A Suburban Journey
I’m underneath a large pohutukawa, my shoulder blades resting in earth, looking up at the fiery ring of blossoms etched out by sky and sun.
Light catches translucent wings of tens of hundreds of bees, and other flying insects attracted to the blaze. Pinpoints of energy, life patterning through air.
I’m stuck on the ground.
We are slowly tilting towards the sun’s warmth. Our neighbourhood is flushed with colour and fragrance. A frenzied relationship between flower-insect-bird is taking place: pollen movement and fertilisation for the plant and pollen protein and nectar energy for the pollinating insects and birds. The wild energy is understandable. Life is impermanent. The exchange is momentary.
Ornamental cherry, lavender, magnolia, camelia, and rhododendron were the first noticeable signalers on berms, leaning over private fences. Now it’s the dreamy scents from the less obvious flowers of our native trees which are luring me and the pollinators. There’s the small cream, white or pale green florets of tarata (lemonwood), rangiora, tī kōuka/cabbage tree, pāpāuma/kāpuka/griselinia and the dark purple/red of kōhūhū, karo and the stunning spiky orbs of rewarewa. Frustratingly I can’t follow everywhere the bees, moths, beetles and flies go, up high or deep into bushes or in other people’s gardens.
Continue reading “Following fragrance and frenzy”
Still stuck at home with the flu, with little energy to much neighbourhood walking, Instead I get curious about the vitality of insects, and attempt to map their kinetic energy and pollinating pathways, during moments of warmth and sun following days of grey skies and rain. For half an hour I make line drawings, trying not to look at the paper, letting my eye and hand follow the paths of bees and flies as they fly in and out of frame, feeding on flowers.
Continue reading “Kinetic paths and orientation”
Edge of Things 