2023 #33: Braiding Sweet Grass (Kimmerer)

 

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her own voice on the audiobook, brings forth the lessons of sweetgrass and so much more, with compassion, erudition, and occasionally a tone that manages to embrace both anger and sadness. The main theme of the book advocates for regenerative reciprocity, a concept embodied by much of the natural world and echoed in the practices of many Indigenous peoples. Rather than Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons", Kimmerer envisions an "Economy of the Commons", wherein "resources fundamental to our well-being...are commonly held rather than commodified." She balances her narrative in order to keep the vision in arms reach, or at least parts of it that we might endeavor to create.

A botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Kimmerer braids together the teachings of plants and those of her ancestors to create a work that is reminiscent of the "poetic sensibility" of Loren Eiseley, and gives rise to the increasingly popular work of people like Peter Wohlleben. The book is packed with information about indigenous culture and plant life, in equal measure, and the main criticism I have is that it could use a stronger editorial hand in places. There are moments when a metaphor starts to wear a bit thin, losing a bit of its "oomph" through constant repetition. However, these moments (which seem to increase toward the end of the book) are minor inconveniences in the face of what Kimmerer accomplishes.

Take language, for example. Kimmerer boldly weaves in linguistics to support her main contentions. Indigenous language offers concepts that bring us nearer to a true understanding of the natural world versus science, which she calls "a language of distance" (mind you, one in which she is fluent and leverages in powerful ways). In the chapter "Learning the Grammar of Animacy" she writes of the Potawotami language (an Anishinaabe dialect), wherein a noun such as "bay" (wiikegama)-- a body of water in English--is actually a verb--more "to be a bay"-- because it is living, part of the natural world. This respect for and lack of objectification of natural elements is a key point of contention between colonialist thought and indigenous thought, and as Kimmerer shows, really creates tremendous knots in our ability to co-exist peacefully with our natural world.

'To be a bay' holds the wonder than for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise--become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall--and there are verbs for that too.

She talks about the relationship between reciprocity and restoration and this idea that reciprocity is the real requirement for sustainability of our restorative efforts. It isn't the land that is damaged, she says, but the relationship we have to it. I think that is largely true, but it is a sound byte that doesn't get as thoroughly interrogated as it might.

Whether it is her own struggles with clearing pond scum so that her daughters might swim, embracing the multitudes contained in a strawberry, or illuminating the ecological ramifications of strategic and not-strategic harvesting, Kimmerer's book (first published in 2013) provides a path forward that may not save us at this juncture, but would undoubtedly make us better citizens of the planet.



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