Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are
How Indigenous Cultural Resistance Can Restore the Earth, Recover Community, and Create Sustainable Futures
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Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are
Narrated by:
Alejandro Antonio Ruiz
Pre-order for $42.99
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Narrated by:
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Alejandro Antonio Ruiz
About this listen
Global knowledge, personal stories, and natural science for repairing environmental harm, restoring biodiversity, and rekindling cultural-ecological bonds—for readers of The Serviceberry and Fresh Banana Leaves
Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are helps us reconnect to the innate, embodied wisdom that many of us in modern Western society have abandoned—or been forced to forget.
Maceo Carrillo Martinet, PhD, builds on the work of Indigenous scholars like Robin Wall Kimmerer and Jessica Hernandez to share how not only are climate solutions still possible, they already exist—and they’re being practiced by communities around the world. Explicitly decolonial, this book offers a framework rooted in reciprocity, resistance, and kinship with the living Earth, and is built around four life-giving elements:
- Water: How ancient Indigenous water-harvesting technologies, like the Pueblo peoples’ arid-garden systems, Peru’s siembra y cosecha de agua, and women-led practices, are vital for sustaining water, land, and community—and are essential for climate resilience
- Earth: How successful community land stewardship—like Mexico’s ejidos, Maghrebian agdal, and Southeast Asian rotational farming—continue to support ecological health and human life in spite of colonial desecration
- Fire: How “Indigenous fire”—frequent, low-intensity burns rooted in deep cultural relationship—functions as a crucial medicine for restoring forest health, preventing wildfires, and sustaining cultural and environmental resilience
- Air: The profound connection between linguistic diversity and biodiversity—and how language can be weaponized to colonize and erase or nurtured to heal and awaken
- Combining the four elements: How enduring human and ecological systems are built upon the interconnectedness of collective action, cultural appreciation, and diverse, restorative relationships with the natural world
Martinet anchors his survey of Indigenous Earth-based practices in the foundational nature of Indigenous science, sharing how they represent sophisticated systems of engineering, science, and philosophy actively destroyed and suppressed by colonial powers. These restoration efforts invite readers not only to learn but to participate—to re-member, practice, and defend the Indigenous ways of knowing, sustaining, and resisting that are vital to our collective future.
Critic Reviews
“To a world bereaving itself of kin and kindness, Maceo Carrillo Martinet offers the twin gifts of planetary and social healing. After holding his hand through beautiful and ancient wisdom, you will close this book feeling restored and restorative and ready to share it with everyone you know.”
—RAJ PATEL, author of Inflamed and Stuffed and Starved
“A luminous blueprint for repair. Rooted in Indigenous science and community practice, Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are shows how restoring water, earth, fire, and language can restore us, too—offering rigor, story, and hope in equal measure.”
—JESSICA HERNANDEZ, author of Fresh Banana Leaves and Growing Papaya Trees
“Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are presents profound teachings from the stories of many Indigenous efforts worldwide to restore ecological balance in their place. It is a must-read for anyone interested in work that will have a lasting impact in the places we call home. Indeed, it shows us how to become ‘good ancestors’ in relationship, respect, and responsibility to the places which we call home and give us life!”
—GREGORY A. CAJETE, PHD (Santa Clara Pueblo), former director of Native American Studies, University College and professor emeritus of language, literacy, and socio-cultural studies, College of Education, The University of New Mexico
“Humanity's biggest crisis is the severing of our life-sustaining ties with the Earth and all its beings. We are dragging millions of species, including our own, toward a mass extinction. The world desperately needs healing. In this compelling book, replete with stories from across the world, Dr. Martinet tells us how this is linked to our own cultural and spiritual healing, and to regaining a sense of community. Martinet’s message is clear: Reconnect with and within nature, and with each other, learning especially from communities who have lived like this for generations. This is the only hope to stave off what is otherwise a certain, not-so-far-off, collapse of life on the planet."
—ASHISH KOTHARI, environmentalist, facilitator at Global Tapestry of Alternatives, and coeditor of Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary
“Maceo Carrillo Martinet's quest is to contemplate and understand indigeneity in the slowly reawakening consciousness of human re-integration with the natural world. It's a complex topic. The dual extremes of racism and romanticism obfuscate the depth of Indigenous cultural knowledge. Martinet peeks sharply through the brush: much to learn, much to apply.”
—JOSE BARREIRO, Hatuey, Elder, Taino Nation, Smithsonian Scholar Emeritus
—RAJ PATEL, author of Inflamed and Stuffed and Starved
“A luminous blueprint for repair. Rooted in Indigenous science and community practice, Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are shows how restoring water, earth, fire, and language can restore us, too—offering rigor, story, and hope in equal measure.”
—JESSICA HERNANDEZ, author of Fresh Banana Leaves and Growing Papaya Trees
“Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are presents profound teachings from the stories of many Indigenous efforts worldwide to restore ecological balance in their place. It is a must-read for anyone interested in work that will have a lasting impact in the places we call home. Indeed, it shows us how to become ‘good ancestors’ in relationship, respect, and responsibility to the places which we call home and give us life!”
—GREGORY A. CAJETE, PHD (Santa Clara Pueblo), former director of Native American Studies, University College and professor emeritus of language, literacy, and socio-cultural studies, College of Education, The University of New Mexico
“Humanity's biggest crisis is the severing of our life-sustaining ties with the Earth and all its beings. We are dragging millions of species, including our own, toward a mass extinction. The world desperately needs healing. In this compelling book, replete with stories from across the world, Dr. Martinet tells us how this is linked to our own cultural and spiritual healing, and to regaining a sense of community. Martinet’s message is clear: Reconnect with and within nature, and with each other, learning especially from communities who have lived like this for generations. This is the only hope to stave off what is otherwise a certain, not-so-far-off, collapse of life on the planet."
—ASHISH KOTHARI, environmentalist, facilitator at Global Tapestry of Alternatives, and coeditor of Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary
“Maceo Carrillo Martinet's quest is to contemplate and understand indigeneity in the slowly reawakening consciousness of human re-integration with the natural world. It's a complex topic. The dual extremes of racism and romanticism obfuscate the depth of Indigenous cultural knowledge. Martinet peeks sharply through the brush: much to learn, much to apply.”
—JOSE BARREIRO, Hatuey, Elder, Taino Nation, Smithsonian Scholar Emeritus
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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.