Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

 I'd read so many reviews of this book, I'm astonished I'd never picked it up before now! As both a botanist and a poet, I was really drawn to this book and I enjoyed reading it. It braids together various themes of indigenous culture, science (specifically botany and ecology) and the author's own life experiences as a scientist, teacher and mother from an indigenous background. 

I really enjoyed the insights into north American ecologies, particularly Sweetgrass and Black Ash and how indigenous peoples carefully harvested these plants, using every bit of what they harvested, producing baskets and the left overs being used as tinder in fires. 

"The marvel of a basket is in its transformation, its journey from wholeness as a living plant to fragmented strands and back to wholeness as a basket" 

I was very struck by the inspiring case study of ecological restoration that was presented in the book. Onondagaga Lake is a site sacred to the indigenous people who live near it, but became very polluted and is now (at the time of writing) being restored. This case study showed both how Western disregard of nature can almost destroy an ecosystem but how on the other hand the land can be restored using science and indigenous knowledge. 

The book is important in its presentation of a world view that values the land and nature and for showing indigenous peoples living in harmony with the wider environment. We can all learn a lot from the wisdom in this book. 

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, published (2013) by Milkwood Editions.  

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This month is Catch the Bus month, you can read more about that in this week's post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack.