Finding Your Way, When Home is Being Lost in the Wilderness

Trailhead © 2014 Bo Mackison

Trailhead © 2014 Bo Mackison

“I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map…nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I am… I have lost myself though I know where I am.

Moments when I say to myself as feet or car clear a crest or round a bend, I have never seen this place before. Times when some architectural detail on a vista that has escaped me these many years says to me I never did know where I was, even when I was home.”

~ Rebecca Solnit, in A Field Guide to Getting Lost

On the Edge of the Canyon – Flowing Water, Glowing Trees

Living on the Edge © 2014 Bo Mackison

Living on the Edge © 2014 Bo Mackison

“You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.” ~ Danielle LaPorte

On Rocky Surfaces, Blossoms Reflect their Shadow Beauty

Shadow Flowers © 2014 Bo Mackison

Shadow Flowers © 2014 Bo Mackison

“We often walk without knowing the beautiful and the mysterious art created behind us by our shadows.”
~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Listening to the Trees – They Speak of Ancient Life

Tree Overhanging Walnut Canyon © 2014 Bo Mackison

Tree Overhanging the  Canyon © 2014 Bo Mackison

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

~ Hermann Hesse

Gaze Beyond the Walls – What Discoveries Await?

Walled In © 2014 Bo Mackison

Walled In © 2014 Bo Mackison

 Gaze beyond the walls; behold the sky eternal. What discoveries await? ~ Bo Mackison