Tag Archives: Matt Licata

Sweet Breathing

You Are This Flower

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“The breath is coming in and out now, whether you believe you are worthy of it or not.

The earth is unconditionally supporting you. She is holding you whether you believe you deserve to be held or not. Rest in her presence.

The breath will be gone at some point, usually much sooner than we’d all like. Breathe deeply now. Breathing is only now. There is no “breathing in the future.”

“No matter what is happening in your life – maybe you have lost hope, you’re confused, your heart is broken, or an old dream has died. Or even if you’re experiencing some joy, some peace, if things are going okay. It is not an ordinary moment. It is never ordinary inside your heart.

The only thing we know for sure is that we will be returned to the vastness soon. Let us not forget what is most important, never apologize for the yearning in our hearts, and not wait any longer to be fully here.

Let us renew the vow we once made to not abandon ourselves, our emotions, our vulnerability, our bodies, our sensitivity. With the sun, the moon, and the stars as our witness, we will no longer pathologize pure feeling and the longing that has been placed inside us.

Let us take a risk on this new day, like a flower who cannot hold back any longer from erupting with color, with fragrance, with life, with her song. You are this flower. Attune to what is truly happening here. This world needs you now more than ever. Please don’t forget what you are.”

-Matt Licata

Sweet Breathing

This Moment is the Perfect Place to Begin

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Matt Licata’s words resonated with me today…

“Turn into the ocean of your unlived life, and bring the warmth of awareness into the hidden places inside you. Behold the forms of love as they reconfigure, and open to the unmet feelings, the disowned longings, and the split-off pieces you have lost contact with. Dare to see that they do not mean you harm, but have come longing for integration. There are jewels concealed in the forgotten pathways, awaiting discovery, filled with energy and information for the journey ahead.

But the substance which shapes these pathways is of the unknown, and is unbearably creative. It was never going to turn out the way you thought. Rather than seeing this as a mistake or cosmic error, you can find rest here. It is not the rest of the mind where everything is resolved, but the rest of the heart where everything is held and metabolized in wholeness. Love will never be pinned down or worked out. It is just too wild for all that.

If we do not meet, hold, and integrate the heartbreak, the fear, the rage, and the entirety of our essence vulnerability – if we do not provide sanctuary for the aliveness of the somatic world – we will inevitably place this burden on the others in our lives, to care for it on our behalf. While others can help us along the way, they cannot take care of this sacred material for us. For this is their gift to us.

It is an act of love to remove this burden from our lovers, our friends, and our families. And to take experiential, full-spectrum responsibility for its holding and its care. As we integrate the arising narrative, emotions, feelings, and sensations within the spaciousness of awareness, we become open, warm, transparent vessels for love to come alive here, and to seed this world with its qualities.

You need not postpone being fully here for another moment. This moment is the perfect place to begin.”

Low Fog, Snow Around Trees, Bear Bottom, Home

Sweet Breathing

On this new Winter day….

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I hope you can take time to savor these sumptuous words from Matt Licata, and absorb with wonder this new winter day…

Winter Morning, Snow, Snow in Trees

“On this new winter day, it is so easy to take for granted that tomorrow will come – that another opportunity will be given to witness a sunrise, to breathe into the heart, to be astonished at the crystals in the newly fallen snow, to share a moment of attuned connection with the bunnies on our morning walk.

But another part of us knows it is so fragile here, so tenuous, and that this opening into life will not be here for much longer. Recognizing this, let us surrender the dream of postponement by doing whatever we can to help others, by being fully here and entering into the dark and into the light with them, no longer apologizing for our uniqueness, our sensitivity, and the gifts of our embodied vulnerability.

At the end of this life – which is sure to come much sooner than we’d like – it is unlikely we’ll ask if we accomplished the tasks on our to-do lists, completed some mythical journey of ‘awakening,’ perfected ourselves, ‘healed’ our past, played it safe, got all of our ‘needs’ met, made it big, ‘manifested’ everything we wanted, or achieved all of our goals.

Inside these hearts there may be only one burning question: how well did I love?

Did I pause each day to behold the wonder of just one unfolding here and now moment? Was I willing to take a risk, to feel more, to care so deeply about this life, to let another matter, and to honor *this* very experience, exactly as it has been given?

Did I stay close with the mysterious movement of both sweet and fierce grace as it took form as the others in my life, and as the wisdom flow of feeling, of emotion, and of sensation in this body? Was I willing to fall in love, to truly fall in love with this life, exactly as it is? Was I willing to provide a home, a sanctuary, and safe passage for all of me, an environment of wholeness and integration to dance, rest, and play in?

Was I willing to set aside the unending need to make this moment different?

What is it that remains unlived… for you? How have you been holding back? What are you waiting for? What are the feelings you must re-embody to in order to fully come alive here?

The bounty and the harvest of this world is upon you. It is always already here, erupting in the here and now, and is not waiting. The spell of the ‘next moment’ has been broken.

I hope I make it all the way through this sweetest of ever winter days, but if for some reason I do not, this would have been enough. I have been given so much more than enough.”

-Matt Licata

January Sunset2, Snow, Pasture View

Sweet Breathing

Not An Ordinary Wednesday

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“In just one ordinary moment, sink into mystery, and set aside the urgency to be other than you are. Watch as the trance that something is ‘missing’ melts into the majesty of the here and now.
Allow the dream of the way you thought it was going to all turn out to be taken apart by the reorganizing nature of love.
There are colors here, soft eyes to gaze into, and fragrances to enter inside. Precious ones to hold, muddy earth to descend into, and sunsets longing for your presence. Hearts to attune to, nectar to taste, and birdsong which has arrived from the other world. Even the wisteria ones have opened to receive you.
There is sadness to embody to, melancholy to dance with, hopelessness to learn from, and peace to rest in. Despair to provide safe passage for, loneliness to explore, and bliss to mingle and play with.
See that love will never ask you to abandon your present experience and trade it in for another. In the wild environment of the beloved, each of the senses is unfolding as a portal into true nature and intimacy with all things. Love will only continue to seed you with invitations into the outrageous aliveness of the sacred world.
It may appear to be another ordinary Wednesday in another ordinary star. But look carefully, for your lovers are everywhere.
Matt Licata
Andrew's Trail, Light Prism, Fall
Sweet Breathing

Outrageous Grace

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“Somehow, by some outrageous grace, a new day has been given. There is no greater miracle than this. Allow yourself to receive the benediction of pure presence, for it is your birthright. It is wired inside you and yearning to erupt from your totally untamed wildness. For when it does, an avalanche of clear beauty is unleashed, sending love stories, wild music, and sweet poetry into the stars and supernovas, seeding the galaxies with your unique light.”
-Matt Licata
Night Sky with Clouds
Those words are so stunningly beautiful.  I too want to “erupt into untamed wildness, and unleash an avalanche of clear beauty” just as Matt Licata writes.  May you too feel the avalanche of “love stories, wild music, and sweet poetry” moving “into the stars and supernovas, seeding the galaxies with your unique light.”
Oh my goodness yes, I wish this for you, for me, for all our relations!