Born Again … Again
I came upon this Orb Weaver one night, molting. Hanging upside-down from a few strands of silk.
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Gravity helps him exit the old body, too small now. And helps his new body stretch to its full extent.
Swaying and turning in the night breeze, it took a while to get free of the old. No doubt some effort is involved.
Stretching out to aid the new, exposed to every danger … but not a predator in sight. Safe on a silken thread.
A crop, to show his eating gear. Fangs above the palps, and above that a couple rows of black cutters.
After a while hanging down he curled up, clenching his new body. A little natural spider yoga preps it for action.
Not yet ready to start his new life. Exercises need repetition, duration and timing for optimal effect.
Brand new spider body … functioning perfectly … almost ready for life on the wire … how many more to go, bodies.
It’s a theatre, a play, a part, then shuffle off the stage … to a new body, and newer still, until the last and then no more …
… to be born, or die, into a world of light and beauty. But who’s to tell, unless you see …
Free? Not yet, old shell gone now but still some living to do. Hanging in there … for what may be.
And once he’s done here, upside down, he turns around and back he goes from whence he came, into the black night.
It takes a spider a long time to be born again. And then there’s no guarantee …
But guarantee would be a form of death … to any self-respecting spider.
Then again, life’s one guarantee to every form is death.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Leap Of …
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… maybe, maybe not.
Who knows what’s in a spiders mind.
Not personalised thinking, that’s for sure …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Assassin …
What’s this coming up the branch, a new kind of bug, a mutant … or is it an assassin bug holding on to dinner.
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She sees me and does an about-turn. But then she can’t see me past her package and I no longer exist in her small world. Until …
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… I get around the other side. But she soon settles down, me being no apparent threat. Unwilling to relinquish her catch.
Up close you can just see how she uses her lance/proboscis/stabber to pierce and hold onto her prey.
And later that day, after her meal, she’s wandering a flower spike in the garden and positioning herself for the next days hunting. … But… what’s that in the background? It looks like a face but it’s a spider sitting in its web.
If there’s anything can discourage an assassin bug it’s this spider, an orb weaver. But they never meet this dark night. Who knows what may be the next …
… all grown up, what the Assassin Baby eventually develops into.
It has been an unusual year in many respects but the point here is there has been very few small creatures in the garden.
I can think of a number of reasons – combinations of rain, sun, birds, etc – but at summer’s end the ‘last man standing’ is the assassin bug.
So, I present to you the winner of this years trophy … well, thank god – whatever that is – insects don’t have personalities.
And every body dies eventually.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Assassin Baby …
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On the flowers, he knows where to go for a bite to eat.
At one point he was eager to get on my finger … didn’t fancy testing his deadly kiss.
Though the pain, as sensation, could be used to separate from the mind that would attach to it.
Sensation is distinct from thought and emotion.
And thinking is stopped before it begins …
… where it arises, from the self.
In the belly, not in the head.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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