"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put into the universe will always come back. 5/5: I just wrote a 4-page essay about how beautifully written this book is, and that essay didnt even cover half of the factors involved. She reminds readers that we are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Kimmerer recalls the ways that pecans became a symbol of abundance for her ancestors: Feeding guests around the big table recalls the trees' welcome to our ancestors when they were lonesome and tired and so far from home. The grass in the ring is trodden down in a path from gratitude to reciprocity. In such a culture, Everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again. A mesmerizing storyteller, she shares legends from her Potawatomi ancestors to illustrate the culture of gratitude in which we all should live. This is an echo of the basket-weaving chapter, which was also effective.Ī fantastic read for anyone to experience a difference lens of relating to plants.With deep compassion and graceful prose, botanist and professor of plant ecology Kimmerer (Gathering Moss) encourages readers to consider the ways that our lives and language weave through the natural world.
If you can’t thank the specific plant or animal which gave its life for your use, you won’t be gentle with it. That sense of assigning personhood to non-person, non-animal things becomes salient when action is rooted deeply into the language.Īs far as the mall visit, it is a fantastic example of just how far we have come from respecting the land upon which our society is built. The linguistic differences between something like noun-heavy English and verb-heavy Potawatomi showed just how intrinsic language is to attitudes. In terms of the anecdotes and stories that resonated most with me, I have to pick the language section and the time Kimmerer went to the mall to see if she can connect the products acquired there to their original source (spoiler alert: it’s impossible). The writing is stunning, making this a must-read for those who enjoy creative non-fiction. The fact that she narrates the audiobook makes the discussion and presentation feel that much more personal. There is so much patience and passion that lifts from Kimmerer’s voice. It is up to us to see the exchange between people and nature, and the ways we can learn from each other.Įach chapter is a treat. It starts from her family history, to the misunderstanding between academia and her appreciation of plant life, to the specific experiences and research trips she coordinated, this wonderful read follows a central thesis that everything is symbiotic. Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer contextualizes her relationship with plants through the lens of Potawatomi culture. The way science and traditional knowledge come together in this work is accessible and simply elegant.
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