On Reciprocal Foraging: Rewilding Consciousness & Shifting Culture
It's all so much more impactful than you realize.
“Reciprocal Foraging” is a term I learned from Daniela Naomi Molnar*– a natural pigment maker, artist, and poet – who in turn has been inspired by the work of Tilke Elkins, another amazing pigment worker, artist, thinker, and activist.
Reciprocity and relationship are the foundation of all my spirit and Earth medicine practices – and I love how this phrase brings everything into direct relationship with wildcrafting.
The ancestral arts of wildcrafting and foraging have the potential to attune us to cosmic and natural cycles, reverence and gratitude, and the ever-comingling presence of beauty, grief, and transformation. But this attunement only takes place through reciprocal foraging.
This practice is more layered and challenging than we might expect. It involves a literally revolutionary shift in consciousness. As Daniela writes:
Most of us have absorbed a conscious or subconscious stance of domination, objectification, and extraction towards the earth. Reciprocal foraging begins by: accepting that you’ve inherited this cultural stance, working to forgive yourself for harboring this violence as part of yourself, then working to doggedly undo it from the inside out.
This is a lifetime’s work. It won’t happen immediately or easily, but it’s good work, and it’s culture-shifting work – you’re changing not just yourself but the world.
You’re changing not just yourself but the world.
The art and practice of foraging is an opportunity to radically shift your relationship with the Earth and your consciousness as a result. And this is no small thing. For every human who commits to fierce work of cultivating a mythoanimist relationship with the wild world – one that sees the Earth as alive with the mythic intelligence – the consensus culture shifts in response.
The relationship we have with the Earth and the many beings who inhabit her, in all realms, is a reflection of an energetic ecology: We are part of myriad interconnected energetics.
What we forage matters. We impact layers of ecologies – physical and spiritual. What others forage matters. We are impacted not only by what is taken on a physical level, but how it’s taken within the energetic ecologies we exist in.
Every act of foraging or wildcrafting is an energetic exchange, and ideally this exchange is given and received with equality in both directions. The following are practices that enhance this exchange, adapted from both my own work and that of Daniella:
Cultivate a mythoanimist consciousness: See the Earth as alive, with agency, abilities, and preferences. Recognize the stories you’ve inherited about ecology and Earth. Work to undo the harmful ones and begin to write new ones with reverence.
Practice an animist vocabulary: Or, what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls a “grammar of animacy”. Give beings pronouns. Trees, stones, rivers, bears.
Offer respect: As with any healthy, loving relationship. Sense into boundaries around giving and receiving. Daniella writes that we can “acknowledge the earth’s sentience and wisdom” as a pathway towards authentic respect.
Engage with curiosity: Use your senses to experience direct revelation and relationship. Explore the history of the land, the beings you forage. Get curious about the people who have come before and their relationships with place. The animals. The ecology.
Create an ethical commitment to place and self: Follow basic ethical guidelines around sustainability – and go even further. Once you know the layers of life that are present, your personal integrity becomes more fine-tuned. Know what this means for you.
Look beyond the physical: Remember the energetic ecologies of place. Who are spiritual caretakers of that land? How do they feel about your presence? What do they view as true reciprocity?
Be grateful and joyful: Gratitude for the ability to engage with the Earth in this way is the most important piece of reciprocal foraging. Gratitude takes us beyond survival, beyond extraction mentality. We recognize that all of life is a gift, and this is the heart of both spiritual practice and ethical foraging.
Express your gratitude creatively: Feeling gratitude is beautiful – but transforming this feeling into an actual gift of thanks is what fosters culture-changing exchange. Write a poem. Leave an appropriate offering. Sing to the land. Engage in ritual.
Put your ethics in action: Take action on behalf of the Earth by donating to or volunteering with organizations doing good work. Periodically review your own lifestyle and honestly and lovingly, making shifts as needed.
Share: Spread the love. Share your creations and your learning with others. What are you contributing to the ecologies you exist within?
Honor your teachers: Your knowledge and skills and ethics also arose within ecosystems far greater than you. Who are your teachers, mentors, and influences – within both human and other-than-human realms? The art of acknowledging is an antidote to the toxic competition of capitalism.
The karma of humanity at this time is to rewild our consciousness. To recognize that we are part of layers of ecologies. And while our collective impacts our existence each day, we too can impact the collective. But only when the foundation of true consciousness change is present.
*As I write this, I’m currently at a retreat taught by Daniela. I feel beyond grateful for the opportunity to spend over two weeks in the Oregon Outback at an art and ecology residency program hosted by the Playa at Summer Lake. Natural pigments, deep time, the poetics of Earth and art…This short piece arose out of the perfect conjunction between my time here and the theme my Rewilding the Spirit students are exploring this week – reciprocity, if you can believe it ;) If you ever have the opportunity to study with Daniela, do it.
P.S. I also believe that our relationship with scent is foundational to consciousness change. You can listen to a free talk I gave on this topic as part of the Women Are the Portal Summit, happening how through June 13th.
I love the list of ways to be reciprocal. In many languages all things are male or female and have built in pronouns. I recently bought a bouquet from a woman that talked about a flower as she. It was a perfect example!