• Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2014). Returning the Gift Download Returning the Gift.  Minding Nature, 7(2), 18-24.

An Indigenous scientist, Kimmerer offers wisdom deeply rooted in her culture – an alternate view on ‘taking’ from the natural world for our own use.  Please see this as a compliment to our work on intrinsic valuing so far, and to the work we did in the forest.

• Bai, H., Cohen, A., & Park, S. (2020). From fear and hostility to awakening and hospitality: Learning to encounter the strange with an open heart Download From fear and hostility to awakening and hospitality: Learning to encounter the strange with an open heart. In B. Zizek & H. Piepenbring (Eds.) Formen der Aneignung des Fremden (pp. 59-70). Heidelberg, GmbH: Universitatsverlag Winter GmbH Heidelberg.

The authors invite us on a journey to look more closely at the processes where we might dismiss someone who doesn’t seem worthy of our good attention – it happens to all of us in very common situations.  And it happens in very subtle ways.  The key here is being aware of it, and to reflect on how we might take a different way.  Let’s see how the authors work this out in their own experience… (Please skip over the first 2 pages of Table of Contents in German.) 

One caveat I’d like to add here: I’m sure the authors would agree that accepting the ‘strange’ does not mean compromising personal safety.  The focus, instead, is on being aware of one’s fear response in times of judgement and prejudgement.