What did Helen learn from her experience? What did you take away from it?
Created: 04/03/16
Replies: 5
Join Date: 02/05/16
Posts: 381
Join Date: 09/11/11
Posts: 132
Helen learns so much from her experience that it's hard to distill in a few words. She learns the difference between appreciating the wildness of nature and feeling like she is that same wildness. As she plummets from her grief and its shattering experience, she feels like she's in the wild, an animal keening. As she slowly recovers and as she watches Mabel, she becomes aware that the two of them are very different. No longer does she feel like they are one and the same. She can now acknowledge her love for Mabel but can individuate from her. I took away so much from this book. I just finished it today and I need some more time for it to settle before I can put it into words.
Join Date: 02/11/16
Posts: 60
I like that phrase, bonnieb, that 'she learns the difference between appreciating the wildness of nature and feeling like she is that same wildness'
I also felt like she learned patience - or perhaps that she learned that she had patience, she just didn't know it. She learned that people are important to her and to each other. There was a lovely line at one point about hands being for holding other people's hands.
I felt that I learned that getting lost for a while (whether through grief, depression or something else) is ok. That people can come back. That every one is unique but that in lots of ways we are the same. I found it a very thought-provoking book.
Join Date: 10/14/11
Posts: 153
I'm going to agree with both bonnier & KateB on this one.
This is a book I want to re-read - it is so rich on so many levels. The descriptions, language, writing style, the history, White, hawking, grief, acceptance, family, abuse...a lovely book
Join Date: 02/05/16
Posts: 381
I agree with KateB, bonnieb's description is beautiful, almost a poem, and it describes perfectly what I thought Helen took away from her experience that she wanted us to appreciate. For me that was an eye-opener; I've had plenty of grief experience but never have I struggled with the over-identification with a wild creature, partly out of her grief and her own needs, but also, I think, out of a positive love of nature and an imagination and empathy that is obviously essential to training wild creatures like a goshawk. She gave me insight into a naturalist's perspective that I have never had.
Join Date: 10/10/14
Posts: 11
I think Helen learned that cutting herself off from others was not the best way to deal with her grief. While she learned responisbility for caring for Mabel, she cut off all of her human support system. Eventually she learned that she needed that support to deal with her father's death.
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