An Alphabet in Four Parts – Finale

In a Blue Fog

In a Blue Fog © 2010 Bo Mackison

Concluding with the last installment of my alphabetical musings for the changing of the year:

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UNDERWEAR. As in SEMPER UBI SUB UBI as in SENSE OF HUMOR. Keeping a sense of humor in my back pocket is a talent well worth cultivating. Though crying can make me feel better, laughing is much more fun. And I am learning that emotions create your reality. Smiling eventually makes you feel better. Crying? Not so much. (If you are unfamiliar with Latin, the above phrase can be [questionably] translated “always where under where.” Many generations of high school freshman Latin student have found that wildly amusing.)

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VIEW FINDER. I spend a couple of hours most days looking at life through my camera’s view finder. It makes me focus on that which isn’t always too obvious. It allows me to look at the world from a different vantage point. I find that when I look at a small slice of the world through my camera lens, I end up seeing just the opposite–how huge and magnificent my world really is.

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WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT.  No longer am I going to spend the last half of winter in Wisconsin wishing it would go away. (Oooh – lots of alliteration in that sentence!) I would hate to count how many days I barely noticed, because I was in such a funk about the twenty inch snow pack, or the gray clouds, or the windchill, or the [fill in the blank with a nasty weather term]. This year I am avoiding the last two months of winter in Wisconsin, and going to Tucson, an area of the country I love. A promise of sunshine and warmer temps. And I can photograph outdoors without wearing multiple layers of wool. (If Wisconsin has great weather all of February and March, you can all thank me!)

see url X is for x, the unknown.

X. In the study of mathematics, X is an unknown within a set. So let’s consider math. [Most briefly.] In math equations, one is frequently asked to solve for x, the unknown quotient. Life is rather like math in that we also spend our lifetimes solving for x, for that huge unknown that lies ahead of us. But no matter how carefully we plan, we do not know how the future will unfold, and the cleverest of plans can be undone in seconds. Best to live today as fully as possible. Not wait until tomorrow.

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YODEL. I wish that I knew how to yodel. Because some days, when the sun is brightly shining, and when I hear the wind whistling through the leaves, and the coyotes are howling in the back woods, I would like to add my voice to the song of the Universe. And yodeling seems like a fine way to join in the merriment. Listen to this yodeling. And I dare you not to smile! 🙂

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ZEST. And finally, a simple poem to complete this year’s alphabet and begin the New Year:

“Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with click zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!”

William Arthur Ward

Peace to all, Bo

An Alphabet in Four Parts – III

Cosmos at Sho-Low

Cosmos and Bokeh © 2010 Bo Mackison

Continuing with the third installment of my alphabet, my year-end/beginning musings:

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NEST. Nest is simple and symbolic. It’s a comfort word for me. I hold it as a quiet space, away from distractions and other people. Sometimes I curl up in my nest, real or imaginary, to recharge my batteries. Doesn’t take long, and then I’m ready to go on and meet the world again.

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ORDINARY. When you get right down to it, there isn’t much that is ordinary. If you look closely and examine ordinariness, you often find that the ordinary is truly extra-ordinary. For example, drinking a steaming cup of tea, a simple experience, can be made extra-ordinary with intention, mindfulness, and appreciation for the good things in life.

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POTATO. The potato provided me with a powerful lesson. Yes, the potato. A basic food, everyone loves potatoes – mashed, smashed, french fried, baked, even raw and crunchy. Everyone I know eats potatoes – except for my older daughter who has taken only one bite of potato in her life. She decided that she despised the texture and taste and she swore off potatoes as a two year old. Twenty-eight years later, she continues to stand by her choice.

Here is the interesting part. Whenever a new person enters her life, and they discover that Jeanne does not eat potatoes because she  chooses not to eat them, they almost always go out of their way to trick her — to get her to unknowingly take a bite of a potato. It becomes a challenge for them.

Interesting, hmm? She tells people she doesn’t like potatoes, that she doesn’t eat them, and because that doesn’t fit squarely with other people’sapproach to food, they want to convince her to join their side. Now, we are talking about potatoes here. I’m always amazed that this happens repeatedly.  It makes me wonder.  If people react so strongly to a different eating style, just how far will they go to make people conform to their way of thinking about the important topics in life. Now there’s a potato for thought.

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QUESTIONS. I love asking questions. I love searching for answers to questions, too. And researching for answers to questions, too. To me, searching and researching are two different methods of knowledge seeking. In searching, I look for answers in my head and in past learning experiences. In researching, I look up what other people have discovered about the subject. Search and research–I think the two methods balances the quest for knowledge quite nicely.

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RELINQUISH. I relinquish the story I hold dear. The story of why I am like I am, of how I can’t change because this experience or that exchange marked me for life. Bull hockey. Change isn’t easy. It’s damn hard work. But change is possible. And I am dealing in possibilities from this day forward. Tabula rasa. A clean slate. I can deal with some leftover chalk dust or a few wayward chalk smears, but I am erasing that complicated story. No more worn out explanations that stand in my way of new explorations.

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SURVIVOR. I am a survivor. Survivors develop a deep strength within themselves. Sometimes I forget I have this strength. It takes a big challenge to remind me that I can draw strength from my past experiences without dredging up those experiences. A valuable lesson.

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TREASURE MAP. I made a treasure map a few days ago while thinking about leaving 2010 behind and entering 2011. I didn’t write resolutions, but I did choose a single word as my focus for the year – POSSIBILITIES. Then I drew islands on my treasure map. I filled in one island with my dreams. I filled in another island with my desires. I filled in a third with my goals for the next three months, six months, and year. I added a few favorite quotations for inspiration and motivation and a few words clipped from newspaper headlines for guidelines. Then I hung the map in my studio where I can see it everyday as I work. I love treasure maps!

The Finale — Underwear through Zest.

An Alphabet in Four Parts – II

Red Yucca Flower

Red Yucca Flower

Continuing the second annual edition of my year-end musings:

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GARDENS. I seem to be naturally attracted to gardens of all kinds. Greenhouse gardens. Perennial gardens. Tropical gardens. Rain gardens. Wild gardens. And desert gardens, too. The photograph of the red yucca in bloom was taken at Tohona Chul Park in Tucson, Arizona, an amazing desert urban garden. I’ve spent many, many hours wandering in gardens, sitting in gardens, working in gardens, and now taking photographs in gardens. I’ve taken so many photographs in all these gardens, when I take Seeded Earth Photography on the road, my art show booth almost looks like a garden.

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HOURGLASS. Time passes, second by second, just like the sand passes in an hourglass. How many of those seconds, minutes, hours, have I missed by not being mindful, by not paying attention to the present? Not saying that there isn’t time to goof off, to day dream about the future, to watch the wind blowing in tall grasses or a single leaf flutter to the ground. But I want to keep reminding myself that it does no good to live in the past, to question what might have been, to second guess decisions already made. So – living in the present, noticing the details? Good. Dreaming and planning about the future? Good, too. But…I want to keep the past in the past. Learn from the mistakes I’ve made, but not live in the past with regret.

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INKLING. I love inklings, just the briefest grasp of an idea. I love taking that bit and turning it over and over in my mind, letting it gather more and more bits until it’s a full fledged idea. I love ideas. I love mulling over ideas. Sometimes I love the idea more than the implementation of the idea. Sometimes that’s OK. Sometimes I need a push to take my ideas to fruition, to make them real. Seeded Earth was an inkling of an idea for a long time. It came to life as a blog, a place to store a photograph a day for a year. And after that year, I wanted to do more than post photographs on my beloved blog. I wanted to make them real (in print) and I wanted to share them with others. Sometimes those inklings really do turn into reality!

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JUICY. I like juicy living. Full of flavors and textures and bright colors, and a certain amount of messiness, but with such glorious rewards.

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KINDNESS. Being kind to others, yes, but more than that. Also practicing the art of kindness towards myself.

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LONG SHOT. Sometimes it’s wise to go for the sure thing. Dribble the ball across mid-court, closer and closer to the hoop. Get your defensive lines all in place. Move in close, focus on the goal, and then make the shot. That’s usually a good plan. But sometimes, you have to go for the long shot, the Hail Mary shot at the end of the buzzer. Once in awhile, it just feels right to take a long shot. Might not make it. But then again, you just might.

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MINUTE RICE. Actually, I don’t eat the stuff–prefer brown rice or long grain white rice or wild rice. But I do have a sock filled with it. I use it for a makeshift tripod when my regular tripod is too heavy to carry while hiking for miles, or too clunky to get past museum guards. These are the kinds of projects I love – the whole DIY craze where you can give one object a completely new use. I use a string and a metal washer for a tripod when desperate. Wax paper or copy paper or aluminum foil achieves different lighting properties. I’ve been accused of using my camera bag as a lunch bag on more than one occasion. Not true. I never put my sandwich in my camera bag!

Next post – Nest through Treasure Map

An Alphabet in Four Parts – I

Straight as Soldiers

Don’t Fence Me In © 2010 Bo Mackison

This is the third annual edition of my End of the Old Year-Beginning of the New Year.  An Alphabet.

It’s another mish-mash of ideas, dreams, reflections on both the past year, and on past lessons, some learned, some learned not so well. There are a few to-do’s, some to-hope-for’s, gratitude for the many blessings in my life, and heartfelt good wishes to all for the coming New Year.

Clonazepam Purchase Online An Alphabet, 2010 – Part I


A is for ABRACADABRA.

ABRACADABRA.  Do you believe in fairies and in magic? I would LIKE to believe in magic, but I’ve learned over my many years here on earth that, in most cases, it’s hard work that works, not magic.

B is for BUMBLEBEE.

BUMBLEBEE. A few years I was told a story about how a bumblebee is a most unlikely insect, too heavy to fly with its tiny un-aerodynamic wing set-up, and yet it does. Later, I read this was all hogwash, that a bee most certainly had the proper body parts for flight. I rather like to believe the first story though, believe that life and living does exist on the very edge of possibility.

C is for CANYON.

CANYON. Once upon a time, a couple decades ago, I went camping with my family. We stayed in Colorado National Monument in western Colorado. Sherpa, and my teen-aged kids wanted to go on an ambitious hike descending to the canyon floor, starting at above 6,000 feet of elevation and dropping to near 5,000 feet, with a series of switchbacks that made it seem like the crookedest trail in the world. Not too many problem going down, of course. But coming back up was a totally different proposition. The kids skipped ahead, leaving Sherpa to toss me words of encouragement as he hiked 30 feet further up the trail. I was not a happy camper, nor was I a happy canyon climber. But no one was going to get me out of that canyon except ME. One laborious step at a time. I do admit to saying more than a few cranky words as I hauled myself up the switchbacks, but I eventually hauled myself to level ground. Yep, the old one-step-at-a-time tale.

D is for DUMPSTER.

DUMPSTER. I carry a “dumpster” in my pocket. All those negative thoughts, all those words that hurt my feelings because I am way too sensitive? They get tossed in the dumpster. If I run into a really difficult streak, I write down all those thoughts that twirl in my head and ceremoniously stick them in my dumpster pocket. And, no, I do not re-read them. When I’ve had a run on negativity, and my dumpster is getting full, I do a ritual to get rid of all those cranky thoughts. Sometimes I “throw out” the contents of the dumpster by gluing the paper pieces upside down in my journal, and then writing or making art right on top of them. Poof. All those thoughts transformed!

E is for ENERGY.

ENERGY. This past year I have found a huge well of energy I never knew I had. All because I am doing something I love to do – photography. And the amazing thing,  as I do more and more with my photography, I find I have more and more energy to get things accomplished. It really is true. If you love what you do, if it makes meaning in your life, it makes the doing easier. Not easy. Just easier.

F is for FEATHERS.

FEATHERS. As in impossible. Take a feather pillow, unzip the cover, and shake all those fluffy bits from a third story window. In a tornado. (The Midwest is well-known for its tornado tendencies.) After the feathers have flown halfway across the continent, word comes down from the Big Boss that the pillow needs to be re-stuffed–with the ORIGINAL feathers. Impossible. Life is like that sometimes. The task ahead of you is utterly impossible. You study the available courses of action and pragmatically decide, no matter how hard you work at the solutions, a re-stuffed pillow is simply not going to happen. The problem has to be re-examined and either solved a different way–perhaps acquire NEW (improved) feathers – or the problem has to be set aside and not solved at all. Sometimes, there is wisdom in knowing when to change courses, back-up, or simply stand still and take deep breaths.

Part II,  Gardens through Minute Rice

Fairies At Work

Baja Fairy Duster

Fairy Duster © 2010 Bo Mackison

Do you believe in fairies? Do fairies grant wishes? Are fairies magical?

This sweet flower is called the Fairy Duster, just the bit of accoutrement that a fairy might need.

I think I might be in need of a fairy or a fairy godmother, or maybe just some magic fairy dust. Hmmm…wonder where I can find such things.

Photographed in early October at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, Arizona. As noted on their website, Tohono Chul is “a desert corner garden where nature, art and culture connect.”