A Profile of Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer begins her book  Gathering Moss   with a journey in the Amazon rainforest, during which Indigenous guides helped her see an iguana on the tree branch, a toucan in the leaves. Without the knowledge of the guide, she’d have walked by these wonders and missed them completely. She honors the “humility rare in our species” that has led to developments like satellite imagery, space telescopes, and electron microscopes, which help us perceive both the vast and the miniscule. However, “our acuity at [the] middle scale seems diminished,” she writes, “not by any failing of the eyes, but [of] the willingness of the mind.” Attentiveness is the key, the only requirement, says Kimmerer: “Look in a certain way . . . adding depth and intimacy  . . . and a whole new world can be revealed.”