Rooted in Indigenous wisdom and a four-element framework, this book invites readers to rediscover and re-embody the truth that caring for ourselves and caring for the living Earth are one and the same. 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

This book invites 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.

For over twenty-four years, Maceo Carrillo Martinet, PhD, has been co-creating and implementing community-based ecological restorationand education projects across New Mexico and beyond. His award winning and community-affirming work is born mainly from an obligation to the earth, the youth, and the ancestors. The proceeds from this book will go toward the community work highlighted and sprouting across the world. Originally from San Francisco, but now lives in New Mexico with his family, where he takes care of a small farm, which, in return, takes care of him and his family.