Return to the Southwest

Sycamore II

follow url Sycamore II © 2012 Bo Mackison

enter site Forest and field, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same silent language, reminding the monk that he is here to develop like the things that grow all around him. ~ Thomas Merton

source site I have returned. Returned to Pima County, a 9,000 square mile partition of the Sonoran Desert that spans two-thirds of the southern part of Arizona.

source When I am in Wisconsin, and awaiting the day I return to the Southwest, I always say I miss the desert, that I am ready to return to the desert. But upon deeper reflection, it is not only the desert I miss. I miss the huge diversity that this small part of the country has to offer. The diversity of the southern Arizona habitats.

click here If I begin in the far western part of Pima County, perhaps I am visiting Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Organ Pipe National Monument, and I then travel east to Tucson and ascend Mount Lemmon, I have traveled an equivalent distance of more than 2,200 miles in habitat. It is comparable to me traveling from northern Mexico to  southern Canada. And I can travel that in less than a half day’s time.

https://domainebregeon.com/k0zqbpwu The part of the Southwest I call my home is part of the Sonoran Desert. Yes. But it is more than sand and cactus and rattlesnakes. It is an example of one of the most diverse ecological spaces on our planet. Not only does the area have over forty sky islands – tall mountain-islands surrounded by desert – but it is borders two diverse communities — the Rocky Mountain community to the north and the Sierra Madres to the south. Diversity abounds.

Buy Alprazolam Pills I can travel a few hours and explore six different communities — desert-scrubland (what most people call the ‘desert’), desert grasslands, oak woodlands, pine-oak woodlands, and coniferous zones, plus the riparian woodlands (seen in the picture above).

https://restoreredspruce.org/2024/05/13/4u1yb2flbf What an amazing place to explore with a camera in hand!

https://grannysglasses.com/?p=einwqsuf9 ————

https://dentaris-sa.com/2024/05/13/9rak7eywl Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She had landed back in the Southwest and is adapting to the transition between a Midwest winter and a Southwest winter.

5th Annual Photo Alphabet – Part V

https://www.jacobysaustin.com/2024/05/q0gcu8t5k R is for Ritual and Routine.

Early Morning Coffee in the Desert

https://yplocal.us/iqnn7ho Early Morning Coffee in the Desert © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://emduk.org/qubnk19sao I have an unusual ritual in the Sonoran Desert. Some might think of it more as a routine – brewing the early morning coffee – but when I brew my first cup of coffee after a night of desert camping, it truly is elevated to the level of ritual.

https://photovisions.ca/ldo38dqiq The assembly of the tiny backpacker stove. The measuring of water from my water supply. The finding of the matches — which usually provides a modicum of panic. The boiling of the water. The measuring of the coffee grounds, safely stored in the bottom of my coffee cup/coffee press. The boiling water poured into the coffee press, the cup tightly closed, plunging the press, waiting the ten minutes for the coffee to brew. And finally sipping that first early morning coffee.

Buy Valium Cheapest Online If any one is wondering why I might need coffee while camping in the desert, keep in mind early morning in the winter desert is usually 30˚ to 40˚F, often even colder. That first cup of coffee is like a bit of heaven. Routine, yes. And ritual.

https://aaerj.org.br/2024/05/13/r2gwsih S is for Shadows and Self-portrait.

Shadow Photographer

enter site Shadow Photographer © 2012 Bo Mackison

https://templedavid.org/symons/1494jdgaza I have a fascination with taking photos of shadows. They might be photos of leaf shadows on a wall, a repetitive fence shadow on a sidewalk, an intricate wrought iron table and chairs casting an abstract shadow on a patio. I constantly look for shadows to photograph.

https://annmorrislighting.com/afqr76hsw And sometimes I photograph self-portrait shadows.

https://pkuatm.org/2024/05/13/29dvdpo I like these self portraits in shadow. Sometimes I am long and stretched out, as in the above photo taken late in the day. Sometimes there is just a head shot, my hat on my head, protection from the desert sun, hiking stick leaning against me, as I balance and set up the shot.

https://www.jacobysaustin.com/2024/05/jlcn4dat I always have my camera up to my face. I may be alone or with a companion. I like to study these portrait shadows.

Buy Alprazolam 0.5Mg Online They tell me a bit about the photographer I was at that moment in time. By the clues in the photos I can decipher where I was, who I was with, the time of the year or the time of the day. I may even be able to tell my mood by the way I carry my body. I may remember a conversation I had with a person in passing or a particular event that happened that day.

click Another way I capture bits of my life as reminders. Like words on a page of a diary or journal, a photo holds that space for me.

enter site T is for Thresholds and Transitions.

Window, Bench and Door in White

source site Window, Bench and Door in White © 2010 Bo Mackison

enter site Transitions. I think that very word, and a lump forms in my throat, an ache develops in my chest. No matter what type of transition I face, it takes me awhile to focus and gather my equilibrium before I carry on. The transition can be one I dread or one I look forward to — no matter. The very act of crossing a new threshold, or a threshold I am re-crossing, causes me to stop in my tracks.

https://www.vertaglia.com/lcrxsp07f6 I’ve discovered that I can approach transitions in different ways. And that is okay!

I may choose to move towards a threshold, decide I am not quite prepared.. OK. I can sit down — that bench is handy — and pause while I consider my next step.

Maybe I approach the threshold and find I need more time to study the new, do a bit more research or soul-searching. Maybe a look through a window, visualizing the next step is helpful. OK.

Or maybe I am ready. I have considered my options, I know that the next step needs to be taken, or I am simply ready. OK. I open the door and walk through, across the threshold.

This photo is a pretty good summary of me working my way through life, whatever it takes at that moment. Approaching transitions in different ways.

https://photovisions.ca/pwvbemjwg U is for the Universe.

Three Self Portraits

Exploring the Universe © 2011 Bo Mackison

The Universe — worlds upon world upon worlds. Bright and shiny — new places to explore.

In each shiny ball representing part of the universe, there is a tiny self-portrait of me, both looking in and looking out.

see V is for Vision.

Double Vision

Double Vision © 2011 Bo Mackison

I like this photo – the one I call Double Vision – because the branch in the foreground still has berries and a leaf hanging on it, the branch slightly behind it is bare. It’s a double branch. But there is more. Look into the background, extend my vision deeper into the landscape and I notice the snow-covered river – the river a conduit for travel.

Will it be an easy trip, perhaps on a flowing river in the early summer on a small skiff with a companion? Or will the trip take place during a drought, the water is low, my boat keep getting snagged. I must keep getting into the water to dislodge it, push it along, even portage it? Perhaps the journey is a cold, lonely trek in the winter, traveling alone on skates or ice cleats, or along the side of the frozen river, pushing through the deep snow?

I look at this photograph and I see the past captured — dried fruits and leaves. And it foretells possible vignettes of the future in metaphor — travel on the river. But all the while, it capturing a moment in the present.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. The 5th Annual Photo Alphabet ends with  source link Wonder thru https://pkuatm.org/2024/05/13/a0by91lmfpy Zen!

Rise Up Rooted

Sycamore III

Sycamore in Black and White ©2012 Bo Mackison

. . . if we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

-Rainer Maria Rilke from Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

I traveled into the mountains this morning, and walked along the edge of Madera Creek. The creek was dry, or so I imagined, when I began my descent at 5,000 feet. But by the time I had walked a half mile, I noticed damp Sycamore leaves, recently shed from the overhanging trees and dropped into the creek bed.

Another hundred yards and the creek pooled in deeper crevices. Dark and bubbly, it followed a circuitous route as it descended the mountain.

I watched the water swirling around large piles of leaves. Single leaves danced along, bobbing on the water’s surface. I listened to the creek’s song, low and splashing, accompanied by an occasional bird’s song.

The sounds of life, the language of nature.

As Rilke wrote, “if we surrendered to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted, like trees.”

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She continues to explore some of her favorite places and read some of her favorite poets.

Dahlia, Solarized

Dahlia, with Solarization © 2012 Bo Mackison

Dahlia, with Solarization © 2012 Bo Mackison

I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life… It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Nature, and suggest innumerable subjects for meditation.  ~ Cicero

This is an Esther dahlia after a photo session with s solarizer. Two summers ago I feel in love with Esther dahlia, as I familiarly call her now, seeing as she is one of my favorite flower friends. I captured her beauty in full bloom the first time I saw her, and then returned to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens many time later in the season to see what Esther was up to. I have photos when she is in a tight bud, just blooming, fully in bloom, beginning to lose her vigor, and finally the dahlia as only a few scattered petals on the brick walkway. go site

https://aguasamazonicas.org/38e0dzvw0zj Solarization is a process in photography which the image on a print is reversed in tone. Dark is light or light is dark. I used a partial solarizing technique. The whites were once yellows and oranges, the dark areas were once sunny highlights shining through the open areas between the petals and the garden’s green background.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Today as she spends time indoors processing photos, Bo will look out the window and appreciate the cloudy skies and the rain soaked land.

Nature’s Abstract

Nature's Abstract

Nature's Abstract © 2012 Bo Mackison

A photographer sees the world through a filter. Not the interchangeable filters for lenses, but the filter in the photographer’s mind through which an unfolding scene is seen as a photograph. ~ Bo Mackison

Pincushion cacti are rather small cacti. Globular, lots of protruding, sharply hewn spines. Almost easy to pass by in the search for the giant saguaro, the prickly pear with its oval sculptural pads, the ocotillo waving green branches with the tips turning red with flowers.

Then I saw these little groups of pincushions. I liked how they were bunched together in little pods of three or five, and since my camera was ready on my tripod,  I took a few photos.

Later in the studio, I enlarged the photo  — and wow, it was no longer a simple little cactus. I’m studying the desert, letting in the immensity of the place while still focusing on and  absorbing the tiny spaces. There were sure some tiny spaces in between the spines of this not-a-friend-of seamstresses pincushion. I sure loved it, though.

Spaces — this is an entangled pattern of tiny spaces, tiny bits of shadow and light from the cactus spines.

How do I look at these spaces? Seeking? Searching?

Turn the spaces into words through metaphor? Struggle with the concept of spaces with danger or limitations? Give thanks for the infinite variety of spaces and places? Celebrate life and the wholeness of the world, place by place, and tiny space by tiny space?

Do you examine spaces? What thoughts come to mind when you observe the many complexities of tiny spaces such as these cacti?

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is exploring the Sonoran Desert and examining the smallest of spaces while allowing in big thoughts.

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