Gathering sage -- and reciprocity

Sage is an important medicine at Inner City Pastoral Ministry because it is used to begin every Sunday morning service for the Community of Emmanuel who gather to pray. Michelle, our Oskapew/helper, lights a bit of sage in her abalone shell and invites us all to come forward to smudge, or "pray with smoke." 

When we smudge, we ask Creator to be with us and bless our physical selves and our perception of and interaction with creation through our senses, bodies, and spirits. It's a deeply meaningful ceremony for all of us who are present, and it's rare to begin a Sunday at ICPM without it.

Which means that gathering a fair bit of sage for our community is necessary before winter comes. So on Tuesday, seven of us travelled to Sacred Ground on Alexander First Nations' land to pick medicine. We travelled up a rutty track into a field where we could see the remnants of sundances and sweat lodges that hadn't yet returned to the land. Michelle donned her ribbon skirt and lit the smudge, and we all prayed. Then we each took a handful of tobacco to offer to the earth in exchange for the sage we gathered. 

Can you spot my companion?

We spent about 40 minutes in silence as we moved through the long grasses, scattering tobacco and meditatively picking sage above the ground, trying to leave the roots undisturbed so the plants could grow again next year. My only companions were the grasshoppers who bounced around my feet as I moved. 

At one point, I laid down and thanked Creator for the experience of being surrounded with quiet, with only the sound of a light breeze through the grasses and the smell of sage in the small bundle I'd gathered. I imagined the area full of people at a Sundance, praying through days and nights, and the sun broke through for a minute or two. 

Holy Ground indeed, that gives medicine and a deep sense of calm as it accepts our gift of tobacco.

When we regathered, I realized that my bundle of sage was pretty small (maybe I'd been too meditative?), and Michelle realized that we'll need to do a lot more picking to have enough for each Sunday until next year's sage gatherings. As Tuesday morning didn't work for everyone who wanted to attend, more trips to gather are in the works, and next time, I hope to gather a larger bundle.

The sage-gathering reminded me of Indigenous peoples' understanding of the value of reciprocity, of giving even as we receive gifts from the land, and has given me pause as I walk into my own garden. North Americans like me don't often think about how we treat our garden plots. Too many of us think about yield over how we can return benefit to the land and its creatures, using herbicides and pesticides to "keep things under control," forgetting the life forms that are destroyed by such chemicals.

True, I've stopped using those kinds of "controls," and conduct a little garden blessing every spring, burning the previous year's Palm Sunday palms (cedar branches since covid) and carrying the remnants to all corners of my garden. I ask for blessings on its growth for the season, and give thanks for the nourishment it provides us through an abundance of fresh vegetables and preserves. I also give the soil a healthy amount of compost every autumn. 

But on Tuesday, I realized that perhaps I need to change the focus of my garden blessings, and spread them around throughout the year. Perhaps it's time to go out and get some tobacco, too, to offer a little in thanksgiving and reciprocity each time I harvest, to return a little something to creation and Creator for the many benefits that come to me out of the soil's generosity. And there are probably other ways that I can give back to my Indigenous sisters, brothers and others -- in reciprocity for the fact that I have lived and grown on lands that were wrongfully taken from them over centuries. Being present with them at ICPM is just a small beginning.

Perhaps small beginnings in reciprocity could help us all to notice more often how it can overflow into the rest of our interactions with the world as well. A smile for a smile. A compliment for a compliment. A full birdbath or bird feeder for the delight of birdsong. The beauty of a spider's web in return for the willingness to live and let live. And a sharing of my produce, somehow, with my inner city community, though I'm not sure how to do that in these covid times. There must be a way. Maybe next year I can grow more cucumbers and cherry tomatoes for them!

One thing is certain, it's possible to incorporate more awareness of where we can practice reciprocity in our lives. As one of my favourite sayings goes, "start small, but make a start."