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Sometimes you just stumble over amazing things….
A dozen years ago, Robin Wall Kimmerer submitted an unsolicited manuscript to Milkweed, a nonprofit independent press in Minneapolis. It was a brick of about 750 pages. “I sent it out without any confidence that anyone would want to read such a thing,” says Kimmerer, 69. “I didn’t have an agent. I’m not a professional writer. I’m a botanist. But it was something that I felt I really wanted to say.”
The book is a word-of-mouth publishing wonder, with more than 1.4 million copies in print and audio, and it’s been translated into nearly 20 languages. Kimmerer was named a MacArthur fellow, a recipient of the “genius grant.”
More than six years after initial publication, for which the book had been whittled down to about 400 pages, the paperback edition of “Braiding Sweetgrass” reached the New York Times bestseller list. It’s resided there for 129 weeks.
This Thanksgiving you might consider this notion:
“Honorable Harvest"
"The guidelines for the Honorable Harvest are not written down, or even consistently spoken of as a whole - they are reinforced in small acts of daily life. But if you were to list them, they might look something like this..."
Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
Never take the first. Never take the last.
Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.
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