Coloured wings of Light

Coloured wings of Light (Wednesday 30th April 2008)

It is 2pm in the afternoon and the sunlight from my window is illuminating all that flies within and through it. Most days I am not given to seeing this spectacle, but I think with the dark curtain of the Murraya hedge behind all that flies before it, all is exposed in this otherwise invisible world.

The picture above was taken in summer and the focus of my picture was the garden bed of blue Agapanthus (African lily) that sat lush and bordering the Rob Riley walkway and Vege Patch Cafe. But, upon aiming for a close-up of the flower, I spied an insect in flight hovering next to it. All I could make out of this small-winged being was the white light of its beating wings. And I thought, as one is given to thinking on such occasions, I wonder how many times its wings beat per second?

And then, moments later, this hovering light-filled being perhaps, having become used to my probing camera and close but watchful eye, settled on one of the flower's elongated outstretched stamens.

Was it resting or feasting on nectar or pollen?

Then as I drew closer I noticed how its wings were reflecting the sun.

I did not notice at first, but it was only after I took the photo that I was able to zoom in for a closer look and insight of my photograph, and there to my surprise were its wings streaked in the colours of the rainbow. But not only did I make this important observation but I noticed that its delicate wings were paper thin, so thin they seemed to be made from a spider's web.

And as I think about it now, nostalgic for such observations, sometimes in spring, or summer, one is given to sighting such things. And such things arrive like an epiphany of surprise and child-like wonder especially in seeing fleetingly the web threads that fly on unseen currents, web threads that hold to tiny spiders that sail to their future but unknown destinations and homes. I have dreams of such sightings. But now with these insects their sightings are mostly memories.

Autumn is closing in.

And like the borders of the platanus orientalis leaves turning brown that hang just beyond my window, my thesis too is nearing its conclusion and like the leaves of the platanus has also begun to change in form and colour.

This movement through the seasons of my study has been a green signifier that my days in scholarly pursuits must near their end. Such are memories! Such are the sights and delights of one who is watching.

The moments spent observing beyond this window, has brought beautiful things, betwixt and between, of moments and the movements of leaves that are changing and their constant companions and visitations of winged beings and feral cats. I feel more the nourished for it and more attentive to the future of possibilities that such sights might once again avail themselves.

Solar Sails in Summer

Illawarra Hands of Summer

Illawarra Eye

Flowers and Leaves of the Illawarra Flame

The Flower of the Murraya

A Murraya Princess for an Elvish King

A Murraya Princess for an Elvish King 28th April 2008 6pm

I caught myself praying today, I had been walking to the library and then, almost unconsciously, I was drawn to the Murraya hedge. The garden's avenue along which I often wander is bordered on either side by its green pews of orange jasmine (Murraya paniculata), and overlooked by its cathedral columns of arbour’s arch and autumn leaf. Level with my nose, I, like a bee, or butterfly had therein rested.
Impatient to the monopoly of movement of pedestrian steps around me, I was momentarily lost in green, and white. I had stopped and bowed my head in prayer. I prayed to the flowers there. I prayed to their surge of scent - heaven's scent - scent composed of earth and water, and the night air. Scent composed from the surging sap sucked up by sunlight and held within the green palms of the murraya priestesses and their sprigs of white – their flowers like the light of the moon that twist to their tunes of the night.
Night jasmine does that, it signals the sighs of green scents, the scents and sense of breath of the goddess within. Sure tis the way to hear the earth sighing, to sense in her crying her erotic entrapments and scents that are flying, casting spells from her fingers and hands that would draw us all near. Draw us to her bed, her garden bed of butterflies and moths.
If I had stood there long enough I could therein have merged with the green, sucked within to remain unseen. The green man given to his leanasidhe bride, I could have been trapped inside. I once knew a blackthorn hedge. Her white flowers were hung to ensnare and magnetic were her charms to a man like me, looking for things that I could not see, all wise things tied to an ancient's memory.
But now I do remember, for such whispered words have come to me, of Thomas the Rhymer and his Eildon Tree, who had met his Lady there, enticed by a woman he wished to see, a woman he wished to snare, but she snared him, in him her hope held he, that he’d become her Elvish King, that she had found by her Eildon Tree.

The Art of Seeing

The Art of Seeing Sunday 27th April 2008 (1.30pm)

Yesterday a fellow scholar, an Irishman from Dublin took up the desk next to mine. He had worked with the Irish Tinker community or communities of Gypsy or Travellers. And today another scholar, a friend named John Fielder, a man I refer to as John Redleif, a being wise to the world of leaves of books and trees showed me a new cafe, a true bohemian establishment, and next door a secondhand bookstore. And upon scanning its shelves, with the word 'tinker' still fresh in my mind, I saw reference to it and was quickly drawn to its title. It was the work of Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," and it has proven to be a Godsend (good send). On pages 41-42, Dillard states with immense purpose and clarity, "The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff" (1975: 41-42). And, then, I look outward from my window at the green-beings held out on their branches. The leaves of the plane tree, solar sails I think I have referred to them, once, or several times before. I know they are an extension of my sense of self. My reflection and theirs through my window embodies the one, a shared liminal space and connection between us. And the sun, sometimes yellow in the green of their leaves warms my heart and encourages me and reminds me to breathe.

Approach of Autumn

Autumn

6th April 2008 (we had 48 mm of rain fall in 6 hours yesterday)

A month ago, looking through my window, I noticed a leaf drop. It was green when it fell, and I thought maybe it was the work of a bird. But now, in the first week of April, the leaves of the Platanus are brown tipped and yellowing at the edges. Autumn is showing herself. I for my part have been working 7 days a week and for many hours each day, trying to get this thesis finished. It is a drawn-out process and one that requires my utmost attention and focus, that at times I just don't have. My leaves are losing their green. Winter is approaching and my thesis hand-in-date is looming.