Stepping Out on World Sauntering Day

Stepping Stones

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.

A Sunday Walk in Thomson Prairie

Fluff Ball

Prairie Fluff © 2013 Bo Mackison

…the joy of prairie lies in its subtlety.  It is so easy—too easy—to be swept away by mountain and ocean vistas.  A prairie, on the other hand, requests the favor of your closer attention.  It does not divulge itself to mere passersby.
~ Suzanne Winckler, Prairie: A North American Guide (2004)

For this week’s hike, I walked the Thomson Prairie. One does not “hike” in a prairie, especially if it is a wild prairie –  no paths, no guided signs describing the view or the habitat or the inhabitants. This is how a prairie should be, it appears from afar to be a landscape of emptiness, but instead it is a land of thick, twisting plants, stretching tall.

Wading through these tangles of thick grasses and flowers in this mostly native prairie is pure delight, but it is not a casual stroll by any means. More a picking your way through a maze of vertical growth, choosing the way that appears to have an opening, though truly, in a wild prairie, there are no openings. Every space filled with that which grows tall, reaching towards the sun.

Thompson Prairie

Prairie in June © 2013 Bo Mackison

The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work. ~ Walter de Maria

This is prairie in mid-June. In another month or so, the view won’t be of the far away farms and the gently rolling landscape of the non-glaciated western half of Wisconsin. It will be of grasses that stand taller than most humans, flowers that bloom high over our heads.

I’ve never walked through a wilderness prairie fully grown, one untamed by the hands of humans, but I am looking forward to the experience in another month.

Thompson Prairie Prairie in June

How High is the Prairie Grass in June? © 2013 Bo Mackison

It seems to be a constant contradiction of itself.  It is delicate, yet resilient; it appears to be simple, but closer inspection indicates that it is extremely complex; it may appear monotonous, but it is diverse and ever-changing throughout the seasons. ~ James Stubbendieck

Thompson Prairie

Daisies in the Prairie © 2013 Bo Mackison

Without a complex knowledge of one’s place, and without the faithfulness to one’s place on which such knowledge depends, it is inevitable that the place will be used carelessly and eventually destroyed.
~ Wendell Berry

Thompson Prairie

Weighed Down Thistle © 2013 Bo Mackison

That was my country—Terrible winds and a wonderful emptiness. ~ Georgia O’Keefe

Thompson Prairie

High Winds and Yellow Hawkweed © 2013 Bo Mackison

On the prairie, what you are left with is the bare truth, the land pared down to the bone, the basic dirt and grass and sky that shape the lives that play out upon it. ~ Tom Groneberg

A prairie walk is a fine way to explore the earth. Grasses shine like flickering lights, waxing and waning as the sun slides in and out of the scattered clouds.

With so little prairie remaining — Wisconsin’s original 10 million acres has been whittled to  a mere 12,000 acres by farming and other land uses — it is a rare enough experience. Pure prairie pleasure!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo is creating a deck  of Wisdom Cards. The first set, the Desert Wisdom Cards, feature a Sonoran Desert theme. Now she is getting re-acquainted with the prairie and grasslands in preparation for the next featured habitat.

Wabi Sabi Peony

Wabi-sabi Peony

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.

The Filling Tree

Old Oak

Ancient Oak © 2013 Bo Mackison

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” ~ Pablo Picasso

This tree, an ancient oak, stands a few yards from the mown path through meadow and a prairie restoration. Solid, deeply connected in the earth, a tribute to time.

Whenever I pass this tree, I stop. Compelled to stop. I seem unable to walk past the tree without pausing, walking through the brambles and sticks of growing sumac, until I stand next to this giant. Rest my hand on its bark. That’s all. Just rest my hand upon it, and connect its pulse with my pulse. Sap beat. Heart beat.

I think. I wait. I breathe. I peer into he upper most branches. I feel my feet grounded on the earth, as the tree is grounded the earth. I run my finger through along the ridges and the valleys of the wood. I see pictures in its wavy trunk lines. I listen the woodpecker’s drumming. I stand in the shadow of the tree, and notice the breeze that swirls around the both of us. The experience fills me.

And then I continue on my walk.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She explores wherever she goes, with and without her camera.

Relationship – A Desert Wisdom Card

Relationship - A Desert Wisdom Card

Saguaro and Nurse Tree © 2013 Bo Mackison

All things carry the yin (femininity) while embrace the yang (masculinity).
Neutralising energy brings them into harmony.”  ~ Tao Te Ching

In the Sonoran Desert, the saguaro cactus sets seed and grows under the protection of another plant.

This larger plant is often a tree, and referred to as a nurse tree. As the saguaro slowly grows into maturity,  the tree withers and dies at its mature age. The relationship between the saguaro and the nurse tree supports continuation of life in the desert.

There are yin and yang relationships in nature, between people, and within each person. These relationships represent as paired opposites – masculinity and femininity, darkness and light, discipline and chaos. The relationships are not separate, but connected; the roots are intertwined. At times, one quality strengthens as the opposite quality wanes. A delicate balancing act, back and forth, keeps the relationship in equilibrium.

Everything is integral and interacts with everything else. This means that nothing is itself without everything else. There is a commonality, an integrity, an intimacy of the universe with itself.” ~ Thomas Berry

Life is not an absolute. Neither are characteristics of nature, relationships between people, or one’s own identity.

Situations are seldom purely black or white, good or bad. There is a seed of sadness in happiness, a seed of fear in a courageous act, a seed of opportunity in failure.

RELATIONSHIP offers questions/reflections for journal writing and art activities:

  • Do a ten minute free write on this statement. “Every person shares characteristics of both the feminine and the masculine.”
  • Create a picture using only black, white, and shades of gray.
    • Leaf through magazines or newspapers, and cut out small sections of papers that are white, black, or any shade of gray. Cut the papers into 1 inch by 1/2 inch strips.
    • Choose a simple object — a coffee cup or a chair. Using the strips, create a picture blending the blacks, whites and grays. It can be as realistic or as abstract as you like.
    • Note how the blacks, the whites and the grays interact as you create, and how the many grays contribute to the completed project.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo is creating a deck  of Wisdom Cards. The first set, the Desert Wisdom Cards, feature a Sonoran Desert theme – its myths and stories, cultures and heritage, and the desert’s remarkable natural beauty and resources.