In Issue No. 02 of Cypress Magazine, you’re going to find an essay from Moselle Fredericks titled Compost Toilet as a Radical Act of Care that blends scientific research, first hand experimentation, and physical art. It’ll give you a new way of thinking about waste and abundance. It was inspired, in part, by the great ecological writers who’ve come before us. If the piece at all drives you to think deeper about ecology, you owe it to yourself to read one of the books quoted in the piece by one of those authors: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants from Robin Wall Kimmerer.
After seeing Braiding Sweetgrass in every national park gift shop, nature themed bookstore, and at the top of every ‘must reads for aspiring ecologists’ list on the internet, Moselle’s first essay draft is what finally convinced me to pick up a copy. I was expecting another book about plants. But what Kimmerer really shares is a new ways of thinking about relationship. As a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she weaves together science, Indigenous knowledge, and personal stories to ask a simple but surprisingly difficult question: what do we ow the living world that sustains us?
Throughout the book, Kimmerer challenges the idea that nature is a collection of resources waiting to be used. Instead, she invites us to see the world as a community of gifts and relationships. The result is a book that makes you want to pay closer attention, offer more gratitude, and reconsider what it means to belong to a place. It is about, you guessed it, plants — but you won’t pick up another pencil after reading it without thinking of the tree that was used for the wood you’re holding.
Book: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Genre: Environmental Sciences / Nature Writing
Where we read this: Under an oak tree on a bed of acorns, next to the farmers’ market, in an urban redwood park during a break from your 9-5 corporate meeting
For your consideration: Themes and questions
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What do you use in your everyday life that comes from the earth and what does it take to produce each of those items?
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What changes when we view the natural world as a gift rather than a resource?
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How do scientific knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge complement one another?
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What does it mean to give back to the places that sustain us?
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Can attention itself be a form of care? What happens when we slow down enough to truly notice the living world around us?
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What responsibilities come with recognizing that humans are part of nature rather than separate from it?
Read this if you...
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have ever stopped while hiking to stare at a bush because the shape of its leaf was too interesting to walk past.
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follow the mantra ‘if animals can eat it so can I.’
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buy organic vegetables and biodynamic wine but don’t actually know what that means [and that doesn’t stop you].
