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I need to coalesce my thoughts about why the term "foraging" as a movement bothers me. I know that seems antithesis to my whole deal, but I'm not about just foraging, I'm about gathering. Gathering implies tending. Being in service of a system that in turn provides for you.
Service comes first. Gathering comes later. Heading out with the intention of finding something to take away, rather than heading out with the intention of doing some healing & tending feels shallow. Foraging is like the Coachella appropriation of Indigenous foodways.
Gathering centers Native knowledge. It comes from a place of interconnectedness and restoration. NonNative people leading foraging tours for locals is just bougie resource extraction.
What is really frustrating is that sometimes those are the only people available to learn from because Native people have been purposefully and violently separated from our traditional lands and the vital role we played in the life cycle of this place.
And it's not enough to just know how to "forage sustainably." If everybody were just out "foraging" and not tending or gathering then there would be nothing sustainable about it. If the only time you went into a certain habitat was to get something, then you're doing it wrong.
