Scan barcode
A review by pangnaolin
Root and Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self by Becca Piastrelli
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
This book was absolutely lovely, with so many thoughtful practices for us to incorporate into our lives! I was genuinely really grateful for a lot of the ideas that Piastrelli gave me. That said, I think there were parts where it fell short.
Firstly, I definitely think it just wasn't kind the book you should try to read cover to cover. Looking back at it now, I wish I had just come back to it when I wanted to explore certain topics and skimmed for what felt right. I'm certain I'll come back and do that again sometime! I'm excited to try out the recipes especially, alongside some of her rituals I hadn't thought of.
I think some of my boredom with this book came with her style, as I wished she had called back to her own life and allowed a more memoir-like flow to it, but also from the fact that I'd already explored a lot of this and done many of the practices she suggested. While she has great ideas for each section, some were quite simple/introductory-- another reason I probably should've just picked and chosen what felt right for me. I couldn't really handle her just putting one practice after the next like a weird book-list.
Some of my apprehension also came from the fact that like... it was sort of odd to hear it all from a white woman. I loved the ideas she presented, but it was still a bit odd to see her present a lot of practices that're pretty traditional and common in North American Indigenous tribes without really specifying what was hers and what wasn't. Especially in the DNA section, I felt like she missed the mark just a little bit by not really discussing blood quantum laws and how sort of... counting DNA can be harmful when taken too far. It's one thing to explore some of your roots and connect back to ancestors, it's another thing to claim that identity-- even if it's European-- or even Indigeneity while only being 5% or whatever and having zero connection to those roots. It's a tricky subject she chose not to tackle, and I wish she had at least acknowledged it before writing an entire section of a book on reconnecting with your roots... as a white woman.
I think some of it just came off as a little tone deaf. I loved the ideas, but a lot of them felt sort of stolen and cherry picked out of their contexts, and on top of that, I was just a bit bored by how she presented everything. It has some solid ideas, so I'd say it could be worth it to look at as a sort of survey reading, but I think it's worth researching outside of what she presents and taking deeper dives with other books. For example, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer if you're interested in foraging and connection with land.
Firstly, I definitely think it just wasn't kind the book you should try to read cover to cover. Looking back at it now, I wish I had just come back to it when I wanted to explore certain topics and skimmed for what felt right. I'm certain I'll come back and do that again sometime! I'm excited to try out the recipes especially, alongside some of her rituals I hadn't thought of.
I think some of my boredom with this book came with her style, as I wished she had called back to her own life and allowed a more memoir-like flow to it, but also from the fact that I'd already explored a lot of this and done many of the practices she suggested. While she has great ideas for each section, some were quite simple/introductory-- another reason I probably should've just picked and chosen what felt right for me. I couldn't really handle her just putting one practice after the next like a weird book-list.
Some of my apprehension also came from the fact that like... it was sort of odd to hear it all from a white woman. I loved the ideas she presented, but it was still a bit odd to see her present a lot of practices that're pretty traditional and common in North American Indigenous tribes without really specifying what was hers and what wasn't. Especially in the DNA section, I felt like she missed the mark just a little bit by not really discussing blood quantum laws and how sort of... counting DNA can be harmful when taken too far. It's one thing to explore some of your roots and connect back to ancestors, it's another thing to claim that identity-- even if it's European-- or even Indigeneity while only being 5% or whatever and having zero connection to those roots. It's a tricky subject she chose not to tackle, and I wish she had at least acknowledged it before writing an entire section of a book on reconnecting with your roots... as a white woman.
I think some of it just came off as a little tone deaf. I loved the ideas, but a lot of them felt sort of stolen and cherry picked out of their contexts, and on top of that, I was just a bit bored by how she presented everything. It has some solid ideas, so I'd say it could be worth it to look at as a sort of survey reading, but I think it's worth researching outside of what she presents and taking deeper dives with other books. For example, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer if you're interested in foraging and connection with land.