Leading from within the web of life
What we do
Kinship makes us feel part of this collective “we,” and many of the social—and certainly economic—institutions in which we are embedded depend on alienation. They depend on isolation. If we are alienated from the living world, then we can commodify the heck out of it. We can extract everything and make it all into property, make it into natural resources, not the gifts of our relatives. So kinning is a very real antidote to saying that the world is just stuff and all this stuff belongs to us. Kinning with Grandmother Moon, with salamanders, with lichens on our rooftop—all of those are acts of resistance to the objectification and commodification of the world. But I want to say that it also brings us joy. It brings us joy and happiness, and that too can be understood as a radical reclaiming of who we are as humans.
- Robin Wall Kimmerer
Interdisciplinary &
cross-cultural collaboration
We bring together scientists and indigenous leaders, build relationships across very different fields and contexts, weave links between Global North and Global South, and seek to involve and learn from diverse cultural perspectives and ways of knowing.
Tools & resources
Our learning will feed into the creation of a benchmarking tool for leaders and a methodological handbook,
to be published in 2024.
Movement building
Behind everything we do is the aim to grow a global movement for kincentric practice. We want to bring to the fore these new/ancient principles and see them become founding principles of a new era of planetary regeneration.
If you want to root your community or organisation more deeply in kincentric principles, we can guide you and walk with you on that journey.
Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them. Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life. Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer. Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need. Take only that which is given. Never take more than half. Leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share. Give thanks for what you have been given. Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken. Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass