Facing the Wound - Jeff Foster

You have been afraid to break down...

You've been carrying so much...

Do not fear the grieving and terrible
ache of existence.  For sure, there will be
times when the pain is so intense you will find
it difficult to breathe and your mind may project
death and oblivion for you...

But, you will keep on breathing, and you will be
breathed through the abyss and carried lovingly
by nameless forces through the voided voids and
out again into the awe and vastness of living.  Your
breath will not fail you, but your mind may make
you doubt it.  There is a terrified child in you who
just wants to be reassured and held.  She lives inside

us all.

Be kind to your trauma, be gentle and soft, but don't
forget to be fiery and fierce when the moment calls
for it.  There is time for sweet talk and soothing
words and there is time for the sword too.  Let your
trauma know, it will not dictate the passage of your
life any longer.

[.....]

Weep and rage if you need to, let your trauma witness
the primordial power that boils in your heart...
Weep and rage if your need to, let your precious
raw heart be seen!

Your trauma will not take you down,
it will enrage and enliven you and push you
to the raw edge of sanity, yes, but it will 
 not take you down.

Remember the fire and forgiveness,
and the unbearable love that moves all things.

Breathe into the void now.
It's never as bad as it looks through the
filter of the mind.

Do not fear the oblivion,
it is the only place where you will find
your true freedom...

Jeff Foster

Excerpt from:
"Trauma: Do Not Fear The Oblivion"

You tube video: https://youtu.be/KMj9cP_gnf4?si=YEbBi76f3sIOk2NB

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Homecoming" - Mirabai Starr

I don't know about you, but I have grown weary of the 
endless quest to uncover and slay the host of inner demons
who have been messing up my plans for enlightenment,
which I have imagined as some pure land of perfect
equanimity in which I hover over my worldly concerns
like a cartoon yogi, forever free from narcissism and other
embarrassing inclinations, reliably dispensing compassion
to the vulnerable....to anyone who comes into proximity
with my purified and perfected (no)self [image]...

[.....]

But the "homecoming" is probably not what we thought it
would be when we signed up for the "enlightenment track."
We have been conditioned by our spiritual communities -
whether traditional religious institutions or alternative
practice spaces - to conquer certain feeling states in favor
of some idealized realm where we are unmoved by these
"lower vibrations", free to claim our birthright of peace,
love, and bliss...

[.....]

What if, instead of rushing to our meditation cushion or
asana practice....ready to vanquish the ego once and for all,
we take our ego into our arms and lean close and hear the
wisdom at the core of its insistent lament?

[.....]

The ancient alchemists did not view the base material [ego]
as merely something to be transcended or gotten rid of, but
as the "substance of the gods."  What if we were to love
reality however it is appearing in this moment, with its
heartbreak, our sadness, our confusion, our depression, or
[rage], our shame?  Rather than muscle our way through
spiritual disciplines and therapeutic interventions, we fall
in love with our brokenness at last and welcome the orphaned
parts of ourselves home.

Mirabai Starr
Contemporary Mystic
Writer, Author

Excerpts from the Forward
in Matt Licata's book:

A Healing Space:
Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times

~

Photo from the Internet

 

The Longing of Our Wounds - Matt Licata

Healing can't just be conceptual.  It's not a matter of thinking
differently, more "positively", or even more "spiritually" -
orbiting around the wound with our favorite metaphysical
beliefs, ideas and fantasies.

It's not clear thinking, or even "awareness" that can reach into
the wound and reorganize it. These can all be supportive, of
course, but in the end, healing is experiential, somatic, and
embodied.

While the wound is open, while it's activated and online,
there's a way in that moment that it's weeping.

That weeping, those tears that emerge from inside the wound,
these are emanations of a vital process in alchemy called solutio.

There's a dissolving that must occur in order for transmutation
to unfold.

In that moment of open weeping, the wound presents itself to
be reorganized, to receive something which has been missing,
something the wound has been longing for.

Not just the wound in some abstract way, but the longing of the
little one, the lost orphan of the psyche and soma who has been
carrying that burden of trauma, of aloneness, of unbearable 
emotional pain on our behalf for so long.

That longing, that yearning in the heart is to receive what has
been unavailable..., and what was missing at the
time the trauma became embedded.  
What that is, is love...
The healing medicine is love...

Matt Licata

~

For those still traumatized by 

9-11-2001

Blessings of Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Homecoming - Mirabai Starr

I don't know about you, but I have grown weary of the 
self-improvement project.  The endless quest to uncover
and slay the host of inner demons who have been messing up
my plans for enlightenment, which I have imagined as some
pure land of perfect equanimity in which I hover over my
worldly concerns like a cartoon yogi, forever free from
narcissism and other embarrassing inclinations, reliably
dispensing compassion to the vulnerable, wisdom to the
ignorant, and a kind of sexy psychic luminescence to
anyone who comes into proximity with my purified and
 perfect (no)self.

Matt Licata's compassionate book, A Healing Space...affirms
that each of us has access to 'the outrageous intelligence and
bravery of the broken human heart' and the heart's ability to
return home.

This homecoming, as Matt shows us, is probably not what we
thought it would be when we signed up for the enlightenment
track.  We have been conditioned by our spiritual communities -
whether traditional religious institutions or alternative practice
spaces - to conquer certain feeling states in favor of some 
idealized realm where we are unmoved by these "lower
vibrations"...  Instead, he encourages us to share the truth of
our shattering so that we can become our own alchemists -
and learn to love reality however it is appearing in this
moment.

The ancient alchemists did not view the "base material" - as 
Matt calls our difficulties, our thoughts, our darker feelings
and emotions - to be transcended, but as 'the substance of the
gods' - Sacred, Beautiful and Loveable...  Matt's invitation is
to enter and inhabit those abandoned parts of ourselves and
our unlived lives as holy ground.

It's a revolutionary approach.  Rather than muscle our way
through spiritual disciplines, and therapeutic interventions,
we fall in love with our brokenness and welcome all the
orphaned parts of ourselves home.

Mirabai Starr
from the Forward to
A Healing Space:Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times

Matt Licata, PhD

~

Photo from the Internet

 

The "Inner Other" - Matt Licata

Relationship has an uncanny ability to illuminate those parts
of ourselves that we have lost touch with - the orphans of the
emotional world, and the emissaries of our unlived lives.  They
remind us of the two great relational fears -
of being abandoned or overwhelmed by the other.

As we deepen ["spiritually"]... we may discover that the "other"
is not only those fellow travelers that we meet [or our mates/lovers/
partners], but that there is also an "inner other" who also longs to
be known, to be held, and to be a part of the love story of our lives.
The "other" yearns more than anything for intimacy, to no longer
be shut out, and to enter union with us
exactly as we are.

The lost sadness, the disallowed joy, the unmet rage, the repressed
grief.  The barely remembered peace, the dissociated despair, the
forgotten beauty.  These ones are alive and will continue their
journey to find you.  They will never give up and will continue to
take form as your lovers, family members, and friends, including
those who irritate you the most.

The invitation of The Beloved, in each of its forms, is to step fully
into the crucible of relationship where we no longer limit the
mystery of love's expression, resisting the temptation to have the
fires of love conform to our requirements.  And to open to the
reality that perhaps the purpose of relationship is not to provide
consistent feelings of safety, certainty, connection, and validation.

The Beloved has not come to confirm what we think love is - or
the ways we have come to believe we must be seen - but rather
to introduce us to the creative terrain of the unknown, and to the
poetic depth of our own hearts...

Matt Licata

~

Art - Heart within Heart
Craypas oils - done with fingers

?2009