry dropped me off near where I thought my tent was, but my area had grown in population. Yurts, teepees and big canvas tents had randomly been erected around my tent. I did not recognize my own “neighborhood.” I was not feeling “at home” here; I was beginning to feel that moving was becoming more of my personal inclination. I was glad to be clean, though and I put on my pajamas and went to sleep.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary Saturday November 5, 2016

Saturday November 5  

I was awakened by a loud voice, “KIKTA PO! KIKTA PO! WAKE UP! WARRIORS, SMUDGE YOUR PIPES! CHRISTIANS, POLISH YOUR CROSSES. PRAY! THEY HAVE BEEN UP FOR THREE HOURS ALREADY WORKING ON THAT BLACK SNAKE! KIKTA PO! WAKE UP! IT IS GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY!” The air was cold and it was still dark. I didn't want to get out of my sleeping bag. I turned on my phone to see what time it was. It was 6 AM. I changed into my day clothes navigated in the darkness to the Sacred Fire. On my way I passed by the Spiffy Biffs just as a truck pulled up to clean them out. Later I would find that at 6 AM sharp every day, the toilets were emptied and cleaned and new paper was placed in them, enough to last all day and night. The potties were always rather clean. At the main circle which was a camp around the Sacred Fire, a kind of town square with a  coffee station on the west side, with a lattice fence  behind it, a big winter army tent on the north side with 3 canopies connected that worked as a kind of stage and shaded sitting area for elders, open canopies on the east side with folding chairs underneath, and on the south side there was a large dry erase board that served as a message kiosk.  Their coffee was always fresh if weaker than what I was used to but with just enough caffeine to keep away pain and fatigue and contribute to our mental clarity.

The old man with the microphone was a medicine man from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He continued by saying morning prayers in Lakota and in English. He thanked the Great Spirit for a new day to make himself into a better person. He sang to the rising sun. He passed the mike to a Navajo who had driven out from Oregon, who also prayed in his native language. Again we were thanked for being there in support, and again told we are all related, and we were fostering a spirit of forgiveness, and respect, and if we had just arrived, to please attend the Community Meeting at 9 AM at the dome. 

As the crowd of worshippers grew, someone announced that a women's water ceremony was going to take place at 7 AM. I was going to discover that some events or ceremonies had time structures and exact locations, but some did not. Anyway, I was not wearing a watch and seldom turned on my phone. By the time 7 o'clock came our crowd grew to about 200 people. A group of women, maybe as many as ten of them dressed in winter jackets and long skirts went up to the front area. They began singing a water song in English; one woman carried a hammered copper pitcher. She went around the circle and stood in front of each person and poured a little water into our cupped left hands from which we drank. The water tasted very sweet. Then the women lined up and we walked down the dirt road with some men following behind to the bank of the Cannonball River, about a quarter mile away, singing along the way, and giving water to people who came up for a handful. The walking ceremony consisted of about a hundred people. When we got to the bank of the river, the men lined up along both sides of the steep pathway to help the women down the bank to a small dock where the ceremony continued. In the line I saw a man who looked like my friend David who died very young, six years ago. I thought of him and his depression and addiction. I wished that he could have been here. When we got to the bottom of the bank, we women were each, one at a time, given a small amount of tobacco which we sprinkled into the river and poured in water from the pitcher. Next men who identified themselves as women were invited to pour water, women who identified as men, and people who identified as both or neither. As I understood this ceremony, it was to thank the Creator for giving us Water, in an open group setting, in a formal way. Although this ceremony was sexually segregated, both sexes were needed to participate, and there was more than one way for a person to define herself as “female.”

**********************************

After this ceremony was over, I went to Winona's kitchen for breakfast. I was already finding that I was often not so hungry, and that one small helping of whatever was available 2 or 3 times a day was plenty of food to sustain me. When I got back to the main circle I found that Radjana and Frank had returned. Frank told me that the house that was my landmark was gone! (Where do you move a house on wheels to?) We spent the next few hours roaming the camp, found some yurts that had been erected, Radjana conducted a few more interviews, we took turns posing for our own photos to post on Facebook. I picked one for Frank to post of me when he got back to internet lands to let my friends know I was OK

The weather was beautifully warm, high in the low 70's and sunny. I was told that usually by this time of year there was snow on the ground. Behind the bulletin board kiosk, there was a large army tent where there was a big stash of winter clothing and blankets being sorted and given out.  I was still harboring hope that no one would feel a need to stay the winter. Of course it would be kind of an adventure, but I was feeling that it was not going to be easy to sustain. It was not easy to realistically prepare for the eventual reality of arctic conditions, especially with the deceptive tease of a seeming everlasting summer.

At noon there was a commotion: People were coming into the camp on horseback. They were Indians, and they were headed to the next ceremony, to light the 7th Council Fire. I didn't know what this meant, but while writing this memory I  looked on the Oceti Sakowin camp website where it is explained as this: Oceti Sakowin means “seven council fires,” and is the proper name for the people otherwise known as the Sioux. “The Sioux tribe was made up of Seven Council Fires. Each of these Council Fires was made up of individual bands, based on kinship, dialect and geographic proximity. Sharing a common fire is one thing that has always united the Sioux people. Keeping of the Peta Wakan (Sacred Fire) was an important activity. On marches coals from the previous council fire were carefully preserved and used to rekindle the council fire at the new campsite.” My understanding now is that probably another band of Sioux was arriving, perhaps those who came in on horseback. The ceremony began with a few people gathering around a fire pit that was in the middle of a ring of teepees. 1,000 people gathered in an outer circle . There was a 20-foot-wide track between those  2 rings of people, where the horseback riders rode around.. Everyone was quiet, even the babies. All photography had been strictly forbidden at this ceremony. A drone flew above us. Many people shouted at it and waved it away. Someone at the inner circle began to speak. I had to strain to hear what was being said. Even if I could not hear most of it, I felt like it was an honor just to be present. The fire was lit, I heard a cheer, and saw the smoke rise. People around the fire who had pipes held them up; someone was praying. Soon coming up the pathway there was a parade of children who entered the circle. There were more cheers, and songs, and shaking hands with the youth, and then the pipe carriers came out to offer us to smoke. I shared a sacred pipe with probably a hundred of people that day. When the ceremony ended I found Radjana again and I found David McCollum the man who sat next to me on my plane ride from Denver; he was carrying his peace pole that had come all the way from Japan. .

Frank, Radjana and I milled about some more, Radjana continued to interview people, and I followed.  Not used to being idle, I was still looking for work to do. Eventually we returned to the car and took a ride to the Prairie Knights Casino 7 miles to the south for buffet supper . While I was having dinner I found that I had internet reception so I dashed off a message. I began, “What a great time and place to be in History!” Frank disappeared for a short while and came back to the table and tossed me a hundred dollar bill. He had just won on a slot machine. He probably doesn't realize how much I needed it. I found a pay phone in the lobby and took note of the location as I might be coming back here over the next few days. For a dollar I could make an outgoing 4-minute call and I learned that it was easy to get rides to the Casino. Plenty of people at the camp came here, took a room, and let many people come over and use the shower, internet, and other amenities. I overheard someone in the restaurant say that someone had been arrested that day.  I made a couple of phone calls from Frank's cell phone to let people at home know that I was OK.

We drove back to camp and I said goodbye to Frank and Radjana, they were flying back home to Arizona the next day. I crawled into my tent and went right to sleep. 

[campsparrow]

Friday November 4

The next morning, I turned on my laptop to get us a map, weather, and find out what news there might be from the front lines or the camps. Frank had heard were rumors of roadblocks and communications jams. My laptop is super slow, but I already had no phone reception, and I knew I would not have internet connection for possibly the whole week. The mainstream press was not fully ready to commit to reporting the story in general or about the conflicts that were regularly occurring between armed police and unarmed demonstrators. I posted a message on Facebook that I had arrived. I was following several pages that posted  news from Standing Rock daily, often up to the minute, mostly in the form of videos, some of them posted live. There I found news and photos of the 524 interfaith clergy that had arrived yesterday, renouncing the Doctrine of Discovery, in a showing of a demand for justice for indigenous peoples.  

Clergy at the “Front lines” - Photo by Staephanie Keith for Reuters, via Huffington Post

It was a beautiful sunny cool morning. We got some breakfast and set out for the Reservation. The cities of Bismarck and Mandan, on either side of the Missouri River were old prairie towns, and had been settled over thousands of  years by different waves of  people. I looked at the houses as I passed by; although they were appealing in early 20th century design, I wondered what it might be like to live there. The direct road to the reservation was indeed blocked and we had to take a detour. The landscape is grassland with very few trees. There was an occasional small farm with corn growing, and occasionally a small cattle ranch. But mostly the land appeared fallow, or grazing land or else the grass itself was harvested as hay which was rolled in large bales.

When we arrived at the junction of roads near where Cannonball was on the map, there were Indian police units. We could not guess what their presence signified, but we pulled over and checked our directions. When we had ourselves set on the correct trajectory, we found signs pointing to Sacred Stone camp at a roadside shop. We followed the signs until we found a gate that had its own camp with a big army tent and many people milling about. A woman came to the care and we rolled down our windows to talk with her.  She spoke with an Australian accent and questioned if we were agents of the FBI or other government agency or the press and what we were planning to do here. She told us that no drugs, alcohol or firearms were permitted, and photography was not allowed unless we asked for permission, and let us into the camp. We parked the vehicle and walked through the camp which was a mix of tents and teepees and tarp structures built into the shrubbery. I was interested in the primitive shelters but looking into the shrubs I saw that they had lots of big thorns, and I was glad that I had a free-standing tent with me.  Being situated on a series of hills, it was not possible for me to see the extent of the camp or to guess how many people there were. Everyone was friendly and many were dressed colorfully. Although there was no running water, no one appeared as if in dire need of washing. I soon found that same woman who was manning the gate at the port-a-potties,  which were clean and stocked with toilet paper. I  asked her to give me a quick tour and she showed me the kitchen. In the midst of the kitchen was a sacred fire with seats around it and the rules to be observed there were no cursing, no gossip, no political talk. Praying was welcome. There was a dish washing station. Although there was no open food, except for whole fruits, there were a lot of common houseflies about. I asked about winter structures and she brought me to a spot where there were people constructing what they called “Wagonagons” - Quonset style long houses made of bent saplings that were going to be covered with blankets and tarps. I was looking forward to helping out.

However, the Sacred Stone Camp was not the center of activity that Frank and Radjana had visited the last time they were here. We walked on and came to another gate that closed the road to vehicular traffic. It was another formal checkpoint, with a large canvas tent, a few chairs around a small fire, a young man who had been awake too long with a walkie-talkie and his dog. We talked with him  about the logistics of this gate, and I got the vague sense that this gate could be locked at any time, as a defense in the case of a raid. I did not understand much of what he was trying to tell us. These were “war” language words that were unfamiliar to me. We continued to walk along past the gate and there in front of us was the Cannonball River. On the other side of the river was a huge camp, as far as I could guess, a mile from one side to the other. There was a surveillance airplane flying overhead, circling the big camp. I would find this was a constant presence that people tended to ignore, and sometimes in addition there was also a helicopter. Often there were photographing drones above us, many of them belonged to people in the camp with press credentials.  We kept walking passing many campsites with more teepees and tents set up along the river. We came to another checkpoint at a bridge with a paved roadway that crossed the river. There were a few vehicles and many people on foot crossing. I thought it was curious that although the weather was warm and there were no showers in the camps, I did not see anyone in the river, washing, swimming, or wading.

On the other side of the bridge, on the north side of the river,  there was yet another checkpoint. We waved and passed on and I could see far ahead that there was a road with hundreds of flags on both sides of it that represented over three hundred Indian Tribes and one hundred countries from around the world. Even though Frank and Radjana had been here only two months before, the landscape did not look familiar. In September this camp had 500 people living in it. Now there were easily 5,000.  My guess was that the total population of the camps on both sides of the river was about 7-10,000 people.

There appeared to be a center of activity, where people were gathered. It was another Sacred Fire, the first one that had been lit in April and had been burning continually. There was an altar with cow skulls, baskets of tobacco, sage, cedar, braids of sweet grass and other ceremonial objects on the Northeast side of the fire. (Later there would be questions about this position... altars were usually placed on the East side of a fire) and about ten folding chairs in a circle around the fire. There was an area that I would later call The Stage where there were 3 canopies set up in front of a long army tent. There was a man speaking into a microphone connected to an amplified public address system. He was telling a story. When he finished speaking in another few minutes someone else came up and took the microphone. He spoke a few words in an Indian language and then in English thanked everyone for being here. Then he said, “We are one family.” Tears welled up in my eyes. The microphone was passed around to a few more people who told us we were in ceremony, we were in prayer, we had to respect and love one another. Furthermore we were asked to pray for the people who were building the pipeline, and the police who were protecting them and reacting with violence toward demonstrators. Instead of “Protesters” he referred to them and all of us supporting, as “Water Protectors.” 

Radjana stopped to interview people whenever possible, and we eventually found ourselves at a great Buckminster Fuller Geodesic dome that had been to the Burning Man festival. It was equipped with mobile solar panels and a full bank of batteries to supply power and hanging lamps inside – but I never did find out what was else plugged into this large system. Inside the dome a meeting was about to begin. It was a support group for people who had been arrested at the “Front Line.” We had heard a few horror stories about a recent Action or was it the recent raid on the the north camp? where people were arrested and confined in what looked like dog kennels, and women were strip searched. Radjana went in to collect information for her article. Frank walked with me to the spot where in September they had camped in their vehicle. It was far away from the crowd near a small creek or pond. I could not see the source of the water. Frank told me it was a good place to camp. Curiously, there was a large house on a flatbed truck nearby that I could use as a landmark. It was somewhat isolated, like a cleared cul-de-sac in a field of tall prairie grass. We went back to tell Radjana  that we were going back to get the car and bring my camping gear and we would pick her up in about half an hour. We walked back over the bridge to the Sacred Stone Camp. I was hungry so I stopped in to the  kitchen for a bowl full of  venison stew leftover from lunch. It was very good. I felt a little sad that this was not where I was going to be staying, but it was a place I could explore and hang out at later.

By this time it was late afternoon. We got into the vehicle went back out the way we came in. The road leads around the small town of Cannonball on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and back past the convenience store, we turned right this time, onto route 1806, crossed the river on that same bridge we had walked over. Heading north on the road about a half mile away there is an official main entrance to the large camp with its own checkpoint, another that is guarded by a person who asks if you are new or returning. This is the road that is lined with the four-hundred-and-growing flags. We parked and dropped my camping gear at my campsite and walked back to pick up Radjana who was still inside the dome listening to people's stories. Not wishing to disturb them, Frank gestured to Radjana that we would be waiting outside for her.

In that same instant a man walked up brandishing a camera with a big long telephoto lens. He was an Indian and I didn't feel like it was necessary for me to police him about photographing. He asked us “What is going on in here?” I told him it was a meeting for women who had been arrested.  He stood near us and questioned us why we were there. He introduced himself as Frank White Bull, and that he was on the Standing Rock Tribal Council. He told us that he questioned “all this Green stuff” alternative energy, solar promotion. It wasn't as if we were at a trade show, no one was selling anything, but there were solar panels and wind generators on the site. He said that the stuff was detracting from the main issues: Water and the Children who were not born yet, the coming generations often referred to in Indian stories and slogans. Then he told us that the camp was going to be closed down. It was not a legal camp and it was not necessary for us to be there. The Standing Rock Sioux would handle the Pipeline issue as a legal one themselves. He gave us his business card. By this time, Radjana had joined us. She had a press pass, and asked him a few questions. He showed us some photographs that he had taken that were stored on his cell phone. They were beautiful skillfully taken photos; one was of the Milky Way, a bright mass of stars in the night sky, the other was of the green-hued Northern Lights, taken “right from that bridge over there, last month.”  But we would not see these things in the sky at this time, because the Dakota Access Pipeline construction sight was lit up at night, with bright stadium lights that polluted the night sky, in order to discourage protesters from chaining themselves to equipment or other “mischief” on the work site.

My reaction was both disappointment and relief at the same time. My understanding of what White Bull had said was that we were not needed to go on the “Front Line” of protest action, did not have to camp out over the winter, I was not needed for support.  But here was my opportunity to learn, help out, and report what the people back home were not seeing because the news was not covering most of what was really the heart of what was going on. White Bull said, “No, you don't have to go home,” and I thought, where else can I go now?

*********************************************

My mind felt poisoned, and I wanted to share what Frank White Bull had said to me with other people. But I did not.  I had a feeling that if I did, his words would have had the effect on the camp like an oil leak running over the territory that the Missouri River feeds, all the way down to the Mississippi, and on to the Gulf of Mexico, before it could be stopped and corrected. I asked around if there were Tribal Council members on site that I could talk with.  I was also told and would have suspected anyway that there were plants, and agents provocateurs, and untrue rumors, and that I needed to be aware of these things. I wanted to find out if what he said was for real, that the Indians did not want us there. Everything else he said sounded legitimate. I was trying to gauge what he told us and why. I was marginally aware that there might be division among the tribe to have this pipeline go through, that there was money to be made, if not by the whole tribe then possibly by some who had invested in it. These were only my speculations, but I knew nothing.

Sundown was approaching, and Frank and Radjana walked with me back to my campsite. I took note of landmarks, so I would not become lost when I needed to find my way back to my tent. My touchstone would be the house on wheels nearby. While finding my way back to my base. I looked around me and I felt like I was on a peninsula covered with 2-feet-deep coarse grass, a few mid sized trees,  I could see the body of water nearby, but other than that I was pretty much alone with about 75 feet to myself on all sides. There were wide pathways all around that had been made by some kind of vehicle.  I hastily set up my tent in the middle of a pathway and said good night; my comrades would be back the next day. I rolled out my sleeping bag and put on a sweater, and found that my flashlight was not working. Oh well. Then I  walked the longish distance, maybe about a quarter mile back to the center of activity, the Sacred Fire, just to get my thumb on the pulse of things.  My psyche had been infected with White Bull's words and I needed to adjust. On my way to the fire, I took note of where the “Spiffy Biffs” - the port-a-potties were and inspected them for toilet paper and cleanliness. Everything checked out fine, which was remarkable given how many people were using them.

By the time I got to the fire it was dark. Someone was talking on the microphone over the Public Address system, which I could see was hooked up by thick wires to a battery bank on a mobile trailer with solar panels. I had located the coffee station, on a couple of long tables about 30 feet away from the Sacred Fire on the west side. I asked about kitchens, where I would find food. I learned about a kitchen called Winona's “over there behind that brown teepee” where I could get fry bread and native dishes. From the “stage” about 30 feet to the north of the fire, Native persons took turns speaking, making announcements about available rides to Bismarck, found items, lost items; keep your dogs away from this circle, women please wear skirts; please check in if you are with the press and receive a press pass, please attend the Community Meeting and Orientation at 9 am at the Community Hall in the big army tent over there. We were addressed as welcome Relatives; we are all family, thank you for being here to support us; Hello, my name is ___________ and I came out from _________ reservation in ________; prayers, songs, stories. I was still feeling unsure about what was going on, and after what White Bull had told us, to me everything  I was experiencing had taken on an aura of being contrived. I could not shake it but I was not going to repeat what I had been told. However I could sense that everyone else was enjoying a serious connected feeling. It was OK for me to be alone in my skepticism. Each speaker ended their monologue with “Mitakuye Oyasin” which means “All My Relations” in the Lakota language. I was meeting people from all over the world, Maori from New Zealand, a group of founding members Black Lives Matter, Japan, France. 

Suddenly there was a commotion around the fire. I was nearby but I missed the cause of it: someone had thrown the cremated ashes of his friend into the fire. A really big fuss ensued, this person had desecrated the fire, who knows if the cremated person had been a good person? And an effort was made to extract the remains from the ashes in the fire. The person who threw them in had already vanished into the camp. The man at the microphone kept asking the person to come forward and collect his friend, repeating no, we aren't going to hurt you, or offend you, and telling us all that corrections to our behavior were not acts of aggression. I reasoned to myself that whatever the person was like, whose ashes had gone into the fire, they were now purer because of being put into the Sacred Fire. But that was just my point of view. I am still an outsider, a colonizer, a settler, and a guest to these kind people who were feeding me and letting me camp with them and giving me coffee and stories and prayers and who would be educating me.

I walked from the circle back in the direction of my tent. I stopped by a crowd that had gathered around a big drum where there were people singing in some Indian language. I didn't ask anything, I just stood and listened. I was not a stranger to Indian drumming and singing but I am slow to learn songs or I would have been singing along with the strange syllables, melodies, heart-beat rhythms. Nothing about this small gathering felt artificial. These were Indians who had either come from a few miles away or had traveled a great distance carrying their drum and their songs.

I went to my tent, there was a group of people set up nearby around a small campfire, I said Hello, my name is Monica, I am camped here, and pointed to my tent.  Then I went into my tent, changed into my night clothes but did not fall asleep right away. I could hear musicians taking turns at the open microphone which had turned from information and prayers and added entertainment into the mix. I was again feeling like there was something wrong, something unreal, but I eventually fell asleep and slept well I do not remember having any dreams.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary -

Thursday November 3, 2016

Before I left home, I made a return flight reservation. I was going to be gone 8 days and nights. My boyfriend, Howie said he wished that I was not going, but he said he respected me because I was going and this made me feel really good. He drove me and my bags to the train station. Packing is always difficult business and I can alternate between being very fussy and very adaptable. It felt like I might be carrying too much, but I was greatly relieved to find that my bags were easy for me to handle. I had plenty of time and I visited the United Airlines VIP lounge for some free soup and salad and a glass of wine. I had brought a book with me to read, 33 1/3 's Marquee Moon, the story of the making of the 1977 album by the band Television. It was a conscious choice for me, a small portable book about the 1970s New York city art and punk music scene. I knew that where I was going was going to be far removed from the story contents of this book, but I felt I might need a reference connecting where I was going with where I was from. Then I boarded the plane, flew into Denver and met up with Frank and his wife Radjana, a Russian anthropologist who was working on a story for the Russian press. After Denver I was not going to have any cell phone reception so I sent out a few final text messages.  On the plane from Denver to Bismarck I was seated next to peace activist Reverend Patrick McCollum who told me he was in contact with the United Nations and President Barack Obama, and that on that day over 500 clergy had converged at Standing Rock. He told me that  that a Peace Pole was being shipped from Japan and that he was going to carry it to the site.

We arrived in Bismarck, Frank rented an SUV and got us a hotel room. Then we went out to eat in a nearby sports bar that had over 70 televisions on the walls all tuned to broadcasts of different sports events. There were many extremely obese men seated in booths and at tables. I saw a group of four young attractive, fit-looking women at the bar, scanning the tables with their eyes; could they be looking for men to date? I wondered. After about 20 minutes, all at once, the women got up and left the bar. By this time it was about 10 PM. We went back to the hotel and I took what might be my last shower for the next week and I went to bed.

[campsparrow]

Standing Rock Diary: Before I Left Home.

(Before I left)

It took a relatively long time for me to get there, from the time my friend Frank DePonte sent me a message, “My wife, a journalist, is covering the Dakota Access Pipeline story for a Russian magazine.We will be at Sacred Stone Camp in ND for the holiday weekend.Will you be there?” That message came to me before Labor Day weekend when the action was beginning to get heavy and the press was beginning to take notice. I had not been following the story, and I was learning that a pipeline was being built that the local Indians did not want. That was the short version of the issue as it was known to me then. Of course, I should be there.

Autumn is my usual travel time.  I am very poor but I love to plan travels. In reality, I get out the door with some psychic difficulty. There are so many choices of where to go, how to get there, where to stay, and what I might want to do along the way. Two months passed while I agonized over me taking what was going be my “Summer Vacation.” When I travel, I am usually going to be working or studying. Sipping a cocktail on the beach is not my image of Somewhere Else. Somehow, I began to foresee that this year my destination was going to be Standing Rock. I wasn't sure for how long, or what I would be doing, or if I would enjoy being there. The way I see it, the Indians have every right to hate me and all my race. If I went, I would be camping out in cold weather, and there was plenty of reason for me to believe I would be in a situation where I could be arrested as protesters and police were colliding.

I learned that protesters were planning to camp out on the land over the harsh winter and I came to rationalize that I needed to assist with building housing for the people who would be staying. I have some knowledge of construction, architecture, native structures, and small experience with Habitat for Humanity, and I was growing excited with the idea of being busy using what I know. I spent my mornings researching the early humans who lived in North Dakota, the Arikaras, the Mandans, the Hidatsa, before the Sioux came to live there. I studied quickly-built sustainable housing forms that could protect people from the cold: quonsets, strawbale, earthlodges, yurts, insulated teepees. I began reading “Grandmother Counsel The World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision For Our Planet” by Carol Schaefer and “Rolling Thunder” by Doug Boyd. I was becoming conscious that Spirituality and Environmental Stewardship are interconnected to many indigenous people. The current events were pointing my attention to the fact that legal and diplomatic struggle for the Indigenous peoples of the whole Earth was and is coming to a head at Standing Rock. It was becoming more evident that I needed to go, and if my going were not going to effectively help the people who live there or the campers or the protest, then simply I needed to go to fill an educational gap in my life's experience. I would go to learn.  

**********************************

Late in September while I was still in an aggressive state of indecision, I packed up my tent and went camping at the ocean. It took a few attempts to actually make it to the beach due to self-sabotage, including leaving my wallet at home, setting out too late in the day, and locking my keys in the car. Finally, the day I picked to go camping happened to be very windy. I had the whole lonely campground to myself, Before I picked my campsite, I found a dead sparrow, but did not think for too long that it was possibly an omen. The surf was especially rough. The wind was so fierce and provoked a kind of misery, I slept badly and was prevented from making my own coffee in the morning. I stood in the wind and prayed out loud.  I never know what good praying does, except to awaken and define my own Purpose. It turned out that the wind was only preparing me for Standing Rock. 

**********

In October I  wrote a letter to my friends in a few places who had been expecting that I might visit them, with my thoughts. I had credit card points that would translate into free or cheap travel, but Bismarck North Dakota was not a convenient area to get in and out of.  Cheap travel often only happens during the off-season, midweek during off-hours. I could arrive by airplane sometime late at night and when I would leave it would have to be very early in the morning. I was having a hard time visualizing a pleasant easy passage. The autumn days were growing short, and I was not able to plan weeks in advance to insure the best bargains. Tensions were escalating at the site, the pipeline construction was growing nearer to the Missouri River, and I kept watching the weather report. Summer was having an extended stay in North Dakota, just as it was in New Jersey. The time was growing nigh. I had read that there were 2 camps at the site, and that one was called Sacred Stone, which was on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on private land owned by LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. They were calling themselves a “prayer camp” and were accepting money and material donations through Amazon online. Also there was a public fund for legal aid, which was growing steadily, and had already far exceded its goal. There was another camp, as I understood it at the time, that was called Red Warrior, and my impression was that it was for activists who were planning civil disobedience actions. I had decided that if I went, I would be staying at Sacred Stone Camp, but I still had not made up my mind to actually get myself out the door and just GO. 

*****************************************

I still had a few things to do around my home to get ready for winter. I had to repair my garage door that had been damaged by snow plows last winter. I sold off  a few things on ebay to raise money. And then an opportunity came to buy a good used car for very cheap. I did not need a car but I took the opportunity and bought it anyway. It was quite a hassle, full of anxious days, as the car had been sitting in a driveway and not driven for 5 years, the original title was missing, and the owner was disabled. It was a lot of  footwork, money I didn't have, insurance, towing, mechanical repairs. But, if I wanted, here was another way to get to Standing Rock if I didn’t mind adding six days driving to and from North Dakota into my travels.

*********************************************

I had a sudden flash of a long-ago memory of waking up and seeing the Missouri River for the first time: I was driving from St. Paul, Minnesota to Wounded Knee, South Dakota. I had heard on the radio that the Sioux Indians were planning to Occupy the Black Hills in an ownership dispute and I wanted to be part of the experience, somehow. The time was around the 24th of June, 1981, I was driving with very little money and camping gear. I picked up a hitchhiker earlier in the day and we stopped in to check out the Corn Palace in Mitchell. We continued driving on I -90; night fell, it was dark, and I was getting tired from driving.  My hitchhiker suggested that we pull over at the nearest rest stop and just roll out our sleeping bags, and so we did. I remember the night being comfortably warm and lightly breezy, I looked up to see a sky filled with thousands of bright stars. It was my first time sleeping under an open sky. In the morning I woke to a song of a bird that sounded like the electronic beeping voice of Star Wars' R2D2. I followed the sound to find a bird that I later identified as an Eastern Meadowlark.  I also saw that I had been sleeping on a hillside, and down below, way down was a river that I found on my map to be the great Missouri. It was impressive, about half a mile wide, surrounded by green grassy hills of early summer. I now know that the river at this point used to be the Eastern border of the Great Sioux Indian Reservation that covered half of South Dakota according to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. 

*******************************************

On November 1, I phoned Frank with my dilemma of not being decisive, I was needing to be talked into going to Standing Rock. Frank offered to fly into Bismarck himself with his wife, Radjana who would like to finish research for her article, and rent a car to facilitate my journey, and started singing the song “Chicago” by Graham Nash to me; this was the tipping point. I hung up the phone and made my plane reservation. We were going to meet in Denver and be on the same plane to Bismarck.  I had already been packing for this trip, and a large part of my anxiety lay with me bringing the right gear, and not too much for me to carry. This was all going to be remedied by Frank's renting a vehicle to transport us to Standing Rock, which was 50 miles away from Bismarck. I repaired the garage door and in the process cut my hand, a short gash. I cleaned it and bandaged it, it was not going to be a problem but it was to become an image later that would represent my journey.

On November 2, I went out and voted in our upcoming national election. Later that day I was in a liquor store that had a television on, and as I was shopping there was an ABC news broadcast showing  film footage of a major clash between protesters and police that day at the Missouri River. Police were dressed in full riot gear, and were streaming mace at protesters and shooting them with rubber bullets. My decision was still to go in support of the people, and not with the intention of getting arrested. My hope, although unrealistic, was that the issues would all be resolved before I left and that no one would have to camp over the winter and no one would have to show up and protest anymore.

[campsparrow]

Nudes: My Art Portfolio from college, 1987-2002

Pencil, pastel, watercolor, ink, conte crayon, chalk, charcoal from life drawing classes. 

reclining nude with a hat. 2002.

standing pastel nude, 2002

reclining nude with bent knee. 1987?

oil pastel nude. 2002.

oil pastel. seated nude on black. 2002.

seated nude in pencil. 2002.

standing male nude in pencil. 2002.

reclining reading nude. watercolor. 2002.

seated woman nude looking out a window or looking in a mirror. 2002.

[campsparrow]

The High Priestess of ADD

on the mountain top with storm clouds sunshine wind and hail

i heard direction to take responsibility for my action

found a finely crafted jasper arrowhead and dropped it

never to find it again

[campsparrow]

Morning. 1: Tucson

   the distant freight train whistle sounds at dawn

there is a palm tree growing in the wall

they plaster around it as its girth expands

we build a fire in the pit and

we drink our coffee in the backyard