Pilgrimage
Dusty trail, overflowing with green, damp humid in the tropical spring shade. Big dark ants crossing. I stopped to see what they were doing and it was the obvious, going somewhere. There were two kinds of ant here, big and small. The big ones had a certain character about them, a quiet strength. The smaller ones a quiet study.
In nature everything’s either going somewhere, doing something or doing nothing – being what it is – or just being.
Grasshopper is about too, about the house. A shy one this morning, trying to hide behind the green pole. Maybe his skittishness had something to do with its dented eye, the other one. I got him anyway. And there will be more. A season’s come. To go. Whatever that means.
Dragon’s flight is easy and unpredictable, predictably so. I followed him around the edge of the field, in and out of the bushes, to dam’s end. And off I went into the forest, to home, whatever that means. :) Home James!
Spider was hiding out on top of a flower, purple blue. She moved about at intervals, showing herself a patience, no thought. Sitting in silence, little spider being. Being spider.
An unusual bug climbed out of the forest of grass at my feet. I have never seen her kind before, soft, light and unthreatening nature. She wandered about the blades of tall grass, a rolling gait, and I showed her about a few twigs.
A little wonder of the day. All going home. A pilgrimage indeed.
And a flower or two to mark the way.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Tumble in the Jungle
I was in Mt Cotton scout camp today and the most extraordinary event occurred.
There is a small garden there where the Joey’s planted some flowers and shrubs. It is bordered by a few timbers and as is their way the ants use them as a highway through the debris that litters the ground.
Today while I was looking for what I might find in the way of creatures – structure and beauty to shoot I saw these two ants going at each other. They didn’t seem too serious but I suspect they were well matched and that’s the only reason one of them didn’t die in the fight.
They tumbled this way and that, mandible locked to mandible, up and down the natural landscape. For ages it seemed they battled it out, for what? Supremacy, what else?
Towards the end they had been fighting their way up and down a small twig and eventually one of them gave up and ran away. The other then ran back up the twig and all but shouted out in triumph.
I won! Yeahhh!
Well, maybe.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Wild Things
Gecko. Lives around the house and eats everything in sight or flight around the light at night. It rhymes.
Huntsman. Found under the peeling bark of a tree in the nearby forest/NR. Known as the giant crab spider, young and fast.
Wasp. (can’t remember name now) Was depositing eggs? in rotten old branch in same NR when the ant came to investigate.
Lynx Spider. Waiting on some wild growing Jasmine, such a sweet smell. You have to be careful smelling the flowers.
Honey Bee. Last of the day and I saw this one moving on the ground. It was weak, trying to scramble up on a leaf with its wings outstretched. Death wasn’t far off.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Gecko. Lives around the house and eats everything in sight or flight around the light at night. It rhymes.
Huntsman. Found under the peeling bark of a tree in the nearby forest/NR. Known as the giant crab spider, young and fast.
Wasp. (can’t remember name now) Was depositing eggs? in rotten old branch in same NR when the ant came to investigate.
Lynx Spider. Waiting on some wild growing Jasmine, such a sweet smell. You have to be careful smelling the flowers.
Honey Bee. Last of the day and I saw this one moving on the ground. It was weak, trying to scramble up on a leaf with its wings outstretched. Death wasn’t far off.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Time Comes to Die
Long slender avenue of green, thorny red devil, wings asheen.
Came out of the darkness, the shadowy green.
Antennae a waving, this way and that.
Big black mandibles closing, on what?
The disc of an eye protruding to see.
No one else there but me.
*
Up and down she went. On that dark avenue of green in the sky.
In her hunt for what I don’t know. She awakened to me and not I.
A looking confused for no reason. Would come to her action in time.
I left her a little of sweetness. She never would know it be mine.
*
I love the small things from the darkness so deep.
I love their colours and mine.
I love the shape that god made them.
I love the touch that is Thine.
*
Out of the blackness you touch me. Into the blackness of me.
I have so little to give Thee. But do take it all, it is free.
Come to the life you have made me. Take from me all that I be.
When time comes to die, all I can say is …
… I see.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Look After …
… the little things and the big things take care of themselves. There is truth in old sayings and no less this one. If you clean your feet or teeth your body has a better chance of health than if you don’t. Check the tyre pressure and save on tyres and fuel, maybe accident.
Be careful what you think and life unfolds accordingly.
The big picture is painted with lots of dots.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
The Day …
… you no longer see me …
Or me.
Me too.
And me.
Me, me.
And here.
And meeee! Me, me, me, me!
Oi! Me too!
And meeeeeeee!
… is the day the pain from having shot yourself in the foot arrives in your consciousness. Then it’s too late for this time round. If you are quick you might see pain has a value. A spiritual value.
It serves the one and only purpose, to wake me up.
Ding, ding, ding! Hear it?
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Magical I
Out back where the flies fly and play there are a few tribes of ant that seem to get on together. That makes sense since they have inhabited the same piece of earth for millennia. Obviously they don’t compete directly or one of them would have been the victor by now, surely.
There are tiny golden ants that are so small they are rarely seen, unless I leave a little honey out. In fact that is how I discovered them. I left some honey on a few leaves to attract the flies but they weren’t interested and after some time the tiny goldies showed up and fed till it was gone. Now that I am aware of them I see them often.
There are some ants that are just too fast to shoot and don’t stop for anything, not for more than a fraction of a second. My camera wont focus that fast. In fact there are many kinds of ants about the house. There are the glossy black ants. And there are the armoured ants, in two different colours. Armoured because they have spikes protruding from their bodies at different strategic places, to give advantage in combat. No doubt they have their predators, as I have seen.
They all have different physical characteristics, sizes, colours, feeding habits, demeanor. Unique and beautiful expressions of the being of Ant, a quality of god from out of the pure psyche.
As all things are.
*
Then there are the quiet blue – green ants. There are two nests that I know of in the back garden. I have seen them many times but until recently they have been very elusive to the camera. They don’t normally eat fruit like the others and they live in the ground at the base of the fence. When they come out it is usually to find the source of disturbance, which is usually me lately, since they are on the sunny side where I shoot flies in the afternoon.
In the last couple of days they have been out eating at the ripe banana that has fallen from the tree where the bats and possum have been plundering, and at the apple I put out today. Maybe they are just hungry enough after the long cold and rain, relative cold that is.
Anyway, I have taken the opportunity to shoot them and the results are wonderful. They have deep contours in their skin that reflect the darkest magical blue and green of the psyche. And they are gentle creatures.
I observed one appeared to be bowed, maybe resting, and was tended by another looking down on it and waving its antennae over it. They do communicate, and care, obviously. In their way.
I am touched, at the place where Ant and caring is. Where I am that.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
The Light at the end …
… of the tunnel.
The pain of dissolution. Letting go.
Acceptance.
Ant Heaven. Honey on a leaf.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
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