Yogi Berra (of New York Yankee fame) is quite the quipster.  One of his most profound “Yogisms” is, “You can observe a lot by just watching.”  Unfortunately most people don’t do a lot of observing.

Yet, the world around us is filled with awe-inspiring sights and natural patterns that beg for us to observe them.  Some of these require that you travel to a far-away place (or at least someplace away from home base).  Many others are literally right outside your backdoor.

Let’s start near home.  In many places, flowering plants and bushes abound.  Even in desert settings, there are often some scrubby plants that occasionally flower.

Take a moment and really look at the flowers.  I mean really look closely.  Petals are often arranged in groups (corollas) of 4′s (poppy and cruciform families) and 5′s (rose family) and the flower often exhibits varying amounts of symmetry.  The central part of the flower, filled with male and female reproductive organs is also often symmetrical or contains various patterns or designs.  The sunflower may provide the penultimate example of swirls that follow patterning as described by a Fibonacci number sequence.

Trees often exhibit vertical symmetry.  Start at the tree’s peak (whether pointed or rounded) and imagine a vertical line down through the trunk to the ground.  You’ll find a great many trees that would have matching halves.

Geological patterns have patterning galore.  It may be the layering of sedimentary (layered) rocks seen out road cuts (e.g., Sideling Hill’s folded rock strata in western Maryland , in highly eroded landscapes (e.g., Grand Canyon) or the shape of stratovolcanic craters.

Clouds also exhibit patterns, with many showing symmetry, as well.  Cumulus clouds (flat bottomed, puffy clouds) always show a similar shape although most cumulus clouds lack symmetry due to variations of rising air currents through the cloud.  Alto- and strato-cumulus clouds often have banding (either in one direction or in criss-crossing bands).  The latter yields a herringbone appearance.

Ocean waves either offshore or as they reach the shoreline come in sets that have more or less uniform wave spacing.

Humans add to the mix by building houses, buildings, bridges and other structures that typically have patterns or symmetries.

This is literally the tip of what the natural world offers us each day.  But our daily hustle and bustle often forces us to miss these.

Consider the following example.  Imagine that you are driving into a large parking lot (science center, shopping mall) and you see someone sort of pull into a parking spot, leap from his car camera in hand and then proceed to start taking pictures of the sky.  The cameraman is constantly shifting position slightly as he photographs “something.”

Would you leap from your car, too, and use your hands or a hat to block the sun and see what he was doing?

Well, back in the mid 1990′s about a dozen folks did just that.  The photographer was shooting images of a halo (colored ring surrounding the sun produced as light shines through cirrus or ice crystal clouds).  Almost everyone noted that without that person’s actions, they would never have even looked up.

So, look up and around and you just may be amazed at what you observe.

Matt is a nature enthusiast. He has been writing about nature for several years. A new project Matt is involved in is this website: Boston Whaler Boats. It is an information site that covers several boating subjects including Boston Whaler Parts. Matt loves these boats and is an avid outdoorsman.

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