July 25, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Seasons of our Life

In the silence, we hear the voice of God from wirhin

In the silence, we hear the voice of God from within

Birth, growth, fading, death, the wheel of life turns and we turn with it. Ideas are born, projects are consummated, plans prove impractical and die. We are born, we suffer loss, we fall in love and out of love, we give birth and we grow old.

When we are conscious of Mother Earth, we see ourselves as parts of the whole .We come to the point where we can let go of trying to control our lives. We are constantly reminded of the changes in life. We need to accept the change of seasons, feast and famine. good health and illness. We live with light and dark, cold and warmth. We are full of life and at times we are empty. All of these things control our experience of life. We could experience this as the experience of human consciousness.

Inevitably into every life comes times for action and then times of waiting. As we live longer and longer we find we must start to learn how to fit ourselves into the kind of human being we need to be in each new phase of life. We are going to need to look at our dreams and learn to dream new dreams that corresponds to life as it is experienced at that time.

There is the time for sowing the seeds of our life, a time to harvest those seeds, sometimes there is leavetaking and loss. Life can feel as if it is in decline.

There are those who say we have a resting cycle. We become closer to our inner selves and to the Divinity which dwells there. I personally, look to learning new things and doing what I have never done before. Life is fertile and there is nothing to fear in the darkness…the light will return.

“It is our quiet time.
We do not speak, because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk, because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time…
—–Nancy Wood

“Again, again we come and go.
changed, changing Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear.
Grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.”
—-Wendell Berry

Cycles of our lives

” Behold, my brothers, the spring has come;
The earth has received the embraces of the sun
And we shall soon see the results of that love!

Every seed is awakened and so has all animal life.
It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being
And we therefore yield to our neighbors,
Even our animal neighbors,
The same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land.”

—–Sitting Bull

Our life cycles are in conjunction with our Mother Earth. Do not betray her.

June 29, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Ecological Self

Black Mountain NC. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2010

The United States President, Barak Obama has gone on the record that he is against the Keystone Pipeline if it will hurt the environment. I was waiting for this announcement and knew he would come out on the side of Mother Earth.

Politics right now in Washington stink. Congress was elected by their states to represent the will and wishes of the people. They aren’t. Out of 365 days, they have worked 126. They are doing this without censor from the party leaders. If you or I showed up to work a third of the days we were supposed to work, we would be fired. If you don’t believe me, try it and please let me know if your boss pats you on the back and tells you not to worry about it.

The ecological self, like any notion of selfhood, is simply a metaphor, but it is a dynamic one. It involves choice. We can choose at different moments to identify to different aspects of our interrelated existence. We each can choose whether we care about those who hunt whales or not. We can care about homeless human beings or not. We can choose to participate in the long-standing rape of Mother Earth or we can choose to care. We can choose to recycle, support politicians who care about Mother Earth and whose voting record proves it.

“Look deeply, I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone…
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up.
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.”
—–Thich Nhat Hanh

Dolphins breaking water

February 22, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

We are connected to the Universe

Quantum Physics is proving that many of the basic spiritual beliefs are true. I suppose that is why I love it so much. This is a video from a different perspective. It was compiled by astronauts who have been to outer space. Their revelations and the effect of what they discovered has changed their outlook. We are children of the Universe and we are connected to Mother Earth. We are all One, interconnected and dependent upon our planet as she is on us. In this video you will see a lot of what the astronauts saw on their virgin flight to space. It changed them. Change is what we need to do for ourselves and our beautiful planet. She is alive, breathing, feeling pain, moving and sustaining us.

I remember the moon landing and going outside and looking up at that beautiful orb and thinking that there was one tiny man walking up there. He was having the most magical experience of his life. I found it humbling and still do. The magic of the Universe is always there, beautiful, amazing, overwhelming and real. We are real. We are star dust. It is my hope that everyone will enjoy this video as much as the astronauts did who made it. Blessings to everyone around our Mother Earth. May we always love and care for her.

December 3, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Healing Mother Earth

Yesterday, I spent at a Manet exhibit. It was a very good one and it got me thinking about our precious planet. I was thinking about what is taking place in 2012. The Northern Ice Cap is melting. The North Pole is now an island. The levels of our oceans and seas are rising. I believe this is a combination of the cycles of our planet and the poor care we are taking of our planet.

As the water levels rise, we will see a worsening of storms and their damage. Lower Manhattan is in a dangerous position and the damage from Sandy will look small in the future. The Carribean Islands will face flooding danger and Hawaii. In Europe, there will be certain flooding and danger in Venice and other land that is lower and therefore will easily flood. The icepack in Antartica is melting much faster than scientists have expected. This does not bode well for any of us.

We are adding many chemicals to the atmosphere. I have Asthma and live in Northern America, I watch the air quality reports and in the past there was only concern in the summertime. Now, in the winter, there are alerts for sensitive people.

At the present time, we are experiencing many more severe storms. It is pure denial to ignore the scientific research that scientists are doing. I know that not all scientists agree but they all feel we are adding toxic emissions into the atmosphere. The problem that I see, is if we don’t take the advise of the scientists, if they are correct about the amount of damage we might suffer, we could end up with a dead planet. Which means that all the animals and people will die. As sad and awful as this prospect is, we could hardly complain because we have been warned,

Yes, some of the changes scientists are suggesting can be expensive. Truthfully, do you want to have to explain to those alive then why the planet is dying and so are they. It seems an easy choice for me. Death or listening to the people actually doing the research.

Now, the politicians have many opinions but I don’t trust them to make the right decisions for the people. Would you when they can’t even work together to write a budget? I really don’t want to end my life carrying the guilt that I could have done more and yet I did not.

Our planet is filled with so much beauty and has been a wonderful planet for us to live on. We don’t want to damage that. So we need to work together with the scientists to find out what can be done within each and every portion of the world to begin the work of saving Mother Earth. There will be catastrophe if we do not take heed and work to heal our planet.

November 7, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

And Now Looking to the Future

To the Ancients, as well as to many contemporary seekers, the world is alive with spirit. The surrounding landscape is infused with creativity and meaning and each place speaks to us of the divine.

‘Every day is a god, each day is a god
And holiness holds forth in time…’

—Anne Dillard

The notion of a sacralized world may seem strange to the mainstream Western world. We live in a secular landscape. We have been taught to identify the sacred primarily with cathedrals, churches and temples. The rest of the earth is real estate. It is there for us to buy and sell and make money, .We have commercialized the earth and many don’t see the earth as sacred at all. We are wrong, of course. We have used this philosophy to plunder the earth of its rich bounty. We have dispelled our planets sacred aura.

The Holy Book of Nature

“It is written on the arched sky,
It looks out from every star….
It is spread out like a legible language upon the broad face of an unsleeping ocean.
It is the poetry of Nature,
It is that which uplifts the spirit within us.”
—John Ruskin

“The beauty of the trees,
The softness of the air, The fragrance of the grass, speaks to me.

The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.

The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me.

The strength of fire, the taste of salmon, the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me.

And my heart soars.
—Chief Dan George

Today, we need more jobs and more energy. We need more affordable energy. We have more resources here in America and actually all over our planet. What is the problem? It is that we cannot kill our Mother Earth retrieving these resources. We can’t plunder our planet and strip her of all of her treasures. Treasures which have taken billions of years to form. We have to find a way to take care of the living planet under our feet and have the energy we need. It will take many wise people to work together to figure out how to accomplish this. But it must be done. We need to listen to what scientists tell us and not to the politicians who have their own agendas. If our planet dies, this planet we walk on, drive on, build on, we will die. So let us not commit environmental suicide. There is global warming. The North Pole is an island. I am 62 and this is not right. This means that the oceans and seas are higher and they will flood land areas more easily.

We saw this with Hurricane Sandy and now with Winter Storm Athena. Manhattan experienced flooding just as the scientists have predicted. Venice is in danger of flooding and many other places we love on Mother Earth. The time for scoffing at the experts is over. We are already in danger. It is time to remember the sacredness of our planet and to all begin to work together to save our world, its animals and its people. If we want to have a future, we must do this.

Our planet is sacred. It is time to once again revere her.

October 25, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Our Love Hate Relationship With Mother Earth

Our beloved Mother Earth

” I’m going to plant a heart in the earth
Water it with love from a vein
I’m going to praise it with the push of muscle
And care for it in the sound of all dimensions.
I’m going to leave a heart in the earth
So it may grow and flower
A heart that throbs with longing
That adores everything green
That will be strength and nourishment for birds
That will be the sap of plants and mountains.

—-Rosario Murillo

We have a great gift from the Universe. It is the planet upon which we stand. The crust of our earth is full of rich metals that formed billions of years ago. Is there a directive to use every single molecule for our own needs? I think not. I also realize that we have already injured Mother Earth with our mining, and stripping and building.

There is much discussion these days about drilling more, mining more, electing someone will allow everyone to do anything they want to get energy out of our planet. It is a temptation to want to create jobs and provide cheaper energy. So what is the problem?

Fracking, drilling, mining, and all of the methods used to procure the energy, do just that: give us accessible energy. So, energy voters and neighbors on Mother Earth, why do some abhor this use of Mother Earth? It is because we are harming this beautiful planet which sustains us. Earth is a living entity. She is as alive as you and I are. We cause her pain and injure her ability to heal herself. Some day we may do more damage than she is able to repair and in the future she will die.

If Mother Earth turns from a living breathing planet to a dead cold planet, what will that mean to the sentient beings who live here? We will all die with our planet. I see no benefits to this.

In the book Earth Prayers: The Passion of the Earth, Editors Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon remind us:

“While many of us are aware of the destruction taking place on our planet, it is difficult to integrate this knowledge into our daily life. What do we do when it is not a war that is killing us, but progress? When the problem is not the actions of an evil “other,” but ourselves? We fear the despair such information provokes. We don’t want to feel the grief over all that is lost, nor our own complicity in the damage. This denial of feeling takes a heave toll on us, impoverishing our sensory and emotional lives. Ultimately, it puts us out of touch with reality.

There is an historical tradition of prayer that foresees the ruination of the world because of human transgression. We find it in the Torah, we find it again in the prayers of Native Americans as they witnessed the destruction of their way of life by the European conquerors.

We are hearing it again now, as citizens from around the world express their fears and their grief at what is happening to the Earth.”

We have forgotten who we are.

We have sought only our own security

We have exploited simply for our own ends

We have distorted our knowledge

We have abused our power.

——-Aaron Kramer; U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program