Important words from Bob Marley, because sometimes we need to be reminded:
Category Archives: Rebel Posts
Rumi’s Words in My Head
Wake and Walk Out
–Rumi
If I flinched at every grief, I
would be an intelligent idiot. If
I were not the sun, I’d ebb and
flow like sadness. If you were not
my guide, I’d wander lost in Sanai.
If there were no light, I’d keep
opening and closing the door. If
there were no rose garden, where
would the morning breezes go? If
love did not want music and laughter
and poetry, what would I say? If
you were not medicine, I would look
sick and skinny. If there were no
leafy limbs in the air, there would
be no wet roots. If no gifts were
given, I’d grow arrogant and cruel.
If there were no way into God, I
would not have lain in the grave of
this body so long. If there were no
way from left to right, I could not
be swaying in the grasses. If
there were no grace and no kindness,
conversation would be useless, and
nothing we do would matter. Listen
to the new stories that begin every
day. If light were not beginning
again in the east, I would not now
wake and walk out inside the dawn
Form is Ecstatic
–Rumi
There is a shimmering excitement in
being sentient and shaped. The
caravan masters sees his camels lost
in it, nose to tail, as he himself is,
his friend, and the stranger coming
toward them. A gardener watches the
sky break into song, cloud wobbly with
what it is. Bud, thorn, the same.
Wind, water, wandering this essential
state. Fire, ground, gone. That’s
how it is with the outside. Form
it ecstatic. Now imagine the inner:
soul, intelligence, the secret worlds!
And don’t think the garden loses its
ecstacy in the winter. It’s quiet, but
the roots down there riotous.
If someone bumps you in the street,
don’t be angry. Everyone careens
shout in this surprise. Respond in
kind. Let the knots untie, turbans
be given away. Someone drunk on this
could drink a donkeyload a night.
Believer, unbeliever, cynic, lover,
all combine in the spirit-form we are.
but no one yet is awake like Shams.
I was at the hospital today, visiting my friend who is recovering from the surgeries well, but she still has Stage 4 cancer. And I could hear Rumi putting words in my head, and I could feel his energy and his reminder that his religion is Love, and our religion is Love, no matter what path you follow. The ecstasy in the path of Love can help you get through the trying times and sometimes in the devastating times. When the going is the toughest, it’s good to remember that the God is Love, Lover and Beloved, and nothing else can be all three.
Inner Peace
Hello, everyone
First, thank you for all your prayers for my friend, Sandy. I appreciate, as always, the outpouring of love and support from all my WordPress family.
Things will be back to normal soon, I hope, but in the meantime, I have another TED Talk to share, this one from the Dalai Lama.
I’ve written about the Dalai Lama before, how this wonderful man escaped Tibet as a child and has spent his life in exile from his home, preaching peace and love.
Here he is, in his own words:
The Non-Violent Way
I have talked many times about ending violence, and breaking the cycle of violence in many situations.
Today, I wanted to share another TED Talk, this one from Peace Activist Scilla Elsworthy, so you can hear another voice explain the path of non-violence when fighting back.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
A Request for Prayers
Hello, everyone.
I am sorry there is not much of a blog today, but I spent the day in a hospital waiting room.
A very dear friend of mine, Sandy G, underwent extensive, major surgery to combat Stage 4 cancer, and it was a very long day – 9 1/2 hours of surgery.
Please send your prayers to her — Sandy is the sweetest, most generous and loving person I know, and her husband is every bit as wonderful.
Thank you for your prayers and thoughts.
Namaste,
Barbara
Mother Earth is Giving Us a Wake-up Call
We are getting a wake-up call from Mother Earth. It is called climate change. The number of Polar bears is declining by forty percent. This was determined by a study linking the Polar bear population and climate change.
Why, you ask? Well, the answer is simple. Polar bears rely on ice to have access to the seals which are their main food source. They move from ice flow to ice flow. Ice is also used for resting and breeding. The problem is that the ice is melting. As ice melts, we must understand that it becomes more and more difficult to find ice.
So, realistically, the polar bears are finding less ice to feed from, to breed on and to rest on. This is why the polar bear population is declining rather rapidly. As of 2010, according to an article published in Ecological Applications, there are now only 900 polar bears. It is such a sad thing.
Polar Bear cubs need our help with climate change.
We have an urgent call to fix climate control. It is the main reason we are losing our polar bears. Close your eyes, now imagine a world without bears, without any of our wild animals. No bears, big cats, elephants, kangaroos, antelope, or rhinos. We are getting way to close to this being our reality. Now, we need to speak up and demand global action.
Now, on the other hand, we are making some success in slowing the decline of our tiger population. We have had success even where tiger habitats span national boundaries. India and Nepal have worked together with WWF, World Wildlife Fund, to increase the population of tigers. Their goal is to double the population by 2022.
They are using camera trap images to confirm that tigers use three forested wildlife corridors that provide vital links between protected areas across both sides of the international borders.
Bangladesh has hosted the Second Conference of the Global Tiger Recovery Program. They will do a population count in 2016. So this news is good but there is much to do. You could go overseas and help. You could join the WWF and donate money to save the wild animals. You could work within your own communities to improve climate change. Action is needed. Voices need to be raised to our elected officials here in America.
This world belongs to each and everyone of us. That includes you and I. It also includes our neighbors and our communities. And it includes the animals we share the planet with.
Wild Tigers at Play
Checking in with a Prodigy
Some of you may remember that I blogged about the drummer Avery a couple of years ago. He’s eight now, and keeping up with KISS. This is an impressive child with a bright future.
My Message in a Bottle
To whomever finds my message:
I have filled this bottle with Love, Peace, Patience, Compassion, Empathy, Gratitude, Beauty, Forgiveness and Kindness.
I believe that when we sow the seed of these ideas with words and plant them in the soil of life and add water and sunlight, we can grow Peace. Peace is the trunk of the Tree of Life.
If, every day, every person performed one Peaceful act, shared beauty with one other person, shared forgiveness with one who needs it, then we would have the beginnings of the Peace we need.
Everyday that you touch someone else with kindness, with compassion and peace, you make an imprint on their heart and on their soul that will gradual help them find their way to a life lived in peaceful harmony with everyone in the world.
This could erase racism, sexism, ageism, all forms of bigotry and the violence that comes from it.
There are people who are haters, and bullies. These people need our kindness and empathy perhaps more than other people, because bullying comes from insecurity and troubled minds and the inability to know how to be kind.
Statistically, 97% of American families are dysfunctional to some degree. But what I know and have experienced is that with self-compassion, self-understanding, self-love, everyone can learn to grow beyond what traumatized or hurt them, and continue on their way to a life filled with kindness and peace.
You may know someone who has had a very difficult life, and you can make a difference in their life by living your peace, your empathy, your forgiveness, your gratitude, and they can learn from your example and from living within the light of your being.
After a while, someone who carries darkness and hatred and negativity and violence within themselves can be changed by the daily dose of gratitude, love, acceptance, peace, empathy, and kindness that touches their heart and soul even if they don’t want it to. These gifts are much stronger than the negativity within any soul.
Please open my bottle and spread the contents around. You won’t be sorry.
May peace fill all of your lives.
Namaste,
Barbara
Bottle floating on the Ocean. Charcoal drawing by Barbara Mattio Copyright 2009
Artists4Peace
To Heal the Whole
Let us be united,
Let us speak in harmony;
Let our minds apprehend alike.
Common be our prayer;
Common be the end of our assembly;
Common be our resolution;
Common be our deliberations.
Alike be our feelings;
Unified be our hearts,
Common be our intentions;
Perfect be our unity. —From the Rig Veda, Hindu scripture
This is not thinking about humans being carbon copies of each other but that we all unify around love, kindness, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. No matter what country you live in or what religion or spiritual path you follow, no matter your skin color, we are all one. Our planet is not divided. It is whole and beautiful, though damaged due to our not being good stewards. It is us who have divided, sectioned off, and formed boundaries out of human blood. For this is a big part of what war accomplishes.
We are in a time of great imbalance on our planet, and again we have no other planet. Mother Earth is reflecting the imbalance within ourselves. We need to heal humankind. There is no one who does not have their own inner traumas and psychological problems. We are not separate from this wonderful planet. We are totally part of the living Earth, and we must recognize that isolated health is an illusion. Healing ourselves and working to resolve the contradictions in the human-Earth ecology is the same work. And it is work, hope and love that will bring us to success.
All healing involves making whole again. For many people who have lived with violence or trauma, they feel it is just them and the rest of the world is whole and mentally healthy. I have heard this many hundreds of times from patients. This leads them to feel marginalized and not part of the mainstream. In truth, we all need healing of one sort or another. We all need each other.
All healing involves making ourselves and our world whole again. We need to resolve the contradictions that exist between self and other, body and spirit, mind and nature.
We need to relearn that we belong to the whole. We need to know that we are not encapsulated, self-enclosed entities, but we are fields of energy integrated with the environment.
Everything we do transforms and reshapes the world. Because our actions can destroy, they can also heal. There is no distinction between our physical lives and the work of our spirits.
Like it or not, we are all one beautiful, intelligent species
Mother Earth
Fortunate Son
This is America and we have Freedom of Speech and that includes Music. There was nothing wrong in Bruce Springsteen singing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son at the Concert for Valor.
If you’re young enough that you don’t remember the Vietnam War, rich kids got to buy their way out of serving their country, while some other kids claimed Conscientious Objector Status or went to Canada to avoid the Draft, but many went to Vietnam when their draft number was up because they thought it was the right thing to do.
Not everyone believes in war.
The conservatives are reacting very stridently and very angrily that Bruce Springsteen chose to sing this song at the Mall on Veterans Day, this past Monday.
I am sharing the song with you, and I am saying that everyone in America has the right to choose whether they serve in the military or not. That’s what America is about — Freedom.
