A Pair of Water Lilies

Yellow Water Lilies

Yellow Water Lilies © 2012 Bo Mackison

Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex.  ~ Oscar Wilde

August Break 2012

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is taking an August break from writing long blog posts, but garden walks and the photos continue. Bo photographed these pond lilies at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison.

Rainbow Water Lily

Water Lily at Olbrich Botanical Garden

Rainbow Water Lily © 2012 Bo Mackison

A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature.
It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.
–   Henry David Thoreau

I was entranced when I looked closely at this water-lily. Never have I seen so many separate colors in one lily. From the center, moving outward — yellow, red-orange, orange, red, magenta and green. Almost like a rainbow lily. Such a beauty!

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 Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is taking an August break from writing long blog posts, but she is still busy with her photography.

Bo will be at the Agora Art Fair in Fitchburg, Wisconsin (Madison area) on Saturday, August 18. Stop by if you’re in the area and say hello!

Reflections of Water Lilies

Reflections of Water Lilies

Reflections of Water Lilies © 2012 Bo Mackison

No one can see their reflection in running water. 
It is only in still water that we can see. ~ Taoist proverb

Garden walk. Garden pond. Lily pads. Resting frogs. Quiet waters. Wispy reflections. Tall stems. Lilies flowering. Slight breeze. Rippling pond. Dancing reflections.

 

August Break 2012

 

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is taking an August break from writing long blog posts, but the garden walks and the photos continue.


Broken Stalks

Ice on Pond and Recent Snowfall
Strickers Pond, First Snow © 2011 Bo Mackison

How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

For many years, I had long periods of time when I felt like a broken stalk, a decaying plant. Blackened, brittle, beyond repair. Beyond care. I couldn’t access my soul, my spirit. I held the broken-ness tightly. It was the only identity I knew.

When I became interested in photography, it was a last-ditch effort to instill a daily routine in my life, a ritual, to focus on a reason to get out of bed each morning and look at the world. Really look at the good in the world, in my world.

Depression sucks life until everything gets covered in a murky, ugly gray. Anxiety turns that gray morass into a roiling fearsome monster. Photography became my potent weapon against depression, anxiety, even despair. Photography provided me with a physical way to add meaning to each day.

It wasn’t that I was not surrounded by a loving husband and family. I was. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the necessities of life and more. I did. But from that place of inner darkness, it was a struggle to appreciate the huge gifts that I had. Family, friends, doctors, therapists — all made monumental efforts to reach that dark place. With their help I made small gains, but I never felt like I had a “real” life.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart . . . forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits. 

~ Hannah More

One of the major changes in my life began with a small change in my day. I began consistently taking at least one photograph each day and posting it to my blog. My goal was to post a daily photo for a year and I did so from October 2007 to October 2008. Once I reached that goal, I continued to shoot every day. What had begun as a few minute practice became a habit and then a creative art, then a career and a passion.

I do not only think of photography as my art, my career. I think of photography as a cosmic gift.  As I pursued photography, it began to light my soul, lighten my spirit. I think it not coincidental that the word photography consists of two Greek words combined into one. “Photo” is derived from “phos” and means “light” in English. “Graphy” is derived from “graphi” which mean to write or draw.

“Photography – to write or draw with light.”

While I repeatedly created photographs, I also shone light into my inner darkness. Gradually the darkness lightened. The murky gray took on color. The roiling emotional monster began to quiet. I was able to breathe deeply, look anew at my surroundings, and see beauty everywhere — in the colors of the tiniest flower, the majesty of a century oak, the grain in polished wood, even in the symmetry and angularity of broken plant stalks on a snowy pond surface.

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. 
~ Jean Paul
Anger is a difficult emotion. It serves no purpose years after an injury or an assault to the mind or body. The anger I held so tightly caused added pain to me and the people I most loved. Yet I didn’t want to let go. I knew anger. I knew anger intimately. The burning fires of anger, so I told myself, kept me alert, kept me alive. And living with this anger also isolated me, which, illogically, gave me a heightened sense of safety.

But anger is a hard master and requires immense energy to keep it burning. I was exhausted. And one more thing, a very important discovery, I was lonely.

It was time to stop the constant longing to change the past. Time to stop protecting myself by maintaining an invisible fence. Time to let go.

People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.
~ Bill Cosby

When I held so tightly to anger, I became strangled by its force. I wanted to be loved, but I was afraid of love. I felt I wasn’t worthy of love, that once someone loved me, they would discover the true me and leave me. I made plenty of mistakes, trying to protect myself while controlling everything and everyone around me.

In letting go of my need to change the past, I can work on today. I can work on forgiving myself. And ask for forgiveness from those whom I have hurt. I am learning. I still have much to learn.

It’s all journey.

Golden Portal

Golden Portal

Golden Portal ©2011 Bo Mackison

Eventually I discovered for myself the utterly simple prescription for creativity: be intensely yourself.
Don’t try to be outstanding; don’t try to be a success; don’t try to do pictures for others to look at — just please yourself.
~ Ralph Steiner

I live opposites.

I am a nester by nature, satisfied with quiet days strung one after another. I savor the nurturing space my family and I have created in our home. I like natural rhythms, routine.

But I am also a wanderer, and explorer. I yearn for travel, new places to see, absorb. I look forward to times when I can embark on adventures, near and far. Peek through an unseen space and discover gold.

This is my goal: to carry my home within me, and so be at home wherever I am.

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