I'm thankful for the natural world, and the fact that we get to experience it as beautiful. There's no evolutionary reason that we have to find nature beautiful, but we do anyway. I've read that there have even been times in history when people really didn't find beauty in the natural world, which ... what a loss. I love nature's small beauties ( Read more... )

Today, I'm thankful for nature, and its inescapableness. There are times, of course, when that's harder to appreciate -- that swelteringly hot summer day, or the bone chilling blustery wet winds of the shoulder seasons -- but I love the rhythms of the seasons, and coming to know how they take shape year to year in a place that I've lived long ( Read more... )

Last night, Lizette and I went to the Congress Street Bridge in Austin and watched the bats fly out at dusk. We were standing at a point on the bridge where the bats flew out in an arc and then back under the bridge to -- as far as we could tell -- join with more bats to fly out in a flowing mass from under the center of the bridge. We could look ( Read more... )

Today, a day late, but not a dollar short, I close up my Thanksgiving celebration with great gratitude for seasons. Sure, I don't love every piece of weather that comes my way, but I DO love the variety, the change, the way that it helps me feel the passing of time bigger than hours in an internal and tactile way. I love that there are days that ( Read more... )

Today, despite the vast unpleasantness of the Wintry Mix falling from the sky, I give thanks for the wonders of the natural world. Over this summer, I noticed that our front patio is perfectly situated to frame a spectacular sunset pretty much every night, and all fall, I've been caught breathless by the brilliant colors of the foliage. When I'm ( Read more... )

Good morning!

Here, have some wonderful patterns from nature, for your eyes' and minds' pleasure:

Fern:

( Read more... )

Today, I give thanks for the magic of the natural world. It has always seemed to me that the more I learn about how natural systems work, the more amazing and breathtakingly awesome it is ... and it continues this way. It's not just that life evolved at all, which is enough in itself to blow one's mind, but that all these different life forms ( Read more... )

The awesome new-to-me thing of today is the leafy sea dragon. Nature is the best!

My mom sent me some pictures this morning. ( There's a snake behind this cut: )

I think this is the best thing I've seen on the internet today: