Articles by Bo Mackison

JOIN ME FOR THE SPRING SEASON OF THE ONLINE WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN THAT EXPLORES–AND CELEBRATES–THE EXTRAORDINARY IN THE ORDINARY

Contemplative Creatives Journey gives me a calm, safe place to renew and rejoice and connect with uplifting humans. I can’t imagine life without it. ~ Linda Bannan

If the words contemplative and creative have sweet juiciness for you and you’re interested in a different sort of online workshop, read on:

There is no set curriculum but plenty of opportunities to explore, play, create, muse, share, enjoy. There are no expectations or catching up, but lots of serendipity and infinite possibilities. There are no formal objectives, but an always-available way to engage and interact with your world through art, nature, and the written word.

I combine my roles as curator of life experiences, writer, artist, Certified Kaizen-Muse creativity coach, and Certified Miksang (contemplative) photography instructor to offer you a meaningful and fulfilling online workshop with a well-established active community of fellow journeyers.

In community and individually, we explore these themes:

word * vision * place

WORD

This practice focuses on how to connect — to the world, community, and self — using words. We’ll play with words, explore words, and connect nature and place using words. We’ll write poetry – tile poetry, collaborative poetry, and collage poetry using found words and pictures. You don’t need to call yourself a writer to enjoy these practices, but anyone who has an established writing practice will doubly delight in them.

VISION

We’ll create mandalas, individually and collectively.

What does a mandala practice look like? It can be:

• a time-out practice from the often-too-busy world
• an art practice that is grounding and meditative, satisfies the senses, and soothes the mind and spirit.
• a practice that can be done easily with minimal financial investment.
• a journal practice and/or a pocket practice, one that can be tucked into tiny pockets of your day – for calming, creating, and connecting with self
• less about art and more about meditative or personal discovery (though art sometimes happens!)

We’ll explore the practice of Miksang Contemplative Photography, focusing on color, pattern, and texture. We’ll also explore spring’s qualities — its passions, moods, style, and symbols — as part of the Miksang practice. (All types of cameras and skill levels are perfect for this practice.)

PLACE:

Throughout the changing days of Spring, we’ll continue our weekly observational practice of backyard phenology – the study of nature’s calendar. It’s an ever-present, in-the-present survey of the cycles of plants and animals in your natural world that is accessible to all.

Bo Mackison’s seasonal CCJ offerings are both balm and spark for the creative soul. Come play and discover what inspires you to make: poetry, photography, collage, mandalas, stories and observations, the lives of artists! You’ll find a no-pressure, quietly supportive community that welcomes whatever you choose to share.

~ Pascale Parinda

MY SPRING OFFER:

Together we’ll explore themes and creative practices that inspire and encourage, elicit wonder and awe, uplift your spirit and feed your soul.

This is a practice that:

• gently weaves itself throughout your day
• illuminates the extraordinary in the ordinary, celebrates the uncommon in the common
• offers ways of interacting with “place” that highlight the wonder of and connection with nature, no matter where you live, work, and play.

We begin on Sunday, March 20th, 2022, the first day of Spring, and we journey together until Monday, June 20th, 2022.

New participants are always welcome to join CCJ. The first weeks of our practice will include introductions to the practice of collaborative poetry writing, how to create a mandala practice, the basics of Miksang (contemplative) photography, and an introduction to the study of phenology (Nature’s calendar).

If you’re searching for sanctuary, a place to recharge so you can show up re-energized for the demands of living in today’s complex world, this might be the workshop community that offers what you most need and desire.

Whether you have a fully equipped art room or a box of simple supplies you store in a closet, you’ll find new ways to create. Hints on how to see or create in new ways will offer you unlimited possibilities for exploration and all practices are easily incorporated into your everyday routine.

What I love about CCJ is that it’s familiar but new, every season. Sometimes I’m all in with the week’s subjects and explorations, sometimes life calls me away and that’s fine. Over the seasons it has grown to live inside me with gentle noticing, relishing, photographing, and doodling the truth of my life and has become a gentle touchstone throughout. ~ Liz Crain, ceramicist

WHEN:

The SPRING journey is 13 weeks long. Sunday, March 20th, 2022 through Monday, June 20th, 2022.

HOW:

We gather together in a private group on Facebook. All content is shared on this private group page. You’re encouraged to share your discoveries and experiences in the private group, however and whenever you choose.

This guided and easily accessible process allows you to engage in the practice in whatever way is best for you.

PDF booklets of each theme are provided for your personal use.

THE COST:

I offer you my knowledge, my skills, my presence, my enthusiasm, and my ongoing daily contemplative practices. The all-inclusive cost for the Spring journey and the active sharing community will remain at the affordable price of $99.00.

THE DEBI BRADFORD MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP:

Debi Benson Bradford, a dear friend and member of CCJ, passed away on May 4th, 2021. Debi was an extremely talented photographer, a Master Gardener in her beloved North Carolina, and a lover of all things in nature. She had a long-standing daily practice of sharing her photographs taken along the NC coast and adding words of inspiration. In her memory, I will be offering an alumnus scholarship in her name for CCJ Spring 2022. If you also share Debi’s passion for adding beauty and kindness to the world, please let me know.

TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE:

Registration is open until April 30, 2022.

Register here through PayPal. Thank you.

~~~~~~

BO MACKISON is an artist, poet, photographer, certified Kaisen-Muse creativity coach, Nalanda Miksang photography instructor, hands-on workshop presenter, and a woman who has spent her entire adult life surviving/thriving with the help of the creative practices she now shares. She is the founder of Contemplative Creatives Journey, an Online Seasonal Workshop. Bo has been offering creative and contemplative programs for women since 2014. She’s been told her workshops have changed people’s lives for the better; personally, she knows this to be true.