Al Owski’s Reviews > Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants > Status Update

“More than anything, I want to hear a great song of thanks rise on the wind. I think that song might save us. ”

“But the uncertain path to the future could be illuminated by language. In Potawatomi, we speak of the land as emingoyak: that which has been given to us. In English, we speak of the land as "natural resources" or "ecosystem services," as if the lives of other beings were our property. As if the earth were not a bowl of berries, but an open pit mine, and the spoon a gouging shovel.”

“They carry the lesson, passed to us by our ancestors, that the generosity of the land comes to us as one bowl, one spoon. We are all fed from the same bowl that Mother Earth has filled for us. It's not just about the berries, but also about the bowl. The gifts of the earth are to be shared, but gifts are not limitless. The generosity of the earth is not an invitation to take it all. Every bowl has a bottom.”

“You never dishonor the gift. A gift asks something of you. To take care of it.”

“Woven into my dad's fire teachings was appreciation for all the woods gave us and a sense of our responsibility for reciprocity. We never left a camping place without leaving a pile of wood for the next people on the trail. Paying attention, being prepared and patient, and doing it right the first time: the skill and the values were so closely entwined that fire making became an emblem of a certain kind of virtue.”

“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”

“As the temperature drops, single voices—clear and hollow-replace the keening chorus: the ancient speech of frogs. One word becomes clear, as if spoken in English. "Hear! Hear! Hear! The world is more than your thoughtless commute. We, the collateral, are your wealth, your teachers, your security, your family. Your strange hunger for ease should not mean a death sentence for the rest of Creation."

“It has been said that people of the modern world suffer a great sadness, a "species loneliness" estrangement from the rest of Creation. We have built this isolation with our fear, with our arrogance, and with our homes brightly lit against the night. For a moment as we walked this road, those barriers dissolved and we began to relieve the loneliness and know each other once again.”

“Collateral damage: shielding words to keep us from naming the consequence of a missile gone astray. The words ask us to turn our faces away, as if man-made destruction were an inescapable fact of nature. Collateral damage: measured in overturned soup pots and wailing children.”

“We may not have wings or leaves, but we humans do have words. Language is our gift and our responsibility. I've come to think of writing as an act of reciprocity with the living land. Words to remember old stories, words to tell new ones, stories that bring science and spirit back together...”