Seeded Earth - Bo Mackison » color

Desert Twilight

Bo Mackison — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:52:23 +0000

Sonoran Desert Twilight

Seeing form with the whole body and mind.
Hearing sound with the whole body and mind.
One understands it intimately.
~ Eihen Dogen

When I am in the desert, I have two responsibilities — to listen, to see.

I watch as nature busies herself doing the quiet things not easily seen, sometimes only sensed. A lizard scooting from under a cooling rock. Cactus wrens darting from their nest holes in the saguaros to the top of the cactus, on alert, the look-out. Then swooping about, catching an insect or two, and a return to the nest inside the huge saguaro.

A pack of coyotes sing. A second pack joins, in harmony. Silence. Then the who-ooo of an owl. I hear it, I never see a twitch of movement.

I am content, also, to hear the sound of silence. Silence has a sound. I feel surrounded by the desert, as if she has a hold on me. The desert wakens all my senses — sacred senses.

Now is the time to remember that all you do is sacred. ~ Hafiz

I stayed in the desert overnight. There was no roughing it for me. My days of primitive camping ended decades ago. This time I had my car, a sleeping bag rated warm enough to keep me comfortable in the desert night. (The low reached 38˚F — not too cold.) I had a backpacker stove and a French press coffee cup. I had coffee and soup in a box for dinner and granola and fruit for breakfast and lots of bottled water. I had a lantern. I had the necessities. I also had my iPad, a last minute addition to my camp gear. I was set. Luxury camping.

When I woke up at 4 AM and couldn’t fall back to sleep, I sat in the car and read The Turquoise Ledge by Leslie Marmon Silko on my iPad. Now that is really desert camping in luxury. I didn’t wait the first touch of daylight to make my coffee. The sun rises late in the desert — I don’t know why — and I got cold. I finally maneuvered in the dark and heated water and made my first cup of coffee by the yellowish-orange hazy lights of Tucson reflecting off the clouds.

By the time it was light enough to follow a trail and not walk into the desert plants, I was dressed in layers and had my hiking stick and coffee cup in hand. I followed a trail along an arroyo and was quite pleased to be out in the desert, alone, at dawn — until a pack of coyotes ran across the trail twenty feet from where I stood.

Once I got my heart out of my throat and back into my chest where it belonged, I turned around and hiked back to camp. All those sacred senses were on alert.

But it was a great explore.

My first overnight camping trip in the desert.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is exploring the Sonoran desert.

Ocotillo Sunset

Bo Mackison — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:21:56 +0000

“Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder…”

~ Hafiz, The Gift

I have desert dreams. They are not as tidy as I would like, but perhaps they are tidier than one would imagine. My desert is a tidy place with a tidy habit. No dense, tangled tropical paradise. In the desert there is room to move. Space for movement. But even more important to me, there is space to see.

Vision is not blocked by billboard or building. When I look, I can see afar. It is not unusual to look across the desert and see a mountain thirty or forty miles away. There is space to form thoughts, to search for answers. My desert dream affords me a polite habitat, nothing to tangle my feet and make me fall, no hidden roots to trip me, no overgrowth to hide my path.

There is room for all to grow, for me to grow.

In my dreaming desert, I do not cut myself on the spines of the cacti, the thorns on the shrubs and trees. I do not step upon desert earth that has rotted from beneath the surface, that gives way with the weight of my step, and sucks my leg into a gaping hole in the desert floor. The desert in my dreams has been sanitized for my night time journeys.

Awake, the desert is wild and streaming a series of ever more deeply saturated color. There is the silhouette of the ocotillo and its thorns, long and sharp. I watch the sun disappear, it drops below the horizon, and the layers of red, orange, purple linger until night’s arrival blackens the sky.

The sun sets. I breathe in tempo with the still warm desert. I inhale, the desert earth inhales. I exhale, the desert earth exhales. Heat stored in the desert’s earth meets the night’s cooling air, and the desert pulsates with energy.

Desert rhythms. I stand and watch, supporting myself with my walking stick while gripping tightly to my world.

—————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is in the Sonoran desert.

The Adventure Begins

Bo Mackison — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:11:14 +0000

Today I leave on my newest explore,
my goal to see that which I haven’t seen before.

I will share that vision in words and photos,
As once again, “Bo goes solo.”

With deep gratitude to those who help make this possible.

Next stop – Tucson, Arizona.

————–

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Today she begins her three month stay in Tucson and the surrounding region.

Digital Dahlia

Bo Mackison — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:05:42 +0000

Art washes away from the soul the dust of every day life. ~ Picasso

I took a break from packing and organizing to use Nik Pro Efex and transform a photo of a dahlia I took two springs ago into a softer, more subtle version. Since it looks like Narnia outside I went through my older photos to find something cheerful. I needed a cheerful photograph to appreciate on my get-ready-to-go day.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Tomorrow. A car ride to the airport + flight from Madison to Dallas + second flight from Dallas to Tucson + a drive to Quail Condo = the beginning of Bo’s Desert Explore II.

Autumn Reflections

Bo Mackison — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:19:53 +0000

“Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On a calm, misty morning, these autumn colors were reflected in Indian Lake. Photographed at Indian Lake County Park in Dane County, Wisconsin as the sun peeked over the hill. October 20, 2007

The Non-Conformist

Bo Mackison — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 06:01:13 +0000

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. ~Christopher Morley

Photo taken at Devil’s Lake State Park near Baraboo, Wisconsin on a perfect late October day

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit http://feverishthoughts.com/garden/2006/06/23/green-thumb-sunday for more information.