Review of “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” by Robin Wall Kimmerer
This beautiful little book gives you plenty to think about. The illustrations complement the text perfectly and help convey it’s sweet message. I expected it to be a bit longer, but it’s the expansion of an essay/article done previously.
I love the author’s insights based on her Native American heritage. There is so much wisdom there. The core message of the analogy to the serviceberry is reflected in the subtitle, “Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.” Everything we have and need comes from the Earth as a gift. We should take only what we need. Greed and hoarding are not how nature operates. When do we attain the feeling of “enoughness?”
It’s message is also nicely expressed in Chief Seattle’s quote, “Take only memories, leave only footprints” from a speech he gave on honoring the environment.
Sharing builds friends and community. Giving back benefits both the donor and the recipient. She states, “Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as the pass form hand to hand, a truly renewable resource.”
She tells the story of a little wooden “Free Farm Stand” that was placed by the road where excess produce was left for people to take. The irony was that when winter approached and the stand was shut down, someone took the sign literally and actually took the stand itself! Fortunately, a young man in the area was working on his Eagle Scout Award and planned to build a new one as his project.
Many years ago I lived in a community that dated back to the 1800s where everyone knew each other. Probably more than half of them were related, progeny of the town’s founders. Our children played together, we shared our talents and our harvests. We bartered, eggs for fresh milk and various other exchanges.
This is fairly easy to do in a small community. She mentions potlatches, which I was not familiar with, so I looked it up. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “A ceremonial feast among Indian tribes on the northwest Pacific coast to which the host distributes gifts requiring reciprocation.”
I have seen that on a smaller scale, where you would take a treat or dinner to someone and tell them to pay it forward to someone else as opposed to paying it back to the giver. To think this was a inherent part of Indigenous culture is thought provoking at the least.
These practices are more easily accomplished in small neighborhoods where everyone knows each other. It brings to mind something I read in Nancy Red Star’s book, “Star Ancestors,” about a great migration that occurred thousands of years ago. The people were advised not to stop and build cities, but of course some of them did.
If you look at cities today you can see the wisdom of that advice. In cities people lose touch with one another. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, clear back in the 18th Century, argued that humans were happier and more virtuous in a “state of nature.” Cities, civilization, and fancy social structures just made people fake, greedy, and miserable. He saw city life as the root of inequality and moral decay. He believed living close to nature, simple living, and smaller, self-sufficient communities — not the crowded, artificial world of cities, was the way to live. Centuries later, Henry David Thoreau echoed the same sentiment in Walden Pond.
Going deeper into that subject opens Pandora’s Box, so I’ll leave that for another day.
Indigenous cultures had a beautiful concept of community and taking care of one other. Small communities often operate in a similar manner. Each of us could start with our families by instilling the concept of giving, reciprocity, and gratitude, then expanding it to friends, neighbors, and relatives.
After all, it’s the family where such beliefs should begin.
You can get your copy on Amazon here.
The Curse of Dead Horse Canyon 