Letting Go – A Desert Wisdom Card

Letting Go - Desert Wisdom Card

go to site Coral Aloe © 2013 Bo Mackison

follow site Simply trust;
Do not the petals flutter down,
just like this?
~ Issa

The coral aloe is a common desert garden plant.

Buy Cheap Tramadol Online Its eye-catching blooms are striking in their bright orange radiance, with tips that glow iridescent blues, greens, and whites. But after the blossom is spent, the tubular flowers drop, often getting caught in the curvature of the succulent leaves.

In the letting go of petals, there is the promise of seeds and new life.

https://thelowegroupltd.com/zadr4mj The letting go is necessary: the flowers are pollinated, they drop from the plant, the fruits grow, the seeds of the fruit are dispersed by animal, wind, or other means. New plants emerge from some of the seeds. The cycle of life continues.

We also face situations when “letting go” is a necessity.

https://www.infotonicsmedia.com/about/buy-diazepam-tablets-uk.php We have no more control over situations which involve other people’s choices than flowers have control over their ability to continue clinging to the stem. But we do have control of our own choices to let go.

enter site “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation,
unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
~ Steve Maraboli in Life, the Truth, and Being Free

This is not about letting go of dreams, goals, practices that serve you well, and are life affirming.

https://www.rmporrua.com/kar5dh72 This is about the release of those things which are life-depleting. Letting go of the past, of emotions or beliefs which no longer serve a positive purpose, makes room for living in the present and anticipating the future.

LETTING GO offers questions/reflections for journaling, art prompts, and calls to action:

  • What are you ready to let go of that no longer serves you? What can be released to serve your higher purpose in life? Consider your daily living activities — your sleep or eating habits, too much clutter (material clutter or clutter on your to do list), choices of leisure time activities. If you choose to make a change, celebrate the change. View it from the strength of positive thinking, not from the victim-hood of habit or self put down.
  • Do you need to let go of excuses that cripple your intentions for change? Excuses steal your power. Taking responsibility for your day-to-day choices breaks the excuse machine. Write a dialogue between a habit that no longer serves you —  the size 8 dress hanging in the closet, the chocolate cake at the bakery department, a dysfunctional relationship — and your desires to let go. Write out all of your excuses and answer them with new resolve. Write a good-bye letter. Tear the letter in pieces and throw it away or burn it in a fireplace, letting the message drift far away.
  • Distraction can prove a helpful diversion. Get out of your head and into your body. Dance, sing, garden. Ride a bike or swim. Physical exertion demands your full attention and leaves little room for obsessive worry.
  • Create a mandala. Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning circle or completion. Mandalas are all around us — in our cells, nature, the earth, the Universe. Carl Jung, the founder of psychoanalysis, said of mandalas, “In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols …and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures.”
    • Create a mandala by tracing a circle and then use art media of your choice — colored pencils, pens, markers, paints — to fill in the space as you focus on “letting go.”  The colors, shapes and representations used in the mandala’s creation express emotions and feelings.
    • When the mandala is complete, journal any reactions you experienced during its creation or your reactions to the mandala’s colors, lines, and figures.

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https://www.frolic-through-life.com/2025/01/hm03tl0xjw Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo is creating a deck of Desert Wisdom Cards for self-exploration and discovery, using her photography and the Sonoran Desert as a theme – its myths and stories, cultures and heritage, and the desert’s remarkable natural beauty and resources.

Blooming Desert

Sonoran Desert, Saguaro National Park

https://hereisnewyorkv911.org/gbn4o2m Sonoran Desert, Saguaro National Park © 2013 Bo Mackison

https://www.prestoavenuedesigns.com/save/buy-genuine-diazepam-online.php Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air. ~ Paul Hoffman

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Attention – A Desert Wisdom Card

Palm Leaf

go Guadalupe Palm Abstract  © 2013 Bo Mackison

Order Cheap Tramadol Cod The choice of where we put our attention is ultimately our most powerful freedom.
~ Jan Kata and Russell Taq in Toxic Success

As I sat on a bench at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, overhead fans of palm leaves caught my attention.

Tramadol Purchase Cod I watched as clouds passed quickly in front of the sun and the intermittent sunlight danced amidst the palms. The interplay of light and shadow in the pleated fans created dozens of opportunities to create abstract photographs.

I created the ATTENTION card based on this play of light and shadow.

https://tvnordestevip.com/7d9ge2ci All palm trees are tropical plant, including the above Guadalupe Palm, and palms cannot tolerate freezing weather or dry soil. Since the palms found in the Sonoran Desert require moisture, they are found in desert oases (natural water supplies) or in wet canyons, typically in the southern or western reaches of the Sonoran Desert.

https://www.iql-nog.com/2025/01/19/9rxgrxf The existence of palms in the desert southwest is testimony to the desert’s ancient tropical connection, a concept that requires our  imagination. The more I closely examine the desert today, the more I can see traces where the ancient oceans once existed.

source The leaves of the palm tree are often used to make thatched roofs of rainproof shelters that are incredibly sturdy and can last for years. The palm is a favorite habitat of small creatures as it has many layers of palm leaves perfect for hidden nesting and resting places.

http://lisapriceblog.com/mv16aua For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.
— Evelyn Underhill

ATTENTION offers questions/reflections for journal or art prompts, even a few calls to action:

  • What lessons can be learned by adding the practice of attention to today? To each day?
  • What are some of the gifts one can receive by practicing attention?
  • Connect these seemingly disparate ideas: 1) the practice of attention and a desert oasis or 2) the practice of attention and creating a shelter. Journal, draw a mind map, or write a few lines of poetry about your discoveries.
  • When can the practice of attention be added to the day? In an early morning or late evening ritual? During meals? During routine chores such as dish washing, sweeping the floor, cleaning mirrors? During a walk around the block, a walk in the park, a hike in a natural setting?
  • Action: Focus on a single object. Observe a single blade of grass, a flower, a tree for a set period of time – perhaps ten minutes. Jot down a few notes, either  during the observation time or immediately afterwards. Include any of the sensory responses – what did you see, hear, smell, touch, taste? How did you feel or react?
  • Sometimes a prop is useful while intentionally practicing attention. Bringing a camera, sketchbook, or journal on a short walk often provides a visible reminder to slow down and look at the details.
  • Consider adding a “slow practice” to your day. It may be the ritual of preparing a cup of tea or a mid-morning snack. Watch the sunrise or sunset, paying attention to the light-show of changing colors. Set an intention to stop and pay attention.

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go to link Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is creating a deck of Desert Wisdom Cards for self-exploration and discovery using her photography and the theme of the Sonoran Desert – its myths and stories, cultures and history, and the desert’s remarkable natural resources.

Quest – A Desert Wisdom Card

Rocks - Desert Wisdom Card

watch A Path of Rocks ©2013 Bo Mackison

follow link If we are spiritual beings on a human path rather than human beings who may be on a spiritual path . . . then life is not only a journey but a pilgrimage or quest as well. When we experience sacred moments it often is not so much a matter of outer geography but of finding soulful places within ourselves.  ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen in Crossing to Avalon

The QUEST photograph is of a rocky trail in the back canyons of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

click While walking this trail, I quickly lost sight of the gravel road and ramada near the trail head. It was as if I had entered a wilderness region, far away from civilization. There was evidence of footprints, but at no time did I meet or pass any other hikers. Then, without much warning, clouds gathered and skies darkened with threatening storm.

source After I’d ascended one side of the mountain and then descended into the back canyon, I found a large boulder to rest upon. The rising mountains, the canyon arroyo, the cactus and other desert plants offered signs of life, but it was eerily silent in the early afternoon.

Each well-considered question can lead to a whole universe of wisdom, because one insight leads to another as the answers come.  ~ Evan T. Pritchard

It was a sacred space, a place to take in the surrounding natural world and consider my place in the grand scheme of things. In the deep silence, I listened deeply as I considered recent paths on my life journey.

A quest can include travel to a sacred place or it can be an inner experience.

It is a time to stop and listen, ask questions, discern answers.

The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

QUEST offers these questions/options for journal prompts, creative activities, and calls to action:

  • What lessons might be learned when traveling on a rocky path? What questions might be asked while on a quest?
  • While looking at the photograph, visualize climbing the first rocky step and consider a challenge you are facing.  Then while climbing the rest of the steps, think of a positive action you can take as you climb ever higher.
  • Consider planning a pilgrimage to a sacred site, a place that has personal spiritual significance. This might be a historical church or other place of worship, a shrine, a labyrinth, a historical site, a quiet garden setting. Plan an activity for the visit – take photographs, make a pencil or watercolor sketch, create a scrapbook page, write a journal entry or pen a few lines of poetry.

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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 to provide a focus and a framework for reflection, to encourage a connection with nature, using a Sonoran Desert theme – its myths and stories, cultures and heritage, and the desert’s remarkable natural beauty and resources.

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.