Greeting the Balga spirit .I decided to try my luck at some photo work , it looked like rain was coming and would love to catch the glint of shining beads resting on the plants out there .So I ventured down a trail that I have just started to get to know more of. I don't think I got a lot of interesting shots so here are some . I got a soaking and met up with a park ranger on the way through , was curious to know where the firebreak was going to . These dark trees are called Balga bush and have medicinal qualities but I can't recall what for . Anyway I love them .It gets very quiet out there and still. Only the flight of silver eye darting from bushes and kookaburra's slicing the air catch my eye. Ants show me their wonderful circular entrance holes and a rabbit hurry's past like he's late . I missed capturing the silver beads resting in the sunlight .The green paths did'nt let me in the rain .
This Balga is very very old and has seen many bushfires.
Looking up on this grass tree I came up with this info :
Xanthorrhoea drummondii shrumbs called grass trees rise above the sand plain. Aborigines named them balga, meaning "black boy," because fires often burn away the bottom leaves, leaving a humanlike silhouette. Usually balgas grow little more than an inch a year; after a fire, they can grow almost five inches in a season. The shrubs are old; they were dominant Australian vegetation when dinosaurs roamed the continents.
I just love them .
Taking a corner .
I lay under this dead tree and watched passing clouds.
Last few days Rainbow came .
A mobile of shells hanging in space .
At home .
The Moon hangs like a Chinese painting .
1 comment:
They are beautiful arent they, balga. We nibble on them when we walk up lesmurdi falls and I remember a story told to me by a lady long passed...about how a mabarn man put them around a camp once, tricking a bad spirit and keep the sleeping children safe. That spirit was tricked into thinking he was taking children in the dark but they were trees.
great blog.
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