Articles by Bo Mackison

Snapshots from Our Windows

A Collaborative Poem by CCJ Autumn 2020

Two gangly bougainvillea branches arch right and left
like fountain water sprays
as a third gently taps on the south-facing window.

The birds in multiple shapes, sizes, and plumage
scramble to eat all the pine nuts they can gather.

The sky’s a perfect shade of blue dotted with wisps of dainty white clouds,
the air crisp with a chill, the trees stand in their glory.

A long stretch of conifers grows from rock flashed with bronzing white birch.
Light blue water, breeze making ripples,
the sky’s light blue with a scrim of white cloud

Sunlight filters through the leaves as the wind rustles through them,
displays a moving mosaic of golds and rusts and greens

The garden hose stretches across the browning lawn,
beyond the withered garden,
meant to replenish the moisture in the compost pile

Yellow leaves drip from the dark branches
against the cloud-streaked sky.
Fall’s radiance fades toward winter.

Sections of trees sprawl
from a parking lot next to the hospital.
Concrete.

Leaves dance in the breeze,
catching the moss in their dance.
The breeze sings through the leaves.

I spy that old potted Rubber Tree from the dining room window.
Silhouetted smooth ovoid leaves
gnarled and thriving like its original owner.

We agreed to care for it when he moved back East 30 years ago.
He’s returned now, but not for his plant.
It remains the first thing I see looking out towards the front porch.

A maple tree is already naked showing its winter figure.
Its neighbor, a maple is still half-dressed in golden yellow and blazing orange.

The miniature mast-like trellis looking bold
as the spent jasmine continues to twirl in the wind

Thousands of miniature raindrops fall from the sky,
on the land, on the road, on the green pine tree, upon the head of a squirrel

The fine lawn is now a blanket of yellow and gold elm leaves,
that hung on until the frost/freeze gave them pause.

Summer is ushered out, fall takes its place on the stage–
brisk, tinged in red and orange, burning in one last riot of color.

Midst the brittle stalks of coneflower and remnants
of bedraggled sunflowers blooms a mound of coral pink stonecrop
and a sprinkle of purple gentians

Reminders that the flowering season is not quite over.
A crimson maple leaf has fallen into the withered foliage.
A welcome trio of color — yellow, dark red, and purple.

Jitterbug. Tango. Samba.

A trio of butterflies
Two blue swallowtails fluttering around
the frothing golden powdery pollen-laden dance floors
of Maximillian and Bush sunflower fields.

One majestic orange and black
stained-glass winged,
migrating monarch lands.

Every inhale I take, it seems their wings unfurl and pause;
I sit in awe in this prairie space.

One breath. One step. One delight.

The miracles of the common as seen from our windows.

——-

We write collaborative poems throughout each CCJ season. I offer a prompt and anyone who wants to contribute writes a few words or a few sentences, then I compile everyone’s words into a single poem. It’s lots of fun to see how everyone’s words come together. This is just one of the poetry practices that pop up in Contemplative Creatives Journey — here’s the offer if you’d like to check out the other creative practices we explore. We begin again on September 22, 2021.


WELCOME TO CONTEMPLATIVE CREATIVES JOURNEY – AUTUMN 2021

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

WELCOME!

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.

Contemplative Creative Manifesto © 2019 Bo Mackison

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.

A Sampling of Tree Mandalas by Summer CCJ Participants © 2020 Bo Mackison

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 autumn’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.)

A Miksang (Contemplative) Photography Mosaic © 2020
created by the participants of CCJ Summer 2020

PLACE:

Throughout the changing days of Autumn, 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.

A Weekly Snapshot of Autumn’s Progression © 2018 Bo Mackison

Participating in the last few CCJs has given me many things; a regular creative practice that takes multiple forms, a cohort of people sharing their experiences and processes, new ways of seeing, introductions to new artists, experimenting without the pressure of product outcome. ~ Deb Reynolds

MY AUTUMN 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 Wednesday, September 22th, 2021, the first day of Autumn, and we journey together until Monday, December 20th, 2020.

New participants are welcome to join CCJ during the Autumn Season. 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 AUTUMN journey is 13 weeks long. September 22nd through December 20th, 2021.

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 Autumn journey and the active sharing community is $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 2 scholarships for CCJ Autumn 2021. If you also share Debi’s passion for adding beauty and kindness to the world, please reach out to me at bomackison (at) Gmail (dot) com for the brief application form.

TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE:

Registration is open until September 30, 2021.

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.

PULLING OUT THE SOUL

~ a collaborative poem written by the members of CCJ Winter 2019

White clouds float dreamily
above a blue sea as pelicans
fish behind a trolling shrimp boat.

Pulling out the soul.

This beautiful sunny day invites me
to set aside plans so I can soak up
whatever I may find outside.

Pulling out the soul.

Looking out the window at the blue sky
with white puffs of clouds,
I can almost imagine a warm day.

Pulling out the soul.

Nature’s blanket of snow comforting each tree from
winter’s freeze. Comforting snoring of two dogs
shields me from icy streets and frozen fog.

Pulling out the soul.

Fresh white snow covers everything it touches
like marshmallow creme frosting
on sweets.

Pulling out the soul.

Limbs, branches, pine needles
encased in ice. The dangling sycamore branch
resembles a deer’s velvet-covered antler.

Pulling out the soul.

Sliding the garbage down the driveway in a toboggan.
One push. The blue ice melt I sprinkled on the sidewalk
left tiny holes rather than melting it.

Pulling out the soul.

II. Today

Today the snow and icy 6˚ barrier keeping me from the outside world finally broke. After I shoveled 100 feet of upward sloping driveway, a pickup stopped and a gentleman asked if I needed any help. I thanked him, but told him, “No.”

As I pulled out the soul.

Today the world has to await today as I nurse a headache. Birds outside my window sound like a full string orchestra playing out of tune. The cat on my lap, the only soft part of me today, purring.

And pulling out the soul.

There’s a desire line angling through the backyards deep with snow. Created by my neighbor’s two cats as they streak from their back porch to the low evergreen shrubs across the way. Back and forth. On the prowl,.

Ever pulling out the soul.

III. Red Tail Hawk

The red-tailed hawk greeted me as she flew low overhead. I put my hand to my heart and thanked her for visiting me today and asked her to tell my Mom everything is okay here. She circled slowly heavenward and soared out of sight.

Red-tailed hawks are my spirit animal, my sentinels. The day my Mom was passing one sat outside her bedroom window in her maple tree for a long time. A goosebump experience with a hawk.

My friend said if she could come back she would want to be a hawk. The day she was leaving the hospital to go into home hospice a hawk flew past the window. She was only home for one day. When I left her house a hawk flew up in front of me.

Red-tailed hawks appear to me as signs from the universe whenever I’m in need. Just yesterday one flew directly in front of me.

IV. Pulling Out The Soul

Dusting it off
Remembering when you last visited
Attention given
Imagination quick stepping
Inviting creativity
Celebrating friendship
Of soul and heart
Mind moderating the dialogue
Hands worked, words written
poetry sorted
In simple swishing movements of prosaic time
Extraordinary
soul filled visit
Let’s do this again
Tomorrow.

This pulling out the soul.

Written by Debbie, Debi, Jackie, Jean, Jeanette, Joan, Katherine, Michelle, Pat, Sharon, Wendy, and compiled by Bo

How is My Online Workshop — Contemplative Creatives Journey — Like a Box of Chocolates?

CCJ is Like a Box of Chocolates © 2020 Bo Mackison

Every three months I send out my newest offer for my online workshop and community, Contemplative Creatives Journey (CCJ). It’s part Miksang (contemplative) photography course, part mandala making, part poetry writing. There are a lot of moving parts of CCJ and they come together, incredibly, to create a container for exploration, discovery, sharing.

There is shared content almost daily. The practice has evolved to include Tile Poetry Tuesday, Phenology Friday, and a Sunday Miksang Photo Prompt. In between, there are deep-dive explorations into the practices of artists and poets… think Emily Dickinson, Paulus Berensohn, Emily Carr. (If you don’t recognize all of these creative folks, you might want to look them up. I promise you’ll be inspired. And if their creative work sings sweetly to you, you might really love the Artist Explorations in CCJ.)

Now, if this all sounds like way too much to add to your already complicated day, no worries. Truly, you could fully participate and spend only 10-15 minutes a day on creative explorations. But more importantly, no one is ever expected to create according to a schedule or create at all. It’s all self-paced. Some folks create and write and share in the group almost daily; others peek in and are inspired by the group, but never participate. Most are somewhere in between. It’s all good!

CCJ is like a box of chocolates. You don’t open a box of fine chocolates and eat every single piece at one sitting. You pick and choose your favorites to enjoy first, and then you might sample a couple of new-to-you-flavors. And there are those few jelly filled chocolates that you give away. CCJ is like that box of chocolates — there will be a few favorites, you might sample something totally new, and there will be a few practices you’ll let others enjoy.

And one of the best parts of CCJ? The supportive and kind community of participants who will cheer your efforts, share in your discoveries, and expand your creative connections.

If this sounds interesting, check out my Winter CCJ Offer. We begin on the winter solstice, December 21st. Registration is open through December 31, 2020.

Contemplative Creatives Journey – Winter 2020-21 Workshop

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

WELCOME!

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.

Contemplative Creative Manifesto © 2019 Bo Mackison

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 consider yourself a writer to enjoy these practices, but anyone who has an established writing practice will surely delight in them.

VISION

We’ll create mandalas, individually and collectively.

A Sampling of Tree Mandalas by Summer CCJ Participants © 2020 Bo Mackison

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 winter’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.)

A Miksang (Contemplative) Photography Mosaic ©2020
created by the participants of CCJ Winter 2019-20

PLACE:

Throughout the changing days of Winter, 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.

A Weekly Snapshot of Winter’s Progression ©2018 Bo Mackison

There are also deep-dive explorations into the practices of artists and poets… Emily Dickinson, the Gee’s Bend Quilters, Corita Kent, Andy Goldsworthy. (If you don’t recognize the names of all these creative folks, you might enjoy researching them. I promise you’ll be inspired. And if their creative work beckons to you, you’ll love the Artist Explorations in CCJ.)

Participating in the last few CCJs has given me many things; a regular creative practice that takes multiple forms, a cohort of people sharing their experiences and processes, new ways of seeing, introductions to new artists, experimenting without the pressure of product outcome. ~ Deb Reynolds

MY WINTER 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 the Winter Solstice, December 22th, 2020, and we journey together until the eve of the Spring Equinox, March 19th, 2021.

New participants are welcome to join CCJ during the Winter Season. The first weeks of our practice will include an introduction to collaborative poetry writing, how to create a mandala practice, the basics of Miksang (contemplative) photography, and an introduction to the practice of phenology (weekly nature observation).

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 world, this might be the workshop community that offers what you most need and desire.

Whether you have a fully equipped art studio or a box of simple supplies you store in a closet, you’ll find new ways to create. Hints on how to see/ 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 WINTER journey is 13 weeks long. December 21st, 2020 through March 19th, 2021, from Winter Solstice to the eve of the Spring Equinox.

HOW:

We gather together in a private group on Facebook. All content is shared on our 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 also 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 cost for the Winter journey and our active sharing community remains at the all-inclusive price of $99.00.

TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE:

Registration is open until December 31, 2020.

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.