Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Addiction

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Earth = RESOURCES
    “Green Thumb”

    The Garden we wish to share is an island in the universe that is Earth. As we travel, we soon find out that Earth itself is another Garden, almost too large for us to comprehend, containing many wonders.

    We are creatures of this planet that nourishes us; but who’s taking care of who? Gardens need a lot of care. The quality of the soil, timing and positioning of the plants, their symbiosis and synchronicity are critical. If we block the sun and clog the air with burning smoke we all suffer.

    Earth is our mother and we are her children. Mothers get old; they welcome renewal but they can’t last forever, so it is good to study sensible policies about health and healing. The key here is whether we even try to give back as much as we have received. If we make the effort, benefits will overflow.

    Our care for the earth is a model of the care we offer the Beloved Other. Is it an attractive deal? Are we givers as well as takers? Or are we just searching for a complicit Other to despoil the planet with?

    When it is a question of what we can give, we must examine our resources. This is the source of the famous kneeling offering of a diamond ring. Cynics would say a “taker” is hoping she’ll be so dazzled she won’t notice that’s ALL she’ll be getting. A honeymoon over before it even started.

    So what are the resources we are taking for granted? Often, having earth under our feet and a roof over our head is something we barely even think about. Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes. Our vision stretches so far down the road to imagined “somedays” that we are impatient with “today”. Today seems so modest, so ordinary. It isn’t until we really consider the people and places that have “always had our back” that we even form the words, “thank you.” A soulmate with contempt for the familiar doesn’t trust intimacy.

    Part of the reason we lose interest in our humblest resources is that we’ve done nothing to deserve them. It’s embarrassing for us even to admit there are resources we have no control over, that come to us just by virtue of where we chance to live, or work, or who we’re related to. It makes sense to add them up and give thanks for them right now. Sometimes we find that we can assume the reins of these neglected resources after all; sharpen them up, improve them, modify and share them into an aspect of our life-plan after all.

    A good example is the rude health that often comes to all of us simply as part of our youth. We can’t rely on that forever! Are there ways that we abuse good health, good sleep, warm familial connections and may even be unconsciously reducing our future opportunities of enjoying them? Let’s make them part of our conscious plan today and stop taking them for granted.

    Why do we harm our own resources? Why can’t we use the resources that we have? Why waste our time pining for those we DON’T have? Descending deeper through the subconscious we uncover the powerful, devastating wish is to be the exact opposite to what we actually are. Our fantasy is so powerful, we can picture this person – us, but better proportioned, more beautiful, intelligent, relaxed, powerful, magnetic. Mustering all these imagined resources, we yearn to attract someone who is ALSO just like that.

    Cat-fishers know this and try to lure us into their web with borrowed pix, false profiles and Fear of Missing Out. Fantasy not only WON’T save us, it makes us hate ourselves! Now is the time to study our REAL resources – they are UNIQUE. Is it our wonderful family? Our stubborn determination? Fantastic teeth? Interesting job? Ability to laugh? Interest in others? Generosity? Friends? Faith? All these things? Think about your resume, which describes where you ACTUALLY WENT and what you ACTUALLY DID. Now try to write one about what you learned and who you became and where that stands on the path to who you want to be.

    Didn’t the mistakes lead to insight? Didn’t the suffering deepen your compassion? Are we stronger at the broken places? The further into this exercise you go the more likely you are to realize your soulmate will be lucky to have you!

    Green Thumb

    You tend my body so well you can’t
    Surprise me anymore
    You’re the surprise and
    I’m used to you
    Folding back my lettuce leaves with your tongue
    Coaxing the reluctant caterpillar
    While I lie awake giddy with
    Self preservation until
    The final firecracker moment
    When you release and flourish
    The fragrant butterfly

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Memory = THE PAST – “Practice Cuts”

    “Where did you come from?”

    In Memory lies our Identity. There are probably no sadder words than “I don’t remember you.” We are born with wild, unexplored ambitions and we spend our lives trying to live up to them by learning & acquiring partnership, discipline & practice. And sometimes, trying to forget negative conditioning and poor patterning.

    Memory is the foundation of art, science and law as we try to reflect back what we have learned. Memory gives us the words to say to build and express our emotions & intent. Luckily our bodies have memories, too. Memory resides in hearing, touch, taste, sight and muscle; long after words have gone.

    Past Patterns – Sometimes we recognize a pattern coming around again, but more often, we don’t. We’re accustomed to treating each new crisis as if it blew in out of nowhere. This is where journaling can really pay off for us as we ask a series of questions: have I been here before? And what did it look like that time? Is there anything different – really new – about now?

    Negative Conditioning is when we learned unhelpful or destructive practices. If we grew up with parents who couldn’t forge strong intimate connections there is a danger we will re-experience all their trouble. We also learn from patterns experienced through art or viewed from a distance. And then there are “cultural ideals” – some of which are downright unhealthy and must be discarded.

    Sometimes we only see a situation clearly when it’s happening to someone else! What advice does our past self have to give us – our cockier, more youthful self? How about our wiser self – the mature self who can see the whole picture — the one who’s “arrived”?

    Memory is not just who we are, memory is where we live. Our Soulmate is not a mind-reader, so communication is constant and evolving. Memories change, as we change. Different aspects of our own story emerge into importance as we evolve. Previously, we might not have even noticed aspects of our own story that we now see as key. This has important implications for the presentation of self that is critical to our connection with another person.

    Are prepared for this “other” to dramatically transform the way we see ourselves; to change our story’s “meaning” as well as altering our past and empowering our future? There is an Official Version of our past we like to tell others as we introduce ourselves; now is the time to ponder the Secret Version. The version we only tell our most significant other.

    Is it secret because it is shameful? Soulmate Love is not an opportunity to escape our past but to heal it. That toxic shame may be the exact lens through which you and the Soulmate first “see” each other. Your connection will start as a series of conversations, which may be physical, verbal, or non-verbal.

    In literature, the tale of Cupid & Psyche embodies these processes, as Psyche (“The Soul”) first thinks she is married to a monster with whom she can only mate in darkness. She “steals a glance” at him when he is sleeping but, when he catches her, he is furious and flees. The plot twist: he was actually a beautiful young man, but he didn’t know it so was not ready to reveal himself. The “monster” was his toxic shame. How does the story end? You and your Soulmate will find out.

    PRACTICE CUTS

    The dead gush cruelly after dying.
    High time to make some changes;
    Get religion, have visions
    See god, become a nun


    Some self worth knowing.
    Time is gunning for me
    Arthritic fingers
    Scrabbling at my dreams


    Playing old tunes
    Scratchy now, less sensitive.

    I’m a body in search of a car wreck
    That old deus ex machina
    Disaster; blood is so good


    At erasing uncertainty &
    Bringing back a taste for life.
    Reduce me, silence: fortify
    Some other ego, mine’s too tired.


    Ebb out along the tide,
    Cauterize this woof-warp of a pattern
    So plain even I can see it.

    Reduce me to unbending bones of
    My essential self: sweet sister; she;
    The soul I was before I became me.

  • The Language of Butterflies – walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    The Moon = SUBTLE INFLUENCE : “Botticelli’s Simonetta”

    “Secret crushing”

    The Moon and the Sun have nothing in common. The Moon is a planet, the Sun is a star. The Moon doesn’t give light; it reflects light; it must be tired of being compared to the Sun. What an unfair fight!

    The Moon is our hostage, circling us slowly. Balefully. Oh, it has its worshippers. I mean, which would you rather be, Moonstruck or Sun-struck? You can recover from The Moon. The Moon seems manageable; Earth has visited it many times. The Moon is symbolic; vital for poets; unavoidable for lovers. The Moon is the Planet for people who like to sneak around. The Moon manages our tides, but subtly. Cruelly. She is the Queen of passive aggression.

    There are two ways to accomplish anything: full-frontal or “sneak attack.” This knowledge, so dear to military strategists, is one of the first things we discovered as children. You rarely get what you want simply by asking for it. Instead, you must study “the target” and determine likely responses. As children, we usually realized it helped if “target” was in a good mood! Bad mood targets say “no” to everything!

    But this simple reality has important ramifications for us adult planners: there is also “weather” in the world of human desire and accomplishment. It’s much more difficult to “take off” in a storm. The Moon is visible entirely by borrowed light, but that’s the least important thing about her. Her power may be invisible, but we can feel it in our blood, in our bodies!

    There could be no more useful introduction to the potency of Subtle Power. Sometimes in order to achieve our desire we must prepare our target to even hear us. Jesus illustrated this brilliantly in a series of parables anyone would understand. When he was asked a question, he’d tell a story whose moral was obvious. He allowed seekers to answer their own questions by first determining what “paradigm” matched their circumstance.

    Plotting the “weather” and analyzing the “players” tells us much of what we need to know when planning to move forward. It can be admirable to lay all our cards on the table, or it can be foolhardy; as men discover who propose on the first date. We’ve been given complex brains. Let’s use them to think strategically.

    Do you have a secret crush? Do you know why — or is not knowing an important part of its power over you? What’s influencing you? Where is this pull coming from?

    The moon exemplifies subtle power; entrancing its quarry like a sidewinder. That means it’s time to “think outside the box” and take a deep dive into the “hard” wiring of your motives and desires. Just how “hard” is that wiring? Just because it’s “factory-installed” doesn’t mean it can‘t be improved upon.

    “Customization” according to your unique requirements is far superior to accepting whatever your biology throws at you. Let’s study our own blueprints with a view to a possible re-design if we don’t like what we see. We all have nonsensical fears, triggers and prejudices; keeping them in darkness allows them to proliferate, even assume command. The Moon is one of the Imposture archetypes (Fireflies is the other) but the moon is more about you posing to fool yourself. 

    We who seek our Perfect Other Half wish to be free of all that. We want to know what we actually want, what benefits and what harms us and all we want is the ability to speak it honestly. Let’s compare your real self, your desired self and your social self to your desirable self – and learn.

    Can you change? This is the most important question, because you’ll have to change to blend smoothly with your other. Resistance to change – to experimentation, to re-design – is the biggest red flag there is. It’s a deal-breaker.

    SIMONETTA:
    Botticelli’s Muse

    Ah Simonetta!
    You were always
    All the faces; how we

    Pity the griffon backed toad
    Who dreams of you
    And you alone;

    Excepting your fatality –
    Eyes flint deep, pebble shallow,
    Thunder lines coiled on
    Lips pursed tight

    A tantrummy child
    Punishing parents by
    Refusing to breathe.

    As this world is not
    Perfection you can’t be;
    Yet somehow you embody

    Everything we yearn for; your
    Pear-hard belly
    Anticipating ravages;

    Unto that scar that splits you twice
    Equator-wise, spilling out
    the thistle-tailed phoenix

    Who perpetuates your face, spinning
    Ropes of rubied veins and
    Clouds of gilded hair –

    Arching you back to
    Burst you, husk and all
    Against the sun.

  • The Language of Butterflies – walking the path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Duality = AMBIVALENCE “The Sideways Smile”

    “Love/Hate”

    Dormancy casts us into contemplation, and contemplation heightens our uncertainty. Duality reminds us that meditating on the opposites in our natures must become part of our standard meditation practice. When we desire to bring a soulmate into existence we ask ourselves: what does it mean to be “opposite”?

    Consider all sides of this equation; consider, also, that we ourselves create and trigger our own “opposites” so we must observe the infinite potential conceived by the opposite of intention, designed by the opposite of desire, spawning the opposite of Being itself.

    It is human to want two conflicting and contradictory things at once. When we “choose” any one thing, we give its shadow power. We still “want” the neglected thing: perhaps more than ever now that we can no longer “have” it. This can’t “hurt” us so long as we’re aware of it.

    We must expect the path not taken to rear up in our dreams and stake its claim to our life. When we see it, we dismiss it again: “Begone, I don’t want you. I have not chosen you.” Every time we make this statement we diminish its force a tiny bit. The worst thing we can do is become its advocate: “Maybe that’s not so bad. Why can’t I have both?” If we make that mistake we are setting up a vicious circle of longing for the way not chosen; we may decide we are more about the bad choices than the good ones: “I just can’t help myself.” Speak the words “Begone. You have no power over me. I have not chosen you.”

    Every time we say them they become a little bit more true. We have the right to become good souls by design, not monsters controlled by appetite alone.

    Approach/Avoidance. Fear/Attraction. Love/Hate. We feel all these emotions at the same time, swirling together to form a new emotion, ambivalence, which some of us try to negotiate using experimentation, “safe words”, role play. It’s possible; but rigidity is always to be distrusted. If we are manipulating a series of masks to hide behind our purpose is automatically defeated.

    What is that purpose? Self-knowledge. Self-revelation. Authenticity, followed by the bliss of Other-knowledge; other-revelation. And the fact that, together, soulmates become a multiplied force of never-yet-seen-in-the-history-of-the-world power and personhood. To achieve this goal, we learn to accept and know, tolerate, negotiate, master and revel in the wilderness within each of us and the wilderness we create together.

    This course can be fearful, even shaming. We will decide several times a day: “This is too much for me”, “I can’t do this,” “I’m not good at this.” How dare I release you when I can’t release me? How can I create you when I can’t create me?” We dare. We can. With the ultimate result that we release and create, Us.

    The Sideways Smile

    I heard you singing and remembered
    All the things that you’d forgotten
    Seeing you clearly – like
    A fish in a hailstone.


    Seeing your hands
    Long for a man I always thought
    Your upper lip too short
    Like a lion’s – in fact
    You have an animal presence –


    Placing no trust in words
    Placing no trust in love
    Pretending you’d never met me
    Creating islands undiscovered
    Worlds unreachable;


    You were the joke
    I didn’t get; I recall your sideways smile
    Blowing smoke between us
    Refusing to forgive the essential fragility that
    Marks us humans;


    Fated as you were
    Always surrendering
    To the scornful cries of your
    Invisible hecklers.

  • The Language of Butterflies – walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    The shadow=DISSONANCE “Considering the Chill Factor

    “Confronting your shadow self”

    We were very young when first we became aware of The Shadow. No happy moment, no celebration of joy is unaffected by its subtle miasma. But what is it exactly?

    Much of childhood – history itself, in fact – is absorbed by the effort to put a name to this lurking angst.

    Demonic forces, bad dreams, animals, reptiles, insects, The Invisible – entire populations of seemingly foreign persons have been stigmatized by this label. Which is not to say that somebody, somewhere, didn’t experience trouble from the reality of these forces.

    Philosophers tell us that all we’re feeling is an inherent fear of death, but we can see that fear itself is hardwired into species who are otherwise unselfconscious of the limitations of existence. Perhaps all we have to fear is Fear itself, as the President put it. But who would willingly wish to walk fearless through this dangerous world? Isn’t it better to be prepared and take care?

    A great man once advised us to be as wily as serpents and as gentle as doves. Good advice for gardeners! The knowledge that joy is fragile heightens its ecstatic power. Without this triple vision of past, possibility and future courage itself would be impossible.

    Suspicion – There is something behind us. We can feel its unsettling presence. It seems to follow us everywhere, teasing a fine line between doubt and paranoia. In medieval times this “shadow” was represented by The Grim Reaper, complete with cape and scythe, reminding us the party would soon be over. We are warned to “Take care” by friends and loved ones; but against what exactly?

    Doctors tell us to be vigilant about our health while at the same time they mock hypochondriacs. There are people who never “take care” and who insist that suspicion itself creates the monster, but on the whole, these people are not enviable. They appear to have rejected a “sixth sense” we’re all born with. Who would willfully blind themselves?

    For those of us committed to exploring all our senses suspicion shadows joy as doubt shadows faith. Visually, shadows show us where things are. Like taste testers cultivating knowledge of the edge between sweet and sour we “feel” for the “turn” of the tide. The better to avoid it? Possibly to control it? At least to get an image – however brief – of the Thing that has been following, following?

    Ascetics need particularly to arm themselves with some sense of when “just enough” turns into “too much.” Many authorities try to convince us that being a little “hungry” is a good thing. Certainly being “sated” triggers a drowsy, relaxed, state in which our “guard” is down. We do lose consciousness of that quiet little “frenemy” following. Following. The Shadow symbolizes a problematic development just coming into perceptive range.

    Jung says we all seek our opposite, our “shadow self.” Feminists want house-husbands, wall street traders want supermodels. We yearn to recover our disavowed selves, blindly, subconsciously. Online profiles request specific “looks”, weights, backgrounds, experiences as if “soulmate” was a job. Yet we remain dissatisfied; feel  shortchanged. Perhaps the shadow is fear of change. The thoughtful among us blame ourselves: “I’m not right”; the shallow blame the world:  “I can never get what I want.”

    The truth is we are judging plants by seeds when what we want are gardeners. We want to become gardeners, we wish to BE the garden. But how on earth can we do THAT?

    Absence of understanding OR language renders our circumstances hopeless. We need another singer who will help construct a duet that doesn’t yet exist, a fellow artist of the sexual, the subconscious, the unconscious, who paints us as we photograph them. We need to be prepared to change places in a moment, to sing and redesign the other’s part. We must be willing dreamers with a huge repository of fantasy, fearless poets accessing a universal vocabulary. We will fall in love, then out of it, fall deeper, soar. It will feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar at every point as we blend swiftly changing roles of tutor and pupil.  Prepare yourself to plunge into another and become them, as they remodel you.

    CONSIDERING THE CHILL FACTOR
     
    Considering the chill factor
    As I always try to do –
    That day was hot
    Too hot for love or war.

    We sit in restaurants.  I pick
    The blue-veined shrimp
    He picks the black-veined news.

    Outside drunkards
    Carom off the plexiglass like entertaining fish.
    “They envy us” I say
    and Andrew says
    “How nice.”

    I see a couple coming in; she holds him up
    As I so often upheld you.
    I know that touch – like
    surgeons who
     manipulate the dying.

    She wears my dress
    the one I wore the day you
    Shamed me
    Stuck me sizzling to the sidewalk –
    Shamed us both
    with red red stains.

    “Andrew  I don’t think
    I have quite forgiven you.”
    Andrew says “How nice” and
    Lays his coffee spoon upon the cloth –
    I hate the brown stain –
    it spreads like murder
    Like the bad smell of death
    Breeding fumes as we do
    Corpses in the sun.

    I rise to speak
    Shrimp spewing from my mouth like
    Parasites.
    “We have always been
    So happy, you and I-“

  • The Language of Butterflies – walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    The path = GOALS -“A swan’s wing shows”

    “What do you want REALLY?”

    Tantra is the Path of Attachment. Being is travel. Movement. Closing in on a possible, seemingly viable Soulmate, we need to move forward slowly, checking items off our list and paying close attention to the items on THEIR LIST.

    That’s the focus of the passage we call “The Path” – bringing your intra-psychic “lists” to consciousness. Because you are always operating with a list, whether you are aware of it or not, but some of the items on it might be seriously out of date, illogical, contradictory or downright pernicious. (Such as, “I need my partner to guarantee they’ll never get sick or grow old.”)

    Think deeply about your dreams and do your best to verbalize them, if only to yourself or to a trusted other. Some of us benefit by writing it down. Accept that goals evolve because…we are alive. Being is travel, remember?

    Goals are all about communication. With yourself first, then with others. As we feel our way forwards, our goals change. Having a partner who’s the same as we are (an introvert, a careerist, a Democrat, to give a few examples) may suddenly stop being so important as we connect on a deeper plane. Some of our goals were designed to protect us, and it may be that as we begin to trust our partner and grow ourselves we need less and less protection.

    Being is Travel. As we shape the Path, it shapes us. Even the most anti-social creatures are constantly making paths for others to follow. Such delight when we uncover a ready-made Path! (Path-making is exhausting!) Such a mysterious invitation! Paths must lead Somewhere. Paths speak of Destination, Intention, Design, History. Every Path, Visible or not, speaks of the existence of The Other. Paths are our Robinson Crusoe footprint. They represent Hope: this Path worked not just once, but many times. We are proud of being Pathmakers in our turn, leading the weary, frightened traveler of the future toward confidence and reliability.

    Goals

    A swan’s wing shows
    The universe.
    No surprise to me –
    From this small window I see
    More than I can ever
    Understand; still I cast my nets
    And still I’m sinking;
    Restless; forced to move
    This unfriendly virus IS my blood –
    I see it in your eyes
    Thirties wasted and nothing come.
    It never quite meets –
    Attempt and reach.
    I see it in my dreams which
    Introduce me to the dead;
    Protect my essence from the hive.
    Wrapped tightly in this web of
    Earthly light; we
    Pray for mystery, glory; thought & sight.

  • The Language of Butterflies – Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    CONFLICT – “The Storm”- “Triggers & Pushback”


    How good are we at facing bad news? Do we even want to know what it is? It’s impossible to plan for the future if we don’t intelligently strategize the things that COULD go wrong. We must weigh up our assets and debits – some of which are certainly emotional.

    Are we self-sabotagers? Do we quit right before the final push? Do we make alliances with untrustworthy people? Do we make ourselves vulnerable to dangerous people? Are we secretly hoping for “rescue” – that someone all-powerful and all-competent will sweep in and take our “mess” away? Remember back to our inner power principle, the person we want to be. Maybe we get discouraged far too easily by the negative voices in our heads. The path of lifetime self-improvement after all, started with our neither being able to talk or even stand up! Practice, practice, practice: forming “muscle” – even spiritual muscle – takes a lot of time.

    Then we must face up to fearful destruction we had no part in; perhaps caused only by the principles of waste, loss and entropy to which the entire universe is subject. We need a philosophy to carry us through these times that helps us strategize thrifty methods of maximizing and healing what resources we have left. We need to know the difference between “value” and “price”. We need to recognize the outright gifts we have been given – such as the courage and determination that brings us to this place – and give thanks for them.

      Conflict is an inevitability. No heat without friction, no forward movement without energy expenditure, no flight without first shedding our comfort carapace. When we want change, we are inviting conflict.


      The question is how much in control we feel. Triggers “set us off”; i.e. trigger any chain of events we may feel helpless over. But are we? Can the chain be arrested at any point? Let’s bring our mind to focus on the problem. Human history is created by human intelligence; let’s problem-solve. “I will arrest and re-direct this change.”

      Whore De Combat

      My sutures hurt; I’m
      Completely unavailable,
      Unsheathing your ambition you
      Laced up my body like a jerkin
      Cut my breakfast with your corkscrew
      Swiss Army
      Doubled up and put away.

      I’m fasting now
      Bracing for the worst
      I can’t eat anything that won’t
      Look right at me
      And want to know the truth;
      Who’s for real?
      What’s the state of play?

    1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Homing – Forgiveness –
      Do you dream of home? What’s “home” to you? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. DreamTherapy posits that “home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and fall away from us. We are cleansed. We dream of ultimate understanding where our sins are not too terrible to be entirely forgotten. Jesus suggests to us that state will never arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.

      What Does It Mean to “Re-set”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we all contribute to frees us from painful rumination and helps explain how the search for blame becomes a prison. “I did this because you –“… Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.

      Challenge – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your tribe, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. Ask these questions of your Dream Journal: which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re all in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? Can you find a group – or even a moment (say, in yoga class) where you detach from the mess?

      Danger – Mixed up about “ultimate” right and wrong? Lots of atheists feel ”condemned” anyway. Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error” either. Martin Luther King Jr. made a wise comment that the type of government capitalism desires is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they have absolute freedom. It is important that our resistance not embitter us.

      Opportunity – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is requested. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, to yourself. “But if I’m not willing to try giving up my behavior because I think I’m not able to, this pattern will continually get worse.” And make an intelligent choice. “If it gets really bad I can always commit violence” is not an intelligent choice, “I need help” is.

      Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry

      “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world”
      – Marianne Williamson

      “The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong”

      – Mahatma Gandhi

      “To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman

      “Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes

      Mantra – “I forgive”

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Forgiveness

      Returning home with
      New eyes
      Strong hands
      Fresh translations of
      Future past

    2. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

      Yearning Defines Us – Once we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. But oh, how we long to be reminded, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.

      Challenge – We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We must practice uncertain techniques we can’t recall in a threateningly uncertain world. We truly are standing up and running across the ocean, just as in my dream, but this time, we have the confidence of memory. Someone loved us once, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic. In your Dream Journal, list all the aspects of love that you can remember. How many can you yourself practice?

      Danger – Danger lies in narrowing definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve the moment we feel gratified, Love is killed.

      Opportunity – Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours.

      Models & Mentors –“‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides”
      – David Viscott

      “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn

      “Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing”

      – Torquato Tasso

      “Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh

      “I love you for who I am when I’m with you”
      – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

      Mantra – “I embrace”

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Honesty

      Stop delusion
      No one’s fooled.
      Acknowledge
      Truth –
      Radiate
      Love:
      Know
      Peace.

    3. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Dispossessed – Do you dream of transgressions committed against you? Are you being robbed, stolen from, deprived? We wake with a sense of loss. Something has been taken from us, but what? The “politics of grievance” has always waged particular power, breeding anger and revenge. “You took something from me I will take something from you.” Yet our loss remains amorphous. We cling to the concept that we were “entitled” to something we no longer have. Philosophers and psychologists speculate; is it the mother’s womb? The family nest? What exactly is this lost paradise?

      You Can’t Take It With You – There is much talk nowadays that “the American Dream” is no longer possible. Very relevant to our study of DreamTherapy! Dreams are our specialty! But what was that “lost dream”, exactly? Some mystical concept of “wholeness” – family, life, work, rewards – that shifts according to who you are and where you are looking from. Once you are part of a “team” – even if just a team of two – the stakes seem different. Is that loss? Or accretion?

      Marx said all property is theft. We no longer fill our tombs with the junk of real life for use in the Great Beyond, “terra cotta servants” who will “wake” to wait on us hand and foot. We are forced to satisfy ourselves with strictly “mental” pictures. Is the detachment of elder-hood a triumph of success or a long wail of departure?

      Challenge – The “de-cluttering” movement did us all an enormous favor. Marie Kondo asked us to rid ourselves of every object that does not “spark joy”. That’s a high standard! We soon discover that daily life stirs up a lot of “necessary” detritus that sparks joy in literally no one but is a misery to live without. Probably the best way to free ourselves is to freshly contemplate this entitlement mystique. Open your Dream Journal and consider: What is it we think we are entitled to, and the next question is, is everyone entitled to the same thing? How’s that work?

      Danger – What does it mean when we believe we are entitled to something others are not? How do we stop them from wanting what we “have”? Do we “have” anything, really? It doesn’t take much to see this American Dream turning into a nightmare. We may say we’ve worked very hard for what we get but the whole principle of capitalism is to benefit from the work of others. It doesn’t take much to see the grievances THAT would stir up. And yet “state” ownership churns up grievances of its own. Ownership itself is fraught with exclusion, hostility, and danger. If our frame for adventure is a casino, we are mandating not winning, but losing on a massive scale.

      Opportunity – Do we possess objects when we are not physically present? Can we ever possess people? Do we WANT to take responsibility for another’s entire existence? Ask your Dream Journal: how do our dreams of freedom comport with our dreams of possession? Who – or what – is held captive? What if we freed ourselves – mentally and spiritually? Can we still enjoy the world if it doesn’t belong to us and we don’t belong to it? What would it feel like to release ourselves from captivity?

      Models & Mentors – “The more stuff I donated the more I was able to breathe, the more trash I threw away, the more weight I felt was lifted, the more I was able to see a new life, the more joy I found” – Zina Harrington

      “Clutter is postponed decisions” – Barbara Hemphill

      “Life is your masterpiece. Edit frequently and ruthlessly” – Nathan W. Morris

      “To the spoils belong the victor” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

      “Freedom is the oxygen of the soul” – Moshe Dayan

      Mantra – “I release”

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Dispossessed

      We “own”
      Nothing:
      Objects, people, selves
      Sweated off
      As spirit
      Rises