Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

De: Robin Wall Kimmerer

Narrado por: Robin Wall Kimmerer

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.

©2013 Robin Wall Kimmerer (P)2016 Tantor

Listen at 1.5x speed

I almost didn’t finish - have finished all 100 audiobooks I have downloaded. Once I realized one major problem was the cadence and speed of the performance I was able to rectify by increasing the playback speed to 1.5x-2x. The story is warm, if biased. Natives had profound effects on ecosystems before the arrival of Europeans. The author could have presented a more balanced assessment of native people’s impact on land. Not all native land practices exhibited land ethic and reciprocity. I would have appreciated less repetition on the natives vs whites theme. It doesn’t improve the story and it breaks the trance of harmony. The fables and ecology narrative would hold with zero mention of whites other than to mention TEK is threatened due to the systematic and forced assimilation of natives to western culture.

Beautiful wisdom

A truly moving experience to have the author, with her own sweet voice, show me another way to look at the world and all of us in it. It reminded me of truths I had discovered when I was younger but had forgotten, and showed me many many other new ones.

An incredible gift

Braiding Sweetgrass is my new favorite book. I have such deep gratitude for Robin Wall Kimmerer for bestowing her stories, ideas, and knowledge upon us. So much of what she wrote speaks to my experiences growing up in the woods and prairies of Ohio. Many years later, I am now an environmental scientist. The way she speaks about science as a way of life and part of her spirituality is incredible. So few of us are willing to confront the way we feel in such an eloquent way.

Beautiful

This book is beautiful. Knowledge every individual living in a consumerist society needs to understand. Robin Wall Kimmerer sheds light on the importance of reciprocity on a planet that provides so much. I got lost in her words, poetic and thoughtful, I will pass the story along.

Essential wisdom

This book should be required reading for everyone who eats food, drinks water, and walks on the earth. We could change everything together.