What the film shows, triumphantly, is that love can unite as much as greed can divide. – Vancouver International Film Festival – See more at: Scared Sacred by Velcrow Ripper, National Film Bo…
Source: Scared Sacred a film to watch
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Australian Croat And His Brilliant Legacies Since Port Arthur Massacre
Australia had one horrific mass murder and legislated gun controls. In America, we lost at least one a day and the National Rifle Association wants more latitude. The GOP wanted to be able to carry guns to the presidential convention. The Secret Service stepped in an said no! Seems like Australia has more on the ball than America does. Hugs, Barbara
Walter Mikac and
lost daughters: Alannah and Madeline
Photo: Screenshot
Alannah and Madeline Foundation
https://www.amf.org.au/gun-violence-petition/
April 2016 marks the month of the 20th anniversary of Australia’s worst massacre by a single gunman (at Port Arthur, Tasmania) – and the 20th anniversary when the son of Croatian immigrants in Australia, Walter Mikac, became widely known, a household name and the national symbol of the Port Arthur Massacre. Walter Mikac lost his wife and two daughters on that 28th day of April 1996 at Port Arthur when a deranged gunman (whose name I will not mention here out of respect for the victims and their loved ones) went on a killing spree armed with semi-automatic assault rifles and killed 35 people and wounded 18. Out of that tragedy, out of Walter Mikac’s profound grief arose giant and brilliant legacies of tight gun ownership control laws, of love and remembering through a charitable…
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Let Me Walk in Beauty
From Self Reliance Book “What you believe you become. Believe in beauty, for the Earth Mother is covered with beauty. Believe in love, for your Earth Mother and Sky Father love you. Be…
Source: Let Me Walk in Beauty
Let Me Walk in Beauty
From Self Reliance Book
“What you believe you become.
Believe in beauty, for the Earth Mother is covered
with beauty.
Believe in love, for your Earth Mother and Sky Father love you.
Believe in magic and you release your soul from the prison
your mind tries to build around it.
Above all, don’t be afraid.
The Great Spirit provides all that is needed.”
—Sun Bear
Sun Bear, Chippewa Tribe
Thy Sacred Dwelling
“Why have I two eyes if not to behold Thy glorious vision?
Why have I two ears if not to hear Thy gentle whisper?
Why have I the sense of smell if not to breathe the essence of Thy spirit?
Why have I two lips, Beloved, if not to kiss Thy beautiful countenance?
Why have I two hands if not to work in Thy divine cause?
Why have I two legs if not to walk in Thy spiritual path?
Why have I a voice if not to sing Thy celestial song?
Why have I a heart, Beloved< if not to make it Thy sacred dwelling?”
—Hazrat Inayat Khan
Weeping Cherry Tree Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2006
Global Peace
“Man Must first create peace within himself if he desires to see peace in the world;
for lacking peace within, no effort of his can bring any result.”
— Hazrat Inayat Khan
The Healing Heart
Sympathy—a china doll sheds a tear
and a piece of the Great Wall comes down.
Synchronicity—at the same time, in New Your City a lover’s heart mends a tear
and a flower breaks through the concrete.”
—Hadj Pearlman
Painted Sky Orchid. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2013
Let Me Walk in Beauty
“O Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds,
and whose breath gives light to all the world,
Hear me—I come before you, one of your children,
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty,
and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things that you have made,
my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise, so that I may know the things
you have taught my people,
and the lesson you have hidden in every rock and leaf.
I seek strength, not to be superior to my brothers and sisters,
but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Make me ever ready to come to you,
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades as a fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.”
—Yellow Hawk Sioux Chief
Yellow Hawk, Sioux Chief
To Live an Elegant Life
We look around us at the world that exists and some of it is absolutely ugly with evil, greed, selfishness and disease. Is that all there is? No! It is not. So as we look around, how do we keep fro…
Source: To Live an Elegant Life
To Live an Elegant Life
We look around us at the world that exists and some of it is absolutely ugly with evil, greed, selfishness and disease. Is that all there is? No! It is not. So as we look around, how do we keep from descending into a mire of depression and pain? Do we, as creative people, turn away from what we see and give up? No again.
We begin to work on an authentic life. This life must be created by us; it is not a gift of our talents. To create an authentic life, we need to seek and create what is true for us as individuals. We need to seek what is true for each of us and how to live congruently with that true. This becomes our elegant truth. This is not a simple challenge in life, but it is one which allows us to both deal with the reality of the world, and still nurture ourselves and continue to be able to create according to our gifts.
A creator’s task is to reckon with the facts of existence. For the person searching for an elegant life amongst the ordinary or horrifying, you need to view life from the right perspective. If we add up the circumstances in our lives that we do not view as elegant we could become convinced that it wasn’t worth the effort.
But we need to decide to make our lives matter. This is where the elegance begins. As long as we draw breath, we are able to make meaning in our lives. This can help others to find the meaning in their lives, as well. This is, of course, only possible if those around us wish to have meaning in their lives.
We must remember to dream and then to keep up with out dreams. By doing this, we experience moments where we are in attunement with our dreams. The miracle is being able to live a moment in attunement with the dreams.
How do we make meaning? By writing a story, writing lyrics to a song, painting on a beautiful spring day when the light is so beautiful that it almost hurts. We make meaning by giving to our favorite charity or volunteering at a food bank. We join Big Brothers/Big Sisters and share parts of our lives with kids who need support. We donate some of our photography to be auctioned off for charity. We join Amnesty International and write letters on behalf of those being held as political prisoners. We buy free trade items. We join UNICEF so children might have clean water, nourishing food and medical care. We can encourage a child or grandchild to join the Peace Corp to help those who are suffering.
In my opinion, which is truly just an opinion, we can also make meaning in our lives by loving other human beings as we would like to be loved; listening to our inner voice and the advice it gives to us; always showing compassion and empathy. We can turn from racism and bigotry. We cannot look down on those with less. We can really care when a friend is encountering troubles and go out of our way to help, even if it is a small thing.
We can join, speak up, protest and march non-violently. We can use our right to vote as the gift and responsibility it is. We can declare that this life is ours and it will mean what we want it to mean. We can search for the answers for our dreams and use all of this to energize our creativity. We can be grateful for our talents even on days when we can’t do anything.
We can be grateful for our bodies even on the days that they aren’t co-operating with our tasks. We can tell the Universe and our bodies of our gratitude and I believe that will be honored. I personally learned from a Neurologist that being grateful for our bodies on the good days and on the days your body isn’t working as it optimally should causes the body to begin slowly to heal itself. Little by little, day by day. I am grateful and my body responds to that gratitude.
So, be authentic, seek elegance in your life and you will become the person you thought you might want to be, so very long ago.
Namaste,
Barbara
Water Lily garden, Caribbean. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2013
” O God, scatterer of ignorance and darkness,
grant me your strength.
May all beings regard me with the eye of a friend,
and I all beings!
With the eye of a friend may each single being
regard all others!”
—‘Sukla Yajur, Veda XXXVI
Swimming with Dolphins. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2013
Over 400 Arrested: Democracy Spring Protest Against Corruption & Money In Politics
Reblogged on WordPress.com
Source: Over 400 Arrested: Democracy Spring Protest Against Corruption & Money In Politics
1121. I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation. ~Phyllis Theroux
Natalie, till I die I will never forget your words. A garden is the closest we can come to Creation. You touched my heart. Hugs, Barbara
My extravagance is my garden –
it’s the first thing I look at
every morning when I wake up.
It gives me so much pleasure.
~Ina Garten
According to Margaret Atwood, “Gardening is not a rational act.” And though I like to think of myself as a fairly rational person most of the time, I’m given from time to time, like most folks, to a little irrationality especially in the garden. So here goes today’s saga about my most recent fall from rational grace, as it were. The only thing I needed at the nursery was a bag of planting mix, but as always I wanted to stroll up and down the rows and rows of flowers before making my purchase. The first thing that caught my eye was this amazing white clematis with its chocolate colored anthers. As I stood admiring it, I kept saying to myself, “No, Natalie, you…
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Croatia: Anti-Fascist Anti-Communist Schism To Wield Final Truth
“The soul of a country is all of the people”. Yes, and you have said it very well. Blessings to Croatia and to all those who suffered from genocide and to those who fled for their lives. Hugs, Barbara
There is a repugnant movement by a group of “cultural workers”, so-called “the Culturals 2016”, that’s placing justice for all victims at further peril, gaining some ground in Croatia around this time of commemorating the anniversaries of the WWII murders and Holocaust at Jasenovac (late-April) and of the mass murders and exterminations that occurred at Bleiburg and Way of the Cross immediately and months after WWII (mid-May). The Culturals 2016 or this group of a hundred or so people such as artists, writers, actors…call themselves “the soul of Croatian culture” and, as such, they want Croatia’s Minister for culture, Zlatko Hasanbegovic, out!
It’s beyond my decency and common sense to accept the fact that a couple of hundred artists, actors or writers are the soul of the culture of any nation, let alone Croatia. The soul of the culture is all the people of a…
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The Holocaust, the slave trade, genocide in Rwanda, Croatia, Syria
I have two stories to tell you. They are not politically correct. They are however true stories. But I must tell them, because I walk my talk, and my talk is that there are bad people who get into …
Source: The Holocaust, the slave trade, genocide in Rwanda, Croatia, Syria
idealisticrebel 