Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass and a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation, will hold a Facebook event Thurs., Feb. 17, and you’re invited to a public showing—free! Come at 7 pm to Blip at 1301 Woodswether Road in the West Bottoms, in Kansas City, Mo., for a public viewing of this program, plus gentle conversation. Blip is a large facility, conducive to distancing while still face-to-face.
The full title of this latest book by Kimmerer, a professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA, is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge & the Teachings of Plants. Let us learn together, with Kimmerer, to honor our Earth and learn with gratitude!
Braiding Sweetgrass presents forms of Indigenous knowledge that blend with and complement traditional scientific methodologies. The book reframes the relationship between land and humans by exploring themes of reciprocity. Braiding Sweetgrass focuses on plants and botany as seen through both Native American traditions and Western scientific traditions. The book received largely positive reviews, appearing on several bestseller lists. Kimmerer is known for her scholarship on traditional ecological knowledge, ethnobotany, and moss ecology.
In the Kansas City area, Kristin Scheer is leading a book discussion of Braiding Sweetbread, and Ann Suellentrop is participating in the meetings. Kristin and Ann, both members of the PeaceWorks Kansas City Board, are hosting the live Facebook event at Blip. Ann reflects, “In my view, science has brought us to the brink of self-destruction because we lack the all-important worldview that we are not separate from nature. Mother Earth is not a thing to be consumed, used up, abused; rather, she is a living non-human person to be loved and cared for, as she loves and provides for us so bountifully. If we all had this mindset, nuclear weapons would be totally out of the question, completely unthinkable. I believe indigenous wisdom is what can save us.”
The online Facebook event is co-hosted by the Gonzaga Center for Climate, Society, and the Environment, the Gonzaga School of Leadership Studies, and the Gonzaga Native American Studies Department.
For more details and to register (if you will not attend the online event at Blip in KC MO), visit:
https://www.gonzaga.edu/center-for-climate-society-environment/events#February17. For info on the local KC MO public viewing of the Facebook event, contact Kristin Scheer, (913) 617-0542.
©2022, Jane Stoever, Kristin Scheer, Ann Suellentrop, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License.
