Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

The Shadow –

Is there justice…or not? The Shadow says there isn’t. The Shadow passes over us, enervatingly, sapping our vitals, suggesting, “What’s the use?” If Jesus is right and “By their fruits you shall judge them” then the Shadow’s apparent desire is that we lose hope and focus and accomplish nothing.

This is such a devastatingly undesirable outcome it is obvious that the Shadow is to be resisted with all our strength. Warriors reject The Shadow.

But Jesus also says, “Resist not evil” because evil wants you to play with it. How resist non-forcefully?

I would say through the exercise of our creative – i.e. positive – gifts. This is why I study evil, tease it, laugh at it, explicate it.

The Gruesome Gourmet

My mother loved corpses

Folded in with the custard; she

Smoked out the kitchen like a witch

In Macbeth.

Taylor’s Toxicology shared shelf with

Julia Child; Mom often

Talked Trotsky over

Soft-boiled eggs. She

Smeared more Mercurochrome

Than was strictly necessary

On juvenile cuts; dabbed with dilated pupils like

An artist in mayhem or an MGM makeup man

While Dad ate mute

Pacifist chili from cans in his room

Re-reading KonTiki.

I became vegetarian.

It’s true what they say about

Becoming your past;

When I hear “Lizzie Borden”

I remember –

I think of mutton for breakfast in

Sticky red sauce.