A hunter had brought home a sizable kill, far too much to be eaten by his family. The researcher asked how he would store the excess. Smoking and drying technologies were well known; storing was possible. The hunter was puzzled by the question–store the meat? Why would he do that? Instead, he sent out an invitation to a feast, and soon the neighboring families were gathered around his fire, until every last morsel was consumed. This seemed like maladaptive behavior to the anthropologist, who asked again given the uncertainty of meat in the forest, why didn’t the hunter store the meat for himself, which is what the economic system of his home culture would predict.
“Store my meat? I store my meat in the belly of my brother,” replied the hunter.
~ From Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
Dear Springhouse community,
I hope this letter finds you well. I can feel the light shifting a bit as we enter later summer. It is comforting. Harvest and abundance are on my mind these days, as is the injustice and scarcity that I see in this world daily.
I pulled the shade up this morning and looked out at our garden. The pumpkin and squash plants are confidently creeping outside of their bounds. The corn is high. The beans are plentiful. I have seen the garden, but not actually been out in it since I got back from Connecticut a couple of days ago. I can only imagine the abundance that is in store. Big yellow squash, plump juicy tomatoes, and tall green leaves of kale. It is such a miracle that only a couple of months ago my husband and I were out in the rain planting tiny seeds and now I cannot keep up with the return on investment. We put seeds in the ground, we took care of them to some extent, and now the Earth reciprocates with many fruits. This is miraculous and these days it is important to not lose sight of miracles. Planting and tending a garden is one way to ensure that I remember this simple and profound miracle of reciprocity.
Lessons on reciprocity abound everywhere I turn lately. Here is how Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist, author, and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment defines reciprocity:
Can we imagine a human economy with a currency which emulates the flow from Mother Earth? A currency of gifts? When I speak about reciprocity, let me be clear. I don’t mean a bilateral exchange in which an obligation is incurred, and can then be discharged with a reciprocal “payment.” I mean keeping the gift in motion in a way that is open and diffuse, so that the gift does not accumulate and stagnate, but keeps moving, like the gift of berries through an ecosystem. We ecologists think about the currency of ecosystems in terms of biogeochemistry–the cycling of life’s materials, between the living and the not.
Keeping the gift in motion. I love that.
One lesson came last week, when I was at a friend’s house and her husband came in, sweating and out of breath. It was obvious he had been working hard. When we went back outside, I saw his lawn and yard had been diligently cared for. When I looked to the right, I saw that his neighbor’s yard had been cared for too. When I asked him if he had mowed her lawn, he said that he had because she did not have a lawn mower, and was having a hard time due to some unforeseen circumstances. I told him how kind and generous I thought he was and his response surprised me in a gentle way. He said, “I am just glad that I can do it.”
I am just glad I can do it. His response focused on himself. He knew what he had for himself and his own yard, and that he had more he could give to his neighbor. Giving away what he had left brought him alive. His face was bright, and as I pulled out of the driveway, I saw him in front of his neighbor’s house continuing with his work by string trimming her sidewalk edge. His cup was full and he had something left to give away to his neighbor. Energy is a resource. Giving what we can give is so lifegiving. Storing up what we do not need can cause problems.
I recently watched a little video clip of a social experiment that a man had come up with. It was of a man going into a library and telling someone he was hungry and needed money. When he approached a man, who was a refugee from Namibia, and asked him for money, the Namibian man started digging in his pockets. He came up with some change and said this is all I have. When the man doing the experiment asked him if that was truly all he had, the man said it was. When the man doing the experiment asked why he would give that money away if it was all he had, the Namibian man responded with a question: Why would I keep this money, when right now at this moment, you are hungry and I am not? He went on to say that he has always been cared for somehow and he trusts he will be cared for tomorrow when he is hungry. He wasn’t counting on this particular man to pay him back, or to be the one to feed him tomorrow. He trusts that “keeping the gift in motion”, as Kimmerer puts it, will care for him, and his neighbor.
About 35 years ago, I entered a different kind of culture that turned my thinking on end; a culture of recovery from addiction. This culture of recovery is a give away culture. We take care of ourselves so diligently that we have something for ourselves, and something to give to someone else. Whether that is wisdom to a newcomer, or a few bucks to support the meeting that supports us, we keep the gift in motion. I hear regularly from members, we keep what we have by giving it away. This culture also taught me about a practice called keeping a prudent reserve. Gather the resources we need to sustain ourselves as a group, decide together how much we need on reserve (not too much and not too little), and give the rest away. Give it to the church our group is held in; give it to the larger conference the group is a part of; buy literature to support our learning. Keep the resources in motion. Do not hoard because we will quickly become mistaken about where our true security lives.
Mentorship can be a concrete way to see reciprocity in action. As a young person, I lived in ways that opposed life; numbing out through addictions and distractions was one way. My mentors taught me a way to live that was more deeply aligned with life. They taught me, and still do, about what reciprocity means through their generous mentorship. I give back to these people by living the life they taught me to live. I take care of my body. I stay close to a sense of the sacred in my life no matter what. I grow my self awareness and I do not let fears of facing my shortcomings get in the way. They taught me to love all of myself. I give back to them by doing everything I can to love the world in that way too. Mentorship is not a transaction. It is much like growing a garden.
At Springhouse, we practice creating the conditions for reciprocity daily. We are a place to practice keeping the gift in motion and we need more places to practice, so we can, over generations, live in a culture of reciprocity. I am grateful to my mentors, for the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer, and others who share stories of a new way. I am grateful to the Earth for showing us what reciprocity is every day. I pay attention to these lessons around me, take them into my own experience, and practice what it means to keep the gifts in motion; not just in my own life but in our collective life at Springhouse.
Thank you for all of the ways you participate in the collective life of this community at Springhouse. May we all continue to create the conditions for the gift of this life to be known and to be cared for.
With love,
Jenny
