Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey

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.

Susan J. Tweit is an award-winning author whose passionate articulation of humans' relationship with the "community of the land"--nature and the landscapes we love--has earned her accolades that include a Silver Eddie, the Oscar of magazine awards, for "The Last Refuge" in National Parks magazine, and a spot on the Denver Post's "Colorado Voices" panel--twice. Her eleven books include Colorado Less Traveled, a finalist for the Colorado Book Awards, and The San Luis Valley: Sand Dunes and Sandhill Cranes, hailed as "a joy to read" by High Country News. Tweit writes a weekly column, "Nature of Life," for her local paper, the Mountain Mail. She also records and produces this material for broadcast on KHEN-FM, her local community radio, and as podcasts on her Web site, susanjtweit.com.