Learning reciprocity the hard way

With Mother’s Day just past, it’s still on my mind. There was a time when I thought Mother’s Day was nothing but a saccharine, commercial holiday. I was unimpressed even with the cards teachers force kids to write to their mothers. And then, there were the years when I was battling infertility and Mother’s Day was like a knife twisting in my gut.

I have a new perspective now.

First of all, I’ve been reading Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific, Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It has taken its place among the select handful of books that are my all-time favorites. It’s that good.

Image via Pixabay

The primary theme is reciprocity with the natural world. One of the big questions explored in the book is whether or not gratitude, including overt expression of thanks, is “enough.” Does our gratitude somehow repay the natural world for all that we take and for the great harm human beings are doing to the earth’s ecosystems?

The answer is complex. There are some ways in which Kimmerer argues that gratitude is a particular gift that humans have to offer and that all that is asked of us is that we give the gifts that come naturally. But then there are ways in which it is clear that most humans have lost touch with the cycles of reciprocity and this is a grievous loss.

That was kind of the theme of Mother’s Day this year for me.

For us it was COVID-19 lockdown day 61. Being trapped in quarantine for two months with any three other people will tend to highlight their shortcomings for you and strain whatever relationship you have. In our case, we are nearly at the point of psychological collapse.

That has a lot to do with various disabilities. I’m nearly blind and the other three people in my household are dyslectic, which entails not just problems learning to read but also lifelong struggles with organization and attention to detail. Anyone who lives with a blind person will know that organization and attention to detail are the keys to success. On top of that, one of the kids has significant behavioral and psychiatric problems.

I’m the mother in this zoo of needs, the one responsible for filling bellies, soothing hurts and ultimately imparting values. I have spent the past eleven years doing everything I can to raise children with the values of respect and reciprocity. And by any measure, at this COVID-19 moment, I have failed miserably at that, whether it is entirely my fault or not.

This past Mother’s Day, my kids, ages 9 and 11, were at the end of a three-day weekend, because May 8 is a state holiday here. They had been out riding bikes both of the previous days in the sunshine and had no responsibilities. On Sunday, they needed to catch up a few things for school and do a small chore each to help out around the house.

Several hours of screaming, cussing, hitting and throwing everything within reach ensued.

“You’re the worst parents ever!” “I wish I had a different mom!” “I wish you would die!” “I hate you!” “Every other kid in the world has an iPhone, except me!” “No one else has to do chores!” “You are supposed to be my servant!” The screeches bounced off the walls (but they are edited here to exclude vulgarity. simply because I don’t feel like repeating those parts)

In the end, I didn’t get any vaguely cubist pictures featuring hearts this year. I didn’t even get any hugs and my kids never did do kisses. I haven’t ever actually experienced breakfast in bed and it certainly wasn’t on the menu this year. I didn’t get flowers and instead my eleven-year-old pulled up the flower starts I had put in window boxes, taunting me through the kitchen window while she tore the tender roots to shreds because I wouldn’t let her have video games before her homework was done.

So, it wasn’t much like the way Mother’s Day is portrayed in popular culture.

I did overhear the phone tutor trying to get my children to draw me a picture for Mother’s Day. They didn’t. My husband is too overwhelmed to make them do it or to think about values beyond survival.

The whole thing made me think about reciprocity, the value of gratitude and the role of ever-giving, sacrificial mother. This is essentially how we treat the earth, isn’t it?

When I spend hours cooking from scratch only to have my family make gagging noises at the table and complain that other kids get packaged food, I think of the earth giving us endless crops, despite our abuse of the soil through chemical fertilizers and harmful monocultures. When I have to shield my particularly vulnerable eyes with my arm, while the kids throw pencils and toy cars at my face, I think of the rare-earth mining operations that gouge deep into the planet to make my phone and computer.

My children have a lot of needs and even more desires. Perhaps like the earth, I signed up to be a mother, but I couldn’t possibly have known what the cost would be. It isn’t so much the work, the gray hairs, the long nights, the exhaustion or the endless homework sessions that get me down.

It’s the words and the disrespect that hurt. I wonder if the earth feels the same way.

Of course, there are scientific reasons why the earth is hurting and none of them have directly to do with our expressions of appreciation, or lack their of. But Kimmerer makes a compelling argument as to why gratitude physically and biologically, as well as spiritually, matters to plants and ecosystems.

We know it matters in relationships. Despite my very unpleasant experiences of Mother’s Day, I’m actually a proponent of it. I know it is used and abused for commercial purposes far too often. But there is nothing like NOT getting a smudged picture of a stick figure mother and child to make you value one.

I am glad mothers are given at least one day of gratitude and appreciation. It may be too much like Earth Day, when some of us do the same for the earth without giving much thought the rest of the year. But either is a call for us to rejoin the circle of reciprocity. And this year, even more than most, I have learned how the earth must feel as an unacknowledged mother and my resolve to do right by her is renewed.

Would gratitude and appreciation be “enough?” If I did get Mother’s Day cards and “thank you” when I cook a meal?

Would it erase every other trouble? I doubt it.

But I think it might just be “enough” in a way. I have a lot to give as a mother. My well is deep. Just not bottomless.

The earth is like that too. She’s a mother with vast resources, just not endless resources. If we treated the earth the way we say people should treat their human mothers, with some basic appreciation and gratitude, as Kimmerer asks, there might just be hope for us after all.

The definition of happiness

People have sought to nail down happiness for millennia. It is an overall positive concept. We can say that love can be smothering or that joy can be overwrought. Almost anything positive can have a negative side but the only possible negative thing about happiness is when it is not shared.

I cannot claim that I have found happiness or that my life is happy or that I have the answers in any other definite way. But I have found one thing. I now know what happiness is.

Some people think happiness is simple good fortune, material wealth, good health, good family relationships, the right number and kind of friends, the things a person wants on a day to day basis. And these things do often “make us happy” at least for a moment. Conversely, the complete lack of material necessities or family or friends, great poverty or ill health can cause much sadness.

Creative Commons image via Pixabay

But I’m guessing most readers of this blog are well aware that this is not really what happiness is and that, in fact, sadness is not the opposite of happiness. We all know of people who were wealthy and terribly unhappy. There are plenty of healthy people who are unhappy and hordes of people with many friends and family members who are unhappy. It is well documented that acquiring things that you want only makes a person happy very briefly and can lead directly to more long-term unhappiness.

Looking to more complex sources of happiness is often seen as somehow morally superior, but I am not certain it isn’t just wisely self-interested.

I used to think that happiness was adventurous living and passion or attention to one’s senses and living intensely in the moment. These things come close because they hint at the real heart of happiness.

Living intensely in the moment with full sensory awareness is a good start, but what makes happiness full and lasting are two things: Purpose and thankful joy.

It takes both. Let me show you why.

Purpose or meaning in one’s day-to-day life is a key ingredient to happiness. A person can be quite content, satisfied and well-off and yet have the nagging, uncomfortable knowledge that happiness eludes them. In fact, this is a common symptom of the modern malaise known as afluenza.

In wealthy western countries, a lot of people already have the material and even emotional comforts they need and desire. And to our dismay, we have found that this does not translate into much greater happiness than our ancestors enjoyed while struggling through lives of material want.

In fact, having what one needs can be counterproductive in terms of happiness because one of the easiest purposes or meanings to find in life is the striving for the material needs of yourself and your family. If one’s family is in need, it is simple enough for the individual to attach guilt-free purpose to every activity that either directly or indirectly fills these real needs.

I have met many people in developing countries or immigrants from struggling countries who have recently arrived in a wealthy country, who are radiantly happy over the long-term. These are not the desperately poor people who have been down-trodden by systemic oppression. Sometimes they are people who have escaped such traps by good fortune or well-timed hard work. The thing that they share is driving purpose. They have a realistic and graspable possibility of giving their children opportunities they could not have dreamed of when they were younger. And the happiness of these people is so palpable that it has become legendary.

Once we have what we truly need, that easy out is no longer an option. Many people pretend that their family “needs”. a new siwimming pool or a better car or private school or other things that take large amounts of money, but our deep subconscious and—dare I say it?—our souls know it is not a real need and thus the purpose often starts to feel hollow and people who base their lives on this kind of fulfillment eventually fall into psychological crisis.

Many of the same immigrants who were so happy while pursuing the dream of security and opportunity for their children find that once it is achieved, they themselves are less happy and their children struggle with conflicted feelings and deep dissatisfaction. This is the paradox of the happiness granted by such a survival-focused purpose in life.

Many parents—and I am somewhat guilty of this myself—base our purpose in life around the nurturing and flourishing of our children. And there is nothing inherently wrong with this either. It is another relatively easy out though and for many people parenting is temporary and this basis for meaning and thus happiness leads to empty nest syndrome for many or in some cases terrible grief and depression if something happens to the child or children to make flourishing no longer possible.

Others find purpose through their work. Purposeful and meaningful work is one of the classic ways in which we find purpose and thus happiness in life. It doesn’t mean that any activity outside of work is not fulfilling. Our bodies are well aware that we need rest and recreation to fulfill our purpose well and our purpose can also be a mis between work and family fulfillment.

People who have careers with clear and highly respected purpose, such as doctors, scientists or teachers, are often happier than people in roles that may resemble cogs in a vast machine. This is not an objective thing. By objective logic, a person who works in a job of mundane maintenance in the transportation industry or state agency that oversees such an industry may well have less feeling of purpose, though in reality their job ensures that the doctors, scientists and teachers get to their jobs and that their patients and students arrive as well.

The point here is that we must have purpose and meaning of some kind in order to enjoy deep and enduring happiness. For those who lack need or don’t have anyone who physically and emotionally depends on them and also lack clearly purposeful work or who cannot find meaning in their work the struggle for happiness is hard… but certainly not impossible.

Some of the more pro-active ways to find purpose are to be a lifelong student, always pursuing knowledge, or to join communities or causes which have a purpose that is important to you. Some people can find purpose or meaning in purely spiritual matters or in living a simple life well. There is nothing wrong with this, if the feeling of meaning in it is genuine to the individual.

In any event, purpose is generally the most externally conditioned of the two ingredients of happiness. You might think the opposite was true. Doesn’t a sense of meaning or purpose come from within whereas joy is something given to you by the outside? This is in fact false.

Purpose, real purpose, is dependent on many external factors. Unless you are one of those people who can find a true and abiding purpose in spiritual existence in and of itself, any other purpose can be destroyed or at least harmed by circumstances. Just as with the parent who puts everything into the nourishing of a child who then dies, other meaningful activities can and often are thwarted in major ways.

It is, of course, possible to overcome the devastation or destruction of that which has given life purpose and meaning for a time. We find new purpose all the time and a wise person will always have more than one source of meaning in their life. But reconstructing happiness after a major blow can be hard.

Moments of thankful joy on the other hand are much more at the discretion of the the individual.

Moments of joy or beauty are truly as necessary as purpose. We have all known or at least known of people who have lived with great and grim purpose and gained no happiness from it.

Some people do manage to make wealth and prestige their entire purpose in life but without joy and gratitude, they remain almost entirely miserable. Those who must struggle to survive in extreme situations certainly find purpose or meaning in that struggle, but if starvation, hardship or persecution is too intense it may be nearly impossible for the individual to find any joy and thus happiness is out of reach.

Some of the happiest people in the world are relatively poor. Poor countries often register as happier on psychological indicators. And this has a lot to do with the fact that purpose—i.e. survival and the survival and education of one’s children—are relatively easy purposes to find for lives in these countries, and yet, as long as there is no terrible war or famine, points of joy and beauty can be found even amid relative hardship.

Among countries with the highest suicide rates—definitely an indicator of a serious lack of happiness—there are many wealthy countries and also countries in which stress and social expectations are high. In the first group purpose may be a bit harder to find, which leads some people to give up without searching further for meaning, and in the second group, while satisfying strict social norms may give a kind of purpose, it is often a hopeless one and it does not lend itself to joy or gratitude.

For this reason, the happiest people tend to be people who have not yet achieved the things they most want and yet have enough to allow for moments of beauty, enjoyment and gratitude. Despair is the result of grinding poverty or overwhelming oppression and despair is the true opposite of happiness. While it is possible to be happy, even while holding a deep sadness for the loss of or separation from home or loved ones in one’s heart,, it is not possible for happiness and despair to coexist.

Thankful joy can be found in a moment for most of us. A glance at some scrap of natural environment, a lightening or darkening sky, a familiar and loved face added to a moment of mindful appreciation is all it really takes.

Ah, that sky through the bare birch branches of early spring. Ah, the warmth of the radiator on cold knees. Ah, a cup of a warm and tasty brew. For a moment, nothing more is necessary. And if this occurs in a life with purpose and meaning, the result is. happiness.

Gratitude lessons

Seven fifteen on a Monday morning.

I’ve managed to get the kids up and dressed. I didn’t manage to do my meditation before dawn. It was another interrupted night, but I’m at least half awake.

My fourth-grade daughter is eating her cereal when she cocks her head, frowns and declares, “I forgot about some homework for today. I have to find out about the Age of Gold and tell about it in class.”

We don’t live in one of those kind, gentle school systems with lots of second chances. There are cumulative consequences and my daughter is already struggling. She cares a little but not much, and her multiple learning disabilities make it easy for her to forget. This time she asks for help… nicely for a change.

The kids’ encyclopedias are missing from their places and both claim no knowledge of their whereabouts. I rush to start the computer. She has to leave by 7:30 to get to school in time. And the research info has to be in Czech.

Wait… “The Age of Gold?” I didn’t know there was one.

I do a quick Google search and find dozens of advertisements for gold jewelry, endless gratuitous references to something being “the golden age of …. whatever” and nothing on a historical “Age of Gold.”

“MOM! I’m going to be late!” my daughter’s voice isn’t nice any more.

Creative Commons image by Liz West

I try another type of search. I am sure by now that no one refers to an “Age of Gold” in English histories, but that doesn’t mean the Czechs don’t have one. It could have been the era when royalty in the valley of Bohemia got a bunch of gold for one of those ridiculous crowns that make you pity young medieval kings—for all I know.

“Stupid idiot!” My daughter curses her younger brother in a loud hiss from the hallway, “Get out of the chair! I want to sit there!” There is only one chair for putting on shoes in our tiny hallway.

He shrieks in pain. It’s the standard thing that happens if I’m not there to physically separate them while they get there coats and shoes before school.

And I come unglued.

I tried to help her because she did ask nicely and the consequences of completely blowing off the assignment will be harsh. There are no accommodations for kids with learning disabilities. But I make a massive effort to teach my kids both responsibility and kindness.

My daughter regularly has to do “do-overs”. to speak nicely or do push-ups and squats for hitting and pushing or do “time out” for total freak-outs. She gets the consequences of poor grades regularly and we talk about cause and effect while tucking the kids into bed.

It isn’t the forgotten (or possibly blown off) homework that really gets me. It isn’t even the constant hitting, pushing and general meanness, it is the utter lack of awareness that someone is doing something FOR her. I’ll admit that I’m oversensitive to this at the moment because I find it to be a chronic deficit among the adults in my vicinity as well.

In the environmental organization where I volunteer, we had a crisis a couple of months ago We had several major actions set up but no one willing to volunteer to guide journalists around the site and answer questions. I would have done it myself, except it all had to be done in a language I speak with an accent (and occasionally creative grammar). No one wanted me in that role—least of all me—so I went looking for volunteers with the promise of my presence and support.

Finally, I found a petite young mother who wasn’t in a position to do the major organizing roles or to do direct action—given that she had a toddler in tow—but she was passionate and wanted a volunteer job. So, with a crash course in media relations she went into action. For two months she threw herself into the task. Finally, we had the media issue covered.

But then a competent professional came along. As a journalist, I’ll be the first to admit that he knows his stuff and he’ll likely do a great job. But there was one small problem. He didn’t thank the young woman, who had set everything up for him and held down the fort through those first rugged months. The organizers didn’t thank her for saving our bacon back in August. She was overstepped by the professional and dismissed.

I also worked as a full-time volunteer for two months last summer. I had some time off of work and time when my kids were with their grandmother. Instead of taking that time to write a new book or study medicinal herbs, I threw myself into the struggle for climate justice because it is the burning issue of our times and self-respect demands it of me..

I didn’t go into it because I wanted to be thanked or even appreciated, anymore than the impromptu press spokeswoman did. But I will admit that the respect I felt from other activists for the work I did was a major source of my intense physical and mental energy in those months. It was a much needed boost.

Through the summer, I welcomed, nurtured and trained hundreds of new volunteers. And I have been thanked at times, and once the people in my closest team commissioned a chocolate cake with my name on it when I stepped down as coordinator to give someone else a shot at the role. Thanks isn’t why you do it, but it matters.

As I breathe in the crisp air of late autumn in my withered garden, I discover something unexpected to be thankful for. The power dynamics I witnessed as an activist this time around have given me an unforeseen gift—just the plot twist I needed for a novel outline I’d been stuck with for more than a year now.

I come in with my cheeks burning from the cold, get some tea and head to my writing corner. While last year my writing muscles were exhausted and I could barely get through these blogs, let alone start on another book, I’m ready. Really ready.

That is something to be thankful for.

I am, of course, thankful for the tree just outside my door. I’m thankful for my husband, imperfect as he is who none-the-less means I’m not doing it all alone. I’m thankful that, after long struggle, our children are home. I’m thankful for mostly functional technology that makes the life of a mostly blind person much easier than it otherwise would be. I’m thankful for the literal fruits of my garden, my animals and this first blast of cold winter wind. I’m thankful for the warmth from my radiator and other small luxuries, for the very fact that I can write and my words do not stay silent in a box.

Gratitude is the most necessary element of relationship, even when it is the mere acknowledgement of a helpful presence or a mundane task done well for others. Gratitude is likely at least part of the key that we are missing in our disconnected world.

I am not a vegetarian for health reasons. But I am mindful in the way I eat and live. My thanks goes out to the animals and plants that I need to eat in order to live. And I wonder how the global crisis of meat production might be altered if everyone would take a moment to thank each animal consumed. It isn’t that often or that much for most of us. Many cultures used to do it and that one thing alone, might make all the difference.

P.S. There isn’t an “Age of Gold” even in Czech. She meant the “Age of Bronze”. or the Bronze Age but got her metals mixed up. Another frantic search in which the only purpose was caring for a child as best I can.

Slogging through to gratitude

What does the abortion debate have to do with gratitude? They both strike at the core of what type of spirituality you practice, for one thing.

You are probably as sick of the argument as I am. It rages on with passion, hate, violence and self-righteousness on both sides, though the facts surrounding the issue haven't changed in thirty years.

It isn't just about being "pro-life" or "pro-choice" depending on one's religion. There's the disability rights angle. There's adoption. There's overpopulation and environmental crisis. It is an issue with tendrils reaching deep and wide.

I'm a person with a significant physical disability. I can easily imagine the sheer rage experienced by those who live with disabilities that are widely considered "abortable," in that many people think a child would be better off dead than living "that way." 

I'm also an adoptive parent of two children who never went home from the maternity ward. Their birth mothers did have reasonable access to abortion as a possibility in a country with universal health care, but they did not make that choice. 

I might well have some strong opinions on this issue, but I find that I am not firmly on one side or the other.

I am a woman. Yes, I think women and all people should be allowed to make their own choices. I become irritated when men dictate what women should do with their lives. I know women who were raped and then shamed for it--assumptions made about them. I have a capacity for feminist fury.

But I am not pro-choice at all cost, even so. I don't think there is a clear line between unborn and alive. 

I'm not pro-life or pro-abortion in this. It is more that I am anti-back-alley-abortion. On the surface, it's as simple as that. I don't think abortion is any great thing. Overpopulation is a serious issue, but still if we respect any life we should respect all life. 

Yet I know the results of anti-abortion laws. Throughout history and geography they do not generally result in fewer abortions but rather in more risky abortions and more deaths from infection and accident. That's my primary stand on the issue in terms of society, laws and politics.

In terms of ethics... well, it does come down to religion for me as it does for many people, except my ethics are different from those preached by that brand of Christianity that is so sure of its single, universal "truth.".

In the most recent debate I witnessed on this issue, a woman was lecturing on scripture and the "fact" that God is the only one who can choose to give life or to take life away. She said that makes abortion wrong, no matter what, and makes the pro-choice stance immoral.

This was at least a calm and rational argument. The comments were kindly but firmly put--an assumption that everyone must agree with the scriptures running through the text. The only question open to debate was the interpretation of those scriptures.

But what if you don't accept the most basic premise. How so God is the only one who can take life away? What did you eat for breakfast this morning? If it contained meat or even eggs then you clearly participated in taking life away.

And what about wheat or vegetables? I'm looking at you, vegetarians on moral grounds. How can you prove that those lives--the lives of plants--are different and that you can take away those lives so that you might live but not another kind of life? I know there are lines in those scriptures taken to mean that humans are above the rest of nature, but again I do not accept those scriptures as proof. You must find something beyond human constructs to insist that humans are above all others.

I do understand that if one's religion takes the stand that God is something outside of you, not within each living being, then the issue of abortion becomes highly divisive. However, we have to accept that not everyone shares our religion and if they don't, then it makes no sense for them to be bound by the same scriptures.

My religion mandates that I have to work every day to ensure that I take no more life than I truly need, that I am not a force for needless death and destruction. I have to be conscious about the fact that other beings have to die in order for me to eat, have shelter, stay warm, read, use the internet and so forth. I have to try to give back in kind. 

And I have to give thanks, consciously and openly.

That's the law of my religion. Very few people follow this law and if I respected only people who do or insisted that all people must abide by it, I would be made ridiculous. I accept that it isn't the law of someone else's religion.

For me God or the Gods are not entirely separate from us. They also don't force anything upon us. In the end, every decision of ethical value is fully in our hands. If we had no choice we would also have no ethical responsibility. We are not forced to have a child by some external will of God and so we are truly responsible.

By being alive we make choices, including the choice to continue living. We choose and we must accept in every moment of our lives that we have come to the situation we are in through a combination of circumstances and our choices to accept or reject those circumstances.

All possibilities may not have been open to us. The poor have fewer choices than the rich. Money equals the ability to choose what to do with that wealth after all. But in the end, even the poorest has made choices. And morality is most basically about our acceptance of that.

We choose to take life in order to eat and thus to continue to live. This choice is made easy for us because we psychologically feel that the lives of those beings we eat are not the same as our own life. It is harder when the life is an unborn child and the need is not just to slake momentary hunger but rather the need to choose one's path in life. It is harder but both take away life.

Choose well and know that there is a cost.

You do not eat without the deaths of others. Only arrogance can claim that those lives--even the lives of radishes--are less important than your own. You accept this. You eat anyway and you try to live without needlessly taking life. That is all. You have no need to judge the choices of others in this question, which is ultimately between each private person and their gods.