The carbon-oxygen cycle between plants and animals embodies reciprocity

Evidence

Sugar combined with oxygen in the beautiful membranebound machinery of life called the mitochondria yields us right back where we began—carbon dioxide and water. … Respiration—the source of energy that lets us farm and dance and speak. The breath of plants gives life to animals and the breath of animals gives life to plants. My breath is your breath, your breath is mine. It’s the great poem of give and take, of reciprocity that animates the world. Isn’t that a story worth telling? Only when people understand the symbiotic relationships that sustain them can they become people of corn, capable of gratitude and reciprocity. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1263

Categorization

• SHARE: Named for no one in particular yet the respiration-line is the kind of clean swap a biology/science teacher would savor.
• XREF: connects to: Food plants and humans shape each other’s evolution toward mutual thriving — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 431; Carbon cycling offers a model sustainable economy based on reciprocity — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 608; Mutualistic reciprocity succeeds where individual competition would fail under stress — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1009

Broader Connections

• Mutualistic reciprocity succeeds where individual competition would fail under stress #corroborates (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1009