Robin Wall Kimmerer

Quotes

1. Ecological economists argue for reforms that would ground economics in ecological principles and the constraints of thermodynamics. They urge the embrace of the radical notion that we must sustain natural capital and ecosystem services if we are to maintain quality of life. But governments still cling to the neoclassical fallacy that human consumption has no consequences. We continue to embrace economic systems that prescribe infinite growth on a finite planet, as if somehow the universe had repealed the laws of thermodynamics on our behalf. Perpetual growth is simply not compatible with natural law. [...] Our leaders willfully ignore the wisdom and the models of every other species on the planet—except of course those that have gone extinct.

   p. 308

2. 

   Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. It’s not enough to grieve. It’s not enough to just stop doing bad things.

   p. 328

3. 

   The story of our relationship to the earth is written more truthfully on the land than on the page. It lasts there. The land remembers what we said and what we did. Stories are among our most potent tools for restoring the land as well as our relationship to land. We need to unearth the old stories that live in a place and begin to create new ones, for we are storymakers, not just storytellers. All stories are connected, new ones woven from the threads of the old.

   p. 341

4. 

   Creation stories offer a glimpse into the worldview of a people, of how they understand themselves, their place in the world, and the ideals to which they aspire. Likewise, the collective fears and deepest values of a people are also seen in the visage of the monsters they create.

   p. 305

5. 

   One thing I’ve learned in the woods is that there is no such thing as random. Everything is steeped in meaning, colored by relationships, one thing with another.

   p. 298

6. 

   We are deluged by information regarding our destruction of the world and hear almost nothing about how to nurture it. It is no surprise then that environmentalism becomes synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings. Our natural inclination to do right by the world is stifled, breeding despair when it should be inspiring action. The participatory role of people in the well-being of the land has been lost, our reciprocal relations reduced to a Keep Out sign. [...] People do know the consequences of our collective damage, they do know the wages of an extractive economy, but they don’t stop. They get very sad, they get very quiet. So quiet that protection of the environment that enables them to eat and breathe and imagine a future for their children doesn’t even make it onto a list of their top ten concerns. The Haunted Hayride of dumps, the melting glaciers, the litany of doomsday projections—they move anyone who is still listening only to despair. Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth.

   p. 327

7. 

   Ceremony focuses attention so that attention becomes intention. If you stand together and profess a thing before your community, it holds you accountable. Ceremonies transcend the boundaries of the individual and resonate beyond the human realm. These acts of reverence are powerfully pragmatic. These are ceremonies that magnify life.

   p. 249

8. 

   The waste beds continue to leach tons of salt into the lake every year. Before the Allied Chemical Company, successor to Solvay Process, ceased operation, the salinity of Onondaga Lake was ten times the salinity of the headwaters of Nine Mile Creek. The salt, the oncolites, and the waste impede the growth of rooted aquatic plants. Lakes rely on their submerged plants to generate oxygen by photosynthesis. Without plants, the depths of Onondaga Lake are oxygen-poor, and without swaying beds of vegetation, fish, frogs, insects, herons—the whole food chain—are left without habitat. While rooted water plants have a hard time, floating algae flourish in Onondaga Lake. For decades high quantities of nitrogen and phosphorous from municipal sewage fertilized the lake and fueled their growth. Algae blooms cover the surface of the water, then die and sink to the bottom. Their decay depletes what little oxygen is in the water and the lake begins to smell of the dead fish that wash up on shore on hot summer days.

   p. 316

9. 

   Traditional Mohawks speak the words of thanksgiving to the land, but these days the lands along the have little to be grateful for. When parts of the reserve were flooded by power dams, heavy industry moved in to take advantage of the cheap electricity and easy shipping routes. , , and don’t view the world through the prism of the Thanksgiving Address, and became one of the most contaminated communities in the country. The families of fishermen can no longer eat what they catch. Mother's milk at Akwesasne carries a heavy burden of PCBs and dioxin. Industrial pollution made following traditional lifeways unsafe, threatening the bond between people and the land. Industrial toxins were poised to finish what was started at Carlisle.

   p. 257

10. 

    Sweetgrass is a teacher of healing, a symbol of kindness and compassion.

    p. 336

11. 

    Mohawk language and culture didn’t disappear on their own. , the government policy to deal with the so-called Indian problem, shipped Mohawk children to the barracks at , where the school's avowed mission was "Kill the Indian to Save the Man." [...] Despite Carlisle, despite exile, despite a siege four hundred years long, there is something, some heart of living stone, that will not surrender. I don't know just what sustained the people, but I believe it was carried in words. Pockets of the language survived among those who stayed rooted to place. Among those remaining, the Thanksgiving Address was spoken to greet the day: "Let us put our minds together as one and send greetings and thanks to our Mother Earth, who sustains our lives with her many gifts." Grateful reciprocity with the world, as solid as a stone, sustained them when all else was stripped away.

    p. 255

12. 

    In some Native languages the term for plants translates to "those who take care of us."

    p. 228