A Prayer for Salmon is a new audio documentary series from The Spiritual Edge podcast that tells the story of the Winnemem Wintu people of Northern California and their clash with Shasta Dam. The dam’s construction turned California into an agricultural powerhouse, but it left the Winnemem homeless and without say over their land. The series details the Winnemem’s fight to resist a proposed Shasta Dam Enlargement Project. It also highlights the Winnemem's aspiration to return Chinook salmon to their homeland on the McCloud River, a major tributary of the dam. We will investigate the Shasta Dam Enlargement Project, which gained traction during the Trump years and proposes to raise the 602-foot dam even higher. It's an alarming prospect for the Winnemem who worry they'll lose sacred sites critical for their way of life. We then travel with the Winnemem and allies on a two-week, 300-mile Run4Salmon ceremony as they walk, run, bike and boat, following the migration of Chinook salmon from the Pacific Ocean up the Sacramento River to spawning grounds. Along the way, we study the environmental and political issues that threaten the survival of salmon, whose numbers plummeted after Shasta Dam was built. The Winnemem believe caring for the salmon is their spiritual and moral obligation and that their two fates are linked. This isn’t necessarily going to be a piece of traditional journalism where you hear from one side and then you hear from the other. The way we think about is that colonial ideology is inextricably entwined with the American way of life. With it, comes assumptions about history, culture and property that most of us don’t question. We all know that point of view. So we invite you to listen to A Prayer for Salmon with an open mind. Allow yourself to walk in the shoes of another culture. Our hope is that you will come away with an understanding of the Winnemem Wintu, who they are and what they’re fighting for — and what all of us will lose if they disappear. A Prayer for Salmon drops August 2022.

A week from now Muslims all around the world will begin observing the holy month of Ramadan. We thought this was a good time to share our one-hour documentary version of Becoming Muslim with you.  You could say it's our latest season in distilled form. We tell the stories of some unlikely converts to Islam and what happens to them after. In case you missed the full 8-episode series this is another way you can listen. In the documentary, Hana Baba walks us through the stories of four Americans who have chosen Islam and the joys and challenges of their lives after conversion.

A special guest episode from the podcast, Uncuffed. "Uncuffed is a show made by people behind bars in California prisons. We share intimate stories of our struggles and triumphs, and of the heartache and forgiveness taking place within these walls. Uncuffed is vulnerable and personal. If you can see the humanity in us, you can see the humanity in everyone." In this special episode, we have two stories of indigenous people fighting to practice their spirituality while incarcerated.  

How did Islam first arrive on the North American continent? Did enslaved West Africans bring it to America? Or did Muslims sail with Christopher Columbus first? Later, Islam spread in the United States, among various communities. How did that happen? In this BONUS conversation that's part of the Becoming Muslim series, host Hana Baba dives into the history of Islam in America with Dr. Edward E. Curtis IV, a scholar of Muslim American, African American and Arab American history and life.

Aaron Siebert-Llera and Raul Gonzalez both live in the Chicago area and both converted to Islam twenty years ago. And both have been trying to answer the question of how to reconcile their identity as Latinos — and Muslims — ever since.

Sofie Lovern is a Latina convert and comedienne who learned the difficulty of trying to merge two very different cultures in a marriage, even when their religions were the same.  Her struggle with marriage is not uncommon with new convert women who are often rushed into marriage. Her marriage fails, but her comedy brings her through it all. She emerges unmarried but still Muslim.

Tyson Amir’s family knew he would become Muslim from a young age. He was influenced by the revolutionary example of Malcolm X. And also by the legacy of resistance embodied by his great-great-great-grandfather, an enslaved man who was Muslim, according to family lore.

Convicted of first-degree murder and sent to Folsom State Prison, Wendell Al-Amin James gravitated towards the Muslim prisoners out of a need for protection. But ultimately his conversion restructured his life to one of education and purpose.

As a student and basketball player at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s, Abdul Raoof Nasir joined the Nation of Islam. In the years that followed, he was forced to make a choice: stay with the Nation or go with one of the groups that splintered away from it. 

Rabi’a Keeble has been fighting discrimination and pushing boundaries her whole life as she searched for a faith and spiritual home that felt just right. She’s an innovator, which led her to found a women-led mosque that sparked a powerful backlash.