Since planting indigenous plants in the garden, eradicating problematic alien plants, and getting rid of the lawn, so many insects and creatures have come back to my garden. After a spell of good winter rains, and almost being in the middle of summer now, various plants have opened their flowers and in doing so they attract various of these insects. It is also incredible to see the growth of these plants. It feels like yesterday when I posted about the new growth on the 1st of September. It is particularly amazing to see the growth of the fig tree in the last three or four months. There are so many figs by now.
In any case, it was such a good day with sunshine and various insects in the garden. I took the opportunity to use my Tamron macro-zoom to take some photographs of the insects that were present and some of the growth and fruits. As usual, I will interlay the photographs with my garden meandering musings. If you are an avid reader, please follow along as I write down my thoughts. If you are only here for the photographs, please enjoy them! Without further ado.
Isolation
Bee But(t)
Isolation II
Spread (Parrot Lily/Alstroemeria psittacina)
The garden is at once the most populated area and the most isolated space. Countless organisms, animals, critters, insects, birds, and so on, fly and walk past you and crawl underneath you. But you are the only one that can observe them with a disinterested eye, in the sense that you are not searching for food, or on the lookout for predators. We cannot speak to any of these creatures; we can never know their world, neither can they know our world. Forever, we are cut off from the world we inhabit. How lonely, how isolated are we not, always reflecting on emotions and feelings, but also defined by them. How lonely, how isolated are we not, never escaping this privileged view we have.
Speaking to No-one
Speaking to No-one II
Shadow
Dissolving
Dissolving II
Dissolving III
On a single Parrot Lily (Alstroemeria psittacina), a common dragonfly sits dead still. It probably thinks I am a predator. I do it no harm. Still, it flies away, but it comes back to the same spot. It thinks it is safe, probably. What goes through the mind of this animal that day in and day out tries to find food and avoids predators? We would not even understand even if we could communicate. Yet, I cannot stop trying to get into the mind of this dragonfly. Will the world even look the same? (If you are interested in this topic, do take a look at the article What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, written by philosopher Thomas Nagel.)
Snug
Snug II
Snug III
Xylocopa caffra is a carpenter bee that spends its days trying to find flowers and deadwood. Borrowing deep into the wood, they live solitary lives, fighting over territory with other carpenter bees, never really knowing what it means to live in a society. Forever doomed to be alone, yet not able to understand that idea, can we really say they are alone in a human-centered perspective? I am in some sense undermining my own argument, but I cannot help but think about the solitude they must feel if they could think like us. (There is a beautiful fiction book, The Solitude of Thomas Cave, written by Georgina Harding dealing with a type of solitude that the main character needed to go through.)
Figgery
Figgery II
Figgery III
Figgery IV
Proud Isolation
Ridge
Fingers
Fingers II
Trying to find solace in the plants, that is, to rid me of the feeling of isolation from the animals, I am planted in fertile soil deeper isolation. Even further removed from the ability to communicate, these majestic trees or beautiful plants and flowers cannot move at the same pace as we do. What for us takes a couple of minutes, for them takes ten, twenty, thirty years. Even if they could talk, we would only hear their first utterance when we are on our deathbed. I walk underneath the leave-fingers stretching to the skies, I bend down to look at the new lavender I planted. Its ridges are small but prominent, its smell overwhelming with the winds blowing through its leaves. What would this baby plant tell me? What would its pungent leaves write in the wind if we could read?
What is written on the fig leaves? Do they not look like a human cell? Are our future written on the leaves of the fig leaf? I turn away, unable to stomach the isolation anymore. I pick a ripe fig fruit and I walk to the kitchen where I break it open and eat it. I drink a glass of wine, and I cannot but feel that even though we can communicate with each other, we are fundamentally isolated in a very deep way. I drink the wine and think about the winemaker overseeing the process of harvesting and making the wine. What were her thoughts when she tasted the grape? Did she think about the insects that make her profession possible? Did she think about the animals she displaced due to the vineyards? I drink my last sip of wine, and I place the glass with the other dishes that I need to do. I walk to the garden and I see the busy life going on in there. Isolated from that world, I cannot help but feel connected in some manner. I planted these plants, and I know each one intimately. Yet, I cannot help but feel their indifference to me.
And so my musings end. Thank you for the visit, and if you read the musings, thank you for stomaching them. All of the images were taken with a Nikon D300 Tamron zoom-macro lens. The musings are influenced by the garden and the animals. I merely wrote them down.
Happy photographing and stay safe.
