Native American youth ignite the movement to stop oil pipeline DAPL from polluting ancestral lands on their reservation. Called Water Protectors, the group attained international attention and momentum. Unprecedented in historical scope and magnitude, thousands of people sojourned to Standing Rock...and then left. Ill-equipped to handle the brutality of a North Dakota winter, the organic movement is once again in the hands of the farsighted youth. They face the challenge of fighting an enormous corporate and government machine; challenges of weather; and challenges of visionaries who want to support the camp but enter without a complete understanding of what the camp has evolved into. Against all odds, a scintillating light is still burning. The movement was birthed (enasci) by young people, and in order to continue into 2017, it is young people, once again, who are braving the harsh winter in indigenous teepees and yurts. Many of them are looking for direction and what to do next. They must remain in love and they must remain unified. The truth at Standing Rock is continuously being revealed, and as long as those in the camp stay within the values they first yearned for and then manifested, they have the power to keep going and the next right step will, in time, be revealed as well. - - - Update from a Standing Rock volunteer, January 31, 2017 - I have returned from Standing Rock with my mind blown, my heart broken and my spirit troubled with this deepening tragedy. I have witnessed several confrontations between Water Protectors (WP) and law enforcement (LE). I observed WP with their hands in the air chanting "hands up don't shoot" being fired upon at a range of 10 to 15 feet. Tear gas canisters and rubber bullets were used against unarmed WP who had been singing and praying. I observed national guard chasing WP off the Backwater bridge, firing at people running away. I heard people choking and gagging from tear gas. I saw access to the WP medic vehicles being blocked. I spoke with medics and WP who described bullets penetrating flesh and causing terrible injuries. I saw photos of a sheriff aiming a rifle directly at a media woman who was standing apart from the crowd. I heard testimony of the back of the medic pickup truck being awash in blood after evacuating wounded. I inadvertently became a part of WP being forced off the bridge by national guard who were hiding behind WP vehicles parked along the road and firing rubber bullets at fleeing people. Many people were shot in the back, the neck, the head. When LE fired at people at close range, many were shot in the genitals or in the face. I received information about DAPL security breaching the short wave radio channels of the WP. There are some young warriors who have vowed to not leave the camps or to let the last section of pipeline be built. Driving away from the area I saw a convoy of construction vehicles heading to the drill pad. There are reports of drilling and construction coming from the drill pad. Without the eyes of a free press these attacks and trespasses continue, with the human rights and sovereignty of indigenous peoples denied. The UN Committee on Transnational Corporations and Human Right Abuses was in Standing Rock this week to take testimony of the many transgressions against people: crop dusters spraying poison pesticides and fertilizers on the camps; hair samples indicating the presence of these chemicals; people who have been injured, beat up, arrested, strip searched; media and medics being targeted by snipers; (one medic told me he stopped wearing his Red Cross vest due to medics being targeted); praying people being attacked and the refusal of DAPL and our government to abide by the Rule of Law. Veterans who came last December to stand down against these crimes need to be there now, right now. We need to stand up for our brothers and our sisters, for their way of life and, I believe, for our social contract as a democracy which is now th