Book offers plant wisdom

Vancouver Sun 



As a botanist, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In her new book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants, Dr. Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together, arguing that the awakening of wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.

Q Your first book, Gathering Moss, was singularly focused on what moss can teach us about our lives and our world, but Braiding Sweetgrass is far broader in its scope. Horainforestecide to write this book? How did the project come about?

A The gifts and the teachings of plants used to be part of our common human knowledge; our grandparents knew hundreds of plants and how to use them. But the reality is that in a world which is increasingly disconnected from nature, plant knowledge has declined dramatically. I wanted to reignite respect and gratitude for plants, to reawaken people to the gifts of plants, to the myriad ways that they sustain us. How can we enter into reciprocity with the living world? Plants have tremendous capacity to heal both the land and people. I hope that these stories are healing stories, to heal our relationship with the natural world.

QMany readers might scratch their heads at your subtitle. Can you give us a sense for how indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge come together in your mind?

A As a plant scientist, I’ve been privileged to learn about the structures and functions of plants: the complex architecture of a leaf, the poetry of photosynthesis — that’s pretty amazing stuff. Science, as a way of understanding the world, is extremely powerful when it comes to generating knowledge. But it is not the pathway to wisdom. To my mind, wisdom requires more than the intellect, it calls upon the human capacity for emotion, and engagement of ourselves as spiritual beings. Indigenous wisdom connects knowledge with responsibility and values in a way that science cannot. Knowledge may show us how fossil fuel emissions wreak havoc on the climate, but it is wisdom that helps us choose differently. Indigenous wisdom includes a moral compass that points to the sacredness of the earth and can guide our steps for the future.

Q The teachings of plants might be a curious construction for some people. How can plants teach us?

A When I’m wrestling with a question, I often say to myself, “What do the plants have to say about this? How have they solved this problem?” After all, they have derived many life strategies for sustainability while we humans are still trying to figure it out. I look to them as a source of ideas, practicing a kind of “intellectual biomimicry” for helping us imagine how we might live. In many indigenous cultures, plants are understood as our teachers, because they have been here far longer than we have and because they possess extraordinary abilities for making food and medicine. They embody qualities such as cleverness, beauty and generosity. They teach us by their examples, by their relationships, by how they live. The real question is, “How can we be better students?” By paying deep attention, by knowing them, by listening, by following — just as it is with any great teacher.

Q What does it mean to “braid” sweetgrass?

A Among our people, sweetgrass is understood as the “hair of Mother Earth” and so we braid the shining, fragrant strands just as we braid the hair of a loved one, as a sign of our love and care for the Earth. The stories are an interweaving of three strands: scientific botanical knowledge, indigenous philosophy, and stories of my relationships with the plants.

Q If you lived in British Columbia, what plants would you have around your home?

A In your amazing rain-forest climate you have so many plant possibilities! I would choose to surround myself with carpets of mosses for their sheer beauty. And red cedars, of course, who could ask for a more generous neighbour than cedar? And berries: blackberries, raspberries, salmonberries. And I do love Sitka Spruce. And Nootka Rose. … I could go on!

Q You write about encouraging people to reciprocate the gifts of the plants. What could humans ever give back to the forest?

A We could start with gratitude and acknowledging their simple right to exist on their own terms. Then we can strive to live in such a way that permits them to flourish. Choose a patch of the living world that you love too much to lose, and then fight for it. We humans have gifts of our own that we can give on behalf of plants, such as habitat conservation, ecological restoration and climate protection. A foundation of indigenous philosophy is that we should ask what we can give to the Earth, rather than what more we can take.