Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1 (Heaven and Earth in Jest)

     Dillard lives by Tinker Creek in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountain. She vividly sets the scene of where she lives, and focuses heavily on the wildlife as she takes a walk. Frogs are an interest of hers, and she has enjoyed watching them ever since she was a child. She once saw a water bug suck the life out of a frog at an island in Tinker Creek. She spends a lot of time describing nature, and the beauty she sees within it, specifically the beauty that is provided by the sun’s light.

                                                        Chapter 2 (Seeing)

                  Dillard hides pennies as a child, and would lead people to this “surprise” with arrows. She describes nature as a “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t affair” (18). She discusses how in nature, you have to look deeper than the surface to truly view it. She talks about how people see things, and the variation of what we see between different people. Down on the banks of Tinker Creek she watches muskrats and an airplane late into the cold night. She talks about a study from people having cataract surgery and how their perception of touch and sight was so different once they could see. “For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning” (28). She talks about the way she goes about viewing the elements of nature, and how other people may go about it. If she actually tries to focus on viewing it, she cannot.

Chapter 3 (Winter)

                  Starlings were introduced to NYC and are now abundant nationwide, and are viewed as a nuisance that is hard to control. She describes how their flight can be beautiful if you can get past seeing them as a pest. The way natives have used animals to survive throughout different times through history is also discussed. Dillard sneaks up on a coot during a calm winter day, and she remains hidden from it so it wouldn’t fly, but the coot didn’t care she was there. She sees wildlife and animals everywhere she looks. She describes the differences that wild animals, like turtles, fish, and even insects go through in the winter versus what they do in the summer.

Chapter 4 (The Fixed)

                  The chapter is started with the description of how praying mantises are used to manage pests in a garden. She has learned to spot mantis eggs, and is embarrassed knowing how many she may have missed in the past. Dillard descriptively describes the time she watched a praying mantis lay its eggs, as well as the relationship between the male and female mantis. She recalls the time as a child that her classroom had a Polyphemus moth that they watched hatch from its cocoon. The moth wasn’t able to hatch properly; it was in a jar in January, and its wings hardened to its back. She discusses how insects struggle more than other organisms. The chapter ends with her recalling the beauty the moon has to offer.

Chapter 5 (Untying the Knot)

                 Dillard goes on a walk to see the shifting in the seasons, and the changes they are making in the landscape   She finds a broken fish tank and a snakeskin that seems to be tied in a knot. She takes it home and as she tries to untie it, she is unable to find where the knot begins. As she contemplates the knot, she realizes that the skin is simply inside-out, creating a loop as continuous as the seasons.  She explains that the seasons are often overlapping with connected patterns of weather and greenery. At some points, they simply become tangled as they continue in their cycle. She likens the continuous looping of the season to the "knot" in the snakeskin, and to the continuous existence of the spirit.

Chapter 6 (Present)

                 While Driving home, she stops in Nowhere, Virginia to get gas and some free coffee. She makes conversation with the young manager and watches as his new beagle puppy frolics around the store. As she steps outside, the dog follows, and she sits down and soon becomes enthralled with the landscape and the texture of the puppy’s fur under her fingers. She is enveloped in the present moment, and in the surrounding sensations. As soon as she realizes this however, the moment passes. Dillard explains that a pure and empty is what opens the “door” to the present, and that we can only fully experience it in a state of innocent devotion when we lose ourselves—become un-selfconscious.

II. The next day she is sitting under the sycamore at Tinker Creek, she begins describing the scenery and allowing her mind to wander to show how the path the mind takes to reach the “present”.  She touches upon the trees behind her, on trees in general, and then goes outward to all of the living things surrounding her.

III. Dillard muses on the healing properties of water. She imagines the creek’s water flowing towards her from upstream, where the future lies as bright as a spirit. She feels that the creek has healed her pain and her transgressions with its water, and she becomes immersed in sensation again. She becomes fully immersed in the present, realizing that it is always there, but that one cannot chase it down. The present will only come and replenish you when you wait for it to approach on its own terms.

Chapter 7 (Spring)

                Spring has returned with its abundance. Birds are singing and, by April, the newts have returned to the small forest pond so she lets them nibble her fingers. The trees are blossoming and she wonders at their growth and power—no person can manage their level of production with so little to work with.

II.  It is May and Dillard is in the Valley is trying to forge her way through the greenery that has sprung up. She eventually gives up and heads to the duck pond, which is over grown with algae. She reminisces about her forays with the microscopic organisms that live there- she occasionally collects them, sorts them out, and observes them under a microscope—however, she admits that she doesn’t take any joy from the experience. For her the process serves as a reminder of the life that can exist in a single drop of water. She feels the need to acknowledge even the smallest life-forms that spring can bring into being.

Chapter 8 (Intricacy)

                  In June, Dillard talks about the complexity of life in the world. She uses many metaphors to compare life to nature. Dillard bought a fish for 25 cents, and has these elodeas plants which she explains to contain intricacy. These plants, and even the fish are so complex, that she looks at them through a microscope and observes the different cells. Dillard loves to use metaphors to create an image to the reader and help them connect the book to their lives such as when she compares Henle’s loop to 15 yards of string on the floor. She creates the metaphor of the fish’s blood cells flowing to the creek. Dillard asks herself questions about why things are the way they are and how they came to be that way. She is in amazement anything that living has its purpose. No matter what the creature is, it has its purpose. Everything thing has its own beauty in its unique way.

Chapter 9 (Flood)

                  Chapter nine starts in the early summer, when the energy of summer has been disrupted by the rain. The animals are going crazy, and Dillard feels this sense of disruption, making her discontent. She thinks she hears gun shots, but as she walks up the road she realizes it was garbage trucks backfiring, trying to win over the girl’s attention. Dillard then remembers the hurricane that dumped rain and made the creek flood. She compares the ugly, frantically escaping creek to a blacksnake. Everything looked different that day. Dillard is so upset over the water over the bridge and how everything is different she becomes dizzy. She sees it as the whole world is like sand down a chute, the world is at its end. She then begins to think about all the animals, and what they do in these floods. Some animals are being noticed, such as the snapping turtle. The weather is making the turtle frightened from the weather and the kids trying to get it to snap at the broom stick. She ends the chapter by the discovery of the light bulb that was on when the power was out, and the mysterious mushroom. The mushroom provided a meal for the flood victims. The mushroom is said to be a gift from the flood to provide mushrooms for ears to come.

Chapter 10 (Fecundity)

                  Dillard has a nightmare in which she watched two Luna moths mate and produce eggs that hatched into fish and covered her bed. She then begins to think about what really bothers her and us as humans. She concludes that it is not plants that bother us, but the animal fecundity that we find appalling. She explains how nature is as careless as it is bountiful. Dillard then creates the comparison with fecundity and growth. Also she incorporates that with growth, there comes death. All things will die at one point and it is how life works. She also discusses the various things creatures need to survive and reproduce. She finds the gooseneck barnacle to be the most interesting creature because it has to beat the odds and cling to debris in the ocean to survive. She believes that we need create a few organisms and give them what they need to ensure survival, rather than have millions of eggs for only a few to survive. Dillard concludes this chapter by saying that we are not here to judge nature or try and change it to our liking, but to simply enjoy it and understand that death is a part of life for all organisms.

Chapter 11 (Stalking)

                  In the beginning of this chapter Dillard is at Tinker Creek again and is observing the different animals. She describes to us how Eskimos stalk caribou herds and travel from place to place trying to catch caribou, and how they sometimes ate the greens in the stomach of the caribou. Eskimos had their own way of living, but were amazed at the way we do things in our everyday lives. Dillard then goes into talking about animals in the summer and how they hide to protect themselves. She begins to tell us how she stalks muskrats and how they interact in their environment. Dillard tells us about her encounter with a young muskrat kit. She describes the surroundings and how the young muskrat disappears into the brush proving her previous point about how animals hide to protect themselves. After living by the creek, Dillard has observed nature and has come to realize a special connection she has with nature. Dillard finds in quantum mechanics a world that is similar to the tiny world at the creek. Dillard spends her time stalking wildlife, to find answers to the unknown actions of her surroundings.

Chapter 12 (Nightwatch)

                  In Lucas meadow, Dillard stands in a field of grasshoppers. She came here to get away and to explore nature. This is exactly what she came to see, real things moving and the wind blowing. She looks around and observes the trails, rocks and cliffs. She also describes the cottage and rabbit and gold finch that come into view. She then remembers reading about eels slithering down streams and across fields and wonders how she would react if she came across one. The thoughts of her actions make her dizzy, just as the world around her spins. She becomes aware of the constantly changing world and the rising and falling of the real world.

      Chapter 13 (The Horns of the Altar)

                 While walking at the quarry one day Dillard sees a copperhead basking in the sun. She is intrigued and decide to “wait out” the snake. As she continues to study the snake from head to tail, a mosquito alights on the serpent and begins to feed, but the snake doesn’t move. She leaves when the mosquito does, and when she gets home, she consults a book on insects to learn if mosquitoes actually feed on snakes. The book confirms that what she saw was possible, and she begins musing on how each living creature is food for another—how nothing is perfect. To her, it seems natural. She realizes that everything becomes corrupted overtime, scarred and blemished in the struggle to survive, but beauty shines despite the imperfections.

Chapter 14 (Northing)

               In September the birds are quiet, they molt and grow more restless as the October migration approaches. The chipmunks and squirrels are hiding away food for the winter, the birds are trilling and flying about through the trees and bushes, and the bugs and the mushrooms swarm the swarm forest willy-nilly. The wildlife, and even the trees, seem to take on impulsive behaviors and Dillard is excited to the same—feeling that she could just keep walking onwards and northwards with no destination. She cannot go North, a place she feels strips everything to its basest component, but is content to watch as the tendrils of the North seep slowly into the land bringing on the effects of Winter.

II. Days later, the monarchs hatch. As more and more come into the world, Dillard realizes that she is witnessing a mass migration. There are hundreds and their wing beats seem tired, each flutter appears full of effort, but to her they appear to have an endless determination. She rescues one in a parking lot, still crawling towards the south, and is amazed to find that the butterfly is exuding a smell similar to Honeysuckle. After five days of monarchs splitting the air and leaving their wings in the valley for Dillard, the skies are finally vacant.

III. It seems that winter has come and the frost has come with it. Dillard feels almost religiously exultant in its arrival. She has a dream that she was in her childhood home, its basement covered with snow. Under a snowy rug were drawings she had made when she was six, and near the basement was an Eskimo prayer tunnel. The snow and the cold, seem to create a barer and holier world. The winter wind has left the trees naked of fruit and leaf, and to Dillard, the world is more real than ever.

                                                 Chapter 15 The Waters of Separation 

                  This chapter started the day of the winter solstice. She is on her way to the quarry to try and see if her echo can kill a bee, like the ancient Romans believed. It doesn’t work. She continues on with her walk visiting various places along the creek, like the island where she watched the frog get sucked down to its skin and sink. She sees a “maple key” (samara) that floated down from above, reminding her of a Martian spaceship. It makes her think of how one must look at the big picture of the universe. It is important to take everything in, and take advantage of every opportunity. She says, “The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest” (275).