This is What Reconciliation Looks Like

This is What Reconciliation Looks Like December 6, 2016

On November 1, I wrote that our ancestors are asking for forgiveness through us. News that the US Army Corps of Engineers denied the final permit needed for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross Lake Oahe which forms part of the Stand Rock Sioux tribe’s sacred land, which was desecrated with the 1960s era dam that created the lake in the first place.

Monday, as spirits were high, and it looked like the pipeline route was either being rerouted or terminated, over 200 veterans arrived at the protector’s camp to lend support and participate in a healing forgiveness ceremony.

The touching images and prayers make me think that a postcolonial world really is possible; and that the future of environmental action is inherently about protecting the sacred; and that Native peoples all over the world will lead that movement.


Browse Our Archives