A Peace of My Mind

Caitlin Carney is co-owner of Porgy's Seafood Market in New Orleans.Caitlin calls herself the “Lady Monger.” Her business, Porgy's Seafood Market, is a purple storefront on a busy corner in Mid-City New Orleans. It feels like a cross between a fish shop, a lunch joint, and a neighborhood bar.It's a market with a mission: to reconnect New Orleanians with Gulf seafood. A lot of the fish sold in the city is not from the Louisiana coast. Most shoppers are getting their seafood from big supermarket chains, which don't always make buying local a priority. And those shoppers often choose the fish that's most familiar, like salmon or tilapia, which are not from the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, Caitlin says, it's getting less and less profitable for independent fishers to harvest seafood from the Gulf.Caitlin is trying to educate consumers and also trying to make it more profitable for fishers in Louisiana to keep working. One way she does this is by selling bycatch, which is unintended, non-target catch. Often bycatch is thrown away, even when it's delicious, and the fisher makes no profit.“We love what we call hot fish, which are hot fish—you know, they're sexy,” she says. “Whenever we get bycatch, and they come in and they're gorgeous, we're like, ‘Damn, that's a hot fish!' “One of our favorite bycatch is scorpionfish, which is really fantastic as a sashimi,” she adds. “We got some long tail bass in the other day that I didn't even know you could get. So, yeah, it's always an adventure.”if Caitlin can buy it and then convince her customers that it's worth trying, that means additional revenue for the fisher.Thanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Another bonus this week to share a behind the scenes conversation with journalist Barry Yeoman and A Peace of My Mind's John Noltner, who collaborated to produce this multimedia series of interviews and portraits for Still Here: Stories from a fragile coastline.Thanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Darrah Fox Bach is the restoration programs senior manager at the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.Darrah cultivated her love for the outdoors in her native San Francisco, where environmentalism flourishes and Saturdays were devoted to hiking. She moved to Louisiana to study at Tulane University, and stayed for an AmeriCorps position with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL). When a job opened up at the non-profit advocacy group, she came aboard full-time.One of the programs Darrah manages is an oyster shell recycling program that collects the shells from restaurants in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Volunteers then turn them into oyster reefs–”living shorelines” that serve as habitat for baby oysters and also reduce erosion and protect cultural heritage sites. After listening to Darrah's interview, stay tuned for a bonus preview of our conversation with Rashida Ferdinand, the Executive director of Sankofa Community Development Corporation in the Lower Ninth Ward.After Rashida earned her master's degree in ceramics, she considered moving to New York for its energy and professional opportunities. “But I wanted to also be in a warm environment, physically and culturally,” she says. “Being around blue, purple, yellow houses. Being around my family. My grandmother was getting older. So it was a no-brainer.” She moved back home to New Orleans in 2001.Rashida had grown up in the Lower Ninth Ward, a former cypress swamp that had become a working-class district with one of the nation's highest rates of Black homeownership. As a child, she heard adults reminisce about the crawfish that used to live in the gullies, about the neighborhood's informal bartering system, and about keeping their doors unlocked at night.Then, four years after her return, Rashida's neighborhood made national headlines. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the city's levee system failed, and the low-lying Lower Ninth Ward took the biggest hit. Thousands of homes were inundated or leveled. Residents fled to their rooftops for rescue. The death toll exceeded any other part of the city. When Rashida finally saw the neighborhood again, she says, it looked like “a shell of nothing.”Thanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Rosina Philippe lives in Grand Bayou Indian Village, a community that is entirely based in water. The homes, along with the church, can only be reached by boat. This was not always the case. “We had solid ground beneath our feet,” she recalls. “We had garden spaces. We had fruit trees. We had lots of land where you can walk for miles.”The Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha are a subsistence tribe, and have long relied on the bounty of the land and water: harvesting seafood, foraging for persimmons and wild celery, growing vegetables, hunting deer, ducks, and rabbits. Always, they've been guided by an ethos of taking only what they needed. “There was no such thing as overharvesting or just taking and hoarding away,” Rosina says, “because the life around us makes us possible. And as long as they were here, then we were here.”They are still a subsistence tribe. But with much of the land gone, some of their traditional foodways have become difficult or even impossible to maintain. Disappearing wetlands also means less protection from storms. Most tribal members have moved away, returning to Grand Bayou with their families for holidays.But Rosina remains, along with about a dozen other households. “I say that we're placemarkers,” she says. “A table is here and it's set and we're like a place card holding the place for others to come. I stay because of my love for my life, my life choices, my lifeway, for the ways of being with this place. I stay because I believe that the Creator in his infinite wisdom has placed my people where we belong. This is our place. This is where we were supposed to be.“And I stay because I feel that I can make a difference. if I just inspire one person, and that one person can inspire somebody else, and so on, then we continue our inhabitation.”Thanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Alex Kolker is a coastal scientist with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.During the Covid-19 lockdown, while others baked sourdough bread, Alex was studying satellite images of the Mississippi River Delta. As an oceanographer, geologist, and climate scientist, he is interested in how the Louisiana coastline loses land, and also how it builds that land back. As he examined the images, Alex noticed a channel connecting the Mississippi River to Breton Sound and Quarantine Bay. Over the course of about a year, he says, the tiny cut had widened into a veritable river. Neptune Pass, as it's called, carried more than four times as much water as New York's Hudson River.That water contained sediment, which was building land. Alex started noticing islands forming in Quarantine Bay. This rapid land-building process was the opposite of what's happening in much of Louisiana, which has lost 2,000 square miles in the past century.After listening to Alex's interview, stay tuned for a bonus preview of our conversation with Prasanta Subudhi, a professor of plant genetics at Louisiana State University.Prasanta grew up near India's Bay of Bengal, in a village surrounded by rice fields. From a young age, the crop fascinated him. He considered careers in medicine and engineering, but rejected them both in favor of rice genetics.Prasanta came to the United States to do research at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. In 2001 he joined the faculty at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Here, he's been trying to answer a big question: How do we keep growing rice and feeding a hungry world even as the climate changes?Thanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Ebony Woodruff is an agricultural attorney in Chalmette, Louisiana.Ebony entered law school with plans to become a corporate attorney. As the daughter of a welder-electrician and a teacher, her initial goal was upward mobility. “It was really all about the money,” she said. But her professors at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, themselves first-generation attorneys, encouraged students to return to their communities and make a difference. Their words stuck with her after graduation.Ebony combined her passion for food and her concern for civil rights—and found her place fighting Black land loss. According to a study by economist Dania V. Francis, Black farmers in the United States lost 90 percent of their land between 1910 and 1997. The reasons are numerous: state-sanctioned violence, racial discrimination by banks, and denied access to federal farm benefits by local administrators.Ebony focused on another reason for this loss: a legal nightmare called heirs' property. When a landowner dies without a will in Louisiana, their property is divided among all their children, and then might ripple out to the grandchildren and beyond. As the ownership spreads thinner, it becomes easy for predatory developers to buy up shares and eventually force the land out of family hands.Now she works with families that are trying to hold onto their land, while also raising awareness. “I'm like the little mosquito,” she says. “You hear it. It's buzzing. It's annoying. It's biting you. You want to slap it, but you just can't see it. If I'm nothing more than that, I have done my job in this struggle. Because we can't go down silent. Someone has to tell the story.”Thanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Kristian Bailey is a farmer, and he also considers himself a land steward and teacher. At Orais Hand Farm, located across the road from the Mississippi River, he is trying to move away from the idea of human dominion over nature. Instead, he is working in cooperation with it.Kristian talks about farming with “tenderness”: recognizing that Southern land carries wounds (his own farm is on a former plantation site) and that part of his job is to help heal those wounds.Credits:Interview and text, Barry YeomanPhotos, John NoltnerEditing and production, summer interns Kate West, Sawyer Garrison, and Kaitlin ImaiAudio Engineering, Razik SaifullahThanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Chief Devon Parfait spent his early years in Dulac, a bayou community at the watery edge of Louisiana. He caught fish from the dock, bounced on his neighbor's trampoline, and went out on his grandfather's shrimp boat. But Hurricane Rita destroyed his family's home in 2005, when he was 8, setting off years of displacement. The extended family migrated inland and eventually settled in the New Orleans suburb of Marrero. Trauma followed Chief Devon for much of his childhood. Yet even as he struggled in school, the adults in his life believed and invested in him. His predecessor, Elder Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar, tapped him as the tribe's future leader when he was 12. A mentor, geologist Rónadh Cox, helped prepare him academically until he gained admission to Williams College in Massachusetts. There, studying geosciences, he mapped Louisiana's traditional Indigenous land and discovered that it was eroding faster than the state's coastline as a whole.He imagined becoming chief in middle age. But before he graduated, Elder Chief Shirell called him. “I think it's time,” he recalls her saying. “You are so well equipped to help deal with the issues that we're facing right now.” He finished his undergraduate degree and was sworn in during a small, Covid-safe ceremony in 2022 at the age of 25.Credits:Interview and text, Barry YeomanPhotos, John NoltnerEditing and production, summer interns Kate West, Sawyer Garrison, and Kaitlin ImaiAudio Engineering, Razik SaifullahThanks for listening to A Peace of My Mind's podcast. For photos, videos, and additional content, visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Nate Suppon's mother died when he was an infant. He says he was born into a home filled with depression, anxiety, and turmoil. A lack of love. And he tried to fill that void with drugs and alcohol. Between the ages of 15 and 38, he was addicted and spent time in and out of prison.It was a self-absorbed cycle. He found both faith and sobriety and now lives his life in service to others. At the time of our conversation, he had been clean for six years and three months.Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board and the arts and cultural heritage fund for supporting this work.John Noltner is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Dan Brandt is a father, a husband, and an entrepreneur who says he likes to think of himself as a kind, decent person who tries to do the next right thing. Dan stopped drinking when he was 35 years old and he is now 56. He didn't lose his job, he didn't have a string of arrests, but he had seen alcoholism around him and he knew he was on a bad path. And he knew that he needed help.Dan joined a 12-step program and surrounded himself with others who were pursuing sobriety, too. Along the way he has had a couple detours in his recovery and those detours have always happened when he didn't have that support network around him.He lives by the motto, "Keep your side of the street clean." Control what you can control. Don't lie to others. Don't lie to yourself.Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board and the arts and cultural heritage fund for supporting this work.John Noltner is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Josue Gonzalez grew up in difficult circumstances that he said left a lot of holes in his life. Holes where the sense of love and belonging, and being cared for should have been. He tried filling those holes with different things.He remembers sneaking his first drink at an early age in a house that always had alcohol available. In his teens he experimented with other drugs and found himself in active addiction that cost him jobs, relationships and hope for his own future.He was homeless when he decided to finally make a change and now he has been sober for more than 14 years.Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board and the arts and cultural heritage fund for supporting this work.John Noltner is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Vanessa Weyaus is a member of the Lynx clan of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Her name in Ojibwe translates as The Shining Light in the Sky Woman. Vanessa spent years in addiction, eventually living on the streets and running from the law. When she tired of it all, she turned herself in during a routine traffic stop. She was offered treatment, but chose to serve her prison sentence instead and has now been clean and sober for more than six years. Her recovery date is January 8, 2019. She now works as a substance use disorder counselor for the tribe.Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board and the arts and cultural heritage fund for supporting this work.John Noltner is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

John Gerber is a graphic designer and a fine artist in Minneapolis. He describes himself as someone who thinks and feels deeply. He has had an on again / off again relationship with alcohol. He stopped drinking completely between the ages of 30 and 40, but when his 40th birthday came around, he decided to celebrate. He describes it like this: "Then between 40 and 60, I think I drank probably to make up for those 10 years."John never hit a rock bottom but he noticed things about himself that he wanted to change. He said, "Between 40 and 60, I think some things would've been better had I not been drinking at all." He has been sober since August of 2023.Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board and the arts and cultural heritage fund for supporting this work.John Noltner is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Casey Pytleski is a mother, a wife, and a recovering addict. Although she had experimented with my substances as a youth, it was an unexpected introduction to meth as an adult that led to a quick addiction and unraveled the idyllic life she and her husband had created. At the time of our interview, it had been 89 days since her last use. 

Welcome to A Peace of My Mind, a project that uses storytelling and art to rediscover what connects us. I'm John Noltner, the founder and director of A Peace of My Mind and I have the good luck to travel the country and the world interviewing people to help reveal the beauty and wisdom that is all around us….if we choose to see it.This new season of the podcast is called Sobr. S-O-B-R and we are exploring stories of addiction and recovery. I stopped drinking on August 10, 2022. It was the day I turned  55-1/2. And now I am gathering the stories of others who have decided that sobriety…for them…is easier than moderation. Whether their addiction was alcohol or drugs…these are stories of people who found a way to make a change in their lives when their lifestyles were no longer serving them. The road is not always easy and the path to recovery is not always a straight line. But there is always hope and tomorrow is always a new day. So together, we are going to explore the struggles, celebrate the victories, and reaffirm that we all have choices to make along the way. Welcome to A Peace of My Mind. Welcome to SOBR. I'm glad you're here.

Joe Davis is a spoken word artist in Minneapolis. I interviewed Joe in front of a live audience for one of our Creative Changemakers events on July 25 at Squirrel Haus Arts in Minneapolis. He joined us with his band Poetic Diaspora. Enjoy a little music with them and then our conversation.

Jan Selby is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally in settings ranging from film festivals and art museums to university classrooms and on Public Television. BEYOND THE DIVIDE premiered at Montana's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at the Peace on Earth Film Festival. After a year of traveling to festivals world-wide, BEYOND THE DIVIDE was broadcast on Twin Cities Public Television, which led to national distribution by American Public Television.Jan's previous film, A CIRCLE AND THREE LINES, won a regional Emmy, screened at numerous film festivals including the Woodstock Film Festival and was featured in the Walker Art Center exhibit, The Reel Thing. Jan is the founder of Quiet Island Films where she brings her documentary and storytelling experience to projects for corporate and non-profit clients.I interviewed Jan in front of a live audience before screening her film, which she has now made available for streaming for free on the website for BEYOND THE DIVIDE.Between the interview and Q&A segments of the podcast, you will hear musician Chris Koza play the title track from the film.

Duncan Gray is a retired Episcopal Priest and was the 9th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. I met him at St. Peter's Episcopal church in Oxford, Mississippi, where he was rector, like his father before him. His father served from 1957 to 1965 during the turbulent era when James Meredith was the first Black man who was allowed admission into the University of Mississippi.St. Peter's organized itself in 1851. The church building was completed just prior to the Civil War in 1860. Its first service was just prior to Mississippi's secession and, according to Duncan, “has a history of being an enlightened community in some pretty difficult times in Mississippi.”

Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar is chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. She has spent decades helping her community fight for federal recognition of their tribe and finding resilient solutions to the political and environmental challenges that have seen their traditional lands literally wash away into the Gulf of Mexico.(We did this interview on the front porch, on a windy day, along a busy road, so there is some background noise, but the conversation is rich.)

Greg Campbell has gone home to die. His liver and kidneys are failing and on Wednesday, March 8, he left the hospital because he didn't want to die in an institution. He has chosen to die at home where he finds peace and love and safety.We talked about his faith, his desire to teach people that they don't need to fear death and the deep joy in having time to say goodbye to friends.Greg said, "Am I sad? Yeah. But this is the trail I'm on. And I have to finish the trail."

April Grayson was born and raised in Mississippi. She left the state after college and returned again 10 years later to tell stories about her home state and, in particular, about the Civil Rights Movement and the history of race in Mississippi through oral history and documentary films. April is the director of Community & Capacity Building at the Alluvial Collective, formerly the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, an organization that works to hold space for difficult conversations.We talked about her love of storytelling, her work to build healing dialogue and the difficult history she finds in her own family's story right down to the name she was given.

Randell Sam is a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. I met Randell while spending some time with the Water Protectors near Palisade, Minnesota. After a brief introduction in Ojibwe, Randell shared some of his history with alcohol and drug addiction. After years of using, he found the true meaning behind his Anishinabe name, which is, “I Am The Walking Light.” Randell plays an important role in the recovery movement in his community, fighting the opioid epidemic. Through living honestly and practicing truth, love, and humility, he's able to continue connecting and supporting others to stay sober. He's found his life's calling, sharing that he recovered loudly so addicts don't have to die quietly. 

Harvey Goodsky, Jr. lives in McGregor, Minnesota. As a part of the Sucker Fish Clan, he carries the responsibility of being the shepherd of the land. His priority is to keep that teaching and learning alive through his own seven children and their future generations. Harvey opens our interview with a message in his native language, Ojibwe. We talked about his childhood and growing up as Anishinaabe, his connection with their land and learning the clan's traditions. He shared the historical challenges that his ancestors have gone through and the contemporary struggles of today, losing touch with nature and lack of infrastructure in their community. 

Sandy Gokee is Anishinaabe—Bear Clan—and lives in Ashland, Wisconsin. For the interview, we sat outside at a park overlooking Lake Superior as a storm skirted around us, so you might hear a little wind and maybe even thunder in the recording. Sandy introduces herself in her native language, Ojibwemowin. She shares her concerns about the invisibility of Indigenous people and how imbalanced life is between human and non-human beings. She also talks about the importance and frustrations of educating others on her community's cultures, beliefs, and treaties, so that they can heal and restore the harmony and balance in their way of life. 

Afton Thomas is the Associate Director for Programs at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Afton talks about Oxford as the progressive south, and the importance of continuing to share stories of the past so we can live better today and in the future. At the time of this interview, Afton's involvement and voice in the community had led her down a political path as she made the decision to run for Alderman in the city she now calls home. 

Mary Dougherty lives in Bayfield, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior. As she says, just about as far north as you can go in the state without getting wet. She is the author of "Life in a Northern Town: Cooking, Eating, and Other Adventures along Lake Superior."We talked about preserving the watershed of the world's largest fresh water lake and how we need to look upstream at the sustainability and health of the community's surrounding it in order to preserve the wellbeing of this vast, yet fragile resource for generations to come. 

Mike Radtke is the operations manager for the Madeline Island Ferry Line in Bayfield, Wisconsin. He started there as a captain and over the past 32 years, he has made the 20-minute, 2.5 mile journey between the mainland and the island thousands of times. We talked about his observations of how Lake Superior has changed through the years, his family's long-time habit of hosting international exchange students and the beauty and richness of life in a small town. 

Michael Skoler describes himself as a reformed NPR correspondent, a dad, a meditator, and a backpacker. Michael is the communications director for Weave the Social Fabric Project, an initiative of the Aspen Institute, designed to address the broken social trust in America. We spoke about  his work in Africa during the Rwandan genocide, his desire to care open-heartedly and his goals to foster community at a grassroots level with the Weave Project.

Dr. Simran Jeet Singh is the Executive Director of the Religion and Society Program at the Aspen Institute and the author of The Light We Give, How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. We talked about his love for basketball, his advocacy for religious pluralism and a surprise lesson he learned one day recently when he forgot his earbuds while going for a run.

Shane Claiborne is a speaker, activist and author. He founded the Simple Way, an intentional community in Philadelphia, building a neighborhood of belonging. And he leads Red Letter Christians, a group that tries to live “like Jesus meant the things he said.”I interviewed Shane at the Sojourners office in DC right after the Moral March on Washington, led by the Poor People's Campaign.We talked abut living simply, living courageously and about surrounding yourself with good people.

Lauren Reliford is the political director for Sojourners in Washington, DC. Her work is centered on applying social theory, spirituality, research, and practice to the political policy that guides our nation. We talked about her political theory, her efforts to influence policy makers to legislate for the common good, and her inclination to care deeply.

Bill Mefford is the Executive Director of the Festival Center in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC. The Festival Center is an outreach of the Church of the Saviour, designed as a hub for supporting community centered ministries and nonprofits, and to train faith leaders for mission and justice. We talked about his journey from Evangelical to liberation theology, his understanding of proximity and immersion with those who are marginalized that can lead us to liberation and his commitment to stay in relationship with people he disagrees with.

Mitchell Atencio is the associate news editor at Sojourners. Born in Atlanta, he now works out of the Sojourners D.C. offices on Capitol Hill.  I interviewed Mitchell three days before the Supreme Court released its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.We spoke about his work in media, his ongoing process of challenging his own assumptions, and his decision to be discalced out of religious conviction.

Sister Jenna is a spiritual mentor, the founder and director of the Brahma Kumaris Meditation Museum and the host of America Meditating Radio.We spoke about her meditation practice, her understanding of the obstacles that impede our progress toward peace, and our ability to see the divine in one another.

Andrew Cheung is the senior pastor of Washington Community Fellowship, a Protestant community located less than a dozen blocks from our nation's capital that strives to practice love as a lifestyle.We talked about his interest in crossing boundaries, his personal walk through life with a sense of wonder, and  our ability to create healing for one another.

Rose Berger is the senior editor at Sojourners magazine. She is a poet and a Catholic peace activist. She's traveled to conflict zones around the world to be in fellowship with faith communities who are working toward peace.We spoke about her trip to Ukraine, her belief in nonviolence and finding the courage to live an authentic life rooted in her faith.Read more about her trip and why she went at this link.

Adam Russell Taylor is the president of Sojourners, a faith-based organization exploring the Christian call for social justice. I interviewed Adam at the Sojourner's office in Washington D.C. on the eve of the Poor People's Campaign's Moral March on Washington, where I joined Adam and tens of thousands of others in a call for moral revival in America. We talked about America's troubled history with race, the role faith plays in racial healing, and the opportunity to build a Beloved Community that allows all people to thrive..

Katey Zeh is the CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. She's an ordained Baptist minister and the author of A Complicated Choice, Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-choice Movement. We talked about the history of religious leaders who have helped women get the healthcare they need, the political moment we are currently in, and her decision to no longer spend her energy debating the morality of abortion, but rather tend to the care of people in crisis.

Izzy Collett is the co-founder and owner of Desert Adventures, an outfitter in Boulder City, Nevada that takes clients on outdoor adventures. With more than 20 years of paddling experience, Izzy is a searcher, always looking for new answers. We talked about lake levels, wilderness ethics and the little things we can all do to make a difference.

Colby Pellegrino is the Deputy General Manager of Resources for the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is the driest metropolitan area in the United States with an annual rainfall of just four inches.We talked about the increasing population of Las Vegas, the unprecedented drought and the innovative water conservation programs the city has developed in the face of it all.

David Arend was named the Deputy Regional Director for the Bureau of Reclamations Lower Colorado Basin in December of 2021. His responsibilities include oversight of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. I interviewed David at the Hoover Dam near Boulder City, Nevada.We talked about the multiple factors that are lowering lake levels in Lake Mead, the history of the Colorado River Compact and some of the ways states, water districts and tribes are cooperating to address the challenges.

Nora McDowell is a member of the Fort Mojave Tribe in Mojave Valley, Arizona and was the chairperson of the tribe for more than 25 years. She's a part of the leadership team for the Water and Tribes Initiative and is passionate about protecting all natural and cultural resources along the Colorado River.We talked about the history of her community, their advocacy for the preservation of the environment, and their deep connection to the land and the water that sustains it.

Bri Hernandez Rosales is a graduate research assistant at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada and did her graduate thesis on the feasibility of rainwater harvesting for a local tribe. I interviewed Bri two days before she walked the stage to receive her master's degree in hydrologic sciences. We talked about her interest in water resources, her research on rainwater harvesting and her desire to make a difference in underserved communities.

Chad Taylor is the director of sales and marketing for Lake Mead, Mohave Adventures, and grew up on Lake Mead, when his dad was the general manager of Callville Bay Marina in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States, but is currently at historically low levels as the population in the southwest continues to grow and the region faces continued drought conditions.We talked about the changes in the lake levels, the ways his business is adapting, and his belief that humans will find a solution to this challenge, as we always do.

Seth Nickell describes himself as a husband, a father, a combat veteran, and a man of God. I interviewed Seth in Stanwood, Washington at a retreat for Project Sanctuary, a nonprofit that helps reconnect returning soldiers to civilian and family life. We talked about his decision to serve, the challenges of finding help for his PTSD and the things he's learned about himself along the way. 

Lisa Rutherford lives in Ivins, Utah, just outside of Saint George, one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in America. Lisa spent two decades working for the oil industry in Alaska and is one of the founding board members and current advisors for Conserve Southwest Utah. We talked about water resources, smart growth, and resisting the ever-present temptation to consume.

John Weisheit grew up with a love for the Colorado River and has worked as a river guide for more than four decades. In the year 2000, John co-founded Living Rivers, an advocacy group that seeks a path to restoring the ecology of the Southwest, balanced with meeting human needs.I interviewed John in the cool shade of his backyard boathouse in Moab, Utah just after he returned from a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon.We talked about working in harmony with nature, the ability of time in the wilderness to eliminate some of life's distractions, and the power of the individual to create change.

Eric Balken is the executive director for the Glen Canyon Institute, which is dedicated to the restoration of Glen Canyon and a free flowing Colorado River. Eric grew up and still lives in Salt Lake City, Utah where he developed an early love for mountains, rivers and deserts.We talked about the structure of the Colorado River basin, the challenges of a historic 20-year drought, and what a future without Lake Powell might look like.

Melanie Stanley lost her home and business in Blue River, Oregon in the Holiday Farm Fire of 2020. The Meyers General Store and Liquor Shop had been in her family for 29 years. I interviewed her on the cement slab that remained.We talked about the fire that devastated the town of Blue River, her commitment to rebuild and both her dreams and fears about what the future might hold for her community.

Jackie Davis is 12 years old and lives in McKenzie Bridge, Oregon. She likes to catch snakes and salamanders in her yard. She'd like to work in claymation when she grows up. In late summer of 2020, the Holiday Farm wildfire swept through the valley where she lives and they had to evacuate. Her house wasn't damaged by the fire, but more than 500 other homes were destroyed.We talked about the fire, the things she brought with her when they evacuated, and what she loves about growing up in the woods of Oregon.Jackie was named for her grandfather, Jackie Herman, who I also interviewed for A Peace of My Mind.

Jackie Herman is a retired hair dresser from Brooklyn, New York. I met Jackie in Mackenzie bridge, Oregon, where he was spending time with his daughter, Kelly, after losing his wife of 59 years. We talked about his first date with Sheila, the business they ran together, and his journey of learning how to live without her.Fair warning, if the f-word bothers you, it might be better to move on to the next story, but if you can manage it, Jackie has some wisdom to share.