Dillard describes her life in a remote cabin, living mindfulness, simplicity,  listening to oneself, looking for oneself rather than reacting to external noise and packaged sights. The power of living alone on one's own schedule, open to the feedback of the moment, is alive in this telling.

The depth of her penetration into the perfectly ordinary lives of the plants and animals that surround her is striking. Anyone who has lived in the woods knows that the strange and wonderful secrets she writes about do not reveal themselves to the casual observer, only to the focused eye and the open and patient mind. It seems as if she is living in some magical realm where the invisible opens itself to her eye and flows out through her pen. Her writing details in a striking way the pitiless indifference and confusion as well as the extraordinary beauty and order of nature. It is a testament to her skill of evocation that much of the book was actually written later, in an entirely different enviroment. .