KatieV's Book Journey

”Eating with the seasons is a way of honoring abundance. By going to meet it when and where it arrives. A world of produce houses and grocery stores enables the practice of having what you want and when you want it”

My mom once said to me, "I only eat food that comes from the store, not from the ground." When the shock subsided and I could finally form words again, I asked, genuinely curious, where she thought the food from the store came from. She told me that she knows it comes from the ground but she doesn't have to see it so it's different. Different in the same way that people couldn't fathom killing a cow but would happily eat a burger. (I'm not judging, nor am I absolved of the hypocrisy - I eat fish). But the point is we are so far removed from reality that we could never even fathom not having our favorite foods available every single day of the year. And yet there is still such a terrible scarcity mindset. "If I don't buy it now, if I don't have it now, I may never get the opportunity to again!" This way of life carries over into every aspect of our lives and creates an atmosphere of constantly living for the future rather than living for what we currently have.

As I was reading this book, I was thinking of all the examples of gift economies that already exist in the community I live in, as well as some I wish existed. Since many of us are participating in a readalong for this book, let’s lean into the spirit of reciprocity and gifts and gain some inspiration from one another!

1. What examples of a gift economy already exist in your community?
2. What would you like to see created that you think your community could benefit from?

I’ll kick off:

1. In my community we have: Free Seed Libraries (native and edible plant seeds), Buy Nothing Groups, free fridges and pantries, period pantries, Little Free Libraries (books), and a local coffee shop has a used art supplies exchange

2. I did a lot of home repair and rebuilding in New Orleans after Katrina, and right where the levee broke and a lot of homes were devastated, people started a library of tools. All the groups and individuals working on rebuilding could borrow and/or lend hammers, lawn mowers, stump grinders, saws, jack hammers, etc. I’ve thought of this example so often because tools - which we’re not necessarily using all the time - can be really expensive to buy and even to rent, so how cool would it be to have a Tool Library in our communites?

I can’t help but lament that the people who will gravitate to this book are those who are already community/sustainability minded. The people who I want most to read this never would, or wouldn’t be sensitive enough to absorb the lessons. When I hear a passage that particularly tugs at the heartstrings, I’m like “someone call Zuck! Call Bezos!”

(bernie sanders voice) i am once again complaining about survivalist culture and shows like "Alone"

i know this is lightly offtopic, but this reminds me sooo much of the thoughts i always have when i watch these shows. it's like a microcosm of capitalist/imperialist co-option of indigenous ideals and practice while simultaneously devaluing indigenous ideals and practices. the survivalists are clearly informed by indigenous wisdom, with some of them fully appropriating indigenous teaching, but many are too limited by the framework of their own individualism to really practice the type of reciprocity and mutuality Kimmerer talks about

i see often people talk about indigenous wisdom in these environments, things they learned about "living off the land", even attempting to be grateful; yet they will inevitably do something that goes against the practice (and usually, ends up in their loss)

there's also a bit of sad irony in the fact of a show like "Alone" specifically. indigenous culture thrives on the idea of community, connection, caring for each other, everyone providing what they can for the greater good. yet Alone strips all of that away, and these survivalists are expected to survive with nobody, no connection, no assistance - and this individualism results in doing things that would be unheard of had they had a community (or at least a partner, damn) to survive alongside

killing animals that provide really no sustenance out of desperation, or killing huge animals that require intense amounts of work for storing/drying because it's way too much for one person, hoarding forageables even when it's counterintuitive, it's all a symptom of the scarcity mindset Kimmerer is trying to combat here

not only that, but the achievement is in who is able to do this the best. who is able to prove that they need nobody but themselves? all for a cash prize to top it all off 🫠 it's a one-for-one, super niche example of the extractive nature of capitalism & colonialism while appropriating indigenous land & wisdom

"A hunter had brought home a sizeable kill, far too much to be eaten by his family. The researcher asked how he would dry and store the excess. Smoking and drying technologies were well-known, storing was possible. The hunter was puzzled by the question. Store the meat? Why would he do that? Instead, he sent out an invitation to a feast, and soon the neighboring families were gathering around his fire, until every last morsel was consumed. This seemed like maladaptive behavior to the anthropologist, who asked again, given the uncertainty of meat in the forest, why didn't the hunter store the meat for himself, which is what the economic system of his home culture would predict. 'Store my meat? I store my meat in the belly of my brother,' replied the hunter."

”When systems of governance and market economies of debt are disrupted, networks of mutual aid arise”

Perhaps we should make more of an effort to help each other BEFORE times of crisis arise. Share more openly with each other. If your neighbor gives you extra veggies from their garden, make an extra loaf of bread next week to give back to them. Or better yet, just make them that loaf of bread for the hell of it. Just to be kind. Give more than you receive always and maybe we can avoid so many full on crises.

the focus on gift economies, abundance, enoughness, etc. is reminding me of the beloved political science / philosophy / economics (& i am sure many other fields) concept: the tragedy of the commons. the tragedy of the commons proposes that a shared resource (ie a field of grass for grazing) will eventually become a destroyed resource because of self-interest (ie each farmer will allow his sheep more time than allowed on the shared grass so his sheep get to eat more & thus the grass gets eaten up too quickly & the land becomes bare).

if we shift instead to the idea that the shared ‘resource’ is a gift from earth, an additional layer of responsibility applies to the farmers - to only use the land ‘enough’, to only take what we need, potentially preserving the land. applying the gift economy model would also alleviate this issue - the farmer’s herds would likely be shared over their entire community(s), so there would be no need to fight over the land. everyone would get fed & use the grazing area as the sheep needed, but without fear that the other farmers are secretly over-grazing their herds.

the tragedy of the commons = a model created by the colonial ‘abundance = hoarding/owning more than others’ idea

"Most of us are enmeshed in the market economy, which by definition is a monetary system in which the production and distribution of goods is regulated by the “market forces” of supply and demand. Exchanges are voluntary and entrepreneurs are free to pursue profits. The market economy is based on private property and competition in navigating the gap between supply and demand—i.e., scarcity."

My brain is not comprehending for some reason😭 can someone explain this to me?🥺

”…as though evolution were suggesting if there’s not enough of what you want then want something else.”

In our scarcity based society, this is so hard to wrap your head around. We constantly hear about things that we eat or use going extinct because we are overusing them but no one is willing to slow down their consumption. If it’s going away soon, we send that consumption into overdrive. We’ve gotta stop.

"Already the land is too quiet. What if our metrics for well-being included birdsong, the crescendo of Crickets on a summer evening, and neighbours calling to each other across the road?"

I love the thought of slowing life down and being more connected to the rhythms of nature. For some reason it also makes me feel deeply nostalgic, like remembering a version of the world that once felt simpler, softer.

It must be fate that I start reading this at the same time as David Graeber’s “Debt: A 5000 Year History”. Graeber’s book is concerned with how the historical association of the word “debt” with concepts of sin and guilt have an effect on the present day. One of the ideas he explores is what Western philosophers called “Primordial Debt” wherein just being born and alive leaves one with the moral obligation to repay some higher power. This is a sharp contrast to Kimmerer’s gift economy where participants are on more equal ground. I still need to finish Graeber’s work but I wish I could have these two authors in a room together to discuss ideas