Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

24 reviews

betag1013's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Child death, Animal death, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Genocide, Xenophobia, and War

ashwaar's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

Braiding Sweetgrass is a hefty book packed with stories, anecdotes and emotions. Throughout its pages, Kimmerer takes us along as she surveys mountainsides, harvests roots, saves reptiles from becoming roadkill, and watches her girls grow up and leave home. She discusses the delicate intersection of loving the planet whilst studying it and concludes that you cannot understand the environment if you don't feel for it.

The book has its basis in science, but Kimmerer explains ecological processes so deftly and poetically that it's easy to take in. Even if you don't understand everything, the language and writing style clearly shows her love and respect for the topic. The chapters range in length and topic, but a few of my favourites include the erasure of indigenous languages, stories of tapping maple syrup trees, and rituals performed in thanks for the land.

The book acknowledges and discusses the role of indigenous knowledge in scientific understanding of the Earth and how to live in balance with our land. After reading this, I felt more compelled to pause when hiking to accept the landscapes around me and feel gratitude for them. Braiding Sweetgrass is a non-fiction book I'd recommend to almost everyone as essential reading.

Rating: 4.5/5

Read more on Wordpress at Bookmarked by Ash: https://book990337086.wordpress.com/

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, and Animal death

Moderate: Death and Racism

lizziaha's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring

5.0

This book made me deeply reflect on my own life and the ways that I interact with nature. I hope it changed me for the better. I also was pleasantly surprised to see how narrative-based this book was. It made the read faster and more interesting. And Kimmerer’s language is so beautiful, while maintaining a simplicity that kept everything easy to understand. Especially to hear it in her own voice, I felt like I was floating along these words. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization and Genocide

Moderate: Colonisation, Grief, Racism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

itkit's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Genocide

Minor: Suicide

purplepenning's review against another edition

hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Sexism

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

dhiyanah's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

There's a profound heaviness we feel about our collective wounds and responsibilities in how the planet is changing, suffering, and asking for help during these times. I'm grateful this book doesn't shy away from that, giving language to the overwhelm we're navigating, tracing it back to our ruptured connection with land and the patterns upheld to keep us in constant states of struggle, survival, and forgetfulness.

By sharing her lived experiences in reclaiming, remembering, and honoring practices kept alive by her own and other indigenous lineages (US-based), the author invites us to reflect on our own capacities and efforts of being in right relationship with the living world. In this book, I found reflections of how my own struggles of unbelonging and loneliness are linked to a sense of feeling orphaned from land, from wider community. I found deep queries and burning desires within me - not having much framework for being local to anywhere - to embody a more reciprocal and grounded approach to the natural world, to this planet who still feeds and tends to us through all this chaos. 

For this and so much more, I feel this is a crucial read to help situate and cultivate hope, courage, and determination within as we journey through these giant waves of grief and renewal with our Mother Earth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, and Genocide

Moderate: Racism and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, and Violence

kaimetcalfe's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Grief, Animal death, and Colonisation

Moderate: Chronic illness, Alcoholism, Forced institutionalization, Animal cruelty, Death, Blood, and Colonisation

maregred's review against another edition

hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation

Minor: Genocide, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Cultural appropriation

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation and Racism

Moderate: Xenophobia, Death, War, Grief, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Sexism, Suicide, Vomit, Alcohol, Car accident, Cannibalism, Excrement, Abandonment, Child death, Animal cruelty, Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Climate change, habitat destruction, pollution.

susannaobrien's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

A beautiful meditation on the philosophy of reciprocity and power of gratitude. I enjoyed the interwoven details from the perspective of indigenous culture, academic science and personal history, and the way each has enhanced her commitment to protection and respect for the earth.

She writes poetically, which was often a joy, but sometimes felt like a slog. I really did find it too long, and sadly caught myself rushing through to finish the audiobook before my loan expire (Perhaps one to have a copy of and dip into). It definitely could have been edited as some chapters felt repetitive or dull. Or split into two, as I did appreciate the richness of the topics covered.

Overall, it exposed my to new ways of thinking and I know I'll be trying to take these ideas forward with me. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Genocide, Colonisation, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Addiction, Cultural appropriation, and Grief