During this period of unwanted isolation, Braiding Sweetgrass has given me solace and allowed me to renew my spirit through her gift. But science is rigorous in separating the observer from the observed, and the observed from the observer.

She may not say it explicitly, but the attitude of the book is that she is a messenger of ancient Truth to the hyper-technologized masses about how to live in harmony with the earth. 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). And then, sometimes reading Robin's words I'd remember that while I'm antsy about some apocalypse, this is already the post-apocalypse for First Nations, and has been for hundreds of years. Interestingly, regarding that ritual, Kimmerer says that her father made it up in one part of the book (p 37), yet in another part alludes to it as the Potawatomi “sunrise ceremony” (p 106).The Written Review This is a gorgeous book all about nature and science - what more can a girl ask for? I feel as if I’ve been hearing about this book for more than a decade but that’s impossible because it was published by Milkweed Press in 2013. Robin Wall Kimmerer argues that science can be infused with folklore, stories, and history to enrich it and enhance it. Kimmerer combines her training in Western scientific methods and her Native American knowledge about sustainable land stewardship to describe a more joyful and ecological way of using our land in Braiding Sweetgrass. Tell us why you liked or disliked the book; using examples and comparisons is a great way to do this.

She puts forth the notion that we ought to be interacting in such a way that the land should be thankful for the people. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she takes 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. Robin Wall Kimmerer opens this book of treasures with the creation story of Star Woman, a story which embodies every element of the indigenous wisdom that is woven throughout the rest of her celebration of our kindred world. She lives in Fabius, NY where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and where she is also the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.As we struggle to imagine a future not on fire, we are gifted here with an indigenous culture of reciprocity with the land, revived and weaved together with the science of ecology. While reading this, I thought of how my mother had had asthma as a child but my grandfather, who was very familiar with traditional African medicine (which was of course seen as backwards by Western medicine) knew which plant medicine to give my mother. In a world where only six percent of mammalian biomass on the planet now comprises of wild animals, I longed for books that pressed me up against the inhuman, that connected me to an inhuman world. teaches us about thankfulness, gratitude and how often we take these wonderful things in nature for granted. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.

Kimmerer is a botanist of Potawatomi descent who wrote this book to assuage her guilt at going to college to study botany (the "wrong" way to understand plants) and at not being fluent in the Potawatomi language.Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. e. in the context of reductionist/materialist control, "the illusion of dominance and control, the separation of knowledge from responsibility"). As the perpetrators of the war zone on this road, are we not bound to heal the wounds that we inflict? In Braiding Sweetgrass, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer tackles everything from sustainable agriculture to pond scum as a reflection of her Potawatomi heritage, which carries a stewardship ‘which could not be taken by history: the knowing that we belonged to the land. In increasingly dark times, we honor the experience that more than 350,000 readers in North America have cherished about the book--gentle, simple, tactile, beautiful, even sacred--and offer an edition that will inspire readers to gift it again and again, spreading the word about scientific knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and the teachings of plants.