WWW of RI Book Club: Braiding Sweetgrass

[CREDIT: Pixabay] The second Women’s Wilderness Weekend of RI Women’s book club in April will discuss ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

The focus of our book selections for the WWW of RI Book Club centers on Women authors writing about women’s stories, connections, history, nature, and overcoming adversity.

Anyone in the WWW of RI community is welcome to participate regardless of your attendance at our weekend events.

WWW of RI Book Club Rules:

• Please obtain a copy of the book, either by borrowing from the library, borrowing from someone you know, or purchasing. Read the book on your own during the month. Audio books are good too. We will meet at the end of the month to discuss the book.
• Suggestions are highly welcome. At our February gathering, the group selected the next book and other suggestions were discussed for future events. Please let us know what you are interested in.
• Please read the book, or at least attempt to read it so you can contribute to the discussion.
• Everyone reads at their own pace, and that is fine. If you finish the book in two days or only get half way through, anyone with interest in the book club can be included.

Any and all conversation is welcome at the book discussions but please be courteous and kind. You can disagree with someone, but always do it respectfully.

You do not need to participate every month to be part of the book club. Read what interests you and attend when you can.

Now-April’s book

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass – by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as 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 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 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.

Discussion for this book will take place April 21 at 3 p.m. at our book club coordinator, Jessy’s, house.

Please reach out to Jessy at jessyjakul@gmail.com to be included.