Hanging Around

Hanging Around

see url Hanging Around © 2012 Bo Mackison

here Sometimes it is the simplest things that can bring joy. I was watching several acacia seedpods dangling from a young tree at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum a few days ago.  My camera, set on a tripod, was set up next to me. Two boys, maybe 8 and 5, came bounding towards me. They stopped at my side and looked at the tree.

https://osteopatiaamparoandres.com/pk35whhxk “What are you looking at?” the older boy asked me. He had a small camera dangling from his wrist and began twirling it in circles. Perhaps it was his pre-photograph warm-up exercise.

https://www.acp-online.org/image/buy-diazepam-10mg.php “Oh, I’m watching these acacia seeds. They are moving in the breeze. I was thinking about the photograph I want to take.”

see url The older boy stared at the seeds a moment, obviously confused. But the younger boy appeared to understand. He pulled at his brother’s shirt, dragging him towards the women waiting for them. “C’mon, Jay,” he said, giving me a backwards glance.  “She’s just hanging around.”

http://foodsafetytrainingcertification.com/food-safety-news/if972so4be Yep. Me and the acacia seedpods. We’re just hanging around.

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https://www.mckenziesportsphysicaltherapy.com/s2au5fqp7 Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Sometimes Bo hangs around, and sometimes she takes photographs, too.

Nature’s Abstract

Tramadol Hcl Online 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

https://www.pslra.org/joaxir3ved 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.

enter site 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.

Tramadol Buy Online Usa 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.

https://thelowegroupltd.com/vwdvqx40u Spaces — this is an entangled pattern of tiny spaces, tiny bits of shadow and light from the cactus spines.

https://riverhillcurrent.com/nqd8xju5u2 How do I look at these spaces? Seeking? Searching?

follow url 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?

https://hereisnewyorkv911.org/mo2d6ws 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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https://bettierose.co.uk/kcn9we4rda 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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Lessons from the American Lotus

Sunlit Ice on Pond

click here American Lotus through Sunlit Ice © 2011 Bo Mackison

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

https://opponix.com/fokfscop ~ Mary Anne Brussatt

https://valkyrieswebzine.com/nouvel/buy-diazepam-cheap-online-uk.php 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.

source 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.

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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.

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