HOT TIP: LITERARY EDITION

I read a book over the past months and when I (reluctantly) came to its end, I immediately turned around and started it again to read a second time, something I’ve never done before. It was that good. I’ve been thinking of where it rests on a personal top 10 list, no, top 5, no…it may be as of now my favourite read of all time. It is one of those books that I can say has shifted my world view in ways that are deep, exciting and even magical.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is an environmental biologist and professor at SUNY in upstate New York and a member of the Potowatami Nation of the Anishinaabe people. Her book is like no other – a complex mix of plant science, observations from the field, personal memoir, indigenous teachings and exploration of the wider connections between the environment and the way humans have connected with our world over time. Each chapter reveals how this natural world can only be understood in the context of inter-relationships between everything and the impact that humans have had on our environment. All is connected. She tells stories of how indigenous cultures and their ancient teachings reveal the interactions between humans and plants and brings to light what we can learn from those teachings. She recognizes that many humans do indeed love this earth but then asks the question, “does the earth love us?” Ah so.

The title comes from the indigenous practice of braiding the fragrant sweetgrass, a plant that holds a place in the culture in ceremonial and material ways, honoured as one of the four sacred plants of her people.

She describes her intentions for her book in the Preface, using the imagery of braided sweetgrass combined with metaphors of medicine and healing:

I offer…a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world. This braid is woven from three strands: indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinabekwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most. It is an intertwining of science, spirit and story – old stories and new ones that can be medicine for our broken relationship with earth, a pharmacopoeia of healing stories that allow us to imagine a different relationship, in which people and land are good medicine for each other.

As well as being fascinating and unexpected, her writing is exquisite.

I just finished Braiding Sweetgrass for the second time. It rests on my bedside table. I’m not finished with it yet.