I began reading Braiding Sweetgrass almost a year ago. I’m not sure where to begin with describing the journey this book has taken me on. I might describe it as a conversion experience, if conversion means seeing with new eyes. For though I thought I was fairly woke to the violence inflicted upon American indigenous peoples with the coming of European colonizers, my level of understanding was that of a 2nd grader. I had so much more to learn, and I am still not even close to graduation.
And though I have been greatly concerned about humans’ exploitation of the earth since 6th grade environmental science, I did not know to what extent this land I call “my country” and what many indigenous people call “Turtle Island” had been so vastly altered since the European colonizers stole land, committed genocide, and sought to scourge out indigenous language, cultures, and sacred spiritual teachings through forced Christian conversion.
“All powers have two sides, the power to create and the power to destroy.
We must recognize them both, but invest our gifts on the side of creation.”
all quotations in blue are from Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass
I didn’t know the stories of young native American children who were taken from the arms of their parents, sent to boarding schools, like the one in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and punished for speaking their mother tongue, shamed for their long hair and clothing, and ridiculed for the customs inherited from their ancestors. I did not know any of the spiritual teachings of indigenous cultures–full of wisdom, compassion, and humility. I did not know it was possible to live so in tune with the natural world, in ways that honored the life in every gift of Creation. I did not know that the Potawatomi were instructed to take only what they needed and not more than half of what was given, that they were warned of greed, that when they took from the earth or from the waters or the lives of other animals, that they were instructed to give thanks and to offer gifts in return, so that always they remembered that life was sacred, life was gift.
“Had the new people learned what Original Man was taught
…never damage Creation, and never interfere with the sacred
purpose of another being—the eagle would look down on a different world.
The salmon would be crowding the rivers, and passenger pigeons would darken the sky.
Wolves, cranes, Nehalem, cougars, Lenape, old-growth forests would still be here,
each fulfilling their sacred purpose.”
I did not know that the west coast waters were once filled with wild salmon and that ceremonies to honor their annual return were what kept salmon returning, for they were never over-fished, and the wetlands were welcome homes before the white man stopped up the tributaries and destroyed their nesting places. I did not know that black ash trees, maples, and redwood, now endangered, were such giving species to humans. I did not know that entire lakes, which now are poisoned by the filth of factories, were once home to humans, rice, plants and animals that lived in harmony with one another. I did not know that the western ways of farming would destroy fertile soil and lessen production, so that farmers would feel the need to spray chemicals to make things grow and to keep away pests, while poisoning the food, the soil, the water, the air, and yes, humans, with these chemicals. I did not know that this land was once a garden of Eden for thousands of years, and that in such a short time, a few centuries, our entire planet home would be threatened.
“All of our flourishing is mutual.”
This book has produced deep grief for what had been and what could have been, had the original caretakers of this land been allowed to continue their God-given responsibility to be stewards (not lords) of this land and had the white man not forgotten that he was part of creation, too. That every human is a sacred being, and not a savage.
“By honoring the knowledge of the land, and caring for its keepers,
we start to become indigenous to place.”
But Robin did not write a book of lament, though lamentation, is certainly invoked within anyone who cares about our planet and about future generations. Robin wrote a book that is closer to a love story. A love story between humans and Mother Earth that has been nearly lost over time, and yet is still alive and that is being rediscovered. A love story where Mother Earth continues to give of her gifts like any loving mother does for her children and an invitation for humanity to live, not just with gratitude, but in a reciprocal relationship, where we offer our gifts back to her in the forms of care, respect, simplified living, stewardship, creativity, sharing of resources with other humans, etc… A love story that invites us into gift economies, versus commodity economies… into harvesting honorably, versus exploiting greedily… into cultures of gratitude, versus cultures of insatiable consumerism.
“’Our first thoughts are not, ‘What can we take?’
but ‘What can we give to Mother Earth?’
That’s how it’s supposed to be.’”
– Carol Crowe, an Algonquin ecologist at a meeting on indigenous models of sustainability
The majority of Americans identify as Christian today, and certainly stewardship and love of land are woven into both Jewish and Christian scriptures. But certain strains of Christianity have tragically valued domination over cooperation, patriarchy over equality, exploitation over co-creation, human hubris over interconnection, and the afterlife over heaven-on-earth. Many Christians are now seeing what St. Francis, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, George Fox, and so many Christian mystics had been awake to all along: humans are not above creation, we are part of creation.
Science is revealing what Wisdom has always known. Our flourishing depends upon the flourishing of our planet and other species. And their flourishing depends upon us. We are intricately connected, like a huge spider web, like an embroidered tapestry, just as the Creator made us to be. And we westernized, intelligent beings, whether we identify as Christian, or not, would do well to listen to the wisdom of indigenous peoples and their sacred teachings. If I could, I would make Braiding Sweetgrass required reading for every American today. The wisdom contained in these pages imagines new possibilities of living into a future that could sustain life for all our children’s children’s children. I pray that it may be so. I pray that I may know my gifts and carry them responsibly. I pray that you will, too.
“The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world…. to carry a gift is also to carry a responsibility.”
