Nature's Place

Brunswick Heads is a small town on the north coast of New South Wales in eastern Australia. Twenty minutes North of Byron Bay it is too far out of the way for too many tourists so it is still a quiet little town.

The river has three main tributaries that meet about three hundred metres from the ocean. One tributary goes north into the Billinudgel Nature Reserve that I have also written of, and the main one continues west inland to Mullumbimby.

The third tributary turns south and disappears into wetland forest cutting off a huge section of land from the mainland, this is called Tyagarah Nature Reserve.

The town itself is west of this third tributary and access to the ocean and beach is by a bridge across this third arm of the river. It is in this area that I met today’s subjects.

I have been walking around this point along a well worn trail taking pictures and I have been meeting some delightful creatures.

It helps that the place is frequented by people so the animals are less shy.

Yesterday I had been around the place and was varying my route when I came across a group of Noisy Miners preening themselves and sunbathing. And dustbathing.

It was unusual that they let me stand so close, about two and a half metres, and showed no sign of anxiety at my presence. Though I didn’t test this too far. It’s mostly best to accept what is offered without trying for more.

The dustbather was almost comical. He was lying on the ground, wings spread and feathers fluffed up, trying to work himself into it with his wriggling and shivering.

When another Miner came up to him he raised his head and repeated some small sounds over and over. Raising and lowering his head in rhythm.

He was clearly enjoying his bath and was not to be disturbed, just like you and me. Only this was a bath of a different kind. He was actually opening up his plumage to the ants and other predators of his parasites.

Many creatures do this. They work themselves into the earth where the little creatures, like ants, live and agitate them so they go looking for the source of their discontent.

On the way they pick off whatever lives on the bird that the bird doesn’t want there. How nature serves her own.

When he was done on the ground he was up to light bathe, spreading his beautiful feathers to the bright hot sun. He turned this way and that, making sure no place was left undone. It was a very thorough workout if you ask me.

When he was done with the sun he was up on the table in the shade finishing off his ablutions. Fine tuning his cleanup and cooling down.

It was delightful to watch, the uninhibited behaviour, of these god made creatures. Not a single thought for the onlooker. And safe in the knowledge of belonging and numbers.

His mates would have given the alarm if there was any threat. He was clearly at ease here by the picnic table near the river in this good Australian place.

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery

That small ant is about one centimetre long. It and a couple of mates were push/pulling the dead fly for a few minutes while I watched. Where do they get the strength? Such determination. Will.

I wonder if ants grow old. I’ve never seen one limping or leaning on a stick. If an ant is injured I bet that’s it for him. Off to the knacker’s yard.

More likely he’s eaten by something. That’s nature’s way. Weakness is not tolerated for long.

Here’s another kind of fly. A zebra fly. How do I know the name? I make them up, so I can’t be wrong. It has stripes like a zebra and it’s a fly, so it’s a zebra fly.

Look at those wrap around eyes. Not much escapes his attention, sitting there under the open sky. Not waiting for the next thing to happen.

A breeze stirs the grass. A bird passes overhead. A man with a hat on comes into view and blocks out most of the horizon. But no danger yet.

Then he points a big black box at me and I see my self for the first time, only I don’t know what it is I’m seeing. Just an image in a surface on a big black box.

Something passing through my globular vision.

Click, click, click. And he’s gone.

No idea what he did after that.

Hot chilli flower. I’ve tasted one of the chilli’s these flowers are the mother of and they are hot hot. I could not have it in my mouth for more than a second or two before I had to spit it out.

But obviously the flower is not hot like the fruit it produces or the bee would be heading for the water, steam rising from her head.

The bee just went on her way, visiting all the flowers she could find.

Buzzing here and there collecting the gold for the hives honey.

Beautiful bee. Gentle bee. Industrious bee. Unrelenting bee.

Thank you for the honey bee.

Warbling in the morning, singing up the day. This one loves his voice. Black and white song of a string of bubbles bursting in the deep well. Echoing up to the ear inside. Musical bird.

He was just walking around me at Brunswick Heads the other day. Keeping an eye on me, but unafraid. Looking for the odd tidbit.

The pied magpie has started singing in the morning at the house. One sings here, another responds over there. A harmony. Lovely mellow sound of varied notes rising and falling, here and there, as a tune.

Expressions of bird. Simple blue song. Inside.

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery

Global Warming? Global Insanity!

Nature is the language of Earth’s intelligence. Born of the Sun. Pity we stopped listening.

There is no representation of insanity in nature. The representation of insanity on Earth is the absence of any nature.

Wherever there is no nature there you will find insanity. Or insanity has walked that way. Because the mind that made it that way is insane.

It’s insane to think we can do without nature, even one little bit of it.

It’s equally insane to think we can fix the insanity of the world with more of the same.

Even where we dropped the nuclear bombs nature came back, but not by anything we did.

It was a lovely sunny day today, regardless of the news. News? Is there anything new in the news?

‘Global Warming Worse Than Previously Thought’. I don’t think so.

I can’t go along with that. It’s all mind stuff. And the more I focus on the stuff of the mind the more negative I get. I don’t think it’s any different for anyone else, eventually.

Mind stuff stuffed it up. And now more mind stuff would have us believe even more mind stuff is needed to fix it. God help us.

Now, instead of spewing our planet killing poisons into the air and water we’ll put them ‘safely’ into the ground. And we’ll trade them on the open market.

The culture is finished but the individual is not.

My solution is simple, for me. Focus on the simple good here now. The only thing here and now is the immediate situation and the senses. Deal with the situation and be in the senses.

Plan for probability and inevitability, as far as possible without drifting into speculation.

That keeps me out of the negativity of mind, more or less, and enables me to enjoy the simple life of being where I am with what I’ve got.

This is an exercise, so sometimes I don’t do so well, and sometimes I do. Where it ends is the same for everyone.

Death. And since only form dies Life goes on.

As it was in the beginning.

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery

I’ve told you about the old one, did I mention I got it second hand? It was old when I got it. About fifteen years ago.

And I’ve mentioned the new one, never had a new ‘good’ hat before. Now I’ll tell you all about it.

If that’s how this piece goes, because I never really know what I’m going to write till it’s done. Though I do usually start out with an idea it doesn’t always take the expected form.

I’ve been looking at getting one of these hats for a good while now and finally my old one gave up the ghost, so I could. It arrived last week from Canada, in a box. One of the fastest deliveries of all the things I’ve been acquiring on the net recently.

Little camera things to enable me to take the pictures I want for this site.

I don’t want to mention the hat by name because I don’t want to advertise, but I will anyway. Tilley. It’s a famous Tilley hat.

It is considered the Rolls Royce of hard wearing hats and I understand, just like a Roller was, it is hand made of the finest materials with consideration given to every aspect of hat.

The one I got is for hard wearing in the toughest (non industrial) Australian conditions. And though I haven’t been out and about much recently it will be thoroughly tested.

For this hat that will take time. Like the Roller it is just worn in when the others are worn out. But we’ll see.

There’s not a lot more to say about my new hat till I’ve worn it for a while. Then it’ll be my old hat again. Oh well!

That’s OK. I’ll do another piece on my old hat.

For all the fans of hat.

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery

There may be one person on Earth who cares what I say. There also may not be. That’s not the point. But if there is one who values it that’s good.

The point is it’s good for me to acknowledge the simple good, the ordinary things. When the ordinary is seen as it is it becomes extraordinary.

As it is means there is no thought about what isn’t ordinary and in my vision now. That’s the extraordinary bit, no thought.

I took my new hat for a walk today, how extraordinary is that? I’ve been looking at buying one for years now, the thing that kept me from it was the price $75AU.

The other thing that kept me from it was the fact I already had a hat, a good one. And it hadn’t yet worn out.

It has now, the material has finally perished, probably rotted from the sweat. But also it has seen some very tough work.

It has protected my head from sun and rain and kept the sweat from my eyes while working hard in the back of my removals truck.

It has also protected my head from branches many times while walking in the bush. And served as a buffer to the spider webs I blundered into.

Have you ever had one in your face? Lucky the spiders drop to the ground when the web is rammed and torn, usually.

But now there are tears in it and it is beyond frayed at the edges. It is literally coming apart at the seams, so it can’t do what I want any more.

It now hangs on the wall of my living room, its final resting place? Who knows, I still might find a use for it! It has served me so well for so long I am not willing to throw it out. It’s my oldest friend.

I love my old hat and, oddly, I am proud of it. A little, if there is such a thing.

If someone came and took my old hat and threw it out I would miss it, there would be a hole on my wall where my hat now hangs.

But really, the hole would be where I expect to see my old hat, in my mind.

By the way, Rosella and Queenie have never met. And she doesn’t eat frogs very often.

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery

Up from the deep, through the silent heart of a single flower arises the one inconceivable pulse. Irresistible will.

To enter the lens of sense existence as a single mutable multicoloured idea.

Broken on the edge of mind. The beginning of knowing. Diffraction to this or that.

Each ray gathered by the magical bee of industry, delivered to every drop of the deep green Earth for fashioning on the bronzed anvil of sharp change. Idea takes form.

To’ing and fro’ing, touching and crashing, merging and smashing.

Out of this crucible of conflict, under the hammer of necessity, the eyes of being emerge. Each tone hammered out with unknowable will. Inscrutable purpose.

Under the light of the Sun we danced. Played and pained in the garden of green as this hue and that, multiplied, diversified. Signified. And it was good.

Accumulation. Congestion. Terminal mass. Implosion. Separation.

From the rivers of solid dark colour. Through the prism of liquid clarity.

Inevitable birth. As I in all things, as you and me.

Light the deep!

Golden I.

Arise!

All Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery

Driving along the motorway at over a hundred kph, the Jeep in front pulled to the left to let me pass, a pair of butterfly’s danced into my lane about two feet off the ground. About twenty meters ahead. They just missed being flattened, and the Jeeps wake or slipstream didn’t affect them at all.

They danced on. Into my path at a butterflutter speed they weaved. Butter fluttering flies. Without a care or the slightest cognition of the imminence of death in the form of my car. They danced on.

There are many butterflies and caterpillars about today. It’s nice when they come my way. The Currawong thinks so too, for a different reason. He was having a great time feasting on caterpillars around the garden. Falling out the side of his mouth they were, as he strutted about in my back yard, eyeing up the food.

And the lovely colourful Rosella’s came round today too. About five of them at one time. Unusually, one of them sat for me, confident I wasn’t a threat. Given a little time they will get to know me.

They like the grass seed and it will be gone soon. It’s about time I set up a feeder for the winter if I want them to be coming round again. And I do.

I was wandering about the garden and as I passed the shed I came upon the spotted dove. You can see she is surprised, perhaps frightened. She didn’t know what to do for a few seconds. For a change I was quicker than the wildlife and got her picture. Then she was off under the branches and away.

It can take a long time to demonstrate to the creatures there is no threat. Some get it easy and some take time, and food. Food helps when communicating with the animals. It’s the universal language.

If you ever know hunger and someone offers you food you will know what I mean. Particularly where it gets cold and grey.

Wild yellow flower, t’was a delight to see in the bush today. There are a few flowering plants around. Purple and yellow was what I saw. The colour really brightens a grey overcast day.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Welcome sunshine. And with it came the wind. Walking on the beach I got a few shots I wouldn’t have got without the wind. One of a Tern, then a seagull and another of an Eagle.

The wind was from the south east off the sea and it howled in my ear as it caught the rim of my hat at just the right angle. It blew the sand up the beach and in places the beach was nearly rebuilt after the recent storms and high tides almost washed it away.

I had to be very careful not to get sand in the camera, especially the lens area. It being an extending zoom.

I wasn’t ready for the Tern when I saw him but it didn’t matter. He was caught in the wind and there was little he could do about it. He must have taken flight as soon as he saw me.

As soon as he was airborne that was it, he didn’t go anywhere except left and right, and up and down. He couldn’t make any headway against the wind it was that strong.

He was desperately trying to go south against the wind. Maybe to his mate or chicks, or feeding or roosting ground. You just never know without extensive experience of a location.

He struggled and flapped his wings flat out for thirty seconds or more and travelled maybe three feet in his desired direction. Not an efficient use of energy.

At that rate of effort he’d be exhausted in a very short time. Then he’d really be in trouble, a flightless bird, caught in the open. With the Eagle’s and other predators about these parts. Snakes, Dogs, Cats, Goanna’s and such.

So he did the intelligent thing. He landed. And he stood there looking into the wind, waiting for a gap that didn’t come. After he was recovered he took to the air again but with the same meager gain in distance. And he landed again.

I looked down the beach and could see vaguely a few similar figures also parked on the beach. He was not alone in his struggle, except that he was. There was no help to be had from any quarter.

After a short while he rose again to go south but it was a useless effort. This time he didn’t land though. He went high on the wind and turned north with it and east out to sea. A daring strategy, a last resort.

I suspected he was going to ride the calm spot in front of the waves. The trouble there would be the gusting. It could have him dumped very suddenly and forcefully.

If you have ever been surfing you’d know what a dumping can do to you. It can kill people, the boiling of the water can keep you under for a long time. It could do it easier to a small bird.

I saw him out over the sea at about three hundred metres and he seemed to be struggling still. He was up and down a couple of times and then he seemed to find a spot and he was off south against the wind and he seemed to be doing ok.

I’d say he got home, knackered probably.

The seagull, I didn’t see him coming, had the same trouble but was a stronger flyer in the conditions. It didn’t have such drama. Whenever it came to rest it picked at what may have been edible and off it went again. Opportunist, slowly but surely making its way south.

Then the Eagle came out of the bush from the north and west. This I did not expect. She came out from the cover of the trees and flew straight out and into the wind and over the sea. The wind slowed her down a bit but the Eagle took it in her stride.

I don’t know what she was doing, she didn’t go fishing and there was nothing on the wing that I could see. Could have been exercising her wings, but I don’t think so. Probably she was checking out some tired parked bird. Looking for an easy meal, more like it.

After a little while she flew back to the bush and disappeared from sight.

There was this fellow on the beach. Carrying a camera and wearing a hat. Taking pictures of some birds, with some difficulty. He was looking steadily into the wind as if at something a long way off.

The sand was burning his eyes and wearing his skin down a layer at a time but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept looking into the wind.

He did this for thirty or forty years. More or less. Buffeted this way and that. Always turning back into the wind.

Into the wind of his mind, through it. Eroding of all that he had collected in his time, remembered, shaken off, deflected by his untiring vision. Inside.

Looking into the other side of the wind of mind, where there is no more abrasion. Nothing more to be worn down.

No more wind. No more mind.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

On a stem of grass the intrepid explorer climbed. Up, down and around he went, leaving no piece unchecked. With a grand view of the surrounding terrain. His only concern to be thorough.

And don’t get caught out in the open.

But a creature can’t live like that for long. One always must go out in the open, eventually. Though there are ways of doing it. Cautiously, of course. Dressed for the job.

I watched this little crowned jumping spider as it walked straight up a three foot stalk of grass, rapid style. It has eight legs so it can move fast.

It was a bit of a job following it for a picture. Up, down and around the stem. They don’t stand still for very long, just a couple of seconds at a time. Especially out on a limb as this one was.

Then it came around the edge into view and I was there. Gotcha! He looked for a moment and off he went again. I followed him up to the top where the ripened grain was. He covered every nook and cranny.

I got him again as he disappeared around the head of grain and see, he’s missing a leg. And no sign of a limp. No sign of loss. Just spider getting on with it. It’s only one of eight after all.

It’s the stump above the two long legs you can see. Then there’s a third leg behind that.

The mozzies have been keeping me out of the swamp and forest around here. There’s been a lot of rain for a long time and I can’t use the repellent any more, it makes me ill.

But the green of nature is cool clear water to my mind so every now and then I go into the woods, regardless. Almost. This time I got about fifty metres into the reserve before the mozzies became intolerable and I had to leave.

Not before I saw the brown Bush Wallaby grazing on the overgrown trail. She didn’t notice me for a long while. Probably because they are short sighted and she was over fifty metres away.

When she stood up I was ready for her. Usually they run as soon as they see people but not this time. She just stood there, looking at me. Then I had to leave.

There is one place where I am sure to see some birds without too many mozzies preying on me. It’s at the beginning of a track just off the road along the coast north of Wooyung.

It’s where the rain puddles last longest and the birds like to bathe at the end of the day. Very sensible behaviour. I have seen quite a few different kinds of birds here and I believe they may be getting to know me.

At first they would all disappear into the bush as soon as I showed up. Then after a while a few would hang around in the bushes, just out of reach, checking me out as I stood there talking to them. Just words of greeting.

The birds, I am not indifferent to them and there is no hostility. The natural creatures can tell. Maybe this is why they display some curiosity at times, as if peeping at me from behind their safe distance.

Now they bathe as freely as I believe they do at all times, wary of being caught out by such creatures as Goanna or Eagle, or Snake. As long as I don’t try to get too close for their comfort. They are wild creatures after all.

They don’t need anything from me. Instinct is a powerful force, almost undeniable. Except by a greater instinct, or a more real power beyond any force. Perhaps.

The track is bounded by small trees and tall bushes, the undergrowth is thick. They have their favourite branches from which to swoop down to the water and perch on to preen themselves.

It is lovely to watch them, each with their own particular behavioral quirks. Occasionally one doesn’t seem to mind me at all. But most of the time it is some variation on caution, keeping their eyes on me.

One will keep an eye on me from a branch as I walk past. Another will bathe facing me, looking me straight in the eye. Some will dip into the water as fast as lightning, and they are gone again.

Still others, extraordinarily, will bathe with their back to me. Apparently taking no notice of me at all, I wonder? Birds play.

In a hostile world eyes are tools of instinct, devised for survival. But it’s more than that now. Eyes are also the window to the presentation of beauty in form. Through which the beauty of our true nature can be seen and cognized, acknowledged.

Is it possible in the birds play there is the potential for the realization of Avian God?

What wonderful magic that conjures in me. Of untold tales of magnificent creatures in a world within.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery