Tag: Robin Wall Kimmerer

Going Home for Good

For nearly 15 years I have shared my blog with so many of you around the planet and at home on Turtle Island, in part known as the USA. For most of my life, my true self questioned the nonsensible ways in which we live above the land rather than as part of the land. I have written books about my experiences in a capitalist society which subjugates our living relatives (trees, birds, insects, oceans and Mother Earth herself.) Indigenous knowledge has called me home for decades of my life since I was a child. Now, I leave you with this exceptional wisdom keeper, Robin Wall Kimmerer, who better than anyone I know, speaks the truth and points the way to living in new (ancient) ways that would help us find The Way out of madness by combining the indigenous way of knowing with the capitalist way of knowing. The present moment of madness in the U.S.A. is answered, and a path forward that is sustaining, and what we yearn for. All is contained in this keynote address presented recently at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. I leave you with Dr. Kimmerer’s wisdom, and I thank everyone for reading my blog over the years.

And here is another important voice from Indigenous America whom I greatly respect and is a worthy follow up to what Dr. Kimmerer is describing as a way forward. It is not lost on me that it is the women leaders whose voices are coming forward in response to the perils we now face.

Mutual Flourishing

No person living today makes as much sense as Robin Wall Kimmerer.

In her beautiful Potowatomi ways of knowing, so brilliantly written in her latest book – a small treasure to be carried in your pocket to remind us about other ways of knowing the world than the Western, extractive view of the Earth’s living community as “resources” – The Serviceberry is a way out of madness.

Early this morning I found myself torn apart by concerns for the nation, the planet, for my health as I age, for my children’s future…and no where could I find a direction and wisdom that seemed to point toward truth and sustenance.

Then, on YouTube, I found a brilliant interview by a young scientist at the Museum of Science who interviewed Dr. Kimmerer about the little book of wisdom, The Serviceberry. I post it here for you, my friends online from countries all over the world. I pray you find solace, wisdom, and direction for this day and tomorrow for truly, Robin has gifted the world a jewel of hope.

Voices for Mother Earth

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (from goodreads)

“Our challenge is to create a new language, even a new sense of what it is to be human. It is to transcend not only national limitations, but even our species isolation, to enter into the larger community of living species. This brings about a completely new sense of reality and value.” (Thomas Berry, “The Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth, 42). https://thomasberry.org/quotes/

Photo by Susan Feathers at Virginia Beach Botanical Garden Hydrangea Park

M. Scott Momaday, reading his poetry, A Man Made of Words.

Scott’s understanding of language arises from his deep conversation with the land of the Kiowa. He received the Pulitzer Prize with his first novel, The House Made of Dawn.

To read or listen to powerful voices of people who have devoted their lives to celebrating the Earth is to heal and to find our way home. Each offers us solace and a direction for our lives as we anticipate times of destruction in America and around the world. Earth teaches us to live in community, to know each other and to be in reciprocal relationship with each other and all of life around us. I highly recommend these great teachers, each of whom has helped me understand a way forward in uncertain times. They offer hope and a longer point of view than ephemeral politics. They are an antidote to avarice. We need this deep resonance now to stabalize our spirits and our collective wish for unity, equality and peace.

Listening

Here is a brilliant conversation between Robin Wall Kimmerer and Emanuel Vaughn Lee of Emergence Magazine. Robin describes the wonderful serviceberry tree and what she has learned from its generosity. I also recommend Emergence Magazine for its films from artists and thought leaders across our great planet. I go there frequently to keep the balance.

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimerer. I am awaiting my copy!

Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System – Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall KimmererRobin Wall Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a botanist who explains her knowledge of an indigenous worldview about plants with that of the western worldview. In that process, Kimmerer embeds whole Earth teaching along with botanical science. Here in this beautiful essay, ” Corn tastes better on the honor system” published in Emergence Magazine, is one of the author’s best teaching contrasting indigenous ways of knowing with western perspectives about the Earth. At this time in American history, it feels like a return to sanity. Listen.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.