To walk a circle around a mountain, to circumambulate, is an ancient ritual practice. Today, I'm walking around the peak where the radio comes from: Slide Mountain.

The ear to the radio, the radio to the towers, the towers to the microphone, the mic to the sound. Somewhere on the edge of the landscape that the algorithms can just barely reach, I keep a folder of sounds it could never understand. What does wind, or a wind harp, or an idea that can’t quite be explained; what does that sound like to an artificial ear? On Year 6 of The Wind, new sounds and archival work re-imagined.

In this off-season episode, a favor and a guest piece from Future Ecologies.

Year 5 comes to a close.

In the finale of Year 5 of The Wind, something a bit different. This episode was recorded live at my desk, and is a self-titled sort of thesis.

Lithium Americas v. Dean Barlese et. al.. The story of a lithium mine in remote northern Nevada, and the two-spirit Paiute elder who fought to stop it.

The sun sets over Sunset Boulevard; the palm trees silhouette. In the front garden of a big house off the main drag, the puppet show begins.

Up the freeway a few miles from Downtown Los Angeles, the streetlights flicker on and I approach the warm glow of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Inside, I meet organist Edward Torres.

Off the train in Elko, Nevada we meet cowboy poet Henry Real Bird, former Montana Poet Laureate, teacher and bronc rider from the banks of the Little Bighorn. // The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering started in 1985, becoming an annual roundup of cowboys, ranchers, poets, artists and the many combinations therein, hailing from all parts the American west and sometimes beyond. On this episode of The Wind, we'll sit down upstairs at the Western Folklife Center with Henry and talk about thought and land.

A song bounces from slope to slope, emerging from the valley as an echo. Just of out earshot from Spokane Falls we meet star Taiwanese yodeler, Ho Lan.