Readuction:

feels:

Kimmerer weaves together traditional wisdom and science as deftly as the Sweetgrass braids for which the book is named. Many humans tend to think we have it all figured out but Kimmerer reminds us that the plants have been here a lot longer than us and that there is a lot we can learn from them.

I grew up with an appreciation of nature from sunny days spent tending my mother’s garden, mowing our expansive lawn, and watching the world go by with my grandparents. As I child, I would camp in the backyard in a circle of sunflower stalks; I snuck out at night as a teenager to lay in the grass and take in the beauty of the stars. My mother would talk to all the animals, tell me their names, and what they liked. I was never more impressed than when she turned the soil to reveal the moist black earth wriggling with worms and she’d tell me confidently, “That’s Joe, that’s Bob, that’s Horaldo…” pointing to each worm in turn. Only as an adult with my own garden and yard to care for do I appreciate how much love she poured into it year after year — not only providing food for our family, but cultivating beauty in her flowerbeds, and habitats for the robins, bluejays, squirrels, and any other creatures that graced our yard. Because of all this I’ve felt a kinship to the land, connected it to it in a way where I felt dwarfed by the power of our planet. Mother earth is formidable; but she will take care of you the best she can if you take care of her.

I also have the deep respect for the practices of science because we know there is so much we don’t know and we seek to find out more. Indigenous people know this land in a way that most settlers never thought you could know. How could they? Growing up in an industrialized land with comforting commodities, they brought their capitalist gazes unto the abundant land and did what conquerors have been doing with gorgeous fertile women for millennia.But caring for the land and all of its creatures, helps everyone flourish.

Kimmerer turns her love for the land, and her gifts into passionate action. She works to teach people about the gifts all around us by writing books like this, children’s books, and I’m sure many small acts in her day-to-day life. She encourages people to raise a garden, raise a ruckus, or both with her Plant Baby Plant initiative that helps people get started with more sustainable, mindful practices, and to get involved in environmental activism to make our world a better, more caring place.

We can sometimes feel trapped in our current societal structure, but we created the structure and we can change it just as easily. We humans have short memories. Yet, we have an incredible gift to create. I hope that with more messages like Kimmerer’s, we can help create an atmosphere of gratitude and respect for the world we live in.

exceptional excerpts: