gratitude - an / today’s articulation
”I have no way to pay them back. Their gift to me is far greater than i have ability to reciprocate…Perhaps all I can do is love them. All I know to do is to leave another gift, for them and for the future, those next unknowns who will live here…And so I plant Daffodils, hundreds of them, in sunny flocks beneath the Maples, in homage to their beauty and in reciprocity for their gift.”
Humour me. What if. I wonder what would happen if I adopted this mantra, this perspective, and poured it into as many interactions as one could remember to. To the humans, loved ones, strangers, neutrals, nature, art, sky, air, water, adversaries. Maybe it’s even possible for family. (winky face but also straight faced emoji). The daffodils being interactions and transactions I am a part of where I aim to leave things better than they found them or as undisturbed and neutral as I can. Or perhaps, even infused and dusted with love, gratitude, joy, reverence, levity.
I wonder, what is the relationship of gratitude to reciprocity? Where do gratitude and reciprocity intersect?
Full Excerpt, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, page 70.
“Such a responsibility I have to these people and these trees, left to me, an unknown come to live under the guardianship of the twins, with a bond physical, emotional and spiritual. I have no way to pay them back. Their gift to me is far greater than i have ability to reciprocate. They’re so huge as to be nearly beyond my care, although I do scatter granuIes of fertilizer at their feet and turn the hose on them in summer drought. Perhaps all I can do is love them. All I know to do is to leave another gift, for them and for the future, those next unknowns who will live here. Iheard once that Maori people make beautiful wood sculptures that they carry long distances into the forest and leave there as a gift to the trees. And so I plant Daffodils, hundreds of them, in sunny flocks beneath the Maples, in homage to their beauty and in reciprocity for their gift.”
Song: Gratitude - Big Red Machine
https://youtu.be/UrO-nRIQn3o