Welcome friend! The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a slim, powerful book that uses a simple fruit to explore big ideas about economy, ecology, and community. As I read, I found echoes of these ideas in my own life—especially as a new mother navigating networks of care and reciprocity. Take a look at the synopsis and then dive in for my thoughts.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.
Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”
The Serviceberry – Review
This short book has beautiful ideas on nature and living through the act of picking and eating serviceberry. Where I live, they are called Saskatoons and it was fascinating to learn so much about them and the world through this little book.
The Maternal Gift Economy
As a nursing mom, I have experienced the maternal gift economy that Robin describes in the book. Milk is a gift to babies so that they survive. What I get in return is a bond, an attachment that the baby feels with me, long before she would be able to give it words.
Caring for Gifts vs. Buying Things
The shift to gift thinking – I loved Robin’s contrast of taking care of a handmade knitted hat one buys compared to one a loved one made us. There is a relationship with the hat, happiness to have received it and accountability to take care of it. This is lacking in monetary transactions.
The Power of Receiving Help
In the early days of motherhood, a seasoned mom’s action of dropping off some food for me was very moving. It created a relationship that I’m so grateful has grown into a friendship. In a book I read, Mothershift, I learned how we all struggle to ask for help and one way to overcome that is to offer help as we are comfortable giving. This connects in my mind to the idea of the gift economy and I love that I have experienced it.
A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I,” as all flourishing is mutual.
Robin Kimmerer in The Serviceberry, pg 33
In a gift economy, the currency in circulation is gratitude and connection rather than goods or money.
A gift economy includes a system of social and moral agreements for indirect reciprocity, rather than a direct exchange.
Robin Kimmerer in The Serviceberry, pg 34
Little Free Libraries as Gift Economies
The little free library is an example of a functioning gift economy where people exchange books, sharing what they have loved with the local community. No money. Possibly a good story. I recently added Dawn Macdonald’s debut poetry collection, Northerny, to mine and it was gone within a day!
Questioning the Need for More
I love Robin’s question: why does everything have to be expanded? Small scale and context make meaning.
Family Dinners as Cycles of Care
Through this book, I’m starting to view family dinners as part of the gift economy. seeing loved ones and continuing to nurture the love. There is no division of cost for the food. Someone else will host next time. It’s a cycle of seeing each other again.
The real human needs that such arrangements address are exactly what we long for yet cannot ever purchase: being valued for your own unique gifts, earning the regard of your neighbors for the quality of your character, not the quantity of your possessions; what you give, not what you have.
Robin Kimmerer in The Serviceberry, pg 92
This book is a poignant exploration of ideas of economy and botany, industrial and indigenous. It takes one way of thinking and applies it to another while also giving context for how we came to be in our current state and how we can all do better, taking inspiration from nature. I enjoyed reading it in audio and returned to get my thoughts in order in text.
I love this line: “all flourishing is mutual”. I knew that but I’d never said it out loud. Growth is shared and I’m excited to nourish relationships and see them nourishing me. With Ariel, for example, our mutual love for books brings us back to them together. We have read a lot together and continue to recommend books and scout some out for each other. My little free library is a small act of giving back to the community. I have talked about why I established it in this post.
The Serviceberry helped me recognize the many ways I already participate in a gift economy—and inspired me to do so more consciously. It’s a beautiful reminder that relationships, like fruit, ripen when nurtured with care and shared generously. This book showed me some ways in which I live and the way of living I want my daughter to experience. I take this moment to be grateful for my friends, family and books who have supported me in these early months with her.
Have you read it book or plan to? Did my review convince you to pick it up? Tell me in the comments! I love hearing from you. 🙂
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