Lindsey Lou On The Move: Standing Rock and Beyond

divesting

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Moving Fundraising from GoFundMe To Popmoney

Why not GoFundme, Crowdrise, etc. ?

In fact, many of the fundraising platforms are managing their transactions with the same corporations I’ve tried my hardest to divest from… Chase bank, for example, operates WePay which Gofundme and many other fundraising platforms use. See an example of banks to divest from here.

Why *Popmoney?

It is a secure way to transfer money directly from bank account to bank account, there’s no middle account; it is trusted platform by many top banks and credit unions. Popmoney is a product of CheckFreePay, owned by Fiserv; neither of which are on the list of corporate financial institutions to divest from that I know of.

Your bank might even be using Popmoney. It is likely a service that you can setup within your own online banking (in your bill pay section) – see if your bank is participating; if not, register with Popmoney then send support directly to the mission referencing our account email: lindseylouonthemove@gmail.com.

*No money, no problem – there are Many ways to support the mission.

The credit union that we bank with provides Popmoney for free, and so 100% of your gift goes toward the mission… many of the fundraising platforms and their ‘transaction gateways’ charge a percentage; 5% of any gift is a real chunk of resources.

Here is a video made by my credit union that explains it nicely, they’ve also made a nice FAQ.




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The Year After Standing Rock

One year ago I left my job to go to the pipeline protest that was taking place at Standing Rock, the ancestral homeland of some of the first Americans, the Lakota people. I was proud of them for taking a stand, as the Lakota people are part of my ancestry and I’m proud of that. I somehow feel the pain that has trickled down through the generations of a broken people though I don’t have the right answer for many who ask, “What percentage are you?” That question has only been asked of me before and after Standing Rock, I never heard it once at camp.

What I found there was life changing. I lived there from October through December 2016. I celebrated my 30th birthday there. I have no words to describe the place other than to say:

· I did try to do it justice and have completed a book, Peace Standards: Standing Rock, that I look forward to getting to you

· I knew there was no going back to life before Standing Rock; no going forward with eyes closed, now that they’ve been opened

· It’s driven me to spend 2017 learning what there is to do about it all, my part in it and how to do it.

Here are those lessons:

Mother Teresa has so sweetly summed up the internal journey that I continue to work at:

The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

Yes, that speaks to the truths I saw, in practice, at Standing Rock and which have been my compass since. In 2017:

  • Spreading love through service kept me busy and travelling Texas, Utah, Florida, back to Texas, St. Louis, MO, Colorado, and back home to California.
  • Finding wisdom (the what and the how of my why!) and peace in solitude got me lost for many, many enlightening days in the great wilderness that, currently, struggles to remain protected across the states.
  • WWOOFing for the first time introduced to me to real life heroes who showed me that any and every adversity may be overcome and can be achieved through the vehicle of good business; mindful resourcefulness, neither losing sight of quality nor sacrificing the gifts of Mother Nature with frivolousness, despite success, growth, and the creeping effect of many years.
  • Divesting (the teaching of it) has and continues to be the most important flag that I can fly in the wake of the Standing Rock pipeline protest: we must stop buying into, and therefore perpetuating, the toxic aspects of our society. The possibilities are endless; the easiest way to start is by personally reassessing needs from wants… for example, can I curb the materialism of the holidays by choosing quality(time) over quantity? Do I need to use individually packaged coffees every day or is their a less resource-consuming solution? Can I get in the habit of carrying and using my reusable cups and grocery bags? Most powerfully, can I move my business from corporate banks to local credit unions? Our money is their wealth and their target, conversely the taking away of our money is their Achilles heal.
  • In feeling conflicted by the direction of that compass, presence of moment, anti-materialism, and simplicity against my forced engagement in the very social media which was the only channel allowing our voices from the ground in bloody, violent, DAPL-owned North Dakota to be heard … I learned to silkscreen (print) my own tshirts. With each step forward, like a highway billboard, Love or Happily Divested speaks across all of my clothes; I pass them out as I travel along.
  • I became a certified RAD Self-Defense instructor. This option brings practicality and affordability to defense education. Go to a class near you. 

For me it was a year of becoming lighter and feeling freedom as I’ve never known it. It has been the best year of my life and I look forward to all the rest, however many I’m gifted, topping it!

Check out the 2018 Tour of Hope!

Gofundme to launch soon 🙂

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Checking In – still on the move in 2017: Standing Rock, alternate facts and real progress!

Tell you what team – I left for an adventure to Standing Rock, October 2016, and it has changed my life!
For those who have been following, supporting, sharing, divesting (!) – Thank You! I’m proud of us, for myself and so many of you, for becoming more engaged than we have in our entire lives; it has been depressing at times, I know; and to keep paying attention is a daily struggle, I know. 

Thank you for your patience – this will be my return to posting since around the time I was arrested.  It is hard to describe how camp works exactly but to say it takes good intentions and a good bit of learning, humility and energy to figure out one’s place – is an understatement.  Anyway, I was just finding my niche around this time and it kept me so busy each day, before the sun rose to after it set that the daily trip to connectivity lost its priority; it felt amazing!

Then, if you keep up on the Transparency log, you will be able to track the expenditure of all your wonderful donations to the cause: driving elders, gathering winter supplies, and transporting new water protectors to camp!

Since that time:

  1. Thousands of Veterans arrived to camp to protect the water protectors from the Army Corps of Engineers’ December 5th, eviction notice.
  2. In response to the mobilization,  Obama ordered another halt on the project, required the Army Corps to stand down and enforce the completion of the Environmental Impact Statement (of which public comments are needed) – therefore No more impending doom for the winter!
  3. Most essential personnel stayed at camp through the harshest part of winter – awaiting Trump’s inauguration day and alternate facts.

I came home to California and knew my life would never be what it was before…

(How does one speak boldly without excluding someone?)

Friends, please know it is Very important to me that you know I support you just as you have supported me. I do not, I Cannot judge your lives or life’s work.  We each have a purpose the fulfilling of which is unique to each of us. In the case of differences – bipartisan, orientation, spiritual, etc. – differences of any nature, I can only be the best Me in trying to understand, and in trying to focus on commonalities and grow love from these.  Even of my enemies, I hope this from myself and others…

That said, thankfully my bogus Morton County Felony was dropped but… going forward, I will always be the person in your life who went to North Dakota and stood in civil disobedience against racism and numerous (and still counting) violations against humanity by “public servants” on the ground up to the highest offices of our country for the sake of profit and “progress”; and the saga continues. 

My eyes have been opened to many things – ultimately to the facts:

  • There are organized forces in this world operating in darkness under the prerogative that any means justify the ends and are operating by day in positions which control how and what media networks cover and what they do not, what airs and what does not, what is spoken about in Presidential candidate debates and what is not.
  • The rest of us work so much, so much more than the 40-hour-week we commute to, that doing anything else feels impossible. Keeping up with our family and closest relationships, our own health – outside of work (!) is hard enough.

Yet, We can sense the brokenness of it all (there is our common ground) – education, healthcare; our very own democracy and “American Dream” is no longer our freedom, it’s our debt!  Where do we begin with that?! It’s all so big.

My eyes have been opened and there Is hope (how about that #womensmarch; and the tallying wins as conveyed via the Resistance Report).


I knew when I began this journey not everyone would be able to come and I understand this. I understand the obligations you have to your families and I know they are not obligations at all, but Blessings… the joys of life.  It is the obligations we’ve built around these things that are illusions we’ve been marketed and it is upon all of us to open our eyes and acknowledge, disown, reject, organize, boycott and divest (how to do it and where to go) from the things that have become Unacceptable during our complacent time of abundance and comfort.  EXAMPLE of Unacceptable: CDC Knew Its Vaccine Program Was Exposing Children to Dangerous Mercury Levels Since 1999.

I’m uncovering things. This is the journey you have supported thus far.  What next?

I’ve written a book (!)…captured a piece of history that shall never be forgotten with inklings, how-to’s, of replicating the efforts of reclaiming our humanity from greed.

I’ll continue to go where not all can and to uncover buried things.  To further study my hunch about Reverse Progress, our most pertinent mission to go backward in order to go forward – like putting heart back into everything we do (as the Lakota have reminded me to do), like taking chemicals back out of food and water and clothing, like taking money back out of democracy; remembering what life once was and must always be: shelter, food, water and those yet unborn.

In all of my travels, tribulations, and simple joys – you, my family, all my relatives, are always with me. Me/We!

Cheers!

–

Z

Bug

Lindzo

Lindsey lou

 

As always, make sure you are divested from the Unacceptable things!

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