The Wonders that Exist Inside
One who not merely beholds the outward shows of things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them, whose garment and revelation they are- if he be such, I say, he will stand, for more than a moment, speechless with something akin to that which made the morning stars sing together. – George MacDonald
We’ve heard the saying “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover” and decided that it means that ugly people can be nice and just because someone is pretty doesn’t mean they’re a decent person. I don’t like that. Sometimes ugly people are just ugly people through and through and sometime pretty people are lovely on the inside too. But that’s not why I don’t like it, I don’t like it because it’s so shallow. The idea that people are either ugly or beautiful, good or bad, nice or mean, smart or dumb, and that is what we should look for in a person. Instead of judging whether a person is nice or mean, good or bad, why can’t we simply look to observe what is there? Can’t something be beautiful on the outside and complex on the inside? Why don’t we look for the glory, the mystery, the wonderful, the unseen? Why do we take what makes up a man, a man created by God out of the building blocks of the universe, and dumb it down into simply good or simply bad?
George Eliot said, “Adventure is not outside a man, it is within.” Where is our sense of adventure? Don’t we all want to experience awe, to be struck by something too wonderful for us? In the quote above MacDonald is referencing Job 38:7 where the morning stars (or the angels) cry out joyfully together and shout in applause upon seeing the Earth which Jehovah has just finished making. Imagine seeing our planet for the first time when nothing like it has ever existed before. It is glorious enough to us in our narrow view of it and yet it is suggested that we may have the same sense of joy and applause, excitement and wonder that the angels felt when we search deep inside another and examine what they are made of. Many of us wish to explore the world, but we are surrounded by hundreds of worlds living and breathing and swirling around us everyday, we should explore those.
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. Eden Phillpotts
All of nature, including us, exists below the surface; the surface of the ground, the surface of our skin, the surface of our perception. These photos are a small sampling of the “savage and beautiful country” that lies in between the mysterious (Diane Ackerman).
A big, blue box on the outside, when you open the little viewing door just a crack bright, yellow light comes streaming out. It’s full of high intensity sodium light that you’re not allow to look at lest it burn your retinas out. I assume.
The brilliant pink flower that erupts from the center of the previously pictured cactus. It feels fake like plastic and the spikes don’t poke you.
Purple petals on an aphid infected flower look out like an eye deciding whether it is safe to bloom.
These plants produce a fruit that it only ripe for eating for small window of time before it become s full of acid and toxic to humans.
An ornamental fig. Not much smaller larger than a pea these small fruits have a teeny whole in the top through which a female wasp enters and lays her eggs. Next a male wasp enters and fertilizes the eggs. When the baby wasps are born they trample around in the pollen before leaving to lay their eggs inside of another tiny fruit, carrying the pollen with them. There was already a wasp in this particular fruit, can you see it?
These little flowers are special because they contain a lost memory from my childhood. Years ago my grandparent owned the Monte Claire Motel and there was one of these plants in the lobby. The flowers are smooth and plasticy and they leak a sweet, sugary liquid like little tears.
CHINKandCRANNY 