Kundalini Splendor

Annie Dillard

"In any instant, the Sacred may touch you. In any instant, the burning bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in tree."      
                                          Annie Dillard

To my mind, if Annie Dillard had written nothing but this sentence, she would have found her place
as one of the most brilliant writers of our time.  Her life follows a fascinating trajectory from the  distanced scientific scrutiny of the fight for survival amongst the inhabitants of Pilgrim Creek (copperheads, frogs, bugs and other curious critters) all the way to the epiphanies captured in such moments as revealed above.  In her later years her idols were Teihard de Chardin (the Omega Point, where God and human meet) and Baal Shen Tov, the founder of Hasidism.

She does not write about contemporary issues.  Rather she focuses (in these later works) with laser precision on the eternal issues, the moments of glorious revelation, the things that endure always, as if humans and their mundane struggles did not exist.

Here books are manuals for spiritual pilgrims and aspiring authors.  Her sentences are like radiant jewels suddenly rising from the muck of much contemporary writing.  They deserve to be pondered, studied, memorized, seared into the folds of the brain.  She is one in a million, not as worn metaphor but as undeniable fact.   In her later works she dwells where time meets eternity and leaves the passing throng to its own feckless pursuits.  She and God are close buddies and enjoy a shared perspective, as if she is cradled in the palm of the Almighty and sees the world from this vantage point.

I once saw her onstage many years ago in San Francisco.  The experience was one of shock.  Her appearance was that of a typical New England matron, perhaps a stereotyped faculty wife outfitted for an academic tea.  She seemed to lack physical balance, and constantly reeled from one side of the stage to the other.  She continually jerked her glasses on and off, as though she were unnerved by her public appearance.  The Annie of Pilgrim's Creek, clad (in my imagination) in a flannel shirt and jeans, was nowhere to be seen.  And the saintlike being of later years, the pale nun or ecstatic devotee, likewise made no appearance.  Once again I was reminded that there is a great distinction between the author and her projected image, the creator and the creation, and that it is the work itself that should remain our focus and the occasion of our admiration and gratitude.

For a fascinating article on Annie Dillard's life and creative output, see this article:

"Where Have You Gone, Annie Dillard?
Why the author has become so much less prolific over the past 17 years"

WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ MARCH 2016 ISSUE of The Atlantic