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: Los Angeles - Session Five with US Army Corps of Engineers
“What we can bring to the future of the river and urban waterways is engineering with nature…Engineering with nature is where we are trying to use more natural ways of solving the problem… working in unison with natural processes.”
–Megan Whalen, Ambassador for the LA River Watershed, US Army Corps of Engineers
Welcome to 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 have reached the halfway point in the series with Session Five with the US Army Corps of Engineers. We are joined by Megan Whalen, who serves as the Ambassador for the LA River Watershed, and Hunter Merritt, who works as a social scientist.
This session continues to articulate the vision for the Water Learning Series, which is to highlight the people, agencies, and organizations that are instrumental in forming the map of LA’s water story. At the heart of this intention is the inquiry of supporting a water sufficient Los Angeles.
Session Five begins with a historical snapshot of the US Army Corps of Engineers and introduces the many projects in the Los Angeles district the Corps is currently involved in. Hunter and Megan break down and explain the concept of risk-management as one of the major responsibilities of the Corps, discussing the integral communication between agencies, partners, and the public to make informed decisions. Megan provides illuminating historical details about the LA River’s flow, its impacts on early residents of Los Angeles, and the Corps work in the 1930s channelizing and concretizing the river. Megan shares a hopeful vision for restoring natural processes and reviving the river through engineering with nature in collaboration with local partners, the Corps, and LA county residents.
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/
