Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relatio… - Robin Wall Kimmerer

People have forgotten that plants were once regarded as our oldest teachers (2015)

What we contemplate here is more than ecological restoration; it is the restoration of relationship between plants and people. Scientists have made a dent in understanding how to put ecosystems back together, but our experiments focus on soil pH and hydrology — matter, to the exclusion of spirit. We might look to the Thanksgiving Address for guidance on weaving the two. We are dreaming of a time when the land might give thanks for the people.

Much of what fills our mouths is taken forcibly from the earth. That form of taking does no honor to the farmer, to the plants, or to the disappearing soil. It’s hard to recognize food that is mummified in plastic, bought and sold, as a gift anymore. Everybody knows you can't buy love. In a garden, food arises from partnership. If I don’t pick rocks and pull weeds, I'm not fulfilling my end of the bargain. I can do these things with my handy opposable thumb and capacity to use tools, to shovel manure. But I can no more create a tomato or embroider a trellis in beans than I can turn lead into gold. That is the plants' responsibility and their gift: animating the inanimate. Now there is a gift.