I make my own yoghurt.  I have a yoghurt maker, it saves money and plastic and I know it is additive free.  You have to boil milk first then leave it to cool before adding in live yoghurt from the last batch.  When I tip out the boiled milk, I see this:

Milk like a honeycomb, like sandstone, like skin cells.

Which reminded me about what I learned on my permaculture design course, about the shapes in nature:

  • Symmetry – faces, petals on flower, wings on a birds or butterflies
  • Spirals – water down the plug, galaxies, DNA, shells
  • Waves and ripples – water, sound, sand dunes, the wind moving through long grass
  • Spots and Stripes – on bees, leopards, zebras, tabby cats, ladybirds
  • Cracks – in bark, mud, ice
  • Tessellations – honeycomb shapes like the two above, also fish scales, turtle shells, shapes fitting together without gaps
  • Branching – Big things like tree trunks, leading to smaller things like branches, then twigs or small things like trickles of water run off, leading to streams, then rivers, then oceans.

The Fibonacci pattern is amazing, describing so many of the spirals we see in nature mathematically by adding the first number to the next:

0+1 = 1

1+1 =2

2+1 = 3

2+3 =5

5+3 = 8

8+5 = 13 and onwards towards infinity spiralling outwards: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 ∞

(Photo by Jon Lydon)

So what is this blog about? Nothing other than

Wow!

Isn’t nature amazing?

Oh..

and there is a whole new field developing called bio-mimicry where we learn from nature in our design. Waterproofing inspired by insects, concrete inspired by marine habitats, sewage treatment inspired by cow stomachs, are just some of the projects already underway.

So Wow!

and how? does nature do that?

followed by ‘what can we learn from it?’

Are, it seems to me, reasons to stop and pause over boiled milk.

 

If you enjoyed reading this please share it with friends. You might also be interested in talking to me about coaching , or maybe try some of my online courses (some are free), or treat yourself to a climate protecting pamper with vegan friendly, organic Tropic which supports the planting of forests and education in deprived areas.
Thanks for being here.
Julie