Listening to the Land

Before the Storm

Storm Watch © 2013 Bo Mackison

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks.
Most of the time we are simply not patient enough,
quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.
~ Linda Hogan, in Listening to the Land

I spend a lot of time out in nature, standing on the land. Grounding myself in the present. On watch. Listening to the sky as the clouds rumble into each other, listening as the dust blows across the earth, contemplating where the dirt road with the missing gate would take me if I chose to walk its lines.

I believe that this is one of the gifts I was given at this time in my life. I have time, time enough to stand and silently absorb the story of the earth. I have the time it takes to be patient. I have the time it takes to be fully quiet. I live a life of pacing. I am blessed that I can life my life slowly.

If I have the time to listen to the land, then surely I have time to also listen to the inhabitants of this land.

I read an article not so long ago regarding the customs of greeting people. We give automatic responses to each other to one of life’s important questions. “How are you?” we ask, routinely, not waiting for any sort of meaningful response. Even eye to eye contact would be a small gift in this exchange, an acknowledgement. “Yes, I see you. I honor you as a fellow human being.” But busy lives often prevent even the most fleeting moments of connection.

As a practice, it is harder than I think it should be. I’ve been intentionally practicing this for quite a few weeks now. With store checkers and baggers, with gas station attendants, with people I pass on the street. A simple hello and a meeting of the eyes. Sometimes I find it incredibly difficult, and I wonder if it is a practice that we have learned to curtail as a society?

So I continue to practice. And pay attention to the story I am hearing.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

Sight Lines

Shed

Shed ©2013 Bo Mackison

Look at everything. Don’t close your eyes to the world around you.
Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see. ~ John Cage

Look at everything.
Barbed wire fence that separates road from range.
Stick-branched stunted tree. Clumps of grasses, golden-browned by the sun.
A corrugated shed, rusting; its door swung open.

Abandoned?
Or waiting?

The sight line that divides the heavens and the earth.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is wandering in southeastern Arizona, but she is not lost.

Apprehension

Barrier of Branches

Barrier of Branches © 2013 Bo Mackison

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than in reality. ~ Seneca

How The Light Gets In

Cactus Scars

Cactus Scars © 2013 Bo Mackison

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~ Rumi

As I walked back to my car after walking the labyrinth,  I followed a path through the desert scape, winding around rocky protuberances, around saguaros. Walking the labyrinth was more of an experience than I’d anticipated. I left somewhat shaken, off-balance. Literally finding my footing on the rough, rock-strewn path required my focus. I stumbled once, but jabbed my hiking stick off path to keep myself from falling.

As I righted myself, I glanced to the side of the path. The sunlight streaked through the landscape, highlighting a fist sized wound in a saguaro. It was enough to make me pause.

The saguaro was three times my height, and had four or five arms; it was possibly two hundred years old. Numerous scars, cracked surfaces and more than a few wounds covered its surface. Yet the sun rays cast a luminescence around the cactus, casting shadows from its thorns, and leading my eye to the largest opening at my eyes’ height.

I thought of the quote by Rumi, the wound allowing the light to enter.

And I thought of the lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s, song, Anthem:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.
~ from Anthem, Leonard Cohen

It made so much sense. The wounds, the cracks, the imperfections – they allow the light to enter, that’s how the light gets in.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring photography, poetry, and emotion in a new series featuring desert lines.

Entangled

A Meditation in the Desert
Entangled © 2013 Bo Mackison

Entangled © 2013 Bo Mackison

The Desert has Many Teachings

In the desert,
Turn toward emptiness,
Fleeing the self.
Stand alone,
Ask no one’s help,
And your being will quiet,
Free from the bondage of things.

Those who cling to the world,
Endeavor to free them;
Those who are free, praise.
Care for the sick,
But live alone,
Happy to drink from the waters of sorrow,
To kindle Love’s fire
With the twigs of a simple life.
Thus you will live in the desert.

– Mechthild of Magdeburg
from The Desert has Many Teachings,
translated by Jane Hirschfield

Reflections from my Journal

In the desert, emptiness is everywhere. It touches me most deeply after the sun sets, when a sliver of moon sets its place, offering direction, but little illumination. Then darkness descends.

The world slows in labored breathing, a pause, preparing for a new day.

To free yourself is to ask for nothing, to find hidden resources and strength developed from living each day authentically. Waiting, until the time is right for the right question, the question is asked, an answer received.

Love’s fire, caught in the crook of a desert branch. Fire-bright in harsh light, precarious, entangled. Lines and curves, shadows and light, a love-story.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring creative photography. poetry, and emotion in a new series featuring desert botanicals.