I have been drawn to this book by Annie Dillard many times, and I continue to appreciate the ideas and the poetic quality of the prose. My favorite chapter is “Seeing.” For her, seeing leads to understanding, which then leads to transformation. Her closing lines describe being moved by the beautiful way a tree was reflecting light. She writes: “Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.”
Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: A Mystical Excursion into the Natural World. Bantam Books, 1974, p. 26.