Returning to roots with evolved understanding

On the macro level, it appears that environmentalism has been one of the lesser documented aspects of African and African Diaspora life. But a lot is happening in this area and, to help cover it, we founded the Ecollective.

In the broadest sense, the Ecollective is everyone who realizes the fundamental oneness of being and functions from that realization. That's why our purview spans all environmentalists while bringing black-identified environmentalists to greater attention.

In a narrow sense, the Ecollective is a group of six black women writers who dislike the contrivances of alliteration yet describe their view of the garden as a "multiply-meaningful metaphor" because that succinctly says it all. While working on a book inspired by this idea, we spun off this platform as a public offering. Conscientious writers give voice to what should be said. Here we bear witness to how deepening human connection with the natural world revitalizes life on every scale.

We believe that healthy of ecosystems includes community engagement that promotes human potential through principles of cooperation that support the full spectrum of human and environmental being

Editorial board

Margaret Gray Bayne

Kendra Hamilton, PhD

Juliette Harris (managing editor)

Jacquelyn McClendon, PhD

Hermine Pinson, PhD

Toni Wynn (see her poem on the right)

Consulting environmental scientist

Rae Wynn Grant, PhD

Owl’s Creek Begs the Question

Nature left to itself will end in a tangle

bent on succession:

the giving way of a meadow to trees

after a score of seasons.

This outdated sure thing

had no parallel life

before it got this hot. Yes it’s hot —

azaleas lurch in ugly error;

robins hop across a February stage,

then shiver into March.

Heat waves pull water up

independent of tides.

The creek, kinetic as a scherzo,

wants to flood;

spill into a meadow,

making marsh,

So which species live where, and for how long?

If there’s a planning commission, 

what is the plan?

Sad thing is, we can’t leave it alone.

The meadow won’t survive either way.

What need determines our allegiance —

the water or the trees?

image above: OmniGeometry.com

unity⇆ multiplicities ⇆ unity (with the arrows going not in two, but all, directions)

    unity into multiplicity into unity into multiplicity into ongoing waves of being

      closing the disconnection as healing and prayer

some folks plant gardens in their minds

                  advancing by returning to roots with evolved understanding

                               ecospirituality           sacred earth

roots of African diaspora foodways

yams

efo tete (Yoruba, Nigeria) English name: African spinach or green-leafy spinach

          healthy conscious living   walking barefoot on the grass

marula (various African languages) English name: marula fruit

  a place for butterflies   the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice         

shoro (Yoruba, Nigeria) English name: amaranth

     agroecology                          herbal lore & workin’ roots 

millet (various African names) modern English name: pearl millet or finger millet

     African rice cultivation in South Carolina    sweet grass baskets              

sukuma wiki (Swahili, East Africa) English name: collard greens or kale

              meditative weeding          shelling peas contemplation

teff (Amharic, Ethiopia) English Name: teff grain

         landscape and waterways as sites of memory

                                    ecologigal economies                     biomimicry

rooibos (Afrikaans, South Africa) English name: rooibos tea

                               cultural geography  

uziza (Igbo, Nigeria) English name: Uziza herb/spice

        developing economies based on environmental wisdom                  

    environmental action     nature sprites	agroforestry

buchu (Khoi-San, South Africa) English name: buchu herb

               integrative medicine    wilderness as sanctuary         

morogo or miroho (Setswana, Botswana) English name: wild African spinach or pigweed

   community supported agriculture         literary ecocriticism 

      soil conservation           chefs with educational gardens    

njerere (Kikuyu, Kenya) modern English name: spider plant or African cabbage

      upright uptight mother to daughter: “Don’t play in the dirt!”   

       roots mama to daughter playing in dirt:  “Let’s make mud pies, decorate them by sowing seeds in round and heart shapes and watch them blossom into circles and valentines!” 

efo yanrin (Yoruba, Nigeria) modern English name: wild lettuce or forest lettuce

"I know the songs of the birds, I know the language of the trees, I know the secrets of the wind and the mysteries of the sea." - phillis wheatley

(various African languages) English name: grains of paradise

"i am a black tree in the forest of night

my branches reach out to the stars" - margaret walker

“I see my soul reflected in nature” – walt whitman

ademe (Amharic, Ethiopia) modern English name: Ethiopian mustard or Abyssinian cabbage

“when will there be a harvest for the world” – isley brothers

                                 	turnip greens after the first frost     

  the greening of black america                              rainforest prayers

dika (Bamileke, Cameroon) English name: irvingia fruit or African mango

“absolute trust in the goodness of the earth” - alice walker

koko (Akan, Ghana) English name: sorrel or roselle

     wildlife conservation     healing the anthropocene with biodiversity   

ibitoke (Kinyarwanda, Rwanda) modern English name: African eggplant

“twirling beneath the fig's 
seeds spinning like a newly 
discovered galaxy 
that's been there forever,” ross gay 

ntoyo cibemba (Bemba, Zambia) modern English name: cowpea leaves or black-eyed peas

                                	deeply grounded transcendence     

   finite ⇆   infinite 

                   multiplicities ⇆ the whole

seed ⇄ 

      garden ⇄ 

            universe ⇄ 

                source

into 

interconnected energies 

of the 

world

“Owl’s Creek Begs the Question” is from Toni Wynn’s collection of poems, Ground, published by the Friends of Shakespeare Press Museum, 2007.

ecollective

The path forward demands that we take our rightful places as the younger siblings in creation, deferring to the oceans, forests, and mountains as our teachers.” — Leah Penniman

Leah Penniman's Black Earth Wisdom anthology is a bible of environmentalism.

This collection of essays and interviews documents our deep, ancestral connection with the Earth. 

African Indigenous Vegetables: An Overview of the Cultivated Species

License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial

ecollective

Corinne Basabe, Jumbie Garden drawing    

“… many plants in Caribbean gardens were transported on the ships carrying enslaved Africans as cargo. In my drawing, the plants allow the jumbee (Caribbean carnival character) to be connected with their descendants.” — from Corinne Basabe’s Deeply Rooted Ecollective article here.

source seed seedling garden universe

ecollective