Sweet Breathing of Plants

I'm not sure I can find the words to describe my serious delight about this book, but I'll do my best. If I could have created the perfect book in my mind before I read this, I couldn't have imagined this book up - but it's what I would have wished for had I known I could. ... that doesn't sound clear... I've never considered myself a feminist, but this book helped expose the part of me that was deeply bonded to the community of what it means to be a woman. I didn't think about gardening before i read this book and it enticed me to GROW things. It's poetic, it's true personal stories (which are always my fav), it's about EARTH (which is always amazing), and it feels like a community. And it's educational. It is indeed sweet, in all matters of the word.

... is a collection of essays about nature written by women. I found it quite amazing. There's a mix of poems, essays, stories, and an overall sharing of how these women, and women of the past relate to plants, and the natural world in general. i found the most moving essay to be the one by Paula Gunn Allen. She discusses how we are all part of the Earth's initiation process, from a young lady to a wise women. It helps put into perspective some of the percieved degradation to the environment. How can a human, which is part of the earth, and nature, do something that is unnatural? It is impossible! Linda Shepherd's "My Life with Weed" was great. Mary Crow Dog's "peyote" gives a history of native american's spiritual practices with peyote, which was also entertaining. Trish Maharam's "Plantswomen' and Laura Foreman's "for the maples" were also great, to name a few.

Collaboratively edited by Linda Hogan and Brenda Peterson, The Sweet Breathing Of Plants is a gentle and remarkable collections of singularly unique essays about the relationship between women and plants, interdependent upon one another for life since prehistory. From "The Language of Flowers" to "The Flooded Forest," each individual treatise significantly contributes an unusual and memorable insight to the wondrous whole in this spiritually moving and deeply meaningful metaphysical anthology.

To be honest, I never really considered myself a "plantswoman," just a dabbler when it came to gardening. But then I read this amazing collection of stories (with a few poems) and realized how much plants infuence my life--from sourdough "mold" to the herbal supplements I use as medicine, to the woods outside the backdoor of my childhood home. This is a very inspirational, accessible, and occasionally playful book. Above all else, it is excellently written. Thank you author Trish Maharam for that beautiful essay "Plantswoman." It taught me that woman do have their place in the green world no matter how unsophisticated they are in their plant knowledge, "it's the relationship that matters." I highly recommend this book to women everywhere.