Nature's repeating patterns appear in different landscapes and environments. On the ocean shore, the receding water has carved out a denndridic pattern in the sand.
Perhaps because I missed seeing the April 8th 2024 eclipse due to cloud cover, even though I was in the zone of totality, in this sea-worn pebble, I see the moon blocking the sun, with the corona and solar flare visible.
I imagine the Hadj where millions of pilgrims have worn down the ground as they circumambulate the Kabela even as crowds stream in toward the enclosure from the rest of the world.
Two pebbles sit in a patch of sand that recorded the diamond pattern created when two lobes of a receeding wave met and crossed each other. Don't meteors do something similar when they enter earth's atmosphere? What about when people of different cultures meet and interact, do they set up something akin to interference patterns?
In this image, I see myself reflected in the pebble and in every bubble of the foam. Is that cause for tears? Or have I finally noticed that we are reflected in everything and everyone that we encounter. Perhaps, it is the only way we can really see ourselves.
The upturned shell of a crab holds some of the sea from a recent wave - sand, water and a bit of foam. We could say the same about each of us in that all life had it's origin in the ancient seas. Even the saltiness of our blood and our tears reminds us of that. We all have this in common.
An empty crab shell is all that remains after life has vacated its form. I ask myself, what will remain of my life when I have come to my end?
While I might at times pretend that I am completely independent and an island unto myself, a larger perspective shows me the folly of that thought.
This rock is an odd-ball! Both the "ball", a concretion, and the surrounding rock are composed of the same sandstone. So why should a nearly round sphere separate itself from the parent rock in which it is embedded? While I want to find answers to what I don't know, sometimes, I just honor the mystery.
A grass shoot has formed an almost perfert circle at one end. The circle is seen by some as a symbol of perfection. What was the twist of fate that allowed this piece of plant to be washed up with the tide at my feet to deliver this message to me - personnally?
Weather-tossed logs sit in a jumble at the edge of a beach. Out of the chaos, a wreath-like form catches my attention. A wreath of welcome or victory? Or does it celebrate persistence?
Nature survives by looking for opportunity. Here, a clump of grass finnds a home in a pocketful of sand deposited in the hollow of a storm-tossed log. Will it be able to survive and extablis a foot-hold? Even though its survival depends on the circumstance, Nature always keeps trying!
"Aggregating Anemones" squeeze together in the limited space of a tidal pool. Their odd shapes are determined by the closeness to their neighbors. As genetically identical siblings, there seems to be no possiblity for them to "feel" lonely.
While the muscles have glued themselves onto rocks pounded daily by the surf, small barnacles have glued themselves onto the mussels. When real estate is scarce, it is all about the importance of having a place to call home.
Looking like dark black eyes, empty protective "shells" are all that remains of once-living barnacles.
Long before there was the internet or even telegraph wires, there was the network of roots running over and through the soil. I wonder what messages they are sending? Are any for me?
These pieces of wood look to me like the bones of an ancient reptile locked into stone. They are, in reality, a rather a different type of fossil - the remnants of a tree that was buried by the dune sand of the coast. Whether reptile or tree, both remindme that time measured in a single life-time is a very small fraction of the flow of time.
These diminuitive lupine plants with their long shadows look like an oasis of date palms as they might be photographed while flying over a desert. Where are the camels? What tinny creatures of the dunnes stop at this oasis?
This beach-grass is adapted to life in the coastal dunes. As the base of the grass captures the wind-blown sand, new sprouts grow grow upward toward the surface and root allowing the grass to survive as the little mound continues to grow higher. Adaptation is another one of Nature's survival strategies.
Dry wind-blown sand, captured into a small hill at the base of a clump of grass, cascades sown over the rain-dimpled surface below - a landslide in miniature. I sm not in danger from this geological process because scale matters.
