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A review by astrangewind
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Braiding Sweetgrass is required reading. Not just for naturalists, but for everyone on this planet.
Kimmerer weaves together stories and science effortlessly, leading the reader from her first foray into botanical sciences all the way through the current climate crisis. Even so, the book's message is ultimately one of hope and healing, of restoring our individual and collective relationships to the land.
So much of this book reaches deep inside of me and pulls at my emotions. Longing for a childhood spent stooped in the strawberry patch, eating the fruit in spring; the need to give gifts and connect with others; pain for the pollution of Lake Onondaga and the blatant disregard for the earth; hope for restoration; the urge to restore, to dig my fingers deep into the dry, cracked soil and turning it to rich, black humus.
There are many writers who aim to write about spirituality and nature, but these writers tend to place humans at the helm of life on earth, and plants as objects to be used, a mishmash of American colonialism and haphazard tenets cherry-picked from (usually) Hinduism. But Kimmerer shows us instead the Indigenous perspective: that there is personhood in all things, that we must engage in reciprocity with the land, that we have a moral duty to repair what has been broken. She urges the reader: don't despair - feel your hands itching to dig, to seed, to carry a salamander safely across the road in the palms of your hands.
Kimmerer is a scientist, but she casts aside the scientific worldview we tend to have in America, that everything needs rigorous testing, that there's no place for the spiritual, or for love. But I think any botanist or nature scientist or even anyone who has tasted a fresh wild strawberry can tell you that love is not only necessary but unavoidable.
Kimmerer weaves together stories and science effortlessly, leading the reader from her first foray into botanical sciences all the way through the current climate crisis. Even so, the book's message is ultimately one of hope and healing, of restoring our individual and collective relationships to the land.
So much of this book reaches deep inside of me and pulls at my emotions. Longing for a childhood spent stooped in the strawberry patch, eating the fruit in spring; the need to give gifts and connect with others; pain for the pollution of Lake Onondaga and the blatant disregard for the earth; hope for restoration; the urge to restore, to dig my fingers deep into the dry, cracked soil and turning it to rich, black humus.
There are many writers who aim to write about spirituality and nature, but these writers tend to place humans at the helm of life on earth, and plants as objects to be used, a mishmash of American colonialism and haphazard tenets cherry-picked from (usually) Hinduism. But Kimmerer shows us instead the Indigenous perspective: that there is personhood in all things, that we must engage in reciprocity with the land, that we have a moral duty to repair what has been broken. She urges the reader: don't despair - feel your hands itching to dig, to seed, to carry a salamander safely across the road in the palms of your hands.
Kimmerer is a scientist, but she casts aside the scientific worldview we tend to have in America, that everything needs rigorous testing, that there's no place for the spiritual, or for love. But I think any botanist or nature scientist or even anyone who has tasted a fresh wild strawberry can tell you that love is not only necessary but unavoidable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Death, and War
Minor: Xenophobia