Lexie Carroll’s Reviews > Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants > Status Update

Generosity is simultaneously a moral and a material imperative, especially among people who live close to the land and know its waves of plenty and scarcity. Where the well-being of one is linked to the well-being of all. Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away. In a culture of gratitude, everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again.

It is not just changes in policies that we need, but also changes to the heart. Scarcity and plenty are as much qualities of the mind and spirit as they are of the economy. Gratitude plants the seeds for abundance, & is a powerful antidote to Windigo psychosis. Gratitude celebrates cultures of regenerative reciprocity, where wealth is understood as having enough to share- being rich means having mutual relationships.

An abundant alternative is the Indigenous teaching of “One Bowl One Spoon” which holds that all gifts of the Earth are to be shared together. In an economy of the commons resources fundamental to our well-being, like water & land & forest, are commonly held rather than commodified. Properly managed & tended with respect & reciprocity for the benefit of all, the commons approach maintains abundance, not scarcity.

“Modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples.” (Marshall Sahlins). The storage is due not to a lack of resources but to how goods are circulated. The market system artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and consumer.

A type of fire that needs to be tended everyday is inside us: our own fire, our spirit. We all carry a piece of that sacred fire within us. We have to honor and care for it. YOU are the firekeeper.
Remember that fire has two sides, both very powerful. It can be a force of both creation and destruction. Just as on land, your own fire can be used for ill too. We humans must respect both sides of this power.

Respecting nature doesn’t (always) mean staying away from it and letting it be. Humans were given the responsibility to care for the land, which means PARTICIPATING. The natural world relies on us to do good things. You don’t show your love and care by putting what you love behind a fence. You have to be involved. You have to contribute to the well-being of the world.

What if we could fashion a restoration plan that grew from understanding multiple meanings of land? Land as responsibility. Land as sustainer. Land as teacher and healer. Land as identity. Land as grocery store and pharmacy. Land as connection to our ancestors. Land as community. Land as moral obligation. Land as sacred. Land as self.

“Native spirituality is the heart that guides the head & hands (western science & technology) of restoration. Cultural survival depends on healthy land & a healthy responsible relationship between humans & the land. Ecological restoration is inseparable from cultural & spiritual restoration, & is inseparable from the spiritual responsibilities of caregiving & world-renewal.”
-Indigenous Environmental Network 1994

How we approach restoration of land depends, of course, on what we believe that “land” means. If land is just real estate, then restoration looks very different than if land is the source of a subsistence economy and a spiritual home. Restoring land for production of natural resources is not the same as renewal of land as cultural identity. What does LAND mean: Capital? Property? Machine? No. TEACHER & HEALER.

Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it- grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes. We have to put our hands in the Earth to make ourselves whole again.
Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the Earth. Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair.