E-Book Overview
Without a map, navigate by the stars. Susan Tweit began learning this lesson as a young woman diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that was predicted to take her life in two to five years. Offered no clear direction for getting well through conventional medicine, Tweit turned to the natural world that was both her solace and her field of study as a plant ecologist. Drawing intuitive connections between the natural processes and cycles she observed and the functions of her body, Tweit not only learned healthier ways of living but also discovered a great truth--love can heal. In this beautifully written, moving memoir, she describes how love of the natural world, of her husband and family, and of life itself literally transformed and saved her own life.In tracing the arc of her life from young womanhood to middle age, Tweit tells stories about what silence and sagebrush, bird bones and sheep dogs, comets, death, and one crazy Englishman have to teach us about living. She celebrates making healthy choices, the inner voices she learned to hear on days alone in the wilderness, the joys of growing and eating an organic kitchen garden, and the surprising redemption in restoring a once-blighted neighborhood creek. Linking her life lessons to the stories she learned in childhood about the constellations, Tweit shows how qualities such as courage, compassion, and inspiration draw us together and bind us into the community of the land and of all living things.
E-Book Content
wa l k i n g n a t u r e h o m e
Book Twenty
louann atkins temple women
&
culture series
Books about women and families, and their changing role in society
a life’s journey
[ Walking Nature Home Susan J. Tweit Illustrated by Sherrie York
university of texas press Austin
The Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series is supported by Allison, Doug, Taylor, and Andy Bacon; Margaret, Lawrence, Will, John, and Annie Temple; Larry Temple; the Temple-Inland Foundation; and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Appreciation goes to the publications in which the pieces listed below first appeared, before finding their way into this story in different versions: “Walking Home,” in A Road of Her Own (Fulcrum Publishing, 2002) and Risk, Courage, and Women (University of North Texas Press, 2007); “Walking into Love,” in the Denver Post “Perspective” section (December 5, 2004); “Picking Up Roadkill,” in the Denver Post “Perspective” section (August 20, 2000), Earthlight (Summer 2000), Pilgrimage (Spring 2004), and Earthlight: Spiritual Wisdom for an Ecological Age (Earthlight, 2007); “The Pleiades,” in The Search for a Common Language (Utah State University Press, 2005); “Leo,” in Writing Nature (Summer 2002); “Final Journey across the Sky,” in the Salida (Colo.) Mountain Mail (September 22, 2004) and the Denver Post “Perspective” section (November 7, 2004); “Restoring a Creek, Restoring Hope,” in Wings (Spring 2006) and Pilgrimage 31, no. 3 (2006); and “Knowing What Love Is,” in the Salida Mountain Mail (February 14, 2007). Copyright © 2009 by Susan J. Tweit All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2009 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html ∞ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tweit, Susan J. Walking nature home : a life’s journey / Susan J. Tweit. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Louann Atkins Temple women & culture series; bk. 20) Includes bibliographical references. isbn 978-0-292-71917-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Tweit, Susan J. 2. Mixed connective tissue disease—Patients—United States—Bio