Holy the Firm

My father once made a gift of this book to me, and I still remember being transformed by the beauty of it.

I lost the original copy he gave me, but I was able to replace it today.

Last week I re-read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It fits in with a recent inclination to read personal accounts by gifted observers of the natural world. Writing by Thoreau, Annie Dillard, John McPhee (Encounters With the Archdruid is a wonderful book) has gotten me through another lonely winter.

I could not get into this book though I did slog through the end. I may have not been in the place to read this book when I read it. Will try again soon.

‘We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.'

One can count on Annie Dillard for Spiritual/metaphysical recalibration and a heavy dose of stepping back and seeing reality for what it is, or isn't—'reality checks' abound in her work.

‘How can people think that artists seek a name? A name, like a face, is something you have when you're not alone. There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world, lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? But the world without light is wasteland and chaos, and a life without sacrifice is abomination.
What can any artist set on fire but his world?'

This was my second reading of this petite poetic novella. I am positive I'll be reading it again someday.