The Honourable Harvest

Beautiful guidelines for sustainable living

Have you ever heard of the Honourable Harvest?  I first learned of it Thanksgiving weekend a few years ago – appropriate timing, given that it’s a value system that combines gratitude, humility and sustainability.

The Honourable Harvest is a set of food harvesting principles rooted in indigenous traditions of reverence for ancestors, concern for descendants (the next seven generations as a minimum) and respect for the fellow life forms that nourish and sustain us.  It’s largely oral and somewhat fluid, but its key principles include:

• Never take the first. Never take the last.
• Take only what you need. Leave some for others (including non-humans). Never waste what you have taken.
• Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
• Give thanks for what you have been given.
• Use it respectfully. Share.
• Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
• Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

More perspective and a few more principles can be read here; or take three-and-a-half minutes to watch this video summarizing the Honourable Harvest. 

Or to explore further, read the chapter dedicated to the Honourable Harvest in Braiding Sweetgrass, a hauntingly beautiful book of scientific knowledge and indigenous wisdom (or listen to it here; the Honourable Harvest guidelines start at 20:30).   From that chapter:

“Cautionary stories of the consequences of taking too much are ubiquitous in Native cultures, but it’s hard to recall a single one in English. Perhaps this helps to explain why we seem to be caught in a trap of overconsumption, which is as destructive to ourselves as to those we consume.”

Climate change and other ecological challenges suggest that we humans need to awaken to a new relationship with the world around us.  Implementing the principles of the Honourable Harvest – not just at Thanksgiving, but all year long – would be a great beginning.