Home2Headwaters
Summer 2025 Updates

Heartfelt Update: 3 Years Since The Walk

by Nina Gordon-Kirsch

This month marks 3 years since this walk happened. I had the opportunity to return to the Mokelumne River in June and after that trip, it feels that clear I (we/you) need to keep returning!

I am so grateful that the film team needed to return to the Mokelumne River to film “pick up footage” in June. That was the impetus to get me back to the river – to swim, to pray, and to keep deepening in relationship with the humans whom I met on the walk. As we drove through places I walked, memories and songs flooded through my body. I found myself singing the same song (taught to me by Te Martin) that I sang while I walked a particular portion three years ago. It’s wild to me how a song can be a placeholder like that.

Julia and I stopped by the houses of some of the trail angels who offered support on the walk; on this trip, some of them hosted us, some we had a quick catch up with, and some I left gratitude letters in their mail boxes, but didn’t get to see. A few key trail angels have now passed on to become ancestors and Julia and I had heartfelt exchanges with their children who are taking over farming or are sadly unable to continue their parents’ legacy. I loved every moment of soaking up these stories and I cried knowing that these souls who love the Mokelumne River so much are no longer here.

We were also blessed by magic synchronicities on the trip (more than are listed here):

• We got a flat tire in the perfect place with the perfect people. Our day was only slightly delayed, and we ended up getting special carpool time with Kait, Hawk, and Osi – all of whom had been on the hardest part of the walk with me in the backcountry river canyon. It was so special to return to the headwaters with them, the visit had a sense of wholeness for me with them there.
• When I learned that Gerry Goodie had passed away (former owner of Wimpy’s Bar and Marina on the Moke) from his son Nick (who answered his late father’s cell phone when I was trying to call Gerry) and shortly thereafter Julia’s drone stopped working, I sat by the river and cried. I cried of tech frustration with Julia, and I cried knowing Gerry wouldn’t be at the dock pouring love and respect into the river anymore. Just then, a beaver popped up and swam back and forth in front of Julia and me. I felt her say “I see you” and I felt comforted by her.
• Last minute we were welcomed to camp on Chris Blackmer’s land whom we had never met, but whose mother, Daphne had hosted us on the walk before she passed away. It turned out that a few days later would be his mother’s celebration of life and we were there with perfect timing to be able to send him footage of his mom to share with his family.

These synchronicities are a reminder to me that the Mokelumne River is an ally to those who are helping to tell her story and helping to connect the humans and ecological life up and down the watershed. This trip taught me that I must return to the river every year.

Planting the seed now for you to join me on a 5th anniversary trip to the headwaters in two years: Summer 2027!

Pilot Program Launching Spring 2026!
Home2Headwaters will be in three Oakland high schools

Home2Headwaters and Rivers for Change (RFC) are excited to announce that our partnership has led to the first pilot program of Home2Headwaters in schools next spring!  

 

H2H Film Updates: Production (aka filming) is done!

Including Indigenous voices in the educational film is a priority for us. After a number of years building relationships with the tribes on whose land I walked, the stars aligned last month for Marielle Olentine (producer) and Julia Maryanska (director) and me to interview representatives from two of the tribes. One interview was with Corrina Gould, co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust on traditional Lisjan Ohlone Land. When I asked Corrina what she would want to say to hundreds of urban youth in the Bay Area, she said, “Go outside, take your shoes off, and put your feet in a creek, in moving, living water.”

Throughout the interview, I was moved to tears hearing and feeling Corrina’s hope for what the path forward can look like to repair the human (settler) relationship to land and water. She emphasized that human dominance over nature has only been present for a few hundred years, while a more respectful and harmonious style of relationship between human and land or human and water was present for thousands of years before that. Corrina spoke about how the earth and climate change are showing us that we are at a crossroads, that we have a choice to make: we could keep manipulating nature for human benefit, or we could return to a harmonious relationship with land and water that her people have always practiced, and help heal what is broken.

As Corrina said, for thousands of years humans lived with (not ON) the earth in a harmonious and sustainable way – let us return to that.