Braiding Sweetgrass
Reviews
An informative and moving book about the natural world and how to care for it. Sweetgrass, beans, corn, strawberries, and other natural wonders are covered. It's a moving piece and makes you wonder if American Indians had not been conquered into submission how the world might've been different. We all come from people that were once indigenous once is Kimmerer's reminder and it's so true. I found the subjects moving and the topics worthwhile, but rate it a little lower due to the sometimes meandering and less than to the point exposition. Admittedly I wish I had more patience for it, because it's a decent book, but it didn't fit well into what I normally like to read.
Really an excellent blend of history, botany, and philosophy. The anecdotes and descriptions really bring this book to life. I really appreciated how much passion there was for plants and the natural world. I will say that the book felt a little unstructured at time, but given what is being said, I understand why that was the case.
Lovely lessons on reciprocity
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.
Time and time again, this book continues to amaze me. I’m captivated by how Kimmerer lays bare our collective sins, holding each of us accountable for the progressive degradation of nature. Through her seamless blend of scientific insights and spiritual teachings, she calls on humanity to recognize our complicity and embrace a more harmonious way of living with the Earth. I am now aware of the oldest teachers, the trees, the teachings of Nanabozho, and the berries way of gratitude and reciprocity.
There’s no words to explain how beautiful, honest, sad and hopeful this book is. It was a very interesting perspective combining science, beliefs and nature. I’ve always felt connected to nature, but after reading this book, one of my resolutions for 2025 is not only to be more connected to nature, but also to have a reciprocity dynamic with it.
Beautiful and thought provoking prose. This book helped me rediscover a primal knowledge of the relationship we share with nature.
written w so much wisdom and compassion… if i could make everyone read this i would
Beautiful. Especially powerful to listen to while tending to plants or enjoying nature :’) the asters are so beautiful next to the goldenrod.
Long but beautiful
I’m in a Facebook group that is what they call a “safe space.” It’s intended to be free from anything offensive, and I’ve genuinely learned quite a bit about how to be a more safe person. I was unaware of the term “ableist” prior to this group and I had no idea that there was anything called a “closed religion” or a “closed culture.” In one heated discussion thread, a member of the Orthodox Jewish community left the comment: “My religion is not for your entertainment.” Those words have stuck with me for a while. The remainder of the thread was an argument amongst two member of different Native American tribes, and the aforementioned Jewish person. One woman commented that, closed religion/culture or not, education goes a lot way to clear the path towards understanding, acceptance, and thus end discrimination and hatred towards any groups. That whole conversation has been taking up space in my brain for a long time.
It’s not up to me to decide whether either of those points are correct. I think they both have value. However, I am an intensely curious human, so I struggle with the idea that closed religions or cultures should remain shrouded in mystery, but again, none of that is up to me. I do, however, sincerely appreciate the information I can find on closed religions and cultures, because I feel like I can be a better human by understanding others. Diversity is powerful, and a path to embracing diversity is forged through understanding and acceptance. When my co-admin of my online book club suggested this book for one of our selections, I jumped at the chance to read it.
I was completely impressed that this woman decided to marry her love for botanical science with the Indigenous knowledge she grew up learning and continued to learn along the way. I will never underscore the importance of education, but as a former educator, I will also never underscore the importance of knowledge learned through lifetimes of doing. The Indigenous of North America have a vastly different relationship with the land than others, with the key being the word “relationship.” The view is that it has to be symbiotic, not one-sided, and it makes far more sense to me than the idea the land is simply there for humans to take from.
Kimmerer’s book is like a series of vignettes; short stories, if you will, that illustrate how the Indigenous live with the land. I personally noticed that simply observing and appreciating the natural world can provide an abundance of insight that she was eventually able to apply to her institutional studies. Throughout this book, it is easy to see that she has a deep appreciation for all things “nature,” and I loved every part of it. I would recommend this book to anybody. There is a lot of knowledge contained within the stories in this book, and anybody with a heartbeat could benefit from reading it.
Gentle, powerful, emotive, a wonderful set of stories and experiences that share Indigenous wisdom, technologies, rituals, and the power of respect and reciprocity.
important message but I don't understand how animal welfare isn't considered...
Amazing content but too long
How Robin Wall Kimmerer marries science and Indigenous knowledge/storytelling, as well as her vivid imagery, has made me a lot more thoughtful about how I approach the natural world and the relationships I build with it. A slow read because I needed time to savor and digest it, and a must read.
LOVED THIS.
Mandatory reading.
“Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the Earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
Wow.
I haven’t come across a nonfiction work that has spoken to my soul this much since the first time I read Silent Spring. Every chapter moved me to tears.
There are definitely moments in this book where metaphors feel contrived or information gets repetitive, but these are minimal. Push through and you will be rewarded.
Multiple people recommended that I listen to the audiobook version of this, and I have to agree (even as an audiobook hater). Hearing Robin Wall Kimmerer’s voice really adds another dimension to the experience.
I feel both humbled and renewed after finishing Braiding Sweetgrass. This book reminded me of my purpose on this Earth. I really think everyone should read this, not just those working in ecology-related careers.
WOW!! This is my favorite non fiction of all time! It has my morals and values, ecology, nerdy stuff, nature, and stories all wrapped up in one gift. Also the authors voice is very soothing, highly recommend the audio book. I bought a physical copy for my bookshelf too!
My favorite book; certainly in my top 5. Incredible writing, and an absolute masterpiece.
Highly recommend the audiobook route for this one. Her writing is beautiful, the content is impactful and important, and her spoken word communicates and underscores that all the more.
Sweetly told stories but at a pace that made it hard to stay engaged. Took nearly a year to finish.
The best book I read on plant life, Native American ways, ecology, and motherhood
Such an important reading for our times. To rediscover the gifts of the earth with an indigenous point of view. Speaks directly to the heart and the spirit. In reciprocity.
Braiding Sweetgrass reads more like a novel than non-fiction. It carries a critical message describing the relationship with non-human life, but at some points, too it ends up being too repetitive.
Highlights
In a culture of gratitude, everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again. This time you give and next time you receive.
We could name this tableau Land as Teacher, Land as Healer. With plants and natural processes in sole command, the role of land as a renewable source of knowledge and ecological insight becomes apparent.
Some people equate sustainability with a diminished standard of living, but the aboriginal people of the coastal old- growth forests were among the wealthiest in the world.
A place becomes a home when it sustains you, when it feeds you in body as well as spirit.
A place becomes a home when it sustains you, when it feeds you in body as well as spirit.
Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. It is a prism through which to see the world.
Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. It is a prism through which to see the world.
It is an odd dichotomy we have set for ourselves, between loving people and loving land. We know that loving a person has agency and power— we know it can change everything. Yet we act as if loving the land is an internal affair that has no energy outside the confines of our head and heart. On the high prairie at Cascade Head another truth is revealed, the active force of love for land is made visible. Here the ritual burning of the headland cemented the people’s connection to salmon, to each other, and to the spirit world, but it also created biodiversity. The ceremonial fires converted forests to fingers of seaside prairie, islands of open habitat in a matrix of fog- dark trees. Burning created the headland meadows that are home to fire- dependent species that occur nowhere else on earth.
The rush of waterfalls and the silence of mosses have the last word.
We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings.
Many grasses undergo a physiological change known as compensatory growth in which the plant compensates for loss of foliage by quickly growing more. It seems counterintuitive, but when a herd of buffalo grazes down a sward of fresh grass, it actually grows faster in response. This helps the plant recover, but also invites the buffalo back for dinner later in the season. It’s even been discovered that there is an enzyme in the saliva of grazing buffalo that actually stimulates grass growth. To say nothing of the fertilizer produced by a passing herd. Grass gives to buffalo and buffalo give to grass. The system is well balanced, but only if the herd uses the grass respectfully. Free- range buffalo graze and move on, not returning to the same place for many months. Thus they obey the rule of not taking more than half, of not overgrazing.
Many grasses undergo a physiological change known as compensatory growth in which the plant compensates for loss of foliage by quickly growing more. It seems counterintuitive, but when a herd of buffalo grazes down a sward of fresh grass, it actually grows faster in response. This helps the plant recover, but also invites the buffalo back for dinner later in the season. It’s even been discovered that there is an enzyme in the saliva of grazing buffalo that actually stimulates grass growth. To say nothing of the fertilizer produced by a passing herd. Grass gives to buffalo and buffalo give to grass. The system is well balanced, but only if the herd uses the grass respectfully. Free- range buffalo graze and move on, not returning to the same place for many months. Thus they obey the rule of not taking more than half, of not overgrazing.
What else can you offer the earth, which has everything?
In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold.
For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.
If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.
There are some aches witch hazel can't assuage; for those, we need each other.
However alluring the thought of warmth, there is no substitute for standing in the rain to awaken every sense — senses that are muted within four walls, where my attention would be on me instead of all that is more than me. Inside looking out, I could not bear the loneliness of being dry in a wet world. Here in the rainforest, I don’t want to just be a bystander to rain, passive and protected; I want to be part of the downpour, to be soaked, along with the dark humus that squishes underfoot. I wish that I could stand like a shaggy cedar with rain seeping into my bark, that water could dissolve the barrier between us. I want to feel what the cedars feel and know what they know.
We have constructed an artifice, a Potemkin village of an ecosystem where we perpetrate the illusion that the things we consume have just fallen off the back of Santa's sleigh, not been ripped from the earth. The illusion enables us to imagine that the only choices we have are between brands.
The cultural landscape may have changed, but the conundrum has not-the need to resolve the inescapable tension between honoring life around us and taking it in order to live is part of being human.
I can muster no reflective moment for plastic. It is so far removed from the natural world. I wonder if that's a place where the disconnection began, the loss of respect, when we could no longer easily see the life within the object.
What would it be like, I wondered, to live with that heightened sensitivity to the lives given for ours? To consider the tree in the Kleenex, the algae in the toothpaste, the oaks in the floor, the grapes in the wine; to follow back the thread of life in everything and pay it respect? Once you start, it's hard to stop, and you begin to teel yourself awash in gifts.
To be heard, you must speak the language of the one you want to listen.
It is not just changes in policies that we need, but also changes to the heart. Scarcity and plenty are as much qualities of the mind and spirit as they are of the economy. Gratitude plants the seed for abundance.