![]() ![]() Plants are living beings with whom our proper relationship is kinship. Kimmerer draws on both to give a unitive vision of the whole of creation, with humanity a small yet important part. In reaction, it's easy to dismiss scientific knowledge as hopelessly imperialistic and destructive. Often, science claims to be the realm of facts and dismisses Indigenous wisdom as fairy tales or myths. Kimmerer, a botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Band of Oklahoma, started a new conversation between Western science and Indigenous wisdom. ![]() One of the most important books of the last decade - for me, maybe this century - is Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants (Milkweed Editions). ![]() Re-connecting with this relative can help us re-Indigenize our faith and heal wounds that riddle Turtle Island and the whole planet. Our Catholic ancestors called it Mary's Grass. Few things are more arresting than the smell of burning sweetgrass, the sacred plant that some Indigenous peoples call the hair of Mother Earth. ![]()
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