Tag Archives: nature

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Summer Escapades


Photograph by Barbara Mattio

The best part of summer is the ability to just be. To be in the present moment. The past is gone. For better or worse, you never can get it back and you must let it go. This is not always easy for people to do. Letting go can be frightening. Often we don’t want to let the good memories fade, or sometimes, the pain of some times in our life doesn’t heal. It takes effort on our part to let go and trust that it will be all right. You don’t lose the memories and they actually become more golden with the passing of the years. The pain will diminish and your heart will heal. Divinity is always with us and we never walk alone. Divinity is within our souls so what we experience, it experiences.

The future is an enticing siren. It sings its song to us and we want to know what is coming. We want answers about love, finances, travel or a job perhaps. The siren sings and we ache to know what is coming. The future is like Tinkerbell. She flits here and there but when you reach out for her she is gone between your fingers. The future or the fairy disappears because as soon as you come close to grasping it, the future turns into the present.

The present moment of time is where we exist in the now. The beauty you are experiencing at this exact second is the present. The fragrance you catch on the wind, the dragonfly that glides across your field of vision. Each moment is a priceless gift for us to use and enjoy. Some choose to spend some of these precious moments in hatred or violence. Some choose to use them to add beauty, acceptance and inclusiveness to the world.

If each of us took the moments we are given in a twenty-four hour period and used them to make someone smile, to laugh with a child, to reach out a hand, or to acknowledge the amazing blessings each moment brings with it, we could begin to have the energy to change the world. So, I am trying this summer to fill my present with escapades of joy and happiness. So pass it on and by autumn we will be able to harvest bushels of goodness in our lives.

Photography by Barbara Mattio

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The Garden of Life


needlework by Barbara Mattio

Needlework by Barbara Mattio

 

I was just out in my garden. It is very warm and I was doing some deadheading, turning pots to the sun. I filled my lungs with the fragrance of the flowers and my eyes with their beautiful color. I could feel the energy emanating from the trees and was filled with contentment. The gardens of our lives are like this. They need attention and some work. We need to keep our lives fertilized and trimmed. We need to stop in the presence of the Divine and communicate as a child of the Universe. Negativity needs to be removed from our lives and we need to remember that thoughts have energy and try very hard not to add to the hatred and violence in the world. We need to laugh and enjoy the relationship we have with the Divine. So visit your garden or park and spend some time with God.

Trees

I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest against the
earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
and lifts her leafy areas to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear a nest
of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
who lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
but only God can make a tree.
—Joyce Kilmer

 

Photography by Barbara Mattio

Photography by Barbara Mattio

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The Sound of the Trees


By Robert Frost

” I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace,

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks no less for knowing,

As it grows wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway,

From the windows or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.”

In remembrance of Buzurg Mir Hammon, who taught me to hug trees and to fall in love with the Beloved.

Photography by Barbara Mattio

Photography by Barbara Mattio