the question of asking

imagine a friend taking something, say your toothbrush, thanking you, and leaving.
imagine tapping a maple tree, saying thank you, and boiling that sap to make syrup.
imagine taking the life of something without asking, then a thank you on the way out.

I've been thinking about proper ways of interacting with life recently, and have been working from the assumption that we, humans, need Life. Life, does not necessarily need us.

So the forms of life on this planet that directly live with the sun are arguably the strongest, leaving little animals like humans as somewhat secondary, or more distant from, the life source that is Sun.

From this way of understanding belonging, I've been quite rude in my living this far. It's only be the last couple years that I've started to be thankful. "thank you mullein, for your juicy leaves" "thank you tomato for your ripe fruit"...

My 'thanks' to date have been under the assumption that I've been given something. But a safe way to be gifted, is to ask. I've come to realize the importance of ceremony in this regard. Maple, strong, vibrant, tall. You are soon going to wake, and we have nearly eaten all of the syrup we made from your running sap last spring, may we (names here) take from your life force so that we may have that beautiful sugar of your sap for the coming seasons?

Or something like that.

Then there's the listening. how do we listen to non english? non verbal? non human!?

All I know from this point in my life is that I am able, I knew before I knew how to walk.

The way to learn is by listening to myself
And in this way becoming able to hear again
The voices of my larger self
Life