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Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses , was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has . And thats a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. And having told you that, I never knew or learned anything about what that word meant, much less the people and the culture it described. Articulating an alternative vision of environmental stewardship informed by traditional ecological knowledge. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim.Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for . Jane Goodall praised Kimmerer for showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. The school, similar to Canadian residential schools, set out to "civilize" Native children, forbidding residents from speaking their language, and effectively erasing their Native culture. Food could taste bad. Tippett: Im Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. The rocks are beyond slow, beyond strong, and yet, yielding to a soft, green breath as powerful as a glacier, the mosses wearing away their surfaces grain by grain, bringing them slowly back to sand. 2007 The Sacred and the Superfund Stone Canoe. Robin Wall Kimmerer Early Life Story, Family Background and Education They make homes for this myriad of all these very cool little invertebrates who live in there. In English her Potawatomi name means Light Shining through Sky Woman. While she was growing up in upstate New York, Kimmerers family began to rekindle and strengthen their tribal connections. Do you ever have those conversations with people? The ebb and flow of the Bayou was a background rhythm in her childhood to every aspect of life. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Its always the opposite, right? So, how much is Robin Wall Kimmerer worth at the age of 68 years old? 14:28-31, Kimmerer, R.W. Weve seen that, in a way, weve been captured by a worldview of dominion that does not serve our species well in the long term, and moreover, it doesnt serve all the other beings in creation well at all. Are there communities you think of when you think of this kind of communal love of place where you see new models happening? NPRs On Being: The Intelligence of all Kinds of Life, An Evening with Helen Macdonald & Robin Wall Kimmerer | Heartland, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Gathering Moss: lessons from the small and green, The Honorable Harvest: Indigenous knowledge for sustainability, We the People: expanding the circle of citizenship for public lands, Learning the Grammar of Animacy: land, love, language, Restoration and reciprocity: healing relationships with the natural world, The Fortress, the River and the Garden: a new metaphor for knowledge symbiosis, 2020 Robin Wall KimmererWebsite Design by Authors Unbound. Of European and Anishinaabe ancestry, Robin is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Mosses build soil, they purify water. Kimmerer: It certainly does. She writes about the natural world from a place of such abundant passion that one can never quite see the world in the same way after having seen it though Kimmerers eyes. Reciprocity also finds form in cultural practices such as polyculture farming, where plants that exchange nutrients and offer natural pest control are cultivated together. Leadership Initiative for Minority Female Environmental Faculty (LIMFEF), May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society Podcast featuring, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 04:07. Mosses are superb teachers about living within your means. (1982) A Quantitative Analysis of the Flora of Abandoned Lead-Zinc Mines in Southwestern Wisconsin. And it seems to me that thats such a wonderful way to fill out something else youve said before, which is that you were born a botanist, which is a way to say this, which was the language you got as you entered college at forestry school at State University of New York. Kimmerer,R.W. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Tippett: Heres something you wrote. Kimmerer: I cant think of a single scientific study in the last few decades that has demonstrated that plants or animals are dumber than we think. Tippett: And I have to say and Im sure you know this, because Im sure you get this reaction a lot, especially in scientific circles its unfamiliar and slightly uncomfortable in Western ears, to hear someone refer to plants as persons. Kimmerer has had a profound influence on how we conceptualize the relationship between nature and humans, and her work furthers efforts to heal a damaged planet. Annual Guide. Kimmerer 2010. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. Robin Wall Kimmereris a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Kimmerer is also involved in the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), and works with the Onondaga Nation's school doing community outreach. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Kimmerer: Thats right. Gain a complete understanding of "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer from Blinkist. I interviewed her in 2015, and it quickly became a much-loved show, as her voice was just rising in common life. So I really want to delve into that some more. Adirondack Life Vol. Tippett: After a short break, more with Robin Wall Kimmerer. Tippett: And were these elders? 2008 . Kimmerer, R.W. To love a place is not enough. 16. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants 154 likes Like "Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them. Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author of "Gathering Moss" and the new book " Braiding Sweetgrass". Mosses become so successful all over the world because they live in these tiny little layers, on rocks, on logs, and on trees. Dr. Kimmerer is the author of numerous scientific papers on the ecology of mosses and restoration ecology and on the contributions of traditional ecological knowledge to our understanding of the natural world. Milkweed Editions. Is there a guest, an idea, or a moment from an episode that has made a difference, that has stayed with you across days, months, possibly years? 111:332-341. They have persisted here for 350 million years. Kimmerer's family lost the ability to speak Potawatomi two generations ago, when her grandfather was taken to a colonial boarding school at a young age and beaten for speaking his native tongue. and Kimmerer, R.W. There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. DeLach, A.B. And friends, I recently announced that in June we are transitioning On Being from a weekly to a seasonal rhythm. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the mostthe images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and the meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page. Jane Goodall, Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate. Krista Tippett, I give daily thanks for Robin Wall Kimmerer for being a font of endless knowledge, both mental and spiritual. Richards Powers, 2020 Robin Wall KimmererWebsite Design by Authors Unbound. What were revealing is the fact that they have extraordinary capacities, which are so unlike our own, but we dismiss them because, well, if they dont do it like animals do it, then they must not be doing anything, when in fact, theyre sensing their environment, responding to their environment, in incredibly sophisticated ways. It's cold, windy, and often grey. 2004 Listening to water LTER Forest Log. And I just saw that their knowledge was so much more whole and rich and nurturing that I wanted to do everything that I could to bring those ways of knowing back into harmony. Faust, B., C. Kyrou, K. Ettenger, A. Its unfamiliar. 1998. She is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a student of the plant nations. What were revealing is the fact that they have a capacity to learn, to have memory. If something is going to be sustainable, its ability to provide for us will not be compromised into the future. It will often include that you are from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, from the bear clan, adopted into the eagles. Just as it would be disrespectful to try and put plants in the same category, through the lens of anthropomorphism, I think its also deeply disrespectful to say that they have no consciousness, no awareness, no being-ness at all. Tippett: And also I learned that your work with moss inspired Elizabeth Gilberts novel The Signature Of All Things, which is about a botanist. Robin Wall Kimmerer . American Midland Naturalist. It should be them who tell this story. It doesnt work as well when that gift is missing. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. Tippett: Youve been playing with one or two, havent you? Im attributing plant characteristics to plants. 2005 Offerings Whole Terrain. She works with tribal nations on environmental problem-solving and sustainability. "One thing that frustrates me, over a lifetime of being involved in the environmental movement, is that so much of it is propelled by fear," says Robin Wall Kimmerer. Learn more at kalliopeia.org; The Osprey Foundation, a catalyst for empowered, healthy, and fulfilled lives; And the Lilly Endowment,an Indianapolis-based, private family foundation, dedicated to its founders interests in religion, community development, and education. Tippett: Im Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. The three forms, according to Kimmerer, are Indigenous knowledge, scientific/ecological knowledge, and plant knowledge. In part to share a potential source of meaning, Kimmerer, who is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a professor at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science. How is that working, and are there things happening that surprise you? Kimmerer, R.W. And so this means that they have to live in the interstices. I have photosynthesis envy. Im Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. February is like the Wednesday of winter - too far from the weekend to get excited! Kimmerer, R.W. Any fun and magic that come with the first few snows, has long since been packed away with our Christmas decorations. Robin Wall Kimmerer: Returning the Gift. To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . And shes founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Tippett: Robin Wall Kimmerer is the State University of New York Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. You talked about goldenrods and asters a minute ago, and you said, When I am in their presence, their beauty asks me for reciprocity, to be the complementary color, to make something beautiful in response.. [music: All Things Transient by Maybeshewill]. I wonder, was there a turning point a day or a moment where you felt compelled to bring these things together in the way you could, these different ways of knowing and seeing and studying the world? "Witch Hazel" is narrated in the voice of one of Robin's daughters, and it describes a time when they lived in Kentucky and befriended an old woman named Hazel. Trained as a botanist, Kimmerer is an expert in the ecology of mosses and the restoration of ecological communities. Schilling, eds. Krista interviewed her in 2015, and it quickly became a much-loved show as her voice was just rising in common life. State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, Higher Education Multicultural Scholars Program, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Strategies for Ecology Education, Development and Sustainability, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, "Writers-in-Residence Program: Robin Kimmerer. Director of the newly established Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at ESF, which is part of her work to provide programs that allow for greater access for Indigenous students to study environmental science, and for science to benefit from the wisdom of Native philosophy to reach the common goal of sustainability.[4]. Musings and tools to take into your week. 121:134-143. and F.K. And Ill be offering some of my defining moments, too, in a special on-line event in June, on social media, and more. Tippett: Flesh that out, because thats such an interesting juxtaposition of how you actually started to both experience the dissonance between those kinds of questionings and also started to weave them together, I think. Its an expansion from that, because what it says is that our role as human people is not just to take from the Earth, and the role of the Earth is not just to provide for our single species. But that, to me, is different than really rampant exploitation. (1989) Environmental Determinants of Spatial Pattern in the Vegetation of Abandoned Lead-Zinc Mines. If citizenship means an oath of loyalty to a leader, then I choose the leader of the trees. Kimmerer, R.W. I wonder, what is happening in that conversation? The ability to take these non-living elements of the world air and light and water and turn them into food that can then be shared with the whole rest of the world, to turn them into medicine that is medicine for people and for trees and for soil and we cannot even approach the kind of creativity that they have. Dr. Kimmerer has taught courses in botany, ecology, ethnobotany, indigenous environmental issues as well as a seminar in application of traditional ecological knowledge to conservation. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Dr. Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. But this book is not a conventional, chronological account. In addition to writing, Kimmerer is a highly sought-after speaker for a range of audiences. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a gifted storyteller, and Braiding Sweetgrass is full of good stories. Kimmerer: Yes. Hazel and Robin bonded over their love of plants and also a mutual sense of displacement, as Hazel had left behind her family home. Kimmerer, R.W. That would mean that the Earth had agency and that I was not an anonymous little blip on the landscape, that I was known by my home place. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other. Kimmerer has helped sponsor the Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology (UMEB) project, which pairs students of color with faculty members in the enviro-bio sciences while they work together to research environmental biology. I mean, you didnt use that language, but youre actually talking about a much more generous and expansive vision of relatedness between humans and the natural worlds and what we want to create. Ransom and R. Smardon 2001. They have to live in places where the dominant competitive plants cant live. Kimmerer, R.W. And they may have these same kinds of political differences that are out there, but theres this love of place, and that creates a different world of action. And if one of those species and the gifts that it carries is missing in biodiversity, the ecosystem is depauperate. Kimmerer is also a part of the United States Department of Agriculture's Higher Education Multicultural Scholars Program. TEK is a deeply empirical scientific approach and is based on long-term observation. In collaboration with tribal partners, she and her students have an active research program in the ecology and restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native people. And we reduce them tremendously, if we just think about them as physical elements of the ecosystem. Wider use of TEK by scholars has begun to lend credence to it. The storytellers begin by calling upon those who came before who passed the stories down to us, for we are only messengers. And yes, as it turns out, theres a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so its a matter of aesthetics, and its a matter of ecology. But when I ask them the question of, does the Earth love you back?,theres a great deal of hesitation and reluctance and eyes cast down, like, oh gosh, I dont know. Kimmerer: You raise a very good question, because the way that, again, Western science would give the criteria for what does it mean to be alive is a little different than you might find in traditional culture, where we think of water as alive, as rocks as alive;alive in different ways, but certainly not inanimate. We are animals, right? Together we will make a difference. American Midland Naturalist 107:37. High-resolution photos of MacArthur Fellows are available for download (right click and save), including use by media, in accordance with this copyright policy. The science which is showing that plants have capacity to learn, to have memory were at the edge of a wonderful revolution in really understanding the sentience of other beings. The Rights of the Land. She won a second Burroughs award for an essay, "Council of the Pecans," that appeared in Orion magazine in 2013. And what I mean, when I talk about the personhood of all beings, plants included, is not that I am attributing human characteristics to them not at all. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The Bryologist 97:20-25. And theres such joy in being able to do that, to have it be a mutual flourishing instead of the more narrow definition of sustainability so that we can just keep on taking. I was lucky enough to grow up in the fields and the woods of upstate New York. Her delivery is measured, lyrical, and, when necessary (and. They ought to be doing something right here. I think thats really exciting, because there is a place where reciprocity between people and the land is expressed in food, and who doesnt want that? Robin Wall Kimmerer ["Two Ways of Knowing," interview by Leath Tonino, April 2016] reminded me that if we go back far enough, everyone comes from an ancestral culture that revered the earth. 2011. I thought that surely, in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together. In Michigan, February is a tough month. "[7][8], Kimmerer received the John Burroughs Medal Award for her book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Winds of Change. And theres a beautiful word bimaadiziaki, which one of my elders kindly shared with me. by Robin Wall Kimmerer RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 2020. We want to make them comfortable and safe and healthy. Image by Tailyr Irvine/Tailyr Irvine, All Rights Reserved. Were able to systematize it and put a Latin binomial on it, so its ours. Kimmerer: I have. And when I think about mosses in particular, as the most ancient of land plants, they have been here for a very long time. BioScience 52:432-438. Its always the opposite, right? M.K. Nothing has meant more to me across time than hearing peoples stories of how this show has landed in their life and in the world. ", "Robin Wall Kimmerer: Americans Who Tell The Truth", "Robin Wall Kimmerer: 'Mosses are a model of how we might live', "Robin W. Kimmerer | Environmental and Forest Biology | SUNY-ESF", "Robin Wall Kimmerer | Americans Who Tell The Truth", "UN Chromeless Video Player full features", https://www.pokagonband-nsn.gov/our-culture/history, https://www.potawatomi.org/q-a-with-robin-wall-kimmerer-ph-d/, "Mother earthling: ESF educator Robin Kimmerer links an indigenous worldview to nature". Plants were reduced to object. Ecological Restoration 20:59-60. In April 2015, Kimmerer was invited to participate as a panelist at a United Nations plenary meeting to discuss how harmony with nature can help to conserve and sustainably use natural resources, titled "Harmony with Nature: Towards achieving sustainable development goals including addressing climate change in the post-2015 Development Agenda. Kimmerer: Thank you for asking that question, because it really gets to this idea how science asks us to learn about organisms, traditional knowledge asks us to learn from them.