By Scott Shephard

There is a word for the title of this post ("Little Universe") - it's microcosm. The opposite is macrocosm, which means "big universe." And they are relative, of course. To a galaxy, our solar system is a microcosm. But to the universe, our galaxy is a microcosm.

Sorry for the vocabulary lesson but as I was processing this photo, I was thinking about how easy it is to miss the smaller details in the things we pass by. Such is the nature of microcosms. This cactus and it's little leaves are but a tiny part of the macrocosm of Baja Mexico.

But come to think of it, except for the vast and immeasurable universe we live in, everything else is a part of a microcosm which is visible. And, like this cactus, it's all worth a closer look. . . . 

Canon 5DIII 1/180s f/4.0 ISO500 100mm