nature – Page 7 – Spyder Webb Fine Art

Morning Light

Posted on April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Morning Light FAA

A bright cool morning is flooding our flower friends with the promise of so many possibilities — and in their astonishing variety, the flowers are returning the favor, reaching out in their eager dance of life. They look like a bunch of kids about to be let loose for recess, don’t they?

But each day not only gives us the gift of a fresh start, in all the new paths it puts before us to explore, the day itself is also excitedly anticipating the gifts that we will bring to it. It lays itself completely wide open before us, giving itself totally to us with its new energies, its weather, its events, people, and it waits, not knowing, vulnerable, for what we will do with it. We’re not at the mercy of what the day will bring, it’s actually the other way around.

What fun to begin a new day — what gifts will it bring us? And what gifts will we bring to it?

This image is from my gallery, Xtreme Florals — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail please go here.

Honey Dipped

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Honey Dipped FAA

I look at these flowers and I can’t help but think of honey and butter rolled up in a warm tortilla, oh my!

That’s one my favorite sensual joys. I’m sure you have yours that are pretty awesome too. But you know, I never had to have yucky food to be able to appreciate yummy food. Yummy food is immediately yummy without needing to reference anything else but its own yumminess.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

It’s a spiritual cliché that if we didn’t know pain, how would we know pleasure, if we didn’t know the bad, how would we know the good?

I’m not buying it, and I think you can see from the example above (I’m sure you can think of a few choice ones of your own) how quickly that’s shown to be B.S. — Berry Silly. (mmmm, berries!)

Not that we can’t learn from suffering, because we obviously can, and not that I wouldn’t appreciate a good honey and butter burrito even more if I had to eat mud burritos for a few days.

The point is, it’s kind of offensive and patronizing to cite this particular bit of nonsense as some kind of sensible or comforting answer. Though I’ve been tempted to use it myself when I didn’t have any good answer for suffering. As if there was one.

And to think this all started with a picture of some flowers…

Some of which are good to eat also!

This image is from my gallery, Xtreme Florals — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail please go here.

Spring Plowing Soon

Posted on March 28, 2016March 28, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Spring Plowing Soon Small The foreground stalks are what’s left of last year’s corn harvest. In a few weeks they’ll be plowed under and enrich the soil for the next harvest.

Seed.

Growth.

Harvest.

Repeat.

But it’s not quite as simple as a repeating cycle, just a circle going round and round, returning to the same place endlessly. It’s actually more like a spiral of life and growth that never does return to quite the same place as before. A farming cycle isn’t the same in 2016 as it was in 1916 or 1816.

So here’s the deal: a spiral seen from directly above looks like a plain two dimensional circle. But when seen from the side in three dimensions (a view those trapped in two dimensions can’t access), the evolving spiral can clearly be seen.

But — sometimes — it really can be seen by those of us on the spiral. Unless we’re just spinning our wheels.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home of workplace, either framed or unframed, please click here.

West View

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Spyder Webb

West View FAA

It’s the last rays of the sun on one of the last days of winter, and the sky is beginning to light up the clouds with its magical evening glow. The ending of a day, of a season — it’s a time when nature can teach us some of its most profound lessons.

When a day, or a season is old and near its moment of transition when its light will be hidden for a while, that’s when the most spectacular, subtle and brilliant part of the day so often stuns us with its beauty.

But of course the light is never really gone because as the sun is setting for us, it’s rising to a new day somewhere else for someone else.

And not just days and seasons. Know what I mean, Jellybean?

Red Streak

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Spyder Webb

It’s the first days of spring, and in a few more weeks that red streak will turn yellow, then as summer digs in, it’ll be green and lush and home to many kinds of life.

For now though, it slashes straight through the still dormant scene like a pulsing artery bringing nourishment and life force through the seasons. It’s worth keeping that in mind as our world heads deeper into a season of darkness where hope seems to grow more dim with each day.

Even in the severest winter, there is a force which will not be extinguished, keeping life alive, nourishing the roots with love, ensuring a renaissance, and another inevitable springtime as the seasons will surely turn again.

Of course, this isn’t really about the weather. But then you knew that.

Tangled

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Tangled FAA Small There’s a light coat of snow outlining each branch, making visible the magnificent web of life that is a stand of trees. In another couple of months or so the branches will be nearly invisible, completely covered with an explosion of leaves soaking up sun, water, air, cleansing the atmosphere and lifting our spirits.

You know, there’s a saying: As Above, So Below. Meaning that the same pattern that governs great things governs the small as well. So does this look familiar? It’s the same pattern that forms our blood vessels, nervous systems, rivers and streams, supply chains for goods and commerce, the internet, the very movement of ideas and so much more.

What a gift the trees give us each winter, to lay bare the fundamental foundation that governs almost everything in our world. It’s great reminder that we’re built on the same set of laws that everything else is — not apart from, not better than, but very much part of one energetic Earthling family.

Yep, I said “Earthling.”

Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to look at this image fairly large. Otherwise, it just looks like…. a tangle.

Big Maple Stretching by the Road

Posted on March 10, 2016March 10, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Big Maple by the Road FAA Small

It’s late winter, and in the slower life rhythm of trees, it’s almost the dawn of spring. Now our maple friend is beginning to stretch and get ready for the new day.

She didn’t get this big and strong by being inflexible and refusing to bend or grow. Even in the dead of winter, when everything seems to have slowed down so much to have virtually stopped, her life cycle keeps moving ahead like clockwork, knowing just what to do and when to do it.

And so, her limbs strengthened by the winds of winter, in her own way she’s looking forward to a new season of growth and warm weather activities ahead.

I guess just because you’re rooted in one place it doesn’t mean you have to miss out on any of the richness of life.

Mister and Missus

Posted on March 9, 2016March 9, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Mr. & Mrs FAA Small

Nice young couple out for a brisk winter stroll, just waiting for enough ice on the pond to thaw so that they can have some fun swimming. Which it did the next day, and they did, dipping and shaking their heads and looking for all the world like they were having the best old time.

Having fun together is one of the many reasons for life, I think. Or just having fun, period. I wonder how far down the chain of life and consciousness you have to go before fun stops to have any meaning.

My suspicion is that the only thing that really changes is the definition of fun. The fun of a goose is different from the fun of a human, or the fun of a microbe, or a plant, or a planet or a galaxy. But the bottom line is it’s all fun, isn’t it?

Oh, lighten up!

Sun Set the Woods on Fire

Posted on March 8, 2016March 8, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Sun Set the Woods on Fire FAA Small

But it’s not a fire of destruction.

It’s a fire of glory, of beauty, of passion. The passion of love for creation, for what is, for how it all, every bit of it, changes and pulses and lives and moves, vibrates, glows, sings and dances and so much more.

You can’t contain that kind of passion. It combusts spontaneously, sometimes when you least expect it.

Burn, baby, burn.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home or workplace, either framed or unframed, please go here.

Rise and Shine (Xtreme Floral 22)

Posted on March 5, 2016March 5, 2016 by Spyder Webb

Xtreme Floral 22 FAA Don’t these girls look like they’re rising to the first morning rays?

Just look at them, rising out of the darkness, eager, stretching toward the light, toward the excitement of a new day to be alive. Flowers are beautiful, but they’re awfully short lived. For flowers, “seize the day” isn’t just a nice slogan, it’s a life mission, since their lives are measured in days, or weeks at most.

And yet their lives are full, presumably no less full to them than ours, or than that of a giant tortoise whose lifespan is measured in centuries rather than our own decades.

Every life can be full and rich, no matter how short, no matter what form it takes so long as it is truly:

lived.

This image is from my gallery, Xtreme Florals — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print either framed or unframed, please go here.