Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / Annie Dillard.

Originally published New York : Harper's Magazine Press, 1974.

Heaven and Earth in Jest -- Seeing -- Winter -- The fixed -- Untying the knot -- The present -- Spring -- Intricacy -- Flood -- Fecundity -- Stalking -- Nightwatch -- The horns of the Altar -- Northing -- The waters of separation.

What is the true nature of Nature? Is it a harmonious, interconnected system, operating according to the principles of co-dependence and benevolence? Or is it red in tooth and claw, an unfeeling, unthinking force, in which the individual is overwhelmed and subsumed to serve a larger purpose, one mysterious and obscure? This is what this volume is all about: an exploration into the nature of Nature, an attempt to discover the true character of the natural world around us. Appropriately, it is neither a rapturous celebration of Nature, nor a grim survey of its various cruelties. Rather, like Nature itself, it is something in between, and something quite beautiful. It is a collection of related essays recounting the author's thoughts on Nature as she observes the ecological happenings of the eponymous Tinker Creek in Virginia's Blue Ridge valley for a period of several years.