"While a sharp shovel would make digging more efficient, the truth is that it makes the work too fast...Woods throughout the country are losing their leeks to harvesters who love them to extinction. The difficulty of digging is an important constraint. Not everything should be convenient..."
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
"Hey Eric, just calling to see if the coconuts are in?"
"Yeah, I have two (cases) of them right here."
"Great! I'll be in later today to pick 'em up. Thank you."
That was a cellphone conversation I just had with Eric, our produce guy from STAR Store in Langley. Langley where in the language of First People was "where gooseberry bushes grow." Asking permission for the true name of this place we call Langley began months ago. Waiting, and learning how to hear was another part of the process. I had introduced myself via the cyber channels, and then waited more. The language between the gift-givers and harvester (me) was one that I was not practiced in. That is, it has been a long time since I was among the Community of First Peoples of any kind. Though I am myself a Hawaiian woman, I live in a very western world of humans. My contact with humans schooled and practiced in Malama 'Aina (caring for that which sustains you) is limited. The waiting period was rewarded with Yes. Clarifying my need, I was given the symbols to pronunce the Lushootseed word for "where gooseberry bushes grow."
The faded, marked, and food-stained notepaper where the alphabet and pronunciation for "where gooseberry bushes grow" and "prairie front" have been my methodology for digging into the Lushootseed language. The keyboard links me to the Lushootseed Language Department's website where audio files enable me to hear the alphabet pronounced. I spend time learning to listen to a language very different from the two language which are familiar to me. "The difficulty of digging is an important constraint. Not everything should be convenient," writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. "Instructive poetry...I encourage one and all to read these instructions," says Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation Faithkeeper.
I am reading those instructions, grateful to receive the book after months of waiting (again) in the long line of eager readers and harvesters. The protocol of respectful asking is the same for my Hawaiian culture. I know this is the way. What has been very powerful as I progress to the opening of HO'OMOKU as a public gathering place here on Whidbey Island is this: the fine-tuning of my ability to hear the answer(s).
The chapter in Braiding Sweetgrass "The Honorable Harvest" describes an early spring walk for wild leeks. The harvester wishes to dig, harvest and serve them because "Both my daughters will be home for the weekend from the far places where they live. I ask these leeks to renew the bonds between this ground and my children, so they will always carry the substance of home in the minerals of their bones," explains Kimmerer.
As far as the ability to hear, Kimmerer puts it so plainly. I nod and appreciate the full picture. "Asking permission shows respect for the personhood of the plant, but it is also an assessment of the well-being of the population. Thus I must use both sides of my brain to listen to the answer. The analytic left reads the empirical signs to judge whether the population is large and healthy enough
to share. The intuitive right hemisphere is reading something else, a sense of generosity, an open-handed radiance that says take me, or sometimes a tight-lipped recalcitrance that makes me put my trowel away."
This process, this life as makua o'o, a woman maturing and digging into the lessons of reciprocity between beings (all of them) teaches me the valuable lessons of my digging stick (o'o). That subtle shift of emphasis on the pronunciation of two o's multiplies the meanings. Slowly, the meanings come. Slowly, the floating knowledge (theory) plants itself in me. But, I must soften the ground of my being in order for the roots to find a home.
Over the months of preparation and collaboration, research and application, the gathering place where an island is made grows like a coral reef. Slowly. Not every invitation to join us is received with yes. I turn inward and look at the habits which have served me; and humbly acknowledge the ones that hinder my relationships. "Don't take the first one." Reminds me that if you don't take the first one (which might be the only one), you practice patience, among other virtues. Sustaining practices meant the harvester knew how plants/animals/ground/air thrived. There was an intimacy between/among them.
The fire ash that rides the air stream now makes breathing difficult. "Normal" changes as I write. The wind is moving the fire ash into our Island atmosphere, how we readapt is perhaps an answer we deny. Climate change is happening. Protocol for the Honorable Harvest has so much to teach us, if we will listen. If we listen, and really hear the next steps will be the fine-tuning of meanings using the whole body. One of the 9 tools originally taught me as Makua o'o is 'listen with your whole body.'
The opening ceremony scheduled for Friday, is one which includes multiple ways to hear the steps and instructions for the Honorable Harvest. In 'Olelo Hawaii, the chants call on our Ancestors to be there for us. The Lushootseed names will be included in the chant to the Ancestors. In the Ononadaga language all beings are recognized, and an allegiance of gratitude reminds us of what comes before everything else. English will be spoken to criss-cross the borders of word play. Story will pin everything together. The lessons of convenience versus difficulty surface again and again as Saturn moves through the sky where the constellation Scorpio resides; obstacles and setbacks will be common.
My asking for coconuts, the cellphone conversation with my produce guy ... that's a modern day harvesters 'sound bit.' Not easy, nor inexpensive, the transporting of a plant which in my Hawaiian culture means "tree of life" required waiting, willingness to pay (energy/money/deliberation). We, like the mother wishing to harvest leeks "to renew the bonds between this ground and my children, so they will always carry the substance of home in the minerals of their bones" my wish is to share the water of life to make HO'OMOKU a good gathering place. With the air quality as it is at present, sharing the high quality electrolytes found in the water of young coconuts will be a true gift, worthy of the many miles and many trees who came up their young for us. Two cases worth wait for us. I gift thanks, and will give the gift told with story.
Can we listen with our whole body, and dig with a stick when a shovel would be more efficient?
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