Flower Attack
Milling about the flower that feeds them, ants gravitate to the available nourishment, their need.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look …
Daisy of a kind on a sea of colour in the garden. A busy place for creatures of a size.
Nicotiana, the perfect flower of the – poisonous to some – tobacco plant.
Come to me, carefully, or feel my deadly kiss pierce the heart – or finger – of you.
Aromatic lavender, a little bit of heaven. Bee in the love of love, it’s a pleasure.
The gravity of a flower is its nectar, to the smaller bodies that are attracted, until the gravity or attraction changes …
Much like the things that come and go in our lives over time, people, situations and things …
The planets about the sun, the moons about the planets, the comets that burn in our sky.
Earth dust to starshine, we (I) pass this way.
Who am I?
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
*
*
Self Portrait
No, not that kind …
This kind, that has no problem in it.
*Click the pictures for closer view.
See, inside, where this image resonates, everything is in or is my ‘self’. There is no problem t/here.
Now, see inside, where the ‘news’ resonates, problems … endlessly.
Careful what you give your attention, your life, to.
It takes a long time for the bud to form and mature.
Then the flowering can begin …
Everything flowers.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
*
*
Of a Certain Nature
An unusual place to find a Huntsman, atop a flower, in the morning.
A big Drone fly landed on a nearby flower. Standoff, in my mind …
But didn’t get caught by this spider, this time …
… gardening, and how not to do it.
Until recently my attitude to the garden has been of a minimalist approach; determine, sometimes intuit, location, plant a selection, water and feed – with little to no regard for the suitability of the earth it happens on and in. Lazy, yes, being a poor study of things I don’t ‘see’ the need for.
Then something happened, I stopped wasting energy in one area of my life, thinking I ‘should’ apply myself where I just didn’t fit, and that energy became available for other things. So I began to look deeper into where I do apply myself without the ‘should’.
The notion of growing a certain plant, for its wonderful flowers, slowly grew in my mind and I found myself thoroughly involved in researching how to do it the best I can – not unlike a root-bound seedling released from its constraining pot and transferred to fertile soil.
Of course, because nothing is certain in a world of change, it may not turn out as I envisage but I will have done my best – and that’s what counts, the doing, not the end.
I still love the little creatures, when they show themselves, but maybe I will focus a little more on the flowers that feed them – in all their ways.
When the garden’s soil develops and spring comes around.
… not the end.
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
*
Another Day …
![3-[000012] - Mark Berkery](https://onbeingmark.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/3-000012-mark-berkery.jpg)
![4-[000032]_1 - Mark Berkery](https://onbeingmark.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/4-000032_1-mark-berkery.jpg)
… another ray of sunshine. The rain is ended for now and the nature is light and bright. There is not much in the way of insects about though there are flowers still. Some Orchids, Strawberries, a few others and this particular beauty I found in the nearby rainforest remnant and brought some seed back for the garden. I didn’t plant them as such, just spread them about and let them find their own place.
And so it is, everything has and finds its place, eventually. In between there is always something of the simple good to acknowledge.
*
And another whose time has past, a giant silver haired Cicada.
Mark Berkery ……. Don’t forget to CLICK on any picture to enlarge it in a new tab – best in FireFox – for me
*
The Fly …
… no, no, not The Fly
*
Once upon a time … Like now … :)
There was a Fly that carried a raindrop around on his back just to see how far he could carry it before exhaustion and eventual death took him – not really. He didn’t notice that to the observer he was a beautiful creature in a beautiful setting, when seen without reference to the stuff of mind, thought and emotion. This is what makes the race of men appear to be mad, the stuff of mind we believe in, until we don’t.
The Fly knows nothing of that though, thank god. Can you imagine the whole of nature emotionalised through self reflection? What a nightmare that would be. :)
No, the Fly is a Fly and the flower is a flower. The raindrop is something else though, let’s not get too serious now.
And light makes it all possible. The light of intelligence perhaps?
There are all sorts of things you can find out about nature just by observing what is at your feet. Most creatures have instincts that are a variation on a theme, that being survival. Flies are no different; they just have different characteristics and therefore behave accordingly.
People are much the same. The very same in terms of instinct, it being the basis for existence, but not so much alike when it comes to personality, intelligence and predisposition.
These ‘extra’s’ that seem to set us apart from the rest of nature are really a consequence of our reflection and emotionalisation of that instinctive nature, our nature, and the effect that has in the psyche is both personally and collectively phenomenal.
The psyche is a very real place where what happens here accumulates there when resolution is absent, and there’s a lot of that going around. The trouble is nobody notices the build-up until it’s too late. But that’s just the way it is here.
It is also true that what emotionalisation I do resolve here has the effect of clearing some of than inner space, the invisible psyche.
*
How can you master your instinctive nature if you don’t reflect on it? And how can you not do what it takes to get it ‘wrong’, in order to get it right? The point being we don’t change except through pain and experience. When you’ve burnt yourself enough you learn what burns and you don’t let it happen any more.
It’s that simple, you can’t change it either. Though you can become cognizant of the process and enable the necessary change.
*
It’s the same with any other kind of experience. Only when you’ve had enough of something, anything, can you really give it up, stop doing it. Because we realise there is a ‘better’ way to be.
That’s the fact in my experience. And this is what existence is for, to get it right so we don’t ‘have’ to get it right, or ‘wrong’, anymore.
Then we can truly enjoy the simple life and beauty of our instinctive nature mastered. The nobility of being, as opposed to the difficulty of living emotionally.
Make sense to anyone?
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab
*
A Jewel of Harlequins
On the white flowered Hibiscus in the nearby bush is a small herd of bugs, Harlequins they are called, don’t know why – possibly for the distinctive symmetrical markings on the ‘face’. These ones are real beauties; they go through many different colours in their little lives, blues, greens and reds. And there are times when they can be found with developing wings that make them look like something from a futuristic car show, and very elegant.
Anyway, these last days they are this wonderful blue with hues and patches of green and red and iridescent, overlaid on a very purposeful looking form. A very attractive little jewel of the forest.
*
You have to know where to find them as they don’t appear on all Hibiscus plants, only a few I know of. And then you have to know how to handle them, with care of course. But they also respond to a kind of attention so it’s possible to get a few shots without disturbing them unduly.
And when they are done sitting I put then back exactly where I find them. This one is on my stick, the one I use for stabilising the camera at times is also good for shooting on.
I am usually in the nature just for a walk these days as the little people are shy or just not around after the drastic weather of the last year, and health permitting – other bugs I am catching are from visiting children, no fun at all, the bugs caught this way.
*
It’s a simple pleasure of mine, this walking and seeing or sensing. To see the colours and form, the movement and the life in it all.
And then I go home, to tend the wildy garden I have encouraged and nurtured.
Just for a while now.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Dry Time
The long year of rain that washed the bugs away has been followed by a long season of dry, and few bugs are emerging that I can find, not even the Ticks. I had anticipated something of the sort with my gardening work, lots of seeds sown and plants watered with a compost area for bugs to eat and congregate in. The Possum likes the fruit as well. So it’s not all void of creatures to enjoy, albeit tiny creatures mostly.
Even so, everywhere I go there are maturing well fed spiders. It looks like food a plenty but could be a survival strategy, get a net up to catch what you can while there is any catching to be done. But we’ll see how things unfold.
What is coming can be predicted in the big picture, more or less, but the details are unknowable in their timing and context. That wonderful unknown.
There is nothing wrong with there being so few bugs, it’s just different. Last year they were so plentiful at the same times there are few or none this year.
The weather is very different this year, wetter, colder, windier and dryer at different times. And still nature is what it is behind, unmade, of a greater power than man, waving in time.
The one grace of existence, the unmade shining through.
*
And here are a couple pix anyway. What a little wonder. And no sign of hunger. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Petals of Pearl
I’ve been seeding the garden with all sorts for a year or so, not knowing what may grow, and every now and then a little wonder appears through the overgrowth. This one has been budding for about a week and finally opened yesterday, some – half of the petals anyway. And today it opened up completely to the spring sunshine.
It’s a little beauty and I’ve been working it to see what happens, image-wise. That’s one of the things I love about nature and photography, I never know exactly how a shot is going to picture – there’s the shot and then there’s the picture produced. And I don’t want to know.
A wonderfully creative way to spend a few minutes, or hours, in sense. To see what a flower looks like and is. The creases and shadows on the white that give it its texture, the shape of the petals that give them their magical quality. And the yellow, heart of the flower, giving up to the prince of light – the Sun.
Yellow face I’ll call it, in a halo of pearly white.
*
It doesn’t have to ‘make’ sense, only to be it.
Whatever that means.
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
*
Nature's Place 
15 comments