#17 / Pay Attention

Christian Schwarz, pictured below in a red cap (perhaps in imitation of the mushrooms pictured), is roaming the woods looking for mushrooms and other fungi. A very nice article on Schwarz appeared in the December 30, 2018, edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

As an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology, Schwarz passed the time between classes wandering through the redwoods, marveling at what he found. It was on these excursions that Schwarz discovered a purple mushroom, Pseudobaeospora deckeri, which he named after one of his high school teachers, Lee Decker. He also collected observations for a book, “Fungi of the UCSC Redwoods,” published in 2017 by the UCSC Natural Reserves.

I particularly appreciated one of Schwarz' observations, as reported in this article:

Paying attention to the world is how you see its value.

The "world" that Schwarz is talking about is the Natural World, not the world of human institutions and constructions. It is the Natural World, in the end, upon which all our human creations depend.

Take a look at it sometime. Pay attention! That is how you will see its value!

Image Credit:

(1) - https://herbarium.usu.edu/fun-with-fungi/fun-with-fungi-fact-sheets
(2) - https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2018/12/29/history-of-mushrooms-comes-naturally-for-christian-schwarz/