Travelin’ Road

Arizona Highway

Traveling Arizona © 2013 Bo Mackison

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.
Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.
~ H. Jackson Brown

There are days I choose a destination and plot a route that avoids the interstate system or the major highways. I pull off to the side of the road, just so I can look at what I am seeing. Or maybe it is so I can see what I am looking at. There are many times when I don’t exactly know where I am, but I’m not lost.

When it’s time to return home, I head west until my way is blocked by one of Arizona’s many mountain ranges. Finding a way around or through or over is part of the adventure.

Similar to life. When we run into an obstacle, we find a way over or around or through.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  There are many roads to explore, and many obstacles to overcome.

See Through Barriers

Barrier of Branches

Barrier of Branches © 2013 Bo Mackison

“In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike.
And no two journeys along the same path are alike.” ~ Paulo Coelho, Aleph

Barriers. I’ve been writing about, photographing, thinking about barriers lately. Real barriers, invented barriers. Barriers in the forms of stories we tell ourselves. Barriers we erect and mistakenly believe will provide us with protection, or hide us from our truths. Barriers to hide us from our fears, other emotions, other people.

Many of those barriers are like the photograph of the trees. I can see through these trees. People on the other side of the tree line can also see through the bare branches, and can surely see me – perhaps not plainly, but they still know I am here. Because I am not easily seen, they may make assumptions about who I am and why I am standing (or hiding) on this side of the trees.

How easy would it be for me to cross through the tree line, make my way to the other side? I have a good idea of the terrain that lies beyond the trees. Grasslands — a few spongy areas where I will get my feet wet, or detour around. A mountain range rises in the far distance. I will expend a lot of energy climbing the mountain, but won’t the view be grand and well worth it? There are storm clouds in the distance too. I may run into bad weather. Or not.

Do I make my way through, explore a new space, or stay in familiar environs?

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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.

Windswept

Windswept

Windswept ©2013 Bo Mackison

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

And that when we no longer know the way which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry

My old ways, my tried and tested ways, no longer seem to fit. What happens when the stories I’ve lived these many years feel too small and restrict my breathing, my feelings, my actions? There is a spark on the edge of the shadow, and it shimmers.

The wind sweeps in, brushing away the old, allowing space for the new to take seed, grow and thrive.

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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.

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.