Tag Archives: life

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Pampering Yourself


“Self-nurture is not about being selfish. It is about self-care.”
—-Alice D. Domar PHD

Yes, I am advocating self-pampering. For men or women, small steps of pampering yourself may feel wrong or frivolous. In 2012, we run from one task to another. We race through the day giving everything little pieces of ourselves. We spend most of our lives burnt out and empty. This is not the way The One wants us to experience this life. We are drowning in deadlines, insomnia, bills, politics, stress eating and kids breaking curfew. We almost need to be long distance sprinters.

Athletes have something we do not have. They have trainers and sports medicine and adoring fans. They lack our total exhaustion, feeling unappreciated, unsatisfied with life in general. This is a sure way to lose touch with ourselves, some people don’t even know who they are. They are fractured and left with nothing to give because they have nothing left inside. Society encourages and rewards us when we ignore the signs and symptoms that we need nurturing too. Pushing through, giving it all to your team or manager ends up making us sick. Being sick just pushes the circle around again.

Pampering is recuperative. It feeds the soul. It encourages the pleasant, happy, interesting and caring person inside to come out again. Being on vacation is good because you begin to get your balance back. You regain your spontaneity and flexibility. If it is raining, you read a book. If you are tired, you take a nap. You grin more often and choose to walk instead of taking the stairs or elevator. The strident, pushy, irritable you has gone and you actually like who you are. Pampering in this spirit is essential for human beings to maintain their joy and bliss. Sometimes, you just need to turn away from the needs of the world until you have regained your balance. You are now promoting your own physical and emotional health.

 

I like to rub my temples with an essential oil, and to keep a fragrant sachet under my pillow at night. I also use a sound machine when I can’t turn off my mind and sleep much deeper and awake refreshed. So remember self-pampering is medicinal and necessary for the well-being of our lives.

Sculpture garden, Windsor, Ontario Photo by Barbara Mattio

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Ignorance is not Bliss


Chautuaqua Institute, NY Photo by Barbara Mattio

Life is often confusing, distracting, overwhelming and a draining rut of work and obligations. Everyone is so busy these days and trying to get so much done. They overwhelm us and at the end of a day or a week, you find yourself without satisfaction, joy or bliss.

As women, we have so many people around who without malice drain us of our energy and sometimes our sanity. You get in bed at the end of the night and look at the book that has been sitting on the nightstand for a month. You sigh and reach for the book and read a page before you are falling asleep.
It’s the weekend and a friend calls because she really needs to talk, so no sleeping in this Saturday.

We make promises that we will be somewhere, work at this charity, to shopping with a friend and we end up feeling guilty that there are twenty other things we should be doing. Do we feel composed and happy at the end of the day? Are you feeling joy or bliss? Probably not. Our days are filled with “bliss blockers.”

We have to learn balance and how to say no. Yes, we have obligations but every time we postpone something that is healthy for ourselves and do something out of duty for others, we block bliss.

I am enclosing a list of Bliss Blockers excerpted from Romancing the Ordinary.
These are soul snatching actions that hurt us and drain us of our bliss.

Wanting what you can’t have
Not wanting what you do have

Seeing the world as hostile
Believing life is hard
Over reliance on outside circumstances to initiate change
Believing money is the answer
Believing you are unlucky
Believing that things will never change for the better

Exhaustion
Not eating well
Not exercising
Not listening to your body
Continuously finding fault with your body
Feeling unworthy of happiness, love, success
Not knowing who you are
Not know what you love
Self-loathing
Not recognizing addictive behavior patterns or dependence
Workaholism in the name of getting ahead or staying on top
of things
Perfectionism

Lack of humor
Inability to laugh at oneself
Shyness in social situations
Lack of spontaneity
Pretending that you’re more experienced than you are

Believing the world will fall apart if you’re not holding it together
Inability to ask for or receive help
Inability to be part of a time

Putting others down so you can feel superior
Not trusting your intuition
Not following your dreams
Believing other people’s second guesses are better than your first

Inability to relax
Making a promise you dread
Procrastination
Impatience
Rushing
Surrounding yourself with negativity
Remaining in toxic relationships
Lack of gratitude

Clearly these are not all of the things in life which can block bliss. The trick is to find what are your blockers and to make efforts to clear them out of your life. I think this also goes to being authentic. Self-examination is an activity we need to use at least once or twice a year to understand ourselves and to make changes we need to bring us to a place of love, joy and bliss.

“The cure for anything is saltwater, sweat, tears or the sea.”
—-Isak Dinesen

Galveston Island, Tx; Photo by Barbara Mattio

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For This One Hour


My father passed 40 years ago, but he left me his dry humor and some well loved books…and a few other things. The one book is called For This One Hour. It is a book that I cherish much as I cherish him.

This poem from The Sanskrit is one of my favorites from the book. Sanskrit is the original language which most other languages are based on. So today I am going to share this precious one with all of you who read my work.

” Listen to the exhortation of the dawn!
Look well to this day! For it is life,
The very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities
And realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty;
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 dream of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.”

Oak Plantation, New Orleans Acrylic on canvas by Barbara Mattio

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Still I Rise


Holden Beach, NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

Women are not born feminists. Some are born tom boys, some are girly, some are born strongly principled. Some girls have a deep spiritual longing.

So then, what makes a feminist? Life creates feminists. Lovers bring joy, happiness and relationship to life. Some of them not only break hearts, they break our trust. Some of them break an arm or a rib or perhaps,”just” tell us we are nothing.

Women grow up and most go to college and some find that some professors don’t like women students. Some women have to be subjected to sexual harassment . Some women are bullied because they aren’t pretty enough or they are smarter than many of the males in class.

Women sometimes get all dolled up and go out with the girls. Some men think this means they are prey and stalk until they can go in for the kill.

All women realize that today we make $.77 for every dollar a man makes. For the same work. In addition, some must work in a hostile workplace.

I became a feminist because of some of the above scenarios and because I read a lot of history. I became aware that women have always been treated as possessions. Women have “needed” to be owned and controlled. I began reading about the European witch trials and found out that millions of women and children were horribly murdered because their knowledge of herbs and knowing which ones to use for healing made them different. This was a very serious matter if the was no man around to keep her in check. You could be in trouble for being good with animals. Today, we call that being a dog whisperer. or a horse whisperer. It used to mean you were a witch.

When I wanted to have a tubal ligation to prevent further pregnancy I had to bring a paper home from the doctor. This was 1972. My husband had to sign it for me to have the surgery. It was my own body. It belonged to me. But society didn’t see it that way, it belonged to him.

Have you ever gone shopping and hid what you purchased in the trunk? Did then later on sneak it into the house and your closet? That is the sneakiness that develops when we don’t have our own money and are not allowed to make our own choices.

We have gotten past the part where women are not encouraged to go to college unless it was to find a husband. Many women today have advanced degrees and still make less than a man or the same work and same degree. Women continue to be the minority in math and the sciences yet millions are capable to earning degrees in math and science.

Young women today don’t understand that they are entitled to be an equal partner in their relationships. They have the right to make their own money, to practice contraception and to have sex only when they want it. They don’t have to cooperate with their partner unless they wish to.

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But, still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.

——Maya Angelou

I dedicate this blog to all of the oppressed peoples in the world. I especially dedicate it to those who have died due to hatred and violence. We won’t give up or go back!

Holden Beach, NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

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To Find the Ecstasy in Your Life


Thoreau, Frost and Whitman were all poets who found happiness in their experience in nature and nature led them to an experience with God. Their writings are very uplifting and filled with wisdom. Some of their poetry is so famous high school students still memorize the words. Some of these have come back to me as I walk in the mountains when visiting my best friend. There is a connection that develops between the experience and the poetry.

 

Black Mountain, NC; Photo by Barbara Mattio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Mountain, NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

Thirty some years ago, a dear friend gave me a book of poetry. The poetry was by Kabir, a fifteenth century Indian poet. He was the son of a weaver and was influenced by Sufis and the ideas of the Hindus. This particular collection of some of his poems is translated by Robert Bly. The originals were written in Hindi. I hope the journey that his words take you on is as amazing of a journey as mine has been. Kabir went into the inner landscape to experience God and the ecstasy of loving The One.

 

“Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into the experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten—
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing new,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now,in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.”
—–Kabir

Lumberton , NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

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Extraordinary Life


“The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.”
——Veronique Vienne

History has given us a parade of saints, seers, poets and philosophers who have instructed us to embrace “bliss” here in this life and not to wait until heaven. In America, Joseph Campbell began to teach us about bliss. He was followed by Bill Moyer’s, The Power of Myth. “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of tract that has been there the whole while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.”

We experience happiness when something outside of the regular dreary, repetitive routine of our everyday lives. Something external from us happens to shake us up and brings a feeling of gladness or happiness. It could be buying a new house, free tickets to a play, an invitation to a major league baseball game. If something happens to change the event we are upset and not happy any longer. The happiness came from an external source.

Bliss is not external. It comes from within and it doesn’t involve other people or events or times in our lives. You can recognize it when you experience joy, unusual sustained happiness or the awareness of the sensuous in the ordinary.

An ordinary life is something that conjures up images of drudgery and boredom and repetitive endless actions. As a child, I knew I didn’t just want to exist or survive. This was my concept of ordinary. But you can find the extraordinary in life with simple things. One very important aspect is to live in the moment. Allow yourself the pleasures of life. Smell the fragrance in the flowers even if they still need weeding. Stand for two minutes and find the dragon in the clouds. Put a pot of water on to boil filled with your favorite spices and allow yourself to enjoy the aroma all day long.

Set the table with special china once in a while to make the roast beef and steamed vegetables feel like you are enjoying Beef Wellington in an expensive restaurant.

Following your bliss can take you to a new job that you never expected to get or to finding a new friend who really “gets you.” Your bliss can be something that you can’t even imagine right now but the inner voice takes you to a place that just leaves you joyful.Your bliss can also take you to your backyard where you can have the most restful, relaxing day you have had in months. An afternoon lying on a chaise lounge in the sun, sipping lemonade and reading the book you have been trying to find time for, This can bring you sheer bliss and contentment.

Life can be filled with bliss especially when we listen to our inner selves. It is the incandescent in your life. It is the bandage which covers the wounds we receive in life and heals the wounds more quickly.

Bliss is personal and private like prayer. Women have bliss triggers and blockers. Mine is walking on a beach in the sunset. Yours might be mint chocolate ice cream. I feel bliss eating fresh veggies and fruit from a farmer’s market. Your bliss can be just taking a day trip and visiting your childhood home. That feeling you get when it feels as if you can’t stop smiling and are filled with sunshine.

This bliss is what can turn your ordinary life into an extraordinary one. Blogging is one of the things that makes my life extraordinary. Visiting an art museum to see a new visiting exhibit thrills me and I am experiencing bliss. I challenge you to start to take the ordinary in your life and make it extraordinary. And know that Divinity is well pleased. We are here to experience this gift called life.

Holden Beach, NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

Holden Beach, NC Photo by Barbara Mattio

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Change and Love to Stimulate Creativity


Needlework by Barbara Mattio

Creativity is like a plant in that it needs to be fertilized and watered. It needs quite a bit of attention and stimulation for it to flow out of your minds and heart and soul. All of life is in a constant state of change and often I, for one, have not been comfortable with that. We need to look at change as opportunity. It is amazing that I am able to say this with a straight face, but I am and the changes in life stimulate the flow of cosmic consciousness and the flow of creativity.

Another essential aspect of creativity is love. You must love yourself and those in your community. Darkness will hide your artistic voice. You need to love the people who agree with you as well as those who do not. A singer exercises their voice. To exercise the love aspect of your being will encourage your artistic voice.

Look at your work as an uphill climb and move gradually and steadily toward the summit. It is like a tiny stream in a landscape. If the stream is flowing, it can change the topography.

You can arrive at artistic purity, not today or tomorrow perhaps, but the more your creativity flows and the more your art flows out of your being, the closer you will become to the purity. So breathe. This doesn’t happen overnight, but then teachers don’t function in a classroom overnight. A construction site doesn’t turn into a skyscraper overnight either. Keep breathing and allowing change and believe in your self. You will shine!

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Olympic Hopes


Last night, like many millions of people in the world, I watched the Opening Olympic ceremonies. They were beautiful and magical. Country after country marching represented by their best athletes. Their faces shining and happy smiles for all. The traditional clothes were so colorful and beautiful and each person walking in those ceremonies was lit with beauty from within. I also remembered past Olympic tragedies. I realized that we, the human beings on this planet have kept the spirit of the games alive since the Greek empire. Every 4 years, the torch is lit with pride and accomplishment. This is what human life should be, the colorful parade of shining faces and the millions who watch by television, now-a-days. The pride to be human in this world and the pride for country, and the pride and good wishes for the athletes who are competing from other countries. Life is meant to be this exilharating and peaceful experience.

Why can’t it last? What happens to us after the closing ceremonies? Do we lose our love for our fellow human beings? Why do we go into the rut of every one out for themselves?

During the Olympics, we put aside differences and while still competing against each other, it is all about being the best we can be. Why do we stop that? I believe that if the Olympics can continue to inspire the world and so many millions of people, then we are capable of carrying these experiences on into the lives of all people in every country. Little, big, rich, poor, we are capable of loving and helping each other We are capable of compassion and turning aside from what does not compliment these ideals. To me the Olympics demonstrate that we are capable of living together in peace, harmony, love and compassion. So I still have hope for us. I still believe that despite what we hear all the time on the news, we can be better people. In the news, “it leads if it bleeds.” Well, peace doesn’t bleed and we don’t hear enough about the wonderful people who live, struggle and love others more than they love themselves. So my heart and mind are with the athletes from every fantastic country on this fantastic planet. We can make peace work.

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No Greater Love


One of my heroines is Mother Teresa. This soul is what I always wanted to be. I didn’t succeed, but I am continuing to help the world however I can. I am committed to do this for the rest of my life. Life requires commitment to ideals, commitment to love and acceptance. Life requires that we love and accept others without limitation. Now, I know there are some that would say, she has never seen the rough parts of life. But I have, in person and close up. The world isn’t beautiful. You have to look for the beauty in people and all around you. God is everywhere and that includes within us. So follow the creative voice within and create the beauty you need to thrive in this experience. This plane of existence.

“Love each other as God loves each one of you, with an intense and particular love. Be kind to each other; it is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness.”
—-Mother Tesesa

Rumi talks about the ecstatic love of God. He speaks of the interconnectedness of all sentient beings.

“One part of the Whole is not separate from the other parts. The beauty of all flowers is part of the rose’s beauty. The coo of the turtledove is part of the nightingale’s song.”  —–Rumi

Our works of love and charity come from our overflow of our love of God from within. Charity is like a living flame. The drier the fuel, the livelier the flame. Showing gratitude for everything in your life, whether a little thing or an abundance, needs to be done with joy. A heart burning with love produces a joyful heart. Joy is strength. Joy is always hard and it isn’t just temperament. We need to work to acquire it and make it grow in our hearts. We may not always have a lot to give but we can always give the joy that springs from a heart which is in love with God. We need to love without getting tired. A lamp burns with the continuous flow of drops within the lamp. Compassion and a loving heart are the most important things we can cultivate and we will never run out. We were chosen for this incarnation for a purpose, we aren’t just a number. So explore life, embrace it with passion and find what God has for you.

Photo by Barbara Mattio, Livingston, TX.

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Ain’t I a Women


 

 

 

 

 

 

ImageSojourner Truth was born a slave in New York in 1795. She gained her freedom in 1827 when the state of NY freed its slaves.At the age of forty-six, she felt called by God to travel the country testifying to the sins against her people.

Her slave name was Isabella, and at this point she took the name of Sojourner Truth. She became a frequent speaker at abolitionist meetings and at feminist gatherings. She attended the First national Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Mass. and was the only black woman present. The following year she was an attendee at the women’s Akron, Ohio.Sojourner was not able to read or write.But she spoke at the Akron convention.

“Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a pretty fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman?

I could work as much and eat as much as a man–when I could get it–and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my women’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? (Intellect, someone whispers). That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negro’s rights? If my won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Than that little man in back there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.”

There has been a play written about Sojourner’s life. It is called, “God and a Woman.” So now we come to the present. And women do not have equality as of yet. Next year, 2013, Congress will have the opportunity to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment or ERA. Just how long will the women in America have to struggle to be legally equal? This is the time to contact your congress people and tell them, Enough is Enough. We must be equal. We can’t settle for less. Two hundred years is long enough to be America’s second class citizens. Stand up and tell congress you must be legally equal. We won’t stop until we are equal.

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(Sojourner Truth quote from Feminism:  The Essential HIstorical Writings” Miriam Schneir, Vintage Books 1972)