Robin Wall Kimmerer’s groundbreaking work has long emphasized the sentience and wisdom of plants. In this multimedia essay, she takes us on the nine-thousand-year journey of maize, reflecting on what has been severed in our once sacred and reciprocal relationship to this plant. In her Potawatomi tradition, maize is revered as a blessing, a giver of life, bestowed with such names as “The Mother of All things” and “Wife of the Sun.” Despite our growing reliance on modern industrial agriculture and practices that leave us disconnected from our food, Robin sees a “kernel of resurgence,” so long as we honor the foods we grow as living beings and teachers. |
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