By Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Brown and Company, 2021. 240 pages. Nonfiction
In Rooted, cutting-edge science supports a truth that poets, artists, mystics, and earth-based cultures across the world have proclaimed over life on this planet is radically interconnected. Our bodies, thoughts, minds, and spirits are affected by the whole of nature, and they affect this whole in return. In this time of crisis, how can we best live upon our imperiled, beloved earth?
Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s highly personal new book is a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways—from walking barefoot in the woods and reimagining our relationship with animals and trees, to examining the very language we use to describe and think about nature. She invokes rootedness as a way of being in concert with the wilderness—and wildness—that sustains humans and all of life.
In the tradition of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Mary Oliver, Haupt writes with urgency and grace, reminding us that at the crossroads of science, nature, and spirit we find true hope. Each chapter provides tools for bringing our unique gifts to the fore and transforming our sense of belonging within the magic and wonder of the natural world.
Rooted is a mixture of nature, memoir, philosophy, and science. The advice in this book will not be new to someone who is already connected to nature and enjoys being outdoors, but the remembers are needed in our world full of screens. I expected a bit more references to scientific studies, but overall her points are heartfelt and poignant. This book would appeal to those who like the works by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Sharon Blackie.
If you like Rooted you might also like:
By Sharon Blackie
Ambrosia, 2018. 356 pages. Nonfiction
Taking as her starting point the inspiration and wisdom that can be derived from myth, fairy tales, and folk culture, Dr. Sharon Blackie offers a set of practical and grounded tools for enchanting our lives and the places we live, so leading to a greater sense of meaning and of belonging to the world. Enchantment: by Dr. Blackie’s definition, a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world, a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life. Enchantment is a natural, spontaneous human tendency―one we possess as children, but lose, through social and cultural pressures, as we grow older. It is an attitude of mind which can be the enchanted life is possible for anyone. It is intuitive, embraces wonder, and fully engages the mythic imagination―but it is also deeply embodied in ecology, grounded in place and community. To live this way is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary.
By Robin Wall Kimmerer
Milkweed Editions, 2013. 391 pages. Nonfiction
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.
JJC
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