Annual Alphabet Tribute: 2014 — Part I (AIR TRAVEL thru EPCOT)

Welcome to my Holiday Tradition – my 7 th Annual Photo Alphabet.

I’ll be posting my annual photo alphabet in six parts over the next week or so.

I hope you’ll join me as I explore  a few of my adventures, travel, and life happenings from 2014 with words and photos.

A IS FOR AIR TRAVEL

Flying from Madison to NYC

Flying in the Clouds © 2014 Bo Mackison

Never a fan of air travel, I nonetheless took a high number of flights (for me) across the country this year. I’m happiest in an airplane when I have great cloud formations to photograph while flying and great people waiting to greet me at the end of my trip.

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Flight Delay © 2014 Bo Mackison

I am not such a fan when the Flight Delay sign shows up and doesn’t go away — though a friendly flight companion and a hotel paid for by the airlines goes a long ways to making the delay a tolerable way to pass an evening and a night and another day.

Flying from Madison to NYC

New York City from the Sky © 2014 Bo Mackison

Tucson, Arizona; San Fransisco; Salt Lake City; Minneapolis; Orlando; Atlanta, Georgia; New York City; Asheville, North Carolina; Newark, New Jersey; Dallas; Chicago. And many take offs and landings at Madison, Wisconsin.

Meetings. An Ordination. Vacations. Workshops. A Baby Shower. A Grand-baby Arrival.

All good adventures!

 B IS FOR BOOK ARTS

Title Page on Letterpress

Title Page on Letterpress © 2014 Bo Mackison

I love creating books! I love creating pages of books on the letterpress! I set the type for my Desert Wisdom Cards on this 1940s letter press.

Letter Type

Letter Type © 2014 Bo Mackison

Love the metal type. Love the clickity-clack of the letter press as each page is printed using a cylinder roll and a hand crank!

Flying Across the Sky

Flying Across the Sky Book © 2014 Bo Mackison

I made books during the whole year. Many of them had a desert connection, like book about the road runner. Many were very simple — often accordion books — that could be made in a few hours. Most of the books had a naturalist focus so I could remember details of the desert as I discovered them.

C IS FOR CHIHULY

Blue Fiori Sun, 2013

Blue Fiori Sun, 2013 © 2014 Bo Mackison

My favorite art show this year wasn’t in a gallery, but in a garden! I visited the Chihuly Exhibit held in the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix not once, but three times last winter.

Red Reeds at Twilight

Red Reeds at Twilight © 2014 Bo Mackison

The Botanical Gardens are one of my must-see places whenever I get to Phoenix, but this year I was drawn to the gardens over and over — just could not get enough of those art glass sculptures set in the natural desert setting.

D IS FOR DESERT WISDOM

Desert Wisdom Cards - Series II

Desert Wisdom Cards – Series II © 2014 Bo Mackison

In October of 2014, after many more months of photographing the Sonoran Desert in the Southwest, choosing themes and cards that “spoke to me”, I created a new deck of  Desert Wisdom Cards – Series III.

As I have said before, it was not my original plan to create a deck of only desert-focused cards. I’d planned a set of cards with four nature themes – desert, shore, prairie, and mountain – plus a set of source cards the combined sets based on the template of a tarot deck. But I couldn’t let go of the desert, and so these cards complement the first 2 series and there are now 52 desert cards. (Information on obtaining your own set of Desert Wisdom Cards here.)

This was my big art project of the year. I think the desert is now complete!

E IS FOR EPCOT

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Epcot in Rainstorm/Twilight © 2014 Bo Mackison

One of my favorite things to do is to drop everything and go on vacation with one of my kids when they call and say, “Mom, do you want to go with me to _______?”

My answer is a resounding YES!

And so the allure of Epcot and the Annual Wine and Food Festival called to my youngest and I tagged happily along. Florida in September is…thunderstorm-y and wet — but only in the afternoon (and on a few select evenings!) We were there at the end of September so we not only enjoyed the Food Festival, but the Halloween Party was in full swing, too.

It’s a good thing to add fun and play to the year, and a trip that involved family, food and wine (and tequila), Halloween fireworks, and roller-coasters? Perfect for that smile factor boost!

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Coming up next: the Alphabet Part II — Fur Friends through Journey

 

 

Walking in Mystery

Epcot in Bloom

In Bloom © 2013 Bo Mackison

We all walk in mysteries. We do not know what is stirring in the atmosphere that surrounds us. ~ Goethe

There is a great deal of change stirring in the atmosphere that surrounds me today. Somedays it is easier to live in the present moment, and fully experience the present day than at other times. A close relative, one who has been a mother figure in my life for over three decades, is experiencing a rapid decline in her health. Her husband died earlier this year, and she is grieving and frail.

There is always the possibility that she will regain her strength, but this is a difficult time for her and for those of us who love her.

Today, though I am physically far away, I am practicing tonglen. It is not a practice she would be familiar with, but I know she will experience its benefits. Tonglen, in this specific case, is the practice of breathing in and accepting another person’s suffering, then breathing out while sending peace and calm.

That is what I hope for her – peace in the present moment, surrounded by the knowledge that she is loved.

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Bo Mackison wears many hats including those of photographer, writer, and daughter-in-law.

Epcot Adventures

Fluttering Above Epcot

Fluttering Above Epcot © 2013 Bo Mackison

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. ~ Walt Disney

I’m on my way home after spending a week at Disney World, celebrating birthdays and family. Disney World isn’t exactly my type of habitat. Deserts and prairies are more my style. But I have to admit that a visit exploring the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom is an eye-opening experience.

I kept imagining the working mind of Walt Disney as he created the first Disneyland in 1954. His idea of having a theme park with five different lands – Main Street, Fantasy Land, Adventure Land, Tomorrow Land, and Frontier Land — for families to enjoy and explore still has an amazing appeal.

A Florida Disneyland was a twinkle in Walt Disney’s eye when he died in 1966; his brother Roy completed the dream and Walt Disney World opened in 1971. There isn’t a space that doesn’t hold a bit of magic, a surprise, or a moment that makes one smile remembering the memories of the early world of Disney.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer. She is waiting in an airport, imagining all the creative projects awaiting her in her studio in Wisconsin.