As we were going through some movie film clips the other day and looking at some scenes of water spray under a towering waterfall, it suddenly struck me that the appearance of this tumbling sheet of water broken into millions upon billions of tiny particles was strikingly similar to the photos of stellar galaxies as seen from Hubbel Space Telescope. Tiny white spots far too numerous to count or name and like their big brothers out in space, the sense of depth and age and distance was simply staggering.

Pondering this for a while, I began to think that what I was seeing is something that many of us see every day and perhaps just as many pass it by … that is to say the forest for the trees.

The concentric circle patterns of milk drops in a glass of milk are completely the same as radiant tsunami waves from an undersea earthquake. The ebb and flow of oceanic tides are in many ways the same as customers in a store at lunch hour, are the same as the regular seasonal migration of geese heading south to the warm, are the same as the crisp support of a surfboard being cut back into a standing pipeline wave, which is the same as an airplane being banked over sharply and fed lots of rudder input giving a sharp crisp in-control feel – the same for skiing or sailing.

The similarities of garden snails inching across a garden wall in parallel and sync with slow moving shadows of trees cast by the setting sun are powerful and clear icons and are difficult to miss, yet they remain fairly invisible to the hurried mind.

The slow and barely imperceptible change through the wardrobe of nature’s seasons round and round again are the same as the image of tree rings shown in a common piece of firewood, truly the giant wheel in the sky does go round and round.

The connection from sky to salmon to beach to cloud to forest to eagle all set against a backdrop of water drops masquerading as stars is very much in evidence and the pink seawater bladders that we call us, collectively longs to somehow fit in.

The television has in some large measure replaced true experience and the automobile has given us a sterile steel and glass fish bowl to peer out from as we pass through unscathed by the world of rich earthy smells and never before tastes and the kindness and open pleasantry from strangers encountered while walking on the beach. It’s still all out there. Take your love by the hand and start walking. Life is short.

Craig Sparks is director of NAWA and an avid wildlife photographer Found injured wildlife? Questions? Call NAWA at 665-3595; sparks@pacifier.com.