Honorable Harvest

We all have heroes or sheroes who inspire us to live with greater courage, stamina, and the strength to do the right thing. In modern superhero myths these justice warriors usually exist apart from the “real world” due to their self-imposed alienation and seclusion. My take away has always been that with great power comes great loneliness and suffering. Ultimately, this isolation makes them vulnerable and they always face an existential crisis when they realize how much they need the support of others to survive and be able to do their good work in the world.

Since time immemorial, Indigenous people world over have practiced another kind of justice based collective good called Honorable Harvest. The principles are grounded in the living soil of relationship, reciprocity, and respect. As they indicate in their beautifully inclusive greeting of “All my relatives”, Honorable Harvest is a lifeway which honors our interdependence and the importance of caring for all members of our Earth community, whether mineral, plant, animal, or human.  

One of our sheroes, Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote down how the Honorable Harvest informs our interactions with our world and how it shapes the way we move with the land.

The principles that guide harvest come from a place of respect for the life that is giving itself so we might live. We move together with care and gratitude because we recognize our profound interconnection and reliance on each other.

Embodying the Honorable Harvest reminds us to ask before we take and to listen for the answer. To never take more than half and never take the first or the last. To share and learn the names of what we are harvesting so we can care for them as they care for us with their lives. To be grateful and reciprocate the gift. Perhaps we do this by planting more seeds or weeding the area so more plants can grow. 

Sustain the ones who sustain you and the Earth will last forever.

Powerful words full of truth and a reminder that all beings on this magnificent planet are connected to each other in a web of relationships which require our participation and care. 

As we enter the month where we in the United States celebrate the generosity of the indigenous people of Turtle Island it is important to remember what happens when people choose to ignore the Honorable Harvest and simply take without giving. When they do not use everything they take and when they do not ask for permission. 

I see mountains of buffalo skulls, bodies unused, gifts discarded, the first and almost the last taken without regard for returning the generosity. I hear the cries of indigenous children stolen from their families, beaten for speaking their language, cut off from their customs and practices of Honorable Harvest, and the generations of lived trauma given in return for their ancestors’ generosity and care.

We all see the effects of taking from the earth without reciprocating her gifts. Bare hills where there were once lush forests, empty river beds where fish and animals once lived, air that is choked with pollution and making people sick. 

The world cannot last forever with the dominant paradigm of exploitation and avarice.

At its core, Honorable Harvest is reciprocity and relationship–a regenerative practice that invites us to slow down and notice the gifts of our Earth and her beings. 

The beauty of Honorable Harvest is that when we practice living in this good way, the earth, our communities, and our bodies are always healing and giving the gifts of health, abundance, and connection to us again. 

It is a good time to practice the lifeway of Honorable Harvest. Even if complete regeneration cannot occur before the end of our embodiment, we can grow hope for our descendants and community members who will continue the work. We can plant the seeds of an abundant world where we value diversity and our responsibilities to each other so that all may thrive. 

We are all seeds in Earth’s garden-sown together because we all have gifts to give and receive from each other. When we stop to reflect on the tremendous generosity of the sun giving the gift of its heat and light so that plant relatives can photosynthesize it into food for their bodies and then give themselves to us for our bodies, it is humbling.  We need each other. We belong to each other. 

Let us live knowing that we are here because of the generosity of water, sun, earth, soil, plant, animal, and fellow human. Let us remember the unstated love which holds us to this planet and fills our lungs every moment. Let us say thank you with each breath we take and from this gratitude, work together for the good of all.