Land Acknowledgements
Throughout this website, each WaterWay includes a Land Acknowledgement grown from that respective place. Consider similarities and differences, possibilities and limitations, of each of these living statements.
Dear Body of Water began in Tucson, AZ, with the University of Arizona Poetry Center. From UA: We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O’odham and the Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the University strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships, and community service. (Read more.)
Search for your home on Native Lands. Each of us carries a partial perspective of water in our interdependent world. Deepen your understanding of where you are and how you came to be "here." How might each of us cultivate respect and reciprocity with bodies of water, including each other?
Digital Acknowledgements
Dear Body of Water flows through a virtual platform but is not separated from place—not at all placeless—but sourced from and indebted to many types of extractive natural resources. Digital domains are accessible to some and not others, contributing to the "digital divide." How might care of waterways help to address inequitable access to technology and environmental injustices embedded in our virtual worlds? How do each of us carry responsibility to each other, including our living lands and waters who flow upstream and downstream, recharging groundwaters, evaporating into atmospheres, replenishing waters we drink to live?
Flowing Toward a Water Acknowledgment
Any Water Acknowledgement is incomplete without adding more voices, just as words are incomplete without actions. This gesture is only one flowing in and out of many words for water.
If you are a composer who wish to set this to music, please contact Gretchen. Upcoming performances are listed below; if you perform the work and have audio/video, please share.
Longer and shorter versions are available for improvisation, spoken or sung. Adapt and collaborate with your local bodies of water, and share (e.g., link to performance) back with Dear Body of Water.
FUTURE PERFORMANCES:
The first adoption of "What Are Your Words for Water?" will be set to music in Fall 2025 by composer Jocelyn Hagen, in collaboration with the Pacific Chorale and Ojibwe-Oneida artist Ty Defoe in a performance as part of a collaborative work called "What the Soul Already Knows" in Costa Mesa, CA. Stay tuned!