Description

Mary Siisip Geniusz has spent more than thirty years working with living with and using the Anishinaabe teachings recipes and botanical information she shares in Plants Have So Much to Give Us All We Have to Do Is Ask Geniusz gained much of the knowledge she writes about from her years as an oshkaabewis a traditionally trained apprentice and as friend to the late Keewaydinoquay an Anishinaabe medicine woman from the Leelanau Peninsula in Michigan and a scholar teacher and practitioner in the field of native ethnobotany Keewaydinoquay published little in her lifetime yet Geniusz has carried on her legacy by making this body of knowledge accessible to a broader audience

Geniusz teaches the ways she was taughtthrough stories Sharing the traditional stories she learned at Keewaydinoquays side as well as stories from other American Indian traditions and her own experiences Geniusz brings the plants to life with narratives that explain their uses meaning and history Covering a wide range of plants from conifers to cattails to medicinal uses of yarrow mullein and dandelion she explains how we can work with those beings to create food simple medicines and practical botanical tools