The Weaving of New Cloth - Matt Licata

At times, the wisest, most skillful, and most compassionate
action is to establish a boundary with another person.  To
stand up and assertively say No.  To move in an empowered
and swift way to protect our own integrity.  To privilege our
own autonomy and interiority. To meet narcissism, abuse, and
neglect with a fiery, fierce, and direct response.

This is not only the case with "external" others - other people
in our lives - but also with the multitude of "internal" others -
from the interior landscape.

You might recognize them by their predictable refrain: "There is
something wrong with you.  You have failed. No one will ever
love you unless you change and become someone different.  You
are not okay.  You have fallen short.  You have done life wrong.
You are no good. You do not belong.  Your sensitivities and
eccentricities are not welcome here."

These are the voices of the past, the shadow of a culture of
materialism and greed, of the lineages of transgenerational
trauma and trance.  The voices of disembodiment, insensitivity,
of a societal and global ego that has fallen out of communion
with the natural world, the body, and the imaginal [mystical] realms.

These internal visitors, to an open and sensitive nervous system,
must also be met with the boundaries of discernment.  To 
realize those moments when we fall out of wisdom-presence of
the here and now, into the time machine of the "there and then."

[We need to] reclaim our own basic goodness, and not merely
accept their conclusions, reality tunnels, and the lenses through
which they have come to see things.  But cleanse our perception
with clear-seeing and the wildness of love.

To take the risk of telling a new story, dreaming a new dream,
spinning out a new tale, weaving a new cloth.  And to allow
ourselves to be turned by the great Weaver Herself...as new
vision is revealed, as we become that vessel in which She
can come alive here again.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Collective "Spirituality" - Matt Licata

At some point we will be invited to revision the concepts
which have guided us along the way.....dissolving what has
come before, and starting over, as if it were the first day.  To
illuminate the lenses through which we are seeing self, others,
and world...

[Spirituality] is not a state where we become liberated from
feeling, but freer to experience it more fully..... Not transcending
 our vulnerability, fleeing into a state of power and untouchability,
safely hidden away in some protected spiritual cocoon.

We will never be fully alive by embracing only those feelings and
those dreams that our families, societies, and teacher claim are
worthy and valid.  But only through the courage and mercy
required to touch it all.

To partake of the entirety of the spectrum of this human experience,
with as much curiosity, soul, and kindness that we can discover.
To give ourselves permission to care, to take a risk in allowing
another to matter, and tend to the heart it inevitably breaks in
response to suffering, disappointment and despair.

To see for ourselves to what degree the unconscious quest for
power, mastery, certainty,and invulnerability may be an
expression of fear, not love.

To realize how little we know in the face of the mystery [of life].

~

A collective spirituality is not going to be subtle, nuanced, or
creative enough to meet the longing within.  The way to direct
revelation and embodied experiential discovery is not the easy way.
It's not the path of five-steps to empowerment, manifestation, or
thinking our way into permanent happiness, abundance and bliss.
It is a humble journey, heart wrenching at times, as we compassionately
[embrace] the disowned parts of ourselves that surge for re-union.

It is unlikely we'll fully understand or resolve the mystery of self and
other, of separation and union...  But we can break open into the
questions as beginners, as amateurs, and as servants of the mystery.

Matt Licata