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'A hymn of love to the world ... 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, author of Eat, Pray, Love
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 ways of knowledge together.
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and 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 a rich braid of 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 a wider 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.
400 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 15, 2013
The Written Review
February's Reading Vlog is out today!
This is a gorgeous book all about nature and science - what more can a girl ask for?![]()
I dream of a world guided by a lens of stories rooted in the revelations of science and framed with an indigenous worldview—stories in which matter and spirit are both given voice.
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| LET THIS BOOK ----|
| BE YOUR SHIELD ---|
| AGAINST THE ------|
| ECO-FASCIST IDEA -|
| THAT THE WORLD ---|
| WOULD BE BETTER --|
| WITHOUT PEOPLE ---|
| IN IT. -----------|
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/ づ
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”