Tag Archives: culture

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Living in Harmony


We Can All be a Light to Others

Thanksgiving is upon us. A day that Americans remember blessings and those who are no longer with us and…eat too much. This is also a time where we are watching a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. There are celebrations in the Gaza Strip. What will make this a true cease-fire?

Arabs and Jews must live together in peace. Easy to say. Easy to say when you live across the world from the site of this continuing conflict. Are we each living in harmony with those in our own sphere? Do we show love to those who are different? Will we give thanks to The One for all the people and acquaintances within our spheres?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and my message for this day, here and around the world, is to look at others and not see different skin color, language, nationality or spiritual path, but to see another child of God. Another being created from Stardust, just as we are. I encourage people to look within and to find the Divine within and then to see the Divine in those around you.

They aren’t a mistake. They are as beloved by The One as you and I are. We need to accept each other as children of the Universe and live in harmony with all. Yes, there are people who have evil intentions, but the number of them compared to those who love the Divine are minimal and we need to send out love into our life sphere, not distrust or hatred.

For Thanksgiving, try loving everyone. Accept them and their differences. Remember they are loved, too, just like you and I are. Stop the judgement and criticizing of people for being different.

May we all live today, tomorrow and always in harmony.

May we Live in Peace and Harmony

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Your Artistic Voice


Magnolia, Oil pastels By Barbara Mattio

Being a person who has the desire to create is a gift and a burden at times as well. There are some days you are in “the zone” and you are on fire with the desire, the need to create. To create what is bursting to be released from your soul. There are also days when you want to work and your creativity is stuck inside as if it were a geni in a bottle and the cork is solidly blocking the neck of the bottle.

It is important to work hard at developing your artistic voice and equally important to be patient with people who are struggling to find their own voice.

I feel that we can’t really understand all of our work. We create from a place inside which defies even our best attempts to understand it. It is almost impossible for others to understand our work. Many go into great detail describing what an artist meant with their poetry, print making, compositions, paintings or their dance. It is important to attempt to understand as we can grow as artists, but also important to remember in the back of our minds, that we probably have only a glimpse of where that art came from and what its etiology could have possibly been.

The good thing is that the more we use our artistic voice, the stronger and clearer it will become. It is important to remember, all great artists of any medium have worked long and hard before they felt they had created what was striving to burst out of their soul. Dancers, writers, poets, musicians, sculptors, painters, graphic artists,and actors put a lot of time and effort, sweat and tears into their craft before they are satisfied with the results.

Then there are the critics. Those self appointed judges who make a living tearing what you have created apart and then putting it together again in ways they feel is best. This is where you need to be true to your artistic voice. You can’t please all of the people all of the time; please your soul. Do what you were meant to do, even if critics don’t “get” it. You are an artist and this is a gift you were given. Be proud, nurture it. Work hard to accomplish what you know you must do and be fearless.

The more you use your artistic voice, the closer you will be to artistic purity. Remember to breathe, feel, love, live in joy. You are growing alongside your work..

My pond in Autumn Photo by Barbara Mattio