Wildflowers in the Desert

White Tackstem

https://www.mssbizsolutions.com/zo17rjf White Tackstem © 2012 Bo Mackison

enter To see a world in a grain of sand
and a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour.  ~ William Blake

https://osteopatiaamparoandres.com/03fflne8 My first spring living in the desert, the spring of 2011, was a spring of drought and no wildflowers. The cactus still bloomed, and I was thrilled at the sight of those flowers, but I never did see wildflowers in the depths of the desert, and I saw only a few specimens in the various irrigated botanical gardens in the Tucson area.

follow site So it is with great pleasure, this spring, that I walk on ancient trails in the desert and see splashes of wildflower color almost everywhere I look. Perhaps what is more amazing, last year I thought the desert lovely in its drought induced colors of browns and faded greens. I did not wish for more, because I did not know that more existed. I am glad I saw the naked, dry desert, flower-less, for that is the desert I fell in love with. And this year’s desert bounty, flowery splashes of yellows and oranges, purples and blues, is a gift unexpected, and so cherished that much more.

Jone's Blazing Star

https://www.prestoavenuedesigns.com/save/cheap-valium.php Jone's Blazing Star © 2012 Bo Mackison

https://valkyrieswebzine.com/nouvel/buy-valium-diazepam-online.php Here are but a few of the many wildflowers I captured in my heart, and also with my camera. I apologize now if I have wrongly identified any of these beauties – I suspect I will do so quite often. The desert in filled with wildflowers that I have never seen, no matter how common they may be to real desert dwellers, and though I enjoy discovering the names of the various flowers, I will make beginner’s mistakes.

https://www.frolic-through-life.com/2025/01/gqtqewhwezh Nevertheless, I always feel a bit more connected to a flower when I can hail it by its name and so I will make the effort to learn the native names, sometimes humorous, sometimes descriptive, sometimes vainly named by its human ‘discoverer’.

Notch-Leaf Scorpion-Weed

https://www.infotonicsmedia.com/about/order-valium-canada.php Notch-Leaf Scorpion-Weed © 2012 Bo Mackison

Buy Valium 5Mg Online Uk One thing I noticed immediately about many of the desert flowers. Some are very small, perhaps a half inch or less in diameter. A carpet of these tiny flowers is easily seen, but an isolated one or two are treasures easily missed. I discovered that by looking closely at the various surfaces in the desert  — rocky cliffs, gravelly washes, gritty earth stretching into the shadows of the mountains — I see wildflowers that could be easily passed and never discovered.

Poppies and Pollen

Poppies and Pollen © 2012 Bo Mackison

I am filled with great joy when I can simply be still in this desert, perhaps standing in a bit of shade of a palo verde or a mesquite, watching and listening. Where there are patches of flowers, there are frequently a few bees humming and buzzing about, each bee visiting the blossoms and dancing that intricate dance of pollination. Imagine being a bee and visiting an arroyo filled with the tiniest of these flowers. An endless undertaking, quite like counting the grains of sand on the desert floor.

I am filled with a deep gratitude that I have the opportunity to walk amidst the glories of the desert – in awe of this seemingly endless desert filled with the tiniest of gifts.

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

 

 

Organ Pipe Cactus

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Organ Pipe Cactus © 2012 Bo Mackison

Transparent and intangible as sunlight, yet always and everywhere present, [the desert] lures a man on and on, from the red-walled canyons to the smoke-blue ranges beyond, in a futile but fascinating quest for the great, unimaginable treasure which the desert seems to promise. Once caught by this golden lure you become a prospector for life. ~ Edward Abbey

The organ pipe cactus shares this mountainside with saguaros, mesquite, and blooming brittlebush. The organ pipe has many arms which appear to come from a low-to-the-ground center and resembles a pipe organ, its namesake. Some of the largest specimens grow to twenty-five feet, but most of the cacti I saw at Organ Pipe National Monument were in the twelve to eighteen feet range.

Organ Pipe Cactus and Desert Marigold

Organ Pipe Cactus © 2012 Bo Mackison

Although the lucky organ pipes that make it through their first years become giants in the Sonoran Desert, they are a bit on the slow side when they are getting started. In the wild, an organ pipe is only four inches high when it celebrates its eighth birthday. A three foot tall cactus will be about twenty years old, and it will finally reach an adult height of twenty feet when it is forty five or fifty years old.

Organ Pipe Cactus grow in Sonora, Mexico and a few are seen in the Tucson area, but the majority of Organ Pipe Cacti that grow in the United States are in or very near the monument. These cacti are afforded little protection in Mexico, so it is vital that we remain committed to maintaining this region for the protection of this unique cactus.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Love the organ pipe cactus and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. What an amazing place!

Leap Days

Jumping Cholla

"Leaping" Cholla © 2009 Bo Mackison

This cholla is more commonly known as a jumping cholla, but I am taking liberties today since it is Leap Day, and conferring the title of “Leaping Cholla” on these attractive cacti. These cacti are known for attaching small sections of themselves to anything that brushes near them — hence the name jumping, or leaping, cholla. (It’s a great way for the plants to distribute their seeds.)

I decided to see how many Leap Days I could either remember or make a good attempt at a reconstruction of probable events. Leap Day really should be a more celebratory day — we are each given an extra 24 hours, in our Western way of thinking.  Are you doing something to mark the occasion of February 29th?

The run-down of Bo’s Leap Days, including her plans for celebrating Leap Day 2012 with a special “in the Southwest” dinner for one.

https://www.pslra.org/g4cyrs7o6t LEAP DAYS

go to site 1956  Leap Day is on a Wednesday. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces to the nation that he is running for a second term. It was my first Leap Day, but I have no recall of that year. Pre-memory, I think.

https://bettierose.co.uk/ogzam5n 1960  Leap Day is the 60th day of the year in 1960. Of course, all Leap Days are the 60th day of the year.  Family Circus makes its debut. First grade. I had the BEST teacher, ever, so surely we did something exciting to celebrate Leap Day. Why isn’t Leap Day a holiday, anyway?

https://www.iql-nog.com/2025/01/19/v16zehgi 1964  Saturday. Fifth grade. Too young to babysit, so most likely I spent Leap Evening watching Lawrence Welk with my grandparents. A typical Saturday evening in fifth grade.

https://thelowegroupltd.com/obeao3yw 1968  Freshman year in high school. We had an “art”sale during the lunch periods  – profits going to our sister school in Nicaragua. We sold out of giant tissue paper flowers, posters decorated with “Little Prince” quotes, beaded necklaces, and ceramic pots.

source 1972  Freshman year in college. Led Zeppelin had a concert that evening in Brisbane Australia. Tickets cost $5.20. Sold out. I’m sure I would have loved to attend if given the opportunity!

go 1976  I was a few months into my first professional job after graduating from college. Leap Day was also minus 103 days until our wedding day. A significant year in my life, for sure.

go here 1980  Sherpa and I had been in our first house — in Milwaukee Wisconsin — for two months on this Leap Day.

http://foodsafetytrainingcertification.com/food-safety-news/l4fw72f81 1984  No doubt a busy day. All days in 1984 were busy days. Probably busy chasing kiddies. Well, chasing an almost three-year old. Our second child was only two weeks old so he wasn’t too active — yet. We still were in our house in Milwaukee, but planning a move to New Berlin, Wisconsin.

go to site 1988  Another Leap Day preoccupied with children. Six year old, four-year old, and a baby soon to be born. This was our first Leap Day living in Madison.

click here 1992  Our two older children (5th grade, 2nd grade) had a Leap Day School Fair to celebrate Leap Day. Parents were in attendance with pockets full of quarters. Three year old also knew how to ask for quarters. I think we won several gold-fish at the gold-fish pond.

follow url 1996  Perhaps I blanked out for a decade or so…

Real Tramadol Online 2000  Hmmm…. the millennium Leap Day?

get link 2004  The days are getting clearer. Kissed by a prince, perhaps?

https://hereisnewyorkv911.org/3qubnqw 2008  By this Leap Day, I’d been taking photos with a digital camera for a few months. I was doing a 365 photo challenge. Here’s proof that I posted on my photo blog on Leap Day, 2008.

Buy Cheap Generic Valium Online 2012  I know one thing I won’t be doing today — I will not celebrate Leap Day leaping in the desert. Not going to trust those leaping cholla! Think I’ll celebrate with a Margarita and some spicy enchiladas? Yes!

How are you marking this once-every-four-year day?

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is appreciating these extra minutes of this extra day as she celebrates Leap Day in Tucson.

 

 

Vintage Golden Poppy

Vintage Poppy

Vintage Poppy © 2012 Bo Mackison

There are times in our lives when too many voices seem to be pulling us this way and that. We can seek silence and order within. Then we will hear the truth.   ~ Osho

I’ve been in a wild and whirling space the past few days. So much to do, not enough time. Too many shoulds listed on my to do list, and I am ignoring them. The script rushing through my mind sounds like it was written by a convention of gremlins, intent on keeping me on the practical path. Except I am not one who appreciates the practical as much as I appreciate the spur of the moment, the adventure, the explore, but on my terms. I love the adventure but I like to have my feet firmly on the ground, adventuring in safety perhaps. Are those two incongruous? Adventure and safety?

I don’t think so. I like to have a little planning in my explores. Maybe I head west not knowing exactly where it is I am going, but I have a list of three or four places that are possible destinations. I am not one to travel the open road without some idea of where I am. But I also like to leave my schedule open enough to accommodate the serendipitous meeting, the landscape I just have to get to know more intimately, a town that demands more than a cursory visit.

I have been having many conversations with myself. These talks invariably consist of what should I be doing. Now? A month from now? A year? What plans do I have for exhibiting my photography? Where am I going with my art? What path should I follow? As a wise person once told me, “You can’t just sit in an arroyo and watch the poppies bloom.”

Currently I have two of my photographs in an art exhibit at University Hospitals in Madison, Wisconsin. I have another photograph accepted for an  exhibit in March and April, an exhibit called Beyond the Lens at the Tubac Center for the Arts in Tubac, Arizona. I do freelance photography, shooting interiors and exteriors of living spaces. My art fair and festival schedule is slowly taking shape. I’ll be at Tucson’s Fourth Avenue Street Fair in March and I have Midwest art festivals on my calendar from May through September, and adding more each week as the notifications come in. And I photograph and work on my photographs – editing, post-processing, printing, matting, framing – 50+ hours a week.

The conference of my gremlins settled on a conclusion – they want me to expand my photographic repertoire. Actually, in plain-speak, my gremlins want me to become financially solvent. And then save for retirement. Save for a rainy day. Save for their retirement. All excellent suggestions.

And here I am, feeling quite the contrarian, wanting to return to the lovely arroyo to see the poppies again. Maybe I can go sit there and re-think my business plan WHILE watching the poppies grow.

A compromise?

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. If you need to find Bo today, she’s sitting on a rock in an arroyo in the Tucson Mountains, and talking to the poppies about life goals.

Ocotillo Birds?

Ocotillo Birds?

Ocotillo Birds? © 2012 Bo Mackison

Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy; pure creative energy.   ~ Julia Cameron

I watched this ocotillo for quite a while. Long enough that its long spindly branches quivered with the breezes. Every time the ocotillo shook, the red flowers at the very ends of the stalks reminded me of baby birds, their beaks open wide, begging for food from their Mama.

I laughed and laughed and laughed. Who knew the desert had such a honed sense of humor?

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She laughs with the desert, in the desert.