Rewild Your Writing: Giving Thanks
Week 5: Rooting in reciprocity/ All flourishing is mutual ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Welcome back to Rewild Your Writing, for the lovers of the way the light filters through the trees, the birdsong on a summer’s eve, the shifting of the seasons, and what this means for our lives. It’s for those who howl at the bright moon, and tend to the roots of their writing.
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P.S. In this spirit of giving thanks, this week’s content will be available for two days to free subscribers before going behind a paywall. I appreciate you all!
This week’s content was not released on the day I had hoped. My laptop broke, which led to an unravelling of being unable to meet my commitments, making me feel deeply uncomfortable. It’s been interesting to see how easily things can unravel when technology, which I have become so dependent on, is stripped away. So, thank you for bearing with me!
Fittingly, this week’s practice is all about giving thanks. I believe this can be approached in multiple ways, which I’ll share below.
But first, in the spirit of giving thanks, I’d like to extend a hand of gratitude to Joanna Macy. Now in her final days, I want to honour the impact her work (The Work That Reconnects) has had on me, as well as her compassionate heart. My writing has been deeply shaped by her intimacy with the world.
You can listen to her interview on the On Being podcast here and the We Are The Great Turning podcast here.
To those just joining us, welcome. Here are the previous week’s posts:
And for those who haven’t joined this container yet, I welcome you to this rewilding cohort. To get full access to the content, you’ll need to become a paid subscriber by clicking the link below. Paid subscriptions support me in writing for this community, which is a beautiful gift. For those who are paid subscribers, I thank you for your support.
This was supposed to be the last week of Rewild Your Writing, but I’ve added a bonus week!
Giving Thanks
This week’s content is inspired by the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer. I first read The Serviceberry essay back in 2023. I was moved by Kimmerer’s reflections on abundance and the gift-giving economy. I’d read her moving, seminal work, Braiding Sweetgrass, the year before; her words and reflections opened my mind to a way of thinking I had not experienced before. One of abundance, that was not rooted in financial or material wealth, but lay its foundations in ecological and collective abundance.
It felt only right that in this course, we dive into what abundance looks like in our creative practices, and the ways we interact with the more-than-human world, and each other.
For those of us who are writing with and about the more-than-human world, it feels imperative that the relationship between our creativity and our inspiration be reciprocal. By this I mean, we don’t want to simply take with our practice, but question how we can give back? How can our words shift narratives? How can our art open up our viewers to new ways of seeing? In a time of climate and social collapse, it feels imperative that we do our part to weave our writing and creativity to be a conduit for systems change, reciprocity and abundance.
How can we do this? I believe we can begin by giving thanks. Giving thanks to the natural world for holding us, for inspiring our creative work, for showing us new ways of being, which is rooted in collective reciprocity. Also giving thanks to the writers who have shown us the way of how we create connections between our writing and the more-than-human; for me, I give thanks to
, Joanna Macy, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Robert Macfarlane, and Thích Nhất Hạnh.These voices are also practitioners of gratitude. Through their writing, they have shared a practice of gratitude and giving thanks, which has shaped the way I move through the world; each day an opportunity to offer our thanks for what we have been given. Our gratitude connects us to the love we have for our world, and it’s this love which reminds us that we care. And through our care, we also feel the sadness, outrage and grief which comes with watching the destruction of our world. Our gratitude helps anchor us when we experience the pain of the world; it reminds us of what we are fighting for — this world we call home. As Jess Serrante shares in the We Are The Great Turning podcast, “Gratitude buoys us so that we can remember that, just as surely as our hearts break with pain, they can also burst with joy that we are alive now, together.”
Our creative practices can be an expression of thanks to Mother Earth, to the more-than-human world, to our fellow humans. So, if you take anything from today’s course content, it’s to cultivate and remember the power of gratitude to hold us through these uncertain times. To feel the complexity of our emotions, and to be grateful for our ability to care, because this shows our love for the world.
This week's reading
1.
In Anishinaabe worldview, it’s not just fruits that are understood as gifts, rather all of the sustenance that the land provides, from fish to firewood. Everything that makes our lives possible—the splints for baskets, roots for medicines, the trees whose bodies make our homes, and the pages of our books—is provided by the lives of more-than-human beings. This is always true whether it’s harvested directly from the forest or whether it’s mediated by commerce and harvested from the shelves of the store—it all comes from the Earth. When we speak of these not as things or natural resources or commodoties, but as gifts, our whole relationship to the natural world changes.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance
2.
You are my beautiful home, my only home. It's the finest home anyone would ever have met, with its mountains and rivers and lakes. And you've made me. Not one piece of me is made from anything else but your body. And you are a living body and I will give my life to you. You've gave me life and I give it back. I let you live in me. And you want a body? Here it is. You want some way to work? Use my hands, use my mouth, use my eyes, or use my patience.
Joanna Macy, We Are The Great Turning Podcast
3.
Adult joy knows that suffering and loss always live close by life and brings love. And that knowledge brings what is good and joyful all the more into relief.
Ross Gay
Writing Exercise 1
Sit in silence in a place you feel safe. You can keep your eyes open or shut; focus on your breathing, the gentle inhale and exhale of your breath. Now, bring to your mind the word ‘gratitude’. What does gratitude feel like in your body? Where is it located in the body?
Write about this feeling of gratitude. Who are the people or more-than-human you’d like to give gratitude to?
Writing Exercise 2
*Before this exercise, I’d like to preface, I’m not a mental health professional, nor am I acting as one. This is a creative co-writing space where we can explore ideas and creativity together. I’m showing up as a facilitator and fellow writer.
Feeling our pain for the world is a sign of our deep compassion and care. It can feel easy to turn away from these feelings of sadness, despair and grief, but our capacity to feel these emotions is matched by our capacity to love and feel deep gratitude for the world.
Write about your pain for the world. Be gentle with yourself, this may bring about emotions that can feel uncomfortable. Only do what feels good and safe for you.
Now, write a list of ways you can give back and resource yourself. Perhaps a daily writing practice, being in nature, sharing your feelings with loved ones. Post this somewhere you can see it daily.
Finally, write about giving thanks. What does it look and feel like? Perhaps this can be portrayed through ecological language.
Embodiment Practice: Touch The Earth
This practice is taken directly from the Plum Village website here. I completed The Five Earth Touchings during my time at Plum Village, and in the spirit of gratitude, I would love to share this practice with you. Rooted in thanks for Mother Earth, I hope this practice offers you the space to share your gratitude to the Earth.
This is The Three Earth Touchings:
“To begin this practice, we invite you join your palms in front of your chest in the shape of a lotus bud. If you are with others, one of you may like to take the role of bell master, and invite the bell and read the text for others to practice. If you are alone, you may like to invite the bell, and read the text out loud.
Then, gently lower yourself to the ground so that all four limbs and your forehead are resting comfortably on the floor. While touching the Earth, turn your palms face up, showing your openness to the Three Jewels — the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. When we touch the Earth, we breathe in all the strength and stability of the Earth, and breathe out our suffering – our feelings of anger, hatred, fear, inadequacy and grief.
Enjoy your practice.
I.
Touching the Earth, I connect with ancestors and descendants of both my spiritual and my blood families.
[invite the bell]
[touch the earth]
My spiritual ancestors include the Buddha, the bodhisattvas, the noble Sangha of Buddha’s disciples, [insert names of others you would like to include], and my own spiritual teachers still alive or already passed away. They are present in me because they have transmitted to me seeds of peace, wisdom, love, and happiness. They have woken up in me my resource of understanding and compassion. When I look at my spiritual ancestors, I see those who are perfect in the practice of the mindfulness trainings, understanding, and compassion, and those who are still imperfect. I accept them all because I see within myself shortcomings and weaknesses. Aware that my practice of the mindfulness trainings is not always perfect, and that I am not always as understanding and compassionate as I would like to be, I open my heart and accept all my spiritual descendants. Some of my descendants practice the mindfulness trainings, understanding, and compassion in a way which invites confidence and respect, but there are also those who come across many difficulties and are constantly subject to ups and downs in their practice.
In the same way, I accept all my ancestors on my mother’s side and my father’s side of the family. I accept all their good qualities and their virtuous actions, and I also accept all their weaknesses. I open my heart and accept all my blood descendants with their good qualities, their talents, and also their weaknesses.
My spiritual ancestors, blood ancestors, spiritual descendants, and blood descendants are all part of me. I am them, and they are me. I do not have a separate self. All exist as part of a wonderful stream of life which is constantly moving.
[three breaths]
[bell]
[stand up]
ii
Touching the Earth, I connect with all people and all species that are alive at this moment in this world with me.
[bell]
[touch the earth]
I am one with the wonderful pattern of life that radiates out in all directions. I see the close connection between myself and others, how we share happiness and suffering. I am one with those who were born disabled or who have become disabled because of war, accident, or illness. I am one with those who are caught in a situation of war or oppression. I am one with those who find no happiness in family life, who have no roots and no peace of mind, who are hungry for understanding and love, and who are looking for something beautiful, wholesome, and true to embrace and to believe in. I am someone at the point of death who is very afraid and does not know what is going to happen. I am a child who lives in a place where there is miserable poverty and disease, whose legs and arms are like sticks and who has no future. I am also the manufacturer of bombs that are sold to poor countries. I am the frog swimming in the pond and I am also the snake who needs the body of the frog to nourish its own body. I am the caterpillar or the ant that the bird is looking for to eat, and I am also the bird that is looking for the caterpillar or the ant. I am the forest that is being cut down. I am the rivers and the air that are being polluted, and I am also the person who cuts down the forest and pollutes the rivers and the air. I see myself in all species, and I see all species in me.
I am one with the great beings who have realized the truth of no-birth and no-death and are able to look at the forms of birth and death, happiness and suffering, with calm eyes. I am one with those people—who can be found a little bit everywhere—who have sufficient peace of mind, understanding and love, who are able to touch what is wonderful, nourishing, and healing, who also have the capacity to embrace the world with a heart of love and arms of caring action. I am someone who has enough peace, joy, and freedom and is able to offer fearlessness and joy to living beings around themselves. I see that I am not lonely and cut off. The love and the happiness of great beings on this planet help me not to sink in despair. They help me to live my life in a meaningful way, with true peace and happiness. I see them all in me, and I see myself in all of them.
[three breaths]
[bell]
[stand up]
iii
Touching the Earth, I let go of my idea that I am this body and my life span is limited.
[bell]
[touch the earth]
I see that this body, made up of the four elements, is not really me and I am not limited by this body. I am part of a stream of life of spiritual and blood ancestors that for thousands of years has been flowing into the present and flows on for thousands of years into the future. I am one with my ancestors. I am one with all people and all species, whether they are peaceful and fearless, or suffering and afraid. At this very moment, I am present everywhere on this planet. I am also present in the past and in the future. The disintegration of this body does not touch me, just as when the plum blossom falls it does not mean the end of the plum tree. I see myself as a wave on the surface of the ocean. My nature is the ocean water. I see myself in all the other waves and see all the other waves in me. The appearance and disappearance of the form of the wave does not affect the ocean. My Dharma body and spiritual life are not subject to birth and death. I see the presence of myself before my body manifested and after my body has disintegrated. Even in this moment, I see how I exist elsewhere than in this body. Seventy or eighty years is not my life span. My life span, like the life span of a leaf or of a Buddha, is limitless. I have gone beyond the idea that I am a body that is separated in space and time from all other forms of life.
[three breaths]
[bell]
[stand up]”
Journal Prompts:
This week’s journal prompts. Use these words to guide your journaling practice.
Consciousness
Plenty
Give Thanks
Closing thoughts
Thank you for engaging with today’s post. I’m so grateful for the community I am building on Substack, which is full of tender-hearted souls. I’m so grateful. I’d love to hear your reflections in the comments section, so please share below.
If you know others who would enjoy this content, please share Rewild Your Writing with your community.
With gratitude,
Hannah x