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/ Ecology
Book marked as finished reading
Braiding Sweetgrass
2013, 320 pages
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
My Notes
Overview
Braiding Sweetgrass is the life narrative of the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist, indigenous poet, and mother. In this wonderful book Kimmerer weaves (braids) her life story, botany, and indigenous history in a wonderful life narrative. It is truly one of the most beautiful, insightful, and moving book I have read in a long time.
Key Takeaways
Humanity, beauty, and biology are integrally connected in deeply meaningful ways. A couple of lovely quotes from the book: "We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back." (p 104) "We spill over into the world and the world spills over into us." (p 103)
Relevance
Anyone interested in life's deeper meaning, and understanding it through the lens of both ecology and indigenous learnings and expressed by a gifted writer and poet, will love this book.
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