May 11, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Creed for Optimists

Years ago, I received a wonderful book For This One Hour, from my father. It’s a first edition, published in 1969, and has separate sections for being Grateful, Cheerful, Optimistic, Unselfish, Forgiving, and Generous; for spending Time in Prayer, looking for the Best in Others, helping to Make Someone Happy, and living in the Present.

It’s a wonderful source of inspiration to me, and has been for many years.

Today, with so much negativity in the world, I thought I would share one of my favorite passages, the Creed for Optimists: 10 simple things we can all strive to do for ourselves and our world to make both better.

The Creed for Optimists

Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind
Promise yourself to talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
Promise yourself to make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
Promise yourself to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
Promise yourself to think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
Promise yourself to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and to press on to the greater achievements of the future.
Promise yourself to wear a friendly countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
Promise yourself to spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others.
Promise yourself to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble

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Coast of North Carolina Copyright Barbara Mattio 2012

May 10, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870

Another year has come and gone, and in the last year, so many mothers have lost their sons in senseless violence. Some of these losses have made the national news, and have become losses for the entire nation, as our cities are rocked with violence and unrest protesting the deaths, but this doesn’t help the mother who buries her son in the ground and faces what may be her first Mother’s Day without that card or flowers or just a hug from her baby.

Women — mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts — have lost beloved women in their lives — mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, friends too dear to be merely ‘friends’ — to breast cancer and other forms of cancer, and still no cures to be found.

Mothers have lost brave sons and daughters in the military, heroes who have given their lives for their country. And Mothers have sons and daughters who have blessedly returned alive from combat, but who are damaged in ways visible and invisible. To these mothers, we send our love and thank you for the gift you have given to your country. We don’t want you to feel as if you’ve been forgotten, for we know that it is not only your child who made a sacrifice, but you as well.

To all who have lost beloved women in their lives, I share a tradition I cherish when I think of those I have lost: As long as one person lives who remembers their name, they are never truly gone nor forgotten.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the women of the world. May your light shine everyday and may you always know how much are loved and respected by those around you.

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Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870 – Julia Ward Howe

“Arise, the women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly
“We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking of carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country
will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes with
our own, it says ‘disarm! disarm!’
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Ceasar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.”

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May 9, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Premio Dardos Award

I want to say thank you to Wilson Agaba, who was kind enough to nominate me for the Premio Dardos Award.

premios-dardos-award-3

His blog is definitely worth checking out.

The Premio Dardos Award exists to acknowledge the values that every blogger shows in their effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.

The rules are simple: You can accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his or her blog. Include the image of the “Premios Dardos” in the post. Pass the award to another 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement!

My nominees are:

May 9, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Science and Spirituality

I wanted to share another TED Talk with you — Jeff Lieberman, an MIT-trained artist, scientist and engineer, makes a scientific argument for mystical experience. He asks us to challenge our perception of what we are, our relationship to the universe, and our relationship to one another. Our minds are “thought-generating machines.” What we would happen if we could turn off the machine? If we could transcend our individual experience of the world?

Most of you know that I am a very spiritual person, but I believe in science as well, and I do not believe that the two are mutually exclusive. Do you?

May 7, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Alice Dunbar-Nelson was born in New Orleans to a seamstress and a merchant marine. Though not a famous poetess, she was published and was an interesting woman. She used her life to help make the world a better place.

Alice was raised in creole culture and lived and worked in New York, Washington, DC and Wilmington, Delaware. She first became a teacher, and a journalist. She was also a political activist for African Americans’ and women’s causes. She also kept one of the surviving diaries of a 19th century black women.

Sonnet

I had not thought of violets late,

The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet

In wistful April days, when lovers mate

And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.

The thought of violets meant florists’ shops,

And cabarets and soaps, and deadening wines.

So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,

I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;

The perfect loveliness that God has made,—

Wild violets sly and Heaven-mounting dreams.

And now—unwittingly, you’ve made me dream

Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.

—Alice Dunbar-Nelson

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Alice Dunbar-Nelson

May 6, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Surprises in the Universe

Puffed up planet’ orbiting small star discovered by Australian astronomers

By Susannah Cullinane, CNN

Australian astronomers have discovered a strange exoplanet orbiting a small cool star — HATS-6 — 500 light years away.

(CNN)A huge “puffed up” planet “too big for its star” some 500 light years from Earth has been discovered by Australian researchers — with the help of a backyard astronomer.

The planet’s size in relation to the star it orbits challenges theories about how planets are formed, researchers from the Australian National University said.

“We have found a small star with a giant planet the size of Jupiter orbiting very closely,” said George Zhou from the Research School of Astrophysics and Astronomy.

“It must have formed further out and migrated in, but our theories can’t explain how this happened.”

Astronomers believe that planets are created from a “disc” of dust and gas around stars, Zhou told CNN.

“We think that planets are the leftovers of star formations,” he said.

But he said the star — HATS-6 –was almost too small for it to have any leftovers and the discovery of a planet — named HATS-6b — raised questions about how large a disk could form around a star relative to its size.

“HATS-6 is one of the lowest mass stars known to host a close-in gas giant planet,” the team of researchers said in a study published in “The Astronomical Journal.”

HATS-6b orbits its star every 3.3 days, researchers said.

Astronomers first got an indication of the planet’s existence when they noticed that light from HATS-6 dimmed, — suggesting that a planet was passing between the star and Earth.

To confirm the transit signal, they went to of the world’s biggest telescopes — Chile’s Magellan Telescope — and a backyard astronomer in the northern city of Perth, T.G Tan.

Zhou said that the amateur astronomer had been really helpful. “He was able to catch the transit of the planet from Perth, after it had set over our horizon,” Zhou said.

He told CNN that the university — part of the HATSouth Exoplanet Survey — used telescopes to monitor hundreds of thousands of stars. With about a thousand planetary candidates they needed to enlist amateurs to monitor their transits.

“Amateurs have been getting ever more sophisticated,” Zhou said, with Tan a “near professional.”

‘He was able to help us actually confirm that this transit signal was not a blip. That was a massive contribution from him.”

Continuous observation

The HatSouth project is an international collaboration between the Australian National University, Princeton University, the Max Planck Institut fur Astronomie and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.

“We have a series of small telescopes spread around the world — in Namibia, New South Wales and Chile — we’re able to gather continuous observations of objects in the night sky. That’s how we’re discovering these planets.”

Zhou said the planet’s atmosphere would make an interesting study.

“The planet has a similar mass to Saturn, but its radius is similar to Jupiter, so it’s quite a puffed up planet. Because its host star is so cool it’s not heating the planet up so much, it’s very different from the planets we have observed so far,” he said.

“By having an atmosphere that’s puffed up it actually allows us to look through the atmosphere,” Zhou told CNN.

When starlight passed through the top atmosphere, astronomers would be able to look for absorption signals that revealed details of its composition, he said.

“Every element has its barcode — or spectrum. We want to break the light of HATS-6b into its rainbow of color, within that, there’s a barcode for absorption.”

May 5, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

How do Creative People Repair Themselves?

How do Creative People Repair Themselves?.

May 5, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

How do Creative People Repair Themselves?

People are harmed by certain experiences like being abused, discounted, lied to, shamed, beaten, ignored, tyrannized and hated. People are harmed by encountering too many disappointments, rejections, criticisms, unfulfilled dreams, and unsuccessful outcomes.

Creative people often feel the pain of these experiences more deeply than the accountants and the business moguls. Many creative people are born with depression, anxiety or family love. Every human being is hurt in some way by the people of the world. We can find it harder to live, care, try and be calm. Most of us, in some time of our lives realized, we need repair. But how do we make that happen?

This question is dangerous because it indicates that there is only one way for you or I to repair or heal ourselves. There is just one answer to the question.

Often, it is difficult to begin to do the self repair work. The damage is everywhere. It is in the brain. It is in the way we breathe, in the way we see, and what we are attracted to. Often, when we know that we are emotionally injured, we try to repress it or to pretend there is nothing wrong. What humans become during war shows the power of emotional damage on the human psyche.

Support, from friends, a psychotherapist and loved ones, uses our creative gifts to heal the self and are often successful. Talking to your subconscious and reassuring it that you are safe and in no danger can help. Talking to a therapist can help. reveling in your successes can help. Creating the beautiful art to fill the world can help. Artists, all kinds of artists, are very important in the world. No matter what your media is, you add to the beauty, kindness, compassion and love in the world. Even if you have no one close to you who gives you unconditional support, be your own support. Believe in yourself.

Friends are very important to “listen and support” during the down days. And don’t forget your family, your “WordPress family” who will be honest with you. I have found that readers are honest and forthcoming with good advice.

Musicians, writers, photographers and painters, print makers, sketchers all have the fullness of creative ability. Some of the most highly respected artists felt some days that they had no talent.

Gauguin, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, for instance all went through periods when they felt they had no talent. Some of their “friends” encouraged this thinking. But over a hundred years in the future we consider them some of arts’ masters. Follow your heart and the needs of your soul. If your hands want to write, then do so. If your eyes want to see a mountain through a lens, then allow it.

There is discussion about making sure that students who are majoring in math and science all be given art classes. This is to help them be able to deal with people better, to develop ideas better, and to enrich their lives.

” I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. The time will come when people will see that my paintings are worth more than the price of the paint and my own living.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

“Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

“Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is every deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, these open the prison by supreme power, by some magic force. Where sympathy is renewed, life is restored.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

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Lake Michigan

Inner Peace

May 4, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Women

Women Ok they

should be should be

pedestals little horses

moving those wooden

pedestals sweet

moving oldfashioned

to the painted

motions rocking

of men horses

the gladdest things in the toyroom

The feelingly

pegs and then

of their unfeelingly

ears To be

so familiar joyfully

and dear ridden

to the trusting rockingly

fists ridden until

To be chafed the restored

egos dismount and the legs stride away

Immobile willing

sweetlipped to be set

sturdy into motion

and smiling Women

women should be

should always pedestals

be waiting to men

This poem was written by May Swenson. She has written prose and poetry. In 1970 Ms. Swenson was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She has won many other awards for her moving and praiseworthy work.

May 3, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Memories of the Run for the Roses

Thirty years ago, I used to meet friends at Louisville for the Kentucky Derby. We would regroup from around the country. Louisville was the site for annual reunion and the Derby was the reason. I have many wonderful memories of the Oaks which runs on Friday. We would all dress up and go to the club house. Saturday, was our day in the in-field. Guys would arrive around 6 am and lay out our blankets to “save our spaces”. Derby day is one of the best parties in the country. Cheers and mint juelips under a beautiful blue sky.

As I watched the run yesterday, I saw the hats, I could smell the air and remember all of the love and laughs. There is nothing like standing up against the fence and watching the horses run. Mud flies and horses fly by and you are part of that excitement. I am good at picking winners but I have never bet more than $2. Life has changed all of our lives but the run for the roses is still one of my best memories. Cheers everyone. Remember the good times, the love, the laughs, the friendships and the 2 minutes of one of the greatest races in the country.