New Year?

Posted in Blue Banded Bee, Life, Love, Macro Photography, Meditation, Nature, Photography, Relaxation, Spirituality, Sustainability, Truth? by Mark on 31/12/2012

Not for this little fellow. Probably because he was shot on Xmas day, and it was raining. It is still 2012,yes??? Had to check.

What’s this obsession with the marking of time, easter, birthdays, holidays, xmas and now new year? Or is it just a distraction from time, psychological time.

Is it just a political and economic opportunity? Or has that just usurped the natural people’s celebration of the passing of the seasons. Because make no mistake, the pollies and business-men only have their own best interests at heart – with the occasional exception, there’s always an exception to make the rule.

Anyway, given the obscenity and sentimentality of modern celebrations I give them a miss. I would rather be writing this, or shooting pix in the field or garden, but certainly not getting inebriated with so-called friends who are gone tomorrow when the headaches set in.

Inebriated on my own, now that may be, and everything else out of mind? Feet up and watching a no ads TV program or movie of a night. :)

And now and again going and having a look at what the new night may have brought, moths, spiders, and all …

Anyway, I trust you still enjoy the pix, and sometimes the words that go with them.

All the best …

Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox

Tagged with: Human Nature, Life, Love, Macro, Meditation, Spirituality, Sustainability, Truth

47 comments

47 Responses

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iliketoplayindirt said, on 19/01/2013 at 11:27 pm

Nice shots! Did you do photo stacking in Photoshop to compensate for a tiny depth of field with such high magnification images?

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- Mark said, on 20/01/2013 at 8:20 am
  
  Thanks J. No, I don’t need to stack and most creatures wouldn’t sit for it. I use a small sensor cam and apply the plane of acceptable focus for optimal dof, though I don’t usually know what I’ve got until I get home – check this page for my take on it ‘all’ – https://beingmark.com/macro-illustrated/
  
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paranoiasnfm said, on 17/01/2013 at 11:12 pm

Great photos!

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- Mark said, on 19/01/2013 at 12:58 am
  
  Thanks …
  
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Nikki Meyer said, on 05/01/2013 at 5:00 pm

Beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing.

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- Mark said, on 05/01/2013 at 7:58 pm
  
  Thanks Nikki.
  
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Marc Anderson said, on 04/01/2013 at 12:13 pm

Hi Mark,

I really enjoyed your images – thanks for sharing!

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- Mark said, on 04/01/2013 at 5:35 pm
  
  Thanks Marc.
  
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einstueckwelt said, on 04/01/2013 at 1:04 am

Very, very good pictures! I photograph many insects, but so close I approached never come. With what kind of objective you have taken these pictures? :)

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- Mark said, on 04/01/2013 at 1:24 am
  
  Thanks S. Basically the FZ50 + achromats stacked for a WD of 2″, or the G1 + lenses and achromats – depending on the situation. For the rundown see here : Macro Illustrated
  
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iniyaal said, on 03/01/2013 at 5:00 pm

Beautiful pictures… I echo your sentiments. Could not agree more with what you say.. I do not believe in celebrations, especially the new year. Every day is a new beginning :)

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- Mark said, on 03/01/2013 at 9:46 pm
  
  Thanks, ideally yes …
  
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- Robert Ashdown said, on 03/01/2013 at 9:59 pm
  
  Oh come on you guys/gals, what’s New Year’s without 50 or so cold beers? Well, maybe 30 … or so … 20?
  
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  - Mark said, on 04/01/2013 at 1:05 am
    
    Sober …? Conscious …? Observant …? Alive …? Hangover-free …? And that’s just the surface. :)
    
    But nothing wrong with what ‘you’ have to do, if that’s what you need …
    
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lautal said, on 02/01/2013 at 10:23 pm

Happy New Year, Mark! Keep going with your beautiful pictures and posts. Thank you for sharing.

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- Mark said, on 02/01/2013 at 11:57 pm
  
  Will do L, as far as possible …
  
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Robert Ashdown said, on 01/01/2013 at 11:09 am

Just discovered your blog, Mark – very interesting, enjoyable and informative, thank-you. Your macro shots are simply beyond the pale!

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 4:58 pm
  
  Welcome Robert, and thanks. The Pale, you must have Irish blood in there somewhere …
  
  Don’t forget to click them for a bigger and better view …
  
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Onibe said, on 01/01/2013 at 7:53 am

great photos! I wish You many, many superb photographies in 2013!

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 4:56 pm
  
  Thanks O, best to you …
  
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Garden Walk Garden Talk said, on 01/01/2013 at 6:34 am

I enjoyed your images, Mark. They are spectacular. I too have a unique look at time, but not as an obsession though. Nature has a way of expressing time where no physical clock is needed. Time is transitory, where past present and future are constructs of the mind, and present is all we experience, yet no sooner as the experience exists, it lives in the past. I like to look at time as nature does.

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 4:56 pm
  
  Thanks Donna. Yes, nature has no past or future, just now. And no problem to ruminate on.
  
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Alex Jones said, on 01/01/2013 at 5:07 am

They are beautiful. The celebration of nature is a good way to bring in a new year.

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 5:39 am
  
  Thanks Alex …
  
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Laura Conowitch said, on 01/01/2013 at 3:56 am

I don’t mark time with alcohol. I don’t celebrate by rushing off to the biggest sale of the year. I do mark times of celebrations and achievements with friends and family to create shared memories of pleasant events together, and dreams and hopes of more to come.

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 5:24 am
  
  Hi Laura, each to their own … that’s the way it is. How can one have a problem with the way it is?
  
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smallpebbles said, on 01/01/2013 at 2:25 am

Life so achingly beautiful…..always grateful for the macro view…..thanks! in peace….kai….

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 3:40 am
  
  Thanks Kai, best …
  
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Simon said, on 01/01/2013 at 1:24 am

Once again I couldn’t agree more with what you are writing. Funny you should mention psychological time, since I am in the process of rereading Ekhart Tolle’s The power of Now.
All the best and thanks for the lovely pictures as always!
Simon

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 3:39 am
  
  All the best Simon. Who is Eckhart Tolle? :) Oh yes, I remember picking up one of his books and it was – wordy, I think is the polite way of saying it.
  
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Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 1:13 am

Don’t forget to click on the pix, they look so much better when bigger.

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Jerry Newsome said, on 31/12/2012 at 11:42 pm

Mark- Great photographs, great thoughts with the wisdom in words that go with the photographs. I understand that the photographer makes the photographs and not the gear. But would you be so kind as to tell me what lens you use on most of your images? I have been following you for about a year now. Thanks, Jerry Newsome – Savannah, Georgia

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 1:03 am
  
  Thanks Jerry. If you want the rundown on what and how, it’s long, check here – Macro Illustrated If you have any specific questions just ask … preferably on that post.
  
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standingoutinmyfield said, on 31/12/2012 at 11:31 pm

There is a book called “The Portage to San Cristobal”, and the author (George Steiner) says, “Music is freedom in/from time. All other human activities and sensations have in them a temporal axis. A linear thread of time sequence runs through them. But it is a thread from outside, from a system of coordinates already established and often alien to their nature. Even a dream, even a bout of delirium does not create its own time. It merely compresses or distorts an outwardly determined temporality. Time pulsates in a crystal and flattens space in the center of the galaxy. No reality is accessible to human understanding outside the a priori grid of time, says Immanuel Kant. No reality except one. That of music…A piece of music takes time but not in the ordinary sense, not in reference to the clock. It sets itself a cross the general flow of time in which we conduct our regimented lives with a specific assertion of freedom so absolute as to dwarf other pretenses at liberty be they political, private, orgiastic. Music is the only reality perceptible to man that governs time. It draws out of our flesh that arrow of past-present-future implanted at the instant of birth and speeding away from us in outrageous anonymity at the moment of death….When we listen to music we are at once within and wholly outside the banal sovereignty of our clocks.”

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- Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 12:59 am
  
  Hello Laura. That seems to me an argument for the love of music and not the time I refer to. I refer to psychological time that ‘we’ make by remembering, hence we forget when we are distracted, but distraction makes its own time. Though it all occurs in time, it takes time, but the only time that really matters, the only time that kills the joy of life is past time. And that time is what everybody seeks to avoid, because it is painful when you remember all the things you don’t want to remember, and eventually you can’t stop it. It has a momentum of its own. But in truth it is the only time ‘we’ have any control over. We can, when we have had enough of it’s constant regurgitation, choose to focus attention on something that is more real – so giving some chance of mastering it. But that is boring to the mind that wants to revel in any kind of time – be it political, academic, musical – personality time. The mastery leaves no time because in reality there is only now, and now is no time. Try to think about now, you can’t. That’s because it contains nothing, it is too fast to be filled or held to. and so the mastery of time means the realisation of now, the moment, and the psychological state where there is no thing residing.
  
  This is why I say a few will be wiser for it, it being the willingness and the ability to face the abyss. And the abyss is? Nothing, no time, now.
  
  And that is the essence of what I say here, though in different ways. You can see yourself, not many will (ingly, or want to) get it.
  
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  - standingoutinmyfield said, on 01/01/2013 at 4:48 am
    
    I remember what you told me about the nothing, but I think that is the point George Steiner is trying to make. It’s not just about a love of music, it is a mechanism that makes its own time. I am not convinced that nothingness is the only way to step outside time, although it matters. For example, I feel it when I travel. To lose track of time, to access that “nothing” in between moments. But there are other ways, too, I am sure of it.
    
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    - Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 5:38 am
      
      It depends on what time is to you, and what is timeless. I don’t see music as being outside time, I see it in time, as a distraction for ‘other’ times, or entertainment if you like. It exists in time, in form, albeit abstract and substantive. What is said by George Steiner could be said by many who also know a taste of timelessness in their particular endeavour or occupation. Nothingness is only that from the place of things. When seen from a freedom from attachment to things, the place, nothing may not be so thing-free, but it will never be touched by words that are of time – which is why it is called no-thing. Get it?
      
      Intelligence freed of attachment is not normal, because it is rare, but not exceptional. Anybody can do it if they know how and are willing. It’s the willingness that doesn’t come easy, but comes to all in time. :)
      
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      - standingoutinmyfield said, on 02/01/2013 at 10:56 am
        
        Hm, I will think on it more.
        
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        Mark said, on 02/01/2013 at 5:01 pm
        
        Think? Hmmm!
Jo said, on 31/12/2012 at 10:05 pm

Thank you for all the lovely images and sharing your thoughts. I hope that 2013 brings with it a renual of faith in humanity and a lot of bugs around your place.

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- Mark said, on 31/12/2012 at 10:15 pm
  
  Thanks Jo. I nave no lack of faith in humanity, we are trundling towards the abyss and everyone’s partying, business as usual, no problem … :)
  
  And a few will be wiser for it.
  
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  - Claratee said, on 01/01/2013 at 12:06 am
    
    Nicely put, can’t agree with you more. my eyes were playing tricks and thought it read “trending” toward the abyss… Ah well, none the wiser – Happy trundling 2013 :)
    
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    - Mark said, on 01/01/2013 at 1:07 am
      
      Thanks Clara. I don’t think you are none the wiser. You see what is happening in the world, and all the positive thinking won’t change a dot of it. The wiser comes from no longer identifying with it. Yes it matters, but no, it’s not important. Not as important as you realising peace of mind – what else is of value …
      
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mike585 said, on 31/12/2012 at 9:25 pm

Beautiful images, Mark.

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- Mark said, on 31/12/2012 at 9:30 pm
  
  Thanks Mike, appreciated …
  
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Chillbrook said, on 31/12/2012 at 9:15 pm

Couldn’t agree with you more Mark. New year especially is one I keep my head down for. Stunning pictures as always.

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- Mark said, on 31/12/2012 at 9:29 pm
  
  Thanks C, they have to get their experience, don’t they – the young ones. The older should know better but …
  
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