Capturing Dreams
Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants (Milkweek Editions, 2013) by Robin Wall Kimmerer is one of the books I’m reading this summer. Actually, I’m rereading Braiding Sweetgrass as I found the book such a fascinating read the first time.
The author, Dr. Kimmerer, is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. She is the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs that draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge and work to share goals of sustainability.
In the Preface to Braiding Sweetgrass Dr. Kimmerer writes:
“I could hand you a braid of sweetgrass, as thick and shining as the plait that hung down my grandmother’s back. But it is not mine to give, nor yours to take. Wiingaashk belongs to herself. So, I offer, in its place, a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world. This braid is woven from three strands: Indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinabekwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most. It is an intertwining of science, spirit, and story – old stories and new ones that can be medicine for our broken relationships with the earth, a pharmacopoeia of healing stories that allow us to imagine a different relationship, in which people and land are good medicine for each other.”
I mention the book because after a lovely conversation with friends last week, as we enjoyed ice cream covered in chocolate and caramel sauce and watched as dusk slipped away, the sky over the mountains turned to black and the twinkling pattern of stars appeared, they gave me a dreamcatcher as a gift.
A traditional dreamcatcher is a willow hoop, on which a net is woven (or something that appears like a spider’s web) and decorated with beads, feathers and other items that are considered sacred and hang from the hoop. Native American dreamcatchers from the Ojibwe tribe were traditionally used as talismans with the purpose of protecting sleepers, especially children, from bad dreams, nightmares and evil spirits.
I have always loved dreamcatchers. Their circular design, without a beginning or an end, represent time. Time that moves forward in natural cycles. Feathers hang from the woven circle, and I feel these beautiful soft objects represent flight. In a hand-crafted dreamcatcher, the beads that hold the feathers in place would be handmade, perhaps out of clay. The weaving inside the circle is what keeps the evil dreams away. Or perhaps catches our dreams and holds them for us to keep imagining and reach to fulfill these dreams.
Reading Braiding Sweetgrass is encouraging me to research and learn more about the traditions, crafts and stories of Native Americans. Lake Winnisquam, Opechee, Waukewan, Kanasatka, and Wicwas all derive their names from the Abenaki. The Weirs is of particular historic interest because it was a site where many New Hampshire tribes gathered.
Through research (The History of Merrimack and Belknap Counties, New Hampshire, published in Philadelphia by J.W. Lewis & Co., 1885) I learned:
The vicinity of Weirs, which lays just within the limits of Laconia and at the outlet of Lake Winnipesaukee, has been famous as a summer resort further back, probably, than the historical or traditionary records exist. Long before the white men invaded New England, the Winnipesaukee’s, a branch of the Penacook tribe of Indians, maintained a permanent “ahquedaukenash” or fish-weir at the outlet of the lake, and all the tribes in the vicinity would gather to participate in the spring and fall catch of shad.
My dreamcatcher is hanging in my window, a reminder of how much there is we can learn from the people who lived in nature and worshipped our natural earth.
Tomorrow, Friday, June 19th we celebrate Juneteenth or Freedom Day, a holiday to celebrate all those who had been enslaved in the United States. This Liberation Day originated in Galveston, Texas. My dreamcatcher holds dreams of peace, social justice and freedom for all the peoples living on our fragile planet.