The purpose of this important work is to create a teaching ground for youth of how to be a human being in today’s society that carries innate responsibilities directed from one’s Ancestors. This is to respect the freedom of choice we are given in this lifetime. It is to be an active participant in the continued healing of the historical trauma of family, extended relatives and one’s environment.
The rise of industrial agriculture, mostly to grow food for industrial animal production, has come at a huge cost to lands, communities, cultures and lifeways. The Black Hills of South Dakota in the North where Monsanto’s GMO seeds and chemical pesticides have harmed the land and the people, and the Lacandon and the Kogi territories in the South, are experiencing rapid-fire destruction of their traditional life and food ways.
With strong living Traditional Knowledge experience, Chief Arvol Looking Horse chooses to live amidst hundreds of roaming wild horses in Green Grass, South Dakota on Cheyenne River Reservation. This location is also home to the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle which he has been tending to since he was twelve years old, passed to him by his Grandmother. He is now the 19th Generation Keeper.
As a continued commitment Chief Arvol Looking Horse will continue to lead the 30th Ceremonial Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride. The annual 200 mile winter horseback ride started in 1986 by Future Generation Riders has become a spiritual and educational journey for people and animals that heals and bridges Indigenous Elders with Youth to inspire a remembrance of history, a pride in culture and victory over oppression by a surviving community united in ceremony.
Often industrial agriculture grows GMO crops to feed, not people, but animals who are held in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production investigated problems associated with industrial farm animal production operations and recommended CAFOs be phased out within 10 years.
