Updated: this was yesterday: The reasons that I need to leave ocheti, that I need to leave sacred stone, that I need to leave this fight seem endless. They constantly assault my nervous system brutally, painfully, endlessly. In.......

Updated: this was yesterday:

The reasons that I need to leave ocheti, that I need to leave sacred stone, that I need to leave this fight seem endless. They constantly assault my nervous system brutally,  painfully, endlessly. In no particular order. At best at best at best there is a snowball's chance in hell that will have any impact now on the universe. There reached the point when the Titanic was going down and I believe that point was reached quite a long time ago for us and for America, and I have written of this in recent years. This Camp Prides itself on Unity. There is virtually no Unity. If there are 300 people left in the camp there are almost three hundred reasons why each individual is here and no one will admit this, no one will talk about it. Would you have your son or daughter operated on by a surgical team of 20 people where there was no Unity,  where all 20 had their own idea of what kind of operation it was let alone how to conduct themselves?? Would you expect the Pentagon to win a war or even a scrimmage if all of the people had different missions? Nearly 300 people left, in one camp? In a dozen camps. Again, no Unity. Some of the camps are identified by tribal name. Some of the camps are unidentified accidentally and some deliberately. Deliberately unidentified is the little click of arrogant youth that have been empowered by someone with money I presume to think that they are superior, smarter, more able than everyone else, that make plans, that are making plans, in secret, while swearing that no one is in charge that everyone is equal. oh and the many / age, hormones, physical strength... There is  much sick superiority , egoism, discrimination. I doubt that they understand the sickness they're involved with but it's cancer. Did I mention no leadership. I did not decry that there is no management, that is not what I mean by the word leadership. Leadership is the opposite of management. leadership is the ultimate role of service both in humility and in scope where it is the role of the leader to understand all of the above and to work the magic of knitting people and camps together so that there is Unity so that it is one group. There is virtually none of that nor is the problem acknowledged but rather it is buried. The ignorance of non-violent struggles in history is Breathtakingly overwhelming, only more breathtaking By The ignorance that it's important. Would you allow your daughter to be operated on by a surgical team that had not been to medical school and really didn't care what people that prior had succeeded in the operation knew or had practiced?   and knowing all this by virtue of being a lifelong student and practitioner of high-stakes nonviolent change,  that all this spells near certain Doom of any material positive outcomes,  do I not owe it to my beloved sisters and brothers here to walk away as a means of stating my concern so that they could act accordingly or at least be informed?  oh, and did I mention that all indications, all indications, all indications are that even our closest friends have already accepted That if Morton County and Trump's government come in to slaughter us that there is nothing they can or will do to stop it?

As of this moment there are two primary reasons why I am likely to stay:

A.  the man who I Revere above all, as did the Hindu man Gandhi, Jesus, we are told that Jesus said when speaking in the direction of who he experienced as his father, Creator, we're told that he said, of the few Souls you gave me I have not lost any. Never has this scripture struck me as significant until several days ago when it became very significant. Maybe I can help a little, Martin Luther King said a person is not equipped to live, is not living, unless they know that which they would gladly die for. a coal in the many fireplaces that keep us from freezing to death here in sub zero fahrenheit weather, a coal that is dark in a fireplace is certainly a coal, but it is not a live coal from which life can be derived or multiplied. There are dozens and maybe hundreds of live souls in this Camp, quite possibly more than are collected in any place on Earth right now. Yes my abilities are laughably pitiful but for the moment and for the last day or so I find it sustaining the idea that it is worth my life and everything I can do to try and protect those coals and keep them from going out in the chest even if The fascist regime physically snuffs out in life in prison or with bullets or both.

B.   my sense is that Oceti cannot Escape its role in human history As the origin point of any and all future fight, any and all future nonviolent battles. We have had the attention of the world. I suspect that how we individually exit, not to be confused with what material outcomes we achieve or do not achieve, but whether or not we effectively model standing for something more important to us than our own lives will have an impact on all efforts going on on the Earth today and in the future. I do not retract that I think that years ago the Titanic on which we all live past the point of no return, but I don't know that. And I suspect that not knowing that I will find the strength to with some gladness stand on my responsibility to be what infinitely small little part I can of a proper stand against insurmountable evil that the world needs to see and to copy.

Today:

Today I think differently. Today I think that what we owe the next seven generations is to leave Oceti.  The bright burning coals here, so rare, dozens or more, is something to celebrate, but it is reason to leave. We must find the courage to face that our courage, our willingness to gladly die for Mother Earth and for future Generations is not enough. The Litany of deficits in the first part of this post, we must leave and if we really love mother earth, if we really love Creator, if we really love the next Generations then we must dedicate ourselves to learning the lessons that let us fill these deficits. We need to study. We need to reflect. And first of all we need to admit our failures despite our best efforts so that we and others might learn. Or is the lesson of this Camp to be the glory is in the bright burning coals allowing themselves to be snuffed out for some Glory? I think we owe Creator, Mother Nature, the next seven generations, our sisters and brothers today more than this.

Tomorrow?

I don't know yet.