Community gallery
This portal page changes regularly and we invite your contributions to it. For the gallery, we are looking for brief visual exploratory stories. Some of these stories may reveal insights about nature in isolation. We’re also interested in how human actions, spirits, histories, and/or cultures are intertwined with the natural world, as in the story below. You can submit an abstract about a gallery presentation via the message section of our Contact page. If selected, we’ll design a format to fit your content.
Homage to Booker T. Whatley and Miss Tiny, the fresh queen of Plainfield
Every time my weekly farm-to-table box hits the porch, it cheers my morning! Unpacking this gorgeous (but not of a sinister* perfection) produce from right here in the region reminds me of Ecollective co-founder Toni Wynn’s recollection of Miss Tiny, a New Jersey transplant from South Carolina. After leaving home, when Toni returned to visit her mom in Plainfield, she would go to get greens from the garden of her grandmother’s friend Miss Tiny. To ensure straight from the ground vitality, Miss Tiny waited until after Toni arrived to pick the greens. Talk about fresh!
Dirt-to-doorstep is also a relief for my budget. Here we are four months into the unsettled conflict with Iran and the ripple effects on grocery prices are everywhere. But my Seasonal Roots delivery price has stayed exactly the same.
I’m also reminded of Booker T. Whatley who was born in November 1915, just nine days before his namesake Booker T. Washington passed away. Whatley ended up at Tuskegee University himself, carrying that legacy of black agricultural excellence forward into the modern era.
Long before trendy buzzwords like "permaculture," "agroecology," or "regenerative agriculture," Dr. Whatley was teaching these concepts to black farmers to help them thrive. He was a champion of working with the land rather than just taking. He also pioneered what he called the "Clientele Membership Club." Today, we know it as community supported agriculture (CSA), the very model that brings this Seasonal Roots box to my door. He knew that if city folks subscribed to a farm's harvest, farmers got financial security, the land was protected and the community got the freshest food possible.
Photos by the author
*Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
—Joni Mitchell lyrics from “Big Yellow Taxi,” 1970
When people ask if Seasonal Roots produce is strictly "organic," the response resonates with Booker T. Whatley's wisdom:
Many of our farmers follow the standards of USDA organic, as well as the old school definition of organic. These farming families are multi-generational with a long history of providing for the communities in the areas we serve. Because they have a personal stake in protecting the land for future generations, they use safe, sustainable farming practices to grow their food as nature intended.
But the closest I’ve gotten to Miss Tiny’s standard of fresh was when Toni Wynn, also noted above, and I shared a garden in the back yard of her former home in Virginia. One partial view of our garden is shown on the left. Another partial view is shown in this article about Toni’s daughter. Partial views are shown because our raised-bed garden was extensive.
J.H.
Maya Penn photo from her website.
Eco Revolution: Climate Justice, Community, and the Fight for Our Planet
Maya Penn, June 2026
Award-winning environmental activist, artist, and animator Maya Penn brings 15 years of hands-on advocacy to her newest release. Featured prominently in June's eco-literary roundups, Eco Revolution puts the world on notice regarding the climate crisis while highlighting the deep-rooted overlap between social justice and environmental action. It offers an inspiring, highly accessible blueprint for community-led change and youth leadership in the climate movement.
Link to Feature:
Proceedings on "Migrations and Climate in Africa"
How are environmental crises shaping the future of the African Diaspora? On June 15, 2026, the International Migration Research Network (IMISCOE) published the highly anticipated proceedings and recommendations from their landmark conference, "Migrations and Climate in Africa: Emerging Dynamics and Future Challenges."
These newly released documents show how climate pressures are driving internal, cross-border, and transcontinental displacement. The research highlights the local African actors, focusing on community adaptation strategies, the role of women and youth in climate mobility, and how traditional agricultural and pastoralist communities are navigating rapid environmental changes.
View the findings and proceedings here:International Conference: Migrations and Climate in Africa - IMISCOE
Urban Forests and Green Spaces in Africa
Urban green spaces are not just a luxury, they are a vital response to climate change, biodiversity loss, and community health. Just published by the Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo, Urban Forests and Green Spaces in Africa: Case Studies and Lessons from Across the Continent is a pioneering new book featuring 34 case studies from 14 African countries.
Authored predominantly by African researchers and practitioners, the 170-page, highly illustrated book highlights innovative greening approaches from transplanting giant baobabs in Senegal and creating Miyawaki forests in Kenya, to restoring biodiversity around wetlands in Rwanda. It is essential reading for anyone interested in how traditional knowledge and local action can help our cities adapt and thrive.
Read more about the book here:
As African cities heat up, a new book argues trees are part of the solution (Mongabay)
Soul Fire Farm event
Children of the Land: Soul Fire Farm’s Approach to Raising and Mentoring Young People
Live Online Course with Leah Penniman
DEC. 1 - 22, 2026
TUESDAYS 12 - 1:30 PM (PT)
In this live course, Leah Penniman invites participants into the teachings and stories of Soul Fire Farm, where young people are raised through shared responsibility, earth-based learning, and intergenerational cooperation. Grounded in Afro-Indigenous wisdom, the course offers caregivers and educators practical insights for nurturing children who are rooted, connected, and supported in discovering their unique paths. The course is sponsored by Bioneers. Register here.
Jacqui Patterson (Photo from The Chisholm Legacy Project
International Climate Finance & Leadership
The Chisholm Legacy Project at the June 2026 Bonn Climate Talks, Bonn, Germany
At the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, Jacqui Patterson, founder and director of The Chisholm Legacy Project, delivered a powerful vision for climate finance. Speaking on the panel "How Can the Just Transition Mechanism Support Holistic Transition across Sectors?", Patterson outlined what “just transition climate finance looks like through a black liberation and feminist lens.”
Patterson advocated for a major shift in climate philanthropy: moving funds away from "Big Green" organizations and directing them straight to the frontline and grassroots groups performing daily environmental justice work in communities.
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
Black Atlantic Worlds: Landscape Histories of the African Diaspora
Edited by Oscar de la Torre
Published May 2026 (Harvard University Press)
This groundbreaking collection explores how Africans and their descendants have populated, stewarded, and transformed ecosystems across the Atlantic rim. Moving from West African land and water practices to Afro-diasporic geographies, the book dives deep into the connections between environment, identity, and resistance. It is an essential read for anyone exploring the historical memory embedded in our landscapes and the legacy of black ecological knowledge.
Cover Crop Music
Nurturing Our Environments Through Song & Seed
With Amber Rubarth, Alixa García, and Jamila Norman, Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY, Aug 7–9, 2026.
Cultivate creativity in this immersive retreat led by musician and naturalist Amber Rubarth with guest teachers Alixa García and Jamila Norman. Inspired by the ancient agricultural practice of planting cover crops: seeds sown not for personal harvest but to enrich and protect the soil, this workshop offers a transformative lens for creative and community nourishment.
Through song, land-based learning, storytelling, and hands-on practice, participants explore how cultivating care for the ground mirrors how we nurture relationships, communities, and our inner landscapes.
For more information, see this Omega Institute program announcement.
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Have an announcement? Send details in the message section of our Contact page for the announcement to be reviewed for posting on this board.
New series for Rae Wynn-Grant
Wildlife ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant and National Geographic Explorer Bertie Gregory are the leads in the Nat Geo series, Secrets of the Bears. Premiering in spring 2027, the series will explore charismatic brown bears and secretive sun bears, and reveal new science and never-before-seen behaviors that show bears are smarter, more adaptable, and even more sociable than people ever imagined.
Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant is shown here in a detail from the cover of her Going Wild memoir. For more about the memoir and Wynn-Grant’s life beyond the book, see the Ecollective article, Tears and fears and feeling proud.
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. 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. 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 exploresquestions 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/
