Braiding Sweetgrass Puns

Thank you all so much for the recommendation. Seriously 10 pages in I can feel my perspective on absolutely everything changing. Holy sh*t.

Any more similar nonfiction recommendations are welcome, particularly by Cherokee authors as that is my nation, but not necessary.

Just finished Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book was really insightful and had a lot of interesting information. My only criticism was the length, 17 hours was long enough I ended up checking it out twice just to finish it.

Braiding Sweetgrass is a book required for all liberal study spring admit to read coming in this January. I just want to know how much annotation is enough? I originally just intended to casually read this book and take a few important quotes. I am worried that it will be used for important future grades and I am going paranoid and started to take notes on literally every single page of the 400 page book. I just want to know if it's necessary?

I have never posted here so sorry in advance if I miss anything but I simply wanted to say, I love this book. It is historical, mythical, introspective, poetic, scientific, informative, well balanced, and every line is pure honey in my ear. I even stopped listening to the audible version (which by the way is narrated by the author who absolutely has the voice to make worthy the prose) because i wanted more time with the words in a physical reading. I want more and thats the best feeling with a book.

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• Skywoman Falling

• The Council of Pecans

• The Gift of Strawberries

#Book Schedule

In the chapter 'The Grammar of Animacy', there's a passage about the way our grammar and language causes us to relate to the natural world.

>I remember paging through the Ojibwe dictionary she sent, trying to decipher the tiles, but the spellings didn’t always match and the print was too small and there are way too many variations on a single word and I was feeling that this was just way too hard. The threads in my brain knotted and the harder I tried, the tighter they became. Pages blurred and my eyes settled on a word—a verb, of course: “to be a Saturday.” Pfft! I threw down the book. Since when i s Saturday a verb? Everyone knows it’s a noun. I grabbed the dictionary and flipped more pages and all kinds of things seemed to be verbs: “to be a hill,” “to be red,” “to be a long sandy stretch of beach,” and then my finger rested on wiikwegamaa: “to be a bay.” “Ridiculous!” I ranted in my head. “There is no reason to make it so complicated. No wonder no one speaks it. A cumbersome language, impossible to learn, and more than that, it’s all wrong. A bay is most definitely a person, place, or thing—a noun and not a verb.” I was ready to give up. I’d learned a few words, done my duty to the language that was taken from my grandfather. Oh, the ghosts of the missionaries in the boarding schools must have been rubbing their hands in glee at my frustration. “She’s going to surrender,” they said.

>And then I swear I heard the zap of synapses firing. An electric current sizzled down my arm and through my finger, and practically scorched the page where that one word lay. In that moment I could smell the water of the bay, watch it rock against the shore and hear it sift onto the sand. A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa—to be a bay —releases the water from bondage and lets it live. “To be a bay” holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise— become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall, and there are verbs for that, too. To be a hill, to be a sandy beach, to be a Saturday, all are possible verbs in a world where everything is alive. Water, land, and even a day, the language a mirror for seeing the animacy of the world, the life that pulses through all things, through pines and nuthatches

Such a wonderful book! Each page is an inspiring lesson on fully belonging to this beautiful world … with grace, kindness, respect and gratitude. “ we are showered everyday 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 trust that what we put in the universe will always come back”. If you are looking for inspiration and have not yet read this book, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

(Besides Gathering Moss!). This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I am aware of The Secret Life of Trees, and plan to read it, but am wondering if there are any others by Indigenous authors like Kimmerer.

I’ve recently been getting really into nature books and idk how to describe it but like philosophy in a way. It’s not necessarily but more like spiritual books. So basically i like books with themes of spirituality woven in with nature lol.

This excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer struck me with its potency and I thought this community might appreciate it as well. Highly recommend the book!

(Some quick background: The Thanksgiving Address is the central prayer and invocation for the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations — Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora). It reflects their relationship of giving thanks for life and the world around them. The Haudenosaunee open and close every social and religious meeting with the Thanksgiving Address. More info on it here )

“You can’t listen to the Thanksgiving Address without feeling wealthy. And while expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it’s a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness. The Thanksgiving Address reminds you that you already have everything you need. Gratitude doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction. It comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy.”

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• The Consolation of Water Lilies

• Allegiance to Gratitude

• Epiphany in the Beans

If anyone needs some help in thinking about what to write:

• Did the story pull you in immediately, or did you have a hard time getting into this book?

• What do you think of the author’s writing style?

• How did this section of book make you feel?

• Did this book make you think differently about anything? Did it introduce you to a new point of view, or any new concepts?

• Did any passages in particular stand out to you?

#Book Schedule

#First Meeting

Our first meeting will be on Tuesday, 18 May 2021, in a thread that will be posted by AutoMod. This gives you roughly 2 and a half weeks to obtain a copy of the book. From here on out, we will read roughly 30 pages per week with weekly meetings on Tuesdays.

Paperback on Amazon

Kindle eBook on Amazon

In this first meeting, we will be discussing the first half of the section, Planting Sweetgrass:

• Skywoman Falling

• The Council of Pecans

• The Gift of Strawberries

Thank you to everyone who took the time to give feedback on the features you wanted to see in this subreddit. We look forward to seeing those of you interested in reading this book soon!

#Book Schedule

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• In The Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place

• The Sound of Silverbells

• Sitting in a Circle

If anyone needs some help in thinking about what to write:

• Did the story pull you in immediately, or did you have a hard time getting into this book?

• What do you think of the author’s writing style?

• How did this section of book make you feel?

• Did this book make you think differently about anything? Did it introduce you to a new point of view, or any new concepts?

• Did any passages in particular stand out to you?

#Book Schedule

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• The Honorable Harvest

If anyone needs some help in thinking about what to write:

• Did the story pull you in immediately, or did you have a hard time getting into this book?

• What do you think of the author’s writing style?

• How did this section of book make you feel?

• Did this book make you think differently about anything? Did it introduce you to a new point of view, or any new concepts?

• Did any passages in particular stand out to you?

#Book Schedule

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• Windigo Footprints

• The Sacred and the Superfund

If anyone needs some help in thinking about what to write:

• Did the story pull you in immediately, or did you have a hard time getting into this book?

• What do you think of the author’s writing style?

• How did this section of book make you feel?

• Did this book make you think differently about anything? Did it introduce you to a new point of view, or any new concepts?

• Did any passages in particular stand out to you?

#Book Schedule

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• Burning Cascade Head

• Putting Down Roots

• Umbilicaria: The Belly Button of the World

If anyone needs some help in thinking about what to write:

• Did the story pull you in immediately, or did you have a hard time getting into this book?

• What do you think of the author’s writing style?

• How did this section of book make you feel?

• Did this book make you think differently about anything? Did it introduce you to a new point of view, or any new concepts?

• Did any passages in particular stand out to you?

#Book Schedule

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• An Offering

• Asters and Goldenrod

• Learning the Grammar of Animacy

#Book Schedule

#Current Reading

In this meeting, we will be discussing:

• The Three Sisters

• Wisgaak Gokpenagen: A Black Ash Basket

If anyone needs some help in thinking about what to write:

• Did the story pull you in immediately, or did you have a hard time getting into this book?

• What do you think of the author’s writing style?

• How did this section of book make you feel?

• Did this book make you think differently about anything? Did it introduce you to a new point of view, or any new concepts?

• Did any passages in particular stand out to you?

#Book Schedule