Sometimes it is best to let the speaker have their own time. There is nothing I can say that this courageous young lady doesn’t say better. We are raising up many brave voices and I hope and pray that the world will listen to them.
Namaste,
And bless this girl with protection, hutzpuh, and love. May her life be a shining light.
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
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
“Thanks be to God, the very world that birthed us
now is bathed by wondrous Nature
in a rapture of her glorious light:
the splendor of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, now revealed.
And humankind, highest of creatures,
endowed with Intellect’s might
so that all the beasts,
winged and hoof’d,
are placed under his command
And Adam’s veins are filled
with Art, Science, Faith:
he knows the sciences are clear
-but music is the weightiest
as a surging ocean
outweighs the very world through with it flows.
If he whose heart’s been moved
by the science of Music’s whole effect
were offered the pleasure of emperorship,
he’d certainly ignore it
-for Man is not alone in his delight
at that sweet sound
since even animals have sacrificed themselves for it.
More stubborn than a donkey,
he who holds that Music’s “impure”;
Ignorant of beauty
how claim acquaintance with the Lord?
Creator!
the Ocean Surges!
Permit my skiff to reach the shore
-King!
I beg what kindness
-Inayat-
thou canst afford.
—Translated from the Urdu by Pir Zia Inayat Khan and Lamborn Wilson
The Dalai Lama
Embrace your world and make it be whatever you want.
1
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
The Awesome power of Mother Earth.
This sunflower was growing in my daughter’s backyard. It gave off so much beautiful energy I had to take the photograph. Copyrighted 2012 by Barbara Mattio
This statue is in the gardens of the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio 2012
If you want to find beauty and peace, close your eyes and spin around. Open your eyes and you will find it everywhere. Once you find it all around you, then look inside and you will find the beauty of your soul, composed of pure white light. If you don’t really want to find beauty, then you will find what is dark and ugly. I, for me and my life choose the beauty. And I rejoice in the choice every day. Even on the bad ones because beauty is just around the corner.
The trees are our guardians.
The concept that Mother Earth is sacred is not a contemporary one. Through the millenniums all spiritual paths have written, repeated and taught sacred prayers and thoughts about our earth. Some are filled with praise or thanksgiving. Some are requests for the needs for the earth and the people. Some are just being aware of the beauty of Mother Earth.
Over time, people have used Earth Prayer to maintain and return to a vivid relationship with the Earth. Sometimes, we just have an appreciative heart for our food or our water. As all of the grateful thoughts and prayers, Gathas or verses we read during our meditations rise to the Heavens we look for forgiveness for the injury we have done to our planet and request healing to reduce the damage.
“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
Across the door-sill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep!
—Rumi
“All life is your own,
All fruits of the earth
Are fruits of your womb,
Your union, your dance.
Lady and Lord,
We thank you for blessings and abundance.
Join with us, Feast with us, Enjoy with us!
Blessed be.
—Starhawk
“Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly.”
—–Hildegard of Bingen
“I entrust myself to earth,
Earth entrusts herself to me.
I entrust myself to Buddha,
Buddha entrusts herself to me”.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
“May the axe be far away from you,
May the fire be far away from you;
May there be rain without storm,
Lord of Trees, may you be blessed.
Lord of Trees, may I be blessed.”
——Hindu Prayer
“When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy,
then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks
of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.”
—Hasidic Saying
“Bless Adonai
who spins day into dusk
With wisdom watch
the dawn gates open,
with understanding let
time and seasons
come and go;
with awe perceive
the stars in lawful orbit.
Morning dawns,
evening darkens,
darkness and light yielding
one to the other,
yet each distinguished
and unique.
Marvel at Life!
Strive to know its ways!
Seek Wisdom and Truth,
the gateways
to Life’s mysteries!
Wondrous indeed
is the evening twilight.”
—–Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro
“Goodnight God
I hope that you are having
a good time being the world.
I like the world very much.
I’m glad you made the plants
and trees survive with the
rain and summers.
When summer is nearly near
the leaves begin to fall.
I hope you have a good time
being the world.
I like how God feels around
everyone in the world.
God, I am very happy that
I live on you.
Your arms clasp around the world.
I like you and your friends.
Every time I open my eyes
I see the gleaming sun.
I like the animals—-the deer,
and us creatures of the world,
the mammals.
I love my dear friends”
—-Danu Baxter, Four and a half years old
“Teach your children
what we have taught our children–
that the earth is our mother.
Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.
If men spit upon the ground,
they spit upon themselves.
This we know.
The earth does does not belong to us;
we belong to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected
like the which unites one family.
All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.
We did not weave the web of life,
We are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”
—-Chief Seattle
Carolina Beach, NC; Photo by Barbara Mattio
.
Due to the beautiful full moon, I am up at 2 AM. I am reading and thinking about the icon which represents our feminine aspect. I was out on my front porch and we are having a tropical night. I sat to enjoy the view of the moon and the sounds of the night. I was thinking of the many centuries of humans sitting and watching the amazing celestial shows. I can almost see people looking up at the sky and being overwhelmed by the galactic show. I can see them and almost feel their amazement as they wondered and questioned the brilliant lights in their sky. How they must have created stories to explain what they saw and the reasons it existed. We still look to the sky with wonder and now scientists are finding more and more explanations and considering hypotheses not explored yet.
I believe that science fiction, Star Trek, Star Gate and Dr. Who are a genre that has lite a fire in the minds of scientists. Why not? Why not indeed. Why not have microwaves, and the speed of light, and the birth of stars, Nothing is impossible when it comes from Divinity.
” Blessing of galaxies, blessing of stars:
Great stars, small stars, red stars, blue ones.
Blessing of nebula, blessing of supernova,
Planets, satellites, asteroids, comets.
Blessing of our sun and moon, blessing of our earth,
Oceans, rivers, continents, mountain ranges
Blessing of wind and cloud, blessing of rain,
Fog bank, snowdrift, lightning and thunder.
Bless the wisdom of the holy one above us.
Bless the truth of the holy one beneath us.
Bless the love of the holy one within us.
Blessing of green plants, blessing of forests:
Cedar, douglas fir, swordfern, salal bush
Blessing of fish and birds, blessing of mammals.
Salmon, eagle, cougar, and mountain goat.
May all mankind likewise offer blessing:
Old women, young women, wise men and foolish
Blessing of youthfulness, blessing of children
Big boys. little boys, big girls and little ones.
Bless the wisdom of the holy one above us;
Bless the truth of the holy one beneath us,
Bless the love of the holy one within us.”
Chinook Psalter
“Let the heavens be reflected in the earth, Lord, that the earth may turn into heaven.” —–Hazrat Inayat Khan
Mensen maken de samenleving en nemen daarin een positie in. Deze website geeft toegang tot een diversiteit aan artikelen die gaan over 'samenleven', belicht vanuit verschillende perspectieven. De artikelen hebben gemeen dat er gezocht wordt naar wat 'mensen bindt, in plaats van wat hen scheidt'.
Observations about my life and the world around me.
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The news. The dog. Dialectics.
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Husband from Utah, Wife from Hong Kong, Two Mix Babies
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