The term and its origin
The word ecoweaving arose in the space between two gatherings at Wilbur Hot Springs in Northern California: the Ecocoins coordination convening of October 2022, and the Wisdom Weaving and Ecocoins gathering of April and May 2023.
Between them, in early 2023, a small delegation from the Global North, collaborators on fairer systems design, travelled to Ecuador to visit the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, at the invitation of Atossa Soltani and Uyunkar Domingo Peas Nampichkai. They lived for a time with an Indigenous community on the shores of the Pastaza River, one of the tributaries of the Amazon, whose cultural practices have protected the rainforest for hundreds of generations, and whose territories were about to meet the arrival of voluntary carbon markets.
The delegation came ready to help: to share strategic insights and technologies, and to find the best approach. And they were kindly called in.
To pause in urgent times: This was not the moment for solutioning. Their skills and contributions would be needed; but first, the time had come to shift the narrative. To encounter the ‘how’ before rushing to the ‘what’. It was time to meet the land: To meet each other. To meet each other’s dreams.
Leaving the forest humbled and nourished by that relational generosity, they met leaders and representatives of the federations of the Alliance, who entrusted them with a further invitation: to gather aligned people and organisations from finance, ecology, law, technology, communication and beyond into a learning and unlearning journey that bridges Indigenous wisdom with modern innovation, from which life-valuing systems of ecological, economic and social regeneration might emerge, tailored to local needs. On 9 April 2023, in Puyo, thirteen federations of seven Indigenous nationalities signed a political agreement to inquire together into how to defend their territories, ways of life and ancestral wisdom.
And thus, ecoweaving was ritually en-spirited as a values-aligned, collaborative and emergent process of inter-being and becoming-with, a weaving amongst people, projects, places, and worldviews.
Extitutional
A key theme of ecoweaving is extitutionality, a word born out of jams among commons-aligned kin as a counterpart to institutional theory. It attends to the social dynamics between people and the relationships among them: the ways participation and mutual recognition pull people into alignment through local interactions. Where an institutional lens sees each person as a role on behalf of an institution, an extitutional lens sees the whole person, woven into an aligned network of solidarity across time and places.
To be seen not for the role that you can play, or what institution you represent, but to have a place, a space, where you can be seen and witnessed, cared for and celebrated for the sheer fullness of you…
First principles
The Allies Covenant that emerged from the 2023 gathering asks those who enter it to walk a learning journey through six principles:
- Acknowledging our inherent unity and interdependence
- Cultivating our capacity to act in integrity to the whole
- Walking together on a learning journey
- Honoring the innate sovereignty and personhood of all
- Harmonizing our relations through the pursuit of truth and right action
- Achieving coherence between the material, spiritual, and social dimensions of reality