Nature's Place

After a few days rain I thought the dragons would be out today with the sun and it was so. I suspect they are hungry after sitting out the wet and windy weather. It showed in their unceasing movement, to and fro, chasing down the prey that is theirs to eat.

Shelter, then food. That’s the order of things. The body needs protection first or all the food in the forest will do no good.
*
There were a few dragons on the trail but none were inclined to sit still for more than a few seconds at a time. So I observed and enjoyed the display of aerial mastery that is the dragon’s sig-nature. I don’t know their names, just their colours, and many there are. Green, blue, yellow, brown, red, grey and striped. All magnificent creations. Beautiful little forms of life.

This forest, Billinudgel NR, is a sponge to the rain that comes down from the hills to the west and in places it is nearly always wet. It is at these places where I find the most dragons, though my best pictures are from alongside the trail where the open space is better defined.

In spite of the wet and warm weather there are few mozzies so I can stand around in the shade at the wet places and wait for whatever happens along. Today it was a red dragon. She? Perched on my stick for just a few seconds, long enough for me to get the camera out but not for a shot. But she didn’t disappear.
*
From perch to perch she went, from twig to grass to stone and eventually to rest on the forest floor a few feet away. It is a real pleasure when they rest close by and I can see their detail. And since I can’t chase and stalk them as I did in the beginning close proximity is a necessity for a good shot.

I got a few and just after the last one she took to the air and was mating in the blink of an eye with a yellow dragon. It was amazing to see, an extraordinary occurrence. They flew in perfect harmony and hovered over the pool of water at my feet, moving slowly over the surface. They parted for a time and the yellow one, still airborne, dipped his rear end in the pool and used his tail to flick water up. Curious behaviour. While he was doing this she was hovering over him, following him around the pool. Proud beings they were, unselfconscious.

I felt privileged to be there and witness this dance of life in these little beauties.
 
© Mark Berkery…… Click any Picture and click again to enlarge
 

There is an old rotting tree deep in the forest where a lady lizard lives. It is home to many creatures, such as ants and termites and other intelligent crawling things. I have met her on many occasions, usually as she was sunning herself. That would be a certain time of day since the sun can only reach the spot for a couple of hours at a time.

She got used to me very quickly, not so she would let me pet her but I was allowed to photograph her close up. The first time was when she was moulting, early in the spring. You can see where the old scales are off or are coming off. Everything grows anew in springtime. The later photo’s, which are the first two, are of her new beauty, her new coat. And she is beautiful, if you can see it.

There is a softness about this little lady lizard that touches a softness in me, and I am softened. A little more.

Lovely little lady lizard.
 
© Mark Berkery…… Click any Picture and click again to enlarge
 

Clouds come and go, shade – light. Inside and out. The track is an uneven surface so I need to keep an eye out for rock and hole and fallen branch. Spider webs too, and mozzies. Against the light ahead through the overhanging foliage I see a fluttering shadow, a dragon in the distance? Butterfly dancing?

Eyes up, down and up again as the shadow quickly resolves into a small dark brown and orange moth. It’s only two feet away now and heading straight for my face. I ducked and past it went, heedless of the near collision. It turned out to be a different colour under the flash, beautiful thing.

Some encounters are to be sidestepped, some are opportunities. And some opportunities are missed when the inner vision is blurred with stuff of the mind, the past.
 
© Mark Berkery…… Click any Picture and click again to enlarge
 

Or, keep your feet on the ground of sense kid!

I was out looking at the sky and things, stars, insects around the light, frogs at the water tank. One of the frogs favourite places is a little water bowl by the old tank. I was looking into it to see if there is any mosquito larva in the water when I heard a buzzing of wings rapidly approaching from behind. Then plop, into the water bowl a huge green cicada flies.

As the sun was going down I saw a big butterfly land in a nearby tree. I stopped to have a good look and eventually disturbed it so it flew away, but not far. It was getting dark and butterflies don’t fly at night. It landed in another tree so I noted its position to check on it later. Much later, around 2am it is still holding on to the tree in a blustering wind.

Have you ever wondered what butterflies do at night, where they go? I’ll tell you. They seek a sheltered place, like you and me. Sheltered from the many predators there are at night in the forest, bats, snakes, all sorts of creatures would find a butterfly good eating. Shelter to a butterfly is out on the end of a branch where few other insects wander. It folds up its wings and hangs on in the wind. There it stays till sunrise. At least this one did.

*

And the sky, I mustn’t forget the sky under which all this nature happens. What magnificence, majestic, mystic clear endless space with all those stars bright. An unusual brightness tonight.

I have to give the night sky more time, just to look at it. Here in Wooyung it is dark and clear enough at times to really see it, simple and wonderful.

*

Smells of sweetness from the forest, aroma of mint – the tractor had been this way this morning. Today it is vanilla cocoa carried on the breeze. An unbelievable lightness of sense. And fresh mown grass.

Emotions overboard. Help! Help! Whatever will I do without my unhappiness!

I know, I’ll make some up. :)
 
© Mark Berkery ……….Click on pictures, and click again to enlarge.
 

Visitors from inner space, beauty, light, colour, form and function. Magnificent intelligence.
*
The frogs have been having a ball. No, that’s a banquet. The last time I saw the frogs dancing was with the plague of locusts last summer’s end. They were having a barbecue and dance down by the old water tank. That was a sensational ball. Really!

Spider stayed home that night.

*

What’s real? What’s in my experience and how I perceive it, its significance. Or, what I sense.

Everything else is distraction or entertainment.
 
© Mark Berkery ……….Click on pictures, and click again to enlarge.
 

The recent wave of Dragonflies peaked about a week ago. They came with the first wave of heat as the summer got under way, appearing in one’s and two’s until they were uncountable in places at times. And then they just disappeared with only the occasional one showing up in the usual places. Then the rain came and it even got cold again on one or two nights.

Just as the wave of water rises before it breaks on the shore, so the wave of Dragonflies rose and broke on the shore of the fact of living, every body dies. Existence is a wave of form carried on the light of intelligence. Everything happens in waves. I am a wave, you are a wave. All waves break, what matters is the intelligence that keeps them coming. That intelligence is now, in sense.

*

It has been sunny and hot for a couple of days now. I stopped on the way home to go for a walk on the beach in Wooyung late this afternoon. It’s a particular place where there is a walk through the bush before coming to the ocean. I went for a walk, leaving the ‘Photographer’ in the boot as has become my habit, and the first thing I noticed was all the young Dragonflies. One, the light yellow and white, the other a deep dark red.

*

There is a new wave of Dragons, young Dragons, a fraction the size of the ones I came upon first this year. And other little creatures.

On the way to the beach I stopped to inspect a clump of low growing eucalypt. It has been populated in the past by various creatures and today was no exception. There were hundreds of the bright yellow and red ladybugs with the black markings, and a few different kinds of grasshopper. A new wave of life.

The ladybugs were all over me in a short while and I had to pick a few off. If you ever pick one up you may notice they immediately seek the high ground, the tip of my finger in this case, from where they usually open their wing casings, spread their wings and take off. It’s a wonder to watch up close. Delightful, colourful slow motion creatures.

*

When I got to the beach the Dragons were everywhere, and lively, as the sun was about to set. All the tiny flying creatures, gnats, midges and a myriad others I will never know that use the cool of the setting suns shade to exercise their flying nature. These young Dragons didn’t stand still at all, flitting from perch to perch with no obvious pattern to it, feeding on the bounty rising from the ground cover as the day turns to night. Another wave.

I got to see the Dragons close enough to appreciate the beautifully designed architecture and lovely colouring. I was closely inspecting a yellow one that had settled on a twig about waist height and as I got to within a foot or so a young red one came and tumbled with the yellow one in a flash of colour and wings. The yellow one wasn’t taking it too seriously, it wasn’t an attack. It was more like playing or teasing and the red one went on its way very soon after. It is a wonder to see Dragons play, a privilege really.

Wave!
 
© Mark Berkery ……….Click on pictures, and click again to enlarge.
 

No, not insects through the mail. Putting up A4 notices where people will have them and see them. I’ve been doing it for the talks I am giving in Brunswick Heads and I get a good reception almost everywhere I go. I meet some people who say they need what I have but them showing up at a talk is another matter.

I enjoy talking to the different people though, about the quality of the honey or the birds in the aviary at the lovely old nook of a fruit and veg shop on the Murwillumbah side of the Burringbar Ranges. The birds were excited to see me and I was really delighted to make acquaintances. One danced for my attention and when I went to take his picture he kept ducking out of the frame. Then he whistled at me, delightful cheeky spirit, reminded me of one of the young girls on the school bus. Still bright in me.

Or the lady at the ladies clothes shop in Murwillumbah where every item is a one off, the racks are delightfully colourful and feminine. And my flyer was placed uncluttered on a crowded board.

The lady at the Environment shop put one up for me and the fellow took a couple to put up elsewhere.

Or the coffee shop near the bridge where the young daughter is going to have a bath of lime and raspberry tea while drinking a cup of it with a little honey. Lovely aroma.

And the organic shop where the young woman showed an unusual appreciation for what I am doing.

The lady sweet, and the man in the crystal shop wished me good luck with what I’m doing, and meant it.

The bookshop where a young woman of presence welcomed me on my first day flyering. The simple presence symbolic to me.

Many other places too. Fruit and veg shops in Pottsville, the mechanics in Burringbar, the doctors in Mullumbimby, the gallery in Stokers Siding and many other notice boards.

All little encouragements, little helping angels, to me.

It has been a pleasure. And though it looks like I might be heading for a city sometime soon I’m not finished here yet.

*

What a sweet smell there is in the air today, and tonight. A reminder of a place of beauty, inside. Something wonderful is happening in the bush.
 
© Mark Berkery ……….Click on any picture, and click again to enlarge.
 

Lots of it. Water falling from the sky. Walking in the nature. So refreshing, just the sense of it. Dripping, splashing, lovely cool wet, wet water.

The frogs are back late this year since the insect season has only just started in earnest with the recent warming of the weather. They are to be heard everywhere, day and night. It is lovely to see them hunting around the house and often sitting on the glass of the doors to the living room. Quiet little green tree frogs.

There is one frog down by the old water tank and I think it is a Pobblebonk, funny name that. I saw a few here last year but I have no recent frog photo’s. It has a call that sounds like a plonk – short deep, hollow wooden sound. It has been calling from dusk till dawn for a week or so now. Until tonight that is, maybe a mate has found him? Or a snake.

Out in the forest the frogs are calling to each other wherever there is water pooled, which is almost everywhere right now. The calls are so varied, there is the common croaking nideep – nideep, a chirruping, plonking and many other calls indescribable. It is a real chorus in places, a symphony of the many voices of frog.

Rain thundering on my roof now, frogs calling, sweet sound to me. The storm began in earnest a little while ago and passed right over the house. It poured down and cracked and flashed mightily with great thunder and lightning.

Out went the lights and the computer. In came the cat with her tail tucked down, hugging close to the ground with not a word from her who is usually so talkative.

Here comes another wave of storm, flashing and crashing and splashing as it gets closer. So refreshing to me tucked up in the warm dry house. So intensely sense.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery ………Click on picture, and click again to enlarge.
 

The last couple days there have been some colourful visitors to the house. An unusual black and orange wasp, an opalescent beetle and a kind of mantis or mantis mimic. A little colour from the deep psyche where light and beauty begin to take on wondrous form.

The orange wasp was the first to appear. It was on the end of a metal wire hanging from the ceiling of the shed. I wondered what it was doing there since there was obviously no food to be had and from the web I could see this was spider territory. Then it occurred to me, some wasps attack spiders and paralyse them with a sting and carry them off to a prepared nesting site where the wasp lays an egg or something on it to feed as it grows then seals the chamber and flies away on more wasp business. Ingenious, and it’s back again today in the same spot. I wonder why.

I’ll have to go and watch it for a while. But cautiously, this wasp is like others in my experience. It doesn’t like me to get too close. And I have to respect its intelligently defensive nature.

*

The beetle appeared after sunset last night. It was attracted to the light I leave on to keep insects from coming to the lights of the house and getting in. It didn’t work last night there was so many beetles. The frogs must have had a ball though, signs of much eating left on the shed floor, insect shells.

I cleared a few of the opal beetles from the sink this morning and brought them to the table outside, alive and kicking. I shot them in the morning light of the sun filtered through passing clouds but the opalescence didn’t show in the image. I saw one of them as it shit a dark liquid and just then it lifted its carapace and spread its wings and flew off in the direction of the sun, towards me. As it did I was splashed by this dark liquid, the price of a photo.

*

When I went to the car this afternoon to put the camera in the boot I saw what looks like a praying mantis but I’ve never seen one like this before, with the colour and the wings and size. I’ve seen shades of green and grey and camouflage but not this one. It might be a mimic to protect it from other creatures, I have seen a picture of a wasp that mimics the mantis but those front arms look potent to me, big and strong, authentic. Amazing little creatures.

I went to the nearby forest for a walk and the mantis was still on the rear windscreen when I got there, and when I got back. I didn’t go fast. It’s still there as the sun goes down and I write this.
 
Copyright Reserved / Mark Berkery