You Were Born with Wings – Fly Towards the Light

In Search of Light © 2014 Bo Mackison

In Search of Light © 2014 Bo Mackison

You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust.
You were born with ideals and dreams.
You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly.”

~ Rumi

Beyond, The World – Barrier # 9

Defaced Wall II

Beyond, The World © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.” ~ Hermann Hesse

(This post is the ninth in a series of my story of art and healing. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey.)

When I embarked on what is now my photography business, I discovered a way to make my life meaningful. Initially, photography gave me a reason for getting up in the morning, getting out of the house, looking at my world, and finally creating something that I loved and was proud of. The healing process of creative photography. It was several years later when I discovered how to work with my photographs on a deeper level.

When I photographed this wall, I was shooting an old mission and its grounds. I came upon this wall, discovered its defaced surface, then framed a shot so I could focus on the wall and the grove of trees in the distance. Months later, as I was going through photo catalogs on my computer, I saw this particular photo and it took on a new meaning.

For me, certain photographs are like other people’s dreams. They provide symbols, metaphors, and hints of meaning. They are open for interpretation, not on a literal base, but intuitively.

In this photo, I visualized the wall as a barrier in my life. The wall prevented me from entering a lovely grove of trees, a place I longed to visit for sustenance and revival. Beyond the wall, the world opened into a sacred space of color and life, a place where nature could heal and provide strength for body, mind and spirit. I wanted to be in that grove of trees.

I visualized different scenarios in response to my quest. How could I reach that sacred space? How could I get over the wall?

  • I could scrounge for scrub wood and strong grasses, build a make-shift ladder, and climb up and over the wall.
  • I could walk along the wall until I came upon a gate or doorway, a portal into the world of greens and blues.
  • Or…I could I look at the height and thickness of the wall, and walk away, accepting defeat before I even began.

The process of visualizing my options provided much food for thought.

I now have created a set of Desert Wisdom Cards, 24 cards in all, each with a photograph and a word. I use the cards during my morning practice, focusing on the photograph and using it for inspiration and speaking to my muse. I also use the photo and the cards as prompts for journal writing, or a springboard for an art or nature project.

I discovered in the process a vehicle that provided not only a way for me to use my art for healing, but a system that also promoted problem solving and goal setting. These cards provide me with a framework in which to consider choices, make plans, and instigate changes in my life — the self discovery and healing process of in-depth creative photography.

Next: Gazing Upwards

A Riot of Art – Barrier Series # 7

 

Riot Art © 2011 Bo Mackison

Riot of Art © 2011 Bo Mackison

“What art offers is a space — a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~ John Updike

This post is the seventh in a series of my story, an intimate exploration of art and healing. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey

Once I earned the privilege, I worked in the art room every day, often twice a day. The art I created was not beautiful, not worthy of hanging over anyone’s couch. It was dark, often difficult to look at, always meaningful. The art I created helped me deal with the emotions bubbling to my surface so that I did not have to  explain in words. Too raw for words, the art spoke for me – through my paintings, sculpture, and mixed media work.

“Where something becomes extremely difficult and unbearable,
there we also stand already quite near its transformation.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I was immediately attracted to the woodworking room, a small room divided from the open studio area which was often crowded with other patients working on art or craft projects.

There was a center work table, tools hung from pegs and hooks on the wall, there were bins of building materials. I had no specific goal in mind when I began, but I felt driven to create. El, in her wisdom, always stayed near while I worked here. She’d pull a stool into the corner, and perch there with a pile of her never finished paperwork balanced on a lap board. She both ignored me and kept watch. She answered questions and found supplies I wanted, but otherwise I was on my own.

While many of the clients chose to work on projects they could gift to friends and relatives, diversional projects which fulfilled a need, I chose to let my spirit speak through my hands.

My first project was a sculpture of many layers, and its creation, done over a couple of weeks, was a turning point in my recovery.

I began with several pieces of wood, a saw, a hammer and nails. With great intensity, I cut wood into many lengths. The sawing stage was short-lived. I was anxious to get the hammer in my hands. When I began hammering nails into the pieces of wood, the creation took on a life of its own.

I hammered hundreds of nails into five or six pieces of wood. I made a base, then angled pieces of wood to form a teepee like construction. I pounded some of the nails so many times, only the nail head was visible surrounded by hundreds of hammer-head imprints. Nails protruded from the edges. Nails bent; they were pounded into the wood lengthwise. Nothing was wrong. There were no rules, except those for safety’s sake. Never one who liked to follow rules, I understood the sanctity of the safety rules. I wore safety goggles and aprons. I understood that the misuse of tools or equipment were grounds for dismissal from the workroom. I honored the space, the rules, the tools. I learned to manage my emotions within a set of boundaries.  And I kept creating.

“Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror.
Just keep going, no feeling is final.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

After the hammering and nails stage, I moved into the plaster of Paris stage. The plaster was my sculpting material. I mixed bowls full of the thick white pasty stuff. Then I applied it to my wood structure. Layers and layers of white in globs and streaks. There was nothing delicate or considered in its application. Just the urge to hide the wood and the nails under a volcanic-shaped mass of white.

I added small human figures which I fashioned from bits of clay. I pushed the figures deep into the sculpture. I rolled clay into snakes with open mouths. I pushed them deep into the sculpture.  El continued to quietly observe from the sidelines. Occasionally another patient would use the tools for a leather project, but for the most part I worked alone and in silence.

The sculpture of wood and nails and plaster became the container for my anger, my pain, my wounded self. I asked El if there was paint. I wanted large quantities of black and red paint. El left the room, returned with two 16 ounce bottles of tempera paint – one primary red, one black.

Using a brush more suited for house painting, I slashed streaks of red and black over the white. I again worked in many layers. Paint over paint over paint. I worked in a quiet, self-directed, controlled frenzy. A controlled frenzy, you ask? That is what it was. I could not stop. I did not act out in rage or anger or despair, although those emotions were present within me. But I could not stop. I had to make this wood-nail-plaster-clay figure-paint structure.

For several days after I had finished the painting, I went in the woodworking room and sat with it. Examined it. El eventually handed me a notebook and a few markers – red and black – and asked if I wanted to write a few words. Thirty pages later, I stopped.

We are product of our past but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. ~ Rick Warren

“I’d like to destroy it, that pile of stuff,” I said to El.

“How would you do that?” she asked.

I knew that the act of destroying my art required a safety plan. There were limits and boundaries, there were rules for safety, and there were the other patients to consider.

“What if I did it when there aren’t people around? It might be frightening, the noise and all. I’d put a big piece of plastic on the table so there isn’t much mess. And wear the safety goggles and my apron.” I answered. “I want to take the hammer and smash it.”

El nodded her permission. “I’ll get what you need. You could do it Saturday afternoon, after the department closes for the weekend.”

And that is what we did. I spent several hours on a Saturday afternoon in a cold January destroying my sculpture symbolizing man’s inhumanity towards others. I hammered it into a pile of dust and mangled wood and bent nails. When I was finally weary of the hammering, I hung the tool on its hook and smiled. A very small smile. Then I sobbed and sobbed.

El sat me down, lightly put her arm around my shoulder and sat with me. We sat for a long time.

Finally I stopped crying, found tissues, and cleaned up a bit.

El looked out the window “It’s beginning to snow. Let’s get our coats and go for a walk.”

We walked around the hospital grounds. The new snow-covered the grayed snow in piles on the parking lot. The air was cold and fresh and very clean. I gulped huge breaths.

Art heals. Not overnight. Not in a week. But art, practiced over a lifetime, offers the spirit a path towards healing.

Next: Putting Out Fires

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.

————

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

Bogus!

Bogus!

Bogus! © 2008 Bo Mackison

I’ll let you come up with your own interpretation.