The Kingdom of Tiny Things

Discover New Frontiers in Nature — through your Looking Glass

Despite our immense and overwhelming presence here on Planet Earth, or maybe because of it, we humans seem universally drawn to things bigger than ourselves. Whales. The Grand Canyon. Giant Sequoias. Rainbows. The Heavens.

Bigger is better, we’re told. After all, how many of us get excited about “the next small thing” or a “really little deal?” Well, uh … I do. As it turns out, neither the heavens nor the humongous hold a monopoly on the exalted. It dwells as well within our grasp. See it for yourself through a lens — your hand lens.

More than a buyer’s guide to magnifiers for nature study and enjoyment, here for you is my brief homage to the tiny, an exhortation to slow your pace, to pause and breathe and journey through the looking glass — not necessarily for the strange and surreal, but for the small and sublime.