Nature's Place

Walking in the forest, washed clean of thought by the solvent that nature is to the psyche. That’s how it is for me, peace. The green of nature is peace to the mind. There is nothing to name when I’m in nature, not really. Nothing for the mind to work on. It’s where the name Greenpeace comes from. Green peace of mind.

The place was still wet from yesterday’s rain and today’s sun was glorious after so much recent cloud. It was cool and green and quiet except for the rustle of the wind in the tree tops and the occasional bird call I didn’t recognize. This is Mooball NP, just north of Byron Bay and south of Murwillumbah off the old Highway One.

I did hear the whoo whoo of the dove and saw a few flying about so it was probably them. I parked the car on the side of the track and nearly got stuck in the mud. Nearly.

This track starts at the top of a hill so the only way is down. At the outset I saw a snake, it was not a long one and it was gone in an instant but it had a light grey back I have seen before on a whip snake.

Whip snakes, they have lovely colouring. I have seen them with red and yellow and green. Such beautiful shades. And they have the sweetest little smile. Beware!

Beautiful creatures, and not very poisonous, the whip snake. Though it’s best not to count on it.

Other snakes around here are best avoided. The brown for instance is said to be one of the most poisonous in the world. But snakes usually get out of man’s way.

They are not without functional instinct. Survival instinct. Man, to them, is the most dangerous creature on earth.

It was the first snake I’ve seen this summer during the day. The first one was a five foot python I nearly ran over one night as it made its way into a garden where I know small animals live. Hunting. I let it go on its way.

I prefer not to interfere with nature unless it’s to get the creature out of the way of people. Nature can use a helping hand at times.

There seems to be so little space left but it isn’t so. There is still much space where man can’t and probably won’t go. Nature will always be here in at least some form in enough numbers to go on. Life goes on.

A while down the hill I came to a side track. It looked unused except for the tyre track; a motorcycle had been down this way recently.

It was close and somewhat overgrown with Lantana and when I got a little further in there were spider webs across my path every few feet. You don’t want to bump into one of these fellows.

It was obvious nobody had been down this way for a while the further down this track I went the harder it got to navigate. There were washed out passages and fallen trees that required me to go bush to get around them.

It wasn’t long before I turned back. It was too late for extensive exploration, maybe another time. It’s not good to get lost in the forest at night.

Not because of any particularly dangerous creature but because there is no guarantee of being able to see at night, anything. It also gets cold at night in the damp forest at this time. And the mozzies would be a serious concern.

So, cold, unable to move and seriously bitten, would be a long night indeed.

On the way back I went to one of my favourite spots on top of a hill. It’s a clearing where an old house used to be. There’s nothing left of it but a pile of rock and other debris.

It’s the rock that interests me. It’s where many insects hang out for one reason and another. Some for shelter and some for nesting, some for food no doubt.

There were two huge bees or wasps or hornets. I couldn’t really tell which. They were the size of the big hornets I have seen in the deep bush but those were predatory, made me very wary in their presence.

These two had a tender aspect. A softness that I am finding is not unusual in this kind of creature. They were checking out the pile of native rocks, exploring different nooks and crannies. What for I am not sure.

One of them spent a lot of time with its head pressed down to the rock, its antennae folded along the stone. That I found remarkable. Perhaps it was absorbing some mineral or nutrient.

It didn’t seem to be collecting for the mud nest building I have seen these type of creatures do because it didn’t have that sense of purpose about it. It didn’t go away and come back with the knowing or determination they have when nest building.

I stood there when they checked me out. They flew around me, just to see what happened. The way we people do sometimes to see what a thing is made of.

There was no interest in me when I didn’t move or offer any threat. That’s all the respect nature needs. The creatures are intelligent; they can tell when a threat is posed and act accordingly.

Very rarely will a creature who has had no contact with man behave other than sensibly. All man has to do in turn is be sensible, from the word sense.

You don’t want one of this pair after you, that’s for sure.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Djinn brought a frog into the house tonight. I won’t have him playing with the little creatures, it’s not right. I know it’s his instinct to kill and he can’t help but be a cat. He’ll play with anything that has the misfortune to instinctively need to move away from him.

But he doesn’t need to hunt for food so I tell him off and he gets the message, for the moment, and then he’s back to being a cat.

I can see the pull instinct has on him, if it moves chase it, scratch it, bite it and toss it until it doesn’t move any more.

Tonight’s frog was lucky, I rescued it. There it is doing an impression of a giant. (The camera settings were all wrong for this one so I turned it B+W.) But the other one was taken outside after all the hoo hah.

I didn’t remember to wash it down in the rainwater to get rid of those hairs you can see, they are from the floor inside the house and can be a serious hindrance to a frogs easy movement.

The little thing, when he recovered enough from Djinn, took a pose as if to defy me. It expanded itself and turned its broadest aspect towards me and when I wasn’t deterred by this it made noises at me and blew this big bubble out its mouth, or from under it.

It has a small squeaky call. An almost comical creature if it wasn’t actually instinctively fighting for its life. More of a brave warrior really.

This is a ground frog; they have been showing up since the rain started a while ago. They aren’t really built for climbing so I put them down by the old rainwater tank where there is cover from the animals and at the moment plenty of mozzies to eat.

The difference between these ground frogs and the green tree frogs that live by the tanks is these ones try to get away when threatened, and so attract the predators.

They can jump long and fast without pause so they can outdistance any smaller, slower predators. One nearly got away from me the other night it was so fast.

The green tree frogs just sit there still as a statue and the cats lose interest, but they also have a presence that deters the cat, the predator.

A strength of character perhaps. Fearlessness, or indifference, takes the sting out of the killers instinct.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

This rare beauty caught my eye today when I was having a pee out the back. So I finished up, went and got the camera and stalked it around the garden for a while until it came to rest on the beam of the veranda.

It’s not easy being in the senses!

I think it’s a moth but it could be a butterfly. I’ll have to get a book on moths and butterflies as soon as my next check comes in.

Have a close look at it. I know it’s only a picture but it’s still in sense. Have a good look and magnify it if you can. Isn’t that a real beauty? It is to me.

Magnificent beast. Look at the colours, the magical shades of blue, purple, brown and black with the star speckles white in its furry collar. The wizardry of its camouflage patterning on the outer wings.

The blue ‘horns’ tucked up at the front above the little pink mouth. The furred legs and the long ribbed antennae reaching back out of harms way.

The big eyes, looking at you. What a magnificent creature. What a beauty. Wonderful God made thing.

That’s what it means to be in the senses. Giving your attention to it until the mind no longer gets in the way, filtering out the simple good.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Isn’t it amazing this technology that allows us to communicate across great distance in the blink of an eye. Haven’t we come a long way from when only the very privileged could disseminate their words, and then with great difficulty. When it took Caesar three days to tell his general in Gaul anything, or get word! If, in fact, word got through!

What times we live in when so many can do so easily what once was available to so few. There is progress there, but to what end? Nothing lasts in this existence, so how is it going to be when all we have become accustomed to no longer is?

That’s the rub, you can’t hold on to what passes without the pain of separation. There hasn’t been much progress in the way of self discipline. That seems too difficult for the modern mind.

Or do you think things won’t change?

It was fine for a while on the open trail today but when I got into the densely wooded bush where it is mostly shaded the mozzies were out in numbers. They don’t appear much where the sun shines. Something to do with their little body’s drying out in the heat.

I haven’t been using insect repellent since I was ill from it a while back so I have to be careful. The local mozzies carry all sorts of diseases it would be better not to get.

I went down the trail quite a bit before the mozzies attacked. Yes, they attack. And as soon as they started showing up that was it, I had to get out. Turning away from walking in the bush is, to me, like leaving an old friend. But it has to be done.

It’s really a swamp now so I wasn’t expecting anything else, just thought I’d check. On the way back, still in the shaded wood, a butterfly crossed my path and settled on a bush a few metres away. Its colours were striking and I didn’t want to leave without a picture of it.

I kept moving while I got the camera ready, it’s harder for the mozzie to settle on me if I am moving, then turned back to as close as I thought I could get without disturbing the butterfly. Then I had to stand still to check settings and focus and shoot.

In that time I was probably bitten four or five times, but not badly. It was worth it, don’t you think? What a beauty! The red and yellow flashes on black. And the proud stance. A prince of his kind.

Tonight I had a visitor. I heard a small croaking out the back of the house I hadn’t heard before here so I went to have a look. Luckily this fellow wasn’t in the greenery or I would never have spotted him.

I found him sitting on a stool by the old wooden table. There are toads about that would eat him if they see him so I picked him up and put him where I put all his mates, on the stag fern.

None of the six or so frogs I have put on the fern in the last couple of months sit there for long. They all jump for the cover of the passion vine on the trellis a foot or so away. Attracted by the comforting embrace of green nature.

Now that the vine has grown it provides great cover and is probably a good hunting ground for the little frogs. I have seen many kinds of insect on the vine and the area around is deliberately unkempt to encourage the little forms of life.

The vine has grown a lot since I put some manure down and we’ve had all the rain. It’s a real beauty itself, producing some magnificent flowers.

Such beauty has to have intelligence and love behind its design. How could it be otherwise? You would have to be blind or fixed in rationality, thinking, not to see it.

To suggest a flower, any flower – or other life form for that matter, appears in existence without some causal intelligence behind its design is utterly absurd to me.

The bees and other insects have been visiting the flowers so there may be some fruit this season. It’s this plant’s first year so I am told not to expect anything. But there have been a few flowers, so you never know.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

While checking out an area of the garden for forms of life I reached down to pull a dried blade of grass aside to see past it better. Then I noticed it was attached to a thicker something which, when I looked closer, turned out to be attached to a long slender body.

Oops! It was a stick insect and it nearly lost two of its front legs. I nearly pulled them off. They are held together straight out in front of it looking like an extension of its body.

This fellow’s been through the wars. He’s got half of the left antennae missing along with the left back leg. God knows how it happened. It could have been a battle of mythical proportions where he had these body parts ripped off in a struggle for his very little life.

Or it could be he caught himself on some structure in the wind and was damaged in the violent collision, he can fly. His wings are folded along the length of his lower body, from behind the vestigial wing casings.

It could be a natural consequence of old age among stick insects, who knows.

But you have to respect any creature that can carry on so handicapped in a very hostile world. That’s what I call courage, the absence of any self consideration.

No ‘god, what am I going to do now?’, or ‘look at me, I am no longer whole, I might as well die!’ None of that. This fellow registered my presence and acted accordingly, he tried to get away.

Survival, that’s what the natural creatures know. If I’m hungry I eat, whatever I can. If I’m thirsty I drink, whatever will do. If I need shelter I find it, and deal with what I find there when I get to it.

If I need to fight for my life or any other thing I need I will fight to the death, if need be.

If I need a mate I’ll call out, somehow, and I will find one or die looking. If I am a stick insect I don’t need much more than that, unless I do.

Though I might fly for the sheer pleasure of it, who knows I wouldn’t? I might just love to fly, why else have wings? Maybe I need to love to fly. Who knows? Not you.

See my magnificent body being, I earned the right to live, until I die.

Look at this beauty. Dancing flame flower I call it. I haven’t seen anything like it before, though I have seen some magnificent flowers. And I don’t know its name.

The red and yellow and green. Look at the structure of it, the way the curled petals have unfolded to reveal and crown the reproductive parts. Come to me! She says.

Reproduction, the whole point of existence, everything reproduces. Until I no longer need to need. And I am. Complete.

Completion, isn’t that what everything lives for. The sense of it. And when I am complete do I need to live as I have known? Who knows what then? Who needs to know!

See that magnificent stigma, three pronged. Reaching out beyond the wheel into the unknown. For the kiss of life borne on the wings of some strange and wonderful creature. To live and live again.

Reaching down into the womb of life itself. From whence I come. You too. Just a simple flower.

And those anther’s on their stamen, cart wheeling around the base to provide all the chance of the stranger carrying off the seed of a new me.

So that one day I may know life itself, life without form. At the end of the longest journey.

What magnificence Thou be.

A bee. A solitary bee? Wonderful soldier in the workings of all things that be.

I love Thee.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

After working on the computer all day I went out back with the camera to see what’s happening. Passing the water bucket I noticed something floating motionless on the surface. I got a big leaf and used it to throw a lifeline to the creature. It wasn’t moving when I saw it and it wasn’t doing too well getting on the leaf.

Probably it was exhausted from its struggles. The natural creatures never give up until there really is no choice, unlike people who get emotional and give up before they can’t go on. It’s amazing how far beyond the point you think you can’t go on you can go.

It struggled onto the leaf, staggering a bit, then settled down. I put it on the wooden rail to dry out and rest in the sun where it wouldn’t be bothered by anything like frogs or lizards or ants. It didn’t move when I got up close with the camera. Not often a fly does that for me.

You can see some of what may be damage to the eye cover, or it may be debris from the water. And look at the hairs on the creature, I suspect they serve at least two functions.

The ones at front would be to detect and probe something before it touches the body proper, the way we use our hands.

The others would be to deflect small objects before they hit the body, or at least provide some cushioning to striking objects.

It’s probably a hazardous environment flying around close to the ground, the air full of natural bits and pieces.

You can also see the water droplets on the back of the wings. He’ll have to recuperate enough to shake those off, then he may be strong enough to fly again.

A lovely red flower attracted me in the garden. The plant itself is stunted from ants living in the roots. But where there is enough vitality nature goes on to produce a flower, or two.

Close up I look without thinking and see the deep red and speckles and shades of pink. And the form, the shape in the space. See it?

Beauty is behind. Examine closely all the parts that didn’t at first attract. Give it your full attention. Feel the texture of the thing, so soft and cool and smooth. Does it have a smell?

This is what it is to be in sense, simple isn’t it? Just keep coming back to the sense of it and leave behind the thought of it. No thought equals no mind equals no problem.

It really is a matter of what I acknowledge I get. By giving my attention to the natural things I am no longer where problems arise, in my mind.

Further on I came to a moth resting on a synthetic surface. It’s a lovely colour and shape, elegant, with its long antennae, its cloak wings furred at the shoulder.

Looking straight down on it from above it looks to be directing its eyes up at me. It may be the outer shell of the eye contains a moving lens through which it actually sees.

And the lens can move over quite a large range since each shell is more than half a sphere. I wonder if the lens’s can move independently from one another.

It’s amazing all the things forms of life can do.

When I went to the side of the moth to take a photo I noticed the ‘eye’ or lens seemed to follow. It looks like it’s looking at me from the side as it did from the top, and without moving its head.

It could be a trick of the light and reflection but I don’t think so.

It makes sense for it to have a hard outer shell through which the eye or lens sees, less prone to damage.

Isn’t it a beautiful creature? An amazing existence?

It is to me.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Some days are that, nothing doing. There are no creatures about, no birds or insects. Even the cats are quiet in the overall picture. No mozzies either. I have no reason to go anywhere in particular and there is nothing particular that needs doing. And nobody about. It is very quiet.

To the unprepared mind this is boredom or worse. To me it is an opportunity to be stiller. I am not my mind. I have prepared my mind for doing nothing by right meditation. It has to be said, not all meditation is right or will still the mind enough for being nothing.

Right meditation reduces the mind to the focus on the simple unmoving sensation in the body. The mind doesn’t give up easy from its habit of thinking about anything, no matter its irrelevance.

But I who see this see I am not that and the job is made simple. Return to the simple sensation of the body.

When I have done this enough the mind slows down and, eventually, the sensation disappears and I am.

I am being, nothing to the mind. Or I am being in the senses. No problem.

It is said nothing is the highest mystical truth. Well there you have it. Simple, isn’t it?

What’s all the hoo-ha about?

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

  Not this one.

It’s the time of the young frogs. Four arrived last night, that I know of. All small green tree frogs. One as small as 2 ½ cm long. And they can jump. Leaps and bounds is the phrase that springs to mind. I’m sure it origionated with the frog. When one of them determined to move it was gone so fast I was left standing, amazed at this gravity defying feat.

Frogs are not the only creature in ascendance. Everywhere I walk where the grass is long or the bush is thick a cloud of moths rise and scatter out of the way, coming to rest again within footfall. So they rise and fall again, that’s the way of things.

The spider is plentiful too. It’s all a matter of balance.

There can’t be a lot of one thing without enough of another to feed it, or feed off it. It works both ways. Only man has no predator, except himself. Man is probably the only creature that preys on his own kind as a matter of course. Strange that!

Sitting at the computer last night I noticed a small frog climb onto the window from the sill. It climbed a few inches and stopped. Then it climbed some more and stopped. And again, until it was two feet up the window. Then it fell all the way down.

It did that three or four times before it gave up and went away. I wonder what they see in the window. Is it me?

This morning when I looked out through the dirt on the front glass door I saw the prints of a frog that made it nearly to the top, six feet off the ground, then moving sideways. Then the prints slipped, he fell too.

This afternoon I was sitting in my recliner, relaxing. Eye’s closed, focusing on the simple sensation. I felt something hit my hand. I had to look because you never know what it is around here. I looked and saw a small brown spider. It had fallen from the centre beam in the ceiling, about six feet above me. It shook its head and I’m sure I heard it say ‘God, must be gettin old!’

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

The young Butcherbird came calling today while I was hanging out the washing. He sat on the pole just a few feet from my head and squeeched at me a few times. It was the young one I’ve seen the parents train over the last couple months, but they were nowhere in sight.

Looks like he’s out on his own now and he knows he won’t be harmed here and may even find food. I greeted him in my usual manner ‘Hello there little one’ and he squeeched at me again, he hasn’t quite found his voice yet.

I went inside to get some grain bread, which is what I feed the birds around here when they are hungry. I’m sure he’d prefer some grasshopper but I don’t keep a supply, just a few photo’s of them. And he can’t eat them. Digital nourishment, did you ever hear of such a thing? Not likely.

There were a couple of slices in the fridge so I took them and broke them up for distributing on the grass by the washing line. Other birds eat the bread too, it supplements their diet in a largely agricultural or swamp area and lets them know there is somewhere they are welcome.

They remember the simple good. And it is a pleasure to have the birds around.

I just went out the back to see if I could get a photo of the young one but he was already gone. There was something else though. I noticed a large bee or wasp flying in from the field and under the table. It was a deliberate flight path, as if she knew where she was going. So I had a look.

Under the tabletop, at the top of one of the legs was a large wasp or hornet’s nest. These were fierce looking creatures, not to be disturbed lightly. It had begun getting dark so I had only a few minutes to get a photo but I didn’t want to get too close. So I shot with flash from about six feet away with full zoom.

There were a lot of wasps and they were big and aggressive looking. But they didn’t see me as a threat, even though it is a very active and productive hive. You can see where some of the chambers of the nest obviously have some live young. I think I can also make out one or two wasps laying, but I can’t be sure.

I knew someone who once disturbed a nest like this one by accident and she was badly stung. One or two stings can be treated with a cold pack, but many more stings require some medicine if any is available. They can use their stingers many times if they feel threatened.

These creatures can be very dangerous but it’s only me here so I think I’ll leave them alone to breed. They are no harm to me that I know, as long as I leave them alone. I just have to remember they are there.

Whenever I observe nature I am always reminded of human nature and how people everywhere represent to me the various characteristics of natural behaviour. The difference is humans get emotional and hold on to the particular behaviour long after it has served its purpose. And even display these characteristics out of context, which is insane.

We don’t forget as readily as the natural creatures which is how we built the world of comfort and convenience, by building on what we remembered from last time. But we also built a world of terrible potential in the atom bomb and chemical and biological weaponry.

Given our propensity for emotional behaviour I’d say it’s only a matter of time before we loose our stingers on the Earth for no more reason than it seemed right at the time.

Maybe a young Butcherbird will come along and eat all the wasps, but I don’t think so. It’s a very productive and well defended nest.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery