The latest from ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ writer Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us we owe nature a lot

When Emergence magazine asked “Braiding Sweetgrass” author Robin Wall Kimmererto write a story about economics, she was not an obvious choice.

“I think I said, ‘I don’t know anything about economics. I’m a botanist,” said Kimmerer. “But, in conversation, I realized I know a great deal about the economies of nature. And to think about the ways the natural world delivers goods and services for the flourishing of all things — that is economics. It also occurred to me that I probably wasn’t alone in not understanding the contemporary economic system.”

So she wrote the story, describing how nature gives us gifts and how we can return those gifts. Now, she has expanded the essay into a small book with a big title, “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.” With stories about tending plants, using Little Free Libraries as a guide for community service and sharing abundance as a way of “banking” it, “Serviceberry” is bound to appeal to the readers who made “Braiding Sweetgrass” a more-than-2-million-copies-sold phenomenon.

Like “Sweetgrass,” “Serviceberry” draws on traditional Native ways of caring for the land (Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation). And, like “Sweetgrass,” it uses plain language to demonstrate truths about the way all of us live in the world.

Take, for instance, this reference to Native ways: “Instead of changing the land to suit their convenience, they changed themselves.” The idea, Kimmerer says, is to use what nature gives us at any moment, not to insist that you want avocado toast for breakfast even though you live nowhere near an avocado tree and, even if you did, they’re out of season. Just for a purely hypothetical example.

“For you, it’s avocados. For me, it’s raspberries. I think, ‘Raspberries are not in season but, boy, do I want them.’ But then I think of the ecological costs of eating fruits out of season, just because I want them. They’re serious. The food carbon footprint is serious,” said Kimmerer, a 2022 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient. “But the positive element is that when raspberries are locally available, we appreciate them so much more.”

As the title of her book hints, Kimmerer also is a serviceberry fanatic. But, whatever does it for you — sweet corn every August day it’s locally available, wild rice, wildflower honey — Kimmerer says we need to be grateful for those gifts.

“Consumption is fueled by the capitalist market economy that tells us we need to buy more constantly: ‘You’re going to be better off if you buy these things.’ Whereas gratitude doesn’t demand consumption. It reminds you that you have what you need already. It cultivates a sense of enoughness that I think can be an antidote to those corporate messages,” said Kimmerer.

She has a little fun with those corporate messengers in “Serviceberry,” in which she uses the name of Exxon/Mobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, to damn a whole category of greedy, corporate “world wreckers.” Regardless of their actual names, she calls them “Darrens” and, no, it is not a coincidence that “Darrens” rhymes with the much-maligned “Karens.”

Kimmerer would like us to listen to the Darrens a lot less than we do.

“The economy we are embedded in is not the only one out there,” said Kimmerer, adding that an economy based on consumption may benefit a few people but endangers the larger community. It’s something Native folks have always known and that many others quietly participate in, whether it’s sharing a book with a neighbor or putting up a roadside table with a sign that says “Free squash.”

“In the long term, individuals can’t thrive unless communities are thriving, as well. So the notion is to say, ‘Are there other ways, ways that traditional people, in particular, have created?’ Ways with that same sense of security and safety and status, not by accumulating but by sharing wealth,” said Kimmerer.

It’s a simple message, very much of a piece with “Sweetgrass,” but it’s catching on. Kimmerer wasn’t the first to write a book about our relationship to nature but the success of “Sweetgrass” has spilled over to other books about appreciating and giving back, including Margaret Renkl’s “The Comfort of Crows” and local writer Mary Jo Hoffman’s work.

Kimmerer is thrilled to be part of that movement, which she believes is sparked by joy, a concept that will be central to the new book she’s working on.

Meanwhile, she hopes “Serviceberry” helps readers think about what they consume and nurture. The book offers a list of dozens of “Honorable Harvest” guidelines, but Kimmerer says one easy place to start shifting behaviors is to pay attention to what we plant.

“When we think about the environmental impact of lawn culture, for instance, we can completely reverse that by planting native plants that provide for songbirds, that enhance the soil,” said Kimmerer. “I know in Minnesota that has been a big movement, so I would want to call that out. Supporting local land trusts and nature education — those are powerful ways to give back.”

It’s her main message, that caring for the world is a win for all of us because it means “we have joy and justice on our side.”

The Serviceberry

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer, illustrated by John Burgoyne.

Publisher: Scribner, 98 pages, $20.