Snowflakes

Blizzard 2012

Snow Trees © 2012 Bo Mackison

The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place. ~ Zen Saying

I mostly stayed indoors while the snowstorm swirled about, while each snowflake fell in its appropriate place. I had a second day of rest and quiet, while outside, workers put forth their best efforts to push all those snowflakes into human-convenient places.

None of the snowflakes cared about flight schedules or airport closings, nor about plans for holiday travel and seasonal gatherings. The snowflakes each fell in their appropriate places. I watched millions of flakes float from the sky, then clump together until the earth was deeply covered.

This morning the sun rose, shining brightly on all those appropriately placed snowflakes. They shimmered, sparkled, I was an audience of one, watching a light-dance upon the white. Quite the performance, in my backyard.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She no longer is watching the weather reports nor the flight delay lists. She is watching the snowflakes shimmer in their appropriate places.

Backyard Blizzard

Blizzard 2012

Backyard Blizzard © 2012 Bo Mackison

Madison hasn’t had much snow these past two months, but we appear to be making it up in hasty fashion. A winter’s storm/blizzard/thundersnow is in full blast and I am appreciative of the beautiful white coating on the natural world.We’ve got eight inches on the ground, maybe another eight inches more to fall.

I am appreciative of the moisture from the heavens that is now upon the earth, soon to melt into the earth and increase our low water table.

I am appreciative of my warm home, a furnace that is kicking on and off with regularity, the bowl of beef barley soup I just ate for lunch, warm clothes, warm and cozy everything.

Blizzard 2012

Snow Laden Pine Trees © 2012 Bo Mackison

I am appreciative that the airlines have cancelled all the flights from New York City to my part of the Midwest due to extremely bad weather and flight conditions, and that the safety of all passengers and crew completely outweighs the fact that my two daughters are in New York City as I write. One had a flight to Madison today, the other has a flight tomorrow morning. The planned Christmas with all of my children is now unlikely.

Still, the snow is lovely to behold. Blustery, but beautiful. And we are all safe and healthy.

I’m thinking that I haven’t created a snow angel in several decades, and maybe today is the day to resurrect that fun, somewhat cold, experience. Hmm…

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is spending the holidays in Madison, and watching the weather reports in Tucson and New York City.

 

December Sunrise

Sunrise in December

The Sun Rises ©2012 Bo Mackison

“You don’t need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is.” ~ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Owen Park Gate at Sunrise

Owen Park Fence at Sunrise

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?
E. M. Forster

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Winter clouds, snow and the sunrise – a combination worth getting up early to capture.

Broken Stalks

Ice on Pond and Recent Snowfall
Strickers Pond, First Snow © 2011 Bo Mackison

How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

For many years, I had long periods of time when I felt like a broken stalk, a decaying plant. Blackened, brittle, beyond repair. Beyond care. I couldn’t access my soul, my spirit. I held the broken-ness tightly. It was the only identity I knew.

When I became interested in photography, it was a last-ditch effort to instill a daily routine in my life, a ritual, to focus on a reason to get out of bed each morning and look at the world. Really look at the good in the world, in my world.

Depression sucks life until everything gets covered in a murky, ugly gray. Anxiety turns that gray morass into a roiling fearsome monster. Photography became my potent weapon against depression, anxiety, even despair. Photography provided me with a physical way to add meaning to each day.

It wasn’t that I was not surrounded by a loving husband and family. I was. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the necessities of life and more. I did. But from that place of inner darkness, it was a struggle to appreciate the huge gifts that I had. Family, friends, doctors, therapists — all made monumental efforts to reach that dark place. With their help I made small gains, but I never felt like I had a “real” life.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart . . . forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits. 

~ Hannah More

One of the major changes in my life began with a small change in my day. I began consistently taking at least one photograph each day and posting it to my blog. My goal was to post a daily photo for a year and I did so from October 2007 to October 2008. Once I reached that goal, I continued to shoot every day. What had begun as a few minute practice became a habit and then a creative art, then a career and a passion.

I do not only think of photography as my art, my career. I think of photography as a cosmic gift.  As I pursued photography, it began to light my soul, lighten my spirit. I think it not coincidental that the word photography consists of two Greek words combined into one. “Photo” is derived from “phos” and means “light” in English. “Graphy” is derived from “graphi” which mean to write or draw.

“Photography – to write or draw with light.”

While I repeatedly created photographs, I also shone light into my inner darkness. Gradually the darkness lightened. The murky gray took on color. The roiling emotional monster began to quiet. I was able to breathe deeply, look anew at my surroundings, and see beauty everywhere — in the colors of the tiniest flower, the majesty of a century oak, the grain in polished wood, even in the symmetry and angularity of broken plant stalks on a snowy pond surface.

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. 
~ Jean Paul
Anger is a difficult emotion. It serves no purpose years after an injury or an assault to the mind or body. The anger I held so tightly caused added pain to me and the people I most loved. Yet I didn’t want to let go. I knew anger. I knew anger intimately. The burning fires of anger, so I told myself, kept me alert, kept me alive. And living with this anger also isolated me, which, illogically, gave me a heightened sense of safety.

But anger is a hard master and requires immense energy to keep it burning. I was exhausted. And one more thing, a very important discovery, I was lonely.

It was time to stop the constant longing to change the past. Time to stop protecting myself by maintaining an invisible fence. Time to let go.

People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.
~ Bill Cosby

When I held so tightly to anger, I became strangled by its force. I wanted to be loved, but I was afraid of love. I felt I wasn’t worthy of love, that once someone loved me, they would discover the true me and leave me. I made plenty of mistakes, trying to protect myself while controlling everything and everyone around me.

In letting go of my need to change the past, I can work on today. I can work on forgiving myself. And ask for forgiveness from those whom I have hurt. I am learning. I still have much to learn.

It’s all journey.

A Touch of Snow

Leaf Bouquet

A Touch of Snow © 2011 Bo Mackison

On a trail near Horse Tail Lake in a Cook County Forest Preserve, near Palos Park, Illinois.