Hey As She Rises listeners! Today, we're bringing you a bonus episode from the Inherited podcast, told by one of our very own team members at WMN: Paloma Moreno Jiménez. Inherited is a climate storytelling podcast by, for, and about young people across the globe. In this episode of the show, storyteller Paloma Moreno Jiménez conjures a folkloric audio fiction about the cross-cultural, agricultural importance of corn, and its relationship with humanity. Her experimental, sound-lush story anthropomorphizes the “three sisters” crops – Maíz (Corn), Calabaza (Squash), and Frijol (Bean) – as real sisters, and follows the eldest, Maíz, as she shares the story of a fantastical journey into the spirit world with her grandchild on the other side. Special thanks to Ace the Storyteller for contributing original music to this episode. Inherited is a production of YR Media and distributed by Critical Frequency. For more information about our podcast, head to our website at yr.media/inherited, and follow us on the socials @inheritedpod.

For the last episode of the season, we’re traveling to the Colorado River Delta, south of Mexicali, Mexico: where all the waters from upstream are supposed to reach. Here, the Colorado River used to split into braided streams and tendrils, forming a complex estuary of riparian forests, rich wetlands, countless lagoons, and abundant wildlife. But today, the river water no longer reaches the sea. However, environmentalist groups have been working to restore sections of the delta and revitalize the river habitat. Edith Santiago, associate director of the Sonoran Insitute’s Colorado River Delta Program, has spent nearly 20 years connecting the river back to the sea. Maria Cisneros Smallcanyon reads her poem, “Un Radio Pierde Su Señal,” about watching a landscape that was once lush and lively turn sterile and silent. For more: Check out Maria Cisneros Smallcanyon’s work in The Chapter House’s ‘Blacklist Me’ exhibition Learn more about the Sonoran Institute and support their work at sonoraninstitute.org As She Rises is a Wonder Media Network production. Follow Wonder Media Network on Instagram and Twitter.

The Sonoran Desert, situated at the bottom edge of Arizona, stretches out into the haze of a horizon, rippled with heat. It’s fed by thin tributaries of the river and, more often, watered by sparse rains. It’s a place that, in theory, could seem pretty inhospitable. But the Tohono O’odham nation has survived and thrived there, thanks in part to traditional agricultural practices that are more relevant than ever as a drought looms ahead. Tohono O’odham poet Ofelia Zepeda reads “Pulling Down the Clouds.” Her poem describes the treasured practice of Saguaro harvesting. It’s a practice Maria Francisco’s family has been taking part in for generations. Maria explains how the harvest is a celebration of rain. But now, climate change has caused the rains and monsoon seasons to shift, so the harvests are shifting too. Amy Juan is the manager of San Xavier Co-op Farm, an operation meant to revitalize traditional agricultural practices. They’re healing the ties to the past that have been severed by colonial practices, and mending the paths towards the future as the climate inevitably changes.

In the southern valleys of California, lies a desert oasis known as the Salton Sea. The inland sea is picturesque— from afar. Up close, the beauty begins to fade. The sea is a result of diverting the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley for agriculture, and it’s filled with fertilizer, pesticides, and salt. Decades of drought have caused the sea to evaporate at a rapid pace, exposing the lakebed, unearthing toxins, and endangering nearby communities. Adriana Torres Ceja and Olivia Rodriguez Mendez are both residents of the Eastern Coachella Valley and graduates of the Youth Leadership Institute. They have seen firsthand the negative impacts of the shrinking sea. Adriana reads a poem she wrote about the Salton Sea, and Olivia talks about the documentary she helped make to ensure her community’s voices are heard while the future of the sea remains uncertain.

Black Mesa is a high desert, arid, with few streams or rivers aboveground. Water tends to come from above or below: sometimes, as a gentle rain. Other times, a rushing monsoon. Navajo and Hopi people have called it home for thousands of years. Its water reservoirs— a complex system of underground pools called “aquifers”— sustain people, livestock, and agriculture on the plateau. More recently, that scarce resource fed the needs of Peabody Coal, an extractive industry that drained the Mesa dry over the last half century. Nicole Horseherder helped establish the non-profit Sacred Water Speaks with a clear goal: get Peabody Energy off the aquifer and bring water back to her community. Amber McCrary reads “Monsoon Musings,” a poem she wrote about the moments when heavy rains arrive in her desert homeland.

The Havasupai tribe lives at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, in Supai Village. Just north of the village, a hidden aquifer turns into Havasu Falls, a waterfall that cascades into a pool of blue-green water. This water has sustained the Havasupai people for centuries, nourishing their crops, softening the harsh conditions of the desert, and serving as a place of reverence. But now, the Havasupai tribe’s water source is threatened by uranium mining. Carletta Tilousi is a member of the Havasupai tribal council’s anti-uranium committee. She explains their 30-year fight against what is now known as the Pinyon Plain Mine. Colleen Kaska, a former Havasupai tribal council member, reads a poem she wrote about the importance of water to her people.

Lake Powell is long and thin. It snakes through the red-desert, running southwest through Utah, ending at the top of Arizona. From above, it looks like a human artery. From the inside, it's idyllic. The water is crystalline. Every year, millions of people flock to the lake to fish, canoe, and hike. Today, Lake Powell is around a fifth of its original size. Pools that used to be deep enough to dive into have turned into puddles of mud. And as the water disappears, the forgotten canyon beneath reemerges. We’re starting our journey just south of Lake Powell, in the Navajo Nation. Over the years, the U.S. government has signed a number of treaties with the Navajo Nation, promising certain amounts of water, and water infrastructure. But, as they struggle to reallocate water in the face of drought, the government still tends to leave indigenous communities out of the conversation. Poet Kinsale Drake reads her poem, “after Sacred Water,” about how the U.S. government drowned an ecosystem to create a dam that is now shrinking fast. Emma Robbins, director of the Navajo Water Project, explains how her organization ensures households have running water, and that the Navajo Nation has a seat at the table.

Premiering May 1 wherever you get your podcasts. As She Rises is back for its third season with a new host: Leah Thomas, founder of The Intersectional Environmentalist. This season, As She Rises is traversing the Colorado River Basin downstream, understanding water through a new lens and centering stories of resilience in the face of the drought.

As climate change progresses, more people will be forced from their homes and into exploitative environments. In the United States, this is particularly true of farmworkers. The climate crisis is, undeniably, a labor issue too. “like you i woke up in the dark. but i was reaching for animals, trying to beat the heat. like you sunrise usually found me in the middle of doing something. i didn’t call it prayer, but i did believe that if i did it every day we would exist.” In today’s episode, we hear the poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs read from her book, “DUB”, as she unlearns the separation between her work and that of her great-grandfather’s. She shows us how poetry can help us imagine another way of relating to life on earth. We then travel to the agricultural fields of Immokalee, Florida. where Lupe Gonzalo is a senior staff member at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. She tells us about her experience working tomato fields, the work she does now fighting for farmworker rights, and the need to unlearn the systems of separation between land, food, and people.

Nestled in the Northwestern corner of present-day New Mexico is the Greater Chaco Region: home to thousands of Diné and Puebloean families. It's also one of the most intense concentrations of oil wells in the country, designated an “energy sacrifice zone” by the Nixon administration in the 1970s. Now, a group of activists who recognize the land’s inherent importance, and who themselves have built lives on and around it, are changing the way this land is leased out—and might preserve this land for good. “Oh, how I’ve missed you. To think I was away for so long / and you were always there / waiting on the red earth / to hold yourself open / and offer to carry my burden.” In this episode, we visit the Greater Chaco Region. Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Laura Tohe reads her poem “Dinétah” and explains the inextricable connection between land and body, as well as the pain inflicted by extractive industries. Julia Bernal, Director of the Pueblo Action Alliance, discusses the fight to preserve the Greater Chaco Region and the importance of local ecology in the face of climate denial.