Pulling Together in Rising Waters: Reciprocity as Practice

Abstract

Resilience is needed to survive the looming crises of the Anthropocene, and the need to access tools that can build resilience is more important than ever. Through personal stories and literature review, I consider how individual and cultural resilience is built through empathy, connection, and reciprocity—between humans and, especially importantly, with the more-than-human world. Each is rooted in expanding the boundaries of self. The revival of Coast Salish communities, now known as Tribal Journeys, is a deeply powerful cultural movement that uses the canoe as a vessel for renewal. Recovery from crushing colonial depredations is a potent example of resilience from which to draw insight. Loving kindness training, the practice of natural history, and meditation techniques that focus on accessing and using sorrow and vulnerability are described as tools that foster a more spacious understanding of self.