Cock o’ the Walk
When you watch nature’s creatures you soon begin to see an extraordinary thing. They don’t get emotional. They don’t have psychological positions to protect from dissolution, because they are not identified with any of it. They simply live their life, doing what they do from moment to moment.
If only people would do the same, but with the knowledge that to cause pain is to receive it, whatever form it takes. And that’s what we do until we wake up to it. I am not special, I know this from my own experience of getting it wrong, of giving pain instead of love.
But waking up is not easy, even, or especially, for the ones who think they are already special. The ‘revolutionary’ fighters of causes, the so-called spiritual ones who love to dress up – inside and out, anyone in fact who is identified with what they demonstrably are not – that is a psychic condition and demonstrably unsustainable.
We, I, am demonstrably the body, inside. Outside is just the appearance of inside. And inside I am the simple sensation, that never lets me down, or I am nothing – an apparent psychological impossibility, but only if you believe that. Anything I think is a Chimera, gone with the next best wind.
I don’t believe, in fact I have spent my life tearing down the belief I was inculcated with by the dysfunctional Catholic church in the form of the Christian Brothers schooling – the most violent people I have ever come across, simply because they used such trickery you didn’t know you were being used and abused – and all in the name of god. God wills it! The cry of hypocrites down through the ages.
God wills nothing of the sort. I say god would have you know love and enjoy the beauty of the earth and rest in knowledge of uncommon truth. People who had taken a vow of celibacy in a vain attempt to emulate a fallacy of the master Jesus being without the love of woman in his life – even though there have since been found scrolls that put Mary Magdalen at his side when the 12 disciples had already abandoned him – bloody cowards, lost in their hopes and fears. And hail Mary, for her undying love. :)
The body won’t be denied, it is a sexual entity, evidence the world population if you need any. And what is suppressed comes up in another place but distorted. Hence the worldwide phenomenon of priests being chased, at last hunted down, for their sexual abuse of children who were in their care. ‘Care’, a euphemism nowadays for neglect, or worse.
The same is true of any organisation that puts ideology over actuality. Ignore the fact for long enough and it will come home to bite you in some other form. The trick to waking up and ending this absurdity called our way of life is to get back home, back to the reality of the body, inside, as the sensation first, and acting from there and not from what the mind conjures out of want and greed, desire and ambition – for position or power, usually over others.
But how to do it, get back home? Well, you can make a start here : Meditate. Or wherever you find what fits you. And just keep at it until you break through the crust of mind that would have you do something else, to fill your inner space.
And the fundamental key to it all? Relax, be easy, let go, inside … And Kick some ass if need be. My 2c. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Early Xmas Colour
The Christmas Beetle came to the garden recently. An unexpected visitor, since I have only seen them in Nth NSW, at Billinudgel NR/swamp – where I went today with nothing to be found – and too hot for the swamp.
There have been many recent and unusual visitors to the garden, a tribute to the flowers that grow there, the whole that comes together when the parts are somewhat managed, given we have mismanaged nature so much.
Is that ‘we’ or ‘I’? No matter, it’s about the nature now. And nature will not be denied, except by a steel enclosure – and then there’s rust … :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Falling to Earth
I suppose everybody saw or heard something of the fellow who jumped from a balloon borne capsule at around 25 miles high. Apparently he spent 7 years planning, 2 hours ascending, and 9 minutes descending. He broke 3 records, highest jump, fastest jump and the sound barrier.
People thought he was going to blow up on the last one, passing the sound barrier at over 800 mph. He said he didn’t feel a thing or have any idea how fast he was going with nothing to relate to.
And that’s the point. It’s all relative here and with only up and down to relate to it looks like a fall when in truth it was an ascension. He went as high as he could to do what he did.
He stepped off into space to invoke and face his fear of falling, what else is there to fear, really.
And such a simple experience, falling, falling …
On the way down he was spinning out of control but regained poise somehow. And when the time came he pulled his cord and came in to land perfectly, on his feet, as if it was perfectly planned and executed from the start.
He never really left the earth, and never really lost control. I suspect through it all he maintained a quiet place inside. A place untouched by all that passed by outside.
And when asked what next he said ‘that’s it’, next he wants to be sitting where the guy before him was sitting that day, next to the guy after him.
He doesn’t feel the need to break any more records, he intends to have some fun flying helicopters in rescue missions around the world, or such.
What next? Who really knows when the only indicator is the past and occasionally there is the new.
A perfect landing? Or a perfect escape from the repetition of fear?
I think I might go to an old haunt of mine, down Wooyung way, see what’s fallen to Earth. Mid week should be quiet, early November for the Christmas Beetles or whatever else falls to earth then – maybe stay a day or two if the van is ready – doesn’t seem likely though, it takes much longer to get things done these days than it used to.
It might be a good time for an uncomplicated natter with nature, accessed from the old caravan park, though I don’t expect much since there has been so little rain for so long, you never know.
Nature is always in some form, no worries.
I clearly haven’t done the work for such a journey. Sometimes giving up is the only way to move on. Giving up the expectations, of self and others.
And some things we are just hard-wired for, the unchangeable. You never know until the day. So, no time to judge.
Unless the observer sees more clearly. It’s why it’s called part-icipent. One is not the other.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Thank You for the Arm!
This Doli fly was out on a leaf one recent cold morning. Usually they sense the pre-flash of TTL exposure and are gone before the shutter speed of 1/160 sec (fastest with flash) can capture it, that’s fast reflexes.
But this little lady was too focused on simply being, in the cold of a spring dawn one thousand kilometres below the tropic of Capricorn after a night long clear sky.
It is my privilege to bring you the Lady Doli, from all available angles at the time.
If ever you have dreams that elucidate something you have known about yourself that was or is the basis for an attitude towards someone – or in general, from your past experience – but hadn’t yet been fully acknowledged and resolved, that – ‘Thank You for the Arm’ – is a recipe for the resolution of any residual potential for recurrence – as the past we hold on to is the present that disturbs or enriches ‘us’.
Thank You for the Arm. An acknowledgement of the good that everyone does for you, me, in spite of appearances, with a little absurdity tacked on for that extra push across the momentum of negative time to repeat, a sense of humour.
Never forget your sense of humour, or of the absurd. And for all the little things, and the not so little?
Thank You for the Arm.
Be Grateful and … Thank You for the Arm! Cuts through the negativity of mind like a hot knife through butter, when you have fully seen the fact.
Thank You for the Arm.
The garden is filling up with nature’s forms of plant and creatures. It just needs daily attention to watch for where it needs a hand, or an arm. And a watering, a foot on a spade, a moving here or there …
Thank You for the Arm. And don’t hold on to the dream, it will die a natural death if you leave it be.
That’s what seeing the fact of the past does; it allows the new to be.
Whatever the situation – Thank You for the Arm.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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The Beautiful Abyss …
… and what stands between …
Well, what stands between?
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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In the Morning …
I usually get up and do the usual things, usually. Then I go have a look in the garden, especially if the sun isn’t up yet. That’s when the most elusive creatures may be seen. But no guarantees, nature is still in charge.
I just know a thing or two about it, how it works. That most creatures need heat to function properly isn’t generally known, for instance. Though it should be obvious, isn’t the obvious often overlooked?
The garden is nearly ready for the coming heat and rain that brings the small creatures in their numbers. Daisy’s everywhere, and Sunflowers, and too many other plants to know or name.
As long as it provides that is fine. And it sure provides me with a simple pleasure, I trust it does the coming tribes in all their shapes and colours. Still, I have to keep an eye out for those that would eat it all.
It would be nice to have a hand in the garden, another who sees what I see and can partake. But living is perfect at 80 to 90% good. So it’s good the way it is. Still, who knows what is round the corner.
More living for sure, or the inevitable death. The gardener’s ultimate contribution to the earth? Anybody out there not notice the slow breakdown of the sense engine?
Another birth, more like. You just have to see the space in between.
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Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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To Dream a Bee
Sorry, no bees today.
Yesterday while walking about the garden I saw this huge black and yellow bee, black bottom and furry yellow jacket, busy feeding at the still flowering Chia with its little blue flowers. The bee was the size of half my thumb, about 3.5cm long, and I later found out it is a Great Carpenter Bee.
It was the biggest bee I have seen and I didn’t have my camera with me, but she was moving too fast anyway. So I just watched as she flew from flower to flower and then away. It’s not yet spring here so this could be a good sign for the forms of life to come.
The weather is wonderful, bright, sunny and cool and plants are finding their place in the garden, before the spring starts up, to be ready for the hotter summer. I don’t decide where a plant goes, it tells me in no words at all.
It’s a form of communication you just have to be open to, after you’ve given up thinking reason is most important – it’s not, but has its place too.
So what I do is unpredictable, because life is unpredictable. Some would call me slow, I don’t mind, but I say ‘what’s the hurry’.
This afternoon I had to lie down for a while, to recuperate from recent exertions, and I had a dream. I saw a black bee swimming in the water – not an unusual sight throughout the year in the garden – and it was happy, a smiling bee.
Someone put a finger in to tickle it and it climbed out onto the hand and flew away. A wonderful little dream, to be a bee.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Winter Sun Flowers
And, of course, their visitors. From night and day, they come and go either way.
Beautiful yellow standing tall and shining brightly out for all to see, in our crisp winter sunlight. Any bug in sight of it will have to visit this notable feature of their landscape. A wonderful welcome to any hungry survivor, though few there be, sufficiently.
It has been cold and wet enough for mold or fungus to form on the lower leaves and stems of the few sunflowers I have growing and nature has provided a remedy in the form of a fungus beetle, a yellow and black Ladybug and larva.
There are a few other creatures that visit but the beetle has made a big impression on the fungus and the plants have stood taller since being tended so. They will live longer and healthier for it.
It’s just another one of those relationships that give the lie to the purely rational ‘It’s only what you see’. It is, but not only. There is a wonder and intelligence that I prefer to call love behind the function and intricacies of a nature that is our own. That’s what connects every thing, beneath the apparent discord.
I don’t mean that in any ‘religious’ way. It’s just the spiritual way it is. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Nesting the Mask
Is that a sensible title? A little cryptic maybe, it does refer somewhat to the bee and its activity.
It’s called a masked bee, probably for the appearance of it with the bright yellow patches, about 15mm long. And she is nesting.
I first saw her a few days ago on the Passion Flower plant, busy blowing a bubble that looks like it contains pollen grains, got a few shots and she was away. Then I saw her at the rose that I had recently pruned, she was digging out the exposed pith at the centre of the stems. She made some impression on around ten stems and excavated a few extensively, deeply.
Then it rained and she disappeared, when it stopped she came back, a day or so later. Then it rained again and she was flooded out, she had been occupying one stem and had entered head first, from top down. I rigged a roof for her but it was too late, she was discouraged from the location it seems, as she hasn’t been back for a while now.
However, she reminded me to use the stems of the Chia plants that had run their course, grown tall, flowered, gone to seed and had more or less dried out standing in the garden. I cut them down, spreading the seed that remained, and cut them to lengths, bundled them and placed them around the garden.
They have openings at each end that very small creatures can use for shelter and nesting and when it warms up again, soon, I’ll see how that has worked. I will do the same with some wild bamboo I collected last year, for the larger creatures such as the native bees that visit the garden and sometimes find a nesting site, as one Leafcutter bee did in a rag left rolled up on the table.
This nature of ours takes what opportunity presents, according to its instinctive need, and moves on when it wears out, or is washed out. It’s all a matter of timing, but instinctual, without conscious calculation.
Nature has no use for a watch, though it helps to be able to read the weather – inside and out.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best viewed in FireFox, as I do.
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Nature's Place 
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