This past year has been a renegotiation for me in how I live my life, how I experience my body, and what I value. My body has been asking me to slow down for some time. But, fearing letting other people down meant that I kept pushing long past what was sustainable.

I’ve also been thinking about what contributes to my sense of aliveness and to a life well-lived (well-lived, for me, includes becoming the kind of elder I hope to be).

This has brought up big questions around sustainability, community, relationships, pleasure, and the consequences of my choices.

How do we dance with the reality that each and every choice we make and do not make impacts not only the people in our lives, but the land we live on, the generations that come next, our non-human kin, and others beyond ourselves?

How can I show up more humanely, more justly, more sustainably, more pleasurably, by using my gifts to help others (human and non-human) to thrive?

How are the gifts of others nourishing me, sustaining me, and healing me?

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants: “The gifts of each are more fully expressed when they are nurtured together than alone… All gifts are multiplied in relationship. This is how the world keeps going.”

My gifts are multiplied when I am supported by the gifts of others just as your gifts are multiplied when you’re supported by the gifts of others.

Many species of plants and animals rely on human harvesting or care in order to thrive just as humans rely on those same plants and animals for survival and nourishment.

So often I say “healing happens in relationship” and it’s occurred to me that many of us often assume that “relationship” must be exclusively with other human beings. But doesn’t healing also happen when we turn towards our relationships with the land we are on, with the food we eat, with the seasons and their unique gifts, with the waters we swim, bathe, and drink from? I know that I am changed when my hands are in the dirt planting tomatoes as much as when I’m talking to the crows who watch me wandering the local labyrinth.

The questions I’m holding are those of reciprocity, interdependence, connection, and commitment.

Because our pleasure practice is absolutely impacted by our relationship with the land, our food, our body, and each other.

Our ability to draw from our erotic well-spring is absolutely influenced by how disconnected or numb we are to the world around us and the impact we have on others.

Our healing practice and the dreams we dream are absolutely informed by the gifts of the trees, the water, the mountains, the animals, and the humans in our lives.

And I’ve been wondering what would shift if we saw the world around us as a gift economy, an economy of giving, receiving, and only taking what you need so that there’s enough for all?