Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Kimmerer writes about how she loved to see fields of yellow goldenrod and royal purple asters growing together where she grew up and she decided to study forestry to understand if there was a reason for this beauty. She realized that there wasn’t room for such a question in Western science. She wanted to know about relationships in the web of life and “why the most ordinary scrap of meadow can rock us back on our heels in awe.” Using her Native lens of plants as wise beings, her research found that indeed it is mutually beneficial for them to grow together because their striking complementary colors attract bees (and humans). By growing so close together they get more pollinator visits than they would if they were growing alone. Here is a relationship of reciprocity.

Looking further at reciprocity, she discusses the act of gift giving. In Native American culture, people are expected to pass a gift along. It is not meant to stagnate in one person’s house. Similar to the ideas in Asian medicine, the health of the community depends on free-flowing energy. Additionally, a gift is intended to come with strings attached. Lewis Hyde writes “It is the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange that a gift establishes a feeling-bond between two people.” At the root of a gift economy is reciprocity.

Likewise, our relationship with the earth can be one of reciprocity. Mother earth gives us many gifts and we can choose to have a perspective of gratitude. Kimmerer writes “in the old times, when people’s lives were so directly tied to the land, it was easy to know the world as gift.” But in today’s world, “even in a market economy” she asks, “can we behave ‘as if’ the living world were a gift?” She points to making choices with what we buy, such as not participating in the commodification of water. “We can choose. If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.”

If how we live on this earth is guided by reverence and gratitude, we will all flourish. It will serve us to remember that we are not separate from the earth. Instead, we are creatures of the earth, members of the web of life and humble recipients of it’s generosity. Can we take the time to observe the wisdom of living creatures around us? Can we live in a mutually beneficial way with these creatures? How can we show the earth our gratitude? Native people have ceremonies to honor the land, what would you do if you created your own?

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