Robin Wall Kimmerer on Reciprocity
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“In learning reciprocity, the hands can lead the heart.”
“The ultimate reciprocity, loving and being loved in return.”
“Through reciprocity the gift is replenished. All of our flourishing is mutual.”
“Reciprocity is a matter of keeping the gift in motion through self-perpetuating cycles of giving and receiving.”
“Reciprocity helps resolve the moral tension of taking a life by giving in return something of value that sustains the ones who sustain us. One of our responsibilities as human people is to find ways to enter into reciprocity with the more-than-human world. We can do it through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of practical reverence.”
“Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity. Each person, human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. If an animal gives its life to feed me, I am in turn bound to support its life. If I receive a stream's gift of pure water, then I am responsible for returning a gift in kind. An integral part of a human's education is to know those duties and how to perform them.”