Indeed, almost half of Mayan Heart's 126 pages reveal surprising silk-screened images, inspired in the block prints of Uruguayan artist Naul Ojeda. Some of the graphics were created especially for Mayan Hearts; others are details and textures taken from the body of Ojeda's work, and amplified as much as 1000 times using a photocopier. Book artist Ed Hutchins's ideas and teachings were fundamental in fashioning the movable elements in Mayan Hearts, which include spinning hearts, foldout pages, and a tiny pop-open heart book.

The handmade black paper for the cover was concocted by the Woodlanders using the heart of the maguey cactus stained with mistletoe berries. A heart was stamped from the cover using a wrought iron implement resembling a medieval chastity belt; this cutout reveals the bright red of the endpapers.

[The Maya] wrote their books on a long sheet of paper doubled in pleats, the whole thing enclosed between two boards that made them very attractive.... There were many beautiful books, but as they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the Devil, we burnt them all, and this affected [the Maya] deeply, causing them great sorrow and grief.

Perhaps it is due to the tragic loss of their ancient libraries that Mayans say they keep "writing in their hearts", according to the text of the most recent work of the Woodlanders' Workshop, Mayan Hearts by Robert M. Laughlin. The text for this book was inspired in the poetic metaphors the author discovered in a sixteenth century Spanish-Tzotzil Mayan dictionary.

In the Mesoamerican tradition, writing and printing were called "the red and the black" because these were the colors of the inks primarily used in books. Mayan Hearts is likewise printed in red and black and begins with an epigraph from Aztec poet Nezahualcoyotl: "Your heart is a book of pictures."

The pages were bound using flexible contact cement from the cobbler's bench, reinforced with a strip of hand-woven cotton. It took most of 2002 and 2003 to produce the first edition of Mayan Hearts consisting of 500 copies in Spanish and 500 copies in English. On the last page of this extraordinarily beautiful work, the author concludes: "My heart is a book"

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