in the now

In the tantric tradition it is said that chaos is ‘extremely good news.’ 

When you are willing to enter into your neurosis, your confusion, and your hopelessness, you approach the threshold of the sacred world.

No matter where you look, all you can see is path. 

All of your experience is utterly valid and a pure reflection of life as it moves through you – life longing to know itself, finally, to be met, held, 

and metabolized within the vastness of loving presence.

You are starting to see that what appears is not a mistake, 

but a clear expression of a long-forgotten aspect of awareness, 

of an ancient vow you have taken to practice intimacy with all things. 

Each person, each holy feeling, 

each consecrated emotion a portal dropping into embodied presence.

It is risky to let in the reality that nothing is missing, that you are not flawed, 

and are not in need of fixing – that you could fully step into the miracle of the unfolding here and now, without first demanding life conform to your old dreams. 

You need not ‘heal your past,’ become ‘enlightened,’ meet your soul mate, 

manifest a cool spiritual job, 

or arrange your life circumstances according to the dictates of your hopes and fears. 

The kingdom of presence is here now. 

There is no love coming in the future. 
There is no grace arriving around the corner. 

It is shining out of your very body, pouring out of somatic pathways,

 and emerging out of your holy nervous system… right here, right now.

The risk of entering the gates of the mandala of wholeness is that, once inside, 

you will no longer be able to hide from your raging natural perfection. 

The dream of the unworthy one, the spell of the unlovable one, 

and the trance of the broken one will be dissolved in the crucible of aliveness. 

While a part of you will always yearn for this dissolution, 

you must ask to what degree this is what you truly want.

 For it is the disorienting end of one world and the glorious beginning of another.

Yes, it may seem like yet another ordinary Monday and that you are in an ordinary situation. But things are rarely what they seem. 

Please do not postpone your participation and wild embodiment for another moment.

 Love is here now. 

And is longing for you to offer yourself as a holding vessel 

through which it may come fully alive here. 

Love cannot do this without you. 

For love is you.

Matt Licata

the winged victory of samothrace