Nature's Place

I left to go to the shops to get a local paper this afternoon and I came to flooding a few hundred metres down the road from where I’m living. The fellow in the Landcruiser didn’t make it through the water and had to turn back it was that deep. The field next to the road usually has cows in it but today it’s a flood channel to allow water from the hills behind to get out to sea.

Everywhere I went there was flooding. The normally placid tidal creek was overflowing and rapid today, I often go swimming a ways down from here. It looks as if it will be swollen for a few days at least, and more rain is forecast for the area.

I went a roundabout way to the shop and on the way back had a look to see how the road was from the other side, just thought I’d show you. These signs are not uncommon in regional Australia, where I am – though much development has taken place in recent years and there is more in the pipeline. These roads are allowed to flood because if the water was blocked here it would flood a little further south, where six thousand people live. It would be nice to believe they will leave places like this the way they are, but I don’t.

I called in to the reserve too to see how it is after all the stormy weather. What I found wasn’t unexpected. There were trees fallen across the paths and when I set out to see if one of the creeks I know was flooded I didn’t get very far before I ran into flooding on the trail. This water was flowing, to where I couldn’t see, maybe to the creek but certainly towards the sea.

So I went back a bit and tried another trail. A few hundred metres in and I had to go bush to avoid more minor flooding on the trail. But just twenty metres on I ran into an impassable river where last week there was a stream I could hop across on the stones and logs.

I did encounter a lovely orange mushroom  looking as if it had been standing in the rain waiting to say hello. Hello! There’s a smile in this sweet little form of life. Do you see it? Don’t try; just pull back from looking for anything in the usual way. Relax the eyes and see without looking to see. Look closely without looking at anything in particular. This way you see what others don’t. You see inside, where all things smile.

There was a crew of small native bees hanging on a slender branch of a tree overhanging the trail. They were about head height and I nearly walked into them except I noticed just in time a darkening and thickening along the branch that was out of place.

They are gentle creatures the Aussie bee and these were looking a bit tired from all the commotion, but still hanging in there, no problem. I was about to snap them when they all just flew away. Camera shy I reckon.

It really is a time for doing little, staying indoors and letting the unnecessary things and thoughts fall away. Because really, there is not a lot to be done. And what is to be done is being done.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery