Learning to Be In Reciprocity

I've just begun a 10 month apprenticeship into Herbal Medicine and Plant Spirit healing. I'm already gripped and moved by coming into deeper understanding and relationship with the web of life and nature that has been waiting for us, that has been disrupted BY us, and that offers so much medicine for our individual and collective repair.

We've been many-generations raised in a culture of extraction.
And our survival (and thriving) relies on us coming to understand principles of reciprocity.

If the land is alive, if the plants and animals and stones and wind are all alive... where is our relationship with them?

When the fires rage, do we stop and connect to Fire?
To listen to what it might have to say?

What if crisis is a call into relationship?

What if our desires require us to offer something in return?

As I write this, I sit looking out over this magnificent view. I was highly doubtful that we would get here... this month has felt full of disruption and chaos. But as my trip grew closer, I had a thought:

"Perhaps I can pray to the land, ask permission for our visit, ask for the gentleness and replenishment that we are seeking. Ask if I can offer something in return."

So I prayed. And asked permission. And asked the Land how it felt about us coming up for a visit, for a rest and reset.

The simple gesture of coming into relationship with all elements has entirely shifted my experience of a simple weekend getaway.
Things have flowed with ease.
The wind rustles through the trees as if to say hello. 

Where can you come back into relationship
​with one natural element around you?

Where can you ask permission for what you've taken for granted, or offer something in return for all that has been offered to you?

In the same way we extract from the land, we extract from one another and even ourselves.

Where can you pour into yourself this week?
Where can you pour into the folks you come in contact with?

I'm excited for the joyful liberation that will come when we truly learn how to stop extracting and start relating.

Big love... hang on to that magic :)
Julia