Restoration and difficulties at Yalui Village

Under the momentous reverberations of the fierce courageous fight of the Wet’suwet’un people to protect Mother Earth and the violent armed attack of the white police, some of us are shaken with the urge to desert the land here and rush north.

At these times, it feels it’s too easy here, we are not doing enough, merely sitting here, holding the land, as the tribe works hard to prevent the expansion of the fuckin border ‘wall’ across the land these first people of the Rio Grande Valley, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation, lived, protected, and loved on for a millennium.

For some, it is difficult to be part of the moment to merely be here, being a presence that lets the tribe know they are not alone, that keeps the sacred fire going, that informs the local authorities they cannot participate in the exploitation and vile destruction of this land, that blocks the expanded construction of the ‘wall’, that puts the governor and national guard on alert that we are on alert and will not leave.

Yet we know it is very important work, we are still torn, wanting to be in two places (at the very least) at once; wishing there were more of us – always wishing there were more of us.

It is quite beautiful here: naturally quiet except for the serenading of the birds, the occasional yips of coyotes (hopefully the four legged kind), the soft wind blowing mostly warm and often wildly through the trees stretching boldly through and surrounding the village – maybe they’re cypress trees, none of us here now know – the early morning crow of a neighbor’s rooster, the infrequent scurry of a smaller four-legged; the silent flight of the vultures and hawks - we even think we saw a falcon soaring overhead to plunge down, skimming over the barren dirt field.

 Then there’s the intermittent but always eventually present day and night, intrusion of pickup trucks slowly passing by, sometimes lingering on the paved road on the south side or dirt levy on the north side: border patrol, sheriff, construction companies. Often in the dead of night the silence is broken by tractor trailer trucks roaring down the highway less than a mile away.

I feel as close as I ever felt to the possibilities of a different, ancient life where tending fire, cooking, washing clothes by hand, sitting and sleeping on the ground, allowing the endless sky, the full moon, the blacks and grays and whites of the clouds, the reds and oranges, pinks and yellows of the sun’s painting of the horizon to begin, fill and end my day, welcome my night.

 Bring your body to Yalui Village. Be prepared to follow the direction of the first people. Who will stop this atrocious ‘wall’ if not you? Donate to the tribe. Purchase and read the writings of the chief: http://www.carrizocomecrudonation.com/writings.html