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

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Robin Wall Kimmerer opens this book of treasures with the creation story of Star Woman, a story which embodies every element of the indigenous wisdom that is woven throughout the rest of her celebration of our kindred world. 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. She takes us through the woods with a class, where she is not the all-knowing teacher, but rather the intermediary for the real teacher, the woods, the marsh, the earth. The descriptions of Native American myths and traditions as well as the beauty of nature are beautiful.

The very visceral idea that the thing, the being, they love so deeply actually truly loves them back explodes their (and my own) notions of existence. Global South’s censored struggles for decolonization, expanded human rights, internationalist nationalism, economic justice, global disarmament, etc. Braiding Sweetgrass explores reciprocal relationships between humans and the land, with a focus on the role of plants and botany in both Native American and Western traditions. The Appalachian Review notes that Kimmerer's writing does not fall into "preachy, new-age, practical bring-your-own-grocery-bags environmental movement writing" nor "the flowing optimism of pure nature writing. In such a culture, Everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again.

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The worst is that there's really nothing to object on the content of the book, one would have to be an asshole to be against appreciating nature and indigenous knowledge. Listening, standing witness, creates an openness to the world in which boundaries between us can dissolve in a raindrop.During this period of unwanted isolation, Braiding Sweetgrass has given me solace and allowed me to renew my spirit through her gift. In 2007, Yann Martel compiled a reading list for Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper ( http://newwestminster.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, a scientist, a decorated professor, and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Through her marriage of science and indigenous knowledge (not achieved without ongoing work), Kimmerer teaches her students and us the philosophy of the Honorable Harvest. Updated with a new introduction from Robin Wall Kimmerer, the special edition of Braiding Sweetgrass , reissued in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Milkweed Editions, celebrates the book as an object of meaning that will last the ages.She reminds readers that we are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Ultimately, though, my biggest criticism of the book is its over-reliance on spirituality as a solution to very material problems. Her writing about the importance of maintaining indigenous language and culture also elicited feelings of tenderness and sadness from me. My natural inclination was to see relationships, to seek the threads that connect the world, to join instead of divide. What is conspicuously absent from Kimmerer’s book is any meaningful references to the Indigenous experience in this country.