Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants; a beautiful book by Robin Kimmerer. What a sweet voice she has, you feel like just listening to her. Can't Thank Bindu Manoj enough, for her lovely quotes in Facebook, that tempted me to pick this book . 

The book lends its title from the sweetgrass that is such a mainstay of indigenous tradition and braiding is what we called plating as children, which was compulsory in schools. Sweetgrass is understood as the hair of Mother Earth—that sweet, shining long hair. And just as we braid the hair of someone that we love to enhance their beauty, to care for them, as a real tangible sign of our loving and caring relationship with one another,  people braided sweetgrass. It is a metaphor and a pragmatic representation of our care for Mother Earth.

A long book, with almost 400 pages of small print, divided into 32 chapters, in 5 Parts on Planting, Tending, Pcking, Braiding, Burning, Sweetgrass, that go deep into heart for the lovers of nature and Mother Earth, demonstrating the importance of combining academic knowledge with traditional understandings and personal investment.  Earth asks us by modelling generosity. Gratitude and Reciprocity. 

Skywoman grabbed a branch from the falling tree - in the emptiness there were many. From the beginning of time - care and responsibility were on the strong wings of the Geese, who let her rest on their back, but not too long she could carry on like that, she wanted land. The depth, the darkness and the pressure was too much. Earth was made from Gratitude and Reciprocity. And that is what earth ask from us today.  It is humbling. Skywoman exists first as a legend, then as a set of moral regulation, then as a personal emotion. The motif of skywoman changes and evolves. 

Indigenous people name the gardening style the Three sisters, retelling their stories as though the plants are three female siblings who help people through. Grown together, the three plants are "a blue-print of the world, a map of balance and harmony." 'The three sisters' - squash, corn and beans.

The modern materialist society is one of overconsumption, in which people are so focused on materialism that they constantly take more than they need; traditional societies, on the other hand, were built on more spiritual beliefs and thus are able to ensure that the issue of overconsumption does not become overbearing. 

"Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren't looking because you were trying to stay alive." 

"Ceremonies large and small have the power to focus attention to a way of living awake in the world".

Rather than spiritual or religious in nature, these actions have important meanings. The acts of leaving behind kindling and cleaning the campsite, for example, demonstrate a commitment to the preservation of the natural world which extends beyond pure belief and into actionable community benefits. These ceremonies have real world, positive ramifications, not just for those conducting the ceremonies but for those who come before and after. 

"Plants were reduced to objects; they were not subjects". 

"Perhaps we cannot know the river. But what about the drops?" 

"The corn is the firstborn and grows straight and stiff; it is a stem with a lofty goal."

"There is a rupture in the chain of relationship that stretches back through time immemorial."  - A natural threat to a natural cycle, though one which is born out of unnatural circumstances. 

"When they abandoned gratitude, the gifts abandoned them."

The concept of motherhood is addressed repeatedly throughout the text, in both the real and the abstract sense. 

Throughout the book, the author has used sweetgrass as a metaphor for a certain conception of the world. "As nonnative species come in, they may also crowd out the sweetgrass - plants repeating the history of their people."  In this quote, Robin Kimmerer adds a historical dimension to the metaphor: the disappearance of sweetgrass, crowded out by invasive species, is likened to the indigenous populations, driven to near extinction by the settlers. This codifies a bleaker, more violent subtext to the title and the metaphor itself, reminding the audience of the blight of the indigenous people. 

"Fire building was a vital connection to those who came before." - Fire of prophecy - connection between past, present and future. Knowledge passed on. 

"Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise." - Without 

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It was the below quotes from Bindu Manoj's Facebook post that tempted me to grab that book, and cannot Thank her enough for it.

“On one side of the world were people whose relationship with the living world was shaped by Skywoman, who created a garden for the well-being of all. On the other side was another woman with a garden and a tree. But for tasting its fruit, she was banished from the garden and the gates clanged shut behind her. That mother of men was made to wander in the wilderness and earn her bread by the sweat of her brow, not by filling her mouth with the sweet juicy fruits that bend the branches low. In order to eat, she was instructed to subdue the wilderness into which she was cast.

Same species, same earth, different stories”

“If a fountain could jet bouquets of chrome yellow in dazzling arches of chrysanthemum fireworks, that would be Canada Goldenrod. Each three-foot stem is a geyser of tiny gold daisies, ladylike in miniature, exuberant en masse. Where the soil is damp enough, they stand side by side with their perfect counterpart, New England Asters. Not the pale domesticates of the perennial border, the weak sauce of lavender or sky blue, but full-on royal purple that would make a violet shrink. The daisylike fringe of purple petals surrounds a disc as bright as the sun at high noon, a golden-orange pool, just a tantalising shade darker than the surrounding goldenrod. Alone, each is a botanical superlative. Together, the visual effect is stunning. Purple and gold, the heraldic colours of the king and queen of the meadow, a regal procession in complementary colours. 

I just wanted to know why.”

“It is the fundamental unfairness of parenthood that if we do our jobs well, the deepest bond we are given will walk out the door with a wave over the shoulder. We get good training along the way. We learn to say “Have a great time, sweetie” while we are longing to pull them back to safety. And against all the evolutionary imperatives of protecting our gene pool, we give them car keys. And freedom. It’s our job.”

“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back”

'The more I read and learn about indigenous ways of life across the world, the more I realize the sham that is organized religion and their pontification that theirs is the only true God. The people of the earth, water and sky, wherever they are, knew the grace and blessing that nature is. They lived in harmony with their true giver, Mother Nature before ‘civilization’ ousted them from their home. 

“It reminds them that much is expected of them eventually. It says this is what it means to be a good leader, to have vision, and to be generous, to sacrifice on behalf of the people. Like the maple, leaders are the first to offer their gifts.” It reminds the whole community that leadership is rooted not in power and authority, but in service and wisdom.”

https://arunoday.blogspot.com/2022/06/gratitude-and-thanks-giving-onondaga.html

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“Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.

Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life. Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.

Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need.

Take only that which is given.

Never take more than half. Leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.

Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share.

Give thanks for what you have been given.

Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.

Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.”

The book ends with a series of suggestions, ways in which society can change the way it thinks in order to save the environment. 

The Windigo is standing outside her door, haunting her. The creature symbolizes her fears for the planter and the materialist culture which threatens to doom everything. 

"Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world"

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It was a reminiscence of  many things that grandmother used to say, a walk down the memory lane:

1. Importance of Dasapushpam :

1. Cheroola - (Aerva lanata) Mountain knotgrass
2. Mukkutty - (Biophytum sensitivum Linn) Little tree plant. - Similarly to Mimosa pudica, the leaflets of Biophytum sensitivum are able to move rapidly in response to mechanical stimulation such as touch. But it is not touch me not. 
3. Valli Uzhinja - (Cardiospermum halicacabum) Balloon plant
4. Nilappana - (Curculigo orchioides) Golden Eye-grass
5. Karuka - (Cyndon dactylon)Bermuda grass - Before mechanised farm machinery, it was the farmer’s worst weed. However, back then it saved thousands of acres of farm soil from erosion. 
6. Kayyunni - (Eclipta alba) False Daisy
7. Muyalcheviyan - (Emilia sonchifolia) Lilac tassel flower
8. Vishnukranthi - or Krishnakranthi (Evolvulus alsinoidus) Dwarf Morning glory
9. Thiruthali - (Ipomea maxima) Morning glory
10. Poovankurunthal - (Vernonia cinerea) Little Ironweed or Purple Fleabane

2. Braiding reminded me how as children, we - sisters, cousins, aunts, mother - grandmother, used to sit in rows plating , each others hair.  Is it because that kind of love is not seen these days, that people tend to leave their hair open? That was a sign of relationship and bonding. 

3. How we used to braid coconut leaves, and make variety of things out of it. 

4. Skywomen falling, wanting earth, reminded me of the 5 elements of nature - and how our vedas say, sky turned into air, which became water and with fire earth was formed. 

5. The story of 'The three sisters' - squash, corn and beans - reminded me of the times of paddy harvesting, and how during harvest in place of corn, it was paddy, and at times of other activities like reaping, stacking, handling, threshing, cleaning, and hauling -in between the interval for each succeeding sowing , beans and squash where grown in the paddy fields. 

6. Sweetgrass being swept away - metaphor for erasing traces of indigenous people , is a live example we see across the world, both in nature and society. 

7. Restoring land, without restoring relationship - again, the most common problem in the world today.