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
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.
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
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
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.”
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
