The Naming

If ever there is a book that is worth rereading, it is Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I’m almost finished my third time through. Every read or listen yields new insights.

Yesterday I listened to a chapter called Witness to the Rain, about how raindrops come in different sizes depending on whether they drip from a maple leaf or a cedar twig, and how they fall with different rhythms and sounds. She says “maybe there is no such thing as rain; there are only rain drops, each with its own story.” Maybe we need different names for rain, just like some cultures and languages have different names for snow.

A little earlier in the book, she writes about Original Man, Nanabozho, and how he “was given a new responsibility: to learn the names of all the beings.” For a minute I thought this was very much like the Genesis story of Adam, but not quite. Adam named the animals from a place of authority, implying that Adam was above and apart from the rest of creation. But Nanabozho was tasked with learning the names of all the beings. They had names already, and he engaged with them, side-by-side in relationship.

I am happy it is snowing today. Tomorrow I’ll be able to explore fresh tracks, to see who of my neighbours passed by in the night, aside from the black cat who always keeps a good eye on the mice on my behalf. In summer, I take shots of plants and grasses with the Picture This app. I want to be able to greet my neighbours by name.

Perhaps, if I listen closely enough, the grass and flowers will tell me their names, their real names. Perhaps if I sit with this Place long enough, and often enough, I will remember and know these beings well, and become known by them. Perhaps, given time, I will become fully naturalized to this Land.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes:

“Being naturalized to place means to live as if this is the land that feeds you, as if these are the streams from which you drink, that build your body and fill your spirit. To become naturalized is to know that your ancestors lie in this ground…. To become naturalized is to live as if your children’s future matters, to take care of the land as if our lives and the lives of all our relatives depend on it. Because they do.” (p. 214-215).