Ancient Life …
Hopper, of a kind …
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Getting up close …
And he’s had enough, as he turns away …
Three amigos …
Protest …
And hide …
An other kind of hopper …
Missing a leg perhaps …
Symmetry …
Odd man out … maybe …
… a relative of this one …
Hmmm, hopper legs …
Need a hand … ?
Heads up …
… on a gum tree in winter in Oz.
Out in the bush a tree is losing its old bark as it swells from the rains.
Shedding its skin. Under the bark various creatures take shelter.
From the rain, the cold and some of the neighbours no doubt.
Not always easy to find but there are often more nearby.
The forms of sense may be few but the life …
… always is … ancient, and new.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Curiouser and Curiouser …
A magnificent little cone, facing away from possible danger, extruded by some crafty creature. No doubt to shelter its young while it developed and give it a flying start when ready.
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Look, nothing up my sleeve … It appears vacant, or vacated, youngster already flown the coop perhaps.
But what’s this, signs of life, movement, of tiny antennae at the entrance. Hmmm, what next may be …
And thar she blows, head full out to check for danger, a little sniff of the air to satisfy the senses all is well.
And away she goes, down the cone in search of her new life, a new home. Her squatting days done, for now.
And she pauses at the tail. Is there somebody, or something left behind? I don’t think so, time to be on her way.
Yes, done here, nothing left to do or see. Time for a new life, into the unknown, perilous life to be.
But what is peril to the one that measures such, is just the natural way of things for this little flying creature. Life … and death.
Was walking around the water treatment plant and noticed this white cone on a branch.
Could see it was open at the wide end and obviously a home to some creature, probably long gone.
Well, I thought I’d take a few shots, just for the curiosity of the structure, a home where no home should be.
While I was composing and focussing I noticed some movement at the opening, and then it was gone.
Wasn’t sure I had actually seen anything but it appeared again and tentatively, looking this way and that …
… set off back down the cone. And so I followed, until I couldn’t, and she was gone.
A little form of mystical nature, every single part making its mark.
Will we miss it when it’s gone? Probably not …
… in light of the new.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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The Golden Road …
The Golden Orb spider is a frequent sight in the garden. So called for its golden thread, so sticky nothing is likely to escape it.
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Anything caught in its web is surely done, dead. But a meal to another. And so it is in nature, or anywhere, form changes.
… is everyone’s ordinary life. And when you’ve had enough of it you get serious, to find ‘what’s it all about’.
At that point what it’s about begins to resolve into some form of discipline, an inner work to shed the ignorance – what it’s no longer about.
And so you may find yourself directed to look into inner space, into sensation, to see through … To before the beginning of body … how deep is the well.
The well of sensation, like any well, starts at the bottom but we’re at the top. And it’s a long way down, clearing space as we go.
With intimations, even realisations, of the silence, the stillness … the black, along the way.
The way back to the beginning. Let’s see … Do whatever is true, and what’s true changes.
Let go whatever appears, and that way allow nothing to be.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Garden Life
Moth, visitor to the pawpaw tree that was an inadvertent gift from a visiting bird last year.
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The moth was unmoved. The trees seed was passed on from a birds meal, the way some trees are.
Little beauty … life animating this form in the web of sense and form the garden is.
Weevil out and about. Wandering the ways under the veranda. I followed along …
… for a while. Across the bee hotel and up the twine that holds the rain cap on …
Until he reaches the top, nowhere left to go, and stands there looking out. What we do …
Ant out looking for food, as they do around the outdoor table.
And now and then stops to preen itself. Cleanliness is very important to an ant.
Keeps everything working in top condition, antennae tuned for best reception.
And then there was this little lady beetle. Sat around a while for a few photos.
Dangerous looking barbs on the antennae, serving to deter and receive.
Distinctive colouring, white and black with a touch of red/brown. Striking … danger, to some other thing.
If you or your neighbour aren’t using insecticides chances are there is an abundance of life at your feet.
Forms of life as insects, they are everywhere, all shapes and colours and sizes. They have a secret life.
They live like you and me, doing the things we do, as insects, instinctively. It’s not that hard to see.
What they don’t have is random thinking and emotion, as a compulsion, with a pull to negativity.
The motivation to master the madness, the pain of it, or just the absence of ease.
How else to let go that past arising but recognise it is not true now, or good.
That’s just the way it is, but only if its true … now.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Butcher Bird …
A windy morning she came to look, and fetch what the possum left behind on the ground. A little feeding in winter goes a long way, to spring.
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Sitting on the rain cap tied on one of the bee hotels. I have seen them take a bee from mid-air as they dove past.
But no bees now, none before late spring rain and heat, November or December, maybe. It all depends …
Hello little one … wary of dropping to the ground for that morsel. But she does, and poses a while.
Hey hey … G’day mate … Thanks for the food, the help, the nourishment …
… so called, for their practise of skewering prey and hanging it up for later.
A youngster, interested in what I’m up to in the undergrowth.
After a bit of food dropped by last night’s possum perhaps.
A little pleasure, to have animated nature visit so.
And then she’s gone, that’s wild life, in sense.
No judgement, allows the next event to be.
Without prejudice …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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The Beez …
… are dead, long live the beez.
Lion of the garden, a Blue Banded Bee long gone now. No doubt his essence is passed on, maybe next years bees will shine so.
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Disturbed at night, see his spurs … A frog or … might have objection to them. He went back to sleep, from the dream of waking.
Still dreaming, a much bigger bite than at first sight. Instinctive defence from the nights stem climbing predators.
And just for a change, the angle is relative, down is often how they hang. Magnificent little Blue Banded Bee.
Though the actual form is gone the image lingers.
Invoking all the same reactions, suspected real enough.
Like here, appearing to represent something more substantial.
When, after examining the usual places, it appears there is nothing supporting.
Another image, it lingers still, insistent upon acknowledgement, as all life does.
But not to judge the situation, that we make it so, or something else.
The roiling pressure shapes the body, as the mind, in there.
No mystery to the mechanical, but behind, another matter.
Or maybe no matter at all, just requires seeing.
We’ll see … when all’s done, and not.
What ghosts endure.
The sunlight.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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The Last BBB …
This is the actual last one, an image of. Hanging on under a cold full moon recent nights. With a little luck nature will have populated my mud brick hotels for next season, little B’s asleep. I might move them to a warmer location, soon to catch springs morning sun.
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From the recent Bee Purple, you take what shots are available, priority being to leave no footprint in the sand of their sensible lives. Except perhaps the sight and smell and taste of blooming aromatic nectar filled flowers. They do enjoy that.
There appears to be two different kinds of BBB, or is it ages. The dark coloured, full orange fur coated ones being a bit bigger and just looking more mature. I haven’t watched them so close to know, and does it really matter …
Intelligence self evident, only the self absorbed cannot see, lost in the labyrinthine tunnels of a wholly imagined world. Lost to the world of sense, where these creatures reign. Every one a king or queen behind, each in mortal form below, where all does come and go.
… of this seasons Blue Banded Bees, around my house anyway. But not the last of the pictures.
It’s been cold and wet and the garden in shade of the mornings makes for a difficult terrain to survive in, for the BBB.
One by one they disappeared over the last couple weeks, not missed as they go, but acknowledged then gone.
The seasons turn with the place of the sun and in our orbital world what turns re-turns.
So in the depths of winter, spring is burgeoning behind the barren view.
Well, it’s all relative, isn’t it.
Until it’s not …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Just …
Prehistoric creature, a shield-bug sucking on a vein – in a leaf. How they eat and drink.
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Mother nursing her eggs … then she cradles the young for a while. Nature … not so strange.
Give ’em an orange and they’ll come. The fruit goes off and gets staked in the garden. Habitat too, for some.
Huntsman in the house. A baby caught up on the carpet, stopped a while. Lucky to have all those legs.
Not an unusual sight in the house, often scooping them up for repatriation, before they smother in dust.
Out by the bee hotel, nesting on a tendril of fern hanging from above, about 5mm long these flies.
Plainly, some swollen bellies there, and this is mid winter here. The garden is maturing I think.
At rest late at night on the butterfly bush – what remains still flowering. One of nature’s sentinels.
Fly in the dark, they do … I try not to disturb them though, spider’s about. Robust little thing.
Made his bed on this twig night after night. A hoverfly … with a sense of belonging.
An other fly, also asleep at night but closer to the ground. Spikey little thing …
And a longhorn beetle, for its extra long antennae, laid back to its tail.
… when it looked like there was nothing left to shoot.
From a cold sparse season, a few hangers on.
Seeing into the wildness of nature.
Forms of ‘I’.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Bee Purple
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Colder and colder, fewer and fewer, the Blue Banded Bees are making a heroic effort at surviving. They also have the sense to shelter from the cold clear sky at night, hanging from a thread.
Literally, life on a thread for these guys. Always somewhere near the nest where the females would usually be. A few of them about the garden during the day.
Still some flowers blooming on our warm winter days, enough to keep a few bees fuelled up for their frantic paced flight.
Fly little fireball, to the end of … burn up the form with the passage of the sun.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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