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20d (edited) • Roots & Renaissance
What Do You Do With Abundance You Can't Consume?
Part 3 of the Summer Solstice series
This is the question the Solstice poses, and it's one modern culture handles badly.
The plums breaking branches on our path are not a problem to solve. They are a signal to read. When a system produces more than can be consumed fresh, the functional responses are specific:
𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲. This is when drying, fermenting, canning, and storing happen. Not as hobby, but as the intelligent response to seasonal surplus. Every traditional food culture developed preservation techniques precisely for this window. The abundance of June and July becomes the sustenance of November and February. Preservation is the bridge between peak and scarcity.
𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲. Surplus beyond what one household can preserve belongs in circulation. Neighbors, community, barter, trade. The social fabric of traditional communities was partly built on the movement of seasonal surplus ~ who has too many plums, who has too many eggs, who can trade labor for fruit.
𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲. Some of it falls. Some of it feeds the soil, the insects, the birds, the decomposers. Not every fruit is meant to be harvested. The dropped plums on our path are not waste. They are the system feeding itself, building next year's soil, attracting the pollinators and beneficial insects that keep the whole cycle running.
𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴. The tree that's breaking under its own fruit will not fruit like this forever. It is expressing everything it has. After peak expression comes the quieter work of replenishing ~ putting energy back into roots, into wood, into the reserves that will carry it through winter and fund next year's growth.
The modern instinct is to try to capture all of it. To feel anxious about the plums rotting on the ground. To treat surplus as wasted potential rather than systemic generosity. That anxiety ~ the inability to let abundance complete its own cycle ~ is a cultural pattern worth noticing.
✦ 𝘐 𝘨𝘰 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘚𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘬 ~ 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯. 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥:
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What Do You Do With Abundance You Can't Consume?
