Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I re-read Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013). 

Occasionally you will come across a book that weaves itself into your worldview and stays there. I am a different, better person for having read it--though as with all books that reshape me, I struggle to adequately describe it.

Part memoir, part botany text, part indigenous philosophy, Braiding Sweetgrass shows us a different way of thinking and existing, a world where an economy of gifts and reciprocity replaces our current economy of capitalist extraction. It's a world where people care for each other...and not just human people, but animals and plants. A world where maple trees are people, and so are rivers, and so are the domesticated ducks who live in the pond out back.

I worry I am making this sound fluffy or Disneyfied. The book is neither shallow nor saccharine. It is a serious book that draws on indigenous knowledge and the lessons of plants to describe a better way to live. The topics are heavy, but the tone is hopeful. I listened to Kimmerer narrate the audiobook with her soothing voice (she reminds me in several ways of religious writer Anne Lamott) and I kept breaking out in tears as I walked my dog, not just because of the heaviness of the topics but because of the joy and hope. 

The other reason I love this book is because Kimmerer is a superb writer. As she contemplated college, she was torn between botany and poetry. Usually when I read, my editor brain is turned on, thinking of spots where I would have chosen different words or phrasing. Not with this book. Kimmerer's words are a pleasure to read.