Tag Archives: Potawatomi Nation

A World Where Science and Indigenous Wisdom Collide: Some Food for Thought on Earth Day

By Savita Joshi

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s pres­ence is mag­net­ic. Step­ping out to the podi­um at the 2014 Bioneers Con­fer­ence – an annu­al forum for top­ics like cli­mate change and human rights – her sil­ver hair hangs loose­ly, fram­ing a pair of leather ear­rings dec­o­rat­ed with small pink flow­ers. She greets the crowd with a large smile, and when she speaks, the room falls silent and the audi­ence lis­tens closely:

“Let us begin today with grat­i­tude … of food to eat, of sweet air to breathe this morn­ing, the pre­cious­ness of water, the com­pan­ion­ship of clouds, and geese, and sug­ar maples. Grat­i­tude for each oth­er, for the priv­i­lege of our work togeth­er, and for the orig­i­nal peo­ples in whose home­land we meet, and for the more-than-human beings with whom we share the earth.”

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Such poet­ic and ten­der, prayer-like words come as a sur­prise for some when they real­ize that these are the words of a sci­en­tist and professor.

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