Loading
Book Information
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Written by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrated by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Book Actions
Start ListeningDescription
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation". As she explores these themes, she circles toward a central argument: The awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return.
Book Actions
Start ListeningBook Information
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Written by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrated by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Description
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation". As she explores these themes, she circles toward a central argument: The awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return.
About the author
RK![]()
Reviews
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.
This is an excellent book, not only about plants and indigenous wisdom, but about finding reasons and hope to participate in saving our living planet.
This is a book written by a Native American restoration ecologist. Although slow-moving, it's full of beautiful stories. Very true to the subtitle, it sits at the intersection of indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge.I had to put this book down at times and come back to it later; it's not a page turner.I'm interested by the Native American legend of giants that she shares. She treats it as strictly fictional, but there are many reports that there was another race of eight- to nine-foot-tall humanoids in North American over the past twenty thousand years. It's very possibly that Native American legend might be tying back to prehistorical fact in this instance.
inspiring! so much information, I will be reading it again.
Wonderful nonfiction covering the relationship plants and humans have sustained for generations before agricultural and industrial overload. A book to return to.
such an amazing book, highly recommended! Brought me so much inspiration and gratitude. Also it is very cool that the narrator is the author herself, this makes it very pleasant to listen, because she knows the stories by heart.
This was a great book. The audio by the author was extra special and gave great feeling and insight into the indigenous people and their ways. If everyone read this book, the world would be in a better place.
Wonderful book, wonderful descriptions, clearly explained legends and fantastic readingvwith vkear diction!
I love the beautiful writing in this book! It really is a work of art.
Braiding Sweetgrass is for me the most important book I have read in decades, possibly in my life. Kimmerer's messages are giving me strength, and a sense of purpose. As an ecologist who sees the world through the lens of science but knows that science alone cannot save the Earth from ourselves, I have unknowingly been seeking the path of healing through traditional ways. The words and spirit are so beautifully conveyed in the author's narration that I have been allowing myself only small portions of its balm at a time, fearing to arrive at the end. But here I am, still suffused with the joy of validation of a way of seeing the world in all its complexity and beauty and resilience, and a smidgen of hope that all is not lost to the Windigo. I have been urging my friends, colleagues, and students to read (or listen to) this book so that more and more of us can help lead our peoples towards the green path for the future.
Exquisite. No other book has so profoundly changed the way I see the world. This review could never do it justice.
Everything! The wisest book I've read on living with grace and respect on Mother Earth. I hope she will write another. Thank you Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Beautiful writing and menu lessons of respect and reciprocity for nature and the planet
This book is one of the most exquisite things I have ever experienced. It has been a true delight to spend these hours receiving such enriching narratives that wove together Indigenous wisdom, story and scientific knowledge all brought with such feminine, earthy and heart felt poetry. I felt like Robin was speaking directly to me, feeding my soul the nourishment it needs in these times. I am moved and transformed for the better. Thank you.
This is book is full enlightening of stories,history, and beauty
Excellent work, and she reads it so well! Try the audiobook!
The narration is awful... I feel sometimes the author shouldn't narrate!
This Might be the most inspirational and insightful book yet.
There is so much to recommend this book. The science is reliable because the author is a trained botanist. Her text is poetic as she ties her scientific knowledge to the traditional, indigenous teaching of her Potawatomi family and community. She shares teachings from the culture that have been almost lost which explain so many things that scientists spend years studying in the laboratories. It is very long and took me longer to read because I wanted to hear her voice and repeat sections for the observations of nature and the relationships between strawberries, pecans, cattails, salamanders, maples and of course sweetgrass. Fascinating.
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.
I listened to this as an audiobook from NYPL. Read by author. It’s absolutely amazing. I’m still processing all the moments I really connected with what she was saying. She is an incredible writer. I really, really recommend this book.
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.
Well balanced combination of Ms. Kimmerer's knowledge of botany from her studies and nature from her American Indian background. She has a beautiful gentle writing style, but so passionate. A book I will re read many sections over again.
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 from the waters edge. And I do. If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again"
See my review of Lab Girl. This is the book you read because someone told you too and you feel obligated. I advise reading it chapter by chapter as individual essays, since that is what they are - the same content (thank your food, don't waste, respect the earth, indigenous people got screwed) repeat in every chapter, so it is actually good if you forget what was in the last chapter before you read the next.