Quotes About Harmony

All flourishing is mutual

suppose that's the way we humans are, thinking too much and listening too little. Paying attention acknowledges that we have something to learn from intelligences other than our own.

The wind blows every day, every day the sun shines, every day the waves roll against the shore, and the earth is warm below us. We can understand these renewable sources of energy as given to us, since they are the sources that have powered life on the planet for as long as there has been a planet. We need not destroy the earth to make use of them.

to see you kids eating my berries." I knew the difference: In the fields behind my house, the berries belonged to themselves.

spill over into the world and the world spills over into us

not 'What can we take?' but 'What can we give to Mother Earth?' That's how it's supposed to be

Robin Wall Kimmerer

to be indigenous is to protect life on earth

the dual powers of destruction and creation that shape the world

One thing I've learned in the woods is that there is no such thing as random. Everything is steeped in meaning, colored by relationships, one thing with another.

After the gods experimented with arrogance, they gave the people of corn humility, and it takes humility to learn from other species.

This was an exercise in personal forestry. But it was also an exercise in the creation of personal art. I could have been painting a landscape or composing a cycle of songs.

In return for the privilege of breath

It is not the land that has been broken, but our relationship to it.

It's been a balanced exchange: I worked on the pond and the pond worked on me, and together we made a good home.

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

Yes, I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn their songs.

In the indigenous view, humans are viewed as somewhat lesser beings in the democracy of species

To restore sweetgrass here we'll need to loosen the hold of the colonists, opening a way for the return of the natives.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

By those (ceremonial) words we said "Here we are," and I imagined that the land heard us—murmured to itself, "Ohh, here are the ones who know how to say thank you.

biocultural or reciprocal restoration.

They succeed by matching the unique properties of their form to the physical laws of interaction between air and earth.

Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away. Hoarding the gift, we become constipated with wealth, bloated with possessions, too heavy to join the dance.