According to these artists and thinkers, what does it mean to be connected to or dependent on water? How do they envision their connection to water? Is that connection personal or collective or both? How do you feel you are connected to water?

The River (1984)

by Mary Oliver

In one day the Amazon discharges into the Atlantic the equivalent of New York City’s water supply for nine years.

Just because I was born

precisely here or there,

in some cold city or other,

don’t think I don’t remember

how I came along like a grain

carried by the flood—

on one of the weedy threads that pour

toward a muddy lightning

surging east, past

monkeys and parrots, past

trees with their branches in the clouds, until

I was spilled forth

and slept under the blue lung

of the Caribbean.

Nobody

told me this. But little by little

the smell of mud and flowers returned to me,

and in dreams I began to grow dark,

to sense the current.

Do dreams lie? Once I was a sad fish

crying for my sisters in the glittering

crossroads of the delta.

Once among the thick reeds I found

an empty boat, as narrow

as a man’s waist. Nearby

the trees sizzled with the afternoon rain.

Home, I said.

In every language there is a word for it.

Deep in the body itself, climbing

those white walls of thunder, past those green

temples there is also

a word for it.

I said, home.

Repertory Dance Theater (RDT) is based in Salt Lake City. There's a rich tradition of Utah artists creating work about this state's amazing nature, a tradition you get to continue. 

The choreographer Zvi Gotheiner said that this following piece "seemed to flow out of him after visiting southern Utah's redrock country. The piece includes humor, rhythm and references to all the life forces in nature….Gotheiner said he is not approaching the subject in a political way. 'For me it is a more visceral response. As a culture we have forgotten how to give back, we are always taking. We need to replenish and create rituals that close the circle — we are part of nature, we are not superior to it — we are connected to it.'" 

On November 29, 2022, Katharine Hayhoe gave the following address on BYU campus.