Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and teachings of the plants

"Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants"

February 18th, 2021 via Zoom

The event taught me a lot, not only about the science behind nature, but also the spiritual world of nature. Dir Kimmerer circled around the point that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. She emphasized the important connections between human and nature and told everyone how exactly we should honor and appreciate the world we live in. I can feel Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s love and her appreciation for Mother Earth and nature. When she talked about the beautiful butterfly and her story at college, I started nodding my head and smiling, because I can relate! I am always attracted to flowers and plants. I think there’s a special beauty in them that we need to pay close attention to.

It is interesting to learn that sweetgrass is understood as the hair of Mother Earth in her culture. People braid it as people treat this as a tangible way to show their love and wishes to Mother Earth. This concept of giving plants and flowers special sacred meaning can be seen in other cultures. I thought about Chrysanthemums in Chinese culture. It is a symbol of humility. When Chinese people visit the cemetery, they bring chrysanthemums to show their love and respect for deceased relatives. The sacred flower chrysanthemum also plays a role in medicines. In ancient Chinese Medicinal Theory, it is a great medicine for curing internal heat and fever, and many people put the flowers into their pillow as they believe it is good for eyesight. Dr. Kimmerer inspires me to focus more on how each culture is similar despite their differences.

I can’t agree more when Dr. Kimmerer said that we should pay attention to the pain of nature while we enjoy the beauty and the amazement of it. “Treat the world just like how it treats you. Respect them just like how they respect you.” Nowadays, people seem to gradually weigh less or even forget nature’s importance and contribution to human’s world. I am excited to hear the idea of treating all nature as human as I have thought about this before, but never know that it is applicable in the professional field. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer put this idea in a broader and more scientific way. She mentioned the Rights of Nature Movement as an example to contribute. There are easy things I can do to contribute – I would like to start learning more plants’ names and calling nature “ki” and “kin'' (the special pronoun Dr. Kimmerer initiated) instead of “it”.

Thanks to this event, I resonated with the speaker’s love for plants in her eyes and in her passionate tone of voice. I think this is something that we should all fight for. We should help the environment even by doing small things like being thankful, telling your friends about this concept, and paying attention to projects like the Sustainable Development Goals. In my Unity Day Workshop that focused on pandemic and how we should face it, I was talking about the idea of being thankful. I said that “we should cherish what we had, what we have, and what we will have.” We can simply start contributing to the world by having a little gratitude and appreciation toward our wonderful Mother Earth.