Nature's Place

 
Not a bee of the pollen collecting kind. And not a friend necessarily known.

But busy, busy man. Too busy to really hear the flowers unfold. Collecting pollen of the psychic kind. Sticky stuff – already.

So busy, the pressure mounts unseen till it bursts its banks and brings all traffic to a screeching halt. Horns a honking.

Mental traffic. If I am real enough, no otherwise. Not before a crash.
 
Sitting at his desk a talkin, the phone rings, he answers – two conversations! The door knocks, he says ‘come in!’ Three, would you believe it?

Standing there talking on the phone. ‘No, don’t interrupt me, can’t you see I’m talking?’ Busy man, important man.

Is heading for a systems challenge. If he’s real enough.

“I don’t think so!” Say’s he.
 
She, a momentary glimpse of character – follow me being? The real in the chink in the sometimes necessary worldly but wearying play of personality. Mutually, silently agreed.

An awkward capture. Beauty, being – loves need.

Filling up with woe of man?

On my mind. I see Thee.
 
Tippin me hat to ya, good people!
 
As chaotic as the world appears at times there is integrity to it. The justice of returns. What I give I get, invariably. Though not always recognisably.
 
Existence, sense, is the canvas I work my magic on. Through the psyche, inside. The magic of what I attend to, be it light or dark, manifests. And just because it’s called one or the other doesn’t make it so.

Thank God for the simple good – of being a body of sense and not a mental creature.

It’s nice to be at ease of mind enough to enjoy the sunshine, the birdsong, the green grass.
 
No really! Enjoy the sunshine, the birdsong, the grass. And the way to do it is be in the senses and not thinking.
 
It’s a matter of focus.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery
 

 
An unremarkable creature to the naked eye. But once you get up close it is apparent this is a creature of God – whatever that is. Created by an unfathomable intelligence.

God the holy, the unspeakable, the one that has nothing to do with the many of what men think or believe. The being behind and in it all.

No problem. A good old Aussie attitude.

God’s an Aussie.
 
It has been cold on and off, depending on the clarity of the sky at night. If it’s clear it’s cold, cloudy is warmer. Just like inside. And it has been raining a lot too.

The lacewing came visiting a few nights ago. Attracted to the heat and light of a bulb I leave on to keep the insects out of the house. Some get in anyway. There are few enough now.

This Lady was meandering around the table across all sorts of colour and terrain so I got some dead leaves from the ground outside for it to be at home on.

Maybe, I don’t really know if it was at home but it was easier to shoot it on the leaves, easier to see it against the lighter background.

It didn’t move too fast so I was able to get a few good shots before its time was up. Time to be put back outside.
 
Isn’t it a beautiful creature, and those eyes? They are almost metallic reflective, you can see where it is close to the leaf’s surface it reflects the whiteness of the leaf.

I don’t know why the eye reflects those colours where it is in focus and out front.

But there is truth to the saying the eye is the window to the soul, the true nature.

This little beauty has magic inside. Golden magic.
 
There is nothing in between.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery
 

 
For anyone who read the schoolboy comics of the sixties in Ireland and England that is the ‘sound’ of a boy being bashed. Boy’s got bashed.

Today it means something else to me. Having spent some time at a photographic forum I have come to know B I F as the acronym for Birds or Bees In Flight.

They are a favourite ‘capture’ of the more accomplished photographers. There is a sense of accomplishment in getting them in focus, since that is not so easy.
 

I haven’t done well at all with birds but I got some B I F’s a few weeks ago.

It was just after the winter got here. The Passionfruit flowers were all but finished.

One day I went to get a few fruit from the plant and I noticed a couple of flowers were attracting bees in the last light of the day.

I got the camera and watched the bees for a little while to see what they were doing. I noticed they approached the flowers from one general direction and at roughly the same distance from me.

With this information I was armed for action, B I F action. So I set up an ambush.
 

I chose the most active flower and locked focus roughly where I thought the bee was going to enter it to collect the pollen.

I didn’t use a tripod, I used a stick planted in the ground which gave me vertical stability and enough to/fro manoeuvrability to change the point of focus at will – with focus locked.

As soon as the bee entered the field of view I shot, and shot again. As often as possible to increase the possibility of a good in focus image.

And it worked.
 

It’s a mechanical world, every action has a reaction, and it is predictable. As long as I have enough information, which I get from observation. And the ability to see my intention through.

The same goes for my own self, my own mind, as long as I can observe objectively. Not as easy to do as it is said.
 

Bee’s love pollen, whatever else can be said of them, they love it. And they will collect it for as long as they can before going home for the night. It is what they do.

And I love them for it, apart from the fact I love the honey they make. A wonderful food from a wonderful creature’s love for the work it is made for.

When there is such a wonderful flower as the Passionfruit flower to collect the pollen from we are truly blessed. And not only for the opportunity to capture some B I F’s.
 

Thank you Bee, thank you Flower. Gratitude for the simple things cuts through a world of pain.

When the need arises.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery
 

 
A singular swirl of colour in the deep of mind, red on white, on black. Nowt else. Being flower, the beauty of it.

Mystic red pervades my inner sense, as honey to a hungry ant.

In an old basket hanging from a tree down by the holed water tank, the flower blooms.

While one part dies from lack another part grows from need.

Life and death, not so far apart. One a threshold to the other.

Form, the tightrope we walk. Till we realise, there is no net.

Falling, letting go, giving up. Till there is no fear.

To nothing, no thing, to sense, but be.

As I always am. Inevitably.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery
 

 
This fellow has been sitting in my files for a while. Just waiting for the opportunity to present himself, or is it she?
 
I was walking by the Brunswick River one day when I came upon her. The track runs by the river bank and as I got close to the edge to see out across the water I noticed this wonderful Dragon soaking up the morning sun on the rocks below me.

She has the feel of a time long gone, with her horned armour skin, those deadly claws and the earthy camouflage and colouring.

And the face, she is a no nonsense creature, as all natural beings are.
 

The first sense that entered my consciousness was of the privilege it is to get so close to a wild Water Dragon. Because she allowed it.

Nature doesn’t make mistakes. She would have heard me coming long before I saw her so she didn’t have to be there for me to see.

She could have been gone in the blink of an eye, she is that quick when need arises.

But instead she sat stock still for me to photograph, occasionally moving a little this way or that, but never alarmed by my focussed attention.

Nature can tell when danger approaches, it’s in the psyche and can’t be hidden, except by the truly adept. And the truly adept have no malice.

All the natural creatures are connected in the psyche, to one degree or another.

She saw me coming, inside. And she saw no harm in me.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery