Walking Through the Tunnel – from “The Barrier Series” on Art and Healing

Southwest at the End of the Medical Records Tunnel

Through the Tunnel © 2012 Bo Mackison

“The portal of healing and creativity always takes us into the realm of the spirit.” ~ Angeles Arrien

During a recent visit to an office complex, I entered an underground tunnel connecting two buildings. Immediately, I was drawn to an expanse of back-lit art on the tunnel wall. It was a digitally designed collage of medical records, x-rays, charts and lab reports – all created as specifically as art.

As I walked through the tunnel, I took photos of the walls and photos of the tunnel ahead, its mouth leading into a room of blues and greens. Then as I routinely do — a photographer’s habit — I turned around to see what was behind me.

I gasped in delight and raised my camera to capture the image. The scene was not lost on me. In fact, it evoked such a deep joy, I knew this photograph would be an important photo point in my life, not just another photograph.

The photo encapsulated – in a single digital frame – my journey that had spanned over two decades, a summary of the last 20+ years of my life!

Before entering the tunnel, my husband and I had walked past a mural of the Southwest — red rocks and cacti and sunshine painted  on a thirty foot long wall, brightly illuminated. When I turned around, three-quarters of the way through the tunnel, I gasped at the metaphor surrounding me:

The yellow-orange images of the Southwest spilled into the dark-hued tunnel of medical records. I saw the last twenty years meet my present. All I could see was the light at the end of the tunnel. Cliche? Yes, but so true!

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

My journey to the sunshine and living in the desert Southwest half of each year didn’t happen serendipitously.

After decades of being cared for, watched over, protected from harm, I’d developed strong dependency issues. An introvert at the best of times, I functioned best in a quiet environment, a place where I did that which I felt comfortable doing, while passing unwanted responsibilities to others.

Through all the therapy and group programs, I made friendships and relationships with others enmeshed in the same mental health system. It was a safe enough place, but also restrictive and not always the healthiest of environments.

Eventually I realized I needed to move forward. I needed more than a life in the shadow of over-protection. I needed to stop defining myself as mentally ill and instead accept the residual effects of PTSD and the self-care it required.

It was a huge awakening AND it terrified me.

Reviewing my habits, I knew I would not easily change if I stayed in the protective, though loving, environment I’d existed in for years.

My husband and I had vacationed in Arizona several times and with each visit I felt more deeply connected with the Southwest and the desert. Eventually, I devised a plan to return to the Southwest –  alone.

Not only would this plan provide me with the necessary container to practice the skills of independent living, it would also alleviate the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder which disrupted my moods every winter in the cloudy Midwest. After working out a careful plan and contingency arrangements for safety, my medical team, family and I all agreed to the experiment.

That was five years ago.

I’ve lived in the Southwest for a part of each year since then. The first winter, I stayed eight weeks. I struggled managing the basics, and I mean the basic basics. Buying groceries, preparing meals, driving in an unfamiliar city, shopping, putting gas in the car, taking care of myself. As simple as these tasks might appear, there were many days I struggled from the time I awoke until I went to bed.

I did several art shows and my husband planned his visits to coincide with those long weekend shows. I had several weekend visits from family. And when I was on my own, I spent my days reading and writing, visiting new places, and taking photographs.

I discovered living in ways I hadn’t experienced in decades. A doable version of solo living. I created. I practiced extreme self care. I managed.

The second year, I stayed in Arizona nearly three months. Fewer visitors. More art shows. However it was never easy, even living in the land of sunshine. I was incredibly lonely, and sought support through long distance therapy and lots of phone calls to family.

But – once again I was on my own. My camera was my constant companion. I explored even more of Arizona and its many habitats. Once again, I managed.

And I turned to the solitude of the desert for support and inspiration.

For the last three years, I’ve lived in Arizona from November to early May. We invested in a tiny casita for home and studio – perfect at 500 square feet. Though there are plenty of rough edges, my days are filled with many positives.

I forged friendships, joined a vibrant and active art group, took field trips with a camera club.

I do freelance photography shoots, although I no longer do shows on the art fair circuit. I volunteer with a social justice group. I share my art in shows and galleries. And most days, I pick up my camera and go explore.

I have a deep sense of gratitude for what the practice of creativity and my art has given me – a way of making meaning in my world.

“Healing art . . . the concept is catching fire, is awakening in people’s spirits. Artists, musicians and dancers are realizing their imagery has meaning. . .that their imagery heals them, others, their neighborhood, or the earth.”
~ Michael Samuels

For more years than I care to admit, I was angry and bitter at the turn of events in my life,. The fierce awakening of my past robbed my family and me of so many precious years. And although our family’s well being was our highest priority and our goal was to provide our children with as much normalcy as possible, reality trumped all.

As we traversed life on a day-to-day basis, we all lived with an intimate knowledge of mental illness – its sorrows, its high and low points, and its successes, too.

In the process, my children learned valuable life skills — skills of independence, tolerance for the differences in others, kindness, cooperation, delayed gratification, and an abiding sense of knowing they were loved and accepted for who they were, not what they did.

No matter how difficult the day, or the week, or the month, my husband and children offered their support. We weren’t perfect – far from it. At times each of us felt cheated as we felt the alienation of life on the edge. But ultimately, we would reconnect and move on, move forward.

“So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”  ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet

Living through difficulties and trials, we all discovered how to survive and thrive.

I also realized that there was no reason to live my yearned-for life — someday. Waiting for someday is a long wait.

It was time to experience the gifts AND challenges of each day, every single day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This updated post is the last in the original series of my story, an intimate exploration of PTSD, art and healing, first published in January 2013.

My deepest thanks to all who accompanied me on this journey – as participant, observer, reader. 

No Escape – from “The Barrier Series” on Art and Healing

Barrio Brewery

No Escape © 2012 Bo Mackison

We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds. ~ Pema Chödrön

It has come – time when I need a safer environment.
I need protection from myself.
High away – no escape, no contact.
High away.
Plexiglass windows and wire screening,
protecting those of us on the inside from ourselves.

Administrators make attempts to brighten the environment –
primary colored lounge furniture,
paintings on the walls.

But nothing offers protection from the hurried words,
the rigidity and restrictions,
the mind-numbing drugs,
the incessant blare of competing televisions and radios.

Or the voices that only I hear.

~ based on journal entries, 1990

————

The photographs that make up the Barrier Series are a set of photos that symbolically follow the story of my breakdown and healing process. The photos are not related to any specific places where I had treatment. The series metaphorically corresponds to the phases I moved through during recovery, first focusing on staying safe; second on regaining basic functioning, and then the most difficult, regaining my wholeness.

This photograph represents a difficult time in that process. Unrelated events led to an awakening, necessary but brutally painful, which led me to assess the reality of my past. I was devastated and suicidal; I required in-patient psychiatric care. And although it was a difficult time for me, it was excruciatingly painful for my family, including my husband and small children.

The place I stayed is a place no one would want to remain for any length of time. And yet I was fortunate to be in a hospital that provided me with the greatest likelihood for my survival. At the time, I was not appreciative of the efforts and time my caregivers expended on my behalf. But as I look back on those years, decades later, I am overcome with deep gratitude for these people. They worked with dedication to keep me safe until I was ready to take that responsibility myself.

It wasn’t an easy job for any of us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next two weeks, I am re-posting an 11-part series I first ran in January, 2013 on art and healing. Feeling somewhat vulnerable doing this once again, but this message is too important to keep buried in my blog. It is my hope that my journey will also inspire others. We are all on a journey of one kind or another. We are all pilgrims following our path.

Boarded Window – from “The Barrier Series” on Art and Healing

Warehouse in Winter

Boarded Window © 2011 Bo Mackison

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. ~ Viktor E Frankl, in Man’s Search for Himself

Cold.

Winter.

This barrier, solid.
No light, no sunshine, no blue skies,
nothing natural except the brittle vines.

Impenetrable barrier.
Frozen exterior, my world.
The bushes are skeletal in their winter bareness.

Dead vines cling to the bricks,
hang from the window’s edge,
collect in piles on the ledge.

The decorative bricks offer some respite,
though the window is boarded. Invisibility.

And yet, it’s been patched neatly, blue paint.
Sealed from view but with care,
What inside is worth protection?

And the vines?
Dead and withered, but the hidden roots,
alive, are under the snowy depths,
warm enough in the earth.
Roots which will sprout tenderly alive green shoots
in the spring.

This phase, the deep winter of my spirit-break –
a period of dormancy.

Winter’s wait for the thaw, for the return of spring.

— based on journal entries, 1990

 

The second photograph in the barrier series correlates to the time when I became unable to keep up with life’s day-to-day expectations and demands. I constructed a barrier, much like this, deep in my psyche, to provide myself with space and time, waiting for the passage of winter.

It was a time of silent waiting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next two weeks, I’m re-posting an 11-part series I first ran in January, 2013 on art and healing. Feeling vulnerable doing this once again, but this message is too important to keep buried in the bowels of my blog. It is my hope that my journey will also inspire others. We are all on a journey of one kind or another. We are all pilgrims following our path.

Gazing Upwards – Barrier # 10

Looking Upwards

Gazing Upwards © 2011 Bo Mackison

This post is the tenth in a series of my story, an intimate exploration of art and healing. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey.

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.” ~ Pamela Vaull Starr

I love this barrier in the photograph. In the physical world, it’s all bricks and boarded windows. A street address scrawled on a mural. Hinges and the door’s outline give little hint at what might be inside. Yet, the windows and door are covered with a huge print of a woman’s face, her eyes directed upwards and outwards.

Solid barriers. Yet the distance from behind all kinds of barriers to the beyond is never further than a gaze upwards and outwards. The barrier may be limiting thoughts. If I gaze beyond those thoughts, I can see the dreams that unfold into the plans that attain the goals. Step by step, baby steps. Many tiny steps forward and suddenly I’ve walked a mile. I’ve reached what I once believed to be the impossible goal.

“Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you reach your destiny.” ~ Carl Schurz

The sky is always visible. The Universe, expanding beyond us in distances of time and space our human minds can barely grasp, is beyond our naked-eye visual capabilities, but it is there. We know the Universe exists, even if it is beyond our grasp, beyond our seeing.

When I get bogged down in present day happenings and the focus on myself, this photograph reminds me to move beyond, beyond what my mind can easily grasp, beyond what I can see clearly with my eyes. Listen to the messages from my heart and spirit. Choose my guides. Move beyond my comfort zone, beyond my preconceived notions of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is ‘look under foot.’ You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.” ~ John Burroughs

Once I have gazed at the stars, the moon, the sunlit sky, even the cloudy gray skies, once I have connected with the divine, then I return to my space and my time. I ground myself in this moment, the place where I stand. The place that grounds me in the here and now. I find the strength and the courage to set my goals for the day or the month or for a life time. And I move forward.

Possibility exists. The sky is visible to all. And as the Burroughs’ quote reminds us, we each have a place under the stars. We each have a place in the world. Opportunity is under our feet, even as we look to the sky and grasp for the stars.

Next: Through the Tunnel

Beyond, The World – Barrier # 9

Defaced Wall II

Beyond, The World © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.” ~ Hermann Hesse

(This post is the ninth in a series of my story of art and healing. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey.)

When I embarked on what is now my photography business, I discovered a way to make my life meaningful. Initially, photography gave me a reason for getting up in the morning, getting out of the house, looking at my world, and finally creating something that I loved and was proud of. The healing process of creative photography. It was several years later when I discovered how to work with my photographs on a deeper level.

When I photographed this wall, I was shooting an old mission and its grounds. I came upon this wall, discovered its defaced surface, then framed a shot so I could focus on the wall and the grove of trees in the distance. Months later, as I was going through photo catalogs on my computer, I saw this particular photo and it took on a new meaning.

For me, certain photographs are like other people’s dreams. They provide symbols, metaphors, and hints of meaning. They are open for interpretation, not on a literal base, but intuitively.

In this photo, I visualized the wall as a barrier in my life. The wall prevented me from entering a lovely grove of trees, a place I longed to visit for sustenance and revival. Beyond the wall, the world opened into a sacred space of color and life, a place where nature could heal and provide strength for body, mind and spirit. I wanted to be in that grove of trees.

I visualized different scenarios in response to my quest. How could I reach that sacred space? How could I get over the wall?

  • I could scrounge for scrub wood and strong grasses, build a make-shift ladder, and climb up and over the wall.
  • I could walk along the wall until I came upon a gate or doorway, a portal into the world of greens and blues.
  • Or…I could I look at the height and thickness of the wall, and walk away, accepting defeat before I even began.

The process of visualizing my options provided much food for thought.

I now have created a set of Desert Wisdom Cards, 24 cards in all, each with a photograph and a word. I use the cards during my morning practice, focusing on the photograph and using it for inspiration and speaking to my muse. I also use the photo and the cards as prompts for journal writing, or a springboard for an art or nature project.

I discovered in the process a vehicle that provided not only a way for me to use my art for healing, but a system that also promoted problem solving and goal setting. These cards provide me with a framework in which to consider choices, make plans, and instigate changes in my life — the self discovery and healing process of in-depth creative photography.

Next: Gazing Upwards