Braiding Sweetgrass

Feb 23, 2026

Braiding Sweetgrass

It took me years to finally finish this one. I would start it. Then stop. Just knowing I was not in the right head space. In all I’ve read it in bits and spurts over the course of the last seven months.

Nature writing cannot be consumed quickly, at least not for me. I always have to slow down. I absolutely loved this one and I’m so glad I took my time with it. I loved the writing. It almost felt like you were there with her, bending down and REALLY looking at nature. Observing slowly. Not rushing.

I’m afraid we still have not heeded Kimmerers message. In one essay she writes how she was evacuated for one night due to a gas explosion at a nearby factory. Her warning loud and clear. And one I’m sadly too familiar with.

There are no words that can quite encapsulate what it’s like to leave home suddenly, and never return because it’s reduced to ash. My story is not unique and in the coming years and decades it’ll become more common than we all think.

It’s never too late to slow down and listen to the world around us. How can I participate in the Honorable Harvest? How can I express my gratitude to the Earth?

Thank you for this gift Robin Wall Kimmerer. I will return to it always. Favorite essays include: a Mother’s Work, The Three Sisters, The Honorable Harvest, Old Growth Children, The Sacred and the Superfund, Collateral Damage, and Defeating the Windigo.

#nonfiction #essays #naturewriting #braidingsweetgrass

Sister Outsider & All We Can Save

Dec 22, 2020

Sister Outsider & All We Can Save

“But women have survived. As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden that fact in the same place we have hidden our power. They surface in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. Those dreams are made realizable through our poems that give us the strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare.”-Audre Lorde

Having finished Sister, Outsider I started making my way through All We Can Save. I can’t help but make strong connections between these two essential texts. It is not surprising that a quote from Lorde can be found within the pages of All We Can Save. They are both shouts for unity within diversity, and courage in the face of insurmountable odds. While Lorde’s text shows me to embrace all parts of myself and others around me, All We Can Save asks me to channel my anger with the precision necessary to fight for climate justice. I encourage you to pick up All We Can Save immediately, as it is probably one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. The audiobook is also stunning featuring a powerhouse cast with the likes of Alfre Woodard and America Ferrera. The climate crisis is scary, and although this book is grounded in that reality it gives empowering solutions to help frame the fight while centering the voices that have continuously been silenced by the patriarchy. I can’t help but wonder what Audre Lorde would have added to this collection of poems and essays written by womxn, but perhaps her work is why something like this can exist. The fight for climate justice is inextricably linked to racial justice. The two can not be separated. I leave you with a quote that will stay with me forever as I fight for climate justice.

“But the strength of women lies in recognizing the differences between us as creative, and in standing to those distortions which we inherited without blame, but which are now ours to alter. The anger of women can transform difference through insight into power.”-Audre Lorde

#BIPOCbookstagram #ClimateJustice #Bookstagram
#Bookstagrammer #LosAngelesReader #AlwaysBeReading #NonFictionBooks #ScienceBooks #Poetry #AllWeCanSave #SisterOutsider #AudreLorde #AlwaysReading #IndigenizeYourBookshelf #DecolonizeYourBookshelf #Feminism #ReadMoreWomen