Tag Archives: life

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Today we need to affirm our lives and what is in our World


Happy Halloween

So much going on. The spiritual energy of the Universe is very intense. We are in a transitional time on our planet. So many things are exploding around us here in America and around the world. There is much hatred and anger abound in the Universe. We need to counter all of this with love and compassion. We have lost souls due to this tremendous storm. Many people are suffering and scared and overwhelmed.

We need to do what we can do by donating to charities that can help in the material sense. We also need to be sending love and protective life to all who have been affected by this terrible storm. We need to use affirmations to keep our thoughts and energy positive. We need to keep ourselves strong and positive to assist others.

Each of us can strengthen ourselves with affirmations. I am giving 10 that I hope will be helpful and calming to ourselves. If they help you, then pass them on to others. On this Halloween night, the night the Pagans of old called the New Year and when the veil is the thinnest between worlds and the ancestors can be nearby and comforting and we can honor them. It is also All Saints Eve. A perfect night to use affirmations for ourselves and the world.

1) No matter what my challenge, I know I am loved.
2) This will pass and I will grow and benefit from it.
3) I will open my heart and allow love to flow out to heal others and Mother Earth.
4) I am the author of my life.
5) No person, place, or thing has any power over me.
6) Beauty arouses me and heals me.
7) I take good loving care of my body and I am where I choose to be and I am beautiful/
8) I know my body is filled with starlight and that I sparkle.
9) My body is amazing. I can relax and let healing take place.
10) I change my life when I change my thinking.

—-Excerpted from Meditations to Heal Your Life
—-Louise L. Hay

Saying these affirmations each day or several times a day will change your thinking and that will change you and how you react to the world. You can create specific affirmations  to fit your specific circumstances. Opening up your heart to the Universe and sending your love out to heal the planet will make that happen. It will start within each of us. So go ahead affirm what you want to be in your life.

 

We are all safe and will be provided what we need most in our lives now and always.

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Mysticism


The sun can only be seen by the light
Or the sun. The more a man or woman knows,
The greater the sun the more dazzled, until a point
Is reached where one no longer is.

A mystic knows without knowledge, without
Intuition or information, without contemplation
Or description or revelation. Mystics are not themselves. They do not exist
In selves They move as they are moved, talk as words come, see with sight
That enters their eyes. I met a woman once and asked her where love had led her.
“Fool, there’s no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite.”

—–Attar

Fariduddin Attar is one of the most ancient poets of Persia, and it is no exaggeration to say that the work of Attar has been the inspiration of Rumi and of many spiritual souls and many poets of Persia.

“And the psychology of the heart is such that once one begins to know the heart life is a continual phenomenon, every moment of life becomes a miracle. It throws a searchlight upon human nature, and all things become so clear 5o clear to him that he does not ask for any greater phenomenon or miracle; it is a miracle in itself.
What they call telepathy, thought-reading or clairvoyance—–all these things come by themselves, where the heart is open.”

—Hazrat Inayat Khan

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Our Love Hate Relationship With Mother Earth


Our beloved Mother Earth

” I’m going to plant a heart in the earth
Water it with love from a vein
I’m going to praise it with the push of muscle
And care for it in the sound of all dimensions.
I’m going to leave a heart in the earth
So it may grow and flower
A heart that throbs with longing
That adores everything green
That will be strength and nourishment for birds
That will be the sap of plants and mountains.

—-Rosario Murillo

We have a great gift from the Universe. It is the planet upon which we stand. The crust of our earth is full of rich metals that formed billions of years ago. Is there a directive to use every single molecule for our own needs? I think not. I also realize that we have already injured Mother Earth with our mining, and stripping and building.

There is much discussion these days about drilling more, mining more, electing someone will allow everyone to do anything they want to get energy out of our planet. It is a temptation to want to create jobs and provide cheaper energy. So what is the problem?

Fracking, drilling, mining, and all of the methods used to procure the energy, do just that: give us accessible energy. So, energy voters and neighbors on Mother Earth, why do some abhor this use of Mother Earth? It is because we are harming this beautiful planet which sustains us. Earth is a living entity. She is as alive as you and I are. We cause her pain and injure her ability to heal herself. Some day we may do more damage than she is able to repair and in the future she will die.

If Mother Earth turns from a living breathing planet to a dead cold planet, what will that mean to the sentient beings who live here? We will all die with our planet. I see no benefits to this.

In the book Earth Prayers: The Passion of the Earth, Editors Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon remind us:

“While many of us are aware of the destruction taking place on our planet, it is difficult to integrate this knowledge into our daily life. What do we do when it is not a war that is killing us, but progress? When the problem is not the actions of an evil “other,” but ourselves? We fear the despair such information provokes. We don’t want to feel the grief over all that is lost, nor our own complicity in the damage. This denial of feeling takes a heave toll on us, impoverishing our sensory and emotional lives. Ultimately, it puts us out of touch with reality.

There is an historical tradition of prayer that foresees the ruination of the world because of human transgression. We find it in the Torah, we find it again in the prayers of Native Americans as they witnessed the destruction of their way of life by the European conquerors.

We are hearing it again now, as citizens from around the world express their fears and their grief at what is happening to the Earth.”

We have forgotten who we are.

We have sought only our own security

We have exploited simply for our own ends

We have distorted our knowledge

We have abused our power.

——-Aaron Kramer; U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program

Cuyahoga Falls, OH Photo by Barbara Mattio

Cuyahogua Falls, Ohio; Photo by Barbara Mattio

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Rights for Women Won’t End on November sixth


November 6, 2012 does decide who will be our President for the next four years.What won’t be decided is what will happen to women and our rights and issues.

In 2013, we face another important battle in Congress. We need to have passed the legislation to make women legally equal. Think it is not necessary? That is what they said about women voting. Essentially, they said we weren’t smart enough to vote. Not only are we smart enough but we are smarter than some men. Nothing personal.

Women are still going to require access to contraception. The whole “be fruitful and multiply” thing is well past the point of no return. We have seven billion plus human beings on this planet and I believe we have fulfilled the directive.

Children around the world are dying from hunger, lack of clean water, violent revolutions, greed, bigotry, racism and in some countries if a girl is born she will be left to die. Baby girls die alone, unwanted and unloved. Even if their mothers want them, the husband will throw both of them out, if necessary.

Here in America, the most prosperous country in the world, our children aren’t golden. They often lack proper education, health care, food, love, encouragement. Why you ask? Because they weren’t born into rich families, but into poor and disadvantaged families. Most of society turns away from the reality of what these children lack and what they suffer.

Domestic Violence is gaining victims. The laws we worked so hard to get on the books, are often not being enforced. Young girls are not being told no one has the right to pinch, punch, slap, rape, hit, demean, kick, or call them names. We must tell these girls there is help and they should not be forced to live in violence. There are help lines and shelters where then will be helped and legally protected in every state and in almost every town.

Human trafficking is where many boys and girls end up. Sold into sexual slavery and facing decades of being objectified and beaten by any man who has the money to pay for their services. These kids live in hell on earth. Their innocent souls corrupted and ravaged by men who only care about themselves and what their money can buy them.

All people have the right to live authentically. No one should have to pretend to fit in. Everyone needs to be accepted for who they are. Parents, society and governments need to make this possible…

I have barely scratched the surface, but I will continue to address these issues as time goes on.

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Kinds of Love


“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 beasts,
winged and hoofed,
are placed under his command
And Adam’s veins are
with Art, Science, Faith;
he knows the sciences are clear
—but the music is weightiest
as a surging ocean
outweighs the very world through which 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 by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan from the Urdu

Beach House, Fairview Photo by Barbara Mattio

Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

—-From The Prophet, Khabil Gibran

Untitled by Keith Haring. 1985. Lithograph

“The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for Love.”

            —-Margaret Atwood

 

 

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Glimpses of Autumn


Blue Ridge Mountains, NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

” There are countless paths to the mountain’s summit. Yet from it the same moon pours radiance over the landscape.”
—-Ikkyu

Blue Ridge Mountains, NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

“Entering the forest he moves not the grass; entering the water he does not make a ripple.”

Niagara Falls, Ontario Photo by Barbara Mattio

“It is deep autumn. What kind of life is my neighbors I wonder…”

Niagara Falls, Ontario Photo by Barbara Mattio

” One day a monk spoke bitterly to the Buddha about the unbearable sorrows of the world. The Buddha remained silent. Then he pointed at the earth between his feet, and said: ” On this earth I have attained awakening.”
Splendor of the World….no Why.

All quotes excerpted from Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing

Emerald necklace parks, Ohio Photo by Barbara Mattio

Lake Erie Islands, Lake Erie, Photo by Barbara Mattio

” Wherever you are is home
And the earth is paradise
Wherever you set your feet is holy land…
You don’t live off it like a parasite.
You live in it, and it in you,
Or you don’t survive.
And that is the only worship of God there is.”

——-Wilfred Pelletier and Ted Poole

Chautuaqua Institute, NY Photo by Barbara Mattio

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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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Women are Human Beings


We need to look at the lives and accomplishments of women for inspiration and understanding. Women’s lives have been written only in the last few decades. One of my passions is to read women’s diaries that they leave behind. They give us a glimpse of their heart and souls. Their dreams and passions. The cost of accomplishing a life outside of the ordinary can be steep for many women. Those who were successful have paid a dear price for the life they created.

The irony is that women follow dreams just as men do. Martin Luther King had a dream and millions of women also have dreams. Women and men need to create meaning in their lives and their communities. It is not unfeminine to reach for public power instead of settling for private power. The unfulfilled woman and man are a loss to our society because each of us has much to contribute.

Women have been conditioned to do what is expected and not what they need. Some women want to stay home and be a full-time mother. Some want careers, some want many children and some don’t want to have any children. These decisions are the ones men make every day, but women are encouraged to fit into the proper box. This is a danger for women because to deny who you are and what you are capable of accomplishing is to short change the world and ourselves

The Universe gives us all gifts and talents and I believe we are expected to use them to create meaningful lives. Women who are living in violent relationships, who are verbally humiliated and are insulted day in and day out are suffering from emotional abuse.

The abuse takes many forms. Physical and emotional and psychological abuse can wreck a woman’s self-esteem and she learns to be a victim. This is one role no living being should be in. Feminism gives voice to those who have never had a voice in their own lives and those who have lost it as they have gone through the challenges of life.

Women are not inferior and they are able to make good choices about how to live and how to follow their dreams. Women have a right to have public power and not just power in the bedroom or the kitchen. Power is the ability to take one’s place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one’s part matter.

An assertive woman who has discovered her power is not “less of a woman” than a man who has discovered and uses his own power. Many people today confuse assertiveness with aggression. They are two concepts which are not at all related. Many times assertive women are maligned by people like Rush Limbaugh when he coined the term” feminazi.”” I have never understood why men are so intimidated by an assertive woman who knows who she is and what she wants and where she is going.

Women are human and that means that we are capable, intelligent, compassionate, passionate, strong and have the right to live our lives without interference from families and government. We can choose candidates, take care of our health, make decisions about reproduction. We don’t need keepers, or a strong man guiding us. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different. You are each perfect as you are and have the right to be who you are. Don’t allow the voices around you keep you from accomplishing your dreams and touching the stars.
We are equal. And in 2013, we will make the government legalize that equality. Being different, seeing from a different perspective does not make you unfeminine, it helps you to hold your head up and straighten your back and live with the dignity that The One gave to each of us. Different is not dangerous. It is just different!

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The Last Rose of Summer


Needlework by
Barbara Mattio

There is a bittersweet energy about October. I gaze out at my garden and a smile comes to my face. The roses continue to bloom despite cooler evenings. We are almost at the time to say goodbye to their gentle fragrances and delicate petals. A farewell to their beauty. Cool temperatures day and night will eventually take each last bloom and end its beauty. We are not bereft though as Autumn brings a brilliance of color as a consolation prize. So far, we have begun to see the green turning to vibrant colors of red, gold, orange and yellow.

It is the last gift of the cycle of life. The last brilliant colors before Mother Earth goes to her hibernation and the world turns white, gray and brown. It is a blessing to know that as the cycle spins it never stops and we will have a fresh, vibrant and exciting Spring. I love the anticipation of the renewal of the earth, with the springing up of the early spring bulbs soon to be a riot of color and a sudden rush of sweet fragrance.

For now, there is the bittersweet of the last of the flowers and the last of my beloved roses until the spring. Since this is the cycle of life, the promise that after a rest the world will renew itself and we will once again frolic among the flowers and trees.

So we say goodbye to the bees working hard at gathering the pollen and the ladybugs and the iridescence of the dragonflies. A last wave of the wings of a butterfly and the song of the cicadas at night. They will return in the spring and the cycle will begin again.

A Jewish Prayer

And G-d saw everything that was mad, and found it very good.

And The One said: This is a beautiful world that I have given you.

Take good care of it, do not ruin it.

It is said; Before the world was created, the Holy One kept

Creating worlds and destroying them.  Finally this one was created and was satisfied.

Adonai said to Adam; This is the last world I shall make. I place it in your hands; hold it in trust.

Autumn in Western North Carolina Photo by Barbara Mattio

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Messages in Life


“Lift up a broken hand in prayer.
Allah’s perfect kindness is given away free
to all those who acknowledge their flaws.”
—-Rumi

I think life is not perfect because The Beloved wants us to experience all of life. Even though Divinity is within us, we are free to make choices and need to accept responsibility for them. We create our reality around us as we send our thoughts and actions into the world. Thinking positive and peaceful thoughts help to create positive and peaceful energy. This energy can softly touch the life of others. In the same way, thoughts of hatred and violence radiate these emotions to all who come in contact with this person. You can literally feel these energies.

There is a book and also the DVD out called, “The Hidden Messages in Water.” The author is Masaru Emoto.I found this book to be so exciting when I read it that I also bought the DVD. Water is energy. All inanimate objects are molecules vibrating at different speeds and frequencies This is what makes a chair look like what we expect a chair to look like. It is why I look as I do and you, my readers look as you do.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were wars about oil. We all know that oil has brought down governments, ended the lives of soldiers in all countries. It is predicted that now, in the twenty-first century we will see wars for water. Water is life giving, and humans cannot live long without it. It is the element that makes up the largest part of the human body. Water is the basis of life and brings the energy of life. Water can carry many impurities and it requires work to purify it again.

Dr. Emoto using high-speed photography discovered that the crystals in water reveal changes in shapes. I mean that they responded to a word said to them. The book and DVD include photographs of these very changes happening. This research can create a new awareness of how we can, with our thoughts, positively impact the earth and our own personal health.

Dr. Emoto took photographs of frozen crystals for over a decade. Depending on what the water was exposed to, there was a change in the shape of the crystals. He spoke the words and the shape of the crystals changed. Another word would bring about another change.

“We start out life being 99% water, as fetuses. When we are born, we are 90% water, and by the time we reach adulthood we are down to 70% water. If we die of old age, we will probably be about 50% water. In other words, throughout our lives we exist mostly as water.”
—Excerpted from “The Hidden Messages in Water”

This study was done with tap water, pure natural water, and distilled water. As in all research of this magnitude, your heart and mind must be open to whatever is discovered. Preconceived notions will be lost or you will miss the amazing clues that will reveal themselves along the way.

In elementary school, we all learned how each snowflake is different in shape. Each is unique. My grandson’s kindergarten class all made paper snowflakes to decorate their room for the winter season. There have never been two snowflakes alike since the beginning of time.

Dr. Emoto decided to freeze individual drops of water and to look at them under a really super strong microscope. He discovered that words and and the energy of human consciousness had the ability to change to shape of individual drops of water.

The words were said in Japanese and English, and some other common languages were used also, such as French, German, Italian etc. Words such as ‘thank you” caused the crystal to be beautiful in shape and each shape was different in each language. They also tried words such as “You make me sick, Satan, Angel, you fool and many others. They showed water drops pictures of Mother Earth and played Beethoven for the drops. All caused a change in shape. Good words caused beautiful formations and bad words created a less attractive to absolute ugly patten in the drops of water.

This research and Quantum Physics are proving many truths that people have believed on faith and now there is proof. Our thoughts do have the power to change the world and we cause these changes. Some water resulted in grandly beautiful crystals, while others were deformed or nonexistent. In my opinion, this could be a reflection of the dark recesses of our souls.

Water crystals after names of seasons were spoken to them.

Left hand picture after “Angel” is said. Right hand is after “Satan” is said.