Cycles of Reciprocity: Knowing Where You Belong

In a world where concrete jungles and fluorescent screens have manipulated our sense of reality, it is no wonder that so many feel an underlying sense of longing for the re-connection with nature. This hunger for the natural world isn't just about frolicking in a field of flowers, it’s about having an understanding for the deeper truths that the land teaches us.

As I examine my relationship with my father’s apple tree and Franklin’s with his compost bin, a common theme remains within our work:

The land holds memories and remembers our acts of giving and receiving. Only when we are able to establish and acknowledge a mutual relationship with the plants with whom we share our home will there be well earned gifts in return.

A couple weeks ago a flower bloomed on the apple tree in my father’s garden. At first glance it's easy to miss: so minuscule, so unimportant. But not to my dad. He has been eyeing this tree ever since a singular flower bloomed. When it started to bear fruit my father glistened with joy. "Pinakamagandang regalo galing sa diyos” my dad would exclaim. The greatest gift from god.

By no means was this a complete accident. Since we bought the house five years ago my father has been working on this garden, which had been neglected for quite some time. Out of all of the plants my father invited to the garden, something about this apple tree was different and more magnificent. It required more work than the others and just the thought of growing our own fruit was exciting.

Back when we were locked up in our houses and distanced away from each other this tree brought community. Each one of my siblings was assigned a task of either digging, lifting, or even just accompanying my dad at Menards. Despite my siblings and I constantly complaining about how much work it was, my father instilled into us the value of giving to the land to bring back life that was once lost. During this time I lost several family members to COVID. Even in the face of darkness, the apple tree was still standing. Nature withstands all of humanity. Our problems are minuscule to the enormity of nature.

Looking back, I asked my father what the garden meant to him personally. He said even with what was lost from the trials and tribulations of life, there still remained the garden, the apple tree, and most importantly, his family, signifying his mark on this world, with the tree being literally embedded into the soil.

From this I immediately began to see the connection to the themes present in John Drinkwater’s “Reciprocity”:

“I do not think that skies and meadows are moral,

or that the fixture of a star comes of a quiet spirit,

or that trees have wisdom in their windless silences. Yet these are things invested in my mood with constancy, and peace, and fortitude, that in my troubled season

I can cry upon the wide composure of the sky,

and envy fields, and wish that I might be as little daunted

as a star or tree.”

This singular apple not only holds these sacred memories of my family but was the string that was threaded through me, three siblings, and my parents, and held us together even in harsh and tumultuous times. After years of tending to this garden, finally we are able to enjoy what life has to offer. A well deserved gift. -- Carissa Arcega

Apple Tree (Malus domestica) blooming in the backyard garden

As spring emerges, life is in full bloom in colorful and intricate ways. For me, the season of spring is healing and invigorating. Gratitude silently fills my heart as I see what was once decay become the foundation for new life. The concepts of relational ethics, gratitude, and reciprocity

shared by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Hannah Meszaros Martin, and Matthew Hall sit at the forefront of my thoughts.

The story of Skywoman and a quote from Big Bill Neidjie shared in Hall's Plants as Persons often come to mind. Bill Neidjie was one of a remarkable generation of Aboriginal elders who in the late twentieth

century mediated Australian Aboriginal knowledge for a wider audience:

"Well I’ll tell you about this story,

About story where you feel…laying down

Tree, grass, star…

because star and tree working with you.

We got blood pressure

but same thing…spirit on your body,

but e working with you.

Even nice wind e blow…having a sleep…

because that spirit e with you

Listen carefully this, you can hear me.

I’m telling you because earth just like mother

and father or brother of you.

That tree same thing.

Your body, my body I suppose,

I’m same as you…anyone.

Tree working when you sleeping and dream."

(From Phillip Morrissey's "Bill Neidjie's Story About Feeling: Notes on its Themes and Philosophy")

These words call me back to a compost project I began about a year ago. It started while I was reading a zine on the metaphysics of composting. In the past, I've had experience in caring for plants. I tend my family's rose bush and the sibling hydrangeas that return to us every spring and summer. Due to that experience, I felt more than confident to start. So I decided that same day to gather the materials necessary to make compost.

I began by drilling holes in a plastic rubbermaid bin for soil aeration and gathered dirt and leaves from my yard. Over the months I would turn the soil and add scraps periodically. It was in these small moments that I would bear witness to cycles of death and life unfolding before my very eyes; tiny insects, slugs, spiders, ants, and worms all coexisting in a simple harmonious manner. This recurring ontological display taught me fundamentals about relation and inter-connectedness that couldn't be shared through human conversation. The more I learned from the worlds beneath the soil, the closer I felt to the world and people around me and the worlds they carry within themselves.

In both of our stories, what began as curiosity or a set of tasks in the yard became something grander than the both of us. It was our return to the land that helped cement lessons of reciprocity, gratitude, and relation. In the recognition of the eternal, elemental power of nature, the land

became a catalyst for personal transformation.

In return for the gifts the land provided us, I offer a poem in gratitude:

What is lost that is just not yet returned from below the soil?

Aside from shorter days and elongated nights where do you draw the defining line between decay and beginning?

It is the decay of seasons past that lay the foundation for new life to begin.

And so as spring grows atop us and the flowers of the apple tree bloom, a seed of truth is planted within my soul.

Reciprocity is not a singular act, it is one of continuance.

As it takes root, I know: the death of yesterday is the beginning of our tomorrows. -- Franklin Ocaña II

Compost - The Beginning of Our Tomorrows

-- Carissa Arcega & Franklin Ocaña II

Works Cited:

“Bill Neidjie’s Story About Feeling: Notes on Its Themes and Philosophy”. 2015. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature 15 (2). https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/9943.