What to Read Next: March 14, 2025
Issue #368, featuring an Indigenous ode to the natural world
Here’s what is on tap this week:
A review of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass
A book rec re: the 5-year anniversary of COVID shutting down the world
An excerpt from what I wrote about the pandemic in mid-March 2020
Quick programming note: Next week I’ll be enjoying a Spring Break vacation with the family. I have a discussion thread scheduled for Tuesday, but I’ll be skipping next Friday.
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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“For all of us, becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children's future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”
For as long as I’ve been asking ya’ll about your favorite reads of the year, I’ve seen Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass show up in the discussions. In February, I finally read it myself, along with the rest of our in-person book club here in Denver. I wasn’t actually all that excited to read it, having heard that it was slow and meditative. While I’m certainly not against that, I just wasn’t in the mood for it. But from the very first chapter, Kimmerer’s rich prose and meaningful storytelling grabbed me.
Delivered more as a series of essays with a common theme than as a propulsive narrative, Kimmerer takes readers on a journey through an Indigenous philosophy towards nature as well as some modern lessons we could stand to learn. Pecan trees, sweetgrass, lichen, beans, and pond scum are just a few subjects that take center stage. From that seemingly mundane flora, Kimmerer, an ecologist and botanist by trade, pulls out ideas on reciprocity (particularly regarding nature itself), parenting, community, restoration, climate change, and more. It reminded me of a more readable modern-day Walden.
Throughout the essays, I especially appreciated Kimmerer’s inviting and optimistic language. As a reader, I never felt reprimanded. And although there is plenty of environmental grief in these pages, it never felt despairing. Kimmerer is insistent on maintaining hope; if we don’t have that, what’s the point?
Finally, I deeply appreciated Kimmerer’s spiritual and emotional reflections on the natural world. Most environmental/climate books I’ve read are very science-heavy, pulling all emotion out of it. They describe what’s happening in the world and the practical reasons we should care about the environment. But my own relationship to nature is incredibly personal and emotional. Being in the mountains, being near water, being in the trees — these are things that restore my soul. My love for nature is far more spiritual than practical, and I really enjoyed seeing that reflected in Braiding Sweetgrass.
“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.”
I don’t think everyone will enjoy this book (as was shown in our book club discussion), but it’s an easy recommendation for anyone interested in the environment, particularly from a meditative, philosophical, and spiritual perspective.