By / Por:  Mauricio Valverde

               Nature Photographer

I am neither the victim nor the owner of nature; we both are partners in a multi-dimensional dance.  As I am able to take a step forward, I am able to take a step back. 

Nature sometimes asks me to take a step backward. Most of the time she propels me forward. 

Finally, I realize that nature and I are one – the more in harmony we are with our environment, the more spiritual peace we will have with ourselves.

I live in a very old cabin, inside the Monteverde forest. So very, very old that it looks as if it were out of a storybook.  One night a friend asked me if I ever feel lonely living here.  I laughed and said no, that I’m never alone.  I told her to close her eyes and listen to the forest that is all around us.  ’’Listen to what an abundance of life there is, listen to the concert of the minute creatures as they sing.  Look out the window at all those natural lights floating in the forest.

I believe that at this moment we are not alone,’’ I said.

Do you know who our company is?           

There are many and a great variety of organisms that make their home in the tropical jungles of Costa Rica, not counting humans. Just in our small country of only

19.700 sq.mi., there are over 9,000 flowering plants including more than 1,200 species of orchids.  More than 880 species of birds have been identified in our country, more than in the United States and Canada combined.  Our beautiful country hosts 376 species of reptiles and amphibians, 205 mammal species, 130 species of fresh water fish, and 10% of the butterflies that exist in the world… In addition to mushrooms, bacteria and insects, there are millions more species, many of them still unknown to science.

Insects!  One of my passions!  I call them “magic bugs”.

I always ask myself how would the world be if insects were the size of humans?

Would our species still exist? Or… what if insects did not exist?  Well, I don’t know, I will leave these questions to other researchers. 

I’m a photographer and a lover of all forms of nature in their present state…

Monteverde is one of the most magical places in our country and, I dare say, in the world.  A place where life is at every step you take, step by step, wherever you might look, something is moving.  You move a leaf, a rock, a decaying tree trunk, a plant and you will find life right there, miniature forms of life, sprouting from science fiction or from another world

– colors, textures, forms, feet large or small, antennae, camouflage, light

emanating from their bodies, everything you could possibly imagine is found in this world so very small but also so vast and marvelous. That is what moves me to drop to the ground, crawl, breathe in the smells, look in on a dimension different from ours and wait for hours for the instant when any of these creatures look at me and connect with me so I can connect with them. 

It’s at this moment that I capture the image.

Whatever we do to nature, be it good or bad, it will at some point be returned to us.  Therefore, let’s not totally destroy an entire mountain to build a shopping center, let’s not open the belly of our earth to extract its minerals, let’s not waste or contaminate our waters, let’s not cut down thousands of acres of trees in the name of  “progress”…

Let’s live in harmony with nature and be in balance with life.  If our natural surroundings are well, our physical, mental and spiritual health will be better.