As we enter fall, “harvest season,” I find myself thinking a lot about the ways we approach harvesting—and not just about which tools are best for which tasks, or about pumpkin spice lattes made with real pureed pumpkin. , but rather how the worldview we have dictates the approach we take to harvesting.
Needless to say, I have a bias, and one based on “sustainability” practices and the premise that we as a society are overdue for a major overhaul of the way we manage the Earth’s resources . This word, “resources,” begins with the prefix “re-,” which means to make again and with a sense of reciprocity.
Resources mean that there is a cyclical flow in the process of give and take, of creation and deconstruction. This relationship, between give and take, is clearly out of balance and is the focus of this article. But to move forward, sometimes we absolutely must look back and take the lead of indigenous peoples who are currently practicing age-old ways of interacting with the community of life on this planet.
The “honorable harvest” is a term used and described in Robin Wall-Kimmerer’s book Braid Sweetgrass.
Robin is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She writes that the harvesting process becomes ‘honorable’ for all beings involved, directly and indirectly, when humans essentially treat the plant or animal as a person, as conscious, with every right to exist apart from our dependence on it (read all works on topic “Deep Ecology” for more information about this philosophy).
Some herbalists, gardeners and farmers are familiar with the concepts of ‘ethical harvesting/wildcrafting’ and ‘sustainable agriculture’. These methods are very similar to the honorable harvest; However, to practice harvesting with honor, you must examine your personal motivations, your deepest cultural influences, and your worldview.
For anyone who gardens, farms, makes their own herbal medicines, and who eats or consumes plant and animal life, these Honorable Harvest Guidelines from Robin Wall-Kimmerer can be learned and applied to your future harvests and kept in your mind and heart as you sit for your meals:
- Ask permission. This may seem strange, but is it? Do we force people to hug us? If we don’t ask, as Robin says, that’s stealing.
- Never take the first or the last. Harvest when most individuals are present and never take more than 20-30% of the population when harvesting in the wild.
- Damage control during harvesting. For example, how do your actions affect non-target species?
- Take only what you need. You can go back ‘seconds’ if you need more.
- Use everythingevery part, of what you have brought with you.
- Don’t clean it up until it’s given to you. Here ‘given’ means that you get a ‘yes’ after asking. If you don’t know how to do this or are laughing right now, I recommend meditating on it.
- Continue the cycle of sharingas the Earth has shared its beings with you for sustenance.
- Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude. It is a concept that is currently in vogue, but it cannot be overstated. Create your gratitude in a way that works for you: completely silently or out loud and proud!
- Think about reciprocity. Support those who support you. Gifts are meant to be reciprocated in some way in due course.
My aunt and I were recently talking about someone who picked every berry from the bush because if he didn’t, he considered it “waste.”
This was a position rooted in his scholarly family and cultural perspectives and experiences. Hoarding the best and throwing the leftovers “to the birds” is the kind of thinking that has created the very measurable imbalances we experience today.
Picking blackberries in the Pacific Northwest in August, or catching lobsters in the cold (but warming) North Atlantic Ocean, while adhering to respectful harvest principles, means leaving some juicy morsels for the birds we love to hear sing and that we giving all species the opportunity to reproduce and thrive on their own, creating new life for future caring hands to harvest and hungry bellies to feed.
Writer Erin Lanum is a clinically trained herbalist and certified death midwife with years of focus on nutrition, herbs, sustainability, ethical wildlife work, death and dying, and human connection to the ecosystems within and without. Erin has a B.Sc. in Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon, is a graduate of the four-year internship program at the Columbine School of Botanical Studies in Eugene, OR, and a former student of Paul Berger at the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism in Boulder, CO. She calls both Oregon and Washington home, but she is grateful for her years in Hawaii and Colorado because coming “home” to many places has expanded her sense of place.
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For educational purposes only. This information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, or to sell any product.
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