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 Erik Ohlsen
“The wisdom of earth is miraculous, unrelenting, infinite, mysterious. We’ll never know everything about how natural ecosystems evolve…When I walk into the world with one foot in wonder, looking at grasslands, forests, and watersheds, my favorite way to do that is not as a designer. The best way to walk in nature is to remind yourself that you know nothing and then allow the wisdom of the natural world to show itself.” –Erik Ohlsen
Talking Water welcomes Erik Ohlsen, internationally recognized permaculture teacher, author, regenerative designer, storyteller, and practitioner of Nordic folk traditions. Erik offers a conversation steeped in impassioned stories, experiences of the living world, and new mythologies based on sacred connection with the natural world. He reveals seminal moments of awakening to grief, wonder, and reverence for nature calling him into the circle of interconnection. Erik tells the story of his spiritual journey to his ancestral Scandinavian roots leading to a transformation in his work as an earth activist and permaculture designer. His perspectives on working with nature confer luminous perspectives.
Erik released “The Regenerative Landscaper” in 2023. He currently runs the award-winning design and build firm Permaculture Artisans and The Permaculture Skills Center.
Erik Ohlsen is a master of regenerative design, an internationally recognized Permaculture teacher, a landscape contractor, author, farmer, herbalist, storyteller, and practitioner of Nordic folk traditions.
Since 1999 Erik has founded numerous organizations that regenerate ecosystems including his award winning design and build firm Permaculture Artisans and The Permaculture Skills Center where thousands of students around the world learn ecological landscaping and regenerative agriculture.
Working as an internationally renowned regenerative designer, he has committed decades to repairing ecosystems and connecting people with the land throughout the globe. He has designed and implemented hundreds of regenerated landscapes ranging from small urban lots to large tracts of land.
His many years of experience observing and listening to landscape patterns while managing installation crews have led to an extensive knowledge of ecological land development and planning. He is a specialist in water harvesting systems, food forest design, community organizing, facilitation, vocational education and much more. In all of his work there is a presence of social equity, climate justice, and ecosystem restoration and his stories and achievements continue to empower people worldwide.
Learn more about Erik's work at https://www.permacultureartisans.com/ and https://permacultureskillscenter.org/.
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. https://walking-water.org/donate/
For more info go to Walking Water website. https://walking-water.org/
