We are not alone in western Massachusetts in fighting the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Following is an email forwarded to me from my 70-year-plus climate warrior friend, Miriam Kashia, who received it from a friend at the Dakota Access pipeline protest site (in North Dakota).
“Here I am, night falling at the Red Warrior camp. The wind’s become a breeze, fresh and deliciously cool. For a moment, the drumming stops. A horse whinnies and is answered by another. Fires flicker, and the smell of wood smoke wraps round the gathered tribes.
“What to say about the day? Twenty-seven hours with Irene on the bus, a reunion with dear friends from the climate march, Miriam Kashia, Deborah James and later, Andre Santiago Antonio Nunez. Through a procedural checkpoint and into camp, through the avenue of flags, so many nations represented here, over 200 tribal, international. Tents, teepees — some white, some painted and makeshift structures, fire pits and cars clustered across brown undulating landscape, the way a community forms and reforms. It’s visually intoxicating, but what I was not prepared for was the wide open welcome. People getting up to extend a hand in welcome. ‘We are one people, many nations but one people, one prayer. Thank you for coming.’ Again and again, ‘Welcome,’ eye contact and a pause to be sure we take each other in. Blessings bestowed. Blessings received.
“On the ridge above camp, heavy equipment hovers where the pipe’s been laid. This assembly of people from so far and so near is gathered to support the Lakota Sioux as they stand to protect their water, our water. They defend 40 miles that the Dakota Access pipeline intends to traverse. It’s a 2,244-mile black snake to transport Bakken oil to the Gulf, to be burned elsewhere. Much of the pipe’s been laid. So, it’s a thin line, precarious against the power of money and the willfulness of greed, but the resistance is real. The warriors will not leave. The kindness in the camp walks hand-in-hand with fierce determination.
“Water is life. It begins and ends with that felt understanding.
“In the night, I wake. One drum. A heartbeat. One voice singing and chanting. Darkness all around and one voice praying the world.
“With love, kai.”
John Bos
Shelburne