Braiding Sweetgrass
Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
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Average rating4.5
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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The blurb on the cover of this book, from Elizabeth Gilbert, says, “A hymn of love to the world.” Yes, yes, YES. I had first heard Wall Kimmerer talk about her perspective during an On Being podcast, and this book was just a treasure from start to finish. She has so much scientific and indigenous wisdom to share, and an exquisite way of blending the two. If I could make everyone I know read this book, I would. I tend to feel environmental despair (when I'm not actually out digging around in my garden), and this was the antidote, call to arms (or rather peace), and way forward.
A beautiful weaving together of science, poetry, life anecdotes, indigenous history, environmentalism and philosophy into a story that manages to be simultaneously light and deep. I must have cried 3 or four times. This book took me by surprise.
The most okay I've felt about being alive in years!!! Stern, comforting, ruthlessly knowledgable, and unbearably kind - the weighted blanket of books.
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