Play – A Desert Wisdom Card

Pottery Jackrabbits, Playing

Jackrabbit Wisdom – Play © 2013 Bo Mackison

If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, music, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I fill myself so well, to the point of bursting. I wake up early and hear my morning voices leaping around like jumping beans. I get out of bed to trap them before they escape.
~ Ray Bradbury

I love the set of music-making, playful pottery jackrabbits.

I imagine them jumping around, creating joyful notes, all improvisation, unpredictable and original. I even hear a  stream of hoppy, happy notes.

I also love the idea of Ray Bradbury joyfully filling himself with words and music, comedy and rhythm, until he is bursting. He is so full that he wakes early each morning, ready to capture the leaping thoughts and joyful words. What an image — the power of play, so inspiring that it fills the creative well.

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. ~ Alan Wilson Watts

I love this set of music-making jackrabbits, pottery critters that I found at a folk art market in Southern Arizona. These funny little critters make me laugh. I imagine them jumping around, creating joyful notes, all improvisation, unpredictable and original. I imagine a stream of hoppy, happy notes filling the air.

I also love the idea of Ray Bradbury joyfully filling himself with words and music, comedy and rhythm, until he is ready to burst. He is so full that he wakes early each morning, ready to capture his leaping thoughts and joyful words. What an image — the power of play, so inspiring that it fills the creative well.

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. ~ Alan Wilson Watts

PLAY offers questions/reflections for journal writing, art, and a call for action:

  • Consider these journal prompts: What wisdom do the jackrabbits offer? When is my work play? When is my play work?
  • How can I incorporate play in my life as a daily practice? Jot down a few ideas of play that requires no set-up, no special equipment, only a few minutes of time in between other activities.
  • While chalkboard chalk is becoming a thing of the past, sidewalk chalk is easy to find. What might you do with a box of colored chalk? The obvious — drawing pictures on sidewalks — is great fun, and since expectations are minimal, you can easily lose yourself in this expressive process. Add an uplifting message. Write a famous quote or a few lines from a favorite poem. Add an observation. The options are endless.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She plays while she creates her series of Desert Wisdom Cards and then she plays with the cards.

5th Annual Photo Alphabet – Part II

E is for Enchantment and Energy.

Enchanted Pool © 2010 Bo Mackison

Enchanted Pool © 2012 Bo Mackison

I find I am often enchanted by the things I see in the natural world. It can be as wondrous and rare as this Yellowstone National Park’s turquoise hot springs pool or as ordinary as the pattern of bark on a backyard tree, as uplifting as a hovering hummingbird sipping nectar from a garden flower or as down-to-earth as the cracked mud along the edge of a pond during a drought.

Having a camera available encourages me to look more closely at patterns, details, the ordinary and the extra-ordinary, but now I add time for simply being in my surroundings when my schedule is open. I find an earthy spot, get comfortable, and spend time in/with the natural world.

Motionless and close the earth, I gain a tremendous amount of energy by taking the time to be still.

F is for Focus and Framework.

Two Portals in Black and White

Two Portals © 2012 Bo Mackison

Focus is basic. When I take a photograph and I want it to resemble what I imagine, I pay close attention to the focus. Do I focus on only a part of the photograph or do I set the depth of field so that the entire photo is in focus? Do I need a sharp focus or a soft focus?

Focus is also one of the basics I consider when I am working on a goal, or choosing a plan of action. It helps me set a framework in which to work. It is impossible to know the body of knowledge on any subject, or at least it is for me. I am not a specialist, but a generalist. So I focus on learning a bit about many things and I don’t limit myself to a specific photographic genre or technique, to a certain style of camera or software.

I would rather explore, learn as I practice, and shoot whatever captures my interest. There is always more to learn. I will never want for a photographic subject to study or a new technique to practice.

G is for Gratitude and Gardens.

Two Benches

Garden Benches © 2011 Bo Mackison

A popular phrase, one that’s even been adapted by mainstream advertising, is “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” I have always liked the idea behind the words – life is a journey, one that follows a long road, perhaps, winding and twisting, through cities and through deserts, scaling steep mountainsides and wandering through woodlands, walking alone, running with a crowd, even standing on the side, unable to take another step without rest or support.

Recently I read another quote about the journey, one that I also identified with. Perhaps because I spend much time in gardens of all sorts, perhaps, because I concentrate on the noticing more than the going, it is a good fit.

life is a garden,
not a road

we enter and exit
through the same gate

wandering,
where we go matters less
than what we notice.

~ Bokonon

H is for History and Healing.

Half Empty or Half Full?

Half Empty or Half Full? © 2012 Bo Mackison

While I enjoy visiting sites steeped in history and reading about ancient cultures and traditions, I have learned that studying ancient cultures is one thing, but living in the past is an altogether different thing.

I can’t go back again. I can’t change what has already happened. The best I can do is learn from past mistakes, make a strong intention to not repeat those mistakes, and then live in the moment.

Healing comes, not from replaying old wounds and old stories or reliving one’s errors in judgement. Healing happens by working intently to learn from one’s mistakes and beginning each day with a fresh start, a day to be lived deeply and relished.

Part III of the 5th Annual Photo Alphabet continues with  iPhonography thru Muse.

 

 

 

 

Tubac Festival of the Arts

Yard of Pottery

Yard of Pottery © 2011 Bo Mackison

If I’ve been quiet lately on the blog front, it is because I have been busy on the art festival circuit. I set up my booth on Tuesday – a noon to nine experience! – and the Tubac Festival of the Arts show started yesterday. My booth – Seeded Earth Photography – takes on more of a Southwestern theme when I do the shows in Arizona, but I also display my trademark macro-botanicals. I think I have a split photography personality – half Midwest and half Southwest! But then, I am fortunate to photograph two regions of the United States that I love and call home.

My booth is in a lovely spot at the corner of Tubac and Hesselbarth. (Booth number C 26.) I can look out the front and watch the crowd and the horse-drawn trolley shuttling visitors though the town.  I can look to the back and I am on the edge of a fascinating outdoor sculpture garden and the Tumacacori Mountain range in the distance. A tiny slice of heaven!

Horse Trolley at Tubac

Horse Trolley at Tubac © 2011 Bo Mackison

The Tubac Festival of the Arts, located on the main streets in Tubac, continues today through Sunday. Hours are 10:00 am to 5 pm every day. The event is free, although there is a $6 parking fee which supports various local non-profits.

Tubac is surrounded by engaging (to the senses) high desert vistas and mountain ranges in every direction. It is a beautiful location for an art festival, in a village well-known for its art community, art galleries, and dozens of working studios in both newer complexes and in century-old buildings. Located 50 miles from Tucson, it is convenient yet I feel like I am in a totally different, mystical environment.

Truly, a place to see. And it’s a great time to visit when the Art Festival fills the streets with white tents, artists from across the country, and amazing art.

Tubac’s slogan is “Where History and Art Meet” – it is a charming village and a scenic art festival venue.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. If you are looking for Bo this weekend, come to Tubac!

Blue Pottery on Ocotillo

Blue Pots on Ocotillo

Blue Pottery on Ocotillo © 2012 Bo Mackison

I lose my center. I feel depressed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over any encounter, and to extract its juices, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.    ~ May Sarton

I had copied this quote in my journal, and until I got to the ending and noted May Sarton’s attribution, I thought I had written those words. Maybe I wouldn’t have written such perfectly paced phrasing, but the sentiment was right on.

Am I trying to keep all the little pots filled? Am I being careful to not be harmed by the thorns on the ocotillo branches as I draw nearer? I do think things over, slowly, simmer them for awhile. Sometimes I repeat the same experiences in order to capture the essence.

May Sarton and me, hmmm?

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is exploring the Sonoran desert and  examining the smallest of encounters.

Pottery at Tumacacori

Pottery in Tumacacori Granary

Pottery in Tumacacori Granary © 2012 Bo Mackison

Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not,
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.

Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion.
Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day,
And count it fair.

       ~Amelia Earhardt

Fill one pot with courage, one pot with loving kindness, one pot with contentedness, one pot with a store of the sun’s healing rays…

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Bo Mackison loves visiting Tumacacori where she often think deep thoughts.