I hope we might be at an inflection point today. The beauty and grandeur of natural landscapes have been desecrated time and again. Those who will go to any extreme to plunder the earth of coal, oil, minerals and even water have used laws and military force for their extractive purposes. Without care for our children and our children’s children.

At Standing Rock many nations and peoples came together and showed the world how to pray and protect the water.

This time it is the sacred ancestral lands of the Apache at Oak Flat in Arizona, with rich deposits of copper, that are threatened. Legislation hidden in the National Defense Authorization Act in 2015 allows Resolution Copper to begin mining that copper in 2020.

Former Chairman Wendsler Nosie Sr. eloquently describes this situation, this spiritual struggle. Calling on people of faith to support efforts to prevent the theft of the land and mining.

The Poor Peoples Campaign is answering the call for people of faith to come to Oak Flat, and will be there this Friday December 13th-14th in solidarity and support of the Apache. The ceremonies will begin at 6:30 pm on Friday in Oak Flat and end on Saturday at 11:00 am.

If you cannot attend in Arizona, then please contact your governmental representatives.

Let this be the moment our faith and our prayers protect Mother Earth and all our relations.

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What I have found in my time praying in the indigenous earth based ways, is that it’s not about putting your hands together and talking to god…. It’s about quieting and connecting with the baseline of creation, of nature. Tuning into the frequency and vibration of the natural world, the nature spirits. The beings and entities that have been in existence, for all of existence, the examples and realities of sustainability and harmony.

It’s about becoming receptive to these things. Being open and flowing with them. The spirit guides us, but we have to make ourselves receptive to feel, sense, and respond to this guidance.

Joshua Taflinger

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A possible template for a letter or a call to you representative.

Dear _________

Please help protect the sacred ancestral lands of the Apache at Flat Oak, Arizona. If Resolution Copper is not prevented from mining the copper deposits there, it would devastate the area by leaving a 2 mile crater where Oak Flat is now and contaminate the water and air.

Help us preserve these sacred lands to preserve their beauty, and that they might provide spiritual guidance and strength for your children and ours, to all our relations, for many generations to come.