I love this passage. I love the reference to reciprocity and symbiosis. If feels like a surrender to me to know that we have this "obligate symbiotic" relationship with all living beings. And because sometimes I just wish I was corn or a rose or a bird. haha. Like Mary Oliver says, a rose doesnt wonder what is next. It just is.
Thanks Nessa, I love the idea that gratitude and reciprocity is essential to being human and when we have lost that we crumble up the blueprint and start over. It really does change your approach to domesticated plants and animals when you (accurately in most cases) view it as co-creating or co-evolving each other.
I truly appreciate your work educating me. However, I live in a different ecosphere, the Sonoran Desert, so many things you describe most likely do not exist here. Yet, I can still enjoy your connection to Gaia.
Thanks Jim, it's true our ecosystems shape us and our inquiries in different ways. In the case of corn people, it's definitely a huge part of the ecosystem up here in the midwest, but I think that it has traditionally been a huge part of indigenous folklore and lifeways in the Southwest as well. I believe that story that Kimmerer was referring to that preceded today's passage is a Mayan tale.
Makes sense it would be Mayan tale. As far as time not being a river but a lake is interesting as physicist are now positing different theories about time that you may be aware of. This evolved from the space/time of Einstein to ideas that time may be quantum bits—this seems to be being debunked—to ideas that time is an emergent property.
3. I feel called to honor the relationships, particularly with attention to domesticated plants and animals, which I have sometimes viewed as less than their wild counterparts because I thought they were under our control, rather than giving of themselves of their own volition. I am meant to build that relationship through reciprocity with my dog, the plants in the garden, the earth in the garden, to the elements who form these generous beings, to the wild plants that grow in such abundance to help heal us. How do I develop reciprocity with fire? What could I possibly give? All I can think of is my attention and my song, and to listen to hear if more is asked of me.
I love this passage. I love the reference to reciprocity and symbiosis. If feels like a surrender to me to know that we have this "obligate symbiotic" relationship with all living beings. And because sometimes I just wish I was corn or a rose or a bird. haha. Like Mary Oliver says, a rose doesnt wonder what is next. It just is.
Happy to hear her new book is coming!
Thanks Nessa, I love the idea that gratitude and reciprocity is essential to being human and when we have lost that we crumble up the blueprint and start over. It really does change your approach to domesticated plants and animals when you (accurately in most cases) view it as co-creating or co-evolving each other.
I truly appreciate your work educating me. However, I live in a different ecosphere, the Sonoran Desert, so many things you describe most likely do not exist here. Yet, I can still enjoy your connection to Gaia.
Thanks Jim, it's true our ecosystems shape us and our inquiries in different ways. In the case of corn people, it's definitely a huge part of the ecosystem up here in the midwest, but I think that it has traditionally been a huge part of indigenous folklore and lifeways in the Southwest as well. I believe that story that Kimmerer was referring to that preceded today's passage is a Mayan tale.
Makes sense it would be Mayan tale. As far as time not being a river but a lake is interesting as physicist are now positing different theories about time that you may be aware of. This evolved from the space/time of Einstein to ideas that time may be quantum bits—this seems to be being debunked—to ideas that time is an emergent property.
Enough physics and back to corn and grasses. 😀
3. I feel called to honor the relationships, particularly with attention to domesticated plants and animals, which I have sometimes viewed as less than their wild counterparts because I thought they were under our control, rather than giving of themselves of their own volition. I am meant to build that relationship through reciprocity with my dog, the plants in the garden, the earth in the garden, to the elements who form these generous beings, to the wild plants that grow in such abundance to help heal us. How do I develop reciprocity with fire? What could I possibly give? All I can think of is my attention and my song, and to listen to hear if more is asked of me.
1. Reciprocal acts of creation