Braiding Sweetgrass
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In *Braiding Sweetgrass*, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.
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Community Reviews
This lovely book reads like part free verse and part science for the layman. Kimmerer is a Potawatomi tribe member and a science researcher focusing on ecology. In this book, she shares many stories from Algonkian tribal heritage and makes connections to ecology practice and her own deep love for the land. She spends a lot of time with the concept of Honorable Harvest and tries to apply it to the modern world, encouraging us all to consider the impacts of what we buy and discard in this disposable society of ours. This sense of gratitude may prove to be the one tool we have to push away the Windigo of greed that lurks in our hearts. In Kimmerer's words:
'Gratitude for all the earth has given us lends us courage to turn and face the Windigo that stalks us, to refuse to participate in an economy that destroys the beloved earth to line the pockets of the greedy, to demand an economy that is aligned with life, not stacked against it. It's easy to write that, harder to do. (p. 377)'
'Gratitude for all the earth has given us lends us courage to turn and face the Windigo that stalks us, to refuse to participate in an economy that destroys the beloved earth to line the pockets of the greedy, to demand an economy that is aligned with life, not stacked against it. It's easy to write that, harder to do. (p. 377)'
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The brillance of the writing to connect the knowledge of evolution of nature to the indigenous history and culture was hypnotizing. I throughly enjoyed this read and its simple beauty of descriptive storytelling. The author was truly talented in explaining the ways of the world like scene in Planet Earth.
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Beautiful book tying together science and Native spirituality in the most satisfying way. I do wish it had been edited down a little to make a stronger less repetitive message.
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