This project is the first in a series of creations designed to help you enter into deeper reciprocity with the gifts of nature. We designed and gave out these free cards during the Christmas Faire of Bolinas, a quirky town in northern California. All the photographs were taken in our bioregion — emphasising poetry of place — and the texts our own. The voice of each being is intended to remind us of the gifts they bring into our everyday lives. Immerse yourself in each element, open your senses, read its poetry, hear its voice. You can print them out as gifts for your loved ones, and also submit your own secret conversations with other beings.
In the words of Andreas Weber, “Poetic creativity is the ability to know something through participation. We need to understand life as a deeply sense-creating phenomenon. Organisms live in existential, felt realities and perception always means to be touched on a bodily level.”
To be touched means to be entangled. In perceiving we participate in the world.
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‘Tis the season to be gifting, and today, we have quite the gift for you! It’s a special gift that cannot be bought or sold, a gift that follows you everywhere you go.
The card you hold in your hands is a gift coming from Nature, a message translated into human tongue. “What are these gifts?” you ask...
Take an audible breath. There it is! The gift of Air, the fresh invigoration you’ve partaken in every day of your life. Below your feet, there’s the gift of Gravity, holding you in sweet embrace. Above, the clouds gift you tumbling waters and winter storms. The givers of these gifts love to play, reflecting themselves joyfully as sunsets in the eyes of your dear ones.
They are the gifts of the many-voiced landscape. The irreducible elements, the evolutionary processes, the organisms of nature. Together, they enable all life to thrive through the Gift of Reciprocity — the exchange that weaves us all together. In accepting this card, we ask that you connect with the voice that you find in your hands, that you reflect upon its place in your life and on the qualities it brings. You might pause from time to time to honor and thank this giver in whichever way feels right to you.