Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass was first published more than 10 years ago but is still finding new audiences today.
The book is part botany, part Indigenous history and culture, and part poetry, as Kimmerer reckons with the direction we’re driving our planet and discovers ways to protect our future by reviving our past.
WKAR's Sophia Saliby spoke with Kimmerer during her visit to campus for the MSU Science Festival about the book and ways to protect nature.
Interview Highlights
On more people recognizing the need to have a reciprocal relationship with the land
One of the things that gives me so much hope is the way people are responding to that. Grassroots efforts to build community gardens, transform education, to include Indigenous knowledge, to include Earth stewardship, all these things at the grassroots level.
But then I think about at the level of policy...the White House issued a memorandum elevating traditional ecological knowledge in all federal land management decision making. I can't believe it.
On the importance of sweetgrass
That plant, ecologically, is a land healer, you know, it comes in on broken ground and binds the soil back together again, but we also view it as a spiritual healing plant. And those two properties of the plant, that we need a cultural shift, and we need hands in the soil, doing the work is one of the reasons.
But also sweetgrass, we view in our creation stories as the hair of Mother Earth. And so when we think about braiding somebody's hair, it's because we care for them. We want them to be at their best. And so metaphorically, we're braiding Mother Earth's hair to say, I want you to be at your best.
On how to start rethinking our relationship with nature
If we view the land as our teacher, well, as all students and teachers know, you got to go to class. And so you've got to show up. You've got to be outside with that open mind to say, not only, you know, the beauty, the generosity of this landscape, but what can it teach me. And to me, that's simply paying attention, slowing down and paying attention to things that really matter.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass was first published more than 10 years ago but is still finding new audiences today.
The book is part botany, part Indigenous history and culture, and part poetry, as Kimmerer reckons with the direction we’re driving our planet and discovers ways to protect our future by reviving our past.
Kimmerer joins me now at Michigan State University’s Library as part of her visit for the MSU Science Festival. Thank you for being here.
Robin Wall Kimmerer: Thanks for the invitation. Happy to be with you.
Saliby: It seems like your book's message about most of the world taking the Earth for granted seems more relevant today. Is that something you've thought about?
Kimmerer: Yeah, in the past 10 years, I think that the urgency of the message in Braiding Sweetgrass has simply increased. People are hearing it and really responding to it as a call to action.
Saliby: I obviously see the effects of climate change, how we're treating our planet, things that you bring up in the book that may have gotten worse since writing it. But are there any points of hope maybe in your field, botany, or policy that kind of feels a little bit more positive?
Kimmerer: I travel a lot talking about these ways and inviting people into a reciprocal relationship with land. And one of the things that gives me so much hope is the way people are responding to that. Grassroots efforts to build community gardens, transform education, to include Indigenous knowledge, to include Earth stewardship, all these things at the grassroots level.
But then I think about at the level of policy, it was just, was it last year? The White House issued a memorandum elevating traditional ecological knowledge in all federal land management decision making. I can't believe it.
(Editor's Note: the Biden Administration's Indigenous Knowledge guidance was issued Nov. 30, 2022.)
We've got so much more work to do. We need transformative climate policies. We need political will to support them. So, it is both hopeful and imperative that we do more.
So, it tells us that change is possible, that these ideas are taking root and becoming real in the world. But we've got so much more work to do. We need transformative climate policies. We need political will to support them. So, it is both hopeful and imperative that we do more.
Saliby: This makes me think of a story in your book where you wanted to clean out this pond on your property for your daughters to swim in, and it took a lot of work. And at first, it kind of seemed like a fool's journey to be able to muck it out.
With days and days and days spent, you were able to make it swimmable. So, is that kind of a version of that on a smaller scale that that you feel it's happening on a bigger scale?
Kimmerer: Absolutely. And I wrestled with that in that chapter, right? What am I doing spending all this time on this little, tiny pond while the Great Lakes are polluted.
But it speaks to the importance of incremental change, of individual action. But it also tells us that while we have to do that, it's not enough. We also need system change at the same time.
Saliby: You talk about so many plants throughout your book from more commonly known ones, like the maple tree, to ones that maybe grow in one specific place in this country.
Why did you choose sweetgrass as the plant to name your book after and then to use as a framing device throughout the chapters of your book?
Kimmerer: Well, sweetgrass or Wiingasshk, as we call her in our language, is a really important cultural plant for us. That plant, ecologically, is a land healer. It comes in on broken ground and binds the soil back together again, but we also view it as a spiritual healing plant. And those two properties of the plant, that we need a cultural shift, and we need hands in the soil, doing the work is one of the reasons.
But also sweetgrass, we view in our creation stories as the hair of Mother Earth. And so when we think about braiding somebody's hair, it's because we care for them. We want them to be at their best. And so metaphorically, we're braiding Mother Earth's hair to say, I want you to be at your best.
We braid as a strand of indigenous knowledge, a strand of Western science, and a strand of the plant knowledge themselves. How do we use all those things together to really support the thriving of the natural world?
And of course, the book thinks about those strands that we braid as a strand of Indigenous knowledge, a strand of Western science, and a strand of the plant knowledge themselves. How do we use all those things together to really support the thriving of the natural world?
Saliby: Talking about plant knowledge, there are many places in the book where you share what plants can teach us, what they've taught you. Is there a particular plant right now that's teaching you something?
Kimmerer: Hm. It's such a hard question to answer because it's all of them, this great symphony of voices and lessons out there. But I think I have been in this time of year, just before the flowers come out, when the mosses are so bright and green and vibrant. This is their moment, right?
And I think a lot about what mosses can teach us. Now that might seem really silly, given that, you know, these tiny little organisms that we so often overlook, but it's in their tininess, in their simplicity, in their humility, that the lesson is.
Mosses, really unchanged since the time that they evolved, have persisted through every single climate change that has ever occurred since the colonization of land. Most species have gone extinct. The mosses have not. So to me, that tells us that they have some lessons for us about what does it mean to be successful.
Mosses, really unchanged since the time that they evolved, have persisted through every single climate change that has ever occurred since the colonization of land. Most species have gone extinct. The mosses have not.
So to me, that tells us that they have some lessons for us about what does it mean to be successful. And to be successful isn't to be the big, most powerful masters of the universe as some would think, but in simplicity, in giving more than you take, in being Earth's blanket, not Earth's wrecker.
Saliby: You are a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and we are on Anishinaabe land right now. What is it like to be back on this part of the land where your people are from? I mean, maybe not specifically Michigan or the land we know as Michigan but this part of the world?
Kimmerer: Yeah, this is Anishinaabe aking — this is our homelands. In fact, coming to this interview, I met a fellow tribal member in the hallway, which was just a delight, to remind me that I am at home. And it also makes me so grateful for the bounty, the well-watered, beautiful green landscapes of our ancestral homes because my nation, the Citizen Potawatomi Nation was removed from these places.
Our people were literally marched at gunpoint away from our Great Lakes homes to Kansas, and then to Oklahoma in a profound climate shift that occurred in just one season. And so, whenever I am here in in Michigan, Wisconsin, I feel that strong pull of the homeland and how precious it is.
Saliby: Your book reflects on a lifetime of learning but also relearning how to pay attention and respect nature. What would you say would be a good first step for someone who wants to start their own journey down that path?
Kimmerer: I love that you're asking that. Because so often people say, "Well, how did you get to have this connection with the living world?" And you use the exact right word, it's paying attention.
If we view the land as our teacher, well, as all students and teachers know, you got to go to class. And so you've got to show up.
If we view the land as our teacher, well, as all students and teachers know, you got to go to class. And so, you've got to show up. You've got to be outside with that open mind to say, not only the beauty, the generosity of this landscape, but what can it teach me. And to me, that's simply paying attention, slowing down and paying attention to things that really matter.
There's so many forces out there competing for our attention, our phones, our computers, advertising, so much that tells, "Pay attention to this." But we're not paying enough attention to those things that make life possible on the planet. And so, that's what it takes is just go out with that open willingness to look around you, to be astonished and to have the humility to learn from what you see.
Saliby: Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. Thank you for joining me.
Kimmerer: Miigwech.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
