Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Audiobook, read February 2021

Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, was a soft, beautiful, gracious audiobook, narrated by the author. I’m late to this 2013 book, but I feel like it arrived with me just when I needed it. In 2013, I wouldn’t have known what to do with the gentle teachings of reciprocity, gratitude, and generosity in its pages.

Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Braiding Sweetgrass travels through her personal scientific and heritage journeys, finding a balance and strength between Indigenous knowledge and ways of being, and contemporary science. This book is a gift, and a teaching, and a story, and a warning. This book asks you to slow down, a reminder I am always in desperate need of, and be grateful. The gratitude of Braiding Sweetgrass is not the gratitude of #blessed, though – the gratitude of Braiding Sweetgrass is never taking more than you need, of giving what you have to give, of supporting and being supported by each other, by the earth herself. There is so much that nature has to teach us, and I loved the way that this book invites you to begin learning.