The kith of kinship: ‘Of Kith and Kin’  an old English expression which encompasses in one sweep our friends and relations. Kith comes from a word of Germanic origin meaning 'known'. from cuð "known," past participle of cunnan "to know" (see can (v.)), from PIE root *gno- "to know." Kin is also of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root meaning 'give birth to'. Your kith are your friends or acquaintances, while your kin are all the people you are related to.” Etymonline.com

“Where kin are relations of kind, kith, is relationship based on knowledge of place - the close landscape...Kithship, then , is intimacy with the landscape in which one dwells and is entangled, a knowing of it’s waymarks, its fragrance, the habits of it’s wildings...Kithship...is an exacting intimacy, one born of nearness, stillness, study, observation, openness. Vulnerability. Kithship is hard-won visceral intimacy - blood cut of the thorn, bright stinging of the nettle. Knoweldge of the rock where the snake suns herself and the best path around it. Kithship is particular. Among the several things that the ecologist Suzanne Simard suggests we human animals can do to assist trees intheir lives and forest making is to simply go and be among them....Kithship crosses dimensions of knowing that bring us to intimate specificity: book learning, alert wandering, knowledge of species close to home and recognition of individuals within these species, knowing who lives where and why, knowing who is flourishing and who is failing. Kithship enlivens and complexifies kinship and it is essential if the fullness of kinshi’s wisdom is to be lived.”