Pray with Standing Rock
Standing Rock is where Native American Water Protectors stand between the greed and recklessness of big oil and the future of our planet. The American government needs to know that the world sees the ongoing injustice towards Native Americans, the state sanctioned terrorism perpetrated by law enforcement and its utter disregard for the health and wellbeing of its citizens.
However, in keeping with the principles of the Water Protectors we stand, not a aggressors but as protectors. Our prayer vigil looks for love and peace to win over hatred, greed and violence.
I am planning a vigil on the Millenium Bridge in Lancaster at 9pm on 26 November. A silent prayer for the Water Protectors and the future of our planet. I propose we gather just before 9pm, pray in silence for 2 minutes and then simply communicate with each other.
This event has a spiritual element but is not religious. It is not promoting any religion, god or creed. If you are supporting another event in the city you can always turn up at 9 and go at 2 minutes past.
Or you can pray wherever you might be at that time. If you do so it might be nice to share your thoughts on the Facebook Page
The following excerpt is taken from the MiniPlanet.
The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation was originally established as part of the Great Sioux Reservation under Article 2 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of April 29, 1868. In 1877, the U.S. government initiated the still ongoing process of chipping away and dividing the land it had granted to the people of the Lakota and Dakota nations, with significant reductions taking place in 1889 and then again during the 1950s and 1960s, when the Army Corps of Engineers built five large dams along the Missouri River, uprooting villages and sinking 200,000 acres of land below water.
When the Corps of Engineers returned to Standing Rock in 2015, it was to assess whether or not it should approve a path for the Dakota Access Pipeline across the Missouri River, a project that would involve construction on some of the land that had been stripped from the Sioux, who still regard it as sacred — although, that fact seems to have been ignored, maybe even intentionally, in the assessment.
Because the Corps neglected to consult the Standing Rock Sioux, as it was required to do under the National Historic Preservation Act (Section 106), the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Interior, and the American Council on Historic Preservation all criticized the assessment, but the project was eventually approved. The decision was a major victory for Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based parent company of Dakota Access LLC, which estimates the pipeline will bring $156 million in sales and income taxes to state and local governments and create thousands of temporary jobs.
For the Standing Rock Sioux, the Dakota Access project poses two immediate threats. First, the pipeline would run beneath Lake Oahe, the reservoir that provides drinking water to the people of Standing Rock. (An earlier route that avoided native lands was ruled out in part because it posed a danger to drinking water.) Second, according to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the building of the pipeline would destroy the sacred spots and burial grounds that were overlooked in the Corps’ assessment. But as the protests have intensified, and more outsiders, including members of more than 200 Native American tribes from across North America, have become involved, Standing Rock has, for some, come to represent something much bigger than a struggle between a disenfranchised people and a government-backed, billion-dollar corporation. It’s a battle to save humanity from itself.
“Mother Earth’s axis is off and it’s never going back,” says Phyllis Young, a Sioux tribal elder. “And we have to help keep it in balance for as long as we can. I am a mother and a grandmother. Those are my credentials to ensure a future with clean drinking water — a future of human dignity, human rights, and human survival.”
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