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
Water Learning Series: LA - Session One with Tina Calderon, Annie Mendoza, Teri Red Owl & Kyndall Noah
“More than what you call the capturing or retention of these waters, is speaking up to give the waters their rights. They need to flow freely. We need to stop taking the water from up north, which means we need to figure out how to stop damming up our waters. We had water sources. What happened to them? We need to bring that back. More than what we call things, we need to use our voice to do the right thing.” –Tina Calderon
Welcome to the first session of the year-long Water Learning Series: Los Angeles, where we will host 11 conversations with organizations, community projects, tribal organizations, activists, organizers, and leaders from LA and places impacted by LA’s water story. We begin this series with indigenous voices at the forefront.
We welcome Tina Calderon (Gabrielino Tongva, Chumash and Yoeme), Teri Red Owl (Bishop Paiute Tribe Nuumu from Payahuunadu), Annie Mendoza (Gabrieleno-Tongva), and Kyndall Noah (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) to share their stories about what the area that is now Los Angeles once was and how an indigenous perspective is needed in relation to how water is treated in LA. The conversation explores the questions: What is the truth of the past? How does that impact the present? What is the future we want to become? Through the reflections of the guests, we traverse the past when there was a reciprocal relationship with the water, water was a relative, and before reckless and profit driven modes of extraction. The guests share how the history of colonization and ownership of water has informed the present and created a system of scarcity and fear used to push infrastructure in LA with voters kept in the dark about where their water comes from. The guests and the community on the call widen the conversation, sharing stories of youth empowerment through education, developing projects to educate the public about the truth of water in LA, and breaking the isolation by working together towards collective futures.
TINA CALDERON (Gabrielino Tongva, Chumash and Yoeme) Tina Orduno Calderon is a Culture Bearer for her family; the descendants of Komiikranga of the Santa Monica mountains which is shared territory for the Chumash and Tongva. Tina is wife, mother, grandmother, sister and auntie to many. Tina is a singer who also enjoys creative writing and composing poems and songs.
TERI RED OWL (Bishop Paiute Tribe Nuumu from Payahuunadu) Executive Director at Owens Valley Indian Water Commission. Co-Produced Award-winning film PAYA THE WATER STORY OF THE PAIUTE. She lives in Bishop, California with her husband and children.
ANNIE MENDOZA (Gabrieleno-Tongva) Annie is cocreator and director of the “Aqueduct Between Us,” a five-part social justice multimedia radical oral history documentary that aims to educate the people of Los Angeles about the Indigenous communities (Tongva –Gabrieleno and the Owens Valley Paiute/ Shoshone) who have been greatly impacted by their land and water use.
KYNDALL NOAH (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) Project Coordinator/Communication Specialist for the Owens Valley Indian Water Commission, working to ensure that the story of Owens Valley is inclusive and told from the perspective of the Indigenous people.
Hosted by: Kate Bunney
Produced & Edited by: 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
