Pt (I): The Spiritual Discipline of Pine Pollen Harvesting ~ A Journey of Expansion

This post is the first in a three part series on my experiences from the 2024 harvesting season with Canadian Pine Pollen Co. Over the series, I will delve into three pivotal aspects of my journey. First, how harvesting for me is a spiritual discipline; second, how it serves as a means of cultivating abundance & third, how harvesting fundamentally is a vessel for establishing right relations.

As a young developing Metis man, I was blessed with the opportunity to harvest Ponderosa Pine Pollen this summer ~ recognized as one of the most potent natural medicines on this earth. To further explain this concept I’ll borrow the term “Sadhana” which translates from Sanskrit as a “Methodical or spiritual discipline towards a desired outcome or aim”.

What was my aim you might ask?

Simple, expansion.

To really immerse you in the essential nature & application of my Sadhana of expansion through harvesting, I need to illustrate what the day-to-day experience looks like.

(Awaken, Harvest, Eat, Sleep & Repeat)

This is the rhythm of each day, often for ten days straight with one day of rest before starting again. This level of dedication is required as there is a short time window of around one month
with which to harvest all that is needed for an entire year of product for the company. The demands alone of this regimen require one to expand mentally, physically & spiritually to a
higher standard.

The process of harvesting is in itself a meditative practice of expansion. To engage fully with each tree, each branch, each cluster of precious catkins. To harvest in the most efficient, ethical & embodied manner possible & to bring oneself back to the present moment day after day is a deeply engaging application of my sadhana.

To share an example of this process, I would like to share a story with you that I feel integrates all facets of my mental, physical & spiritual sadhana of expansion.

It was the 10th day of one of my last rotations harvesting Ponderosa Pine Trees & what was supposed to be a half day of work. I was mentally & physically at my limits.

& then...

I stumbled upon the most beautiful specimen of Ponderosa catkins I had found all season.

360 degrees of perfect phenotypic vine like branches fully loaded with catkins in peak ripeness, crumbling off of the crown with the most gentle of pressure from my fingers. In my body, I felt equal parts dread & jubilation knowing that it would be at least three more hours of work, but I knew I had a responsibility to harvest this tree & to honour its offering.

I had to draw deep, I recited a favourite mantra of mine, “do the work, I know its hurts, do the work” from one of my favourite songs & I pushed through the next three hours, methodically
harvesting the offerings of that Ponderosa Pine.

At the end of the day feeling thoroughly drained yet satisfied, I found a place to sit & give a prayer in contemplation of all that the trees & land had given me. In that space where I had also
given all of myself, there were no walls left & an outpour of emotion came through in a wash of tears. I felt things that had been stored in me since my childhood & through the expansion
required of my spirit harvesting, I was given beautiful catharsis.

Through the culmination of the harvest season, I was given a gift so few of us have in our modern daily lives. The gift of time & space to feel ~ to expand...

I am truly grateful for the experience of expansion that the Canadian Pine Pollen Co. harvest season gave me & I would hope that for those of you reading this, in your own time & way you find something that can act as a vessel for that same sense of spiritual discipline.

Blessings,
~ Brendan Hamilton

Watch Brendan's interview HERE
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