I have been doing the Forest Lore Tour since September of 2020. In the past 3+ years, I have had over a dozen people recommend this wonderful book (purchasable here) to me by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and reading through it, I completely understand why. I can see myself in the eyes of the narrator and draw comparisons to my own life’s journey. Kimmerer asks us to entertain the possibility that plants, fungi, and other animals are people, too, using poetic language to build the connection between indigenous knowledge and the modern scientific process, pleading that we reconsider our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
In some ways, this book also reflects my own experiences: growing up, and what I’ve discovered in my search for Truth, and my time spent at Earthskills gatherings in recent years. Chapters about single motherhood, growing a garden at home, helping the community, and finding ways to give back to nature remind me of my own childhood: baking cookies for neighbors and listening to their stories, of spending entire days in the woods behind my grandparents’ house, of my grandfather teaching me about wintergreen and partridge berries, of moving to Florida and the culture shock I experienced that blinded me from Florida’s natural beauty. The ecology of Salem is similar to northern environments mentioned in Braiding Sweetgrass, so many of the plants that Kimmerer mentions are present in or around Salem, so I’ve been able to learn more and validate what I already knew from other sources. Several passages helped me make peace with a childhood I didn’t have. Still, Kimmerer’s profound lessons about fire, weaving baskets, and ecological restoration as acts of creation and reciprocity echo in my own journey working closely with nature and others like Salem Native Nursery, as well as attending gatherings focused on teaching primitive and sustainable skills to the community.
This book captures the very essence of how we must work together for the benefit of all, how in order to help the world, we must nurture ourselves, others, and the natural world–as we are only superficially separated from nature and each other. Braiding Sweetgrass is for anyone seeking a better understanding of science, sustainability, wild foods and fibers, indigenous American philosophy, and how to make meaningful change in the face of war and the current ecological crisis. Saving salamanders from the road on the first rainy night of spring, Kimmerer draws a grim comparison between speeding cars and the war in Iraq (both driven by oil consumption) and reflects on how she is powerless to stop both the war and the cars that kill salamanders crossing the road. Yet in ferrying the amphibians to pond on the other side, Kimmerer provides hope for the future. On tours, I like to list several different ways to get involved and give back to nature because it is so easy to fall into despair looking at the state of the world. One person can easily become overwhelmed trying to change the whole world, but the actions of one can ripple across time and space. We can inspire others. Through connection and reciprocity, we are able to have a greater positive impact. Kimmerer wrote it so beautifully, “If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again,” and I cried.
