Learning from Nature's Gift Economy
December 20, 2020 9:15 AM Subscribe
"This abundance of berries feels like a pure gift from the land. I have not earned, paid for, nor labored for them. There is no mathematics of worthiness that reckons I deserve them in any way. And yet here they are—along with the sun and the air and the birds and the rain, gathering in the towers of cumulonimbi. You could call them natural resources or ecosystem services, but the Robins and I know them as gifts. We both sing gratitude with our mouths full." Botany professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potowatomi Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer on abundance, scarcity, community, and gifts.
That’s a lovely essay.
This spring I bought a book about identifying local edible plants, and most days through fall I picked a handful of berries to take home and eat or process into jam. First salmonberry, then thimbleberry, then salal, then finally the Himalayan blackberries that creep in everywhere like clouds before a storm. They are a literally invasive species, with wicked thorns and a tendency to ally locally with nettles, which seems symbolic of our relatively recent Anglo invasion here in the NW. I scrounged as many jars as I could find and made enough jam to last my household for more than a year and enough to mail off to family and friends as well. Salal tastes a little bit like blueberry. Thimbleberry jam is a revelation, dark and sweet like raspberries and chocolate.
posted by bq at 10:23 AM on December 20, 2020 [5 favorites]
This spring I bought a book about identifying local edible plants, and most days through fall I picked a handful of berries to take home and eat or process into jam. First salmonberry, then thimbleberry, then salal, then finally the Himalayan blackberries that creep in everywhere like clouds before a storm. They are a literally invasive species, with wicked thorns and a tendency to ally locally with nettles, which seems symbolic of our relatively recent Anglo invasion here in the NW. I scrounged as many jars as I could find and made enough jam to last my household for more than a year and enough to mail off to family and friends as well. Salal tastes a little bit like blueberry. Thimbleberry jam is a revelation, dark and sweet like raspberries and chocolate.
posted by bq at 10:23 AM on December 20, 2020 [5 favorites]
Nature’s produce aisle where your fellow shoppers aren’t likely to give you COVID. There is the very unlikely bear encounter, although they are usually not as dangerous as the humans who refuse to wear masks in a pandemic.
posted by mundo at 10:32 AM on December 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by mundo at 10:32 AM on December 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh, this is wonderful.
I love Robin Wall Kimmerer's writings, although I find them slow going, partly because I often want to savor her words, partly because she's often talking about things new to me, and there's a lot for me to absorb. (To be clear, slow going is not a bad thing. It is a fine thing.) I've been reading Gathering Moss, which I asked for for my birthday, as a treat when I can find time to slow down.
She puts into words things I've felt so often when I eat, especially fruits and vegetables, things so recognizably of the land, things that no one had to kill for me to eat them: I feel such gratitude, and wonder. I feel gratitude both toward the people who brought the food into my life (planted it, harvested it, packaged it, trucked it), but also so much to the earth that birthed it.
And reading this stirred so many thoughts I have about the economy of knowledge and wisdom and words and creation - what US law calls "intellectual property," but what is really humanity, curiosity, and love. I have played all the roles in the IP world (songwriter, musician, listener, founder of a record label, happy repurposer of public domain and fair use work, reader of Kimmerer's article and ChuraChura's post about it, commenter on this thread), but I've spent a lot of time in the world of open source software (and Wikipedia, for that matter), which flat out would not exist without giving and sharing, and where giving back - contributing - is a joyous opportunity to make something wonderful continue to exist and continue to make people's lives better.
And I am so incredibly lucky to feel a sense of abundance in my own life, and it absolutely is responsible for making me feel both able and also more than willing to give to the community around me. I am lucky enough to get cash back on my credit card; that's free money I can give to the food bank. I am lucky enough not to have to work three jobs; that's time I can set aside to phone bank for Georgia.
I just wonder how people's policy decisions would change if we could be steeped more in an appreciation of the abundance we have. We (as a world) have so, so much. (And we would have recognizably more if we stopped illegal hoarding of money.) We get so much from each other - songs and stories and ideas and knowledge and jokes and potluck food and fellowship and consideration. (Appallingly unevenly distributed, all of those things; but even those of us who live the hardest lives get SOMETHING from others.)
I was struck by the quote from Sacred Economics, especially this: "The next stage of human economy ... will call forth the gifts of each of us". I think about all the unemployed, people whose gifts are devalued, people whose willingness to contribute their labor toward making or teaching or serving are told that labor is worthless and unwanted, people whose longing to give food and gifts to their families and neighbors is strangled by the poverty that comes with unemployment. We have an extraordinary abundance of gifts in the hands and minds of people all over this world, and we are letting it rot in the fields. I want to live in a world where those gifts are welcomed and valued.
Thank you so much for sharing this, ChuraChura. I am grateful for your gift to us.
posted by kristi at 10:33 AM on December 20, 2020 [15 favorites]
I love Robin Wall Kimmerer's writings, although I find them slow going, partly because I often want to savor her words, partly because she's often talking about things new to me, and there's a lot for me to absorb. (To be clear, slow going is not a bad thing. It is a fine thing.) I've been reading Gathering Moss, which I asked for for my birthday, as a treat when I can find time to slow down.
She puts into words things I've felt so often when I eat, especially fruits and vegetables, things so recognizably of the land, things that no one had to kill for me to eat them: I feel such gratitude, and wonder. I feel gratitude both toward the people who brought the food into my life (planted it, harvested it, packaged it, trucked it), but also so much to the earth that birthed it.
And reading this stirred so many thoughts I have about the economy of knowledge and wisdom and words and creation - what US law calls "intellectual property," but what is really humanity, curiosity, and love. I have played all the roles in the IP world (songwriter, musician, listener, founder of a record label, happy repurposer of public domain and fair use work, reader of Kimmerer's article and ChuraChura's post about it, commenter on this thread), but I've spent a lot of time in the world of open source software (and Wikipedia, for that matter), which flat out would not exist without giving and sharing, and where giving back - contributing - is a joyous opportunity to make something wonderful continue to exist and continue to make people's lives better.
And I am so incredibly lucky to feel a sense of abundance in my own life, and it absolutely is responsible for making me feel both able and also more than willing to give to the community around me. I am lucky enough to get cash back on my credit card; that's free money I can give to the food bank. I am lucky enough not to have to work three jobs; that's time I can set aside to phone bank for Georgia.
I just wonder how people's policy decisions would change if we could be steeped more in an appreciation of the abundance we have. We (as a world) have so, so much. (And we would have recognizably more if we stopped illegal hoarding of money.) We get so much from each other - songs and stories and ideas and knowledge and jokes and potluck food and fellowship and consideration. (Appallingly unevenly distributed, all of those things; but even those of us who live the hardest lives get SOMETHING from others.)
I was struck by the quote from Sacred Economics, especially this: "The next stage of human economy ... will call forth the gifts of each of us". I think about all the unemployed, people whose gifts are devalued, people whose willingness to contribute their labor toward making or teaching or serving are told that labor is worthless and unwanted, people whose longing to give food and gifts to their families and neighbors is strangled by the poverty that comes with unemployment. We have an extraordinary abundance of gifts in the hands and minds of people all over this world, and we are letting it rot in the fields. I want to live in a world where those gifts are welcomed and valued.
Thank you so much for sharing this, ChuraChura. I am grateful for your gift to us.
posted by kristi at 10:33 AM on December 20, 2020 [15 favorites]
And I am so incredibly lucky to feel a sense of abundance in my own life
kristi, thanks for sharing -- I have at times felt that sense of abundance, but it's been elusive in 2020. This year though, I have taken so much joy from the abundance of plants. I have a small potted mint that I bought from a neighbor and I felt absolute surprise and glee last week when I realized it had put out another runner and was shooting up ANOTHER branch of glorious mint on the outer corner of the pot. Seeing how much plants give makes me feel more safe and relaxed.
And ChuraChura, great post -- I started reading it but saw an audio option so am going to finish by listening to the author's voice.
posted by rogerroger at 12:16 PM on December 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
kristi, thanks for sharing -- I have at times felt that sense of abundance, but it's been elusive in 2020. This year though, I have taken so much joy from the abundance of plants. I have a small potted mint that I bought from a neighbor and I felt absolute surprise and glee last week when I realized it had put out another runner and was shooting up ANOTHER branch of glorious mint on the outer corner of the pot. Seeing how much plants give makes me feel more safe and relaxed.
And ChuraChura, great post -- I started reading it but saw an audio option so am going to finish by listening to the author's voice.
posted by rogerroger at 12:16 PM on December 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
If you'd like more of this, Robin Wall Kimmerer's other book, Braiding Sweetgrass has a chapter that is similar to this, and the whole book is as kristi wrote, full of words to savor, and ideas to mull over.
I've been reading it, a chapter or two at a time, and most recently read chapter on the Ohenten Kariwatekwen or Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. The Smithsonian Magazine has the same copy she includes in her book, but without her thoughts on the sections.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:31 AM on December 21, 2020
I've been reading it, a chapter or two at a time, and most recently read chapter on the Ohenten Kariwatekwen or Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. The Smithsonian Magazine has the same copy she includes in her book, but without her thoughts on the sections.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:31 AM on December 21, 2020
Oh, this is wonderful! I just started Braiding Sweetgrass last week, a compaion read to An Indigenous People's History of the United States, and my sister sent me this yesterday but it slipped my mind. Such a lovely read.
posted by SeedStitch at 9:48 AM on December 21, 2020
posted by SeedStitch at 9:48 AM on December 21, 2020
« Older We tried all the hot colors, red, yellow. We went... | The truth in Black and white: An apology from The... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
...or a small offering of urine. A bit of urea does almost any tree, especially one that's put a lot of resources into building fruit, nothing but good.
posted by flabdablet at 10:00 AM on December 20, 2020 [5 favorites]