Robin Harford The moment you see a plant as a resource, you’ve already lost something essential. You’ve turned a relationship into a transaction. You’ve made yourself blind.
Indigenous people in Myanmar (S.E. Asia) perform annual rituals before harvesting certain plants. Not out of superstition. Out of relationship. They ask permission. And sometimes. The answer is no. So they leave the plant alone for years. Years.
Meanwhile, we’re out there with our foraging baskets, ticking species off lists, filling bags, posting photos. Never once asking. Never once listening.
Once upon a time, I stopped harvesting for an entire season. Just to see what happened. Something shifted. I started noticing things I’d never seen before. Had deep, felt, sensorium experiences.
The plant became real to me. Not as food. As kin.
From consumer to relative. From extraction to reciprocity. That’s the shift.
When you treat plants as relatives, you become a different kind of forager. Better informed. More respectful. Acutely connected.
What would change if you asked permission before your next harvest?
You don’t need to borrow other people’s rituals. We have our own plant traditions. No drums required. No cultural theft necessary.
More on that shortly.