First Snowfall

First Snow on Strickers Pond

https://guelph-real-estate.ca/c1o8ont4s0 First Snow on Strickers Pond © 2011 Bo Mackison

Tramadol Sale Online Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is …
Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart,
all of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace. ~ Frederick Buechner

http://www.mscnantes.org/g6eqfbt The snow drifted from the skies this morning. I could make out the swirling white even in the darkness before dawn. As the day began, as the sky lightened to a slate gray, there was just enough snow to cover the ground, the roads, the outlines of the branches. By noon the sidewalks, driveways, and streets were free of snow and as the day continued to warm most of the snow melted into the grass. Only clumps of the white stuff remain.

Order Cheap Tramadol Overnight Madison has had an average of 15″ of snow by this time of the year for at least the last five years. Often the accumulation by the New Year is over the twenty inch mark. We have usually had our first weather warnings and blizzard planning by now. But not this year.

https://getdarker.com/editorial/articles/271t2gb4h3c It is looking unlikely that there will be a white Christmas 2011. Better traveling weather. That’s a good thing.

https://www.mbtn.net/?p=4kkrrnjt But I’m glad I was able to photograph the pond dressed in white. It may be all the snow I see this year. In a few weeks, I’ll be traveling to Arizona to prepare for the upcoming art shows.

https://paradiseperformingartscenter.com/bq715w3 ——————

https://alldayelectrician.com/phzrp7gsh Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She took photographs in the snow, sat in the living room with the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree for company and meditated, and then picked up family at the airport – almost everyone is home for the holidays.  Now I am really listening to life!

Lessons from the American Lotus

Sunlit Ice on Pond

https://geolatinas.org/fip2qr6ht0y American Lotus through Sunlit Ice © 2011 Bo Mackison

go to site   Nature is a mirror held to our view so we can see the ongoing process of growth, renewal and transformation in our lives.

~ Mary Anne Brussatt

I love this east corner of Strickers Pond in Madison. It is the only part of the water that has these pond plants which I’ve photographed for a few weeks, and I just discovered what they are – American Lotus plants.

The American lotus is an emersed native – the roots of the plant are in the muddy bottom of the edges of lakes, and the stalks protrude from the water. Their leaves are circular; they do not have the familiar indentation that water-lily leaves have.

Before the stalks weaken and break in late fall, the plants look like open umbrellas, all together, rather like big-city commuters, hurrying home in a downpour.

Plants are fascinating to study throughout the seasons. I didn’t see these in bloom, but I’ve read they have large, plate-sized blossoms, bright yellow.

Sounds lovely, but I rather like them at this stage, in their winter existence stance. Some will keep standing, especially if the pond gets its typical snow fall. After a good storm, they’ll be supported by a foot or more of snow. Some of the stalks will be smashed to the surface by the ice storms that often precede the snow accumulation.

American Lotus Seedheads

American Lotus Seedheads © 2011 Bo Mackison

No matter, each plant already dropped its seed head, the seeds have loosened from the heavy protective pod, some settled in the pond’s muddy bottom waiting for winter to come and pass into spring, for the long dark to turn into days of lengthening light. Next spring a new crop of lotus will be waving their green high above the water and in summer a sea of yellow flowers will show off for the neighborhood.

These plants give me hope. Today they are brittle brown, broken, most are leaf-less. They stand in disarray. Yet, I still see a deep, rich beauty in them. I know the new plants will fascinate me when they rise from the water, and entrance me even more when they form a yellow floral carpet above the water.

There is a beauty throughout their life cycle. Just as I am learning that there is beauty in all of us, both in our up and down periods and throughout the cycle of our lives, too.

When I stand with my feet in the mud, broken, ashamed, worried about my future, I am beaten by the cold and winds of indifference and harsh words, even hateful words. But also by my sensitivity, my fear. I feel alone and vulnerable.

And I walk around the pond and I’m reminded of the promise of fresh growth, new experiences, deepening awareness — these thoughts hold me upright through the darkness. The light will return. The cycles will continue.

Seeds. Light. Water. Earth.

The cycle of life continues.

——————–

Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She anticipates the approaching winter solstice, and the promise of lengthening days.

Broken Stalks

Ice on Pond and Recent Snowfall
Strickers Pond, First Snow © 2011 Bo Mackison

How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

For many years, I had long periods of time when I felt like a broken stalk, a decaying plant. Blackened, brittle, beyond repair. Beyond care. I couldn’t access my soul, my spirit. I held the broken-ness tightly. It was the only identity I knew.

When I became interested in photography, it was a last-ditch effort to instill a daily routine in my life, a ritual, to focus on a reason to get out of bed each morning and look at the world. Really look at the good in the world, in my world.

Depression sucks life until everything gets covered in a murky, ugly gray. Anxiety turns that gray morass into a roiling fearsome monster. Photography became my potent weapon against depression, anxiety, even despair. Photography provided me with a physical way to add meaning to each day.

It wasn’t that I was not surrounded by a loving husband and family. I was. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the necessities of life and more. I did. But from that place of inner darkness, it was a struggle to appreciate the huge gifts that I had. Family, friends, doctors, therapists — all made monumental efforts to reach that dark place. With their help I made small gains, but I never felt like I had a “real” life.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart . . . forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits. 

~ Hannah More

One of the major changes in my life began with a small change in my day. I began consistently taking at least one photograph each day and posting it to my blog. My goal was to post a daily photo for a year and I did so from October 2007 to October 2008. Once I reached that goal, I continued to shoot every day. What had begun as a few minute practice became a habit and then a creative art, then a career and a passion.

I do not only think of photography as my art, my career. I think of photography as a cosmic gift.  As I pursued photography, it began to light my soul, lighten my spirit. I think it not coincidental that the word photography consists of two Greek words combined into one. “Photo” is derived from “phos” and means “light” in English. “Graphy” is derived from “graphi” which mean to write or draw.

“Photography – to write or draw with light.”

While I repeatedly created photographs, I also shone light into my inner darkness. Gradually the darkness lightened. The murky gray took on color. The roiling emotional monster began to quiet. I was able to breathe deeply, look anew at my surroundings, and see beauty everywhere — in the colors of the tiniest flower, the majesty of a century oak, the grain in polished wood, even in the symmetry and angularity of broken plant stalks on a snowy pond surface.

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. 
~ Jean Paul
Anger is a difficult emotion. It serves no purpose years after an injury or an assault to the mind or body. The anger I held so tightly caused added pain to me and the people I most loved. Yet I didn’t want to let go. I knew anger. I knew anger intimately. The burning fires of anger, so I told myself, kept me alert, kept me alive. And living with this anger also isolated me, which, illogically, gave me a heightened sense of safety.

But anger is a hard master and requires immense energy to keep it burning. I was exhausted. And one more thing, a very important discovery, I was lonely.

It was time to stop the constant longing to change the past. Time to stop protecting myself by maintaining an invisible fence. Time to let go.

People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.
~ Bill Cosby

When I held so tightly to anger, I became strangled by its force. I wanted to be loved, but I was afraid of love. I felt I wasn’t worthy of love, that once someone loved me, they would discover the true me and leave me. I made plenty of mistakes, trying to protect myself while controlling everything and everyone around me.

In letting go of my need to change the past, I can work on today. I can work on forgiving myself. And ask for forgiveness from those whom I have hurt. I am learning. I still have much to learn.

It’s all journey.

Pondering the Pond

Pond, Under and Above

Pond and Plants © 2011 Bo Mackison

One looks long and the world comes in. ~ Joseph Campbell

The skies were clear this morning and I saw the sun rise. My day always begins in a better place when I can greet the sun personally, and not have the clouds be an intermediary.

I walked around Strickers Pond again. Part of it winds through woodland on a bike path, part of the path divides the water from a few grassy backyards, part walks through tall plants and past a beavers’ territory, and the last part borders a dead end lane and allows great access to the shoreline.

I intend for my morning walk to be meditative, quieting. Some of the time it is. But then I get distracted. How could I not stare in awe at the lines of these aquatic plants, dried, decaying?  Some are broken, others still stand tall. A few hold the lingering plants they once held aloft.

I was distracted by the view above the thin ice and the view below the ice. Amazed at the lines – angular, half hidden. The shadows added another dimension.

Don’t shadows always add another dimension – both in the plant world and in our lives.

——————–

Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

Diverging Lines

Atrium  - in Color

Atrium @ 2011 Bo Mackison

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? . . . We are all meant to shine, as children do . . . And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson

I am taking things easy this evening, after a wild day of stormy weather, intense explorations, eye-opening meetings, and a spell of night driving on dark, slippery roads where a few cars had already slid into the side ditch. I felt relief when I pulled the car into the garage, sat for a few minutes in the dark and took a few deep breaths to super-oxygenate my brain.

I met with some wise people today. I went seeking answers — again — to questions I have asked for nearly twenty years, questions that no one was able or willing to answer, and this time I got an answer. There was no guarantee, but I was offered a course of actions. They would require life altering commitments, but there is now a road map and a chance for success.

While I pondered my options, lines from the above quote by Marianne Williamson flashed through my head. I searched for the entire quote in my notebook where I have copied quotes for years. I read the words again.

“. . . our deepest fear is . . . https://mocicc.org/agricultura/6ajwzch powerful beyond measure . . . It is our https://penielenv.com/dmu86wytwdf light that frightens us . . . Be https://www.yolascafe.com/4qalh5fsz brilliant, gorgeous, https://dcinematools.com/ckej3lax7a talented, fabulous. . . click liberated from our own fear.”

Do I want to accept this challenge? It will be hard work. A change in life-style. Commitment to a routine, not for a few weeks or a few months, for a lifetime.

I make excuses. I am too old to re-wire myself. I am too set in my ways to begin a new routine. I don’t have enough energy to commit to a new movement regime. I don’t have enough will-power to re-structure my meals, my food choices. It would be too hard.

And I don’t https://lpgventures.com/5x9b8hcwiyp want to change!!!

But, paradoxically, I desperately https://www.brigantesenglishwalks.com/l0iobgovo do want to change.

I glance at my book of quotations again, and these words catch my attention:

“The veil of illusion that has been keeping you from perceiving reality as it is, is starting to burn away. The fire is not the heated fire of passion, but the cool flame of awareness.” ~ Osho

And that is the answer. Now that I am source url aware of a choice, of a chance for this change in my life, I can’t refuse.

—————

Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is also a woman who collects wise quotations, and sometimes those wise words are exactly what she needs to read.