Barbed Wire – from “The Barrier Series” on Art and Healing

Barbed Wire © 2012 Bo Mackison

Barbed Wire Barrier © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Your life with its immensity and fear . . . is alternately stone in you and star.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, from the poem Evening

Before there was a beginning, before the crisis and a diagnosis, there was a dream.

I see the world. It is there. When I reach up, I reach into the cool air. When I look up, I see a bright blue, cloud scattered skies. Yet the world is beyond my reach. In this dream I have repeatedly, I’m trapped in a tiny enclosure, an enclosure tall on four sides, but open to the sky. I struggle to unlock the gate. When I try to move forward, I’m blocked by a cold steel fence and chain-link wire. Barbed wire adds an extra degree of isolation.

Barbed wire – a common fence, a stereo-typical barrier.

And then I am no longer dreaming. I am living my life in slow-motion, denying there is a problem.

I know I am in a separate place. I cannot reach out to my family and friends, I cannot communicate with them. They are on the other side of the barrier, and even if I managed a whisper, no one can hear me.

I am cast in fear, held down by a weighted stone. My only relief is a connection, however slight, to the natural world. When I look out the window, it is snowy and cold, but I do look up at the sky. I can always see the sky.

The human spirit focuses on that which is in the beyond.

— based on journal entries, October 1990.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next weeks, I’ll be re-posting an 11-part series I first ran in January, 2013 on art and healing. Feeling somewhat vulnerable doing this once again, but this message is too important to keep buried in the bowels of my blog. It is my hope that my journey will also inspire others. We are all on a journey of one kind or another. We are all pilgrims following our path.

The Story of My Healing Journey and The Restorative Power of Art – “The Barrier Series”

healing-journey

Threatened © 2011 Bo Mackison

“Let go of the need for perfection, perfection bought at a high cost. Embrace imperfection, acknowledge mistakes, claim the lessons they provide. Embrace change.” ~ Bo Mackison

I’ve had an on and off affair with the label “mental illness” — a label that defined me for many years.

I hated it; I needed it. I pushed it away; I pulled it close.

That label deprived me of the basic experiences of choosing life and living it fully; it also allowed me to abdicate taking responsibility for my life and the choices I made.

Behaviors, lived over years, became habits. They settled deep within me:

  • as a child when I developed highly creative but pathological strategies for body, mind, and soul survival
  • as an adult while I was in the throes of deep depressions and slow recoveries
  • while I was fighting demons from my childhood, searching musty rooms in my mind with a dimly flickering match light

Defenses and behaviors I erected as walls of protection were no longer functional, viable, needed, wanted. Yet, it was what I understood.

I’ve had to let go so I could grab onto a better way. Caught in the pause between the two trapeze bars, I was dangling in a mighty discomfiting place.

It took many years for me to understand that letting go of behaviors that mark even a functioning mental illness would grace me with the freedom I yearned for, but hadn’t fully experienced:

  • not as a child in a puzzling environment
  • not as an adolescent who carried demons in her hand luggage wherever she wandered
  • not as an adult trying to function in the challenging world of careers and marriage-with-children, while burying the past and eventually losing the ability to even acknowledge it
  • not as a woman in the prime-time of life who suddenly crashed head-long into reality and suffered through a crushing breakdown

I worked for years to repair my body and mind; I worked even harder to repair my spirit.

Living under the shadow of the statement “I had a mental breakdown” provided a certain cover. Even after the initial stages, after in-depth therapy spanning two decades, and after reclaiming a life of wholeness, doubt lingers and unwelcome questions pop up.

There is the voice harbored deep in my subconscious that occasionally breaks through. It questions my actions, my motives, my plans, my challenges, my courage, my decisions, my art, my life. It questions my EVERYTHING.

Then, once again, I must re-affirm my strength, stand firm, and repeat:

  • I am responsible for my thoughts, my words, my actions.
  • There is no one else to blame for my failures, short-comings, errors in judgement.
  • I take full ownership of my mistakes and claim them, but I also claim the lessons learned.
  • This is no excuse living.

It was hard, excruciatingly so at times. It was necessary. It was the only way. And it remains so.

Because as long as I blame the past for mistakes I make in the present, as long as I don’t acknowledge mistakes and accept them as the learning experiences they are, I do not learn the lessons. I have an excuse to push away change and healing.

power-of-art

Art Heals! © 2013 Bo Mackison

Why am I writing about this?

Because while I created photographs for public presentations, photographs for art shows and festivals, photographs for art centers and museum shows, I also created photography, did art as a healing practice, and spent much time reconnecting with the natural world. This continues as my daily practice.

Creative activities are healing.

I believe nature offers opportunities for connection, the arts offer opportunities for self-expression, and life offers continued opportunities for growth and self-discovery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next weeks, I’ll be re-posting an 11-part series I first ran in January, 2013 on art and healing. Feeling somewhat vulnerable doing this once again, but this message is too important to keep buried in the bowels of my blog. It is my hope that my journey will also inspire others. We are all on a journey of one kind or another. We are all pilgrims following our path.

Transitions – Saying Good Bye and Thank You

Desert Labyrinth

Labyrinth Connection © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.”
from an Irish headstone” ~ Richard Puz

Today my dear cousin and friend died unexpectedly.

Karen was the girl cousin closest to my age and we were fast friends from the time we were young children.

She loved her solitude in a way few people truly understand, and yet she was one of the most generous and kind people I have known.

Although she worked in a bank in the days of the first computers — computers that were so delicate they required special air controlled rooms, often were “down” for unknown reasons, and did surprisingly little compared to the smart phone we now routinely accept as a part of our lives — and she worked with computers when employed, she never herself owned a computer.

She didn’t have a Facebook account, she didn’t write emails, she didn’t have internet accounts. Her phone was just advanced enough to transmit photographs and send text, but she only did so on special occasions.

More typically she wrote letters, talked to her friends and family on the telephone, did her business with paper and pencil, checks and the post office.

My first vivid memory of her is not exactly a flattering memory for me, but I remember it in color and detail. And so I will share it.

I was nine years old; she was nearly twelve. Her family lived on the other side of the Mississippi River, thirty or so miles away from town, and so family visits were special, all day affairs. I was an only child, and so when I knew Karen was coming to town I would plan a day of activities, the kind of play that required two kids, not one. Often we would play our way through a pile of board games.

One October day, Karen and her family came for a visit. I had the pile of games ready. On the top of the pile was a less than classic game involving a cartoon character called Huckleberry Hound. I had the table set with the game board, in excited anticipation. But Karen didn’t want to play with me that day. All she wanted to do was hold my newborn sister. Oh, the pangs of jealousy flared their green eyes that day!

The novelty of a newborn didn’t last long, however, and we were soon the best of pals again.

Transition - A Desert Wisdom Card

Transitions © 2014 Bo Mackison

There are simply too many memories to recount, but they are preciously held in my memory. If I were to describe her, I would use words such as kind, generous, and always grateful for the little things in her life.

If I sent her a card with one of my photographs, she would send me a thank you note for the card. We exchanged letters, especially when she knew I was in Arizona and on my own.

When my grand-daughter was born, Karen shared in the excitement, and joyfully noted every sent photograph, not with a simple word of thanks, but a paragraph comparing father and daughter, a noted dimple, a funny expression.She would tell me how the photograph brightened a rather ordinary day.

This past week she was admitted to the hospital for tests. Nothing serious, she said. She asked for new photographs so she could show the nurses in the hospital a baby she’d never met, but nonetheless loved.

I sent new photos on Friday and we messaged back and forth.

This morning the call came. Karen’s heart had stopped and she could not be resuscitated.

This afternoon I walked a nearby labyrinth and said my goodbyes to Karen. The labyrinth was…a thin experience? I talked to Karen, not really talking to her, but I did say my goodbyes to her, shed more than a few tears. As I walked away, I felt a calming and a peace I have not felt for many a week.

Good bye, dear Karen. I miss you already. And thank you.

 

 

Coneflower, Unfolding – Beautiful in Her Glory and Her Imperfection

Coneflower, Unfolding © 2014 Bo Mackison

Coneflower, Unfolding © 2014 Bo Mackison

“There is something perfect to be found in the imperfect: the law keeps balance through the juxtaposition of beauty, which gains perfection through nurtured imperfection.” ~ Dejan Stojanovic

There was a time, a time spanning many years, when I would have processed this photo in a way so that the wrinkled, brown area on the front petal would have been invisible. Or I would have searched for that one flower that already looked perfect, and photographed that one.

We look at a perfectly formed flower and marvel at its beauty, admire the face of a model made perfect in the post processing stage, choose the perfect landscape perspective that hides the telephone pole.

Today I choose to photograph the flower with its imperfection. To see the whole. To study the lovely curling petals on the verge of opening. To marvel at the juxtaposition of the orange and the pink.

This does not imply that I did no post processing – I did. I softened the background, added a vignette to emphasize the flower. Played with the photo until I liked the artistic interpretation AND I chose to show the flower as it is – perfect in its imperfection.

You Were Born with Wings – Fly Towards the Light

In Search of Light © 2014 Bo Mackison

In Search of Light © 2014 Bo Mackison

You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust.
You were born with ideals and dreams.
You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly.”

~ Rumi