Returning The Gift
ServiceSpace
--Awakin
1 minute read
Mar 19, 2017

 

This week's Awakin reading is by Robin Wall Kimmerer titled 'Returning the Gift': In the teachings of my Potawatomi ancestors, responsibilities and gifts are understood as two sides of the same coin. The possession of a gift is coupled with a duty to use it for the benefit of all. A thrush is given the gift of song—and so has a responsibility to greet the day with music. Salmon have the gift of travel, so they accept the duty of carrying food upriver. So when we ask ourselves, what is our responsibility to the Earth, we are also asking, “What is our gift?” As human people, most recently evolved here, we lack the gifts of our companion species, of nitrogen fixation, pollination, and 3000-mile migrations under magnetic guidance. We can’t even photosynthesize. But we carry gifts of our own, which the Earth urgently needs. Among the most potent of these is gratitude. Gratitude may seem like weak tea given the desperate challenges that lie before ... [Read more

 

Posted by Awakin on Mar 19, 2017