In considering the deepening crisis in North Dakota at Standing Rock where the treaty rights of Lakota/Dakota peoples (commonly known as the Sioux) are being violently violated, my thoughts turned back to the direct actions I participated in with Earth First! in the 1980’s. As opposed to the purely environmental concerns of Dave Foreman, Howie Wolke, Mike Roselle, Ken Sanders and other notable founders of that movement that I engaged with, I saw environmental protection as a spiritual matter.
      The article below was published in CATALYST Magazine and summarizes materials that I presented as a workshop at the Ancient Ways Festival in California in the early 1980s, produced under the auspices of the Covenant of the Goddess. This was the outcome of a deepening interest in Native American spirituality and driven by some of the successes in defending and protecting sacred places, that native peoples had recently had in court. I had been inspired to look into my own Celtic European roots for similar traditions, ceremonies and folkways. This led me to an involvement with Celtic Pagan traditions and credentialing by the Covenant of the Goddess. Anyone who has read other of my blogposts in Interfaith Advocate knows that my spiritual alignments are quite eclectic. For a number of years now I have been deeply involved in the Unity movement, whose byline is “One God, Many Paths”.
 
The Role of the Spiritual Activist in the Environmental Movement

A New Perspective
      We are in the midst of a revolution in consciousness which heralds the new age. It is the redefining of our very place in the universe. The movement of thought from “conservation”, a concept which is anthropocentric and economically based, to “deep ecology”, which takes life itself in all of its manifest diversity as its base — is a quantum leap towards faith. In this new perspective we see all liberation movements as having their ultimate ground in ecology. In its fertile soil lies the seeds of peace. Biological, socio-economical, political and cultural harmony are all branches of the one tree.

Aligning Ourselves in Thought, Word and Deed
      For those that subscribe to this creed there is a spiritual mandate to ally ourselves in the life of the Earth with our fellow beings. We must align ourselves in thought, word and deed. Esoterically in rituals of protection and healing, and celebrations of the cycles of seasons and thanksgiving. Exoterically  as teachers and political activists, engaging in protest and civil disobedience. It is not trite to say that faith and conviction are potent forces for change. Examine the roles of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King and the Rev. Daniel Barragan among many others in our recent history.
     The distinction between esoteric and exoteric considerations, although ultimately artificial, is useful in much the same way as are military strategists’ division of a war into fronts (a metaphor suggested by the urgency of our situation).

“Stead” — developing a sense of place
      Spiritual traditions arise out of a community’s relations with its environment and express themselves in the cultural trappings and unique poetry of their practice. A coven, a clan, a spiritual tribe is lost without “stead” — that is, the appointed or natural place of the thing, the ground on which a structure stands, that which gives the upright standing. Covenstead, the place of the gathering, meeting place of the four winds and the five senses.
      Come to know the land on which you live. Meet the inhabitant animals and plants, learn their names and the ways in which they fit into their environment. Your covenstead may assume the guise of political boundary, but must be mapped as a biome, a unit of living organisms in an ecological region; it defines itself in terms of ridge, valley and watershed, by that place where oak gives way to Douglas fir or field to fen. Find the heart of this place and make a shrine, altar of the wider temple in which you renew your faith by finding communion. Such an altar is a focal point for the gathering energies, crossroads of animal, mineral and plant, of devas and demons and of life and death. A place at which you may receive and give, a point of release for devotional energies, the appointed place for ritual and meditation.
      Exoterically we have the duties of conscience. Whether we celebrate in works of art and beauty and balance to which we are privileged witness, or find ourselves in confrontation with political powers and their sworn testimonies in halls of justice, we must stand with our alignments.
      As an environmental activist who acts for spiritual as opposed to “other” reasons, you bring to bear on specific cases, constitutional issues unique to your role in the movement. You must be prepared to demonstrate the integrity of your conscience through a history of affiliations and religious involvement. If called into court, your sincerity is in the province of witnesses and documents. Your views dodge the charge of being idiosyncratic when backed by common experience and by being encoded in charters.
      Law is a conservative venture requiring precedent and careful reasoning for which you will be held accountable. The notion of love may be dismissed as aesthetic, whereas the concept of devotion implies the possibility of sacrilege. The erection of a shrine and a history of religious activity at a given place may be important legal precedents if you are defending an act of civil disobedience. Knowledge of the traditions of indigenous peoples regarding the sacredness of a given place may stand as collaborative evidence. Your religious affiliations should have encoded in their traditions charters and administered credentials a philosophical basis for your actions.
      It is a spiritual war that we wage and our paradoxical weapons include shared hearts and minds as well as the tools of resistance. An ancient aphorism contends that the best defense is the making of friends. From the tradition of the four sacred hallows, also called the four magical weapons, comes the wisdom of offering the cup to those who thirst, the dish to those who are hungry and with the wand you may give the lost direction. It is in the final resort that we wield the iron will. May you be blessed in your service to the living.

While attending the 2015 Parliament of the World's Religions in SLC last year I signed the Indigenous Declaration which specifically addressed the desecration of sacred sites. We now have "boots on the ground" on site at Standing Rock. I was gratified to see Parliament Vice-Chair Andras Corban-Arthen leading the delegation meeting with the camp organizers.  I encourage all of you to visit the Parliaments site and sign this Declaration for Indigenous Peoples. The previous green text is a link.

Here is the Parliament of the World's Religions Statement On Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and an excerpt from it:

The Parliament of the World’s Religions denies any purported “rights” of the Dakota Access Pipeline to trespass on, build upon, and subsequently endanger the sacred land and water of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. We do not speak for the peoples whose sacred sites and waterways are under attack. Instead we respond to a call from our 2015 Parliament keynote speaker Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, and we are inviting you to join us in answering that call:

“What we are being faced with is a dark spirit. All life cannot afford to allow the same mistakes to be made any longer. Look what is happening to the four directions in the contamination of MniWic’oni – the water of life...”

“We are asking the religious leaders to come support them to stand side by side with them [the protestors at Standing Rock] because they are standing in prayer.”

                                                                       Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota Nations

On October 9th, 2016 Interfaith Partners of South Carolina presented “Peace in the Park” a festival/celebration at Saluda Shoals Park in Columbia, SC, a perfect venue for this event. As promised there was fun for all ages! Art, crafts, music, dance, entertainment, nature walks, and an art contest for young people! Ten different religions each had an activity area for crafts and games, the Commons area featured music and dance – both performing and participative, and many people enjoyed the nature trails with a local birder-naturalist, the afternoon topped it off with a giant spiral dance. Hundreds of people from many religious traditions came to celebrate peace, harmony, respect and dignity.

The weather was perfect although hurricane Matthew had reached even this far inland on Friday and Saturday, there was not much damage in evidence and the mood was celebratory! I arrived late in the afternoon due to a speaking engagement earlier in the day. This year featured a youth art contest organized by Dr. Will Moreau Goins and his dedicated team. Dr. Goins is the current president of IPSC and has dedicated his life to preserving, presenting and performing Native American music traditions, beadwork and storytelling. He weaves the ancient past, mythology and the present with dramatic narratives and song. He was the 2008 Recipient for Native American Traditions in South Carolina’s Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Awards. The Peace in the Park art competition showcased some wonderful work from a very diverse sampling of young people.

Of great personal delight for me was the strong presence of the Sikh community. I knew almost nothing about them before attending the Parliament of the World’s Religions which my wife Chris and I participated in Salt Lake City, UT October of last year. The Sikhs fed more than 7,000 of us each day. They have done so for each of the modern Parliaments and 150 of them flew in from England to support the 2015 event. My talk at UUC Columbia was about the Parliament and I was pleased to tell a number of Sikhs about my experience with Langar (the name for ritually prepared meals served as an offering of service) and how one of my slides featured a picture of their Golden Temple at Amritsar where they feed more than 250,000 people three meals a day, every day of the year. A crowning experience of my visit to the “Peace in the Park” event was being honored with a Sikh turban to wear for the rest of the afternoon. Attached is a picture that one of them took of me.

IPSC has a long and rich tradition in South Carolina and had it’s beginnings in the 1970’s as a Christian/Jewish ecumenical initiative and was headed up by Dr. Carl Evans, University of South Carolina Professor Emeritus, he retired from the Department of Religious Studies in 2009 having been a member of the faculty since 1974. Dr. Evans is also past president of IPSC. Unity ministers Ed Kosak of Unity of Charleston and Rev. Peggy Konkel of Unity of Columbia are active in the IPSC as well. Click on Interfaith Partners of South Carolina if you would like to visit their website and to see the good work they sponsor and/or support.

Here is a link to Holli Emore's lovely celebration of the event: Peace in the Park. I love the song which she used as well, it is One by One by Michael Stillwater.