Thought Leadership
It is a core piece of the IEBL's philosophy to not only be a leader in thought and action related to Earth-Based Living and lifestyles in their many iterations, but to express ideas through many forms and styles of the written and spoken word, art, music, poetry, food and other creative forms. Below are IEBL projects, starting with the most recent. To learn more about current thought leadership projects at the IEBL or have Hilary present/speak to your group or collaborate with you, please email Hilary@instituteforearthbasedliving.com.
“using astrology for change”
interview with dave and arny on peacrealive!
The Moonflower Room: A Poetic Cookbook from The Bahamas
Moonflowers are intoxicating and fascinating flora that express themselves at night, in darkness. The Moonflower Room was a temporary dining club that served plant-based meals made from local ingredients in Nassau, The Bahamas, in a space that conjured the spirit of expressing the shadow and expression in and through shadow inspired by stories of healing, restoration and consciousness shared by people in The Bahamas. This cookbook includes recipes from that unique space with poetry and Bahamian food fantasies woven throughout.
"242food: a bahamian restoration speakology"
"Poetry is not a conventional way of articulating dissertation research but the spoken word is a conventional form of general communication in The Bahamas and the Caribbean generally ..."
In 2015, I created and performed a spoken word poetry version of my doctoral dissertation about food, consciousness, wellness, healing and decolonization in The Bahamas (a link to my dissertation is at the bottom of the page).
**Cover Painting by Jalan Harris
“out of many, one (e. pluribus unum): Multipotentialty, living out yur mission and personal integration
“I am a multipotentialite, not because I have a random combination of gifts and skills, but because I am passionate about and committed to my mission and I recognize that I can achieve it in many different ways. I recognize that different seasons of my life require me to engage with the world, myself and my activism in different ways—each of which offers something unique to the world and opens up a piece of my being that wouldn’t have otherwise been expressed. Equally important, I recognize, having lived and worked in so many different places and engaged in so many different spaces over time, that different situations, people, spaces, cultures and times are more receptive to certain methods than others.”
"Wanting to Be a Nun, Ethnic Purity and Other Adventures on my Multifaceted Spiritual Journey"
In Love and Profit
"I am writing this during Lent, finishing it during what I grew to know and love as “Holy Week”. And as I find myself somewhere between death and resurrection, as I find my own identity shifting in so many major ways, I can’t help but think, once again, about how the journey of “The Passion” is everyone’s journey. It’s the Fool’s journey in the Tarot. It’s the journey of countless gods, goddesses and mystics across time, space and tradition. On the road to liberation, enlightenment, salvation, we all fall and fail, we all have people who assist us along the way, we are all forced to bare our naked and pained selves to the world in some kind of way, we are all betrayed by everyone we know and we all have to bury the spiritual and emotional bodies that can’t take us into the next life."
"Settling into Your Own Sense of Softness"
Interview with Sophia Wise One on "Vagina Talks"
The soulful Sophia Wise One and I had a nourishing and nurturing medicine discussion about:
How to speak and be
What "yoni" means
The space of pleasure and desire
Manifesting your destiny
"The real revolution: true confessions from a recovering critical theorist"
in love and profit
"I sometimes self-identify as a recovering critical theorist, because I became a critical theorist around the age of 12. My dissertation was an act of healing because it required me to recover from critical theory — which, for me, was not only a theory. What you do is an extension of who you are, so for me, criticism? Criticizing? It became a way of life, a way of being, a way of treating the world, a way of treating other people, and a way of treating myself."
"sunset"
in love and profit
"It’s a miracle — that rising and setting,
and who knows where it comes from?
But I pity the people who spend their lives fretting,
trying to solve that old conundrum."
"Sapiosexuality, Cooking for Love, Bourbon & Timbre with Hilary Booker"
interview with stacy herrera on "The Sensuality Project"
Stacy Herrera is amazing! We had so much fun during my interview with her!
We discuss:
⇒ Having orgasms with no physical stimulation.
⇒ Diet and the importance of figuring out what works for your body.
⇒ Womb wisdom and the ferocious energy of the Divine Feminine.
⇒ The truth about falling in love.
Emancipation: i am my own creation
This book of poetry expresses a complex relationship with people, geography and culture in The Bahamas. It describes a knowing of Ecology that can only be developed over time. The words speak to the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that politics and poetics infiltrate one human life and the intricacies of everyday events in a place, weaving through social paradoxes.
"the moonflower room"
installation for the national art gallery of the bahamas' bi-annual national exhibition 8
The Moonflower Room was a temporary installation space in Nassau, Bahamas to celebrate the people, plants and philosophies of The Bahamas specifically and the Caribbean generally as paths to revolutionary healing. The space--which included books, multimedia resources, local foods, local bush plants and community events—corresponded with my interpretation of participants' hopes and dreams for the future in my doctoral research. It was also meant to reflect the beauty and sense of wholeness I received as a result of my research and life in Nassau.
A Poetics of Food in the Bahamas: Intentional Journeys Through Food, Consciousness, and the Aesthetics of Everyday Life (hilary Booker's doctoral dissertation)
This research explores intentional food practices and journeys of consciousness in a network of people in The Bahamas. Intentional food practices are defined as interactions with food chosen for particular purposes, while journeys of consciousness are cumulative successions of events that people associate with healing, restoration, and decolonization personally and collectively. This research examines (1) experiences and moments that influenced people’s intentional food practices; (2) food practices that people enact daily; and (3) how people’s intentional food practices connect to broader spiritual, philosophical, and ideological perspectives guiding their lives.