During my break from tutoring yesterday afternoon I took a slow walk through the System Garden created by Frederick McCoy, the first professor of Natural Science at The University of Melbourne in 1856. The secluded garden behind the Botany building has a myriad of trees, shrubs as well as an extensive herb bed and octagonal tower right in the centre. The tower is small, with two seats and two tiny windows cut through the bricks. It's quiet ~ a good place to reflect. On my walk I came across a Magpie standing very still by a tree. I assumed it was intently watching a small insect ~ waiting to thrust its beak forward to kill its quarry. But I could see nothing on the trunk, except for that knobbly knot and rough surface reminiscent of an elephants leg. The Magpie remained still and quiet even though I was talking photographs and moving around it. It was a sunny day, so I decided to sit down in the shade and watch, and it was then that I realised that all the Magpie was doing was keeping itself cool ~ standing quiet and content in that small band of shade provided by trunk of the tree. The simple often escapes me ~ perhaps that's why I take these walks ~ to absorb the overwhelming presence of flora ~ things-in-themselves ~ alive, growing, quiet, moving ever so slightly in the breeze, in sun or shade ~ the exquisite but punctuated silence.
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010
System Garden
During my break from tutoring yesterday afternoon I took a slow walk through the System Garden created by Frederick McCoy, the first professor of Natural Science at The University of Melbourne in 1856. The secluded garden behind the Botany building has a myriad of trees, shrubs as well as an extensive herb bed and octagonal tower right in the centre. The tower is small, with two seats and two tiny windows cut through the bricks. It's quiet ~ a good place to reflect. On my walk I came across a Magpie standing very still by a tree. I assumed it was intently watching a small insect ~ waiting to thrust its beak forward to kill its quarry. But I could see nothing on the trunk, except for that knobbly knot and rough surface reminiscent of an elephants leg. The Magpie remained still and quiet even though I was talking photographs and moving around it. It was a sunny day, so I decided to sit down in the shade and watch, and it was then that I realised that all the Magpie was doing was keeping itself cool ~ standing quiet and content in that small band of shade provided by trunk of the tree. The simple often escapes me ~ perhaps that's why I take these walks ~ to absorb the overwhelming presence of flora ~ things-in-themselves ~ alive, growing, quiet, moving ever so slightly in the breeze, in sun or shade ~ the exquisite but punctuated silence.
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