On the Trail of Sweetgrass
An Appreciative Inquiry into "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Dr. Robin Kimmerer
Special thanks to Dr. Robin Kimmerer and our readers/editors: Anna Brown, Pat Tieskoetter, Jondi Nelson, Donn Leaf, Hattie Mathers
I. American Naturalists: Old Tree with many branches
Dr. Robin Kimmerer is part of an old-growth tree that includes Mary Oliver, Annie Dillard, Gary Snyder, and earlier, John Muir, Henry David Thoreau and Emerson. For American Naturalists Nature, properly considered, is a Original Testament—a sacred text which reveals both spiritual insights and ethical lessons.
Naturalists turn to Nature for comfort, joy and guidance in a way that parallelsthose who turn to a Supernatural Being [God], or those who turn to the Light Within [Soul], or those who turn to their common humanity [Humankind].
As Thoreau said:
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.†For Naturalists, a walk in the forest
or some quiet time sitting by a lake or river
is like visiting an ancient temple---
Nature is our church, our refuge and our strength,
our guide and our home----
it is the visible face of the Great Mystery
in which we live and move and have our being.
Naturalists, like Dr. Kimmerer,
often hold a more humble view of human nature
that those who claim that human beings are
“the crown of Creation”
“the apex of evolution"
the very top of a pyramid of power and privilege.
For many Naturalists, human beings are “the last to arrive," the new kids on the block who may lack the instinctual guidance system of animals. So we are invited to “listen up and learn” from the Wisdom of Nature that is embodied in plants, animals and the eco-systems to which they belong. Sometimes, we seem like late comers to the party of lifestyle who make a mess and then try to take over the house from its original hosts.
Dr. Kimmerer
Dr. Kimmerer has some special gifts that distinguish her from many other American Naturalists.
- She's Native American (Ojibway/Annishanabe) by birth, training and culture. She has learned the wise ways of Nature from a people who have been living here for 30,000 years.
- She has a doctorate in Field Biology and teaches at SUNY. The ecological and evolutionary perspective she brings is a scientific complement to indigenous wisdom—both focus on living systems and our part in them.
- She is a mother, a mentor and nest-builder. Her attention rarely wanders far from those entrusted to her care.
Reading #1: "Water Lilies" (read by Anna Brown)
"The young and the old are linked in one long breath, an inhalation that calls for reciprocal exhalation, nourishing the common root from which they both arose. New leaf to old, old to new, mother to daughter—mutuality endures. I am consoled by the lessons of lilies"
Braiding Sweetgrass page 103.
What are the lessons of water lilies?
- They breathe together
- Their lives are deeply inter-twined
- They thrive or fail as a community.
- They are rooted in the muddy bottom of a lake,
- They rise towards the Sun
- And when a blossom opens, they convert sunlight into life-energy through the alchemy of photo-synthesis.
No wonder that some spiritual communities like Buddhists, have adopted the Asian cousin, the Lotus, as the symbol of their interdependent communities. The Water Lily and Lotus are mentors in how to live well as part of “the interdependent web of all existence of which are a part.”
They are natural teachers of our 7th UU Principle.
II. Human Communities: Native and Immigrant
Dr. Kimmerer is mindful of the social histories on North America or “Turtle Island”. And she devises a clever and comical metaphor to talk about the differences between Native and Immigrant communities.
Reading #2: "Two Feet on the Ground" (read by Jondi Nelson)
"After all these generations since Columbus, some of the wise of Native elders still puzzle over the people who came to our shores… The problem with these new people is that don't have both feet on the shore. One is still in the boat. They don't seem to know whether they're staying or not."
Braiding Sweetgrass page 207
What keeps people like us, the recent immigrants, from arriving and finding our home on Turtle Island, aka, North America? For the first generation of our immigrant ancestors it may have been a stranger mixture of nostalgia and hope.
Like the statues of the “unknown Swedes” in Center City, MN, the wife looks back east towards the old country feeling the pangs of absence and wishing she were closer to her family and home. The husband looks forward with anticipation towards a better future; he faces west with an expression of stern hope.
What’s missing?
Neither of them is at home in the present; they do not cast their glance nor invest their hopes in where they are now, in the gifts and limits and needs of their particular niche in an eco-system which might need something from them.
We immigrants are sometimes victims of misdirected attention. We may not see the world around us, we may not notice our animal and plant neighbors, we may not take the time to learn their names and needs.
Sometimes we recent immigrants may be limited by compassion that is too narrow:
- We may not care about those who are too different from us
- We may not even notice our animal and plant neighbors, except as they can meet our needs
- We may not take the time to listen and learn.
Sometimes we recent immigrants may be hampered by ideological blinders: like the early loggers of Minnesota and Wisconsin who cut down groves of century pines without replanting because they falsely assumed that natural resources were endless and are here for just for us. What are the options for those non-natives who might want to live with both feet planted where we live and heart and mind open to our surroundings?
One option is "going native." In its benign form, this means a willingness to be students and let our native elders be the teachers, and the plants who are their teachers. In its silly form "going native" may be putting on the trappings of Native Americans, burning a little sage or sweet-grass, or adopting habits of language hi-jacked from Indian communities.
The problem with this approach is it's so superficial. What good is it if we go marching into the woods wearing $300 moccasins if we don’t keep our senses awake, and open our hearts and minds to our non-human neighbors and mentors?
Another option is what Dr. Kimmerer calls “getting naturalized”. This requires learning by doing, and letting our actions transform how we think, feel and act. A good way to begin is closing our mouths, and listening deeper. When you wake up early, what is the first bird you hear as the sun begins to rise?What is the first flowering plant you see in spring? And what species need a little food from us in the lean days and freezing nights of March?
III. Nature as Spiritual Mother and Moral Mentor
Reading #3: "Three Sisters: Bean, Corn and Squash" (read by Pat Tieskoetter)
"Of all the wise teachers who have come into my life, none are more eloquent than these,
who wordlessly in leaf and vine embody the knowledge of relationship. Alone, a bean is just a vine, squash an over-sized leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge which transcends the individual... This is how the world keeps going."
Braiding Sweetgrass page 140.
This happy knack of planting beans, corn and squash points towards a spiritual insight as deep as the hidden water-table and as nourishing. There are plants and animals and flavors that belong together, enhance each other that create together "holy synergy" where the whole is greater and lovelier than the sum of its parts.
If you plant beans, corn and squash together they will help support one another and each will become healthier and more bountiful. If you artfully combine blueberries, wild rice, maple syrup and walnuts, you'll create a breakfast filled with anti-oxidants and fiber, it will keep you healthy, happy and regular. Good for body and mind, bowels and soul. And heavens it's tasty!
Wise people sense these hidden affinities and holy synergies and pass them on in recipes for gardening and food, for happy marriages and healthy communities. What Biblical religion celebrates as loaves and fishes, natural religion savors as beans, corn and squash.
The golden rule of Biblical faith that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us is artfully mirrored in the green rule of Natural faith:
what we do to the earth, the waters and the air we do to ourselves.
If we poison the earth, our children and grandchildren will be poisoned. If we tenderly care for the earth, our children and grandchildren will be cared for. What goes around, comes around
or as Emerson said, “the whole universe is startlingly moral" not because there’s a big moral Policeman looking over our shoulder, but because the whole universe is so intricately woven together that there is no escape from the matrix of cause and effect.
READING #4 The Honorable Harvest (read by Donn Leaf)
"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 that which is given. Never take more than half. Leave some for others. 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."
Braiding Sweetgrass page 183.
The Moral Lesson of Braiding Sweetgrass is compacted into 88 words of the honorable harvest. Holy Synergy, the Green Rule of Reciprocity, tells us how to relate to the life around us. What the plants that sustain our lives need from us and how they can restore body, mind and spirit to health and wholeness when we are sick. We are asked to Ask, Listen, and Abide.
We are not in charge.
We need to get a little more humble and remove the “sticks from our ears” as some Native images depict the new immigrants.
We need to be modest and frugal not greedy and grabby.
If we take some and leave some.
If we leave the first and the last one we see the earth and its green bounty will be sustained and there will be healthy food, clean air and water for generations to come.
From modesty comes sustainability, from sustainability comes abundance, out of abundance comes gratitude. This is how living systems renew themselves
modesty→ sustainability→ abundance → gratitude
Moment by moment,
harvest by harvest,
from generation to generation—amen and blessed be!
IV. Be-longing
The last word I want to leave you with is belonging: Be-longing.
There is a great hunger and thirst within us, but what is it for? Some people in this culture say the hunger is for more “gusto” and the thirst is for more belongings, wealth and status. Such a way of life depletes resources and produces silly excesses. What good are 5 or 10 homes, if we don’t really “feel at home” anywhere? What good are 50 cars, if we can only drive one at a time?
Some people and groups in this culture affirm that what we hunger and thirst for is not belongings, but to be-long—to be in the place where we long to be so we can savor what is with the bounty of whole-hearted attention.
Such a way of life replenishes resources and when we share what we have there is plenty of what we really need to go around.
The Good Book says that Life and Death have been placed before us so that we might choose—may we and our descendants choose Life!
Reading #5. “Maple Sugar Moon” (read by Hattie Mathers)
Reading this one aloud as you savor corn-bread and maple syrup and all the sweetness of spring.
“Our people call this the Maple Sugar Moon... The month before is known as the Hard Crust on Snow Moon. People living a subsistence lifestyle also know it as the Hunger Moon, when stored food has swindled and game is scarce. But the maples carried the people through, provided food just when they needed it most. They had to trust that Mother Earth would find a way to feed them... butmothers are like that.”
Braiding Sweetgrass page 63