Throughout its 384 pages, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer has crafted an ode to the wonder of nature, all that it has to teach us and what is lost through neglect/apathy. If only, we were good students.
Kimmerer is a member of the Potawatomi Nation and an environmental biology professor. This combination lends itself to her role as an intermediary between the past lessons of First Nations people and current attitudes toward the world around us.
The author’s message is delivered in an engaging, almost conversational, manner as she shares personal experience, ancestral legends and perspectives from conservationists, family members and others.
In her preface, Kimmerer writes of the beauty of sweetgrass, which is often braided to honor the earth. In place of the physical grass, she “offers in its place, a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world.” Like a tangible braid, it’s “woven from three strands: Indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinabekwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most.”
For me, this was a slow read, but not because it slogged along. Rather, it seemed important to savor and consider the points made.
Braiding Sweetgrass
Four Bookmarks
Milkweed, 2013
384 pages, plus notes, sources and acknowledgements
The Blue Page Special 