​Our collective imagination has been captured by the Water Protectors of Standing Rock.  The Native people, joined by their non-Native allies, have come from across this country to camp on the banks of the Cannonball River with the intention of stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

It’s not an easy place to live.  The environment is harsh, with cold winds and dropping temperatures.  The tension is high as folks feel the urgency to prepare for the coming winter, as they are constantly monitored by drones, small planes and helicopters, and as they are work to discern the next best peaceful, ceremonial actions to stop the “black snake” – the oil pipeline. 

But Standing Rock can also be seen as a place of great hope, energy, and passion.  It is what Joanna Macy might call evidence of The Great Turning – the shift from the industrial growth society to a life sustaining one.
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It is almost inconceivable that a small band of Native elders could possibly stop a multi-billion dollar pipeline, an essential component of the fossil fuel industry.  Yet, somehow, up to this moment, they have managed to slow down the completion of this project.  

An excerpt from the writings of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, from 2004…
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
….I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times.

Especially do not lose hope.…The fact is that we were made for these times.   For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one…there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.
..In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that.  There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear.