when the blood in your veins returns to the sea,
and the dust in your bones gets back to the ground,
perhaps you'll remember that this earth does not belong to you, but rather you belong to this earth~ Nicanor Parra
i thought of jumping right back where we left off last time;
on the part about beautifying the spaces between us.
a thought idea that has become a core tenet in my bag of thoughts, for it informs my day-to-day navigating, my doings
and has proven to be quite helpful when answering questions such as:
why are we here?
what is our role?
what’s my responsibility?
what am i to do?
the writing of from the blue is just a small attempt of answering this last question
as i examine my relation with the thou
the land and ecosystem which i’m a part of
an inquiry sparks
of the things i must do
to make space to flow through
writing as an offering,
of an account of the experience of a cosmology
because it’s not enough to know
that life is a complex network of dynamic relationships
and in the holistic order of things
there’s perpetual exchange of NEWEN that must flow
life is pranic
and the experience of this energy
comes in many forms, songs and words
which they’re integrated as they’re shared
the giving of an offering
an act of right engagement and behaviour
is where one realizes and actualizes
these cosmological foundations
the language of reciprocity
the service you do for others
is the rent you pay for your room here on earth
~ Muhammad Ali
reciprocity from its latin roots means back and forth, mutual interchange. i’ve gotten to know folks who were not familiar with the word reciprocity and nonetheless had a great depth of reciprocal knowing in themselves.
culturally it’s considered a value; although when i reflect on it for what it is, i’m inclined to deem it more of a natural principle ~ a form of language
nature possesses many languages from which we learn ways of living; we’ve recognized reciprocity is one of its principles because everywhere we look, nature is seeking balance and harmony for the myriad of forces present in the landscape
through the observation
of the patterns in the landscape
and the behaviours of our kinwe learn ways of being
we reflect them
we articulate themthey become ways to act in the world
ACTualizing thought and intention
in a form of language
one of the many examples of nature speaking the language of reciprocity are mushrooms; as they’re the vehicles of reciprocity in every ecosystem they’re in
the word ecosystem means the complex interaction of life within an environment. eco means home and nature is the home in which everyone is necessary for the whole
mycelia
~ the love of the forest
primordial matter
that intwines the living
and revivifies the death
when we look at nature, we see how life is created and sustained by beings eating one another. this is the fundamental business of the world and the basis of all these interactions are based on reciprocity, even the apparent “predatory ones” because from the perspective of life or the whole: bears do care for salmon and lions do care for zebras. it’s only arrogance that makes us believe that every part is separate and denies the primacy of relation, but we’ll get to that later
we are a self-reflective species - we are uniquely positioned to seek nature’s counsel, to learn to echo and to give thanks for the wisdom we acquire
~ Janine Benyus
the dual observing
in the language that i’m learning there’s this concept of xafkintun (pronounced like “truff-kin-toon”) which translates to english as dual-observing and has been badly mistranslated or misinterpreted as barter or exchange
because the dual observing is more than just an institution of exchange or economy “aka market”; it’s the arising of an event, an opportunity for the nourishment of the social web of relations with-in and with-out the territory and it echoes the flowing energy within the web of life
echoes are exchange
when the lakfenche who brought kojof
befriended the pewenche who brought güjiw
and their exchange echoed
fondness and affection
reciprocity and dual observing in the form of gifting, payment or offerings are expressions of respect and gratitude to regain or retain the balance and intimacy between oneself and the embodied network of life, the whole community, seen and unseen, within and out
and even though we might have forgotten some things like:
we had places and communal events to go make relations, trades and offerings
we had places to share story and build collective memory - not just a market
that from a cosmological sense, every-thing must come and go
that any-thing material doesn’t really belong to us anyways1
but nature never forgets. here is an example of birds instinctively balancing things out and showing us their own dual observing
“i see what ye did there ~ so here ye go”
the invisible bridges we build between ourselves, these blue branches we extend are built on acts of reciprocity; and we shape and nurture these relationships with open-hand offerings of song, dance, fire and water……or just some stuffy stuff…
we vow
to that intrinsic necessity
of things to assemble
to orchestratewe respond
echoing with highten awareness
to that internal brightness that peeks
that which animates us allbecause the self is the universe
beholding itself
in self-referential awe
where did reciprocity go?
do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
do justly now. walk humbly now. we are not expected to finish the work! (nor are we excused from it)~ Talmud
over millennia we’ve recognized the need of maintaining balance in what we give (back) for what we’ve taken or received, for there is abundance and there are limits
but over time the meaning of reciprocity has been relegated next to karma and labelled “just another abstract belief”…except when
gotta give thanks on thanksgiving
don’t worry… i’ll pay for your coffee this time
~ today for you, tomorrow for me
…that’s it?
something’s off, maybe it’s been off for a while
from relating with every-life
to objectifying every-thingfrom a symbiotic relationship with the living planet
to a B2B parasitic extraction of “resources”
the ingrained anthropocentrism, the objectifying language, the denial of spirit, the loss of relationality and communal living with the rise of individualism. all these issues are related
there is no indispensable species, and no indispensable culture. especially not a culture that dreams of eating without being eaten, and that offers the gods not even the guts or the crumbs
~ Robert Bringhurst
some cultures felt the need to feed their deities by means of the sacrifice of peoples or slaughter of animals as tokens of appreciation or to appease these deities
there's a difference between offering cultures and sacrifice cultures: offering cultures are more-or-less intact people who make offerings with handmade beauty and human voices, to feed and sustain a time beyond our own to keep the world alive beyond its own moment. sacrifice cultures on the other hand are paranoid cultures who try to outrun their accountability to the earth by sacrificing something that is not theirs to give, things they cannot make (like a bull or a man), to get something that is not there for them to have, to make themselves feel powerful.
yet, in an offering type culture, once a freely-given feast becomes a frozen obligation then the offering. becomes a liturgical sacrifice and you stop living well in order to just paranoically survive. this turns a culture of beautiful offerings into a sacrifice culture.
all civilizations today are sacrifice cultures.
~ Martín Prechtel, “rescuing the light"
we judge those cultures that took their offerings to “the extreme” offering themselves for sacrifice as "tribute". and now?
we’re wreaking havoc, decimation and extinction of species..ie SACRIFICE for a bunch of money in the bank - with non of the giving
seems like with the rejection of religion(s)2, with education as the illusion of knowledge and science stepping up as the only worthy belief; the narrative to explain what happens inside of us has been pretty much left up for grabs
people are left with a g0d-shaped hole inside that needs to be filled regardless, if not with spirit then with m0ney and whatever other empty stuff that pumps the GDP is available.
as we sorta let this capitalism thing run loose, humans doing inhuman things at scale became the norm; extraction with no apparent limits and devoid of any kind of reciprocity became known as the global economic system, a death cult of worship to the money-g0d…
…and it has now become our single biggest threat…
(phew…apparently i really needed to get all shit that out)…
but is capitalism the name of the problem? …i think not
our external crisis
corellates our internal struggles
the name of the problem
is the denial of spirit
and what is needed,
is the return of anima
for the re-membering
of the primacy of relationfor reality is a relationship
it’s not a network of individuals
it’s a network of relations
relation is primary
“to be” is always to inter-be
~ Thich Nhất Hạnh
as an animist, my view is that we physically sprout from the earth, —we’re embodiments of its animacy— and we’re birthed by living unseen forces that we are in constant interbeing with
we come from the infinite blue
we ought to give back
for birthing us
by serving the force of life
with creation and beauty
the spreading of the animistic perspective, i argue, will revive this notion of the primacy of relation and the intimacy of people with the living land; to keep the balance of newen ~ chi between forces, elements, life and spirit with protocols based on reciprocity. men business and women business in the land, in ceremony; as custodians and caretakers of place, in courtship with nature and its forces…this is what’s due
humans feast the holy and the wild
with the beauty of what their hands can make as offerings
and what their voices can make
with their delicious meaningful prayer music
~ Martín Prechtel
by being a language of nature, reciprocity is something that is felt as it’s naturally weaved in us. it’s not about thinking nor the figuring out, but about being curious about learning the protocols on how to give if we’re about to take. in common instances such as fishing or blackberry picking, “the honourable harvest” is a protocol (popularized by author Robin Wall Kimmerer) that can be applied to everyday life
you make, you offer
build a heart and draw a circle
these are signs on another plane
a tribute to the sacred
by means of the mundane
leave some breadcrumbs
for the road is long
and the journey is vast
tell a story
so that beauty may last
the obvious statement is that we ought to ask before we take, that taking without permission is stealing; that we must leave enough for whoever comes next, that there are ways to be in reciprocity, such as:
what we want & what we give are both found in what can we BE
want milk?
become a breast~ Martin Prechtel
that every moment of every day is an opportunity to express gratitude, recognition and respect for all the intermediary forces present in the more-than-human world that are close by, all around and far away holding us together in this mandalic web of mycelial-shaped network structure that’s life
opportunities to humble oneself to the larger body
~ the u-inverse
to be in ceremony with our present and timeless relations; where we’re able to offer something ourselves in return for what we’ve already received: the preciousness of life
live in the knowledge that you are a gift to the world
~ Debbie Ford
so i invite you,
not to think what can you give
not to think how can you save this or that
and to not think how or what can you serve
i invite you to BE the gift, the presence
i invite you to BE the offering you make
(because)
in the end,
the love you take
is equal to the love you make
~ the beatles
Jorge Drexler in his beautiful song “Movimiento” says:
”it’s more mine what i dream, than what i touch”
”we don’t have belongings, just baggage”
(and fuck the church btw🖕🏽)