Follow The Water Chapter One: Connection

Water is the reason this planet is so special and unique. Everything that lives here relies on water. Listen to personal stories about the powerful connection we have with water, our food supply, and our well-being. The purity of our water sources is crucial to this connection but recovery for our water, our health, and our environment is possible.

In this video we explore

• Why water is so important.
• How our communities have been impacted by our current treatment of water.

Transcript

JUDY: Water is, water is life. Water is sacred, water is purifying, water is refreshing. Water is our first medicine. I was taught that a very long time ago. Water is our first medicine. When you have nothing else, water. Sipping the water. Water will take you where you need to go emotionally and mentally. We carry a memory, and water carries a memory. And when they come together and we’re sipping water, we are, mm, being reminded of who we are. I was always taught water refreshes the spirit as well as the body.

WENIX: Water is the most important of all things. It is the giver of life. When you look at water, it’s the reason why this planet is so special and unique. Everything that lives here relies on that water. Water is the first of all living things, and in our creation or our Tamunwit, Tamálwit, that is the creation of the foods, of how the foods first came forward. All the people and the animals
came together in an area, and they discussed how they were going to give themself to each other. And so, the water was the first of all things. And the salmon came forward. And when the salmon came
forward, they gave their life to the people. In return, they asked that the people would celebrate them. Every year they would come back, and their bodies would nourish us. And then the roots came forward,
and they gave testimony. And then the berry species came forward, and they gave testimony. Everything that we are is related to those foods.

JUDY: First Foods is critical to water. They are intimately linked together. So, it’s not only feeding the body, but it’s feeding the soul. It’s feeding the spirit. It’s feeding our mental health and our emotional health.

WENIX: We have that connection with them, and that’s important to them. And it has to be there. If that water is not there in the river or the river’s too low, those fish are going to die. And with that, so does our language and our culture. When those foods are no longer there, our people will become sick also
because we’ll stop eating them. And you see that. And so, our people are sick. And not only that, the water is sick.

JUDY: Part of our path to recovering our health, or what I call recovery from discovery, includes recovering our health through our First Foods. So, it’s critical. It’s central.

WENIX: It’s important that we look at the purity of our water and working to clean that water and make that one of our priorities on this world. Because once that water becomes to the place we can’t drink it no longer, even if we’re filtering it, there’s still things making us all sick. And why wouldn’t that be one of the most important things? Because that is the reason why this planet is so special.