Prickly Pear in Bloom

Prickly Pear in Bloom

Prickly Pear in Bloom © 2013 Bo Mackison

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.”
~ Georgia O’Keeffe

Not that I would want to take a flower from a cactus in my hand, but I understand Georgia O’Keeffe’s remark about having the world for a moment. When I stop on a desert path or in a desert garden, I feel as if the world opens before me and I see the beauty, the complexity, the order of the Universe.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio. She is beginning a time of transition, and collecting the beauty of the desert – in her memory and in photographs.

Beginnings – A Desert Wisdom Card

Beginnings - Desert Wisdom Cards

Cactus Bud Opening © 2013 Bo Mackison

“A new beginning! We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to a voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it! Imagine!”
~ Henri Nouwen

Beginnings surround us.

Walk through any garden, along any sidewalk or road easement, and notice the many beginnings you see. This bright magenta cactus bud, still half closed and quite protected, will soon open fully, displaying its beauty, welcoming hummingbirds and bees to its nectar. They will collect pollen as they feed and then pollinate other flowers. New beginnings, life continues.

We constantly have opportunities for new BEGINNINGS.

We move through our days, experiencing life in new ways, again and again. When we lose our way or make mistakes, instead of punishing ourselves with shame, we can acknowledge our human ways with compassion, awareness, and gentleness. Then we begin again. We return again and again to the practice of living.

“Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
~ Carl Bard

BEGINNINGS offers questions/reflections for journal writing, art prompts, and calls to action:

  • Have you ever thought about “your perfect day”? What would that perfect day look like if you could erase all of the responsibilities and commitments for today only? Write about your perfect day. Add people and places, sensory details and activities, or inaction if that is your ideal. Review what you wrote. Could you add (or subtract) one or more of the items in your imagined perfect day to today? If not today, how might you transform your typical days into days that include some of your perfect day components?
  • An ending is a new beginning. Is there an activity or behavior in your life that no longer serves you? If you stopped this activity or behavior, could you use that time to begin or renew a life-affirming practice?
  • Make a point of getting up early enough to sit and watch the sunrise — from the hint of dawn until the sun is well above the horizon. Each sunrise brings with it a gift of a new day and new beginnings. I frequently watch the sun rise. Afterwards, I read a chapter in an inspirational book, cup of coffee in hand. Do you have an early morning ritual to begin your day? If not, what might you consider adding as a welcome-morning-activity?
  • I first saw delightful perforated permission slips in Living Out Loud, a creative activity book by Keri Smith. Making permission slips are now a popular activity for writers, artists, students — anyone who likes the idea of giving themselves permission to do something they might be hesitant to do. Write permission slips that start with the words “I have permission to BEGIN ______.  Make a dozen permission slips from small pieces of paper, paint chips, or index cards. Paint, collage, or decorate the backgrounds. Or leave them plain and focus on the words. Whenever you need a boost to start a new project, pull out a permission slip, fill in the blank and sign it. Then … ready, set, BEGIN!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo is creating a deck of Desert Wisdom Cards for exploration and discovery, using photography, with a Sonoran Desert theme – its myths and stories, cultures and heritage, and the desert’s remarkable natural beauty and resources.

Desert Bloom

Claret Cup Bloom

Claret Cup Bloom © 2013 Bo Mackison

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. ~ John Muir

The claret cup hedgehog cactus has one of my favorite early blooms – a deep orange cup that attracts hummingbirds as pollinators. Every time I see the claret cup in bloom, with a hummer dances at its edges, I laugh in delight.

It is the only cactus in Arizona pollinated by hummingbirds. The hummingbirds stick their entire heads into the cup to get a drink of nectar, and get their heads dusted with yellow pollen for their efforts. I love to see the hummers with foreheads of pecks of pollen after they’ve gotten their fill from a few claret cups.

Unlike many cacti whose blossoms close in the evening and last only a day or two, the claret cup flowers stay open day and night and can last three to five days. It’s a cactus that isn’t stingy with its beauty.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She continues to discover beauty and inspiration while exploring the Sonoran Desert.

Blooming Desert

Sonoran Desert, Saguaro National Park

Sonoran Desert, Saguaro National Park © 2013 Bo Mackison

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air. ~ Paul Hoffman

Towards Nonexistence

Organ Pipe Cactus

A Tumble of Cactus © 2013 Bo Mackison

”Like homeopathic medicine, the essence of wabi-sabi is apportioned in small doses. As the dose decreases, the effect becomes more potent, more profound. The closer things get to nonexistence, the more exquisite and evocative they become. Consequently to experience wabi-sabi means you have to slow way down, be patient, and look very closely.”
~ Leonard Koren in Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

I took dozens of photographs of organ pipe cacti last week. It was a major preoccupation while I was camping at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I found a few specimens that were perfect to the discerning eye – not an easy feat when a cactus typically stands  8 to 10 feet high, the older ones reach heights twice that size. Each has eight to fifteen stems, though some of the ancient giants have twenty or more.

It was not the symmetrically formed, unscathed cacti that captured most of my attention. I loved the cacti that had character, the ones marked with scars and age . . . and great beauty. Desiccated arms tangled with vibrant greens and golden greens. New buds of growth twisted around aged skeletons.

Two Stems - Organ Pipe Cactus

Two Stems  ©2013 Bo Mackison

I loved the cactus that carried marks of its challenges with below freezing temperatures or prolonged cold spells. Indentations on the stems are the result of the freezing and death of vulnerable tissue on the stem ends.

When new growth appears, the plant is marked by circular strictures on the pipes. These cactus have gone through hardships, and survived, marked by the challenges of life in a harsh environment. The bumpier an organ pipe cactus, the more battles it has met with climate at the northern reaches of its habitat.

Stages of Life, Organ Pipe Cactus

Stages of Life © 2013 Bo Mackison

This photograph is a Southwest version of photo I took in Wisconsin exploring the same concept – the presence of both life and death in a plant.

A walk through this small part of the Sonoran Desert – mostly in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and its adjacent areas in south-central Arizona – offers the only opportunity to see these unique cactus giants in the United States. This small micro-habitat offers the only chance for survival of these warmth-loving plants. Many more grow in the warmer climes of Sonora Mexico.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. I continue my exploration of whole and fragments, of extra-ordinary and ordinary.