Braiding Sweetgrass, Kiss the Ground, and Other Hints of Hope

Regenerative reciprocity: a love story of Earth and humans

Eco-warriors sometimes get exhausted. Often, it seems that there is too much bad news, and not enough good. And even the silver clouds, such as the election of an eco-sympathetic US president, can have dark linings.

So I’d like to share a book and a documentary that I have read and seen recently that cheered me up, and might offer balm to the battle-weary green soul.

I listened to the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, reading the audiobook of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. She reads as beautifully as she writes, and you can often hear the smile in her voice as she describes her favourite wonders of nature. She is a member of the Potawatomi Nation, and also a professional botanist, and she brings these two traditions together, each enhancing the other.

The main message that I took away from the book is that, while we might sometimes think that humans are the worst thing that ever happened to the rest of the natural world, this is not true. We are part of nature, and when we choose to…