a winter harvest. 2025-2026

Once you're thrown into the pool of academia, there’s lots of pressure to perform and produce. So jumping into the break after my first semester, I was certain that I’d have to keep working even through the “winter break of 2025-2026”. As I write this my intention is to document the work I've done in community building, creative eco-restoration and just ‘revolutionary rest’ during this break.

First, some of the great joys of the winter season. Stealing Christmas! I mean, Ecogrinching. i Participated in luminarias again and got positive feedback, and didnt anger too many MAGA's with my parody songs. I shared some new lyrics against data centers and the good christmas classics from last year. One more holiday season gone by without publishing these officially, but I will make it next year!

diving into the scholarly work at the end of the semester, Seminar, Professional development, and Problem Solving in Environmental Science, and TA assignment for ESCI there were only a few final projects: I did not quite finish up the grant for Circular Economies due Dec 1^st, as there was too much still unfinished from the semester to dive into this fully. I did receive insightful help from Southwest Progressive Action Network and will continue to develop this concept further, and loop in the potential for a community fellowship with the work of local currency. Brielfy for the reader, my intention for my thesis work in environmental science is develop a local timebank and improve upon the necessary steps of climate action with a system of exchange that allows us to trade without money. My proposal for the research, which I shall publish in another blog for viewing and comments is being amended with additional literature reviews, including “Co-design”, Emergent Strategy and some bell hooks' Transgressing Education.

Wintertime is the ideal season to dive into the literature, but I also indulged with the Ari Ara series that Laurie Marshall highly recommended and let me borrow (thanks Laurie!). There’s been revolutionary rest in just cozying up with these books, audiobooks, and essays. How does it all connect?

I drew this mindmap of how my projects intersect in a great web of action … and there are some current event side missions that I simply had to participate in, including the TCEQ hearing on the marathon oil permit (more pollution booo), and the battle to educate  around improper AI use, and oppose the datacenter in our over-exploited town. Also, the rising evil currents of ICE raids and the murder of Nicole Good merits action and protesting, which while was not direct work with my PhD research, builds solidarity among the community and I was able to weave in talk of timebanking at these very time intensive activities that serve the greater good, even in a crumbling democracy. (Alena & varov, 2023; Heyman, 2024, on sacrifice zones and participation in political ecology)

A secondary part of my community-engaged research, besides having the pieces of focus groups, and hopefully a community currency outreach fellowship, is to have book club gatherings for Ecological Economics and Degrowth. At first glance, not many people in El Paso know about degrowth, however when you begin approaching the topic people do recognize that there is overconsumption and it doesn't seem to be meeting human needs, bt rather driven by ominous forces that compel and manipulate mindless shopping. Fighting this trend with co-learning communities is the end, and the means, following guidance from nonhierarchical leaders like adrienne marie brown and traditional ecological knowledge. narrative tracking of the discussion may be a means, or may be a way. I don't know yet, but I do know that the Ecological Economics book club has launched 1/12/26, when we wade into the waters of Braiding Sweetgrass. It's not too late to join, as I expect a non-rigid container of people to flow and share there own emergent knowledge.

10 people joined the 3^rd meeting (ideation session on nov 14th and social on dec 29^th at the 787 coffee). In this session, we conducted an exploration of self and nature, animism, mused about  the relationship between our economy as we built it, the resources and how they are wasted, and our monetary system as one designed for exploitation, not for meeting human needs; finally we discussed the role of community learning and reintegration of indigenous knowledge into the work we perform in this or against this system. One quote from Less is more that summarizes much of what we discussed in meeting : "Animism had given things souls, industrialism makes souls into things”.

I attended the Regional Southwest Community Engaged Scholar with the CCE UTEP which allied with Texas Tech and we discussed at the round table innovation sessions about the possibility of timebanking as a potential funding stream; though most people hadn’t heard of it, they reacted well to the concept. I heard about the transition towards more inclusive grading and review processes for professors approaching tenure and promotion, whereby the entire culture of advancement in academia considers the increased challenges and time commitments of involvement in community research.

I'm digesting a reading and video about the barter exchange system and how the appropriate levels of legislation around them, including mandatory reporting for taxes for example and how they should be structured. I think Co-design of this community currency will need to continue in shapes and phases of community engaged projects, for people to meet people, connect face to face. This trust development and seeing the ‘vibes of a community’  make it so much more likely that people will be enthusiastic to try the timebank, because at the moment, the software and technology for it are not easy , nor user friendly. This semester I will explore the alternatives and see if computer science collaborators will want to take a stab at joining the timebank research team. One project with many branches, and I am still laying down the roots. Time will guide it on.

Branches to roots has been a project I’ve taken great pleasure in stewarding, learning about native trees and fruit trees and the horticultural technique of air layering and tree planting. Although a majority of the samples were failures, our success with cottonwoods and fruit trees is exciting to reinvision how trees might help change the climate here in El Paso and bring forth a food forest. The status of this is that we must plant about 20 trees from phase 1, those trees propagated between 2024-2025 that are ready for planting at partner organizations. Some of these organizational allies include La Mujer Obrera, UTEP miner Garden Initiative, Alamito and beyond. Wintertime was not really a time that I worked on this much, though I do have data to process and visualize, including HS students attitudes and knowledge , and some plant morphology data. One joy in this process I did do this years-ending, was to remove the material for failed pods and Put it back into material storage for the next round of pod preparation. We are using insulation layers like the packaging from bubble wrap mailers and t shirt scraps for aesthetics and sun protection. The abundance of materials and the new incentive of participation with the timebank will allow us to do many more samples including just water based air layering.

(photo on black willow pod coming soon + section in KHP where all my trees are))

On Tuesday 1/13 morning, a tour for youth came to Keystone. 5th graders are always fun to be around as they have great questions and curiosities and are eager to share their own stories of nature. Leading them through the wetlands they were enthusiastic to taste the plants I mentioned were edible and used by indigenous cultures. Restoring our 5 senses to how we encounter the world, embodying natural connections is such a gap in our educational curricula. Thursday 1/15 we also lead High schoolers from Cathedral on a day of service, to remove some invasive salt cedars, plant rescued cacti, mulch and prune around the trails. I also made time to harvest plenty of cattails for the pillows and for a tour for the blind coming soon(fun sensory experiences, beyond vision). Experiencing field days with youth is always a hopeful way to start the day because they get so much done, they are able to work hard and they learn about conservation along the way!

On saturday jan 17th I went to a superadobe workshop,which paired with the adobe workshop I participated in last fall, with the historic preservation society gives me a good idea just how much work it actually is to do Natural building. Learning about these methods has been on my to do list for a while to understand how we might get our sytems to evolve towards more biophilia and sustainability. Also building is a creative outlet that can help us meet our human needs for community and also with sufficient work, for shelter!.

 Some of the creative products of the season, including my Cattail Pillows made with recycled textile waste, and filled with wetland fluff; Also a salt cedar branch shelf for my spider plant propagates.

Community and building happened some more on MLK Community day, 1/19/26 at Alamito.  

I had a fun time painting and leading people through some activities at Alamito,  including seed sorting and organizing, Seed starting and winter sowing, directing the build for a vertical garden and for the garden signage and painting. It was a long exhausting day but the crowd of about 70 people made the day feel very energized (might have been all the sugar and donuts too!) I had about 10 people rotate under my direction, and delegated some additional tasks here and there like to seek new materials or wash this or that. It felt like such an innate task and I do not know if the order and instruction giving was clear and effective but we did build some toilet paper roll pots (that now sit upon the shelves that another team built for the greenhouse. ). It was also a joyful challenge to practice fundraising for this activity; I was able to persuade Home depot to donate 100$ worth of soil for the raised garden beds!

Some things that make the community space effective was the … man , it’s really hard to name the magic of how community vibes work , but the gratitude, mindfulness, setting intentionality, quotes from MLK, urgency but positive action that we can do,  reaching people where they’re at and telling them to take the day at their own pace was exactly how it needed to be. I relate this intentional pace-setting facilitation to what I’m bringing to the ecological econ book club, and as I write this I envision a collaborative mural drawing with the community, where we can map out what a just transition and the creation of beloved community looks like in our community.

That’s it for winter break. I will continue reflecting more on my readings and weaving them in with classes. 😊