Treasure Ant
And a little treasure they are, caretakers of the dead, diggers of the soil. Indispensable pieces in the great Earth machine.
*
It’s that time of season the only creatures around are ants, or so it seems. The passion fruit vine, with its highways and byways and the wonderful smell of exotic flowers is home to many kinds of ants, all patrolling for a bite to eat, a little nourishment. The only way to get a shot is to stop one and food does the trick.
I’ve watched an ant eat until it looked like bursting, its abdomen swelling to accommodate the liquid gold. A little honey stops an ant in its tracks, some feed until it can take no more, and off back to the nest it goes – I suspect – to share the treasure. Sometimes with an initial stagger from the unaccustomed weight and balance.
We do it too, with all the momentary treasures of a single lifetime, absorb and distil the essence to eventually radiate as our light or wisdom – after many years climbing around on the vine of experience, you may have noticed.
Whether the treasure is real or illusory, when it’s gone we move on, ever in search of the next de-light. Until the endlessness of the search is seen to be the grand delusion.
Then now is all there is, no loss or need to search, no ignorance nor despair. No need to experience any more, no need, no need.
Still, inside, there is the nourishment of the simple good, no thing, no form, no problem.
And the reality of the moment grows in focussed attention.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
*
Beyond The Rain
In the last week the daily temperature has gone from mid 30’s to mid 20’s (C) with the end to end cloud cover and rainfall over this part of the earth. Very comfortable, very wet. The plants love it too, after the scorching heat of the fiery summer sun.
Driving in the rain is not unlike the practise of being, having to look through the movement of form to see where I want to be, and stay on the road that works to get me there, instead of focussing on the splashing on the glass or thundering sound on the roof.
The trouble comes with distraction, to the focus of attention or intelligence, to the point where I become identified with what distracts and no longer see where I want to be.
If I am distracted enough by the rain it becomes all there is and I could end up drowning in it.
Recovery is always possible though, by focus on where I want to be – in clarity.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab
*
Forbidden Fruit – Fly
An area of the front garden has been home to a growing experiment for a while now. Some successful, some not, it’s trial and error learning.
At first I was hand pollinating the melon flowers but gave up after it became apparent the plant – and garden – had a mind of its own and would produce what it will.
Of four or so developed melons one made it to the fridge and the others served as a nexus of community for the gardens tiny intelligent inhabitants. A busy metropolis for a while.
The fruit fly are a wonderful looking creature and they decimate a soft fruit crop in days. Once the melon’s skin was broken by the caterpillars the flies were in and it was over for the fruit, and the gardener …
*
Where there is gain there is loss, and suffering if there is attachment to either. The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad.
Who still needs it … hands up.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Dear Bee …
All of a sudden it went from hot to cold and you were caught out in the rain, needing heat to fly, weighed down by water. Lucky there was a flower to land on and wait out the weather.
When I saw you the rain had been falling for a day and you looked on the verge of drowning but I’m sure your kind are no strangers to such events, or the hunger that drives.
Regardless, I arranged some background to shoot against and after a while the flower you gripped so tight fell from the stem to the earth, naturally worn out, dead.
So I picked you up, still gripping the dead flower, and brought you to where we could both relax and recover. It was easier for me to shoot from a stool and you dried out, good all round.
After a while you started to move and flex your wings, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before you were away on the breeze, rain permitting, in search of your fulfilment, as a bee.
And as I watched that’s exactly what you did, took to the air, and I saw you fade to the distance, a small dark dot becoming nothing quickly – disappeared from sense, no more in mind.
*
I went for a walk in the garden, camera in hand, and there you were again, or a brother or sister, feeding on the same kind of flower, still a little tired from the weather event.
Climbing, not flying, from flower to flower, so unlike a bee, I waited until you were occupied, focussed, and moved in for a shot, or two, and I was lucky.
We were lucky, I got some pix, you got to live a little more, eat, then fly away, doing bee things.
Not a bad day’s work at all, for a monkey and a bee.
On the earth that makes and breaks us …
… what we are and what we are not.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Nature's Place 
18 comments