Road – Kill – Heaven
For a green head ant it is, heaven. Fresh meat delivered to the door and nature embraces the bounty, heedless something died for it. And heedless of the observer, absolutely un-self-conscious except with reference to the instinctive need to survive, these little beauties process the red meat into pieces small enough to carry back to the nest, to live. Heaven is relative here.
An honest ant, you always know where you stand with a green head ant, they bite and sting, what ants do. You could say the ant is the same no matter what it is doing, and that is true, ant is always ant, never a pretense at being anything but what it instinctively is.
That’s what makes its state of being heaven to this observer, no mind to confuse or conflict, no mind but ant mind. Human mind is something else, potentially full of conflict, with itself reflecting off self in the hall of mirrors the mind is.
Human being is something else, being what being is beyond human, or ant.
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Then, later when I went to see how things were, the meat was gone and there were paw prints in the earth around the area. Something, maybe a feral cat, had come and eaten the meat, ants and all.
So much death in one day, any day now – ‘heaven’ comes to us all in time.
We are lucky that way …
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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Nature's Place 
great!
Thanks P …
Amazing photography! Fantastic write-up
Thanks Mary …
You are welcome Mark!
Amazing
I often look at the highways they create from the nest to the corpse and am in awe of their perseverance and the distance… Truly hardy creatures.
They are indeed, given what we throw at them in the name of progress. Thankfully the earth is still bigger than human ambition, for now.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’re smaller than nature… We’ve ruined so much!
Life, behind and upholding the earth, is causal while the distortion of human nature and its consequences mere effects. I know, a difficult perception to maintain in the face of incessant ‘bad news’ posing as important. But have you noticed ‘bad news’ is just a habit of the excitable gossips we refer to as ‘The Media’. I don’t listen (too much) to the ‘bad news’ mongers, and still throw my little weight into the fray, without expectation of change – the tide always rising and falling while I swim on without looking back or forward – as much as possible.
I would not have expected to be stirred by this sort of topic. Your words are just as beautiful as these incredible photographs.
Thanks Sarah.
thank you for capturing their beauty and sharing with us! amazing!
I really should study how you achieve such wonderful detail!
Thanks Tammie. To capture the detail a high effective shutter speed is necessary, more so if the camera’s sensor is small. Flash, properly delivered – there are rules to keep, is the effective SS here – possibly around 1/10,000 – 15,000sec. The actual SS of 1/160 would leave me with blur. I go into it here – https://beingmark.com/macro-illustrated/ – a long page.
Beautiful shots!
Cheers,Laura
Cheers Laura …
Are their bodies really that iridescent or is it a computerized tweak?
Colours are that, more or less. JPG’s from the camera optimised for contrast and saturation.
The third picture is a beauty Mark.
Thanks Godfried … they are a set really.
A beautiful ant she is…look at how rough her cuticle is! Bees are not usually that sculptured
Yes, somehow she looks like a she … and she is beautiful.
Great photographs. I think watching bees being bees helps me escape from the hall of mirrors.
Thanks Amelia. A very practical occupation, being in sense – watching nature especially.
Wow!! That is something else…makes me smile I don’t know why : ) Trees ps. ants are amazing tenacious little blighters!
Maybe because it is a matter of sense and not mind … Ants are the keepers of the soil here.
Fresh meat delivered to my door would be heaven too ! I think I need to go out for a nice steak : )
Ha, a died in the wool red meat eater – a body’s gotta do …
Photos so beautifully composed, to frame a message so clear…
What jewels may shine … done trawled the depths of time.
“All that is gold does not glitter….”