09/01/2026
The language we use.
Recently, I went to Indigipalooza at The Wilma and heard Robin Wall Kimmerer , author of Braiding Sweetgrass, speak.
She talked about language and about how the words we use shape the reality in which we live.
One example was the English word “it.”
When we call a tree, a river, an animal, or a plant “it,” we create a linguistic distance between ourselves and the living world. We make a distinction between “us” and “it.”
That distinction can make it easier to see the natural world as something separate from us—something to extract from, consume, or discard.
She explained how a cornerstone of Indigenous languages is that they recognize the animacy and personhood of the natural world, which offers a very different relationship.
I went home thinking about how much this applies to medicine, too.
I don’t want to see a patient’s body as an “it.”
I don’t see the body as a machine that has malfunctioned and needs to be diagnosed, fixed, and sent on its way.
And I don’t want to view plants simply as substances to extract and prescribe in order to make a symptom go away.
I’m much more interested in the landscape.
— Dr. O’Brien
