Continuing my blog catch-up, here’s some spurious mind fluff about a seasonal thing which has caught my interest and snagged my face over recent weeks.
As well as these low-lying webs, there are many less visible higher versions spun from tree branches and even inside the home. They are never pleasant to walk into.
You can find wonder in its connection to wider things, to the idea of connection itself. The world wide web is an obvious pun I’ve played with before. Social networks and digital human connection is something on which the world is fixated. But the idea of everything infinitely connecting in the most unlikely ways also has a wider echo, a sort of scaled-down string-theory, an unknowable orbital journey.
There’s a magic in the coincidence of improbable connections, but also a fuzzy logic. Things have to connect, don’t they? Some people are devoted to the idea that ‘everything happens for a reason’. (As this piece suggests, I am not). But this ideal relates to a key function of our brains: making associations and connecting stuff. We find it inherently pleasing to join the dots, solve problems and find patterns.
Beyond all that, I just think cobwebs look pretty cool.
Another autumnal thing I love to peer closely at and photograph with my phone: mushrooms. They are awesome.
How dew and frost and water droplets cling to things: that is also amazing. In terms of pattern and design, nature is hard to beat.
Most obviously cool of late has been all the dreamy mist. One morning stroll renewed my love of the Garth, having not visited for a while.
I love you autumn, please stay a while longer.
‘Canton & Pontcanna’ my new book about the two districts of Cardiff published by The History Press is available now through Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canton-Pontcanna-Mark-Hawkins/dp/0750988142.