We begin by acknowledging we are on the traditional homelands of theropods, sauropods, the plesiosaur, and trilobites. We acknowledge their demise and give thanks for their departure so mammals could flourish here.

We pay our respect to the elder Pangea, who held this land together 250 million years ago. 

We honor Earth’s movement. Together we acknowledge that the land we stand on today once rested 15 degrees north of the equator. 

We honor the ecosystems that came before our present day landscape of red, orange, pink, and yellow sandstone. We acknowledge the history of subtropical fern, palm, and river oases. 

We acknowledge the rock we stand on as direct descendants of the ancient dunes who dried the rivers as the land we call North America gradually drifted north from the equator. 

We owe our respect to Wind’s work who deposited those ancient sand dunes which were larger than our modern day Sahara desert.

We acknowledge Earth’s constant movement and slow transformation. 

The present day land we call home is arid, but we remember the Western Interior Seaway who brought a swampy, riverside, coastal habitat here. We acknowledge that we live on the homelands of freshwater clams, turtles, fish, snails, salamanders, frogs, lizards, crocodiles, and insects. We treasure the bones of reptiles and shark teeth that linger in the shale today. We pay our respect to the crustecons embedded in the sandstone.

We recognize the mass extinctions that occurred before us to make room for our species.

Since time immemorial, Sun, Water, and Wind have lived here harmoniously.

At last, we recognize the painful history that humans have with this land. 

We apologize for human greed and human nature to fight, kill, and work themselves to death just to claim ownership. We acknowledge how humans continue to oppress free flowing rivers and native migration paths. We see how policies, inventions, and industrialization destroy clean air and water. 

We acknowledge that human’s impact on this land is temporary, and we recognize that Earth may not always be a home to humanity.

We acknowledge that the sacred balance has been lost, so we call upon Earth’s caretakers. Teach us how to interpret the land. Uplift the voiceless. Through this acknowledgement we renew our commitment to the sacred sandstone.