Embracing Citizenship in “Maple Nation”
Photo by Chris Robert on Unsplash
Occasionally, I enjoy pancakes topped with butter, maple syrup, berries and sliced bananas. The sweet syrup and tasty fruit delight my senses and often brighten up even the dullest mornings.
For many years, such was the extent of my appreciation for maple syrup - until I read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
In a chapter entitled Maple Nation: A Citizenship Guide and Allegiance to Gratitude,” Kimmerer applies the concepts of democracy, citizenship, and leadership to the reciprocal relations in which we humans exist with our fellow species. In a meditation on the “maple people” she draws lessons for us, the “standing people” who coexist with these magnificent trees in Maple Nation.
Wherever they grow in numbers, maples dominate a forest and define the ecosystem below the dark canopy they create. She writes that maple trees serve as good citizens and stewards of their community in various ways. In old times their sap would provide the first nutrients of spring to famished communities after surviving the winter. The thick canopy their leaves reduces the light smaller shrubs and trees need to survive, creating an open forest ideal for bears and mammals to roam freely. Their annual production of fallen leaves supplies fertile soil for fruit-bearing plants. And at the end of their life they provide wood to keep a fire going during the winter as we wait for annual cycle of our interconnected lives to begin again.
We in Canada, our own “Maple Nation” of sorts, have much to be grateful for. Across our land are ten types of maple trees, including “black, silver, red, striped, vine, Douglas, sugar, Manitoba, mountain and bigleaf.” And since 1965, one lucky maple leaf has even found itself incorporated into the design of our national flag.
As citizens, we know that loyalty is a two-way street. We stand together to protect our nation and our nation protects us. Indigenous ways of knowing and being provide a way to include the land in this relationship of reciprocity.
Kimmerer cites a kind of “Pledge of Allegiance” that the Haudenosaunee have been practicing for centuries to include this reciprocal relationship between species. She describes the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address as “a powerful political document, a social contract, a way of being—all in one piece”, it is, at its core, a call to gratitude and respect towards Mother Nature. As we give thanks, we pledge allegiance to all her gifts in creation.
Our duty as “human delegates to the democracy of species” is to enact justice and embrace patriotism by doing what is right and caring for all of nature. We develop leaders by showing them the example of “the standing people” and creating a good society by living out of gratitude. Public engagement and political will are vital to preventing maples from suffering the effects of climate change; they are also key to strengthening Canada’s democracy.
As we face a rapidly changing world order, may we take comfort in our flag and in the lesson of the Thanksgiving Address – to be good citizens of our beloved “Maple Nation” and stand guard for it, with true patriot love in all our hearts. Thus, we live honourably in Canada’s Maple Nation.
Kayona Karunakumar