Robin Wall Kimmerer

We live in a time when every choice matters. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“When an economic system actively destroys what we love, isn’t it time for a different system?” Robin Wall Kimmerer asks us in The Serviceberry. She contrasts the Indigenous idea of a gift economy, where one views abundance as a gift to be shared, to the market economy that allows wealth to be privately held by a few.

Her illustration is the native serviceberry tree, whose berries were a staple that Native Americans used in pemmican. “Imagine a fruit that tastes like a Blueberry crossed with the satisfying heft of an Apple, a touch of rosewater, and a minuscule crunch of almond-flavored seeds.” Birds and animals rely on the berries.

She tells of a woman whose Serviceberry trees were so productive, she gave the berries away, an example of a gift economy where wone with an abundance shares with others. She references public libraries as another example of a gift economy, for the books belong to everyone.

Take only what you need, what is given. Never take over half or waste what you have been given. This teaching is contrary to a market economy focusing on buying more, waste actually a positive: buy cheap, toss, buy more, keep the factories going.

I participate on a social media site for our city where we give stuff away. People get what they need, and items are recycled and not trashed. A few years back, our apple trees were so productive we couldn’t keep up. We made applesauce and apple butter and froze them and baked. We have away boxes of apples. Our two mile square city has a half dozen Little Free Libraries. My weekly quilt group brings fabric and patterns and supplies to give away on the ‘free table” and we often share quilts we entirely made with fabric found there.

People do want to share.

It will take a revolution, or worse, to change the market economy. But we can each personally choose to live with gratitude, sharing what we have.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.… (more)

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.… (more)

“That, I think, is the power of ceremony. It marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine; the coffee to a prayer.”

“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”

“This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.”

“I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain.”

“Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.”… (more)