This week, as we continue to track the humanitarian crises and wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the proliferation of the Iranian nuclear program, the Sudanese civil war, ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and too many other global hotspots, Native nations have gathered together for peace and prayer.

Many of our friends and relatives have journeyed to Pipestone, Minnesota — the center of Turtle Island — for this year’s World Peace and Prayer Day. Pipestone is a significant sacred site. Underneath it lies a vein of the sacred stone used for carving into our ceremonial pipes. In this special place, spiritual leaders and knowledgeable representatives from Indigenous populations far and wide have converged for an “international and intergenerational celebration for people of all faiths, nations, races, [and] ages.”

Click the pic to join the live-streamed event, which begins at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST on Friday, June 21.

Even if you can not physically be at Pipestone, you can watch some of the speakers and join the ceremony via Friday’s internet live stream, right here. Lakota spiritual leader Chief Arvol Looking Horse — the 19th keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Bundle — wants you to know that your participation, your prayers and actions, matter. 

“Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind,” he wrote on the event’s website. “Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this world. Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this world. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending.”

What more can be said? This is why all of us here at Lakota Law are so deeply appreciative of your friendship with our organization and your dedication to achieving peace and justice. As you know if you’ve read my past messages, we can’t have one without the other. Our ancestors fought so hard throughout the decades, and we must honor them now by uniting in both prayer and action. Our task is no less than to embrace our power and change this world.

Wopila tanka — my sincere gratitude for your participation!
Tokata Iron Eyes
Spokesperson & Organizer
Lakota People’s Law Project