Rays of Sunlight

Rays of Sunlight © 2012 Bo Mackison

Rays of Sunlight © 2012 Bo Mackison

Spiritual and creative journeys are not so much about growing in certainty — in many ways it is about growing less certain — it is about about learning how to move deeply into the heart of mystery, into the great unknown.

During the first few days of each new month, I look for a photograph for Photo-Heart Connection from last month’s photos. I look for one that speaks to me in a special way, perhaps one with a message I overlooked the first time I worked with the photograph. Here is my choice from the many photos I took in March.

I took this photograph of three simply carved chairs in the stunningly decorated church at the Mission of San Xavier del Bac, just south of Tucson, Arizona.  Construction of the church began in 1783 and was completed fourteen years later. It is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona and is a National Historic Landmark.

The church is filled with original, hand carved statuary and murals on many of the walls – many of the murals depict items that could not be obtained in 18th century Arizona. There are paintings delicately rendered as substitutes for wall coverings, draperies, wood, and marbled surfaces.  Dozens of statues were also hand carved, painted, and then finished with materials brought from Spanish missionaries from Mexico into Arizona.

Whenever I take photographs of the Mission at Xavier del Bac or other holy places, I am often filled with a depth of connection and  spirituality that I seldom encounter in other buildings.

When I took this photograph of the sacristy, I was aware of the rays of sunshine illuminating the armrests of two of the chairs. I loved the contrast, the symbolic meaning of light opening a dark space. When I checked the photos on my computer, again the contrast struck me — this time between the ornate — the heavily ornamented walls and niches — and the simple — the carved chairs illuminated by a shaft of light coming through one of the few windows.

It was a photograph that made a heart (and soul) connection.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She has been living in southern Arizona for the last two and a half months, and has taken many photographs of holy and sacred places. She joins other photographers at Kat Eye Studio and posts a photo taken the prior month that “connects with her heart’ during the first few days of the new month.

 


Trees are Sanctuaries

Looking at the Past

Trees are Sanctuaries © 2012 Bo Mackison

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. ~ Herman Hesse

Trees Are Sanctuaries

1806, The People Build the Church

They make the brick, kiln the lime, raise the walls, lay the roof,
paint murals and sacristy ornamentation, build niches for the statues of the Saints.
They clear the land, build the fences, plant corn and wheat,
and from the priests’ cache of pods and seeds, they plant and then tend
fruit orchards, nut trees, and olive trees.
They learn the ways of the missionaries,
they marry, raise children, care for their sick, weep for their dying, bury their dead.

1827, Weary, Ill, and Wary of Raiding Enemies

Many of the People wrap the statuary in leathery strips of yucca,
the bundled saints cradled like newborn babes
protected from summer’s heat, shifting winds, monsoon thunderstorms,
from damage to their wooden limbs or chipped painted robes or eyes of porcelain marbles.
They walk north, leave the Tumacacori Mountains,
settle in another valley with another priest and another church.

1848, Tumacacori Mission, Deserted in the Desert.

No missionary priest leads his people, crucifix in hand,
his carved cross held high, a silhouette in the blue bowl of sky.
No one gives signal to the last few of the Desert People
who now abandon their homes, possessions, crops;
abandon their church, stacked bricks of adobe, and
precious, the limestone wash, white like angels’ wings;
now the church is an apparition towering amidst the desert grasses, agave, mesquite,
standing in the foreground of the mountains.

2012, A View through the Window

Open to the cool desert nights,
no roof for protection, no doors.
Only the ruins remain,  maintained as ruins.
But the window opening frames the cottonwoods, green and tall,
lining the Santa Cruz River, growing.
They hold my fascination. When I walk to the river,
they form the arched roof over my head,
provide a spongy carpet of decaying leaves under my feet.
Wisps of white cottony fluff, seeds for the future, drift on the southwest breeze.

The trees are the sanctuaries.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. There are also days Bo wanders through Mission ruins, thinks of days long past, and writes poetry.

Mission San Xavier del Bac

White Dove of the Desert

White Dove of the Desert © 2012 Bo Mackison

I photographed the Mission San Xavier del Bac on the Tohono O’odham Reservation this morning. Seen from Interstate 19 heading south out of Tucson, the church is a bright gleaming dome in a desert setting. It is easy to see how the church came by its name, “The White Dove of the Desert.”

White Dove of the Desert - Entrance

Entrance to White Dove of the Desert © 2012 Bo Mackison

The mission itself was founded by Father Eusebio Kino, a Franciscan missionary, in 1692, but this building was built in the late 1700s and not completed for use until 1797. Father Kino also founded the mission at Tumacacori, located 20 miles south of San Xavier, and several other missions in southern Arizona and in Sonora, Mexico.

The church, which is on the National Register of Historic Buildings and is also a National Historic Landmark, is the oldest European-inspired structure in the state of Arizona.

Mission of St Xavier del Bac - Interior

Interior of White Dove of the Desert Mission © 2012 Bo Mackison

San Xavier del Bac’s interior is filled with over 70 original, restored carved statues and over 200 mural paintings, all dating from the late 1700s. The church has many folk art features, using the materials that were available to the artisans and their assistants.

They took advantage of the mountains and the nearby stone to build the church, used mesquite for the main doors, and utilized some of the desert elements to make some of the paints and other decorative features. They painted faux doors, made wooden decorative pieces and painted them to resemble marble, and fashioned many niches to hold carved and painted statues in “curtain” surrounds.

Mission of St Xavier del Bac - Sanctuary and Crossing

Mission of St Xavier del Bac - Sanctuary © 2012 Bo Mackison

Many of the statues are decorated with silver and gold accents, and other materials such as glass eyes for the statues, were brought to the mission by the Missionary Fathers from Europe via Mexico.  It is all quite intricate and full of ingenious detailing.

Mission of St Xavier del Bac - Sanctuary

Sanctuary, Altar, and Two Guarding Lions © 2012 Bo Mackison

I studied the interior of the church in amazement — the decorative features cover nearly almost every surface. There are identical gold lions in the sanctuary flanking the altar and intricate murals on the walls. A baptismal font is painted to look like marble. There are geometric designs on the lower church walls in bright primary colors. Murals of cherabim in red checked robes are painted on the church’s ceiling and choir loft.

Mission of St Xavier del Bac - East Transept

East Transept of St Xavier del Bac Mission © 2012 Bo Mackison

There are two transepts — west and east — that are filled with niches and statues of saints, all surrounded by sculptured wood that mimics columns, cornices, pedestals and more.

The church underwent an extensive restoration projects during most of the 1990s and some of the nations’ most talented art conservators including conservators from the Guggenheim in New York City and others brought from all over the world to give new life to this remarkable art.

Let the Sun Shine In

Let the Sunlight In

Let the Sun Shine In © 2012 Bo Mackison

Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sun shine in…

~ lyrics from the 5th Dimension’s song Let the Sunshine In, 1969

This is another photo from a series of photographs of a small adobe room, the granary, part of the ruins of the mission at the Tumacacori National Historic Site in southern Arizona.

I am finding much to think about as I work with images from this ancient storage room. There are pots to fill, small windows to let the sun shine in, even a quiet exercise I employed using my imagination to change seemingly drab surroundings into a scene (and sense) of vibrancy.

More to come. Amazing how many metaphors for living one can find in a centuries-old adobe ruins.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She frequently visits Tumacacori where she finds herself deep in thought.

Pottery at Tumacacori

Pottery in Tumacacori Granary

Pottery in Tumacacori Granary © 2012 Bo Mackison

Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not,
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.

Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion.
Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day,
And count it fair.

       ~Amelia Earhardt

Fill one pot with courage, one pot with loving kindness, one pot with contentedness, one pot with a store of the sun’s healing rays…

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Bo Mackison loves visiting Tumacacori where she often think deep thoughts.