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BOOK CLUB: Part 3 - Picking Sweetgrass (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-07 16:42:51
Edited:
2023-05-07 17:35:11
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

[Pictured: A Marten. Ellen pulled up a picture of Two Potawatomi black ash baskets, made by the Pigeon family but I deleted it to put a Marten instead because look at this fucking guy]This is the third discussion thread for Braiding Sweetgrass AKA the third meeting of the Strawberry Liberation Front. How many strawberries have you liberated since we last met. Make it more!I'm a little moody today so if I seem way meaner just ignore it, but today I am losing patience with Kimmerer talking about how badly she wishes she could photosynthesize.Epiphany in the Beans:I really like this impromptu list of traits that a quantitative social psychologist could use to define "Love"

& taking the practical advice to Plant A Garden to heart. I think I need to be keeping some plants alive. I will keep my eyes open in looking for my next home for something with space and light for some greenery. Maybe somefmucjkign strarwnberryeis

The Three Sisters:

To be honest I do glaze over when she starts using thesaurus poetry to express The Beauty of The Corncob

sorry I mean like its cool how the beans wrap around the corn and stuff its cool

"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)

i know this bc of Spiderman but i guess plants are cool too

I really like this line about fertilized blooms of Squash:

"Such is the outcome of successful seduction." (p. 135)

gonna be incorporating that into my lexicon of post ironic phrases

Robin seems like a wonderful educator and mother and person.Wisgaak Gokpenage: A Black Ash Basket:

Introduction of the Honourable Harvest process, requesting the right to take something, leaving something in return, literally and ritualistically.

Trees are not taken, but requested. Respectfully, the cutter explains his purpose and the tree is asked permission for harvest. Sometimes the answer is no. It might be a cue in the surroundings—a vireo nest in the branches, or the bark’s adamant resistance to the questioning knife—that suggests a tree is not willing, or it might be the ineffable knowing that turns him away. If consent is granted, a prayer is made and tobacco is left as a reciprocating gift. The tree is felled with great care so as not to damage it or others in the fall. Sometimes a cutter will make a bed of spruce boughs to cushion the landing of the tree. (p. 144)

To those who carry the responsibility of an ancient relationship, the empty niche means empty hands and a hole in the collective heart. (p. 150)

It is an honor to be the guardian of another species (p. 151)

For me, writing is an act of reciprocity with the world; it is what I can give back in return for everything that has been given to me. (p. 152)

such a writer thing to say but as a writer, like, exactly

"You've got to sign your basket. Take pride in what you did. That basket didn't make itself. Claim it, mistakes and all." (p. 153)

I open the cupboard, a likely place for gifts. <3 (p. 154)

We weren't made for that sort of constant awareness. (p. 155)Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass:

The formal scientific study format I thought knowing and sharp.

To be heard, you must speakthe language of the one you want to listen. (p. 158)

I have a question for them, but since we don't speak the same language, I can't ask them directly and they won't answer verbally. But plants can be eloquent in their physical respoinses and behaviors. Plants answer questions by the way they live, by their responses to change; you just need to learn how to ask. (p. 158)

Is it weird that this is the way I think about audiences and societies? Anyways,

Tender: "I don't speak to the plants or make an offering... It wouldn't be right... to add a variable that I don't understand and that science can't even attempt ot measure. And besides, I'm not qualified to speak to sweetgrass."

Reciprocity is a matter of keeping the gift in motion through self-perpetuating cycles of giving and receiving. (p. 165)

...the data or the prayer. (p. 166)Maple Nation: A Citizenship Guide:

Kind of redundant but also good and fine. I share Kimmerer's little surging admiration for local government, warm soft feeling about taxes as a concept, gratitude for the systems and people doing incessant invisible maintenance.

Fortunately, there are those in every organization, few but invaluable, who know their responsibilities and seem to thrive on meeting them. They get things done. These are the ones we all rely upon, the people who take care of the rest of us, quiet leaders. (p. 169)

... we don't think of them unless they are missing. (p. 170)The Honorable Harvest:Starting to feel REDUNDANT!

I like bits

Reciprocity helps resolve the moral tension of taking a life by giving in return something of value that sustains the ones who sustain us. (p. 190)

Also introduced me to martens! And their systematic murder for luxury products <3

Trying to go to the mall with the same awareness and generous interpretation of agency with which she appreciates the forest, resulting in the inevitable conclusion:

the pulsing animacy, is simply not here... Everything for sale here is dead. (p. 198)

---------------------Two weeks from now, May 21st, we regroup for Braiding Sweetgrass. Reminder that you can always do a previous book in Book Club or come to threads very late and me or someone from the research team (or any total teachers pets who are checking previous threads) will definitely see this, all the threads live forever and we gain something from the accumulation of perspectives and passions. Wonderful artifacts we're developing backwards, anytime you want to read a book and then think about it soooooo fucking much

In the meantime make sure to fuck a plant! Or like reinterpret reality or unforget lost tradition or wahtever

Please contribute more energy and intellect than I did! My responses will be soooo based is2g

Data & Prayers Below!

Files

Comments

Nelson Mercer

I tried liberating a strawberry but it ran away from me. I think it was a very large ladybug.

Kaleb Morgan

At this point, I feel as if Kimmerer has thoroughly established her point. Establishing a reciprocal connection with nature and appreciating its intrinsic value is so salient in every paragraph that I find it kind of tiring by now. While there is exigence in sharing this narrative, I wonder if much more can be said in the next 190 pages we have left. I have found the book very informative and beautiful but I'm skeptical about whether the rest of the book will just be flowery regurgitation of the other sections. On a more positive note, this book has done a great job of highlighting the fracture and fission I have from the intrinsic value of "wild nature" or pristine ecosystems. There is undeniably an aesthetic value to nature qua nature, however, I have been so assimilated into consumerist late-stage capitalism and urban-center living that it seems like a distinct and isolated domain. I feel incredibly sad and I also feel a sense of longing for her metaphysical commitments. By adhering to a materialist metaphysic (perhaps dogmatically) I have robbed myself of the experience of pristine nature and some relation to a Gaia worldview. This might be because of my American/ Western perspective or my endorsement of Marx but this alienation from nature is something that makes me mourn what appreciation I might have had otherwise.

Anonymous

The frustration with her being redundant makes me wonder if she is developing a point with every iteration that we can’t see either because the book isn’t over or because we’re focused on something else. But that’s all the thought I’ve put into that, so there.

Anonymous

Also, I’ve spent the last three months walking this river by my house - For decades, a gorgeous paved biking path has run alongside the river all the way from the nearby canyon to the lake. But this isn’t the natural course of the river; it used to have a huge delta a square mile or so large (that was how the water used to feed into the lake). The lake it feeds into used to be the dumping ground for the city’s waste. This is one reason the delta was replaced by a singular connection point between the river and the lake - to make the dumping easier, I guess? It’s been this way for decades. The parts of the river that were initially manmade, however, are now teeming with ecosystems and life and fish and ducks and wetland grass stuff (honestly it’s just pretty, I’m no ecologist. And the path that runs along it is just out of a storybook) - Last week I wandered far enough down the path to find a constructing site that is now cutting the river off and rerouting the flow into the delta again. The idea is to restore the original connection and rebuild the ecosystems that were there before. If I’m honest, I’m selfishly sad that the river I knew is changing. I walked that with loved ones that are no longer with me. Looking at the dead, mowed over land of the delta that hasn’t seen water for decades, I get excited to see the delta spring to life. Looking at the now stagnant water sitting where the river used to flow, I got sad for the fish, and the trees, and the entire path I’ve known for years. I’m still deciding what to think, but the feelings are tender and mixed. I’ve never been outdoorsy, but his river became a place to visit and remember people I’ve lost. I’ve finished kimmerers book, and find myself returning to the lake restoration chapter (which is in the next section, I think). This experience, and her book, have me thinking hard about if you can really restore something that was genuinely destroyed, how to remember and be reciprocally connected with things that are genuinely lost. How could I prefer this river teeming with life when it’s replaced the naturally occurring delta? Do I really support the delta project despite the fact that it’ll kill the ecosystems that have been here for decades? Native organizers probably face this question without reprieve, but it’s hard to feel like Kimmerer gives us a straight answer.

BrEaNs

Like others are saying, this book is definitely getting repetitive and I hope that the next 190 pages have ideas that haven't already been thoroughly explored. That being said, I still got a lot from this section overall. ---Epiphany in the Beans--- Something that really jumped out to me in this chapter was the book's greater theme of anthropomorphism (for lack of a better word). Back in Grammar of Animacy, Kimmerer told the story of introducing animacy language to her students, with one student really taking to the idea and one student critiquing animacy by saying that it's "anthropomorphism." Kimmerer introduced two alleged benefits touted by anti-anthropomorphism people: increased objectivity and increased respect for different species by virtue of not mapping our baggage on to them. I think both benefits are valid to some degree, but I've definitely seen some people go too far in the anti-anthropomorphism direction. I saw a tweet awhile back that said "your dog and cat do not 'love' you. they are animals who are food and comfort-motivated and/or have been bred to be affectionate. they are not capable of human emotion. nor should you expect them to be." This strange thought runs exactly counter to Kimmerer's justification for why the Earth loves us (because we would say it's love if a person did what the Earth does for us). Moreover, the tweet expresses an extremely alienating thought that basically separates humans from all animals by positing that only humans can love something. As Kimmerer communicates throughout the book, mentally separating ourselves from nature to such a degree inevitably harms ourselves and others (ex: the guy who felt most comfortable in this car in this chapter). It occurs to me that pets are a rare link that people still have to nature. I was listening to the Binchtopia podcast the other day, and one of their recent episodes touched on our relationship with animals. A comment by host Julia Hava about the other host's cats stuck with me: "You technically don't know what they are thinking at all, but you live in harmony with them. And you give them food and they give you love...and you agree to live in harmony together. If you could talk to your animal it wouldn't be as spiritual a connection." I feel the same way about my cat. Having something that loves me while being distinctly non-human induces this almost mystic relationship because we manage to live together while being so different. Having a cat forces you to interpret non-human body language, which pushes you outside of standard human thought. To live with a cat, you have to imagine they are an identity to some degree--you have to anthropomorphize them--but you still have to understand them as separate from humans in order to give them the best life you can. In the modern world, pets are one of the few ways in which we can feel nature loving us, and our relationships to pets indicate that we feel a need to connect to the rest of nature--that there is immense spiritual value in coexistence with the natural world. We are taught to separate ourselves from nature so much that Kimmerer's students only felt comfortable entertaining the thought that the Earth loves us once it was purely a hypothetical. Once given that permission, Kimmerer notes that so many emotions flowed out of her students all at once (proving our need to be in community with nature). ---Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass--- When I saw that this chapter was formatted like a research article, I was minorly triggered because I'm finishing my thesis currently, but this chapter ended up touching on some feelings I've developed working in science. Part of how I've come to understand experiments is, like Kimmerer, as dialogues with your study objects. In undergrad, my student research project involved shooting a laser through a microliter of dye above a layer of silver in order to track if a linegraph changed in accordance with pH. In other words, it was something quite complicated and removed from nature. However, I felt some connection to the world doing these experiments. The dried silver produced these beautiful formations that resembled geologic formations (continents, rivers, lakes, etc) under the microscope. I also would sometimes have to adjust the positioning of the sample over the laser, which would lead to the linegraph changing in real time in predictable and interpretable ways. The world didn't feel theoretical in the lab, it felt present. I ended up missing this presence when I moved over to computer science in grad school, but I try to find it in little ways to keep myself sane. My machine learning work feels even more removed from nature than my chemistry work, but it feels like the data speaks to me in an odd way. I listen to what experiments tell me and try to find an emotional understanding of it. Sometimes I desperately want something to work so I throw something at the wall and the poor results rebuff my impatience. My best results are when I feel like I'm actively listening to what the data is trying to tell me. I don't know how to describe it, and I fear that a certain very loud subset of AI people are doing a more dangerous version of what I'm doing, but the emotional connection really does improve my work. (To be clear, I'm not trying to ascribe intelligents to computers, rather I'm trying to ascribe identity to the physical world itself). Whenever I have to communicate my results to any computer scientist, it feels like I have to kill a little part of myself because emotionless descriptions of data are all that is tolerated in science. I can't say I have a relationship with my work because I wouldn't be a scientist if I did. The committee of scientists in this chapter was a painful reminder of science's role in colonialism. I like Kimmerer's point that traditional knowledge is a form of observation, it really drives home that science is not somehow a magically separate thing that only super rational gigabrain assholes can do. It makes me wish that we engaged in science in a more outwardly emotional way.

Trent- Enemy of the People

The Teaching of Grass really resonated with me thinking about the nature of truth. I feel like we often have this very modernist conception of science as the sole arbiter of truth, but this traditional spiritualized practice of harvesting was true although reached through other methodology. These basket weavers discovered that the concepts of gratitude and never taking more than half were true because believing them lead to positive results. The scientific method is not the sole arbiter of truth but rather a reliable tool to get there.

Lou Corben

**Epiphany in the Beans** - I’m still curious how the idea of reciprocity with nature deals with parasites, viruses etc. Perhaps it’s to come. - There was in incident here in the UK last month where a disabled woman had been growing vegetables on in her own garden to feed members of her community through the cost of living crisis that’s happening here and vandals broke in and literally salted the earth with 5kg of salt so her crops would die and nothing else would grow. People suspect it might have been done by the owners of a nearby convenience store. Whoever did it, I was absolutely appalled hearing about it but her GoFundMe raised nearly £250k ($315k) so there is a little bit of humanity left on this godforsaken grey island. - There’s a “permablitz” community gardening event happening at my workplace next weekend and this chapter made me want to go :) If anyone else happens to be in London let me know if you want the details. **The Three Sisters** “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. Being among the sisters provides a visible manifestation of what a community can become when its members understand and share their gifts. In reciprocity, we fill our spirits as well as our bellies.” - beautiful, my favourite chapter of this section. **Wisgaak Gokpenagen: A Black Ash Basket** - Looking back over my highlights I’m struck by how well this chapter and the last lead into The Honorable Harvest… the idea of using every part of the tree, even the parts you “waste” accidentally, writing on paper with a pencil (“a magic wand”) and “hoping the words are worth it” as an act of reciprocity. Do we think she wrote this whole book on paper??? - “Each man, each woman, each child, all dressed in their dreamed-of colors, ribbons flying, fringes swaying, all beautiful, all dancing to the heartbeat. Around the circle we go all night, together weaving a basket.” &lt;3 ok ok I’ll go to the communal dance class I’ve been putting off tonight. **Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass** - Love her citing Buffalo - “To be heard, you must speak the language of the one you want to listen.” - bit cynical about this… Some people don’t want to hear you regardless of how you talk to them. But the mic drop moment of her colleague proving the sceptics wrong was a slay. Nice when it works, but we’ve been trying to reason with fascists a long time now and look where we are… **Maple Nation: A Citizenship Guide** - Glad to finally see some calls to action! But 10 years on does “Show up at the damn meeting” still cut it? The Honourable Harvest - I’d never unpacked the idea of sustainability as a way to keep taking. What a lightbulb moment. Certainly something to consider moving forward. - Her kindness in her approach to each of us doing what we can to use our currency as “the indirect currency of reciprocity” is wonderful in this age of Whole Foods being owned by Amazon, and I appreciated her honesty about being torn by the commoditisation of Wild Leeks. Cue me going off on another tangent about art, and commoditisation: I attended a community theatre conference earlier this week and one of the most interesting conversations was about who gets paid during community projects. Traditionally the “professional” artist facilitators are paid to go into a community and work with them to create a piece of theatre about their experiences, and if done right, elevate their voices in the process. Usually the community participants are *not* paid which has raised questions among people who make this kind of work as to whether this practice is exploitative, especially if the end product digs into the community’s trauma. Someone I know has trialled paying the participants of a youth beatboxing/theatre class, BUT once the money dried up, they no longer wanted to attend these classes that they had all been going to for years. Which begs the question, should *anyone* be paid to make art?! “Wild things should not be for sale.”

Josh Foreman

I don't have much to say on this chunk, as it seems to be very much about making the same points through subtly different lenses. This is a valid thing to do, and I'm sure beautiful for those with whom it resonates. Definitely one of those books that that I'm glad I've read, despite not enjoying the process of reading it much. But that's a good muscle to exercise, in all spheres of life. I think I enjoyed the description of the Ash Basket class most. Probably because I do live art workshops and it's interesting to see how different teaching methodologies work (and sometimes don't) with different people.

sal3m

I haven´t finished yet but I´m eager to share thoughts already so her I go yay (more to come?). First of all beacuse I hadn´t finished and I knew this post would be up, I kept telling myself I ~had to~ finish this part today. Quickly realised I had to change that thought so that I ~had the opportunity~ to finish this part today. Though maybe I would've finished it if I had chosen to keep forcing myself, it would be with less gratitude so I'd rather take my time and keep being thankful for this book that I find really valuable. Throughout 'The Three Sisters' I kept thinking of my one plant whose leaves edges are turning brown. When I got her I found online that apparently she was hard to take care of, but I was confident she'd be happy with me. She was actually, for a long time, until I went on holidays and left her with my neighbor for a month. Since then her edges tend to turn brown, but I cannot blame my neighbor. No one is to blame, really, but I try so hard to listen to her and make her happy again. I have put my two other large plants next to her, so hopefully the extra shade and damp will make her happier, and maybe they'll take care of her like sisters. Taking care of many many plants made me understand their language more, but also made me overly confident in understanding it when there is so much that I still don't understand. Why both of my moneytrees are losing leaves I can't seem to wrap my head around, but I'm trying to sit down with them and understand their dance. I hope to become so eloquent that just a gaze upon them would say it all (reference to page 129). "It's an honour to be the guardian of another species" (my annotation: me with my 23 plants) And yes, they all have names. I should think about what I use more. Be grateful!! p. 158: "I smile when I hear my colleagues say: "I discovered X." That's kind of Colombus claiming to have discovered America." MEMEME I am not discovering what my plants need, just gaining the ability to listen properly. Noted, be grateful, be mindful. I admire Laurie's patience. I want to take care of my plants with the same patience she watched the grass grow with. Loving patience. Connecting patience. Mindfulness and greatfulness. Yes!!

Carol N.

Only halfway through this section atm but I understand the general opinion around here - it to me kind of feels like considering what out of this very very specific pov is useful to mull over and incorporate into how we interact with the world (because that’s how one functions in modern society that we indeed live in - needing to find tangible utility in every activity). “He never grew a relationship with the land, choosing instead the splendid isolation of technology,” Kimmerer says and i’m like babe - i get you but let’s not oversimplify like that. While i was badmouthing cynicism in my previous comment, it finds its way into my reading and i don’t necessarily shut it out. The Ash Basket chapter, for example, reminded me of everyone’s fave tradition in the place I’m from, the Easter whipping. If you’re not a basic bitch that gets a pre-made whip, you get some white willow cuttings and braid them into a whip decorated with a couple ribbons. Cute, wanna know what they’re used for? The men of the village go around, whipping every woman and pouring icy water over her (the og ice bucket challenge) all for supposed “good health”. Kids are especially brutal, because that’s how they’re taught. And we give them money for this shit! And a fucking feast! Clearly there is no leftover trauma from this at all. But things like this are what has me skeptical - I feel like there’s much more to be said about the human aspect in this “symbiosis.” Like I have huge doubts that simply believing the Earth loves us back will stop us from selfishly using it, and I think we should dig more into why that is. I trust Mother Nature more than I trust its human play toys, I think. I would also be interested, going forward, in exploring how more animals fit into Kimmerer’s approach, so far it’s kinda felt like a pick and choose situation in terms of how much we care, yknow. Here for the strawberries are the language of love take, and also for the dismantling of “the intellectual monoculture of science”. About to finish uni, and thinking of how much of my time (and non-existent money) has been wasted on getting fed up with academic egos instead of learning literally anything always gives a good headache.

Lou Corben
>>108041482

Exactly, how do we distinguish between traditions which are still good for us and which are harmful? Where do you draw the line? And from a European perspective, when does love for land become Nationalism?

margaret (formerly Samson)

I'm also feeling the redundancy. But in a way, I think that's good. Something that I whip out as a counter-anecdote in a social media conversation, because inevitably someone puts down the Hardline Stance that it's all evil, is this: I am a better mother because of TikTok and Instagram. I did not grow up with a healthy set of parents. My relationship with my mom is probably the next thing I need to start sifting through in therapy, and my relationship with my dad is more like a neighbor than a relative. I fed his cats yesterday, but I can't look to him for wisdom. So, while pregnant during the lockdowns, I turned to scrolling Instagram, and like any good social media site, it caught on that I was interested in childcare and it fed me what I craved. I learned baby led weaning, the concept of Wake Windows and the conditions of safe sleep, and how to tell if I had postpartum depression (the treatment for which was also thoroughly normalized). And then later in her life, I spent a solid 8 months thoroughly addicted to TikTok. While I'm glad to be no longer spending all those hours on there just from a time perspective, I look back on my time that I did spend and I dont feel like it was entirely squandered. I was surrounded (and consciously sought out) positive spaces and life-enriching ideas. TikTok, for all its big scary evils (which it unfortunately has) was a source of deep thought, of inspiration, of potential solutions, of alternative points of view, of better articulations for the thoughts I had but couldn't really express. I certainly don't say this to encourage everyone to go looking for social media algorithms to solve everything. I think we can all agree that's not really a great idea. But I do say it because there was something undeniably good there, at least for me. I was parasocially surrounded by other parents who were trying to treat their children like humans instead of like really smart dogs, and by people who were trying to act thoughtfully in an extremely complex would. And they were constantly talking about it, in little 3 minute blips, acting out examples and giving language to use and reminding me of things that I'd already heard before, but tweaked ever so slightly. Every once in a while, I'd have an aha moment at the hands of some random video saying something in just the right way at just the right time, and I'd be amazed that I'd gone so long Not Getting the depth of what all those other people had been communicating. People are constantly coming up to me and saying how good I am with kids, and I really have no explanation other than the ideas that TikTok slowly showered my mind with for those months. Constant, short, repetitive, pattern-adapting TikTok videos shaped me into a parent so much more equipped to be respectful and kind both to her and to any other children I happen to encounter. I was less patient before, I was less nuanced, more cocky. My child put an end to my Constantly Controlling Behavior, but TikTok showed me what to do instead. And, TikTok did it while I was dead tired and had nothing more to give. I was exhausted (mentally) and couldn't get myself to do anything besides glaze over. I'm coming out of that cave (and I've been doing just fine) but that wasn't a time when I could expect more of myself. I share this anecdote because I think, like Gentle Parenting TikTok, Robin Kimmerer is showering us with little bits of digestible, repetitive, short mindset shifts that point to a bigger shift which would otherwise be more difficult to swallow. I think she, like monks and nuns and other religious practitioners, is aware of that part of being human that needs the basics to be repeated over and over and over. The message Kimmerer is sharing here is news to me, or at least it was new in this form, in this vibe. I love freshness, and I've felt it wear off too, but I'm not convinced that the lack of freshness means she's just wasting time with the same thing again and again. I think the fact that she keeps saying it again and again is evidence that she finds this to be so important, it's worth repeating over and over, it's worth meditating on within every metaphorically resonant interaction she can think of. She doesn't want this to be new to us, she wants it to be True, she wants it to be natural for us to think this way. And how does something become natural except by practice? How does someone practice without having a master to follow? I havent got much to say about this chunk of the book. I've read it, and mainly I'm just in a posture of listening rather than reacting, and I think that's where she wants me for now. I'm trying to be content with that. :)

annie liz

I had a positive but partially mixed response to these chapters, a reaction I expected. On one hand, I feel the same redundancy it seems many feel; I distinctly remember getting to around maple nation/honorable harvest on my first read-through and feeling that sense of “well, it feels important but also kinda cyclical.” On the other hand, these are some of the chapters where I’ve most enjoyed the narrative? Like, due to the repetition of the themes but the variety of settings I found myself zooming though each chapter much faster, with more vim and less notes/underlines. Black Ash Basket, The Teachings of Grass, etc., I think I just kinda want to sit around a fire with Kimmerer and listen to her stories and experiences for hours without her trying to pull it to a greater moral. There’s some internal clash because of that, I think, bc isn’t the point of her telling the story to convey the greater lesson? She’s telling the narrative through her excellent writing skills in order to convey the broader point, but—because I feel like I’ve already internalized the broader point through previous narratives—I just magnetize to the narrative itself. The bean piece just made me smile tbh. I know exactly the type of feeling she had when the epiphany hit, when the euphoria washed over. Old church camp counselors used to call it a “Jesus moment,” and despite everything I still understand the connection. It’s that euphoria of sensing the Big and still feeling whole in it, it’s a love and joy and acceptance of where you are and what that means. This was one of her more lecturing chapters, but I can’t fully begrudge her of it, because who wouldn’t want to share that love with the world when it was so richly given? Who wouldn’t want to send that gift? “It’s tempting to imagine that these three are deliberate in working together, and perhaps they are. but the beauty of the partnership is that each plant does what it does in order to increase its own growth. But as it happens, when the individuals flourish, so does the whole.” (p. 134) Romanticism aside (and I did personally enjoy the romanticism), I appreciate how she does take a step back to say no, it’s not just peace and love and harmony for the sake of each other, it’s still serving of the Plant Self. Interpolation of the community is good, yes, but the plants are planting because plantings this way are Better (biiiig thoughts here in book club) and we shouldn't forget that in the midst of the metaphors. “Those [uniform] acres are beautiful in their own way, but after the companionship of a three sisters garden, I wonder if they’re lonely (p. 138).” Mmmmmm I’ve done a couple cross-country moves, and my family drove through Kansas when the corn had withered but not yet cut down. It had an eerie massive beauty that I don’t think anywhere else outside the midwest has, but honestly days upon days of seeing nothing but cornfields was weirdly exhausting. We made jokes about it later, but I don’t think I’ve had that reaction to more diverse ecological layouts. Maybe it’s just the brain’s pattern recognition, but I think I would find them lonely, too. For those interested, there’s a short documentary on the Pigeon family and black ash bastketry made a few years ago; it’s available in its entirety on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBM5BcUxeXM&amp;ab_channel=GRCCtv. I haven’t watched it in full, but it goes more into the community and historical connections of basketry to Anishinaabe groups. The teachings of grass was maybe one of my favorites this time, from the formatting to the storytelling to the merging of capital S science and capital K knowledge. The idea that after so many centuries, we’ve actually formed a deep reciprocal relationship with some plants that they thrive better WITH us than without is comforting, especially in a world where so often the message is that humans suck and the earth would be better without us. It’s a long-tended relationship with some significant bumps, but still cultivated by the folks who know how. We’re so often told that everything is our fault as a species, but we overlook how beautiful our contributions and relationships can be (and how they would not, could not exist without us). Really what I’m taking away is that I need a plant. I need to make friends with a plant and also hang out with it and maybe get a plant that makes things for eating but also maybe a plant just to vibe. u kno

Josh Foreman
>>108050291

Love these thoughts. My wife and I have both had far more positive experiences and growth from social media than the standard critique presumes. Hell, I attribute it in large part to my swing from daily Rush Limbaugh listening conservative evangelical to ... whatever it is that digs a CJ the X. Just hearing from so many other perspectives has the &gt;potential&lt; to radically change a person. I love that this medium has given you new paradigms that can break through the traditional parenting programming. I wish social media was around when my kids were younger. I'd love to re-do so many things.

valentin

hello, hi again, bounjour, guten abend, buenas tardes am a little bit late bc im currently in the process of doing my finals (theyre going well thanks for asking) and learning to sew and also setting up my substack lots of stuff happening but its exciting and im loving my life rn! ive had a similar experience as most other people, this part of the book was not as exciting as the first one, maybe that’s because kimmerer is rehashing some of her ideas. i wont talk about that though, it would be energy wasted. Instead ill talk about the parts that i did enjoy!! doesn’t that sound nice? ' EPIPHANY IN THE BEANS: first off, what an awesome name for a chapter. epiphany in the beans. love that. love the land and it loves you back, that’s the core message of this essay. i think that’s true for a lot of things. im trying to love more recently, to build a recpirocal relationship with the items (beings) i surround myself with. love my shoes, love my clothes, love my laptop, love my piano… it feels good. try it if you want to! THE THREE SISTERS: what stood out to me here is the connection between nature and art. the plants tell us stories, so we better pay attention! the plants have beautiful composition, so we better pay attention! whats been bugging me recently is the Form/Function dualism. like, that’s not seperable at least not in reality. maybe in some distant a priori headspace, there could be a functionless but formful thing and a formless but functioning thing but im interested in reality and reality tells us that Function and Form always go hand in hand. this is also what nature teaches us. a beautiful flower attracts a bee, the corn acts as a scaffold for the bean and the squash does some chemical shit idk I don’t remember the mechanics. little tangent before I move on: no the answer isnt just “Form follows Function” you can design things by that principle (BAUHAUS) but that doesn’t mean all of nature conforms to it. a major driver in evolution is mutation. sometimes shit just randomly changes Form and then takes on a new Function. also not everything always needs an explanation, sometimes things just ARE. a few days ago somebody asked me why i was wearing 2 belts and im like idk maybe I just AM. WIGSAAK GOKPENAGEN: A BLACK ASH BASKET: I will skip over this chapter, not because I did not like it but because i don’t have much to say about it. im sure other people will have a lot of thoughts and im looking forward to reading those. MISHKOS KENOMAGWEN: THE TEACHINGS OF GRASS &amp; MAPLE NATION: A CITIZENSHIP GUIDE &amp; THE HONORABLE HARVEST: yes im doing the last three chapters at the same time, deal with it. kimmerer says a lot of samey things in them and she says them in a beautiful way but sometimes they are so beautiful I don’t understand them. comprehesion isnt the problem but langauge. and when kimmerer used the words “unfurling, awash, hemlocks, wablers” all within one paragraph i spent the next couple of minutes googling them. the main throughline within these chapters isnt really within the text but within my brain. it’s like the two wolves inside of me meme: one of them is scientific and analytical and the other one is spiritual, creative and intuitive. kimmerer has that split too, but she seems to have found some harmony for herself. I havent. the wolves are constantly fighting. i love science a lot i think its really cool and useful. I even wrote an almost-real-paper about neutron stars for school. but i know the problems with STEM and how it pretends to be objective about everything even though its not. and i also love nature, wisdom of elders and im kind of spiritual about art. but if I think about these things theres always a gnawing feeling in the back of my head telling me im not being scientific and objective enough. I want to believe kimmerer. but how can I be sure? how can I be sure that loving the land will lead to it loving me back? how can I be sure that only taking the ressources we need will work on a macro level? im torn because what she says sounds good and true especially on a community level. but will it work everywhere? will it work on a large scale? I don’t know. in recent times ive been feeling like instead of connecting the threads that exist in my head to a personal philosophy they’ve been fracturing into smaller and smaller thoughts that I just cannot combine. itll be fine though I think. ill manage somehow. CONCLUSION: Well that’s it, ive written more than initially expected. Am excited to dive into other peoples thoughts as always… also im reading kafka on the shore by murakami parallel to this book. started it yesterday, seems cool. Why did I tell you this? Idk dude sometimes things just ARE, remember that.

Anonymous

First time commenter, so I'll just start by saying that I am very much enjoying the experience of taking part in this book club! I find myself agreeing with CJ on the feeling of redundancy that this book gives off after getting slightly deeper in...Kimmerer does tend to cover similar ideas and themes across the different chapters, and her writing/storytelling is not always strong or unique enough to make that retreading captivating every time. That said – for me, "The Honorable Harvest" was maybe the chapter that resonated with me the clearest. While reading through "Braiding Sweetgrass", I kept asking myself how I can actually implement some of these teachings and ideas into my daily life. Sure, I can do some guerrilla gardening, buy some plants, go for hikes and eat berries. Done, done, and done (mulberries are underrated af). Kimmerer's story of harvesting in the grocery store and mall seems to be geared towards just that, asking ourselves how we can try and maintain the honor outside of where it's obvious too. I've been trying to remember that lately in most places – saying my little thank yous before meals, kissing dropped pieces of rice (tears), and eating plenty of leeks which are just coming in season. All throughout the chapter, I did keep waiting for Kimmerer to extend this concept to its (in my opinion) natural continuation and touch on reciprocity and honorable harvest in interpersonal relationships. She doesn't, at least not in this chapter or in any others I've read forward (unless I glazed over and missed something). But for me, that's where these ideas can sometimes be found clearest and easiest. We should treat are natural friends like we treat our people friends – with honor, gratitude, and respect. And then they'll give back, right? luv leeks luv martens luv robin luv u all

Halley

Epiphany in the beans/The three sisters I was alllll into these sensuous descriptions of plants.. Becoming intimate with the plants I grow and observing them every day, it is impossible not to be inspired to poetry by their earthy sexuality. The beautiful lines about tendrils and touching, the realizations about the interplay and interconnectedness of all lifeforms, these realizations just come from spending time in the garden. Plants are so sexual, in a very primal and creative and pure kind of way. It reminds me of a book I once browsed called 'Pollen', revealing the hidden sexuality of flowers with microscopic photography of pollen grains. Anyways.. I wasn't going to plant corn this year but after reading these chapters I went home and planted a few seeds of strawberry corn I had left. I was reminded of the one I grew last year, with its soft pink silks poking out of the voluptuous ear of corn and the pollen-laden tassels swaying in the wind... It is a truly majestic plant to watch grow so quickly day by day. The teachings of grass: At the end of this I was thinking of the flowers in my garden that bloom continuously and prolifically like hydras when they are deadheaded, and I'm a bit surprised that these professors were so surprised by the revelation that plants can grow better by being harvested. Maple nation: idealizing the utility of taxes and nationhood aside... fuck taxes. and fuck this global system of nation-states and borders. (I'm still trying to file so I'm a little heated about this atm.) I'm so tired of funding imperialism and the US military-industrial complex with only the illusion of having any influence whatsoever over where those tax dollars are actually spent. Unfortunately, the only way out seems to be renouncing my citizenship, which is practically just not possible. Fun fact- did you know that the USA and Eritrea are the only countries that tax based on citizenship rather than residency? I've been ruminating on this idea of a bill of rights vs a bill of responsibilities. It makes me think of the concept of 'hak' I've learned from my partner, which is fundamental to the culture he comes from but very difficult to translate/explain. It means something like righteousness, or the responsibility of the universe to you and of you to the universe (you can replace 'universe' with 'all of creation' or 'god' if that helps). I think this is a very interesting question: "On what basis do we select where to invest our allegiance?" I've known since I was young that I wouldn't stay in the USA, where I was born. I never saw a future for myself there and after traveling and returning a few times I started to feel really alien to the culture I grew up in. It took a lot longer to figure out where I did want to settle (and where I could legally get long-term residence). Living in different places taught me to discern what I value and need in an environment to feel at home. I'm grateful for where I am now, but I still don't think I'd use the word 'allegiance' to describe that relationship. Maybe it's leftover from being forced to mindlessly repeat the pledge throughout my school years... but I agree with Kimmerer that I would profess my allegiance to the natural world without hesitation, and I think the basis for this is reciprocity- something very much lacking in my interactions with any governments. The honorable harvest: I love this concept of seeking and practicing 'everyday acts of practical reverence'. Also the question posed at the beginning: How do we consume in a way that does justice to the lives that we take? I'm a bit torn about her endorsement of individual over corporate responsibility though. I think it is important on an individual level to reflect on your impact and practice gratitude, if not least to feel a little less shitty and a little more hopeful about the world, yet on a societal level I don't think consumers 'voting with their dollars' will make any meaningful systemic change- in fact, I believe the giant corporations responsible for the overwhelming majority of pollution and environmental degradation encourage people to think this way to escape responsibility and accountability themselves. In the part about the shopping experience I realized there was something missing from this exercise in imagining and honoring the natural resources of products like pens and food, which is the human beings who put labor into creating these products. Whether people are paid fairly, in safe and humane working conditions, or from marginalized communities/countries, this needs to be a part of the conversation when we talk about sustainability. Further reading/resources: -The bit about "maybe the plants are domesticating us" reminds me of Michael Pollen's work. I'm currently reading This is Your Mind on Plants, and I'd recommend "The Botany of Desire", that book really impacted me! -If anyone is interested in hearing Kimmerer speak more about things like animacy in her native language and the gift economy check out this podcast and article! https://onbeing.org/programs/robin-wall-kimmerer-the-intelligence-of-plants-2022/ https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/the-serviceberry/ -Also, that sexy Pollen book by Madeline M. Harley and Rob Kesseler :) I'm not finding this as redundant as others are, maybe because I'm listening to it, but I feel like the chapters are weaving together different examples and stories which paint a larger picture in their own ways. I hear her asking a lot of questions, and I think that is her way of teaching- not giving answers or directives but prodding with prompts that could lead the listener/reader on their own journey. She shares how she has come to terms with the questions posed through her experiences but I think the questions hold on their own as the message.

Lou Corben
>>108050291

Sorry was feeling super tired and silly yesterday lol. But I guess what was floating around my head when I said it's like an incantation is that I was reflecting on what you said about the repetitive nature of it being possibly intentional - the repetition is what makes us take it onboard. Think of Mantras, manifestation, speaking something into existence. It doesn't go in deeply unless it's repeated again and again. We can learn habits by intentionally doing something and repeating it, and eventually it becomes second nature. Maybe the repetition in the book is an incantation, a mantra, a magic spell. Our job is to receive it, to internalise it through the repetition. If the spell works on enough people, it could change the world.

haw

I find myself agreeing with most of you, especially the points raised by @aliceMae and @Samson the ladle. we might have identified a theme or a pattern, thinking we have the book ‘all figured out’ makes us less receptive for other more subtler points because we’ve turned off our keen/acute sense of attention, making us miss the depth of what is being communicated. Iknow this a longstanding debate in art; how generous and graceful should the reader be, compared to how much the creator puts into the work. Maybe this is a failure on kimmerer’s side, not being able to keeping us engaged. But because I think its is an importance text, and because it does challenge over consumption/novelty for novelty sake, I think its good to ask myself as i get impatient and itchy by the repetition: is there something here im missing? what value could there be found in repetition? is it useful to assume that i dont know what the 'point' is yet? or, if i have, is it fair to expect new novel concepts at every page? isnt their value in, as @josh foreman said, see the same point from subtly different lenses?

Chandler Sterling

Nothing like another section of this book to make me wish I had focused more in Biology class. I definitely started to feel the drag in this section, so I'm glad to see that feeling is shared by most of us here. The last chapter was great, and then it went on for about 10 more pages. The Honorable Harvest and the musings on the prevailing death in a mall has allowed me a small breakthrough though. I have always hated writing in books which makes trying to collect my thoughts for something like, I dunno - a book club, a major headache, but reading about how Kimmerer described the lifelessness of paper seems to have short circuited that holdup. I will be going to the store to buy pretty highlighters in the near future. This whole section just screamed symbiosis to me. I always thought of our ecological relationships as set in stone: the parasite will always take, and the symbiotic will always benefit both parties. The way Kimmerer analyzes nature and our relationships to it though has really challenged that way of thinking. Realizing that humans and plants need each other felt kind of obvious at first, but then with each chapter she makes it more abundantly clear that we have forsaken that relationship by viewing plants as a resource instead of a partner. Nothing makes me feel like more of a parasite than when she explained that maintaining our relationship with plants requires us not to ask what we can take, but what we should give. Hope I can start some less toxic relationships with plants. Please hit me up if you can help me with my Hinge account just for plants.

margaret (formerly Samson)
>>108585965

So another thing that I am reminded of is the concept of the Bible, especially the Old testament, as Jewish meditation literature. (Bible Project does a lot on this topic.) The idea is that the text (or the idea or the thing) is so rich, and is describing something that is so rich, that it takes a lifetime of considering it and worming it into your brain and seeing the world though that lens for you to really access some of the depth of what it's communicating to you. I don't really think Kimmerer is recreating the depth of a sacred text in Braiding Sweetgrass, although there are some moments while reading that are definitely connecting me to something transcendental. Instead, maybe we can consider Braiding Sweetgrass to be a collection of her own meditations that she has conducted about the deep rich worldview of her indigenous heritage and now shares with us as a means of trying to bridge the gap between where she it's looking and our own unconscious unawareness. She has communicated to us something about the theme and the scope and the pattern that such wisdom contains (such as about receiving and giving and how both of those are integral parts of life), and I think we're picking up on the deep stuff that she's pointing us to... But I don't think that her communications of those deep wisdoms are quite so rich in themselves. I imagine they feel rich because they are pointing us to a richness that is beyond themselves. That said, even if her collected essays aren't quite to Sacred Text level richness, they are still deeply valuable both because they are a gift she made for us, and because they are indeed pointing us to something that has some Truth qualities to it. And I think we are also picking up on their connection to the Truth, and engaged in it as far as it is connected, and disengaged where it doesn't enhance our understanding of the truth as much (in our current moments). That communication, that pointing us to something, is still valuable, even if it isn't the end itself. Like you and @Josh Foreman said, it's seeing the same thing in different ways. If you ever try to find a bird that's singing in a tree, the more it moves around and sings, the more likely you'll find it. If you have only one data point, one chirp to follow, it will be difficult to triangulate where the bird is. But when it moves around and sings its song multiple times, but those songs hit you from different angles, it gives you more data points and thus a more refined look ability to find what it is you're looking for. (Although, most of the time I can't see it anyway because it's too far away.) Perhaps Kimmerer and her repetition, while not exactly novel, aren't meant to give us new information with every turn of the page. Perhaps it's instead just her turning the diamond in her hand 1/64 of a turn and showing us the same thing from a different angle, so we can better understand the diamond from the start. IDK. This is also a collection of essays - i bet she's got a lot more thoughts that hit the cutting room floor because they didn't fit the theme of the book or they didn't have the right vibe or just she had to make a hard decision between two solid options. it would be interesting to read the Reject Pile and see if it's less (or more) engaging.

Lou Corben
>>108050291

Returning here to share another story about the power of repetition… On Friday I attended a work in progress performance about nuclear weapons by the playwright Chris Thorpe. In it, he talks about a disarmament expert he met and then shadowed at a conference of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons to discuss a new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. At a three-day conference, a day and a half was taken up by representatives of each of the attending nations standing to give a 3-minute speech (though they often overran). Chris asked the expert, Veronique Christory, why they were taking up 50% of the conference with each country essentially making the same speech - why couldn’t they have gotten together and written one speech and had them all sign it? And she said, “You’re a fucking idiot”. I’ll paraphrase the next part, but she essentially said, repetition is the whole point. To stand together and demonstrate clearly that we have a common humanitarian interest. Wars are started when we think we are being understood but we’re not.

Teageen

Just read epiphany in beans, and I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that my tomato plant this year has fruited zero tomatoes 🥲😂

reva

i am on a vacation with my family in an airbnb in the woods, and i thought it would be a fitting time to go back to braiding sweetgrass since i never finished this book after falling behind in book club. finishing this section of the book leaves me with what i can only describe as a deep conviction that the way of living described here, living in reciprocity with nature and obeying the laws of the honorable harvest, is simply the only way to live. anything else is a betrayal so obvious it makes my chest hurt. in a time when my way of living is changing a lot and i'm a lot more intentional about my actions and the way i spend my time, this feels like a pull further in that direction. it also really makes me feel weird being in an airbnb. i've felt weird about them ever since i was traveling in a foreign country with my family and saw some graffiti that said "your vacation, my eviction" or something along those lines. they just feel so impersonal, you're meant to feel as if nobody else has ever lived there and it is entirely for you but in reality there are different people there every week. you have no consideration or love for the things in the house because they're not actually yours, but the problem is that they're not actually anybody's. so they just sit here, endlessly giving to more and more people and completely unappreciated. it makes me a little bit sick, but i also feel like that girl in the college cafeteria who knows that nobody around her would understand why you need to kiss the rice. i do have an example of how the mindset of the honorable harvest could be carried into the wasteful world of american cities, an example from my own life just this week. i have what one could call a number of anxious tendencies, one of which is getting very, very, *very* freaked out when i feel that i have "missed out" on something that i had the opportunity to do, or "messed up" something that could have been perfect. i am about to move into a new apartment for school that i'm only staying in for one year, so i've been trying to find furniture without like buying brand new furniture that will immediately become useless. a few days ago, my mom told me that a friend of hers was getting rid of furniture and would give it to anybody willing to move it out of their house, and they happened to have a single bed, dresser, and sidetable matching set. i was stunned by the perfect timing, and enthusiastically agreed to take the furniture. this friend was giving away tons of other furniture, most of which i would not be needing at all. the one exception was a nice looking couch. i knew i had a smaller couch from home i could bring, but i knew it wouldn't fit all of the friends i would want to host, so i've been sort of dissatisfied with it. i looked at this couch and thought, hmm, maybe i should request that too, but for some reason didn't ask my mom to request it right away. the next day i kept thinking about it and wondered, why didn't i take that couch? we need a couch and it's perfect. so i asked my mom to request it, but by then the couch had been claimed by somebody else. cue internal devastation. "what's wrong with me, why didn't i just ask for the couch right away, i ruined everything," etcetera. since the couch would have been free, i didn't feel like i had avoided spending money, i only felt the wasted potential for my apartment. but then i read a few more chapters of this book, and thought about the conversation with animals and plants that occurs before taking where they might tell you "no." what specifically happened when i looked at the picture of the couch for the first time? i thought to myself, "i would love such a big and nice looking couch. but should i really take it for my college apartment? it's leather, we're going to ruin it! after one year, i'm not going to be able to responsibly give it to somebody who will use it well!" i believe that i asked the couch if i could take it, and the couch told me no. or perhaps i asked the universe if i should take the couch, and the universe said no. whatever happened, i realize that i was not meant to take this couch, and it was meant for someone else. i took exactly what i needed (personal furniture) and i did not take what was not given (slightly nicer communal furniture). i felt a wash of relief at this realization, and my paranoid anxieties dissipated. i felt that all was right with the world. something i had previously conceptualized as "free" now became something laden with responsibilities, that i should not take just because i could. (sidenote, i believe it is interesting that my anxieties are relieved not by telling myself they are nonsense or something, but by replacing the cycles of negative thought with cycles of positive thought. perhaps that is something you might call "reciprocity.") all this to say, i think it is possible to have a reciprocal relationship with things, even if they are far removed from the natural world. honestly, i have always treated inanimate things as if they were alive in their own way, so i suppose that way of thinking is already natural to me. (i will say i am also feeling the dragging pace a little bit lmao, these topics are so important but also that last chapter was very very long and i had to read it in three sittings. at some point it does feel like she's telling the same story again and again without enough elaboration on the themes to justify the retelling. but of course i will continue to read.)

phil e the theyby

This section, and particularly "The Honorable Harvest," connected me to really deep core memories. When I was a kid (I'm talking, like six), I LOVED animals and nature. Reptiles were my special interest, and I would always be going to parks and zoos and trying to learn more about them, or spending time in the creek behind my parents' house. I gradually detached from those interests as I got older, since they didn't really have any social value or connect me to people, and video games became the thing I turned to when I felt alienated by the social world. I was very depressed from a very young age (I'm talking, like, 10). And I always attributed this to brain chemistry and, since I've gotten older and been diagnosed, autism and the social isolation that came with it. But in reading "The Honorable Harvest," I started to feel like maybe a major factor of my depression, and wanting to die, and hating the world, is that...everything around me was already dead? I inherited a set of White suburban values that imagined us living in a dead world where we're the only things that are alive, that had eliminated my family's connection to their cultures of origin and their ties to the land. I stopped listening to the natural world because the people around me emphasized that wasn't what mattered. But when I looked to what was supposed to matter instead, I didn't see anything worth living for. The culture of acquisition and chasing status through personal achievement just didn't offer anything that made the world seem like something worth living in. Kimmerer's description of what's essentially living under our modern production cycle made me sad as fuck, but also made me feel deeply seen. It's why I try to put so much more emphasis on experiences over things, because you can actually feel the life in an experience. I was familiar with the story in "Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass," but using the scientific journal article format to tell the story was fucking genius. The quote CJ noted from page 134 is the best articulation of an idea I've been grappling with a lot lately around the relationship between the individual and the collective. If it feels trite, it's because it's absolutely been said in a lot of different places, but I don't think it's LIVED very often. A lot of people in individualistic cultures think so much about self-actualization or being "good" or "successful" in something or about "loving themselves. We never really stop to think that getting to know and honor who we are isn't necessarily *about* us; we do it because it serves the collective best and is genuinely helpful to everybody. But you also need to figure out *how* to bring your uniqueness to the world in a way that actually serves the collective. Essentially, I think this idea and the themes of this book break down the duality between individualism and collectivism better than anything else I've seen, and the quote on page 134 exemplifies that.