The Greater World of Little Things

With nature, as with so many other facets of our engagement with the world, first impressions are important. It can safely be said and without the slightest delusion towards any sort of profundity, that nature is big, much bigger than the spaces we would normally expect it to occupy. While those initial impressions of it are powerful and significant, they could never reveal all that might feasibly be revealed. A second impression is required - a third, a fourth, and more.

The natural world can intrigue us, enthral or even overwhelm us. But why? Perhaps we need not look too deeply and merely absorb the moments. Perhaps though, the moments are more poignant if we do examine them more closely. Perhaps we require a balance between the two. It is this last that I hope this book achieves in appropriate measure.

It is a book that seeks to encourage a different view of the supposedly normal, or simply just a better look at what we think we have grown accustomed to; the simple interactions of a hedgerow that we walk past every day; the astonishing in the familiar; the unfolding pleasures of a subtle alteration of perspective. It also offers consideration towards the more intrinsic - us, our place and our connection with the natural world. Things from the frivolous to the fundamental.