On Earth, desolation has been corrected by carefully examining the small places of new life, existing in seemingly impossible conditions. Amid dry land where nothing grows due to human negligence, overuse, or overharvesting, these small pockets of persistent life flourish due to a unique human intercedence or physical anomaly. Examining how the life grows and recreating the conditions in the desolated area can light the way for restoration by renewing soil, increasing plant life, which can even form new weather patterns (Schwartz, 2020). In already flourishing wild places, plant life exists unique to the climate and local ecologies. Human interference can endanger or even wipe out plant populations and alter climate when not carefully tended, lived amongst, and harvested with respectful and informed reciprocity (Kimmerer, 2013).Using Kimmerer’s (2013) vision for reciprocity and Schwartz’s (2020) descriptions of restoration, I analyze music education practices that are causing desolation such as overuse of land (overworking performers and educators) or single crop farming (single musical literacy). Further, I compare unconscious consumer practices toward the land or plants to consumption of music in classroom spaces which may cause students and teachers to lose connection to the gifts of music as they are modified or eliminated.Like restoring desolated land, I locate and describe flourishing pockets of musical life where humans make music that connects and provides emotional renewal. My analysis considers the conditions in which this music is made, how each human participates, and how it is sustained. In exploring thriving musical traditions, I consider how educators can study and teach music without sterilizing or overharvesting but can instead reciprocate the gifts of the music and humans behind the music.The implications of a desolated landscape are many. Humans who once relied on the landscape for sustenance may be forced to relocate, resources are lost, and the understandings that once caused a landscape to flourish are forgotten. In music education, when the deep purposes of music making become single-natured, students may learn that music making involves only bowing to the musical wishes of a director. The music educator becomes drained and unable to provide the rich yet simple experiences in music that form human understandings, celebrations, and spiritual connections. Wellbeing is compromised and ill health may set in. To close this presentation, I invite participants to imagine a musical space with me symbolizing reciprocity and restoration based on participants’ local musical ecologies.