I thought I’d add a little behind-the-scenes post —

I have met some wonderful people here with such good hearts and commitment!

I don’t want to name names, but an older lady who puts me to shame with her activism.  She said that she had blocked liquor trucks from making a delivery to a Nebraska town that has nothing but liquor stores…it is right across from Pine Ridge and they are doing their best to finish the job with genocide-by-bottle.

She said she and young mothers with babies in strollers stood in the roadway when they saw a booze delivery truck coming down the road.  The truck driver saw the human blockade and did a U-turn.  She said she knew that the truck would be back yet another day, but for that day, it was a victory.

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I can’t tell you how thrilling it was to see tipis planted all over the landscape as one comes over the hill.  They try to say the culture is dead…but evidence proves otherwise.  Folks are staying in their tipis as their ancestors did.  No running water.  Outhouses.  (Although I think they did not have outhouses, but just went where it was customary for the village).

Some have horses and use them for transportation.  It is another thrill to see them galloping at full speed through camp.  It makes me want a pony all over again (I begged for a horse as a kid).

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I have a downer, though, of the youth.  I have felt this for awhile, but especially see how much we Boomers dropped the ball.  The youth have even less of a clue about the environment than my generation did.

I told one that we used to bring our own table service (plates, forks, knives, cups, napkins) to get-togethers.  And then we took them home and washed them ourselves.  He was stunned by this.  Oy.  We really dropped the ball on that one — there is no need to ever use freaking styrofoam when we can just wash our own dishes after using them.  It is really sad that we have lost so much progress and awareness of what we are doing to the environment.

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So my tent is a thin shield from the elements.  This is a good thing and this is a bad thing. The good thing is that I feel close to Mother Earth and there is comfort in that.  The bad thing is that it’s only Fall and I am freezing at night with a warm camping bag, two blankets, and a very warm comforter.  And I am having hot flashes like nobody’s business where I am pulling covers off of me, drenched in sweat, and then get chilled to the bone when the hot flash is over and the sweat turns cold.  Oy.  Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

The first night in the tent was very uneasy.  You realize that there is little protection between you and nature.  There are coyotes yapping in the middle of the night.  The cows moo every so often.  I realize that I am just a city girl who had a little bit of outdoors training in Girl Scouts…but it was woefully inadequate and many moons ago.

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A portrait of Sitting Bull is across the room and he is looking directly at me.  I think I see a tiny bit of a smile. 🙂

October 3rd.  (How bad or good is it that I have totally lost time being with nature?  I had to go look up the date..haha.)

Okay….so I participated in yesterday’s protest of DAPL.  I really didn’t know what to expect because of what had been happening to the folks here on other protests.  I thought I was just going to come to lend my physical support and pray for them and for turning it around to live more sustainably.

Nope.  I was given nudges here and there and had to once again step outside my comfort zone and at least give it a try.

And while I was waiting in line to begin our journey, I felt my Dad’s presence for a beautiful moment.  He was happy I was going.

Now, you have to know my Dad to know how HUGE this was!  My Dad, being a Republican, was a Nixon man, you see, and he would go on and on about the hippies during the 1960s.  He and my brothers would get into arguments about long hair…even though their hair really wasn’t that long.

Anyway, I’m sitting there in my car, and my Dad’s spirit came to me with such warmth to let me know that protecting the water was important.  He was letting me know he was proud of me.

I would have done it without Dad’s approval, but it was a special moment.

So, we pulled out onto the highway, and then began dirt roads in the country.  Immediately, the yellow helicopter that zigzag wrote about in the prior posts was following us.

Back and Forth it went — from the front of the line clear to the back and side to side.  It flew over my car several times.  It has also flown over my tent in camp — circling two or three times.

We drove for an hour, and then headed back to camp.  Apparently, there were five work sites and the workers were warned we were coming and that there were a lot of us.  We counted 111 cars in the convoy.

I found out after we got back that just as we were leaving to return back to camp, there was a line of police cars headed our way.  They were going to surround us and box us in.

I cannot state strongly enough how disappointed and depressed I am about the militarized actions here.

They have an “information point” between here and Mandan, a city about 30 miles north. This information point has cement barracades so that motorists must leave the right side of the highway, zig to the left, and then zag to the right to get around them.

It’s not just National Guard, either, as there are usually police and sheriff vehicles there.  The guys there are usually friendly…but yeah, it is still intimidating.

On my way to Mandan this afternoon, there were two police cars at a veterans cemetary, and they both followed me into Mandan.

Two police cars for a nonthreatening, nonviolent grandmother.

On the other side of the encampment, towards the south, is a well-equipped communications RV  (that looks like a media truck I recall during the Indiana Dept of Health clinic held in Marion, IND, for the hepatitis globulin clinic. It bugs me and I don’t understand why right now, but wanted to put it out there.).  This communications RV had “United Command” painted in huge letters on its side.  It sends chills down my spine.

So…we have police cars, SUVs, the helicopters flying over (sounds like Vietnam, folks)…for nonviolent protectors of our water.

Am I in Nazi Germany or what??

This isn’t just about North Dakota, either.  Indiana puts 15 million pounds of toxins into the waterways every single year.  They allow BP to put 2 pounds of mercury into Lake Michigan every year (but, c’mon, we know that they are most likely putting more in there).  But no one in Indiana is willing to do what the Natives here are doing — putting their lives on the line.

The traditional Natives don’t look at the land or water as a commodity.  It is a gift from the Creator.

And they see it as something they have to take care of to hand over to their children and grandchildren and their children…

So this grandmother is doing this for her children and grandchildren and the generations to come after that.  We keep poisoning water and land and air telling ourselves that there is clean water, air, and land *over there*…but there is no *over there* any more.

As we came back from the protest yesterday, I saw a huge buffalo herd with moms and dads and babies enjoying the grass.  And on the Cannonball River, a beautiful crane plunked its feet into the water.  Horses bent their heads down to drink the water.

So much depends on water.  Life depends on water.

God Bless all of us fighting the good fight.   satan  is hard at work here.

…it is not necessarily a good thing…

My  post on May 4, 1970:  https://sunlightonthewater.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/four-dead-in-ohio/

The students were throwing rocks and half bricks at the guardsmen.

From what I have been seeing on the nooz, they are trying to make it criminal for any protest at all.

Okay, I’ve been thinking about the last post on paternalism and asking the warriors to disarm the Standing Rock protestors.  And the slam against whites…

I just want to make it absolutely clear that I am not for violence.  Weapons, in my view, should only be used in self-defense or defense of another.  It should be a last resort, not the first option.  Thou Shalt Not Kill (murder) was given to us for a reason.  To murder someone is feeding the Dark side.

There are instances in the Bible where self-defense was condoned.  Carrying a knife or gun can be effective just by having them in view.  It is a deterrent to the Dark side becoming aggressive if they know that.

When I say my prayers, this is how I approach it:

“Please help me to deal with those deliberately feeding the Dark side with shrewdness and cunning, strength, courage, and wisdom….and fierceness if need be.  Please Bless those who are feeding the Dark side and don’t realize what they are doing — please help them to know that they are feeding the Dark side and turn towards feeding the Light.”

This is so God understands what is in my heart and it helps to remind me not to feed negative energy, which feeds the Dark side.  It’s my view that negative energy, such as anger, can be turned into something positive IF it is used to help another or for a good cause, such as saving Mother Earth.

Some folks “get” what is going on — this is much, much deeper than a fight over unpolluted water.  This is a fight between Dark and Light.

The Dark side has been hard at work to:

-Break up families.  One way to do this was force mothers into the workforce.  Their children were put into daycare, where they are made to feel like a number;  their days are tightly controlled with activity time, bathroom time, snack or meal time, blah, blah, blah.  When at home, they had some schedule, such as meal times, but they were free to play and explore to wherever their heart led them.  They cannot do that in daycare.

This also serves a more sinister purpose:  destroy the connection with the once close relationships between Mothers and their children.  Mothers are too tired from working jobs and everything is rush, rush, rush when they get off of work.  Homecooked meals are becoming extinct.  The young ones all use microwaves and call that cooking.  Not only does microwaving a meal destroy the enzymes and vitamins necessary for healthy bodies, there is something lost when a meal is not cooked from scratch.  This is another area that the Feminists destroyed in their quest for equality — they so abhorred a woman who stayed home with her children, liking them to stupid subservient slaves, that many women saw it as laziness, or dinosaur thinking.  Anti-progressive, if you will.

It sounds sooo stupid now that I am on the flip side.  I will be eternally grateful that I was able to stay home with my kids.  The only thing is that women who stay home need support of a network, such as the Native Americans once had where everyone helped.  Mothers were not isolated as white women are, so they didn’t miss adult conversation and they weren’t relegated to the lodge (tipi) without being engaged in decisions made by the camp.  This is the one thing I suffered from — my ex had me so isolated that I only associated with whom he decided was “safe”  (a mark of an abuser is to isolate their mates).

-Destroy Education.  Then, when the young ones enter what is passing for education now, their days are even more regimented, with little education going on, but acting like little computers that spew out facts without understanding critical thinking or creative thinking. I also think this is going on with the selling of Library books which is illegal, because taxpayers paid for those books, for one thing, and for another thing, it is destroying the ability of us to continue our educations beyond high school.  It is removing information, and as a former president (Madison?) said, “Information is Power”  Those who have the information can use it to their advantage.

Taking away Art and Music classes, which were year around when I was going to school, they have taken away any way for a young person to explore outside the box.  Even those that have music and art class are being taught in a regimented way without much appreciation for classical music.  This is paramount to their spiritual growth.  The Native Americans often used song to call to God and God’s Helpers; European churches often used song in praise and spiritual connection.  Classical music, without words to interfere with the moving music, teaches the soul to listen to the beautiful notes and respond.

If they can get to the young while their brains are still forming, they can short circuit that part of the brain that is moved by Art and Music, and therefore, spirituality.

Again, I ask who would want to cut off a venue to connect with God?

-Destroy the Earth.  Water. Air.  Who would want to destroy what God has created?  Who would want to create so much toxicity that it is very, very difficult to connect with God?

Lastly, I truly believe what is happening at Standing Rock is a test.  The powers that be  want to know what we’re made of; and who is willing to fight for the very right to have unpolluted water, air, and soil.

Since I wrote about what was needed in the kitchen at the Standing Rock Camp, my apartment has been broken into.

Nothing was taken.  But my books were moved around, my supplements and vitamins were gone through, my towels were moved around (towels? really??).

They weren’t too careful about putting things back where they belong, so they must have wanted to make it be known that they were there.  I think I even saw the guy sitting in a tan/gold car that morning.

They wanted to see if they could find anything on me, I suppose.  It’s a cowards trick.  This is where it is somewhat amusing to me because my ex and his family have done a good job of gangstalking me (it has followed me to South Dakota thanks to those that break the commandment not to bear false witness)  — that people think I’m this horrible person when I am not.  So I find it really amusing that the powers that be are trying to darn hard to find something one me…but darn it, they can’t find anything bad to report.

I mean, I can laugh at the thought of the report:  organic food in the fridge and freezer, no drugs, no alcohol, no porn.  I can see the creep who broke in scratching his head and thinking WTH??  Haha.

I’ll leave to the imagination who this person was.  I know for one thing that there was no forced entry.  They simply picked the lock.  And it happened after I asked for assistance for Standing Rock.

No, I didn’t report it to the police.  I don’t know the police here well enough to know if they are part of the militarized police or whether they are the good guys still trying to hold up the Constitution.

I was reminded again yesterday why I won’t go to the police–

You might recall this post on the dying pigeons in Rapid City.  The day after I posted this, a police officer was parked outside the homeless shelter I was in.  He stared at me as I came out of the building.  I went to my car, four or five spaces away, and whenever I looked up, he was staring at me.  Later, I asked the staff if he had been here for a reason — hoping that it was just coincidence.  They said they weren’t aware of a reason, although the police were regularly being called there.  I never had one stare me down like that, however.

And yesterday, when I was briefly in Rapid City, a police officer was next to me in traffic, and then suddenly came in behind me and followed me until I was headed out to the interstate.  I was in Rapid only twenty minutes to a half hour.  Yep.  Again, it could be coincidence, but I don’t think so.  Others have commented on how Rapid City has taken on a negative energy to it.  I too, felt it, especially at the homeless shelter.  It truly felt like a portal of the Dark side.

If you think I’m being paranoid, you might recall that I once worked for the Indiana Department of Health, as a Public Information Officer.  This was in 2004, when they had been taken over by the CDC, which is now run by DHS.  They had preparedness classes where they were claiming that environmentalists were terrorists.  The scenario was that environmentalists would use syringes to shoot stuff like anthrax into food at 4-H Fairs.  It really shocked me.

Here’s a former report that appears to do just that, and serves a second purpose of divide and conquer — keep everyone suspicious of one another so they don’t talk to one another nor coordinate their efforts when they realize they’re fighting for the same things.

Since Native Americans were the first environmentalists…I have to wonder at this set-up, especially when I learned that George W. Bush said that there would be no more “Indian land”.  What did he mean by that?  They would take the small bit of land that the Indians have been concentrated on.

Why?  For one thing, it still has oil, plutonium or uranium, and other resources that the Natives have not allowed to be mined.

Another reason is that in these beautiful Black Hills, and the Plains, there is land here that looks exactly like it did when the British, French, and Spaniards landed.  It is indeed a striking view to behold.

So are the beautiful National Parks, which also are pure as they were thousands of years ago. (Well, as pure as they can be with pollution surrounding them).

So…you’re wondering what I’m leading up to?

Not only are they going to take the  Indian land (because the traditionals took care of the land and lived in harmony as the ancestors did), but they are going to take the National Park land, as well.

I had suspicions of this, but hoped it was just a thought.

However, that thought became closer to reality when I visited Wind Cave this summer, and saw in the Park’s store a Monopoly game.

Guess what they were buying and selling?  The NATIONAL PARKS!!

Leave it to those who would destroy the Earth to claim the only land left that is livable.  Not only livable, but sacred places to those seeking spiritual connection to God.

The Dark side, indeed, would like to remove all connection to God and nature is the ultimate connection to God.