Robin Wall Kimmerer

To plant trees is an act of faith.

Ignorance makes it too easy to jump to conclusions about what we don't understand.

For grief can also be comforted by creation, by rebuilding the homeland that was taken. The fragments, like ash splints, can be rewoven into a new whole.

All powers have two sides, the power to create and the power to destroy. We must recognize them both, but invest our gifts on the side of creation.

Plants are the first restoration ecologists. They are using their gifts for healing the land, showing us the way.

This is what we field biologists live for: the chance to be outside in the vital presence of other species, who are generally way more interesting than we are. We get to sit at their feet and listen.

When a language dies, so much more than words are lost. Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. It is a prism through which to see the world.

The earth is so richly endowed that the least we can do in return is to pay attention.

A place becomes a home when it sustains you, when it feeds you in body as well as spirit.

A teacher comes, they say, when you are ready. And if you ignore its presence, it will speak to you more loudly. But you have to be quiet to hear.

The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.

In learning reciprocity, the hands can lead the heart.