CONNECT WITH COMMUNITY
Want to discuss books with fellow readers? Join the Guelph Public Library online on Wednesday March 20. Register here.
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EMWF Book Club: Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey toward Personal and Ecological Healing
Join us for the final event in our Winter Book Club series featuring Dr. Jennifer Grenz in conversation with Mary Ito. This event includes closed captioning.
Funded by the Government of Ontario
Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey toward Personal and Ecological Healing
By Dr. Jennifer Grenz
Published by Knopf Canada (Penguin Random House Canada)
“This beautiful book can completely change how we approach science, using both Indigenous and Western perspectives, and how we can work collaboratively to help foster balance in nature.” —Suzanne Simard, bestselling author of Finding the Mother Tree
A farm kid at heart, and a Nlaka’pamux woman of mixed ancestry, Dr. Jennifer Grenz always felt a deep connection to the land. However, after nearly two decades of working as a restoration ecologist in the Pacific Northwest, she became frustrated that despite the best efforts of her colleagues and numerous volunteers, they weren’t making the meaningful change needed for plant, animal and human communities to adapt to a warming climate. Restoration ecology is grounded in an idea that we must return the natural world to an untouched, pristine state, placing humans in a godlike role—a notion at odds with Indigenous histories of purposeful, reciprocal interaction with the environment. This disconnect sent Dr. Grenz on a personal journey of joining her head (Western science) and her heart (Indigenous worldview) to find a truer path toward ecological healing.
In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, building on sacred stories, field observations and her own journey, Dr. Grenz invites readers to share in the teachings of the four directions of the medicine wheel: the North, which draws upon the knowledge and wisdom of elders; the East, where we let go of colonial narratives and see with fresh eyes; the South, where we apply new-old worldviews to envision a way forward; and the West, where a relational approach to land reconciliation is realized.
Eloquent, inspiring and disruptive, Medicine Wheel for the Planet circles toward an argument that we need more than a singular worldview to protect the planet and make the significant changes we are running out of time for.
Dr. Jennifer Grenz is a Nlaka’pamux Indigenous ecologist and scholar with a PhD in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems from the University of British Columbia. In addition to her current position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management at UBC, Dr. Grenz runs her own consulting and land-healing company, Greener This Side, conducting landscape-level invasive species management and environmental restoration activities for all levels of government and Indigenous communities within British Columbia. She has traveled extensively across North America presenting keynote lectures on invasive species management issues, environmental policy, and effective environmental communication strategies to different professional organizations and government agencies.