When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.” It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker creek and thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing that like being for the first time see, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells un-flamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam. Annie Dillard
About This Quote

When the doctor took his bandages off, he led her into the garden, where she saw the tree with lights in it. It was for this tree that she searched through the peach orchards of summer, through the forests of fall and winter and spring. The tree was in her life since childhood. It was in her dreams; it was in her mind; it was in her heart; it was in her soul.

It was in her dreams and in her fantasies and in her hopes and dreams and in her fears and in her joys and sorrows. When she saw this tree, she knew that she had been looking for it all of her life. When she saw it, she knew that there would be no rest for her until she found a way to make it come to pass.

She has since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes away, but I live for them when they appear.

Source: Pilgrim At Tinker Creek

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  1. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
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  3. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.
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