Join us for our inaugural Wilderness Book Club as we discuss Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This is a book that so many have fallen in love with. It will transform the way you look at the environment and is a great introduction to indigenous issues.

The book club is being run by member Emara and we'll be meeting for a casual discussion at the Duke of York pub in Yorkville (arguably the best gastropub in the city). Drinks and Dinner are available!

There is no cost to attend - membership of Wilderness Book Club is included in your WU membership.

Book description

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, 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.

Join us for our inaugural Wilderness Book Club as we discuss Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This is a book that so many have fallen in love with. It will transform the way you look at the environment and is a great introduction to indigenous issues.

The book club is being run by member Emara and we'll be meeting for a casual discussion at the Duke of York pub in Yorkville (arguably the best gastropub in the city). Drinks and Dinner are available!

There is no cost to attend - membership of Wilderness Book Club is included in your WU membership.

Book description

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, 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.