Images from What Would Metamorphosis Be Like? by Bridget Mendel Lee.

Stories of Self is a twelve-volume essay series by Scott F. Parker that explores the nature of the composed self through conversations with artists working in a wide range of media.

A few weeks before I met her in Minneapolis, in celebration of International Mother Earth Day, Robin Wall Kimmerer spoke in front of the United Nations General Assembly about “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” In the talk, Kimmerer called for a return to the kind of indigenous biocentric worldview that puts humans in non-exploitative relationship with the earth and expands the number and kinds of perspectives taken into account when acting. “When we gather as Nations, should we not also counsel on behalf of the Tree Nations, the Bird Nations, the Fish Nations, on behalf of soil? And seeds? And our precious water? Let us broaden our definition of ‘people centered’ to include them, our more than human relatives.”

Before giving her remarks, Kimmerer went to her tribal elders for advice. She was surprised they answered with only a single word: moccasin, or “walk gently upon the land.” Kimmerer considered the implications of this instruction: “We see the anthropocentric worldview even in our carefully crafted definitions of sustainable development. Sustainability goals revolve around the search for strategies by which we can continue to take from the Earth into the future. When these definitions were presented to traditional elders they observed, ‘It sounds to me like they just want to keep taking,’ when the question we should be asking is, ‘What can we give?’ What does the Earth ask of us in return for all that we have taken? Our definitions of sustainable development are embedded in the idea that humans are fundamentally takers. The indigenous/ancestral worldview offers another conception of ourselves as givers, as well.”

The challenge of politics is often agreeing that we live in the same world. When Kimmerer suggests listening to animals and plants, the notion is so at odds with what the Western mind takes as the way the world works as to be almost incomprehensible.

Kimmerer’s publisher, Milkweed Editions, brought her to Minneapolis to read from her most recent book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants. I met Kimmerer for brunch the next morning. Milkweed had set us up with the expense account and forty-five minutes between her other appointments. I tried to take advantage of their generosity, but ended up with a runny vegetable hash. Kimmerer’s breakfast sandwich was probably the smarter move. With forty-five minutes already getting closer to thirty-five, Kimmerer started to speak about indigenous conceptions of...