Quest – A Desert Wisdom Card

Rocks - Desert Wisdom Card

Tramadol Sale Online A Path of Rocks ©2013 Bo Mackison

click here If we are spiritual beings on a human path rather than human beings who may be on a spiritual path . . . then life is not only a journey but a pilgrimage or quest as well. When we experience sacred moments it often is not so much a matter of outer geography but of finding soulful places within ourselves.  ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen in Crossing to Avalon

The QUEST photograph is of a rocky trail in the back canyons of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

source link While walking this trail, I quickly lost sight of the gravel road and ramada near the trail head. It was as if I had entered a wilderness region, far away from civilization. There was evidence of footprints, but at no time did I meet or pass any other hikers. Then, without much warning, clouds gathered and skies darkened with threatening storm.

https://riverhillcurrent.com/pyowsqv74e After I’d ascended one side of the mountain and then descended into the back canyon, I found a large boulder to rest upon. The rising mountains, the canyon arroyo, the cactus and other desert plants offered signs of life, but it was eerily silent in the early afternoon.

source link Each well-considered question can lead to a whole universe of wisdom, because one insight leads to another as the answers come.  ~ Evan T. Pritchard

https://bettierose.co.uk/4ekrxziczsh It was a sacred space, a place to take in the surrounding natural world and consider my place in the grand scheme of things. In the deep silence, I listened deeply as I considered recent paths on my life journey.

A quest can include travel to a sacred place or it can be an inner experience.

https://www.prestoavenuedesigns.com/save/buy-diazepam-online-europe.php It is a time to stop and listen, ask questions, discern answers.

http://geoffnotkin.com/laygu/buy-valium-overnight.php The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

QUEST offers these questions/options for journal prompts, creative activities, and calls to action:

  • What lessons might be learned when traveling on a rocky path? What questions might be asked while on a quest?
  • While looking at the photograph, visualize climbing the first rocky step and consider a challenge you are facing.  Then while climbing the rest of the steps, think of a positive action you can take as you climb ever higher.
  • Consider planning a pilgrimage to a sacred site, a place that has personal spiritual significance. This might be a historical church or other place of worship, a shrine, a labyrinth, a historical site, a quiet garden setting. Plan an activity for the visit – take photographs, make a pencil or watercolor sketch, create a scrapbook page, write a journal entry or pen a few lines of poetry.

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https://tudiabetesbajocontrol.com/relanzam/buy-real-valium-online-uk.php Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Bo is creating a deck of Desert Wisdom Cards to provide a focus and a framework for reflection, to encourage a connection with nature, using a Sonoran Desert theme – its myths and stories, cultures and heritage, and the desert’s remarkable natural beauty and resources.

Towards Nonexistence

Organ Pipe Cactus

source site A Tumble of Cactus © 2013 Bo Mackison

https://hereisnewyorkv911.org/ina2umadug ”Like homeopathic medicine, the essence of wabi-sabi is apportioned in small doses. As the dose decreases, the effect becomes more potent, more profound. The closer things get to nonexistence, the more exquisite and evocative they become. Consequently to experience wabi-sabi means you have to slow way down, be patient, and look very closely.”
~ Leonard Koren in Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

https://www.boasdeibiza.com/boat/valium-visa.php I took dozens of photographs of organ pipe cacti last week. It was a major preoccupation while I was camping at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I found a few specimens that were perfect to the discerning eye – not an easy feat when a cactus typically stands  8 to 10 feet high, the older ones reach heights twice that size. Each has eight to fifteen stems, though some of the ancient giants have twenty or more.

get link It was not the symmetrically formed, unscathed cacti that captured most of my attention. I loved the cacti that had character, the ones marked with scars and age . . . and great beauty. Desiccated arms tangled with vibrant greens and golden greens. New buds of growth twisted around aged skeletons.

go to link I loved the cactus that carried marks of its challenges with below freezing temperatures or prolonged cold spells. Indentations on the stems are the result of the freezing and death of vulnerable tissue on the stem ends.

go here When new growth appears, the plant is marked by circular strictures on the pipes. These cactus have gone through hardships, and survived, marked by the challenges of life in a harsh environment. The bumpier an organ pipe cactus, the more battles it has met with climate at the northern reaches of its habitat.

Buy Real Tramadol Online This photograph is a Southwest version of photo I took in Wisconsin exploring the same concept – the presence of both life and death in a plant.

https://www.frolic-through-life.com/2025/01/cwmxs5id A walk through this small part of the Sonoran Desert – mostly in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and its adjacent areas in south-central Arizona – offers the only opportunity to see these unique cactus giants in the United States. This small micro-habitat offers the only chance for survival of these warmth-loving plants. Many more grow in the warmer climes of Sonora Mexico.

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watch Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. I continue my exploration of whole and fragments, of extra-ordinary and ordinary.

Layers of Wilderness

Southwest Layers

Valium Online Fast Shipping Canyon Layers © 2013 Bo Mackison

Tramadol Canada Online Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is . . .
Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart
Of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments
and life itself is grace.
                                          ~ Frederich Buechner

Traveling.

Silence is so loud, all of my senses on alert. Bees buzzing in pockets of blooming brittlebush, yellow blossoms swollen with pollen laden landing strips. They buzz my head when I lean in for a closer look.

I take in the spectacle. Cactus with upturned octopus arms stretching towards the sky, mighty saguaro of cartoon fame. Rocks bleeding rusty reds and oranges. I greet these ancients on their sacred ground. I, the newcomer, stare and gawk and take snapshots to send home.

Town is twenty-five miles north – four concrete block houses, an RV park dwarfed by rows of fifty year old palm trees, Shady Palms it’s called. Two gas stations. A faded sign at Edith’s Rock Shop advertises cheap crystals and polished gems.

There’s a diner, Grandma’s Cafe. A border patrol truck, white with the familiar green stripe, is angle parked at the entrance. I eat what the locals eat – bean burritos for breakfast, hot tortillas just flipped on the griddle, strong coffee.

Formica tables and folding chairs fill the room. And a maple dining set, table with two leaves, eight matching chairs, a bouquet of plastic roses centered on a doily. It’s the only available table, yet no one sits there.

The newspaper is a six page shopper with a few local items – a music benefit for a kid with leukemia, a Saturday night BBQ at the church in Ajo, ads for health care and Mexican insurance.

Coke and bottled water pack the refrigerated case, two bucks a bottle if you want something cold to drink. This is the desert.

The cook is Marjie, she’s the waitress, cashier, the owner, too. The regulars ask about her newest grand-baby, Jesus, her fifth, the first boy. “Born at midnight” she says, “Five pounds, six ounces. Already he’s a screamer. Aye yi yi.”

She half-smiles when I offer my congratulation, then balances a tray of dirty dishes half on her hip, hums with the radio static as she disappears into the kitchen.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She explores the whole and the fragments, the extra-ordinary and the ordinary.

 

 

 

 

 

A Still Life in the Desert

Desert Still Life

Desert Still Life © 2013 Bo Mackison

We have what we seek. It is there all the time, and if we give it time it will make itself known to us. ~ Thomas Merton

I am…

a scattering of rocks
mesquite branches, brittle and gray
fading desert blossoms.

I am…

a tattered curtain
a piecemeal quilt
a lock and rusty key.

I am…

a cloud of red dust
tumbleweed dancing
a barbed wire fence.

I am…

an album of faded photographs
a deck of Tarot cards
a poetry book.

I am…

a lost thought
questions, unanswered
a silent meditation.

I am…

pulp and a rolling pin
an inked letter press
warp and weft.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring photography and discovery in a series called Desert Lines – a combination of visual lines and written lines.

Desert Sunshine

Mexican Poppy

Mexican Poppy © 2013 Bo Mackison

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for. ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She repeatedly discovers inspiration while wandering in the Sonoran Desert. https://tvnordestevip.com/8ss0q8hb7bd