One Apple A Day #1083
This essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer is one of the best pieces I read in a while. Not only what she shares is powerful, but the way she writes is also mesmerizing. I hope one day to be able to see nature and other human beings with such grace and presence.
Inspired by how the serviceberry plants offer their abundance to other living beings, she reflects on the power of gifts.
"When we speak of these not as things or products or commodities, but as gifts, the whole relationship changes."
She envisions a world based on a gift economy.
Using her words, "in a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away."
In a gift economy, value is in the relationships allowing abundance to flow more than in the things exchanged. It's not transactional; it is transformative.
In my reflections, I used to call it the Connecting Economy as an answer to the existing Collecting Economy based on accumulation.
However, in the remaining few minutes of my morning practice, I'd like to note down two thoughts that came up for me yesterday while I was wandering and thinking.
The first is acknowledging how much I am conditioned to think in a transactional way. Robin Wall Kimmerer feels that "if we acknowledged that everything we consume is the gift of Mother Earth, we would take better care of what we are given." Instead, I'm conditioned to value and take better care of the things that I've earned and paid. Too often, I overlook the gifts of Mother Earth and of other people.
The second thought is that this vision of a Gift Economy is beautiful but feels unreachable. I remember that even in nature, there are examples of accumulation to build security for the future of a being. But time is gone, and on this, I'll get back in a future apple.
P.S. the stunning pictures on the essay are from artist and illustrator Christelle Enault.