Robin Wall Kimmerer Quotes

The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our responsibilities for all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It’s our turn now, long overdue. Let us hold a giveaway for Mother Earth, spread our blankets out for her and pile them high with gifts of our own making. Imagine the books, the paintings, the poems, the clever machines, the compassionate acts, the transcendent ideas, the perfect tools. The fierce defense of all that has been given. Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offered up on behalf of the earth. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath.

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

The idea of reciprocity, of recognizing that we humans do have gifts that we can give in return for all that has been given to us, is I think a really generative and creative way to be a human in the world. And some of our oldest teachings are saying that what does it mean to be an educated person? It means that you know what your gift is and how to give it, on behalf of the land and of the people, just like every single species has its own gift.

I cherish a witch hazel kind of day, a scrap of color, a light in the window when winter is closing all around.

Nanabozho did not know his parentage or his origins—only that he was set down into a fully peopled world of plants and animals, winds, and water. He was an immigrant too. Before he arrived, the world was all here, in balance and harmony, each one fulfilling their purpose in the Creation. He understood, as some did not, that this was not the "," but one that was ancient before he came.

If citizenship is a matter of shared beliefs, then I believe in the democracy of species. If citizenship means an oath of loyalty to a leader, then I choose the leader of the trees. If good citizens agree to uphold the laws of the nation, then I choose natural law, the law of reciprocity, of regeneration, of mutual flourishing.

Wild things should not be for sale.

Restoration is imperative for healing the earth, but reciprocity is imperative for long-lasting, successful restoration. Like other mindful practices, ecological restoration can be viewed as an act of reciprocity in which humans exercise their caregiving responsibility for the ecosystems that sustain them. We restore the land, and the land restores us.

Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity. Each person, human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. If an animal gives its life to feed me, I am in turn bound to support its life. If I receive a stream's gift of pure water, then I am responsible for returning a gift in kind. An integral part of a human's education is to know those duties and how to perform them.

Your own fire, your spirit. We all carry a piece of that sacred fire within us. We have to honour it and care for it. You are the fire keeper.

A language teacher I know explained that grammar is just the way we chart relationships in language. Maybe it also reflects our relationships with each other.

The ultimate reciprocity, loving and being loved in return.

If we are looking for models of self-sustaining communities, we need look no further than an old-growth forest. Or the old-growth cultures they raised in symbiosis with them.

From across the water, the western shore stands out in sharp relief. Bright white bluffs gleam in the summer sun like the White Cliffs of Dover. But when you approach by water, you’ll see that the cliffs are not rock at all, but sheer walls of Solvay waste. While your boat bobs on the waves, you can see erosion gullies in the wall, the weather conspiring to mix the waste into the lake: summer sun dries out the pasty surface until it blows, and subzero winter temperatures fracture it off in plates that fall to the water. A beach beckons around the point but there are no swimmers, no docks. This bright white expanse is a flat plain of waste that slumped into the water when a retaining wall collapsed many years ago. A white pavement of settled waste extends far out from shore, barely under water. The smooth shelf is punctuated by cobble-sized rocks, ghostly beneath the water, unlike any rock you know. These are s, accretions of , that pepper the lake bottom. Oncolites—tumorous rocks.

the indigenous worldview of respect and reciprocity carries the values that we need to survive (2015)