Finding the scent of sweetgrass among the tires
I had settled into a corner of one of the overstuffed couches in the auto repair shop waiting area reading my book when an older man came to sit.
"What are you reading?" he asked, skipping hello.
"Braiding Sweetgrass," I responded.
"Oh, a how-to book," he immediately concluded. He seemed impossibly peppy, what my British friends would probably call "a chipper sort of fellow."
"Well, not exactly." I hesitated, unsure how to explain a seminal book on our misbegotten relationship with Nature.
"She's a scientist, and it's about indigenous wisdom and the teachings of plants," I said as I turned the book to its cover, hoping that might help.
"Oh, so you're intellectual," said Mr. Chipper, his voice rising on the last word.
"Well..." I think I blinked hard.
Mr. Chipper looked away as he recalled, "I saw, black people, doing that along the coast. You know, making baskets they sold to tourists."
"You could do that!" he declared.
From zero to irrelevant in 15 seconds flat
I looked back at my book. Mr. Chipper busied himself with his phone.
Despite the nonsensical chit-chat more than a month later I haven't been able to get past the weird irony.
I obviously wasn't thinking about the ambience of my reading environment when I grabbed the book going out the door: the water-stained celling insulation panels, the drafty plate glass windows, the huge racks of truck tires.
Auto repair shops that have been in business for many years become a dust-encrusted community hub, especially if they have a sitting area like this one - three large couches wrapped around a coffee table. Impromptu conversations pop up on all kinds of topics, depending on whatever news is floating in the air at the moment. After the encounter with Mr. Chipper I overheard a conversation about the high-cost of insurance for the 15 vehicles a middle-aged couple owns and the wife's high-powered race car.
Regulars know where to find the coffee pot by the restrooms behind the office. To get there you have to walk past a hunter's unsettling collection of stuffed wildlife - bobcat, fox, black bear and grizzly bear. A dozen deer heads - all with impressive antlers - line the top of the wall.
Lookin’ for love in…
Actually, it was the perfect place to absorb the meaning of sweetgrass.
I'm late coming to “Braiding Sweetgrass,” (aff) which has grown in quiet popularity more than 10 years after publication and a quiet must-read for anyone concerned about the future of the Earth. Even Robin Wall Kimmerer's scientific explanations are prose poetry, so I'm reading slowly and going back to reread shimmering passages.
The use and veneration of sweetgrass as a sacred ceremonial plant may have started with the Greeks. The scientific name Hierochloe odorata literally translates from Greek as sacred (hieros) and grass (chloÎ) or holy grass. It is now widely used by many indigenous peoples for ceremonies.
In fact, Kimmerer explains that sweetgrass cannot be bought and sold and still retain its essence for ceremony.
Sweetgrass belongs to Mother Earth. Sweetgrass pickers collect properly and respectfully, for their own use and the needs of their community. The braids are given as gifts, to honor, to say thank you, and to heal and to strengthen.
Power isn’t chrome-plated
The fairly plain-looking book in my lap with a simple photograph of a braid of sweetgrass on the cover was in silent but powerful opposition to the shiny truck accessories, animal trophies and Mr. Chipper's shallowness. It was about understanding without having to be told that we're all part of this living world together, that we're kin, as Kimmerer says.
Would I have been able to share any of this with Mr. Chipper in a way he could grok, instead of muttering to myself and retreating into the book? Unlikely.
Mr. Chipper only knows the most base of our three possible relationships with Nature, a one-way transactional relationship totally in service to human needs and desires. Grass grows = we sell baskets. As Earth-based cultures evolved - and disappeared - we've forgotten our connection to Earth, that we're part of a global, living non-human community.
Newsflash: Nature is good for humans
Some have rediscovered the healing properties of Nature and moved into the second and gentler relationship with Nature that recognizes Nature is good for us. Science is now collecting lots of evidence to prove this premise. But Nature is not medicine, even though being with kin heals.
Seeing Nature as therapy still puts humans at the center of a one-sided relationship and doesn't go far enough - to take a step into a deeper awareness and transformative relationship with Nature that recognizes we are Nature and Nature is us.
We heal because we've come home. Evidence is great, but it has never been otherwise.
I go on and on about reconnecting with Nature and establishing a different kind of relationship based on our primal instincts of curiosity, awe and wonder.
Why bother?
Dr. Sharon Blackie, author of “Art of Enchantment,” says it beautifully in a recent post:
Connection isn’t about nature in our service, a slave to our needs, a commodity for our use, a sticking-plaster for our stresses. Nature isn’t there to provide us with therapy; that isn’t what connection is about. Connection is about love. Enchantment. Wonder. And a necessary and appropriate sense of awe.
Awe. Wonder. Enchantment. Love.
I didn't expect to find any of those in a routine visit to a dirty auto repair shop.
Until I did.
Thank you, Mr. Chipper.
Now, go outside and wander!
P.S. New here? Please join us.
Questions for you
Reflections, questions and ideas to break the digital spell.
Q: In what unlikely places have you found your connection to Nature?
Q: Have you read “Braiding Sweetgrass?” What stuck with you the most?
Let’s talk about it in the comments!
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. ~ Gary Snyder