The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
a story of survival
Food tells a story. We see this in cooking competitions. We feel this when we smell food from our childhood. We see how gardens, farms, and local markets shape communities.
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson, our June book for our summer book club, shows us that food tells a story. The book spans multiple generations of Native American women in the same family. Each generation is rife with its trauma and tragedy that despite being separated for much of their lives is inherited by the next generation.
“Legacy that came not from things, but from within. The bad gets carried from generation to generation until someone decides to bury it.”
The book reminds us, however, that although we carry the burdens and struggles of our ancestors, we also carry the traditions and lessons of our culture.
Rosalie, the main character in the story introduces us to the innate sense of home that is present in us from the beginning of the book. Seeds are used throughout the book as an anchor for Rosie, symbolizing home through actions and purpose instead of a single geographical location.
The Seed Keeper is a story about survival, contrast, and family that is beautifully written and provokes a lot of deep thoughts and feelings. Trigger warnings include: rape, genocide, violence, and suicide. Let’s explore some of the themes together (no spoilers!).
Home
“Coming home was like swimming upstream, searching for the beginning, for the clean, unmuddied waters of my childhood.”
“Then the rumble of the tractor would scatter my thoughts like a flock of geese after a gunshot. All that remained was the memory of generations of my family, buried somewhere across this river valley, whose stories had disappeared. For now, it was enough to be on this land again, to walk where they had walked. I was soothed by plants, comforted by the long patience of trees. I kenw with certainty that just as the seasons would always change, I would one day find my way home.”
“You will always have a home, just like I promised you.”
Diane Wilson uses the concept of home as a physical place to store belongings and rest our bodies at night, but for Rosalie home is a feeling, a way of life. The story timeline starts with Rosalie’s ancestors who lived in Minnesota during the Dakota War of 1862. This was a time of great displacement and loss of natural lands for hunting and foraging for many Indigenous people across our country. The war was followed quickly with Indigenous children being forced into government run boarding schools to white-wash and strip children of their Indigenous culture (language, prayer and ceremony, clothing, food, skills like hunting, foraging, and crafting tools, etc.). Rosalie’s own personal story involves the loss of and lack of home during her teenage years and a decision driven by the desire to have a home that impacted the rest of her life.
The book is a journey about Rosalie finding her family and her legacy as the seed keeper. It’s about acknowledging the truths that lie within us, even if they’re buried so deep and are so quiet we can barely hear them. Water, wild plants, time in nature, and tending seeds were all parts of the story that Rosalie was called to, things that centered her or helped her work things out for herself. These are the invisible strings that connected her with her ancestors, despite her lack of conscious awareness (in some cases).
If you liked this you should read Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
What defines home for you? Is it a place? Certain people? Smells? How is your sense of home different from when you were a child? Do you think about the concept of home that you are creating for your children?
When we first started dating, Josh and I would talk about home a lot. He used to say that he would never feel at home anywhere except his childhood home, which was now someone else’s. It took me a while to understand the feeling as I grew up in a single house and at the time my parents still owned it. Looking back, I can understand the feeling. My childhood home is also gone now but all of the memories I made there remain. It’s like a story now - it exists only in our minds and has no place to tether it.
Home, for me, is beyond place. Place is an important construct for our brains to hold memories too, and I think that’s why it becomes important. Beyond that it’s family. It’s a deep breath, an invitation to be yourself and let things go. It’s coffee brewing, the rich smell of soil, and home-cooked meals. It’s the garden and the feeling of sanctuary - the time and space to care for myself.
When I was a child my home was a hub. My parents’ home is still a hub (despite being in a different town now). It’s a meeting place, a connection, a gathering. It’s happy and supportive chaos. Maybe this comes with our children growing older. I tend to think it has a lot to do with my parents’ personalities and living in a small town.
This book reminded me of the importance of childhood in defining this concept of home. I recognize that it changes over time as we leave our childhood, and in many cases, our first physical homes, but we still cling to the memories and the sense of protection, love and care that emanates from our childhood homes. I found myself, as a parent, returning to this question as I read - what invisible strings connect me to home? what invisible strings do I want my children to connect with home?
It’s always been food for me. Now it’s about homemade and homegrown foods. But growing up there was always something communal about food. Sharing the table with extended family and neighbors. Always having something to share when visitors came. Making special meals or treats for holidays (big and small). I want my children to feel this too. I want them to step into a garden and feel like they can talk to me.
Environmental Degradation
“He used to say that farming was about taking care of your family. If you had it figured right, everything worked together. Horses pulled the plow and their manure was used to fertilize the fields. A good farmer rotated his crops, took care of his soil…But things started changing after World War II. Hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, new equipment. Farmers like my dad got left behind.”
Mangenta (think Monsanto) infiltrates Rosalie’s small farming community with promises of big profits by using its GMO and copyrighted seeds. the story is similar to one you’ve heard many times in our real world. Chemicals make farmers sick. Big Ag uses its deep pockets and legal jargon to put any competitors and resistors out of farming (and essentially life). Waters are polluted due to agricultural runoff. And there’s a general lack of conscience, recognition, or responsibility from either the Big Ag officials or the small-town farmers who sold out to grow their seeds.
Woven through the Mangenta story, Rosalie recalls her father teaching wild plant identification, foraging, and respect for the Earth. There is also the story of her ancestors who relied on the land and saved seeds from year to year as a means of survival.
I found the juxtaposition of these perspectives, often under one roof, a refreshing retelling of this narrative that we often only get in nonfiction. I could feel so much conflict in the writing, both within many of the characters, but also between them. The generational timeline of the story added to this buildup. One of my favorite tropes to read when done well is the tragedy that comes from what goes unsaid (think Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng).
When reading this book it’s easy to understand why farmers forsake the Earth for profit. That is the power of story - to connect with the differences of others beyond judgment.
Diane Wilson does a great job of showing how the introduction of Big Ag in Rosalie’s small farming community causes disruptions. In what ways has Big Ag affected your community? Our society?
Our society has become so disconnected from our food and the act of growing it that we have a phobia of soil. A friend comments any time I grab a wild snack on one of our walks or tell her about a snack Rory and I shared in the garden. “You eat that without washing it?!” or simply “You’re going to eat that?!” The trees and bushes and berries that surround us and grow either on purpose in ornamental fashions or wild are somehow considered “other” when it comes to food. We deem it scary, dangerous, and even illegal to eat off the land in this way.
It’s easy to blame it on grocery stores where shelves are heavy with convenience or bright, perfect, and waxy produce. Our definition of food has changed over the last couple of generations because our exposure to wild and homegrown foods has diminished so greatly. We can trace this back to Big Ag and the death of the small polyculture farmer who knew that healthy soil was key, not a seed that can grow in bad soil.
With Big Ag we get overconsumption, excess packaging, increased food miles, heart disease and the more directly environment-connected factors like water runoff, air pollution, and soil erosion, to name a few, that contribute to environmental degradation. This is why it’s so important to support your small local farmers whenever possible.
Survival
“Who are we if can’t even feed ourselves?”
Let’s start with colonialism. We are now removed from the Indian Removal Act and subsequent conflicts, specifically the Dakota War of 1862 referenced in this story by four generations (references Rosalie’s separation; plus or minus one depending on your age). It was so impactful for me to read this story and see the effects of colonialism on Rosalie’s life. Family separations, alcoholism and drug use, mental illness, and chronic health that are prevalent among the Native American community can all be tied back to colonialism. A fact that is staggering and represented well in this novel.
From the opening chapter of the book, you can tell that this is a story of survival. The seeds are a symbol of this, as they are passed from generation to generation to be kept safe and carry on the heirloom varieties of foods like corn that are now commodified. Beyond food, the seeds are representative of survival of Indigenous culture. Survival of familial connection. Survival of identity and purpose. Without the seeds, Rosalie is adrift.
There are times when Rosalie contemplates taking her life and it’s the connection to her ancestors that grounds her in life. The theme of survival is carried through each character the book follows. Despite their trauma, they survived or didn’t. It’s also about the survival of identity, purpose, and culture. These are not separate things.
If you liked this, you should read: Living Resistance by Kaitlin B. Curtice or check out their substack,
We Inherit a Past
“Learning my great-aunt’s unspoken language was no different from understanding the ways of plants, of animals, of the natural laws that bind us regardless of whether we abide by them.”
Each family has a seed keeper. Someone to inherit the seeds and continue to grow and save them. Someone to ensure the heirloom varieties are never lost. While there may not be an imminent danger of displacement today, the tradition of protecting the seeds is now about resisting GMO and commodified crops in place of traditional foods.
I loved the symbolism of seeds throughout the book for keeping their family and Indigenous culture alive and how that evolved over generations.
Beyond culture and tradition, we are also passed ancestral trauma and struggles. Rosalie is affected by the displacement and rape of her great grandma in 1862 and the separation of her grandmother and great-aunt as children. All of that trauma that was passed to her mother that Rosalie doesn’t remember.
Diane Wilson does a great job of showing us that ancestral trauma AND traditions can be passed down despite not physically knowing or being raised by any of your ancestors.
If you liked this, you should read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
What do you keep safe for your family? Is it seeds like Rosalie? Other traditions?
I am starting a seed collection that I hope continues to grow for generations. I have some plants from my childhood home and from my grandma’s gardens that I grow and nurture. It’s a powerful way to connect to her.
However, without a doubt, I am my family’s recipe keeper. My legacy lies in stacks of notebooks with my handwritten recipes. I also keep the recipes of both of my grandmas. I’ve started to select a few every Christmas and send them to my family as a mini recipe book instead of holiday cards. This symbolizes how we can inherit a past and yet choose how it will define us.
July’s Book
For July we are reading Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy. Let me know if you have any feedback on how book club went for this month. I honestly have no idea if anyone is reading with me, but I hope you are because this book was amazing (is it obvious by how long this post is?).