The Buckthorn Man enters 2015 swinging a chainsaw and a torch in the hopes that you will see the lay of the land.

Walk this trail with me:  Start with an abstraction called government and make it real in your mind (reification); then anthropomorphize it with the worst of human characteristics i.e., psychopathy and you get the metaphor — The U.S. Government is a Psychopath.

Jan Irvin showed me this trail in his recent podcast entitled: “Remedy Roundtable 05 – Prof. Jay Courtney Fikes, Lydia & Royce White Calf – “The Lakota, Naropa Institute, and Wounded Knee – From Gen. Custer to Carlos Castaneda.”  I’m embarrassed sometimes by my lack of recollection of history and resulting inability to put current events into context.  When reminded of the way the Lakota were treated by the U.S. Government following the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, and the way they are being treated now, in the context of the Keystone XL Pipeline debate, I know we are dealing with a psychopath.

It didn’t take but a few years for the U.S. Government to strip the Lakota of the vast majority of the lands, “…set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named…”, as declared in Article II of the treaty.

(Map sourced from OWE AKU International Justice Project)

The U.S. Government has physically, culturally and financially terrorized the Oglala Lakota, or Oglala Sioux, people since they first met.  The latest abuse is the continued ignorance of their legitimate ownership claim to the lands ceded to them back in 1868, which, inconveniently, would give them veto power over the proposed path of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

(Map sourced from TransCanada)

The debate in congress focuses on man-made climate change, and the potential for a spill on the pipeline route to pollute the Oglala Aquifer.

But, missing in the debate in the mainstream media and congress, is the context that the proposed pipeline would pass directly through territory ceded by treaty to the Lakota: a treaty the U.S. government abrogated within 8 years of signing.  The Lakota people are the only military opponent of the U.S. Government to capture it’s flag 3 times and they are not done fighting!  They have refused to be bought off and they stand united to protect the earth and assert their legitimate rights.

I described the double bind I’m in volunteering at The Springs in a recent post i.e., I Hate Government — I Serve Government, and I tried to resolve it by suggesting that I’m really serving The Creator, not the the temporary owner of the land.  And so I carry on…

The snow is swirling and blowing outside as I write this and I’m really glad we focused on burning as many brush piles as we could at The Springs, before they got buried.  Thursday I was joined by Chris Mann and his team from the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards including: Andy Buchta, Austin Avellone and Phil Hass.  Our goal was to burn all of the piles near the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail parking lot on Hwy ZZ.

We did that and a whole lot more.  I really enjoy working with these guys!  The audio on this clip is drowned out by the wind at times, but you’ll get the idea.

Chris and Phil returned after dinner to listen to The Buckthorn Man rant.

I was in the neighborhood, fetching some water at the Parry Road Spring on Friday, and took advantage of the lack of snow to add some gravel to the beginning of the trail where water tends to puddle.

Here are a view perspectives of the areas we burned on Thursday.

I continued clockwise on the trail through the old buckthorn alley until I arrived on the east end and surveyed the areas we recently burned there.

I’ve been working well into darkness for the last couple of weeks so I really enjoyed seeing The Springs in the daylight.

When I arrived at the Emerald Spring, the water was cloudy and disturbed and I suspected a creature had just vacated the premises.  In this video I jump to the conclusion that a turtle is making it’s home in the neighborhood, but I think it might be a muskrat.  What do you make of this?

Turtle caves?  Muskrat dens?

See you at The Springs!