Braiding Sweetgrass and the Honorable Harvest

About a month ago several people whom I know from different areas of my life, without collusion or coordination as far as I know, told me that I needed to read Braiding Sweetgrass. My track record with books others tell me I must read is a little spotty. I don't always like them which makes for awkward conversation.

Them: "How did you like that book that was terribly meaningful to me?"
Me: "Oh, uhm... it wasn't bad."

Our library had an e-version of Braiding Sweetgrass so I put myself on a wait list. I was hesitant to spend money on a book I was almost certain I wouldn't like since it would be too woo-woo and possibly cringey.

Well.

Every once in a while a book comes along at the exactly the right moment and influences your thinking to a profound degree. Braiding Sweetgrass is for me one such book, taking me further along a road I began when I read Song of Trees by David George Haskell and before that Other Minds by Peter Godfrey Smith.

The common theme among all of them is our human connection to the natural world.

I am still processing Braiding Sweetgrass, trying to not just understand but absorb what I am meant to learn. While there is deep work happening the concept of honorable harvest has rocketed to the top. Just as the book came to me from different directions in a short period of time, I've been able to send it on to others in the same way.

These are some of the ideas that are resonating with me.
  • Gratitude is the first component of our emotional soil.
  • Other parts of the natural world even the abiotic parts are our relations because they are made of the same sky dust we are.
  • Think first of what you can give to the Earth before you take from it
  • Ask permission before you take, and even then take only what you are given.
    • Do not take the first you see. Do not take the last you see.
    • Take no more than half.
I'm not sure how this philosophy expresses itself in modern society but I want to live a life that harvests honorably.

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