April 7, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Rumor

I have recently found many rumors circulating concerning the possibility that spring is sneaking in on the down low. There has been no head-on rush but signs and symptoms that spring is coming. The daffodils are up and teasing us with buds forming. The landscapers have edged my garden and we have uncovered the furniture on the porch. There has still been a chill in the air. No warm breezes but the suggestion of more to come. The trees are hinting to us. They are beginning to show the variety of soft light greens which spell ‘spring’. Bulb catalogs have arrived and have been perused. Robins have been spotted sneaking about looking for worms and the mourning doves no longer try to hide from the biting cold by huddling on my front porch.

So I write today to shake spring up and encourage a full frontal assault. Warm sun on the face, gentle warm breezes, the heavy fragrance of spring. Bring on the sound of basketballs being dribbled on the playground. Bicycles zoom by the windows and scooters soar down the street. Hail Spring! We are ready for you and all of the richness you will bring with you. It is sixty degrees now, just get on with it and embrace all of us.

The fragrance is in the air.
Photohraphy copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Mated cardinals on a budding tree photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Blue Iris
Photo by Barbara Mattio Copyright Batbara Mattio 2013

The beginning of flowers to delight the eyes. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Magnolias in North Carolina. Photo copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Wrightsville Beach, NC. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Blue Ridge Mountains, NC. Photgraph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Blue Ridge Mountains, NC. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Firepokers. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

The colors are coming. Photography copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2012

Black Mountain NC. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2010

Weeping Cherry Tree. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2006

The tulips have arrived. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2012

November 8, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

The Sacred Writings for Mother Earth

The trees are our guardians.

The concept that Mother Earth is sacred is not a contemporary one. Through the millenniums all spiritual paths have written, repeated and taught sacred prayers and thoughts about our earth. Some are filled with praise or thanksgiving. Some are requests for the needs for the earth and the people. Some are just being aware of the beauty of Mother Earth.

Over time, people have used Earth Prayer to maintain and return to a vivid relationship with the Earth. Sometimes, we just have an appreciative heart for our food or our water. As all of the grateful thoughts and prayers, Gathas or verses we read during our meditations rise to the Heavens we look for forgiveness for the injury we have done to our planet and request healing to reduce the damage.

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
Across the door-sill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep!
—Rumi

“All life is your own,
All fruits of the earth
Are fruits of your womb,
Your union, your dance.
Lady and Lord,
We thank you for blessings and abundance.
Join with us, Feast with us, Enjoy with us!
Blessed be.
—Starhawk

“Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly.”
—–Hildegard of Bingen

“I entrust myself to earth,
Earth entrusts herself to me.
I entrust myself to Buddha,
Buddha entrusts herself to me”.
—Thich Nhat Hanh

“May the axe be far away from you,
May the fire be far away from you;
May there be rain without storm,
Lord of Trees, may you be blessed.
Lord of Trees, may I be blessed.”
——Hindu Prayer

“When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy,
then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks
of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.”
—Hasidic Saying

“Bless Adonai
who spins day into dusk
With wisdom watch
the dawn gates open,
with understanding let
time and seasons
come and go;
with awe perceive
the stars in lawful orbit.
Morning dawns,
evening darkens,
darkness and light yielding
one to the other,
yet each distinguished
and unique.

Marvel at Life!
Strive to know its ways!
Seek Wisdom and Truth,
the gateways
to Life’s mysteries!

Wondrous indeed
is the evening twilight.”
—–Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro

“Goodnight God
I hope that you are having
a good time being the world.
I like the world very much.
I’m glad you made the plants
and trees survive with the
rain and summers.
When summer is nearly near
the leaves begin to fall.
I hope you have a good time
being the world.
I like how God feels around
everyone in the world.
God, I am very happy that
I live on you.
Your arms clasp around the world.
I like you and your friends.
Every time I open my eyes
I see the gleaming sun.
I like the animals—-the deer,
and us creatures of the world,
the mammals.
I love my dear friends”
—-Danu Baxter, Four and a half years old

“Teach your children
what we have taught our children–
that the earth is our mother.
Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.
If men spit upon the ground,
they spit upon themselves.

This we know.
The earth does does not belong to us;
we belong to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected
like the which unites one family.
All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.
We did not weave the web of life,
We are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”
—-Chief Seattle

Carolina Beach, NC; 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.

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..