Rare Earth
The weather here in my part of Oz has been dry a long time now, months without rain, and it is apparent in that there are few creatures of any kind about, especially insects. Still there are some, here and there, hanging on in the face of great adversity – to them, being also under assault from incessant human activity.
But there’s enough wild water to keep things going in the surrounding scrub bush and managed suburban gardens do help the little creatures survive another day, especially if there is accessible clean water – that they won’t fall into and drown.
Late afternoon recently a rare bee flew into the house, to the cool darkness of the basement. It was trapped against a window for a while, trying to get out, so I caught it but it was too late to release it.
I kept it in a huge jar and slid a sugar laced flower in with it and that way kept it healthy until daylight when it could fly away without the danger of the night.
She didn’t seem to mind at all, this Domino Cuckoo bee – was probably attracted to my bee hotels for somewhere to lay her young.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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The Brothers We-evil
Three different individuals doing what weevils do, wandering around in the fulfillment of their nature, what else. Not a problem in sight.
The nightmare is Man’s alone to make and break, zombie dogs at the window, nowhere to hide. Vampires running the show.
Analogies, actualities or realities … What a strange world we have made, that has so little to do with our simple nature.
Phew! It was just a dream after all …
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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For the Life of Me …
We’ve had some rain recently and no shortage of sunshine, but today was a remarkable day for the creatures of the garden. The first visitor was a bronze lizard, about 4” long, which came into view as I was sitting at the computer, zipping along the floor. The second was a Snowy Egret, a tall slim elegant bird that landed in the garden looking for a meal, keeping an eye on me as it strutted around.
The third was a Blue Banded Bee that, while I was watering some plants, came and hovered in the spray from the hose – made me smile that. And the fourth was a Water Dragon that appeared from beneath a pile of broken branches from a tree and sat there while I sprayed it, elevating its rear body while dropping its head to catch the water that flowed down towards its mouth.
They all have two things in common. They appeared in (my perception) the house or garden and I didn’t get a picture of any of them – this time. I let the little lizard wander about the house, no point in trying to catch it – probably do it damage. When the Dragon had enough it climbed into the pile below the trees and disappeared, for now.
The bee, along with all its flying kind, buzzes around the garden supping from the many flowers and when I went to look where the Egret was investigating I found what I had thought might be the case. Death, what else …
The leopard beetle I saw tucking into the flowers heart yesterday was gone. I found a piece of its carapace on one of the sunflowers broad leaves. No doubt the Egret will be back, along with the rest.
It’s a pleasure watching the garden grow, the life that comes and goes.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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A Golden Meal
See the Sun rise through the trees, feel the wind blow all a-flutter, flowers reaching for the light, the smell of rain soaked earth, sounds of various birds a-stutter. It’s nice walking in the garden early morning in the still cool shade of the paperbark trees greeting, in a certain way, the emergents of my little patch.
It’s a matter of acknowledgment, if I don’t give my little earth attention it will surely die. As it appears to be on the grand scale by the world’s exclusive focus on making money, the acquisition of power and influence over people and things that means nothing ever really changes for the good, and means little to nothing in itself.
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The simple good that any man or woman can realize in their ordinary life, given time and reminded to – by words such as these perhaps. And that’s the simple truth, you can observe the utter insanity of ‘Our Way of Life’ – on the TV or inside, because ‘we’ made it, that’s just knowing your self – and still nurture the space of inner peace by deliberately giving the rest of your available attention to the reciprocal as the simple earth.
Knowing what you are doing.
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The garden and its colours and forms, the smell of flowering plants calling through the air, feel the elements of heat, cool and wind. And when that’s not nearby focusing on the simple sensation inside will make it easier to do the next time.
A reminder in a world of distraction, if you need it – Meditate.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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Residents of a Certain Nature
The garden is ripe with flowers for the visitors to feed on and some are taking up residence, as if it might be a place to fulfill their instinctive little lives, to do all the seemingly insignificant things they do, and reproduce.
That seems to be the fundament of existence, reproduction. Every thing and body does it one way or another, from the repetition of a single thought form, through the species, to the rotation of the planet around the sun, the sun around the galaxy. Everything that grows does so on a preceding cycle of events, from the small to the large.
The thing is we have to be more intelligent than merely instinctive, significant and intelligent as that is. We need to be able to step, by an act of cognition, out of the machine of repeating parts. Cause, if you look around you, we can’t go on reproducing – thought, emotion and things or bodies – in a finite world. Not if we want to enjoy peace of mind.
Peace of mind, from mind, such a simple though elusive state of being. It’s easy enough to make a start, when enough inner conflict has been experienced. It’s another thing to realise it and keep it real.
That’s all that really matters to me, and it’s done in all the ordinary ways of living a life – each a unique expression, then meditation – to start with.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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Golden Eye
Walking in the nearby woods recently I saw a fly that wasn’t inclined to take off. I don’t know why, maybe age or injury, but anything is possible within the gamut of experience.
I took some time to get a few shots while the fly moved this way and that, sometimes sitting still long enough for me to take my time, sometimes not.
You never know when your number is up until it’s already called, though you can sense it coming, the signs are unmistakeable.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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Be – Jewelled
I’ll add the rest of this series so they are on site for future posting.
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As I daily pass along the garden’s various coloured inhabitants I often notice the visitors. They can stand out and are sometimes camouflaged. It’s only when I get down to them do I really see what it is – another wonder of the earth.
It was late afternoon and this was the only one of its kind about so I took a chance and picked the leaf it was on and brought it to some more interesting background/s, to show it off – as it should be in these times of ignorance, of our beautiful nature.
The ‘trick’ to seeing the beauty of our nature is to spend time in and about it. That way its true nature grows inside while the other stuff dies off, fades away. It’s a matter of value, whether simple beauty or mental emotional activity is attended – because one is surely not the other, and two things can’t occupy the same space.
A jewel lingering in the minds eye, or repetitive mundane intellectual activity. It’s a choice, when it is.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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A Little Sunshine
No matter how dark the clouds or hard it rains the sun always comes out, in time …
This little bee made it to the next act in the play of its life, to fly and eat and do what bees do untroubled in my garden.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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In Limbo …
… the bugs, that is. The sun is shining, the climate is mild and getting warmer, the garden is in flower and still all I find is spiders. Nothing wrong with spiders, but they are not bees.
So I dug one up, out of the bowels of the computer. One I haven’t posted before, from a time I had a good session of shooting – because I was present to do so and nature presented, the two are not exclusive.
It’s the same bee as this one – https://beingmark.com/2013/06/15/bee-odyssey/ – that had moved about in the heat of the sun and stranded where it landed if the sun went in or shadow overtook it. That’s what happens when cold, they stop.
Much like us if we were subject to the same relative conditions, except the bees never complain or blame, never feel hopeless nor despair. It’s their nature, instinctively bearing all that comes their way, not a thought for why but just to get on with what they do.
It’s their intelligence, their being a bee, in its perfect place …
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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Nature's Place 
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