Lughnasadh : a gentle harvest for the Earth
Summer is a mad time. It really calls for a pause to observe the way we harvest the goods of the Earth, everyday. How we consume for necessities, for pleasure, or how we gather things for our selves and for our loved ones. Where we put our money and our energy. How we choose to evolve : consumers/taking (and?)/or creators/tending.
In the field, how much medicine to we gather? Do we ask for permission to the plant first, do we leave enough for the birds,for the plant to recover, for the next wandering soul? Are we having a colonial approach to the land we reside on? Do we learn the name and behaviours of those we decide to work with or are we simply "doing the groceries" in the forest?
Do we engage in a gentle relationship with the fragile ecosystems around us? Do we continue to unlearn the capitalistic narrative we grew up with? Do we realise ressources are finite?
Do we serve not only ourselves, but have in our heart the well-being of other beings, be it with or without a human face?
It's definitely not always easy to be able to step out of the summer frenzy that is being sold to us, but it is also our duty to (at least) choose to start doing better, every day, every year, every summer.
I speak from a place of privilege, living in Western Europe. Here, I witness mass consumption in the summer months, and I am in the middle of this frenetic pace of taking from Mother Earth, unapologetically.
We need to lead the example for our daughters, sons and children to be conscious tenders of the Earth. To work with the cycles with flexibility.
If something doesn't sit right in your stomach, you know it's time to change it up.
It's time for a gentle harvest of/for the Earth.