What I've Been Reading: "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I read Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants on the recommendation of pretty much every sustainability blogger I follow, and I was not disappointed. This collection of essays— all loosely related to plants, but covering everything from short memoirs about Kimmerer's life as a Native American botanist to in-depth discussions of Potawatomi mythology and the value of indigenous ways of knowing— is a true treasure. She writes with grace, beauty, and a sense of wonder that is simply captivating.

With a PhD in botany and a patient history of studying Native American teachings, both from her own Potawatomi tribe and from nations across the continent, Kimmerer weaves together science and mythology, observation by microscope and by generational knowledge. 

Every essay is an invitation for the readers—and especially, I think, for white readers— to listen. Listen to the plants. Listen to the earth. Listen to the traditions, the mythology, and the indigenous wisdom of this continent that we live on. 

White people barged into North America insisting that they knew everything, and we haven't stopped since. From the European-inspired agriculture (treating everything like a bog, even the high plains) to our sensibilities about how much to harvest (we want to take everything, not let the salmon run for four days before we start fishing) to our ideas about what the Natives even believe (hint: they don't worship the sun, moon, trees, or animals), we have been clueless from the beginning. Kimmerer's writing quietly shows us what we missed by this refusal to listen, and the irreversible damage we did, and still do, by keeping our hands over our ears. Through stories and essays, through scientific explanation and myth-weaving, she invites us to sit down, close our mouths, and actually learn how we can belong to the land.

Most of all, I appreciate that she smashes the (again, extremely white-centric) notion of "untouched wilderness" vs. "human exploitation," showing that this is an unhelpful binary that we must discard. Humans are part of nature, not separate from it, and we must learn to live in nature in mutually beneficial ways: ways that have already been tested through centuries of living with the land, rather than away from it. Our presence in our habitat is not assured destruction for the wildlife, but can be a benefit; it's an invitation to learn from our elder brothers— the animals, the plants, the lichens and the mosses— how to exist.

Being "in harmony with nature" may call to mind "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas, but we must discard this sentimentality as well. Harmony with nature looks like hunting and fishing, chopping down trees and burning prairies. Europeans arrived in America and waxed eloquent about its "untamed wilderness"— when reality most of what they were looking at were landscapes heavily guided by human hands. And we never took the time to figure out how these "wildernesses" were deeply benefitting, and benefitting from, the people who worked them. This book beautifully describes many of these human partnerships in various scenarios. 

I could keep rambling for days about the themes that I love in this book— the common grace revealed in nature, the concept of the Creator who gave each living thing a gift and a responsibility to use it, the problem with the "native plants restoration" concept, the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address— but I'll let you read it for yourself. 

Please check out this book if you're interested in plants, the environment, nature, agriculture, climate change, beautifully-told stories, mythology, parenting, teaching, or just really well-written essays. You won't regret it!

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