GUILFORD — Along the Oceti Sakawin encampment, the signs read, “No guns, no drugs, no alcohol,” and all who entered were encouraged to spend as much time as possible by the sacred fire, a big bonfire constantly tended and scented with sacred cedar.
Then we were given work to do. And there was much to do.
At dawn each day, Lakota leaders held a water ceremony, in gratitude for the water that is essential to all life, and in dedication to the work of rebellion against the construction of the pipeline that threatens the Missouri River.
This routine continued for months and months. In December, the construction was halted amid great jubilation.
And, then, in January, an executive order from a new president signaled the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) would be completed after all.
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The encampment in North Dakota closed in February and moved to the National Mall at the foot of the Washington Monument, where tipis were set up and a sacred fire burned again, waiting for the March 10 Natives Rise March.
By March 9, thousands of Native Americans and their allies had gathered in the capitol, and hundreds joined for prayer at the National Cathedral. The teens and adults in our little group were among the allies who arrived for the ceremony that night.
In the vast cathedral, indigenous people from around the nation and the world waited over an hour for the buses from Standing Rock. and then, for another hour, as every person present was blessed with the smoke of sage, offered to each person, one after the other, by Native leaders.
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During that long, silent wait, and before the many prayers later offered, I finally began to understand the real power of what was happening in this resistance movement.
Much like the marches of Martin Luther King Jr., who prepared with prayer, and the actions of Gandhi, who prepared with meditation, we were enveloped in an ancient ceremony that slowed us down and focused our intentions to the essential truths of why we were there.
Having been together in silence and prayer, we were gathered “in Spirit” to do the work we had come to do.
And so it was that, with sleet and rain pounding the streets, the same body of protesters gathered at the Army Corps of Engineers building the next morning and marched to the White House.
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Two legends circulate among the many Native tribes that set up the encampment at Standing Rock in North Dakota this past year.
The first, from Black Elk, describes how in seven generations, Native peoples would unite to save the Earth; the second, was that a black Zuzeca snake would threaten the world.
People at the encampment claimed the latter symbolizes the DAPL oil pipeline and called for water protectors to “cut off the head of the snake.”
For months, that was the goal. When Donald Trump's executive order made that impossible, the vision not only changed but expanded, first to “catching the snake by the tail” and then to slowing it down until its power is dissipated.
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I recognize that this ceremony of slowing down and of preceding action with prayer is a ritual the world has not seen in a while, but it is a power that has now brought tribes and nations, long in conflict, to the same sacred fire and into the streets of our nation's capitol.
In the patient gathering of forces, we have come to rest in a peace not normally associated with protest. In shared prayer followed by community action, we find a way to look beyond words to the powerful intentions we share.
For me, the memories of Standing Rock protests are met with those of severe weather, the warmth of the tended fires, and the energy of communities working together.
I consider these memories a metaphor for what is ahead; I take heart that these are times when differences are falling away and efforts are united.
Father John Floberg, the leader of the clergy presence reminded us: “Wherever you live, you are in Indian territory.”
Whether this or that pipeline is constructed, there is work to be done everywhere for the sake of water and the Earth.