Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

★★★★★

With its message of gratitude and reciprocating gifts, Braiding Sweetgrass was an excellent choice to read during the Thanksgiving season. Braiding strands of sweetgrass is an Indigenous tradition of lovingly honoring the earth. Using the braiding metaphor, the author, trained as a botanist, weaves scientific, environmental, cultural, and spiritual knowledge to teach readers a different way of seeing the world. 

Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, also draws on her life as an Indigenous woman to share an urgent message of healing our relationship with the environment and perhaps healing ourselves along the way.

I learned so much about plants and people from this unforgettable book. I originally checked it out from the library through the Libby app. However, I soon found myself highlighting so many memorable quotes and passages that I bought myself a physical copy to keep and refer back to for inspiration and reminders of Kimmerer’s wisdom. 

“For me, writing is an act of reciprocity with the world; it is what I can give back in return for everything that has been given to me.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

One of the things that struck a chord with me was Kimmerer’s perspective of writing as “an act of reciprocity with the world.” She has come to view her gift of using language to interpret and teach others about the natural world as a way to give back. As a writer and a landscape photographer, seeing my own creative pursuits this way is beginning to bring new meaning and purpose and a stronger sense of personal responsibility to these endeavors. 

This transformative perspective – along with the beautifully metaphorical writing – is what earned this book a five-star rating from me. I originally learned of this book when I was briefly assigned to read it as part of my job at a college. However, I was abruptly reassigned to read a different book. I forgot about it until a friend mentioned getting a lot out of it. I am grateful to have been reminded of Braiding Sweetgrass at a time in my life when I was ready to receive the messages it contained.