Possibility

Tumbleweed in Barbed Wire Fence

Tumbleweed Fence © 2013 Bo Mackison

Winds that once blew free,
now scatters dust to the sky.
~ lyrics from The Cowboy, by Randy Newman

Wandering, I am lost.

I speed along the washboard dirt road, skimming its ridges,
Don’t jar me, bumping along dips and rises.

Earth so dry, wild and unsettled winds sweep orange dust into roiling vortexes,
chase tumbleweeds across the grasslands.

Hello, tumbleweeds, caught in the barbs and fence lines,
impaled on gnarled mesquite.

Globes of sun-bleached gold, you can no longer travel on wind’s breath,
whipping forces crumble your desiccated skeletons.

Tumbleweeds, no more wandering and skittering across this land.
I know how it feels to be trapped, too, unable to roll away.

Ominous clouds, they are possibility.
Desert rain is never a promise, yet
when seeds swell with moisture, they open.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring creative photography and emotion in a  series called Desert Lines – a combination of visual lines and written lines.

Soft Winter Revelry

Winter Twin Trees

Winter Revelry © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

How quiet the world was this morning, early on the first day of this New Year 2013. Even in its winter dress, winter white, and cloaked in frigid air, the light was transparent. I took a deep breath and inhaled iciness into my lungs. Sherpa and I stopped at a small cafe for breakfast. Our conversation wandered into our plans for 2013, our goals, our dreams.

We laughed at what has become our traditional ushering in of the New Year – a fire in the fireplace, a few lit candles, a Jack Johnson station on Pandora, a few (still awkward) attempts at dancing, a lot of silliness, a lot of holding hands, a lot of love.

Minutes before midnight, we poured our favorite celebratory wine — Angelique from Stone’s Throw Winery in Door County. Then we queued two versions of Auld Land Syne on YouTube, first James Taylor’s version, quiet and calming, dating from our newlywed days. Second, we listened to Norwegian Sissel Kyrkjebø’s soprano version, her notes, strong, bright, dancing in the air.

As the clock struck midnight, we toasted – “Happiness and Health in the New Year”.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Since the temps are hovering around zero, I photographed winter with my iPhone or iPad, and used the Snapseed App for processing. In cool tones. Fitting.

Arbor on Adobe – November’s Photo-Heart Connection

Arbor on Adobe

Arbor on Adobe ©2012 Bo Mackison

Your task is not to seek love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it. ~ Rumi

I love walls, I especially love abode walls. And I love adobe walls that have grape vines creeping all over most of all.There is just something about the combination of a wall with abode and grape vines that makes me grab my camera and check the space on my memory card.

I had an absorbing hour – yes, hour, thank you Sherpa for your patience – taking photographs of this particular adobe wall in Old Town Albuquerque. There were parts of the wall with cracks, parts of the wall with just a bit of the vine, some parts had clusters of blue grapes, some had leaves like this photograph. Together, they combine to tell a lovely story about the wall and the grape-vine.

I chose this as November’s Photo Heart Connection partly because it seemed so fitting for a photograph taken in November – the growing season is over and the vines are leaves are curling, crackling, falling off the vine. And partly because this was Day 3 of a four-day , cross-country trip, and we especially made time to visit Albuquerque instead of zooming through the city while bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have time to stop.

This photograph reminds me that time continues, seasons change, years pass. And if I don’t make time for pauses in a hectic life, make time to enjoy the sights and sounds of life, then I miss out on experiences that make my life meaningful. It pairs well with the above quote from Rumi. I can set up barriers that prevent me from fully partaking in life and love, or I can seek and find those barriers and take them down.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  This is her November Photo-Heart Connection contribution.

Weathering the Storm

Storm over Green Bay

Storm over Green Bay © 2012 Bo Mackison

Nothing is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of things longer. ~ Jerome K Jerome