Catching Moonlight

Baskets

Catching Moonlight © 2013 Bo Mackison

At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come as press its face against mine. Breathe into me. ~ Rumi

 

At night.
When my part of the world is mostly asleep or rumbling in their night games,
warm milk, pacing the floor, listening to sirens in the street far below,
I seek the brightness of the moon.

Its beams slip through my fingers, dusty cool light,
deep breath and I swallow pure light, cleanse those old words,
reverberating, angry. The echoes linger.

I push away their swirling energy before their voracious appetite eats me alive,
nibbles at my heart, carves a cavernous hole
in my chest where the pain and rejection lives.

Wild animal claws.

Moon, dress me with your blue light,
your calm, your wisdom, guide me as I walk away, past the
words flung from darkness, curses to corral my spirit,
you who do not believe in hope, do not steal mine.

I move on, the past drifts into faraway fog
again I breathe in the cool light, step from the shadow
of whispering doubts flung my way,
break from the shackles of your claustrophobic grip.

Breathing freedom.
Cast in the soft glow, awash in light.
I am whole. I am.

~~~~~~~~~~

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Rumi inspires poetry, late night in a far-away-from-home airport.

Smoky Sunlight

Smoky Sunlight

Smoky Sunlight © 2013 Bo Mackison

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” ~ Henry Miller

A week on the road. My traveling companion and I are seeing many new things in new ways, driving on roads in a part of the country I’ve never visited. We took a back way from Lassen Volcanic National Park in northeastern California to the redwood forests on the Pacific Coast.

We negotiated six lane expressways, national forest roads, smoke drenched roads from a forest fire near Salmon Creek, road construction delays, a state highway that turned into a paved, but unmarked road that crossed a narrow gorge on a high, one lane bridge that led into a deep woods on a gravel switch-back road hat narrowed to dusty, washboard road.

Finally we emerged from the dark forest into a sun dappled prairie. A prairie? Yes! On the eastern fringes of Redwood National Park, we drove through a prairie, then an oak woodland, and finally we could go no further — the Pacific coast and huge cresting waves were the last of today’s continual rewards on this wondrous day of traveling.

Tomorrow we enter the cathedral redwoods. Hush.

————

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is traveling this week, seeing anew.

Sunflowers and a Cloudy Day

Sunflower Field

Sunflower Field ©2013 Bo Mackison

“Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun’s revolving splendour.”
~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca

A sunflower field in the shadows of an overcast sky, and still the sunflowers follow the arc of the light, turning their heads towards the brightest spot in the sky. No matter how dim the light, the sunflowers are guided by the light. By the life-giving qualities of the light.

They stand, side by side, on a hillside in the Wisconsin countryside. I stand next to the field the flowers, observing their minute, geometric details, and they stand two feet taller than me.

They stand,  overlooking a neighboring farm, overlooking the city of Madison, overlooking Lake Mendota. On a clear day, the sunflowers  overlook the State Capitol and the current political happenings. And they follow the light, follow the sun.

Stand together, and focus on the light.

A good lesson for all of us.

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Bo Mackison is artist, photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, poet, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She believes nature offers huge opportunities in learning, and life offers a huge opportunity for growth.

A New Beginning — Working with Cigdem

Purple Conelfower - Intimate Landscape

Purple Coneflower – Intimate Landscape ©2013 Bo Mackison

I love my evolving business. I am passionate about the changes. I am passionate about moving from one who seeks healing to one who offers a healing or self-discovery experience. I wake up every morning, excited by the work that is ahead of me for the day. I also get overwhelmed at the shear volume of what is ahead of me.

But if I’ve learned only one thing in the last 20 years, it’s to put effort into living every day, to not spend a lot of time making excuses that give me permission to quit, get sick, etc. because the never-ending excuse mill is what stops so many great projects. So I keep moving. Forward. Yes, with lots of questions and some fears but I know how to work through fear. You keep moving.   ~ Bo Mackison

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Cigdem Kobu is a multi-dimensional business coach and creative woman, Her life’s mission is to work with quiet-loving, purposeful solopreneurs, helping them redesign sustainable, creative businesses so they can savor more joy and success in their lives while still being true to who they are.

When Cigdem asked if I would be interested in working with her on a restructure of my solopreneur business — from a photography-based platform to a business that encompasses my photography, love of nature, book-making, and a deep calling to share my products/services with other women on self discovery or healing journeys — I responded with a whole-hearted “yes”.

Not only is Cigdem offering me an intense program of business coaching and support over the next five months, but she will also be working with Vicky White from The Spacious Life. And for the first time, she will be openly documenting her specialized business coaching process, writing about our progress as we work on our individual businesses in weekly case studies on her blog.

This is truly a dream opportunity for me, an opportunity to work closely with Cigdem as I redesign my website, transition to a new business, develop new products and marketing practices, and make my business sustainably profitable. All this, while I develop a business that allows me the opportunity to be of service to fellow journeyers.

I know there’s a lot of work to be done, but this was not an opportunity to pass. I hope you will join Cigdem, Vicky and I as we work together.  You can follow and learn from every stage — as I learn, too! — beginning with the post that describes this creative business transformation journey.

Please join me on this exciting (and a bit scary) business adventure!

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Bo Mackison is artist, photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, poet, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is embarking on a grand learning experience, and visualizing what her dream business will look like in six months time!

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind — An Amazing Container

Tree Shadows, Watching

Tree Shadows, Watching ©2012 Bo Mackison

. . . collect glances, glimpses, nuances, images, and tonalities
. . . remember the essences of performances
. . . snap-shot memories.
~ Eric Maisel, describing artist’s memory in his book Creativity for Life

I read the above quote while taking Eric Maisel’s Advanced Creativity Coaching training and wondered if I could write a vignette using these words — glance, glimpse, nuance, image, tonalities, essence, snap-shot.

I decided to tackle a memory from my childhood, one that I recalled but had never fleshed out in writing. In using the words as prompts, I discovered this was a potent way to kick-start the writing process.

I also discovered that the mind is an amazing container of details. When I focused on a specific memory, I could re-create the setting in my mind.

In this poem, an example of the technique, each stanza addresses a single word, in this order — glance, tonality, glimpse, nuance, image, essence, snap-shot.

Entering Ward B-3 at Jacksonville State Hospital*

The grizzle faced men sit like stone statues in their straight-backed chairs.
Hard to ignore their faces, I sneak glances while keeping
my head down, I pretend-watch my feet.

Tree branches grasped by swirling winds, November trickery,
knock against a window. A blind man curses
each time the branches strike the dark beyond.

My grandfather lies asleep in his bed, the last cot
on the left. A sheet covers his head.
His feet stick out from the edge of the brown wool blanket.

I walk on sunlit shadows, patterns of leaves
on the black and white tiles, avoiding the cracks.
“Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back…”

Rows of metal beds, head-boards of white enamel bars,
windows of frosted glass, more bars; two men play checkers,
another covers his bed with sections of the Chicago Tribune.

These beds are like church pews, evenly spaced
on either side of the aisle; and the nurses station is a sacristy
protected by glass and metal grating.

A ruddy-faced patient, dressed only in striped pajama pants,
peers into the nurses’ station. No one notices him.
He spits on the glass and demands that his toe nails be trimmed.

 

*Jacksonville State Hospital was one of the first state hospitals built in the United States to specifically care for the mentally ill. It was built in 1848. The hospital closed due to deteriorating conditions and budget cuts in 1975, and was demolished.

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Bo Mackison is artist, photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, poet, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.    She and her family spent many Sunday afternoons visiting her grandfather. They often brought Kentucky Fried Chicken and had a picnic lunch on the grounds of the hospital. Her grandfather loved Kentucky Fried Chicken.