Saguaro in Bloom

Saguaro Cactus Blooms

Saguaro Cactus Blossoms © 2013 Bo Mackison

“The poetry of the earth is never dead….”  ~ John Keats

What a joyful experience to walk through the Sonoran Desert when the saguaro are in bloom! After craning my neck to see the very top of each saguaro, I felt as tipsy as the bees that were swarming the flowers  while doing the pollination dance.

I spent much of today packing, and tomorrow I begin my travels to the Midwest. I hear that spring is just about ready to burst in Wisconsin and I am ready to be home.

But still, I will miss my other home in the desert.

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

Prickly Pear in Bloom

Prickly Pear in Bloom

Prickly Pear in Bloom © 2013 Bo Mackison

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.”
~ Georgia O’Keeffe

Not that I would want to take a flower from a cactus in my hand, but I understand Georgia O’Keeffe’s remark about having the world for a moment. When I stop on a desert path or in a desert garden, I feel as if the world opens before me and I see the beauty, the complexity, the order of the Universe.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio. She is beginning a time of transition, and collecting the beauty of the desert – in her memory and in photographs.

The Essence of Desert

Yucca in Bloom

Yucca in Bloom ©2013 Bo Mackison

“I seek out places where it can happen more readily, such as deserts or mountains or solitary areas, or by myself with a seashell, and while I’m there get into states of mind where I’m more open than usual. I’m waiting, I’m listening. I go to those places and get myself ready through meditation. Through being quiet and willing to wait, I can begin to see the inner man and the essence of the subject in front of me… Watching the way the current moves a blade of grass – sometimes I’ve seen that happen and it has just turned me inside out.”
~ Minor White

There is a transformation that takes place when I sit in a place of solitude and wait.

In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps did construction projects in the Sonoran Desert. They built several picnic areas in the Tucson Mountains, tables of concrete and stone, each in a private space, each table protected from the heat of mid-day sun by an overhead ramada. One of these picnic sites, tucked far from the road, has become my perfect office space. I gather the requisites necessary for spending a day writing and taking photographs in the desert – camera, a few reference books, my old notebooks, but also water, protein snacks, a wide-brimmed hat, sunscreen, my hiking stick.

I bring my writing office to the desert. I choose not to bring my computer or other devices that might tempt me with an immediate, continuous connection to the rest of the world. I choose  solitude instead. I write by hand, pen to paper, scribbling, crossing out, adding words, sensing the connection between brain and hand. I compile notes from a dozen notebooks, unravel bits of my life from words written during the past decade. I pull inspiration from these worn pages and curate them into the skeletal beginnings of my Desert Wisdom Cards.

I take frequent breaks to hike – a favorite trail begins fifty paces from my table and winds through saguaro-studded desert, in and out of several washes, then half-way up the side of Brown Mountain. There I stop and memorize the desert scene, burn its landscape into my mind – again. In a few weeks I will be in a far away state, and my heart will linger here in this lush desert stretching beyond the beyond.

Minor White’s quote struck a deep chord in me. I do connect with the world beyond my sight, I feel the essence of place seep into my cells. Sometimes I feel as if this sacred desert space turns me inside out, and exposes my innermost being to the desert in exchange for bits of desert wisdom.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is beginning a time of transition, and finding strength and inspiration in the desert. Her office, at least for a few more weeks, is in the Sonoran Desert.

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.