A New York Times Bestseller
A Washington Post Bestseller
Named a Best Essay Collection of the Decade by Literary Hub
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
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).
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as 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 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 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.
