My grandmother was one of the casualties of the wihtikow, assimilated such that the government decided she was no longer 'Indian'.

When my aunt died of cancer, my last link to my own people was broken, distant cousins north and west of the Potawatomi and Ojibwe whose Algonquian-speaking ancestors also told about Muskrat and Turtle. I am always grateful when an author reads their own book, but Kimmerer is a delight to listen to, not just because as the author, she puts the inflections and emphasis in the right places, but also because I can feel her smile when she talks of berries, or her sadness at the squish of salamanders or the humility of inundated waders. Her themes of gratitude and gift, reciprocation and responsibility, also bring forth new insight, but stirs something ancient and right in the depths of my bones as if I new these teachings and stories before. Far from being an imitation New Age 'feathers and buckskin' kind of book, Kimmerer brings the gifts of science and poetry, traditional story and new experiences braided in the motif of the books name, woven with such care and skill as to be all, sometimes simultaneously. And sometimes cry, whether the tears were from joy or sadness or frustration or maybe compositions of those and other things. It was like someone finally spoke in a language I could understand, spoken with such a gentle power, I could not help but smile. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.When Kimmerer spoke the words 'This concludes Braiding Sweetgrass' I wept. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. 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).ĭrawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings-asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass-offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants is a graceful, illuminating study of the wisdom of the natural world, from a world-renowned indigenous scientistĪs a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science.

Braiding sweetgrass book