Geez …
… it’s been a while since I put anything on here, but not dead yet. How many time I have said that now. :-)
Pennant Dragonfly on a recent walk, blowing in the wind on a hillside in the hot Aussie sun. A few keepers in spite of that, knowing a few things, persistence helps.
If you click on the pix they show bigger in a new tab. If you’re on Firefox anyway.
Love the angles, love the elegance, the strangeness and variety of form … love the nature, our nature.
An emperor Dragonfly? A more difficult subject, wouldn’t stay still or near for long at all. Seems from the staining on the nearside wings it’s had a close call with other nature, maybe a spider’s web that it freed itself from – I’ve seen that happen, a momentary collision and instinctive extraction.
Candy coloured flowers, considered an invasive species, Lantana. There’s lots of them in Oz, invasives. No wonder with this one, where it grows thick there’s no way through it. But lovely colours, and the local nature adapts. … What’s invasive anyway, us as we are? Sure looks that way. … And everything serves something or it couldn’t be, including its management, it’s growth and destruction.
Little green bug on the straw-flower from SA I think. Just enjoying it’s day on the pollen. A new season of these flowers has just begun, not long after the last one ended – seeds from then. We’ll see how it goes with winter coming soon enough.
Female Orange Tail resin bee just finishing off sealing her nest site on one of my old bee hotels. I’ve had the hotels over a decade now and they’re still going strong. … They have their cycles, of death and decay and plenty. And everything takes it’s place as the space becomes vacant and viable.
A male Orange Tail resin bee, I think. They waste no time looking for a mate, straight out of the nest. … But there’s a socialising goes on that not many notice, since it is only apparent when observed over a long time span and dots are connected – I’m no academic to be keeping notes – but these ones. So could just be saying hello. Well maybe …
And within those cycles, a nest site becomes unused by the bees for a while, whatever was in there emerges or wastes away, and a wasp moves in if the space is viable. Obviously a mud working wasp of some kind, makes an entrance-way out of mud to protect access to the interior, a mud tunnel. Inventive nature … security access.
And other part time residents of the bee hotels. Another kind of bee, or wasp? Some of the visitors are so small the only way they could use the ‘made for bees’ sites is when those sites have been used again and again until the entrance is small enough to enter and protect or defend. For a tiny bee let’s say.
Which way was it now … up or down. Such a choice of sites available at times.
I thought it was a gecko at first it was so small, and my vision so poor. Turns out it’s a water dragon, maybe old enough for a first moult. About four inches long. Then I saw the other adult water dragons about the place, so I leave some fruit out for them and they are becoming less shy of me. … For a post on the adults at another location go here – https://beingmark.com/2024/03/22/kates-friendly-fiend/
Included for the clean background. The way I like it, when I can have it. Clean space.
Well, I am still surrounded by nature, though I am having to go find it again, the small living things. Not a bad thing, got my body working again so I can walk longer distances to do so. Needs must …
But I am more aware the end is in sight. I suppose anybody who lives long enough sees it coming, as the signs amplify and propogate. And plans for management of the inevitable decline of capacity – those first few inches of getting up off the floor for instance.
But who wants to talk about it, some do, some don’t. And everybody has to live their own life. Can’t be told, won’t be told, and why would you. Except to do what you do, as much as possible without the friction of reference to past or future imaginings.
And so we go on, doing what we do. Not always knowing what is to be until the moment, since not all planning survives the day, being subject to greater forces and powers at work. The forces of inertia and the powers of evolution, or revolution – if that is to be.
But the sun does shine, the wind does blow, the stars fill the dark night sky, the nature does call. The birds knock and sing at the back door for a feed.
Who knows what comes next. The bright morning’s birth and decline, or an end to endless change? Time will tell, we’ll see.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Sweetness …
What’s this curious structure on my leaf, hmmm? – Click the pix for a better view.
Is there someone in there, behind this cold hard shell?
Hmmm, can’t tell. Let’s follow this thread, see where it goes.
Hmmm, how did I get over here now, when I was just over there?
Never mind, no harm done. Time to meditate … focus attention.
Look inside, see what comes and let it go. In the space inside.
Inside and out, everything happens in space. Space is … no problem.
That’s our nature, when you get up close and leave the emotion out of it. Sweet …
It’s sweet to listen to the rain fall on the tin roof, light at first then loud and strong.
Sweet to sit in the semi dark on a warm evening, nothing going on but the sense of things.
No need for anything else, no need to think about it …
The simple life, here and now.
For a jumping spider.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Spidery Ways
At the edge of the verandah where it was relatively dry, for spidery business, a big huntsman sat immobile, in observation.
In a flurry of spidery action, legs and fangs whipped to instinctive focus, an unfortunate one treading, became a spidery meal.
The rain kept up and another refugee, wolf spidery mum and her yet to hatch spiderlings, came in out of the wet.
And so you know I’m not making it up, a batch of hatched spiderlings on another mum’s back, hiding. How she looks after them.
From behind, she wasn’t stopping still for long, gotta get the little ones to safety, in a ball, carried by a thread.
And from the front, what’s this, a springtail maybe, at home in the wet. But too small to eat, lucky creature, springtail.
It’s been raining a lot lately and at times the ground moves with the life forms traveling on the wet.
Refugees, just some of nature’s creatures seeking respite from the deluge.
And what is death to one is life to another.
Such are the ways.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Stoned …
They’ve been around since I got here, a pair of stone curlews. They recently had two chicks and spend much of their time looking after them, though there’s not a lot of food about.
Far from stone still, or stone silent, they can be raucous neighbours – the curly bit. But such is life at times. They’re part of the motley crew of birds and others coming and going about the garden.
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Started https://www.instagram.com/wild.macro.nature/ recently. And doing a lot of work for the market stall on weekends – https://beingmark.com/contact/pictures-for-sale-bees-and-frogs/ – it’s been unexpectedly time consuming.
A few pix for sale on ebay now – https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166414378564 – https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166414404428 – https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166414429747
An older pic, only doing small framed pix for now – no pencil sketches or prints. It’s a nice spot, by the sea.
And the garden’s doing nicely, might even have some new pix to post soon enough, here and there.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Wasp
A flower wasp I think. Taking a break from the ordinary pace of surviving in the garden.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again
It’s necessary to look at something from different angles to get some perspective.
Experience does that, and changes the experiencer, if only a little at a time.
And, eventually, the scales must tip and nothing is the same again. Life does that, eventually.
For this little creature what it’s all about is being wasp, no self reflection to interfere or confuse that simple state of being.
For this writer what it’s all about is realising that original state of being, before (and after) self reflection.
And the way to do it is simple, after all is said and done (the need for experience), stop reflecting self.
By reflecting something else, or nothing at all. There is a way.
Not easy … but simple.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Times Passed
Wolf spider, sitting exposed and undisturbed on an upturned shoe outside the back door.
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As soon as the door was opened she made to enter but that can’t be. Her place is outside.
Frisky little beetle, wouldn’t keep still. Flash of blue, all dressed in green. Places to go, things to do.
Clean those wings, polish those antennae, test those muscles for impending flight. Off to the ball.
Plain green beetle also stepping out, exploring the multi-purpose stick I keep for the occasions.
Stepping out and stepping up … can’t keep a good green beetle down. Off into the wild green growth.
In between seasons here, some flowerings at winters end have been cultivated. But I can’t cultivate the mobile and flying creatures beyond providing food and habitat. Then they come or go by a will not mine.
Something of a reformation really, of constituent elements, viewed through a fresh perspective. Since time as past has passed. Nothing ever really repeats. It only looks that way to the eye jaded by familiarity.
Lucky we have the seasons to remind us, nothing stays the same for long. It takes a brightness of being – without thinking or emotion, the psychological self – to discriminate and appreciate.
So here’s some past come once more, in images taken then, not now. And we’ll see what happens next as the garden reaches into spring.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Forgotten …
… but not lost.
Winter is over and spring is on the way. Time for little ones …
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And this little one is laying more little ones. Into the soft stem site on a fallen pawpaw.
Her unmistakeable actions set her apart, and she is solitary, not another of her kind about.
Intriguing little things, obviously designed with great consideration for functional detail.
And aesthetic appreciation … A designer indeed, if unformed and unnameable. … An intelligence that doesn’t bend to the rational mind.
The first fruit fly of its kind this year, laying into the pawpaw left out for the purpose.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Mice + Others
No, no mice here … Native stingless bees collecting resin from fresh cut pine trees at the meditation meetup place.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again
Industrious little creatures, oblivious to the danger of this particular service to the hive. Deadly sticky building material.
Not here to socialise, collecting little bags of resin on their legs, where they would normally put pollen if collecting food.
Time enough for essential grooming, keeping those antennae in top condition, to ensure a safe return home perhaps.
A little overzealous maybe, or over-ambitious, grappling with a ball of resin too big and heavy to lift, bright enough to dazzle.
And then there’s the risk, the danger mentioned, of stepping on a watery patch and sinking in. A final service of life, to life.
What happens when you over-reach, if a little native bee. The early flow of resin too much to manage and under you go. That’s life …
We have a neighbour who built a chicken house then went away for two weeks with the chicken’s food on auto.
By the time he came back the rats from all around had moved in under his shed and had many babies.
These well fed babies grew up and crowded the original nest so they moved out, and moved in.
Into my place, well almost. And that’s when I got good at setting the rat traps.
Caught so many and relocated them to the remnant rainforest up the road.
But I never did enjoy this removals business, it was just a reflex action.
Something learned long ago, that rats need to be seriously dealt with.
Probably from plague times when rats were synonymous with death.
But it’s no longer so, they can be left alone to live their lives.
Old brain programs should be regularly updated.
Belief of any thing or one would be discarded.
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Oh right, the mice. Well, they turned up a few days ago and I caught a few in traps laid for the rats. So easy to catch for some reason. They are not very cunning creatures, one may have come back to the same trap three times in the same day. Or there are that many of them now, a plague perhaps.
Anyway, I couldn’t go on relocating the little creatures knowing the space they took would surely soon be taken by more of the same.
And their lives would be shattered for no good. So why utterly disrupt their little lives, for an out of date brain program.
It’s the sense of innocence about them that can’t be ignored. They can look after themselves, things will work out.
If they get into the house … that’s a separate matter.
Life goes on …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Winter’s Life
Pawpaw has been drying out in the winter sun and cold wind. … Fly paid a visit and sat a while.
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Fly makes its home here, only found on decaying fruit in the garden. … Long legged fly dances.
Midge at rest nearby. Where there’s food the forms of life come in waves, to take advantage.
Weevil on the hunt for a little food. Mold will do, often seen harvesting some on the skin of decay.
Another nearby opportunist – aren’t we all – waiting its turn at advantage, or opportunity, to live on.
Some don’t live on. … That’s life too. … No doubt took advantage of opportunity when it could. … Now back to the bright black beauty.
Some of the life that makes its way to the decaying pawpaw fruit left out for any to take advantage from.
Advantage, an opportunity to do what life does, live again, with the purpose of maintaining the earth machine.
The machine of which we are all parts in service to the whole, on the surface of sense and behind in the invisible.
Invisible to whatever is tuned to seeing ‘things’, until it is detuned or retuned by letting go any ‘thing’ that arises.
… enough. That’s life, the power discerned by the process of negation.
The bright black beauty of no-thing behind it all.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Nature's Place 
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