Hello! I’m Cheryl Dunn in Lincoln, NE for HPPR’s Radio Readers Fall Book Club. I’m the Research Manager-Herbarium Curator at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and I have the pleasure of being your Leader for the book Braiding Sweetgrass which the author Robin Wall Kimmerer weaves a beautiful story of connecting with the land and giving back to it what you take from it, also known as reciprocity.
While reading this book I continually did self-reflections on how my childhood shaped what I do and how I feel about our natural world. The author talks of her childhood when she would pick strawberries and how this was when she realized that the earth gives us gifts and not only can we enjoy these gifts, but we can also give them to others.
This reminded me of being a little girl whose grandmother would allow the exploration of all things around her house in the woods of Virginia. She would show me how the goats would eat different plants, so I spent hours giving my own “gifts” to the goats. It was so interesting to see how my grandparents used the goats to keep the very steep hillside mowed down from the vegetation. There was no way they could mow it, so the goats did a lot of what this book talks about when it comes to reciprocity and that if we fed the goats and then the goats served a purpose in helping with the land.
The chapter entitled Honorable Harvest also continues along these lines of we should only take what we need, and we respect the land to not overuse what is given. Also growing up my dad would take us on hikes in Colorado. It was in stark contrast to the Mixed-grass prairies that we saw daily in Hays Kansas, but we learned to enjoy the beautiful vistas that the Rocky Mountains provided.
The fields of wildflowers, the snowcapped summits, and lessons along the way of being respectful in this pristine environment because we wanted to leave the land just as we found it. We also made sure not to feed the animals and just observe quietly so they might never become reliant upon humans for food. So, when my dad passed a couple of years ago I went back to the place he loved so much and I felt the wrong in the world was righted a bit.
And then I came across Robin’s quote “The land knows you, even when you are lost” and then the journey made sense of why I felt better because as Robin also said "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" That place loved me in return and gave me the hug I needed.
The book not only led me to understand how the past shaped my future, but how I see being a mother as well to my two daughters and how passing similar knowledge that you have gained is vitally important to the next generation. One of Robin’s daughters in particular talks about how her “garden takes care of her like her very own mama.”
This comes from a poignant chapter called Ephiphany of the Beans that starts with the quote “It came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness” and goes on to say how we can make such a strong connection to our land by just having a simple garden.
So, I challenge you as you read this book to reflect on what connections to the land you were taught as a child. If you weren’t taught those, how can you change it for your own children or maybe other children in your life?
I’m Cheryl Dunn for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club’s 2023 Fall Read – Wisdom of the Natural World.
