Heroes Not Zombies

This is a pretty common pattern in the sand created by the sea before the tide recedes from the beach. It looks like waves or ripples doesn’t it? When you look at this you know that it’s been created by the water.

There’s something about this kind of pattern which we recognise instantly as natural. I’m sure with skill, time and effort, an artist could create a similar pattern but there is something about an interplay of regularity and irregularity here.

Natural patterns usually share this quality. Not only are there “no straight lines in Nature”, a statement which isn’t 100% true but true enough to be a useful generalisation, but this interplay creates a kind of chaotic, or near chaotic, design.

This is where Nature exists. On the “far from equilibrium” zone, in the borderland between chaos and order. It’s unpredictable in detail, co-created with the local environment and it’s beautiful.

Here’s a different, equally natural, common pattern caused by water running over sand.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Both of these patterns can be seen elsewhere, in rock, in trees, in a cloudy sky or on the landscape seen from high above.

When I come across patterns like these I feel I’m glimpsing the usually invisible creative power of the Universe.