sometimes a shake up is good for all.
Refreshing News: Meet the 28-Year-Old Grad Student Who Just Shook the Global Austerity Movement
sometimes a shake up is good for all.
Monthly Archives: April 2013
Orchids at the annual show NC Arboretum
More orchids for your delight.
The Daily Word From Barack House
The Enbrace Of Life
The life of babies
The Joy of the youngest
I will be sixtythree in less than a month. Age, the subject no one really wants to talk about but we do. We wouldn’t want anyone to imagine that we are worried about our age. From the teens years on I usually hung out with those younger. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but it was one on a subtle level .The sixties and seventies, were for me, filled with protests, loud rock and roll and many things I had no control over.
Those were the days
I thought I would live to be 25. My goal was to have fun and make a difference in the world And I read and read and danced and read and listened to people when they talked. I tried to put it all together because I hadn’t found a “how-to” book for those wonderful, confusing and freedom making years.
A group of yound adults
Be free, be kind, have compassion
As a young woman, I protested, I help to start a Domestic Violence shelter, I became a psych nurse, I learned to laugh until I couldn’t stand and to cry as if my heart were broken in two. I was on the board of directors for many non-profits and helped to start, “The Women’s Roundtable.” It was a networking group for business and professional women. I hiked in the Alleghanies and danced naked on top of a mountain.
I learned about the world and formed a strong dislike, nay horror of hypocrisy and injustice. I actually went through 3 major careers and learned which people brought good energy with them and who didn’t. Music was the tapestry of my life. I dated many musicians. They are still my favorite people. Never boring and filled with the same creative juices that I am filled with.
Middle aged woman trying photography
I feel I have lived a full life and have plans for more adventures and new experiences. These middle years have seen me change. I am still an idealistic rebel but when I retired for health reasons, I began to write and paint and dream. I am happy despite the fact younger people don’t want to hang out with me as much as before. I never expected to live this long but since I have this part of my life must mean more that the other parts together.I started winning awards in my young adult years. The one I am most proud of is “The Marquis Book Whose Who of American Women.” I won that in the late nineties.
I don’t have a “bucket list.” I never used to plan. I lived in each moment. Now that I am teetering into old age, I have decided to continue to embrace life, to love everyone as much as I possible can, to talk to teens and young moms. I don’t have a feeling anymore of when I will die, but I intend to go after living and loving fully. I will go out with a bang of color and noise. Wear purple ladies, do all the things your kids would frown on, laugh until you cry, may your final act on this planet be a kindness.
Give your love away and you will be continually filled.
When it is your time, gather the memories, the love, the kindness and fly away. Your soul knows how to get home!
World Wide Commonalities
The art of music
It has been a really painful week for many people in the world. Boston and Texas really have suffered great pain and loss.Our prayers continue for the victims and the families and friends, not to mention the survivors. After surviving any traumatic event, from the events of this last week to the unseen wounds of war, healing can take a lot of time, perseverance and guts. Horrors seen and experienced can leave terribly deep wounds.
I found my husband dead of a heart attack, sitting in the study with his feet propped up on the desk and a cup of coffee next to him. He had been there all day while I had been at work at the American Red Cross and had gone grocery shopping. It was dark and I turned on the desk lamp and found him. The diagnosis was a massive heart attack that I could not have stopped.
I had a diagnosis of PTSD and don’t like the dark to this day. The point is that no matter what your lifestyle is, pain and tragedy can find you. There is a wonderful book called, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” It was written by Rabbi Kuschner..
From my experience running a psych unit, through my husband’s death and after being battered as a child, I have found a prescription of sorts for healing.
Beauty and our love for it is an inborn need and many artistic tastes are universal across the countries of the world. People in most countries prefer water and trees in the distance.From writing music to words, from singing your favorite songs to painting your first tulip; we have a need to express the art that resides in our souls. From looking at Degas sculptures to writing your first book, you are working from the instinct to produce what you relate to as Art.
Miriam, the Jewish Prophetess danced, sang and played the tambourine. KISS wears make-up and stick out their tongues and millions rocks to their music and its message for the soul.
Close your eyes and try to imagine a world where everything is utilitarian, political or for business. No music, dance, no sketching, painting, writing for pleasure, no moments of the day savored because of their beauty.Across the world people find many different things they consider art but it all performs to express the basic instinct. So today, work on healing with the creativity in your heart and soul.
The beauty of music
Art evolution
A profile in color
Horse made from drift wood
Clematis Square
A good read
I Follow the Religion of Love
A Quote for Positive living.
“My heart has become capable of every form; it is a pasture
for gazelles and a retreat for Christian monks,
And a tenple for idols, and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Koren’
I follow the religion of Love, whichever way his camels take.
My religion and my faith is the true religion.”
——–Ibn al-Arabi
Translated from Thirteenth-Century Arabic by Anne and Christopher Fremantle
Portrait of a Dervish
” O musician of my soul,
play His song
play His song with my every breath.” —Rumi
“I lift my hands to You in prayer.
Grant me strength to stand alone.
You are the one to whom I belong,
I’ll sing my song to You, and give YOu all that is in my heart.” –The Chassid swaying by the Wailing Wall chants a niggun by the great Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav.
” Earth Mother, I honor your body.
Earth Mother, I sing to your stones.
Earth Mother, I enter your body.
Earth Mother, I honor your bones.” —Chant evoked to reclaim the Feminine aspect of the Divine
Sculpture garden in Windsor, Ont. Detroit in background. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio2009
To the Trees
Weeping Cherry Tree. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2006
Some trees in our National Forests.
Our precious Forests
Some trees tower over us
Trees in Blue Ridge Parkway Photo by Barbara Mattio Photograph copyrighted 2013
The arch of trees ladened with snow
I dedicate today’s posts to the magic and miracle of trees. I also dedicate Joyce Kilmer’s poem Trees
“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her
leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear a nest
Of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
who intimately lives with rain..
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”
It is time to go and hug a tree. Remember it lives so ask for permission and ask if it would kindly share its energy with you. Thank it softly and kindly at the end of the hug.
New Horizons
some very old trees
In the midst of all of the darkness we find ourselves in, there are exciting and positive things happening. We can’t dwell on death but we can work on taking care of Mother Earth.
A young woman named Meryl Marsh is the director of Archangel Ancient Tree Archive. This is a world wide organization that devotes itself to preserving the DNA of our oldest and strongest trees on the planet; trees which have survived drought, fires, insect infestations and the greed of loggers.
Ms. Marsh and her team cut limbs off of these trees to use them to preserve the DNA, and the genetic memory held within the DNA. All living things have DNA and we are connected to the Universe and to each other. Guns, fire, saws, brutality cannot break that connection.
The people in this project are working to ship these small branches in coolers to specialized labs where they pare them down and root them and try to grow again that wonderful tree that it came from.They are having a 2 % success rate. Yes, it does sound small but as they learn more I know they will have more successes.
Their successes include Irish giant oaks, and our Sequoia trees. They will take the living offspring and replant them in their countries of origin, where they will grow and perpetuate the grand old forests. Imagine refilling the world with strong living trees. The Giant Sequoia, Black Willow and Redwood trees are also being used. Good luck to this inspiring organization. I am sure Mother Earth will reward your spirit and love for all her living creatures.
Hug a tree today and tell it how important it is to you.
idealisticrebel 