Category: #Addiction

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Tulip Goddess – Illusion

    The Tulip Goddess Masters Magic – the Art of Illusion. Much illusion is the art of Misdirection – allowing the credulous to deceive themselves. The Goddess of Magic has noticed that the development of  Maturity is NOT popular with everybody, because it prevents the Narcissistic Acting-Out so gratifying to the determinedly undeveloped. Unfortunately those who pursue power, instead of self-development, often achieve their goal.  The Goddess is always being governed by her inferiors. We aren’t in heaven yet.

    The Road to Enlightenment – is long and painful and currently has a bad press. The Tulip goddess understands the human desires behind wishing and subjugation – handing your soul over to a “collector” for “processing” feels like a relief.  A magic dissolution of “the rules”.  But the Goddess recognizes that mirages – especially those we close our eyes to believe in – are illusions. Falsehoods. Clinging to obvious fantasies triggers willing surrender of our ability to discern fact from fiction.

    Illusions are Powerful – The seventeenth century Dutch needed a desirable luxury exchange item the privileged could trade back and forth for status reasons. Yes, that was the tulip bulb. It was a bubble – of course– the bottom fell out – of course – and left a whole lot of previously comfortable people bankrupt. We don’t have anything like that, these days, do we? Or do we? People are rushing to invest in crypto because of its complete lack of regulation. But without any rules, it’s laughably easy to steal people’s money.

    Some Illusions Are Life Strengthening – Others are Life-Depleting. The Goddess knows the difference. Goddesses avoid fantasy thinking. Goddesses traffic in absolute reality. We create worthwhile magic, the kind that protects and enhances – so we can’t be deceived by the “magic” that punishes and stigmatizes. Your map must represent actual ground, not pie in the sky, or you won’t be able to maneuver across it. We understand the attraction of The Mirage. The problem with mirages – especially those we long to believe in – is that they evolve into illusions which create delusions.

    Illusions Become Delusions – The Buddhists say life itself is an illusion. But they mean that metaphorically, to keep you from become “attached” to the “ephemeral.”  The physics, gravity, chemistry and hydraulics of everyday life are hardly illusive.  Above all, we should avoid clinging to fake food and pushing away nutrition. When goddess end up battling FOR falsity – it’s the worst of all possible situations.

    Goddess Challenge – Face facts. Learn to recognize the difference between believable experts and carnival barkers.  Learn to enjoy reality as a bracing polar dip. Are you trapped by an illusion that you used to need but now is killing you? You can identify this by increasing suffering throughout an increasingly problematic life and your diminishing pleasure over things that once were reliable joys. Is it a relationship? An activity? A belief? Look at the problem honestly. Find others going through the same experience and generate honest discussion.

    Flying Monkeys Abound – When group members rush in defensively to shame and discourage you, to convince you you’re not feeling or understanding what you KNOW you ARE feeling and understanding then realize you’re being gaslighted.  What you’re trying to exit is a “cult” that is NOT devoted to the health of its members but to their diminishment. Stop communicating with those flying monkeys and find somebody who supports the truth of your actual experience AND your desire to feel better.

    Goddess Danger – The path to re-making yourself is fraught with danger and you will require all sorts of help. Don’t be discouraged if your feelings are volatile and transitory and you are confused about their reality. Move slowly, consulting Models & Mentors – kind others who respect your autonomy, individuality and with whom you feel safe.

    Goddess Opportunity –  Relax! Goddesses become adept at shifting vision from night vision to day vision, forward and backwards through time, manifesting others’ auras until we can all see possibility and love.

    We Transform Illusion Through Skill – The impossible takes longer, because language is not as flexible as reality. You are embarked on an exciting growth challenge where you leave a constricting carapace behind. Sometimes the “shell” was protective and served for a time to keep you safe while you matured. You don’t need to disparage the old you, or the old relationship; it served its purpose. Often people who have been through a trauma say afterwards they wouldn’t change the past, because they treasure and embrace the person they’ve become.

    Models & Mentors – “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours” – Richard Bach

    “The world is an illusion we must take seriously.”

    – Aldous Huxley

    “The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion – the tunnel’s the illusion” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Separation from each other is an optical illusion of reality” – Albert Einstein

    ‘Limit, like fear, is often an illusion” – Michael Jordan

    #Haiku: Coach Don’t Play

    When you learn the game

    Rise above the game;

    Insight

    Renders you

    Magic

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Diamond Goddess – Success

    Goddesses Upgrade their Definition of Success – A surprising number of remarkably successful people aren’t “happy”. I put happiness in quotes because happiness wasn’t their goal, they were just hoping it would be a gratification of widely acknowledged success. But here’s the shocker; it isn’t. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone because the conditions of success – the eternal busyness, the ruthless ranking, the endless competition – crowd out both peace and bliss. So – do you give up on Success? Or do you give up on Bliss?

    Goddesses Redefine – they don’t allow others to tell them what to think. A pat on the back is nice, but goddesses are removed from the crowd. It’s awkward telling a wild orchid “you’re doing a great job.”

    Goddesses Dream of Bliss – Do you dream of adulation? Applause?  The Diamond’s checkered history reminds us that the journey, not the arrival matters, because goddesses say the “successful life” is one long journey to eternal perfection. The tired and footsore goddess needs heartwarming visions to sustain her joy for the voyage.

    Success Is a Worse Hazard for Goddesses Than Failure – If the journey, not the arrival matters, battle-hardened goddesses may collapse on reaching Road’s End.  Nothing pulls a goddess out of her cloud like subservience to other’s opinions.  Future plans are inevitably torpedoed in pursuit of a momentary “approval” fix.  If “success” is static and stasis is stagnation, then surely the process of improvement – the Goddess’ Mantra – is what we really want.  Success itself is a mirage.

    We’re Competing With Ourselves – Abraham Lincoln famously said people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If we define “success” as adulation and approval by others, haven’t we given away the ultimate power over our lives? Most people define success in purely material ways – it’s the only way to explain the salaries CEO’s pay themselves, while they freely admit nobody “deserves” that much money. They don’t seem to be using it very responsibly either, so I would judge them as “unsuccessful.” If the most important standards are your own personal ones then the only person to please is yourself and those you love.  Let’s rephrase this challenge:  are you content?

    Goddess Challenge – When success is “arrival”, a “finish line” is implied. Do you really want to be finished? As we desire constant progress, then reaching the goal is death. But the opposite  – endless striving – is just  a treadmill. A “rat race”, in point of fact. So the ultimate success must be “contentment”. To be content we must assess our lives and come to terms with our missteps. Sometimes we discovered something even more wonderful that we didn’t even know we were searching for.

    Goddess Danger – Success is a drug: be careful. Don’t get addicted. Our society views everything as a competition, and the fundamental danger is you comparing your INSIDES (i.e., how you feel) with everyone else’s “outsides” (i.e., how they LOOK.) You know that’s nonsensical.  We don’t visualize each other’s sadness and pain, only display and showmanship.

    Goddess Opportunity – is to feel compassion for another’s hurt and struggle. Feel compassion (and forgiveness) for your own hurt and struggle. Assess your place on life’s path. Maybe you’re still on the edge of some great discovery, if so, keep going! Maybe it’s time to take stock of how far you’ve come and have a look at the big map. I like resting, thinking, reading and writing.  Retired, I do exactly what I want to most days, surrounded by love. Feels like success to me.

    Models & Mentors – “without continual growth & progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning” – Benjamin Franklin

    “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” – Arthur Ashe

    “Rules for success: 1. Believe in your ideas 2. Pick good people  3. Earn Respect 4. Always be a student 5. Enjoy what you do 6. Ask for advice 7. Learn to say No 8. Create the best products 9. Don’t take things personally 10. Create the future”

    – Bill Gates

    #Haiku: The Future Is Now

    Quotidian

    Maps built

    From shreds of

    Daily goals –

    Invisible glue

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Mermaid Goddess – Singularity

    Goddesses Don’t Run with Any Crowd – There isn’t a goddess crowd. Do you frequently find yourself walking in a different direction from everyone else? Do you often feel ganged up on, bullied? Feeling unappreciated, even exhausted? Are you waiting for someone to celebrate You? Maybe it’s time to celebrate yourself.

    Goddesses Anoint Themselves – If someone else anoints a goddess, how can she be a goddess? Goddesses are forever alone, singular in their singularity.

    The Wild Orchid Cannot Be Propagated. It is found in deepest woodland. The Mermaid card represents all the Uniqueness out there, and because there are so many of us, that’s a lot of singularity!  If you doubt that so much uniqueness could possibly exist, consider the humble snowflake.

    Each Goddess is Unique – We may be civilized into groups, but society only advances because of its singletons. Becoming a goddess means insisting on the right to make your own special contribution.  Recognize how much the world needs you, and congratulate yourself for it.

    Goddess Danger – The powerful are only powerful because they assemble armies. They want you fighting for them, not for yourself. Consider your best interests. Armies PLAN to “use you up.”

    Goddesses Will Not Be “Used” – Goddesses train themselves to out-think people and situations.  Confronting the solipsism of Narcissism is a real challenge in our society. People are encouraged to perform, push themselves forward and try to harvest “likes” from absolute strangers by sheer outrageousness, rather than by developing a real, immortal Self. Honoring your uniqueness begins in absolute privacy as you face your soul, contemplate your real self and consider pathways to strengthening these assets.

    Goddess Pride – Humility sharpens our edge and keeps us light on our feet. It’s never too late to change direction, especially when you find out you’ve been traveling the wrong way. Consult your maps and Goddess Journal. There’s always time for a redesign.

    Goddess Opportunity – The goddess path is independent of criticism from those not making your journey. Critics wrestling for control won’t like that. We all need to consult different perspectives to check ranking,  placement and effectiveness but much criticism is sharpened to spike & derail. Recognize the techniques that are attempts to harvest YOU and feed off your power and are designed to re-direct your effort to the critic’s own ends.

    Goddess Freedom – Much human interaction is a subtle or unsubtle jockeying to divide people into camps and to enlist you to carry someone else’s banner. But goddess own their own souls and battle for abstract principles of fairness and goodness, health and growth.

    Models & Mentors – “What sets you apart can feel like a burden, but it’s what makes you great” – Emma Stone

    “If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be” – Maya Angelou

    “Always remember you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else”

    – Margaret Mead

    “Be yourself – everyone else is already taken” – Oscar Wilde

    #Haiku: Conceptual Art Project

    Your life’s

    Hard-fought how-to guide:

    Unique –

    Personal;

    Willed:

    Transformative

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Foxglove Goddess – Medicine

    Goddesses Are In Synch With Their Physical Well-being. We know perfectly well when we’re doing something to threaten health and we strategize how to quit.

    But Sometimes a Doctor Visit is Necessary – Do you dream of hospitals? Doctors? Shamen? Magic pills? One of society’s proudest boasts is our seemingly mysterious ability to cure illness, or at least palliate its effects. Your dreams say you yearn for healing, and something in you recognizes you need help.

    Do You Trust Your Doctor? Establishing trust is key. Sometimes it’s spiritual healing that’s required. Try a naturopath, acupuncture, massage therapy – searching for that instinctively helpful healer. Revisit advice on managing gurus – they must not be greedy and must demonstrate they have your best interests at heart. Goddesses never become someone else’s sex toy or enabler or support another’s extravagant lifestyle. Seek references from friends. Anyone attempting to isolate you and wall you off from information is not your friend.

    The Goddess Path Can Be Exhausting.  There is resistance on every front to women who prioritize their own well-being. But you have to get the oxygen mask firmly on your own face before you can help anyone else. Goddesses also need constant support. No shame – it’s part of the calling.

    What Makes a Goddess’s Heart Race? – Anyone developing their own map gets lost frequently. How can we find the right path?  How can we develop the confidence to choose the “right diagnosis” for what ails us? When should we request a “second” or “third” opinion?  How can we stay on the “right” course, or even assess the “rightness” of any course, considering all our past mistakes?

    Goddesses Too Need “Heart Strengthening.” “Foxglove” the source of digitalis, (a powerful heart medication) tells us: Listen to your heart. Get out your Goddess Journal and start making notes. What questions do we wish to ask? Who do we want to be? Where are we trying to go?

    Goddess Danger – Can we tell the difference between a “fortifying” or a “harming” path? TV pharmaceutical ads list grisly side effects for pills tackling the vaguest malaise. Who can overlook these threats? Perhaps the ultimate “danger” lies in ignoring the warnings our “dis-ease” gives. What does “I want to be young again” really mean? We are all mortal. We have just so much time left to plan. To “become”.

    Goddess Opportunity – Some people are more confident following an “experts recommend” course, others adapt and customize as they go. Joy is the moment when planets and moments all click into alignment and we feel we accepted as a beloved child of the universe. Let’s unclog our ears, remove the plank from our vision and simplify our world to recapture the moments of joy experienced in childhood. If a loving, guiding force rescued us over and over again, we can summon the confidence to find several human healers to guide us through the healthcare system.

    Models & Mentors –  “Hugging is good medicine”

    – Karen Salmansohn

    “Medicine is the art of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease” – Voltaire

    “Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients” – C.J. Jung

    “Medicine cures doubt as well as disease” – Karl Marx

    “The arts are as essential to everyone’s lives as clean food and fresh air”

    – Renee Phillips

    #Haiku: Overcoming Narcissistic Disappointment

    Cuts hurt

    Scars heal

    Skin becomes

    Distinctive; you

    Become interesting.

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Vine Goddess – Dependency

    To Be Human Is To Be Entangled – Goddesses cannot be entirely free of entanglement, but their ability to “rise above” helps them see when an attachment becomes unhealthy clinging.

    Fear of abandonment is the cause of unhealthy clinging – Goddesses never fear being alone, understanding solitude as a fount of deep thought and dreaming.  In Goddess Oracle, the Clinging Vine reminds us of all of the unpleasant aspects of needing others’ constant support to function. We Americans prefer to live by the fantasy of independence and self-determination. It’s just too threatening to imagine what might happen if the wall we’ve been covertly clinging to, suddenly comes down.

    Goddesses Require Freedom of Action – We are all dependent on society for basic functions. At what point does mutual dependency become constrictive? Clinging vines can’t stand up by themselves; they need an immoveable object to cling to, and soon they become defined by that object as if they, too, were immoveable.  Are you locked into a position of support for someone else?

    Goddesses Define Freedom in Their Relationships – Recognize and resist parasitic and exploitive relationships where the benefits are unbalanced. No need to over-react. Start drawing boundaries. Teaching the clinging vine to stand up for itself is doing it a favor.

    No One Stands Alone – The truth is, we’re all in this together. Billionaires, leaders, CEO’s, all actually need much more support than the “ordinaries”. But they insist on maintaining freedom of action – for good reason. Don’t make destructive deals involving your future. Goddesses need to Become and their futures are always a Mystery.  We are responsive to the fluttering of butterfly wings as well as the shifting of tectonic plates. Divest of pointless, usually “inherited” shame (from the collective unconscious) and acknowledge the truth that humans are, for good and ill, social creatures.

    Life Is a Negotiation – Make an experiment of listing your dependencies – bank, mail system, social security? Vehicle, gas availability, fuel affordability? Grocery stores, restaurants, our own two ambulatory feet? Weather, peace, law enforcement?

    Recognize the Fragility of These Systems. Confronting fear creates ruthlessness but goddess never check their brains at the door. We are strategic, planning, evolving. Our maps will always need an update and a redesign.

    Goddess Challenge – Are we hanging ourselves in loops of dependency? How can we free ourselves? What could we do to claim more psychic and physical independence? While Mormons may require a “year’s worth” of canned goods in the basement, the rest of us recognize the need for an emergency savings account. We are beginning to understand how a threatened supply chain can snap. Begin imagining some future failure scenarios and hash out the possibilities; if the elevator fail, is it possible to take the stairs? Your dream life will reward you with a lessening of existential anxiety.

    Models & Mentors –  “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Fear is the memory of pain. Addiction is the memory of pleasure. Freedom is beyond both.” – Anonymous

    “Don’t work harder on someone else’s problems than they do” – Ross Rosenberg

    “Enjoy togetherness but allow space. Respect differing beliefs. Accept, don’t try to change each other. Appreciate the other, but always be prepared to survive alone” – Darlene Lancer

    #Haiku: Dis – Ability

    Limitations dissolve

    Hand in hand we

    Surmount

    Mental boundaries

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Hummingbird Goddess – The Soul

    When the Goddess’ Soul speaks, She Listens. Everyone is born with a soul.  But it is up to us to immortalize it.  If we merge with the crowd, we rise and fall with the crowd, cut down in our time like grass, unindividuated and Personless. .  According to C.S. Lewis, we are not a Body with a Soul, we are a Soul with a Body. Our body may be very mutable, but our soul can be eternal. 

    Do you dream of past lives? See yourself in historical contexts? Do you have dreams of utter bodilessness in which you are totally free, seeming to travel invisibly through the power of your mind?

    Consider the magic majesty of the hummingbird. Tiny but ubiquitous. And determined.  How about the ‘impossible” flight of the bumblebee? They shouldn’t be able to remain aloft, but there they are.

    What Do Goddesses Represent?  If immortality is an achievement, souls are under threat.  Consider the Sin Against the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Bible as the one sin that cannot be forgiven?  It is any attempt to slaughter the soul, to stifle your inborne, God-given ability to detect the numinous and to access the sphere of eternality. Goddesses therefore fight the greatest of battles, to protect the determinative powers of their own Souls and those of others.

    Accept Your Immortality – Can we destroy our own immortality through abuse and disbelief?  Sadly, yes, and some of us act like we want to!  If “heaven” represents eternal bliss and “hell” eternal pain who would ever choose the latter? Those who find existence such a stacked deck that they turn away sickened from the gamble. That’s soul suicide. This is as tragic as battling against one of our talents (“I’m never going near that guitar.”) Who exactly are you trying to harm? The direction we need to travel is in uncovering who we really are and freeing ourselves. To become a “Self “ worth being.

    Everyone Has Experienced Flow – We have knowledge of eternality in our daily life – actual accessible bliss in which Time and Impossibility vanish while we experience full connectedness with the universe.  We become Goddesses  to master this ability – and to transfer it to others. This skill alone makes merely being ourselves a reliable, eternal pleasure.

    Goddess Challenge – Obviously, our minds change the same way our bodies do. We grow up! Consider the “magic” of maturity: comprehension. Assessment. Pattern detection. Goal-making. Self-control. Think about the differences between you now, and you at say, three years old. Imagine furthering this joyous understanding in which you will eventually “get” what seems now beyond apprehension. If you just accept that possibility, you can enjoy the Now.

    Goddess Danger –  What Christians call “sin”, Buddhists call “clinging”.  We smudge the vision of our souls until they can no longer see, and then we say, “There’s nothing to see! It’s dark in here!” We grab on to any passing thing in fear, to halt the frightening mystery of our flight but of course that worsens matters.  The G forces build up as space revolves around us, meanwhile we are clinging to some crappy object, or some person who is experiencing a different trajectory. Let those things go. Don’t be frightened by your feelings, just study them, turn them into huge iridescent bubbles, and spin them away. Learn to enjoy this flight, no matter how wild it gets.

    Goddess Opportunity – Think about the Biblical parable in which everyone is invited to a glorious feast. These “guests” are so threatened by this invitation, they not only don’t go, they murder the messenger. Watch the glorious film, Groundhog Day. Poor weather forecaster Bill Murray is sentenced to living the same reality over and over and over again, trying everything to escape, including suicide. Finally he decides to learn how to just enjoy the life he has been granted, and to be as nice as possible to the other frightened, enraged, confused souls around him. Only then is he able to move on to the next level which turns out to be the rewarding love of his dreams. That is the Progress of the Soul which we defend.

    Models & Mentors – “the living soul, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled” – Horace Mann

    “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” – Carolyne Myss

    “Without applied awareness of the soul, happiness can’t arise” – Dada Bhagwan

    “The desire to know your own soul ends all other desires” – Rumi

    #Haiku: Last Minute

    Bone grows

    Mind crashed

    Soul merge

    Skin graft

    Intervention –

    Light shaft

    Angel…?

    Laughed.

  • Becoming a Goddess – The Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Fruit – Fruition

    Goddess At Peak – A project of yours is nearing completion. Harvest is approaching. Do you dream of fruit, perfectly ripe?  Do you love to cook and entertain? Are you attracted by movies with long family dinner scenes, everyone celebrating outdoors beneath an arbor? Is touring wine country a popular fantasy of yours? You are a person who is propelled forward by imagining smiles on the faces of others as the work of community and you believe that family harmony is to be celebrated and enjoyed. This vision can keep us going through bitter hardships.

    Harvest Comes Because Goddesses Prepare – You became a goddess because you resisted others’ negativity, hopelessness and learned helplessness. Instead you turned your eyes to the inevitable rituals of seed care, the health promotion of living things, and now you are granted a front-row seat at the celebration of flourishing.

    Goddess Challenge – Keeping these visions alive during the training phase is hard, because the growth cycle is long and can be boring and uneventful. That’s why planting occurs in stages, so all your psychic eggs aren’t resting in the same basket. Learn to enjoy all the seasons, without hungering for a single season. This is a good time to contrast group versus individual gratifications and ask ourselves, “What’s that about?”

    Goddess Danger – Even Goddesses can become thirsty for gratification until it takes more and more to satisfy us. “Winning” is a shallow goal if that’s all there is. Goddesses seek harmony, blending community resources to make the whole family stronger. The worst outcome is to be locked in an addiction cycle and spiraling downwards; no longer part of the growth process, benefitting from training and spiritual renewal.

    Goddesses Rest by Dreaming Forward – Sitting around the fire telling stories, modeling “success” as peaceful sharing rather than as an endless party. Luckily sleep and dreams are the best model of fruitful dormancy. We require those periods and we need to look forward to their relief and imaginative nourishment.

    Goddess Opportunity – Every group celebration of the success and nourishment cycle is different. Are there leftover behaviors that no longer serve you? What fresh, exciting new ideas might you add? Is everyone in the family/community being well-served or are there grumpy holdouts? It’s fruitful to listen to the grumpy holdouts occasionally.  How might they do things differently? If all they want is to harsh everyone else’s buzz, maybe they should no longer expect an automatic invitation to the feast.

    Models & Mentors – “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you will get but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

    “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter, enjoy” – William Blake

    “Every deed sows a seed, though the harvest you may not see”

    – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond” – Gwendolyn Brooks

    #Haiku: Return on Investment

    Summer pledges sweat

    Ecstatic harvest romp

    Inevitable cleanse.

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

     Firefly – False Love

    Uh Oh. Nothing Derails a Goddess Like False Love – False Love is recognizable because it only benefits the Other, not you. You are a Place-Holder in this event – you goddess status to be absorbed by the Other and your emptied husk to be discarded.

    How Do You Recognize a Firefly? Slowly, after the “Love-bombing” – you begin to feel worse. Joining the World of the Other is an intricate Dance where you are always wrong-footed. The confidence and success that marked your goddess-hood are suddenly things of the past. You’re captive and your light is fading to enhance someone else’s.

    Consult Your Dreams – Do you dream of masked balls? Betrayals? Loved and known faces inexplicably turning demonic? People becoming animals? Mazes and puzzles that melt and change? The Firefly is not the only creature using illusion for the purposes of seduction, and seduction is not the only advantage acquired by False Love.  The Target is virtually disabled by relying on something that isn’t real. The False Lover lives in a shifting Potemkin Village of mirrors.  It’s called “gas-lighting”. Often, we feel in our gut that “something isn’t right.”

    Goddesses Stay Alert – You’ve been catfished. You’ve been gaslit. “All’s fair in love and war” means the goddess must always be on game. Pretenders want to drag you into their web of deception by making it seem alluring.  You’ll get so many benefits if you just step inside! But once inside it turns out they want you to feel complicit; you can’t escape, you can’t let anyone know, it’s too too too humiliating. You are fated, now, only to deceive others in your turn. Reject this. Resistance is never futile.

    Goddesses Know When to Cut Losses – Just as the deceptive catfish forces the lazy cod to keep moving (and improving!) when they would rather lie sluggishly on the bottom, the False Lover actually IMPROVES our game. Time to realize we are part of a complex universe where wings disguise themselves as eyes and flowers are chameleons. Conserve your energy. Others wish to capture your power and use it for their own fuel. Get smart.

    Goddesses Are Careful with Deception – You can’t tell the truth to everybody, all the time.  Conserve your facts, reserve your strategy. You are entitled to privacy and security but be careful with deception. Deceivers restrict everyone’s options.

    Goddesses Battle for the Universe Itself, Not Momentary Gain. Humans are more than energy. Love is more than fuel, it is living water as well as unquenchable fire. It is more than worth your while to hold out for the Real Thing. Real Love stands the test of Time. We are playing this game to get to the next level, and you can’t do that with such a narrow view of existence, where all of Creation is means to an end – the end being You, slick and fat, lying sluggish at the bottom of the Universe. Goddess are commanded to Rise, and so we will.

    Goddesses Seek Ultimate Reality – Expand your inner and outer vision. We are multidimensional beings and our emotions – our very orgasms – can become multidimensional as well when we appreciate the historic, the inter-generational, the cosmic ramifications of everything we do and think and are. The marriage service talks about hanging in there through sickness and poverty, and it is a proven fact that people who have been through terrible experiences have a deeper connection. It becomes a secret language others just don’t “understand”. When you have children, you gain the ability to live through them – this is a multi-player, multi-avatar game! Life itself can be a terrible (as well as wonderful) experience. So buckle up! Those who are not alert will be eaten.

    Models & Mentors – “Remember sometimes not getting what you want can be a wonderful stroke of luck”

    – Dalai Lama

    “Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it heal. Let it go.” – Nikita Gill

    “Don’t waste your love on someone who doesn’t value it” – Wm Shakespeare

    “Temporary people teach permanent lessons” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Love dies of wounds, errors and betrayals” – Anais Nin

    “Attitude toward gratitude defines a person” – Eli Wiesel

    #Haiku: Explore vs Exploit

    How long should you stay

    At the casino?

    Until they cheat –

    Or you do

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

     Dawn – Relief

    Goddesses Welcome the Fresh Morning – All suffering comes to an end.  Your depression will lift. The future awaits.

    Goddesses Know “ This too shall pass”  – We serve the future. Every dream is followed by an awakening which is followed by another dream.  In the moment of relief from the fear and the tension that preceded it we are still shaking from the experience we just went through. We are in no condition to make decisions. We are just so grateful that it is over. What is required of us, however, is appreciation of the cycle. We are surfing, whether we like it or not. Another wave will come. Goddesses learn how to ride it.

    Goddess Challenge – To rise above any cycle, take an honest look at it. This is hard to do when we are quivering and feeling victimized but it is necessary. What pattern do you see?  The surfing analogy is a good one because the tides are not rhythmic nor perfectly predictable, and they are CERTAINLY not “personal” plus we know another wave will be coming along soon.

    Goddess Strategy – Sometimes there’s a way out; we can change jobs, switch professions, get a divorce. Figure out where the pressure is coming from. Assess your abilities. What parts are you good at? Where do you suck? Can you enjoy any of this? How can your performance be improved? Most of us take pleasure in things we are good at. Can your enjoyment be deepened?

    We’re Never Helpless –  Learned helplessness is real. People give up, stop trying to game or even understand the system. They lie down under the shocks, no longer even trying to escape, waiting for death. Never believe “Resistance is futile.” Don’t succumb.

    Goddesses Play to Win –This game is bigger than our mortal understanding.  Nevertheless, you can comprehend the majesty of what we are up against and appreciate it as a knife appreciates the whetstone.  We learn through analogy, we remember through stories.

    Goddesses Set Themselves Free – Goddesses can always improve, becoming graceful, competent athletes of this mortal existence until we graduate into the next sphere.

    Goddesses Roll with the Punches – You can change and affect your fate. But you must roll with the punches. When Jesus says, “Resist not evil” he means, allow evil to roll over you and smash itself against your non-resistance. Martial arts increases our knowledge of how to manage, subvert and overcome what seems like Superior Force.

    Buddy Power – Friends, allies, buddies, sensei, even dead or fictional characters can be summoned to your aid. People choose such different characters as St. Francis, Sherlock Holmes, Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc, Mulan, Buddha and Jesus to be their “Dream buddies.” Some are more comfortable with an animal – your personal power creature; the jaguar, wolf, eagle or wolverine.

    Change Dream Buddies based on the problem confronting you. Ask their help before you go to sleep, solicit them to come to you in dreams to shed light upon your difficulty. Then the next morning, start writing and remembering the moment you wake up. Some key dreams take a lifetime to decipher.

    Models & Mentors – “Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do but you never get anywhere”

    – Erma Bombeck

    “For fast acting relief, try slowing down” – Lily Tomlin

    “Happiness is the relief after extreme tension”

    – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    “Laughter is the tonic, the release, the surcease of pain” – Charlie Chaplin

    #Haiku: Blameless

    What could you accomplish

    If you blamed no one

    Ever – Self included

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

     Night – Balance

    Goddesses Embody Balance –  Like a perfectly baked cake, goddesses are a pinch of this, a dusting of that, a hefty serving of something else. We are making our way blindfolded across a restless lagoon by stepping on the lotus leaves.

    You can tell when something in you is out of whack. Ordinary souls castigate themselves but goddesses calibrate their approach, recognizing that Balance is a key law of nature designed to help us avoid the dreaded stagnancy that is experienced as a living death.   Once our conscious is in harmony with our subconscious, our dreams begin to balance our waking life. Even the worst nightmare can be looked at objectively in the light of day, as a story with potency and significance.

    Goddesses Revere Balance – Unfortunately contemporary life has become a competitive pursuit of “highs”. A good life well-lived provides natural highs – learning a skill, reveling in physical gifts, falling in love, listening to music, sharing with children, enjoying the grandeurs of nature. Our intellect teaches us that every “high” is dramatically enriched just by thinking about it! That’s why we are called “homo sapiens.”

    Balance is a Powerful Law of Nature – The pursuit of competitive highs without the thinking and enshrining stages always leads to excess and grief. Highs for their own sake inevitably disappoint, leading to a pursuit of more and more dangerous highs, which, if we are not thinking about them, sharing them with others and incorporating them into our beings, damages our ability to experience joy. Understanding and managing our “emotional highs” is the key to joy.

    Goddesses Live on All Levels At Once – Goddesses learn to give thanks for and pay tribute to the Past, to enjoy and understand the Present, to anticipate and strategize for the Future and to revel and be comforted by the promise of Eternity.

    Balancing the Levels – Joy that is held in the mind is joy endlessly re-experienced. It will be yours forever, and you will be able to share it with all the people you love for the rest of your life. Each of us briefly experience heaven during our lifetimes; prolonged, immortalized and enriched by experiencing and re-experiencing with each other.

    Goddess Challenge – We need to personally set up our brain’s “reward system” to handle pleasure and suffering or we will be prescribed drugs in an attempt to achieve the same effect chemically. Drugs can be useful as training wheels; ideally we want to teach our systems to achieve the same effect naturally. Calm is the first step to balance, so we must learn to calm ourselves. Meditation, sleep and yoga offer the best methods for reliable self-soothing. First we assert calm over our breath, then our bodies, lastly our thoughts. It’s not that difficult! Reminder: this occurred naturally every night of our lives before we started stressing about it!

    Night Is the Leveler – Our species needs sleep to connect to the Universal Mind, and to the minds of all Dreamers, human and animal. Conscious dreaming (often called lucid dreaming) provides a trusted avenue to filter daily discoveries down to your subconscious level. Always have a joy to think about just as you are going to sleep, and another for when you are waking up. This will sharpen your connection with emotional ecstasy and deepen your life.Once our conscious is in harmony with our subconscious, our dreams will balance our waking life. Even the worst nightmare can be looked at objectively, as a story with potential significance.

    Models & Mentors – “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities” – Stephen Covey

    “Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life” – Dolly Parton

    For everything there is a season,
        a time for every activity under heaven.
    A time to be born and a time to die.
        A time to plant and a time to harvest.
    A time to kill and a time to heal.
        A time to tear down and a time to build up.
    A time to cry and a time to laugh.
        A time to grieve and a time to dance.
    A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
        A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
    A time to search and a time to quit searching.
        A time to keep and a time to throw away.
    A time to tear and a time to mend.
        A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
    A time to love and a time to hate.
        A time for war and a time for peace. –  Ecclesiastes 3

    “Moderation in All Things” – Hesiod

    #Haiku: Stability

    Assert balance;

    Employ wealth of eternity

    Universal mind