Hello Doli
There are a few wells in my area that most never get to see, they are all out of the way of normal traffic. I like to look into these wells, the pull of the mystery I suppose, a little exploration to see what’s there. Some are shallow and are choked with sticks and fallen leaves. Others are deeper but still choked up. So I can’t do what I want to do and toss a pebble in to hear what sound it makes when it hits bottom, there’d be no point.
There is another well but it has long been behind locked gates and I don’t climb like I used to, so I threw a stone over but there was no sound or echo came back. And I’m not so driven any more, focused – you could say, to risk breaking in to what is clearly closed to me.
But I never say never, so you never know … And there might be a well I haven’t found yet.
We have just passed the shortest day here in the southern hemisphere, winter. Not much in the field or garden, especially after such a wet year and cold month. Still, something shows up on an almost daily basis, as long as I look. A Doli fly, 5mm long and skittish.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Rescue! Rescue!
I am going to tell you a dream that many little boys have. Of floods, endless rain, everything drowning, and a friend comes to help. A reminder of another time.
He can’t remember being a child. And then he remembers being a child and looking into a mirror and seeing his mum in need of rescue, and he spent the rest of his life rescuing his mum – in some woman, a self perpetuating mechanism, it’s classic I’m sure.
‘This is the boy’s love of mother distorted in the pain of a child that couldn’t help his mum when he saw she needed it. And the boy lived a sad life, to say the least.’ Because he always found what he expected to find, he couldn’t help it – the imprint on the film in the projector frames the light.
And then she, some ‘woman’ from outside the projection, came one night and loved the pain out of the boy in a dream turning to a nightmare. It was the opposite or negation of a nightmare, to have love enter so. What a wonder that is. And when he was falling back into the nightmare she came again and called out Rescue!; a gentle call, and rescued him again.
This is what love does, it stops the pain, the nightmare, by invoking love – the willingness to give up the nightmarish projection. ‘So just love her man, it wasn’t her fault you couldn’t rescue her. Just love her. Whoever ‘she’ is.’
And only ‘she’ can stop it. And who is she? Only you know, and she is the one you’re with. And she is the one to come, to the rescue. ((:
Love is the rescue, the rescuer and the rescued.
And this little Potter Wasp lady warmed up on my finger and took a little honey to start the day with and flew away. ((:
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Potter Wasp – the Nomad’s Neighbour
In the field of bees there are a few wasps that sleep at nights. Called Potters, because they make wonderful nest structures from mud. They usually roost in solitude in the long grass but occasionally can be found in twos or threes, and rarely next to a Nomad.
Like most creatures they are easily intruded upon but I have also found them to be gentle by nature, disinclined to aggression. Content to climb on a warm finger on a cold and wet morning.
They are also beautiful to look at with their wonderful colouring and strangely elegant form.
One of nature’s pleasures, to me. Living art.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
A Little Purple
In all the rain and cloud of late a little colour calls in the forest. It only lives in one place, about three plants in all. I have no idea what it is called but it is a beauty and this day gave itself up nicely, I think.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Sunrise on Dew Laden Nomad and Friends …
… in the Wildness.
Cold nights and humid air with warm sunshine in the morning means something to drink and life goes on, if you’re lucky and survive the day, if luck it be. All the creatures are making the most of the light and warmth at sunrise. I would too if I was sleeping on a leaf, though I think I might hang under it and brave the spiders rather then carry all that cold water on my back.
Well, I was this side of the camera so I don’t have those considerations today. ((:
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
The Dreams of Bees
As the still bright sun goes down behind the clouds over the woods on a cold and windy day, a Blue Banded Bee gets ready for the long dark night through which he cannot fly away. For a while he comes and he goes but eventually to keep, he locks his jaws on the stem and that way goes to sleep.
And on the way he dreams of the things, of bees. While stretching his wings and kicking his legs he turns this way and that to indicate, he sees. The blue of a flower in bloom, a little nectar or pollen, a mate of his kind. Zooming in and out among the grasses and between the trees. God knows he will find.
Dreaming in imagery a thinker could never know, the things a bee is and does. Making his home near enough to his kind, making it on the go.
And all the while, he keeps his big eyes open for danger and, marvelously, knows no foe.
*
She, in her clay nest looking over her brood, waiting to wake to the sun once more to do the dreams of bees, given the weather’s mood. To find a blue flower, some pollen and nectar, a mate perhaps, of her kind, a choiceless love that does not intrude.
She knows no time but what she does as the need presents in mind. Yes, bees have minds. Did you think you are the only ones, you and your kind?
And when they are done and dead, no one to mourn, the little ones fed, it happens o’er, never once knowing the ill of human dread.
Rise up little one, to the golden flight, though there be a little fright, Thou art a queen, of light.
Rise up, to know your right.
*
Each bee new to the fact of being a bee, each flower a rare discovery, sipping the nectar of the earth can only be heavenly, to a new bee. And all the other things that happen anew in a bee’s busy day, you see.
Chased by a Dragon or Wasp or even a bird or three. Evading death a hundred ways, the wind no less a threat, when hungry, being as small a bee.
They have been cold and wet of late. Holding on for days and nights before they ate. To live and die as is their fate. And all to know a mate, a mate.
That’s their fate, and their faith, it’s never too late.
*
And then I look up and what do I see, but the gods of the sub-continent aligned to a V. Sailing or running along on the wind, aflame, a-coloured, gloriously unhinged. What may be.
Was it me? With them or not, I can’t now see. A b… on the wing, I could equally be. ((:
What is this I have seen? The passage overhead, alongside, of fantastic creatures, warriors, a king and a queen. A wonderful procession of the characters of innocent mythical mind a keen.
Then to my rear I see the world, a-burning where there is no flame, consuming yellow arise from the earth, a perfect dissolution that knows no blame – it’s not you or me, no such fame.
This way or that, there was no escape, from these hard won laurels no man could possibly ape. T’was real enough, to me, all form agape.
The end I see, nothing to bemoan, but to set me free. The death of you and me, but no, not Thee.
Or was it just a dream after all, of bees, no more to be seen or fall? A dream, too few do recall.
No, t’was real enough to me, my friend. Know though, this is not the end.
For we meet in the wilderness, of mind, where thought would only offend.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Lady in Moonlight
She appeared as a darker spot on the tall slender grass. In the shadows of the trees with the moon rising behind, standing still as possible holding the stem, I set the camera and lined up the lens for a shot. She was instinctively aware in the moment something was going on, from the vibrations of the movement of my fingers two inches away from her, but didn’t ‘know’ the way we do – with a pause for reflection – and so didn’t speculate on what may be.
A Lynx Spider in repose as the night falls on the field at the edge of the dark forest. A hunter, big eyed, long limbed and fast to the prey. No prey this time though, just me, an unusual sensation felt through the woody grass and along her trip threads. So she didn’t bite me, just fretted a little before settling down.
I do my best to catch her best angle and in the best light but the marvelous nature is master of the detail. I just aim at it, the composition of elements a picture is. Nature does the big bit.
*
The way to see anything is to withdraw back into the eyes and register the standout in the scene, the anomaly, and not ‘search’ for anything in particular. Being relaxed helps, and focused …
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
A Field of Bees …
… at sundown.
Dark clouds and blue sky on rainy days. These Nomads are hanging on against the downpour that is our weather this year. Love to see them doing well. The first one was aware of my presence and slowed by the conditions of cold, wet and impending darkness. She moved around a bit and I was lucky to get the flower in the frame. Wonderful little creatures.
I often refer to these Bees as Mystic, Beauties, Magical or otherwise more than they appear. That’s because they are more than they appear, and I search for language to describe what I see. On the fact side of things they are known to be the pollinators of around 70% of the plant kingdom, what a big job for such small and usually unseen creature. Without them we would not be, chances are.
Such a place in the order or web of nature, responsible for the key to the very existence of so much – reproduction, is representative of a special place in the Mystic, the real world behind. These are bees all right, but they are angels too, working for the mighty power that enables the lot – including you, me and the sceptic.
It’s just so obvious to me. But you don’t have to believe it, just get the sense of it. Isn’t the Mystical good? That sense of a place, inside – where else do you sense, where there is nothing but impersonal spiritual power – peace of mind to me.
A sense is all you need to get there, eventually.
Events need to happen.
This one is new to me. It looks like a Leaf Cutter Bee and it was sitting on the dried out grass at sundown but not gripping it in its jaws as they do when settling for the night. So my approach was extra cautious lest she fly away before I got a shot, I got three, lucky me.
She’s a real Queen, of her kind, to me.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Nature's Place 
20 comments