Autumn Yellow

Yellow Leaves

follow url Yellow Leaves © 2013 Bo Mackison

Buy Alprazolam Online Pharmacy In taking time to contemplate the small – in observing the details…we can experience life on a manageable scale.
~ Marilyn Barrett

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https://someawesomeminecraft.com/2024/05/13/cbc4qyy Sitting under the emerald ash
green-yellow shimmers,
pierced-work light filters through
and quivering, touches the ground, settling
in the flutter of fallen leaves.
Wayward chickadee hops branch
to branch, twee-hee.

enter I am the statue. The tree bursts open
with flits, twitters, chase scenes,
each bird shouldering its way to the feeder
shoving match, the littlest chickadee
flies into leafy cover.

https://photovisions.ca/efi8zyl Earthy October and dusty leaves,
crumples of brown, closing my eyes,
I imagine my hands, they open
the trunk. It’s filled with yellowed letters and
faded handwriting, cancelled stamps on
featherweight airmail envelopes.

https://yplocal.us/depckqwk Red squirrels scavenge the hickory nuts,
their tails a shimmer like can-can skirts.
My feet are bare, toes grip the earth, it is how
I hang on to this spinning world
when it dips and dives out of synch.

https://www.jacobysaustin.com/2024/05/d8mfy306ez And we creep towards the coming dark,
hail the purple skies and the last gasp trees of scarlet.
Color my world. Cheery-cheery trills the cardinal.
Twilight descends, the first star shines.
Make a wish. Spin around twice.
Go inside and turn on the lights.

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enter site Bo Mackison is photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.   Autumn color is coloring my world.

Wabi Sabi Flowers of the Prairie

Autumn Flowers

go to site Wabi Sabi Flowers © 2013 Bo Mackison

get link That art which matters to us – which moves the heart, or revives the soul, or delights the senses, or offers courage for living, however we choose to describe the experience – that work is received to us as a gift is received. ~ Lewis Hyde

https://discovershareinspire.com/2024/05/1mqy45u5 I walked the prairie yesterday, or more accurately, I walked a prairie remnant yesterday. So little of the prairie remains, but I am grateful for even the bits of prairie that I explore.

get link I imagine a time when the prairie would have been endless, a spaciousness of waving grasses, stalks of eight feet tall flowers, and no space to even place your feet as you walk through the dense habitation. A prairie is dense.

source link For a while, I followed an animal trail, probably deer, until the path simple vanished and I was in the midst of grasses, browning stalks of plants, all several feet higher than I stood. I stood there awhile, just absorbing the spirit of the autumn prairie. The prairie is no longer deep greens studded with summer yellow flowers; it is muted blue, golden, russet, yellow-green.

https://thegreathighway.com/d68tbafth Standing in the prairie, taking a few photographs of the prairie, I recalled one of my favorite quotes. It is about art, but I can easily apply it, word for word, to explorations in nature. In the midst of this remnant prairie, the experience moves my heart, revives my soul, delights my senses. And yes, surrounded by the natural world, inhaling the dusty air,  studying the flowers turning to seed, and watching the grasshoppers leap from leaf to leaf, the prairie experience offers me courage for living a meaning-filled life.

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Today, once again, I walked the prairie and found answers to the questions swirling in my head.

Listening to the Trees

Redwood National Park

Green © 2013 Bo Mackison

“A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

“So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
~ Hermann Hesse

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-artist, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Today I wandered through my many notebooks and journals, in search  of quotes about trees.

Autumn Equinox, Pomegranates, And a Welcome Autumn Ritual

Pomegranate, Split Open

Pomegranate, Split Open © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything.” ~ Robert Browning

The autumnal equinox, which arrives today, mid-afternoon, marks the time of year when day equals night, twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night, and when the Sun rises due east and sets due west. A time to look back at summer’s joys and anticipate autumn and the blessed times in the near future. (Awaiting arrival of first grandchild!)

According to Greek mythology, Persephone and a few pomegranate seeds caused the change of the seasons. The Autumn Equinox marks the day when Persephone enters the underworld, and her mother Demeter, in mourning, refuses to allow anything to grow on the earth (well, at least in the northern hemisphere) until her daughter returns in six months time.

As the myth goes, Hades, god of the underworld, kidnaps Persephone and takes her into his world. Her mother, Demeter, with the help of other deities, finally finds her daughter in the underworld. Hades unhappily agrees to allow Persephone to return to her mother, but only if she has not eaten anything while in the underworld. Unfortunately, Persephone has eaten six pomegranate seeds. Hades and Demeter reach an agreement, and Persephone must spend 6 months with Hades and six months with her mother every year. On the Autumn Equinox, Persephone enters the underworld and does not return until Spring Equinox.

It seems appropriate, on this first day of autumn, to gather the harvest and spend time in the kitchen. The tomatoes of all sorts — a few Big Boys, the last of the Romas, and a wild variety of heirlooms — combine to make a tomato sauce honoring the day. Instead of the quick sauces of the summer, I spend my time in the kitchen blanching, peeling, and seeding the tomatoes, then add garlic and onions, and long simmer until it’s a perfect sauce for the freezer. Late summer tomatoes are a such welcome treat as the daylight shrinks.

Giving thanks, too, for this summer’s remarkable harvest, delivered fresh to my door courtesy of my local CSA. (Thanks, CrossRoads Community Farms!

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-artist, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Celebrating the Autumn Equinox with a freshly made batch of tomato sauce, a delicato squash pizza in the oven, and Green Bay Packer football.

The Wind, One Brilliant Day

Prairie Seeding, Late Summer

Late Summer © 2013 Bo Mackison

Seeker, there is no path. The path is made by walking.”
~ Antonio Machado

The Calling

The wind, one brilliant day, called.
The clouds, one brilliant day, glided.
The monastery bell, one brilliant day, echoed.
The crickets, one brilliant day, whistled.
The goldenrod, one brilliant day, waved.
The honey bee, one brilliant day, danced.
The seed heads, one brilliant day, shimmered.
The meadowlark, one brilliant day, chanted.
The tall grasses, one brilliant day, beckoned.

My body, one brilliant day, paused.
My mind, one brilliant day, listened.
My heart, one brilliant day, opened.
My soul, one brilliant day, leapt.
My spirit, one brilliant day, accepted.

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Today I brought my day pack — journal and pen, book, camera, lunch — and walked the prairie trail at Holy Wisdom Monastery near Madison. Afterwards, I sat on a bench overlooking the late summer prairie, Lake Mendota glittering in the distance, and read from The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau.

My imagination was triggered by a line in the book, a few words from Spanish poet Antonio Machado — “the wind, one brilliant day, called…” And so I give credit to Machado for the first line of the above poem.

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Today I walked the prairie and considered the universe.