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The cover of Braiding Sweetgrass

Braiding Sweetgrass

Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013

A Potawatomi botanist braids Indigenous teachings, plant science and her own life into essays on gratitude and reciprocity, and on how people and land can heal each other.

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33 parts, about 35 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Kimmerer braids Indigenous knowledge, plant science and her own life into an argument that land is a gift calling for reciprocity
  • Offers practices like the Honorable Harvest and a grammar of animacy for changing how you take from and care for the living world
  • Pairs story with field experiments, such as sweetgrass that thrives when harvested, so science and tradition test each other

Who it is for

  • Gardeners and foragers who want a deeper ethic of harvest
  • Ecology students seeking more than data from their field
  • Readers grieving environmental loss who want hope without denial

What the summary covers

  1. Preface1 min
  2. Skywoman Falling1 min
  3. The Council of Pecans1 min
  4. The Gift of Strawberries1 min
  5. An Offering1 min
  6. Asters and Goldenrod1 min
  7. Learning the Grammar of Animacy1 min
  8. Maple Sugar Moon1 min
  9. Witch Hazel1 min
  10. A Mother's Work1 min
  11. The Consolation of Water Lilies1 min
  12. Allegiance to Gratitude1 min
  13. Epiphany in the Beans1 min
  14. The Three Sisters1 min
  15. Wisgaak Gokpenagen: A Black Ash Basket1 min
  16. Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass1 min
  17. Maple Nation: A Citizenship Guide1 min
  18. The Honorable Harvest2 min
  19. In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place1 min
  20. The Sound of Silverbells1 min
  21. Sitting in a Circle1 min
  22. Burning Cascade Head1 min
  23. Putting Down Roots1 min
  24. Umbilicaria: The Belly Button of the World1 min
  25. Old Growth Children1 min
  26. Witness to the Rain1 min
  27. Windigo Footprints1 min
  28. The Sacred and the Superfund2 min
  29. People of Corn, People of Light1 min
  30. Collateral Damage1 min
  31. Shkitagen: People of the Seventh Fire1 min
  32. Defeating Windigo1 min
  33. Epilogue: Returning the Gift1 min

Recommended by

  • Elizabeth GilbertAuthor of Eat Pray Love
    Robin Wall Kimmerer is writer of rare grace. She 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 Kimmerer's eyes.
  • Jane GoodallPrimatologist and conservationist
    Robin Wall Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book, showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people.
  • Krista TippettBroadcaster and host of On Being
    Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate.
  • Oren LyonsFaithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation
    Braiding Sweetgrass is instructive poetry. Robin Wall Kimmerer has put the spiritual relationship that Chief Seattle called the 'web of life' into writing.

About the author

  • Robin Wall KimmererPotawatomi botanist, author and MacArthur Fellow
    • Born in 1953 in upstate New York and raised in the hamlet of Ballston Lake.
    • Holds a bachelor's degree in botany from SUNY ESF and a master's and doctorate in botany from the University of Wisconsin.
    • Taught biology, botany and ecology at Centre College in Kentucky before returning in 1993 to SUNY ESF in upstate New York.
    • Is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor and the founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY ESF.
    • Is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and of European and Anishinaabe ancestry.
    • Her first book, Gathering Moss, won the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing in 2005.
    • Addressed the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 on healing our relationship with nature.
    • Was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2022 and received the National Humanities Medal in 2023.

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