Customer Reviews

Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture)

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"The deepest memoir is filled with metaphor."

--Maureen Murdock, Unreliable Truth

Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey is one of those rare memoirs that is much more than a life's story (as if that were not enough). It is a memoir that not only tells us about a lifetime's worth of experiences, but shows us how experience is shaped by knowledge, how knowledge is experienced through nature, and how nature can guide a human being to a fuller, healthier understanding of her place in the world.

The constellations are the most important guiding metaphor of this elegantly-crafted book. Throughout her life, Susan Tweit has oriented herself by the stars, using them to remind herself where she is in space and time: "I and all the other lives on Earth are connected to the stars." So it is natural for her to use the constellations as chapter markers in her life's journey, from Orion the courageous (her "stellar talisman") to Virgo (the "unowned" one, own woman, belonging to none), to the familiar Dipper ("you can chart your course by it"). Each of these stellar constellations creates a constellation of meanings and significance in Tweit's life, marking, defining, charting, guiding.

And she needed their guidance, for at twenty-three, married to her college sweetheart and already embarked on an exciting career as a plant ecologist, Tweit learned that she was suffering from an autoimmune disease that (the doctor told her) would claim her life within five years. Learning to live with that diagnosis, learning to treat her illness as the subject of research demanded more of her than she thought she could give. But she borrowed strength from Orion, a sense of self from Virgo, and the help of the other constellations. And as she learned more about her illness, she understood that it was not the end of life, but the first step toward becoming herself.

The title of Tweit's memoir, Walking Nature Home, offers another important metaphor for her life. Throughout the book, walking is not only a powerful image for purposeful forward movement ("Orion striding across the black heavens"), but for her own growing confidence and personal independence: walking away from her first marriage, for instance; or making an arduous week-long, hundred-mile trek, with a dog for companionship, through the Wyoming mountains. "Walking the days alone," she says, "forced me to pay attention. If I kept my awareness tuned within, I might yet hear what I needed to understand my health and, more importantly, my life." And years later, walking with her new stepdaughter Molly allowed them to develop a caring, trusting relationship:

"Walking gave us a territory of our own, a place we could start fresh, away from the disputes that regularly rocked our household. Rambling with no agenda forced Molly and me to leave our baggage at home. Walking provided time together, and it got us outside to learn the landscape where we lived."

As the book comes full circle, we find Tweit watching Orion again, strengthened by the love of a man who shares her understanding of the wholeness of nature, in the home they are building themselves on a "half-block of decaying industrial property" in a small Colorado mountain town, where together they have restored a ravaged creek to health. Health, restoration--another constellation of metaphors here.

But that's enough. You really must read the book.

by Susan Wittig Albert

for Story Circle Book Reviews

reviewing books by, for, and about women

Susan Tweit is grounded to time and place on this earth by the heavens. Having always loved the stars, in this memoir of faith and courage in the face of a severe illness, an autoimmune disease that some twenty years ago was supposed to kill her in five, she heads each chapter with a short story about the constellations. She also finds courage and faith and grounding in the act of walking and once took a hike of one hundred miles through a Wyoming wilderness with only a dog for a companion. When you understand how ill she was/is and what a feat it could be for a healthy individual, then you know the courage, the fierceness of will she possessed to endure. She took that "walk" not because she wanted to prove she could, although that might be a side motivation, but to learn to listen, to be aware and in the silence and the sounds of nature, learn more about herself and how to manage her illness.

I love that when she and her husband (who by the way is a darling man) moved to Colorado, they bought an old abandoned industrial property and began to restore it to health, starting with the creek. This is a beautiful story, a well-written story of tenacity and the power of the human spirit. A must read for those who are fighting an illness and for those of us, so far, in good health. It's a book that is now in my personal library and one I will recommend to my book club. Eunice Boeve, author

This is a gorgeous book -- about illness, stars, courage, honesty, and healing. It's the best memoir I've read recently -- and I hope it ends up in the hands of many.

As other reviewers have described, Susan Tweit's book is a beautifully crafted account of her personal journey with chronic illness. It becomes moving and inspiring as she shares her hard-earned insights about life. The parts of this book that I enjoyed most were those where she writes about the nurturing and healing powers of creativity, nature, and love. She writes about love in a particularly earnest, beautiful way--there is nothing sappy but nothing cynical--just honest wonder about the magic that she is blessed to experience. A delightful read that should offer solace to anyone facing a chronic illness--but also insights to anyone facing and reflecting on what's important in his or her own life.

Tweit's account of a rich, full life in the face of incurable illness is one of the most moving memoirs I've read in a long long time. Anyone who's battled a chronic physical condition or other challenges can find hope and inspiration here. Tweit relates the circumstances of her illness without pity and we're drawn in to walk the path along with her. A testament to the sustaining power of nature. I couldn't put it down.

In Walking Nature Home, A Life's Journey (University of Texas Press), Susan J. Tweit takes us on the remarkable sojourn of her life. Through her eyes we see the night sky's constellations and learn how they link life to the universe. We learn the value of not only human love, but the love of nature and the connection to all living things.

Tweit takes us back to her childhood, privileged with loving parents who took the time to teach the author and her brother the lessons of nature, lessons that she drew on and enhanced as she matured.

Diagnosed with a life-threatening autoimmune disease, Tweit learns to harmonize her life with the universe, to draw on strengths found in nature's cycles. She dares to leave the conventional-of both medical treatment and lifestyle-to pursue a life filled with spirituality, knowledge and love. As a naturalist, she shares her inspiring perception of the constellations, of birds, of affinity with her beloved Colorado with its wild and raw landscape, and of working with the land to coax sustenance from it, one small patch at a time.

Walking Nature Home is a moving story of courage and determination. At times fighting even to breathe, Tweit slogs on, working toward a life of harmony. She finds enduring love and learns the give and take of unconditional commitment between man and wife and of family. The book is a remarkable memoir of intuitive wisdom and personal triumph of this woman's journey toward healing power.

I received this book as a gift as I'm dealing with a serious illness myself. it's a different sort of inspirational book. Susan weaves a beautifully descriptive tale of her life dealing with a life threatening illness. I loved her use of constellations in the healing process. This was my bedtime book and one I looked forward to reading every night.

Susan J. Tweit's Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey is a wonderful reminder of the healing power of nature. Our health is intricately tied to the health of the land. I got so wrapped up in the story of Susan's journey through the natural world around her and her own process of healing and coming to terms with her own illness that I could not put this book down. I read it entire in one sitting, and then I read it again. Through powerful natural metaphors Susan guides us to an understanding of the world around us and our place in it. It's an amazing story on so many levels: finding a spiritual connection to nature, accepting and overcoming life's obstacles, a love story, a personal journey, and reclaiming and returning an unloved abandoned property to natural balance. There are just so many wonderful lessons here. That's why I'm reading it yet again.