Braiding Sweetgrass
Robin Wall Kimmerer
(Milkweed Editions, 2013)
This book has grown deep roots connecting ecological, multi-cultural, scientific and poetic literature with human beings world-wide. Kimmerer voices these relations from her experience as a mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her subtitle, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, modestly states last what may be her greatest example for our kind: that her native willingness to learn from plants evolved through her desire to learn about plants as a scholar botanist, into her joyful capacity to inspire us to embrace both modes. Quotes from Braiding Sweetgrass let us glimpse a way of being that Kimmerer warmly invites us to join.
I wonder if much that ails our society stems from the fact that we have allowed ourselves to be cut off from that love of, and from, the land. It is medicine for broken land and empty hearts.
This book was published in 2013. Think about world events at that time, and then recall where we are now. In the Big Time Out for our species that a virus recently compelled, many humans found in Nature a place to be OK, even with Earth’s climate changing around us. As infection from the broken bonds within our species has boiled to the surface, demanding radical change of treatment and healing, biodiverse examples in Nature stand ready to inform our changes, and give solace as we go.
Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.
“Gift” may be the most written noun in this book. Kimmerer reveals reciprocity as the beating heart of indigenous worldview. Giving is continuous. Receiving with gratitude is valued, yes, but even that hemisphere of exchange gives back by being appreciative. Getting fades from the story when a generous spirit powers exchange and springs the trap of Having so that hazard is removed. Being Willing to step into this mode, even amidst our human pandemics of hatred and greed opens a way to grow wholeness, kindness and honor into our species, now.
Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.
As a girl, Kimmerer observed and felt from plants that the vivid hues of autumn-flowering purple asters and goldenrod were significant in their dance with clouds of pollinating butterflies. As a student working to earn her Ph.D., she confirmed in the terms of science that these complementary colors are a real force for plant and insect population health, by boosting their mutual attraction. Could right brain and left brain, co-habiting in our skulls, both be speaking true? Her story is a fun ride to find out.
This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.
This book is all about how loving relations will transform conflict in opposites into complementary partnerships: mother and daughters, humans and plants, inquiry into and inquiry with. Reading it is medicine to treat and heal our divisive views.
All powers have two sides, the power to create and the power to destroy. We must recognize them both, but invest our gifts on the side of creation.
In writing Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer gives a clear directive—like a caring mother to a child intent on messing up. She speaks for Earth as mother of all life, to the messer-up in each of us. Kindly. Reading, you’re willing to admit about what’s good for you, that Homo sapiens, our “intelligent” species, has a lot to learn.
Hear and read more from: Krista Tippett, host of the podcast “On Being”, in conversation with Kimmerer about Intelligence in All Life from Braiding Sweetgrass and her first book, Gathering Moss, which was honored with the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. Kimmerer spoke in 2012 on Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest for TEDx Sitka. Dr. Kimmerer’s work as Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment is profiled online at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.