I’ve been having moments of synchronicity lately. According to Jung, moments of synchronicity are meaningful coincidences that signify an opportunity to cultivate a deeper connection between the mind and the universe. They often occur in times of crisis and are opportunities for growth.
Most of my moments of synchronicity involve people with whom I am having similar epiphanies. We are going through similar crises, and we are using our self-awareness, our talents, and our minds to find out how to make the life that we want happen.
For example, I was going to write a post on gift-giving the other night, but a book that I’ve had on hold, The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, became available. I saw that the book was only 2 hours long, and I’m behind on listening to 4 books a month, so I thought I’d knock it out to try to get back on track. I wasn’t sure what it was about, but I loved Braiding Sweetgrass, and she was featured in one of my meditations when they were focusing on gratitude that week. So I was confident I would like it.
Talk about synchronicity! In the book, the author differentiates between gift economies, which are based on the philosophy of abundance and promote gratitude, reciprocity, and community. Which is exactly what I was going to write a blog post about. She compares gift economies to economies that are based on scarcity, which result in competition, hoarding of resources, and surrendering our values so that we actually harm what we love.
A good example of this would be toilet paper at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Even though people had no idea about anything related to COVID, they figured they better go out and buy all the toilet paper that is available in their local grocery store. And maybe some other grocery stores nearby.
And even after people found out that COVID does not cause GI difficulties that result in a need for extra toilet paper, thereby making it unnecessary to hoard toilet paper, it was still hard to buy toilet paper for months. Because the attitude was, screw all of you! I’ve got my toilet paper so I’m going to be OK if I have COVID because I beat you to the punch!
By the way, the CDC advised against going to the grocery store and buying all the things in a state of panic. But what do they know? It’s a dog eat dog world out there!
In contrast, when Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina in the fall of 2024 so badly that it wiped out all the roads and no emergency personnel could reach rural communities, these communities shared what little resources they had with one another until they could get help. Gift economy.
Kimmerer, who is Potawatomi, gives an example in which someone says something to a man in their tribe like, why don’t you make preserves out of the berries so you can have some for later? In reply, the Native American gentleman says something like, I store the berries in the belly of my brother. Because what good does it do me to have more berries than I need if my brother is hungry? The non-Native American thought Native Americans weren’t very smart and that they probably aren’t going to survive. (Which is true historically because of the Trail of Tears.)
Kimmerer also gives an example of how in an economy of scarcity, we take something like water, which is freely given by Mother Earth, and turn it into something scarce by polluting it. For example, some companies dump their waste into water reserves so that it is no longer safe to drink. So now the only way to have water that is safe to drink is to buy bottled water. Except everyone can’t afford to buy bottled water. Or food, for that matter.
In fact, when there are natural disasters like hurricanes, people go out and buy all the bottled water in every store they can get to and hoard it, just like they do with toilet paper, now that I think about it.
If you’e interested in reading this book yourself, Kimmerer is donating all presales of the book to organizations that protect and restore land.
Leave a Comment