Befriending Ourselves - Matt Licata

At some point along the way, each of us will be asked
to revision the ideas that have accompanied us to this
moment in our lives.  Although at times the call arrives
quietly and slowly, as a whisper guiding us into new
territory, for many it comes as an unexpected visitor,
erupting in the night as we find ourselves in transition,
confused, angry, heartbroken, uncertain, or depressed.
However it arrives, it is a reminder that even our most
sacred identities and beliefs tend to become encrusted
over time, worn-out symbols of a living reality no longer
so alive.  Somehow what was clear only days or even
moments ago lost its meaning and is no longer able to
accompany us into the next phase.

[.....]

To see our pain, confusion and struggle as an intelligent
communication from the deepest parts of ourselves is a
radical approach... To suffer consciously is an ancient,
sacred art lost in our time, replaced by a well-intentioned
solar self-help industry designed to take us out of the 
darkness and complexity and into consistent joy, flow,
happiness, and bliss...

[.....]

True healing is not a state in which we become liberated from
feeling, but freer and flexible to experience more fully the
deeper, more complex, and more nuanced dimensions of the
psyche... to touch the fullness of what it means to have taken
birth here....in the universal human experience.

[.....]

This exploration [of befriending ourselves] is not oriented in
transcending our vulnerability - fleeing into a state of power,
untouchability, and control - or safely hiding in some protected
spiritual cocoon where we've risen above it all.  It is not taking
refuge in spiritual concepts.  It is in knowing that in any moment
life will reorganize and rearrange all our constructed spiritual
identities and fantasies...

[.....]

We will never feel fully alive through embracing only those
feelings, images, and parts of ourselves that our families,
societies and [religious] authorities claim are worthy and
valid, but only through the courage required to embrace the
entire display, to befriend it all, and to transform the raw
material of our lives into the luminous expression of
wisdom and love in all its forms...

Matt Licata

Excerpts from the Introduction to his book:
A Healing Space:
Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times

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Photo - from the Internet

 

Turning Into The Not-Knowing - Matt Licata

There is a certain death that occurs as part of the healing
process, a part of us unable to survive illumination.  As we
turn the light around, according to one Daoist alchemical
text, a piece of soul will fall away.

While it is tempting to spin out of the uncertainty and
quickly into rebirth, there is wisdom and purity within
the reorganization which we cannot bring into embodied
knowing if we patch it all up prematurely.

The dissolution itself is initiation as it offers vision and
feeling not available in the put-back-together-state.  An
old part of ourselves that has accompanied us for so long,
a fellow traveler is no longer permitted to continue the
journey by our side.  This prior soul-companion can be
another person or it can be a member of the inner family.

Somehow, we're asked to bear witness to the crumbling of
an old dream - my life and the way I was so sure it was
going to turn out.  This is the holy alchemical operation of
putrefactio, a sacred process that is evidence of.....fierce grace.

In order to be initiated, we must slow down, and turn into
the not-knowing.  To take some time to mourn the
reassembling of our world,  to grieve all that we will
inevitably lose as we heal and awaken.

To tend to the pieces of the soul, the shards of the heart,
and the fragments of the psyche that are being rearranged,
to honor the role they have played, for standing by us for
so long, and providing refuge during difficult times.

To lament the loss of their companionship and allow them to
continue into whatever realm is next for them, [and give them]
permission to travel and experience new things.  Even if we
 are unable to "accept" this, we can touch the ground where
 they once were, and bow.

To stand in awe at this process, despite the profound pain and
grief, to care for all of it as we allow the Mystery to reveal
itself in deeper and deeper ways.  To know that healing and
awakening is messy, glorious, and full-spectrum... and is not
only an act of creation, but one of destruction as well.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Inter-Spiritual Heart - Mirabai Starr

For decades I was conditioned to believe that to engage a mature
spiritual life I needed to "pick one tradition and go deep," which
implied that my attraction to the teachings and practices at the
heart of all religions was superficial and indolent.  Also, that the
path of non-dualism - with its affirmation of undifferentiated
consciousness - was superior to my devotional disposition.  Also,
that my experience of longing for God was an illusion - some
kind of unconscious blend of unresolved childhood abandonment
and magical thinking.  In other words, the energy that fueled my
journey was predicated on a perfect storm of delusional inclinations.

It was only when the fire of loss swept into my life and burned the
scaffolding to the ground that all conceptual constructs came
tumbling down and these insidious messages revealed themselves
as 1) unkind, and 2) untrue.  From the ashes of grief a transfigured,
more authentic self began to arise, and she felt no obligation to
choose sides.  She was a Jew and a Sufi, a believer and an agnostic.
She practiced Vipassana and Centering Prayer, observed Shabbat
and received communion.  She rested in blessed moments of
unitive consciousness and sang the praises of Lord Krishna.

I am not alone.  A 'tribe" of people is coalescing around the world
to celebrate a reorientation from religious separation to inter-
spiritual connection.  While many of us have been pilgrims on this
path for decades - sometimes feeling alone in the wilderness,
sometimes gathering with others who are similarly drawn to the
sacred in every single holy house we encounter - now, at last, our
numbers seem to be reaching a tipping point and what was a
fringe phenomenon is become a global movement.

The inter-spiritual path is characterized as much by what it is not
as what it is.  It is not a new religion; in fact many of its most
enthusiastic adherents consider themselves "spiritual but not
religious."  It has no creed or dogma, no tenets or prohibitions. No
special attire sets it apart and so single symbol represents its core
philosophy.  It's "membership" is as diverse as the full spectrum
of humanity.  It is not about belief...

Mystical poetry transcends theological distinctions and neutralizes
ideological ultimatums.  Love poems to God do not describe 
Ultimate Reality: they evoke it.  The poems of the mystics slip
past the thought-guardians and batter down the gates of the heart.
In crying out to the Holy One, the ecstatic poets offer us a direct
connection with the object of our Soul's deepest desire, and ours.

Mystical poetry generates a sacred field, and invites us to step in.

It is here, in the center of the perennial paradox, that it becomes
obvious all spiritual paths emanate from and return to the same
Universal Heart.

Mirabai Starr

read full article here

with thanks to No Mind's Land

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Photo - Mystic Meandering