Visit the White Lake Community Library Wednesday, April 12th, at 6pm for a discussion of Braiding Sweetgrass written by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The discussion is hosted by the West Michigan Environmental Action Council as part of the Muskegon County Community Read 2023. Copies of the book are available for borrowing from the library or for purchase at the Book Nook.

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.