2026年8月23日 / 美国东部时间上午10:25 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
“甜草辫本就是一种象征、一个标记，不妨说，是一种隐喻，”罗宾·瓦尔·金默尔说道，“我们致力于编织大地母亲的发丝，换句话说，我们致力于帮助她焕发出最佳状态。”
金默尔的著作《编织甜草：原住民智慧、科学知识与植物的教诲》（米尔威德出版社出版）于2013年面世。凭借口口相传，七年之后的2020年，该书登上《纽约时报》畅销书榜，此后除了一周之外，始终稳居榜单之上，全球销量已突破200万册。
“我始终尝试为植物发声，为这片土地发声，”她表示，“而我发现人们愿意倾听。这让我深感肩负重任，必须继续发出自己的声音，为它们发声维权。”
母亲、祖母、植物学博士、大学教授、公民波塔瓦托米族成员——金默尔的世界观正是由她这些身份特质共同塑造而成。
在纽约州锡拉丘兹市郊的自家土地上，她带着我一同开展了一场生态展示与讲解之旅，置身于新英格兰紫菀和秋麒麟草之间。“瞧瞧这色彩搭配，”金默尔说道，“我太喜欢这种金色了，秋麒麟草的颜色和新英格兰紫菀的花心简直完美呼应。”
作者罗宾·瓦尔·金默尔 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
“我长期将这些植物当作‘老师’，”她说道，“借此思考互补色，对我而言，也就是西方科学知识与原住民知识这两种互补的知识体系。”
金默尔向我们介绍了一棵她称之为“祖母枫”（或诺科米斯·阿内尼米克）的大树。“它大概有200到250年树龄，当然不可能永远存在下去，所以我为它栽种了一位‘同伴’——椴树，也就是菩提树。”
记者玛莎·泰奇纳与罗宾·瓦尔·金默尔以及“祖母枫” 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
为何不种另一棵枫树？“随着气候混乱加剧，枫树恐怕将逐渐消失，”金默尔说道，“因此我希望替代树种能够经受住气候变化的严峻考验。”
请注意，她将“祖母枫”和替代树种都称为“她”而非“它”。“在我看来，它们都是‘人’，”她说道，“它们是进行光合作用的生命，是我的亲属。”
她发起了一项名为“种植小树苗”的运动，呼吁大家栽种树木。她还向北密歇根州的一群原住民儿童讲述树木的故事。金默尔希望从童年时期就培养他们尊重自然、感恩地球馈赠的意识。
去年八月，在密歇根湖沿岸，她与湖水打招呼。“联结的喜悦，就是活着的喜悦。”她说。
罗宾·瓦尔·金默尔向密歇根湖的湖水致意 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
金默尔会将涉及原住民社区的活动与自己的图书宣传活动结合起来，比如一天后在密歇根州特拉弗斯城举办的那场活动。在活动中她对听众说道：“我喜欢基于我所理解的原住民原则和自然法则来谈论经济思维，这便是‘馈赠’的理念。以水为例，我打算卖掉水。 但你怎么能售卖自己并不拥有的东西？没错，这就是资本主义！在我看来，这就是腐败。这些都是我们的馈赠。”
斯克里布纳出版社
这正是她的新书《唐棣：自然世界中的丰饶与互惠》（斯克里布纳出版社出版）的主题。该书自2024年底出版以来，销量已超过40万册。她在书中写道：
“这丰饶的浆果仿佛是大地赠予的纯粹礼物。我未曾挣得、未曾付费、未曾劳作便能拥有它们。没有任何价值数学能证明我理应得到它们。然而它们就在这里——与阳光、空气、飞鸟和雨水一同，汇聚在积雨云的塔状云团中。你可以称它们为自然资源或生态系统服务，但知更鸟和我都将它们视作馈赠。我们都在大快朵颐之际唱出感恩之歌。”
它们有许多别称，其中包括萨斯卡通莓、六月果、唐棣果。它们看起来像饱满的蓝莓，但尝起来更像苹果。
金默尔说道：“许多传统社会都遵循馈赠型经济运行，人们会说：‘我有什么富余的东西？多得用不完。我要分给邻居。’馈赠型经济的通货不是金钱，也不是商品；而是感恩。是尊重，是互惠。你付出越多，它便越会倍增；它滋养的生命也就越多。”
她的理念听起来或许像一种宗教，文字也颇具诗意，但罗宾·瓦尔·金默尔真正希望读者不要误解她的核心观点：“我希望他们能明白，这些故事中蕴含着一个颠覆性的主张，那就是以自然的运作方式为榜样来塑造我们自身。”
当有人指出，按照西方传统思维来看，她的作品极具颠覆性时，金默尔回应道：“我正是想做到这一点。因为此时此刻，对地球上的生命、对我们的福祉构成威胁的，正是现状，是那种无止境地从地球索取、却从不给予回报的常态商业模式。”
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Robin Wall Kimmerer on the wonders of nature
August 23, 2026 / 10:25 AM EDT / CBS News
“A sweetgrass braid is meant as an emblem, a marker, a metaphor, if you will,” said Robin Wall Kimmerer. “We are committed to braiding Mother Earth’s hair, i.e., we are committed to helping her be at her best.”
Kimmerer’s book, “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants” (published by Milkweed Editions), was published in 2013. Through word of mouth, seven years later, in 2020, it made the New York Times Bestsellers List, and (except for one week) has been there ever since. It has sold more than two million copies.
“What I have tried to do is give voice to plants, to give voice to the land,” she said. “And I found that people were listening. That felt for me like this deep obligation to continue to raise my voice, to advocate on their behalf.”
Mother, grandmother, Ph.D. botanist, university professor, member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation – Kimmerer’s world view is the sum of all those pieces of who she is.
On her own land, outside Syracuse, N.Y., she took me on an ecological show & tell, among the New England asters and goldenrod. “Look at that color combination,” Kimmerer said. “I love how the gold, the goldenrod matches the center of the New England asters.
Author Robin Wall Kimmerer. CBS News
“I’ve used these for a long time as plant teachers,” she said, “to really think about complementary colors, and for me, complementary knowledge systems of Western scientific knowledge and Indigenous knowledge.”
Kimmerer introduced us to a tree she calls Grandmother Maple, or Nokomis Anenemik. “She is probably 200, 250 years old, and she is of course not going to be here forever, and so I planted her a companion – a basswood, or linden tree.”
Correspondent Martha Teichner with Robin Wall Kimmerer and the “Grandmother Maple.” CBS News
Why not another maple? “Maples are probably going to be leaving us as climate chaos ensues,” Kimmerer said. “And so, I wanted the replacement tree to be someone who could withstand the rigors of climate change.”
Notice she refers to “Grandmother Maple,” and to the replacement tree, as someone, not something. “To me, they’re persons,” she said. “They’re photosynthetic beings. They’re my relatives.”
She’s launched a campaign called Plant Baby Plant – her effort to get people to plant trees. She also passes on the stories of trees to a group of Indigenous kids in Northern Michigan. Kimmerer wants to start them young, showing respect for nature, and gratitude for the Earth’s gifts.
Here, along the shore of Lake Michigan last August, she greets the water. “The joy of connection,” she said, “is the joy of being alive.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer greets the waters of Lake Michigan. CBS News
Kimmerer tries to pair events involving Native communities with her book events, like one held a day later, in Traverse City, Michigan, where she told her audience, “The way that I like to talk about economic thinking, grounded in Indigenous principles, as I understand them, and natural law, is this notion of the gift. Let’s take water. I’m going to sell water. How can you sell what you don’t own? Well, hello capitalism! To me, that is corruption. These are our gifts.”
Scribner
Which is what her recent book, “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” (published by Scribner), is about. It’s sold more than 400,000 copies since it came out at the end of 2024. She writes:
“This abundance of berries feels like a pure gift from the land. I have not earned, paid for, nor labored for them. There is no mathematics of worthiness that reckons I deserve them in any way. And yet here they are — along with the sun and the air and the birds and the rain, gathering in the towers of cumulonimbi. You could call them natural resources or ecosystem services, but the Robins and I know them as gifts. We both sing gratitude with our mouths full.“
They go by many names, among them saskatoons, juneberries, serviceberries. They look like fat blueberries, but taste more like apples.
Kimmerer said, “Many traditional societies have operated with gift economies where you say, well, what do I have in abundance? It’s too much for me. I’m going to share it with my neighbors. The currency of a gift economy isn’t money, it isn’t a commodity; it’s gratitude. It’s respect, and reciprocity. The more you give it, the more it multiplies; the more lives it supports.”
Her message may sound like a religion, and her writing like poetry, but what Robin Wall Kimmerer really wants is that her readers don’t miss her point: “I wanted to be sure that they understood the radical proposition which is baked into these stories, which is to model ourselves after the way that nature works.”
When it’s suggested that what she has written, in conventional Western thought, is incredibly subversive, Kimmerer replied, “I mean it to be so. Because what is dangerous to life on the planet, to our well-being at this moment, is the status quo, is business-as-usual of taking, taking, taking from the Earth without ever giving back.”
CBS News