Bird Droppings August 4, 2010
Small is many times BIG

“I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” Laura Ingalls Wilder

It seems like yesterday that I was looking at some power point slides as we waited between committee meetings at Piedmont College. It was my Capstone presentation for my Masters Degree that was the culmination of nearly two years of studies. As I looked at the slides one set of slides is of my son’s old ten gallon aquarium, a nano reef, a mini reef for those less verbally aware. The object is you can have a beautiful salt water aquarium in a small space with smaller creatures. The up keep is actually significantly more than a larger tank because there is no margin of error in a small tank, but when you start looking at these tiny almost insignificant creatures they become breathtaking. In the space of ten milk cartons an entire world exists from a two and a half inch pistol shrimp that lives in a burrow with a three inch blenny a small fish to numerous corals and anemones. Interesting the blenny is very wary and the shrimp is blind, when trouble is coming the blenny pulls the shrimp back in the hole and when a tasty morsel is coming the fish encourages the powerful shrimp to grab it. Life in that tiny burrow is about two tiny creatures working together.
Last year a few days before school was out one of the teachers brought in a tiny green tree frog they had caught we arranged a little cage for observation. Over the years I have found the world close up can be more fascinating the great big world we live in. So often pieces are revealed that may other wise go unseen and life takes on a different aspect and perspective. This morning as I walked about the house the dew was so heavy from the humidity that all of the spider webs were very visible. I ended up taking photos of several with tiny dew drops hanging on each nearly invisible thread.

“Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it creative observation or creative viewing.” William S. Burroughs

So often we miss the small pieces always intent on seeing the big and little bits of life will pass us by. I recall watching my sons nano reef explode when he would drop in a feeding solution of microscopic particles of plankton and algae it was amazing. I do not even see what the tiny corals anemones and polyps can sense in the water. When they are closed up and appearing dead the animals open into beautiful living things seeking their prey when a food source is available. Nearly eight years ago I was handed a small piece of paper with my name on it written in blue ink and the word in capital letters PASS, written on it as well. That tiny note was the closure to two years of study and a door to another journey as my graduate school continued to unfold. So amazing a small piece of white copy paper can be so significant, for eight years now it has been in a frame in my classroom as a reminder. Please keep all in harms way on you mind and in your hearts.
namaste
bird