Project Instructions

1. Visit a place in the living world that you love. This could be a tree nearby, a park, a plant in your home. It could also be the land on which you live, observing the birds, for example. What do you notice?

2. Consider the word reciprocity. What does it mean to you? Read the background section. It describes the meaning of reciprocity from both a scientific and sociological perspective.

3. Read the following quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer: “How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again?” Especially during COVID-19, think about the ways in which we can bear witness and listen to the living world in new ways. Think back to the place in the living world that you love.

4. You will take one photograph or create an original illustration. Your photograph or illustration will be a response to one or more of the following excerpts from Kimmerer’s writing. Think about how the excerpt(s) you select help to inform your photography or illustration:

   • “I hope my grandson will always know the other beings as a source of counsel and inspiration, and listen more to butterflies than to bulldozers.”
   • "Birds, bugs, and berries are spoken of with the same respectful grammar as humans are."
   • “Do we treat the earth as if ki is our relative—as if the earth were animated by being—with reciprocity and reverence, or as stuff that we may treat with or without respect, as we choose?” (As Kimmerer writes, “Ki is a parallel spelling of chi—the word for the inherent life energy that flows through all things.”)
   • “To replenish the possibility of mutual flourishing, for birds and berries and people, we need an economy that shares the gifts of the Earth, following the lead of our oldest teachers, the plants.”
   • “Living beings are referred to as subjects, never as objects, and personhood is extended to all who breathe and some who don’t. I greet the silent boulder people with the same respect as I do the talkative chickadees.”

5. Write a short reflection, also called an artist’s statement, about your photograph or illustration. In your statement, respond to at least two of the following questions. The aim of this statement is to tell the story of what is captured in your photograph or illustration.

   • What informed your decision to take your photograph or illustration?
   • What story does a plant (or other living element) in your life have to tell? How are you included in that story?
   • What are the names and origins of the plants that are captured in your photograph or illustration?
   • In what ways can we listen to the living world with our whole selves?
   • In what ways has the COVID-19 pandemic revealed new ways of seeing and being with the living world? Has the pandemic increased your compassion for the living world? If so, how?

6. Your illustration or photograph should help to express your human relationship to the living world as well as take into consideration the Global Oneness Project’s mission statement: Planting seeds of resilience, empathy, and a sacred relationship to our planet.