Invest in “belonging” instead of “belongings”

Robin Wall Kimmerer. Photograph: Mitch Bach in The Guardian

“What if scarcity is just a cultural construct, a fiction that fences us off from gift economies?”** Robin Wall Kimmerer

My holiday shopping angst is solved! Yes, I find this season stressful with so much to plan and get done and so many perfect gifts to find.  Yet the natural world and my body is telling me to hibernate…. to rest and conserve my energy for the long winter ahead.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, one of my favorite authors and thinkers of our time, gives me permission to invest in “belonging” instead of “belongings!”  Plus, the one holiday gift item I already know I need is a book to do a book swap with the extended family.  So, I’ve decided on Kimmerer’s newest book, one that gives me and my loved ones permission to imagine a life free from this chronic drowning in too much cheap stuff, while always wanting more and better:  The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.

Following Braiding Sweetgrass, her newest book "uses the serviceberry – a wild, red-purple berry, also known as a juneberry or sugarplum – to explore the idea of the gift economy, one structured around interconnectedness and reciprocity, as an alternative to the market economy. The serviceberry shares its wealth, its berries, freely with the natural world, and these birds, insects and humans in turn ensure its survival. In this world, all flourishing is mutual.”*

Ok, I realize it’s a bit of a paradox…. Needing to buy something from Amazon that tells me to stop buying things.

But paradox aside, Kimmerer reminds us that living in abundance and recognizing what is enough, is a radical act in our dominant western society, one built on “hyperconsumption” as she calls it.  It’s a choice we have….. to invest our time, energy and resources in relationships, in building community, with the lenses of gratitude, abundance, reciprocity.  We can choose to invest in building a culture of connection and belonging, despite differences.  First we have to imagine it!

We can take inspiration from nature and especially from the plant kingdom but also from many, many traditional cultures and economies around the globe!  I could benefit this season by trying on the wisdom of the serviceberry.  Kimmerer is a botanist and ecology professor as well as a writer.  She also draws on her indigenous identity and understanding of the world to break it down:

“Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource. I accept the gift from the bush and then spread that gift with a dish of berries to my neighbor, who makes a pie to share with his friend, who feels so wealthy in food and friendship that he volunteers at the food pantry. You know how it goes. 

To name the world as gift is to feel one’s membership in the web of reciprocity. It makes you happy—and it makes you accountable.”**

It makes you happy! I’m happy already just imagining it! And I want to be accountable as well.

Here's an excerpt from Kimmerer’s radio interview with Ari Shapiro last week:

SHAPIRO: You write, recognizing enoughness is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more. What does that mean in practice to recognize enoughness?

KIMMERER: Well, you know, I think of it as a radical act because of all of the messages that we get from corporate America telling us, oh, if you buy this, you'll be more successful. You'll be happier. You just can't live without this, right? There are all these messages that tell us, consume, consume, consume. In fact, you know, we are often referred to not as citizens but as consumers.

And so this idea of putting the brakes on consumption is really important, particularly when we know that climate change is a product of hyperconsumption, right? The more we consume, the more damage that we're doing to the planet. And so if we can start to put the brakes on consumption through practices like gratitude and reciprocity, we say, you know, I already have everything that I need. I really don't need to buy that next thing. Instead, I'm going to invest in relationship. I'm going to invest in belonging rather than belongings. And, you know, I think it's good for - I know it's good for the planet, but it's also good for us.***

Doing what's good for others and for our home planet makes us happy!  And happiness is abundance we can share freely that doesn’t cost us anything.  Quite the opposite!  It's a state of being that benefits the giver just as much as the receiver.  Our bodies benefit, as well as our minds, hearts and spirits.

Happy start to the holiday season! May we live into the wisdom and the reality of abundance this season, recognizing enoughness, and reaching out for connection with each other as the most important and meaningful gift we can give.

*Article in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/16/weve-become-distrustful-of-each-other-braiding-sweetgrass-author-robin-wall-kimmerer-on-trump-rural-america-and-resistance

**Essay in Emergence Magazine: https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/the-serviceberry/

***NPR Interview with Shapiro: https://www.npr.org/2024/11/20/nx-s1-4998312/what-humanity-could-learn-from-natural-ecosystems-according-to-a-botanist