Through the Shadows, the Light Shines

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“…we all go through our own experiences. If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.” ~ Sakuong Mipham

There are times when I feel a bit (or more) broken. I know better. But still, the feeling pops up occasionally. These are old feelings, old habits from long ago when it was the identity I knew and understood best.

I had not yet learned the freeing concept of “I am enough.”

Years ago I became interested in photography. At the time, it was an effort to instill a daily routine in my life, a ritual, to focus on at least one thing each day and look at the world, to deeply look at the mystery in the world in my world.

For the last few months I have been caught in a lingering depression, an illness that dims the beauty of life until everything feels murky and dark. Anxiety turns that murkiness into a roiling monster, a scary space indeed. For me, photography is usually my potent weapon against depression and anxiety, but this time even my camera could not pique my interest.

In the last few weeks the sun has brightened the sky as spring arrives, and hopefully the increasing sunlight will have a positive effect on my mood. And it is also my hope that photography will again provide me with a tangible way to engage in life and add meaning to each day.

“Life is not a maze where you have your eyes on the gaps, life is a beautiful journey, stop looking for the gaps.” ~ Malti Bhojwani

I think of photography as a gift.  When I become engrossed in my photography, it lights my soul and my spirit. I think it not coincidental that the word photography consists of two Greek words. “Photo,”derived from “phos” means “light.” “Graphy,” derived from “graphi” means to write or draw.

Photography – to write or draw ( to create) using light.

When I create, I shine light into my darkness. Murkiness gradually takes on brighter colors. The emotional monster quiets, and I again breathe deeply. I look anew at my surroundings and see beauty everywhere — in the colors of the emerging spring flowers, in the majesty of a century old oak tree weathered and pock-marked,  in the grain of polished wood, even in the angularity of shadow alternating with light.

Sometimes it is the little things that make life so lovely. It is acceptance of oneself that makes life shimmer. It is knowing that one is not broken, that one does not need to be fixed. That one is “enough.” A worthy lesson.

May it be so.

 

Loosening the Barriers Within – Postscript to “The Barrier Series”

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Passageway through the Barriers © 2015 Bo Mackison

This is the twelfth post–a sort of post-script–in The Barrier Series, a series of posts which chronicle my healing journey. I wrote the initial series in 2013 and updated several posts in the fall of 2014.

I wasn’t sure if/when there would be a twelfth post. I felt I was in-the-midst after I published the eleventh post, that there was more to write. Yet as much as I worked on the twelfth post I was unable to find the right words. A wise friend suggested I wait, and if it was to be, eventually I would find the right words. This post is the result of that wait.

I continue to walk on the journey of healing, the road remains, both the same and different. I gratefully share with you Loosening the Barriers Within, The Postscript.

Perhaps the passage of time is a kind of healing, or a kind of salvation granted equally to all people.”
~ Mizuki Nomura

Loosening the Barriers, Within

Yes, surely there is passage through the barriers

First, a primitive observation,
in the reflection of light a glimpse,
then, a gradual realization
that the grip of self-hatred which dimmed my heart,
insistent and unrelenting, no longer served.
No matter the lesson, how old or well learned
no longer a truth, the acceptance of unworthiness,
no longer the me I had always known – living on the razor’s edge.

A loosening of the grip, so gradual
for a time I stand unsteady and perplexed,
it takes time to trust in reality,
the realization that I am no longer the person I believed I was.
I am not the lies spoken; I am my truth heard.

I sit with unaccustomed contentment
and consider the old me, discordant
with the me uncovered, re-discovered.

In a period of dark, a depression with such depth
I lost hope of returning to the surface.
and drifted in a turbid soup colliding with
gripping emotions, unspeakable memories, unclear thoughts.

A gift perhaps, this dark unpredictable void,
time expanded and contracted, unaware of clock or calendar.

Through the murk, I glimpsed a life delicious with discovery
a life of depth, both reassuring and of concern,
the path uncertain and unknown, of course.
At last I looked through a lens, finally in focus, and recognized
the place I am, must be, need be.

Endless possibility sustains the strength to see anew, to redefine beliefs
and cast away the useless, a pure and nascent purge.
Sparked by sacred conversation, seeking the Divine,
my awareness stood on trembling, newly awakened ground.

I’m uncertain how the circumstances inter-played
but truth spoke out, in a ferocious din:

The less space I allow in my heart, mind and spirit
for thoughts of unworthiness and self-contempt,
for the holding of others’ blame and shame accepting them as mine,
for the belief that I did not deserve life itself,
when those thoughts compressed, new spaces opened.

Infinite space for my truths,
for worthiness, self-love,
for the honoring of my path, my story.
Infinite space for the Divine, the holy, the mystical that
exists in me, in every person, in the whole of humankind.

And my work and mine alone? First, responsibility for myself,
the work resplendent — self-care, self-love, self-respect.
Work that acknowledges my desires, worthwhile and deserved.

How much easier to welcome and acknowledge the Divine in me
when I shove the shit out and make room.

There is a deep connectedness to each of us in our solitude,
connection that offers life, not simply to survive but to flourish
in the experiences of both the
everyday and the glorious — the two, indistinguishable.

 

 

 

 

Be Still! Be Still! – A Lesson from the Trees

Tree Line

Tree Line @ 2015 Bo Mackison

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from [the eternal] mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

~ Hermann Hesse in Betrachtungen und Gedichte

Annual Alphabet Tribute to 2014 – Q is for Quests, Questions, and More

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Quest in the Desert © 2014 Bo Mackison

Q is for QUEST

There are some alluring words that begin with the letter Q.

QUEST is one of my favorites. A QUEST is a long, sometimes arduous search for something, often requiring overcoming great challenges.

I’ve been on my own QUEST these last months, trying to recover from a month of challenges that occurred last May. Since the triggers were an unfortunate string of travel delays, I downplayed the stress and assumed that as soon as I reached the familiarity of home all would be well.  But all did not go well.

Instead I struggled, day after day, and QUESTIONED why I was having such a difficult summer.  No matter how hard I worked using the tools — meditation, art, writing, nature — that had provided me with much relief over the last seven years, I couldn’t QUIET the constant panic, the periods of difficulty leaving my house, even the need to return to my home when I was in a familiar and pleasurable place. Then there were the times I wanted to just QUIT, so frustrated was I with the situation.

In the last weeks, I’ve been able to put the pieces of the puzzle together with the help of a dedicated medical team. But the effort has cost me time and energy. And so I am calling it QUITS on the alphabet posts so that I can conserve energy and move on to new projects that are currently percolating.

The lesson learned? Never be afraid to ask for help when necessary. Never, ever!

~~~~~~~~~~

The alphabet series will (quite probably) return for its 9th annual appearance towards the end of 2015.

Thirty-One Thresholds – Memories of Ginger Cookies and Grandmothers

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Making Cookies © 2014 Bo Mackison

I started a new photo/travel project a few weeks ago, a project, called Thirty One Thresholds.

Quite basic in its undertaking, the project encourages me to get out of the house. (A coping method when life gets a bit overwhelming, I morph into a hermit!)

Once out of the house, I go somewhere, almost anywhere, camera in tow, and consider the many thresholds I cross – literal or metaphorical…  Not a lot of rules. Keeping this low pressure and easy…

As I wrote in the first post when exploring the start of this project, I’m not sure what nuggets of wisdom I’ll discover or exactly what  I’m looking for… but I’m willing to believe I’ll find what I need to find — or it will find me!

Since I began on December 1st, I have visited a Mustard Museum (for fun and amusement), a tropical paradise in Madison’s Olbrich Gardens (for the illusion of summer and warmth), a walk in the neighborhood (which is as far as I could make it that day!) and a state capitol building (in search of spaciousness and the grand gilded art of an earlier time in architectural decor.)

Fun. Warmth. Tiny steps. Space. Art. A good start!

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Gingerbread Cookies © 2014 Bo Mackison

Last weekend I went to Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor history park that offers a glimpse of Wisconsin life — historic farms, artisan handcrafts, heirloom gardens, daily routines in rural Wisconsin in the mid to late 1800s.

A docent was baking gingerbread cookies at an old wooden table, the surface scattered with flour, a treasured rolling pin, cookie cutters hand fashioned from scraps of tin, and dark gingery dough! Though the time period was off by a few decades, the ginger cookie baking scene was reminiscent of the countless days I spent baking with my grandmother and great-grandmother.

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Keeping Warm © 2014 Bo Mackison

What a perfect threshold to walk across.

Hands warmed by an open fire. Hearts warmed by memories of the best of childhood times. And, as a bonus,  just-baked ginger cookies to enhance the memories.