Then There Was …
The same bee from different angles on different days, times and ambient light.
… one.
Winter is coming and the bees are struggling to hang on. Regardless of the conditions they, she, can be found at dusk on the same grass stem as yesterday.
As summer ends their numbers are no longer replenished. The young won’t waken until the temperature rises again and the moisture in the air increases.
The colder it gets the less they eat and fly, the colder they get, the quicker they die. Much like us people … better keep the camera warm or it’s me next.
And next year, as long as the conditions are right, there will be more bees to participate in the great cycle of things we know as nature.
Thank you bee, it’s been fun following you around since spring. See you next year I trust, maybe plant some flowers for you.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Meditation – Once More
Every now and again I offer to teach meditation locally and the ad has gone into the local paper and there have been a few calls. One from Dulci, who has been before in years past, and others who are new to me and perhaps this meditation.
When and if it takes place is entirely up to the people who want to take part. I can be flexible on timing up to a point, and because there are no costs involved doing it from home there is no charge. I prefer to leave money out of it anyway.
Anyone who sees the need for peace of mind can do this meditation. It’s far simpler than it reads. So, if you are reading this and are local and want to learn contact me and we’ll take it from there.
A niche Orb Spider with a web where no fly would find it, between high ridges of bark on a tree.
*Remember to click the pictures for a better sense …
Nature knows best for nature. Or something’s not right … don’t believe that for a minute.
An unusual find in the long grass, a Flower Beetle at rest at end of day, at end of season.
Tiny Jumping Spider, lives and hunts on the vertical, usually found on trees often stalking wandering ants.
Surprise, a piece of forest fruit against the darkening sky through the oof (out of focus) forest canopy.
This will be a Ladybird soon, still forming inside her shell.
A giant Robber Fly resting in the afternoon. Time enough for 2 shots and it was away.
Larva of some kind, can’t recall now, munching away on gum tree leaf.
They flick that tail when disturbed. Probably as well not to cuddle it.
Cockroach, shy and elusive. Not the kind to enter the house and eat your food.
Mother Shield Bug. Hiding her brood from me. Maternal instinct at work in the smallest creatures.
And back in the garden, a Harlequin Fly – yes, just made it up.
Tiny jet black Weevil. Almost too small to shoot and feature.
These pictures are of the odd ones that aren’t often posted these days. There is something remarkable about each, in their way. It’s nature’s common variety of weird and wonderful we don’t often see.
It is a form of meditation to really look at something, an image for instance. If you focus on seeing without thinking you’ll see what I mean. Thinking is in most cases always trying to get in on the act.
See the colour, the form, look into the detail. See or sense the space it all happens in. That’s all sense. And you can do this in any situation, any time or place that doesn’t actually require thinking for it to be or happen.
The way to keep thinking out is to keep coming back to seeing. Focus on seeing. Look, don’t think, by constantly returning to seeing or sensing. After a while thinking fades as a compulsion and in time it becomes a pleasure to do this.
Looking at these images is one form of meditation. Another is smelling the flowers, feeling the breeze, hearing the birds – or anything that requires the focus of attention on one sense or another, that you can exercise ‘not thinking’ in.
This focusing of attention on sense, on the ‘outer’, is the reciprocal of and complimentary to the focus of attention on the ‘inner’ sensation of the body. The tingling or pressure that is always there, which you probably already observe to some degree.
It is this focus on the inner that eventually, in time, amounts to sustainable peace of mind. Peace from the thinking mind and the emotion thinking stirs. What other peace is there a need of, really. If there is inner peace then surely the outer must follow.
Once you get the idea you’ve got it, it never leaves you so you never have to depend on another to be able to do it again. Though, until you master the practise, it does help to be guided by someone who has done it before you.
As in all things …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Bee Magic …
Rising for flight, not ready yet to sleep.
Click the Pictures for a better view.
Noble creature, in the absence of ignobility, what else.
Jostling for position, an existential need as night rolls in.
Hazardous foraging, resin? stuck on its mouth.
Lined up for sleep, on their current favourite dying flower stem.
Around the old field of bees, now under a foot of wood chips, and new plantings. Remnants of the ancient orders survive, the ancient Orders of Bee.
Out of the wilding darkness they came, in swarms, in oh so ancient of days. To do the bidding of the Lord of the Earth, to set all of the flowers free.
Set to their task untiring, up with the rising of sun, to and fro through the day they would wander,’til rest at last in the cradling peace of Thee.
At sleep or death, the little ones have a silent cry, of joy. To rest at last in the peace of Thee.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Life On Dead Tree …
She, laying down a fissure in the bark.
You will see these pictures better if you click on them.
He, with a piece of leg missing. Could have been in battle – they do.
Looking out for his mate while she lays.
It probably died long ago, the tree, but only matured recently to the point it has become a hot spot for various species of insect.
I have seen how long hard wood takes to break down in our relatively dry climate, so expect this was an epic death, of the tree.
And as it broke down, the bark and the wood beneath, through time and exposure and ‘activity’, it attracted more varied species that lived off the work of the ones before.
These beetles, some kind of longhorn, are doing that. Either the larva will eat rotting wood, or eat other creature’s larva, and be eaten. If you wanted to know exactly what you could.
It’s how we once learned about nature, observation over long periods of time, no quick lab fixes then. And what we discovered was invariably practical to survival and well-being, our own nature.
We looked after what served us, and weren’t careless of the context it occurred in, minimising our footprint.
Haven’t we come a long way in our progression from the simple nature …
And it all occurs in space, inside and out.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Master Your Art
Wonderful woody Shield Bug, with bonus blue sky.
Jewel Bug, wag those antennae at me.
Wandering Weevil on the tree trunk.
Healthy looking fly, a type rarely seen in the garden
Hopper on the dead tree full of life.
Cricket amongst the leaf litter.
She is laying while he appears to be guarding …
Out in the field, on the edge of the forest, myself and Deb – AussieBugs – went exploring. For bugs, what else.
There is always something to be found when you take your time, some places are better than others, everything to its season.
There are no rules but to walk, watch and wait. What presents nobody can design. That’s something you have to rest in, not knowing, and accept what comes.
Everything has its time, learn from whom you can, how you can, and be grateful. But eventually you have to stop looking over your shoulder at what others think is right or good, that’s past, or passed.
In the endeavour to improve, remembering what once was or thinking what others may think, however masterful they may be, eventually casts its own sticky web.
Of course there’s always another angle or composition to be explored, whatever the art.
And it’s all for peace of mind, what else …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Little Beauty …
Aliens came and saw that a patch of earth was deserted, of flowers ‘n’ things. So they decided to reshape, replant and renew. Which they did, and turned the desert to green.
The fields were greened and the aliens thought this was good, and the aliens advertised their green credentials and congratulated each other with great fanfare at ceremonies arranged for the purpose.
But they forgot the bees. In the process of renewal they buried the nest sites of multiple native bees (non aliens) that had developed over decades, if not millennia. And the bees didn’t come back.
Then one day a bee was seen holding on to a dried stem of grass in a nearby field, a deserted field.
Just as well the aliens were short-sighted or they might have done the job ‘properly’.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Long Horn
This Beetle wandered up the branch I was searching and stopped at the edge of the leaf for a few shots, then turned and went his way, off into the wilds of the tree and its other inhabitants.
It’s nice when things happen just right.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Masked Bee
Click the pictures for the bigger – and better – version.
Twice this year these bees have presented. They are usually too shy for a shot but circumstances dictate. And then there’s luck, what nature, or what’s it called behind, will …
The one on my finger was rescued from the water, of which there are various locations in the garden. The other landed on top of one of the bee hotels and set to preening itself, out of the way of the passing populace, some of which are predators.
A small window on the life of one of my garden friends. A passing pleasure, watching nature’s delightful little robots.
I bet they age just like me and you.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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A Colourful Death …
Click on any picture for a bigger version in a new tab, they do look better.
Down the old haunts where nobody goes there is an old tree that nobody knows. It’s a dead tree, full of life that can’t be seen while searching with a wanting eye, or nose …
Then, when the gasping trying goes the still and quiet comes and one appears, to let the shooting begin. Carefully, no grasping, so as not to disturb the native ears.
Once begun, as shooting is under way and one has had enough and moves away, the other visitors to the tree present, one by one, for a picture, to represent.
And so it goes … While the shooter is busy seeing what’s there the visitors are busy with their own search, of what’s in the air and under the surface. I’m sure they have a care.
For what they find is no small thing, to them, danger or boon will cause them to sing, in their way. Have you ever heard a shield-bug cry out, or have a fling …
Well, they don’t remember the pain to compare so shout for joy they don’t. Except in pain they may cry, that none can avoid. The experience is true though, the same for I, or you.
The difference being they don’t interpret and start to think, to keep them from the brink, of suffering man who cannot help but sink.
But it’s not the end, just something along the way, until thinking no longer holds sway.
And that, my friend, is another story, for another day.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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