STANDING ROCK UPDATE Hi Folks, In November, Carleton and I and another colleague from St. Louis went to Standing Rock in support of the Water Protectors. We had a chance to connect with Salvatore Caruso and Dianne McCabe who were there at the same time, supporting families in the Sicangu (Rosebud) Camp. We also had a chance to meet with Sheila Johnson who was working in the Medic Camp. The Army Corps of Engineers is now reviewing the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to continue to drill on ACE maintained land and under Lake Oahe/MO River. They might not make a decision until January. DAPL sued to continue drilling. The judge said he might not decide until January. There have been a couple additional clashes between the prayerful Water Protectors and the militarized police, DAPL Security, and National Guard.--water cannons spraying the Protectors in sub-freezing temperatures, forces using rubber bullets, concussion grenades, ear-piercing L Rads, mace and pepper spray. Over one hundred were injured. One college young lady might lose her arm. President Obama has been silent. Also, the Army Corp of Engineers has given Oceti Sakowin, the largest camp, also originally permitted to be on ACE property, an eviction notice, effective December 4. The Water Protectors are resolved to stay to protect their land and water. In the meantime, the harsh winter snows, winds and freezing temperatures have blanketed the camps. Sunday, December 4, 2,000 veterans are scheduled to arrive at Standing Rock to support the Water Protectors. The Water Protectors have declared December a month on actions on behalf of Standing Rock and all places threatened by environmental degradation and destruction. Below are listed some ways you can continue to support the Water Protectors and monitor the situation: 1-Pray with Standing Rock--tomorrow, Sunday, December 5 is a national prayer with Standing Rock. (see info below) 2-Contact N. Dakota officials, the Army Corps of Engineers, and President Obama 3-Divest from fossil fuel companies and banks that support the Dakota Access Pipeline and Energy Transfer Partners 4-Continue to be updated on what is happening there and share via social media. BEST SOURCES FOR CONTINUED INFO AND UPDATES: -Native American Media source--check section on Standing Rock articles: Indian Country Today Media Network - Official Site indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com Indian Country Today Media Network is your essential Native American news and information site offering superb online services in the areas of education, business and ... -Standing Rock/Sacred Stones Camp facebook tracking: https://www.facebook.com/CampOfTheSacredStone/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf www.noDAPLsolidarity.org Plus FB/googling Standing Rock 5-Contribute financially. There are many ways to contribute. If you want to contribute via the Presbyterian Church (USA), use the addresses below. Contributions: Can be mailed to: The Synod of Lakes and Prairies 2115 Cliff Drive Eagan, MN 55122 Note on check: Dakota Access Pipeline Account #2087 or given online or by check through Presbyterians for Earthcare/Presbytery of Northern Plains: Donate to supplies for Standing Rock Make a donation through Northern Plains Presbytery 6-Go to Standing Rock, but be prepared for the harsh weather and be self-sustaining and contributing. After the information on the Day of Prayer is a beautiful prayer sent by the Genesis Farm that leads into Standing Rock. Genesis Farm is an Ecologica/Earth Literacy Center in Blairstown, NJ, led by Sr. Miriam Mc Gillis. If you are interested in a report from my trip, you can email me. We hope for a just, peaceful and sustainable resolution to this situation. Thanks for your continued concern, care and action. Ellie Stock elliestock@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pray with Standing Rock - to register: https://praywithstandingrock.com/home Dear Friends, Thank you for joining tens of thousands around the world as we pray and meditate with Standing Rock, taking a stand for protecting what is sacred, together. Our first Global Synchronized Prayer was Nov 26th where thousands gathered worldwide at community events to pray and meditate together and over 280,000 prayed and meditated with our broadcast. Click here to listen to our November 26th prayer led by indigenous leader Ivan Looking Horse. Our second Global Synchronized Prayer will be December 4th at 10:00am CST. Click here to find your local time! The Broadcast will be available at www.praywithstandingrock.com/broadcast Our facebook event has updates and photos from on the ground team! Please invite your friends who would be honored to positively impact the momentum of Standing Rock. This is how we say Thank You as one human family while we stand together to protect, heal, and nourish the sacred foundation of life. Thank you for joining. The Pray With Standing Rock Team Genesis Farm December 2, 2016 Perhaps Paradise was never lost. Earth can’t be lost. She can be desecrated and abused. She can be diminished severely in her beauty, health and creativity, yet still endure. Prophets, poets and wise people from earlier times also mourned the loss of people, lands and things they loved. They did their best to explain the mystery of change. Especially difficult change that brought a sense of loss. Maybe they told stories about loss that helped them to cope. Maybe some of them thought Earth was originally a magical Paradise where there was no loss. Then, a serious event happened which caused Earth’s very self to be degraded causing everything and everyone with it to undergo the same fate. A sense of Paradise was lost. Maybe there was a sense that Earth needed to be redesigned and re-engineered to create a better Paradise. Hence, hard work and perseverance gave birth to industrialization, eugenics, war, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, torture, and bullying. Maybe at some depth of soul, the eight billion of us in this human generation knows better. Maybe Earth is Paradise. Maybe humans are sensing that the older stories need to be re-examined. Maybe the prospects of leaving Earth to go to Mars are producing some hesitation. And anxiety. Mars? Maybe the indigenous wisdom arising at Standing Rock is an uprising of common sense, sanity and compassion for the planet. Maybe the clear vision, love and courage in the people realistically facing the loss of their water is stirring something deep in all of us. Perhaps we are looking into the severe differences being played out over the implications of some of those older stories. Maybe that is why so many countless people at Standing Rock, day after freezing day, are aligning with the common sense and love for life still enduring at the depths of our collective soul. Perhaps we are remembering our own indigenous wisdom. Maybe it has just been forgotten and neglected, but never lost. Anymore than Paradise. Perhaps it has taken the awful brutality done to those crying out to protect the waters of our planet, for the rest of us to gaze into the shadow of our nations’ soul, our collective self, and say: No more. No more. We all live close to the waters that we drink. Water is life. Every water basin is a “shed” holding water. A watershed. No people in their right mind would poison or contaminate it. Common sense knows better. Let us begin with the Missouri River. Here’s how: Write, call, petition President Obama to permanently halt the Dakota Access Pipeline through the sacred lands and waters of the Standing Rock Sioux. http://lakotalaw.org/?gclid=CNm1-ojy1dACFZJMDQodcGgDeQ Contribute to the Standing Rock Winter Encampment http://www.honorearth.org/ Be prepared to defeat a fracked gas pipe coming your way before it does. http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/fracking-across-the-united-states Divest in Fossil Fuel Companies https://350.org/divest/ Write to Pope Francis, asking him to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery https://1drv.ms/w/s!AkhNLVylX0V5gRnrFeN_ZOOHhMGB Come home to a sense of place, to the bioregional possibilities of the place where you live. Think small, think local but carry the whole planet in your soul. We can help to restore it, one watershed at a time. https://1drv.ms/w/s!AkhNLVylX0V5gRsnwiKreMZbUENl Explore in every way possible the insights of a new evolutionary story of the origin of the Universe, Earth, life and human life with all its racial, religious, gender and cultural diversities. But consider especially the possibilities you will unleash within yourself by enrolling in https://www.coursera.org/learn/thomas-berry Click to view this email in a browser If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this message with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line or simply click on the following link: Unsubscribe Genesis Farm 41a Silver Lake Rd Blairstown, New Jersey 07825 US Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy.