Six Reasons to Reread Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous wisdom, science, and story create a vision that can heal us.

There is a book which heals your heart, raises your spirits, and makes you wise. If enough people were to read it, if it were taught in schools and studied in churches, it could save the world.

The book is Braiding Sweetgrass. The author is Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Native American (Potawatomi) botanist, teacher, storyteller, poet, mother, and wise woman. The subtitle is “Scientific knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and the teachings of plants,” and every chapter braids those three ways of seeing the world.

This book changed my life and keeps me going. I’ve read it through five times, and now it lives on my bedside table. I look through the table of contents most mornings to pick out a story that will speak to where I am that day. It always helps.

If you haven’t read Braiding Sweetgrass yet, you are missing something very important in your life. If you have read it before, I will say from many people’s experience, read it again. Once is not enough. Unless you are already very wise and knowledgeable, twice is not enough. You will get more out of it each time, because there are innumerable layers and facets to it, as there are to reality. Readers will gain insights into politics, science, spirit, history, human relations, Nature, and their own feelings.

Here are six reasons to read it again. I could have easily made it twelve or 20, but I’ll start here..