Our blog tracks Jose Arguelles' Dreamspell Calendar. "As chaos and confusion rise, galactic consciousness based on the Law of Time serves as planetary medicine, lifting us into the awareness that we exist within a higher, more expanded realm of existence than the world of third-dimensional form and appearance. Daily practice will elevate consciousness and increase experiences of synchronicity." (Arguelles)
Article 9-We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to waging peace with the understanding that war is the greatest consumer of oil and energy, the largest contributor to ecological destruction and the most destructive force among the Human Family. War benefits only the powerful, the wealthy and the weapons industry. We will make peace a global priority, refuse to fund war machines, refuse to participate in war-making and stop glorifying war.
We call to eliminate the weapons industry that lives off the misery of the victims among our relatives. The realization of world peace ultimately will be established on the full spiritual awareness of the Oneness of the Human Family and the elimination of prejudice in all forms, including anything that causes a human being or society to feel superior to another.
International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth, November 7, 2016, COP22, Marrakesh, Morocco.
The purpose of practicing the synchronic order is to track multiple cycles and become aware of the synchronization of multiple cycles as different levels, stages or powers of consciousness.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2017.
Ledger art depicting casualties at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
A group of U.S. Army Veterans recently trekked to Standing Rock, North Dakota to offer support, solidarity, and protection to the water protectors there. These veterans, led by Wes Clark Jr. (son of retired U.S. Army general Wesley Clark Sr.), visited Native American elders to offer apologies for the U.S. military’s past wrongdoings. Such apologies are first steps towards reparations, and could serve as a catalyst for Americans to revisit our whitewashed U.S. history—one that is often fraught with collective amnesia. Art historian Janet Catherine Berlo, however, reminds us of ledger drawings, artworks that offer a rich counter-narrative to U.S. history as told from the perspective of the Plains Indians. In these drawings, male Kiowa, Sioux, and Cheyenne artists offer insight into an often-ignored American history, including the depiction of battles, details of reservation life, and the process of forced and violent acculturation at boarding schools and prisons. American ledger drawings, the dispossession is multi-layered and traumatic. Before ledger drawings, artists of the Great Plains made hide paintings to record “personal feats of bravery in warfare.” During the late 1800’s, however, as white settlers created a scarcity of bison, artists of the Great Plains found a medium with which to replace the diminishing hides. Ledger books, paper notebooks used primarily by military and traders to document material inventory, soon replaced traditional hides. Artists of the Great Plains appropriated this paper, and used it to keep a different kind of record—one of recording cultural memory, rather than material gain. Gradually artists of the Great Plains shifted from telling heroic tales of war to also begin documenting old and fading customs as well. Two poignant examples of such counter-narratives both come from the ledger drawings of Wo-Haw. In “Reading Class at Fort Marion,” 1875-77, Wo-Haw depicts a groups of Native American men seated at two tables arranged in an L-shape, surrounding a white female teacher. These men depict some of the “six dozen Cheyenne, Kiowa, and other Plains warriors” who, as Berlo describes, “had been rounded up at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in April of 1875, ostensibly for their crimes against white settlers, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment at [Fort Marion].” As prisoners there, these warriors were assimilated through a process of forced acculturation—made to cut their long hair, shed their cultural dress, and learn to read and write English. Wo-Haw documents this all powerfully, as he depicts the spirit of a Native American elder watching by from the sidelines, making visible the culture which such prisons and boarding schools sought to eradicate. Similarly in “Wo-Haw Between Two Worlds” from 1875, Wo-Haw depicts himself standing between his Native and Western life, with one foot quite literally in both, with one half of body, soul, livelihood, and surroundings now split between two disparate cultures and ways of life. In the ledger drawings, the dispossession is multi-layered and traumatic: there is a dispossession of occupancy, property, education, and culture. Learning about this history is one step non-Native Americans can take on a path towards asking for forgiveness and making reparations.* *http://daily.jstor.org/american-counter-narrative-ledger-drawings/
CIB
Kin 116: Yellow Crystal Warrior
I dedicate in order to question
Universalizing fearlessness
I seal the output of intelligence
With the crystal tone of cooperation
I am guided by the power of elegance.
Selflessness means giving without attachment.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2017.
This December 29th marks the 126th anniversary of The Big Foot Massacre, also known as the Massacre at Wounded Knee or the Battle at Wounded Knee. In 1890, after 100 years of government policies and over 300 treaties stripping indigenous Americans of their land and rights, a violent and seemingly final standoff occurred between the United States Cavalry and the Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The cavalry came into the camp and began searching and seizing weapons. Though accounts diverge as to which side shot first, the U.S. Cavalry unleashed rapid fire into the camp, killing an estimated 150-300 Lakota Sioux, half of whom were women and children.
In recent days, comparisons have been made between the Massacre at Wounded Knee, the historic 1973 American Indian Movement and Lakota people’s sit-in at Wounded Knee, and the current protests in Standing Rock, North Dakota. As the Standing Rock movement continues to grow, thousands have gathered not only to protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), but also to argue in favor of upholding both Dakota Sioux rights and human rights as called for by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Twitter users as well as journalists have drawn parallels between the 1973 and present occupation.
Elizabeth Rich dissects AIM’s use of “Wounded Knee” as both a place and event—a site and metaphor. Her scholarship helps to explain the connections between the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, the 1973 protests, and the contemporary protests at Standing Rock.
Wounded Knee provides necessary historical context for the ongoing Standing Rock protests. In February of 1973, over eight decades after the Wounded Knee Massacre, activists occupied this same highly symbolic site of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Here, the Oglala Lakota people and American Indian Movement (AIM) led an unprecedented sit-in at the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in order to draw attention to the abysmal conditions there, indicative of the ongoing mistreatment of Native Americans. Protests lasted for over two months, ultimately ending in the deaths of two protesters and the disappearance of American civil rights activist Ray Robinson.
Rich argues that the choice of the Wounded Knee location as a gathering place was both purposeful and political: “the place Wounded Knee came to stand for simply the site of the 1890 Big Foot massacre in which many of Big Foots people died, running from the advancing U S. cavalry.” Choosing this place, then, also alludes to a physical loss and injury. When AIM challenged people to “Remember Wounded Knee,” there were multiple meanings at play:
As well as functioning as a name for the land, the words Wounded Knee come to stand for the many underhanded, crippling, and unjust actions and policies, practiced by the United States government for over two hundred years, since the signing of the first treaty in 1774 with the Delawares, which was broken along with many other treaties.
AIM encouraged people to not only remember this history, but to also correct the normative white history that has become the standard American narrative, often stripped of the violence and injustice Native Americans faced. Rich argues that revising a historical narrative is difficult because “Eurocentric authority acknowledges written records over oral accounts and because most documentation and testimony come from the point of view of the colonizers.” Colonizers wrote one-sided accounts and then upheld them as accurate because they only considered written history truth. AIM sought to rewrite this history as a means of empowering Native Americans.
Rich outlines the many ways that in recent years AIM has focused on re-education and empowerment, including using the internet to house and share original governmental documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act of 1966. Here, they encourage independent research and critical thinking as users can view AIM and government accounts of the sit-in at Wounded Knee, side by side. She concludes her 2004 article, noting, “[t]he idea of social protest is so distant to students today that their concept of the 1960s has more to do with fashion than with social and political change. Thus, exploring the history of the American Indian Movement via its documents reveals just how linked the contemporary movement is to the larger history of the United States.”
Given the political unrest sweeping the nation over at least the past two years, students today are becoming more well-versed in the struggles for social justice, ranging from Black Lives Matter protests and die-ins, to the growing #NoDAPL protests at Standing Rock, to the recent anti-Trump post-election marches and walkouts, in which many students participated.
Rich quotes scholar Robert Warrior on the importance of learning from the occupation of Wounded Knee: “One of the first lessons journalists learned at Wounded Knee…was that they were arriving very late to a story that had deserved their attention much earlier.” This already is similar to the protests at Standing Rock, as it has taken independent reporters and Twitter users admonishing the media (using the hashtag #mediawhiteout) as well as over one million people using Facebook to falsely “check-in” at Standing Rock in order to focus mainstream media coverage there. More recently, mainstream media has fallen silent again, minimizing the violence police have unleashed on water protectors, often tending to emphasize the Morton County Sheriff’s perspective, or ignoring the incident all together.
Rich couldn’t be more prescient in her call for readers to review the history of the AIM—through Native American oral histories, literature, and ledger drawings—because these will in fact illuminate the foundation of today’s pressing crisis at Standing Rock.*
Today is the winter solstice, 2016. On this day in 1996, I was in Norway at the Arctic Circle. I had gone to Lofoten Island for ten days of silence and dark, hoping, without success, to see the Northern lights. This was the penultimate day. I spent it in ceremony. Suddenly, the night sky turned red and I went out onto deep snow as a great black bird, larger than any I had ever seen, flew through the aurora borealis. I remember this so I will not doubt the Presence of Spirit even in such disturbing times. I have been fortunate as events which I can, logically, only attribute to Spirit, are with me often. But sometimes circumstances overwhelm my deepest knowing, sometimes overwhelm the faith I have based on experience not liturgy, faith that is the same, for me, as hope. Then I remember the on-going Presence of Spirit and I go on. I go on not knowing, but I go on.
I began writing these words, and the surprising rain which has been falling, unexpectedly, the last days, suddenly changed from a gentle female rain to a downpour such I have not heard in four years of drought. Music on the chimney and skylights pervades the house. The rain comes, after four years of drought, and my heart is eased. How can it be otherwise?
***
A few weeks ago, as some of you know, several of us went to Standing Rock. We went for different reasons but essentially to stand with the Water Protectors, to have, as best as we were able, their backs. For those of you generously contributed to Standing Rock through us, we thank you. I was able to put a sealed unmarked envelope directly into the hands of LaDonna Brave Bull Allard who started Sacred Stone Camp and is still there fighting DAPL now, and then another similar envelope with checks made out to the Indigenous Environmental Network into the hands of one of the directors. Deliberately, I did not count the cash nor did I total the checks, nor did I identify the source. To give without attachment, to return what truly belongs to the Native Americans, was my goal.
"We truly appreciate your generous donation to the Oceti Sakowin Camp. We are determined to stop DAPL, protect Native Sacred Land, the water for everyone, and sovereign treaty rights. To accomplish these goals, many resources will be required. In addition to our efforts for winterizing the camp, keeping everyone safe, healthy and warm, your kind donation will allow us to continue the struggle. North Dakota winters are cold as well as challenging."
We arrived with the first blizzard and it cut short our ever so brief time there. But we were there long enough to marvel at the courage, fortitude, skill and devotion of the Native people who were, at the time we arrived, providing for over 9,000 people. The Sioux elders said,
"Ceremony and prayer are the bedrock of Indigenous peoples' connection to land and water and are central in protecting them. Actions are ceremony and along with meetings, usually begin with prayer."
The first thing we learned were The Seven Lakota Values:
Before we arrived, we received the following instructions about how to deport ourselves at the Camp. Whether one goes to Standing Rock or not they are essential documents, worth studying alone and in community so that we can learn how to walk in the world in good ways. http://www.ocetisakowincamp.org/
Whether you go to Standing Rock or wish to support the Water Protectors at Standing Rock or at all the other sites and actions that are beginning or continuing in order to stop the Black Snake, please read the following so you will learn how to live:
We awakened at 5 am each morning so we could make our way to Oceti Sakowin Camp in time for the morning prayers at 6:30. The temperature fell to the low 20s and the wind was blowing. We gathered in the dark, in an ever enlarging circle around the sacred fire that had been burning since the Camp was organized to stop DAPL. Snow had fallen on the tents, teepees, yurts, domes, straw bale improvised dwellings that were housing the thousands of protectors of the Water Protectors. Wisps of smoke from wood stoves blended into the icy air. To the north, on the ridge of the hill, which is a Sioux sacred burial site, DAPL search lights interrupted the slow beauty of the transition from dawn to day.
Still, there was a sacred fire. Still, we listened to the elder sing the morning prayers. Still we heard the women sing the sacred songs to bless the water and we walked with them to the river, where each woman was assisted hand by hand by men lining the slippery walkway, so that we might, individually, go to the water, offer tobacco, and pray.
Dawn came. Daylight came. The Camp came to life. Food was prepared, propane and fuel delivered. People started building more shelters for the coming visitors. A village the size of a small city was being constituted before our eyes through hard work, cooperation, devotion, ceremony and prayer.
We left Standing Rock as the first of 2000 veterans were arriving. Chris Turley, a member of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma who had served in the U.S. Army for nine years arrived after walking 240 miles before he received a ride. He said, "I've come here because of the vow I made when I entered the armed services, which was to protect our country from both foreign and domestic threat/terrorism."
His words could have been spoken by any of those who made the arduous journey to stand with the Sioux Water Protectors in below freezing weather. On Tuesday December 6th, the Veterans gathered before elders including Leonard Crow Dog, Arvol Looking Horse, Phyllis Young, and Faith Speckled Owl, to offer the following words on bended knees:
"We came here to be the conscience of the nation. And within that conscience, we must first confess our sins to you, because many of us, me in particular, are from the units that have hurt you over the many years. We came. We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain. When we took still more land, and then we took your children, then we tried to take your language, and we tried to eliminate your language that God gave you and that the Creator gave you. We didn't respect you. We polluted your earth. We've hurt you in so many ways, but we've come to say that we are sorry, we are at your service, and we beg for your forgiveness."
***
This is the solstice, this is the turning toward the light in what many of us fear will be the darkest time we and our country has ever known. Many of us are still reeling over the results of the election. In our communities, we are asking how we are to proceed, what we are to do, how we are to stand, how do we resist?
I believe Standing Rock has answers for everyone. When I ask Native friends how we will survive Trump's government as individuals and as a nation, they often say, "Trump? We've been living with the violence and greed of colonization for over five hundred years."
In other words, Native Americans in both hemispheres, and Indigenous people everywhere have been living with violence, greed, lies, distortion and danger for five hundred years AND they have kept their values, ceremonies and beliefs, their love of and respect for the land. Now when the Earth and all beings are so viciously threatened, when all life is at stake, they are standing in prayer and ceremony on behalf of the future.
In order to meet these times, we can stand with them and behind them if we learn the ways.
At Standing Rock, as non-Native people, we have to face ourselves. "You are Settler-Colonists," the Native people say. The label is a clear mirror into which we can look in order for all life to survive.
How shall we meet these dark times? How shall we stop DAPL and the Black Snake? How shall we meet the Trump presidency? How shall we save the Earth and all life?
If we study the instructions above from Standing Rock, we will know something of how to stand.
On this Solstice night there are four words in my heart:
Remember,
Restore,
Resist,
ReVision.
Remember Spirit, the old, old ways, the wisdom ways, Indigenous knowledge, beauty, heart. Remember what sustained us as children and in right relationships, and what sustains life and all beings. Engage in the practice of remembering. Ceremony and prayer.
Restore the Earth, the wild, all generous and loving ways of life. Restore sanctuary. Restore spirit centered, earth based wise cultures. Restore ethics and generosity, and live according to all our relations, mitakuye oyasin. Ceremony and prayer.
Resist the death culture and imperial mind. Resist any and all attempts to coerce us into living and acting against our principles, values, neighbors, and deepest held beliefs. Fiercely protect everything and everyone one you love. Ceremony and prayer.
ReVision, not only medicine but all institution, our culture, and our lives so that all beings flourish. Ceremony and prayer.
"Standing Rock, the Sacred Stone of the Sioux", by W.A. Rodgers.
There are several variations of the story of Standing Rock, but all of them end with a woman transforming into stone. On the Northern Plains there are three tribes which have a Standing Rock story: the Cheyenne, the Arikara, and the Standing Rock Sioux. There is a different location associated with each story too.
The story of Standing Rock, in a way, mirrors the story of the horses' arrival. There are several variations of the story of first contact with horses, and in different places too. The common element of the horse story is awe and a renewed sense of respect for the mystery of creation. No one story is right, and no one location is the exact one.
The stories of Standing Rock always end in the transformation of a woman into stone. Perhaps some long ago event about a woman who was universally beloved by the tribes of the Northern Plains inspired stories associated with all the feelings and angst of love and tragedy. One variant tells of the importance of obeying the supernatural, another of patience and waiting for a lost love to return, and here's yet another version about infidelity. It was collected by Colonel Welsh in Fort Yates, on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in 1915.
A previous version from Welch's notes from the website Welch's Dakota Papers was featured here, but this version was tucked away in the AB Welch collection at the North Dakota State Archives. The date of this variant places the incident in 1833 along the Grand River on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, while the Yanktonai Dakota version places the tale in 1740 near Cannonball River, also on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.
A long time ago, the year the stars fell [1833], a young warrior took many presents, and laid them at the lodge of a family where a beautiful maiden lived. The father of the maiden came out, looked at the piles of valuable furs and beautiful ornaments, saw the slick, slim-limbed ponies, and his heart was soft within him. He gathered up the presents, carried them into his tipi, when he came out, he lead his daughter by the hand and presented her to this young warrior for his wife.
The young man, soon after, went away on an expedition against the Crows. He and his party were gone all summer and in the fall were caught by the early winter on the Yellowstone River and owing to the large body of captured horses the party was compelled to make winter camp. As early as they could move in the spring they started across the country and finally arrived at the village of their tribe. There was great rejoicing, dancing and feasts. The young man then went to the sundance and distinguished himself by dragging bison skulls, and prayed to become a great leader among his people.
The young man was eventually selected as chieftain over a small band.
For some reason, the suspicions of the young chief were aroused against his wife and she was compelled to consume a drought of bitter herbs, as a test. If she were innocent, it was believed that the herbs would have no effect upon her. If she were guilty, the drink would make her sick. She became violently ill and it was decided that she had been unfaithful. Accordingly, a procession was formed and she was taken upon the hill that stands alone.
In the presence of the entire tribe, the young chief pronounced a terrible curse upon her. The medicine men performed a mystical rite and the winds rushed and roared, rain and hail beat down with great fury, the sun became darkened – it was midday -, fire leaped out of the ground, and spirits were seen rushing through the air.*
A small child stood up on stage at a rally and started speaking passionately about the environment. The six-year-old told the crowd: “I shouldn’t be standing up here. It should be the adults that are protecting the planet. But they’re not, so I’m up here.”
Fast forward to a decade later and the same Colorado boy, now a young teen, has launched an astounding lawsuit, where he is holding the US administration accountable for a reckless lack of action over climate change.
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is one of 21 children and young adults who have joined with climate scientist James Hansen in launching legal action against the US government for failing to cease the use of fossil fuels. In a David and Goliath action, the youth activists have taken on the giants of the oil industry.
The lawsuit was filed in 2015, with the youth plaintiffs suing the Federal Government for violating their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property. In November, in a remarkable and historic ruling, despite pressure from the US government and the oil companies who attempted to quash the lawsuit, a court ruled that the legal challenge could be upheld. Judge Ann Aiken ruled that a stable climate is a fundamental human right. Her ruling has cleared the way for the case to head to trial and set an incredible precedent where youth can have a voice, and take on multi-billion dollar companies in the federal court.
"I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society. Just as marriage is the foundation of the family, a stable climate system is quite literally the foundation of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress. … To hold otherwise would be to say that the Constitution affords no protection against a government’s knowing decision to poison the air its citizens breathe or the water its citizens drink." – Judge Ann Aiken
In an interview with UPLIFT, Xiuhtezcatl said he is thrilled by the result. He says it’s inspiring, but they haven’t won yet and need to keep pushing the case forward. “We would like to be able to win in the lawsuit. If we won this lawsuit it would cause the federal courts to force the government to make massive reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. That’s what we’re asking for.”
Xiutezcatl outlined the legal process that is now giving these extraordinary young people who range in age from 9 to 20, the right to testify in court, and share the stories of environmental destruction in their own backyards that are negatively impacting each of their young lives and their communities.
“Our standing was written into the Constitution, as well as a legal document called the public trust doctrine. Which says that the resources are to be maintained for the present and future generations. We have a claim that the atmosphere is a very important resource that doesn’t belong to anyone, but it affects every human being on the planet. And our government has a very important responsibility to uphold our constitutional rights, as well as our right to have the atmosphere, which they are failing to do because of their action to create climate change, their inaction to regulate it, and to mitigate it.”
We live in amazing times, the world is changing fast and these millennials are showing up to be a talented, heartfelt and driven group of young people who will not accept the devastation of the environment around them, the unfair systems, and the prejudice of the flawed world we live in today. They are working with current systems to create wholly new paradigms for the future that will benefit us all.
"This ruling shows the power the youth have. I think one of the biggest steps that need to be taken and shifts in consciousness, is understanding the power that the younger generation has; to use a voice that hasn’t always been heard in our world, and in a way has always been one of the most powerful voices in the world. We have some of the most intelligent minds among our generation."
The ruling by Judge Aiken not only validated climate change in a world of vehement climate change denyers, but it gave an extraordinary power to these remarkable young people who now have a fair chance to take on the US government, have their day in court, and hold the government accountable. The hearing will take place in May next year.
Our Children’s Trust Chief Legal Counsel, Julia Olson, who represents the youth plaintiffs, told CNN that president-elect Donald Trump will automatically become a defendant in the case when he assumes power in January 2017. We are up for interesting times, as the case is bound to stir the pot under Trump, who has notoriously referred to climate change as a ‘hoax’. Trump has also threatened to ditch many environmental gains made during Obama’s presidency, including the Paris agreement on climate change.
With climate change action in tatters, people are saying that Xiuhtezcatl is the planet’s best hope for our future. This is a lot of pressure and the expectations on the sophomore are enormous. Xiuhtezcatl said he is firmly committed to community action, as this is where global change happens, and that his mission is to empower young people to have a voice.
Working with the other youth, staying around young energy is incredibly empowering – collaborating with other people and other youth. It’s an amazing thing. I stay focused on the positive solutions. Rather than focus on the bad, focus on the positive. – Xiuhtezcatl Martinez
The indigenous hip-hop artist became a climate change activist at the tender age of six when he saw an environmental documentary. He asked his mother to find a way for him to speak at a rally, and that was it. He began speaking around the world at various environment summits and has addressed the UN assembly many times. His commitment to his mission came out of his great love for the natural world, but also from a very personal well of deep sadness. “I saw the beauty of nature, of different species and different ecosystems thriving. And then I saw that disappearing because of our crimes against the earth … I wanted to pass on a beautiful planet and protect what I loved.”
Today he is the Youth Director of Earth Guardians, an organization of activists, artists and musicians from around the globe, and he gives presentations on fracking and climate change at schools and conferences across America and he uses his musical talent and creativity to deliver his message. “I’m fighting to protect the things that I love by doing what I love.”*
