Rosalind’s Reviews > Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants > Status Update

Umbilicaria: The belly button of the world - “My parents will celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary this year and seem to have just that kind of symbiosis, a marriage in which the balance of giving and taking is dynamic, the roles of giver and receiver shifting from moment to moment. They are committed to an ‘us’ that emerges from the shared strengths and weaknesses of the partners…”

Putting down roots - “At graduation ceremonies at Carlisle, the young men were required to take an oath: ‘I am no longer an Indian man. I will lay down the bow and arrow forever and put my hand to the plow.’ Plows and cows brought tremendous changes to the vegetation. Just as Mohawk identity is tied to the plants people use, so it was for the European immigrants who sought to make a home here.”

Burning Cascade Head - “The burnt and blackened soil heats up quickly and urges the shoots upward, fueled by the fertilizing ash, giving the elk and their calves a lush pasture in the midst of dark forests of Sitka spruce. As the season unfolds, the prairie is awash with wildflowers.”

Sitting in a Circle - I don't have a great quote for this one, but it's been fascinating to read this book alongside THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER and seeing Sinners too.

The sound of silverbells - “The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. My job was just to lead them into the presence and ready them to hear.”

In the footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming indigenous to place - “Every being with a gift, every being with a responsibility. He considered his own empty hands. He had to rely on the world to take care of him.”

The Honorable Harvest - so many good quotes from this it’s hard to choose (and I want to cook leeks now)
“Whether we are digging wild leeks or going to the mall, how do we consume in a way that does justice to the lives that we take?”

Maple Nation - A Citizenship Guide
“We do not pay at the pump for the cost of climate change, for the loss of ecosystem services provided by maples and others. Cheap gas now or maples for the next generation? Call me crazy, but I’d welcome a tax that would resolve that question.”

Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass
The “Western science worldview, which sets human beings outside of ‘nature’ and judges their interactions with other species are largely negative” was in opposition to the findings that harvesting sweetgrass actually stimulates growth.

The three sisters - I’ve learned about beans, squash and corn being the three sisters of indigenous and early American agriculture, but I did not realize the extent to which they complement each other - or that corn kernels are the analogous ovaries of the corn, the silk the canal through which they are fertilized.