Accepting a plant’s gift can itself stimulate that plant’s renewal

Evidence

Perhaps it is no coincidence that it is Sweetgrass that reveals this story. Wiingaashk was the first to be planted by Skywoman on the back of Turtle Island. The grass gives its fragrant self to us and we receive it with gratitude. In return, through the very act of accepting the gift, the pickers open some space, let the light come in, and with a gentle tug bestir the dormant buds that make new grass. Reciprocity is a matter of keeping the gift in motion through self-perpetuating cycles of giving and receiving. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 583

Categorization

• XREF: Directly echoes the gift-economy chapters (6-7) and the opening Skywoman story, closing the book’s narrative arc. — connects to: Individual plant preferences are transmitted across generations through family memory — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 262; Respect for a plant can be enacted through sustainable harvest itself — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 582; Giving something away can make it grow rather than diminish — , A Year of World Stories, 11790 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Gives the crispest definition of reciprocity in the book: keeping a gift in motion through self-perpetuating giving-and-receiving cycles.

Broader Connections

• Sweetgrass renewal after harvest signals the plant’s mutual need for people #exemplifies (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 585
• Giving something away can make it grow rather than diminish #expands (0.80) — , A Year of World Stories, 11790