“The aliveness we long for will never be found by eliminating the unwanted, but in embodied

attunement to the love and information it carries.”

We hear much about spiritual awakening and the deep joy, clarity, and peace that are its promised fruits. Often ignored, however, are the disappointments of awakening and the ways it can break our hearts, cracking us open to the reality of the crucifixion, resurrection, and transfiguration we are likely to encounter along the way.

In the rush to convert the negative to the positive, manifest everything we believe we want, and manage our lives into some permanent state of “happiness,” we lose contact with the reality that there is no transfiguration without embodiment to the dark cross within. The journey of becoming a true human person is messy by nature, as it emerges directly out of the unknown and requires compassionate confrontation with the entirety of what we are.

As we journey together as fellow travelers, let us commit to embracing both the joy and the heartbreak of the path, and bear witness to the wisdom shining out of our immediate experience, whether it appears as sadness, bliss, despair, or great joy. Grace will appear in both sweet and fierce forms but it is still grace, sent from beyond to open us to the radiant fullness of being.

The Path Is Everywhere is an intimate, provocative journey into the inner landscape of consciousness, the body, and the heart, weaving together the wisdom-streams of contemplative spirituality, relational psychotherapy, and the poetic imagination.

Matt Licata

Books