I missed out on the opportunity to borrow this book, highly recommended by a beautiful friend, in its original publication a couple of years ago so almost-literally leapt at the chance to review a NetGalley copy of the new Penguin publication. I'm so glad that I did! Robin Wall Kimmerer's life philosophies and the way in which she looks to plant wisdom for answers to human social and environmental problems are exactly what we need to be exploring right now, especially as people want new lifestyle choices in the wake of the epidemic. I began reading Braiding Sweetgrass wondering if this might be too 'hippy' a book for me to really get into. Within a hundred pages I was totally engrossed in every word Kimmerer wrote and frequently found myself nodding in enthusiastic agreement with her.

Kimmerer discusses ancient Native American ideas and practices, showing how the ideas behind them result in a completely different mindset to that of contemporary capitalist Western culture. I loved how she explains the influence of such basic concepts as our origin myths and was reminded strongly of Nesrine Malik's arguments in We Need New Stories. For the Potawatomi tribe, human life on Earth began with a woman whose fall from the sky was cushioned by geese catching her in their soft feathers and with all the animals helping her to create a home for herself. The Christian story begins in anger with a woman being evicted from paradise to cope as best she can in a lesser place. Our language also makes a huge difference to our worldview. In English, it is acceptable to refer to any nonhuman as 'it', ie. as a thing. For Native Americans, all animals have person status as do plants, rocks, water flows. It's much harder emotionally to mistreat someOne than someThing.

The combination of Kimmerer's philosophical approach together with her scientific knowledge and engaging, chatty tone made Braiding Sweetgrass an amazing read for me. While I was eager to keep reading what Kimmerer has to say, I also found myself frequently setting the book aside to appreciate a beautiful concept or to consider how I could apply a suggestion to my own lifestyle. I think it is generally accepted that humans have to make drastic changes to how we live and consume resources or we soon won't have a planet that's capable of supporting us all. I would highly recommend Braiding Sweetgrass as the perfect guide.