Water is Life 2017

In 2016 Native American youth ignited a movement to stop an oil pipeline (DAPL) from polluting ancestral lands on their reservation. Called Water Protectors, the group attained international attention and momentum. Unprecedented in historical scope and magnitude, thousands of people sojourned to Standing Rock...and then left. Ill-equipped to handle the brutality of a North Dakota winter, the organic movement is once again left in the hands of farsighted youth. They face the challenge of fighting an enormous corporate and government machine, challenges of weather, and challenges of visionaries who want to support the camp, but enter without a complete understanding of what the camp has evolved into. However, a scintillating light is still burning. The movement was birthed (enasci) by young people, and in order to continue into 2017, it is young people, once again, who are braving the harsh winter in indigenous teepees and yurts. Many of them are looking for direction and what to do next. They must remain in love and they must remain unified. The truth at Standing Rock is continuously being revealed, and as long as those in the camp stay within the values they first yearned for, and then manifested, they have the power to keep going and the next right step will, in time, be revealed as well.