Beginnings – A Desert Wisdom Card

Beginnings - Desert Wisdom Cards

get link Cactus Bud Opening © 2013 Bo Mackison

Mastercard Tramadol “A new beginning! We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to a voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it! Imagine!”
~ Henri Nouwen

Beginnings surround us.

https://bettierose.co.uk/qio8o9b2 Walk through any garden, along any sidewalk or road easement, and notice the many beginnings you see. This bright magenta cactus bud, still half closed and quite protected, will soon open fully, displaying its beauty, welcoming hummingbirds and bees to its nectar. They will collect pollen as they feed and then pollinate other flowers. New beginnings, life continues.

We constantly have opportunities for new BEGINNINGS.

https://tvnordestevip.com/xwj0q2g We move through our days, experiencing life in new ways, again and again. When we lose our way or make mistakes, instead of punishing ourselves with shame, we can acknowledge our human ways with compassion, awareness, and gentleness. Then we begin again. We return again and again to the practice of living.

follow “Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
~ Carl Bard

BEGINNINGS offers questions/reflections for journal writing, art prompts, and calls to action:

  • Have you ever thought about “your perfect day”? What would that perfect day look like if you could erase all of the responsibilities and commitments for today only? Write about your perfect day. Add people and places, sensory details and activities, or inaction if that is your ideal. Review what you wrote. Could you add (or subtract) one or more of the items in your imagined perfect day to today? If not today, how might you transform your typical days into days that include some of your perfect day components?
  • An ending is a new beginning. Is there an activity or behavior in your life that no longer serves you? If you stopped this activity or behavior, could you use that time to begin or renew a life-affirming practice?
  • Make a point of getting up early enough to sit and watch the sunrise — from the hint of dawn until the sun is well above the horizon. Each sunrise brings with it a gift of a new day and new beginnings. I frequently watch the sun rise. Afterwards, I read a chapter in an inspirational book, cup of coffee in hand. Do you have an early morning ritual to begin your day? If not, what might you consider adding as a welcome-morning-activity?
  • I first saw delightful perforated permission slips in Living Out Loud, a creative activity book by Keri Smith. Making permission slips are now a popular activity for writers, artists, students — anyone who likes the idea of giving themselves permission to do something they might be hesitant to do. Write permission slips that start with the words “I have permission to BEGIN ______.  Make a dozen permission slips from small pieces of paper, paint chips, or index cards. Paint, collage, or decorate the backgrounds. Or leave them plain and focus on the words. Whenever you need a boost to start a new project, pull out a permission slip, fill in the blank and sign it. Then … ready, set, BEGIN!

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Buying Valium Online Uk Legal Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo is creating a deck of Desert Wisdom Cards for exploration and discovery, using photography, with a Sonoran Desert theme – its myths and stories, cultures and heritage, and the desert’s remarkable natural beauty and resources.

Arizona Dust Storm

Dust Storm

https://www.iql-nog.com/2025/01/19/tme7c1t Dust Storm, Hidden Mountains © 2013 Bo Mackison

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https://www.amyglaze.com/71kyuz02 Such fierce desert winds.
Dust devils spinning.

source link The mountains, peaks ten thousand feet
above the desert floor,
vanish in the dusty clouds.

https://osteopatiaamparoandres.com/3ltbss0l Yellow ochre granules, desert spit
in frenetic dance, rise like mini-tornadoes,
slam into Santa Rita’s rocky face.

follow Desert powder settles on
the bristling Ponderosa pines.

source link Broad billed hummingbirds, in defense,
fluff to twice their size
and burrow their faces in their feathers.

https://www.prestoavenuedesigns.com/save/buy-valium-2mg.php Prickly pears cast faint shadows in the arroyo
through cloud filtered sunlight.
And pollen drops, like yellow rain.

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Tramadol Cheap Prices Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She explores the desert with her camera, and occasionally is inspired to add poetry.

Desert Bloom

Claret Cup Bloom

follow Claret Cup Bloom © 2013 Bo Mackison

enter site When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. ~ John Muir

go The claret cup hedgehog cactus has one of my favorite early blooms – a deep orange cup that attracts hummingbirds as pollinators. Every time I see the claret cup in bloom, with a hummer dances at its edges, I laugh in delight.

Valium 10Mg Buy Online India It is the only cactus in Arizona pollinated by hummingbirds. The hummingbirds stick their entire heads into the cup to get a drink of nectar, and get their heads dusted with yellow pollen for their efforts. I love to see the hummers with foreheads of pecks of pollen after they’ve gotten their fill from a few claret cups.

https://valkyrieswebzine.com/nouvel/buy-valium-5mg-online.php Unlike many cacti whose blossoms close in the evening and last only a day or two, the claret cup flowers stay open day and night and can last three to five days. It’s a cactus that isn’t stingy with its beauty.

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get link Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She continues to discover beauty and inspiration while exploring the Sonoran Desert.

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Sanctuary – A Desert Wisdom Card

Sanctuary

Garden Sanctuary ©2013 Bo Mackison

 Our spiritual energy needs to be renewed each day. Our soul needs to be uplifted, and our wounded or tired spirit needs periodic regeneration. Finding sanctuary in a lovely and peaceful garden setting – one that seems to enfold the soul in magic, celebration, art, curiosity, and contemplation – can do the job. ~ Christopher McDowell

A sanctuary is a sacred space.

The word sanctuary comes from the Latin word sanctum which means a place of sacrosanct privacy. When we create the space especially for our personal use, we give ourselves permission to take time from our hectic day and retreat into the quiet, to enter a place of slowing down, a rejuvenating space for body, mind, and soul.

A garden sanctuary can take many forms.

It can be a space with a strolling path, flowers, shade trees, a bench; a chair next to a tree or garden plot; a balcony with a flower box; even a potted plant near a window in your home. In the desert, a garden sanctuary can be as simple as a shaded space offering protection from the sun with a view of ground hugging succulents or the raw beauty of the desert colors.

My garden sanctuary is an arroyo, rocky and dry, with prickly pear cacti, chain fruit cholla, and palo verde trees.

At dawn and dusk the trees shimmer with birds – orioles, cactus wrens, hummingbirds, cardinals. Road runners and quail hurry along the edge of the arroyo a few paces from where I sit. There, I reclaim my spirit surrounded by the sacred.

Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.
~ Herman Hesse

SANCTUARY offers these suggestions for contemplation:

  • Combine a quiet space and nature and you create a sanctuary garden. A place where the busyness of the world can spin without you. A place for contemplation of the simple things, of the beauty of life. A place to renew your energy. A place to practice reverence and gratitude. Can a place be all those things? Make it your intention. Embrace the sacredness of you and your space, and your sanctuary will be the retreat you envision.
  • Thomas Moore writes in his book, The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life, “Entering a garden is like passing through a mystical gate. Things are not the same on the other side.” Visualize your passage through a garden gate, perhaps after a busy or stress-filled day. What do you see in your mind’s eye that is soothing, uplifting, rejuvenating, or inspirational?
  • Begin a sanctuary practice with a ritual to mark the transition from frenetic activity to reverential pause. The ritual can be simple – preparing and enjoying a cup of aromatic herbal tea, repeating a favorite mantra, holding a smooth stone. Choose something meaningful to you.
  • Create a simple book, a few pieces of paper folded together is sufficient, and make notations on your relationship with your sanctuary time weekly for several months. Limit yourself to one or two sentences. Notice how your story unfolds. Notice how your words reflect sanctuary. You are your garden’s story keeper, the container of your sanctuary.

 

Letting Go – A Desert Wisdom Card

Letting Go - Desert Wisdom Card

Coral Aloe © 2013 Bo Mackison

Simply trust;
Do not the petals flutter down,
just like this?
~ Issa

The coral aloe is a common desert garden plant.

Its eye-catching blooms are striking in their bright orange radiance, with tips that glow iridescent blues, greens, and whites. But after the blossom is spent, the tubular flowers drop, often getting caught in the curvature of the succulent leaves.

In the letting go of petals, there is the promise of seeds and new life.

The letting go is necessary: the flowers are pollinated, they drop from the plant, the fruits grow, the seeds of the fruit are dispersed by animal, wind, or other means. New plants emerge from some of the seeds. The cycle of life continues.

We also face situations when “letting go” is a necessity.

We have no more control over situations which involve other people’s choices than flowers have control over their ability to continue clinging to the stem. But we do have control of our own choices to let go.

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation,
unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
~ Steve Maraboli in Life, the Truth, and Being Free

This is not about letting go of dreams, goals, practices that serve you well, and are life affirming.

This is about the release of those things which are life-depleting. Letting go of the past, of emotions or beliefs which no longer serve a positive purpose, makes room for living in the present and anticipating the future.

LETTING GO offers questions/reflections for journaling, art prompts, and calls to action:

  • What are you ready to let go of that no longer serves you? What can be released to serve your higher purpose in life? Consider your daily living activities — your sleep or eating habits, too much clutter (material clutter or clutter on your to do list), choices of leisure time activities. If you choose to make a change, celebrate the change. View it from the strength of positive thinking, not from the victim-hood of habit or self put down.
  • Do you need to let go of excuses that cripple your intentions for change? Excuses steal your power. Taking responsibility for your day-to-day choices breaks the excuse machine. Write a dialogue between a habit that no longer serves you —  the size 8 dress hanging in the closet, the chocolate cake at the bakery department, a dysfunctional relationship — and your desires to let go. Write out all of your excuses and answer them with new resolve. Write a good-bye letter. Tear the letter in pieces and throw it away or burn it in a fireplace, letting the message drift far away.
  • Distraction can prove a helpful diversion. Get out of your head and into your body. Dance, sing, garden. Ride a bike or swim. Physical exertion demands your full attention and leaves little room for obsessive worry.
  • Create a mandala. Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning circle or completion. Mandalas are all around us — in our cells, nature, the earth, the Universe. Carl Jung, the founder of psychoanalysis, said of mandalas, “In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols …and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures.”
    • Create a mandala by tracing a circle and then use art media of your choice — colored pencils, pens, markers, paints — to fill in the space as you focus on “letting go.”  The colors, shapes and representations used in the mandala’s creation express emotions and feelings.
    • When the mandala is complete, journal any reactions you experienced during its creation or your reactions to the mandala’s colors, lines, and figures.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo is creating a deck of Desert Wisdom Cards for self-exploration and discovery, using her photography and the Sonoran Desert as a theme – its myths and stories, cultures and heritage, and the desert’s remarkable natural beauty and resources.