Visiting with Aldo Leopold

Through the Sand Barrens to the Wisconsin River

Through the Sand Barrens to the Wisconsin River © 2013 Bo Mackison

I visited with Aldo Leopold.

Well, I didn’t exactly see Aldo in person, but I walked the paths Aldo walked, gazed at the river scenes Aldo studied, photographed the prairie flowers Aldo sketched and wrote about, and clumped along in the sand where Aldo would have walked 70 years ago.

You may be wondering who is this Aldo Leopold. His name is not a household word unless you are into the study of ecology and environmental issues. Yet he was one of the first scientists to discuss the land ethic — taking care of our earth is a sustainable manner.

Curt Meine, a research associate of the International Crane Foundation, wrote:

“Aldo Leopold was a forester and wildlife ecologist who wrote A Sand County Almanac, a collection of essays about the natural world and conservation. The book was published posthumously in 1949. A Sand County Almanac went on to become one of the key texts of the environment movement. Leopold is closely identified with “The Land Ethic,” the final essay in the Almanac, in which he argued that people are part of the “land community,” and so bear moral responsibilities that extend beyond the realm of the human to include the non-human parts of that community.”

Path through Sand Barrens

Through the Sand Barrens © 2013 Bo Mackison

Sherpa and I walked from the quiet country road that meanders through wooded land, past Aldo Leopold’s Shack, and through the sand barrens to the shores of the Wisconsin River. The land is rather wild, even though it is a part of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and has a schedule of tours to walk some of the trails, visit the inside of the shack, and listen to the life story of Leopold. Most people don’t hike the extra mile to the river, and so we spectacular hiking and plenty of solitude.

Aldo Leopold's Shack, A National Landmark

Aldo Leopold’s Shack, A National Landmark © 2013 Bo Mackison

Leopold was a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the 1940s. He purchased this simple shack during that time, and he and his family spent most weekends here. He was a keen observer of the natural world and its interconnectedness with man. He wrote detailed accounts of the world as he observed it — phenological records — including weather, plant cycles, animal activity. And man’s impact upon the natural world.

Prairie Rosinweed

Prairie Rosinweed © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Keeping records enhances the pleasure of the search and the chance of finding order and meaning in these events.” ~ Aldo Leopold

Canoing the Wisconsin River

Canoeing the Wisconsin River © 2013 Bo Mackison

“There are two things that interest me, the relationship of people to each other and the relationship of people to the land.”
~ Aldo Leopold

Prairie Meets River

Prairie Meets River © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal.”
~ Aldo Leopold

Aldo's Land

Hidden Land – Aldo’s Land © 2013 Bo Mackison

“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” ~Aldo Leopold

Sand Barrens Sandscape

Sand Barrens Sandscape © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.” ~Aldo Leopold

Today I celebrate my 60th birthday. I had intended on taking a day trip to the Leopold land, but inclement weather thwarted my plans. So instead, I’m sharing photographs from a day I spent at Leopold’s Shack in August. I’m also sharing a few of my favorite quotes from Aldo Leopold.

It is, in part, from studying his writings that I have developed my own land ethic and sense of values.

Visiting with Aldo Leopold

Through the Sand Barrens to the Wisconsin River

Through the Sand Barrens to the Wisconsin River © 2013 Bo Mackison

I visited with Aldo Leopold. Well, I didn’t exactly see Aldo in person, but I walked the paths Aldo walked, gazed at the river scenes Aldo studied, photographed the prairie flowers Aldo sketched and wrote about, and clumped along in the sand where Aldo would have walked 70 years ago.

You may be wondering who is this Aldo Leopold. His name is not a household word unless you are into the study of ecology and environmental issues. Yet he was one of the first scientists to discuss the land ethic — taking care of our earth is a sustainable manner.

Curt Meine, a research associate of the International Crane Foundation, wrote:

“Aldo Leopold was a forester and wildlife ecologist who wrote A Sand County Almanac, a collection of essays about the natural world and conservation. The book was published posthumously in 1949. A Sand County Almanac went on to become one of the key texts of the environment movement. Leopold is closely identified with “The Land Ethic,” the final essay in the Almanac, in which he argued that people are part of the “land community,” and so bear moral responsibilities that extend beyond the realm of the human to include the non-human parts of that community.”

Path through Sand Barrens

Through the Sand Barrens © 2013 Bo Mackison

Sherpa and I walked from the quiet country road that meanders through wooded land, past Aldo Leopold’s Shack, and through the sand barrens to the shores of the Wisconsin River. The land is rather wild, even though it is a part of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and has a schedule of tours to walk some of the trails, visit the inside of the shack, and listen to the life story of Leopold.  Most people don’t hike the extra mile to the river, and so we spectacular hiking and plenty of solitude.

Aldo Leopold's Shack, A National Landmark

Aldo Leopold’s Shack, A National Landmark © 2013 Bo Mackison

Leopold was a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the 1940s. He purchased this simple shack during that time, and he and his family spent most weekends here. He was a keen observer of the natural world and its interconnectedness with man. He wrote detailed accounts of the world as he observed it — phenological records — including weather, plant cycles, animal activity.  And man’s impact upon the natural world.

Prairie Rosinweed

Prairie Rosinweed © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Keeping records enhances the pleasure of the search and the chance of finding order and meaning in these events.” ~ Aldo Leopold

Canoing the Wisconsin River

Canoeing the Wisconsin River © 2013 Bo Mackison

“There are two things that interest me, the relationship of people to each other and the relationship of people to the land.”
~ Aldo Leopold

Prairie Meets River

Prairie Meets River © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal.”
~ Aldo Leopold

Aldo's Land

Hidden Land – Aldo’s Land © 2013 Bo Mackison

“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” ~Aldo Leopold

Sand Barrens Sandscape

Sand Barrens Sandscape © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.” ~Aldo Leopold

~~~~~~~~~~

Bo Mackison is photographer, book-maker, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Today I celebrate my 60th birthday. I had intended on taking a day trip to the Leopold land, but inclement weather thwarted my plans. So instead, I’m sharing photographs from a day I spent at Leopold’s Shack in August. I’m also sharing a few of my favorite quotes from Aldo Leopold. It is, in part,  from studying his writings that I have developed my own land ethic and sense of values.

Finding Rituals in Memories

Bench with a View

Bench with a View © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Ritual practice is the activity of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness.” ~ Ronald L. Grimes

This is the bench where I sat while I contemplated the day, my life, the world, even the boundlessness of the universe. I was  restless. Untethered. I had just finished a project I’d been pouring my soul into for the past six months. It was time to send my work, my labor of love, out into the world. And though this was a time of fruition and celebration, it also was a time of saying goodbye, letting go, even a bit of grieving. I seemed to be going through a bit of postpartum blues after birthing my project and readying my official announcement to launch my Desert Wisdom Cards into the public realm.

Realizing this is a common reaction to the completion of a beloved project — joy coupled with letting go — I sat in solitude and let my mind wander. I decided to create a ritual to both celebrate and provide a sense of closure to this part of my creative life.

I took in my surroundings. The prairie grasses were yellowing, the summer flowers had set seed. The apple trees were over laden with ripened fruit, and some of the apples had dropped onto the earth. Cracked walnuts were along the paths. Yet there was evidence of bustling life all around me. Geese in flight, meadowlarks perching in the maple trees, the autumn flowers of the prairie — showy goldenrod, purple asters, daisy fleabane — in full bloom.

I considered what was happening under the surface. This summer has been one of multiple losses. I’d anticipated that the completion of my Desert Wisdom Cards would bring fulfillment and joy. They did, but they also touched  gently upon more feelings of grief. I understood that this feeling was temporary, there were other projects waiting for my attention, but I also wanted to honor this time of transition.

That All May Be One

That All May Be One ©2013 Bo Mackison

And so I searched for a meaningful ritual, one that might bring a feeling of comfort and acceptance, of saying goodbye while looking forward with anticipation.  So I asked a few questions…

What could I use as a guide?  What components might be in a transitioning ritual? What would a healing place hold?

  • the night sky, dark, abundant with stars
  • open spaces, open minds
  • spiritual spaces, resting spaces, thinking places
  • a container that contained my curiosities, my questions, my collections
  • quiet, slow, peaceful
  • folk art, expressive art, art that tells a story, art that has heart
  • kindnesses and little gifts (When traveling it is customary to bring tiny gifts in exchange for kindnesses received along the path and to those who share their stories.)
  • a place in nature, ecological, in balance
  • a place my great-grandmother would have loved

The last thought — a place my great-grandmother would have loved — was the trigger that helped me address my longings. I thought of the many things I’d learned from my great-grandmother when I was a child, of the many things she’d loved. I thought of the changing season, summer sliding into autumn, of the routines we had made extraordinary in their repetition as we did our late summer chores with love and respect and companionship.

We picked a late summer flower, a single blossom, from the garden every morning and placed it in a tiny vase on my great-grandmother’s dressing table. We gathered the remainder of the harvest from the vegetable garden before the first hard frost, cleaned and cut the vegetables, and made huge pots of vegetable soup with my grandfather’s supervision.

Pears

Pears, Ripe on the Branch © 2013 Bo Mackison

We cooked applesauce, apple butter, peach preserves. Then spent the last hot days of summer canning our bounty. We made dough, rolled it out, and cut the dough into long noodles. We dried herbs on racks in the pantry. We raked the garden and added to our compost pile. We pulled the quilts and blankets out of storage, and draped them over several back yard clothes lines to air in the breeze.

We adapted our evening rituals to the sun’s earlier schedule. Instead of sitting on the porch after supper, chatting with passing neighbors, we set up a table in the kitchen for puzzles and games. Once it started getting dark while we ate supper, we fell into a simple routine of cleaning the kitchen, then playing games of Parcheesi or Pokeno. We would take an evening walk around the outside of the house just before bedtime, making sure all was as it should be, admiring the starlit skies.

So much love and care and honor went into these simple actions. Home and hearth. Routines and rituals – all good for the soul.

Today I jotted down a few reminders – ways to prepare for the changing season, routines to ease the change from busy day to rejuvenating evening, rituals to remind me of the sacredness in the ordinary. Simple actions – gardening, cooking, preparation for autumn.

Do you long for a way to honor the changing seasons, for the ordinary turned extraordinary by the practice of ritual? What might you add (or subtract) from your days in honor of the ordinary, the sacred?

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Bo Mackison is photographer, book-artist, collector of stories, naturalist, curator and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Today I thought of my grandparents and great-grandmother and contemplated one of the gifts they gave me –the quest for routine and ritual.

 

 

Walking in the Redwoods – An Experience of Awe

Looking Up

Looking Up ©2013 Bo Mackison

“Going to the woods is going home.” ~ John Muir

The magnificent redwoods have been on my bucket list for years, circled in bright red ink, one of those must-see wonders. So when my daughter proposed an add-on vacation to her work trip in northern California, and asked if I wanted to join her, the answer was a no hesitation, emphatic “YES!”

My kids are National Park junkies. Sherpa and I guided sojourns through the United States on an annual basis – two or three weeks on the road in August every year from the time our youngest was 5 and able to enjoy long roads trips. We even managed a few trips with college aged kids, though less regular, so our family has memories of many travels through the 48 contiguous states. There are parts of the country we didn’t travel through, not because of interest, but because we ran out of parents-with-children vacation years.

We never traveled the Everglades in Florida, most of the gulf coast of Florida, Upper Michigan; we only did brief forays into Delaware, Connecticut, Oregon and Nevada. And, though we flew to Sacramento for a family wedding many years ago, we couldn’t add vacation time, and so we never explored the National Parks in northern California or southern Oregon.

Through a Redwood

Looking Through ©2013 Bo Mackison

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ~ John Muir

When the opportunity to explore Redwood National Park came, we didn’t hesitate. We went.

We sat on the beaches, watching the waves of the Pacific pound the coast in its infinite process, turning larger black bits of sand into tinier bits. We hiked the Cathedral Trees Trail and the Fern Canyon Trail, sometimes laughing as the trees dripped on our backs, more often silenced in awe by the mere presence of these giants.

We explored an old giant, half living, half in various states of decay. The ancient tree offered us a rare view — we ducked into an opening between two roots and stood in the inner chamber of a redwood. We were in the tree’s inner sanctum, and when we peered  upwards, we had a view of the canopies of the surrounding trees.

Travel like this – time to explore, connect, breathe – it is the stuff of the mystical. A bit of the spiritual, a bit of the poetic, a bit of the artistic and the naturalist. A time to search for our deepest desires, our truest meaning – that which we hold within, an inkling of what we might yet be.

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Bo Mackison is photographer, traveler, collector of stories, naturalist, and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  In August, I stood in the redwood groves of the coastal California, in awe, and I remain humbled by their magnificence.

Yes, These are Redwoods and They are Magnificent!

Redwood Abstract

Redwood Abstract © 2013 Bo Mackison

“The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”
~ John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley – In Search of America

Look at these trees.

Coastal redwoods stretching three hundred feet towards the clouds. Examine the details. Can you separate the grooved bark from the whispers of sequoia needles? Can you see your way to the sky? Can you hear their silence, your heart beating as you imagine standing in the red earth of ancient redwoods, peering at this generation of trees?

We hike the Cathedral Trail in Redwoods National Park.

Aptly named. Standing under the these giants, dwarfed and insignificant, this is more of a cathedral than any humanly constructed cathedral ever entered.

I creep into this time vacuum, standing with my palms pressed tightly against a tree’s bark.

I feel the heartbeat of the earth. Standing in redwood earth, crumbled mother tree from ancient days, her offspring encircle me. Nine trees in a ring, I stand and peer through leafy air, see only a suggestion of blue beyond treetops.

In rare sunlight, a potpourri of dust motes swirl about our faces. We are in the presence of the ancients, in a world we barely recognize. Silent soliloquy, the trees speak.

 In August, I stood in the redwood groves of the coastal California.