Textbook for the Ecocene
A how-to guide for connecting to self, community and planet.
The contents of this book were found rather than planned. When I started my DIY PhD, I didn’t know where it would lead. I was wanting to prioritize listening: to my body, to the mountain, and to the ancestor guides whispering, “Try this.” I was curious in following a pulse and inner chispa rather than calculating a path of study. This was a continuous free-fall into what felt certain.
Following the scent led my cohort David Whitaker and I to a mountain cave where I toned deep-set grief from blood and belly. It had us howling and crawling, silly walking and crying.
When I asked what hope could root in, I was told to turn to the people creating systematic and paradigm shifts in their everyday lives, with community.
Johanna Iraheta, Bruje Fuego, Raquel Lemus, Íssa Victoria, Jasmine Nyende, Queen Hollins, and Olivia Chumacero agreed to share their testimonios. Their words and inspiration became the heartbeat of the Textbook.
Each chapter additionally holds research from a range of texts from Mayan elders to 3rd world feminists, how-to diagrams, and prompts to try at home. The lay-out unfolded like the chakras of the body, from root to crown an expression of curiosity and care.
Rather than pedantic, I hoped it would make the tall order of composting this late stage capitalist empire feel more approachable, realistic, and tangible. The open-ended prompts asked folks to imagine what their DIY PhD would lead them to; what desires or query were pulling at their heartstrings.
There’s so much we cannot change, yet everything we touch generates ripples of impact often hard to imagine.
This Textbook, for example, was first published by Co-Conspirator Press in 2020. Instead of an opening, we plunged into a pandemic that had folks looking for new ways of thinking, being, and learning. The Textbook made its way around the world and sold out in a few quick months.
It was reprinted last year and is seeping into more spaces, organizations, loving hands than I ever could have predicted. The desire to shift our paradigm with our bodies and ancestor guides, communities and habitats is more universal than I realized.
The seeker is a mystic is a guide is a student and this path is ancient. After listening, we channel. After channeling, we expand.
Come say hi this Friday, May 8th at 5 pm in Los Angeles!!!
I’ll be signing copies of Textbook for the Ecocene on Friday, 5 pm, at the Los Angeles Art Book Fair in booth C15. Stop by if you’re there!
We never got to launch the book in person, so it’s a sweet full circle to share with Printed Matter’s annual fair. Their post on the Textbook back in 2020 helped to proliferate its audience and put our book on the ecofeminist map.