Finding home in the land: Robyn Wall Kimmerer and Clara Obligado

In an era of disconnection from the natural world, certain books act as bridges—offering us pathways to reconnect with the land, listen to its wisdom, and redefine our place within it. Two such works that deeply resonate in this space are Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Todo lo que crece by Clara Obligado. Though their contexts differ—one rooted in Indigenous North American traditions and the other in a Spanish-Argentinian exploration of nature—they share a profound commitment to understanding how landscapes shape our identities, stories, and ways of being.

Braiding Sweetgrass: A Reciprocity with the Earth

Robyn Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, blends scientific knowledge with Indigenous wisdom in Braiding Sweetgrass. Through storytelling and ecological reflection, she invites readers to reconsider their relationship with nature—not as a resource to be exploited but as a living community that thrives on reciprocity and gratitude.

Kimmerer’s narrative emphasizes the power of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), illustrating how Indigenous ways of knowing complement and enrich scientific perspectives. Her essays, ranging from the gift-giving nature of pecan trees to the lessons learned from sweetgrass harvesting, encourage us to listen deeply to the land. Her writing reminds us that nature is not separate from us but rather an extension of our kinship networks. To read Braiding Sweetgrass is to experience a shift in perception, an invitation to engage in acts of reciprocity—whether through caretaking, gratitude, or simply paying attention to the more-than-human world around us.

A key element of Kimmerer’s work is the relationship between language and the land. She reflects on how the English language often enforces a human-centric worldview, contrasting it with the Potawatomi language, where verbs are used to describe not just human actions but the agency of plants, animals, and elements. In doing so, she highlights how language shapes our perception of the natural world—whether as subjects to be engaged with or objects to be used. This linguistic perspective invites us to reconsider how we speak about nature and, ultimately, how we interact with it.

Todo lo que crece: Nature, Exile, and Belonging

Clara Obligado’s Todo lo que crece (“Everything That Grows”) is a different but equally compelling meditation on nature and belonging. Born in Argentina and exiled to Spain during the military dictatorship, Obligado weaves together personal memoir, botanical observations, and reflections on displacement. Her work explores the ways in which landscapes shape memory, identity, and migration.

Unlike Kimmerer, who writes from an Indigenous epistemology deeply rooted in ancestral lands, Obligado navigates the complexities of exile and adaptation. She examines how one’s sense of home can be reconstructed through plants, seasons, and the intimate act of cultivating a garden. Her reflections on invasive species, the transformation of urban spaces, and the resilience of plants serve as metaphors for human migration and survival. Todo lo que crece is ultimately about finding roots—both literal and metaphorical—amidst the fractures of history and personal displacement.

Obligado also touches on the power of language in shaping our connection to place. She examines how words for plants, landscapes, and ecological processes differ across cultures and geographies. The Spanish language, with its rich botanical vocabulary, carries echoes of colonial histories and migrations, and Obligado reflects on how naming the land can both estrange and reconnect us. Her writing suggests that the words we use to describe nature carry with them histories of conquest, exile, and adaptation—much like the plants she so closely observes.

Books that reconnect us

Both Braiding Sweetgrass and Todo lo que crece offer invaluable perspectives on our connection to land, though from different angles—one from Indigenous knowledge and ecological stewardship, the other from exile and adaptation. They remind us that land is not just geography; it is history, culture, and relationship. Reading these books is not just an intellectual exercise but a call to action: to listen, to tend, and to nurture our own relationships with the earth.

Language, like land, is a vessel of memory and belonging.

Through Kimmerer’s exploration of Potawatomi linguistic traditions and Obligado’s reflections on the Spanish vocabulary of nature, we see how words influence our ways of seeing and engaging with the world. In a world where environmental crises and forced displacements continue to unsettle our bonds with place, these books offer a path back—a reminder that we belong to the land just as much as it belongs to us. Whether through the teachings of sweetgrass or the resilience of migratory seeds, Kimmerer and Obligado help us see that in reconnecting with nature, we ultimately find our way home.

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