Giving, receiving, and flow

In my last post, I talked about conscious giving and receiving, and how a nearly universal belief in our culture is that “tis better to give than to receive,” and how this throws people–especially women–off balance. “Giving” energy becomes the whole focus, while receiving can be way undervalued.

Here’s a problem with this belief system: in nature, neither giving nor receiving exists. For example, consider a leaf. Is it giving energy or receiving it? Both, simultaneously, right? Or a bear munching on berries. Clearly the bear is taking. Wellll–maybe not. Digesting the berries means passing seeds through and then spreading the seeds way beyond where they would otherwise fall.

Through this lens, then, there actually is no such thing as giving or receiving. Instead, there is integrity to the balance, there is simply being in flow. The bear eats, the leaf receives sunlight, CO2 and nutrients; the bear digests and spreads seed and the leaf creates oxygen and ultimately returns its nutrients to the earth. Life happens in a natural unfolding.

How could you give yourself the gift of this unfolding over these holidays (or, perhaps, you’d just be taking it…) How could you be fully in the awareness of your own natural flow, so that you’re doing exactly what you want to do, whether it’s generating energy or taking it in? What would it be like to move through these next few days like the leaf that is totally supported by nature while it returns the favor, easefully?