And this is the ways in which cultures become invisible, and the language becomes invisible, and through history and the reclaiming of that, the making culture visible again, to speak the language in even the tiniest amount so that its almost as if it feels like the air is waiting to hear this language that had been lost for so long. Kimmerer: Yes, kin is the plural of ki, so that when the geese fly overhead, we can say, Kin are flying south for the winter. Her first book, "Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses," was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for . 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. ". 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? Both are in need of healingand both science and stories can be part of that cultural shift from exploitation to reciprocity. Human ecology Literacy: The role of traditional indigenous and scientific knowledge in community environmental work. She won a second Burroughs award for an essay, "Council of the Pecans," that appeared in Orion magazine in 2013. We know what we need to know. (1982) A Quantitative Analysis of the Flora of Abandoned Lead-Zinc Mines in Southwestern Wisconsin. Adirondack Life. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. And Id love for you to just take us a little bit into that world youre describing, that you came from, and ask, also, the question I always ask, about what was the spiritual and religious background of that world you grew up in of your childhood? The Bryologist 94(3):284-288. And in places all kinds of places, with all kinds of political cultures, where I see people just getting together and doing the work that needs to be done, becoming stewards, however they justify that or wherever they fit into the public debates or not, a kind of common denominator is that they have discovered a love for the place they come from and that that, they share. She is currently single. By Robin Wall Kimmerer. By Robin Wall Kimmerer. "Robin Wall Kimmerer is a talented writer, a leading ethnobotanist, and a beautiful activist dedicated to emphasizing that Indigenous knowledge, histories, and experience are central to the land and water issues we face todayShe urges us all of us to reestablish the deep relationships to ina that all of our ancestors once had, but that I was lucky in that regard, but disappointed, also, in that I grew up away from the Potawatomi people, away from all of our people, by virtue of history the history of removal and the taking of children to the Indian boarding schools. 2013 Where the Land is the Teacher Adirondack Life Vol. Please credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Do you know what Im talking about? As an . 16. Tippett: And were these elders? 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. 2104 Returning the Gift in Minding Nature:Vol.8. Her delivery is measured, lyrical, and, when necessary (and. Kimmerer, D.B. And I was told that that was not science; that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school which was really demoralizing, as a freshman. She is not dating anyone. 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. We're over winter. She did not ever imagine in that childhood that she would one day be known as a climate activist. To be with Colette, and experience her brilliance of mind and spirit and action, is to open up all the ways the words we use and the stories we tell about the transformation of the natural world that is upon us blunt us to the courage were called to and the joy we must nurture as our primary energy and motivation. Copyright 2023, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Summer. PhD is a beautiful and populous city located in SUNY-ESF MS, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison United States of America. Faust, B., C. Kyrou, K. Ettenger, A. According to our Database, She has no children. Lake 2001. Today many Potawatomi live on a reservation in Oklahoma as a result of Federal Removal policies. Kimmerer: Yes. Robin Wall Kimmerer is both a mother, a Professor of Environmental Biology in Syracuse New York, and a member of the Potawatomi Nation. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. It could be bland and boring, but it isnt. They have this glimpse into a worldview which is really different from the scientific worldview. And the two plants so often intermingle, rather than living apart from one another, and I wanted to know why that was. Kimmerer 2005. Oregon State University Press. Kimmerer explains how reciprocity is reflected in Native languages, which impart animacy to natural entities such as bodies of water and forests, thus reinforcing respect for nature. 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. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a plant ecologist, educator, and writer articulating a vision of environmental stewardship grounded in scientific and Indigenous knowledge. But that is only in looking, of course, at the morphology of the organism, at the way that it looks. So thats a very concrete way of illustrating this. is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Reflective Kimmerer, "Tending Sweetgrass," pp.63-117; In the story 'Maple Sugar Moon,' I am made aware our consumer-driven . The ecosystem is too simple. Trinity University Press. Part of that work is about recovering lineages of knowledge that were made illegal in the policies of tribal assimilation, which did not fully end in the U.S. until the 1970s. and Kimmerer R.W. 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 . . 10. For Kimmerer, however, sustainability is not the end goal; its merely the first step of returning humans to relationships with creation based in regeneration and reciprocity, Kimmerer uses her science, writing and activism to support the hunger expressed by so many people for a belonging in relationship to [the] land that will sustain us all. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. Thats so beautiful and so amazing to think about, to just read those sentences and think about that conversation, as you say. 3. She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both . Her research interests include the role of traditional ecological knowledge in ecological restoration and the ecology of mosses. All of my teachings come from my late grandmother, Eel clan mother, Phoebe Hill, and my uncle is Tadodaho, Sidney Hill. Articulating an alternative vision of environmental stewardship informed by traditional ecological knowledge. The Pause is our Saturday morning ritual of a newsletter. And that kind of attention also includes ways of seeing quite literally through other lenses rhat we might have the hand lens, the magnifying glass in our hands that allows us to look at that moss with an acuity that the human eye doesnt have, so we see more, the microscope that lets us see the gorgeous architecture by which its put together, the scientific instrumentation in the laboratory that would allow us to look at the miraculous way that water interacts with cellulose, lets say. Magazine article (Spring 2015), she points out how calling the natural world it [in English] absolves us of moral responsibility and opens the door to exploitation. It's cold, windy, and often grey. She is also active in literary biology. Ask permission before taking. Kimmerer, R.W. Kimmerer: One of the difficulties of moving in the scientific world is that when we name something, often with a scientific name, this name becomes almost an end to inquiry. Im finding lots of examples that people are bringing to me, where this word also means a living being of the Earth., Kimmerer: The plural pronoun that I think is perhaps even more powerful is not one that we need to be inspired by another language, because we already have it in English, and that is the word kin.. To clarify - winter isn't over, WE are over it! There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. TEK is a deeply empirical scientific approach and is based on long-term observation. Driscoll 2001. One of the things that I would especially like to highlight about that is I really think of our work as in a sense trying to indigenize science education within the academy, because as a young person, as a student entering into that world, and understanding that the Indigenous ways of knowing, these organic ways of knowing, are really absent from academia, I think that we can train better scientists, train better environmental professionals, when theres a plurality of these ways of knowing, when Indigenous knowledge is present in the discussion. Tippett: So living beings would all be animate, all living beings, anything that was alive, in the Potawatomi language. Ki is giving us maple syrup this springtime? We have to analyze them as if they were just pure material, and not matter and spirit together. 2007 The Sacred and the Superfund Stone Canoe. We sort of say, Well, we know it now. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. 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. But this word, this sound, ki, is, of course, also the word for who in Spanish and in French. The Bryologist 103(4):748-756, Kimmerer, R. W. 2000. The role of dispersal limitation in bryophyte communities colonizing treefall mounds in northern hardwood forests. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer. TEK refers to the body of knowledge Indigenous peoples cultivate through their relationship with the natural world. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer. Dr. Kimmerer serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Nature and Humans. In aYes! Kimmerer: Thats right. Ses textes ont t publis dans de nombreuses revues scientifi ques. Our elders say that ceremony is the way we can remember to remember. The notion of reciprocity is really different from that. This conversation was part of The Great Northern Festival, a celebration of Minnesotas cold, creative winters. A mother of two daughters, and a grandmother, Kimmerer's voice is mellifluous over the video call, animated with warmth and wonderment. Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants. These are these amazing displays of this bright, chrome yellow, and deep purple of New England aster, and they look stunning together. But in Indigenous ways of knowing, we say that we know a thing when we know it not only with our physical senses, with our intellect, but also when we engage our intuitive ways of knowing of emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge. 55 talking about this. I dream of a time when the land will be thankful for us.. Posted on July 6, 2018 by pancho. It should be them who tell this story. She is engaged in programs which introduce the benefits of traditional ecological knowledge to the scientific community, in a way that respects and protects indigenous knowledge. and F.K. And the last voice that you hear singing at the end of our show is Cameron Kinghorn. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. A group of local Master Gardeners have begun meeting each month to discuss a gardening-related non-fiction book. And if one of those species and the gifts that it carries is missing in biodiversity, the ecosystem is depauperate. Theres one place in your writing where youre talking about beauty, and youre talking about a question you would have, which is why two flowers are beautiful together, and that that question, for example, would violate the division that is necessary for objectivity. It will often include that you are from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, from the bear clan, adopted into the eagles. In the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift we must pass on just as it came to us. (1991) Reproductive Ecology of Tetraphis pellucida: Population density and reproductive mode. Kimmerer, R.W. Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Tippett: You said at one point that you had gotten to the point where you were talking about the names of plants I was teaching the names and ignoring the songs. So what do you mean by that? Kimmerer, R.W. Connect with us on social media or view all of our social media content in one place. 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. Because those are not part of the scientific method. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, nature writer, and Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the State University of New York's College of Environment and Forestry (SUNY ESF) in Syracuse, New York. 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. If citizenship means an oath of loyalty to a leader, then I choose the leader of the trees. March 2, 2020 Thinking back to April 22, 1970, I remember the smell of freshly mimeographed Earth Day flyers and the feel of mud on my hands. From Wisconsin, Kimmerer moved to Kentucky, where she briefly taught at Transylvania University in Lexington before moving to Danville, Kentucky where she taught biology, botany, and ecology at Centre College. She describes this kinship poetically: Wood thrush received the gift of song; its his responsibility to say the evening prayer. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. 2013. We dont call anything we love and want to protect and would work to protect it. That language distances us. It is a preferred browse of Deer and Moose, a vital source . Aimee Delach, thesis topic: The role of bryophytes in revegetation of abandoned mine tailings. And I think of my writing very tangibly, as my way of entering into reciprocity with the living world. She is active in efforts to broaden access to environmental science education for Native students, and to create new models for integration of indigenous philosophy and scientific tools on behalf of land and culture. One of the leaders in this field is Robin Wall Kimmerer, a professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York and the bestselling author of "Braiding Sweetgrass." She's also an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and she draws on Native traditions and the grammar of the Potawatomi language . This beautiful creative nonfiction book is written by writer and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer who is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. An herb native to North America, sweetgrass is sacred to Indigenous people in the United States and Canada. Robin Wall 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. Learning the Grammar of Animacy in The Colors of Nature, culture, identity and the natural world. She brings to her scientific research and writing her lived experience as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and the principles of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Says Kimmerer: "Our ability to pay attention has been hijacked, allowing us to see plants and animals as objects, not subjects." 3. It doesnt work as well when that gift is missing. BioScience 52:432-438. Kimmerer is a proponent of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) approach, which Kimmerer describes as a "way of knowing." And by exploit, I mean in a way that really, seriously degrades the land and the waters, because in fact, we have to consume. Youre bringing these disciplines into conversation with each other. Tippett: And inanimate would be, what, materials? June 4, 2020. [music: Seven League Boots by Zo Keating]. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earths oldest teachers: the plants around us. The On Being Project is located on Dakota land. Host an exhibit, use our free lesson plans and educational programs, or engage with a member of the AWTT team or portrait subjects. The Fetzer Institute,helping to build the spiritual foundation for a loving world. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer. So one of the things that I continue to learn about and need to learn more about is the transformation of love to grief to even stronger love, and the interplay of love and grief that we feel for the world. where I currently provide assistance for Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's course Indigenous Issues and the Environment. Kimmerer: Sure, sure. Replenishment and invigoration in your inbox. Maintaining the Mosaic: The role of indigenous burning in land management. But I bring it to the garden and think about the way that when we as human people demonstrate our love for one another, it is in ways that I find very much analogous to the way that the Earth takes care of us; is when we love somebody, we put their well-being at the top of the list, and we want to feed them well. As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a scientist, MacArthur "genius grant" Fellow 2022, member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and author of the 2022 Buffs One Read selection "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants" will speak at the Boulder Theater on Thursday, December 1 from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 14:28-31, Kimmerer, R.W. In addition to her academic writing on the ecology of mosses and restoration ecology, she is the author of articles for magazines such asOrion, Sun, and Yes!. In this book, Kimmerer brings . 2005 Offerings Whole Terrain. Tippett:I was intrigued to see that, just a mention, somewhere in your writing, that you take part in a Potawatomi language lunchtime class that actually happens in Oklahoma, and youre there via the internet, because I grew up, actually, in Potawatomi County in Oklahoma. 9. 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. Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. Kimmerer: That is so interesting, to live in a place that is named that. Knowledge takes three forms. Moving deftly between scientific evidence and storytelling, Kimmerer reorients our understanding of the natural world. 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. Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge. And when I think about mosses in particular, as the most ancient of land plants, they have been here for a very long time. The On Being Project NY, USA. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild. In winter, when the green earth lies resting beneath a blanket of snow, this is the time for storytelling. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. 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. They work with the natural forces that lie over every little surface of the world, and to me they are exemplars of not only surviving, but flourishing, by working with natural processes. She was born on 1953, in SUNY-ESF MS, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison. in, Contemporary Studies in Environmental and Indigenous Pedagogies (Sense Publishers) edited by Kelley Young and Dan Longboat. Shebitz ,D.J. Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer is published by Penguin (9.99). Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPRs On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of Healing Our Relationship with Nature. Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. Ransom and R. Smardon 2001. Native Knowledge for Native Ecosystems. Ecological Applications Vol. Kimmerer is also the former chair of the Ecological Society of America Traditional Ecological Knowledge Section. Plant Ecologist, Educator, and Writer Robin Wall Kimmerer articulates a vision of environmental stewardship informed by traditional ecological knowledge and furthers efforts to heal a damaged. Thats not going to move us forward. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from, Sultzman, L. (December 18, 1998). Kimmerer also has authored two award-winning books of nature writing that combine science with traditional teachings, her personal experiences in the natural world, and family and tribal relationships. Kimmerer: I have. I interviewed her in 2015, and it quickly became a much-loved show, as her voice was just rising in common life. 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. Kimmerer presents the ways a pure market economy leads to resource depletion and environmental degradation. You went into a more traditional scientific endeavor. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a gifted storyteller, and Braiding Sweetgrass is full of good stories. And it worries me greatly that todays children can recognize 100 corporate logos and fewer than 10 plants. And theres a way in which just growing up in the woods and the fields, they really became my doorway into culture. So we cant just rely on a single way of knowing that explicitly excludes values and ethics. I mean, just describe some of the things youve heard and understood from moss. 111:332-341. Robin Wall Kimmerer was born in 1953 in Upstate New York to Robert and Patricia Wall. If good citizens agree to uphold the laws of the nation, then I choose natural law, the law of reciprocity, of regeneration, of mutual flourishing., Robin Wall Kimmereris a mother, plant ecologist, nature writer, and Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the State University of New Yorks College of Environment and Forestry (SUNY ESF) in Syracuse, New York. Ive been thinking about the word aki in our language, which refers to land. Robin Wall Kimmerer is the State University of New York Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. We've updated our privacy policies in response to General Data Protection Regulation. She is the author of Gathering Moss which incorporates both traditional indigenous knowledge and scientific perspectives and was awarded the prestigious John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing in 2005.