Braiding Sweetgrass: Similes 4 key examples

As an adult, Kimmerer learns from her father that the ritual had mundane origins. He tells her that he and her mother never used to have coffee filters; they would pour out the first cup to skim off the coffee grounds that had floated to the top. Kimmerer recalls being disappointed to learn that the special morning ritual was only a practical solution to avoid a mouthful of coffee grounds. However, as she reflects further, she realizes that it doesn't matter: the act turned into something more. In fact, she realizes, the ritual might be all the more special because it started the way it did. She begins to see that the "grounds mingled with the humus" represent the intermixing of her parents' everyday lives with that which is greater than them. Pouring the coffee grounds out led them to create a spiritual ceremony that they continued to practice morning after morning for years. The idea of "grounds mingled with humus" helps Kimmerer get at the fundamental meaning of ceremony. A ceremony should not be separate from our material lives, but rather central to them. True ceremony is when we turn the mundane parts of our lives—such as our work or our food preparation—into sacred practice.

This chapter focuses on the story of Franz Dolp, who dedicated much of his life to restoring the old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest. These forests, presided over by huge cedar trees, supported diverse life forms; all of these life forms were part of a balanced ecosystem in which every organism gave back as much as it took. By the time Franz was living in the area, the cedar trees had been largely cleared by the logging industry and to make way for land development. The result was an ecosystem that was dying. Franz set about to plant cedar trees and bring back balance to the land.

Kimmerer uses a simile to compare old-growth forests to "old-growth cultures." She means Indigenous cultures that thrived on the land before settler colonial culture. There is an American fantasy that settlers like Lewis and Clark were the first people to set foot on the wild western landscape and introduce the very idea of human culture to the place. This fantasy is simply not true. As Kimmerer insists in this passage, aboriginal people not only lived on the West Coast for centuries and centuries before European-American colonists arrived, but they also had highly developed cultures of their own. By comparing these cultures to the old-growth forests she has been describing, Kimmerer emphasizes that these cultures too were strong and self-sustaining. Like the old forests, they were built on a foundation of reciprocity: everyone gave back to their community as much as they took.

Kimmerer's comparison between human cultures and forests may seem poetic, but it is more than symbolic. Capitalism was the driving force behind the felling of cedar trees that wrought such havoc on the old-growth forests. The destruction of the old-growth forests directly impacted old-growth cultures as well by introducing scarcity of resources where once there was abundance. Reciprocity became far less sustainable once colonists forced old-growth cultures into competition for resources.

Kimmerer uses logos to argue that we should strive for more reciprocity, both with one another and with the land. Capitalism makes it seem as though we have no choice but to use every resource within our grasp and to compete with our neighbors for survival. Old-growth cultures are proof that there is a better way. These more sustainable cultures emphasized giving over taking, and they flourished with a kind of wealth that is not even possible under the brutal system of capitalism. Capitalism dictates that most people must lose so others can win, but Kimmerer asks us to look to older systems to imagine a world where we all win.

Kimmerer has just explained that berries are well adapted to spreading far and wide over open ground because animals, especially birds, can easily scatter their seeds. The berries have their role in restoring life to an area where trees have been cut down en masse. However, as Franz finds, these "pioneer" plants are "opportunists" that use up all the resources they find and leave nothing behind for other plants. They create an ecosystem that cannot sustain itself because it does not have any sense of "balance and renewal." In order to begin restoring the diverse ecosystem of the old-growth forest, Franz must clear the ground of the berries that have taken over.

Kimmerer compares the berries to "pioneer human communities." Based on context, she is referring especially to communities of European-American settlers who have spread out across North America over the past several hundred years. These communities, like berries, have taken over everywhere they could find or make clear ground. They have used up all the resources in the process. Now, there is nothing for them to do but learn the art of sharing space and resources.

Kimmerer writes that both pioneer plant communities and pioneer human communities "have an important role in regeneration." This gentle remark invites the reader to reflect on how they might be like a berry, striving for a good life without thinking about their impact on the rest of the world. Kimmerer makes room for the fact that many people, like the berries, are trying to live well but are caught in the capitalist, colonial systems that have destroyed so much. Still, she argues that we have "reach[ed] the edge of easy energy" and that now we must form new, more inclusive and reciprocal communities.

This comparison between a fire stick and a paintbrush turns the entire landscape into a canvas. The images are beautiful in themselves, but they also convey the notion that creating a thriving ecosystem such as this involves a great deal of care and technique. The artist must know just how to apply a "small dab" or "light scatter" of fire, how to stipple it or create a wash across a wide open section, and how to come back to the painting year after year to create a whole new picture. The extended simile leaves no doubt that working with fire is a creative art that takes a massive amount of knowledge and skill to do well.

People often think of art and science as opposite practices, thinking of art as anchored in the spiritual world and science as anchored in the physical world. This simile helps Kimmerer demonstrate the error in this binary division. Her father describes fire as a way to create beauty, but it also has everything to do with science and the physical world. Today, we struggle to manage wildfires, to bring back endangered species, and to help our ecosystems sustain themselves. Scientists are constantly searching for data-backed solutions to all of these problems. The way Kimmerer's father describes it, one highly effective solution is the art of fire-making. By approaching the natural world with a creative eye, Indigenous people have long been implementing the very solutions scientists have been looking for.