JOIN ME FOR THE SPRING SEASON OF THE WORKSHOP THAT EXPLORES – AND CELEBRATES – THE EXTRAORDINARY IN THE ORDINARY

This gently guided journey with Bo has infused my existing practices with renewed energy. Her exquisite leadership is informed by experience, training and soulful instinct. I consider her a modem mystic. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

If the words contemplative and creative have a sweet juiciness for you and you’re interested in a different sort of online workshop, read on:

  • no schedule, but lots of serendipity.
  • no planned curriculum, but lots of surprises.
  • no expectations, but infinite possibilities.
  • no formal objectives, but an always-available way to engage and interact with your world through art, nature and the written word.

I combine my roles as curator of life experience, writer, artist, Certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, and Certified Miksang Contemplative Photography instructor to offer you a meaningful and fulfilling online workshop with a well-established active community component.

CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICES MANDALA © 2018 Bo Mackison

In community and individually, we explore these themes:

word * vision * place

WORD

This practice focuses on how to connect — to the world, community, and self — using words. We’ll play with words, explore words, and connect nature and place using words. We’ll write poetry – tile poetry, collaborative poetry, and poetry art using found words and pictures. You don’t need to consider yourself a writer to enjoy these practices, but anyone with an established writing practice will surely delight in them.

VISION

We’ll create mandalas, individually and collectively. I find this to be a lovely spring practice as we’ll focus on nature and growth and the many opportunities found in the outdoors. It’s a pocket-practice — the practice requires only a small container of basic supplies that can travel almost anywhere.

We’ll explore the practice of Miksang Contemplative Photography, focusing on the practices of 1) light and shadow and 2) interacting with your ordinary and personal world. We’ll also explore the spring’s qualities — its passions, moods, style, symbols — as part of the Miksang practice. (All types of cameras and skill levels are welcome.)

PLACE:

Throughout the warming days of spring, we’ll continue the weekly observational practice of backyard phenology – the study of nature’s calendar, an ever-present, in-the-present survey of the cycles of plants and animals in your natural world.

HOMETOWN MANDALA © 2019 Bo Mackison

Bo Mackison is an insightful, talented and inspirational art, photography and writing creativity coach and teacher. Bo’s wide range of artistic knowledge along with her life experiences makes her the artist and writer’s trusted advisor. I highly recommend Bo as a mentor, teacher, trainer and speaker. ~Jeanette Richardson Herring, Author and Artist

MY SPRING OFFER:

YOU WILL RECEIVE REGULAR — AND RANDOM — PROMPTS AND EXPLORATIONS.

Together we’ll explore themes and creative practices that inspire and encourage, elicit wonder and awe, uplift your spirit and feed your soul.

This is a practice that:

  • gently weaves itself throughout your day
  • illuminates the extraordinary in the ordinary, celebrates the uncommon in the common
  • offers ways of interacting with place that highlight the wonder of and connection with nature, no matter where you live, work and play.

We begin March 20th, 2019 as the days lengthen and we’ll journey together until June 20th, 2019.

New participants are welcome to join CCJ for the Spring Season. The first weeks of our practice will include introductions to the practices of collaborative poetry writing, creating a mandala practice, Miksang contemplative photography, and the study of phenology.

If you searching for a place of sanctuary, a place to recharge so you can show up bright and energized for the demands of living in today’s world, this might be the workshop community you seek.

Whether you have a fully equipped art room or a box of simple supplies you store in a closet, you’ll find new ways to create. Hints on how to see or create in new ways will offer you unlimited possibilities for exploration and are easily incorporated into your everyday routine.

Come along and explore the creative and contemplative life with spaciousness and spontaneity.

YES YOU CAN MANDALA © 2018 Bo Mackison

WHEN:

The SPRING journey is 14 weeks long. March 20 through June 20, 2019.

HOW:

Private community on Facebook. All content is shared on a private Facebook group page and can show up anytime. Surprise and serendipity! You are encouraged to share your discoveries and experiences in the private group however and whenever you choose.

This guided and easily accessible process allows you to engage in the practice in whatever way is best for you.

A handsome PDF booklet featuring content from the 14 week session is provided at the end of the season as a helpful ongoing resource.

THE COST:

I offer you my knowledge, my skills, my presence and my enthusiasm. The cost for this winter journey and an active sharing community remains at the all-inclusive price of $99.00.

TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE:

Registration is now open.

Register here through PayPal.

~~~~~BO MACKISON is an artist, poet, photographer, certified Kaisen-Muse creativity coach, Nalanda Miksang Photography Instructor, hands-on workshop presenter, and a woman who has spent her entire adult life surviving and thriving with the help of the creative practices she now shares with others. She is the founder of Contemplative Creatives Journey, an Online Seasonal Workshop. Bo has been offering creative and contemplative programs for women since 2014. She’s been told her workshops have changed people’s lives for the better. She believes this to be true.

Contemplative Creatives Journey – Winter 2018-19

JOIN ME FOR THE WINTER SEASON OF THE WORKSHOP THAT EXPLORES – AND CELEBRATES – THE EXTRAORDINARY IN THE ORDINARY

This gently guided journey with Bo has infused my existing practices with renewed energy. Her exquisite leadership is informed by experience, training and soulful instinct. I consider her a modem mystic. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

If the words contemplative and creative have a sweet juiciness for you and you’re interested in a different sort of online workshop, read on:

  • no schedule, but lots of serendipity.
  • no planned curriculum, but lots of surprises.
  • no expectations, but infinite possibilities.
  • no formal objectives, but an always-available way to engage and interact with your world through art, nature and the written word.

I combine my roles as curator of life experience, writer, artist, Certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, and Certified Miksang Contemplative Photography instructor to offer you a meaningful and fulfilling online workshop with a well-established active community component.

Nine Square Mandalas © 2018 Bo Mackison

In community and individually, we explore these themes:

word * vision * place

WORD

This practice focuses on how to connect — to the world, community, and self — using words. We’ll play with words, explore words, and connect nature and place using words. We’ll write poetry – tile poetry, collaborative poetry, and poetry art using found words and pictures. You don’t need to consider yourself a writer to enjoy these practices, but anyone with an established writing practice will surely delight in them.

VISION

We’ll create mandalas, individually and collectively. I find this to be an especially beneficial winter practice since the early morning darkness offers me a quiet time to create, but this is a practice that can be done at anytime and anywhere. It’s a pocket-practice — the practice requires only a small container of basic supplies that can travel almost anywhere.

We’ll explore the practice of Miksang Contemplative Photography, focusing on the practices of 1) light and shadow and 2) interacting with your ordinary and personal world. (All types of cameras and skill levels are fine.)

PLACE:

Throughout the short winter days of winter, we’ll continue the weekly observational practice of backyard phenology – the study of nature’s calendar, an ever-present, in-the-present survey of the cycles of plants and animals in your natural world.

We’ll incorporate ideas from “The Book of Hours,” a contemplative practice derived from ancient practices that focus on mindfulness practices, throughout our days.

Bo Mackison is an insightful, talented and inspirational art, photography and writing creativity coach and teacher. Bo’s wide range of artistic knowledge along with her life experiences makes her the artist and writer’s trusted advisor. I highly recommend Bo as a mentor, teacher, trainer and speaker. ~Jeanette Richardson Herring, Author and Artist

MY WINTER OFFER:

YOU WILL RECEIVE REGULAR — AND RANDOM — PROMPTS AND EXPLORATIONS.

Together we’ll explore themes and creative practices that inspire and encourage, elicit wonder and awe, uplift your spirit and feed your soul.

This is a practice that:

  • gently weaves itself throughout your day
  • illuminates the extraordinary in the ordinary, celebrates the uncommon in the common
  • offers ways of interacting with place that highlight the wonder of and connection with nature, no matter where you live, work and play.

We begin December 1st, 2018 as winter approaches and we’ll journey together until March 14th, 2019.

New participants are welcome to join CCJ in the Winter Season. The first weeks of our practice will include introductions to the practices of collaborative poetry writing, creating a mandala practice, Miksang contemplative photography and the study of phenology.

If you searching for a place of sanctuary, a place to recharge so you can show up bright and energized for the demands of living in today’s world, this might be the workshop community you seek.

Whether you have a fully equipped art room or a box of simple supplies you store in a closet, you’ll find new ways to create. Hints on how to see or create in new ways will offer you unlimited possibilities for exploration and are easily incorporated into your everyday routine.

Come along and explore the creative and contemplative life with spaciousness and spontaneity.

WINTER SOLSTICE © 2018 Bo Mackison

WHEN:

The WINTER journey is 14 weeks long.  December 1, 2018 through March 14, 2019.

HOW:

Private community on Facebook. All content is shared on a private Facebook group page and can show up anytime. Surprise and serendipity! You are encouraged to share your discoveries and experiences in the private group however and whenever you choose.

This guided and easily accessible process allows you to engage in the practice in whatever way is best for you.

A handsome PDF booklet featuring content from the 14 week session is provided at the end of the season as a helpful ongoing resource.

THE COST:

I offer you my knowledge, my skills, my presence and my enthusiasm. The cost for this winter journey and an active sharing community remains at the all-inclusive price of $99.00.

TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE:

Registration is now open.

Register here through PayPal.

~~~~~

BO MACKISON is an artist, poet, photographer, certified Kaisen-Muse creativity coach, Nalanda Miksang Photography Instructor, hands-on workshop presenter, and a woman who has spent her entire adult life surviving and thriving with the help of the creative practices she now shares with others. She is the founder of Contemplative Creatives Journey, an Online Seasonal Workshop. Bo has been offering creative and contemplative programs for women since 2014. She’s been told her workshops have changed people’s lives for the better. She believes this to be true.

Be an Opener of Doors

“Be an opener of doors” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few weeks ago, as I neared the departure time for a long-anticipated, long-planned for journey, I thought about doors and portals and thresholds. I chose the traveling theme “DOORS” and planned to take a photograph and/or write a few words with that theme in mind whenever the opportunity felt right.

Doors and thresholds and portals – to new and exciting places. Stepping through bus doors and plane doors and hotel doors; past doors that have witnessed centuries of human existence– some moments heartbreaking, some humbling, some honorable; through doors that lead to all sorts of mystical, magical places.

I like the thought that going through the threshold of a door takes only a single step. And that is what every journey is — a single step at a time.

Through an architectural passage or embarking on plane or train? Yes. But also a step into the unknown, through fears and all sorts of unnamed resistance. Every passage through every portal is a small victory, stepping from the known into the unknown, experiencing the ordinary which is at the same time extraordinary.

Closing one door and opening another to a whole new adventure, to a new discoveries of meaning and beauty in unusual places and things.

There are times when beauty reveals itself slowly. Human culture seems to build its temples of meaning in the wrong places, in the garish marketplaces of transient fashion and public image. Beauty tends to avoid the siren call of the obvious. Away from the blatant center, it prefers the neglected margin. Beyond the traffic of voyeuristic seeing, beauty waits until the patience and depth of a gaze are refined enough to engage and discover it. In this sense, beauty is not a quality externally present in something. It emerges at the threshold where reverence of mind engages the subtle presence of the other person, place or object.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

Here are a few of the doors/portals/thresholds I either passed through or passed by on my recent travels:

  1. My door at home, taken as we passed through on our way to a two week adventure, our first travels across the pond to Europe.
  2. The door to the Van Galder bus which took us on the first leg of our trip — from the Memorial Union at University of Wisconsin Madison to O’Hare International Airport.
  3. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, an hour’s train ride north of Copenhagen. One of our first experiences with the vast and efficient public transportation system in Europe. By asking lots of questions and getting the train station’s information guide to write out the destination (unintelligible to my ears because of the Danish accent) we arrived where we wanted to go. Amazing!
  4. Very red tunnel with sun-light “doors” which led to the Van Gogh exhibit at the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art. The ARKEN was a 30 minute ride from Copenhagen’s Central Station and gave us our first opportunity to experience train travel in Europe.
  5. Jeppe Hein’s Cage and Mirror stands near the bridge entrance to the ARKEN Museum.
  6. Passage from the Constellation Room to the Winter Garden on the ship Viking Sky.

  1. Door leading to the soldiers’ quarters at Kastellet (Citadel) in Copenhagen, the installation dates from 1663.
  2. The Norway Gate of the Kastellet with guard and entry gate, now more of a park and historical fort than an operating military installation, although it still has its own soldiers quartered on the grounds. Built in 1663.
  3. Amalienborg, the royal family’s residence in Copenhagen. Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary live here with their four children. Whenever they are present, the guards protect the residence. They carry automatic weapons; the changing of the guard is not just for show.
  4. Gothenburg, Sweden. Gate to an overlook of the city proper.
  5. Side entrance to the Masthugget Church in Gothenburg, Sweden. Built in 1914 on a high hill close to the city, it’s a striking sight from afar.
  6. Guard entry to the Akershus Fortress, still a military installation though it is open to daytime visitors. Parts of the complex date to the 1290s.

  1. Gate at Akershus Fortress, Oslo.
  2. Interior courtyard door at Aalborghus Castle in Aalborg, Denmark. Half-timbered castle built by King Christian III from 1539 to around 1555 as a fortification.
  3. Door to the dungeon where a woman of noble birth, accused of witchcraft, was held until trial. An Aalborg legend.
  4. Door of the house built in 1624 by Jens Bang, a wealthy merchant, and for more than 300 years, the building had been the home of Aalborg’s oldest pharmacy.
  5. A peek into a garden courtyard in one of the oldest residential areas in Aalborg.
  6. Pretty houses/doorways in historic Aalborg.

  1. Decorated door in Fredericia, Denmark. Neighbors and friends decorate doors for memorable occasions, typically a 25th or 50th wedding anniversary, though this door’s decor celebrated newlyweds.
  2. Kiel Maritime Museum. Interior door.
  3. A peek into the courtyard between the Hamburg (Germany) City Hall — more like a state capitol as Hamburg is a city-state — and the Hamburg Stock Exchange. Fountain of Hygenia, an important goddess who’s a symbol for hygiene. (Dating back to when sewers were open and flowing in the streets, she was of great importance…)
  4. Doors of St. Peter’s Church, parts of which date from 1100s. Hamburg Germany.
  5. Entrance to Hamburg’s City Hall building.
  6. A home on a canal in Amsterdam. Shiny white walls, red bricks, and a black door. In this historic area, these are some of the “allowable” colors for buildings.

 

LOST AND FOUND – A Transformational Travel Experience

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

For nearly a decade, I spent the winter months in Arizona. I drove from Wisconsin to Arizona after the Christmas holidays and returned to Madison in early May. The time in solitude, challenging in many ways, was also life-affirming and regenerative. I cherished those sunny days in the desert and yet I missed Wisconsin. When May arrived I was always ready to return to family and friends and to the Midwest’s more moderate clime.

On May 1st, 2014 I began the 2,000-mile solo drive from southern Arizona to Madison.

On the second day out, I left a motel in Sedona at sunrise, eager to be in Santa Fe by early evening. But when I turned the key in the ignition all the warning bells and whistles on the dashboard started flashing and beeping. Sedona would have been a great place to be stranded, but there was no available Subaru mechanic and so my car was towed to Flagstaff. After two days of delay, I was told there was a head gasket issue which would require a lengthy stay in the repair shop. The shop assistant set me up with a loaner car with unlimited miles and said, “Come back in a week.”

I had an unexpected week to explore northern Arizona, a region I had never really explored. Yay!

I headed north from Flagstaff, Arizona and took the scenic route. I was on my way to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. I planned to meet a photographer I knew only from her online photo blog who worked as a Park Ranger during the North Rim’s short summer season.

On the second day of my unexpected adventure, I stopped at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and asked the Park Rangers to recommend a hike. They suggested the Toadstool Trail, a mile and a half long trek through balanced rocks and hoodoos in Utah’s Escalante Wilderness.

“Be sure to hike past the first toadstool,” one ranger said. “The toadstool garden is quite the thing to see.”

While browsing the park literature, a line from a National Park Service brochure caught my eye:

“offers…extraordinary insight into what sustains, maintains, and explains our world.”

Sustains. Maintains. Explains. Yes, that was exactly why I explored the wilderness of the Southwest.

At the trailhead, I checked my hiking pack. My Sonoran Desert gear was appropriate for high desert country.  I was on a marked trail so I didn’t need much. It was mid-afternoon and I knew I’d have good hiking light for several hours. The temperatures, hovering in the low 90s, would soon cool and make for a more comfortable experience.

I was twenty yards down the level trail when I reconsidered my choices and went back to my car for my hiking stick and extra water. I tried to relay my hiking plans to my friend, something I always do when I’m solo hiking, but I was in a “no service” area. Still, I was on a popular trail, so I didn’t consider this a problem. Off I went.

The trail followed a sandy wash for the first half mile, then wove around sculptured slick rock. Small daisy-like wildflowers bloomed in abundance. I took lots of photographs, lingering at scenic spots, but then, every place I looked was a scenic spot. Formations of striped red and white made for a stunning backdrop. The sky was azure blue and cloudless.

Two twenty-something hikers passed me on their return and I heard them marveling at the hoodoos and balanced rocks.

“The toadstools,” they thrilled to each other. “They really look like toadstools. It’s amazing.”

I reached the first toadstool, a thirty-foot beauty standing in solitude. A group of tourists from California was gathered at its base, taking photographs. They assured me that the toadstool garden was just beyond the white escarpment, exactly how the ranger had described it.

“How’s the trail?” I asked.

“There’s some scrambling through the rocks. But the garden’s so worth the climb.”

I was good to go, grateful I’d brought my hiking stick. The backcountry was rocky and uneven, and there was a modest climb in elevation.

Cairns marked the dusty trail. I wound through narrow channels and crossed long benches of red rock. When I finally reached the garden, it was, indeed, well worth the effort. It was difficult to photograph because of the  shadows, but the scenery to the west was strikingly wild, eery, otherworldly.

I’d been out on the trail a couple of hours, appreciating the solitude and sights, but I needed to get back on the road so I retraced my steps along the trail. But as I was scrambling through a narrow pock-marked passage in the chalky rock, I realized I’d crawled over these rock formations before. I was walking in a circle.

I retraced my steps to the last cairn, but no matter which trail I followed, I kept coming back to the same formations. I was walking in a wide circle, following a path half hidden in rocky crevices. The trail disappeared as I searched for a new route and I realized that I was alone and lost in a tangle of rock hoodoos.

I didn’t panic but instead tried to sort out the facts. I had plenty of time. It was evening, but the days were lengthening. It would be light for another hour. Again I carefully retraced my steps, but I the turn or switchback that would lead me to the main trail eluded me. I began feeling frightened and I remained calm.

Deep breaths. I checked my pack. I had enough water, a few trail bars and some dried fruit. I didn’t have a  flashlight or any type of protective cover. I had a whistle and an extra bandana. I could make do.

I considered my options. Sleep under a ledge for some protection and warmth? Lean against the rocks and stay awake? It was only for one night. There would be hikers on the trail in the morning. I’d never spent the night unprepared and alone in the wilderness. Was this going to be the night?

I considered the merits of spending the night in high country, alone except for the vast desert rock and the night sky, with rock as my bed and starshine and moonlight as my lanterns. It would be challenging, but doable. It might even be enjoyable.

I’d settled into a rocky depression, and was watching for the first stars of the evening to appear, when I saw two hikers maneuvering along a rocky ledge, high on the opposite side of the crevice. I whistled three sharp blows. They looked towards the sound and saw me. We communicated using hand signals and shouts. They realized quickly that I was off trail and couldn’t find the path.

They had a height advantage. They scanned the rocky puzzle below them, considering the rocks, the paths. Then they pointed the way, guiding me through the deep shadowed crevices and around boulders. Finally, I scrambled up a rocky wall and I was once again on the trail.

We walked together towards the road. At the first solitary toadstool, they asked if I would take their photo – they were father and son, New Yorkers, on their annual visit to the Utah Wilderness and wanted a memento.

Once we were on the more-established trail, I slowed down, motioned them to go ahead. I needed some quiet time to think about this experience, the realization that I’d been lost and had not panicked, that I was capable of spending a night alone in the wilderness of the red rocks.

It was in getting lost, that I had indeed discovered innate strengths I had not known I possessed.

It was in the getting lost that I actually found myself.

Reflections on The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer

Though I am focused on traveling and its necessary preparations, I am also reading books about solitude, for example, May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude and Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness.

Questions I am considering? How do I bring a sense of stillness and solitude along on a trip that is anything but stillness and solitude? How do I maintain a sense of stability and centeredness when I am aloft in the skies for a ten-hour stretch of time?

I loved reading Iyer’s book for it reinforced the concept of dual travel, traveling the outer world while also travel within.

Here is information on Iyer’s book.

Articles from Pico Iyer’s website: on travels, the innerworld.

Quotes from the book The Art of Stillness

On travel as perception:

Travel is an exercise in perception, a way of shifting your perspectives; the hope is always that you will have less and less to distract you, even if life presents more and more that confounds you. It’s not a matter of finding answers, in short, but of clarifying the questions—and then finding the courage to live with them. The traveler quickly learns that uncertainty is his home and impermanence his most loyal companion. The layover that is so excruciating for one traveler brings a sanctuary, a way of gathering his thoughts (the better to let them go) to another.

One way to think about plane travel:

Our journeys, the traveler learns, are defined not by their destinations, but by their starting-points, the ways we choose to approach the destination; nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. I once asked Matthieu Ricard, the longtime Tibetan Buddhist monk, how he deals with the incessant travel involved in giving his talks and translating for great Tibetan teachers; he’d taken on robes thirty years before in search of stillness, I assumed.

In his ineffable way, clear-eyed, face shining, he said, more or less, “When I get onto a plane, I am so free. There is nothing I have to do, nothing I have to say. I look out at the clouds, at the ocean below. For ten hours I can just sit and look. It is a kind of meditation. For me, every trip in a plane is like a mini-retreat in the skies.”

On incorporating a still way of seeing:

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”

On seeing more deeply:

“Going nowhere, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.”

“One could start just by taking a few minutes out of every day to sit quietly and do nothing, letting what moves one rise to the surface. One could take a few days out of every season to go on retreat or enjoy a long walk in the wilderness, recalling what lies deeper than the moment or the self.”