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Esperanza Rising: A Different Kind of Journalism

Dear readers: As you may have noticed, it’s been a long dry spell. We just sent our first newsletter since June; while Mother Earth has been busy prodigiously giving fruit, cereal, root and seed for human and non-human sustenance, this land has been lying fallow. But harvest time brings the fruit of that period of […]

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'Without Corn, There Is No Country:' Native Maize Revitalization in Guadalajara

As part of the National Day of the Corn events on Sunday, Sept. 29, from a cornfield planted in the median of one of the city’s biggest thoroughfares in center of Guadalajara, Mexico, the Colectivo Coamil Federalismo—an autonomous project focused on urban agriculture—demanded the protection of corn at the national level. Through a cultural and […]

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Legacy of the Andes: An Urgent Wakeup Call to a World In Trouble

Good news! After three long years of labor, we are showing Legacy of the Andes, the long-awaited second part of our Cosmology & Polycrisis (formerly Cosmology & Pandemic) transmedia series, at the Cosmology & Polycrisis website (cosmocrisis.com). All proceeds from the rent and purchase of the films go to support our independent transmedia work to […]

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The Call of the Coyote: a Tribute to Alberto Ruz through Text Messages of Love

By Tracy L. Barnett and Angélica AlmazánWith collaboration by Noelle Romero and Martín Buen Viaje Alberto Ruz Buenfil, the inspiration for The Esperanza Project* and many other initiatives to create the better world we know is possible, passed away on Dec. 7, 2023, after a courageous three-year “transit through the Tropic of Cancer” as he […]

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2023: Hope Amidst the Chaos, and a Closing of the Cycles

A roundup of courage, hope and heroism from the year gone by.

This past year has been a tough one for many. Devastating wars in Gaza and the Ukraine have taken their toll far beyond their excruciating epicenters. Climate change is no longer a future foretold but a reality unfolding before our eyes. An uncertain economy has been further fueled by tens of thousands of layoffs spurred […]

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Top 13 Good-News Stories from 2022

Esperanza Project shares a year of regeneration, resilience, resistance and creative solutions

Last year was a tough one, on many counts. A pandemic that wouldn’t let go; devastating heat waves, wildfires, storms and floods around the globe; spiraling inflation and economic hardship; the war in Ukraine, with heavy worldwide impacts. Sometimes it was hard to see the silver lining.  But behind the headlines, good things were happening […]

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“We are Nature expressing itself:” Arun Ruz on EcoSapiens

Insights from a third-generation ecovillager born and raised into the Vision Council - Guardians of the Earth

Arun Ruz Acosta was born into a magical world of caravans, permaculture workshops and interaction with indigenous communities. He grew up in an ecovillage in rural Mexico co-founded by his own family. It was a social environment where different regenerative movements were born, focusing on promoting the development of human consciousness through art, ecology and […]

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An Earth-Sky Interview with Tracy L. Barnett

Esperanza Project founder kicks off the EcoSapien Speaker Series with astrologer Tami Brunk in a cosmic conversation from the heart

There’s nothing like a talk between sisters — especially sisters with a common vision and dream — to inspire action. This talk with Earth Sky Woman Tami Brunk, the astrologer, dream nurturer and world-changer who is my fourth of seven sisters, was just the first of a whole series of inspiring conversations with eco-elders, indigenous […]

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Call of the Turtle Mini Vision Council at a Glance

This meeting of great minds, hearts and spirits will soon be available online. Meanwhile, we share bios and a harvest of collective wisdom.

For those of you who joined us this weekend for the epic Call of the Turtle Mini Vision Council, and indeed for any of the brilliant EcoSapiens who shared their stories and insights with us during the monthlong Restoring Sacred Culture in the Americas Convergence, we are so grateful to you. You, in fact, are […]

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LIVE TODAY at 11 am CDT: Gaia University founder Liora Adler on 'Retrotopia'

Retrotopia: Creating Buen Vivir* in a De-Industrialized Future: Interview with Earth Sky Woman Tami Brunk

Since the turn of the century humans have been building communities structured on technological and industrial practices that are steadily destroying the ecosystems that support life on this planet.  “Retrotopia”** is an alternative vision that supports the re-emergence of sustainable community living focused on ecosystem regeneration and restoration. Register HERE to join us for this weekend’s lineup […]

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Call of the Turtle: LIVE Mini-Vision Council on Sunday

Join us for a small taste of this south-of-the-border phenomenon that has transformed lives and communities throughout the continent.

The Call of the Turtle, a Mini Vision Council Sun. Aug 7, gives a small taste of this south-of-the-border phenomenon that has transformed lives and communities throughout the continent.

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Ecovillage Expert Diana Leafe Christian on Finding Community

Earth Sky Woman Tami Brunk interviews internationally acclaimed author, teacher and expert in community dynamics

Today’s guest on the EcoSapien Speaker Series: Diana Leafe Christian, author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. She speaks at ecovillage and cohousing conferences, offers consultations, and leads workshops and online internationally.

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EcoSapien Speaker Series + 'Call of the Turtle' Mini Vision Council

Monthlong Convergence highlights visionaries, activists, elders and thought leaders who are restoring sacred culture in the Americas

This monumental monthlong convergence features conversations with indigenous visionaries and activists, eco-elders in the fields of bioregionalism, ecovillage design, permaculture, earth-regeneration and humans we see as helping us connect to our animist roots while restoring elements of sacred culture. 

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Pat McCabe: 'A human being that causes life to thrive'

Diné leader joins Voices of Amerikua series, ‘Sacred Earth: Indigenous Wisdom for Earth Restoration’

We are currently living through a time of accelerated environmental collapse. What is the role of indigenous people in reversing and preventing this collapse? Is it possible to prevent further damage and begin a process of Earth restoration?   Join us for the latest conversation in a six-week journey into Indigenous Ecology, where Voices of Amerikua […]

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I am Mother Earth... and I know how to give life

Tzeliee-Kame Ramírez: A Wixárika poem for Earth Day

In a place where there is love, joy, and sadness….. I am the comforter.
But I also know how to love, cry, and rejoice when it’s my time, in every season I become beauty.

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Pablo Alarcón and his luminous environmentalism

Honoring the life and work of Pablo Alarcón Chaires (1964-2022)

True, legitimate, deep environmentalism is, above all, a luminous act where the human being gives himself body and soul to the defense of life. It is luminous because it lights flames of hope in a world of darkness. Pablo Alarcón Chaires was an exceptional environmentalist whose career left a trail of light. His very arrival […]

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Enlightening Our Way Together - Best of 2021

We are celebrating another year of lifting up the voices of those who are making a difference. Will you be among them?

As the year draws to a close, I pause to wish you all a happy Solstice season and reflect on what we’ve been able to accomplish this year: the publication of 70 stories in English and 51 in Spanish, together with our first transmedia series, a bilingual film and three related articles and the presentation […]

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Power, State and Capital: The Axis is Arrogance

We need to build a postmodern world that identifies arrogance as the evil to be overcome and replaces it with an ethic of humility and compassion.

It is one thing to domesticate and quite another to dominate. In order to survive, reproduce and expand, humanity domesticated nature while at the same time, nature domesticated humanity. It was a reciprocal phenomenon, a coevolutionary process. Domesticating implies knowing, exploring, questioning and dialoguing with what is domesticated. It carries delicacy. In contrast, the one […]

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New Transmedia Series Opens Lens on Ancestral Cultures

'Cosmology & Pandemic' offers deep insights and practical knowledge gained from the current health crisis, aimed toward preventing the next one.

The Esperanza Project, with the collaboration of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Mongabay, The One Foundation and the SGE Foundation, has released a groundbreaking new bilingual transmedia series called Cosmology & Pandemic: What We Can Learn from Indigenous Responses to the Current Health Crisis. A joint project of the award-winning filmmaker and journalist duo […]

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Cosmology & Pandemic is live!!! And making waves throughout the world

Join us at cosmopandemic. esperanzaproject.com to see the film, read the stories and sign up for more

“You have accomplished the impossible! 30 communities with 14 film crews in remote locations in 6 different countries… to pull all of that together and deliver this important message is a feat of epic proportions.” “I am stirred deeply by the messages coming from these communities and individuals as they help us see the pandemic […]

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A journey through ancient cultures during the pandemic that shook the world

Esperanza Project launches groundbreaking transmedia series, 'Cosmology & Pandemic,' with Pulitzer Center and Mongabay

Cosmology & Pandemic: What We Can Learn From Indigenous Responses to the Current Health Crisis is many things at once. It’s a transmedia series — meaning a series of articles and films and other forms of media that work together in concert. In this case, it’s a collaboration between my longtime friend and colleague, Argentine […]

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The Corruption of Science | An International Issue

Censorship of scientists and the manipulation, distortion, and suppression of scientific information are a threat to science.

We are living at the pinnacle or crest of corruption in the world — the use and abuse of political and economic power, knowledge or hierarchical position. And scientists are far from exempt.

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Defending Mesquite, the 'Tree of Life'

Three-decade struggle wins human rights award in Aguascalientes, Mexico

How did deep-fried gorditas and marzipan candies become part of a strategy to save the last stand of iconic mesquite trees in Aguascalientes? Human rights advocates in the Mexican highlands city are fighting real estate developers to defend their green-space while raising awareness about the importance of this tree.

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Healing the Boarding School Wound in Kansas

Haskell Indian Nations University and community organizations work towards a better future for Indigenous families

Lawrence, Kansas, may seem an unlikely epicenter for intergenerational healing of the deep scars left behind by the legacy of government boarding schools for Indigenous children.

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7 Aspects of Civilizational Transformation

The era of the civilizionary is here... are you ready?

Signs continue accumulating that point to the imminence of a global collapse in the medium term:  extreme heat waves in Canada and the United States, forest fires in various regions of the world, the melting of Greenland, floods in Europe and China, the weakening of a vital Atlantic current. Faced with these events, more and […]

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Totem pole travels to unite Native struggles

Lummi people lead Turtle Island quest for 'free, prior, and informed consent'

Perhaps no other Native people knows better than the Lummi the risks of megaprojects imposed on indigenous communities without consultation or consent. The tribe’s ancestral territory is located at a prime Northwest Pacific Coast shipping juncture. Battling against proliferation of toxic oil pipelines and coal ports, the heirs of Washington state’s original human settlements took […]

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Lakota child boarding school victims come home to rest

Community begins healing process with historic repatriation ceremonies

Malorie Arrow recalls the Sicangu Lakota Youth Council members’ tour of the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania like it was yesterday. Their last stop was at the gravesites of children who had died while attending the boarding school some 140 years ago. They laid small pieces of candy on the graves as offerings. Her cousins […]

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Victor Toledo: From Capitalism to 'Buen Vivir'

Back to the future with indigenous-style 'good living'

Faced with the crisis that humanity is experiencing, does politics make any sense? We have repeatedly pointed out that every political project will gradually become a policy for or against life. This sharp demarcation results from the deepening of the crisis of modern civilization, which is increasingly evident. All the ideological positions captured by political […]

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Aligning Ourselves with the Monthly Moon Cycle

The intimate relationship between our Earth's satellite and our organism

As I write this, the waxing moon is in its gibbous phase—heading toward a full moon in less than a week. For the vast majority of my life, I had no idea what phase the moon was in (and I still need help of a calendar). I didn’t know what the terms meant, I didn’t […]

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