July 5, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Lord Be Praised

” The lips of the one I love are my perpetual pleasure:
The Lord be praised, for my heart’s desire is attained

O Fate, cherish my darling close to your breast:
Present now the golden wine-cup, now the rubies of those lips.

They talk scandle about us, and say we are drunks—
The silly old men, the elders lost in their error.

But we have done penance on the pious man’s behalf,
And ask God’s pardon for what the religious do.

O my dear, how can I speak of being apart from you?
The eyes know a hundred tears, and the soul has a hundred sighs.

I’d not have even an infidel suffer the torment your beauty has caused
To the cypress which envies your body, and the moon that’s outshone by your face.

Desire for your lips has stolen from Hafiz’ thought
His evening lectionary, and reciting the Book at dawn.”
—–Hafiz, Translated from Persian by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs

” The goal of the journeyer is the Beloved.
The goal of the Beloved is the journey.”
—-Hazrat Inayat Khan

“From my lips to God’s ears, ” May the love, gratutude, and ability to cherish the Divine flow freely from every molecule within us and reach you with the fragrance of love.

The love in the world rises to refresh and fragrance the realms of the Divine

June 13, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Magic of Love

Two important words

Everyone seems to be talking about love these days. It is an important word for our existance on the planet. Love, the favorite word of Cupid and one that drops easily off of our lips. Just what does it mean? Well, there is the Hallmark sense and family sense. I am writing today about love in a much different and bigger sense. As sentient beings, we throw the word around easily. What the world needs now, is love sweet love.

Love means so much more than we think. It is the reason we care about the survivors of the Oklahoma tornadoes and Hurricane Sandy. It is the reason that we care about the millions of abused women and children in the world. Love is why when we hear of a young woman having to endure genital mutilation or an acid attack that we care.

Love is why we make beauty in this plane. We plant millions of flowers, raise vegetables and plant trees. Love for our environment is very important. I think that raising some of your own food, increases the love you give to yourself and to others. Taking a bouquet of home grown flowers to a friend strengthens the love between both of you.

Love is inclusive. Real love will embrace everything in your world. Love doesn’t exclude anyone or anything that comes firmly from the Beloved. The Beloved dwells within all living creatures. To love does not mean that you agree with everything someone says or does. The tricky bit is that we are all children of the Universe. No matter what we say or do, we carry Divinity within us. Love encircles and brings goodness. It grows as it is spread around. It transforms as it is shared. It heals wrongs like an anti-biotic cream.

Fear has nothing to do with Love. It is exclusive of love and it can’t be healing like love is .Fear makes us judge others who are different in their looks, skin color, religion and in how they love. Fear contracts the sphere of our lives and it can even cut us off from people who love us. There is no way that love and fear can dwell together. A person who has brown or yellow skin is not different than you are. They are the same except for the color of their skin, that is all. Divinity dwells within that person also.

Fear within our hearts and souls leads away from God, and there is no right way to worship or love God/Goddess/ Adoni/ Allah. Fear destroys and love creates. If we could all conquer fear, we would have peace in our world. So I ask you to try it and see what happens. See if you don’t find yourself enveloped in love.

“It is time to put up a love-swing!

Tie the body and then tie the mind so that they

swing between the arms of the Secret One you love,

Bring the water that falls from the clouds to your eyes,

and cover yourself inside entirely with the shadow of the night.

Bring your face up close to his/her ear,

and then talk only about what you want deeply to happen.

Kabir says: Listen to me, brother, bring the shape, face, and odor of the Holy One inside you.”

—Kabir; this wonderful poet was an Indian and the son of a weaver. His poems were influenced by Sufi poets.

Loving hands create love

June 11, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Peace, Violence and all Stops Inbetween

Inter-coastal Waterway an alternative to sailing on the ocean

Photograph by Barbara Mattio; Copyrighted in 2013

I believe that many people are looking for peace these days and many are making peace in their families and communities. Not all, but the people who are choosing peace are adding to the love and goodness in their worlds. This is good to see. Some people continue to be filled with rage and hatred. Murders and rapes keep taking place. Corruption in our towns and cities still raises its ugly head.

So what happens when you feel you have created peace in the bit of world which is yours? What happens when we see others without freedoms or rights? Do we just look away from the pictures? Is there a positive response we can develope? How do we do it?

No More War!

We can immerse ourselves in kindness and love and greet those we love and those we meet as our lives flow long. The way of peace is not just what we develop within. It does start here though .What happens when the peace we have worked for and have established within, faces the violence, hatred and rage that is in the world? We need to be able to look at and work with all of the ugly-ness and not lose any of our love, peace or light. Refusing to listen to the cries of anguish isn’t an answer. Freedom, love and peace must be taken from our own lives and put into the world. It is a process and a necessary one pulling us into the fray. We can’t live fully, and turn our heads and hearts away from suffering, greed and war.

These women have established peace in their lives and are looking to make peace in the world.

We can fight for women’s rights, we can stop Domestic Violence, we can stop children from being molested and we can try to understand how it feels to be sold into slavery. We can take a stand against against rulers who are holding their citizens in oppression and fear.

War destroys the childhoods of children.

I believe we have to be ready to get involved with bringing love and peace into the world. Join Amnesty International. I have written letters to many world leaders who are holding its citizens as political prisioners. You can join local peace and anti-war organizations. You can speak your truth gently to those who walk the path of war. You can send medications, donations, clothes and text books to countries where they are greatly needed.

Look to your journey and find the path towards peace.

Yes, peace begins with each of us, but it can’t stay just within us. We must meet with others who want peace and by adding all of our peaceful intentions together, we can make changes in the world at large. One candle is a light, 100 candles is a brilliant light, a million candles is a bonfire. Let’s make bonfires where we live and where we work and we will succeed. So throw that pebble into the pond and watch the ripples of peace move outward to touch all people who need an end to war and rage.

Green is the color of PEACE!

May 20, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Poetry of the Mystics

A wise goal for each of us.

The Lord Be Praised

“The lips of the one I love are my perpetual pleasures:
The Lord be praised, for my heart’s desire is attained.

O Fate, cherish my darling close to your breast:
Present now the golden wine-cup, now the rubies of those lips.

They talk scandal about us, and say we are drunks–
The silly old men, the elders lost in their error.

But we have done penance on the pious man’s behalf,
And ask God’s pardon for what the religious do.

O my dear, how can I speak of being apart from you?
The eyes know a hundred tears, and the soul has a hundred sighs.

I’d not have even an infidel suffer the torment your beauty has caused
To the cypress which envies your body, and the moon that’s outshone by your face.

Desire for you lips has stolen from Hafiz’ thought
His evening lectionary, and reciting the Book at dawn.
——Hafiz, translated from Persian by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs

Spiritual energy

The Mirage

One day in the desert a bedouin
Looked up and saw a mirage shimmering
Ahead. Not water, but the splendor of
A dazzling girl.

In the thirsty, burning desert
among dry thorns, under a shadowless sun
He tried to reach her but instead
Of that marvelous love he found death.

In his immaterial, immortal sleep
He still saw the splendor of that girl
Shimmering ahead, an eternal mirage.
And in his endless dream he began to walk looking for her.”
—-Avedik Issahakian, translated from the Armenian by Diana Der Hovanessian

The journey is peace and we must meet every act of violence with peace and loving forgiveness

The beauty of poetry is that the words and images are never out of style. They can be thousands of years old and still have meaning and messages for the present time.

May 19, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Honoring the Blessing of Children

I may have mentioned my nine grandchildren before. From now on I will call them the grands. I have 3 elder grands, the twins, the baby grands and the monkey. He is the only one who lives in town and so I get to see him more often. I had him yesterday. A day filled with laughter and tag and a ball stuck in a tree and Star Wars. A day for us both to cherish. My oldest grand is graduating Thursday, so I will be going for the festivities. I am so proud of him. His campus has been in lockdown several times in the last two years. No one has been hurt but the closeness of danger and evil is frightening. This is a part of my feelings about guns and the people who shoot others with them.

Children are so precious and people always say that they are strong and will get over anything that happens in childhood. In reality, we allow them to be scarred emotionally and mentally far too often. Some with therapy will work through it and lead a productive life. Some grow up with trust issues, or become rapists or serial killers. Some are batterers and pedophiles. We need to do a better job of protecting the children and encouraging them to fly and be all they can be and come back to the roost whenever they really need to.

Years ago, I found this poem and got it on little tee shirts for the grands that I had at that time. So, in honor of every child on our globe trying to grow up in a world we have filled with anger, hatred, danger, and stress; I give these words to them and to those people who are raising them or their parents.

A goal to ending violence, hatred and war

May 10, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

All Mother’s on this Planet Have a Day Even if They Aren’t Aware of it.

One Woman, One World, One Family, unending love.

Mother’s Day is huge here in America .This is nice. Flowers, candy, going out to dinner, a new plant for the garden. These make up an American Mother’s Day. I would like to remind you that Mothers are in every country and being a Mother is quite different than it is here.

Mothers in other countries don’t have a day or even an hour where they feel especially loved and appreciated. Mother’s in other countries face tragedies we never even can imagine. Many mothers continue to die in childbirth, many mothers don’t have milk to feed their babies. Many mothers can’t dress their babies up really cute because there are only rags to dress them in. I guarantee you that some mothers, on the American holiday, will be watching their babies die of starvation and diseases such as Malaria.

Most of the mothers around the world will be required to leave a girl baby by the side of the road because of misogyny and some are trying to heal the faces of daughters whose boyfriend threw acid in their face because they turned down a marriage proposal. The boy throws acid in her face so no one else will want her. This is classic power and control. Some mothers will be assisting a medicine woman to hold down her daughter so genital mutilation can occur just like what was done to her. In some countries, if a girl has not had this done, no one will marry her.

Why is all of this happening? It is because women and girls are second class citizens and have no rights and no power to protect them legally in the system. They are owned, used, punished, tormented and often killed.
My request is that from now through Sunday you would all pray for the mothers around the world. Pray for them to be protected, pray for healing and food, pray for an end to human traffakking. Please pray that some day millions of women around the world will understand that mother is a term of love, support and pride. Pray that a year will come when all women will be able to hold their heads up and walk with pride and dignity.

National Organization of Women

Hug someone today and everyday

Mothers unite to help each other and the children. Make Mother’s Day really mean something to a mother somewhere in the world..

April 27, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

No one wants to be hit, slapped, kicked, punched, pinched

We were born with love.
Give it away. Don’t hoard it. If someone hurts you, get help.

April 17, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Here in the Light

let your hope rise to the heavens.

We are facing a dark time in the world. It is not the first time and it won’t be the last time either. Each of us must decide how we are going to face the darkness and work through the pain and hopelessness.

Since the dawn of time there have been those who will take what they want without a care to the effect on other people. Greed and jealously twist the human heart and life becomes less valuable.

We can choose that path or we can choose to walk in the light. We can choose the light. we can work to keep hope alive. We can reach out to others, families and survivors.

I must keep my heart strong and loving. I must look up. My prayer is that if I do, I will do all I can to stand tall there, as tall as 5 foot 2 inches can stand. I will use every ounce of courage to light my candle.

I will forgive and I will love all of the children of the universe while tears slide down my face. Yes, tears because my heart is broken andI know it will be again. So I suggest we all work towards compassion, kindness, loving each other as sisters and brothers. Because we are all children of the universe. Life is bigger than each individual act. We need the big picture.

We need to remember that we are all equally part of the family of man.
And women. We can only survive if we work together to stop the darkness.

gathering of the flowers

Let us all work together to bring beauty into the darkness and never give up or lose hope.

April 16, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Trial by Existence

” Even the bravest that are slain

Shall not dissemble their surprise

On waking to find valor reign,

Even as on earth, in paradise;

And where they sought without the sword

Wide fields of asphodel fore’er.

To find that the uttmost reward

Of daring should be still to dare.

The light of heaven falls whole and white

and is not shattered into dyes,

The light for ever is morning light;

The hills are verdured pasture-wise;

The angel hosts with freshness go,

And seek with laughter what to brave;—

And binding all is the hushed snow

Of the far-distant breaking wave.

And from a cliff-top is proclaimed

The gathering of the souls for birth,

The trial of existence named,

The obscuration upon earth.

And the slant spirits trooping by

In streams and cross-and counter-streams

Can but give ear to that sweet cry For its suggestion of what dreams!”

—-Robert Frost

” He [Robert Frost] has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.” —-John F. Kennedy

I believe there is an abundance of love and hope in this world. Bring it with you on your journey.

Celtic woman

April 16, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

I Heard a Slight Rustle Within the Silence

It is the middle of the night and I awoke thinking about the horror and devastation of today. My heart is breaking over the continued violence. Then as I was sitting, I heard a small sound in the quiet of the night, the black black night. I knew it to be the sound of angel wings moving as the angels moved to provide love, comfort and strength to all those involved.

My heart felt uplifted and I knew that here is hope, love, compassion and kindness in this world. Each of us are a symbol of them.