The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance

They quickly cite access to open-source software and the existence of Wikipedia as manifestations of a gift economy, where knowledge is freely shared on digital platforms in an information commons.

The wealth and security we seem to crave could be met by sharing what we have.

when you open your awareness and give them a name, you can see gift economies all around you.

Is it any wonder that the Sun has always been revered as the source of life?

Making good relationships with the human and more-than-human world is the primary currency of well-being.

The relationships created by the gift weave myriad relations between insects and microbes and root systems. The gift is multiplied with every giving, until it returns so rich and sweet that it burbles forth as the birdsong that wakes me in the morning.

The maternal gift economy is a biological imperative.

Our oldest teaching stories remind us that failure to show gratitude dishonors the gift and brings serious consequences.

This abundance of berries feels like a pure gift from the land. I have not earned, paid for, nor labored for them. There is no mathematics of worthiness that reckons I deserve them in any way. And yet here they are—along with the sun and the air and the birds and the rain,