A Collection of Quotes
(by author Robin Hall Kimmerer)
with photos from my life
We do indeed stand at the crossroads. Scientific evidence tells us we are close to the tipping point of climate change, the end of fossil fuels, the beginning of resource depletion. Ecologists estimate that we would need seven planets to sustain the life in ways we have created. And yet those life ways, lacking balance, justice, and peace, have not brought us contentment.
Whether or not we want to admit it, we have a choice ahead, a crossroads.
Science lets us see the dance of the chromosomes, the leaves of moss, and the farthest galaxy.
Trying to understand the life of another being or another system so unlike our own is for many scientists, a deeply humbling spiritual pursuit.
Xeriscape plants in a demonstration garden
But while scientists are among those who are privy to these other intelligences, many seem to believe that the intelligence they access is only their own.
They lack the fundamental ingredient: humility.
They lack the fundamental ingredient: humility.
I dream of a world guided by a lens of stories rooted in the revelation of science and framed with an indigenous worldview—stories in which matter and spirit are both given voice.
We may not have wings or leaves, but we humans do have words. Language is our gift and our responsibility. I’ve come to think of writing as an act of reciprocity with the living land. Words to remember old stories, words to tell new ones, stories that bring science and spirit back together to nurture our becoming people made of corn (people with humility).
My daughter Avril who recommended "Braiding"
On a day like this, when the fiddleheads are unfurling and the air is petal soft, I am awash with longing. I know that “thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s chloroplasts” is good advice and yet I must confess to full-blown chlorophyll envy.
Sometimes I wish I could photsynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow’s edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.
Photosynthesis, in other words, in which air, light, and water are combined out of nothingness into sweet morsels of sugar—the stuff of redwoods and daffodils and corn.
Straw spun to gold, water turned to wine, photosynthesis is the link between the inorganic realm and the living world, making the inanimate live. At the same time it gives us oxygen. Plants give us food and breath.
Respiration
—the source of energy that lets us farm and dance and speak. The breath of plants gives life to animals and the breath of animals gives life to plants. My breath is your breath, your breath is mine. It’s the great poem of give and take, of reciprocity that animates the world. Isn’t that a story worth telling?
—the source of energy that lets us farm and dance and speak. The breath of plants gives life to animals and the breath of animals gives life to plants. My breath is your breath, your breath is mine. It’s the great poem of give and take, of reciprocity that animates the world. Isn’t that a story worth telling?
But this generosity is beyond my realm, as I am a mere heterotroph, a feeder on the carbon transmuted by others. In order to live, I must consume. That’s the way the world works, the exchange of a life for a life, the endless cycling between my body and the body of the world.
Robin Hall Kimmerer
And yet, while creating an alternative to destructive economic structures is imperative, it is not enough. It is not just changes in policies that we need, but also changes to the heart.
Scarcity and plenty are as much qualities of the mind and spirit as they are of the economy. Gratitude plants the seed for abundance.
We can reclaim our membership in the cultures of gratitude that formed our old relationships The practice of gratitude ..celebrates cultures of regenerative reciprocity, where wealth is understood to be having enough to share and riches are counted in mutually beneficial relationships. Besides, it makes us happy.
David with daughter Jjanet
I’ve heard it said that sometimes, in return for the gifts of the earth, gratitude is enough. It is our uniquely human gift to express thanks, because we have the awareness and the collective memory to remember that the world could well be otherwise,
less generous than it is.
less generous than it is.
It is a wonder that the world is not in a much worse state than it is. Did you ever stop to think about that? It is really a wonder that the world is not in a worse state than it is—only by the grace of God and the fact that there are patterns of response in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. If the animal and vegetable kingdom patterns of response had ever been completely disrupted, man would not have been able to remain. How is that for an indictment?*
Uranda, June 12, 1953 *
I think we are called to go beyond cultures of gratitude, to once again become cultures of reciprocity.
Our Garden
People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, “Plant a garden.” Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say “I love you” out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land will reciprocate, in beans.
A neighbour's garden at the Fosters' Ruth Lake property
The Honourable Harvest asks us to give back, in reciprocity, for what we have been given. One of our responsibilities as human people is to find ways to enter into reciprocity with the more-than-human world. We can do it through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of reverence.
Squirrels have claimed these places as their feeding stations and we have forgiven their dining habits and contribute the odd nut and seed to their meals
Where the well-being of one is linked to the wellbeing of all.
Avril and me
Jjanet and mother Charmaine Barnes
In a culture of gratitude, everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again. This time you give and next time you receive. Both the honour of giving and the humility of receiving are necessary halves of the equation.
David's home project
We are all bound by a covenant of reciprocity: plant breath for animal breath, winter and summer, predator and prey, grass and fire, night and day, living and dying. Water knows this, clouds know this. Soil and rocks know they are dancing in a continuous giveaway of making, unmaking, and making again the earth.
Okanagan Lake at Peachland
More than anything, I want to hear a great song of thanks rise on the wind. I think that song might save us.
All quotes with the exception of one by Uranda*
are from Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Hall Kimmerer
