This morning I woke to the magnolia tree covered in sulphur-crested cockatoos. They sat heavy on the thin boughs, clasping ripened fruit in one talon, steadying themselves with the other. And when they were done with whatever morsel they’d managed to extract, they cast the husks down without a thought— small hand grenades falling from the sky, crimson seeds bursting in all directions. I picked up one of those discarded fruits, held it to my face—its pear-green armor patterned like a turtle’s shell, small curled latches springing evenly around its form. The scent of its seeds—lemon squeezed over ripe passionfruit. And then I pulled a red seed from its neat little pocket, a thin pistil of silk hanging by a thread, and I wondered how such a thing could be so nourishing, so life-giving, and yet so easily cast away. How do birds give thanks? I forget that in nature, taking is part of the gratitude. And to sustain oneself— is already written into the seed. This is a trust I cannot fathom and yet something inside me is deeply at home with that kind of faith. Because in truth, there is no greed in reciprocity, only the quiet understanding that we need each other— that we belong to each other, not in debt, but in the knowing that what is freely given is sincerely loved and honestly passed on. Reciprocity is relationship weaving us back home into the earth. We give because giving is how we go on— it's how the seed finds the soil, how the bird finds the branch, how we remember who we are, how the world turns, full and fed.
When we remember to trust life’s inherent reciprocity, we realize lack is an illusion. We are already part of a system designed for mutual nourishment. What is given is already returned and we already have enough. Our worth is not measured by accumulation but by our willingness to take only what we need, offer sincerely what we can, and trust that we belong to something broader, softer, and more trusting than our learned sense of deficiency.
A Journal Prompt
Take a moment to list the ways in which you are already supported—by people, by nature, by the quiet gifts woven into your daily life. How does it feel to trust that what you need will find you, just as what you give finds its way back into the world?
This was breathtaking—and giving—to read.
I’ve been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “The Serviceberry” to prepare for Anna Mercury’s book club next Sunday. As I was reading and my 11 year old son was getting ready for school last week (having never read anything from the book!), he said: “Mom, isn’t it so strange that humans are the only animals that pay to live on earth?” This was such a poetically simple translation of the entire book’s message that I felt instantly blown away by his spirit’s interconnection with mine (and Robin’s and Anna’s!) as I am again now to all of our connections with your breathtakingly beautiful spirit, Sez.
Gift received. Again. Thank you, Sez.
Love this remembering. To receive well, with genuine compassion and notice is often the greatest gift we can give back to the things and the people we love. Especially to receive nature.