December 19, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Time to Begin Healing

He is my brother

The town of Newton and the country need to begin the long process of healing. There has been a frightening amount of negative energy released into the world this year. Yes, it does happen every year, but somehow this one felt worse. So what to do? What is the response of rational, thinking, feeling, caring citizens?.

There is a lot of negative energy right now and the numbers of people who have died due to violence is escalating. How should we react in the face of all of this negativity? We use love and light. We walk our spiritual paths and we surround our country with white protective light.

I am talking about working on the spiritual plane right now. The government can and I hope, will handle the issues of violence and gun control facing us now. When we face people with negativity, hatred, greed or power seeking, we need to use compassion, love, and light to carry the message of love and peaceful living into the world.

The idea of meeting violence with violence is not good because it escalates the issues. Caring about other beings is vital for us as children of the Universe. Meeting violence with love is the place I think we need to begin. We need to use forgiveness, compassion as well as light and love to heal our own hearts and to prevent hearts from filling with hatred and violence.

There are a lot of people who are working very hard to doom our beautiful world into darkness. We need to be more positive, show more kindness, act with more compassion and find more of the beauty that is in our lives. We need to give more, stand up and speak the truth more and deal with our anger. We need to go to anger management or therapy. We need to realize our anger does not give us the right to react violently when we disagree with someone.

We need to praise good work and honest effort. We need to listen to the wisdom, gained through years of living, of those who have earned their wisdom from facing and dealing with the many issues that come up in the journey of a lifetime.

The Wild Rose of Praise

“Those unable to grieve,

Or to speak their love,

Or to be grateful, those

Who can’t remember God

As the source of everything,

Might be described as vacant wind,

Or a cold anvil, or a group

Of frightened old people.

Say the Name. Moisten your tongue

With praise, and be the spring ground,

Waking. Let your mouth be given

Its gold-yellow stamen like the wild rose’s.

As you fill with wisdom,

And your heart with love,

There’s no more thirst.

There’s only an unselfed patience

Waiting on the doorsill, a silence

Which doesn’t listen to advise

From people passing in the street.”

————Sanai

The poet Sanai lived in the twelfth century. Children laughing once again

Let Peace Happen

December 15, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

America, we have had enough shooting

Prayer brings healing and love to people

There is a source of comfort in times of unbearable grief

We must end the anger and violence. We must look to helping each other to heal.

People of all faiths are praying together for healing and peace and an end to violence.

December 15, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

At the End of the Day

The language of the eyes is tears.

This day has left many in pain, shock, disbelief, horror, and anger. I know I have felt each of these emotions through the course of the day. I have been praying, sending light and strength to the families of the survivors and the families of the victims.

This has been a week that reminds me of the 9-11 attacks. A time where your brain just can’t quite wrap around the truth–the awful truth that little ones have died. There really aren’t any words that can comfort a parent at a time like this, but it is important to put the sacred and pure energy out there to heal and lift up those whose hearts have been broken.

It doesn’t matter who these children were, they were all unique gifts from God and their time here was too short. I think about what they would have wanted their parents to feel and the entire nation. I think they would tell us they are in no pain and they are well. I think this because life is a cycle, it begins with birth and ends in death but that does not end the journey. I believe they would want us all to live in love, peace and harmony. I believe they would want to be remembered in our hearts.

Photo by Barbara Mattio

May all of the people who have been murdered this week Rest in the Peace of God now and always.

December 6, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

The One and Love

My Heart has Become Capable of Every Form

My heart has become capable of every form;

For gazelles and a retreat for Christian monks,

And a temple for idols, and the pilgrims’s Ka’ba

And the tables of the Torah and the book of the Koran.

I follow the religion of Love, whichever way his camels take.

My religion and my faith is the true religion.

——Ibn al–Arabi

“Fact is intelligible, but truth is beyond comprehension, for truth is unlimited.” ——-Hazarat Inayat Khan

“Love in reality creates harmony in one’s life on earth and peace in Heaven.” ———Hazrat Inayat Khan

“The principal work of the prophet is to glorify the name of God, and to raise humanity from the denseness of the earth,

To open the doors of the human heart to the divine beauty

Which is everywhere manifested, and to illuminate souls

Which are groping in darkness for years. The prophet brings

The Message of the day, a reform for that particular period in which he is born.” ——Hazrat Inayat Khan

December 1, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

The Prognosis for Mother Earth

“More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” —-Alfred Lord Tennyson

Invoking the powers of the Universe or bestowing our blessing on the Earth or other beings is neither a simple benevolent wish nor an act of hubris.. It is an act of creative consciousness. .As we shake off all other desires, we can proceed on our relationship with the whole Universe.

Peace be to earth and to airy space!
Peace be to heaven, peace to the waters,
Peace to the plant and peace to the trees!
May all the powers grant me peace!
By this invocation of peace may peace be diffused!
By this invocation of peace may peace bring peace!
With this peace the dreadful I now appease,
With this peace the cruel I now appease,
With this peace all evil I now appease,
So that peace may prevail, happiness prevail
May everything for us to be peaceful.”
——–Atharva Veda XIX

Prayers and blessings bring us into alignment with the rest of creation. They directly express our intentions and and utter wishes we hope to be achieved. We offer an invocation or blessings and we become mindful co-creators in this unfolding Universe.

“This is what I want to happen,
That our Earth Mother may not be closed in ground corn four times over…
In order that the country may be this way
I have made my prayer sticks into something alive.”
——–Zuni prayer

There is some magic to some prayers. Not the superstitious sort we usually think of, but rather in the ecological sense of the creative flux of all things. Through our blessings and superstitions we acknowledge this network of forces that flows through the world. This awakens the deeper levels, of our consciousness to affect these patterns of change.

It is an act of creative confidence, these invocations and prayers. It empties us of the needs of our personality, our ego, or the demands of our society, we free ourselves to come into a dynamic relationship with the whole Universe.

The Journey of life can take us down beautiful paths

Photo by Barbara Mattio

September 28, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Solitude

Solitary Holden beach, North Carolina’ Photo by Barbara Mattio

Solitude is a state of being which some people crave and some people are very uncomfortable with. There was a time in my life when solitude was difficult for me. I have always been a people person. I found though that solitude is necessary to find out who I was as a woman. Solitude is something I enjoy now and also find to be necessary to my life. Even if everything is going well and I feel that I am in a good space, I need to spend time within. We all need to spend time alone with ourselves. This is the purpose of spiritual retreats. Time spent in silence with yourself and time to discover the woman within. This is a journey everyone needs to make at some time in their lives.

Life today is busier than ever. Sometimes I think we are addicted to the constant hustle and bustle. We feel lost when there is nothing to do. Some feel shame if they can’t complain about how busy they are. Busy doesn’t help you to get to know yourself or others in your family. Getting to know ourselves is a project and a journey. It is a wonderful journey that leads you to meet the inner you. Solitude gives you the chance to discover what really interests you and what you may be doing to please others and not yourself.

I believe we need to know who we are to love ourselves. Loving ourselves is an important part of being a child of the Universe. As human beings, we often don’t realize that if you don’t love yourself, you are incapable of truly loving another. Human love is given to us to teach us how to love the Divine. Divinity is in every sentient being and it is essential for us to learn all we can about love. Not sex, not marrying well, but the love of one soul for another. This shows us how The love of Divinityexpresses its love for its creation.

The journey to finding ourselves can be the beginning of a psychological adventure story and a thrilling mystery. Some can do this by attending a retreat of silence. Some can do it with regular meditation. Some have sold what they own and have gone to another country or area of the country to discover who they are. Away from all of the voices, telling us who we are, we can discover our true selves.

I have a nephew who walked the entire Appalacian Trail, with only what he could carry easily. I made him a medicine bag to take with him. What he discovered was the man he really was. He says it could never have happened if he hadn’t had the solitude of walking the trail. What I have seen is a young man whose life has blossomed with new adventures, new job and even marriage at 40 years of age. He just makes me smile when I think of him.

I met myself during retreats of silence. My childhood had contained experiences which I thought had changed the person I was supposed to be. What I discovered in the silence, was that I was exactly as I was when I was born. Pure white light. Not damaged. Stronger and beginning to learn to love myself.

Usually, it is a number of experiences which are uncomfortable or frightening to us which triggers a need for silence. I believe it is one of the reasons I enjoy the mountains and beach so much. I love the solitude and I love the activity. I have learned to create balance for myself in my life. I have been on a mountain top under the stars on a full moon dancing with others and I have hiked alone with my camera to document the beauty of this life.

If you are dreaming of escaping to somewhere else to find yourself, perhaps this is a gift you should give to yourself. I know that you will come back very different and yet more real and authentic in who you are as a child of the Universe. Will people think you are crazy? Perhaps. Will they ridicule you? Many may. The richness of the inner treasure you find will be worth all of that and you will have a much stronger relationship with yourself and with The One. Life will unveil itself to you and you will know where you are to be going and how to get there. Be courageous. Be Wild. Be everything you were meant to be.

September 4, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

An Unlived Life

A Scottish beach

At some time, really look at your bedroom. The one room in your house or apartment where you show who and what you are on the inside. Your passion, hopes and dreams are expressed. You reveal much of your deepest feelings about yourself.

It doesn’t matter if you live alone or not, a woman’s bedroom is a reflection of her inner most self. Often, we women have messy unorganized bedrooms and they are a picture of inner emotions. Often, a messy bedroom is an SOS for an unlived life. Our rooms are a haven or respite for our souls. We sleep there, and relax and read and have romance.

The definition of the purpose of the bedroom has expanded to being a secondary family room. Do you pay bills, answer, emails, iron clothes, or exercise?

We are at the turning of the cycle of life and the year. Time to rethink and resort what is important in our lives. It is time to stop being invisible and create a room for yourself that is as authentic as you are. The term ‘boudoir” turns our bedroom space into a decompression zone. A boudoir takes you to a completely new level of life. A place were we can take off the facade and be in attendance to our own thoughts and feelings.

So it is fine to have a Do Not Disturb sign on your doorknob and I encourage it. Solitude does not mean you are avoiding the family, you just deserve a few precious moments when you are focused on what you need. A chance to take a block of time to remember who you really are and what you want and where you want to go. This life of yours, is meant to be lived. Existing just doesn’t quite do it. Don’t stand still, bloom and live your life. The life you are grasping for, start making the steps to take youself there. Have a good journey!

National Museum of Art, Washington D.C., sculpture garden
Acrylic on stretched canvas by Barbara Mattio

September 2, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

The Beauty in Your Art and Your Life

Oak Alley Plantation, NO; Acrylic on stretched canvas; By Barbara Mattio

Artists, musicians, writers, dancers, photographers, painters, sculptors and a host of other creative people often feel that there is no beauty in life and that they must create it in their art. The problem is that not all of the beauty in your life is found in your poem, sketch, song, dance, novel. There is beauty all around and it is important to really see it. “See it” with your entire being. If you miscalculate the beauty and meaning in your life, despair will follow you.

Creative people need to experience beauty and find meaning for their creative outlets and lives. We, each of us, need to see ourselves as the beauty in life. Yes, there is an entire planet of beauty around us, but there is beauty within us also.

We each need to recognize that at the end of the day, we stand with what we have created that day and we need to actually say, “I am the beauty in life.” No, it isn’t egotistical. What any artist creates will touch the hearts and minds of many. That gives us a powerful meaning to live for and with.

There will be many times you critique your work and are not happy. You didn’t quite capture that small thing that in your eyes would make it fantastic. It is fine. An artist needs a mantra and I suggest, “I am the beauty in life.” This mantra, soothes the feelings of not accomplishing enough, it soothes the sorrow of loneliness, and feelings of being insignificant. Six words to carry within you, to remind you that you are exactly who and what you are to be in this lifetime. There wasn’t a glitch in the system when you came along. You are as you are meant to be, a beautiful person who has creative talents to share that beauty with others.

There is a big difference between creating and being successful. Creating is a God-given gift that needs to be shared and enjoyed by others. Success is buying into the rigid criteria that our society dreams up. This is why creating and being a big shot “successful” person can be divided by a deep ravine.

Often when we put success first, we become bored, hate ourselves for ‘selling out” and devalue the career we are pursuing. The key here is to create and not listen to the voices who can’t comprehend what we have created. For some, there is a perfect solution of a career that we feel successful at and a second creative endeavor that gives life meaning and direction.

Every time we create, there is a new ray of hope that enters the world through your life and helps to dissipate some of the negativity that we find in the world. Our souls and hearts make a counterbalance to hatred, violence, greed and apathy. That is a lot of beauty and meaning to add to this life journey we are on.

So take a bow, if only in your mind. You are not only important but you are vital to the well-being of the 7 billion+ people inhabitating Mother Earth. So write, draw, dance, and sing, rock out in that band and create everything that Divinity has put inside of you. You really make a difference!

Utah skiing trip

August 20, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Holding onto Mellow Yellow Monday as Summer Flies By

“Though many a house has sheltered me in the course of summers past, one memory serves to tie them all. It’s early afternoon and all is sweet peace. Just
a shift of the pillows sets the porch swing swaying gently–pillows covered in faded chintz with the musty scent that attests to their long winter’s nap in the shed. The book lying tented across my chest is slightly musty too, foxed with the brown spots of age, since it was left downstairs in the bookcase thirty or forty years ago. You may be sure there’s nothing in it to tax the brain: It’s a romance and Cressida and Percy are settling their futures over a game of tennis. But I shall simply revel in the pleasures of the present, listening to the burr of the lawn mower down the road, watching the hornets busy themselves with their nest, biting into the slice of lemon I’ve finished with my iced tea.

Ah, the joys of a summer place!…Making our house our own was always easy. We could add what we liked–and subtract. Sometimes we’d spend the first few hours hiding the owners’ plastic lobsters, fake fishnets, and seagull mobiles in the deep dark closet to allow a clean-sweep for our time there…Drape a Marseilles spread over the sofa, swap the lamps around, frag the softest chair into the landing that overlooks the lake–all is permissible, all is comfortable…Someone would gather a bucket of irresistible shells, as pink as the first light of morning, and scatter them along the mantelpiece. There were always tomatoes ripening in the windowsills and handfuls of berries found on country lanes. A seagull feather was dropped on the duck decoy, and wildflowers, filled every jelly glass, shedding their petals on the table…We’d line the sideboard with jars of beach plum jelly from the Ladies Beautification Committee Fair and hang a watercolor of a rose discovered at a tag sale– and consider all of it quite beautiful indeed ( if anyone had paused to look between the dashes to the tennis courts or bike rides to the beach.)”

—-Catherine Calvert
” Porch Swings, Old Novels, and Memories of
Summers Past”
The Quiet Center: Women Reflecting on Life’s
Passages from the Pages of Victoria Magazine

When I read this, my mind took me back to summer’s past. Summers spent at the family camp in the Allegheny Mountains. There was this rugged cabin. When we arrived we had to unshutter the windows and brush away cobwebs. Make the double bunk beds up in all the bedrooms. Wood needed to be cut because we cooked on a wood stove, or outside on this brick fireplace with a metal grill over the fire. All crafted by my Uncle.

There was no electricity and we used kerosene lanterns for light.. There was also no running water and we pumped the needed water with a hand pump. I can remember thinking my arm would fall off.

There was an outhouse and I painted the door one vacation. I painted a sugar bowl on the door and lettered “The Sugar Shack.” Hunters called my Uncle the next winter to compliment the art work.

I learned some lessons there that have never left me. This planet of ours is so beautiful and precious. I learned to walk the paths in the forest as quiet as a mouse. I learned to appreciate the wildflowers and learned many of their names. I learned that the most beautiful thing in the world is being on top of a mountain and looking up and seeing that huge sky lit by the heavenly lights

I learned that I was small in comparison but that I was connected to all that I could see in the night sky. It was a lot. I began learning the lesson of appreciating each individual moment. I learned the importance of them and the contentment of living in the present moment. I would look up and yesterday didn’t matter anymore, and tomorrow would never come. When it arrived it wasn’t the future, it was the present. So my journey of living in the present began on the top of a mountain and it has taken me to lakes, oceans, gulfs, bigger mountains and right now; at this moment I am here writing for you..

August 17, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Creating Memories

In the 1960’s, I was struggling with reality and memories. Some I wanted to remember and cherish and some I wanted to forget. I wasn’t sure that any of “this” was real. That is when I began photography. I needed to see if each moment was a moment in real time. I have now taken approximately 60,000 photos.

I have learned during my journey in this life, you need to create the memory in the moment. I often remind myself to stop and open my eyes and really see what is happening. I believe that looking through a lens at life for 32 years has given me the ability to quickly take in the details that will mean so much in the future. It is now an automatic instinct to ” see life” as I go through my days. I can not say that I do it all the time, however, I have learned to impress upon my mind, the memories I want to keep and take with my soul when I return to the source.

There are so many times in our life that because of obligations, work, children, charity work, illness we miss creating memories. When was the last time you really looked at the morning dew on your roses? When was the last time you sat on your front porch without phone or lap top and just opened your senses up to the song of the birds, the chipmunk sneaking into your garden or felt the sun on your face as you read a new book?

Intention is important in how and what we create. If we look for the goodness in life and create memories out of that goodness, we will be blessed with many beautiful and simple memories.

The memories I cherish the most are not exotic adventures or meeting a celeb. There are the fleeting seconds which I caught with my heart and mind and now they will always be mine. No one can take them away. Memories are truly the only things we can take with us when it is our time to pass over and return to cosmic consciousness.