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Title details for Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer - Available

Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Audiobook
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As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation." As she explores these themes, she circles toward a central argument: The awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 5, 2016

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781515925903
      • File size: 482222 KB
      • Duration: 16:44:37

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Many Native peoples in northern North America use sweetgrass in their traditions and ceremonies, often braided. In this audiobook environmental biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer uses it as a subject and a metaphor. Her own personal braid includes the traditional wisdom of her Potawatomie ancestors and her scientific training. In narrating her own audiobook, she adeptly shares the experience of encountering the natural world through both lenses. Her voice is warm and welcoming, and her discussions of how to live in the world invite us to share her feelings and opinions, rather than trying to sell us on the rightness of her thinking. It's a very effective approach, and an affecting listen. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 19, 2013
      With deep compassion and graceful prose, botanist and professor of plant ecology Kimmerer (Gathering Moss) encourages readers to consider the ways that our lives and language weave through the natural world. A mesmerizing storyteller, she shares legends from her Potawatomi ancestors to illustrate the culture of gratitude in which we all should live. In such a culture, “Everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again... The grass in the ring is trodden down in a path from gratitude to reciprocity. We dance in a circle, not in a line.” Kimmerer recalls the ways that pecans became a symbol of abundance for her ancestors: “Feeding guests around the big table recalls the trees’ welcome to our ancestors when they were lonesome and tired and so far from home.” She reminds readers that “we are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep... Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put into the universe will always come back.”

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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