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Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead
A genre-bending exploration of that most elemental force—water—through Indigenous storytelling, personal memory, and the work of influential artists and writers
For many years, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson took solace in skiing—in all kinds of weather, on all kinds of snow across all kinds of terrain, often following the trail beside a beloved creek near her home. Recently, as she skied on this path against the backdrop of uncertainty, environmental devastation, rising authoritarianism and ongoing social injustice, her mind turned to the water in the creek and some elemental questions: What might it mean to truly listen to water? To know water? To exist with and alongside water?
So began a quest to understand her people's historical, cultural, and ongoing interactions with water in all its forms (ice, snow, rain, perspiration, breath). Pulling together these threads, Leanne began to see how a "Theory of Water" might suggest a radical rethinking of relationships between beings and forces in the world today. In this inventive work, Simpson draws on Nishnaabeg origin stories while artfully weaving the work of influential writers and artists alongside her personal memories and experience—and in doing so, reimagines water as a catalyst for radical transformation, capable of birthing a new world.
Theory of Water is a resonant exploration of an intricate, multi-layered relationship with the most abundant element on our planet—one that, as Simpson eloquently shows, is shaping our present even as it demands a radical rethinking of how we might achieve a just future.
For many years, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson took solace in skiing—in all kinds of weather, on all kinds of snow across all kinds of terrain, often following the trail beside a beloved creek near her home. Recently, as she skied on this path against the backdrop of uncertainty, environmental devastation, rising authoritarianism and ongoing social injustice, her mind turned to the water in the creek and some elemental questions: What might it mean to truly listen to water? To know water? To exist with and alongside water?
So began a quest to understand her people's historical, cultural, and ongoing interactions with water in all its forms (ice, snow, rain, perspiration, breath). Pulling together these threads, Leanne began to see how a "Theory of Water" might suggest a radical rethinking of relationships between beings and forces in the world today. In this inventive work, Simpson draws on Nishnaabeg origin stories while artfully weaving the work of influential writers and artists alongside her personal memories and experience—and in doing so, reimagines water as a catalyst for radical transformation, capable of birthing a new world.
Theory of Water is a resonant exploration of an intricate, multi-layered relationship with the most abundant element on our planet—one that, as Simpson eloquently shows, is shaping our present even as it demands a radical rethinking of how we might achieve a just future.
211 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 22, 2025
168 people are currently reading
5337 people want to read
About the author
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
24 books1,089 followersLeanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics, story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
Working for two decades as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada and the United States and has twenty years experience with Indigenous land based education. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba, and teaches at the Dechinta Centre for Research & Learning in Denendeh.
Leanne is the author of six previous books, including This Accident of Being Lost, which won the MacEwan University Book of the Year; was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award; was long listed for CBC Canada Reads; and was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and Quill & Quire. Her latest book, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2017, and was awarded Best Subsequent Book by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Her new novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies is was release this fall by the House of Anansi Press.
Leanne is also a musician combining poetry, storytelling, song-writing and performance in collaboration with musicians to create unique spoken songs and soundscapes. Leanne's third record, The Theory of Ice will be released in 2021.
Leanne is a member of Alderville First Nation.
Working for two decades as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada and the United States and has twenty years experience with Indigenous land based education. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba, and teaches at the Dechinta Centre for Research & Learning in Denendeh.
Leanne is the author of six previous books, including This Accident of Being Lost, which won the MacEwan University Book of the Year; was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award; was long listed for CBC Canada Reads; and was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and Quill & Quire. Her latest book, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2017, and was awarded Best Subsequent Book by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Her new novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies is was release this fall by the House of Anansi Press.
Leanne is also a musician combining poetry, storytelling, song-writing and performance in collaboration with musicians to create unique spoken songs and soundscapes. Leanne's third record, The Theory of Ice will be released in 2021.
Leanne is a member of Alderville First Nation.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
December 22, 2025
Over a decade ago when a plan to lay an oil pipeline under the Mississippi led to a protest encampment near the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota many of us became aware of the slogan Mni Wiconi – Water is Life (or Mní Wičhóni as some orthography has it). For many, this awareness came late and after many years of action by water protectors, while for most of it seemed that ‘water is life’ functioned as a literal and instrumental statement. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s superbly layered and in places subtle exploration of water not as an instrumental need but as ontology, as a way of being, shows just how misguided and short sighted that instrumentalism is – all without any direct commentary on Standing Rock or ways it was discussed in settler worlds. This an elegantly crafted unpacking of the meaning of water and water as meaning, and while able to be read metaphorically, only to do so would be to miss the point.
We know water is pervasive, present in all environments and making up much of the planet’s mass (about 70%), that about 60% of human bodies are water, that only a tiny proportion of it – the ‘fresh’ kind (as less than 3% of the total mass of water) – is usable to sustain human life, and that the first water molecule is (almost certainly) still in existence – but Simpson is not so much concerned with this question of use, but of presence, of connection, of flow – literally, metaphorically, and figuratively. For some time, in much of her more recent work – such as As We Have Always Done and Rehearsals for Living – she has been developing the notion of constellations of co-resistance, and reading this through that lens it becomes a case for the ways those constellations form, link, interact, and associate.
Much of the shape of the book is provided through stories about and reflections on her work and relationship with her mentor, advisor, co-worker, and friend Curve Lake Elder Doug Williams who passed away not long before she began work on this book. Williams appears in stories in other pieces of her work, but here she becomes more reflective, weaving Williams more rigorously into the narrative, making this also a tribute to him, his work, his insight and learning of and about Nishnaabe ways of being and knowing. She is careful to make clear this is an Anishnaabe approach, in places drawing key comparisons with and distinction from other Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Other parts of the case are built through discussions of other work, with artists and musicians, water and land protectors, teaching, learning, exploring space and place, and the problems of getting to important places when settlers demarcate them as ‘owned’. Elsewhere there are poignant discussions of looking at the world from the water – from lakes and rivers – and the meaning of coasts, as well as the many stories of origin, many of which centre on water.
This means the tone varies, shifting from what seems at times like reminiscence and reflection to more direct commentary, building an ontology based in – at a surface level at least –what appears to be two concepts. The first is reciprocity linked to flow and accountability, so flow – water’s never-ending movement – reciprocally replenishes. The second is a characteristic of water as such but of snow, where every snowflake, unique and distinctive as it is, melds to its environment when it lands through a process of sintering, which she presents as “living in a way that bonded them to the different life forms with whom they were sharing time and space”. (p24)
Again, here, Simpson mediates a subtle line between the metaphorical and the literal, where this ontology, this practice, of sintering means weaving oneself into a collective, a “fabric of life”. This literal meaning is then expanded to the figurative, where
Sintering builds networks, and the significance of networks, she shows compellingly, is in their connections, not their hubs; it is not the individuals but their relationships – a point she brings bluntly to the fore noting that “Colonialism … is about severing relationships – to each other, to our lands, to hope and to our futures”. (p179).
The philosopher in me wants to read this only a discussion of an Indigenous ontology – as that way of being the emphasises reciprocity, relationality and being positioned in a network of beings, human and non-human: there’s a not-very-well-hidden post-humanist demanding to be heard in my reading. But limiting this to that understanding would be an error – sintering is a collective effort of continuous transformation, of maintenance of network, links and relations, which is where the constellation becomes important. Simpson’s case provides not only the ontological base for this approach, but also a moral and ethical one, a case for mutuality, for melding with allies and co-resistors, for action and the style of action, and through that for hope.
Simpson's case then, eloquently and unobtrusively made, is that mni wiconi, or mní wičhóni, is not just a life of being but one of acting, embodying practice, presence, and presencing to build a good life.
We know water is pervasive, present in all environments and making up much of the planet’s mass (about 70%), that about 60% of human bodies are water, that only a tiny proportion of it – the ‘fresh’ kind (as less than 3% of the total mass of water) – is usable to sustain human life, and that the first water molecule is (almost certainly) still in existence – but Simpson is not so much concerned with this question of use, but of presence, of connection, of flow – literally, metaphorically, and figuratively. For some time, in much of her more recent work – such as As We Have Always Done and Rehearsals for Living – she has been developing the notion of constellations of co-resistance, and reading this through that lens it becomes a case for the ways those constellations form, link, interact, and associate.
Much of the shape of the book is provided through stories about and reflections on her work and relationship with her mentor, advisor, co-worker, and friend Curve Lake Elder Doug Williams who passed away not long before she began work on this book. Williams appears in stories in other pieces of her work, but here she becomes more reflective, weaving Williams more rigorously into the narrative, making this also a tribute to him, his work, his insight and learning of and about Nishnaabe ways of being and knowing. She is careful to make clear this is an Anishnaabe approach, in places drawing key comparisons with and distinction from other Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Other parts of the case are built through discussions of other work, with artists and musicians, water and land protectors, teaching, learning, exploring space and place, and the problems of getting to important places when settlers demarcate them as ‘owned’. Elsewhere there are poignant discussions of looking at the world from the water – from lakes and rivers – and the meaning of coasts, as well as the many stories of origin, many of which centre on water.
This means the tone varies, shifting from what seems at times like reminiscence and reflection to more direct commentary, building an ontology based in – at a surface level at least –what appears to be two concepts. The first is reciprocity linked to flow and accountability, so flow – water’s never-ending movement – reciprocally replenishes. The second is a characteristic of water as such but of snow, where every snowflake, unique and distinctive as it is, melds to its environment when it lands through a process of sintering, which she presents as “living in a way that bonded them to the different life forms with whom they were sharing time and space”. (p24)
Again, here, Simpson mediates a subtle line between the metaphorical and the literal, where this ontology, this practice, of sintering means weaving oneself into a collective, a “fabric of life”. This literal meaning is then expanded to the figurative, where
Sintering is fractal-like, expanding and contracting across scales. It is non-linear, iterative, transformative and adaptive. Sintering creates possibility. It is reflected in Indigenous practices of politics, economy and governance. And it is crucial collective work in creating constellations of co-resistance.
Sintering builds networks, and the significance of networks, she shows compellingly, is in their connections, not their hubs; it is not the individuals but their relationships – a point she brings bluntly to the fore noting that “Colonialism … is about severing relationships – to each other, to our lands, to hope and to our futures”. (p179).
The philosopher in me wants to read this only a discussion of an Indigenous ontology – as that way of being the emphasises reciprocity, relationality and being positioned in a network of beings, human and non-human: there’s a not-very-well-hidden post-humanist demanding to be heard in my reading. But limiting this to that understanding would be an error – sintering is a collective effort of continuous transformation, of maintenance of network, links and relations, which is where the constellation becomes important. Simpson’s case provides not only the ontological base for this approach, but also a moral and ethical one, a case for mutuality, for melding with allies and co-resistors, for action and the style of action, and through that for hope.
Simpson's case then, eloquently and unobtrusively made, is that mni wiconi, or mní wičhóni, is not just a life of being but one of acting, embodying practice, presence, and presencing to build a good life.
May 19, 2025
A moving collection of essays from Indigenous author and activist about our relationship with water, the land and the environment, how we have a responsibility as stewards to respect the rivers, lakes and oceans and the risks of not doing so. She also touches on the MMIWG2S+ crisis, Residential school trauma and the genocide going on in Gaza with the starving of over 2 million people! Timely, important and impassioned, this was great on audio and highly recommended for fans of authors like Robin Wall Kimmerer.
June 16, 2025
An interesting cross-genre book on water and our relationship to and with it. I’ve read a bit — but fairly minimally — about Indigenous views on water before, and I felt like this was a really insightful examination that had me nodding along quite a bit at times or looking up additional books to read. There was an anecdote within where an Elder talked about how when they were younger their Elders warned them of a time when water would have to be purchased — now, we see water as so expensive, weaponized, political, etc. that imagining what it used to be like feels almost impossible. I appreciated especially the author’s discussions of colonialism in regard to how outside people sanitize Indigenous culture, e.g. ignoring or watering down Indigenous anti-landownership philosophies while simultaneously promoting Indigenous research into animal migration patterns. It commodifies their knowledge and experience in a way that is distasteful and had me reflecting on my place in reading this book and others like it.
I’d recommend this book to readers that enjoy learning about Indigenous philosophies and meditating on how water plays a role in modern conflicts.
This review was written with temporary free digital access to an ARC of the book. Thank you!
I’d recommend this book to readers that enjoy learning about Indigenous philosophies and meditating on how water plays a role in modern conflicts.
This review was written with temporary free digital access to an ARC of the book. Thank you!
June 9, 2025
The pleasantness of her writing and general honesty do disarm, but not enough to discourage strong wording against. I am reading for cultural and linguistic affinities in sources such as this, there are some new ones found and the bibliography can be of use, but overall on all that, plus the titular "theory", it is thin. She is honest admitting she may dissatisfy the spirit of her beloved mentor (whose book I am moved to read now) in reaching too international. Where she goes off the deep end I will give the most egregious example: Contemplating a certain photographic image of indigenous children non-traditionally uniformed and faceless to the camera, leads to musing about use of kids as human shields for the impugned alienating project to quash and assimilate her people. Fine. Then she picks up her gratuitous harping on the horrible situation an ocean away, siding with the hapless (Gaza esp.) oblivious to their being actually, not just through musing, being used as human shields! There appears to be complete buy-in to the world the author herself is assimilating to, all the while decrying "racial capitalism" or “settler colonialism", presumably re the last example somewhat absurdly attributing indigeneity to the suffering hapless Arabs caught in a death cult embrace, all the while championing the increase in life her own tradition claims to foster at its core. What ignorant incongruity. Is the gratuity of this kind of thing to find fashionable favour among those needed to assimilate? She has gratuitous digs at “anti-vaxxers”, oblivious to that some of the 1st covi-dissidence among Canadian doctors (subsequently professionally persecuted in a vein arguably continuous with that of her own people historically) involved injury and worse of the injections to aboriginal patients in BC.
She mentions N Sinclair a few times whose recent book I also read for similar reasons. He at least eg re the disaster of Ukraine sticks to commiseration with those he knows, avoiding misplaced rhetoric & gratuitous harping/siding with an ocean away. The author owes it to herself to deeply reconsider some things, moreover to why not have a good look at the people she seems to most wrongfully impugn that ocean away, whose claim on territory there should be instead obvious, and from whom her own people could learn much in that vein of culture and language and commonality, and survival with the best of all that through (now hyper-)modernity.
She mentions N Sinclair a few times whose recent book I also read for similar reasons. He at least eg re the disaster of Ukraine sticks to commiseration with those he knows, avoiding misplaced rhetoric & gratuitous harping/siding with an ocean away. The author owes it to herself to deeply reconsider some things, moreover to why not have a good look at the people she seems to most wrongfully impugn that ocean away, whose claim on territory there should be instead obvious, and from whom her own people could learn much in that vein of culture and language and commonality, and survival with the best of all that through (now hyper-)modernity.
August 29, 2025
Beautifully written. Essential reading. 🐸 🐢 🌾
December 13, 2025
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson writes:
“In his book The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, Wiliam C. Anderson asks us to consider a vision of politics that “no longer has the state as its object or horizon and eschews the calcified forms of politics as usual… where the state is no longer the horizon of possibility or the telos of struggle.”
This is a relief to read, even as it also marks a lonely path. This vision of politics means no more apologies, no more Royal Commissions and National Inquiries, no more Assembly of First Nations, Indian Act, Self-Government Agreement, Rights, Court – no more, no more, no more. No more begging neoliberalism for recognition. No more begging for charges and convictions. No more being bound up in the cyclical terror of never-ending court cases, negotiations and research projects so tightly controlled that the predetermined outcomes include pacifying resistance. It is a relief, and it also places me on a different trajectory from many others engaged in Indigenous struggle. I don’t mean to fault those who have tried and continue to try to make life and living better for First Nations people and our communities, and I don’t mean to diminish the gains they have made with issues such as clean drinking water or housing, for example. But I do mean that we must study and examine our strategies. And I do mean to bask, even if briefly, in the flight path opened up by changing the horizon.”
“In his book The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, Wiliam C. Anderson asks us to consider a vision of politics that “no longer has the state as its object or horizon and eschews the calcified forms of politics as usual… where the state is no longer the horizon of possibility or the telos of struggle.”
This is a relief to read, even as it also marks a lonely path. This vision of politics means no more apologies, no more Royal Commissions and National Inquiries, no more Assembly of First Nations, Indian Act, Self-Government Agreement, Rights, Court – no more, no more, no more. No more begging neoliberalism for recognition. No more begging for charges and convictions. No more being bound up in the cyclical terror of never-ending court cases, negotiations and research projects so tightly controlled that the predetermined outcomes include pacifying resistance. It is a relief, and it also places me on a different trajectory from many others engaged in Indigenous struggle. I don’t mean to fault those who have tried and continue to try to make life and living better for First Nations people and our communities, and I don’t mean to diminish the gains they have made with issues such as clean drinking water or housing, for example. But I do mean that we must study and examine our strategies. And I do mean to bask, even if briefly, in the flight path opened up by changing the horizon.”
December 17, 2025
"the violence of colonialism requires an arsenal of coping mechanisms, and the full range of emotions - including anger, resentment, sadness, despair and hopelessness - are necessary responses and motivators alongside a foundational habit of care and kindness and unconditional love."
November 12, 2025
I tried this from the goodreads challenge. I just dont feel like I was the target audience for this book.
June 24, 2025
Shoutout CSRE for this pick. "We are not owed comfortable lives." I think about this a lot and how futile it is to try to seek comfort within the system only to be further suffocated by its cruelty. I learned a lot from this book especially about values to center in my daily life <33
May 28, 2025
Yuppppp by the end my brain was exploding and I loved how a little nugget in each chapter kinda led to the theme of the following chapter. She never misses!
January 25, 2026
4 1/2 stars
Simpson's writing is filled with intentional prose and stunning clarity. Theory of Water is simultaneously a meditation in grief and loss and also a guidance in love in the way of the Nishnaabe peoples. It does both with the utmost care and consideration (repetitive occasionally - but not heedlessly, I think.)
Fitted into the fabric of writings, academic teachings, oral and generational stories, and observations in modes of resistances, Simpson stitches together a look back, forward, and into us: all of us, human and not, connected by water (or Nibi). I'm learning how to sinter, too.
"Our fight is our critique."
Simpson's writing is filled with intentional prose and stunning clarity. Theory of Water is simultaneously a meditation in grief and loss and also a guidance in love in the way of the Nishnaabe peoples. It does both with the utmost care and consideration (repetitive occasionally - but not heedlessly, I think.)
Fitted into the fabric of writings, academic teachings, oral and generational stories, and observations in modes of resistances, Simpson stitches together a look back, forward, and into us: all of us, human and not, connected by water (or Nibi). I'm learning how to sinter, too.
November 17, 2025
Beautiful! Reading Simpson's work is always such a captivating way to learn. I love how she utilized the concept of sintering.
May 31, 2025
3.5 ⭐️
this river in which the past is always flowing.every water. is the same water coming around. everyday someone is standing on the edge. of this river,staring into time. whispering mistakenly.
only here only now.
this river in which the past is always flowing.every water. is the same water coming around. everyday someone is standing on the edge. of this river,staring into time. whispering mistakenly.
only here only now.
March 27, 2025
Thank you, Net Galley, for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review. The Theory of Water is beautifully written prose that highlights the issue of declining water supply. Capitalism has forced us to abandon indigenous knowledge systems, and this rich narrative tells us why we need to rethink our current global means. The world depends on indigenous knowledge to survive and protect our waters, but capitalism harms indigenous peoples and their traditions because it does not produce the capital they want to see. Capitalism benefits from harm and the only way to reduce the harm is to revolt against the current system for the original systems.
She discusses the need to work together and as bodies of water, such as rivers connect us all. We are all reliant on each other and need to learn to cohabitate in an environment that helps instead of dividing us further into individualistic categories. There is much to learn from the water and the animal kingdom, as this decrees. The prose, the lists, the poems all serve a purpose throughout this narrative to help us understand the knowledge we are missing out on if we continue down the path of capitalism. These indigenous stories are important and we need to embrace our knowledge instead of repressing it.
Thanks for this wonderful read and my only complaint is that I feel there is more to learn, but this book serves its purpose without overloading the readers with information. The blend of pose, marginalized voices, and poetry really brings the narrative and the authors perspective to focus. The purposeful writing is inspiring to fight back against culture that represses critical knowledge systems and infrastructures. Buy this book – share this narrative. Our water is our life force.
She discusses the need to work together and as bodies of water, such as rivers connect us all. We are all reliant on each other and need to learn to cohabitate in an environment that helps instead of dividing us further into individualistic categories. There is much to learn from the water and the animal kingdom, as this decrees. The prose, the lists, the poems all serve a purpose throughout this narrative to help us understand the knowledge we are missing out on if we continue down the path of capitalism. These indigenous stories are important and we need to embrace our knowledge instead of repressing it.
Thanks for this wonderful read and my only complaint is that I feel there is more to learn, but this book serves its purpose without overloading the readers with information. The blend of pose, marginalized voices, and poetry really brings the narrative and the authors perspective to focus. The purposeful writing is inspiring to fight back against culture that represses critical knowledge systems and infrastructures. Buy this book – share this narrative. Our water is our life force.
January 6, 2026
In early December of last year, I had the distinct and immense pleasure of attending a workshop-gathering on Theory of Water where Leanne gave the opening speech. I had only read the excerpts provided for the event (the opening chapters up to and including the origin story of Gizhiigokwe and Chi'Mikinak), but I was totally enveloped by what I had read.
What strikes a chord with me in all of these concepts is how, on the one hand, similar they are to the propositions going on in the field of study I work in most at the moment, object-oriented ontology (this may come off as a little counterintuitive but then again many things about OOO do), and yet, on the other hand, remain completely autonomous and driven; their political - or maybe I should say ethical? epistemological? - projects, the liberation and self-determination of indigenous groups worldwide, from Turtle Island to Palestine, are inalienable from the theory.
Which, in many ways is what draws me so much to what Leanne has written in these pages: underneath the tenderness, nuance, care and compassion with which she outlines Nibi's various flows through space and time, bodies and stories, there is a commitment to *doing* as a mode of *being*, in motion. That Nibi is incremental is not arbitrary. There are steps, currents, channels we must take, waves we must make if we want a world where all of us are free.
What strikes a chord with me in all of these concepts is how, on the one hand, similar they are to the propositions going on in the field of study I work in most at the moment, object-oriented ontology (this may come off as a little counterintuitive but then again many things about OOO do), and yet, on the other hand, remain completely autonomous and driven; their political - or maybe I should say ethical? epistemological? - projects, the liberation and self-determination of indigenous groups worldwide, from Turtle Island to Palestine, are inalienable from the theory.
Which, in many ways is what draws me so much to what Leanne has written in these pages: underneath the tenderness, nuance, care and compassion with which she outlines Nibi's various flows through space and time, bodies and stories, there is a commitment to *doing* as a mode of *being*, in motion. That Nibi is incremental is not arbitrary. There are steps, currents, channels we must take, waves we must make if we want a world where all of us are free.
October 20, 2025
Leanne why don’t you just punch me in the face instead?? Now I’m off to read As We Have Always Done. Also the encampment mention broke me.
Thinking about her and her work a lot these days,, maybe I don’t want MORE AI and MORE economic productivity and maybe I want clean water and for all children everywhere to grow up free of occupation and colonization.. maybe.. thank you water and all that you teach us
Thinking about her and her work a lot these days,, maybe I don’t want MORE AI and MORE economic productivity and maybe I want clean water and for all children everywhere to grow up free of occupation and colonization.. maybe.. thank you water and all that you teach us
October 27, 2025
“Bears never find themselves unemployed or in need of career counselling.
Moose don’t take over a beavers means of production.
Robins don’t hire other birds to get worms for them.
Cardinals don’t have nanny’s looking after their young and cleaning their nests so their lives are more comfortable.
Caribou’s don’t have army’s guarding their territory.
Salmon don’t stock pile food in the river bed.
The exception is always humans.”
Maarsii Leanne for this beautiful book
Moose don’t take over a beavers means of production.
Robins don’t hire other birds to get worms for them.
Cardinals don’t have nanny’s looking after their young and cleaning their nests so their lives are more comfortable.
Caribou’s don’t have army’s guarding their territory.
Salmon don’t stock pile food in the river bed.
The exception is always humans.”
Maarsii Leanne for this beautiful book
May 7, 2025
3.5 rounded up to 4
December 26, 2025
Some chapters seemed confused, others electric. All thought provoking like a Zen koan.
June 6, 2025
Another brilliant book by Simpson. It's such a genuine pleasure to read her writing and get a peek into her thought processes and life.
It's a true blend of nature writing, academic insights, memoir/life experiences, underpinned by Anishinaabe worldviews and teachings that bring together the past, present, and future. I could feel her grief with the passing of her friend mentor, Elder Doug Williams that I too was grieving his loss and passing from this world to the next.
I learned a lot from this book (as with all her works, fiction and nonfiction) and I think it's a really valuable contribution to the world and how we can move forward together.
I dog-eared so many pages of brilliant quotes but I know I will take the concept of snowflake sintering into my life and community practice.
Highly recommend checking out this book, her works and her music. And if you have the chance to attend an event where she's speaking, all the better!
It's a true blend of nature writing, academic insights, memoir/life experiences, underpinned by Anishinaabe worldviews and teachings that bring together the past, present, and future. I could feel her grief with the passing of her friend mentor, Elder Doug Williams that I too was grieving his loss and passing from this world to the next.
I learned a lot from this book (as with all her works, fiction and nonfiction) and I think it's a really valuable contribution to the world and how we can move forward together.
I dog-eared so many pages of brilliant quotes but I know I will take the concept of snowflake sintering into my life and community practice.
Highly recommend checking out this book, her works and her music. And if you have the chance to attend an event where she's speaking, all the better!
September 25, 2025
I sense a reread in my future
July 8, 2025
thoughts are cooking, I shall return
December 24, 2025
Loved the book. I learned many things about Nishnaabe ecosystems and Nibi (water). Talks about many world endings, including Gaza. There are ideas I had not heard before but left me pondering how I felt about them. Other than that, the book challenged me, a bourgeois white woman, to live in commune with nature.
November 17, 2025
Sometimes a book comes along which shows you a whole new way of viewing the world. A book which challenges all that you have accepted as fact without question. A book that flips the way you view the world. "Theory of Water" is one such book. It is an ode to water, but water is not just that which flows as rivers, falls as rain, or quenches our thirst- water is us, because each of us is nearly 2/3rds water.
The book talks of a way of life which is built on relationships and reciprocity. It talks of the colonial attempt to stamp out a way of life. And of how today more than ever we need to be like water- simultaneously fluid and resilient. This is a book which will unsettle you, but in the best way possible. Read when you are ready, but only when you are ready. And be warned- the book will change you.
"When water is weaponized, __ teaches us to be like Nibi: to stick with our purpose in the face of disaster, to fight back, to flow and persist, to flood or scale up our visions for a better world. It also teaches us to sinter: to develop relationships with other resistors--Palestinians, the Wet'suwet'en, Kayapo and Ovaherero, and Black feminist abolitionists--dreaming worlds beyond this present one."
The book talks of a way of life which is built on relationships and reciprocity. It talks of the colonial attempt to stamp out a way of life. And of how today more than ever we need to be like water- simultaneously fluid and resilient. This is a book which will unsettle you, but in the best way possible. Read when you are ready, but only when you are ready. And be warned- the book will change you.
"When water is weaponized, __ teaches us to be like Nibi: to stick with our purpose in the face of disaster, to fight back, to flow and persist, to flood or scale up our visions for a better world. It also teaches us to sinter: to develop relationships with other resistors--Palestinians, the Wet'suwet'en, Kayapo and Ovaherero, and Black feminist abolitionists--dreaming worlds beyond this present one."
May 16, 2025
Wow. What a way to live up to the title in the writing put out here. The theory of water unfolds page after page, leaking one theory and way of living to the next, collecting and dispursing reminders of indigenous teachings within every aspect of our human existence. There is not enough I can say about this book and can't really find the words right now. Just wow, and this is an urgent read for all, especially as we are moving through dark and desperate times as colonized humankind.
November 19, 2025
I think that it should be noted that this book reads more like an academic work than it does a book of story telling, which is what the synopsis led me to believe it would be. Ms. Simpson is obviously very intelligent, however, I felt the reading was rather dry and uninspiring.
June 19, 2025
wow. This is a book I had to work through slowly, returning to it over and over and allowing myself to think on it.
As an Indigenous scholar I know this will be crucial in helping me understand my work across Indigenous geographies. As an Indigenous woman named after water, Onek di gyoh, I can’t help but have newfound love for what my name represents.
As an Indigenous scholar I know this will be crucial in helping me understand my work across Indigenous geographies. As an Indigenous woman named after water, Onek di gyoh, I can’t help but have newfound love for what my name represents.
November 16, 2025
This was such a lovely book; well written, thought provoking and educational, but why the woke theology? It seemed so forced and out of place in the context of the entire story.
I loved the quote from early on in the story as the idea of nibi - "Before the idea of the world, before the dreaming, before the making, before the inspiration, the know-how, the intercommunal creations, there was care. There was love." I believe this is true. To take this further, I also believe that the things that don't begin with love are the things that begin to rot and/or create a progressive deterioration of worlds - like we see everywhere today.
Keeping in mind that Doug, who is very much a lead character in this story, is a man, and much of where the author learns the things that she is sharing in this book - "Gizhiigokwe went back to the skyworld, Doug told us, where she became the moon. She became the one to watch over and regulate the cycles needed to bring forth more life on earth. She embodied the knowledge and responsibility she had understood in the design on Chi'Mikinak's back, which was key to producing more life. She lives there still, watching over women and children and queer people - "
What about men? And I ask this seriously because without men, without their sperm we would have no circle of life. While, yes, women cycle and it is us who create life within our body, and hold that life in ours until it is able to survive separate from us, there would not be the opportunity to create that life without man.
I was even more put-off by this idea when towards the end of the book the author states, after Doug has passed away, "In our knowledge system, the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg share everything with all living things and their formations. We are deeply interdependent. We are intercommunal. We are but one form of life in a complex web of cascading lives. We are no more important - and many would say we are less important - than the other beings and systems making up the universe. We have no more "rights" than any other living thing in that web. We are not special, extra or exceptional. We are not owed the lives of other living things. We are not owed the planet. We are not owed comfortable lives. We believe this not for self-involved reasons - not because our continuance depends upon the earth being healthy, not because our lives depend upon this, even if they do - but because ethically, who do we think we are?"
This entire book references the "we" as all-inclusive, but yet at very specific times the author makes it a point to eliminate one half of the very life force that created even her. Who does she think she is - echoing her own sentiment?
This book would have been a masterful work of prose with the stories of the heavenly beings, land beings, water dwellers, the great flood, the story of the turtle, the loon.....this was such a well-written piece of art, but the constant forced interjection of the rejection of capitalism, men, colonialism - took away from this book for me. I agree with some of the sentiments, not all, but some and make a separate book for your views on that. Don't combine it with this Theory of Water and all of the other beautiful, native story telling done so well. I hate that I have such a bad taste in my mouth after reading this.
I loved the quote from early on in the story as the idea of nibi - "Before the idea of the world, before the dreaming, before the making, before the inspiration, the know-how, the intercommunal creations, there was care. There was love." I believe this is true. To take this further, I also believe that the things that don't begin with love are the things that begin to rot and/or create a progressive deterioration of worlds - like we see everywhere today.
Keeping in mind that Doug, who is very much a lead character in this story, is a man, and much of where the author learns the things that she is sharing in this book - "Gizhiigokwe went back to the skyworld, Doug told us, where she became the moon. She became the one to watch over and regulate the cycles needed to bring forth more life on earth. She embodied the knowledge and responsibility she had understood in the design on Chi'Mikinak's back, which was key to producing more life. She lives there still, watching over women and children and queer people - "
What about men? And I ask this seriously because without men, without their sperm we would have no circle of life. While, yes, women cycle and it is us who create life within our body, and hold that life in ours until it is able to survive separate from us, there would not be the opportunity to create that life without man.
I was even more put-off by this idea when towards the end of the book the author states, after Doug has passed away, "In our knowledge system, the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg share everything with all living things and their formations. We are deeply interdependent. We are intercommunal. We are but one form of life in a complex web of cascading lives. We are no more important - and many would say we are less important - than the other beings and systems making up the universe. We have no more "rights" than any other living thing in that web. We are not special, extra or exceptional. We are not owed the lives of other living things. We are not owed the planet. We are not owed comfortable lives. We believe this not for self-involved reasons - not because our continuance depends upon the earth being healthy, not because our lives depend upon this, even if they do - but because ethically, who do we think we are?"
This entire book references the "we" as all-inclusive, but yet at very specific times the author makes it a point to eliminate one half of the very life force that created even her. Who does she think she is - echoing her own sentiment?
This book would have been a masterful work of prose with the stories of the heavenly beings, land beings, water dwellers, the great flood, the story of the turtle, the loon.....this was such a well-written piece of art, but the constant forced interjection of the rejection of capitalism, men, colonialism - took away from this book for me. I agree with some of the sentiments, not all, but some and make a separate book for your views on that. Don't combine it with this Theory of Water and all of the other beautiful, native story telling done so well. I hate that I have such a bad taste in my mouth after reading this.
February 3, 2026
I went to a lunch where the author was open to discussing all aspects of the text, her process, even her path and left feeling less convinced with her writing, while still agreeing with all of her direction and principles. I know the landscape of academia (which is a whole ground in itself) is an ethically fraught engagement. She was clear to say, she's left academia 20 years ago for this reason, while in the present she is sitting inside of its mecca having lunch with a room full of academics, because the difficult truth is that academics are the ones reading her books, graduate students mainly in this particular lunch where the "theory" under consideration is how to move in flow, creative complexity, sintering, and transformative ways - a call present in many of her stronger works about Indigenous resurgence.
I read this work alongside Dale Turner's This is Not a Peace Pipe and found that the two works are have the same goal from different places.
I include my notes, which I used in discussion over the luncheon and ultimately left the luncheon with no regrets in having the conversations - but do not think there's anything to blow your hair back about this particular work.
In indigenous thought you become subject in relation to an ancient world.
Chapter 17 Continual Flowing- Simpson, The Theory of Water - what you do every day makes you who you are: You are a human being, and becoming.
p. 136: you are what you do, and what you do everyday matters because over time this accumulates into the structure of one’s life and the structure of a community’s life.
“How you flow through life is both emergent and defining.”
Page 156/7: What if in resisting colonialism and capitalism, we didn’t focus on being recognized within the knowledge, political and ethical systems of the state, which means being recognized in the category of “human” as designed by the state. What if instead we obliterated the categories of gender and human and rights altogether, and created lateral, cooperative systems of sharing all in service to bringing forth more life?
We absolutely should stop orienting our struggles around being recognized as “human” and “rights-bearing” within the state’s epistemic order. But because that order still structures land, prisons, welfare, and schools, we also need word warriors who can operate inside it. The point is to treat those categories as improvised shields, not as our destination, while we build the lateral, water-like systems Simpson calls for. Turner's critical Indigenous philosophy gives us the tools and community structures so that tactical engagement with rights/human doesn’t swallow the more radical horizon.
WE NEED A SURVIVAL KIT
Simpson names the horizon; in another review, I want to argue that Dale Turner's This is not a Peace Pipe gives some pieces of a survival kit for the road we're currently forced to walk.
In the end, I went to the luncheon with Simpson, hoping to share some of these thoughts, which I did. But what I didn't anticipate was that what I was really hoping was for a particular kind of engagement. Namely, a strong desire for her to be someone that might gather all the lost pieces of activism and put them in her basket as someone who could potentially bring Turner's warriors together. The reality of Simpson's life and activism could not have been further from my hopes. She has been pouring her energy into northern Yukon, Dene teaching camps where students learn cooperation and survival land-based skills in a course with credits available for UBC students. For the last 15 years, she's been learning from that land and those elders, enriching and deepening her personal understanding of water. I was especially inspired whenever she discussed her creative works - the sitting with the rivers as they freeze in the fall/winter and thaw in the spring/summer. Her sojourns south and into higher education instituions like her luncheon here in Toronto is simply to keep alive her dream: the one she's living, and this book supports that life and dream.
Fair enough.
I read this work alongside Dale Turner's This is Not a Peace Pipe and found that the two works are have the same goal from different places.
I include my notes, which I used in discussion over the luncheon and ultimately left the luncheon with no regrets in having the conversations - but do not think there's anything to blow your hair back about this particular work.
In indigenous thought you become subject in relation to an ancient world.
Chapter 17 Continual Flowing- Simpson, The Theory of Water - what you do every day makes you who you are: You are a human being, and becoming.
p. 136: you are what you do, and what you do everyday matters because over time this accumulates into the structure of one’s life and the structure of a community’s life.
“How you flow through life is both emergent and defining.”
Page 156/7: What if in resisting colonialism and capitalism, we didn’t focus on being recognized within the knowledge, political and ethical systems of the state, which means being recognized in the category of “human” as designed by the state. What if instead we obliterated the categories of gender and human and rights altogether, and created lateral, cooperative systems of sharing all in service to bringing forth more life?
We absolutely should stop orienting our struggles around being recognized as “human” and “rights-bearing” within the state’s epistemic order. But because that order still structures land, prisons, welfare, and schools, we also need word warriors who can operate inside it. The point is to treat those categories as improvised shields, not as our destination, while we build the lateral, water-like systems Simpson calls for. Turner's critical Indigenous philosophy gives us the tools and community structures so that tactical engagement with rights/human doesn’t swallow the more radical horizon.
WE NEED A SURVIVAL KIT
Simpson names the horizon; in another review, I want to argue that Dale Turner's This is not a Peace Pipe gives some pieces of a survival kit for the road we're currently forced to walk.
In the end, I went to the luncheon with Simpson, hoping to share some of these thoughts, which I did. But what I didn't anticipate was that what I was really hoping was for a particular kind of engagement. Namely, a strong desire for her to be someone that might gather all the lost pieces of activism and put them in her basket as someone who could potentially bring Turner's warriors together. The reality of Simpson's life and activism could not have been further from my hopes. She has been pouring her energy into northern Yukon, Dene teaching camps where students learn cooperation and survival land-based skills in a course with credits available for UBC students. For the last 15 years, she's been learning from that land and those elders, enriching and deepening her personal understanding of water. I was especially inspired whenever she discussed her creative works - the sitting with the rivers as they freeze in the fall/winter and thaw in the spring/summer. Her sojourns south and into higher education instituions like her luncheon here in Toronto is simply to keep alive her dream: the one she's living, and this book supports that life and dream.
Fair enough.
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