The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

your life is nurtured from the body of Mother Earth. With my fingers sticky with berry juice, I’m reminded that my life is contingent upon the lives of others, without whom, I simply would not exist. Water is life, food is life, soil is life—and they become our lives through the paired miracles of photosynthesis and respiration. All that we need to live flows through the land. It is not an empty metaphor that we call her Mother Earth. Food in our mouths is the thread that connects us in a relationship simultaneously spiritual and physical, as our bodies get fed and our spirits nourished by a sense of belonging, which is the most vital of foods. I have no claim to these berries, and yet here they are in my bucket, a gift.