Grounded, Fiery, Drought and Ice – A Prairie Survival Guide to Beauty

Prairie Sky

Prairie Sky © 2014 Bo Mackison

Survival

Prairie survives the extremes.
Frigid winter, forty below, snow cover measured in feet
and blazing midsummer heat, a hundred degrees and more.
Tolerance to the extremes; hallmark of survival.

And always, always, the winds blow, fierce,
plants loose, nimble, they tolerate the constant forces.
Grasses, shrubs and forbs, some eight or ten feet high,
bend to the earth and still they survive,
not only survive, they thrive in these extremes.

Raging fires only strengthen the prairie. Re-birthing,
it knows survival when left to its natural course.
Let it burn, let it burn, fiercely burn; it seeds the earth.
The fire sustains.

Extra-ordinary, these plants. With sparse rain,
summer drought, the prairie conserves,
exposing only the most essential.
Two thirds hidden, it protects – deep-rooted,
stretching far into the darkest of depths.

Grounded and firm in their intention to hold on,
sucking moisture from the ages. Satiated.

Evolution’s choice, managing on just enough.
Just enough.

Survival.

Sunflowers and a Cloudy Day

Sunflower Field

Sunflower Field ©2013 Bo Mackison

“Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun’s revolving splendour.”
~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca

A sunflower field in the shadows of an overcast sky, and still the sunflowers follow the arc of the light, turning their heads towards the brightest spot in the sky. No matter how dim the light, the sunflowers are guided by the light. By the life-giving qualities of the light.

They stand, side by side, on a hillside in the Wisconsin countryside. I stand next to the field the flowers, observing their minute, geometric details, and they stand two feet taller than me.

They stand,  overlooking a neighboring farm, overlooking the city of Madison, overlooking Lake Mendota. On a clear day, the sunflowers  overlook the State Capitol and the current political happenings. And they follow the light, follow the sun.

Stand together, and focus on the light.

A good lesson for all of us.

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Bo Mackison is artist, photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, poet, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She believes nature offers huge opportunities in learning, and life offers a huge opportunity for growth.

A Prairie Gift – Black Eyed Susans

Black Eyed Susans

Black Eyed Susans © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Each step we take creates a cool breeze, refreshing our body and mind.
Every step makes a flower bloom under our feet.” ~ Thich Nhat Hahn

Each morning I walk. Each morning a part of my walk is walking with meditation. I don’t do it long, only 5 minutes or so. I usually do it at the beginning of my walk, when I am still on sidewalks and have not yet reached the  pond destination or the prairie destination. I do it to prepare myself for the day, to open my senses for what I will be seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and speaking in the hours to come. To prepare a space for the new to assemble next to the old. To focus on the present.

As I walk for those first few minutes, camera silent, hurried mind slowed, I find it helpful to breathe in and out slowly. And every few steps as I inhale, I say, “Imperfect…” and as I exhale I say, “I am enough.”

And then, in my mind’s eye, a flower blooms under my feet!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Walking, Bo first slows down, offers gratitude, and then does a brief walking meditation. Then she is ready to take off the lens cover and begin taking photos.

Still, There are Blossoms

Aromatic Asters

Prairie Color in Asters © 2012 Bo Mackison

“What is seen by the eye is transformed and colored by the vision of the mind.” ~ Robert Wade

These asters are my favorite of all the asters. Not delicate and petite, but rather “in your face” and frazzled, full of the spirit that they require as one of the last flowering prairie plants of the autumn. They can manage a bit of stress, too. They can survive a mild frost easy enough, though once a hard frost hits, the prairie fades from golden and russet to deeper shades of brown. The flowers’ pale, shrivel, and drop upon the prairie earth.

So when I walk in the prairie as the season turns (officially) from summer to autumn, I always check on how the spirited, aromatic asters are doing. I smile at the bits of color left in the prairie, those blossoms of bright purple.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Walking in the prairie is a walk for the senses and a balm for the depleted soul.

Lands that I Love

Late Autumn in the Prairie - Hidden Colors

Hidden Colors in the Prairie © 2012 Bo Mackison

A passion builds inside anyone who spends time on the prairie. ~ D. Showalter

In the winter, I spend my time in the Southwest and often wander the open spaces of the desert. It felt like home, the desert stretching as far as I could see, the first time I stood in the desert’s midst, turning in a circle, looking at the diversity, at the low clumping grasses, the bursts of yellow wildflowers, standing in the thick ground vegetation where I had perhaps expected sandbox sand.

It was a surprise to me. Why would I have such a thrilling connection to this secret land, land many people describe as desolate, and yet I could see nothing but wonder. This was not a land of my desolation.  A land of little water, yes, and of grand schemes for plant conservation, but wherever I looked there were compact surprises of the natural sort.

And now, in this last week of summer, where the touch of autumn rests heavily in the niches of Wisconsin, I notice similarities of the prairie and the desert.

The tallgrass prairie stretches far, blocks my view with its six-foot tall grasses and flower stalks, and I imagine it stretching for miles. Imagine I must, for most of the prairie has been swept clean, readied a century ago by the tractor’s plow, for corn and soybeans.  And now the neighboring land waits for winter covered with a different type of remnant, the sheared rows of cornstalks.

So I keep my eyes focused on the prairie spaces, on the swaying grasses, the sudden stalks of flowers dancing above my head, the prairie flowers twisting, wending their way, forcing their way ever skyward. Grasses and flowers with pioneer names – calico asters, switch grass, prairie cord grass, needle grass, cup-plant, compass plant.

In autumn, these prairie spaces have a certain look, the familiar is so similar to the arid desert grasslands.

Prairie in the autumn. Desert in the winter.

Lands that I love.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Another day traipsing paths through prairie – her muse for both photography and words.