Series: Waterworld
Title: The Sinkhole. Badlandia Steppes.
I call this tidal flat anomaly the Sinkhole. Tidal flats or mud flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. This particular location is Tambon Pa Kok, Amphoe Thalang on the North East corner of Phuket island adjacent to the Bang Rong river.
The sinkhole seen from high altitude reminds me of a reptilian eye, in fact it has an organic shape reminiscent of a plethora of natures bounty. The spiral of snails shell or nautilus for example. It’s Fibonacci in the mud.
Yes the laws of the Fibonacci sequence or spiral are written into the sinkholes DNA. One of the most famous formulas in mathematics. Each number in the sequence is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. So, the sequence goes: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on. The mathematical equation describing it is Xn+2= Xn+1 + Xn. A mainstay of high-school and undergraduate classes, it’s been called “nature’s secret code,” and “nature’s universal rule.” It is said to govern the dimensions of everything from the Great Pyramid at Giza, to the iconic seashell.
Once again the phenomenon we call pareidolia come into play here. It;’s all part and parcel of the concept behind this series I call Waterworld.
Pareidolia as we know is the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music. In his notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci wrote of pareidolia as a device for painters, writing, “If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms.”
So what about the Sinkhole? Simply put, it’s a spiral maze that leads the unwary towards an untowards watery demise. Once caught within it’s linear horizontal gravity pull, there is no escape. Think of a weir pool in slow motion. And not just water in circulation. No this is mud in circulation…everything below your feet is turning in a clockwise fashion, all you can do is stand there, knee deep in the sludge and witness the distant hill turn around you. But the hill is not turning. You are! And with every turn you get closer and closer to the watery mouth. Your going under whether you like it or not…..
