When Emergence magazine asked: “Weaving sweetgrass“Author Robin Wall Kimmerer to write a story about economics was not an obvious choice.

“I think I said, ‘I don’t know anything about economics.’ I’m a botanist,” Kimmerer said. “But during a conversation, I realized that I knew a lot about the economies of nature. And thinking about how the natural world provides goods and services for all things to thrive is economics. I also realized that I was probably not the only one who did not understand the contemporary economic system.”

So she wrote the story, describing how nature gives us gifts and how we can return those gifts. Now she has expanded her essay into a small book with a big title: “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.” With stories about caring for plants, using Little Free Libraries as a guide to community service, and sharing abundance as a way to “bank” it, “Serviceberry” is sure to please readers who have done of “Braiding Sweetgrass” a success of more than 2. The phenomenon of the million copies sold.

Like “Sweetgrass,” “Serviceberry” draws inspiration from traditional Indigenous ways of caring for the land (Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation). And, like “Sweetgrass,” it uses simple language to demonstrate truths about how we all live in the world.

Take, for example, this reference to indigenous customs: “Instead of changing the land to suit them, they changed themselves. » The idea, says Kimmerer, is to use what nature gives us at all times, not to insist that you want avocado toast for breakfast even if you don’t live near an avocado tree and, even if it were, they are out of season. Just for a purely hypothetical example.

“For you, it’s the lawyers. For me, it’s raspberries. I think, “Raspberries aren’t in season but, boy, do I want them.” But then I think about the ecological costs of eating fruit out of season, simply because I want it. They are serious. The food carbon footprint is serious,” said Kimmerer, a 2022 MacArthur “genius grant” winner. “But the positive is that when raspberries are available locally, we appreciate them all the more.

As the title of her book suggests, Kimmerer is also a Saskatoon berry fanatic. But no matter what it brings you – candy corn every day in August, it’s available locally, wild rice, wildflower honey – Kimmerer says we should be grateful for these gifts.

“Consumption is fueled by the capitalist market economy that tells us we need to buy more constantly: ‘You’ll be better off if you buy these things.’ Whereas gratitude does not require consumption. It reminds you that you already have what you need. It cultivates a sense of self-importance that I think can be an antidote to these corporate messages,” Kimmerer said.