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For me, writing is an act of reciprocity with the world; it is what I can give back in return for everything that has been given to me.

Through reciprocity the gift is replenished. All of our flourishing is mutual.

How do we show our children our love? Each in our own way by a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons.

Respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others, and there will be enough for all.

To become indigenous is to grow the circle of healing to include all of Creation.

We are all the product of our worldviews—even scientists who claim pure objectivity.

Being a citizen does mean sharing in the support of your community.

This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.

To me, an experiment is a kind of conversation with plants: I have a question for them, but since we don’t speak the same language, I can’t ask them directly and they won’t answer verbally. But plants can be eloquent in their physical responses and behaviors. Plants answer questions by the way they live, by their responses to change; you just need to learn how to ask.

Time is not a river running inexorably to the sea, but the sea itself—its tides that appear and disappear, the fog that rises to become rain in a different river. All things that were will come again.

Science and traditional knowledge may ask different questions and speak different languages, but they may converge when both truly listen to the plants.

In weaving well-being for land and people, we need to pay attention to the lessons of the three rows. Ecological well-being and the laws of nature are always the first row. Without them, there is no basket of plenty. Only if that first circle is in place can we weave the second. The second reveals material welfare, the subsistence of human needs. Economy built upon ecology. But with only two rows in place, the basket is still in jeopardy of pulling apart. It’s only when the third row comes that the first two can hold together. Here is where ecology, economics, and spirit are woven together. By using materials as if they were a gift, and returning that gift through worthy use, we find balance. I think that third row goes by many names: Respect. Reciprocity. All Our Relations. I think of it as the spirit row. Whatever the name, the three rows represent recognition that our lives depend on one another, human needs being only one row in the basket that must hold us all. In relationship, the separate splints become a whole basket, sturdy and resilient enough to carry us into the future.