River Walkers

River Walkers follows a sacred river walk along the dangerously polluted Housatonic River in western Massachusetts. The purpose of the walk was ceremonial, but also to bring people together and raise awareness of rivers as the bloodstream of the earth and of water as a living thing to which humans belong.
Voices:

Carole Bubar-Blodgett, who goes by the Lakota name that translates to Spirit Hawk, traces her matriarchal lineage through the Penobscot nation, and belongs to the defined-out-of-existence band of the Penobscot people. She is an adopted Lakota from the Sicangu (see-CON-ju) band and follows the Lakota Sun Dance Way of Life. This is her 8th year of Water Is Life Walks.
Octogenarian Rema Loeb spent many weeks as a water protector on the Cannonball River at a camp in North Dakota, fighting the Dakota Access pipeline with the Standing Rock Sioux.
Katherine Freygang lives near the Housatonic River and has had other spiritual experiences connected to water.
Alisa Epstein‘s family has lived near the Housatonic for generations; she joined the walk with her two children.
Pam Arifian is director of the nearby Northeast Regional Environmental Justice Center, operated by the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Credits:

Produced by Melinda Tuhus. First aired in the series The Forest and the Trees on WPKN-FM, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

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