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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
E-book487 pagine9 ore

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

Di Robin Wall Kimmerer

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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 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).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as 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. In 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 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 will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Nota del redattore

Building bridges…

“Braiding Sweetgrass” has been a mainstay on the New York Times bestseller list since its release, so we’re not surprised this one’s a community favorite. Author Kimmerer has built several bridges with this book — between modern science and Potawatomi traditions, and between humankind and the natural world.

LinguaEnglish
EditoreMilkweed Editions
Data di uscita16 set 2013
ISBN9781571318718
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Autore

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her first book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. Her writings have appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

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  • 5/5
    Braiding Sweetgrass is by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who also wrote Gathering Moss, which I have not yet managed to acquire and read, though I love mosses and would love to have a moss garden. A friend told me that Robin Wall Kimmerer is being considered a modern-day Emerson. I can see why.Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientifc Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants is organized into five sections: planting, tending, picking, braiding, and burning sweetgrass, each representing a different aspect of the ritual relationship with this culturally significant species. The book opens with the creation story of Skywoman and exlains the traditional meaning of sweetgrass for many indigenous Americans (Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potowotami Nation). This essay is followed by many others, each illuminating the inter-relationship among ecology, traditional practices, cultural teachings, American history, and personal and family experiences. Kimmerer is an ecology professor and compares and connects her Western scientific training with her traditional ecological knowledge. This book is also a call for societal transformation to undo the damage to community (in every sense of the word) from unchecked capitalism and technological "progress" at great human and ecological cost.The writing was very personal and personable, both accessible and engaging. And after finishing it, I had an epiphany. I live in the land where Aldo Leopold is revered, and his A Sand County Almanac introducing his land ethic is celebrated. Of course, it is exactly the same philosophy that is central to many indigenous cultures as exemplified in this book, but of course once it's been repackaged and introduced as an original concept by a white man, well then, whole different story. I guess that makes Aldo Leopold the Elvis of environmental writing. My understanding is that similarly, the founding of the democracy of the United States of America was cribbed pretty heavily from the model of the Haudenosee Confederacy, but somehow we don't acknowledge the Native American source for the great American political experiment.This book doesn't dwell on any of that. Instead it introduces us to many key species in American ecosystems, including pecans, strawberries, asters, goldenrods, maples, witch hazel, water lilies, black ash, lichens, and of course sweetgrass, plus key species of Indian agriculture, especially the famous three sisters of corn, beans, and squash. Each essay shares something ecological and then uses it as a metaphor to explore social, historical, cultural, economic aspects of life. The book also shares various aspects of indigenous ethics.I think what struck me most was comparing the Skywoman creation myth to the Garden of Eden creation myth. "Can they, can we all, understand the Skywoman story not as an artifact from the past but as instructions for the future? Can a nation of immigrants once again follow her example to become native, to make a home?" versus "Look at the legacy of poor Eve's exile from Eden: the land shows the bruises of an abusive relationship. It's not just the land that is broken, but more importantly, our relationship to land." That's really something to think about--how our stories both show and shape our perceptions and values and priorities. This book has a lot to teach us.
  • 5/5
    This book describes a worldview that brings our major societal issues into focus and describes an ethic that shows interrelationships and could heal them all.
  • 5/5
    My favorite plant author, Robin writes warmly and personally about her relationship with plants and the world around her. She stimulates us to question our cultural bias of distancing ourselves from the natural world and suggests that acting with reciprocity, sharing our gifts in exchange for the gifts nature gives us, will enhance the survival of all species (including humans).A few of her chapters get a bit more preachy, on issues that are currently overwhelming our environment, but on the whole this book speaks on a family level: Robin writes of cleaning up a pond in her attempt to be a good mother and provide a swimming area for her daughters; she writes of gardening, of listening to grade schoolers say a Thanksgiving in their native language, of boiling maple sap, of teaching college students to consider how they would feel if the earth loved them back. She shares some traditional Native American practices but cautions us to all find our own ceremonies that upwell from our own situations.The title honors a plant which embodies the different approaches to knowledge which she takes as a scientist and a Potawatomi.
  • 5/5
    Heartbreaking to think of the things that are gone from this earth and terrifying to know we are on the brink of losing so much more. In the end the author gives a ray of hope. From the author - "Weep! Weep! calls a toad