Louise Erdrich wrote a line in her poem, “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” that’s always stayed with me:

“… The worn-down welts of ancient punishments lead back and forth…”

Since I know a part of these words for myself, the shadows of them made me prefer to be very succinct for the book review of The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson through the title of my picture above. However, I want to share a part of the Author’s Note that I found was most important about this raw story:

“… While today’s risks and challenges differ from those faced by our ancestors, they are just as threatening to the future of our indigenous seeds. Genetic engineering, industrial agriculture, and patents have centralized control of the world’s seeds with a handful of international corporations: Monsanto and Bayer; Syngenta and ChemChina; Dow and DuPont. According to the documentary Seed: The Untold Story, 94% of our global seed varieties have already disappeared. Scientists warn that a million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction. The loss of these relatives and our seed varieties is devastating for the genetic diversity of the earth, and for our survival as human beings. We have forgotten our original Agreement with the many beings who share this planet with us. As activist and scholar Harley Eagle once said, ‘We need to fall back in love with the earth.’

In the face of such overwhelming loss, what can we, as individuals, even do? The answer is as close as the nearest garden. We keep our seeds safe by growing them, cooking with them, and sharing them with friends, family, and community. When we reestablish a relationship based in reciprocity, when we nurture the soil and protect the water that, in turn, grows healthy seeds, we are reclaiming an indigenous connection to the earth. These seeds carry our stories; they are witnesses to their own long history on this land. Seeds and our indigenous foods are central to our cultures, reminding us of our ancient relationship with the natural world around us. Mitakuye Owasin, we are all related…”

In words of the Hindi/Urdu languages, Beej Ko Bolane Do – let the seeds speak.