I'm just finishing Loren Eiseley's book "The Star Thrower". Eiseley's servies of essays and poems are a sampling of his work as a naturalist, poet, scientist and humanist.
There's enough food for thoughtful discussion to keep a body busy for a year or longer. A Chicago Tribune review from the time of publication in 1978 states, "His achievement is capturing the joy and terror in human experience, observing with a gifted, perceptive eye those intimations and meanings not visible to others."
In one essay he asks whether it is possible, in a time of modern science and it's ability to dissect every living thing down to it's minutest particle, to lose a sense of childhood wonder.
These thoughts were rattling around in my brain this morning on the drive to the vets office. Looking out the side window of the car I noticed the amazing watercolor image created as I gazed through a thin veil of ice crystals.
Yes, it is possible to retain a sense of wonder. Eiseley was able to nourish this ability as he spent much time alone on his hands and knees searching for the stones and bones that tell the tale of our most distant past.
Maintaining that sense of wonder and seeing the beautiful in the mundane is something we should all strive for in our lives. It's science softened by art.
2 comments:
If you keep taking your photos, I'll never lose my sense of wonder.
When I first glanced at this post, I thought "how unusual - she always has a photo, and she takes such good ones." I thought today's image was a scan of a painting or perhaps the cover illustration for the book you were talking about.
Ice crystals on the window.
Astonishingly simple.
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