

In particular, Onondaga Lake was one water source which was sacred to the people of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the oldest living democratic society, but. B raiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a 2013 nonfiction book about ecology, Indigenous cultural practices, and the contemporary climate crisis. “The Sacred and the Superfund” focuses on water as a clear, pure, sacred substance to all cultures. For Kimmerer, today’s ‘Windigo’ is our tendency towards greed and individualism, threatening the concept of community which Ojibwe culture warned centuries ago needed to be held sacred. Windigo is a spirit, devouring mankind, and thus represents any overindulgent, self-destructive habit known to humanity. Kimmerer discusses Windigo’s relevance in today’s America: the myth is intended to strengthen self-discipline and build resistance against greed, or taking too much. Windigo is a monster that comes out in the wintertime, when food is scarce, and eats people. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.“Windigo Footprints” introduces Windigo, a mythical creature prominent in Ojibwe cautionary tales. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings-asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass-offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert). Adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith, this new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earths oldest. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller Named a Best Essay Collection of the Decade by Literary Hub As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. Shop Barnes & Noble Braiding Sweetgrass - Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer online at.
