Braiding Sweetgrass Quotes with Page Numbers. Written in 2013, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a nonfiction book by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
The work examines modern botany and environmentalism through the lens of the traditions and cultures of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Through a series of personal reflections, the author explores the connection between living things and human efforts to cultivate a more sustainable world. Winner of the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, Braiding Sweetgrass peaked at No. 9 on the New York Times Best Sellers paperback nonfiction list.
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| Braiding Sweetgrass Quotes |
Braiding Sweetgrass Quotes
- “In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.”
- “Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
- “The land knows you, even when you are lost.”
- “Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
- “This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.”
- “Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.”
- “To love a place is not enough. We must find ways to heal it.”
- “Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”
- “Our indigenous herbalists say to pay attention when plants come to you; they’re bringing you something you need to learn.”
- “To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.”
- “The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together.”
- “We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.”
- “Never take the first plant you find, as it might be the last—and you want that first one to speak well of you to the others of her kind.”
- “Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.”
- “I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain.”
- “I want to stand by the river in my finest dress. I want to sing, strong and hard, and stomp my feet with a hundred others so that the waters hum with our happiness. I want to dance for the renewal of the world.”
- “That, I think, is the power of ceremony. It marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine; the coffee to a prayer.”
- “The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.”
- Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.
- Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.
- This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.
- 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.
- Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.
- We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings.
- Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.
- The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together.
- modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples.
- I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain.
- Never take the first plant you find, as it might be the last—and you want that first one to speak well of you to the others of her kind.
- Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.
- I want to stand by the river in my finest dress. I want to sing, strong and hard, and stomp my feet with a hundred others so that the waters hum with our happiness. I want to dance for the renewal of the world.
- All powers have two sides, the power to create and the power to destroy. We must recognize them both, but invest our gifts on the side of creation.
- One thing I’ve learned in the woods is that there is no such thing as random. Everything is steeped in meaning, colored by relationships, one thing with another.
- We carry our babies in internal ponds and they come forth into the world on a wave of water. It is our responsibility to safeguard the water for all our relations.
- doesn’t this mean that speaking English, thinking in English, somehow gives us permission to disrespect nature? By denying everyone else the right to be persons? Wouldn’t things be different if nothing was an it?.
- It’s not just land that is broken, but more importantly, our relationship to land.
- The very earth that sustains us is being destroyed to fuel injustice. An economy that grants personhood to corporations but denies it to the more-than-human beings.
- If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy become.
- I wonder if much that ails our society stems from the fact that we have allowed ourselves to be cut off from that love of, and from, the land. It is medicine for broken land and empty hearts.
- For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.
- Maybe there is no such thing as rain; there are only raindrops, each with its own story.
- Plants are also integral to reweaving the connection between land and people. A place becomes a home when it sustains you, when it feeds you in body as well as spirit. To recreate a home, the plants must also return.
- When a language dies, so much more than words are lost. Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. It is a prism through which to see the world.
- A teacher comes, they say, when you are ready. And if you ignore its presence, it will speak to you more loudly. But you have to be quiet to hear.
You may also like to read: Braiding Sweetgrass Summary
Braiding Sweetgrass Quotes with Page Numbers
- “Not by Skywoman alone, but from the alchemy of all the animals’ gifts coupled with her deep attitude.” Page 4.
- “Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren’t looking because you were trying to stay alive.” Page 17.
- “Ceremonies large and small have the power to focus attention to a way of living awake in the world.” Page 36.
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