We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.Robin Wall Kimmerer, an Indigenous botanist, became a #1 New York Times bestselling author with her 2013 book "Braiding Sweetgrass," about the value of complementing our understanding of Western science with Indigenous knowledge about nature and humanity.
In her most recent book, "The Serviceberry" (Scribner), Kimmerer writes about embracing gratitude and reciprocity in our dealings with nature, and the importance of recognizing and sharing the many gifts the world gives us.Read an excerpt below, and don't miss Martha Teichner's conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer on "CBS Sunday Morning" August 23! $11 at Amazon Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.
Try Audible for free I have no claim to these berries, and yet here they are in my bucket, a gift.This pail of Juneberries represents hundreds of gift exchanges that led up to my blue-stained fingers: the Maples who gave their leaves to the soil, the countless invertebrates and microbes who exchanged nutrients and energy to build the humus in which a Serviceberry seed could take root, the Cedar Waxwing who dropped the seed, the sun, the rain, the early spring flies who pollinated the flowers, the farmer who wielded the shovel to tenderly settle the seedlings.They are all parts of the gift exchange by which everyone gets what they need.
Many Indigenous Peoples, including my Anishinaabe relatives and my Haudenosaunee neighbors, inherit what is known as "a culture of gratitude," where lifeways are organized around recognition and responsibility for earthly gifts, both ceremonial and pragmatic.Our oldest teaching stories remind us that failure to show gratitude dishonors the gift and brings serious consequences.
If you dishonor the Beavers by taking too many they will leave.If you waste the Corn, you'll go hungry.Enumeratin...