Ecollective Changing Gallery
The flight of the guinea fowl
Synchronicity, artifice, and the rooted pumpkin
Mystics have long looked to nature for signs from the universe and have often found them in bird calls and the sudden appearance of birds. I first encountered this concept in a memorable way when I read Carlos Castaneda’s A Separate Reality shortly after the book’s publication in 1971. In the book, Yaqui shaman Don Juan teaches that crows are not just animals, but emissaries and omens for those who know how to truly "see." That early inkling about the communicative power of the natural world returned to me recently, as a transcontinental flock of heritage fowl serendipitously migrated through the content of the Ecollective.
The migration began in the American South, with artist Daniel Minter’s fond recollections of his mother’s yard-dwelling guinea fowl and traveled across the Atlantic to the indigenous Hausa and Yoruba chickens described by John Adeolu. And it appeared most recently in Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino, which I stumbled upon while searching through my old book collection for something else. The book was published by in 1966 by East African Publishing House.
In the illustration shown here from Song of Lawino, we see a guinea fowl caricatured as a woman. The traditional Lawino observes her husband's modern paramour, a black Kenyan woman who layers her face with ash-colored powder and wears wigs to mimic Euro-American beauty standards. Lawino notes with sharp, poetic wit that when the sweat of the African heat breaks through the artifice, the paramour simply resembles the speckled guinea fowl:
"She dusts the ash dirt on her face / And when little sweat / Begins to appear on her body / She looks like the guinea fowl."
Here, the fowl becomes a mirror reflecting the enduring, exhausting social pressure placed upon black women to conform to a manufactured, Westernized ideal: a delicate, modern "chick," entirely divorced from her natural self. Yet, nature always breaks through the powder.
Song of Lawino is not just a critique of aesthetic forms of cultural alienation; it is a strong affirmation of our environmental tether. At the narrative’s end, Lawino pleads with her husband to see the true wealth of their indigenous life. She says:
Let me dance before you, / My love, / Let me show you / The wealth in your house, / Ocol my husband, / Son of the Bull, / Let no one uproot the Pumpkin.
In this closing plea, we find an odd but enchanting pairing: the powerful, imposing Bull, and the humble, vine-creeping Pumpkin. It is a reminder that no matter how much we advance in human-made material ways, our true wealth lies in the soil. We are only as strong as the lowly, earthy networks we refuse to uproot.
J.H.
Guinea fowl in South Africa
photo by Lisa Marie on Unsplash
Let’s continue to explore human-environmental connections with your images and text, and a shared sense of purpose … and wonder in the Ecollective changing gallery. (See details below.)
Community Bulletin Board
Have an announcement about environmental and human ecologies? Send details in the message section of the form on our Contact page for the announcement to be listed on the bulletin board below.
Invitation to show in the changing gallery
This portal page changes regularly and we invite your contributions. We are looking for brief visual exploratory stories about human beings and the natural world. You can submit your photography or artwork and brief accompanying text via the message section of the form on our Contact page. If selected, we’ll design a format to fit your content.
Herban Cura offers knowledge shares, immersions, and herbal remedies that it believes are fundamental to building and supporting our collective resilience.
On Wednesday, April 22nd | 5:00-7:00PM EST | Online, Herban Cura will explore the ways Black and Indigenous people throughout the Americas have related to horses, and what those relationships can teach us about living collectively. From fugitive slaves escaping plantations on horseback to mounted protestors at the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, horses have played a central role in Black and Indigenous survival, land stewardship, and memory work.
Participants will engage with both archival and contemporary media as we discuss what horse-human relations can teach us about ways of being together with the land and with each other. What can we learn about labor solidarity from the histories of Black farmers and their horses? What might we glean from the presence of horses in works by writers like Joy Priest and Natalie Diaz? The class will be a mix of presentation, discussion, and writing prompts, encouraging students to actively reflect on their relational and ecological practices. Visit this page for more information and to register for the program.
Shannon Lockhart McDole
Historic Anacostia Community environmental resourcefulness
In her new book, Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City, historian Kate Brown provide a history of urban food production. A striking example in the book is the Anacostia communuty in Washington, D.C. During the 1910s and 20s, black residents there faced systemic neglect from city planners who refused to provide basic infrastructure like sewers or garbage pickup. In response, these residents developed an impressively resourceful closed-loop ecosystem. They managed waste through innovative composting systems and pig farming, and engineered their own water filtration systems using roof runoff and gravel—effectively inventing sustainable urban living. As Brown notes, they “were doing all the things that would be considered green architecture today.”
Community
Bulletin Board
On March 4, 2026, Erika Galentin, executive director of the American Herbalists Guild, announced that Shannon Lockhart McDole has been appointed membership & education coordinator of the Guild.
Lockhart McDole is a folk herbalist, yoga instructor and light-worker. As a healer, her passion in life has become empowering others by helping them take responsibility for their personal health and well-being. Her work in herbalism extends beyond daily wellness, including emergency mobilization to connect people to the medicine and holistic health services needed during and after times of tragedy.
The American Herbalists Guild values the relationship between individual and environmental health and promotes clinical herbalism as a viable profession rooted in ethics, competency, diversity, and freedom of practice.
Experience the American landscape through a new perspective in Beronda L. Montgomery’s When Trees Testify. Part scientific exploration and part ancestral reclamation, this compelling narrative reveals how the histories of black Americans are rooted deep within the soil and branches of our most iconic flora. From the pecan trees domesticated by the expertise of enslaved Africans to the sycamores that served as silent sentinels on the path to freedom, Montgomery, an award-winning plant biologist, transforms these "material witnesses" into storytellers. It is a vibrant, soul-stirring look at black botanical mastery and a reminder that while the stories of the past are often hidden, the trees have always been listening—and now, they are finally answering.
134TH ANNUAL FARMERS CONFERENCE
Tuskegee University, February 19 - 20, 2026
Join us on campus for workshops, hands-on demonstrations, tours and a "Taste of the Black Belt". Let's Grow Stronger Together!
The Farmers Conference at Tuskegee University is often cited as the oldest event of its type in the nation. The first Farmers Conference, originally called the “Peoples Conference” was hosted on this historic campus on February 23, 1892. This conference exists today as a two-day educational forum that features tours, panel discussions, interactive demonstrations and concurrent workshops.
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and DJ Mamoudou
2026 Tour
April 14 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Botanic Garden
April 18 Monterey, CA – Monterey Bay Aquarium
April 21 New York, NY – American Museum of Natural History
April 24 San Diego, CA – Birch Aquarium at Scripps
April 25 Los Angeles, CA – La Brea Tar Pits and Museum
May 9 Freeport, ME – Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & Environment
Down for the cause
True to her message of joy counteracting environmental gloom and doom scenarios, climate solutions activist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is celebrating the publication of the paperback edition of her What If We Get It Right book with a series of dance parties.
Past annual events and deadlines.
If interested, mark your calendar for next year.
Black Birders Week Celebration
May 24-30, 2026 is National Black Birders Week. For more about the week’s founders and mission, visit their website.
J. Drew Lanham at the Adirondack Black Birders Celebration (May 30, 2026)
Dr. Lanham will be the featured guest for a conversation and lecture at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, New York, to close out National Black Birders Week. Program details are here.
Above: Taeya Boi-Doku, a Helene M Johnson fellow
The Black Girl Environmentalist’s 2026 Hazel M. Johnson Fellowship applications close February 14!
Team Black Girl Environmentalist is proud to continue growing the first and only climate internship pipeline created for and by Gen Z. Hear directly from the 2025 Hazel M. Johnson Fellowship Cohort as they reflect on what this experience meant to them - and why access to equitable, paid climate careers matters 🌍✊🏾
In partnership with organizations committed to justice-centered climate solutions, fellows receive:
✔️ $18+/hour wages
✔️ $5,000 living stipend
✔️ Weekly virtual professional development
✔️ Mentorship + a powerful cohort experience
GLF Africa 2026: Stewarding Our Rangelands
Dates: May 6–7, 2026 Location: Nairobi, Kenya (CIFOR-ICRAF Campus) & Online (Free to attend digitally)
The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is hosting its major 2026 Africa conference with a dedicated focus on the continent's rangelands and pastoralist communities. Aligned with the UN's "International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists," this immense hybrid event will gather thousands of community leaders, scientists, and local land stewards.
This conference is especially relevant for those exploring the deep connections between cultural heritage and climate resilience. The agenda centers on how traditional pastoralist wisdom and Indigenous knowledge can be integrated with ecological science to restore degraded landscapes, protect biodiversity, and secure community land rights.
Catherine Coleman Flowers Wins 2026 Reed Award for Environmental Writing
Catherine Coleman Flower, MacArthur "genius" fellow and founding director of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, has been named a winner of the 2026 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award.
Flowers was honored in the Book Category for he memoir and manifesto, Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which grants the award, recognized Holy Ground for its "unflinching look at the sanitation crisis in rural America and its inspiring call for systemic change."
This recognition cements Flowers' status not just as a leading activist, but as a vital literary voice in the canon of environmental justice. Her work continues to shine a light on the intersection of poverty, race, and climate resilience in the American South.
Opportunities for nature-inspired and environmental justice writing
Panorama journal’s "Reflections" theme seeks essays, poetry, and "new nature writing" from historically marginalized communities to discuss environmental and climate justice. Deadline March 10, 2026. For more info: panoramajournal.org/submissions/calls
Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short scripts, and visual art that explores the many complicated facets of the word environment and encourages submissions from from diverse voices and under-represented populations, including — but not limited to — international authors, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, those with disabilities, and the elderly. Submission for Fall 2026 issue is 2/1/26 – 3/17/26. For more info: https://flywayjournal.org/about/
The Dodge seeks fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual art, and translation focused on the environment. We’re excited by a wide range of forms and approaches, including hybrid and experimental work. We especially seek creative works that imagine a just future for the planet. Given our focus on environmental justice, we’re eager to champion emerging and marginalized voices underrepresented in magazine publishing and eco-writing, including writers and artists who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, people who are trans, gender-nonconforming, and LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, women, and others. For more info: https://thedodge.submittable.com/submit
Ecotheo publishes poetry, prose and visual art explores questions of ecology and spirituality. For more info: https://www.ecotheo.org/submit
Terrain.org welcomes submissions in English (or translation) from around the world, and particularly Indigenous, Native, Black, Brown, and other historically marginalized and underrepresented voices. They pay $50 for all contributions. For more info: https://www.terrain.org/submit/
11th Annual HBCU Climate Change Conference
March 18–22, 2026 Location: New Orleans, LA (The Jung Hotel) Theme: Legacy Rising: Charting Our Future at the Crossroads of Climate and Justice
The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and the Bullard Center at Texas Southern University are convening for the national gathering of HBCU faculty, students, and climate professionals.
This year’s theme, "Legacy Rising," focuses on bridging academic research with on-the-ground environmental justice work. The agenda includes panels on community resilience, green jobs, and policy adaptation, along with a special "Youth Impact" track for high school students. It is a critical space for networking and building the next generation of black climate leadership.