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