Snowstorm in the Woods

Owen Park

Buy Carisoprodol Online Before the Storm © 2012 Bo Mackison

http://www.ztpackaging.com/soft-loop/ Each moment of the year has its own beauty. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

follow link This morning when I began my day it was still night. Not quite. It looked like night, but it was early morning and the sun’s rising time has not yet caught up with my internal wake-up alarm.

https://www.grupoursa.com/faq/ The house was also awake. Pipes were humming-moaning-rumbling with flowing water and reminded me of the sounds of a storm which reminded me that there were predictions for a snowstorm today in our area. I peered outside into the almost dark. The remains of the perennial garden — stalks and seed heads — stood in silhouette against the open field beyond out land.

https://drbatayneh.com/pediatric-ophthalmology/ Bare ground, absent of snow from blizzards or ice storms or even ordinary snow storms, looked out of place in the middle weeks of January. The storm which was to have begun in the middle of the night had not yet appeared. I checked the Doppler radar, and smiled as I remembered waiting for weather forecasts on the radio as a teen.

https://www.jacobysaustin.com/grandmas-strawberry-cake/ “Five til the hour and five til the half hour” the jingle went, announcing times for the weather forecasts. It seemed an awkward way to give the schedule.

https://gritandgracefamilyfarm.com/farm-journal/about-us/ Now there is hardly any wait at all. The computer screen opens to a weather website and a United States map. It shows a eastward moving swath of royal blue the width of the state of Iowa. Royal blue is weather code for “big snow”. The storm is only twenty miles from Madison.

https://www.jacobysaustin.com/hours/ By the time I leave the house, snow is coming down in a blinding fury. By the time I’ve run a couple of errands and picked up extra milk, visibility is poor and the ground is covered with several inches of snow. I take a detour to Owen Park and then to Strickers Pond to take some winter photographs.

follow url I fly to Tucson next week, so this may be my one of my only chances to tromp around in the snow and take pictures of the white stuff. Good thing I keep my extras of my winter outerwear in the car!

see ———————

Buy Soma 350 Mg Online Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She’s now admiring the snowstorm from inside her home, and she’s glad she doesn’t have to go back out and drive on the slippery streets.

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A Crack in Everything

Danger - Thin Ice

Buy Klonopin Online Overnight There is a Crack © 2012 Bo Mackison

https://www.completerehabsolutions.com/wheelchair-assessments/ Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

https://geneticsandfertility.com/contact-us/ ~  Anthem by Leonard Cohen

enter site The link is to the song on YouTube. Interesting, thought-provoking lyrics, interesting talk-sing voice. I love the line “forget your perfect offering.” I don’t usually post a lot of quotes on one post, but I kept finding quotes about imperfection that I wanted to remember, and this seemed like a good place for this compilation. It is a good thing to remember — no one is perfect. Imperfect is human, humans are imperfect.

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Both our senses and our passions are a supply to the imperfection of our nature; thus they show that we are such sort of creatures as to stand in need of those helps which higher orders of creatures do not. ~ Joseph Butler

If you look closely at a tree you’ll notice it’s knots and dead branches, just like our bodies. What we learn is that beauty and imperfection go together wonderfully. ~ Matthew Fox
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Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere. ~ Thomas Carlyle
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Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. ~ Ieyasu Tokugawa
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The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly – indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection. ~ Arianna Huffington
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There is a kind of beauty in imperfection. ~ Conrad Hall
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Bo Mackison is a photogrpaher and owner of  Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

 

Weaving and Words

Weavings

Weavings © 2010 Bo Mackison

A popular ritual for welcoming in the New Year- at least in many of the blogging circles that I follow – is to choose a word for the year. This is a word that serves as a focus for the next twelve months, and seems more doable than a slew of New Year’s Resolutions that are forgotten by Leap Day.

Christine Painter in her blog  Abbey of the Arts discusses the choice of a word in depth and asks these two questions.

Even though we are a week into 2012, I wanted to post both her questions and my response, first to share, and second, so I have a place where it is safely documented.

Hanging Weavings

Hanging Weavings © 2010 Bo Mackison

My word for 2012 is go to site WEAVING.

When I was choosing a word, I had several ideas. I journaled about the different words, and I found weaving deep with meaning. Since I wrote in concepts and phrases, here’s the journal entry itself instead of trying to sweep that pile of thoughts and words into cohesive paragraphs:

  • Weaving – take the good, the boring, the sad and the happy, the challenges and the gifts — take all and weave them together. And then I end up with a life like an intricate tapestry.
  • Is weaving connected to creativity, to photography? Do I weave a photograph. Like that idea. I take a photo, but the photograph isn’t any photo, it is one where I have added myself to it, I weave myself into all of my photographs, I am a part.
  • Weaving is action. Not sitting while doing nothing. Continued, purposeful action. Sweep the shuttle, pull the beater, tighten the weave, change the treadles, sweep the shuttle, pull the beater, tighten the weave. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. A routine, a rhythm. Living my life with some routine, a rhythm would help pace my days. And calming, the repetition is calming. Add calming activities to my life.
  • But weaving isn’t boring–the pattern is always changing. And life, like weaving, is always changing.
  • Weave fabric. Make something beautiful, functional. And woven fabric is stable, it does not easily get distorted like a knitted or crocheted piece. Make something beautiful and useful from my life. Colorful, artistic, creative. A tapestry?
  • Weaving creates that tapestry. Putting things together, stringing days together, but just one thread at a time, one step at a time. The goal is a finished piece, but mistakes are okay. In all that weaving, but almost impossible to find a misplaced thread. Make a mistake, repair it if you can, make amends if need be, and then keep on going.
  • Weave with ideas. Put ideas together. Weaving is slow. Slow down, give thoughts time enough to turn into workable plans. Might be slow, but you can see the progress if you keep weaving, even doing it slowly.
  • Weaving — a comfort, in the cold or harsh winds, easy to wrap a woven shawl around me for comfort and warmth.
  • Weaving on my path — this kind of journey weaving is never walked on a straight, smooth sidewalk. It requires a weaving in and out, amidst obstacles, with/around people.

WEAVING — a word that will accompany me through this year.
 

Frosty Pastels – Contemplating What Isn’t in What Is

Frosted Pastels

Frosted Pastels © 2011 Bo Mackison

If you really want to see something,
look at something else.
If you want to say what something is,
inspect something that it isn’t.
If you want to see the invisible world
look at the visible one.
If you want to know what East really is,
look North.
If you have a question concerning the sea,
look at the mountains….
– Howard Nemerov, ON METAPHOR

This is a simple photograph, a nature photograph. Pleasing pastel colors, a fringe of frost of the dogwood leaves sparkling in the early morning sunlight. The colors reflect the gradual changes of impending cold – greens fading to pale greens, greens turning into pinks, then reds, deepening further into purples.

This simple photograph tells me of the winter that always comes, of the sun that rises every morning, of the deciduous leaves that follow the cycles of the seasons. That there is beauty in simplicity and change and the infinite passing of time.

If we look, stay aware, accept, reach out, take one step further, give thanks.

If I want to understand the invisible, look at the visible. Study that which is changing in my outside world to aid me in understanding the changes in my internal world.

If I really want to see something, I look at something else. Compare. Contrast. Grasp the subtleties, observe the obvious.

Mix it all together, let it simmer, cool, then enjoy.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is examining the winter in anticipation of her visit to the desert.

4th Annual Alphabet – The Finale

V IS FOR VISION.

Waiting Bike

Bike and Fog © 2011 Bo Mackison

Photographers have vision, even if it’s partly obscured by fog on the lake.

W IS FOR WANDERING.

The Photographer's Shadow

The Photographer’s Shadow © 2011 Bo Mackison

Photographers are prone to wander, near and far, in urban areas and in rural areas.

X IS FOR eXPERIMENT.

On the Road, Sundown

On the Road, Sundown © 2011 Bo Mackison

Photographers are prone to experiments. Maybe it’s an iPhone app through a windshield while riding in a car going 65 mph.

Two Ferns - Pop Art

Two Ferns © 2011 Bo Mackison

Maybe it’s experimenting with different types of paper – metallic, pearl, heavy rag, canvas. And experimenting with digital manipulations for hours and hours and hours.

Y IS FOR YARD SALES.

Yard of Pottery

Yard of Pottery © 2011 Bo Mackison

Photographers take photos of almost anything. Even a pile of colored jugs with interesting shadows can make a great photographic subject.

Z IS FOR ZENITH.

Clouds and Crescent Moon

Clouds and Crescent © 2011 Bo Mackison

And photographers take photographs whenever they can. Every day. Photographers point their cameras and aim for the moon. Or the cotton candy clouds. Or the stars.

And to quote  David Alan Harvey, “A photographer doesn’t shoot what it looks like. A photographer shoots what it feels like.”

The end!

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Today’s post has been brought to you by the letters V, W, X, Y and Z.

And yesterday’s post was brought to you by R, S, T and U.

Thank you for tuning in!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is thankful that there are only 26 letters in the alphabet.