“A very great vision is needed, and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.” –Crazy Horse
The encampment at Standing Rock was originally formed to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). During the time I spent there during the latter half of 2016, I watched it evolve from a site of resistance into a lived model of a world beyond what it was resisting. In other words, it became an experiment in living outside systems that necessitate pipelines. Tribes and other groups stepped up to provide services the government usually administers, including schooling and security. It even took steps towards energy independence.
The camps raise the possibility of an indigenous-led, multicultural society independent from fossil fuels and corporate power–a society that holds our relationship to the land and our fellow beings as sacred.