Braiding Sweetgrass

I've been waiting to read Braiding Sweetgrass for more than a year until my book club read it together, but the wait was worth it...What a book! Robin Wall Kimmerer uses her Native American traditions and her scientific knowledge of plants to offer up ways for people in the world to step back from our wasteful and destructive ways and to save our planet. And all of this, she tells us, can be done by taking one small step at a time.

Kimmerer focuses on healing through gratitude and reciprocity. I am fascinated with these concepts and I love the idea of applying them to everything we do in the world.

I have so many quotes from this book that I love.

“If we want to grow good citizens, then let us teach reciprocity. If what we aspire to is justice for all, then let it be justice for all of Creation.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (pp. 116-118). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

‘I looked around at the garden and could feel her delight in giving us these beautiful raspberries, squash, basil, potatoes, asparagus, lettuce, kale and beets, broccoli, peppers, brussels sprouts, carrots, dill, onions, leeks, spinach. It reminded me of my little girls' answer to “How much do I love you?” “Thiiiiiiiis much,” with arms stretched wide, they replied. This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.'

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 122). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

“I spend a lot of time thinking about our relationships with land, how we are given so much and what we might give back. I try to work through the equations of reciprocity and responsibility, the whys and wherefores of building sustainable relationships with ecosystems. All in my head. But suddenly there was no intellectualizing, no rationalizing, just the pure sensation of baskets full of mother love. The ultimate reciprocity, loving and being loved in return.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (pp. 122-123). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

“The old teachings recognized that Windigo nature is in each of us, so the monster was created in stories, that we might learn why we should recoil from the greedy part of ourselves. This is why Anishinaabe elders like Stewart King remind us to always acknowledge the two faces—the light and the dark side of life—in order to understand ourselves. See the dark, recognize its power, but do not feed it.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 306). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

‘We are all complicit. We've allowed the “market” to define what we value so that the redefined common good seems to depend on profligate lifestyles that enrich the sellers while impoverishing the soul and the earth.'

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 307). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

“The fear for me is far greater than just acknowledging the Windigo within. The fear for me is that the world has been turned inside out, the dark side made to seem light. Indulgent self-interest that our people once held to be monstrous is now celebrated as success. We are asked to admire what our people viewed as unforgivable.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 308). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

“For what good is knowing, unless it is coupled with caring? Science can give us knowing, but caring comes from someplace else.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 345). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

‘It has been said that people of the modern world suffer a great sadness, a “species loneliness”—estrangement from the rest of Creation.'

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 358). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

‘“You might not get to be around those other fires very often,” he says, “but there's fire you must tend to every day. The hardest one to take care of is the one right here,” he says, tapping his finger against his chest. “Your own fire, your spirit. We all carry a piece of that sacred fire within us. We have to honor it and care for it. You are the firekeeper.”'

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 364). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

“...I believe the answer is contained within our teachings of “One Bowl and One Spoon,” which holds that the gifts of the earth are all in one bowl, all to be shared from a single spoon. This is the vision of the economy of the commons, wherein resources fundamental to our well-being, like water and land and forests, are commonly held rather than commodified. Properly managed, the commons approach maintains abundance, not scarcity. These contemporary economic alternatives strongly echo the indigenous worldview in which the earth exists not as private property, but as a commons, to be tended with respect and reciprocity for the benefit of all.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 376). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

“We are all bound by a covenant of reciprocity: plant breath for animal breath, winter and summer, predator and prey, grass and fire, night and day, living and dying. Water knows this, clouds know this. Soil and rocks know they are dancing in a continuous giveaway of making, unmaking, and making again the earth.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 383). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.

“The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our responsibilities for all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It's our turn now, long overdue. Let us hold a giveaway for Mother Earth, spread our blankets out for her and pile them high with gifts of our own making. Imagine the books, the paintings, the poems, the clever machines, the compassionate acts, the transcendent ideas, the perfect tools. The fierce defense of all that has been given. Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offered up on behalf of the earth. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 384). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.