11 quotes
The ultimate reciprocity, loving and being loved in return.
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)
The presence of our reciprocal love is hard to say good-bye to.
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)
This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)
Gratitude doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction; it comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy. That's good medicine for land and people alike.
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)
How do we show our children our love? Each in our own way by a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons.
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)
I think about grief as a measure of our love, that grief compels us to do something, to love more.
Interview with The Guardian (2020)
Gratitude plants the seed for abundance.
If the Sun is the source of flow in the economy of nature, what is the "Sun" of a human gift economy, the source that constantly replenishes the flow of gifts? Maybe it is love.
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (2024)
I’ve heard it said that sometimes, in return for the gifts of the earth, gratitude is enough. It is our uniquely human gift to express thanks, because we have the awareness and the collective memory to remember that the world could well be otherwise, less generous than it is. But I think we are called to go beyond cultures of gratitude, to once again become cultures of reciprocity.
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)
As we give thanks for the Earth, will we live in such a way that the Earth can be grateful for us? (2015)
While expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness.
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)