October 16 – The Honourable Harvest

Beautiful guidelines for sustainable living

Have you ever heard of the Honourable Harvest?  I first learned of it Thanksgiving weekend a few years ago – appropriate timing, given that it’s a value system that combines gratitude, humility and sustainability.

The Honourable Harvest is a set of food harvesting principles rooted in indigenous traditions of reverence for ancestors, concern for descendants (the next seven generations as a minimum) and respect for the fellow life forms that nourish and sustain us.  It’s largely oral and somewhat fluid, but its key principles include:

  • Never take the first. Never take the last.
  • Take only what you need. Leave some for others (including non-humans). Never waste what you have taken.
  • Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
  • Give thanks for what you have been given.
  • Use it respectfully. Share.
  • Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
  • Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

More perspective and a few more principles can be read here; or take three-and-a-half minutes to watch this video summarizing the Honourable Harvest. 

Or to explore further, read the chapter dedicated to the Honourable Harvest in Braiding Sweetgrass, a hauntingly beautiful book of scientific knowledge and indigenous wisdom (or listen to it here; the Honourable Harvest guidelines start at 20:30).   From that chapter:

“Cautionary stories of the consequences of taking too much are ubiquitous in Native cultures, but it’s hard to recall a single one in English. Perhaps this helps to explain why we seem to be caught in a trap of overconsumption, which is as destructive to ourselves as to those we consume.”

Climate change and other ecological challenges suggest that we humans need to awaken to a new relationship with the world around us.  Implementing the principles of the Honourable Harvest – not just at Thanksgiving, but all year long – would be a great beginning.

In the news:

The Canadian Climate Institute launches the interactive Climate Costs Tracker map, showing the costs of extreme weather events across the country over the past year.

A panel of experts advising the federal government on climate policy says Canada needs to cut its carbon emissions in half by 2035(“It’s no surprise that Trudeau-appointed pointy headed bureaucrats on fake advisory bodies are demanding harsher policies that will further hurt Canadians,” responds Conservative finance critic Jasraj Singh Hallan.)

Consistent with the Honourable Harvest, here are four innovative Indigenous-led clean energy projects.

Quotable

“Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.”

Sitting Bull, Chief of the Hunkpapa Lakota, 1831-90

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