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100  The Web of Reciprocity The Web of Reciprocity: Indigenous Uses of Moss  W ith the first scent of burning sage, the ripples on the surface of my mind become still and it is as if I am looking deep into clear sunlit water. Murmured prayer surrounds me with wisps of smoke and I can hear each word inside me. My uncle Big Bear smudges us in the old way, calling upon the sage to carry his thoughts to the Creator. The smoke of our sacred plants is thought made visible and his thoughts are a blessing breathed in. Big Bear’s voice is low; he’s tired from a day driving into the city where he’s been negotiating to obtain an old school building, abandoned in the remote foothills of the Sierra. I admire the way he walks in both worlds, that of government red tape and the traditional ways. His vision is to start a new kind of school for kids in the area. His school would teach the fundamentals. How to read a river in order to catch a fish, how to gather food plants, how to live in a way that is respectful of those gifts. He values a modern education and is proud of his grandsons’ straight A’s. But, in his work with troubled families he sees every day the costs of not learning about respectful relationship. In indigenous ways of knowing, it is understood that each living being has a particular role to play. Every being is endowed with certain gifts, its own intelligence, its own spirit, its own story. Our stories tell us that the Creator gave these to us, as original instructions. The foundation of education is to discover that gift within us and learn to use it well. These gifts are also responsibilities, a way of caring for each other. Wood Thrush received the gift of song; it’s his responsibility to say the evening prayer. Maple received the gift of sweet sap and the coupled responsibility to share that gift in feeding the people at a hungry time of year. This is the web of reciprocity that the elders speak of, that which connects us all. I find no discord between this story of creation The Web of Reciprocity  101 and my scientific training. This reciprocity is what I see all the time, in studies of ecological communities. Sage has its duties, to draw up water to its leaves for the rabbits, to shelter the baby quail. Part of its responsibility is also to the people. Sage helps us clear our minds of ill thoughts, and carry our good thoughts upward. The roles of mosses are to clothe the rocks, purify the water, and soften the nests of birds. That much is clear. I’m wondering though, what is the gift they share with the people? If each plant has a particular role and is interconnected with the lives of humans, how do we come to know what that role is? How do we use the plant in accordance with its gifts? The legacy of traditional ecological knowledge, the intellectual twin to science, has been handed down in the oral tradition for countless generations. It passes from grandmother to granddaughter gathering together in the meadow, from uncle to nephew fishing on the riverbank, and next year to the students in Big Bear’s school. But, where did it first come from? How did they know which plant to use in childbirth, which plant to conceal the scent of a hunter? Like scientific information, traditional knowledge arises from careful systematic observation of nature, from the results of innumerable lived experiments. Traditional knowledge is rooted in intimacy with a local landscape where the land itself is the teacher. Plant knowledge comes from watching what the animals eat, how Bear harvests lilies and how Squirrel taps maple trees. Plant knowledge also comes from the plants themselves. To the attentive observer, plants reveal their gifts. The sanitized suburban life has succeeded in separating us from the plants that sustain us. Their roles are camouflaged under layers of marketing and technology. You can’t hear the rustle of corn leaves in a box of Froot Loops. Most people have lost the ability to read the role of a medicine plant from the landscape and read instead the “directions for use” on a tamper-proof bottle of Echinacea. Who would recognize those purple blossoms in this disguise? We don’t even know their names...

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