The Circle of Reciprocity

Author, botanist & conservation biologist, Robin Wall Kimmerer, writes about the Circle of Reciprocity in her wonderful book, Braiding Sweetgrass; in my opinion, the most important book about our relationship to the land since Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. 
What strikes me as most poignant in Dr. Kimmerer's book is coming to an understanding of how we have artificially separated ourselves from the living world in a way most, if not all, native peoples don't. It's this separation of us vs them that seems to most fuel our rapacious hunger for goods and services and our inability to acknowledge these gifts and to consider giving back what we take. The Circle of Reciprocity teaches us to revere what the rest of the world has given us and allows us to feel a sense of responsibility to give something back in return.
In our modern Eurocentric culture, we name other living things, but we do so in a way to separate ourselves from them. The striped mud turtle in the first photo above, for example, is an "it". We would say, "Isn't it an interesting turtle" but we would never say the same for another person. There are people and there are "it's."  We learn this attitude as we grow up because as children we don't see this dichotomy and as we learn this we lose a precious connection to the natural world. We either see ourselves as a part of nature or we see the human race as outside of it, as its caretaker, as its exploiter, as its observer. Most of us are taught that we are not an integral part of this natural world we live within and that frames our ability to place ourselves in this circle that Dr. Kimmerer writes of.

 The Circle of Reciprocity does not tell us to be vegetarians, vegans, members of PETA or to eat meat. Those are personal choices. What it tells us is that we celebrate the earth for the gifts it gives us - regardless of what gift we take, and that we then give back something of at least equal value to acknowledge these gifts. We don't walk through life without leaving footprints, we do our best to leave footprints that others wish to follow - ones that lead to something better than the place we started from. We should be humbled by the gifts of nature. We take only what we truly need to sustain ourselves, and we then give back.
As I plan my landscape and plant it, I try to remain cognizant of my responsibility to the earth. I celebrate that the earth around me sustains my plants, but it has to be much more than something this selfish. My plants bring me joy, but they are chosen not for this, but for their ability to sustain the living creatures around me. It is my gift to the natural world for all that I take each day simply to live comfortably. Too often, we see our landscapes as "ours", when they are not. We see plants for the aesthetic interest they bring to our lives, without consideration to what that plant gives back to the rest of the living world. So many of us can't envision this Circle
of Reciprocity that calls us to become part of the natural world instead of an outsider. We enter the Circle or we remain outside; our place dictates how we see and use the gifts of the earth and it will determine the future of the conservation biology movement. Conservation is not so much about protecting other living things from us as much as it is about us embracing them as fellow creatures with equal rights to life. They don't need our protection as much as they need our acceptance and the respect we would give to any fellow creature of equal stature to ourselves. We plant landscapes out of respect. We share them with the rest of the living world like we would do for any fellow traveler seeking a safe place and a meal. To do that and get inside the Circle, we chose plants for their ability to sustain life, not their ability to intrigue us by their unusual color or growth form. We don't enter the Circle by doing no harm as programs like "Florida Friendly" here in my state espouse; we enter it by doing good - by giving back to the rest of the living world. Creating a living landscape cannot happen without a shift in our personal philosophy about how we see our place in the world. It doesn't happen by simply not doing something that seems negative to do - like mowing your yard. It doesn't happen by doing no harm. It only happens in a culture of gifting where we find joy/satisfaction/purpose in giving back more than what we feel we need to. Life should be a goodwill offering - a reciprocity among everything we share the world with.