sensing To see a world in a grain of sand,And a heaven in a wild flower,Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. — William Blake
03 Focus Landscapes are big. This is one of the things that distinguishes them from yards, neighbourhoods, even cities. But landscapes are not made only of mountains, rivers and fields – the big things that contain human lives. They are also green lichen on granite, dew on a bramble leaf, the tiny crimson spiders, fifty of which would fit on a thumbnail, now making their way along the sill outside my window. To fail to take the measure of these very small things, things that fall through the sieve of perception, is to fail to know perhaps the biggest thing of all about landscape: its allencompassing physical and psychic presence. So: whatever the task, whatever the place: think big, but look small. Landscape is there, too, just beneath the surface of the lazily sensed. Enter and inhabit this other world. Find there universes on universes.
For further reading:
Blake, William. William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books. London, New York: Thames & Hudson in association with the William Blake Trust, 2000. Mandelbrot, Benoit. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1983.
39