During the 1980s and 1990s, the Resource Institute, headed by Jonathan White, held an ongoing series of "floating seminars" aboard a sixty-five-foot schooner featuring leading thinkers and artists from a broad array of disciplines. Over a period of ten years, White conducted interviews with the writers, scientists, environmentalists, and poets who gathered on board to explore our relationship to the wild. The interviews are gathered in this sparkling collection. Some of these visionaries are still making history, while others have passed away, making this legacy especially vital to the narrative about our planet.

White describes the conversations in Talking on the Water as the "roots" of an integrated community. "While at first these roots may not appear to be linked, a closer look reveals that they are sustained in common ground. Whether we are talking to a poet, a biologist, a science fiction writer, or an ex-Dominican priest, all of these people share a deep and longstanding concern for their relationship with nature."

Beloved fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin discusses the nature of language, microbiologist Lynn Margulis contemplates Darwin's career and the many meanings of evolution, and anthropologist Richard Nelson sifts through the spiritual life of Alaska's native people. Rounding out the group are writers Gretel Ehrlich, Paul Shepard, and Peter Matthiessen, conservationists Roger Payne and Davis Brower, theologian Matthew Fox, activist Janet McCloud, Jungian analyst James Hillman, poet Gary Snyder, and ecologist Dolores La Chapelle.

By identifying the common link between these conversations, Talking on the Water takes us on a journey in search of a deeper and more meaningful understanding of ourselves and the environment.