A couple of years ago I had two special people in two separate conversations suggest the book Braiding Sweetgrass to me. Sister Nancy suggested it one day when we were talking about books and then not long after that my friend Sara happened to be at Prairiewoods with that very book in her hand. She’d been sitting in one of the tree swings reading it, and she said I would love it.
I did love it. And as I read the book, I was simultaneously listening to the audio book read beautifully by the author. I loved hearing her description of finding wild strawberries and the smell of the Earth at the time of the Strawberry Moon—ode’mini-giizis in her Native language. She described sweetgrass—wiingaashk—as holy grass, as the honeyed vanilla scented hair of Mother Earth.
One of my very favorite thoughts from the book is this:
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
―Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
I do feel Mother Earth loving me, and I do feel our sacred bond, our mutual love for each other. I see Her love everywhere, in tiny wild berries, in forest flowers, in mushrooms growing on oak trees. I feel love in the air and on the wind. I hear love in birdsong. I smell love in the rain. I love the Earth and the Earth loves me back.
She loves you too. No matter what. The Earth loves you back.
—Angie Pierce Jennings, Prairiewoods hosted groups and hospitality coordinator
