Limited Resources

 

 

Water on the moon? Yes…they say they’ve found water on the moon…and a person from NASA was heard to ask the question, “Can we source the water on the moon?”

Two different conversations prompted my thought of the week about resources, both in the world and within ourselves. The first was on the Tapestry podcast where Robin Wall Kimmerer the author of Braiding Sweetgrass, was interviewed. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, her name will sound familiar as her writing has created a massive internal shift in my thinking and inspired many of the themes over the past couple of months. The second was in a conversation with three other friends and the idea of using our own inner resources arose. I initially had a glimmer of a connection between these two conversations and, as so often happens, it has evolved over the past few days into a much deeper thought process.

Kimmerer, from the Potawatomi tribe and a Ph.D. researcher in Botany has had to make sense of two seemingly divergent paths of thought. The Potawatomi see the totality and connection to the earth and its offerings, where trees, plants, and non-human animals are all seen as beings rather than objects or defined as “it”. Her science background delineates things into the non-mystical and empirical, with theories posited and either supported or not. Melding the two has created a dialogue of a greater appreciation of the living world. Kimmerer also describes her dislike of the words “natural resources” and instead prefers the term “the earth’s gifts”. She talks about the notion of “the honorable harvest” where you don’t take the first plant and you only take what you need. We all know that the earth, as a being, sustains our individual lives. Yet, so many of us have become unconscious as to the sources of our sustenance and take without thinking, often more than we need, and in a way that shows non-reverence from where it came.

If we apply the honorable harvest idea to our own inner resources, perhaps we begin to see the connection that we too, have limits. From a physical perspective, our body can only store a certain amount of energy within our cells in the form of glycogen, blood glucose, and fat stores. If we didn’t refuel the physical tank, we would “poop” out and be unable to continue our existence. We have limited emotional capacities and experiences with being able to experience only one emotion at a time (but perhaps different ones in rapid succession) and realize the fluid nature of emotions. Mentally, we have a limited tolerance, particularly as it relates to managing levels of stress that make their way into our daily lives. We all have a breaking point…not some endless reserve squirreled away within the deep recesses of our being.

Coming to the realization that many things we think to be infinite are actually finite begins to shift our relationship to them. All of us are finite in this human form. Everyone we know, including ourselves, will die. Yet, how often do we make choices as though the opposite is true? When we choose to mine the earth, continue the search for and drilling of fossil fuels or over-consume are we simply unconscious that these gifts from the earth are limited?

The moment I made the connection to why I get triggered in hearing about the potential of old-growth forests being cut down, or drilling into the Arctic wilderness, or tapping the water on the moon is that I realize that I am a microcosm of Mother Earth. What exists in her, exists in me, because of her! As I more deeply realize and embody the connection something within it becomes sacred. I begin to hold a deeper reverence for how the gifts of the earth not only sustain me but all beings upon it. If I can understand the honorable harvest within myself, knowing of my own sacred reserves, perhaps my outward actions will also shift.

The idea that what is here is for the taking is an outdated colonialist and capitalist way of thinking. I have been inspired to turn toward the ancient wisdoms and indigenous teachings in order to remember the sacredness of not only my own life but that of others. I’m hoping these insights inform my actions, and that my actions, in turn, honor rather than destroy the mother. And for that, I am humbled.