I am astonished by all the tiny structures that exist in nature but I am also astonished by the mahoosiveness of nature!
Why do these two extremes exist? It is possible to go through our whole lives without noticing much of this. The way we live in much of our 21st century culture has made it possible for many human beings not even to know the difference between two types of tree. Yet, when we give ourselves time and space to think and notice, something happens to us. I wonder if it is something to do with the sense of scale…we can perhaps get a sense of where we fit in somewhere between the micro and the macro. We are in a privileged position which means we can look in both directions. If we were the smallest organism in existence we would only ever see things that are bigger than us, perhaps this would make us feel insignificant and overpowered. Being the largest in existence may seem overwhelmingly daunting, to have so much responsibility towards everything else, or may give us a false sense of our importance. Being able to see in both directions somehow seems like balance to me. We can stand and take in the placing of our selves as both responsible and unburdened. Able to look after and nurture but also to receive care and relief from responsibility too. Sometimes we are called to rise to a challenge and then others we need to recognise our limitations and take comfort in the fact that this is time for us to rest. Maybe occasionally we are just looking in the wrong direction. We can become so focussed on the detail that we can’t see what really needs to be done. We just need to pull back, take a breath and look up at the big sky for a while; acknowledge our size and feel the safety of being part of the bigger picture.