Cabbage as an Exercise in Zen Mindfulness?

Zen Mindfulness in a Cabbage

Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second. ~ Mark Riboud

A cabbage as a study in Zen mindfulness.

Really?

When I was readying the tripod to photograph this flowering cabbage, I never expected this result.  A mesmerizing photograph of line and color.

Look at the colors, the tight spirals, the intricate patterns. Follow the circuitous lines of the green outer foliage, continue as it changes into a slate green, then an icy magenta, and finally a deep fuchsia.

I’ve never considered studying a photograph of a cabbage before. But now I find that it seems to be an unusual exercise in Zen mindfulness. It has the ability to capture the interest of the eye, to encourage a state of attentiveness.

A Zen cabbage!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

Hiking the Loop at Arivaca Cienega

Cienega Cootonwood

Cienega Cottonwood © 2012 Bo Mackison

I spent several hours hiking in the Arivaca Cienega in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Preserve in southern Arizona. To be honest it wasn’t as much hiking as walking on a lovely mix of boardwalk over the wetlands and smoothed trails on the drier parts of the trail.

Some of the beauties of this trail are: it is of a decent length – just over a mile; it heads into country one cannot see from any road; and it is accessible for everyone — the path can accommodate wheelchairs and strollers. There are a also at least a dozen welcoming benches along the trail, so there is always a nearby place for a “sit and ponder” if one isn’t watching the clock.

The cienega is prime habitat for birds (and other wildlife), especially during migrations, but I am not much of a birder. I saw quite a few species, but only recognized the woodpeckers and the sparrows.

Spring Fed Cienega

Spring Fed Cienega © 2012 Bo Mackison

The cienega, which is defined as a semi-desert grassland, has a spring fed riparian area. There are many cottonwoods, some aged giants, growing near the wetlands. When I examined the grasses, I was surprised to see grasses that were similar to the grasses in the prairies in Wisconsin, and I wonder how closely they were related. (Something to research some other time.)

I sat on the first bench I came upon.  I am working on adding a new habit to my daily walk and I am finding it more difficult than I imagined! I find a bench, the first bench I come to that is in a good location to get the feel of where I am. That’s the easier part. The harder part is that I try to sit on the bench and stay fully absorbed in the environment while using all my senses. The hardest part is that I try to sit there, mindfully, for a full fifteen minutes.

If it sounds easy, try it.

I am eager to see what is on the path ahead, and my mind wanders to the immediate future instead of staying in the present. The first time I tried my fifteen minute exercise, I checked the time after 5 minutes, certain that I had gone over my time. Not wanting to pull out my cell phone and check the time every five minutes, I’veve begun to bring a small office timer with me. It is small and unobtrusive. I can glance down and see how much of my quarter hour is left as it tells the time in a pie shaped wedge that slides closed slowly until it disappears. Then the time is over.

Arivaca Cienega

Small Pool at Arivaca Cienega © 2012 Bo Mackison

It was a cool, breezy afternoon by desert standards and when I closed my eyes, it was a wonderful sensory experience as I  concentrated on my sense of touch and hearing.  I first enjoyed the warming sun on my face. Then I listened to the rhythms of the wind.

The breeze would begin quietly, a mere rustle of the grasses, then build to a crescendo sounding much like a distant train rumbling through the preserve, and finally the rustling would calm until it was nearly silent again. Except for the chirping and chattering of the birds, this small oasis was quiet. No traffic noise. Only a few other visitors and they were all on different parts of the trail.

I am working on a photo project that explores the concept solitude and so I find the fifteen minute quiet time an invaluable asset to get me in the right mindset for photographing this subject.

*** I would be remiss if I did not mention that there is a park closure along the US/Mexican border. It is a small part of the park, and is suitably marked and patrolled by security. The order to close this area went into effect in 2006 and there have been no recent problems, to my knowledge. The closure notice can be found on Buenos Aires NWR site — it is a PDF, found on the bottom right of the page. It is recommended that visitors read the bulletin before exploring the more remote areas.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is doing a great deal of slow photography during her time in Arizona, including this slow photo shoot she did at the cienega. There are more photographs of Arivaca to post., but she is also slowly processing . . .

 

 

Shelter from the Sun

Shelter from the Sun

Shelter from the Sun © 2011 Bo Mackison

Silence is never merely the cessation of words . . .
Rather it is the pause that holds together–
indeed, it makes sense of–
all the words, both spoken and unspoken.

Silence is the glue that connects our attitudes and our actions.
Silence is the fullness, not emptiness;
it is not absence, but the awareness of a presence.

~John Chryssavgis

Today is a day of catching-up.

Today is the day I stop procrastinating and finally cross off those two items on my to-do list that I write over and over every day. Today is laundry day and there are five piles of sorted laundry waiting for me. Today is scrub the kitchen floor day. Today is a quick weed the garden day. Today is clean out the refrigerator day.

Today I am embarking on my first afternoon of silence.

This is a plan I hope to make a weekly occurrence throughout the fall. No talking, no phone calls, no text messages, no voice mails, no emails, no computer, no radio, no iPod.

Only the natural quiet.

There will be noises from the neighborhood, birds chirping at the feeders, Jazz meowing to go in or out (wherever it is she isn’t at the moment is where she wants to be.) There is a building project several blocks away and I can hear the hammers pounding.

I have chores that have piled up, I will be busy.

I’m curious to see how mindful I can be of those activities — cleaning, laundry, sweeping, gardening. How hard will it be for me to concentrate on what I am doing for the next four hours?

 

Down on My Knees

Antique Flowers Shot While Kneeling in Grass in White Jeans

Antique Tin Flowers Photographed While Kneeling in Grass in White Jeans © 2008

Today – it is only 9:43 am – and already I have had one of those life lesson days. You’d think I wouldn’t have to expose my mind to such philosophical points of view so early, but lessons are not planned. They simply happen. Here’s today’s lesson:

Don’t Skip the Basics

How obvious! Yes? No!

I’m frazzled these days – change of seasons, change of life, changes in life. Ordinary and not-so-ordinary living kinds of things. My mind was full this morning chewing on all those nasty bits and I was giving it unlimited chomping privileges.

But there were things to do, whether or not I wanted to do them, and I had baskets of dirty clothes and a rainy day and a morning without a deadline or appointment. Good time for tackling the ever-erupting laundry hamper. Mind half on my task, I sorted the clothes in the appropriate piles and carried the first load down to the washing machine.

Whites were first. I hate white clothes – all that underwear and a dozen-plus tee-shirts to be sorted by sizes and folded. White socks without their mates.  A few cotton shirts that actually need ironing. (Why, I ask myself over and over, do I wear these shirts? Because they feel so clean and crisp when I need that clean, crisp feeling, I answer). And a pair of white jeans.

I pulled out the spot remover and tackled hard-to-erase grass stains from the knees of the jeans, stains that were ground in well. Ground in while I was kneeling in a thick, wet lawn to take a close up photo of an antique tin flower that had caught my eye. The stain came out, but it took a while. A rather long while.

After all the clothes were in the machine, I realized I hadn’t checked pockets. Water was spraying all over, the suds were bubbling, and I simply didn’t feel like putting my hands in the soapy mess.

“Nah,” I convinced myself, way too easily. “Nothing in those pockets. Just jeans.” And so I clunked the lid down and went off to tackle the challenges in my world. I planned on counteracting all those garbage thoughts with some wholesome journal writing.

I was really into my words when the washer stopped, and feeling more than a little irrationally irritable at the machine, I stalked over to it and dumped the clothes from the washer into the dryer. I was back in my favorite writing nook when a thought crept out of my brain for examination. “Do you want to check those pockets now?” it whispered.

“NO,” I retorted. It’s a little sad when you find yourself screaming – and you are sitting all alone in a quiet house.

So of course, you know what happened, don’t you?

There was a cheap black ink pen in my pocket. It made it through the wash cycle, but the plastic ink tube erupted in that warm dryer and leaked ink into my tumbling clothes. And then the ink tumbled and tumbled through those white clothes as they tumbled and tumbled through the dryer.

I retrieved my clothes when the buzzer sounded.

Jackson Pollock would have been proud.

So the few seconds it would have taken me to do the basics have turned into hours now needed to clean the inside of the dryer, salvage what I can of a mound of black spattered white clothing, and decide how to replace the necessaries that need replacing.

I just put my second load into the washing machine. And I paid more attention and did the complete job this time. Including pockets. That mindfulness thing. Be aware. Pay attention.

Oh, yeah! Mindfulness. I’m thinking it even applies to doing laundry.