Letter from the president
By Sylvia Torti
Over the past few months, I have been considering the profundity and complexity of the word reciprocity.
A quick online search in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary resulted in two definitions: “Mutual dependence, action, or influence,” and, “A mutual exchange of privileges.”
Those were both satisfying enough, even if I wondered at the deeper meaning of influence and privileges. Instead of diving into the many possible iterations and historical contexts of Merriam’s definitions, I decided to explore reciprocity through other texts.
The next definition I found online was a proverb: “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want” (Proverbs 11:24). This notion of reciprocity spoke to me in its simplicity and depth and its fundamental recognition of relationship. It said nothing of influence or privilege.
A few days later, I met with a COA faculty member and mentioned to her that I was thinking about this question. The next day I found a copy of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (Scribner, 2024) in my mailbox. That very evening, I read through that succinct and very fine book, and I found this line: “We are all bound by a covenant of reciprocity: plant breath for animal breath, winter and summer, predator and prey, grass and fire, night and day, living and dying.”
Here was reciprocity in action. A comment in passing, a book placed in a mailbox, a new world of ideas spread from one mind to another and then another.
The days got colder, well below freezing, and Kimmerer’s book sat on the table staring up at me morning and evening. On its cover is a picture of a serviceberry tree and a waxwing bird. With temperatures in the teens, I was impelled to go to our local hardware store, filled with wonderfully helpful people, and buy a bird feeder for my new home. These past days, I’ve received deep pleasure as I sit with my morning coffee and enjoy the company of chickadees, juncos, and cardinals outside.
Having circled around these many meanings and takes on reciprocity, making my own circles as I trudged through snow and ice around nearby Witch Hole Pond in Acadia National Park, I realize that being asked to write something about reciprocity was a gift, one that led me to internal and external conversations with writers and thinkers from so many perspectives, from conversations with humans and nonhumans around me. In the end, I have come to believe that reciprocity is just that—ecological relationships repeated over and over, whether in giving a gift or receiving one back. It’s a call or a meditation, a prayer or a scientific study, that helps us give daily thanks for breath and food and seasons. Thanks for repeated circles around a pond, the building of new friendships, and gratitude for those that endure and grow.
Sylvia
