Braiding Sweetgrass

blackberry. These shrubs are largely absent from the bare expanse between birches. This apron of fruit bearers speaks of the bir ...

Hydrogeologists have redirected the energies of the mudboils so that their load is lightened. Engineers, scientists, and activis ...

drastic changes produced by industrial contamination, it is probably not possible to recreate cedar swamps and beds of wild rice ...

mean, to create habitat for our nonhuman relatives. As hopeful as this tableau of restored vegetation might become, it doesn’t f ...

We may not be able to restore the Onondaga watershed to its preindustrial condition. The land, plants, animals, and their allies ...

as identity. Land as grocery store and pharmacy. Land as connection to our ancestors. Land as moral obligation. Land as sacred. ...

Despite numerous legal setbacks, the Onondaga have not turned their backs on the lake; rather, they are the authors of a new app ...

another group of earth movers worked on the eastern shore— dancing. I watched their feet as they moved in a circle led by the wa ...

their ancient flyway, you must not have a pulse. It’s true that these victories are as small and fragile as origami cranes, but ...

People of Corn, People of Light The story of our relationship to the earth is written more truthfully on the land than on the pa ...

about to make humans. The first humans, the gods shaped of mud. But the gods were none too happy with the result. The people wer ...

carelessly burnt. All of the misused members of Creation rallied together and destroyed the people made of wood in self-defense. ...

people made of corn are beings transformed? For what is corn, after all, but light transformed by relationship? Corn owes its ex ...

relationship to place—a new ilbal, but tempered by the wisdom of those who were old on this land long before we came. So how, th ...

can they become people of corn, capable of gratitude and reciprocity. The very facts of the world are a poem. Light is turned to ...

the scientific worldview is all too often an enemy of ecological compassion. It is important in thinking about this lens to sepa ...

In the indigenous view, humans are viewed as somewhat lesser beings in the democracy of species. We are referred to as the young ...

Other beings are known to be especially gifted, with attributes that humans lack. Other beings can fly, see at night, rip open t ...

Collateral Damage The headlights throw two beams through the fog from a long way off as the car winds toward us. The rise and fa ...

travel this road in the night? Rain beats against my kitchen window in the falling dusk. I can hear geese outside, in low format ...