Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

As young people, you are much closer to remembering than adults. Remember a time when you were connected to all living beings, not only the humans in your life but also the plants, animals, and the earth herself. It would bring me such joy to know that perhaps you have never forgotten that connection.

An Invitation to Remember

We are in the time of the Seventh Fire, a time prophesied by my Anishinaabe ancestors. A sacred time when our shared remembering transforms the world. A dark time and a time filled with light. We remember the oft-used words of resistance, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”

I invite you to remember another way of being in the world, in kinship. To be in a relationship with all living beings, our relatives. Often in the Western world, kinship is thought of only as human relatives, but in many Indigenous worldviews, kinship includes plants and animals. To remember what may have been buried by the noise of the world and by the commodification of nature. A remembering of knowing you can be good medicine for the land. And I hope, a remembering of or an understanding of your gifts (something that is unique to you) and how to share them to contribute to the well-being of the world.

The land is the real teacher. All we need as students of the land is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world and receiving the teachings with open eyes, open mind, and an open heart.

I have heard elders give advice like “Go among the standing people” or “Go spend time with deer people.” They remind us that plants and animals can be our caretakers, our healers, our teachers, and our guides. They remind us there are intelligences other than our own. Imagine how less lonely the world would be if we knew and believed that we didn’t have to figure everything out by ourselves.