Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer

Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation". As she explores these themes, she circles toward a central argument: The awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return.

©2013 Robin Wall Kimmerer (P)2016 Tantor

Eloquent and inspirational

This book is so timely and yet timeless: weaving threads about native people's history with the land, science that elaborates, and personal memoir; all told in a wonderful voice. I rarely listen to an audiobook a second time, but I will absolutely listen to this again, and also give copies as gifts to friends.

A new favorite!

I enjoyed the writing and Robin Kimmerer's soothing voice very much. I especially enjoyed the content. Botany, ecology, science, and motherhood are all fascinating topics. Beautiful

❤️

My husband and I loved the wisdom and stories shared. Now it's out to plant the three sisters.

The book that opened my mind to RECIPROCITY with the EARTH.

Every time I walk out into my garden it’s like a new world just beginning to open to me. A new reverence captured my imagination.

Profound Medicine

This is perhaps the most beautiful book I have ever read or in this case to listened to. Kimmerer’s writing is exquisite and her narration a balm to my senses. The stories and wisdom she imparts are true medicine but goes down as sweetly as the scent of honeysuckle on a warm spring breeze. My wish is that Everyone read this book. Buy it, gift it, savor and treasure it. I took one star off for one reason: there is not even a pause between chapters which I find disconcerting and confusing. One needs at least a moment of quiet at the end of each essay to take a breath and let its power sink in. This is not a book to be rushed.

This book could create a movement and save the earth

If I could choose one book for my adult children it would be braiding sweetgrass. It’s a guide on living in reverence with nature.
Hearing Ms kimmerer read her story was like listening to poetry while being infused with a deeper understanding.
I love this book and will read it agin

Everyone Read/Listen To This NOW

From the very 1st sentence, I was captivated with what Robin had to tell me. Her gentle voice both cooed and awed me into a submissive state for a message I knew I needed but had not yet opened myself to. Her stories are a gift and so is her talent for marrying the natural world with modern day thinking to create a medicine that wakes us up to reconsider how we spend our lives and the relationships to everything around us. I have not read or listened to a message this strong in eloquence in my entire life that come the acknowledgments at the end it put me to tears. My friends and family will know of this book and I will gift them her stories so that they too can understand what all we have lost in what all we can gain.

an experience through and through

Heart wrenching and warming, the personal stories and insights in this book are powerful. Listening to this book became a bit of a religious experience for me, and it's helped me become more aware about my impact. If you're looking into reconnecting with the Earth, if you have any interest in Ethnobotany, or if you are interested in hearing experiences from someone of the First Nation, I can't recommend this book enough.

Beautiful

This book is amazing. The author reading it in her soothing, understanding voice made the listening experience even better. This book brings a whole new view to the world (even though it is an older, ancient view) and how we should relate to every thing. I wish this book was required reading for kids in high school.

Amazing and heartfelt

Robin Kimmerer moves fluidly and beautifully between indigenous ways of knowing that are relational and scientific ways that are data-based with the insight, sentiment and prose of a poet. This book is beautiful, wise, multicultural and wise. Cannot recommend this highly enough.