Talking Water
Talking Water is an offering by Walking Water ...
Walking Water, born from a vision received in Payahuunadü - "the place where the water flows" on the ancestral homelands of the Paiute-Shoshone people - is a project and a prayer that centers water as teacher, guide, and sacred source.
We began as a three-year pilgrimage along the natural and human-made waterways between Mono Lake and Los Angeles, CA, partnering with local and global communities to collectively bear witness to the situation of water in our world. Following the path of water from source to end-user, we witnessed histories and current realities of destruction, violence, harm and extraction. Alongside the stories of grief, we celebrated those of beauty and resilience - possibilities for the healing and regeneration of waters, landscapes, and communities.
We continue to listen to the guidance and orientation of water, for how Walking Water might serve as one tributary within a global and intergenerational movement to restore relations with waters, lands and peoples. We move with the question: what world is possible if human beings devote themselves - personally, politically, spiritually - to that which gives life? We understand how essential it is for us to recognize and honor the leadership of Indigenous peoples and communities of color who have been protecting the waters and the lands from extraction and exploitation for hundreds of years -whose life ways, languages and cultures offer profound teachings for how to grow into right relationship.
A commitment to healing waters asks each of us to find our role in movements that struggle to dismantle oppressive systems that commodify waters, lands and peoples in pursuit of power and profit. And as we carry the dream of justice for waters and peoples alike, we strive to uplift and support those individuals and communities who are "acupuncture points" of healing and possibility, actively living towards that more beautiful and liberated world.
For more info go to: https://walking-water.org
To support the work of Walking Water go to: https://walking-water.org/donate/
Walking Water is a fiscally sponsored project of Weaving Earth
Banner photo by Teena Pugliese
Talking Water
with Tala Khanmalek
We welcome Tala Khanmalek to Talking Water.
Tala Khanmalek (she/they) is a writer, activist, educator, and sailor-in-training. She is the creator of Sailing for Social Justice, which was a sponsored project of the Detroit-based Allied Media Projects. Her water work links sailing with social, environmental, and healing justice in both theory and practice.
Sailing for Social Justice began with a dream that immediately led Tala to sailing. After learning how to sail for several years, Tala developed SSJ and led her first public workshop at the 2018 Allied Media Conference. SSJ is a grassroots project that links sailing with social, environmental, and healing justice in both theory and practice. At its core, SSJ seeks to transform dominant sail culture by:
*Bringing attention to past and present activist movements in which water vessels (e.g., canoes, boats, ships) play a central role
*Making connections between navigating waterways and navigating systems of oppression
*Uplifting the significance of seafaring traditions for building a livable and sustainable future.
Hosted by: Kate Bunney
Produced & Edited by: Teena Pugliese and Anne Carol Mitchell
Intro music by: Mamuse 'River Run Free' - featuring Walter Strauss
If you feel inspired by Talking Water please consider a donation - our work relies on the community. You can donate here.
For more info go to Walking Water website
