Sweetgrass is best planted not by seed, but by putting roots directly in the ground. Thus the plant is passed from hand to earth to hand across years and generations. Its favored habitat is sunny, well-watered meadows. It thrives along disturbed edges.
Following the Preface, this is the opening paragraph of the text. It is, miniaturized to the point of microcosm, the message of the narrative in total. What follows from this point all traces back to the broader concepts being forwarded in this short commencement. These lines indicate the link between sweetgrass as a natural aspect of the earth and the human population. The reference to sweetgrass existing across the continuum of time and space is indicative of the thematic exploration of the underlying unity between all the rest of the world and humanity. The addition of information about the favorable conditions of growth and nurture speaks to the burden place upon humanity to step up to the responsibilities it owes to sweetgrass for making sure it remains viable.
“You wouldn’t harm what gives you love.”
This assertion is credited by the author to an unidentified student and it leads into an expansion of the philosophical foundation lying beneath it. One can love something without reciprocation and to a point treat them with the kind of emotional fortitude reserved for those involved in special relationships. And yet, it can be never grounded as deeply in the emotional soil as the person who loves and is loved. Loving someone or something without the realization it is reciprocated is based on selfishness and objectification. Once the love is returned—and only then—can it possibly open up to selflessness.
This is what the student is getting at their assertion and the expansion by the author follows suit. We all love earth for what the planet gives us, but how many reciprocate by giving earth what it needs from us? The author’s response to this idea proposed by the student is not just an encapsulation of what the assertion means, but in some ways an encapsulation of this major thematic element in the narrative: “Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
Deeply rooted in cultures of gratitude, this ancient rule is not just to take only what you need, but to take only that which is given.
The fundamental idea which the text presents is that it has been only recently that human beings have become disconnected from the system in which nature operates. For most of the history of civilization, humanity was fully integrated into the natural system of the planet: we saw what was around us that could sustain life and exploited it just like any other creature. Everything has changed over the course of especially the past two centuries or so. Humans are like their pets in that we need to eat and are driven to find shelter. But animals don’t actually need electricity or gasoline and so the raw materials of the natural world would remain fully in balance if they all remained, but humans disappeared. Scientific progress has afforded us the possibility to take what is not given and transform it into what is assumed to be needed. The result has been an ecosystem thrown out of balance and now seriously petering on the precipice of global disaster.
"Ceremonies large and small have the power to focus attention to a way of living awake in the world.” ( pg 36 )
The author emphasizes the significance of rituals in this quotation. These behaviors have major concrete meanings rather than being solely spiritual or religious in character. The activities of leaving kindling and cleaning the campground, for example, show a dedication to the preservation of the natural environment that goes beyond mere conviction and into tangible communal benefits.
