Excerpts from "Braiding Sweetgrass" (Robin Wall Kimmerer)
Excerpts from Braiding Sweetgrass:
From “The Three Sisters”
“Of all the wise teachers who have come into my life, none are more eloquent than these, who wordlessly in leaf and vine embody the knowledge of relationship. Alone, a bean is just a vine, squash an oversize leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge which transcends the individual. The gifts of each are more fully expressed when they are nurtured together than alone. In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship. This is how the world keeps going”
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From “The Council of Pecans”
“If one tree fruits, they all fruit—there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual.”
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From “MISHKOS KENOMAGWEN: THE TEACHINGS OF GRASS”
“Many grasses undergo a physiological change known as compensatory growth in which the plant compensates for loss of foliage by quickly growing more. It seems counterintuitive, but when a herd of buffalo grazes down a sward of fresh grass, it actually grows faster in response. This helps the plant recover, but also invites the buffalo back for dinner later in the season. It’s even been discovered that there is an enzyme in the saliva of grazing buffalo that actually stimulates grass growth. To say nothing of the fertilizer produced by a passing herd. Grass gives to buffalo and buffalo give to grass.
The system is well balanced, but only if the herd uses the grass respectfully. Free-range buffalo graze and move on, not returning to the same place for many months. Thus they obey the rule of not taking more than half, of not overgrazing. Why shouldn’t it also be true for people and sweetgrass? We are no more than the buffalo and no less, governed by the same natural laws.
With a long, long history of cultural use, sweetgrass has apparently become dependent on humans to create the “disturbance” that stimulates its compensatory growth. Humans participate in a symbiosis in which sweetgrass provides its fragrant blades to the people and people, by harvesting, create the conditions for sweetgrass to flourish.”
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Robin Wall Kimmerer is a citizen of the Potawatomi Nationan, an American Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology, and Director at the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Author of numerous scientific, environmental, and heritage writings, her phenomenal book, Braiding Sweetgrass, originally published in 2013, hit the New York Times non-fiction best seller list in 2020, where it has remained for more than 70 weeks. Braiding Sweetgrass is published by Milkweed Editions. Visit the publisher’s website to purchase / learn more. These excerpts are part of our Fall 2021 collection, Sacred Relationship, exploring the Native American sense of sacred relationship with Earth’s other living creatures.
