Patagonia, at the Micro Scale: A Photo Essay

There is every reason to think of Patagonia on the MACRO scale.

It's where two of the earth's major oceans converge. There are massive glaciers. Major implications for the world's geology. Maritime studies -- of hundreds of thousands of penguins and whales and anchovies and sardines -- that help us understand the origin of our world as we know it.

For this photo essay, I took the opposite approach.

That is, I focused (literally) on the wonder of Patagonia at the micro scale.

Most of the images below fit within a two-by-two inch frame. They include edible fruits along the trail of a national park. "Waves" of geological formation within a rock. Vegetation from all over the color scale. A decaying vertebrate bone from a sea elephant. A translucent piece of seaweed so thin you can see the grains of sand underneath it. Lichen shaded in perfectly complementary colors of gray and yellow, and the underside of lichen that sparkles like diamonds.

This kind of zooming in, and this kind of deep dive, is a helpful strategy too, to approach the current state of Chile's wine industry: not only this wine, but this wine, made from the same vineyard, from the same grapes, by the same winemaker, for the past 25 years. And etc.

Stay tuned for that. But for the moment, here's a look at Patagonia, on the micro scale.

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Essay: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Photo Credit: Cathy Huyghe

Traveling... From "I Know" to "I Wonder..."

It’s time to let go of “I know,” my yoga teacher said this week, and come instead to the place of “I wonder.”

I’ve been thinking about this as I prepare for my first trip to Patagonia, in Chile.

There is everything I don’t know about it.

I don’t know what should go into my suitcase as I pack. What jacket? What boots? What layers of clothes? What power cables?

I don’t know the intangible things, either. What to read? What maps to study? What history to learn? How do grapes grow, anyway, in a sub-Arctic climate?

It’s an exercise in humility, this not-knowing.

It’s a lot of disjointed phrases, and their interrogative endings.

But what if all those question marks turned into ellipses?

Let’s say “?” became “…”

Let’s say, too, that “know” became “wonder” in my sentences tonight and tomorrow night as I finish packing.

Hmm. Let me give that a try...

I know that grapes grow in a sub-Arctic climate.

Or, better, I wonder that grapes grow in a sub-Arctic climate…

I know that I’ll be traveling by boat this weekend from vineyard to vineyard.

Or, better, I wonder that I’ll be traveling by boat this weekend from vineyard to vineyard…

Somewhere in the shift from “know” to “wonder,” my head as well as my suitcase starts to feel prepared.