Up Close

Every particle of the world is a mirror. In each atom blazes forth the light of a thousand suns. Open the heart of a raindrop and you will find a hundred oceans. In a grain of sand lies the seed of a thousand beings.

Mahmud Shabistari

The Pine

A storm

blew through, leaving

its tiny tears twinkling

like jewels along the narrow

needles.

In a drop of rain, the entire tree reflects

Delicate beads of rain glisten on a tiny white flower

When trying to grasp the idea of infinity, consider the many tiny veins reaching across one small blossom in a single hydrangea cluster among a mass of hydrangea clusters on large hydrangea bush in a garden with many hydrangea bushes, in a neighborhood with many gardens, in a town with many neighborhoods…and you start to get the idea …

How does the velvety blossom feel beneath the feet of a flying ant?

Nature’s symmetry

The tip of a purple loosestrife blossom

Every little thing wants to be loved.

Sue Monk Kidd

When I feel anxious, I walk around with a macro lens exploring the world of insects, flowers, pine needles and raindrops. Intentional noticing of so-called little things feels like reverence and respect for something greater. It’s hard not to love a world that is so rich with color and life, and pretty soon I get caught up in it, forgetting my worries, even if it’s only temporary.

Thank you for allowing me to share these pictures and thoughts with you. I really appreciate you being here.

What Lies beneath

Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom.

Thomas Carlyle

An Array of Mushrooms

I looked for mushrooms in the woods behind my house one day after listening to a Hidden Brain podcast about slowing down. They were everywhere - and then I learned some things I didn’t know.

They seem to appear overnight, but the mushrooms we see are only part of much bigger, much older structures. They are the reproductive fruit of a network of mycelia living underneath the earth, a system of branches and threads spanning far beyond the part we see.

They feed on wood and leaf, living and dead. (Here it’s like a forest within a forest, of mushroom and moss)

They are abundant (Shelves on a dead log)

They can be Seemingly Solitary.

They can step into a tale (Amanita Muscaria - the mushroom from Alice in Wonderland)

They can be delicate and beautiful ( Crown-tipped Corral Mushroom among leaves, shelves and moss)

They can be shy

“Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding…”

From Sylvia Plath’s “Mushrooms” poem

They can stand together like a tiny army

“We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.”

from Sylvia Plath’s “Mushrooms” poem

My curiosity has been piqued by the reading I’ve done this week about mushrooms. I think I will be returning to this again in the future. I used some lines from my favorite poem about mushrooms by Sylvia Plath. To read the whole poem, and a great article about how it relates to the scientific truth about mushrooms, click here.

Thank you so much for being here! I will see you next week!

Once in a Blue Moon

The surface of the Moon is not smooth, uniform, and precisely spherical as a great number of philosophers believe it to be, but is uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences, being not unlike the face of the Earth, relieved by chains of mountains and deep valleys.

Galileo Galilei

Fragment

It was a quiet day,

but the night was wild -

with a fire blazing,

a chorus of cicadas singing,

and a giant blue moon

rising in the black sky.

The wild night is calling. - Van Morrison

Who has smelled the woodsmoke at twilight, who has seen the campfire burning, who is quick to read the noises of the night?

Rudyard Kipling

Moon Rising through the Trees

I wanted to share the moon photo while the moon is still nearly full, just in case you haven’t seen it. Maybe it will inspire you to go outside tonight. The first and last photos were taken with a new telephoto lens. After a big learning curve, I think I finally got the settings right. Anyway, I was up pretty late figuring it out (and waiting for the moon to clear the trees), so I’ll keep this one short.

Thank you so much for being here! I will see you next week!