Pt (III): Pine Pollen Harvesting ~ A Vessel for Establishing Right Relations

“The successful man is the one who understands his role in the chain of sustenance & who dedicates his efforts towards maintaining harmony & balance within all creation. The degree to which his acts demonstrate that sort of understanding is the paramount consideration in assessing his success as a developing, always-progressing, human being”

I would first like to state that this is only my relationship & understanding of right relations. It is a relationship & body of knowledge that is consistently deepening & I am sharing how I currently practice it to the best of my ability.

Along with the above quote, I believe right relations is a practice of proper decorum with land, people & the recognition of the interconnectedness of all beings through reciprocal relationship.

Now that might seem rather esoteric, so let me illustrate for you a few practical examples of how this was applied through my Canadian Pine Pollen harvesting season.

The first & most obvious is the relationship with the Ponderosa Pine trees & the land they resided upon from which I harvested. I was entrusted with the responsibility to ethically harvest from them, such that they would retain much of their vitality & be able to support the health of their entire ecosystem. I also gave great care not to disturb the land as much as possible, leaving little trace that I had been there.

The second example is that of my interactions with the ranch owners who generously granted me access to their lands. This was perhaps one of the greatest joys of the season as all the landowners I approached were kind & genuinely enthusiastic about our practices of sustainable harvesting. All of them had no trespassing signs, but those signs were in place because they knew that many people did not have the proper respect to interact with their land in the spirit of right relations. By approaching them first & communicating my intentions, we were able to cultivate a relationship of mutual trust & understanding along with gifting landowners products from Canadian Pine Pollen as a thank you.

Lastly there were the interactions between my co-harvesters & the company Canadian Pine Pollen itself. We all had to live, communicate & harvest in a way that allowed everyone to profit. For those who understand piecework, often people will hoard the best land for themselves. Still, I was blessed to be with a group of experienced harvesters who generously pointed me in the right direction & likewise, the land was shared when others needed work.

This marks the end of my three part blog series. I would like to thank those of you who took the time to read. It was a pleasure to share some of my thoughts & experiences from the 2024 harvest season with Canadian Pine Pollen.

Blessings,
Brendan Hamilton

Watch Brendan's interview HERE
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