Our Minds As One: Robin Wall Kimmerer Offers Words of Wisdom
Provost and Dean of Faculty Catherine Gunther Kodat introduces Kimmerer, at right, while acknowledging the Indigenous homelands Marist College sits on. Photo by Emma Denes 25’.
Last Wednesday, the McCann Arena was packed with a crowd of cheering students and faculty members, but they were not here for a sporting event. Instead, science was the name of the game.
On Oct. 4, Robin Wall Kimmerer — plant ecologist, acclaimed author and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation — visited Marist College to speak with the campus community about her award-winning book “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.”
The book, which is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this month, was selected as this year’s Common Read for incoming freshmen. During the event, Kimmerer answered previously submitted questions from students curious about her process and purpose.
“It’s one thing to be reading the book and thinking about how great it is, but then it’s another to actually meet the person who put down those words and had such an effect on you,” said Patricia Tarantello, director of First Year Seminar at Marist, lecturer of American literature and moderator of the conversation.
Inside the pages of “Braiding Sweetgrass,” a collection of nature essays emerge, in which Kimmerer encourages readers to care for the environment through the teachings of both Indigenous and traditional research perspectives. And its lessons have resonated with young students.
“I really enjoyed the book, and I think that it was just very inspiring to hear her talk and see her in-person,” said Emily Gerstle ’27.
Looking back, moving forward
Through a mix of both storytelling and scientific curiosity, “Braiding Sweetgrass” reaches a wide variety of audiences, whether they come with a passion for the environment or literature. “Because she is such a talented writer, it appeals to a lot of people, not just those from a science background,” said Tarantello.
And even while the book has achieved bestselling status on the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times lists, Kimmerer herself could not predict the popularity to which it has been met. “A book about botany from an Indigenous perspective? I was going to be delighted if 100 people read it. No one is more surprised and delighted than I am,” said Kimmerer.
Her arrival on campus to speak on such an issue was more timely than ever — just under a week later, the U.S. celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Oct. 9. The holiday, seen by many as the preferred alternative to Columbus Day, was first recognized on the national level by President Biden in 2021. And although it is not an official federal holiday, a group of lawmakers reintroduced the bill to make it so earlier this month.
But the celebration of an Indigenous way of life does not come without an acknowledgement of the past. Christopher Columbus himself enslaved Indigenous peoples and forced them into brutal physical labor. And the shared history of colonialism amongst Kimmerer’s people rang true while writing her book.
“I was acutely aware of how broader Western society has erased Indigenous knowledge from our teachings, from our awareness, and that we were living in a moment when it was so needed,” said Kimmerer.
When European colonial settlers arrived in North America, they forced Indigenous peoples to relocate after stripping them of their natural homes. As a result, tribes have lost 99% of their original American land, and just over 42% of historical tribes do not have land recognized by the federal or state governments. For those who do have land, exposure risk to the threats of climate change is higher.
But indeed, everyone is at risk of the impacts of global warming, as the record-breaking extreme heat of this past summer has demonstrated. In her book, Kimmerer argues that the answer to this climate crisis lies in a simple solution. Instead of continuing to emit fossil fuels and live in a consumerist culture, we must address the common need to belong to Mother Earth and give thanks to her in the process.
“Thinking about language and language’s effect on how we treat the environment is so important, but it’s not something that I would have thought of on my own,” said Tarantello.
The cycle of reciprocity
Similar to how she guides students on field trips in her role as a distinguished teaching professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, each of Kimmerer’s nature essays leads readers on a journey of discovery.
And part of that journey involves practicing sustainability on the individual level, something which Kimmerer aspires to in her own life. Instead of hopping on a plane to travel for a speaking engagement, she offers to do a virtual lecture instead. Her house, celebrating its 200th birthday this year, received solar panels and carbon neutrality as presents.
“I cannot personally talk with the fossil fuel industry, but there’s a lot of other things that I can do. And I don’t let what I can’t do stop me from doing everything that I can,” said Kimmerer.
The present could not be a better time to act, as the UN has declared the next ten years as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, calling on all individuals to step up to the plate for the planet. According to Kimmerer, the ways of Indigenous science can be used as an essential guide for how to protect global ecosystems from further harm.
For instance, Indigenous peoples alone are responsible for conserving 80% of remaining global biodiversity. Traditional native land practices can contribute to more sustainable stewardship of natural resources, such as the use of controlled forest burning to prevent massive wildfires.
“The lands that are now being used by other people could be returned to the original caretakers of these places, and it serves climate, it serves biodiversity and it serves justice,” Kimmerer said.
By the event’s conclusion, designing a better world for all living things was a reality not too far away. And just before she left the stage to sign copies of her book for a long line of students, Kimmerer had one more story to share.
A few years ago, she had apologized to a graduating student for the weight of climate change being placed upon her shoulders and those of all young people. In response, the student provided a surprising answer — that now is the best time to be alive, when each of our choices matters as we stand on the precipice of change.
“It’s a notion of understanding that we as human people have both a practical and spiritual responsibility to life,” said Kimmerer. “And I think that is what will move us collectively forward.”