The EDNIN Creation Care Commission presents a book discussion on Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Dates: September 15, October 20, and November 10, 7-8:30 p.m. (Eastern)
Location: Zoom
Facilitators: Tamisyn Grantz, Steven Slaubaugh, and The Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Warne
Please join us for three sessions as we read and discuss Robin Wall Kimmerer’s insights into our relationships with creation, our history with Indigenous peoples, and how we might begin to transform our relationships with both.
“Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.”
Reading Assignments (ideally to be read prior to each session):
September 15 : sections 1 & 2 ( Planting Sweetgrass & Tending Sweetgrass)
October 20: sections 3 & 4 ( Picking Sweetgrass & Braiding Sweetgrass)
November 10: section 5, epilogue & introduction to new edition ( Burning Sweetgrass)
Books should be purchased on your own from your favored (hopefully independent or used) bookseller. Available directly from Milkweed publishing in paperback for $18.00 milkweed.org. If you prefer audiobooks, it is read by the author which is a real treat! If purchasing the book is a financial hardship, please email the diocesan office at info@ednin.org and they will contact facilitators.