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pineconek 's review for:
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
I love books that change my mind.
I have a confession to make: as a scientist who is also a human, I've struggled a lot with the tension between the scientific method and other ways of knowing. Part of my heart loves the unexplained or unexplainable, but I love it even more when explanations converge. Nothing makes my heart happier than discoveries such as the one of the wood wide web aka scientific proof that trees do in fact speak to each other.
Because trees do speak to each other. And botanical mutualism abounds. And we are interdependent with all the other creatures on this earth (the "more than human" world, as this book has taught me to call it). And reconciling the parts of myself raised in formal education and late stage capitalist society with the part of me that intuitively understands has created a lot of tension.
This book resolved that tension. Robin is a botanist, an ecologist, a scholar, a human, a mother, a woman, and interdependent with the world around her. And she can seamlessly transition from speaking to the scientist in me and to the human in me and then back again. Something clicked for me while listening to this book (read by the author, which I highly recommend) that's been germinating since I started reading nonfiction nature writing and I am nothing short of a convert.
I'm really grateful that this book finally found its way to me. The connection between my heart and brain feels more aligned, like a dislocated joint limbering up after being cracked back into place.
The ending of the book was a fascinating way of discussing climate change and our role in restoration. The comparison between a culture of constant desire (and artificial scarcity brought by capitalism) with the windigo was particularly meaty and something I will be contemplating a lot going forward. And the contrasting mentality of abundance, gift economy, etc... are concepts I look forward to sharing with others.
Highly recommended if you too struggle with reconciling seemingly incongruous ways of viewing the world and our species' place in it, if you feel alienated from a part of yourself by virtue of living in a concrete jungle, and if your heart craves some nourishment. Five stars.
I have a confession to make: as a scientist who is also a human, I've struggled a lot with the tension between the scientific method and other ways of knowing. Part of my heart loves the unexplained or unexplainable, but I love it even more when explanations converge. Nothing makes my heart happier than discoveries such as the one of the wood wide web aka scientific proof that trees do in fact speak to each other.
Because trees do speak to each other. And botanical mutualism abounds. And we are interdependent with all the other creatures on this earth (the "more than human" world, as this book has taught me to call it). And reconciling the parts of myself raised in formal education and late stage capitalist society with the part of me that intuitively understands has created a lot of tension.
This book resolved that tension. Robin is a botanist, an ecologist, a scholar, a human, a mother, a woman, and interdependent with the world around her. And she can seamlessly transition from speaking to the scientist in me and to the human in me and then back again. Something clicked for me while listening to this book (read by the author, which I highly recommend) that's been germinating since I started reading nonfiction nature writing and I am nothing short of a convert.
I'm really grateful that this book finally found its way to me. The connection between my heart and brain feels more aligned, like a dislocated joint limbering up after being cracked back into place.
The ending of the book was a fascinating way of discussing climate change and our role in restoration. The comparison between a culture of constant desire (and artificial scarcity brought by capitalism) with the windigo was particularly meaty and something I will be contemplating a lot going forward. And the contrasting mentality of abundance, gift economy, etc... are concepts I look forward to sharing with others.
Highly recommended if you too struggle with reconciling seemingly incongruous ways of viewing the world and our species' place in it, if you feel alienated from a part of yourself by virtue of living in a concrete jungle, and if your heart craves some nourishment. Five stars.