For the past several days I have been working as a substitute teacher at Caprock Academy teaching fifth grade science and high school geometry. I am very grateful to many people — especially Mrs. Ellen Robinson who teaches biology classes including Botany. I shared with her this website so she turned me on to a wonderful book called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer who published the first edition in 2013. I had some time between classes, study hall, and on the weekend so I immersed myself in the book discovering a treasure chest of profound wisdom.
According to her bio, the author is a “mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.”
I loved reading the opening origin story about Skywoman Falling and rereading it several times including to my family. The author wrote an article last year where she said:
“The mythic story of Skywoman Falling is the heartbeat of Braiding Sweetgrass, both an opening and a closing, enfolding the stories between. The version shared in the first edition is the most widely told account of the epic, but it is not the only one. There is always the deep diving Muskrat and the earth on Turtle’s back. The rescue by the Geese and the gifts of the animals are a constant, as are the seeds Skywoman brings, initiating the covenant of reciprocity between newcomer humans and our ancient relatives. The detail that varies from one telling to another is just how Skywoman finds herself falling from one world to the next. The common version is that she slips, the earth giving way at the edge of the hole in the sky where the great Tree of Life had fallen. It is an accident, with mythic consequences—and so it begins.”
Later in the article she describes other versions of how Skywoman descended to Earth, that this was no accident; her duty to safeguard life.
“In this time of transformation, when creation and destruction wrestle like Skywoman’s mythic grandsons, gambling with the future of the earth, what would it take for us to follow Skywoman? To jump to the new world, to co-create it? Do we jump because we look over our shoulders at the implacable suffering marching toward us and jump from fear and portent? Or perhaps we look down, drawn toward the glittering green, hear the birdsong, smell the Sweetgrass and yearn to be part of a different story. The story we long for, the story that we are beginning to remember, the story that remembers us.”
I am grateful for the wisdom the author shares which is rarely documented in oral traditions of indigenous culture especially by a person with incredible diverse credentials. The book is so rich with examples of our dependency on the natural world and that there is so much more to learn.
How pecan trees communicate across large regions yielding bumper crops one year then go several years without producing nuts and how wildlife responds to the cycle.
The importance and “genius of indigenous agriculture” for sustaining the land and healthy diets known as the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash.
The best way to connect with the land and nature showing our gratitude and giving gifts is to grow a garden.
To grow diverse plants, such as many varieties of corn, to fit the land rather than fitting the land to monoculture crops as is common practice with modern agriculture.
Her efforts to make a spring-fed, algae-rich pond swimmable by seeking a balance of what to put in and what to take out.
To harvest no more that half of the potential yield of natural resources to prevent overconsumption and ensure sustainability. The unharvested fruit, vegetables, fish, water (etc.) will benefit other wildlife and provide seeds or species for future growth.
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