 that's the one thing that I really want you to pay attention to when we're out here doing ceremony is to pay attention to where the water responds. Sometimes you'll just see it get real quiet on the surface and it'll get like glass but it's just like where we're at it'll begin to spread out. Sometimes the sunlight on the water you'll see the sunlight on the water and all of a sudden everything will light up as you're as you're sending these prayers and asking for us to come back into right relationship with the water and remember our stewardship the water will respond and you'll get like these little fireflies not just the glistening of the water but the what you just get more sparkly that's coming through and it'll go away and it'll come back as you in response to what you're saying and so just pay attention and then the other thing you're going to notice especially out here not so much as it's harder in the cities but the plant people will respond the animal nations will respond because they haven't forgotten their original instructions of how to live in harmony and we're the only ones who have and so as we begin to walk that prayer and they feel that energy of love respect and gratitude for the water that they know they have they have to depend on they'll begin to respond and so you'll see birds that just like fly right in front of your face or dragonflies that come and walk with you or you know any number of things eagles golden eagles bald eagles we've already seen yesterday we were doing a blessing on a bridge and a duck flew right under the bridge right under where we were tying the prayer tie for to carry that prayer that prayer bundle to to leave on the bridge and he flew right under that bundle and just right along the top surface of the water and so you know they just they hear and they respond in ways that that if you're not really paying attention so as you walk that's the one thing I want people to do is to really start to reconnect because the problem with our water really is that we've broken our connection to the water where we don't see it as our source of life anymore we've come to it's our resource and we expect to turn the tap and it just to be there we don't we're not we don't we're not carrying it anymore this is why we're carrying it we're not physically carrying that water even if it's just from the well to the house we're not physically carrying it so we don't have the same respect that it's there when you turn that tap on and you know years ago when I went to my first Sundance I had saved $2,000 and I wanted to do something for an elder and I decided I want to put a well in for somebody that didn't have a well and these very wise young men at Sundance said oh we know the perfect person to take you to and so they took me to this elder and when we came upon him he's got a stick across his shoulders and two white plastic buckets full of water balanced on those and he's you know carrying his water and so they stop and put his water in the truck and put him in the truck and we go back to his house and they introduced me and say she really wants to do something really nice for an elder and she wants to put in a well and we thought we she should talk to you about putting in a well and and he said oh wow you want to make a well for me and I said yes I'd like to do that so you don't have to struggle with the water and he walked over to his buckets and he took two jellyglass jars off the counter and he just one room and he scooped up the water and he brought one back and handed it to me but he didn't let go and then he said I have friends in town they have running water and they go and they turn the tap on and let it run and run and run until it's cold but he doesn't let go of the glass so I look up at him and he goes me I'm just glad it's in my bucket and I'll carry my my water until I die because I'll always remember and that was really them yeah it really was and so he convinced me that I needed to use the money to buy school supplies for the school and and so you know I've been really blessed in my life I wanted to ask grandmother Carol Bloober Blodgett organizer of the 2018 Water is Life Walks along the Housatonic River and I wanted to know the excitement that she shares about organizing this walk and being on the rivers walking with the water she talks about the gifts that that she receives by doing this work and so my question is about you know you invite so many people to join you in this walk and that everyone has an opportunity to receive these same gifts and I would love to hear in your words that story about receiving gifts because we're walking with the spirit of water oh well my I love the song by Bob Seager about by the river and in that river he says everything so succinctly as as to how I feel when I when I'm down by the river and and that you know there is a rhythm and a flow there is a power that you just can't know you can't see it you can't feel it until you're right there with that and there is this this power of the scene in the unseen that makes itself visible the other day we were saying the closing prayer and the Sun was setting and so you had this what you know these beautiful sparkling ripples on the water all being lit up by the the rays of the Sun and so as I was saying this prayer and asking that we all come back to that understanding of our stewardship of the water it was it was the visibility of the water responding because it looked like a million fireflies just lit up and all that sparkling and then they died down and every time I I would say something the water would respond to the words dr. Imodo has proven with his pictures that water does listen water does respond the same way our ancestors had always known and they taught me that you know just watch the water listen to the water it will respond it'll let you know if this is what you're if the ceremony that you're doing is what it needs or if it needs more watch and feel that energy that in that song that Bob Seeger talks about there is this this beauty of everything being so connected and there's a patience but there's indulgence too and there's there's all of these contrasting things that are so visible and nope you don't have to be anybody special you don't have to do anything special to feel that if you just come out and walk and just try to get connected get out of that every day illusion world where we have to go to work and make some money to pay the bills that's all an illusion and so step into this reality of your part of a bigger hole and as insignificant as we are everything every choice that we make can be very significant and so that's what I want people to feel what I feel and and understand how much water loves you and just love it back that's it that's all you have to do and and so thank you Deb I hope that answered your question but if I could just reflect on what I witnessed today after feeding the river and watching the wildlife respond and even the trees respond in such beauty as if you could just like reflect with me on that yeah and so we're offering we're offering food to the water because it feeds us and so we're acknowledging the gifts that the plants give us you know those medicine plants that grow in and around the waters and and so acknowledging that gift of life that they give us in order for us to survive and none of that would be here without the water and so we're offering these things and the duck just flies right under the bridge and and right along the very surface of the water right under where we were and then all the little I call them helicopters spinning out of the trees and just right down into the water right where we're standing and so and then we have a female cardinal come in and I see this all the time where the the wildlife just comes it's they feel and sense that change in the energy because they're water too and they understand that they need that water we were the only ones who have forgotten that interconnection we're the only ones who have disconnected and we just need to plug in again and so thank you Deb thank you Graham you can wave or anything you want we are in no bottom pond what are we doing here we're protecting the water we're gathering the headwaters of the green river thank you water protectors we love from Plainfield, Massachusetts and I'm on the Housatonic Riverwalk for me it's the understanding that the water is the blood of my mother and grandmother the earth and also that you know my my babies grew in that water as we all we all have you know at Standing Rock it wasn't just a phrase we came to understand deeply water is life it's simple I guess I consider myself a water protector now I'm not much of a warrior anymore I'm 85 and I can barely move at times but everything that I can do that this is my I guess I'd like to donate my elder years to serve my grandmother and to serve the children and grandchildren of the future and all of mother's children you know we are all relatives I can't tell you logically why I went I was pulled there I had to be there I of course it's the Dakota Territory I'm what they adopted Lakota I have Lakota grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so that's part of my family is there and South Dakota and Nebraska and so forth but I think that most of us went who went there knew we had to go when I left Standing Rock it was it was very hard after the indigenous women's ceremony which by the way is the most beautiful women's event I have ever seen the young indigenous women led that march and the men were so respectful this is what real warriors are real men they stayed on the sides in the back and walk in prayer and with respect and it was a beautiful beautiful event and two women walk across of in front of this line of very angry looking police military security and crossed right we didn't know what was going to happen they didn't know but they crossed in front of them went down the hill to the water went down to the Cannonball River and did a water ceremony and then they came back very calm and we all turned around and returned to our camps and and then it was raining then and before the evening was over it was snowing and they had just finished its sacred stone camp the straw bale seal schoolhouse that was so beautiful we were so proud of those people who built that and then who went up on that roof and did the whole thing it was it was warm it was beautiful and of course that was destroyed by the bia a at the end and I consider that tribal council and I'm I'm not looking to buy birth but by my Hong Kong relationship I very close to my relatives and what the tribal council did was wrong they abandoned everyone you know they said everyone come alright now the Army Corps of Engineers says that they're gonna do a study so you can all go home they didn't get it and I would like to have stayed through that winter but my daughter was out there with her friends and she said mom you're coming back with us you're gonna fall and break your hip and you won't be any good to anyone so you know I've learned years ago you don't argue with a daughter and so I went back but in February in February my son went out to bring a whole truckload of supplies solar panels food clothing everything that people needed and I said I want to go with you and we went back and we stayed until well it was I think the 27th when we were driven out I got very sick from everybody said I had the dapple cough the helicopters kept coming in the one helicopter would come in every morning when we were doing women's water ceremony they would come so low like almost like they were gonna land we used to laugh at them and say you know why don't you guys come down and learn to pray come join us but it whatever I had it was like nothing I've ever had before I just coughed I had a fever and coughed and coughed and coughed so when we were driven out of that camp we went next door to black whoop camp and the tribal council pulled the same thing on the woman who won that land they said oh I'll give you a we'll give you a formal paper by April you're driving us out at the end of February you know and so I was huddled around a and they did ceremony there and my son had his chanupa and and filled it and they prayed and did a very beautiful ceremony that meant I remember but a couple of days later the the owner of the land son came to where I was sitting and by a stove old old house and and he said is this your stuff I said yes he's gathered up on blanket and everything and then took me by the other arm and he said we have to go fast they're here with guns and we had already been told the medicine people had said no more front lines they have guns loaded they will use them and you know none of us wanted to see another one didn't he there were children in our camp at Sacred Stone you know so we left they think they won they were afraid of the prayer and the unity