Whispering Shimmer Awakens the Soul

Prairie of Coneflowers @2014 Bo Mackison

 “When I look in the mirror, I see a woman with secrets. When we don’t listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don’t, others will abandon us.”
~ Terry Tempest Williams

Look at the prairie.
See the coneflowers?
Look in the mirror.
See the secrets?
Look into the shimmering souls.
Listen to the whisper of intuition.
The whispering shimmers
unleash the secrets, the words, the truths.

Awaken the soul.

 

Flower Mandala — Symmetrical Cosmos

Cosmos © 2015 Bo Mackison

Cosmos © 2015 Bo Mackison

“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.”  ~ Carl Sagan

Through the Shadows, the Light Shines

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“…we all go through our own experiences. If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.” ~ Sakuong Mipham

There are times when I feel a bit (or more) broken. I know better. But still, the feeling pops up occasionally. These are old feelings, old habits from long ago when it was the identity I knew and understood best.

I had not yet learned the freeing concept of “I am enough.”

Years ago I became interested in photography. At the time, it was an effort to instill a daily routine in my life, a ritual, to focus on at least one thing each day and look at the world, to deeply look at the mystery in the world in my world.

For the last few months I have been caught in a lingering depression, an illness that dims the beauty of life until everything feels murky and dark. Anxiety turns that murkiness into a roiling monster, a scary space indeed. For me, photography is usually my potent weapon against depression and anxiety, but this time even my camera could not pique my interest.

In the last few weeks the sun has brightened the sky as spring arrives, and hopefully the increasing sunlight will have a positive effect on my mood. And it is also my hope that photography will again provide me with a tangible way to engage in life and add meaning to each day.

“Life is not a maze where you have your eyes on the gaps, life is a beautiful journey, stop looking for the gaps.” ~ Malti Bhojwani

I think of photography as a gift.  When I become engrossed in my photography, it lights my soul and my spirit. I think it not coincidental that the word photography consists of two Greek words. “Photo,”derived from “phos” means “light.” “Graphy,” derived from “graphi” means to write or draw.

Photography – to write or draw ( to create) using light.

When I create, I shine light into my darkness. Murkiness gradually takes on brighter colors. The emotional monster quiets, and I again breathe deeply. I look anew at my surroundings and see beauty everywhere — in the colors of the emerging spring flowers, in the majesty of a century old oak tree weathered and pock-marked,  in the grain of polished wood, even in the angularity of shadow alternating with light.

Sometimes it is the little things that make life so lovely. It is acceptance of oneself that makes life shimmer. It is knowing that one is not broken, that one does not need to be fixed. That one is “enough.” A worthy lesson.

May it be so.

 

Thirty-One Thresholds – Discoveries at the National Mustard Museum? Indeed!

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Mustard Suit © 2014 Bo Mackison

Yesterday I created  Thirty-One Thresholds, a self-challenge to “cross the thresholds” of area museums, galleries, gardens, etc. — in an attempt to convince my brain that activity is good for what ails me.

Then I visited the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin, just a few miles from my home.

The Mustard Museum was my first threshold I crossed on my Thirty-One Thresholds challenge. It wasn’t the most exciting choice on my list nor the most cultural nor even the tastiest place to explore. (I don’t even like mustard!) But it was one of my more successful forays into the outside world after weeks of struggling to get out of the house.

The Mustard Museum did have two things going for it. One, it was the closest place to home. And two, it was indoors, important because my thermometer was blinking a chilly 6˚F.

Truth be told, I added the Mustard Museum to my list of places to visit because it was so close and I feared I would lose all motivation one day and not want to go out. Turns out, it was a good plan to get me started.

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Keen’s Mustard Display

Once I arrived, I was rather taken with the place. I still wasn’t sure what my “discovery” might be, but I enjoyed exploring the two-floor museum and mustard store.

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Arizona Mustards at Mustard Museum © 2014 Bo Mackison

In the basement museum, there are over 5400 kinds of mustard from 79 countries, mustard costumes, a “Mustard Piece Theatre” showing mustard documentaries, old photographs of mustard factories, exhibits on the history of mustard, mustard “art” posters and artifacts.

Plus more…so much more.

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Hot Dog Boy at National Mustard Museum © 2014 Bo Mackison

There was much kitsch and mustard-themed comics and puns where ever I looked, I grinned in spite of myself. So, maybe a visit to the mustard museum was just the place to provide some laughs.

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Hot Dog Sculpture © 2014 Bo Mackison

Then I read an article about the museum’s owner, Barry Levenson, a former assistant Wisconsin attorney general (who once argued a case in front of the U. S. Supreme Court and Justices Felix Frankfurter and Warren Burger.)

And I discovered THE discovery, a quote about Levenson and his unusual museum from a local newspaper, the Journal Times:

“…why leave a successful law practice to collect mustard, with a business card that calls him a curator and Chief Mustard Officer? It all started with baseball when the Red Sox blew the 1986 World Series.

“Depressed beyond words and unable to sleep,” Levinson said, “I walked the aisles of an all-night grocery store, searching for the meaning of life.”

He figured he needed a hobby to distract him…he insists that he heard a voice from the mustard aisle saying: “If you collect us, they will come.””

Levenson began collecting mustard and mustard memorabilia. His collection eventually became the museum part of the National Mustard Museum. Apparently he followed his bliss, which ended up being mustard.

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National Mustard Museum © 2014 Bo Mackison

Hmmm. I don’t think I’ll walk the aisles of the 24/7 grocery store looking for the answer to the meaning of life. But I certainly appreciated his message.

Crossing the first threshold proved more interesting than anticipated. (lesson #1 – Just try it. You might like it.)

I discovered some unusual mustard philosophy in the condiment aisle. (lesson #2 – Follow your passion.)

And a little humor, no matter how little, is good for a laugh. (lesson #3 – Laugh out loud.)

Boarded Window – from “The Barrier Series” on Art and Healing

Warehouse in Winter

Boarded Window © 2011 Bo Mackison

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. ~ Viktor E Frankl, in Man’s Search for Himself

Cold.

Winter.

This barrier, solid.
No light, no sunshine, no blue skies,
nothing natural except the brittle vines.

Impenetrable barrier.
Frozen exterior, my world.
The bushes are skeletal in their winter bareness.

Dead vines cling to the bricks,
hang from the window’s edge,
collect in piles on the ledge.

The decorative bricks offer some respite,
though the window is boarded. Invisibility.

And yet, it’s been patched neatly, blue paint.
Sealed from view but with care,
What inside is worth protection?

And the vines?
Dead and withered, but the hidden roots,
alive, are under the snowy depths,
warm enough in the earth.
Roots which will sprout tenderly alive green shoots
in the spring.

This phase, the deep winter of my spirit-break –
a period of dormancy.

Winter’s wait for the thaw, for the return of spring.

— based on journal entries, 1990

 

The second photograph in the barrier series correlates to the time when I became unable to keep up with life’s day-to-day expectations and demands. I constructed a barrier, much like this, deep in my psyche, to provide myself with space and time, waiting for the passage of winter.

It was a time of silent waiting.

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Over the next two weeks, I’m re-posting an 11-part series I first ran in January, 2013 on art and healing. Feeling vulnerable doing this once again, but this message is too important to keep buried in the bowels of my blog. It is my hope that my journey will also inspire others. We are all on a journey of one kind or another. We are all pilgrims following our path.