Not Dead Yet :)
But first, one of those astounding creatures I see almost every day for your viewing, sensible, pleasure, and to remind you there is more to what you can see. Even if that more is in reality less. Am I making sense? It matters.
I tracked this fellow for some time and caught some real nice shots so decided to post an unusual number of them.
The more you see is the detail that has an existence rendered sensible through the camera device for a snapshot of the otherwise invisible world of vital life, in the psyche, at a place where all has a coherent – to the senses – order. The less is where the detail ends, at the ‘beginning’ you can see now, inside. On the ‘other’ side of anything.
Where sensible order ends and God, dare I say it, begins. Though, in fact, god is in all things, no exception!!
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Amazing isn’t it? The resilience of the human body, or any body – see the frog leap 30 times its length – the fly travel at 100kph hitting or avoiding the debris along the way, just bloody amazing. Especially if you didn’t expect to live that long anyway.
But that’s life. The only undeniable prediction is it will not be denied, will always take some form. As long as there is existence, and I can’t see that ending any time soon. Except maybe in the particular, which is really all there is but let’s not complicate the matter. The particular is the whole, where I am, inside.
So the body just keeps bouncing back, from all the pressures of living, and the accumulated past. The physical pressures are not a problem, just a fact the way light or dark is a fact. It’s silly to have a problem with that.
No, the problem is the past that keeps bouncing back. The past as thought and emotion. But there’s a way to deal with that.
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Do you remember as a kid the way you learnt to bounce the small rubber ball off the ground? At first it was a bit clumsy, bounce and miss, bounce and hit again but off centre and away the ball goes and you have to chase it to bring it under your control again.
But, eventually, you learnt to bounce that ball with ease, even grace. Bounce, bounce, bounce off the floor, off the wall. Wall, floor, wall, floor – bounce, bounce – control. By the practise, as long as there is the capacity. And the exercise is never given to those without the capacity so that’s not an issue, is it?
So you see, it’s just a matter of practise. Right practise!
Practise of the right exercise/s.
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Is there ever an end to the need for practise? If you come to it there is. If you don’t there isn’t. For you, since only your experience is important, to you. Anything else is someone else’s experience, maybe not even that.
Imagination, the curse to be mastered. Then it might, might, be called a blessing, among others. :)
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Summer Time …
… and the livin’s easy. Well, livin’s never that but there are many different small creatures about for me to investigate with the camera. And that’s a pleasure, if not easy.
I went down the old Mt Cotton scout camp today for a wander around a few known trails. By the pleasantly aged buildings there is a garden planted by the young boys, I don’t know when. There are many flowers there at the moment and they attract the tiny native bees.
And where one insect goes there are usually more who follow, or just make their own way there. One doesn’t necessarily follow the other, or does it? Anyway, it wasn’t long before I had to give up on the little black bees, they just move too fast. Zip, zip, zip, in and out. I must have got two keepers out of about one hundred shots, not good.
Then I noticed a little black cricket, I think it is. Ninja cricket, I call it, with a short yellow saddle on its back. It was very interested in the small black bees and was slowly making its way towards one on a flower but they were just too fast for it, and not nearly numerous enough to be caught.
I was looking around for what else may be in the vicinity and there was one of the little brown frogs from early spring, only now it was turning green though not much bigger. It was also in position to catch some black bees, up on the leaf about the flower, but after a few shots it jumped away down the plant.
And there was a golden ant taking some of the honey I left out for the bees, which they never touched. Enjoying a long sup of a most wonderful food not often experienced in the world of ant. Food of the gods ant, making the most of it.
A few other creatures came and went. Like the green eyed fly. She landed on my booted foot and slowly made her way up my ankle where I got a few shots. Then she was off to the garden where I got a few more. She had a lazy way about her and at one time she was determined to examine my camera.
She rose up from the greenery and came slowly towards me. At first I thought she was after landing on me and I moved away but she went straight to the camera and walked around it tasting, as flies do. After a while I shooed her away and she landed in the garden again and we both went about our business. She grooming herself and me taking her picture.
As I left the garden for the wilder trails I met a small grey kangaroo, no picture. We have met before and I called out to her and she was hesitant, not knowing whether to run or not. In the end she opted to keep a safe distance of about ten yards but she is getting used to me now. I must remember to bring her some good food next time.
Down towards the water I went to see the wasps at a nest I know of, native wasps. They are small dark hued creatures and like all wasps are alert to any intrusion. I am always careful when in the bush but particularly around wasps as they are very active in defense of their nest. It’s a good idea to give them no cause to interpret any action as aggressive, as they will attack. David and Goliath style.
But their sting is not at all bad, not like the European wasp or paper wasp. It’s like a small electric current that rapidly diminishes, but uncomfortable all the same.
Another fly landed at my feet on the boardwalk around the dam, just two shots of this one. Magnificent creature, colours and form. It is extraordinary the beauty of these creatures up close, that is so easily overlooked by the unaided eye.
A dragonfly also presented himself, lovely young yellow thing. Sat on his perch for me to get a few good shots and away he went. Nothing stays the same for long in the bush. Everything is always moving, staying alive if it can. 
Dying if it can’t. Without complaint.
My beautiful nature.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Masked Paramour
Sitting in the flower tops, waiting for her love.
Surrounded by the colour blue, and mauve.
Round and round she went to see.
Arms outstretched, but not to me.
Once a beckoning, it seems.
Then strikes a pose, of themes?
I don’t wonder that she would feel.
And along comes a meal.
Not so easy, the meal.
One finds there little appeal.
The other, oh well, away on the wind.
Love returns, eventually, in kind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
It’s Never Too Late
These shots are of creatures that are seen only around the outside light at night. The largest creature here is the first at about 2mm wide head. The others are so small they are unidentifiable to the naked eye.
To rise up.
It’s never too late to throw off the chains.
Never too late to be new.
It’s never too late to give up the mantra, the one that keeps you from love.
“I can’t!” “Why me?” “It isn’t supposed to be this way.” “Something’s wrong.”
The mantra of mind that sees only what is gone, and never the way it really was, or is.
It’s never too late to say it’s good. Good to be alive! Well done! That’s lovely!
It’s never too late to step out of your skin. The one as me ‘this’ or me ‘that’.
It’s never too late.
*
Well, I suppose it can be too late.
The sun sets, the stars shimmer only once just that way, the same rain never falls twice.
But it’s never too late to dance for the pleasure of it, or sing a little song.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Pilgrimage
Dusty trail, overflowing with green, damp humid in the tropical spring shade. Big dark ants crossing. I stopped to see what they were doing and it was the obvious, going somewhere. There were two kinds of ant here, big and small. The big ones had a certain character about them, a quiet strength. The smaller ones a quiet study.
In nature everything’s either going somewhere, doing something or doing nothing – being what it is – or just being.
Grasshopper is about too, about the house. A shy one this morning, trying to hide behind the green pole. Maybe his skittishness had something to do with its dented eye, the other one. I got him anyway. And there will be more. A season’s come. To go. Whatever that means.
Dragon’s flight is easy and unpredictable, predictably so. I followed him around the edge of the field, in and out of the bushes, to dam’s end. And off I went into the forest, to home, whatever that means. :) Home James!
Spider was hiding out on top of a flower, purple blue. She moved about at intervals, showing herself a patience, no thought. Sitting in silence, little spider being. Being spider.
An unusual bug climbed out of the forest of grass at my feet. I have never seen her kind before, soft, light and unthreatening nature. She wandered about the blades of tall grass, a rolling gait, and I showed her about a few twigs.
A little wonder of the day. All going home. A pilgrimage indeed.
And a flower or two to mark the way.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Spider Time
As soon as the weather started turning warm again I noticed an increase in the flying population. Small creatures to start with, then some bigger ones, gnats, midges etc. then bees, wasps, beetles and still getting bigger. Dragonflies have started their first wave of the new year in earnest; there are many young ones about where there is water.
Water, life to all things. Without the movement the fluidity of water enables there would be a lot of very slow things in existence.
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It wasn’t long before the spiders started showing themselves. Sometimes just as a speck on a thread hanging from the branches or ceilings. Often on the leaves where the little flyers landed. Now they are big enough to get noticed all about. As it is with all things, following the resources for survival, the population burgeons and gets fat on the bounty.
There is a cost too. You will often see a spider with a leg or two missing. Everything costs something.
*
They have favoured places, spiders, depending on their kind. Or so it seems. Some love to weave their webs across the canyons of green and shadow and need a flow through of air to carry their prey to them, or they set up their webs in sheltered places and wait for other creatures that seek out the shelter. Some hunt in open spaces for their keen eyesight, like the big eyed Jumper, and others take to the jungle for their sensitivity of touch and the network of threads they lay around a place to feel from, like the spiky Lynx.
It only takes a little time observing nature to realise there is an intelligence to the way of things. All things have a place, even if it kills them. Because it’s the way of things.
Everything dies, and it fits.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
A Mother Fly
She was a beauty, about ¾ inch long, lovely colour and undamaged by her eventful life, no dents in her eyes or broken hairs on her face. In fact she was the picture of health, as I know a fly can be.
This huge fly found its way into the laundry the other day. It was on the window glass and I couldn’t induce it to have some honey and slow down. It had other things on its consciousness, demanding its attention.
I followed it around for a while trying to get a decent shot of it, even moving. Eventually I decided to trap it in glass and that worked. After a few minutes under the glass it stopped still, so I lifted the glass and it remained calm. It climbed up the side of the glass and sat there for a while.
After a short time it tried to fly away and fell to the window sill, buzzing around on its back, wings beating loudly against the surface. I remember big flies doing this from when I was younger, much so.
I noticed its behind was white and I took shots of what was presented to me. When I looked on the LCD I could see tiny grubs and it clicked. It was a she and she was giving birth.
There were many, maybe 100, of these grubs scattered around the buzzing mother. It appears the fly goes a little manic with the readiness of birth which causes her to scatter her young. That would be better than to leave them all in one place, a ready meal ensuring an end to her line, not very evolutionary that.
Then, a little time later, she died.
And that’s the way of it here.
*
Unless you know purpose and can live it.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Gi’s A Break!
Blue and red, green iridescence. Long legged wonder. Meandering about on Hibiscus, looking for his lost love? I bet.
He’s a man after all, why else all the colour but to attract his long lost love back to him.
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Stopping here and there for a drink, a feed. And what comes along but a bloody photographer.
Messing with my space, just ignore him, he’ll go away. I hope.
*
Aaghhh! He won’t go away, I’ll have to perform now, bloody men.
Ok. Pose, this way and that. Stick my long tongue out at him, maybe he’ll get the message.
Aaghhh! He doesn’t get it. Just leave me alone, why don’t ya.
I know, I’ll show him my behind. He’s got to get that?
*
Not on your life. Might as well play along.
Better clean up, brush the dust off my back, the debris off my eyes. Brush those antennae shiny.
Better look my best, give him my best. Then he’ll go away and leave me alone to get on with my hunt for my long lost love.
Did I say that? Putting thoughts into my mind he is. Dangerous man.
*
Hey you! Gis a break why don’t ya.
What? Now he’s putting things in my way, trying to slow me down. I’ll show him.
Oops! That hurt, all the way from his eye to his foot.
Me wings aren’t straight yet. Under the leaves then.
Aaghhh! Here he is again, won’t he ever leave me alone? Aaaaghhh!
*
Ok, ok. I give up. I’ll just sit here ‘til you’re done.
Ho hum!
*
And what’s this? A little lake of honey?
Wow, cheers mate. Come again any time why don’t ya.
Hmmmm! Ol’ pal.
*
Do insects really have such personalities?
Is it possible? Could the planet survive it?
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Tumble in the Jungle
I was in Mt Cotton scout camp today and the most extraordinary event occurred.
There is a small garden there where the Joey’s planted some flowers and shrubs. It is bordered by a few timbers and as is their way the ants use them as a highway through the debris that litters the ground.
Today while I was looking for what I might find in the way of creatures – structure and beauty to shoot I saw these two ants going at each other. They didn’t seem too serious but I suspect they were well matched and that’s the only reason one of them didn’t die in the fight.
They tumbled this way and that, mandible locked to mandible, up and down the natural landscape. For ages it seemed they battled it out, for what? Supremacy, what else?
Towards the end they had been fighting their way up and down a small twig and eventually one of them gave up and ran away. The other then ran back up the twig and all but shouted out in triumph.
I won! Yeahhh!
Well, maybe.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
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