BY WILLIE GRAYEYES
Every day when I wake up, as is the tradition in my culture, I step outside and face east to greet the sun and pray. From my home on Paiute Mesa I can see the twin buttes of the Bears Ears and the ancestral homelands of my people stretching between and beyond. I pray for this landscape. Why? Because our elders’ spirits dwell in each rock face and canyon, each slope and stream. Because as Native Americans we rely on the Bears Ears region for spiritual well-being and cultural teachings to pass on to our children. And because right now its future — and our future — hangs in the balance.