Thoughts on the talk by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Dr. Jennifer Grenz

Zoom talk hosted by West Vancouver Memorial Library

February 14, 2025 - 7pm Pacific time

Firstly, what an honour. These two women have gifted us with so much wisdom already, and here they are, chatting with each other about gift economies and plants as teachers and abundance. The Zoom was moderated deftly, and there were very few distractions during the actual chat, which was really nice. Shout out to the West Vancouver Memorial Library for hosting the chat and managing the technical side.

Secondly, what a fucking honour. I am still reeling, and this is on the heels of another lecture I watched yesterday by Nancy Turner. It’s no coincidence that the words of three world class authors and ethnobotanists would reach my ears in less than 48 hours.

I didn’t take notes throughout. There were moments that I felt it was more important for me to be present than to take notes, so don’t expect me to write a transcript. There were a few things that were said that totally blew my mind, so I got a little more granular with those topics.

Anyhow. Some quotes, thoughts, ideas. In a giant blob.

• “... hearing other peoples’ stories makes me feel strong.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer

• In discussing why the serviceberry was the plant chosen for Robin’s latest book, she said that she was thinking about which plant would be the best teacher when trying to learn about distribution of goods and services (paraphrased). Serviceberry was that plant teacher.

• Learning about plants vs. learning from plants and the importance of that

• “... as a society, we suffer from not loving the green world enough.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Capitalism demands the commodification of life; an amputation of our connection to the living world is a tool of capitalism.

• Reciprocity does not have to be transactional - we need to practice it though

  • One way to practice it: deep, existential gratitude. The resulting upwelling of emotion.

• We need to reclaim our attention to the natural world

  • Capitalism uses our attention as a commodity

  • Get what you need and move on vs being present and seeing what comes.

• How will we learn how to do this, or how to teach this?

  • Mistakes are necessary to learn from

  • Must keep trying to be in right relationship with the land

• Abundance can just be a function of the generosity of the land - we take what we need, everyone has abundance

  • Hoarding is the issue

• Lessons can arise from going without - affluence messes that up

• Gift economies operate best in small tight communities with lots of trust

  • This is a call for us to reinvent small communities like neighbourhoods

• "I have a deeply rural bias.” – not sure which one of them said this, but like, ME TOO!

• Worldview can become dogma - constrains imagination - imagination needed to knit a community of divided people together

• Care is devalued in a capitalistic society

  • Care is a powerful currency in a gift economy

  • Mutual accountability important here - not based on if you like someone or not - just basic respect as human beings, as living beings

• Let’s replace (some) institutions with community care and community accountability – my words, just riffing on something RWK said.

• How to teach circularity to children? Gardening - in order for the land to provide, you need to provide for the land

• Fortress conservation (recreation only, take only photos) a barrier to reclaiming our roles as change agents in the landscape (laws important as well due to people being dicks)

• Our agency is related to scale - in a smaller community where one is not anonymous, more agency in regards to right relationship with land and people

• How to find common ground with asshats: abundance of grace required; neighbours helping neighbours when their car goes in the ditch; the land as common ground

  • These are lovely ideas but difficult when marginalized individuals try to incorporate themselves into local community with folks who may be unsafe for them - would need to be very intentional about this process (my thoughts, not theirs)

• How to revitalize compassion for one another?

  • Stop being anonymous, re-localize your life

  • Another way to see it: it’s not necessarily about compassion; sometimes about accountability - we are fellow humans in this place