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Kernels of Truth

Thoughts on Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass celebrates the beauty, the complexity, and even the generosity of nature. Robin Wall Kimmerer shares her reflections as “a traveler between scientific and traditional ways of knowing,” a perspective she experiences through a bunch of roles.

As a student, she travels between Western universities and tribal gatherings across the US. As a teacher, she travels between classic research settings and immersive experiential classes. As as a community member, she travels between neighbor, ceremony participant, and volunteer. As a daughter, she travels between her biological parents and the Earth. As a mother, she travels between her biological daughters and in stewardship of the flora and fauna around her home.

Given those ambitions, it’s no wonder Kimmerer’s style shifts from chapter to chapter. The book has sections that read like a memoir, a chapter structured for an academic journal, passages presented as folklore, and one piece written as an obituary. Such a melange of perspectives and styles could very easily fall apart over the course of 300 pages, but Kimmerer’s execution is up to the task. She brings a scientist’s precision to introspection (my favorite: considering the relative value of lives while tending a pond) and a philosopher’s empathy to technical topics (my favorite: the exploration of lichen as a composite organism).

I approached the book expecting a harsh critique of modern society. Kimmerer has a lighter touch, though. There’s no politics and not even much lifestyle advice1. She mostly writes philosophically, and her tenets are difficult to dispute2. Community is good. Genocide is wrong. Gratitude is desirable. Nature is beautiful. I considered this a missed opportunity on first reaching the book’s conclusion. As a demonstrably passionate, intelligent, and thoughtful ecologist, Kimmerer has undoubtedly cultivated a slew of policy recommendations. It seemed strange that she would construct such a substantial and inspirational work but withhold tactical guidance.

Really, though, this restraint might be the book’s most understated achievement. Kimmerer writes for an American audience. Ours is a culture where people value individuality over protecting neighbors and family members. Even a statement like, “maybe don’t eat so much meat” could turn off a huge percentage of the people whose minds need changing. Kimmerer’s focus on philosophy is not only difficult to vilify; it’s also likely to inspire introspection. Farmer that she is, she plants the most inconspicuous of seeds with the expectation that they’ll sprout and germinate under their own power. For such an individualistic society, that might be the best tactic.

  1. Her thoughts on modern relationships to food are a notable exception. This lifestyle is in some ways more restrictive even than a vegan diet and a great candidate for the so-called culture wars:

    But when the food does not come from a flock in the sky, when you don’t feel the warm feathers cool in your hand and know that a life has been given for yours, when there is no gratitude in return–that food may not satisfy. It may leave the spirit hungry while the belly is full. Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.

    How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again? I know we cannot all become hunter-gatherers–the living world could not bear our weight–but even in a market economy, can we behave “as if” the living world were a gift?

    We could start be listening to Wally. There are those who will try to sell the gifts, but, as Wally says of sweetgrsas for sale, “Don’t buy it.” Refusal to participate is a moral choice. Water is a gift for all, not meant to be bought and sold. Don’t buy it. When food has been wrenched from the earth, depleting the soil and poisoning our relatives in the name of higher yields, don’t buy it.

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  2. This generalization also calls for an exception:

    Woods throughout the country are losing their leeks to harvesters who love them to extinction. The difficulty of digging is an important constraint. Not everything should be convenient.

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