Braiding Sweetgrass

roll their eyes and groan, “That was s o much work.” They
remember hauling branches to feed the fire and slopping sap on
their jackets as they carried heavy buckets. They tease me about
being a wretched mother who wove their connection to the land
through forced labor. They were awfully little to be doing the work of
a sugaring crew. But they also remember the wonder of drinking
sap straight from the tree. Sap, but not syrup. Nanabozho made
certain that the work would never be too easy. His teachings
remind us that one half of the truth is that the earth endows us with
great gifts, the other half is that the gift is not enough. The
responsibility does not lie with the maples alone. The other half
belongs to us; we participate in its transformation. It is our work,
and our gratitude, that distills the sweetness.
Night after night I sat by the fire, the girls tucked safely in bed,
the rustle of the fire and the bubbling sap a lullaby. Transfixed by
the fire, I hardly noticed the sky silver as the Maple Sugar Moon
rose in the east. So bright on a clear freezing night, it threw tree
shadows against the house—bold black embroidery around the
windows where the girls lay sleeping, the shadows of the twin trees.
These two, perfectly matched in girth and form, stand centered in
front of the house by the edge of the road, their shadows framing
the front door like dark columns of a maple portico. They rise in
unison without a branch until they reach the roofline, where they
spread like an umbrella. They grew up with this house, shaped by
its protection.
There was a custom in the mid-eighteen hundreds of planting
twin trees to celebrate a marriage and the starting of a home. The
stance of these two, just ten feet apart, recalls a couple standing
together on the porch steps, holding hands. The reach of their
shade links the front porch with the barn across the road, creating a