Pottery at Tumacacori

January 23, 2012 by 4 Comments
Pottery in Tumacacori Granary

Pottery in Tumacacori Granary © 2012 Bo Mackison

Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not,
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.

Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion.
Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day,
And count it fair.

       ~Amelia Earhardt

Fill one pot with courage, one pot with loving kindness, one pot with contentedness, one pot with a store of the sun’s healing rays…

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Bo Mackison loves visiting Tumacacori where she often think deep thoughts.

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Color My World

January 21, 2012 by 7 Comments
Granary at Tumacacori

Granary at Tumacacori © 2012 Bo Mackison

Color to add brightness and vibrancy to your day.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is greatly appreciating Arizona’s desert-sun winter.

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Shadows of the Olive Leaf

January 20, 2012 by 3 Comments
Shadows of the Olive Leaf

Shadows of the Olive Leaf © 2012 Bo Mackison

On my first full day back in Arizona, I spent the last hours of sunlight in the historic mission garden at Tumacacori National Historic Site in southern Arizona. It is one of places I visit most often when I am in Arizona – a tiny historic preservation of an 18th century mission church in ruins. I often find a quiet space – easy to do – and simply sit.

Take in the warmth of the lingering sun which soon will disappear behind the Tumacacori Mountains. Watch soaring hawks dip and slide on the  currents of wind. Listen to the breezes whispering to the leaves. Listen to the voices from the past, voices raised in chanting song. (I don’t have to imagine these voices – there is a recording of the hymns similar to those sung by the O’ohdam centuries ago. It lends a surreal audio experience to the already memory-haunting surroundings.)

I took a few photographs in the garden, but not one of a flower or a desert plant. I captured these olive leaf shadows on the bark of another tree, other trees ou of focus in the background, but adding another layer of shadow and mystery. I captured the blue waters in the silent fountain. A few cracks in an adobe bench, the textures of the hand fired bricks.

It was a fine first day explore of one of my favorite thinking places. Very quiet, a pensive place. This mission garden provides the perfect space for contemplation.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is taking a few days to adapt to her cross country move from Wisconsin’s snowy-frigid winter to Arizona’s desert-sun winter.

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Last Visit to Tumacacori

April 12, 2011 by 12 Comments
Tumacacori Garden

Tumacacori Garden © 2012 Bo Mackison

Can you look past the electric wires, telephone poles,
the matching but separate doors labeled MEN and WOMEN,
the coiled rubber hose, the 19th century stone wall cracked open for a water spigot?

Don’t heed the red stop sign hovering above the mission wall
or listen to the rumbling cars speeding from Nogales to the Border Patrol checkpoint.

Cover your ears with your determination for a sacred silence in this sacred space.
Block the sounds of horns blaring, ignore the heated words of the couple standing near the rose bush.

Shhh.

Can you hear rustling leaves, whistling wind? Can you see the shimmer of the cotttonwoods?

These winds were in this garden. The trees now camouflaging the sparrows’ nests, they were here.
The fountain — the garden’s heart — it was here with its rippling waters.
The dust blowing from the Tumacácori Mountain Range – that dust was here.

Those mountains? They stood in silence and watched.
Arched doorways sheltered the walkway, courtyard sheltered a painted statue of the Virgin with her Babe. They watched.

The yucca were here, the tepary beans trailed along the earth.
The nut tree saplings, freshly planted, they swayed in rhythm with the winds. They witnessed.

The che-che-chee of the sparrows joined the voices raised in song —  of protest and praise, with humiliation and elation, in mourning and in gratitude.

Tumacacori Church Entrance

Tumacacori Church © 2011 Bo Mackison

I hear their voices, I hear the choir lift their voices in song.
Harmonizing
Chanting
The rising alleluias, the longing amens.

Their voices. Do you hear them?
Che-che-cheee-ing alleluias.
Siss-siss-siss, leaves dancing, twirling along the dusty path.

Tumacacori Interior Bricks

Interior © 2011 Bo Mackison

Hearts dancing, hold your gaze on the star hunter, poised, aiming his arrow at the full moon.
Hidden voices in the whistling winds.
Hidden eyes, watching from Tumacacori.

Listen. Watch.

Hush.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She will be returning to Wisconsin later this week after living in Tucson for the last two months. She’s been exploring Arizona and living life “solo.” Occasionally she is moved to write poetry, as happened when she took a last visit to Tumacacori National Historic Site.

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Tumacacori

February 19, 2011 by 11 Comments
San Jose de Tumacacori Mission Church

San Jose de Tumacacori Mission Church © 2011 Bo Mackison

I’ve spent a couple of days visiting the Tumacacori National Historical Park in Tumacacori Arizona, a tiny village about 50 miles south of Tucson.

The mission of San José de Tumacácori  was founded in 1691 by a Jesuit missionary, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino. The Spanish mission was built on the site of a Pima Indian village.

 

Detail of Tumacacori Exterior

Detail of Tumacacori Mission Church © 2011 Bo Mackison

Construction began on the massive adobe church in 1800, but it was never completed. The people who lived at the Tumacacori mission eventually moved northward and settled at the Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson, another of the more than twenty mission sites founded in the southern Arizona and northern Mexico by Father Kino.

The exterior of the church was originally painted bright colors–yellows and reds, and detailed with black. It was a most impressive structure to the indigenous people who visited the mission.

 

Tumacacori Garden

Tumacacori Garden © 2011 Bo Mackison

The mission has been under the administration of the National Park Service since 1916. One of the Park Services main objectives is the continued preservation of the adobe mission church and the adjoining structures which include a granary, a mortuary and cemetery, and other archeological features in the 300+ acre park.

The garden which is adjacent to the Visitor Center (itself an historic structure built by Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s) is planted with nut and fruit trees, and herbs that were introduced to this area by the Jesuit missionaries. It also has an area of native plants including many cactus varieties.

I found the garden a lovely place to sit and reflect on each day’s journey. It has a sparkling fountain as its central feature with walkways throughout the arbor and gardens. The shade from the mature trees offers protection from the desert sun, welcome even in the month of February.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for the next eight seven weeks, exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs of Arizona landmarks, both historical and natural, and blogging about photography, art fairs, and learning to live on her own. Her mantra is “Bo goes solo!”

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