To Weave Her Patterns.....

I have seen nature's patterns while travelling - and in books and online - that show the amazingly intricate designs in nature, particularly underwater creatures such as spectacularly complex ocean shells, reefs etc, and the exotic patterns on birds and fish .... and it is awe inspiring.

My own world is more simple than that - so I explore patterns which I find in my garden and in the natural things I discover at my lake district in NW Ontario. By noticing, and then studying, patterns (that I often saw in my camera(!), I started looking for them with a kind of obsessive eagerness.

I find the smallest and most secret patterns are the most interesting, while those that I don't recognize by eye (until they pop up in my camera) are always the most surprising.

We are all taught patterns made by humans - like those in music, and of course, patterns in mathematics, visual patterns in forms of human art, in language and in other "human created" patterns. But to see them in nature, not created by humans -- but by a complex form of earthly energy (that we still wonder over), is always a miraculous thing for me.

Humans had nothing to do with the creations of the patterns below, but for me they have  allowed me to appreciate and to know deep down, that despite global warming and changes in the environment, nature will adapt - and that those things in nature  - created outside of human skills will always survive, even after we are long gone - creating new and old patterns of  - right down to the sheer perfection of perhaps a newly designed  single feather - or butterfly wing.

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave 

her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric

reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

Richard P. Feynman

Spider Web Coated in Morning Dew
Photo: © Margaret Buffie

For most of the history of our species we were helpless 
to understand how nature works. We took every storm, 
drought, illness and comet personally. We created myths and
 spirits in an attempt to explain the patterns of natures. 

Ann Druyan

Black Swallowtail Butterfly wing  Photo: © Margaret Buffie

There is no better designer than nature. Alexander McQueen

Marsh Mushroom

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Goshawk Feather

Photo: © Margaret Buffie 

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

John Muir

Gem Studded Puffball

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in nature, which 

if we consciously yield to it, will direct us aright. 

Henry David Thoreau

Brown Marsh Mushroom

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Frog  Skin

Photo: © Margaret Buffie



The interpretation of our reality through 
patterns not our own, serves only to make us 
ever more unknown, ever less free, ever 

more solitary. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A Wasp's Nest

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.  Lao Tzu

Brown Foliose Lichen 

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

I go to nature to be soothed and healed

and to have my senses put in order. 

John Burroughs

Orange Tree Mushroom

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

I consider myself a farmer of patterns. 

Alexander Gorlizki 

Dried Tree  Trunk

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

To understand is to perceive patterns. Isaiah Berlin

Web over the water 

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

A repeated shape is not actually the same – 

the more subtle, the more poetic this repeat is, 

the more we feel that resonant pulse. 

Suzanne Northcott 

 

Arrow Head Rock 

Photo: Margaret Buffie

The only difference is our perspective, our readiness 

to put the pieces together in an entirely different way 

and to see patterns where only shadows appeared 

just a moment before. 

Edward B Lindaman

"Magical creatures" Found Under An uprooted Tree

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

                                    

We artists have been affected by patterns in nature 

since day one. Every line we lay to paper and every move 
we make is part of the magical sequence - and the 
line goes where it needs to go depending on one's influences. 
Kristi Bridgeman 

Island reeds

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Interesting phenomena occur when two or more rhythmic patterns are combined, and those phenomena illustrate very aptly the enrichment of information that occurs when one description is combined with another. Gregory Bateson

Slanted Light on Lily Pads

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

In the Egyptian we have no traces of infancy or of 

any foreign influence; and we must, therefore believe 

that they went to inspiration directly from nature.” 

Owen Jones

(Note, while at my lake cabin is in NW Ontario I  love to find feathers lying around in nature - and in this one, I see a First Nations Moccasin in its pattern!)

Baby Loon Feather

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Look deep inside nature, and then you will understand everything better. 

Albert Einstein.

Canadian Anemone 

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

All my inspiration comes from nature, whether it's an animal or the layout of bark or of a leaf. Sometimes my patterns are very bold, and you can barely see where they come from, but all the textures and all the prints come out of nature. Diane von Furstenberg 

Hosta Leaf

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Sedum 

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

It is the marriage of the soul with Nature that 

makes the intellect fruitful, and give birth to imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

Tulip Petal

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Cone FLower

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Knapweed with Honey Bee

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Rhythm. Life is full of it; words should have it, too. But you have to train your ear. Listen to the waves on a quiet night; you’ll pick up the cadence. Look at the patterns the wind makes in dry sand and you’ll see how syllables in a sentence should fall.   Arthur Gordon

Sun on Moving Water 

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

First Drops of Morning Rain on the Lake 

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Some of nature's most exquisite handiwork is on a miniature scale, 

as anyone knows who has applied a magnifying glass to a snow flake. 

Rachel Carson

Very Tiny Snail Shell in the Marsh

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Deep in the time when summer lets down her hair?

Shadows we loved and the patterns they covered the ground with
Tapestries, mystical, faint in the breathless air.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dew On Spider Web in the Grass

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature. August Rodin

--------

Pay attention to the intricate patterns of 

your existence that you take for granted. 

Doug Dillon

Black Swallowtail Caterpillar

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Gypsy Moth Caterpillar 

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Luna Moth Caterpillar (sitting on my camera strap!)

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Very Tiny Marsh Snail Shell

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Snake Skin Shed Sliding Through Rocks

Photo: © Margaret Buffie

Final thoughts from someone I deeply admired:

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter. Rachel Carson