Content warning: implied suicide, language, sadness, pandemic hysteria.

Sofia explores the cycle of the seasons, the Death of Spring, or “Vesna” and the Birth of Summer “Lito”. Endings met with Beginnings. Loss met with Love. This story is fueled by her Ukrainian roots, the hysteria of the pandemic, and using nature to cope.  “Lito the Rusalka” takes us through emptiness, confronting queerness, and the natural unknown, by using a Ukrainian cautionary tale as the catalyst. Sofia confronts her own childhood fears of not knowing what lies beneath the surface of the water, and her adulthood fears of losing every swimmable lake due to the carelessness of our species, the invasiveness of other species, and unknown species’ yet to come. She hopes you find endings and beginnings in this pandemic, and that you always find the water, whatever that means to you!

00:36 Part 1: Welcome, Bitaemo

01:39 Part 2: Vesna’s End, Lito’s Beginning

03:58 Part 3: Beware of the water

05:52 Part 4: Walking to where, exactly?

07:16 Part 5: Relief

This episode was created and recorded by Sofia Lukie in ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory.

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Edited by Sam Jeffery in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory.