April 13, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

To Live an Elegant Life

We look around us at the world that exists and some of it is absolutely ugly with evil, greed, selfishness and disease. Is that all there is? No! It is not. So as we look around, how do we keep from descending into a mire of depression and pain? Do we, as creative people, turn away from what we see and give up? No again.

We begin to work on an authentic life. This life must be created by us; it is not a gift of our talents. To create an authentic life, we need to seek and create what is true for us as individuals. We need to seek what is true for each of us and how to live congruently with that true. This becomes our elegant truth. This is not a simple challenge in life, but it is one which allows us to both deal with the reality of the world, and still nurture ourselves and continue to be able to create according to our gifts.

A creator’s task is to reckon with the facts of existence. For the person searching for an elegant life amongst the ordinary or horrifying, you need to view life from the right perspective. If we add up the circumstances in our lives that we do not view as elegant we could become convinced that it wasn’t worth the effort.

But we need to decide to make our lives matter. This is where the elegance begins. As long as we draw breath, we are able to make meaning in our lives. This can help others to find the meaning in their lives, as well. This is, of course, only possible if those around us wish to have meaning in their lives.

We must remember to dream and then to keep up with out dreams. By doing this, we experience moments where we are in attunement with our dreams. The miracle is being able to live a moment in attunement with the dreams.

How do we make meaning? By writing a story, writing lyrics to a song, painting on a beautiful spring day when the light is so beautiful that it almost hurts. We make meaning by giving to our favorite charity or volunteering at a food bank. We join Big Brothers/Big Sisters and share parts of our lives with kids who need support. We donate some of our photography to be auctioned off for charity. We join Amnesty International and write letters on behalf of those being held as political prisoners. We buy free trade items. We join UNICEF so children might have clean water, nourishing food and medical care. We can encourage a child or grandchild to join the Peace Corp to help those who are suffering.

In my opinion, which is truly just an opinion, we can also make meaning in our lives by loving other human beings as we would like to be loved; listening to our inner voice and the advice it gives to us; always showing compassion and empathy. We can turn from racism and bigotry. We cannot look down on those with less. We can really care when a friend is encountering troubles and go out of our way to help, even if it is a small thing.

We can join, speak up, protest and march non-violently. We can use our right to vote as the gift and responsibility it is. We can declare that this life is ours and it will mean what we want it to mean. We can search for the answers for our dreams and use all of this to energize our creativity. We can be grateful for our talents even on days when we can’t do anything.

We can be grateful for our bodies even on the days that they aren’t co-operating with our tasks. We can tell the Universe and our bodies of our gratitude and I believe that will be honored. I personally learned from a Neurologist that being grateful for our bodies on the good days and on the days your body isn’t working as it optimally should causes the body to begin slowly to heal itself. Little by little, day by day. I am grateful and my body responds to that gratitude.

So, be authentic, seek elegance in your life and you will become the person you thought you might want to be, so very long ago.

Namaste,

Barbara

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Water Lily garden, Caribbean. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2013

” O God, scatterer of ignorance and darkness,

grant me your strength.

May all beings regard me with the eye of a friend,

and I all beings!

With the eye of a friend may each single being

regard all others!”

—‘Sukla Yajur, Veda XXXVI

Swimming with Dolphins. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2013

December 17, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Is This Child Safe?

I have been thinking about holidays and children. Not just American children, but children in the UK and children in India. I have been worrying about children in Russia and in Jamaica.

I have been thinking of children who don’t have good role models or lunch money. I have been thinking about children who are afraid and ones who like to look at books and yet they can’t read. They can’t write their names. This is for all the children around the globe, every last noisy, coughing, running, laughing, crying, dirty, sassy one of them. I hope they have someone to hug them tonight when they go to bed and I hope they did not see violence today.

If the Child is Safe

We pray for children

who sneak popsicles before supper,

who erase holes in math workbooks,

who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those

who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,

who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers.

who never counted ” potatoes”,

who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,

who never go to the circus,

who live in an x-rated world.

We pray for children

who bring us sticky kisses and fistfulls of dandelions,

who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those

who never get dessert,

who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, who watch their parents die,

who can’t find any bread to steal,

who don’t have any rooms to clean up,

whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,

whose monsters are real.

We pray for children

who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,

who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,

who like ghost stories,

who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse the tub,

who get visits from the tooth fairy,

who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,

who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,

whose tears we sometimes laugh at and

whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for children who want to be carried

and for those who must,

for those we never give up on and for those who don’t get a second chance.

For those we smother…and for those who will grab

the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

—Marian Wright Edelman

This time of year, everyone is looking for presents. Some people just have everything or you don’t know them well enough to be certain to find the right present. A lot of time gets wasted on trying to find the perfect item. Well, I have a suggestion. You can go to Heifer.com and decide how much you want to spend. Your money will be added to others and a flock of chicks, ducks or geese will be sent to a village where there is extreme famine and poverty. You can send a part of a cow or goat. It is your choice. These gifts will help to feed their owners and the animals can breed and everyone is better off. You get a card to send to your friend or relative and the family or village gets what you pick for them. Perhaps, this year because of your kindness, there will be more children who will not go hungry and will be ever so grateful for the kind stranger who helped fill their belly.

Heifer.com is an organization which has been around for seventy years. They provide livestock and environmentally sound agricultural training to improve the lives of people who struggle to have reliable sources of food. They are currently working in thirty countries.

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What we can do for a child of this world.

Children around the world playing. We can help them to continue to do so.

May 5, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

How do Creative People Repair Themselves?

People are harmed by certain experiences like being abused, discounted, lied to, shamed, beaten, ignored, tyrannized and hated. People are harmed by encountering too many disappointments, rejections, criticisms, unfulfilled dreams, and unsuccessful outcomes.

Creative people often feel the pain of these experiences more deeply than the accountants and the business moguls. Many creative people are born with depression, anxiety or family love. Every human being is hurt in some way by the people of the world. We can find it harder to live, care, try and be calm. Most of us, in some time of our lives realized, we need repair. But how do we make that happen?

This question is dangerous because it indicates that there is only one way for you or I to repair or heal ourselves. There is just one answer to the question.

Often, it is difficult to begin to do the self repair work. The damage is everywhere. It is in the brain. It is in the way we breathe, in the way we see, and what we are attracted to. Often, when we know that we are emotionally injured, we try to repress it or to pretend there is nothing wrong. What humans become during war shows the power of emotional damage on the human psyche.

Support, from friends, a psychotherapist and loved ones, uses our creative gifts to heal the self and are often successful. Talking to your subconscious and reassuring it that you are safe and in no danger can help. Talking to a therapist can help. reveling in your successes can help. Creating the beautiful art to fill the world can help. Artists, all kinds of artists, are very important in the world. No matter what your media is, you add to the beauty, kindness, compassion and love in the world. Even if you have no one close to you who gives you unconditional support, be your own support. Believe in yourself.

Friends are very important to “listen and support” during the down days. And don’t forget your family, your “WordPress family” who will be honest with you. I have found that readers are honest and forthcoming with good advice.

Musicians, writers, photographers and painters, print makers, sketchers all have the fullness of creative ability. Some of the most highly respected artists felt some days that they had no talent.

Gauguin, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, for instance all went through periods when they felt they had no talent. Some of their “friends” encouraged this thinking. But over a hundred years in the future we consider them some of arts’ masters. Follow your heart and the needs of your soul. If your hands want to write, then do so. If your eyes want to see a mountain through a lens, then allow it.

There is discussion about making sure that students who are majoring in math and science all be given art classes. This is to help them be able to deal with people better, to develop ideas better, and to enrich their lives.

” I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. The time will come when people will see that my paintings are worth more than the price of the paint and my own living.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

“Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

“Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is every deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, these open the prison by supreme power, by some magic force. Where sympathy is renewed, life is restored.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

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Lake Michigan

Inner Peace

April 22, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Today We Thank Mother Earth

“Lord, the air smells good today, straight from the mysteries

within the inner courts of God.

A grace like new clothes thrown

across the garden, free medicine for everybody.

The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,

the first blue violets kneeling.

Whatever came from Being is caught up in being,

drunkenly forgetting the way back.”

—Rumi

Zinnias grown, photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

The beauty of the earth is everywhere, mankind has not destroyed what we have been given. Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2015

“too much industry

too much eats

too much beer

too many cigarettes

Too much philosophy

too many thought forms

not enough rooms—

not enough trees

Too much Police

too much computers

to much hi fi

too much Pork

Too much coffee

too much smoking

under slate grey roofs

Too much obedience

Too many bellies

Too many business suits

Too much paperwork

too many magazines

Too much industry

No fish in the Rhine

Lorelei poisoned

Too much embarrassment.

Too many fatigued

workers on the train

Ghost Jews scream

on the street corner

Too much old murder

too much white torture

Too much one Stammheim

too many happy Nazis.

Too many crazy students

Not enough farms

not enough Appletrees

Not enough nut trees

Too much money

Too many poor

turks without vote

“Guests” do the work

Too much metal

Too much fat

Too many jokes

not enough meditation.”

—Allen Ginsberg, twentieth century Beats poet

The skies are filled with the beauty of Mother Earth. Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2015

May we all remember to thank Mother Earth for what we have been given. May we ask forgiveness for what we have destroyed. May we do restitution to our planet to undo what we have destroyed. May our words, prayers and actions make a difference.