on reciprocity

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I wrote this entry from the garden after pruning the peach trees this past spring and it started something like this…

The sun, water, soil, and air give freely to help these trees grow.  While the trees could produce fruit with or without my attention and participation, I also see that tending and pruning them allows them to produce in more abundance. Giving back helps the harvest to continue.  I give my attention and resources, and the trees give me fruit. 

There's an exchange of value so we can both continue this beautiful cycle of reciprocity, of giving and receiving -- of returning the gift. Reciprocity is how nature works and stays in balance. Did I do anything to deserve the many gifts of nature? No, it’s simply a gift. 

Nature has so many gifts that I didn’t do anything in order to receive.  But then I stop and realize something that nature wants me to know and understand so deeply.

We can be a gift to nature too.

Our presence, our intention, and witnessing beauty, inspiration and creativity around us — this is the gift.  It’s like nature is saying “look at me, notice me, see me…” and when that happens, we receive too. 

All we’re giving is our attention. It doesn’t seem like much. Is our attention really that valuable? And nature says, “yes! Yes yes yes!” 

That’s what life wants from you.

It wants your attention.

The fullness of your presence.

Think about when you’re talking to a loved one and they’re nodding in acknowledgment and occasionally looking up at you, or in the other moments they’re glancing at their phone, reading a text from someone, or responding to a message. 

I don’t know about you but the gift of someone’s attention is so valuable to me.  I lose something in those moments where their attention is divided and I don’t feel as seen, heard, or loved as I do in the moments where they are fully listening, engaging, and showing up with their presence.  To show up in life with your presence is a gift. 

If showing up with your presence in life is a gift… and if you receive value when you engage with something... then who is the giver and who is the receiver? 

When I give my attention, I also receive. 

When nature offers something for me to attend to and I attend to it, nature also receives.  Is this the lesson of reciprocity I need to learn right now? 

If I share something that I so graciously received in exchange for the value of my presence, then what is the next exchange of value when I offer it up and someone gives it their presence and their attention? 

Nature's currency isn't money, of course.  It’s currencies are a different kind of energy — many kinds actually.  The energy of the sun, water, and the soil.  All of this in motion seemingly without cost. Yet, there is a cost.

Just like I need food, water, and shelter for my being, and there’s a cost to taking impeccable care of myself. While I believe it’s our birthright to explore life in the most healthy body and vitality as possible, there is a cost to that. Personally, I exchange value on those things that tend to my being, and often the exchange of value is with the currency of money. 

So is it aligned for me to ask for financial reciprocity for what I offer others? I see how financial reciprocity allows me to continue the cycle.  I’m not asking it to fully support me in every way and be the only provider — just like the tree doesn’t ask the sun to be it’s everything. It gets support from the water, from the soil, from various insects and animals.

I’m not asking any one person or offering to support me, but I am inviting others to support a cycle of reciprocity.  Being financially compensated for the time, energy, and value I offer is a way I can receive in order to continue the cycle of reciprocity with life. 

There are other currencies too… Gratitude, thoughtful messages of reflection, engagement, discussion, thought-provoking questions, bartering… And the giver gets to decide.  Rather, the receiver gets to decide how they give.

They get to decide if they live in a world where there is only receiving. They get to decide whether they participate in the cycle of reciprocity.  And that’s not for mine to judge. Some will participate and some will not. Some will be able to participate financially and some will not.

If I feel compelled to share, I get to let it go from there.  My job, just like the sun does for the tree, is to show up and give freely. 

Will the trees thrive more if we nourish them and prune them?  Yes. 

Will my garden produce more abundance to nourish me if I weed it and plant more seeds? Yes. 

Will I create more beauty here if I attend to the flowers and help them grow in the most fertile conditions? Yes. 

Will I thrive if my needs are met? Yes.

Will I circulate more energy if that energy is supported with value? Yes.

And, yet there’s no reason to over-give.  I don’t force the creative process. I don’t want to live life through the lens of how will I share this and how will I be compensated for it? 

My inner wisdom said… “Remember that as you go about your life, tending to yourself, tending to this place, it’s also OK to receive financial compensation. It’s welcomed. Because it will allow you to give back to the life that nourishes you.”

While there’s a place for it, I don’t need to turn everything into a financial value exchange. In another way, there may be something I share one day that will move through a person and allow them to have a renewed exchange of energy with the people or things they encounter in their life. And that is also why I do this. That's also important. 

If I feel my creative muse nudge me to share something, then I share it in whatever way feels most nourishing and available to me in that moment. And sometimes it may only be a gift for me -- to not share directly -- but to alchemize into some other creative force.

Just because I receive peaches from the tree doesn’t mean I have to give them all away as a gift. I will keep some for myself to nourish my own being, to hold the energy, and to let it alchemize into a different form.

That is the invitation, my friends.

Noticing our exchanges.

Noticing the invitation for reciprocity.

Giving back to that which nourishes in exchange for the value you receive.

When the trees give me more abundance of peaches because I tended to them, it's like they say “here, I have an extra gift for you.”  They only know how to give freely. I’m so grateful for that and the lessons it holds.

And… in the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer,

"Gratitude is our first, but not our only gift. We are storytellers, music makers, devisers of ingenious machines, healers, scientists, and lovers of an Earth who asks that we give our own unique gifts on behalf of life.  Let us live in a way that Earth will be grateful for us."

To live in a way that Earth will be grateful for us. This. With my presence, with creativity, and with my offerings, may I live in a way that Earth is grateful for me too.

In gratitude to the Earth and its gifts, for the ways this giving cycle continues through each of us.

In gratitude for your presence here.

Thank you. You are a gift too.

Thank you for reading.

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