καιρός remembered

The universe in a forest

I took this photograph in the same woodland as last week’s picture. I was fascinated by the illuminated green specks – leaves and reflections of leaves – in the middle of this very dark pool. But it was only when I looked at the photograph on the screen afterwards that I began to notice all the other tiny objects and glimmers scattered across the surface of the pool. And suddenly, this made me look at the photo in a different way: as an astronomical image of enormous proportions, featuring nebulae, star clusters and entire galaxies, hundreds of millions of light-years apart, in the immense darkness of the universe.

Last week, the forest took me back in time, to the very dawn of life on our planet. This week, that same forest catapults me into space and offers me a glimpse of the far reaches of the universe. Isn’t it a wonderful world, in which the human eye and mind each play their own marvelous role?

Photos of the week: Waterloopbos, in the polder near Vollenhoven and Marknesse, Netherlands, 2013