Lindsey Lou On The Move: Standing Rock and Beyond

Archives for April 2020

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Corona Spring and Climate Change… How To Celebrate Earth Day This Year

We’ve reached an interesting groove by now. We’re managing our curve, we’re taking our social distancing medicine and seeing results.  Still in it though and now mindful of screen time! Simultaneously, and as we approach *‘Earth Day’ nature is rejoicing! 

Almost conflicted, many of us have found great joy in seeing the natural world around us blissfully fulfilled by balance! 

Here are two ways to embrace Mother Earth as the annual ‘Earth Day’ celebration approaches and which do not require much screen time:

  1. Walk in Solidarity with the Chief for this year’s Walk For The Bees! Get out, #BeeWalkAroundTheBlock in true Covid Spring fashion, with the bees in your heart and send your pictures in to the chief! 
  1. Take the next few minutes to Join OneClub! If not right now, then certainly on Earth Day!  By spending just a few minutes to join our little club you will make an immediate impact for our trees as well as a lasting one, automatically, each time you conduct your online business. 

If you find yourself online, then here is the place to be on ‘Earth Day’!

*Earth Day is every day, is it not? Reach out for help finding the balance in the space that heals you.

Also, be not conflicted, take great peace and guidance from indigenous wisdom now and onward: 

This moment humanity is going through can be seen as a portal and as a hole. The decision to fall into the hole or go through the portal is up to you. If they repent of the problem and consume the news 24 hours a day, with little energy, nervous all the time, with pessimism, they will fall into the hole. 

But if you take this opportunity to look at yourself, rethink life and death, take care of yourself and others, you will cross the portal.

Take care of your home, take care of your body. Connect with the middle body of your spiritual house, all this is synonymous, that is to say the same.

When you are taking care of one, you are taking care of everything else. 

Do not lose the spiritual dimension of this crisis, have the aspect of the eagle, which from above, sees the whole, sees more widely. There is a social demand in this crisis, but there is also a spiritual demand. The two go hand in hand. Without the social dimension, we fall into fanaticism. But without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and lack of meaning. You were prepared to go through this crisis. 

Take your toolbox and use all the tools at your disposal.

Learn about resistance with indigenous and African peoples: we have always been and continue to be exterminated. But we still haven’t stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and having fun. 

Don’t feel guilty about being happy during this difficult time. You don’t help at all by being sad and without energy. It helps if good things emanate from the Universe now.

It is through joy that one resists. 

Also, when the storm passes, you will be very important in the reconstruction of this new world. You need to be well and strong. And, for that, there is no other way than to maintain a beautiful, happy and bright vibration. This has nothing to do with alienation. This is a resistance strategy…. there is a rite of passage called the quest for vision. You spend a few days alone in the forest, without water, without food, without protection. When you go through this portal, you get a new vision of the world, because you have faced your fears, your difficulties…

This is what is asked of you:

What world do you want to build for yourself? For now, this is what you can do: serenity in the storm. Calm down and pray. Everyday. Establish a routine to meet the sacred every day. Good things emanate, what you emanate now is the most important thing. And sing, dance, resist through art, joy, faith and love.

These are good words which were given to me this week and so I am giving them to you. They are being attributed to “White Eagle, Hopi” – though I have not been able to verify this origin. 

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Urgent Updates and Call for Help From the Women on the Frontlines

I’ve learned for myself this week that while we are all in this ‘together’, Covid has created the perfect storm of conditions in which there are entire populations fighting for survival.  

These communities are experiencing real time genocide through the systematic absence of support infrastructure (literally no government protocol or acknowledgement of gaps to address) and the systematic prioritization of energy developement during Covid to maximize the advantage of shelter-in-place orders for opposition, of which these extraction industries are exempt as declared ‘essential’, and also increased exposure (from no access to masks, sanitizer, etc) to opposition. The opposition has largely been and continues to be the indigenous peoples of the world. 

  • In Ecuador, where the government has sanctioned and completed forest clearing at national headwaters, entire communities within remote villages of the Amazon have been drowned in this Covid time (right now, in this very March and April) by historically unprecedented flooding, one after another after another.  Their houses are under water. Their food crops are under water. They’ve been cut off from receiving aid from the cities, nor is government action prioritizing to resolve. 
  • In another part of Ecuador, a major oil pipeline is gushing into a river that is the water source for many other remote communities. Therefore their drinking water is not potable and though it is where they obtain food, they can no longer fish there. 
    • The government has shut access from the main cities to these remote areas and is taking no measures to provide these communities with emergency relief – food, water and basic Covid protection supplies and healthcare. 
    • Instead, the government has opened their protected lands to oil and mining which has increased in activity 30% since the beginning of March and which community protectors are being killed at the human blockades at the borders of their protected lands. Since they have declared these activities as essential, they alone are exempt from shelter-in-place. 
  • In Brazil, the president has likewise increased and prioritized oil and mining extraction is not even keeping accurate indigenous demographics being lost to Covid.  
  • In the United States the governors of the Dakotas and neighboring states will not issue shelter-in-place orders at all, as they too are ushering increased oil development activities all along the Keystone pipeline.  

All of this despite the fact the fossil fuels are being traded at the lowest value in history, well below profitability. 

…a dying industry and yet all over the Americas, our governments are using the circumstances of Covid to isolate opponents and to pass laws providing relief and support to oil corporations while laying off civil workers, education workers and others and while letting entire remote communities go without food, clean water, and Covid PPE. 

What We Learned at Standing Rock

We Cannot:

  • Flock to these communities unless asked, and unless we come with our own resources, to add value, and leave-no-trace habits,

We can:

  • Choose to be aware and hear their needs on the frontlines and
  • Do everything possible where we are

Because the danger of big Oil, selfish, exploiting Capitalism, Political Corruption… these issues connect us directly, threaten all life urgently. A win there is a win here.

I’ve included the webinars in which Indigenous Women of North and South Americas have reported in from the Front Lines this week. 

  • They have said that they need money in order to buy food, water and PPE. 
  • They need our huge actions of Solidarity to tell everyone that they need this direct help on the frontlines.  

The people on the frontlines need our direct support, they are living this struggle for life while we are privileged enough to lighten our days with memes about toilet paper; while we are able to stand frustrated in lines outside of Costco in order to fill our homes with food, water and basic ‘necessities’. 

Please help them.

  • if you have some money, give;
  • if you have followers, share;
  • if you have some time, tell your representatives that fossil fuels are a dead industry and you Will NOT support them,
  • if your money is still in the corporate banks that fund these projects, divest (simply move it to a local credit union),
  • if you buy things, buy things mindfully. 

Give and Share

Urgent Help for the South American Frontlines

Help for North American Frontlines here and here

Watch the Webinars or read my key takeaways below

Indigenous Women on the Frontlines: COVID-19 & Defending the Amazon

Sônia Bone Guajajara, Indigenous leader from Brazil, Executive Coordinator for the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) with translation by Maria Paula, Founder of the NGO “A Drop in the Ocean”

Need to address

  1. Secretary of Indigenous Policy/ Health of Brazil
  • Is not counting the Indigenous contaminated in urban areas
  • The indigenous orgs know that 5 have died, but the official number is 3
  • There is no testing available
  • The president (bolsonaro), of the country is using Covid to underplay and push oil/mining; [a real trumper]
  • The health minister who was addressing the real issues of Covid and everything was JUST fired, moments ago (as this was live)
  • The deforestation and illegal mining is increasing:
    • 30% higher since beginning of March, Covid 
  • The minister of energy just made a new law 135, that says mining is now priority, ‘essential’ and except from shutdown ‘in order to help with pandemic’
    • Allowing into protected ind. Land and increasing virus exp. To them without acknowledging or addressing urgent lack of health infrastructure to the indigenous and remote communities
  1. Therefore facing a new Genocide
  • “Coronavirus for us represents the danger of a new genocide”
  • “And we need to learn a lesson from this moment, a lesson that we need to urgently break with this economic model that is so destructive”
  • “It’s a moment of self-reflection, for people to think about what kind of society we want in the future.” “It is a moment to exercise our solidarity”
  • We know what is important now, our families, closeness, hugs is what we cannot do in social distancing and yet we now know the importance of
  • It has never been so easy to understand that money does not buy everything
  • Everyone is truly the same facing this challenge
  • Only a collective movement is going to change the worlds order
  • They have faced violence already and so they will face another one
  • Quotes from @SoniaGuajajara:
    • “The coronavirus represents a new of genocide for Indigenous peoples.”
    • “The economic model that we are living under is predatory and must change.”
    • “All around the world everybody has been running around, nobody had time to stop and look at themselves, look within and to their families. Now is the time to feel how important it is to hug each other” 
    • “It is time for us to come back to ourselves, and realize it’s time to strengthen our collective fight for a new society, for a new planet, where we all respect each other and have empathy toward each other” 
    • “I believe Indigenous nations are ancient people that share an ancient memory of the world…As Indigenous peoples we are just fighting to have peace, and this is something we can cultivate in our actions” 
    • “What we are facing is the possibility of ending the culture of exploitation, capitalism, and selfishness.”

Daiara Tukano, Indigenous activist from Brazil, independent communicator and coordinator of Radio Yandê

  • The anti-indigenous Speech of the president of brazil has been unbelievable
    • Many warriors are being killed right now with this hate speech
    • One of the deaths, a young boy of 15, is to try to stop the invasion of illegal mining in indigenous Territories
  • It’s not new for them. This time the whole world is experiencing it
  • Entire communities endangered due to healthcare insecurity 
  • Very concerned for the ones that have hidden for hundreds of years
    • From the miners
    • From missionaries who say they are helping
  • The world is now looking for the indigenous to have a solution, now that the world is ending, and the best solution that they’ve found and have said is:
    • Balance with nature, not consumption, culture of exploitation, capitalism And selfishness
      • These have brought such violence and oppression
    • The ind. Have learned to live in diversity, they have the knowledge of how to protect how to live in balance
  • It’s now to time to reoccupy our lands with our values, this is our opportunity
    • To have dignity and self respect between each other – an economy that follows that, a culture that follows that
  • How is it that with Agrobusiness came with all these promises to feed the world and only afterward,  now there is not enough food for people
    • Entire deserts of soybeans and cows
      • Soybeans are not Food, we need food, we need food
  • In April is Indigenous Month, the 19th Indian day
    • Big gathering postponed, but 
    • Ind. media Radio Yande: https://www.facebook.com/radioyande/ 
    • Media india Midia India: https://www.facebook.com/VozDosPovos/
    • We are not just in the amazon in Brazil but in each direction and facing deadly violence in each
    • Each day more and more women at the frontline
    • Working on having more ind. Candidates to represent all of the spaces
      • Pushing for more women indigenous Candidates

Patricia Gualinga, Kichwa leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador, Spokeswoman for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva (Amazon Women in Defense of the Jungle)

  • Before Covid, they were in Quito demanding rights
    • To raise awareness of ind. Women, about our human rights
    • Went home to the worst flooding in lifetime, homes gone, and is getting ready to happen again
  • So ind. Are facing 2 or 3x the difficulties, lacking support that others receive automatically
  • Ind have been blocked and cannot go back in to their communities
  • It’s very clear to everyone that these are consequences of decisions we have made in the past
  • The fires, the floods are a clear message from mother earth that she needs to rest
    • Sadly this lesson is hitting hardest for the indenous who have protected the land
      • Entire communities may be lost to trying to fight on the frontlines of climate change and the pandemic at the same time
  • Many years ago an elder said if we keep destroying the earth, we will get sick, there will be pandemics
  • Currently trapped in city but now she knows it was to help the indigenous locked out of their communities
  • Everything is happening in Ecuador… floods, pipeline leaks, fires, 
  • Now is the time for women to stand up stronger, we need to do more, get more active
    • We are awake, there is hope because women know and we are strong
  • We are all connected and we can see this now

Helena Siren Gualinga is a 17 year old social activist, of Kichwa-indigenous and Swedish origin from Sarayaku, Ecuador.

  • Of the Sarahaku, who are well known for their fight and win, as a small remote village  against Big Oil even though they had the govt. 
  • She grew up in this struggle
  • 25 mins in a plane and then 5 hours in canoe, very limited access
  • Floods
    • Grandma used to say they happen every 15 to 20 years
      • Now 3 in less than 3 weeks and bigger than ever
        • Homes covered up to rooves, 
        • Fields gone, no food for the next 6ms to 1 year
        • Access is now even more limited, can’t send them help
  • The gov. In ecuador has no protocol for how to help ind. In pandemic
    •  There is nothing, nothing in place to deal with this
    • The doctor in the community has no medicine left
  • The oil spill
    • Happened just recently in another province, another river
      • So they cannot drink their water, cannot fish anymore
      • No access to the city because of covid
    • The oil is traveling to peru, because they are doing nothing to stop the leak
    • The people knew this was going to happen, warned them
  • So yes, 2X crisis for our people during Covid… And gov bringing no help, no solutions the people have never been taken into account and the huge cracks are all the more evident now
  • But we as people and nations
    • Can make a difference, the only thing we need is to Want it. 
    • Supporting the people on the frontlines, holding the gov. Accountable
    • We need to do everything in our power to be aware and to do what we can to hold our reps accountable
    • It’s time to wake up to the reality. As a youth we need to understand this is something that could be happening every week

On What We Can Do at a Distance

Sonia

  • Fundraise – really need money for basic needs
  • Interviews, social media
  • Needs to put lots of pressure
    • Divest and defund campaigns
  • Gain Awareness from Amazon Watch
  • International pressure against illegal miners 
  • Autonomy, strike
    • Food sovereignty: Start planting food on roof top

Diara

  • Support all the ind all over the world
    • Support the people on the front lines
  • Wisdom from the people
    • We are talking too much about the ending of the world
      • There are still populations that have survived because they have respected the need for isolation and in the moment awareness and respect
    • We cannot forget our part of the responsibility of this crisis
    • It is nice to see how in our absence nature is still present
      • So it is easy to see, its not too late, we can do
    • And to put this in place of all the other crisis we have gone through – black plague, colonization and exploitation – building an illusion of indepence, now we have the opportunity to build our autonomy 
      • Time to have imagination to think of a new economy a new world outside of the ‘borders’ that are just illusion… we can nurture health and dignity and peace within ourselves; to celebrate the best in human kind and in nature

Ospre: (Chinese graffiti in height of covid there : we cannot go back to where we were, because where we were is the problem)

Patty and Helena

Patty

  • We are in our houses, but the companies keep working – know, be aware of that
  • Short term
    • We see the govs are not helping, not even providing soap, medicine, sanitizer
    • The villages only have traditional medicine but need access
    • They are only attending to the  biggest cities, and are of no thought regarding the impact of the villages or the consequences of this
      • Need to pressure the govt 
  • Important to keep dreaming, praying, for the people, we are still here
    • They are heroes, they have the knowledge to keep protecting ,but need support, need basic needs 
  • the forest has rights, as we have human rights, it has forests rights – they are beings
    • If we recognize and acknowledge this, then we can restore balance
    • Learn more about the Kawsak Sacha declaration: https://kawsaksacha.org/ 

Helena

  • So important to understand the Kawsak Sacha declaration
    • Taught by the elders – the rights of the silent nations,
    • We are part of whats surrounding us, is a lesson of childhood
    • Everything that surrounds us is living and has power
    • By viewing the world in this way, has allowed them to protect their land despite the threats and persecution
      • Because they know how important it is, we are nothing without the world around us

WECAN

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SumakHelena

Indigenous Women on the Frontlines: COVID-19 & Defending the Amazon

During this webinar, Indigenous women leaders of the Ecuadorian and Brazilian Amazon will unite to discuss how the devastating coronavirus pandemic is impacting their communities, while they face ongoing deforestation, oil extraction, and Indigenous rights violations in their territories. Indigenous peoples are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 due to a lack of resources and health disparities brought on by centuries of colonial policies and environmental racism.

Indigenous women leaders from the Amazon will share their stories, analysis, wisdom, and advocacy for Indigenous rights, protection of forests, water, communities, and the global climate. They will also address the ongoing political and economic struggles affecting their Amazonian territories.

Scientists have stated that destroyed and diminishing natural habitats create the conditions for animal/human virus crossovers, such as COVID-19, and that further pandemics will emerge if we continue to exploit biodiverse regions, making it even more vital for us to stand with land defenders in the Amazon. We need to protect the Amazon because first and foremost, Indigenous peoples have the right to live their traditional ways in their own lands, and we must also understand that there is no protecting forests for climate mitigation and healthy global communities without standing in solidarity to defend the defenders of the land.

We have much to learn from the women’s calls to action, their immediate needs, and their vision for living in respect and well-being with Mother Earth.

This is a critical time to stand with courageous Indigenous women leaders and to learn from their resistance efforts as well as their essential healing knowledge, and how to make our way through these challenging times.

Speakers include:

Patricia Gualinga, Kichwa leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador, Spokeswoman for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva (Amazon Women in Defense of the Jungle)

Sônia Bone Guajajara, Indigenous leader from Brazil, Executive Coordinator for the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) with translation by Maria Paula, Founder of the NGO “A Drop in the Ocean”

Daiara Tukano, Indigenous activist from Brazil, independent communicator and coordinator of Radio Yandê

Helena Siren Gualinga is a 17 year old social activist, of Kichwa-indigenous and Swedish origin from Sarayaku, Ecuador.

Moderation and comments by Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).

Links to donate and other resources are available here: https://bit.ly/3bk0hHp

4/14 Indigenous Women of North American, Turtle Island on the Frontlines: COVID and Fossil Fuel Resistance

  • Mother earth is saying ‘localize’ – start growing food
  • The first and worst impacted are amplifying the cracks, the injustice, in the system – 
  • ‘We’re in this together’ but not being impacted equally. 
  • Classic shock doctrine of powerful to take advantage during crisis
  • Big corporate getting bailouts funding, buying up land, pushing through pipelines etc

Faith Spotted Eagle (Tunkan Inajin Win), Dakota and Nakota Nations within the Oceti Sakowinan, Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines Resistance Leader

  • Fighting keystone pipeline for 12 years now
  • Grew up in this struggle since the Missouri was dammed when she was 1 years old
  • Finally an alliance with the Farmers and ranchers!
  • Message from the elders in a dream 6 months ago
    • People needed to go home and pray in their homes
      • Set up your alters in your homes, clean your homes for prayer
  • Prayer is the most powerful tool of resistance that there will ever be
    • Braveheart society: told our role was to retrieve the dead from the battlefield
      • And they’re doing this for those who have lost their spirits due to oppression
  • From SR we learned a lot, decided to do what they couldn’t at SR
    • Bioregion work, a template
      • The EIS is bs, it’s a waste of time, it’s nothing, a distraction
      • Went to work with mapping, gps everything to co-manage  a 250 miles stretch of the Missouri; co-management and then full management is the only way we’re going to get back
      • Water talks and stakeholders: a plan to manage the ms river watershed. Proactive, MMIW (missing and murdered) study in cooperation, police study – now the groundwork set for native sovereignty – survey the area, gather data, knowledge of plants, water, animal, return to the scientists we were 100 years ago, and relearning from elders who did know this, and young ones that are learning
      • Back in the old days, we knew how to organize, we’ve forgotten based on colonization with “competition” mentality – now we can heal, build trust and not be afraid of each other.  
        • Each of the languages has a code
          • There are secrets that are still there for us to remember now
      • Water testing
        • We need to raise above EPA, it is not acceptable, it is federal
      • NOW: 
        • April 16, rosebud and fort belknap asking for a Temp. Restraining Order
        • https://www.lakotatimes.com/articles/rosebud-fort-belknap-ask-for-restraining-order-against-kxl-construction/
        • Pray as hard as you can for a good outcome to restrict the bad people
        • The gov.s There will not announce shelter in place all along the keystone pipeline the  so that they can get the oil in place and so that tourists can continue to come in and fill campgrounds, etc. 
        • The legislators there in SD are elders, and lacking, getting sick with covid and dying even, and yet not doing whats right

Freda Huson (Chief Howihkat), Unist’ot’en – Wet’suwet’en People, Leader and spokesperson for the Unist’ot’en camps resisting the Coastal GasLink Pipeline

  • Prayers, still and always our most powerful form of activism
    • They were met with peace, not aggression
    • Our ancestors did everything in prayer
      • Prayer before they did everything all of the time
    • We’re learning how to pray again
  • It’s always about the money, and yet its losing money, but they still keep going
  • For us it’s about the water, it is about Life.
    • We drink water, we grow our food with water, it is Life
    • When mother earth starts fighting back you can’t stop her, and so we will all pay, but some more than others
  • Lots of people are still sleeping, it’s time to wake up
  • If people don’t get back to prayer, in the forefront, then we all lose
    • For each other, the planet, Pray. pray.
  • https://www.yintahaccess.com/
  • https://unistoten.camp/

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, Tar Sands extraction Resistance Leader, Alberta, Canada

  • Alberta tar sands fight
  • Even the coastal gas link has direct links to the alberta tar sands project as they are the biggest user of the natural gas, and so to secure in country energy to power project
    • Government just announced HUGE education layoffs then days later announced multibillion dollar funding package to gas line completion
  • We are actually all in the same fight
  • Price of oil is at an all time low, its not economically viable to do it, its dying and yet we see even our gov during a global pandemic are not helping the people eat and live, but the oil corps
    • Lending billions to them, while laying off educators
  • Have seen people showing up for each other
    • The fishers, hunters and trappers feeding those that don’t have food
    • Elders being watched over
    • Young people learning the ways
  • It is a time to reimagine
  • HIV. In the 80’s when HIV was sweeping the world she remembers a time when a young man came to her people asking to be healed. And the medicine man saw him and after silence he said… We don’t know this sickness. We need time to understand this sickness so that we may learn what mother provides us to heal with. So you must come back, you must keep coming to ceremony. 
  • Faith in our people and that mother earth knows best
  • We continue to hold the line and replace with something better
  • Jack forbes, columbus and other cannibals https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2041688.Columbus_and_Other_Cannibals
  • Breaking the cycles, breaking the disease in the spirit and the mind 
  • https://www.indigenousclimateaction.com/blog-1
  • Dream came in February to a South Am. sister:

The plant world said you need us right now, you need to be growing more food, more medicine; need to listen now to the plant and animal people.

Tara Houska, Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe, Tribal Attorney and Founder of Giniw Collective, Line 3 pipeline Resistance Leader, Leech Lake Reservation, MN

  • Update:
    • Workers for oil projects have been exempted from shelter in place orders
    • They’re moving material in for all the work
    • Despite ‘tar sands collapsing before our eyes’ – its being traded for practically nothing, so all of this for no reason
    • Direct threat to Anishinabe wild rice – absolutely Who they are
    • The indigenous shouldn’t be alone in these fights anymore
    • Earth day stuff… 
      • Continue to divest… they listen to this direct feedback…
        • Now they’ve even begun to buyout, own and run these banks that finance their own energy development 
        • StopLine3.org 
        • StopTheMoneyPipeline.org 
        • Earthdaylive2020.org
        • EarthDayLive.org 

On the matters of rebalancing and the need for Women in Leadership 

Tara

  • So we’ve seen what patriarchy looks like, that’s where we are right now
  • This time, of women stepping into leadership, the rebalance has been prophesied
    • Here’s what needs to happen
    • Hare are the uncomfortable steps we need to take
    • To save life, not money but for life
    • That is our duty, to be caretakers
    • We’re at  moment to choose to live 
      • This our moment to choose
    • Mother earth will be fine, she’ll be great
      • It is us who will or will not be here
    • From Tara Houska to Everyone: (02:22 PM)
    • Yes, transwomen are incredibly important, as is all life. I spoke as a woman, not as a transwoman. I cannot speak for people I am not of. Our culture recognizes two-spirited people in a different way — they are balanced unto themselves.
      • From Tara Houska to Everyone: (02:24 PM)
      • 
I am one of the speakers: Yes, transwomen are incredibly important, as is all life. I spoke as a woman, not as a transwoman. I cannot speak for people I am not of. Our culture recognizes two-spirited people in a different way — they are balanced unto themselves.

The MOST powerful things we can do:

Tara

  • Learning the values and teaching  ‘living in balance.’
    • What are we going to share during our time here?
  • Questioning these things and getting to the bottom of them
  • Teaching, humbly, and always striving to be a complete human

Freda

  • Healing center is doing land based healing to remind Us Who we are so that we feel our connection to the land and so we choose to protect the land

Osprey

  • Anurahadta roy: Nothing could be worse than a return to reality. … we can choose. 

Indigenous Women of North America, Turtle Island on the Frontlines: COVID-19 and Fossil Fuel Resistance

During the webinar, Indigenous women leaders will discuss how COVID-19 is impacting their communities and how oil and gas pipelines are being fast-tracked in their lands— violating Indigenous rights and further putting Indigenous women at risk. In this wide-ranging discussion, presenters will share calls to action, stories and wisdom, immediate needs of their communities, community-care practices, and the latest updates from various campaigns and resistance movements, focusing on Keystone XL, Line 3 and Coastal GasLink pipelines, and tar sands extraction.

Speakers include Freda Huson (Chief Howihkat), Unist’ot’en – Wet’suwet’en People, Leader and spokesperson for the Unist’ot’en camps resisting the Coastal GasLink Pipeline; Faith Spotted Eagle (Tunkan Inajin Win), Dakota and Nakota Nations within the Oceti Sakowinan, Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines Resistance Leader; Tara Houska, Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe, Tribal Attorney and Founder of Giniw Collective, Line 3 pipeline Resistance Leader; and Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, Tar Sands extraction Resistance Leader. Moderation and comments by Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).

A list of resources shared during the webinar is available here: https://bit.ly/2xo5U97

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The Story of White Buffalo Calf Woman and the Way of the Red Road

Here is the story of  White Buffalo Calf Woman and her lessons for us, as channeled to Ken Carey, one of many sacred teachings which can be read in The Return of the Bird Tribes

…

When the people saw White Buffalo Calf Woman approaching them across the prairie, they were amazed. They were expecting one of greater years. Yet she appeared no older than a maiden, as graceful as the grasses that waved around her in the twilight. Her face glowed with a radiance that spoke of wildflowers, watercress and the finest of herbs. 

As she walked through the center of the village, many a warrior had first thoughts like those of their fallen brother. But they had heard by now the story of his fate and they practiced a discipline of thought that to some of them was new. 

Barefoot, as she walked always upon the earth in her travels, White Buffalo Calf Woman entered the tepee of many skins, her white buckskin dress radiating the presence of her spirit. Without speaking a word she walked slowly in a circle around the fire that burned in the center of the tepee. As each of her sun-browned feet touched the sand, all who watched felt her prayerful reverence for the earth. 

Seven times, slowly and in silence, she walked around the fire. 

Few could look into her eyes. Those who dared saw pools of perfect blackness. So large were her pupils that those who looked into them could see the mirror of their face and the reflected flickering of the council fire. And they felt that they were looking at themselves, seeing themselves as they truly were – not exaggerating their strengths, nor ignoring their failings, but as they were, naked and revealed. Those who could not with honesty look into the eyes of White Buffalo Calf Woman did not look at all. 

Even before she opened her mouth to speak, her bearing and example had given the people of the Lakota the greatest teaching those present had ever received. When she spoke at last, her voice was like the song of waters singing upon the rocks, like the song of prairie birds calling above the meadows. It reminded those who heard it of the wind that whispered around their tepees at night and whistled through the branches of the mountain pines. 

“Seven times,” she said, “I have circled this fire in reverence and in silence. This fire symbolizes the love that burns forever in the heart of the Great Spirit. It is the fire that warms the heart of every buffalo, every buffalo calf, every prairie dog, every sage hen, every eagle and every human being. This tepee of many skins is your body. This fire that burns at your center is your love. The fire of your love is at times expressed sexually.”   

Here she paused and looked deeply into the eyes of those around her. “There is a creative as well as a destructive way for this to occur. Passion that roars out of control is like a wild grass fire that destroys everything in its path. But tempered with wisdom, that same passion can fuel whole generations; it can warm a thousand lodges through a hundred snowy winters and give its power to your children and to your children’s young. 

“Those, like the young man whose bones now lie beneath the prairie moonlight, who think first of the sexual expression of this fire and only second, if they think at all, of the spirit behind it, lock themselves into cycles of suffering and illusion – cycles that were unknown among our people a few short centuries ago, but which now are debilitating your nation, weakening your vitality and draining away your power.

“Creation does not take place where there is a scattering and dissipation of energies. Creation requires a gathering together and focusing of your power within a circle of commitment – like a seed, an egg, a womb or a marriage. If you would create and not destroy, you must remember always the Sacred Hoop. Consider wisely the ways in which you would use your power and then around those ways draw the sacred circle of commitment. In the warm atmosphere of that circle, the power of love builds and builds like a storm above the wet summer prairie until suddenly the circle can hold no more and explodes in the conception of the new.
“This fire is more powerful than any one of you,” White Buffalo Calf Woman said, pointing as she did to the flames dancing in the tepee’s center, “and the seven sacred circles I have walked around it represent the seven worlds that it has created. You here live in all seven of those worlds, but you are conscious only of one, the physical, the external. You have forgotten the inner worlds, the worlds of vision, the world from which I come and in which my kind lives. I am dressed like you people of the plains, but my tribe is not Lakota.” She paused a moment and slowly bent forward to pull a burning branch from the flames. 

“My tribe is the Fire Bird,” she stated quietly. 

“I am one of the Bird People, whose tribe once covered this Island of the Turtle. Do you remember the Winged Ones of heaven? The Fire Birds? The Thunder Tribes? How long has it been since you called to us in your councils?” She walked once slowly around the fire, holding up the burning branch and looking searchingly into their faces for an answer. 

All eyes turned to the storytellers. 

The story tellers were silent. 

“Your people have forgotten,” White Buffalo Calf Woman continued, “that which is more precious than water. You have forgotten your connection with the Great Spirit. I have come,” she said, holding the burning branch above her, “with a fire from heaven to kindle again your memory of what has been, and to strengthen you for the times to come.” 

She then placed the branch back into the fire and took from her side the skin pouch she carried. Many only now noticed this pouch for the first time. They were amazed at the beautiful beadwork and porcupine quill designs on its surface. 

“In this pouch,” she said, “is a pipe. This pipe is sacred. I give it to you to help you remember the teachings that I bring. Always treat this pipe with respect. Carry it and the others you may make after its fashion only in bags of the finest skin, decorated by only the most reverent of hands.”

Not yet opening the skin pouch that contained the pipe, but placing it reverently near the fire and occasionally gesturing toward it, White Buffalo Calf Woman explained the use of the pipe.

“Fill this pipe with a sacred tobacco grown especially for the purpose. Draw your first breath of smoke from this pipe as a breath of gratitude to the Great Spirit, from whose breath you were first given life. Use the smoke of this pipe to represent your thoughts, prayers and aspirations. Send them upward with your exhalations to the Great One, Wakan Tanka, Grandfather of all. Each time you do this, pass the pipe slowly and reverently among those who may be gathered with you while each offers his first inhalation to the Great One above this world. 

“Then with your second breath of the sacred tobacco, let your thoughts be of love and gratitude to your Mother, the earth. Give thanks for the grasses that clothe her breasts in prairies of flowing grain. Give thanks for the canopy of blue sky that she holds for you as a world in which to live. Give thanks to the storm clouds that bring rain to the prairies, filling creeks, water holes, springs and ponds. With reverence pass the pipe around the circle while each one takes a second breath of the sacred smoke and does the same. 

“Let your third breath be for the four-footed and the feathered ones, for the buffalo and the prairie chickens, for the fishes in your rivers and for all the creatures of this good earth. 

“And let your fourth breath be for the Ongwhehonwhe (The people true to reality, the real people, a term primarily used by the Iroguois but technically pertaining to all people in whom spirit is fully incarnate and in whom spirit/ego integration has occurred. The Original Beings. The Original Creators of Life). Let your prayer be that your tribe will always remain among them, and that one day the people who remain true to reality will include all the nations of the world.” 

All this time she had not yet opened the pouch in which she held the pipe. Now, she slowly untied the leather thongs that bound it and lifting a corner, reached within to pull from the white skin pouch a pipe of red stone. The manner in which she raised this pipe for all to see spoke of such reverence that all within the great tepee grew still. Many in that moment found their hearts full. Tears glistened in many eyes. 

“This sacred pipe,” spoke White Buffalo Calf Woman, “and every breath of sacred smoke you breathe through its stem will help you remember that every breath you take is sacred. The bowl of the pipe is made of red stone. It is in the shape of a circle. It symbolizes the Sacred Hoop, the sacred circle of giving and receiving, of in-breathing and out-breathing, in which all living things come to life through the power of the Great One.”

Asking for some tobacco, White Buffalo Calf Woman filled the pipe saying, “This tobacco I know was grown in your most fertile soil and given your most special care. It symbolizes the plant world, the moss upon the stones, the flowers, the herbs, the leaves of grass that cover the hillsides lest your mother lie naked in the sun. You, my people of the Lakota, are here to care for the earth. Your life is lit from the same fire that burns in the heart of the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka.” So saying, she stuck a small twig into the fire until it burned brightly. 

“Just as I light this individual twig from the great fire that burns in the center of this tepee, so each individual human being is a flame taken from the eternal fire of God’s love.”

Slowly she moved the flaming twig away from the central fire and held it up for all to see.

“This, your individual human life, like the single flame that burns upon this twig, is sufficient to light a great fire. As long as the love that burns within you is turned toward self-centered pursuits, it will remain tiny like this flame. Remaining tiny, it will bring you no joy. Eventually, in the swirling winds of spirit, it will be extinguished. 

“But when you live in harmony with the Great Spirit, your flame of love is fanned by those same spirit winds. You are in love with the very purpose of Life! You light the fire of love in all you meet. You know the purpose of your walk through this world and you know why the Great One gave you a life flame: not so that you could keep your tiny flame to yourself, loving what you need alone, but so that you could give it away, and with the fire of your love bring consciousness to the earth.” 

So saying, she held the burning twig until the flame was just above the red bowl of the pipe. To the pipe’s center she touched the fire, inhaling softly through the stem until the tobacco glowed brightly. The first wafts of the sacred smoke drifted through the room. It was as if those present were seeing a pipe lit for the first time. 

“Just as the tobacco that burns within this pipe of earth represents the plant kingdom,” continued White Buffalo Calf Woman, “so this buffalo you see carved on the stone bowl of the pipe represents the four-legged creatures that share with you this sacred world, Etenoha. 

“These twelve feathers hanging from the stem of the pipe have come from Wambli Galeshka, the spotted eagle. They are to remind you of the feathered races with whom you share the great circle of the sky; but they are also to remind you of your spirit selves, the Bird Tribes, the Winged Ones of heaven. As I now pass this pipe to you and you give thanks to the Great Spirit with your first breath of tobacco, let these feathers remind you of the spirit beings who come from the stars to brighten your human lives. Let these twelve sacred feathers draw your thoughts up and away from the gravity of petty and jealous passions. Let your thoughts fly, like these feathers have once flown on Wambli Galeshka, high above the world of the little self. 

“Take this pipe. Give your thanks to the Great Spirit and pass the pipe to the others in our circle. Let your thoughts be lifted up to the Great One who comes now to stir your memories and to open the eyes of your story tellers. 

“Every dawn that dawns red in your eastern sky, like the red bowl of this pipe, is the birth of a new and holy day. And just as the rising sun drives out the darkness, so the light that shines in the lives of all those who love, drives out the darkness of self-centeredness and dissolves the shadows that cause misfortune. 

“Remember always to treat every creature as a sacred being: the people that live beyond the mountains, the winged ones of the air, the four-footed, the fishes that hide beneath the cool rocks in the silver streams and lakes, all of these are your sisters and your brothers. All are sacred parts in the body of the Great Spirit. Each one is holy. 

“The most difficult part of this teaching may be to extend this respect to the people of your neighboring tribes. Remember, like you, they are sacred people, given a specific work to do in the great Being of Wakan Tanka. Their work is not your own, their tasks differ from yours, but the purpose you serve is the same. The sun that shines upon you does not see you as being so very different. In peace you must live side by side with these who are a different shade of the color red. 

“For a people are coming soon who do not share the color of your skin, but who are white like the snow that falls in the winter months. With them will also come those of black skin. And those of yellow skin. And those of colors in between. 

“Just as the colors blend together in rainbows that arch across the prairie when the storm is passed, so you must tell the white races, the black races and the yellow ones when they come that though you are of red skin, you are first and foremost people of the Great Spirit. Through peaceful blending with your neighboring tribes, be an inspiration to the wandering peoples. Help lead all races into the harmony of the rainbow.”

And then the pipe was passed, and she was silent until all those present had taken their first smoke. A second time the pipe was passed in reverence for the earth, a third for the four-footed and winged. A fourth time the pipe was passed in reverence for the many tribes of humankind, those in the distant past, those living now, and those yet to be. After all gathered in the great tepee had completed their fourth smoke, White Buffalo Calf Woman raised the pipe reverently before her for all to see. 

“Carry your pipe with you always. Treat it as a sacred object. Honor all creatures and live your life in harmony with the Sacred Way of Balance of which every tree, every flower and every new day speaks. There will be many seasons when your heart will feel clear and pure as a mountain spring, and you will know the peace and joy of the Great Spirit. But should ever your steps falter, now or in the more troubled times to come, if ever you feel that you have stepped aside from the path of the Sacred Way, if ever your heart should feel heavy within you do not waste time in regret. I will give you a ceremony,” she said, filling the pipe once more and relighting it from the sacred fire, “a ceremony, which each of you can do in company with others, alone in your lodge, or out upon the prairie.

“Stop your activities. Find a rock upon which to sit. Asking for the Great Spirit’s guidance as I have taught you, unwrap your pipe, and let its red bowl remind you of the sacred road, the way of life, the red pathway of the sun. After you have smoked your smokes to the Great Spirit, to the earth, to the animals, and to the people who are true to reality, after you have given your thanks to the four directions, then take a fifth smoke asking for the guidance of the great winged beings of the spirit world. 

“Ask the particular winged being of the spirit world that is closest to you to help you see the wisest path to follow. Ask that spirit to help you make the clearest choice, to help you know the steps you are to take upon the path that your deepest knowing would have you travel. In time you will come to know that spirit being as your own true self. 

For now, just rest in the still place where the deepest knowing makes its lodge. This will put you in touch with what you may have forgotten in the hurry of life. This will allow the fire that burns within you to speak to you in plain and unbroken terms. 

With this fifth smoke, the smoke that you offer to the invisible spirit that guides you, you will see that the spirit world is real, inhabited by wise and benevolent beings that watch over your trials and hardships, unable to offer you help or assistance until you ask them. With this smoke, ask the spirit beings that surround you to come into your life. Tell them you want to help them and the Great Spirit in their work and ask them how you can do this. By helping the Great Spirit in his work, you will help yourself far more than if you were merely concerned with your own affairs. Human beings are not fully happy or healthy until they serve the purpose for which God created them. 

“Offer your sixth smoke to the six people whom you would most like to see especially blessed. A loved one whose spirit has flown from his body. A young man or woman who will soon be entering adulthood. The leader of a neighboring tribe whom you would like to see deepen in the ways of wisdom. Perhaps your own grandfathers, grandmothers or families. Each time you do this, choose the six people whom you would most like god to smile upon. For them, offer this smoke.”

She then explained how the sixth smoke could be taken in six smaller smokes, one for each of the people involved. While the pipe was being slowly passed, she drew circles in the sand to represent the souls of each of these six people. Then around them all, she drew one great circle to represent the blessing. 

When all present had completed their sixth smoke, White Buffalo Calf Woman turned slowly to look at each one in turn. All within the tepee grew very still. Even the outside breezes came to a rest and atop the poles, the tepee flaps hung motionless. The seventh smoke she explained must always be taken in silence; for it was offered to the Great Being from which every being was drawn for that sacred mystery at the source of life, it was better she said to have no words. 

After the seventh smoke was completed, such a unity was felt by those present in the great tepee of many skins, it seemed in that moment as if there was but one present. In perfect stillness, the silence spread like warm water, dissolving the last traces of disharmony from the heart of the Lakota.

For many moments White Buffalo Calf Woman was silent. When she spoke again, she compared her teachings to a tree, a tree that would flower in their understanding as they took these things to heart and applied them in their daily living. She told the Lakota how their individual human lives were like the individual leaves of a tree and how no tree has leaves so foolish as to fight among themselves. 

“No people true to reality would be so blind,” she said, “as to let the individuals within their tribe contend with one another. Remember, there is no cause that justifies violence against another human being, save only in the last resort to protect yourself or family.

“For a long time,” she continued, “you will live beneath the sacred shade of this Tree of Understanding that I am planting in your consciousness this evening. And in the generations immediately following yours, the people of the Lakota will be united again in the Sacred Circle. Be true to that circle, my women of the buffalo, my braves, my people of the plains. Be true to these ways and hold steadfast in this truth. For a time will come like a dark storm from the east when the prairies shall be overrun with those who speak fast, perceive little and wield much power. 

“The sacred Tree of Understanding that you will carry within you during these next few generations will be cut down in that storm. The tree will seem to die. The Sacred Hoop will wither until it is all but forgotten. A few will keep the light of truth burning within their hearts, but the light will grow dim and become, even in those, but a tiny ember. 

“But that ember will remain. Quietly, it will remain. All but forgotten, it will hold still a small glow in the hearts of the gentle ones. Even when a strange and hurried nation covers these prairies, even when your Mother Earth is bought and sold and stolen as if she were no more than a handful of beads, even when roaring ships of magic stone fly with people in them across the skies, that ember will hold still its tiny glow. And know this, my people: a great fire can be ignited from a single, glowing ember!

“For when the storm is over, that ember will ignite a dawn brighter than any dawn before. A new tree will grow more glorious than this tree I leave with you now. With that new dawn, I will return. Under the shade of that new tree I will live with you. And with us will be gathered not only the tribes shaded red, but the white tribes from the North and black tribes from the South and the yellow tribes from the East. In harmony, the four races will live beneath the boughs of the new tree. The age that we will see together will be the best that has ever been. All that has been broken will be made whole. The Sacred Hoop will be mended. The game will be plentiful and the spirits of all creatures will rejoice in the harmony of a new and perfect order. The Great Spirit, the very Thunderbird, will be active within the races, living, breathing, creating through the peoples of the earth. Peace will come then to the nations, for the original creators of life, the Winged Ones of heaven will return.”

Please feel welcome to learn more and join us in the Sacred Circle of the Red Road

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From Anxiety Attack Nights to a Healthy, Happy and Free Life

In the middle of 2016, I was doing what I was supposed to. I had graduated from College, I had volunteered for two years of national service; I had gotten a real job where I worked hard, did well, and moved up. I made money, spent it and travelled to exotic places. 

Even so, over time, in the middle of the nights I awoke hardly able to breathe. The gnawing question was always immediately present – What am I doing?  That’s it. That was the plaguing conundrum which jerked me awake in darkness, night after night. 

Then, during work one day, I was gifted an experience with a prospective client that rocked my days as well. It was clear pretty quickly that this gentleman was outside of the parameters of my target and yet, I remained with him for an unjustifiable amount of time (in the world of business and productivity).  Our conversation, however, was of higher vibrations than daily this-and-that and metrics and cost/benefit analysis’; we were speaking to the things of this life and our purpose. Somehow he knew at the heart of me, there existed a forgotten past – the origin of my people, Oglala Lakota, the details of which I knew not too much at all. 

My Nana took her family from the reservation long before I was around to learn that it is no place for a free person. She sacrificed our culture to save our dignity – so that I could even fill the shoes of the person who wrote the first paragraph of this post. There are grandmothers who shared in the same impossible choice and took their families down the other road.  I’ve found now, years after the moments I spent with this guy, that the descendants of either choice have been left in a state of lostness, without the peace or power of remembering Who I Am. 

It has been a real journey since that day when that man struck me to my core with a new, more catalytic question than the one waking me up each night: What are You doing for your people? It brought tears to my eyes. For I was in sunny, southern California.  The house across the street from where I was standing was poised upon the cliff, above the shoreline, overlooking the ocean. I did know enough by this point that the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of my people, like most reservations across Indian Country, was still no place for a free person.  Statistically, it beats most places that service-minded folks in this country choose to travel to on Volunteer Vacations, to ‘developing countries’. 

By great blessing, less than a week later, news erupted for a short blip giving truth to the reality of private security guards of an oil corporation allowing attack dogs to maul peaceful elders and children on the treaty land of the Standing Rock Tribe. 

I’ve made a personal study of change and the conditions which cause it in recent years. These describe the truth of my own:  a rock-bottom of sleepless nights and absolute cringing commutes to work in apprehension of arriving (my spirit singing to take the driver’s seat!), a single, sincere conversation with a stranger (compassion) and an invitation (to serve)!  My people were finally taking a stand and they were inviting us to stand with them! 

And from that, a whole new life…

2016

September

  • Quit my job
  • Bought the Snowbeast! A 2005 Nissan Murano with 180k miles on it for $2k – solely for the purpose of getting to Standing Rock and serving. 
  • Attended a community event in which a local Tribal leader was speaking about his journey’s to and from Standing Rock delivering supplies. He shared the date of his next trip and invited anyone who wished to go to Standing Rock to caravan out with him. 
  • Built the Site
  • Gathered as much support as possible
  • Packed
  • Rolled Out!

October

November

December

2017 What now

January – February

  • Effectively dismantled in mind and spirit,  disillusioned, filled with anger but also in awe of the beauty and peace of my people and that place, I tried to collect the chaos within by writing it all down and organizing the special moments captured in photo and worth a thousand words, into a book.  
  • Learned to make my own power message t shirts, decided the process requires too many of mother earth’s resources to pursue further; natural dyes would probably help but still
  • Went to the ocean for peace
  • Decided to locate things people were giving away and flip them around to people who would buy them on Next Door and OfferUp; while this did generate some good funds the resources required of mother earth to get it done is a no win. 
  • My motorcycle, Julez, died
  • I reached into skills of days passed and repainted my nephews room
  • I watched the Women’s March on TV instead of going
  • I attempted to get involved with a local group that was getting people organized around political action but found that my personal expectation to go forward with meetings in a holistic way, as in the way of the Lakota, at Standing Rock, has no application in business-as-usual yet – too much for me at the time
  • Gave Fire Cider a go, using a recipe from the Hobbit at Standing Rock
  • Discovered a best friend was going to be working in Austin for a month
  • Simultaneously a self-defense instructor certification was going to be taught there in the same month with a following certification training available about two weeks later in Utah (the idea of Self Defense as a path forward was a fleeting inspiration by the Creator in that exact moment I learned of my friend in Austin)
  • Queue my return to reading but in a new way, as momz gifts me Living Your Strengths, in which my own healing attempts to go deeper and my mind glimpses the possibility of theTrue aligned potential within
  • On the Road to Austin

March

  • Still haven’t cut my hair, guess we’re growing out
  • First WWOOF! Thank goodness for Mary and Lucy in the world! Thank goodness for WWOOF
  • UT Austin RAD training and SXSW
  • Back on the Road to Utah – but through the natural places: Big Bend, Candelaria (where my phone dies), outside Roswell where I bendered somebody’s fender, Albaqurque, Bear Ears where I got stuck at the top in muddy snow forced to finally reckon with my lifelong competition with my own instinct, Hite where I ate dinner by a campfire acknowledging my ignorance and letting it All go, finally slept peacefully, under the stars, waking up a changed person – and on to Provo, but not before the Snowbeast stopped at a gas station and turned over for about 20 minutes before deciding to start again. 
  • RAD Training #2 and instructor certification,check; miracle at Utah Lake before rolling out of town and back into the nature. 
  • Let many layers go, across many miles, hiking and camping through Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Zion. 

April

  • Made it home to the fam
  • Retreat to the Mudcaves
  • Flew to Florida at my Sister’s request to help her with her Grandfather’s Estate Sale
  • Road trip with pops in a Moving truck from Florida to San Diego, a path of many moments to savor and learn from: things like life and death, alcoholism, true friendship, grace, beauty, exhaustion, humility.
  • Splinter Jones startup 
  • Wet and Wild Summer, back in Austin! 

April to September

  • I come to know how to cook in a tiny house
  • Off grid living: chickens, dogs, coyotes, electricity, rain water
  • 70 names a week and watering holes far and wide
  • Chiggers
  • Hauling giant mats, tubes and trailers, steering pontoons, floating with the Big Kidz
  • Baby turtles at the coast , the ayers rock of N. America
  • Nani’s surprise 85th birthday in Denver!  
  • House sitting the homestead, Harvey, coyote massacre and the manual of fun
  • Stop ETP march in Dallas
  • St. Louis roadie with Momma!

October- November

  • The magic of Kauai
  • Nextdoor brings the cats and dogs!

December

  • The great Cookie Monster Challenge
  • The Miracle of Jane and Aggie!

2018 In a nutshell

January

February

  • Nani’s Journey begins
  • Hit the road for the Longest Walk, Washington state to Washington DC
  • Emergency trip back to CO to be with Nani
  • So begins a time of learning and preparation: First up> Zero shoes, Fasting, Postmates, Dr. Santos

March

  • Nani moves on, Cricket joins the pack

April-May 

  • Momma’s time of mourning, not the time to go across the country
  • Building mom’s healing pond, all natural with a solar powered waterfall

June

  • Janes first Surgery
  • Dumpster diving

August

  • Jilly arrives from Brazil
  • No Regatta protest miracle
  • Plans Change, partnerships shot

September – December

2019

January 

  • Desert fast and Sunshine boy

February – May 

  • Training and teaching with Heidi

June 

July

  • Fundraising for Barb and Chief
  • Jane Surgery 2

August-September

  • Built Nations Rising with Chief
  • Olio, Booch and Congee

October

  • Sampson Stay
  • New locs
  • Boston

December

  • Magic of Kauai

2020

January – February

  • Starhawk teaches the way of Permaculture Design at Earth Activist Training
  • Kamila reminds me the world of online and social innovation

March

Through time, much evolution, it all amounts to Health, Happiness and Freedom… My life is my message.

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Shoestring Love

The perfect act of Shoestring Love – just a little something, whatever a person has, is more than enough enough – has the healing power to save someone’s entire day… to save an entire world!

We are each given a singular Purpose here, one collective mission: to Love and be Loved. That is the great Oneness of our Being. It is in the expression of that Love that makes up the glorious individuality of self.

How might you gift your Love to the World Today? 

These are the things that I must do:

Very recently, a dear love of mine, visited me from very far away. She was here for only a moment, a mere glimpse of life, but through her glorious lens, she saw something that I had been misunderstanding my whole life.  At one point in one of our days together, she declared, “You are an artist!”  

Is that the first time someone said that to me? No.  But was I finally ready, for whatever reason, however many layers of time and self, to hear it? Yes.  In letting this sink in over a few days, I got to the bottom of it – I have always put off creating the inspiration within based on the misconception that there was always something more important for me to be doing for the world. 

Finally, I embody the freedom that there is Nothing more important for me to be doing for the world, in the world, than the exact things of inspiration which are born within me and none other.  


Much Love, Lindsey Lou On The Move

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Crane Frames

Each one unique, each one carrying a wish!

Visit the Shoestring Love shop on Etsy to order.

As I go out into the world, it has become a habit of mine to keep my pockets filled with the love of many tiny folded companions. As I meet others, sometimes only briefly, a stranger in passing for example, I am able to share that love freely through the tiny but significant gift of a folded friend. In the case that I have neither a folded friend or a stored piece of paper, I’m never without something to fold up and share any moment Love is needed (always!).  This little act, these little creatures, they are a perfect act of Shoestring Love.

These frames were born of that simple daily practice. 

They are each unique and have been given their own time to come to life but the purpose and principles are the same. Love is Love is Love.  

They are special to me in many ways… 

They have been conceived as a modern honoring of their origin, a gift of our Japanese relatives through the beautiful tradition of the senbazuru in which 1000 cranes, folded with love and goodwill, bring much abundance to their recipients, even a wish!  In the case of these Crane Frames, each one comes with a wish as each one includes a crane hand-colored by my nana… she has since passed on from this lifetime but her hands and beautiful artistry have left us with many uniquely colored pages for folding up with love; her wish to travel in all the directions is bountifully reflected in these cranes that are now in flight all over the world. That magic then, that wish, passes on to you, carried upon the folded wings of the crane you receive.

The colors that flow throughout these frames, red, yellow, black and white,  are used often in the Oglala Lakota tradition of I and my grandmother’s people. The four directions represented in these colors describe Truth, as they represent the circle of life; and so they are reflected also in the harmonious rainbow and in the beautiful rainbow of the human family.

Mother Earth is honored in the resourcefulness of each frame as they are made up of rescued materials which would otherwise go to no use.  For example, the frames are refurbished from things like old silk screens or picture frames, or merely scraps from carpentry work; the buttons and beads have been saved over generations often lying-in-wait within the tin cans and jars of many, many households throughout the world… my buttons were once my moms and her moms, as I know is likely true for you. 

The frames are quite light and so demand less energy in shipping. 

Also, there is a special gift built into each frame which will reveal itself sooner or later like a bud, opening to flower and growing into full blossom – please let me know when the miracle I describe reveals itself to you. 

With love receive them and gift them again, that is Shoestring Love!

Order a Crane Frame – your contribution to this work is a great blessing

MUCH LOVE

Lindsey Lou On The Move

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Sacred Circle for Ceremony

Grandmother taught us… Life is a ceremony in itself, worthy of celebrating with ceremony – which means that yours and my life are worth celebrating every single day with a ceremony. When we do a ceremony from our heart, just like anything else growing, a bud will be born within us, and sooner or later that bud will begin to open; it becomes a flower, and that flower comes to full blossom where there will be seeds. But because you and I live on this Earth, winds of change will come upon us and when that happens the seeds will blow away – and somewhere else, another ceremony will be born…. When ceremony loses its spirit, it becomes a ritual – and life today is full of rituals… Grandmother was born in 1893.

Uncle Angaangaq, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), The Mother Earth Delegation of United Indigenous Nations of the North during the time of the Corona Pandemic March 2020

In the summer of last year, 2019, I was gifted a revelation that only now, in its own time, has begun to unfold.  

As my spirit has reawoken, my soul reborn, I’ve found such power in meditation which reveals to me more and more the vast unseen. In this process, at one point I came to understand that there would be a significance in gathering together in prayer within the vision plane. At that time, such a thought had never occurred to me… the concept of gathering with another living being, or many, with full intention and awareness, within the realms of the great unseen! I’ve since come to know that all things are possible, much more than the limited experience of our ego-driven physical experience allows us initially to conceive of – until it awakens to the great Truth of our Being. 

A Gift for Your Celebration

Within this physical plane we are gathering in the Sacred Circle of the Red Road. 

To honor this beautiful ceremony, as a symbol of connection and strength, I would love for you to have your own sacred circle. Each one is made with love and each blessed by our Mother, the Earth.

Your sacred circle is made up of individually twisted braids and beads that can be worn throughout your day – around your wrists and ankles or as a necklace; and so they will be available for you to unwrap and circle around you when grounding in for ceremony, ideally in touch with our Mother, the earth (your feet upon the soil, or grass, or sitting upon a rock).   Someday, should the occasion arise in which one or more of us come together in the same place on the Earth, then too our individual circles may be unwrapped to be rejoined together in ceremony. It is a beautiful thing (another act of Shoestring Love in the world!)

  • Each one is twisted in the way of our Hawaiian relatives, who taught me how rope is made to be unbroken.  
  • The colors that flow throughout, red, yellow, black and white,  are used often in the Oglala Lakota tradition of I and my grandmother’s people. The four directions represented in these colors describe Truth, as they represent the circle of life; and so they are reflected also in the harmonious rainbow and in the beautiful rainbow of the human family.

You may order a single long rope or a set of four shorter ones, one for each direction and with the capability of extending the protective power of that sacred hoop to each wrist and ankle during your days.  

While it does take more time to unwrap and reconnect each of the four into full circle for ceremony, I have come to find that experience as a gift in itself… taking the time, to care, and to come into circle wholly mindful. 

It is also possible with the four braids to leave two, three or all four connected up to wear as you wish. 

To order yours, please Come in to the Circle with us.

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How to make the Perfect Breakfast Every Day

The key to success here is in perfecting a single, perfect ancient recipe. 

While waiting patiently for my acupuncturist to call me in, or for my mom to come out of her session (I can’t be sure at this point which –  we are truly blessed, privileged and cute to do ‘puncture as a family thing these days) I sat in front of a truly well-read coffee table, overwhelmed at the glorious selection. I took the adventure of choosing one. I reached for a homemade binder which contained an additional bountiful selection of articles from various sources (as golden, but without the primary benefit of print publication). I landed quite definitively on Congee and Wet Breakfasts for Health, a Beautiful post by Andrew Sterman.  If food is love, then his writing on Congee is foreplay – and I felt it! I could hardly wait to try it out. In a nutshell, following the first re-creation of this magically wholesome and perfectly energetic ancient Chinese breakfast staple, there have been many, almost daily, unbelievably satisfying, wet congee breakfasts. 

Please read his article, I can hardly speak to the real beauty of it. 

Here are the  most amazing things about Congee breakfast:

  1. When made with love and according to Andrew’s description, the rice or millet releases all of it’s creamy starch and lets in as much water as it can possibly absorb, so it is amazingly hydrating!
  2. It’s so creamy, it’s as if there’s milk in there! Alas, it is entirely naturally ‘plant-based’
  3. The means of cooking wet breakfasts, heating by water rather than by fire, poaching the eggs rather than by frying them, for example, is one of the aspects which make them energetically perfect according to the lessons of ancient Chinese medicine in which the Qi of the Five Main Organs give/receive their own Yin and Yang powers of balance based on what you are giving them!
  4. Such abundance… 1 cup of dry rice makes an entire week’s worth of perfect breakfasts for myself and Cricket! 
  5. Soooooo many directions to go, never gets old (though, I almost always add some ginger, turmeric, pinch of salt, pepper and flax seeds)
  6. Simply, savory traditional – topped with poached eggs, soy sauce, toasted sesame seeds or oil and some scallions 
  7. Island style – beautiful blue, butterfly pea congee topped with lovely purple poi, coconut milk, guava, pineapple, papaya, starfruit, toasted coconut and macadamia; a rare and luxurious treat 
  8. Carrot cake congee mixed with some raisins, toasted walnuts or pecans, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, maple syrup or organic raw honey, and some milk (of choice!)
  9. The list goes on! 
  10. (And this random Lindsey quirk for you) I have always LOVED white, creamy porridge type things ever since the scene in the original Disney version of Beauty and the Beast where the beast digs into that delicious, creamy and steaming  bowl of yummy porridge. … Congee, love it. Cream of Wheat, LOVE it. Tapioca, YEP. Whipped cream LAWWWWVE IT. You see what I mean 🙂

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