Day 10 at Standing Rock: Kings Return

About the Music: “Kings Return”

From the musician, Cee Goods:

I wanted to end the awareness campaign with something powerful. Something that will last. Like Earth. Earth will beat out all our human greed. I pray we can unite to respect this miracle we live on.

From Matt:

I ate Thanksgiving dinner today, but we called it by many different names. Forgiving Day. No Banksgiving. Native Feast Day was my favorite.

We were all invited to the community high school in the nearby town of Cannon Ball, and the community served and ate dinner with us.

A Lakota elder spoke to the crowd first. He told his people's story of the black snake and sang a prayer song.

Then he thanked his Lakota brothers and sisters for being there, and said that we were all Lakota. That we were all living out the values of peace, love, protection and unity.

I thought I was coming to Standing Rock to serve. To help. To offer up my privilege and stand up against something.

It's that, for sure, but it's also much more. It turns out the "Lakota way" is pretty simple: to be your purest, best self every moment of the day. There is no protest, because there is only one way to live.

If we heal ourselves, we can heal the sickness threatening to flow into that pipeline.

Every moment is another chance to live like a king again if you choose to love yourself. If we do that, we will all be living in resistance. We will all be standing with Standing Rock in the most profound way possible. I would be thankful if you would join us.

#NODAPL #DAPL #CeeGoodsProduction #MattHalvorson #StandingRock #Unity #Community #Earth #Preserve #Water #Life #Love #Fight #Together #Peace #WaterProtectors #Beats #HipHop #Portland

Day 9 at Standing Rock: Major Keys

About the Music: “Major Keys”

From the musician, Cee Goods:

Every move we make is major. We are all in this together, and together we can take down corporations. They need us, they need our money. We can fight and win the war. 

 "I am not god. We are God."

I love my family and my friends with intensity. It's part of what fuels me every day. And I love them actively — especially my family. We support each other, and we fit into each other's lives as part of a little web, an ecosystem almost. We hug and hold each other and help connect each other to the real beauty of deep, unshakable love.

The pain of Standing Rock has finally started to make the news. But the magic of Standing Rock is that so many people here are somehow learning to love everyone else with that same intensity and activity. In the old world, we were strangers. In the New World, we are brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents and children, and we treat each other that way. We live with the Earth, not on it.

Written behind Emma in this photo are the camp's direct action principles, led by the ideas of protection over protest, prayer and love over fear and reaction. Standing Rock can change the world because it is not simply about standing up to injustice and declaring that it's wrong. It's about saying enough is enough, and living differently come hell or high oil prices.

There's a reason "All You Need is Love" was the first satellite broadcast on planet earth. It's probably the truest thing anyone's ever said.

The best thing you can do to support Standing Rock this minute — and every minute — is to love everyone in your life as gently and intensely as you can. Then make the decision to share that love with the next person, too.

I am not god. We are God. And if we all realize that, we will change the world.

Day 6 at Standing Rock: Life is Sweet

Life is Sweet. We value our lives. They can try and attack with any means of weaponry, but it does not match the level of commitment to stopping this pipeline. Our lives are worth too much.

About the Music: “Life is Sweet”

(co-produced by Old Gold; vocals by @frankstickemz - aka Flowzavelt)

From the musician, Cee Goods:
Life is sweet. We value our lives. They can try and attack with any means of weaponry, but it does not match the level of commitment to stopping this pipeline. Our lives are worth too much.

(The following are actual text messages I sent to Spencer (aka Cee Goods) on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016. It was too hectic to write anything coherent.)

"Please share, protest, donate - do whatever you can do. What is happening at Standing Rock is happening to all of us... whether we realize it or not."

"I fell asleep sitting up in my car from about 430 to 630. Woke up and something was going down off in the main camp in the distance. Police cars, and a call for all the protectors to come to the bridge [on Highway 1804, which has been blockaded and closed for several weeks]."

"Police are definitely here, but it's not clear if they are the perpetrators or if it's DAPL."

"Can't get through on twitter or Facebook right now. Two planes and a helicopter circling constantly right now. Lots of people shot with both gas and rubber bullets in face and chest. People have gotten tear-gassed, they're using a water cannon to soak people and things."

"Concussion grenades and rubber bullets. Shit is going down. Someone has already left in an ambulance. There are no reporters or news outlets here."

Day 2 at Standing Rock: K.I.N.G.S.

Uploaded by Matt Halvorson on 2016-11-18.

About the Music: “K.I.N.G.S.”

From the musician, Cee Goods:
Because everyone standing at Standing Rock resembles true power and leadership. The commitment, the unity, the fight. All are worthy of being a king for this land. The beat shares a distant war cry in the back, but includes peaceful flutes demonstrating the protests in full.

The folks living in these teepees in the photo above were my first neighbors at Oceti Sakowin, the largest of the three main camps of people at Standing Rock.

Supporting the direct acts of prayer and protest on pipeline work sites is an entire community of people, many of whom never approach the "front lines." Oceti Sakowin had seven separate kitchens when I arrived, all of which arose organically out of a need in that particular area of the camp. Across the river to the north are two more camps, Rosebud and Sacred Stone, which sit on the southern edge of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

Throughout the combined camps, needs are met as they arise. Several medical tents provide care of all kinds for anyone who asks. It is common to find donation tents as well, filled with clothes, blankets, camping gear and other supplies to be taken as needed. Everyone gives freely and takes only what they can't do without.

These prayerful, integrated communities make possible the more "newsworthy" direct action, and they are open to all. They are open to you, as soon as you decide to come and stand with Standing Rock.

10 Days, 10 Photos, 10 Songs: An Awareness Campaign for Standing Rock

For the next 10 days, I am collaborating on a Standing Rock awareness campaign with Cee Goods (who also happens to be my brother-in-law). He will be creating one instrumental track each day, each based on a photo I have taken at Standing Rock. This will end on Thanksgiving, because the way of life and respect for the land that the Native Americans have always fought for and tried to preserve still rings true today.

Day 1: "Dark Love"
Day 2: "K.I.N.G.S."
Day 3: "End of Trump"
Day 4: "DreamsVille"
Day 5: "The Stand Off"
Day 6: "Life is Sweet"
Day 7: "Judgement Day"
Day 8: "Diamond"
Day 9: "Major Keys"
Day 10: "Kings Return"