Meditation on a Lotus Flower and Change

Water Lotus

Water Lotus ©2013 Bo Mackison

…the best kind of change, is the change that comes from the inside and begins its way out until it emerges on the outside; a change that is born underneath then continues and spreads until it has reached the surface. That’s a true change. A powerful change. ~ C. JoyBelle C.

A few days ago I strolled the Japanese Gardens at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. I rested on a slatted bench in the midst of a garden of water lilies, sat long enough to watch the lotus, fully open, gradually close its petals as the afternoon skies darkened. I contemplated the constant flow of rushing water in the waterfall gardens. It was a cloudy afternoon, not hot though, as a breeze blew in from Lake Michigan. Fishy air is often a part of the Chicago sensory experience. It was somehow comforting, an in-the-moment connection.

I wandered, sat, absorbed, felt surrounded and held: as I centered myself in the gardens; as I strolled, hand-in-hand with my husband of 38 years; as we sent comfort to each other in our language of hand squeezes and quiet glances.

Sherpa and I had spent the morning with his mother. It was a morning fraught with emotion and change, one of those times in life when a major life change — deeply feared — was inevitable. We were there to tell my mother-in-law that independent living was no longer an option, that her medical situation now required a move to an assisted care facility . The move was no longer a plan in the future, it was a necessity.

As I gently told her she had to move, she expressed an array of emotions – disbelief, confusion, anger, frustration, fear, denial. I watched her eyes as we talked, as she realized we couldn’t change the plans. Gradually she realized her children, doctor and the administrator of her current living situation were in agreement – she could no longer live in her apartment.

“What if I refuse?” she asked.

I held her hand and said as kindly as I could, “That’s not a choice.”

I deeply empathized with M, perhaps because I have been in similar situations — times when I grasped that I was struggling, when I needed more care than I could provide for myself, when I refused to give up control but the situation demanded another person make decisions for my care and safety. For me, those occurrences were temporary. But the feelings of knowing that one has lost their basic, decision-making powers is deeply frightening.

I don’t think I understood that this awareness was present while I was speaking to my mother-in-law, but once we left her apartment, I knew I had to find a green space to walk and process all that had transpired.

The Chicago Botanical Garden was not far from our route home, and we stopped.

I stood in the grasses of the gardens and grounded myself, visualized sending an anchor deep within the earth, visualized a calm light surrounding me from above. Re-connection.

I contemplated the lotus, a plant whose beginning are in muddied waters. The plant sends up a stalk much like an umbilical cord, its leaves open upon the water’s surface, and the flower rises above the water, opening into a magnificent blossom high above the waters.

The lotus breaks free of its muddy origins and emerges white and pure, with a brilliantly yellow pod, a tiny sun.

Change. Renewal.

Sitting on a bench and watching the open lotus slowly close as evening approached, I thought about my mother-in-law entering a new phase of her life. It was a small comfort to realize that the closed lotus flower would open again in the morning, and that M would pass through this stage of her life and eventually move into a different stage, and into her own light, in her own way.

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. I am also daughter in law, and I have the deepest respect for my mother-in-law, doing the best that she can in a most difficult time.

Fog Across the Water

Redwood National Park -- From West Entrance to Pacific Coast

Crashing Waves ©2013 Bo Mackison

One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said, “We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I’ll make one. I’ll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I’ll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I’ll make a sound that’s so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I’ll make me a sound and an apparatus and they’ll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.
~ Ray Bradbury, The Fog Horn

This is the Pacific in fog.
It was cold when I walked the shore.
The waves were menacing, thrashing about.

A sign on the beach warned of sneaker waves
and the death toll tallied, victims unaware of the power of surf.
There was nothing to see in the beyond.

Fog settled low. I stood
watching the shore birds fight over specks of dinner.

The ranger at Redwoods shrugged when I said
I liked the feel of the fog, like a shroud.

“It’s always like this. Might be clearer than usual.
Never see sunlight on this beach.
Come back, the fog will be here.”

Tide was rolling in, and the motel was 50 miles south.
I decided there’d be tomorrow for more fog watching.

The next morning the skies were a startling deep blue.

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  In August, I stood on the shore of the Pacific Ocean.

Meditation – Walking Fern Canyon in Coastal Fog

Coastal Fog

Coastal Fog ©2103 Bo Mackison

“In nature, everything has a job. The job of the fog is to beautify further the existing beauties!” ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

In fog. I am standing near swirling waters
gushing through Fern Canyon
towards the Pacific Ocean.

The creek’s container
Cliffs fifty feet high,
The creek’s container,
dressed in dripping ferns.

Sword ferns, five finger ferns.
The creek winds under fallen redwood trees,
twists along rock formations. Bubbling.

I walk east,
fording the creek on narrow wood planks.
Wet seeps through my hiking shoes,
The planks sag in the middle and frothy creek water
gushing over make-shift bridges.

My eyes follow the cliffs’ ascent,
atop there are skinny trees — not redwoods,
those giants grow further inland
— here are the skinny trees. In the fog. In swirls of dense ocean
these tree trunks gleam dark and wet.

Primeval. The scent of moist
and deep and old. An ancient call.

In Fern Canyon
the creek is the glory, the cliffs and the ferns
dripping, slurping, singing with water,
gushing life, this, nature’s glory.

Connecting with the earth and her waters.
Her message.
Take care.

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  “I believe nature offers opportunities for connection, the arts offer opportunities for self-expression, and life offers continual opportunity for growth and self-discovery.”

Type is Set — Desert Wisdom on the Vandercook Letterpress

Title Page on Letterpress

Title Page on Vandercook Cylinder Letterpress © 2013 Bo Mackison

let-ter-press  noun ˈle-tər-ˌpres  “Letterpress printing is a term for the relief printing of text and image using a press with a “type-high bed” printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image.” from wikipedia

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Letterpress Bed © 2013 Bo Mackison

I finished printing the Desert Wisdom Cards on the letterpress last week. This week I set and printed the title page. Can you read the title page from the type that is set on the letterpress bed?

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Desert Wisdom Colophon ©2013 Bo Mackison

 

Once the title page was printed, I set the colophon. What is a colophon? 

colophon  col-o-phon  noun ˈkä-lə-fən, -ˌfän  “A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the verso of the title-leaf, but also sometimes located at the end of the book…often included a good deal of additional information on the book, including statements of limitation, data on paper, ink, type and binding, and other technical details.” (from wikipedia)

The word colophon is from the Latin word kolophōn which means “summit” or “finishing touch”. I included a colophon in the Desert Wisdom Cards, and after printing a mere seven lines of type and my wisdom card logo, I truly felt like a had reached the summit of an incredibly high goal.

I have finished all of the printing for the Desert Wisdom Card set — the title page, twenty-two cards and the colophon. Next in the process is trimming the pages and then the assembly of the cards.

The Desert Wisdom Card set is getting closer to completion!

 

 

 

 

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Bo Mackison is artist, photographer, book-maker, naturalist, curator, and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is learning the wonders of the cylinder letterpress, and adding words to her vocabulary, as she prints the Desert Wisdom Cards.

 

A Touch of Autumn, Reminders of Impermanance

Autumn's Touch © 2013 Bo Mackison

Autumn’s Touch © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last,
but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A dozen geese, in formation, fly over my back porch as I stand watching traces of sunlight shimmer through the rainclouds. They are so near I can see the layering of their feathers, their muscles flexing, hear the whirr-whirr of their wings in synchronous flight.

I am on my porch, a screened affair, three sides visually open to the back yard, the gardens and trees. The skies, blue earlier, are now gray and threatening. A path meanders along the back of the garden and through the neighborhood. There are occasional lamp posts – Narnia style – to light the way at night. The lamp flickers on mid-morning, gradually emitting a soft glow.

There is a glider on the porch and a side table. I sit there for thinking time, quiet time, connecting time. Often I light the candle on the table – its flame a reminder of the light in the world, the energy contained in the small flame, useful in containment, but enlivened fury when out of control. I think about self-direction and discipline.

There is a round table and two chairs opposite the glider. I set up a work station on the table. It doubles as office during the day, dining nook on warm summer evenings. I have assembled piles of journals, books, a pad of notes, my computer. My Miro coffee cup.

Tucker, the Writing Companion Cat © 2013 Bo Mackison

Tucker, the Writing Companion Cat © 2013 Bo Mackison

There is a cat. He alternately snoozes in the comfy space behind my open computer screen and peeks around at the monitor’s ever changing screen, ready to attack the cursor as it moves. He prowls the edges of the porch, on the look out for baby rabbits who recently ventured from their underground nest, a late brood.When he can’t pounce on his preferred furry targets, he slinks along the polished floor, and substitutes my toes for target practice. A cat is distraction, entertainment. I consider coaxing him into the house with catnip treats, but I like his company, and his cat sense of humor.

There is an approaching storm. Thunder rolls, rain plops in spattery drops on large-leafed hosta in the north garden. Leaves sprawled in disarray, as if an elephant used the plants as his foot path. Bright green only a week ago, today they are a green-gray, wrinkled and yellow-tipped. Touched by autumn’s early breath, they quickly aged.

There is the work I’ve just begun. A writing project with an encroaching due date. But the rain is blowing, the thunder fiercer as it approaches with a slow rumble. The cat has gone inside to hide under the couch, waiting for me to pack up my papers and books, my journals and computer, and come join him in the softly lit study.

There I am warmer, it is a much quieter space. Not nearly as evocative for story-imagining, dreaming, nature-study. The cat watches from under his protective furniture, his golden eyes aglow. I re-settle. It is a good day to write, wherever I find my space.

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Bo Mackison is artist, photographer, book-maker, naturalist, poet, curator, and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. It is a good day for writing projects, accompanied by rainfall, whispering trees, and a jumpy cat.