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2023-2024 Common Read - Braiding Sweetgrass: The Honorable Harvest

 

"Cautionary stories of the consequences of taking too much are ubiquitous in Native cultures, but it's hard to recall a single one in English. Perhaps this helps to explain why we seem to be caught in a trap of overconsumption, which is as destructive to ourselves as it is to those we consume." p. 179.

Wild Leeks

Fungus Guy, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Wild leek bulbs

image courtesy of Hiawatha National Forest

Common Elderberry in Bloom

image courtesy of Working Virginia Landscapes

Fiddlehead Ferns

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Trillium

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Dutchman's Breeches

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Black cohosh

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Bloodroot

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Mayapple

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Great Blue Heron

image courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica

Wild Rice Havesting

S. Eastman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

White snakeroot

image courtesy of Wikipedia

American Marten

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Keywords

Anachronism: a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place. (MW)

Animacy (animism): Attribution of conscious life to objects in and phenomena of nature or to inanimate objects (MW)

Attunement: an attuning or act of making harmonious. (Collins)

Autotroph: an organism that is able to form nutritional organic substances from simple inorganic substances such as carbon dioxide.  (OL)

Biophysical realm: The biological and physical considerations or factors. (YA)

Conundrum: an intricate and difficult problem. (MW)

Coureur des bois: an independent entrepreneurial French Canadian trader who travelled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with First Nations peoples by exchanging various European items for furs. Some learned the trades and practices of the indigenous peoples. (W)

Heterotroph: an organism that cannot produce its own food, instead taking nutrition from other sources of organic carbon, mainly plant or animal matter. (W)

Humus: A brown or black complex variable material resulting from partial decomposition of plant or animal matter and forming the organic. (MW)

Lassitude: a condition characterized by lack of interest, energy, or spirit. (MW)

Metaphysical realm: A reality beyond what are senses may be able to perceive. (YA)

Microhabitat: a small area which differs somehow from the surrounding habitat. (NG)

Monoculture: the cultivation or growth of a single crop or organism especially on agricultural or forest land (MW)

Potlatch:  A ceremonial feast of the American Indians of the northwest coast marked by the host's lavish distribution of gifts or sometimes destruction of property to demonstrate wealth and generosity with the expectation of eventual reciprocation. (MW)

Prop root: a root that serves as a prop or support to the plant. (MW)

Proselytizer: a person who to tries to persuade other people to accept a particular religious or political belief, idea, or way of life. (CAMB)

Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest

Other Resources

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