Inspired by the Standing Rock Indigenous community's resistance to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016, the children's picture book We Are Water Protectors (2020) by Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade portrays the ecological crisis through the relationships among nature, women, and spirituality. This study examines how the picturebook’s narrative and visual elements construct ecofeminist spirituality, especially the sacredness of nature and the spiritual interconnection between women and the natural world. It also studies how the picture book constructs collective female empowerment as a form of ecological resistance within an ecofeminist spiritual framework. Using a qualitative approach, this study applies Starhawk's ecofeminist spirituality and utilises Roland Barthes' semiotic theory to interpret the verbal and visual signs of the picturebook. The results show that this book presents nature as sacred, portraying water as a living entity with divine significance. A spiritual interconnection between women and nature shapes communal identity and affirms that all beings are related, expressed through the merging of women's bodies with water and ecological grief. The collective empowerment is grounded in Starhawk’s term ‘power from within’, [] with women leadingnonviolent resistance against the “black snake” as a symbol of ecological threat. This term accentuates spiritual integrity, cooperation, and spiritual strength. We Are Water Protectors voices an ecological ideology rooted in indigenous identity and ecofeminist spirituality, emphasising the intrinsic value of ecosystems and the interconnectedness of humans and nature. The book serves as a cultural and political medium for ecological education and resistance while encouraging environmental solidarity.

Keywords: Barthes’ semiotics; Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade; Starhawk’s ecofeminist spirituality; We Are Water Protectors

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