Book: Braiding Sweetgrass

As a botanist, 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 the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

"Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about the natural world from a place of such abundant passion that one can never quite see the world the same way after having seen it through her eyes. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she takes us on a journey that is every bit as mystical as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise."

—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things

"Robin Wall Kimmerer shows how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most—the images of giant cedars and wild straw-berries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page."

—Jane Goodall, author of Seeds of Hope and My Life with the Chimpanzees

"Everyone who cares about the environmentand everyone else, period- should have Braiding Sweetgrass on their table. It captures the true reverence between Native Americans and the earth, the relationship that we need to survive."

-Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper, Onondaga Nation and Indigenous Environmental Leader

ROBIN WALL KIMMERER is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her first book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. Her writings have appeared in Orion, O Magazine, and numerous scientific journals. She lives in Fabius, New York, where she is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.