Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

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While the discursive style of Braiding Sweetgrass detracted from my enjoyment of it, I still would recommend the book to anyone interested in environmental justice and indigenous worldviews. Kimmerer draws on her own experiences as a botanist and an indigenous woman to meticulously craft this book of essays about the importance of nurturing ecological awareness and developing a relationship with the natural world. They bring home a huge deer for everyone to eat saying "I don't even know how to shoot an arrow -- this just accidentally happened. Each time I picked up this book, I sank into the world of plants and meaning, the slow vegetable world, seen jewel-bright from the underside.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert). The first time I saw the flag with the leaf of the Red Maple on the white background, I got so excited - this was a flag I could relate to, even rally around. In this time of intense grief, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s work resonates with the wisdom of the entire plant world, its past and present and future. The texts interpret the theme broadly - from the ways that humans mind and unmind plants to the mindedness or unmindedness of plants themselves.By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. There are few books that I put down at the end of chapters so that I can take them in and dream around them before going on. I think this chapter best embodies the more peaceful, hopeful tone I anticipated from this book, leaving behind, for a while, the tone that I disliked elsewhere in her writing.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Kimmerer blends her scientific background as an ethno-botanist with Potawatomi Tradition Ecological Knowledge in an astonishingly poetic book. Only when people understand the symbiotic relationships that sustain them can they become people of corn [light people who live with gratitude and humility], capable of gratitude and reciprocity. And it blends into the land, does not crowd out indigenous species, unlike Kudzu and other plants that destroy the ecosystems they invade. Beautifully bound in stamped linen cloth with a bookmark ribbon and a deckled edge, this edition features five brilliantly colored illustrations by artist Nate Christopherson. She is a realist with a unique perspective that provides more than just dos and don'ts for 'fixing' our climate crisis.