Entangled

A Meditation in the Desert
Entangled © 2013 Bo Mackison

Entangled © 2013 Bo Mackison

The Desert has Many Teachings

In the desert,
Turn toward emptiness,
Fleeing the self.
Stand alone,
Ask no one’s help,
And your being will quiet,
Free from the bondage of things.

Those who cling to the world,
Endeavor to free them;
Those who are free, praise.
Care for the sick,
But live alone,
Happy to drink from the waters of sorrow,
To kindle Love’s fire
With the twigs of a simple life.
Thus you will live in the desert.

– Mechthild of Magdeburg
from The Desert has Many Teachings,
translated by Jane Hirschfield

Reflections from my Journal

In the desert, emptiness is everywhere. It touches me most deeply after the sun sets, when a sliver of moon sets its place, offering direction, but little illumination. Then darkness descends.

The world slows in labored breathing, a pause, preparing for a new day.

To free yourself is to ask for nothing, to find hidden resources and strength developed from living each day authentically. Waiting, until the time is right for the right question, the question is asked, an answer received.

Love’s fire, caught in the crook of a desert branch. Fire-bright in harsh light, precarious, entangled. Lines and curves, shadows and light, a love-story.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring creative photography. poetry, and emotion in a new series featuring desert botanicals.

Walking with the Trees

Bare Branches

Bare Branches ©2012 Bo Mackison

“Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.”
–   Karle Wilson Baker

I think if I ever decided to limit myself to only a few subjects to photograph, I would choose first the tree.

When I photograph a tree, I capture the structure of the tree, and its beauty, its strength. But it seems the tree portraits become self-portraits in a sense, as they often capture my mood and state of being, too.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. During this month of endings and beginnings, of many journeys and quite a bit of upheaval, I will be posting iPhonography.

Fruits of November

Orange Fruit, Crabapple Tree

Fruits of Autumn ©2012 Bo Mackison

Crab apple blossoms are a favorite, but the fruit of the crabapple is largely ignored. Even the winter birds wait until little else is available before choosing crabapples for their breakfast.

But these bright orange crab apples, framed in a purple-saturated sky – I love this combination of colors, and I love the composition of branches and fruits, solid and yet airy.

Space for breathing deeply, roots for grounding deeply.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. In this month of many ending and as many beginnings, many journeys and many hours spent on the road, I will be posting a daily iPhone photo processed with the Snapseed application.

Snowstorm in the Woods

Owen Park

Before the Storm © 2012 Bo Mackison

Each moment of the year has its own beauty. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

This morning when I began my day it was still night. Not quite. It looked like night, but it was early morning and the sun’s rising time has not yet caught up with my internal wake-up alarm.

The house was also awake. Pipes were humming-moaning-rumbling with flowing water and reminded me of the sounds of a storm which reminded me that there were predictions for a snowstorm today in our area. I peered outside into the almost dark. The remains of the perennial garden — stalks and seed heads — stood in silhouette against the open field beyond out land.

Bare ground, absent of snow from blizzards or ice storms or even ordinary snow storms, looked out of place in the middle weeks of January. The storm which was to have begun in the middle of the night had not yet appeared. I checked the Doppler radar, and smiled as I remembered waiting for weather forecasts on the radio as a teen.

“Five til the hour and five til the half hour” the jingle went, announcing times for the weather forecasts. It seemed an awkward way to give the schedule.

Now there is hardly any wait at all. The computer screen opens to a weather website and a United States map. It shows a eastward moving swath of royal blue the width of the state of Iowa. Royal blue is weather code for “big snow”. The storm is only twenty miles from Madison.

By the time I leave the house, snow is coming down in a blinding fury. By the time I’ve run a couple of errands and picked up extra milk, visibility is poor and the ground is covered with several inches of snow. I take a detour to Owen Park and then to Strickers Pond to take some winter photographs.

I fly to Tucson next week, so this may be my one of my only chances to tromp around in the snow and take pictures of the white stuff. Good thing I keep my extras of my winter outerwear in the car!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She’s now admiring the snowstorm from inside her home, and she’s glad she doesn’t have to go back out and drive on the slippery streets.

 

Heading South for the Winter

Mallards Flyover

Mallards Flyover © 2008 Bo Mackison

Geese have been flying over the house every morning, and then again every evening, since September. The lake they use as their headquarters is maybe six blocks to the east of us. The cornfields where they feed are a mile to the west.  The birds often fly so close I can see them clearly from the second story window. Occasionally they appear to be nearly skimming the roof. They are truly magnificent birds when seen in flight at such close range.

But a few days ago, the early morning honking became less noticeable. Yesterday, when I went to take photos, there were only a dozen or so geese in the sky, instead of the typical hundreds. Today I only saw a pair.

I suspect most of them have packed up and headed south, like many intelligent creatures choose to do at this time of year. It’s early though. Last year, the geese were still in Wisconsin through the end of November.

Maybe they know something I don’t.