Book club discussion thread: "Braiding Sweetgrass"
heated.world
Hi! Welcome to the first meeting of the HEATED book club.
Today we’ll be discussing “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
I chose this book on April 1, right at the beginning of the social distancing era. Everything was particularly raw and rough back then, the path forward for the climate fight murky and unclear. The HEATED community made lots of great suggestions for our first book, but I wanted to pick something that might help ground us, and envision the future more clearly. “Braiding Sweetgrass” did that for me. I hope it did that for you.
Feel free to comment on any aspect of the book you’d like. But because this is a climate newsletter, I’d love if we could keep to keep the discussion focused to climate advocacy, climate policy, climate journalism—all that jazz.
Here’s how it will work. I’m going to offer three prompts. I’ll write my personal answers to each prompt in the comments. You can choose to respond directly to my answers, or create your own separate comment responding to one of the prompts.
If you are creating a new comment: Please copy and paste the prompt you are replying to at the top of your comment. And please only respond to one prompt per comment. (So, if you’d like to respond to all three prompts, post three separate comments). Cite specific passages and pages where possible.
Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?
In the beginning of the book, Kimmerer describes sweetgrass. “Breathe in its scent,” she writes, “and you start to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten.” What did this book reinforce for you that you already knew, but had perhaps forgotten?
On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
Because we’re getting a bit of a late start — it’s 12:45 p.m. EST — I’ll be active in the thread until 2:45 p.m. EST.
2. What did this book reinforce for you that you already knew, but had perhaps forgotten?
Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.
A couple weeks ago, I was so, so depressed about everything. The pandemic just totally destroyed my mental state. I was talking to a friend about it, and she said her therapist recommended practicing gratitude every day as a way to stave off depression. "Yes, there are so many things we're not allowed to do right now, and so much death and pain," she said. "But today is sunny and warm, and I get to go for a walk with my headphones in. And I am so grateful that."
Thinking of everything in that way helped her. So I have been doing it too--and it's helped my mental health immensely. I wake up and have a moment of gratitude for the natural light through my windows. I have a moment for the coffee that helps me feel alive. I even try to have moments of gratitude for my annoying older brother, who I get to see during the pandemic, when so many people have no one. These are things I usually wouldn't give a second thought to. Now, during the pandemic, they are sacred to me. They help me feel happy. And honestly, truly, I am not depressed anymore--partially because of that.
But wait -- why don't I do this all the time?
Kimmerer's book helped me remember the power of gratitude, and not just as a tool to help myself feel better during a pandemic. Gratitude, especially for the natural world, is a tool to help ground ourselves in what's important. When we don't practice gratitude, we forget to see the wonder in the things that we literally can't live without. So we take advantage of it. That's why we take advantage of the natural world. Because we never practice gratitude for it.
"Imagine if our government meetings began with the Thanksgiving Address," Kimmerer wrote on page 113. "What if our leaders first found common ground before fighting over their differences?"
I loved this -- and I'm usually not one to love woo-woo shit. And I think that's because I see people weaponize gratitude all the time. Trump, abusers -- they say shit like, "you should be grateful for all that I've given you," and they say it to manipulate people into accepting their abusive behavior. But that's not true gratitude, because true gift-givers expect nothing in return. The natural world expects nothing in return from us--but it will not continue to give us gifts if we don't reciprocate. When that happens, we will regret that we were not more grateful.
1. "Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from 'Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you?"
As a climate journalist, I would say two things resonated most with me: the importance of telling Native stories/having indigenous people as leaders in the climate conversation, and the importance of interdisciplinary education and storytelling.
Kimmerer speaks often of the concept of "becoming Native" or "becoming indigenous." By that, she means becoming someone who treats the natural world not just something for your own benefit, but for the benefit of future generations. Indigenous people, she (I think correctly) argues, are the only people to have ever truly demonstrated the ability to do that--and additionally, are the only ones who understand that humans can actually benefit the world, while the rest of us assume humans are inherently bad for the planet. Part of this is because of the stories we tell ourselves; we simply don't ever hear stories of effective reciprocity between humans and the nature. How can we achieve reciprocity if we don't believe it is possible? How will be ever believe it is possible if we don't hear stories about how it is achieved? As a journalist, this speaks to my responsibility to seek out and tell indigenous climate stories, and report on the solutions they recommend.
On interdisciplinary education and storytelling, Kimmerer demonstrates the limits of scientific knowledge alone. Her interactions with her botany advisor, who told her her questions about beauty in nature were "unscientific," were infuriating. If she had listened to him, we never would have gotten this book. In fact, her interdisciplinary background is testament to why this book is so effective. She communicates complicated scientific concepts (scientist) in language we yearn to read (poet) with a moral and spiritual compass that resonates with us all (indigenous). I always thought it I went to graduate school for anything, it would be journalism--because I'm a journalist, and I figured I should probably bolster my expertise. But now I think multi-expertise is more beneficial, especially for communicating about the environment. So maybe if I ever go back to school, it will be for something else.
2. In the beginning of the book, Kimmerer describes sweetgrass. “Breathe in its scent,” she writes, “and you start to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten.” What did this book reinforce for you that you already knew, but had perhaps forgotten?
As I've been finishing up the Braiding Sweetgrass, I set my reading sights on Ziya Tong's book The Reality Bubble. The introductory material for The Reality Bubble includes this excerpt:
"Individually, we can be blind to the obvious, but collectively, as a society, we can be blind as well. Here’s a curious fact to consider: in the twenty-first century, there are cameras everywhere, except where our food comes from, where our energy comes from, and where our waste goes. How is it, then, that the most powerful species on the planet is blind to how it survives?
You might say that modern humans interface with nature as though we live in a bubble. It’s the reason why, in the United Kingdom, one in three young adults don’t know that eggs come from chickens, a third of children believe that cheese comes from plants, and a whopping 40 percent of youth have no idea that milk comes from cows. For these kids, food comes from where you’d think it comes from: “Duh,” the supermarket."
I thought that I had broken out of the reality bubble that Tong describes, that I have a higher-than-average understanding of where food and energy come from and where waste goes, but reading Kimmerer's essays I realize that popping the perverted capitalist reality bubble will take more than facts, more than documentary-style knowledge from cameras catching the inconvenient truths of industry red-handed. Kimmerer's stories—I'm thinking specifically of the 'Maple Nation' essay—remind me that discursive knowledge and documentation of unfolding disasters are crucial, but so is embodied knowledge, of which I feel an acute absence living in my city apartment in this COVID-19 shelter-in-place moment. I don't know what the scent of sweetgrass is, I don't know what it feels like to have a fragrant cloud of maple steam hit your face as you enter the sugar shack, I haven't felt the squish and slip of a eutrophying pond's silty bottom in ages. I have few embodied stories that feel alive with me right now, except for those isolating stories about my body in pain: the back pain from too many sports when I was young and too much sitting now that I'm older; the stomach unease that might be diet or might be anxiety, but is likely the poorly coordinated dance between the two; the fatigue pulling me into the plush couch and requesting some Netflix escapism at the end of a long day. Where's my maple, my sweetgrass, my corn, bean and squash story?
Kimmerer's lifestyle—balancing academic reductionism, indigenous holism, and embodied place-based storytelling—gave me inspiration to think about what stories I'm not telling. So often the frustrations of city life lead to minds that look for stories to identify the sources of pain or confusion in their body or surroundings, but Kimmerer and the indigenous cosmology she explores show that bodies are meant for moving, for smelling, for bending to converse with wild leeks before you harvest them, for being part of the story. You don't just make stories about the world for mental consumption in books and articles, the world itself is stories: the understory, the overstory, the only true story, is written in multiple senses by countless beings. There is no reality bubble here, nothing to burst except blossoms and pods and berries and chrysalises.
1. Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.? I'm about 1/2 way through the book and so many ideas resonate. But a concept from the early pages continues to really strike me as critical. Asking her 200 3rd year ecology students if they can think of beneficial relationships between humans and the environment, they almost all say no; likewise, most of them can think of no positive interactions between people and land. Klimmerer's response hits me in the gut: "How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?" And as a journalist, it makes me wonder if I am doing a bad job, not only of showing what that path COULD look like but, more importantly, what it ALREADY looks like.
A theme that resonates with me (descendant of settlers; lived in many places) is the notion of becoming native to a place: on p. 58 she writes, "But to become native to this place, if we are to survive here, and our neighbors too, our work is to learn to speak the grammar of animacy, so that we might truly be at home." The place where I'm living now has been my home since 2010, and I'm fortunate that we live in a semi-rural area of CT, where just a few steps from our front door, I have access to two woodland preserves, one owned by the town, the other by a land trust. It is in these woodland preserves that I am slowly learning the grammar of animacy: sensing that even the rocks and stones are alive, growing more mindful of even the smallest plants. Learning this grammar helps to re-energize my engagement with climate change.
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
My gut feeling, at first, was yes — doom and gloom marks so much of the way we talk about the climate emergency. I work in a high school, or did before schools closed, and I've talked with students who feel so powerless in the face of climate change. "Mr. Urevig, we're all gonna die." I don't think that's true or helpful.
My second thought, though, was "hold up:" The climate emergency is an EMERGENCY. The dire predictions are true, and they're here now, and people are dying.
My third thought is to try and bring these reactions together: Perhaps "the environmental movement" is too broad. We need the dire forecasts, because we need to know what's coming. We also need joy, because without it, why are we fighting? I think of this gem from Kimmerer, comparing our gifts as humans to the gifts that each of the Three Sisters — corn, beans, squash — bring to the field:
“The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and nurtured, because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction so they can be shared with others.” (p. 134)
Maybe the same can be true of the environmental movement. Lean into your gifts, whether that's inspiring people with joy or telling hard truths, and give your gift freely. I don't know if there's anything else we can do.
1. "Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from 'Braiding Sweetgrass' resonated the most with you?"
The "Tending Sweetgrass" section resonated with me the most, probably because I'm raising two little girls just like the author, although I'm not doing it alone, and I'm certainly not raking a pond for them, ha! I loved the simple, beautiful ways she helped her girls connect with the land (like making maple syrup together) the way her parents had done for her (like her dad's ritual of pouring the coffee on the ground), and it made me think of ways my family members helped me love the Earth from a young age, how I'm doing that for my kids so far (in ways I hadn't realized until this book made me think of them), and how I could continue to do so in other ways. It was wonderful to read this book in the spring because so many of her stories took place in the spring and connected to the natural world around us right now — like we have wild strawberries coming up in our yard right now, and we've been planting things and picking things, and I've probably noticed and enjoyed it even more because of this book. Thank you for the excellent recommendation and discussion!
1. Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?
The idea of reciprocity with plants and other non-animal elements of the earth was an eye-opener for me. It feels so foreign to the way I and many of those I know look at the world, even those of us who consider ourselves environmental activists or lovers of the outdoors. But obviously it's not a new idea, and people who aren't indigenous Americans (e.g. St. Francis of Assisi, perhaps?) have embraced it, as well.
I don't see a worldview of reciprocity with non-animal earth-dwellers catching on any time soon (especially since humanity seems to be struggling with reciprocity just among our own species at the moment). But to me, gratitude is the first step toward that reciprocal relationship with the planet. I hope we who move in the climate circles can increasingly be leaders in educating the rest of humanity on how much we ought to appreciate everything the earth provides. As Kimmerer points out, try as we might, humans can't actually produce tomatoes (or corn or wheat or rice -- pick your staple crop!), we can only create the conditions in which they thrive and be grateful that they do.
1. "Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?"
As a new father to a 3-month old daughter, I was deeply moved by Kimmerer drawing connections between parenting children and stewarding earth. Her description of her grief and separation process when her second daughter moved out of the house reminded me that my new reality truly is the Longest Shortest Time. There will be a time soon when staring at my child in absolute wonder and adoration (as I do now) will be invasive, likely garnering a "Dad, stop it" or a healthy, exasperated exhale to remind me of the proper boundaries and healthy individuation between parents and growing children. Kimmerer gave me a vision of this future of supposedly "empty-nesting" that is instead a portal towards using the highs, lows and mysteries of family-making to understand the larger family of beings (species, regions and weather patterns) in which we play multiple parts. In order to regenerate and maintain healthy places, we can and must simultaneously be children (expressing unconstrained wonder and delight at the natural world), adolescents (constantly awakening to our own sense of sorrow, rage and possibility) and adults (accepting limits, taking responsibility, holding fast to our well-earned values). I hope that if I drop off my child at their first day of college, I can take a page out of Kimmerer's book and go launch a kayak or canoe on some tranquil body of water, letting it drift in the wind as I stare up at the shifting sky, symbol of my ever-shifting life.
Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?
The concept of gratitude struck a chord with me, especially when Kimmerer was tracing the sources of the objects in her house back to their origins. When she traced the source of plastic objects, it really exposed how ridiculously far out of the way we are going to exploit resources, manufacture and profit off of junk. We've lost a lot more than we think by giving oil and plastic so much purchase in our society.
I understand this group isn't big on individual action, but considering the origin of our purchases seems like the least anyone concerned with climate can do. Not because one less water bottle will save the world, but because we have to stop playing into this gratitude-less system of wagging a finger at the oil man with one hand and paying him with another.
On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
I am only halfway through, but I have already taken in this sentiment from the book. Reading Braiding Sweetgrass has been a meditative experience for me, and I have savored each chapter slowly. Climate change is such a systemic problem that it is easy to mourn what it lost and be mindful of tipping points and ecosystem services. As a parent I have worked hard to instill an appreciation for the natural world in my children, but reading Braiding Sweetgrass I realize that there is a lot I have to learn so that I can be a better teacher to others. Addressing climate change is not just about sustainability, in sustaining the status quo of our lifestyles, but rather it is being more mindful of how we can better harness the natural world to live more equitable and happier lives. I am thinking of regenerative agriculture and biomimicry as principles of sustainability that can become a larger part of how we focus our efforts on climate. However, that is probably just a starting point. In terms of communication, we should do a better job of reflecting on the wonder of the world as it is today, to instill an appreciation in the young that is more comprehensive that what most people know today, which is more about going 'out there' rather than returning to something that is already an integral part of us.
Thank you for this effort. I haven't picked up this book yet, but I know of it through friends who run a re-wilding program called the Human Nature School. This is good stuff. I will pick up the book and continue on. Many blessings.
Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?***
The “grammar of animacy" is the single most powerful idea that I found in this book. Kimmerer quotes Thomas Berry on page 56, “we must say of the universe that it is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”
This is what the science of consciousness calls panpsychism, and it isn’t widely accepted, although there is no consensus on the issue.
I could probably write a thesis. But it’s important because no meaningful relationship with our planet, and therefore a sense of responsibility for it, is particularly accessible if it isn’t perceived of as an interactive entity—something with memory, language, emotion, a soul. I believe the world we live in has these things; that’s why I write about the outdoors.
The consequence is demonstrated by our society. But functionally, Kimmerer’s student sums it up: “…speaking English, thinking in English, somehow gives us permission to disrespect nature? By denying everyone else the right to be persons? Wouldn’t things be different if nothing was an it?”
BTW we are also reading this book in our Environmental Book Club. I like your three prompt method promoting discussion. We post a series of questions and look for either for discussion in a zoom session or online discussion using the comment feature similar to this discussion. https://enlight21.com/book-groups/book-review/137
3. Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
YES. I have been feeling this so much. The past 2 years have been sitting at my desk in a high rise weeping over glacier melt and poisoned lungs under fluorescent lights. I found myself crying over things I didn't really know. I found my place as an activist online. I found roaches and rats to be the animals with whom I most frequently engage, and my dying shrub as the token plant. Wtf?
Kimmerer made me promise myself that this would change. And she made me excited about it. "As we work to heal the Earth, the Earth heals us." Sign me up.
I know that I shouldn't spend as much time as I do focusing on my individual impact. Some people don't need to hear that argument but I do. I rinse out every plastic container, compost at home, shut off every light. I will keep doing that, but I want to spend more of that time enjoying the world. I want to plant a garden and not go through the office trash bin pulling out the recyclabes. Feel connected to this nature thing I have devoted myself to. Breathe. Because joy sustains activism (Solnit said that) and I deserve that shit so much.
How can it be fixed? Idk but it sounds like a sweet deal balancing our "alarmism and doomsday talk" (science) with encouraging joy and nature. I think people will like us more, maybe even identify with us more !!! Kimmerer is so good at it. She made me curious and genuinely interested in every non-human living thing I've crossed paths with. She calmed me the fuck down.
Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
There is so much beauty, wisdom, and love in this book that I am still processing and absorbing – but I wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to read in community and for choosing this book, I also found it very healing in this particular moment we are living through.
Kimmerer carries many reflections for the environmental movement that I think are pivotal and can inform the way we continue to build movement, but especially tell stories. In terms of the joys of the natural world, she is right on point when she says we haven’t focused nearly enough on the beauty in the resiliency of our natural systems, and non-human species who continue to persevere despite our continue destruction. The wealth they offer to us, and how void and worse off we are as humans when we lose connections to other life forms with whom we share this planet. Going beyond that though, I have been thinking a lot about her reflections around how the environmental movement – from education, to research and advocacy – has focused so much on negative impacts that we have basically become what she calls a “KEEP OUT” sign between humans and ecosystems. But that negative framing is not doing us any favors. Don’t litter, don’t pollute, don’t use plastic, don’t, don’t, don’t is not how we will win the battle over a collective consciousness shift, and by itself is not enough. We need to embrace the positivity of changes, what are things that we should be doing, looking forward to, and embracing as positive interactions between us and non-humans persons.
A lot of this will require a deep remembering, and embracing indigenous knowledge that can guide our way. To imagine how to be better neighbors to others on the planet. But it has challenged me to think and most importantly to speak differently in my work in this field every day, and I hope that is a good place to start – her gift of thinking about the ways language frames our thinking and relationships, the grammar of animacy, was also deeply illuminating. I think it is our job to take on these questions and tasks and to begin reframing the stories we tell around the climate crisis and the role we all have to play in dismantling the systems that have led us here – while providing a vision for a better, inclusive, positive, beautiful, equitable future that is worth fighting for.
On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
Although Kimmerer doesn't directly discuss this, her beautiful prose and personal stories highlight this reality for me: we can build all the windmills / electric cars we want, but that won't stop the underlying greed and corruption that has been accelerated in our hearts through a capitalist system.
We require an expanding capacity for nurturing deep love / respect for all creation / and intrinsic motivation to change things at the heart level to grow that love. Charles Eisenstein also speaks to this in his writings. Drawing upon an Indigenous practice of "sitting", or spending time in the same exact place in a consistent manner (even standing 10 min every day at the same tree on a busy street corner), can help us develop that connection, love, and appreciation. Tom Brown Jr.'s Tracking School speaks to this. Imagine if we required all elementary school kids to pick a spot in the schoolyard and spend 10 quiet minutes every day observing their surroundings. How could that change the world?
Final point: we can build relationships with the natural world without ascribing to a particular spiritual tradition, but they often allow us to go even deeper, to understand the inner workings of the natural world, and dive into a deeper layer of gratitude for the Creator that created all of this. Whether it is reflecting upon the Prophet Muhammad speaking to a tree (literally) or the Prophet Suleiman communicating with animals, there are countless examples of conservation, moderate consumption, and deep spiritual connection that sages and prophets throughout human history that can show us the heart-based changes that can occur from deepening these relationships.
1. Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?
As an ecologist, I found the concept of treating all things as "persons" was interesting and useful. As she states on p. 252, "I've never met an ecologist who came to the field for the love of data or for the woder of a p-value. These are just ways we have of crossing the species boundary, of slipping off our human skin and wearing fins or feathers or foliage, trying to know others as fully as we can." In some parts of the book Kimmerer highlights gulfs between scientists and indigenous perspectives, but in my experience this is rare. The core of ecology is the interconnection among all beings, and the more we learn the less clear it is that some should be persons and others should not. Protecting all threatened persons, whether they are spotted salamanders or "essential" workers, would seem at once common sense and threatening as all get out to the powers that be.
On the other hand, I was a bit put off at the idea that these other beings were here to teach us and provide for us. I understand this is a universal concept of service, but it felt too close to making it all about us. I'm more of the school of thought that all beings have intrinsic value regardless of their usefulness to humans. So, it was really interesting to see how my ecologist perspective was similar to and different from the indigenous perspective.
"Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from 'Braiding Sweetgrass' resonated the most with you?"
I have been reflecting a lot on the concept of reciprocity. Kimmerer makes brilliant representations on this concept as it pertains to the land and our relationship with other living beings, but I think the concept goes so much further beyond that. Specifically in terms of our relationships with others, and how we can best work together as different individuals/groups within the larger environmental movement without taking from each other, but lifting each other up and becoming better allies, and overall stronger as a movement overall.
It also holds so much truth when it comes to rethinking our collective mindset from wealth as capital and material accumulation; towards wealth as collective wellbeing and mutual abundance.
3. One group that is working to help address climate change that does focus people on their connection and love for the natural world is Citizens' Climate Lobby, and that's one of the many reasons CCL resonates with me. Right from the start, in CCL's volunteers' introductory Climate Advocate Training Workshop, there are several sections that focus participants on their appreciation of the natural world and give a broader perspective of our place in it. At one point in the training, the instructor paraphrases A.A.Milne, saying: "Each day I wake up, I am torn between the urge to save the world and the desire to savor it. This is a difficult decision, because if we do not spend time savoring the world, what reason do we have to spend our energy working to save it."
2. In the beginning of the book, Kimmerer describes sweetgrass. “Breathe in its scent,” she writes, “and you start to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten.” What did this book reinforce for you that you already knew, but had perhaps forgotten?
This book reminded me of a talk by an Anishinaabe scholar (Mark Freeland) about the power of language to define your reality, and how basic concepts like time and place were inherently different in that native language than in English. It was as simple as treating seasons as verbs: think about how different it feels to say "it is springing outside now" vs. "it is spring". This simple but powerful reframing seems like it could be really helpful in climate change communication.
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
Not sure if this is still open but I will comment on the chance. Firstly....Book groups are a GOOD IDEA. I love to study the complexities of climate change but have come to believe that relations are a necessary part of solution. Progress seems easier every time I can forge relation with another person and that includes all the neglected persons in non human nature.
I'm drawn to the relation of indigeneity. Both in the sense of self knowledge and knowledge of the sacredness of the nearby, land, neighbors, creatures etc. Gratitude is a sentiment resulting from a feeling of relation. Indigeneity is not unique to First Peoples but it is sadly rare outside fo them. Standing Rock was about fighting for a family member put at risk.
I don't wish to find fault with the climate movement because it allows me to avoid taking personal responsibility for my Settler consciousness heritage that has promoted a relation to nature that is stunted. It is akin to carrying a virus that diminshes teh capacity to feel and sense the wounds to relations of creation. The suffering is staggering that it is easy to feel overwhelmed but if we suffer together (even in book clubs) a solace is possible as suffering moves from "me" to "we".
In this sense, the :"wounded world" does "feed us". The wounds that violate also open me to be "fed" a greater awareness and feeling of the many gives of indigeneity.
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
There is a wonderful tension in Kimmerer's writing and life story between the power of soberly documenting reality (as an academic, scientist, journalist, etc.) and the power of ecstatically singing praise and wonder. So much has been written about how you need to be able to dance at any revolution worth its salt, how an "I have a nightmare" speech would never have become an icon of the civil rights movement, and why facts don't motivate anywhere near the same energy as identities and stories. I certainly felt that Kimmerer was allowing a place for joy and belonging in the natural world. She avoided what Stephen Jenkinson described as self-absorption: “The ultimate self-absorption of our age is the self-hatred of our age. The belief that nothing we can say or do can help but screw things up even worse.” I don't think that the prevalence of dire predictions and powerless feelings in the environmental movement should simply be offset by "good news" networks and personal empowerment and stress coping seminars (both of which I've seen pop up in the context of COVID-19); this is not an equation to be balanced, not the misguided image of "scales of justice" (as though making things right in the world would resort to the same measurement tools by which we weigh and quantify commodities). I think we need to stop believing we will get to a final accounting of the credits and debts, benefits and harms, of humanity on the natural world and our fellow humans. Wonder, awe and other experiences come when our expectations are exceeded rather than met fair-and-square. I think that healing and creative arts deserve orders of magnitude higher visibility and coverage in our climate discussions; we should have a part of our day dedicated to being with climate and nature in a right-brained way. HEATED inspired me to take this inspiration to cover the healing and creative arts as they relate to climate engagement. I'll be transitioning jobs soon and will have the space to start a newsletter doing just that, hosted on Substack like HEATED (but definitely in the minor leagues of newsletters rather than the big leagues that Emily and her team are playing in). If you'd like to support (shameless plug here), please sign-up hear and let me know in the comments here if there are any pieces of art, music, movies, healing traditions etc that cover climate in inspiring ways!
1- I like the concept of languages lost and the concept of language of the land whose vocabulary is in the food that comes from the land. 2- we get used to how to use foods not indigenous to the land and become dependent on foreign to the land condiments, foods, and processes which are all challenged during these days of shortages and supplier problems that the large stores are experiencing. In Collapse Jared Diamond noted that the vikings starved in Greenland because they knew how to eat beef but not fish. 3- The environmental movement is a big tent. Yes it includes groups that don't focus on the joys of the natural world. These same component buys into consumption patterns created by fossil fuels and seeks to preserve them in energy waste and water but just change the toxic extractive methods to greener ones. Case in point the EV movement which is best illustrated by a cartoon that shows a traffic jam with regular cars and a cloud of pollution and the same one without the cloud but called EV. The point is that being in the rat race wasting away your day in traffic in an EV is not much of an accomplishment.
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
I'm not so sure I agree with this. I feel that for too long we've glorified the joy of the natural world in all the varied formats available for eco-porn. Until recently only the last 10% of the show was the bummer part, e.g. about conservation. But we still struggle to present the joy in a way that allows for the whole context. To be honest, I don't personally have a way to access that joy without the sadness and horror of impending loss. It's a really tough time to be an ecologist. But the experience of the joy is what keeps me in the game, which is perhaps your point.
I am 1/2 through the book. Hats off to People Get Ready books who delivered it to me by bicycle. I was wondering if the book prompted you to think about any changes in how you cover climate issues? Great choice. Thank you for selecting this book.
On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed? I do and don't agree with her. I do think sometimes there is a lot of doom and gloom, specifically around climate change. I just came to this discussion from an online viewing of a film sponsored by Food and Water Watch called Right to Harm about CAFO's and their effects on the human communities that surround them. The film made me so angry and depressed and was a big illustration of many of things talked about in Braiding Sweet Grass -- how alienation from the land and lack of gratitude lead to the abuse of the land and humans. The film showed people fighting CAFOs but so far they aren't winning. But horrible as it is to always be looking at the horrors that are being inflicted on our earth and us by corporate inhumanity, I think there is a role for this horror. We have to see the terrible things and feel them viscerally in order for us to be willing to act. And a lot of environmental groups do focus on these negatives, but there are plenty of environmental groups such as Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club which focus on the wonders of nature, and getting out into nature and enjoying it too. I think we need both of these things from environmental groups, but I do not think it is enough just to tell those of us who are already on that page how wonderful nature is; we need to show the horrors of what is being done to all these places and creatures and humans we love so that a critical mass of people are compelled to act.
2. What did this book reinforce for you that you already knew, but had perhaps forgotten?
Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.
A couple weeks ago, I was so, so depressed about everything. The pandemic just totally destroyed my mental state. I was talking to a friend about it, and she said her therapist recommended practicing gratitude every day as a way to stave off depression. "Yes, there are so many things we're not allowed to do right now, and so much death and pain," she said. "But today is sunny and warm, and I get to go for a walk with my headphones in. And I am so grateful that."
Thinking of everything in that way helped her. So I have been doing it too--and it's helped my mental health immensely. I wake up and have a moment of gratitude for the natural light through my windows. I have a moment for the coffee that helps me feel alive. I even try to have moments of gratitude for my annoying older brother, who I get to see during the pandemic, when so many people have no one. These are things I usually wouldn't give a second thought to. Now, during the pandemic, they are sacred to me. They help me feel happy. And honestly, truly, I am not depressed anymore--partially because of that.
But wait -- why don't I do this all the time?
Kimmerer's book helped me remember the power of gratitude, and not just as a tool to help myself feel better during a pandemic. Gratitude, especially for the natural world, is a tool to help ground ourselves in what's important. When we don't practice gratitude, we forget to see the wonder in the things that we literally can't live without. So we take advantage of it. That's why we take advantage of the natural world. Because we never practice gratitude for it.
"Imagine if our government meetings began with the Thanksgiving Address," Kimmerer wrote on page 113. "What if our leaders first found common ground before fighting over their differences?"
I loved this -- and I'm usually not one to love woo-woo shit. And I think that's because I see people weaponize gratitude all the time. Trump, abusers -- they say shit like, "you should be grateful for all that I've given you," and they say it to manipulate people into accepting their abusive behavior. But that's not true gratitude, because true gift-givers expect nothing in return. The natural world expects nothing in return from us--but it will not continue to give us gifts if we don't reciprocate. When that happens, we will regret that we were not more grateful.
1. "Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from 'Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you?"
As a climate journalist, I would say two things resonated most with me: the importance of telling Native stories/having indigenous people as leaders in the climate conversation, and the importance of interdisciplinary education and storytelling.
Kimmerer speaks often of the concept of "becoming Native" or "becoming indigenous." By that, she means becoming someone who treats the natural world not just something for your own benefit, but for the benefit of future generations. Indigenous people, she (I think correctly) argues, are the only people to have ever truly demonstrated the ability to do that--and additionally, are the only ones who understand that humans can actually benefit the world, while the rest of us assume humans are inherently bad for the planet. Part of this is because of the stories we tell ourselves; we simply don't ever hear stories of effective reciprocity between humans and the nature. How can we achieve reciprocity if we don't believe it is possible? How will be ever believe it is possible if we don't hear stories about how it is achieved? As a journalist, this speaks to my responsibility to seek out and tell indigenous climate stories, and report on the solutions they recommend.
On interdisciplinary education and storytelling, Kimmerer demonstrates the limits of scientific knowledge alone. Her interactions with her botany advisor, who told her her questions about beauty in nature were "unscientific," were infuriating. If she had listened to him, we never would have gotten this book. In fact, her interdisciplinary background is testament to why this book is so effective. She communicates complicated scientific concepts (scientist) in language we yearn to read (poet) with a moral and spiritual compass that resonates with us all (indigenous). I always thought it I went to graduate school for anything, it would be journalism--because I'm a journalist, and I figured I should probably bolster my expertise. But now I think multi-expertise is more beneficial, especially for communicating about the environment. So maybe if I ever go back to school, it will be for something else.
2. In the beginning of the book, Kimmerer describes sweetgrass. “Breathe in its scent,” she writes, “and you start to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten.” What did this book reinforce for you that you already knew, but had perhaps forgotten?
As I've been finishing up the Braiding Sweetgrass, I set my reading sights on Ziya Tong's book The Reality Bubble. The introductory material for The Reality Bubble includes this excerpt:
"Individually, we can be blind to the obvious, but collectively, as a society, we can be blind as well. Here’s a curious fact to consider: in the twenty-first century, there are cameras everywhere, except where our food comes from, where our energy comes from, and where our waste goes. How is it, then, that the most powerful species on the planet is blind to how it survives?
You might say that modern humans interface with nature as though we live in a bubble. It’s the reason why, in the United Kingdom, one in three young adults don’t know that eggs come from chickens, a third of children believe that cheese comes from plants, and a whopping 40 percent of youth have no idea that milk comes from cows. For these kids, food comes from where you’d think it comes from: “Duh,” the supermarket."
(https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/568675/the-reality-bubble-by-ziya-tong/9780735235564/excerpt)
I thought that I had broken out of the reality bubble that Tong describes, that I have a higher-than-average understanding of where food and energy come from and where waste goes, but reading Kimmerer's essays I realize that popping the perverted capitalist reality bubble will take more than facts, more than documentary-style knowledge from cameras catching the inconvenient truths of industry red-handed. Kimmerer's stories—I'm thinking specifically of the 'Maple Nation' essay—remind me that discursive knowledge and documentation of unfolding disasters are crucial, but so is embodied knowledge, of which I feel an acute absence living in my city apartment in this COVID-19 shelter-in-place moment. I don't know what the scent of sweetgrass is, I don't know what it feels like to have a fragrant cloud of maple steam hit your face as you enter the sugar shack, I haven't felt the squish and slip of a eutrophying pond's silty bottom in ages. I have few embodied stories that feel alive with me right now, except for those isolating stories about my body in pain: the back pain from too many sports when I was young and too much sitting now that I'm older; the stomach unease that might be diet or might be anxiety, but is likely the poorly coordinated dance between the two; the fatigue pulling me into the plush couch and requesting some Netflix escapism at the end of a long day. Where's my maple, my sweetgrass, my corn, bean and squash story?
Kimmerer's lifestyle—balancing academic reductionism, indigenous holism, and embodied place-based storytelling—gave me inspiration to think about what stories I'm not telling. So often the frustrations of city life lead to minds that look for stories to identify the sources of pain or confusion in their body or surroundings, but Kimmerer and the indigenous cosmology she explores show that bodies are meant for moving, for smelling, for bending to converse with wild leeks before you harvest them, for being part of the story. You don't just make stories about the world for mental consumption in books and articles, the world itself is stories: the understory, the overstory, the only true story, is written in multiple senses by countless beings. There is no reality bubble here, nothing to burst except blossoms and pods and berries and chrysalises.
1. Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.? I'm about 1/2 way through the book and so many ideas resonate. But a concept from the early pages continues to really strike me as critical. Asking her 200 3rd year ecology students if they can think of beneficial relationships between humans and the environment, they almost all say no; likewise, most of them can think of no positive interactions between people and land. Klimmerer's response hits me in the gut: "How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?" And as a journalist, it makes me wonder if I am doing a bad job, not only of showing what that path COULD look like but, more importantly, what it ALREADY looks like.
A theme that resonates with me (descendant of settlers; lived in many places) is the notion of becoming native to a place: on p. 58 she writes, "But to become native to this place, if we are to survive here, and our neighbors too, our work is to learn to speak the grammar of animacy, so that we might truly be at home." The place where I'm living now has been my home since 2010, and I'm fortunate that we live in a semi-rural area of CT, where just a few steps from our front door, I have access to two woodland preserves, one owned by the town, the other by a land trust. It is in these woodland preserves that I am slowly learning the grammar of animacy: sensing that even the rocks and stones are alive, growing more mindful of even the smallest plants. Learning this grammar helps to re-energize my engagement with climate change.
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
My gut feeling, at first, was yes — doom and gloom marks so much of the way we talk about the climate emergency. I work in a high school, or did before schools closed, and I've talked with students who feel so powerless in the face of climate change. "Mr. Urevig, we're all gonna die." I don't think that's true or helpful.
My second thought, though, was "hold up:" The climate emergency is an EMERGENCY. The dire predictions are true, and they're here now, and people are dying.
My third thought is to try and bring these reactions together: Perhaps "the environmental movement" is too broad. We need the dire forecasts, because we need to know what's coming. We also need joy, because without it, why are we fighting? I think of this gem from Kimmerer, comparing our gifts as humans to the gifts that each of the Three Sisters — corn, beans, squash — bring to the field:
“The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and nurtured, because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction so they can be shared with others.” (p. 134)
Maybe the same can be true of the environmental movement. Lean into your gifts, whether that's inspiring people with joy or telling hard truths, and give your gift freely. I don't know if there's anything else we can do.
1. "Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from 'Braiding Sweetgrass' resonated the most with you?"
The "Tending Sweetgrass" section resonated with me the most, probably because I'm raising two little girls just like the author, although I'm not doing it alone, and I'm certainly not raking a pond for them, ha! I loved the simple, beautiful ways she helped her girls connect with the land (like making maple syrup together) the way her parents had done for her (like her dad's ritual of pouring the coffee on the ground), and it made me think of ways my family members helped me love the Earth from a young age, how I'm doing that for my kids so far (in ways I hadn't realized until this book made me think of them), and how I could continue to do so in other ways. It was wonderful to read this book in the spring because so many of her stories took place in the spring and connected to the natural world around us right now — like we have wild strawberries coming up in our yard right now, and we've been planting things and picking things, and I've probably noticed and enjoyed it even more because of this book. Thank you for the excellent recommendation and discussion!
1. Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?
The idea of reciprocity with plants and other non-animal elements of the earth was an eye-opener for me. It feels so foreign to the way I and many of those I know look at the world, even those of us who consider ourselves environmental activists or lovers of the outdoors. But obviously it's not a new idea, and people who aren't indigenous Americans (e.g. St. Francis of Assisi, perhaps?) have embraced it, as well.
I don't see a worldview of reciprocity with non-animal earth-dwellers catching on any time soon (especially since humanity seems to be struggling with reciprocity just among our own species at the moment). But to me, gratitude is the first step toward that reciprocal relationship with the planet. I hope we who move in the climate circles can increasingly be leaders in educating the rest of humanity on how much we ought to appreciate everything the earth provides. As Kimmerer points out, try as we might, humans can't actually produce tomatoes (or corn or wheat or rice -- pick your staple crop!), we can only create the conditions in which they thrive and be grateful that they do.
1. "Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?"
As a new father to a 3-month old daughter, I was deeply moved by Kimmerer drawing connections between parenting children and stewarding earth. Her description of her grief and separation process when her second daughter moved out of the house reminded me that my new reality truly is the Longest Shortest Time. There will be a time soon when staring at my child in absolute wonder and adoration (as I do now) will be invasive, likely garnering a "Dad, stop it" or a healthy, exasperated exhale to remind me of the proper boundaries and healthy individuation between parents and growing children. Kimmerer gave me a vision of this future of supposedly "empty-nesting" that is instead a portal towards using the highs, lows and mysteries of family-making to understand the larger family of beings (species, regions and weather patterns) in which we play multiple parts. In order to regenerate and maintain healthy places, we can and must simultaneously be children (expressing unconstrained wonder and delight at the natural world), adolescents (constantly awakening to our own sense of sorrow, rage and possibility) and adults (accepting limits, taking responsibility, holding fast to our well-earned values). I hope that if I drop off my child at their first day of college, I can take a page out of Kimmerer's book and go launch a kayak or canoe on some tranquil body of water, letting it drift in the wind as I stare up at the shifting sky, symbol of my ever-shifting life.
Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?
The concept of gratitude struck a chord with me, especially when Kimmerer was tracing the sources of the objects in her house back to their origins. When she traced the source of plastic objects, it really exposed how ridiculously far out of the way we are going to exploit resources, manufacture and profit off of junk. We've lost a lot more than we think by giving oil and plastic so much purchase in our society.
I understand this group isn't big on individual action, but considering the origin of our purchases seems like the least anyone concerned with climate can do. Not because one less water bottle will save the world, but because we have to stop playing into this gratitude-less system of wagging a finger at the oil man with one hand and paying him with another.
On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
I am only halfway through, but I have already taken in this sentiment from the book. Reading Braiding Sweetgrass has been a meditative experience for me, and I have savored each chapter slowly. Climate change is such a systemic problem that it is easy to mourn what it lost and be mindful of tipping points and ecosystem services. As a parent I have worked hard to instill an appreciation for the natural world in my children, but reading Braiding Sweetgrass I realize that there is a lot I have to learn so that I can be a better teacher to others. Addressing climate change is not just about sustainability, in sustaining the status quo of our lifestyles, but rather it is being more mindful of how we can better harness the natural world to live more equitable and happier lives. I am thinking of regenerative agriculture and biomimicry as principles of sustainability that can become a larger part of how we focus our efforts on climate. However, that is probably just a starting point. In terms of communication, we should do a better job of reflecting on the wonder of the world as it is today, to instill an appreciation in the young that is more comprehensive that what most people know today, which is more about going 'out there' rather than returning to something that is already an integral part of us.
Emily,
Thank you for this effort. I haven't picked up this book yet, but I know of it through friends who run a re-wilding program called the Human Nature School. This is good stuff. I will pick up the book and continue on. Many blessings.
Steven
Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?***
The “grammar of animacy" is the single most powerful idea that I found in this book. Kimmerer quotes Thomas Berry on page 56, “we must say of the universe that it is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”
This is what the science of consciousness calls panpsychism, and it isn’t widely accepted, although there is no consensus on the issue.
I could probably write a thesis. But it’s important because no meaningful relationship with our planet, and therefore a sense of responsibility for it, is particularly accessible if it isn’t perceived of as an interactive entity—something with memory, language, emotion, a soul. I believe the world we live in has these things; that’s why I write about the outdoors.
The consequence is demonstrated by our society. But functionally, Kimmerer’s student sums it up: “…speaking English, thinking in English, somehow gives us permission to disrespect nature? By denying everyone else the right to be persons? Wouldn’t things be different if nothing was an it?”
BTW we are also reading this book in our Environmental Book Club. I like your three prompt method promoting discussion. We post a series of questions and look for either for discussion in a zoom session or online discussion using the comment feature similar to this discussion. https://enlight21.com/book-groups/book-review/137
Sorry, i just joined and haven’t read the book, although it sounds interesting. I will put it on my reading list.
3. Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
YES. I have been feeling this so much. The past 2 years have been sitting at my desk in a high rise weeping over glacier melt and poisoned lungs under fluorescent lights. I found myself crying over things I didn't really know. I found my place as an activist online. I found roaches and rats to be the animals with whom I most frequently engage, and my dying shrub as the token plant. Wtf?
Kimmerer made me promise myself that this would change. And she made me excited about it. "As we work to heal the Earth, the Earth heals us." Sign me up.
I know that I shouldn't spend as much time as I do focusing on my individual impact. Some people don't need to hear that argument but I do. I rinse out every plastic container, compost at home, shut off every light. I will keep doing that, but I want to spend more of that time enjoying the world. I want to plant a garden and not go through the office trash bin pulling out the recyclabes. Feel connected to this nature thing I have devoted myself to. Breathe. Because joy sustains activism (Solnit said that) and I deserve that shit so much.
How can it be fixed? Idk but it sounds like a sweet deal balancing our "alarmism and doomsday talk" (science) with encouraging joy and nature. I think people will like us more, maybe even identify with us more !!! Kimmerer is so good at it. She made me curious and genuinely interested in every non-human living thing I've crossed paths with. She calmed me the fuck down.
Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
There is so much beauty, wisdom, and love in this book that I am still processing and absorbing – but I wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to read in community and for choosing this book, I also found it very healing in this particular moment we are living through.
Kimmerer carries many reflections for the environmental movement that I think are pivotal and can inform the way we continue to build movement, but especially tell stories. In terms of the joys of the natural world, she is right on point when she says we haven’t focused nearly enough on the beauty in the resiliency of our natural systems, and non-human species who continue to persevere despite our continue destruction. The wealth they offer to us, and how void and worse off we are as humans when we lose connections to other life forms with whom we share this planet. Going beyond that though, I have been thinking a lot about her reflections around how the environmental movement – from education, to research and advocacy – has focused so much on negative impacts that we have basically become what she calls a “KEEP OUT” sign between humans and ecosystems. But that negative framing is not doing us any favors. Don’t litter, don’t pollute, don’t use plastic, don’t, don’t, don’t is not how we will win the battle over a collective consciousness shift, and by itself is not enough. We need to embrace the positivity of changes, what are things that we should be doing, looking forward to, and embracing as positive interactions between us and non-humans persons.
A lot of this will require a deep remembering, and embracing indigenous knowledge that can guide our way. To imagine how to be better neighbors to others on the planet. But it has challenged me to think and most importantly to speak differently in my work in this field every day, and I hope that is a good place to start – her gift of thinking about the ways language frames our thinking and relationships, the grammar of animacy, was also deeply illuminating. I think it is our job to take on these questions and tasks and to begin reframing the stories we tell around the climate crisis and the role we all have to play in dismantling the systems that have led us here – while providing a vision for a better, inclusive, positive, beautiful, equitable future that is worth fighting for.
On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
Although Kimmerer doesn't directly discuss this, her beautiful prose and personal stories highlight this reality for me: we can build all the windmills / electric cars we want, but that won't stop the underlying greed and corruption that has been accelerated in our hearts through a capitalist system.
We require an expanding capacity for nurturing deep love / respect for all creation / and intrinsic motivation to change things at the heart level to grow that love. Charles Eisenstein also speaks to this in his writings. Drawing upon an Indigenous practice of "sitting", or spending time in the same exact place in a consistent manner (even standing 10 min every day at the same tree on a busy street corner), can help us develop that connection, love, and appreciation. Tom Brown Jr.'s Tracking School speaks to this. Imagine if we required all elementary school kids to pick a spot in the schoolyard and spend 10 quiet minutes every day observing their surroundings. How could that change the world?
Final point: we can build relationships with the natural world without ascribing to a particular spiritual tradition, but they often allow us to go even deeper, to understand the inner workings of the natural world, and dive into a deeper layer of gratitude for the Creator that created all of this. Whether it is reflecting upon the Prophet Muhammad speaking to a tree (literally) or the Prophet Suleiman communicating with animals, there are countless examples of conservation, moderate consumption, and deep spiritual connection that sages and prophets throughout human history that can show us the heart-based changes that can occur from deepening these relationships.
1. Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from “Braiding Sweetgrass” resonated the most with you—Eg: the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?
As an ecologist, I found the concept of treating all things as "persons" was interesting and useful. As she states on p. 252, "I've never met an ecologist who came to the field for the love of data or for the woder of a p-value. These are just ways we have of crossing the species boundary, of slipping off our human skin and wearing fins or feathers or foliage, trying to know others as fully as we can." In some parts of the book Kimmerer highlights gulfs between scientists and indigenous perspectives, but in my experience this is rare. The core of ecology is the interconnection among all beings, and the more we learn the less clear it is that some should be persons and others should not. Protecting all threatened persons, whether they are spotted salamanders or "essential" workers, would seem at once common sense and threatening as all get out to the powers that be.
On the other hand, I was a bit put off at the idea that these other beings were here to teach us and provide for us. I understand this is a universal concept of service, but it felt too close to making it all about us. I'm more of the school of thought that all beings have intrinsic value regardless of their usefulness to humans. So, it was really interesting to see how my ecologist perspective was similar to and different from the indigenous perspective.
Thanks, Emily! I am grateful for you and your newsletter.
"Speaking specifically as a person who cares about/works on climate change, what theme or concept from 'Braiding Sweetgrass' resonated the most with you?"
I have been reflecting a lot on the concept of reciprocity. Kimmerer makes brilliant representations on this concept as it pertains to the land and our relationship with other living beings, but I think the concept goes so much further beyond that. Specifically in terms of our relationships with others, and how we can best work together as different individuals/groups within the larger environmental movement without taking from each other, but lifting each other up and becoming better allies, and overall stronger as a movement overall.
It also holds so much truth when it comes to rethinking our collective mindset from wealth as capital and material accumulation; towards wealth as collective wellbeing and mutual abundance.
3. One group that is working to help address climate change that does focus people on their connection and love for the natural world is Citizens' Climate Lobby, and that's one of the many reasons CCL resonates with me. Right from the start, in CCL's volunteers' introductory Climate Advocate Training Workshop, there are several sections that focus participants on their appreciation of the natural world and give a broader perspective of our place in it. At one point in the training, the instructor paraphrases A.A.Milne, saying: "Each day I wake up, I am torn between the urge to save the world and the desire to savor it. This is a difficult decision, because if we do not spend time savoring the world, what reason do we have to spend our energy working to save it."
Climate Advocate Training: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-advocate-training/
2. In the beginning of the book, Kimmerer describes sweetgrass. “Breathe in its scent,” she writes, “and you start to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten.” What did this book reinforce for you that you already knew, but had perhaps forgotten?
This book reminded me of a talk by an Anishinaabe scholar (Mark Freeland) about the power of language to define your reality, and how basic concepts like time and place were inherently different in that native language than in English. It was as simple as treating seasons as verbs: think about how different it feels to say "it is springing outside now" vs. "it is spring". This simple but powerful reframing seems like it could be really helpful in climate change communication.
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
Not sure if this is still open but I will comment on the chance. Firstly....Book groups are a GOOD IDEA. I love to study the complexities of climate change but have come to believe that relations are a necessary part of solution. Progress seems easier every time I can forge relation with another person and that includes all the neglected persons in non human nature.
I'm drawn to the relation of indigeneity. Both in the sense of self knowledge and knowledge of the sacredness of the nearby, land, neighbors, creatures etc. Gratitude is a sentiment resulting from a feeling of relation. Indigeneity is not unique to First Peoples but it is sadly rare outside fo them. Standing Rock was about fighting for a family member put at risk.
I don't wish to find fault with the climate movement because it allows me to avoid taking personal responsibility for my Settler consciousness heritage that has promoted a relation to nature that is stunted. It is akin to carrying a virus that diminshes teh capacity to feel and sense the wounds to relations of creation. The suffering is staggering that it is easy to feel overwhelmed but if we suffer together (even in book clubs) a solace is possible as suffering moves from "me" to "we".
In this sense, the :"wounded world" does "feed us". The wounds that violate also open me to be "fed" a greater awareness and feeling of the many gives of indigeneity.
John K
Cer
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
There is a wonderful tension in Kimmerer's writing and life story between the power of soberly documenting reality (as an academic, scientist, journalist, etc.) and the power of ecstatically singing praise and wonder. So much has been written about how you need to be able to dance at any revolution worth its salt, how an "I have a nightmare" speech would never have become an icon of the civil rights movement, and why facts don't motivate anywhere near the same energy as identities and stories. I certainly felt that Kimmerer was allowing a place for joy and belonging in the natural world. She avoided what Stephen Jenkinson described as self-absorption: “The ultimate self-absorption of our age is the self-hatred of our age. The belief that nothing we can say or do can help but screw things up even worse.” I don't think that the prevalence of dire predictions and powerless feelings in the environmental movement should simply be offset by "good news" networks and personal empowerment and stress coping seminars (both of which I've seen pop up in the context of COVID-19); this is not an equation to be balanced, not the misguided image of "scales of justice" (as though making things right in the world would resort to the same measurement tools by which we weigh and quantify commodities). I think we need to stop believing we will get to a final accounting of the credits and debts, benefits and harms, of humanity on the natural world and our fellow humans. Wonder, awe and other experiences come when our expectations are exceeded rather than met fair-and-square. I think that healing and creative arts deserve orders of magnitude higher visibility and coverage in our climate discussions; we should have a part of our day dedicated to being with climate and nature in a right-brained way. HEATED inspired me to take this inspiration to cover the healing and creative arts as they relate to climate engagement. I'll be transitioning jobs soon and will have the space to start a newsletter doing just that, hosted on Substack like HEATED (but definitely in the minor leagues of newsletters rather than the big leagues that Emily and her team are playing in). If you'd like to support (shameless plug here), please sign-up hear and let me know in the comments here if there are any pieces of art, music, movies, healing traditions etc that cover climate in inspiring ways!
https://alextropemd.substack.com/p/coming-soon
1- I like the concept of languages lost and the concept of language of the land whose vocabulary is in the food that comes from the land. 2- we get used to how to use foods not indigenous to the land and become dependent on foreign to the land condiments, foods, and processes which are all challenged during these days of shortages and supplier problems that the large stores are experiencing. In Collapse Jared Diamond noted that the vikings starved in Greenland because they knew how to eat beef but not fish. 3- The environmental movement is a big tent. Yes it includes groups that don't focus on the joys of the natural world. These same component buys into consumption patterns created by fossil fuels and seeks to preserve them in energy waste and water but just change the toxic extractive methods to greener ones. Case in point the EV movement which is best illustrated by a cartoon that shows a traffic jam with regular cars and a cloud of pollution and the same one without the cloud but called EV. The point is that being in the rat race wasting away your day in traffic in an EV is not much of an accomplishment.
3. On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed?
I'm not so sure I agree with this. I feel that for too long we've glorified the joy of the natural world in all the varied formats available for eco-porn. Until recently only the last 10% of the show was the bummer part, e.g. about conservation. But we still struggle to present the joy in a way that allows for the whole context. To be honest, I don't personally have a way to access that joy without the sadness and horror of impending loss. It's a really tough time to be an ecologist. But the experience of the joy is what keeps me in the game, which is perhaps your point.
I am 1/2 through the book. Hats off to People Get Ready books who delivered it to me by bicycle. I was wondering if the book prompted you to think about any changes in how you cover climate issues? Great choice. Thank you for selecting this book.
On page 327, Kimmerer criticizes an environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” She reminds us that “Even a wounded world is feeding us … giving us moments of wonder and joy.” Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If so, how can that be fixed? I do and don't agree with her. I do think sometimes there is a lot of doom and gloom, specifically around climate change. I just came to this discussion from an online viewing of a film sponsored by Food and Water Watch called Right to Harm about CAFO's and their effects on the human communities that surround them. The film made me so angry and depressed and was a big illustration of many of things talked about in Braiding Sweet Grass -- how alienation from the land and lack of gratitude lead to the abuse of the land and humans. The film showed people fighting CAFOs but so far they aren't winning. But horrible as it is to always be looking at the horrors that are being inflicted on our earth and us by corporate inhumanity, I think there is a role for this horror. We have to see the terrible things and feel them viscerally in order for us to be willing to act. And a lot of environmental groups do focus on these negatives, but there are plenty of environmental groups such as Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club which focus on the wonders of nature, and getting out into nature and enjoying it too. I think we need both of these things from environmental groups, but I do not think it is enough just to tell those of us who are already on that page how wonderful nature is; we need to show the horrors of what is being done to all these places and creatures and humans we love so that a critical mass of people are compelled to act.
Enjoy the discussion, my copy didn't arrive yet!