Abundance, Radiance, and Reciprocity
“Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you
and the earth will last forever”
—Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
art by Meinrad Craighead
In the vastness of the unfurling universe, it is remarkable to consider that our tiny blue planet is teeming with life the likes of which, in all our searching, we have yet been able to find elsewhere. From the mighty blue whale to the ethereal butterfly, the earth is alive with exquisite beauty.
Here in the northern hemisphere, we are at the midpoint of summer, invited into the feast of abundance.
Today is the radiant halfway point of the summer season, the cross-quarter day in the Celtic Wheel of the Year known as Lughnasadh (pronounced LOO-nas-suh).
It is a time to celebrate the first harvest of the season. At the peak of the heat, growth turns to harvest, and this ancient festival of grain kicks off the reaping season as summer’s bounty begins to roll in.
It is time!
We are invited to celebrate the abundance, to nourish, savor and share the gifts of the earth.
Where in your life and in the natural world around are you witness to abundance?
This time of harvest invites us to be present and grateful for what is, and also to recognize that this climatic moment of abundance is not an end-point, but one delicious turn of the wheel of the year.
Unlike the exponential growth models of our consumer economy, the economy of earth is a spiral of change. The wheel of the year turns from abundance towards release and then deep rest. Summer’s big bounty moves us into winter’s fallowness.
My Celtic ancestors knew that the harvest was an invitation to feast and also to store wisely for leaner times ahead. To receive the gifts of earth with gratitude, and also take care to leave enough of the harvest not only as seeds for next year’s harvest, but also for the wild others with whom we share this planet.
Abundance is an open-hearted practice of trust that there is enough for us all.
Though the earth is extravagant in her generosity, colonial capitalism has actively destroyed the natural abundance of the planet by taking more than we need.
The US is one of the richest nations in the world, and yet there is the prevalent anxiety here that there is not enough.
The irony is that our fear of scarcity creates that very reality.
How can we choose to live into abundance rather than grasping and hoarding, competing and consuming?
In her beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass, biologist and Potawatomi citizen Robin Wall Kimmerer explores the indigenous practice of the Honorable Harvest as an answer to that question. The Honorable Harvest is an invitation to enter into right relationship with what we consume through reverence, reciprocity and respect.
Kimmerer invites us to take an animistic view of the earth, recognizing the more-than-human world of plants and animals, waterways and landforms as sacred persons deserving of our respect, and not simply as objects for our greedy consumption. She invites us to come into relationship with the natural world. And, as in any good relationship, to participate in both the give and take.
As humans, we are culture makers. Though gratitude is at the heart of the Honorable Harvest, Kimmerer writes, “we are called to go beyond cultures of gratitude to once again become cultures of reciprocity.”
Unfortunately, our rampant consumerism has created a culture of such profound disconnect from our planet that it seems logical to many that the next step is to move to Mars. We can simply throw away this planet and start over with our extraction somewhere else.
Clearly we are in need of a different way of relating to life on earth.
The ancient holiday of Lughnasadh asks us, as humans, to decenter ourselves from the story and remember that we are wholly dependent on rhythms and forces so much larger than ourselves.
It is a call to take our place in the great web of being.
We are invited out of the extraction economy and into a love story with earth.
Our lives depend on our consumption of other bodies–be they plant, animal, or mineral. And our market-driven economy has labeled us all as such: we are “consumers.”
Yet, the love-song of earth invites us into something more—a relationship of reciprocity. We do not have to be ones who merely take. We can participate in the abundance of creation through our gratitude, our tending, our sharing, our giving, our creativity, and our love.
Kimmerer voices her longing for another way of relating to our earth, “I want to hear a great song of thanks rise on the wind. I think that song might save us.”
How might you sing this song of thanks today?
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Tending to these inner “seeds” is an important aspect of the work I do as a 1:1 Soul Companion. Click to learn more.
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Hello, dear one. I’m Stephanie.
As a Soul Companion, educator, and sacred space holder, I am passionate about deepening our connection to the earth, our bodies, and the divine mystery that dances in all that is.
Let’s journey together into the sacred wild!
