Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Beauty

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

    REGRET feeds DOUBT

      As soon as we begin refining our list in search of The One, we are filled with doubt. Fear of Missing Out dictates that even as we are talking to a Possible Soulmate our eyes search out the door to see what new person is coming in. There is a glorious book, essential to artists, called The War of Art (Steven Pressfield) which is actually about self-sabotage. In the very moments when we are trying to build something critically important to our emotional, psychic and spiritual health, a demonic voice comes out of Who Knows Where, whispering, “It’s the wrong thing and you’re doing it wrong.” According to Steven Pressfield, if you listen to this voice you will never accomplish anything, because Honest, Committed Effort is required to get your project off the ground, even if it ultimately fails. And if it ultimately fails, it will turn out to be the very project that helps you see what is Really Important, and understand What to Do Next. Choose wisely; searching for a relationship that is restorative, not exploitative, a partner who is complementary and complimentary, and push doubt aside.

      Cloverleaf


      Some roads lead nowhere;
      They’re my favorites.
      I held my breath while
      You drew my face in
      Blinding strokes
      Creamed my mouth with curling lines
      Destroyed one picture; then another
      Never let me see. You
      Left at dawn while I
      Ran in circles, calling
      Raging, spending blackened
      Nights without you,
      No blue thigh to guard
      My trusting heart while yours looks out
      To gauge the coming storm.
      Trapped in cloverleaves,
      Sentenced to school by
      Streams of angry judges –
      Balked by
       The enervating past
      Of unlived lives
      Every face I paint is yours.
      Open up the chilly ruffles
      Of my breasts
      One more time –
      To beauty; yours and mine
      Electrify your
      Eldritch spine –
       Your body so much lighter
      Than the mountain that you loved
      Better than you loved me –
       The course you learned
      Better than you learned me – so
      Overconfident that
       you’ll come back
      I float across the powdered snow
      In bird-winged silence
      All-enveloping
      Unless I’m
      Lost?

      Lost and frozen like your heart?

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

      MELT into the space your desire creates: “You Got This”


      You’ve realize the immensity of your need and the enormity of the challenge. You’ve looked into your capacities and they just don’t seem to match your expectations. Now you’re scared and feeling hopeless. I’m here to remind you to “relax.” Melt into the space your desire has created. Untense those muscles because fear and hysteria, rage and feelings of worthlessness all work against us.

      Realize somewhere out there your Soulmate is feeling all these things also. This is a process you need to go through, in order to recognize the vastness of the challenge ahead. This is your time in the desert, where you will be tested. This guarantees that when your and your Beloved melt together your success will be all the sweeter. Of necessity to valuing the Other is the realization that, although there may be plenty of fish in the sea, you need a very particular fish.


      HAUNTED WEDDING
      The pregnant car disgorges
      Only us. It’s winter.
      Drunk as silver fish
      We beat our gills as light
      As hummingbirds.
      In an amethyst ring
      Of drypoint trees
      The half-built house
      Gapes and swells
      Its timbers stink of sap.
      Windrill fields occlude
      Our crossing, so you carry me
      High above the thorny osiers.
      We sleep aloft for safety
      Locked and levitating
      In this space of air
      One season only,
      Unseen by angry outriders;
      Bloodless in our wedding robes
      Like the doubled membranes
      Of the frozen flowers.

      1. The Language of Butterflies – the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

        POWER: “Doubling”

          We are filled with the excitement and power of acquisition and multiplicity. We will finally have a helper, an interpreter, an enabler, a sharer. A Second Self with its rich promise of Difference – different memories, body type, fantasies, wishes, dreams – we can indulge ourselves in. We can’t wait to get going and find this person who promises us wings and immortality! The potential sexual ecstasy alone is keeping us up nights. Imagine thoroughly exploring another and being thoroughly explored yourself – with a lifetime to do it in. We can’t yet speak the language of butterflies, but we can imagine it. We are giving ourselves wings. With such commitment, every moment becomes a lifetime. We think we may have discovered the secret of eternal youth, to see and be seen through the eyes of love.

          Angel Clothes

          You are like a ripe peach
          Swollen in the summer of your life
          And as the peach surrounds its stone
          Your skeleton enwombs your soul
          But thinly.
          I often see it shining
          Through the hollows in your cheeks.
          I need your body
          Need to know its shadows
          Sound its pleasures
          But as the stone
          Though small at first
          Must grow; feeds off the dying peach
          So your spirit will transhume your flesh
          Disgorge it in
          A thousand peaches a thousand summers a
          Thousand eternities more beautiful than
          You or I

        1. The Language of Butterflies: the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

          The Language of Butterflies: the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

          Assess your potential to connect. We wake alone, but we are on the path of Attachment. Ask yourself; do you seek balanced, indestructible attachment, synchronous, not disharmonic relationship; a connection that is symbiotic, not exploitative. If the answer is Yes, you are on the path of Paradise.

          How can we achieve these goals? First, we must understand and accept our Self, our Ego, with all its quirks and flaws, needs and yearnings, limits and possibilities. Then we must understand the Other; the Lover. We must attune ourselves to the structure of their yearning to begin to construct our duet, our dance. After that we must negotiate the rapids of relationship with each other and with the outside world. Danger! Excitement! Ecstasy! Despair…Compassion.
          Union.

          We are caterpillars, you and I, attempting to learn the language of butterflies. We are unprepossessing creatures, daily absorbed in infantile needs of eating and excreting, but we have a firm promise of a future in which we stretch our gorgeous wings.

          Paradise

          Without eyes

          Ambitious goldfish float

          Dream of skies

          Where fins are wings

          Lily pads are clouds

          Swollen tight

          as seed pearls; gullets

          Safe forever from

          vengeful squid or

          Killer waves.

          Who can say if in their time of death

          Those dreams don’t live

          Bursting skin;
          Trailing comets,

          Scattering scales like stars

          Spilling the pond and soaring limitless

          To be whales

          To be gods

          To be free?

        2. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          Bristling – Resistance – Feeling muzzled by day? Do you wake up angry from unrefreshing sleep? Worried? Afraid? Do you gnash your teeth while unconscious? Do you love proving others wrong? When others speak are you eager to jump in and “set them right”? Is your favorite word, “No?”

          Resistance is Never Futile – We woke on this planet for a reason. Its sensible to conclude that self-definition must be key – after all, we can’t make our contribution unless we know who we are. Strangely, we get a lot of push-back on this seemingly basic enterprise. First, enormous cultural pressure: “We have only a few slots available for specific individuals!” Educational advice seems to be: Make yourself one of those Designated Persons no matter who you are, really. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.

          Challenge – It’s never too late to Get Real. Open your Dream Journal and doodle out the circumstances where you are relaxed, happy, creative and “In-Flow.” That “flow” state is true “bliss” – your brain oozes alpha waves as you sink into an interesting reverie, losing your usual sense of separation from the universe. Suddenly, we experience “Eternity”. Is this achieved for you through music? Dance? Composition? Reading? Sex? Prayer? Some lucky people access this state through meditation alone. It is certainly worth a try; meditation is very good for your brain.

          Danger – The danger is not navel-gazing (micro study can be very revealing) but solipsism. If you are not accessing the universe through your Self, then you are truly Alone, which is a hideous condition (may in fact be Hell.) In our increasingly autocratic world we are becoming very familiar with Aging Babies who expect the rest of us to nursemaid their fussy, immature modality because Growing Up is Ouchy. For God’s sake, for your own sake, for the benefit of the Universe and in hope of Eternity, don’t become one of THOSE. OR one of their enablers.

          Opportunity – Resistance Training Makes Us Stronger. Your whole life, your experiences, your very dreams, have brought you to this moment. Your resistance has blossomed into an individualized focus that must defeat their blander, blunt opposition. You lose nothing – gain everything – by becoming yourself. How? Begin the investigation. What do you like? What do you wish? What fears can you surmount? What do you dream?

          Models & Mentors – ‘When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” – Thomas Jefferson

          “Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory”

          – Frederick William Faber

          “To fly we must have resistance” – Maya Lin

          “The history of liberty is a history of resistance”
          – Woodrow Wilson

          “The more important an activity is to your soul’s evolution the more resistance you will feel” – Steven Pressfield

          Mantra – “Self-determined”

          Meditation –

          #Haiku: The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good

          Static
          “Perfection” is
          Death’s alluring guise;
          Resist:
          Demand
          Birth pangs

        3. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          Illusion – Are you captivated by dream world mirages? Do you find yourself dreaming about some magic dissolution of “the rules of reality”?
          The problem with mirages – especially those we long to believe in – is that they become illusions. We need to cling to an obvious fantasy so hard we willingly surrender 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 – a scheme with a limited number of buyers – and inevitably the bottom fell out and left a whole lot of previously comfortable people bankrupt. We don’t have anything like that, these days, do we? Or do we?

          Challenge – Are you trapped by an illusion that you used to need but now is killing you? Open your Dream Journal and let’s consider. You can identify this by your increasing suffering over your increasingly difficult life and your diminishing pleasure over something that used to be a reliable joy. Is it as relationship? An activity? A belief? Look at the problem honestly. Find others going through the same experience and have an honest discussion about it. If any group member rushes in defensively to shame and discourage you, to convince you you’re not feeling what you KNOW you ARE then what you’re trying to exit is a cult. Stop communicating with those flying monkeys and find somebody who supports the truth of your actual suffering AND your desire to feel better.

          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 kind others with whom you feel safe.

          Opportunity – 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

          Mantra – “I accept reality”

          Meditation –

          #Haiku: Schism

          In the multiverse
          Heartbreak is
          Mitosis to create
          Extra selves

        4. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          Healing Rituals – Are you a believer in magic? Do you dream of restoration, of nostalgia, of lost youth? The world is a garden. In our Garden, just as the light begins to fade, we observe Tea Ceremony. For the last three thousand years, an infusion of yellow chrysanthemum, wolfberry and honey clears anger and stress and quiets heart and brain. The tea is drunk from translucent porcelain cups with delicate gold tracery. Hot water is repeatedly added until the delicious floral scent is gone. Darkness falls, and we bow to one another before departing. If we can bear it, we touch each other’s hands.

          We Cannot Diagnose Ourselves – Healing and diagnosis alike come from the lips of another. It has been scientifically proven that plants respond to kind words. We yearn for the laying on of hands, for the intricate ceremonies that pass us from one stage of life to another.

          Challenge – We CAN heal ourselves – in fact, some would argue that the “medicine” will not work unless we “accept” healing spiritually. We need to feel “worthy” of restoration. What are we punishing ourselves for? Open your Dream Journal and think deeply. They say you are only as “young” as you feel. Are we only as “healthy” as we allow ourselves to be? Forgive yourself. Accept change. Contrary to your fears, change keeps us young.

          Danger – Healing cannot occur in an atmosphere of self-hatred and self-blame, but many of us are STILL “blaming” ourselves for unlucky genetic, social and medical outcomes. “Fundamental attribution error” consists of blaming individuals for group effects. We are all caught up in the machinery of temporality. Never forget that we are souls who happen to have bodies, not bodies who happen to have souls.

          Opportunity – “Restoration” is such a glorious promise that the early Christians found themselves ensnared in decades of argument about PHYSICAL resurrection. How would it work in cases of burning and dismemberment, exactly? It is easy to laugh at these painfully ridiculous theological conflicts. One is reminded of St. Joan of Arc’s response to interrogators at her trial who asked if angels appeared naked – “Do you think God cannot afford to clothe his angels?” Accept the power accorded to you by the universe. Accept the strength of your own mind, the control of your attitude, and step into the Miracle Bath offered you by the world’s oceans.. Healing is not just possible, it is a life-force in which we can all participate. Jesus came to us as a healer.

          Models & Mentors – “Healing yourself is connected with healing others”
          – Yoko Ono

          “What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.”
          – Haruki Murakami

          Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy.” ~ Catherine Rippinger Fenwick

          “We are healed of suffering only if we experience it to the full – Marcel Proust

          “Maybe the dragons in our lives are princesses”
          – Rainer Maria Rilke

          Mantra – “I heal”

          Meditation:

          #Haiku: Inheritance

          You were born with
          Enough:
          The right to
          Breathe
          Speak
          Learn
          Work
          Eat
          Love
          Heal
          Live

        5. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          Addiction – Do you dream of imprisonment? Blank walls? Chains? Our neurocircuitry mandates habit-making behavior, but our intelligence usually recognizes when we are trapped, and our dreams send distress signals.

          There’s No Escaping Addiction – But we have tremendous choice over what we become addicted to. Visit an AA meeting and the consumption of sugar and tobacco is outright alarming. Are you addicted to gambling? Do you work in sales? Were you raised in a ritualistic faith? We easily become dependent on praise, on safety, on gratification, and our brains (and our general health) show our dependency. They threaten us when the “treat” is withdrawn.

          Challenge – Open your Dream Journal and list your “Necessary sources of supply: substances and activities you can’t live without. Are you co-dependent? (Addicted to people.) Who? If you fear you are approaching a cliff-edge, you probably are. One test is to go on a “retreat” where your customary gratifications are not available, and attempt to form new gratifications. See what happens! This is such a good idea, we should build it into our lives, periodically. Just to keep us from the cliff-edge. Open-mindedly try all “freeing’ methods until you seize the one that works for you.

          Danger – There is always the chance that we will lose our autonomy. We may want to change, we know we SHOULD change, but we CAN’T. We need outside help. This is the purpose of interventions, to demonstrate to our eyes and ears that we are harming ourselves and our relationships. Denial is a powerful defense mechanism, especially when we think we’ve finally found a substance/process that “magically” allows us to live on our particular cliff-edge – a dangerous job, risky sexual behaviors, threat-filled recreational behaviors. We then have the choice of refusing to listen – giving up our relationships to keep up our self-abuse. Some hardened wretches tell anyone who listens that life itself isn’t worth it without their life-threatening self-abuse. Numbing themselves is the way they “choose” to die.

          Opportunity – You not only CAN free yourself, you MUST. It is a spiritual obligation to live this life as an enlightenment opportunity. Are you familiar with the saying, “Live simply so that others may simply live”? It means sharing honestly with others. That means studying your consumption, and scheduling time to be alone with the universe and with God, to check on the hardiness of your Soul.

          Models & Mentors – “You can’t defeat the darkness by keeping it caged inside you” – Seth Adam Smith

          “All addictions are ways to not feel our feelings”
          – Ellen Burstyn

          “Sometimes you can only find heaven by backing slowly away from hell”
          – Carrie Fisher

          “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”.

          – Robert Collier

          “The most common way people give up their power is thinking they don’t have any” – Alice Walker

          Mantra – “I feel my life”

          Meditation –

          #Haiku: Addiction

          Brain cells beggared;
          Lovelorn
          Oxytocin receptors misfire
          “Feed me!”

        6. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          Enlightenment – Are you a detective, trying to solve problems in your dreams? Do you dream of puzzles, labyrinths, mysteries, locked rooms? Do you unearth ruins and dig up buried corpses? You long to break into the second level of knowing – you can feel that it’s out there – where the dark falls away from your eyes and you see the world truly.

          “Woke” is a jeer from those who fear consciousness. We are all born into a condition of yearning. As children, we try desperately to understand the world we find ourselves in. This quest for enlightenment is the very reason we need to decipher our dreams! We know there is a message out there for us, we also know we have the capacity to understand it, but we are waiting for the lightning strike of “enlightenment” to put it all together.

          The Truth Is Simple – Jesus said we must become children again to enter the kingdom of heaven. This certainly implies that “enlightenment” is more a state of mind than any specific received wisdom. Open your Dream Journal and list “Ten Things I Didn’t Understand” from your childhood. Then describe the changes that took place in your thinking that explained those conundrums to you. Then list your Next 10 Mysteries. See where we’re going with this? You will – someday soon –be able to transition into the new phase of reality where those mysteries disappear.

          Challenge – Enlightenment literature recommends two things: a good teacher and time alone. Every night when we go to sleep we enter the alone-time of our own mind. We can prep ourselves in advance with some “good teaching”; Socrates, Plato, Montaigne, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Batchelor, the Dalai Lama –savor some of these writings until you get a sense of which one speaks especially to you. Then set aside twenty-minutes or a half an hour for reading (or listening) right before sleep.

          Danger – Zen teachers say that if anyone represents themselves as a Zen teacher they are not. Gnostic gospels say prophets asking for money are false prophets. These ideas suggest that the search for a guru is fraught with landmines. This is why I mention specific names of teachers available at any library who will not be trying to gain ascendance or dominance over you personally. Be aware of giving your spirit into another’s care. The sin against the Holy Ghost is the only sin that cannot be forgiven, and it is the sin of ruining or attempting to ruin one’s spiritual receptors. Once that trust is destroyed, it is difficult to “become a child again” because of the terrible things we have known and seen.

          Opportunity – Healing is always available. Even when we have been scarred by false prophets there is the magic of universal love and resilience available to us. A variety of healing ceremonials – my favorite is the “miracle bath” and the “laying on of hands” – will reconnect u to the possibilities of joy, love and the insight leading to enlightenment.

          Models & Mentors -. “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” – Lao Tzu

          “Enlightenment is your felt state of Oneness with Being” – Eckhart Tolle

          “The road to enlightenment is long and difficult and you should not forget snacks and magazines” – Anne LaMott

          “Suffering is temporary, enlightenment is forever” – Buddha

          “Enlightenment does not come from the mind, it comes from just being. You are already enlightened. You have to realize it to allow it into your experience”-
          Anita Moorjani

          Mantra – “I awaken”

          Meditation –

          #Haiku: Enlightenment

          Dissolution reassembles;
          Enlightened wave knows
          It’s
          Ocean

        7. #DreamTherapy – DreamJournaling with Alysse Aallyn

          The Rose – Vulnerability – Do you have frequent nightmares? Do you feel helpless in your dreams? Do you dream of children, of your own childhood? In DreamTherapy, the rose represents the soft evanescence of youth when the merest thumbprint of emphasis leaves an eternal impression. As the emblem of beauty, the Rose warns us that this quivering, temporary vulnerability may be the very definition of value as of loveliness.

          We Remember – You well recollect how you were molded. Is it a pleasant nostalgic vision or a horror story? Do you resent all the other actors in this drama? Remember, resentment is a poison we consume – we are the only ones it harms.

          Challenge – Can you turn the building blocks of your own past into a constructive, hopeful framework for the future? Can you mentally accept and explore the beauty of maturity? Let’s open Dream Journal and sketch out the ways.

          Danger – The philosophy that we are “ruinable” is a psychic snare. Terrible things do happen to ordinary people and we can be changed forever; but that is growth. You don’t want to return to a previous incarnation. We may wish specific things hadn’t happened but must keep in mind that regret prevents us from focusing on future reality. We need to understand the world we’re in NOW and map it for those who follow after. Often we can offer our pattern to help others avoid the traps we fell into. In the meantime, we can access history and literature to explore coping mechanisms around disaster and the strong people it produces.

          Opportunity – Resilience is the art we cultivate. We soon realize resilience has its own beauty; one rose may be cut down but the plant is hardly dead, in fact it offers an outpouring of constant roses. That is true beauty.

          Models & Mentors – “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity”

          • Brene Brown

          “Being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure”
          – Bob Marley

          “Sometimes you have to drop your guard so your heart can breathe”

          – Emma Xu

          “The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility” – Paulo Coelho

          Mantra – “I transplant”

          Meditation –

          #Haiku: Vulnerability

          Hardening’s spontaneous
          & painful;
          Softening’s practiced;
          & free.