Skywoman Falling: a review
Title: “Skywoman Falling” from Braiding Sweetgrass
Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Who will like it? Anyone passionate about environmentalism.
When I picked up this short story recommended by Kaylan (who writes incredible articles on living with purpose & intentionality), I found it to be an unearthing read. Before we dive in, I have two questions for you! Consider them carefully.
How would you rate negative interactions between humans and the environment? How prevalent are positive interactions between humans and the environment?
A month ago, I watched a documentary called Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (my thoughts on it here). This Toronto film carries us through locations that I will never even dream to visit in a lifetime, showing us through the huge wide-angle shots how we, as a collective species, are heavily impacting the environment.
Every piece of artifact and technology we handle was acquired through the exploitation of resources, and we have an inherent culture of wanting more, buying more, making more, until our trash is everywhere. The film had little narration and much footage, and it left me questioning the plastic, marble, fabric and wood I take don’t usually think twice about.
Naturally, I would answer the earlier question as follows. We, humans, have disturbed equilibria in ecosystems in more ways than we can count. Making ozone holes, and then producing too much ground-level ozone from volatile organic compounds. Raising the temperature of a planet, like a procrastinator. Why hurry if you can always pull an allnighter? Negative impacts we make are everywhere; positive interactions are scarce, non-existent.
But we choose to act that way, don’t we? Everything we do is a choice. Indigenous peoples tell a story of an enchanted tale of Skywoman falling from the sky, to be rescued and supported by geese in a warm embrace. The council of animals — beavers, swans, otters, loons, came to a collective agreement that they would dive deep down into the water to help her find mud, to build her shelter. Skywoman “created a garden for the wellbeing of all”. In biblical tales, it is instead told that Eve stole from a garden and a tree, and the greed resulted in banishment from the garden with the only option to “subdue the wilderness into which she was cast”, combined with lifelong punishments. These two tales are remarkably different, with Skywoman receiving and reciprocating, and Eve punished and self-serving. Eve’s exile from the garden is asking for a rocky relationship with the land.
Skywoman fell from the sky. She was not someone who lived on Turtle Island before, by definition making her an immigrant. The world was generous to her and she felt that with her heart and taught that to her children. But we need to shuffle our assumptions and look at our natural world again, without the assumption that human beings dominate all as the “pinnacle of evolution”. It is not the only way of looking at the world. Not every location you zoom in on Google Earth must be a strip of farmland.
Recently in my NURS class on the health impacts of climate change, a guest speaker came in to talk about Indigenous food security. She also recommended Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, and reading, contemplating, and living with intention is a good place to start.
