Sail On
There, what rises in the clear dark space, inside. And passes.
Death, the wanderer pervades.
Colours green and silver in the deep blue place.
Up the wispy trail it is made.
Reminders of you. My love.
Going home on broken wings.
To no where.
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My Beautiful Raggedy Man.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Magical I
Out back where the flies fly and play there are a few tribes of ant that seem to get on together. That makes sense since they have inhabited the same piece of earth for millennia. Obviously they don’t compete directly or one of them would have been the victor by now, surely.
There are tiny golden ants that are so small they are rarely seen, unless I leave a little honey out. In fact that is how I discovered them. I left some honey on a few leaves to attract the flies but they weren’t interested and after some time the tiny goldies showed up and fed till it was gone. Now that I am aware of them I see them often.
There are some ants that are just too fast to shoot and don’t stop for anything, not for more than a fraction of a second. My camera wont focus that fast. In fact there are many kinds of ants about the house. There are the glossy black ants. And there are the armoured ants, in two different colours. Armoured because they have spikes protruding from their bodies at different strategic places, to give advantage in combat. No doubt they have their predators, as I have seen.
They all have different physical characteristics, sizes, colours, feeding habits, demeanor. Unique and beautiful expressions of the being of Ant, a quality of god from out of the pure psyche.
As all things are.
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Then there are the quiet blue – green ants. There are two nests that I know of in the back garden. I have seen them many times but until recently they have been very elusive to the camera. They don’t normally eat fruit like the others and they live in the ground at the base of the fence. When they come out it is usually to find the source of disturbance, which is usually me lately, since they are on the sunny side where I shoot flies in the afternoon.
In the last couple of days they have been out eating at the ripe banana that has fallen from the tree where the bats and possum have been plundering, and at the apple I put out today. Maybe they are just hungry enough after the long cold and rain, relative cold that is.
Anyway, I have taken the opportunity to shoot them and the results are wonderful. They have deep contours in their skin that reflect the darkest magical blue and green of the psyche. And they are gentle creatures.
I observed one appeared to be bowed, maybe resting, and was tended by another looking down on it and waving its antennae over it. They do communicate, and care, obviously. In their way.
I am touched, at the place where Ant and caring is. Where I am that.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Ambrosia
Nectar of the Gods.
Garuda, half man half bird, king of birds, eater of snakes, took it upon himself to steal the Ambrosia from an impossible place to ransom his mother from the snake queen. At the same time promising to return it to Vishnu which he did and for which he was given the honour of being Vishnu’s steed.
Ambrosia. That’s the aroma that was in the air today. An impossible sweetness, always just out of full sense. Not quite existential perhaps.
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The weather has been cold at night and warm at day. I have enjoyed shooting the flies out back where the bananas have fallen to the ground and the possum family have trampled the remains to ferment in the sun. I could swear some of the flies were drunk the other day, no kidding.
After they fed they would stop on a nearby leaf and rest a while for me to shoot. But it’s always on the day, in the moment. If I go looking for the same situation again it is usually elusive. That’s what keeps me from calcifying, everything keeps moving on. Nothing stays the same for long.
That’s what I love, the freshness of the new. Not knowing keeps me going. A paradox.
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This fly was enjoying a bit of fermenting banana in the afternoon sun, stomped on and mashed the night before by the possum that lives in the roof, when a mate came along. You can tell they are mates by the way they touch each other as they pass in their feeding meander. In #2 the left fly has a foot on the eye of the right fly while it has a leg on the left fly. #3 looks like high fives?
There is an obvious recognition in this touching. It’s a form of communication. They did this for a while, touching as they passed each other, and clearly it is a speci-al thing, you don’t see flies of different kinds touching this way. I don’t anyway. Though flies of different kinds recognise flies, clearly, from the way they chase and avoid each other.
Apart from the obvious size, form, colour and the fact you have never seen a depressed fly are they so different from you and I? Really?
Different yes, but so? Inside?
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
