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In Chapter 7, “Maple Sugar Moon,” Kimmerer tells the story of the spring when she made maple sugar with her daughters from trees on their property, mirrored by old stories of Indigenous peoples making sugar in the same way. The entire process is dependent on bonds formed between people and nature, and between nature and itself. Maple trees have a reciprocal bond within themselves, in which the roots feed budding leaves with sugary sap converted from starch in the spring, and those same leaves, once mature, feed the roots with photosynthesized sugar that is once again stored as starch. Because of this bond, humans are able to harvest the sap and create sugar, and care for the trees in turn, all while forming social bonds between themselves as they work. Reciprocity is key in all of these bonds.

Read an explanation of a key quote from Braiding Sweetgrass (#1) about the need for indigenous knowledge.

Chapter 8, “Witch Hazel,” tells the story of Kimmerer’s neighbor, Hazel. She was an old woman, proficient in herbal remedies, who once took care of her community when she was young, but had to leave in order to care for her son. Kimmerer and Hazel got along well and often went back to her old house together, culminating in a Christmas party that brought the community back together again, this time to take care of Hazel. Nature had given Hazel the ability to heal her community, and thus helped create the social bonds that sustained her.

Chapter 9, “A Mother’s Work,” contains Kimmerer’s ruminations on what it means to be a mother as she attempts to clean a pond for her daughters to swim in. Initially, it is so her daughters can swim in it, but it becomes more. She forms a communal relationship with the pond, benefiting from its abundance over time as she restores it, and promoting its own growth and regeneration. However, she wrestles with the fact that, by trying to make a home for her own children, she is destroying the habitats of other mothers trying to do the same. In the end, she never cleans the pond in time for her children to swim in it, but her grandchildren can, and others, extending the role of the mother beyond her own children to the community and future generations.

Chapter 10, “The Consolation of Water Lilies,” completes the meditation on motherhood with Kimmerer being cared for by Mother Earth after dropping her youngest daughter off at college. Now an empty nester, she finds comfort in nature. The cycle of reciprocity between humanity and nature begins anew, after all Kimmerer has done to foster a positive relationship between her daughters and the land. Mirroring this experience is the process by which water lilies move oxygen from the surface to their anchoring rhizomes at the bottom of the pond, with young and old leaves feeding each other oxygen in turn.

Chapter 11, “Allegiance to Gratitude,” compares the American Pledge of Allegiance with the Thanksgiving Address of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. While the Pledge of Allegiance encourages loyalty to a political system, the Thanksgiving Address prioritizes gratitude for and knowledge of nature’s many gifts, reminding the reciter of the abundance of the natural world. It also reminds people of their duties to others, to share their gifts and unique abilities for the good of all. Kimmerer encourages her reader to consider a world in which children are raised with these values in mind, in a culture of gratitude instead of one of blind patriotism.

Read the the unusual style and presentation of Braiding Sweetgrass.

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