Forgetting to honor a place makes its life withdraw

Evidence

An Onondaga elder once explained to me that plants come to us when they are needed. If we show them respect by using them and appreciating their gifts they will grow stronger. They will stay with us as long as they are respected. But if we forget about them, they will leave. The curtains were a mistake. As if the sun and the stars and a moss that glitters were not enough to make it a home. Their superfluous flapping was a lapse in respect, a slap in the face to the light and the air waiting outside my window. Instead I invited in the small tyranny of things and let it make me forgetful. Forgetful that all I need is already here, rain on the outside, fire on the inside. Schistostega would not have made the same mistake. Too late, after the caves had collapsed. I threw the curtains into the woodstove and sent them up the chimney to the glittering stars. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 639

Categorization

• XREF: Directly pays off ch29’s claim that indigenous plant knowledge holds plants arrive where and when their gifts are needed — now applied personally as the elder’s teaching frames the moss’s disappearance. — connects to: Hidden treasures are guarded more against disrespect than against theft — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 635; Indigenous plant knowledge holds that plants arrive where and when their gifts are needed — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 419
• DEFINE: flagged by the selector, no supporting note recorded