Arbor on Adobe – November’s Photo-Heart Connection

Arbor on Adobe

Arbor on Adobe ©2012 Bo Mackison

Your task is not to seek love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it. ~ Rumi

I love walls, I especially love abode walls. And I love adobe walls that have grape vines creeping all over most of all.There is just something about the combination of a wall with abode and grape vines that makes me grab my camera and check the space on my memory card.

I had an absorbing hour – yes, hour, thank you Sherpa for your patience – taking photographs of this particular adobe wall in Old Town Albuquerque. There were parts of the wall with cracks, parts of the wall with just a bit of the vine, some parts had clusters of blue grapes, some had leaves like this photograph. Together, they combine to tell a lovely story about the wall and the grape-vine.

I chose this as November’s Photo Heart Connection partly because it seemed so fitting for a photograph taken in November – the growing season is over and the vines are leaves are curling, crackling, falling off the vine. And partly because this was Day 3 of a four-day , cross-country trip, and we especially made time to visit Albuquerque instead of zooming through the city while bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have time to stop.

This photograph reminds me that time continues, seasons change, years pass. And if I don’t make time for pauses in a hectic life, make time to enjoy the sights and sounds of life, then I miss out on experiences that make my life meaningful. It pairs well with the above quote from Rumi. I can set up barriers that prevent me from fully partaking in life and love, or I can seek and find those barriers and take them down.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  This is her November Photo-Heart Connection contribution.

Bad Luck to Steal Saints

Bad Luck to Steal Saints

Bad Luck to Steal Saints ©2012Bo Mackison

Retabaleros. These are versions of dozens of Catholic saints painted in the classical style on Masonite. This store in Old Town Albuquerque had a large display of these little plaques, and as an added bonus offered a friendly warning– bad luck to steal — especially the saints. ~ Bo Mackison

Day 2. A short day of travel. Yay!

While we have traveled through Albuquerque, even spent the night there a couple of times, usually we are in a hurry to get to our final destination. This trip we made an extra effort to plan some visiting time in Albuquerque.

We left Tucumcari, New Mexico at 6:40 am. Our destination is the Hotel Parque Central in central Albuquerque, a renovated hospital turned hotel, and an awesome place to visit.

Mesas are most beautiful when the early morning sun casts golden highlights upon them. The beginning of what I all the high desert. No large cacti. Lots of sage brush, prickly pears.

We watch the shadow of our car travel along the side – our car on the road, the shadow of our car “driving” on the access road. Lots of laughs.

Gas is $3.39 a gallon for regular. Only once did we see the price dip under three dollars. (Always cheapest in the Kansas City area!)

Now cedars and junipers dot the desert scrub. Little balls of tight green foliage. There is more brittle bush, cholla, yucca.

This is the beginning of the land that tunes my soul, makes my heart sing. I have a heart connection with the Southwest.

Blanco Creek (dry)
Pecos River (dry)

Western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — to me, they all look like “the west.” New Mexico feels like “out west.” Is there a difference? I wonder?

We pass the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the city of Albuquerque spreads out in front of us. It is 9:22 am when we pull into the hotel’s parking lot.

We play tourist much of the day. Visit Old Town Albuquerque (where I took the above photo) and wander through stores and art galleries. In the afternoon, we hike the trails at the Petroglyph National Monument on the western side of Albuquerque. We walk the bosque along the Rio Grande for some late afternoon exercise. Then have dinner with a blogging friend who has become a real life friend. How sweet is that!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. One more day of travel before Bo once again sees the Sonoran Desert!