Nature's Place

Walking in the rainforest today, Mooball NP. It has dried out somewhat and there are far fewer mozzies now, thank god. I don’t have to use that Deet any more. There are spiders everywhere, young ones mostly.

No doubt a consequence of the recent and prolonged rains and the subsequent proliferation of insects. You can’t have one without the other.

It has rained all summer long and now the summer is over the weather is beautiful and sunny. Not too much heat. Maybe I’ll be able to go into Billinudgel NR soon, we’ll see.

Apart from the spiders I came across a few interesting creatures, most notably the gold and red beetle. A real beauty to my eye. There’s a gentleness about the ladybird like creature that pleases me.

After a couple of shots she climbed under the leaf so I had to turn it over, I always take as many shots at different angles as I can.

Usually there are only a couple of ‘keepers’, a relative term. I’ll keep a shot if it’s the only one of a thing I’ve got, no matter how ‘bad’ it is.

Right next to golden girl, on an adjacent leaf, there was a golden bum ant. Yes, golden bum. You will always know a golden bum ant by its golden bum. That makes sense.

It was studiously inspecting a bird dropping, perhaps it contained something useful or even essential to the ant. I wouldn’t be surprised either way. There’s gold in muck, as they say.

I tried to get a couple more shots of the ant but he went on down the stem of the plant and disappeared back into ant world. I couldn’t follow him there, not yet anyway.

Down the track a bit I was turning a bend and swinging my stick as I went, whisssh. And again, whisssh. Then I noticed a fellow up the track about a hundred metres.

He had stopped at the sound of my stick whishing through the air and he looked uncertain, as if he didn’t know what to do. Should he do something?

I immediately saw what the problem was. He was carrying a bedroll, all wrapped in black plastic. His clothes were filthy. He had been roughing it in the forest.

My guess is he was ashamed. At his own apparent predicament. Perhaps thinking, as the world would have us do, there was something wrong with getting out of the world for a while and back to nature in the nitty gritty of things.

In his shame he decided to turn and run back the way he came. I shouted out ‘you have nothing to fear from me’, but he was not listening.

I carried on my walk and inspected the area where he had left the main track and I could see there was a well trodden track going up the hill into dense forest. I left him to it.

Further on down the trail I called out, ‘it must get damp living in here’. No response, though I am sure he was watching from the forest.

It was lovely in the forest today. The afternoon sun streaming through the trees, and the cool of the dark shade. It is refreshing to be in nature, enervating, cleansing to the psyche.

This is why it is sometimes necessary, even vital, to get back to nature. The world can be a very hard place at times and it is easy to forget to do the simple thing like go for a walk where it is green.

If we forget for long enough the simple refreshing pleasure becomes an imperative. This is when we go to the extreme. And I don’t see anything wrong with that.

An enlightened world would make room for such ways of being. Alas! Those days are almost gone. But will come again as is the way of things in existence.

Then I noticed this dark blue bug on a leaf. I have to stop to look for what is there or it is easy to miss. This fellow was on the leaf for one shot and then he was gone. They don’t hang around, these bugs.

You have to remember it’s a digital image. It’s not the actual thing. Actually I couldn’t see half the detail I can see on the picture. But the picture looks unreal. But what is real?

It is what I am ok with, surely. No judgment, no problem. It’s a story after all. This life is no different, it’s too short a story to get hung up on judgment of some detail.

It’s a beautiful dark blue bug.

And this beautiful flower, sitting in the darkness of the deep shade of a giant tree and all the green growth around its base. I almost missed it. Little white star in the dark and green. A lovely thing to me.

Isn’t it a delicate beauty? It is so simple and undemonstrative, yet perfect in its being a small white flower in the huge dark damp forest.

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery