Words of the Watershed Volume 2
Table of Contents Preamble ...2 Home ...3 by Emily Ontiveros Yourself in the burnt air mountains ...4 by Jonathan Pyner Sikkim ...5 by Yeshe Salz Mt. Ritter Reflected ...5 by Jeneya Fertel
Journey Down the Watershed
Creekside ...15 by Maya Morales Burrowing Owls ...15 by Catherine Woolf Heavy Wet Bags ...16 by Kali Pollard Rain or Shine ...16 by Kenya Rothstein We Grow the Same ...17 by Alyssa Stanghellini
Fog Fills the Valley with Solitude ...6 by Jonathan Pyner
Life Cycle ...18 by Amanda Burke
The Birth of Agriculture ...7 by Sohil Mali
Bodies ...19 by Samantha Klein
Row 9: A Row Among Many ...8 by Jocelyn Hsu Beets ...8 by Cheryl Ching Organic: What’s in a Name? ...9 by Whitney Whitthaus In Memory of the UC Redwoods ...10 by Eva Malis Another Day Ends in Berkeley ...10 by Samantha Klein Girl vs. Berkeley; an Odyssey ...11 by Yeshe Salz Typical Berkeley Student ...11 Jeneya Fertel Flow ...12-13 by Eva Malis Things Will Always Grow ...14 by Jonathan Reader Iris ...14 by Amy Emerald Prindle Leaves ...14 by Amy Emerald Prindle
22 Kilometers ...20 by Jonathan Reader Symbiosis of Sleep ...20 by Amanda Burke Such a Boy ...21 by Sam Terrell Advice ...21 by Kali Pollard Shore Things ...22 by Kate Irwin Speaking East to a Rock, from Wonderland ...22 by C.S. Hull The Waters ...23 by Michael Shaw The Opening ...23 by C.S. Hull Staff Page ...24 Blue Heron ...Back Cover by Amy Emerald Prindle
Preamble
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ourney down the watershed with us! We are thrilled to share with you this unique and inspired collection of writing, photography, and art stemming from the UC Berkeley community. Contributors to this second issue of Words of the Watershed include students, faculty and alumni from the Berkeley campus. All of the pieces in the journal draw from the beauties of the natural world, particularly those related to the San Francisco Bay Area and Berkeley campus. In the spirit of a sustainable relationship with nature, we are extremely proud to inform you that this journal is printed locally and on post-consumer paper using soy-based inks. We are especially excited about the theme of this year’s journal, “Journey Down the Watershed.” As we reviewed our amazing submissions, we saw a distinct pattern emerge. Many of the pieces seemed to flow along the trajectory of a watershed, ranging from the high peaks of the mountains, down through the rich agricultural valleys, through city-scapes and across social and cultural human landscapes, and finally emerging in the great expanse of the ocean. Thus, we arranged the pieces to follow this gradual flow downstream, creating a living, moving waterfall of words and images. However, to give you a hint of where along the transect you are, the little icons at the bottom of the page provide a clue. Though the patterns and processes of watersheds are global, the journal specifically follows the California Watershed, as it drains the snowfall of the High Sierras, flowing through the endless fields of the Central Valley, to the taps and gardens of Berkeley, and finally out the Golden Gate. We hope that it will serve as a reminder of how important this system is, and will inspire you to think about your own place within the cycle. Even if you are not familiar with the concept of a watershed, you come into contact with them all the time. When looking for a definition of the term for this letter, we found two from Webster’s dictionary. A watershed, in a strict scientific definition is simply “the area of land that includes a particular river or lake and all the rivers, streams, etc., that flow into it.” However, it is also defined as “A time when important change happens.” We believe both of these definitions inform and describe the intentions and inspirations of this journal. It is quite literally, a watershed: the final landing place for the various trickling of arts and writing inspired by our natural landscape. We also hope it can fulfill its other, broader definition, and that the multitude of beauty and genius literally bursting from the margins will help inspire change within our community and beyond in showing the importance and value of our environment. Just as the submissions for this journal represents a watershed, the creation of the physical journal can be seen as one as well. We have so many different contributors who lent their time and resources to this project. Thanks again to our amazing staff for their dedication to the journal. A huge thanks to the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) and our Kickstarter backers for providing us with the means to continue this project. We also want to extend gratitude to the Student Organic Garden for providing us with a beautiful space to hold events, and for the sense of community (and plants) they continue to grow and nourish. And finally, thank you in advance for continuing to help spread the word of the watershed! Enjoy the journey. Sincerely, Hannah Miller and Manon von Kaenel Editors-in-Chief, 2014-2015
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Home
Emily Ontiveros
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Yourself in the burnt air mountains Jonathan Pyner
“Yourself in the burnt air mountains” -Alejandro Murguia Yourself in the burnt air mountains alluvium bare near the August creek suspend the sack over shoulders to the water toss it where it knocks the ground and dust jumps to meet cupping hands dipping into the Sierra vein slurping of its blood its spirit the sun and fire in the snow filtered and purified crystal by flake through dirt and outsprung from smoothed bone settling as it raises the sky tastes crisp as ice in a cocktail spinning after sips and sweat and stop forgetting to breathe just let it in
Artist Statements (Opposite Page) Sikkim In the fall of 2012 I embarked upon a journey into the foothills of the High Himalaya in Sikkim, Northern India. The people I befriended there, known as the Lepcha, are Animistic. They believe that every rock, tree and twig, every component of the natural world, is imbued with its own spirit and life force. They worship the mountains as many worship gods. The Lepcha taught me how to see the the land as a holy place. They helped me develop a deeply rooted friendship with the earth. Now, when I wander the pathways of Berkeley’s campus, I walk beside my old friends. Every towering redwood and silvery ripple in Strawberry Creek is a glimmer of kinship and familiarity. Because of the Lepcha people, every day I walk through the fields and forests of our campus and feel the the great, reassuring sensation of coming home. Mt. Ritter Reflected This is where our water comes from. Hiking the John Muir Trail last summer, we went from watershed to watershed. We drank from the waters of the Tuolumne, San Joaquin, Kings, and Kern rivers. In the Sierra Nevada, there is a countless number of little lakes that fill with snowmelt and do not drain after a certain point. These lakes remain as mirrors throughout the summer. I see the mountain’s reflection in the water, and the mountain sees mine. The mountains will continue to give us water and it is up to us not to take it for granted.
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Sikkim
Yeshe Salz
Mt. Ritter Reflected Jeneya Fertel
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Fog Fills the Valley with Solitude Jonathan Pyner
Here the drive doesn’t go past ten feet plus glare from headlights and Hagen’s tunnel of oak shining with moisture Mud cleanses itself saturating water along its table near the creek frogs making a raucous in the air relative to nightlife and yelling this eve The road less crowded void of flowing minds and commerce vines probably shrivelling to keep warm light and a sweatshirt do just fine here in winter First time in years this water has meandered across the street to reach willing ears it might flood if I could raise it heaving waves and steam spraying from my nose yes I will control the water like the prophets hear how it parts and solidifies under my feet swallowing me under the surface only in resistance can one take hold
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The Birth of Agriculture Sohil Mali
Once found, not made, Hands picked at the wild plants. These hands would sift through the bushes, Trees and plants of all sizes, Taking what was needed, Leaving the rest to be Wild in nature, yet still touched by man. Preservation, not regeneration, The routine of nature, Stable and sound, Flowed naturally. But man grew wary, And then came to be, The simple plantings, The man-made plots of seeds. Growth would be there, Although generated by man, The sound routine of nature, Was muddled and lightly rang In the ears of animals, insects, And plants would have to change, For man now held the tool of nature, Choosing what to grow, And taking all it could get, Not leaving much to show To all the others in the forest, The wilderness that flourished. What was once nature’s secret, Now lies in the hands of man, Grasped tightly, not lightly, As the power of man grew slightly More powerful than that Of Mother Nature and her beautiful land.
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Beets
Cheryl Ching
Row 9: A Row Among Many Jocelyn Hsu
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Organic: What’s in a Name? Whitney Whitthaus
Organic is a story. It is a timeless tale that started once upon a time at the beginning of time (or 13,000 years ago if we want to be less romantic about it), but slipped into the shadows when a green monster bearing the nametag “progress” and “revolution” claimed the stage in the 1940s. Organic is harnessing what you have and using it to meet the needs of a rainbow of creatures ranging from soil microbes to beets to trout. It is cultivating the innate bartering market of the natural world and trading responsible use of the land for natural capital like pollination and nutrient cycling. But the organic narrative is an assumption. Organic can be overalls with a red barn, or young women with strength and a beautiful dream, or urban youth with an abandoned lot. However it can also be the incessant electric hum of hundreds of milking machines attached to the utters of multi-state corporation Horizon Milk’s dairy cows in Colorado, where the cows are fed organic certified feed, never to see or experience the pasture-based diet of grass that their ruminant digestive systems are designed for. Organic certification can extend to farms that are many hundreds of thousands of acres, and they can be managed by General Mills and other big food companies that many consumers seek to avoid or even boycott by purchasing organic products. As Michael Pollan explains in his paper “The Organic Industrial Complex,” the organic products that line the shelves of mainstream grocery stores and delight hopefuls like myself can have a very different history than their organic label conjures. Overlooking the discrepancy though, the open minded observer sees access to a whole new world of resources. Founder of Cascadian Ranch Gene Kahn saw his merge with General Mills as a grand opportunity for the organics community, opening up doors for innovative technology like machines that identify weeds and kill them with hot water. While no such contraption has surfaced since the 2001 exchange, value does of course lie in converting millions of acres of farmland owned by big agriculture from conventional to organic. Compost, cover crops, and the elimination of pesticides are all included in the USDA organic certification requirement and must be adhered to no matter who you are. So victory has, at least in part, been achieved. The problem with Nestle owning Sweet Leaf Tea and Kellog owning Kashi, though, is the effect on the organic market. With big fields comes big yields, and big yields translate to lower prices. What this means for small organic farmers, the ones who fit squarely into the storybook assumptions of the word “organic,” is that their niche is infiltrated by the corporations that they often work in the name of opposing. The people who go above and beyond the certification requirements, those who follow Wendell Berry’s “wise use” model serving as stewards deeply in tune with the land, and fight as David against the Goliath filled market that is food in our country, are pushed out of the market niche that they forged. As the relatively silent war wages between big and small organics, Dr. Phil Howard of University of Michigan points out that of the 81 independent organic processing centers existing in 1995, big food has left only 15 remaining in their decade long conquest. What I and many others propose as a solution is a special certification rewarding the farms whose outstanding stewardship and quality deserves financial recognition, in addition to strong organic certification standards that are not malleable for the powers that be in big food. Let us reclaim the story of our food, and know whether it is comedy or tragedy.
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In Memory of the UC Redwoods Eva Malis
Redwoods don’t bleed red but they seep crystal tears sweet onto vacant lots with or without fences, barricades a scented whisper that lingers redwood warriors stand, still, do not flee do not cry, do not regret Redwoods don’t bleed red humans do with wrists like roots or roses petals falling like needles like trees.
Another Day Ends in Berkeley Samantha Klein
As it becomes dusk Tired hills exhale vapor The land is alive
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Girl vs. Berkeley; an Odyssey Yeshe Salz
Featuring images from August 1956 issue of National Geographic Magazine, Spring 2014 issue of Stay Wild Magazine
Typical Berkeley Student Jeneya Fertel
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Flow
Eva Malis “I know the world’s a broken bone, but melt your headaches, call it home.” –Northern Downpour, PATD
Photo by Allison Donine
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he sky is as pink as my toes. I cannot feel them but I can see them, sinking gently into white sand under clear ripples that playfully skip around my ankles. I’m standing in the middle of a river running thin through the Upper Frijoles Canyon of northern New Mexico late one summer afternoon. The stone walls around me slam smooth into the sand, orange with powerful black streaks, curves sculpted precisely by the constant water. I’ve never felt so stranded. I had glanced at a map before entering the canyon, but the summer flash floods had washed out the trail completely and there is no sign of direction. Only river and sand, and canyon walls. I am no longer thinking of destination in the physical sense. I am thinking outside of words, absorbing stories of the canyon through the soles of my feet, searching the whispering water for the source of its power. I keep walking. The river is littered with broken logs—a recent refurbishment. Since the Las Conchas fire, the ponderosa pine forests of the neighboring Jemez Mountains have been wiped out. With no ecosystem to soak in the summer rains, the canyons began to experience dangerous rushes of water—flash floods—previously unheard of in this region. Of course, these record-breaking fires are becoming increasingly frequent and intense due to human mismanagement. And then there’s climate change—forests already faced with record thickness are reaching record dryness which shapes them into perfect bait for apocalyptic fires. “The sky was red for three days,” a man from Los Alamos told me. And now the ponderosa forest is burned down, and it cannot grow back—the mountains are covered in nonnative grass, and the rivers are angry and flooding.
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But today the Little Frijoles River is calm, and so am I. The river is singing, and so am I.
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oday I woke up to climb a mountain. Wriggling out of my sleeping bag and tossing pillows and sweaters out of my way, I scrambled out of the moldy tent and into my hiking boots. The stars were still out, and uncountable. Dark figures of pine trees loomed overhead, swaying subtly in the fluid, circulating sky. This dynamic air welcomed my skin immediately, licking at my ears and exposed neck, tugging awake my sticky eyelids. We reached the trail by 5 am and all I could do was watch the sun rise. It came quietly, first tapping on the shoulder of the black Sierras, then hushing the night sky, then coaxing the outline of the Inyo Mountains across the Owens Valley to fade into royal blue. From the distance the blue extended towards us, and soon a faint purple emerged from the tips of the eastward peaks which thawed into a warm golden pink. I marched up the first couple miles of trail with my head fixed on the transformation to my east, travelling back and forth along wide switchbacks, a machine wired to only move forward. The gold melted into orange and a glowing red egg hatched from the jagged horizon. The surrounding blue expanded and lightened, and all I could think of was how never in my life would I be able to paint this moment. By the time I could see my feet in front of me, we were two miles in and had reached Lone Pine Lake. Twenty miles to go. Let’s be back down before dark. I looked up and could not see the top of Mt. Whitney, but knew our destination was somewhere up there beyond these vast white rock walls. There are crevices, streaks, crumbles, layers, shadows, shapes, all painted delicately and stretching hundreds of feet upwards right before my eyes. If I stop to absorb, I will never make it to the top. So instead, I keep on marching, past the lakes that trickle into California’s thirsty throat, past multiple meadows, past marmots and tourists and piles upon piles of flattened fallen rock. I march upwards and on, until I can’t breathe and my head is spinning, until my feet fall off but my hands are still scratching the stone surface, until there is snow and I am as close to the sky and free as I ever will be on this land.
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’m sitting on a log in the center of the south fork of Strawberry Creek, separate from the buzz and drone of student life above me. I can’t help but be reminded of the Colorado River and how it carved the Grand Canyon, how Strawberry Creek’s whispered song is only heard by metal culverts under the crunchy city of Berkeley. I think of Glen Canyon, the most beautiful of the canyons along the Colorado, dammed and damned and never to be seen again, sunken under manmade Lake Powell because people are crazy enough to move to the desert, build a city miles away from any source of water, and expect to flourish. And I think of the mouth of this creek that kisses the ocean bay, and how the Colorado has lost its way to its ocean mouth, diverted dry to support southern Californian settlement (because people are crazy enough to move to the desert, build a city miles away from any source of water, and expect to flourish). If there is any proof that we are inevitably tied to the land, it is water. Water, relentless, dynamic, forgiving. Water, organic, connecting, perpetual. Water, me, water, you—the time has come to embrace our flow.
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Things Will Always Grow Jonathan Reader
Leaves
Amy Emerald Prindle
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Iris
Amy Emerald Prindle
Burrowing Owls
Catherine Woolf
Creekside
Maya Morales Today I am caught in the stillness of this place, In the way the brook sounds like it should be accompanied by a cello and the sun paints the trees like Van Gogh: leaves gently dripping gold as the rush of things holds its breath and the wind, like a melody, dips its toes in the silver stream.
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Heavy Wet Bags Kali Pollard
I was climbing the front stoop when the mist became a flood, and I sighed with the sky in relief as it cracked open to release the wet weight aching stale inside, where it wears us thin.
Rain or Shine Kenya Rothstein
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We Grow the Same Alyssa Stanghellini
Artist Statement I did this piece as a project for my ceramics class for the Fall 2014 semester. Our assignment was to form an image out of a material with significance to our subject matter. I chose to form my son’s first sonogram out of daisy seeds. I chose daisy seeds because just a couple of days prior to being given this assignment, my son and I were walking home and I had randomly asked him what his favorite flower is, he answered “a daisy�. From the image I made of his sonogram out of the daisy seeds, my professor made a laser-cut wood stamp. Using this stamp I made tiles out of clay from which I constructed a hollow, life-size bust of my son (at the time almost 7 years old). I left the top of the head open so that it could serve as a flower pot, in which I planted the original daisy seeds that I had made the image of his sonogram out of. This project was to explore the similarities between the life-cycles of plants and humans, and to celebrate the beauty of life that both share.
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Life Cycle
Amanda Burke Artist Statement The body as a site of rebirth and renewal through nature.
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Bodies
Samantha Klein Honey who ever told you that your body must be stagnant? Why listen to those who believe whispers of gained weight are proof of one’s failure You are an innate part of the carbon cycle and like that cycle, baby, your body is in flux. Expanding, deflating, growing, maturing. Your skin even forms ridges to allow for that expansion Hugging thighs, hips, ass, arms Your skin is accommodating your growth Or you will recede as the tide does Your outer parts shrinking ever closer Such things are the natural processes of life Lets turn our attention to the weathering of stone Overtime water will enter and freeze Making incremental cracks So too will your surface Creating fissures on your face where tears and sweat made their way down However you are not damaged but made stronger These words are to be taken as sacrament Because women don’t hear this enough Your body is whole and perfect Inhabit space No one calls trees to large We marvel at their audacity to reach for the sun Find solace in nature You are one of its parts
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22 Kilometers Jonathan Reader
Symbiosis of Sleep Amanda Burke
Artist Statemnet This piece shows the subject in a dreamlike state, in communion with nature. While the subject sleeps, he merges into his natural environment and is able to listen more closely to what nature has to tell him.
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Such a Boy Sam Terrell
There is a purifying quality to mud and blood. Perhaps it comes from our humble beginnings as primordial creatures drawing our gilled bodies from the muck and mire, all the while struggling through gasps of burning air, crawling slowly towards our eventual bipedal existence. I am envious of the amphibious and reptilian creatures whose sentience is limited to a simple awareness, focusing only on methods of consumption and reproduction. It seems entirely human to be consumed with the mysteries of our own cognitive depth, until we render ourselves mercilessly to an interpretation of a corporeal reality. Our minds tend to wander, clinging to aspects of existence that stem from a misguided representation of what life could or should be. More directly, I am envious of the simplicity that other members of the biotic community embrace without question. Simplicity, at least in the human realm, is often deemed similar to stagnation. The quest for purification, or at least an escape from my own overactive imagination, is what drives me to rise before dawn on days isolated for specific purpose. It was Aldo Leopold who wrote that perhaps no one but a hunter can understand how intense an affection a boy can feel for a piece of marsh. And as I sit at a back table in a Berkeley bar writing this, I feel my chest begin to tighten. My bourbon calls for refreshment and I think of the marshes I have loved, and the loves that have been lost. The table of my peers to my left are oblivious to this and have no concept of why I am beginning to weep. I can only say, it is because I am such a boy.
Advice
Kali Pollard Just, try to learn a thing or two from the fish since the water’s rising, and you still won’t drink or walk under the sea falling. There are so many feet left, and so little land to stand on.
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Shore Things Kate Irwin
The shores wrote with oily tongues licking fish in the bramble of their waves, coral bones bleached dry boreal, for petroleum bottles and brittle bowls. Pulling peanuts from the pit, He breathes her life a while up into an oil sky that’s hot and damp on canvas. The gloam fell beyond the globe pushing light from constellations down beneath the depths of thick warm blankets, sweaty quilts of air. Heat between bodies celestial, singing for more now less than ever before beneath the skeleton of the sea. Her ribs captivate, and her tongue’s light lingers.
Speaking East to a Rock, from Wonderland C.S. Hull
I lap between the past and how now passed the span, across from east to west, I’m here between the Sound and Bay. Once passed the coast my island laid. Once hills displaced. Displayed. The fall has come, and I cast thoughts, cast back to you, a rock, within an ocean, still. Am I still here, nor there, considering the seating chart: “let’s all move one place on.” What happens then? Once back around, I’m back upon that tiny rock? I lay this place behind, beyond the Memory of Sea.
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The Waters Michael Shaw
“Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” Genesis 1:6 Separate the waters from the waters, so I may thrive in a bubble of air. Separate the waters that flow in the ground and the waters that float up the sky, the waters falling, flowing seaward, flooding the river valley, the waters that drink and clean, the waters that sail. Separate the waters from ice caps that melt, regulate, hurricane, and tropicalize the south of France. Separate the oceans and the seas with map lines drawn in water. Separate the septic from the potable with aging pipes and treatment plants. Separate the rivers from the levee towns, the normal year from the hundred-year, the faucets from the drains, the fields from the cities, and dinner from the sea. Separate the rainfall and my convenience, for I would like to shower. The separation bubble—caution, it was good—wherein lies my house.
The Opening C.S. Hull
Dead, winter yields; precipitation. A bulldozer. Pushes. Saltcrusted particles. The shore rives, releasing lowtide ebbs the flushed pond into brackish melding; Blue Claws scuttle in the dilating valley; baby Bass wait just outside; plastic shovels accrete along the coast of beach towels, sandwiches, and copper tones. Slack tide–– eddies form.
Surfbrine snarls into freezing shrieks. The ride cakes with pond scum, mooring on. Sun drops out, casting into shadow.
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Staff From left to right: Hannah Spinner, Ashlyn Sloane, Hannah Miller, Yeshe Salz, Helene Shulz, Whitney Whithaus, Eva Malis, Manon von Kaenel. Not pictured: Abbey Cliffe, Henry Hammel, Anna Pedersen, Haley Williams, Becca Medvin.
Abbey Cliffe
Henry Hammel
Helene Shulz
Ashlyn Sloane
Manon von Kaenel Eva Malis
Hannah Spinner Whitney Whitthaus Anna Pedersen
Cover page and all unlabeled illustrations by Haley Williams
Thank you to our sponsors and supporters! The Associated Students of California (ASUC) The Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) The Student Opportunity Fund (SOF) Our Kickstarter backers
Keep in touch! Email: wordsofthewatershed@gmail.com Website: www.serc.berkeley.edu/words-of-the-watershed Facebook: “Words of the Watershed Journal�
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Hannah Miller
Yeshe Salz
Haley Williams
Blue Heron
Amy Emearld Prindle
A Berkeley journal of local environmental writing and art