Coherence

I stepped out onto the screened porch of a cabin on Belgrade Lake and I beheld an inspiration... a display of visual coherence. The cabin is just two feet of pine-needle-covered-path from where the bank drops to the water, and about half way down the bank a fern's fronds spread in the morning sun. The soft movement of leaves in an overhanging birch filter the sunlight and spatter the bank with quivering splashes of deep gold, and as the fern's fronds tremble in the slight breeze they shimmer rhythmically. The dual movement patterns of shifting light and fluttering foliage overlap, vibrating with morning's energy.

Looking just beyond the fern to the water's surface, alternating ultramarine and cerulean surface reflections move in a soft ripple pattern akin to patterns the flowing tide leaves in the sand. Gleaming through this blue surface pattern are gold strips of focused light moving across the rock shapes on the lake bottom; each individual ripple creates its own gold refraction line.  The gold lines merge and fluctuate like vibrating zebra stripes, passing from left to right as the waves respond to the slight breeze; their changing shapes illuminate the topography of the lake bed.

As I stood there transfixed, it was obvious to me that these patterns of movement were the same, juxtaposed for my benefit. The rhythm of the golden refraction pattern fluttering across the lake bottom danced with the same energy as the individual fern fronds vibrating in the breeze under the shifting sunlight. So different, but pulsing with coherence.  Energy and matter - essence and form; it is shimmering all around us.