By Heather Jo Flores
 
Embers of Hope coverI am not somebody who deals in hope. In fact, I caution against it. To me, hope is a dangerous, indulgent thing. Hope takes us out of the present and into our own heads, and it can be all too easy to let "hope for the future" provide a catharsis that replaces action in the now. In my humble opinion, we don’t need woo and hope and faith and gurus. We need to do the work.
 
As such, when I saw the title of Bonita Ford’s new book, Embers of Hope, I was like, "uh-oh!" But as soon as I started reading, it was abundantly clear that this is not a woo-woo treatise on hope and faith, and Bonita Ford is definitely not a guru. She’s a scientist, a permaculture designer, and an educator, with her hands in the soil, and she has tapped a vein of wisdom here that deserves attention.
 
Part memoir, part workbook, Embers of Hope encourages us to feel the feelings that come with the problems we’re facing in the world, and then to turn that emotion into tangible, mutually-beneficial action.
 
Bonita also happens to be a really good writer, and the combination of gorgeous prose, relatable anecdotes, and inquiry-based calls-to-action in Embers of Hope make for a unique and empowering container for us to learn the facts, cope with our feelings about those facts, and then get out there and make the world a better place.
 
Embers of Hope is contemporary ecophilosophy at its finest, a landmark guidebook to navigating the end of the world and beyond, by way of the garden gate. 
 
Heather Jo Flores is author of Food Not Lawns, director of the Permaculture Women’s Guild, and creator of the #freepermaculture project.
 
TESTIMONIALS:

“With open-hearted generosity, Bonita Eloise Ford weaves a pathway with permaculture, energy healing, the Indigenous wisdom of her teachers, and her own life experience, and then guides the reader through a series of exercises to enable us all to face the challenges of a world in ecological collapse and climate chaos with clarity and meaning. That is how, as the fire dies, we find the Embers of Hope.” —Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture Magazine and author of Fertile Edges: Regenerating Land, Culture and Hope
  
“Wow! Such a timely, potent and passionately written book. Thank you for addressing the deep questions and shifts that we must face to live more fully and gently in these troubled times.” —Robin Clayfield, permaculture pioneer and author of You Can Have Your Permaculture and Eat it Too and Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning Methodology