A System of Change, Support and Gratitude

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The Serviceberry
An Economy of Abundance

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange.”

This holiday season, families are facing a spike in food prices not seen in forty years. While this is putting an unreasonable strain on families, many corporations are seeing surging profits. “Why … have we permitted the dominance of economic systems that commoditize everything? That create scarcity instead of abundance, that promote accumulation rather than sharing?” asks Potawatomi author and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer.

In this essay, Robin offers an alternative approach to providing for our needs. As she harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. Distinguishing a system of accountability, gratitude, and joy from one of competitive hunger, profit, and demand, she asks: how can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and ecological systems to reimagine currencies of exchange?

—This all received and conceived by Emergence Magazine this morning at 7am, EST, USA. https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/the-serviceberry/