Tag Archives: Divine

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The Divine in Me and the Divine in You


The Head of the year

 

The moon is dark tonight, a new

moon for a new year.

It is hollow and hungers to be full.

It is the black zero of beginning.

 

Now you must void yourself

of injuries, insults, incursions.

Go with empty hands to those

you have hurt and make amends.

 

It is not too late. It is early

and about to grow. Now

is the time to do what you

know you must and have feared

 

to begin. Your face is dark

too as you turn inward to face

yourself. the hidden twin of all you must grow to be.

 

Forgive the dead year.

Forgive yourself. What will be wants

to push through your fingers.

The light you seek hides

 

in your belly. The light you

crave longs to stream from

your eyes. You are the moon

that will wax in new goodness.

—Marge Piercy; novelist and poet

 

When I write to you, it is the Divinity within me singing to the Divinity within you.

We all have Divinity within us. We never lose it.

Life is Divine; my life and yours.

Divinity is the shimmer in the sky, it is the colors of the trees.

My Divinity bows to the Divinity in you.   —Barbara Mattio

 

 

“We still don’t know how to put morality ahead of politics,

science and economics. We are still incapable of understanding

that the only genuine backbone of all our actions—if they are to

be moral—is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher

than my family, my country, my company, my success.

Responsibility to the order of Being, where all our actions are

indelibly recorded and where, and only where, they will be

properly judged.”

—Vaclav Havel

 

” All celestial harmony is

a mirror of Divinity

and

man

is a mirror of all

the miracles of God.”

—St. Hildegard of Bingen

 

 

Kwan Yin is a Buddhist goddess. She is the goddess of compassion. She is only one of

the images of the Divine in our world. We all have our favorites. She is one of mine because

compassion is so important and needed in our world.  Namaste, Barbara

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What is Good


Hold on to What is Good

 

Hold on to what is good,

Even if it is a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe,

Even if it is a long way from here.

Hold on to life,

Even if it is easier letting go,

Hold on to the hand of your neighbor,

Even when we are apart.

—Native American Prayer

 

 

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 My garden in Avon. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio                                                                                            2014

 

 

It is important to hang on to what is good in our lives. The good gets us through the bad, the stressful and the painful. Each day we are given a new portion of good for that day. Hold on to it because it is the love of God manifested for us to sustain us. Life isn’t always easy, but we are ever in the care and love of the Divine.

 

The Promise of This Day

 

Look to this day,

For it is life,

The very life of life.

In its brief course lie all

The realities and verities of existence,

The bliss of growth,

The splendor of action,

The glory of power—

For yesterday is but a dream,

And tomorrow is only a vision.

But today, well lived,

Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day.

—Sanskrit Proverb

 

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Eastern Thoughts


Many of us enjoy reading the poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir and others. I always feel as if I have been in the presence of God. Whatever form of the Divine you follow, their words take us into his/her presence. This is the same kind of experience. I hope you can enjoy these beautiful Zoroastrian words.

 

In Thy image let me pattern my life, Oh Ahuramazda,

Let me awake with Thy name on my lips,

In my eyes let me ever carry Thy image,

To enable me to perceive Thee and

Thee alone in everyone else.

 

Let my mind never waver elsewhere except

to hold Thee in mind.

Let me ever sing songs of praise for Thee.

Let me dance with joy ever in Thy presence.

Let me await Thee patiently for Thy coming

Let that be my everlasting joy.

To be with Thee forevermore.

 

I await Thee, Thee and Thee alone.

I seek none but Thee.

I long for Thee, I yearn for Thee.

Bless me with Thy vision and let me hold

That enchanted Vision every in my memory,

To Thy Glory, Oh Ahuramazda.

 

Teach me to knock, teach me to sing, to clim

So that the door may open with sweet music,

That will lull me to the world of creation,

World of geniuses, who all sing one song,

the song of Praise to Thee.

 

Oh Ahuramazda, I long for Thee,

I await Thee in patience, when shall I perceive?

When shalt Thou bequeath?

I patience I kneel and bow.

I await in silence, in expectation.

 

Have mercy on this aching heart.

Transform me with Thy Divine Touch.

My aching heart calls out to Thee.

My anguish can only cease with Thy Divine Touch.

I await Thee, I surrender to Thee.

I look forward to They coming in silent meditation.

–A Zoroastrian Prayer which is recited before meditating

 

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The Dove of Peace.

The Dove of Peace.

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The Time is Here


Time Piece

Time, as we understand it did not begin until the nineteenth century. At that time, people got up and went to bed with the sun. Candlelight isn’t good lighting for reading, sewing or fixing tools. Many other people ordered their lives by the whistles of the factory or by the town clock.

People were often late by fifteen or twenty minutes. Almost everyone was late and it wasn’t considered important because time wasn’t a constant. In 1880, the concept of an appointment was developed. With the birth of “appointments” came the responsibility to be on time. Time was local and not organized.

This all changed with the advent of  trains. Trains needed a schedule. Schedules needed standardization. A schedule meant there had to be universal time.

The country was divided into time zones and it was made uniform.  In the last fifty years, our sense of time has been completely overturned. A few years ago, one received a letter, you read it and thought about what was in the letter. Then you answered it and posted the response. It took perhaps a week to complete this correspondence. Then we had faxes to speed up the time of  correspondence. Now there is social media, texting, e-mail and Skype. Instant answers are expected.

What happens to human beings when the rhythm goes faster and faster? The faster humans run, the more empty they feel. We need to slow down and rediscover our families and friends. We need to give ourselves time for ourselves. We need to go inside for communion with the Divine. It is time to find time for yourself and for renewal of the soul. It is time to take time for ourselves and our families.

An image of time.

An image of time.

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Through Life’s Experiences


” A person who has gone through all experiences and has held his spirit high, not allowing it to be stained, such a person may be said to be pure-minded. The person who could be called pure because he had no knowledge of either good or evil would in reality be merely a simpleton. To go through all that takes away the original purity and yet to rise above everything that seeks to overwhelm it and drag it down, that is spirituality; the light of the spirit held high and burning clear and pure.”

—-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Water garden. Cleveland Botanical Gardens; Photo by Barbara Mattio

God and man are not two; a spiritual person does not consider God separate from him/herself. God is not in heaven alone; The Beloved is everywhere. We see God in the unseen and in the seen; the spiritual person recognizes The Divine within and without. So, in reality there is no name which is not the name of God, and there is no form which is not the form of Divinity.

We need to recognize the imperfect and mortal aspect of our being as well as the perfect, the immortal aspect of our beings. The imperfect self covers the soul and confines it in a limited being, and calls itself “I”, a servant of God, and the calls The One, the Lord of the whole of existence.
–Excerpted from The Unity of Religious Ideals

In our daily lives, if we can grasp the truth that the all-knowing Divine is within us and everywhere we travel or have experiences  then we will truly begin to experience the unlimited, infinite aspects of God. How you choose to work on this in your life is your choice. All paths can take you to the experience of the infinite , all encompassing experience of God in the Universe. Simply put, The Beloved is everywhere and within all sentient beings. Being God-conscious gives us the ability to see all people as children of the Universe. Not different, not hateful, not wrong; just other children of the Universe. The spiritual path shows us that God is in the seen and the unseen. There is no name which is not the name of God.

 

The Universe

 

“The Beloved is all in all; the lover only veils Him/Her; the Beloved is all that lives; the lover is a dead thing.”

—Rumi

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Mindful


 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Barbara Mattio

“Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for—
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations,
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself, how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light

of the world
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?”
—Mary Oliver

This poem is taken from one of my favorite poetry books, “Dancing With Joy.” For me reading poetry is akin to meditation. It is slowly drawing up that long slow breath and holding it for those moments of balance, and then the slow gradual exhale. Then the energy begins to flow and you dance with the Divine.

Dancing With Joy; Photo by Barbara Mattio