No Matter What Happens

Why a book giveaway right now? Please read because it's not about me.

In our move, I found a cardboard box of copies of my first book The Map of Enough. I immediately got the idea to do a provocative and playful BOOK GIVEAWAY to support the Montana-based, Indigenous woman led, non-profit Calling Our Spirits Forward. They do incredible work: healthy equity and cultural wellness to empower Montana’s tribal communities. Long story short, I contacted them and ended up connecting on zoom call with the Executive Director Lauren Small Rodriguez. She shared more about their mission (please read more here and below about them) and we came up with the best way for to create a donation option for the giveaway since they don’t have a donate button.

It felt very small state, very Montana, very face to face.

I will be meeting her for tea in real life to hand over a check and hope/plan to direct proceeds to them in other ways with my work.

Why all of this?

*More on how below

I wrote The Map of Enough about first arriving on the land I said goodbye to this week—the longest place I have lived, the first place I ever intentionally ‘settled’ anywhere with some awareness but far less than I have now about what it means to be a settler, how as a White Irish-English-German descended woman living in the U.S., I have always been and will always be a settler. I am still learning. One of my recent teachers is Dr. Rosales Meza; her approach has deepened me, my process and felt sense. I point any person toward her decolonization work. I grew up placeless and abroad and identified as an outsider and wanderer. This particular 20-acre triangle of land in Montana taught me, over fifteen years, how to be in deep relationship with particular trees, stones, beds of moss and animal trails. Yet, I’m not indigenous to this landscape in/on/with which I live. I want to redistribute a % of my earnings always to those who are. *More on this below.

How?

I have 20 books.

For the first 20 people who do the following, I will snail-mail you a copy of The Map Enough, signed by me, plus I’ll answer any question you have about your own life, in the form of a poem written from me to you (fun!).

• Venmo $30+ (you can send more!) to mollycaromay as a ‘family and friends’ transaction and write “Donation for COSF” in subject. All $ proceeds will go in one collective check to COSF.

• Email me your mailing address plus a personal question you are wondering about (250 words or less please) and I’ll write my answer to you on the title page of the book. If you want to gift it to a friend, same details apply to them.

No matter what happens…

with the U.S. election or anything in our world, we are being called into CIRCLES. Gather up. Circle up. Find shared power and voice and change from within a circle—the conversation and communal vision that initiates action for the greater good.

Concentric circles.

From local to global.

I have a perhaps naive belief that, if everyone doubled down and chose to invest time, money and energy into a local cause, the world would be a more nourished place for everyone. Of course, we also have to cast our care globally and so much traction can happen from a fabric of lived community and relationship and then sharing broadly about it. We aren’t all meant to devote ourselves to every cause. Impossible. Nervous system collapse. Immobilized because there is too much to care about. It helps me to identify what I’m most impassioned by and then to put my energy there—both locally and globally.

Join me with this book giveaway!

I’m excited to cozy up on the couch to write you some letters, then drive down to the post office to snail mail them and support COSF in the process.

xo on this new moon, M.

Calling Our Spirits Forward (COSF)
Calling Our Spirits Forward (COSF) is an Indigenous-led public health nonprofit committed to advancing Indigenous public health and cultural wellness across Montana’s Indigenous communities. Our cultural wellness model centers on healing practices rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing, offering modalities such as ceremonies, arts, and land-based therapies. These practices honor and preserve traditional knowledge, creating cultural and community healing spaces.

COSF addresses social determinants of health through sustainable, community-driven programs tailored to each tribe’s needs. We are Indigenous public health practitioners providing direct services to our communities, prioritizing health equity and resilience. Guided by Indigenous-led frameworks and grounded in field expertise, we collaborate with tribal health programs, educational institutions, nonprofits, tribal schools, and public health agencies to drive meaningful, lasting change in Indigenous public health.