On Watch © 2013 Bo Mackison
A lake is a landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature.
It is Earth’s eye, into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Skies hint of purple,
the sun withdraws.
Winds calm in the heavy summer air.
A tumble of rocks deep
disappear in gray shadow.
Ghost carp glide under the dock.
The spirit trembles, shaken, then
regains its equilibrium
On watch for the first star.
Garden Party – Vintage Coneflower © 2013 Bo Mackison
“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” Victor Hugo
Coneflowers have quite the joyous attitude, the dancing ballerinas of the prairie. And I love the thought of prairie land at my feet, standing amidst coneflowers swaying in a soft breeze, while stars twinkle in the far beyond.
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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Her exhibit, Garden Party – A Celebration of Botanical Photography, is at the Alicia Ashman Branch Library Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin and runs through September 5, 2013.
White Coneflowers © 2013 Bo Mackison
“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…” ~ Susan Polis Shutz
This array of stunning white coneflowers makes ME want to go dance in the sun!
The coneflowers are abundant this year in the prairie spaces of Wisconsin. Perhaps one of the gifts that comes with the record-breaking rainfalls we’ve had this spring and early summer. Every prairie space is white and purple with the waving, dancing, bouncing cone flowers, their bright orange heads bobbing, their brilliant rays fluttering.
It is nearly impossible to walk among hundreds of coneflowers and not dance and sing, if not with your body, then surely with your heart and soul.
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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Today is the opening for her exhibit, Garden Party – A Celebration of Botanical Photography at the Alicia Ashman Branch Library Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin. There are coneflowers dancing upon one of the walls in the children’s area!
Stepping Stones © 2013 Bo Mackison
This is a post assembled partly while thinking about last night’s dream and partly while checking my emails this morning — makes for an interesting juxtaposition of ideas.
The dream? A long walk across water on huge, irregular stepping-stones. The stones could have been a replica set designed by the creators of Stonehenge, the ancient English site of healing, ritual, and worship, but also a funerary and a celestial observatory. In the dream, I cautiously, tentatively, cross a sparkling turquoise-blue bay, intent on reaching the shore of pebbly rocks that always are just out of my reach.
Then came my morning message from Tut, a humorous, motivational email that I read every weekday. It informed me that today, June 19th, is World Sauntering Day. Tut provided a link as confirmation, and sure enough, today IS National Sauntering Day, a day dedicated to the art of sauntering.
According to Wikipedia – a source I trust on this sort of trivia – World Sauntering Day is thought to have started at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan in the 1970s. “The Grand Hotel has the world’s longest porch, 660 feet in length. It was a counter response by W.T.Rabe to a growing movement toward the recreation of jogging. The idea of the day was to encourage people to slow down and appreciate the world around them.” Love the idea of a sauntering day!
According to Thesaurus.com, synonyms for sauntering include:
amble
linger
meander
mosey
promenade
ramble
roam
sashay
tarry
traipse
wander
So today I intend to take a saunter around the neighborhood pond, wander through the grocery store, and meander in my garden. It will be a nice counter-point to the arduous struggle I encountered in my dream, leaping from one low stone to another, then swimming to the next stone, taller and angular, which I climbed with the strength of a fingernail grip.
Now I only wish I could promenade on the 660 foot long porch of The Grand Hotel in Mackinac Island this evening as sunset drifts into twilight.
Maybe in my next dream…
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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She explores wherever she travels, even in her dreams.
Wabi-sabi Peony © 2013 Bo Mackison
Wabi sabi acknowledges three things: “nothing is perfect, nothing lasts, and nothing is finished.”
~ Richard C. Powell
Peonies – as amazing going to seed as they are in their prime. I love this flower’s slightly withered pink petals, the shriveling yellow stamens, the green seed bearing carpels with their touch of lingering pink, and the few specks of pollen clinging to a lower petal.
Cycle of life. The flower does not last, but it is not at all finished. Wabi sabi.
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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is fascinated by the different stages of the garden flowers and the inherent beauty that lingers in a flower long after it has fully blossomed.
