Two Ways Of Knowing

Robin Wall Kimmerer [“Two Ways of Knowing,” interview by Leath Tonino, April 2016] reminded me that if we go back far enough, everyone comes from an ancestral culture that revered the earth.

The invading Romans began the process of destroying my Celtic and Scottish ancestors’ earth-centered traditions in 500 BC, and what the Romans left undone, the English nearly completed two thousand years later with their demoralizing land clearances. My more immediate ancestors finished the job by moving their families from Britain to America.

Having followed the “green path” for thirty years, I’ve relearned ways to listen to the land. All earth-centric cultures, past and present, work with the seasons; the movements of the sun, moon, and stars; and the cycles of growth of plants, animals, and ecosystems. When we pay attention, both practically and ceremonially, to what the earth shows us, we become more fully human.

Earth-centered cultures use songs, dances, and ceremonies to connect with the spiritual beings of the forests, mountains, and seas. This aspect of ancestral traditions is probably beyond anything a scientist would believe, much less set out to measure, but it is essential nevertheless.

Your April 2016 issue was the first I’ve ever read, and I really connected with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s thoughts on the effects of language on human perception of the nonhuman world. I remember my second-grade teacher’s bright red X over “who” in my story about a rescued cat, with “that” written in its place. She explained that animals, lacking souls, were “it” or “that”; only people, who had souls, could be a “who.” (No, it was not a religious school — just a 1950s public school in the South.)

For decades thereafter I rebelled against this way of speaking, even after I began publishing research papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The first time I sneaked “the calves who” into a scientific journal without it being edited out was a greater triumph than getting the paper accepted.

I worked in the woods for several years, cutting thousands of trees. Pines would become ornery in the afternoon, pinching the saw and trying to fall the wrong way. Somehow the trees told each other about us — at least, that’s what we suspected.

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ability to combine the scientific view of nature with a holistic interpretation [“Two Ways of Knowing,” interview by Leath Tonino, April 2016] was a tonic for my heart and mind.

I grew up in Humboldt County, California, near Hoopa and Yurok Indian reservations, and now live in an area that is home to Paiute and Shoshone Indians. For years I have been frustrated by the absence of an answer to the question: How do we integrate indigenous peoples into the broader culture without losing their traditions, values, and cultures?

I was given hope by the interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer that native cultures within the Western world can be preserved.

Robin Wall Kimmerer provided an excellent analysis of our current state of environmental affairs. It’s not only Native Americans who have been colonized by the arrogance of science — we all have. Small farmers have been pushed off the land because their ways of living, like the Native Americans’, were deemed incompatible with the notion of “progress” and a proper education. The Amish have, like some indigenous folks around the world, more or less escaped being colonized by our modern consumerist ethic, in part because they have resisted being forced into our materialistic education system. They run their own schools and live lives that in many ways follow a standard articulated by Kimmerer.

Thanks for printing Leath Tonino’s interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose writings have deepened my affection for the earth. My women’s book group read her book Braiding Sweetgrass when it was first published, and we’re still discussing it. Kimmerer has a gift for teasing wisdom from the natural world.

This week twenty plugs of sweetgrass will arrive in my mail. I’ve already planted berry bushes and fruit trees in the yard. The white cedars out front give me healing teas. When I hear the birds sing every morning, I think: How lucky I am to live in this brighter, more awakened world.

Leath Tonino’s interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer [“Two Ways of Knowing,” April 2016] has introduced me to a significant role model for the coming chapters of my life.

Kimmerer shed light on one of my most pressing conflicts: How do I foster a relationship with place in this fast-paced, globalized world? As a young adult I have teetered at the edge of cynicism in the face of moral dilemmas. Kimmerer’s synthesis of traditional and modern views renewed my belief in the possibility of a cultural shift toward compassion and responsibility.