Holy the Firm

Today I'm letting Annie Dillard join my "Walden" reading. She is a great admirer of Thoreau, its visible in most of her writing.

In "Holy the Firm" the writer plays an important role in her own text. She is living on northern Puget Sound, in Washington State, alone. The nature and the elements are her companions:

I came here to study hard things - rock mountains and sea salt - and to temper my spirit on their edges.

...

Here is the fringey edge where elements meet and realms mingle, where time and eternity spatter each other with foam.