The Flood
Well, ‘a’ flood. It seems the great Australian drought is truly over. Two years of rain now and it doesn’t look like letting up. Last year I was flooded out of my downstairs home and this year I was prepared for it, or so I thought. I wasn’t.
I did what I thought was needed, according to what happened last year, but this year it just didn’t stop pouring and the rain overwhelmed my preparations and I am typing this in a rain soaked room. No matter, just a little inconvenient and tiring – cleaning up. But no electrical equipment, like cameras or computers, was damaged – so far.
When you live on the ground it’s as well to keep everything off it, and so I did. This is my cave after all, and I know my ground. Just got a little careless is all. :)
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I have been watching a bee that has made her nest in a piece of bamboo stuck in a flower pot by the front stairway. She feeds well on the plants I bought, with lovely small purple flowers that just keep burgeoning. I knew the rain was coming; forecasts here are usually accurate so we take heed when a storm is brewing.
There is a short log of soft wood that I had been meaning to drill for its use to the flying population of the garden and it got done in preparation for the storm. But instead of it being of any use to anything as a shelter it simply became a block to the force of the wind and rain so the bee is protected from the worst of it.
And it seems to be working. Every now and then we, I and the bee, meet at the bottom of the stairway as she is coming or going from her hidey hole and she doesn’t mind me at all. That’s a small pleasure to me, accepted by a bee, a wild thing that sees no danger in me, can’t say the same for the civilised things.
No mind to that though, civilised things are a bane to nature, just a process man – the race – is passing through. Nature will survive us; I have no doubt, in spite of, or because of my knowledge of self. We just aren’t as big and destructive as we would sometimes like to believe. Pussies of the universe really. :)
But not pussy cats, nothing so cute as new born nature, some of it anyway.
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The rain has surely been washing the place down. Anything not holding on high enough will have been drowned or washed away. But that’s not Armageddon, that’s nature, and what would we be without it. Stuck, as when nothing moves, that’s for sure.
Not stuck now, and I think I’ll go check up on the wild life in the nearby fields today. It’s perfect weather for finding the rare creatures that are usually hiding or just living out of sight.
What a wonderful nature we have. Indeed! All those God made things that come from this one God made thing – it’s just a word unless you emotionalise it, so don’t.
My great pleasure, in the absence of my great love …
This is the way for today.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab
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Perfectly Queen … of the Bees
It was a few weeks ago now that she showed up on the morning rounds of my little nature. There were still some of the little people/creatures to be found in the fields and woods as the winter, such as it is here, hadn’t yet taken a firm hold. Grass was still growing and leaves hadn’t fallen, not much of either. An in-between time you could say, not yet too cold for long enough to drive everything to death or shelter.
The field of long grasses was beginning to dry out with few of nature’s flowers, man’s weeds, still blooming here and there. Little yellow and red striped bells of beauty to me, shining here and there at the tops of the now yellowing threads of the earth’s summer blanket. Calling out to the remaining little people, come to me, here I am, just for you my love. Drink deep and live a little longer in my cold Elysian field.
And there, down the tracks of the season’s comings and goings, I saw a sign of wonder and mystery. A solitary queen, of queens, sitting in the shadows of the morning sun. Drinking the shine as it rose on the dew, warming to a new day to which there were now so few. My little queen, ‘tis you.
So I went to her, and with a passion new, tended her rising ‘til she had awoken true. From this way and that I saw she was fine and I, labouring in the rising sun, a little heady on just the scent of her wine. My, my, what a lovely so new. The form and the colours a blessing of Thine.
Then, inevitably she woke and I stood back to hear what she spoke. A tinkling sound to the ear of the round, a way of the listening, and the speaking, not often found. And what was it she said that touched me so, was it something you hear now that I can no longer know, or keep.
It’s that same sound, of the blackness, the silence so deep!
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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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
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Genesis
… is now.
And the Lord said “Let there be Light”, and there was light enough to reveal the earth, here and now. And there ‘was’ movement – of form – on the face of the deep – non existence.
As the pre-born bee stirs towards existence, coming slowly into its senses – the same ones as you and me in the morning – it reaches a point that must be called born. Warm and blind in the darkness of its solitary being, sound and smell rapidly expand as it breaks the curtain of its leafy cocoon and light strikes its eye for the first time, as the hammer to a bell.
The light of the sun, father of earth, strikes the centre of intelligence bee is and instinct turns to action and quickly comes to speed for the prevailing conditions of sense.
What, what is this new world to me? Sense, form and function, what else?
And something to do. What beeings do, of course.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Mystic Nomad
Nomadic by nature, doesn’t mean they have no home. Any place is home to a nomad as long as their need is filled. And in the filling of their need Nature’s need is filled, they are not separate.
One need fits to another the way a tree does to the Earth, as all things fit to some thing at some time.
There is an out-of-the-way place where these little beauties go to sleep at night. I am the only one I know of that goes there and I can’t see that changing. It’s a small clearing in the middle of a field at the edge of a forest and off the beaten track. It is a special place for these beautiful creatures.
Towards the end of their day they fly in and circle their favoured roosting site, a dried out grass stem in this case. They land at the top of the stem, as far from the ground as possible and grip it in their jaws as they settle in for the night, face to the ground – usually, but there’s always the odd one.
Face down, probably because that is the direction danger would most likely come from while they sleep, it’s a defensible position and can easily be abandoned if necessary. It just makes sense to have your array of detection senses, antennae, eyes, mouth and feet facing any danger.
I often watch them at dusk as they jostle for position on the twig, seeming to prefer to join up from above, makes sense as they fly in from above. When one does there is a pushing and shoving with legs and jaws, from the front and back, but no violence, as positions are adjusted to fit the newcomer.
At times dislodging one or another so it flies off the twig and comes in from behind again and the process begins over until there’s not enough light and they have settled positions for the duration of the dark hours, it takes a little time to get to sleep time.
It looks comical and sweet at the same time, innocent, and makes me smile, what a wonderful nature we have.
They are not unlike children in their innocence, and how they might sleepily jostle for space in a bed they share.
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It’s a popular place for the little creatures, with native bees and wasps of different kinds making a home of it, a safe harbour to rest at night. Care must be taken not to blunder into a wasp nest or disturb the roosting bees, don’t want to get stung or intrude. I approach the bees slowly, careful not to strike their perch or loom threateningly over them.
It’s not a hunt, it’s a prayer.
There are times when it seems my presence at a metre or so is enough to disturb them, and times when they seem fast asleep while the sun is still up and I can shoot away to my hearts content.
They live their little lives noticed by few but their own sweet selves, but are well accounted for in the tapestry of nature. Little weavers of life that they are.
Their big green eyes and long white furry manes, specks of pollen showing where they’ve been. A tale yet to be told.
Without them we would surely be less.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Macro Day Three …
… nearly didn’t happen. With all the rain and not a bug in sight … The short of it is one made it for the day, it was only decided to go ahead on the morning of the day, and it seemed prudent not to ask anyone else along in case the rain didn’t stop. It stopped, for long enough anyway.
When it’s not pouring rain there is always an insect around, wherever you are. The trick is to find them without it being a stress or strain. When you stop trying you find what happens, happens with a pleasantly surprising ease.
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If anyone is interested in coming along for hands on experience of what and how I do what I do check these links : Macro Meditation Day, Macro Illustrated and Meditate, and email me at contact (at) beingmark (dot) com so you are on the list.
Email going out soon for January 2011 (and maybe Feb) dates.
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I can’t emphasize too much the importance, in my experience, of methodical relaxation and meditation to the creative state, that state of being in which it is possible to see and do the extraordinary – which is ordinary at the time. It is the basis for my art, it is my art. And it doesn’t have to be separate from the ‘rest’ of life.
Your life is your art, and every one a masterpiece, when nothing is left undone. ((:
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Here are a few of mine from the day, just the Nomadic Leaf Cutter Bees for now. The other participant may post some of his later.
This is also posted at different fora, the most active of which is HERE.
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I thought the one who attended would post a few pix but he must be too busy, never mind.
Here are a few more of mine from the day.
Jumping Spider with prey.
Some kind of young Shield Bug.
A small black Weevil at the honey with Mites attached.
Tiger beetle, the fastest thing on six legs – 1 metre in 1 second, so they say. Lucky he wasn’t running this day.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
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