Meditate …
A Lizard, found exposed up on a wire fence after heavy rain forced it to seek high ground.
… for peace of mind.
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Periodically I offer to teach meditation and this is that time once more.
I started teaching years ago and paid the insurance and hired a hall, put flyers up all over the place and paid for advertising. And charged accordingly.
Today I only teach from home, in Victoria Point, Queensland and there is no charge for the meditation as there is no cost to me.
Or I can travel and if it’s any distance I would need my costs covered.
Either way it is my pleasure to teach where it is needed.
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What I teach is to still the mind. It is not easy to do but it is simple and worthwhile, and once learned you won’t forget it – what you need of it stays with you.
You can best benefit from this meditation if you are conscious of a degree of stress, tension, emotionality or unhappiness and recognise the need for peace of mind. That way you are motivated and will readily see how it works so the learning goes deeper.
If you want this contact me, by phone is best, email is ok too. See Contact page, top right.
See the other pages top right too, for the idea …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Luna …
… tic, tic.
The moon is on the rise and with it the pressure of tide in all things, everything rises and falls with the coming and going of the moon.
Old time lunatic asylums were so named for the propensity of the inmates to agitate with the waxing of the moon. The moon acted on their mentality, pulled it out, magnified it.
The moon magnifies or activates what is already there, in the mind. What you acknowledge is what is there, more and more.
Be careful what you acknowledge, or you might end up a lunatic, tic, tic.
When the madness is gone there’s only the pressure.
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Look up, see the milky light of the full disc on the cold dark blue sky.
The quiet emptiness, emptied of human mind.
What a beauty that is.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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The Hunter
The same day I found The Huntress I found her male counterpart, in much the same way, by searching the places I would hide during the day if … I were a night hunter.
I took the loosened bark down from the side of the tree and turned it gently but quickly as it came away so whatever might be on the other side became visible and exposed, perhaps triggering a freeze response and not flight or fright. There, sitting stock still, was a huge male Huntsman.
I didn’t know how long I had before he took off so I set to photographing him from the available angles, his back to the tree, where else – not to expose him unnecessarily, it’s a balance of forces applied.
And after a minute or so shooting, just as I took my eye off him to adjust something for no more than a second or two, he was gone, deftly disappearing back into the hideaway that is the debris at the foot of his tall tree.
His tree is about 50 metres from her tree, a world away it seems, but there is no reason to believe they didn’t meet.
Little things have their ways.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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The Invitation …
Everything, by it’s presence, is an invitation. To what, then, is the question. That depends on its intent and your predisposition.
In this case intent is inoffensive. So, to capture an image of a resting Potter Wasp.
Or its significance is something unseen.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Daylight Robbery
The bee hotels I have under the veranda, where they are protected from the heat of the sun and the torrential summer rain, are often under attack by other creatures looking for advantage.
Here is one parasitic wasp laying into the nest of a Orange Tail Resin Bee, you can just see the ovipositor behind the middle legs in two pictures. Through it she deposits an egg which feeds on the bee larva and probably the store left for its initial growth.
It’s the way of nature that one thing depends on another for its sustenance. When one piece of the picture is missing there is a deficiency but things invariably balance out in the big picture – just as well for us most destructive humans.
And then there was light … as one more wasp is created, by design.
A wonderfully mysterious nature.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Treasure Ant
And a little treasure they are, caretakers of the dead, diggers of the soil. Indispensable pieces in the great Earth machine.
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It’s that time of season the only creatures around are ants, or so it seems. The passion fruit vine, with its highways and byways and the wonderful smell of exotic flowers is home to many kinds of ants, all patrolling for a bite to eat, a little nourishment. The only way to get a shot is to stop one and food does the trick.
I’ve watched an ant eat until it looked like bursting, its abdomen swelling to accommodate the liquid gold. A little honey stops an ant in its tracks, some feed until it can take no more, and off back to the nest it goes – I suspect – to share the treasure. Sometimes with an initial stagger from the unaccustomed weight and balance.
We do it too, with all the momentary treasures of a single lifetime, absorb and distil the essence to eventually radiate as our light or wisdom – after many years climbing around on the vine of experience, you may have noticed.
Whether the treasure is real or illusory, when it’s gone we move on, ever in search of the next de-light. Until the endlessness of the search is seen to be the grand delusion.
Then now is all there is, no loss or need to search, no ignorance nor despair. No need to experience any more, no need, no need.
Still, inside, there is the nourishment of the simple good, no thing, no form, no problem.
And the reality of the moment grows in focussed attention.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Beyond The Rain
In the last week the daily temperature has gone from mid 30’s to mid 20’s (C) with the end to end cloud cover and rainfall over this part of the earth. Very comfortable, very wet. The plants love it too, after the scorching heat of the fiery summer sun.
Driving in the rain is not unlike the practise of being, having to look through the movement of form to see where I want to be, and stay on the road that works to get me there, instead of focussing on the splashing on the glass or thundering sound on the roof.
The trouble comes with distraction, to the focus of attention or intelligence, to the point where I become identified with what distracts and no longer see where I want to be.
If I am distracted enough by the rain it becomes all there is and I could end up drowning in it.
Recovery is always possible though, by focus on where I want to be – in clarity.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab
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A Hunting We Will Go …
With the spiders having lasted the winter so well they are now set up in the garden to reap an early explosion of tiny life – the small forms upon which the bigger are built.
That’s the way it is here, everything feeds off something else, so everybody dies – imagine if they didn’t … And life goes on, in another form, endlessly – our infinitude.
At present the warmed morning air is filled with miniscule flying creatures and the webs are everywhere, apparently strategically set up to make the most of it.
I am often tempted to interfere and rescue a bee, though rarely see one caught, or destroy a web if it gets too big – but I don’t. Everything needs its time.
Time to move on, always moving on … in the endless work of learning to fly.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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Waiting on Time … to Pass
A few on Salvia, a blue flower I got for the bees.
Fly resting on a twig.
Potato Beetle making a meal of the Belladonna.
The elusive Carpenter Bee making a rare appearance at her nest entrance.
Time seems to fly. It is a while since the last post and it behoves me to keep going and not let too much time pass between, as that risks lengthening with time. It’s a practise, one that pleases me, and I trust others.
Change takes time and it’s that I was waiting on. But I can’t wait on change as that just puts it off anyway. Life is contrary, have you heard? Seeking or expectation brings about its opposite. The key to change is to have had enough of the way it is and see the fact without trying one way or another.
I know some – many – do believe, that decisions have to be made, but I live my life not theirs – in my timelessly time filled way.
And so I won’t ‘philosophise’ any more today and leave you with images of our little cousins.
It has rained a lot lately. From the garden of nature to you.
Mark Berkery ……. Don’t forget to CLICK on any picture to enlarge it in a new tab – best in FireFox – for me
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Nature's Place 
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