Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Beauty

  • 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are always operating with a list, whether you are aware of it or not, but some of the items on it might be seriously out of date, illogical, contradictory or downright pernicious.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

    The Rainbow = “SERENDIPITY”

      Rainbows have vast cultural, religious, and psychological implications. They announce that the storm is past and offer a gateway to somewhere obviously special, right up there in the sky, a glittering gateway offering us every color in the spectrum. “There’s a land that I dream of,” sang Judy Garland yearningly and we sang and yearned right along with her.


      Rainbows have their head in the heavens and their feet lost somewhere on earth; sheltering a “pot of gold” or so they say. But if you soar through their beckoning gates obviously you will have to leave the gold behind. Rainbows are clearly magic, yet everyone, even skeptics, even the unimaginative, can see them. This Rainbow is a gateway to whatever we desire, if we just could figure out what it is. There’s nothing earthly about the transcendence that it promises. We’re even a little afraid of it. We’re not ready for it YET. But we’re so, so glad it’s there. Just like Serendipity itself.


      What role does luck and chance play in our lives? We are all familiar with the phrase, “The harder I work the luckier I get.” But how about chance? Chance seems to determine who will be our mate, for one thing! True, we often strategize about putting ourselves in the “right place at the right time” and we want the same thing for our kids, otherwise there wouldn’t be this deadly serious skirmishing over “the right pre-school.” We are very aware of “unlucky accidents” and try to prevent those as best with can with a seatbelt and a multi-vitamin; even those of us who smoke and gamble know that much.


      But sometimes we don’t value “good luck”, especially if it’s completely unexpected. Do we feel it’s “undeserved?” If we have children who sleep easily or get good grades do we just take that for granted while focusing on “what’s wrong?” How about our own health and good looks – not to mention the love we feel around us — are those things only “treasured” when they’re gone? I think of the woman who said she doesn’t focus on whether a glass is half empty or half full but instead on who’s going to drink it and whether she will get any?

      We need more than beauty, more than strategy, more than alliances. We need Good Luck. Serendipity is Chance. What are the odds you would walk into that grocery store, check a disused social media account, return an item, misdial a call? Our whole lives seem to be comprised of Lucky Accidents and Near Misses.

      Yes, we try to learn from them, but we are spooked as well. It’s enough to make a person superstitious, because, How can you engineer happy fortune? This way: “The harder you work the luckier you get.”

      Be there. In the right place at the right time. When you’re looking for a soulmate it’s like looking for a job – it helps if everybody knows about it. Let’s widen our opportunity to Get Lucky.

      Serendipity

      All art’s
      “Controlled Accident” –
      Maybe Love is also –
      You plus God plus
      Fate:
      Equals serendipity –
      Give up power steering
      Float – Dream – Surrender
      Unto the skid

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

      The Lovers = ALLIANCES: “Best Friends”


      Becoming a lover forges an alliance for the future. We’re not talking of two raindrops crashing into each other for sex, but a mutual declaration of interest and benefit. Spend today thinking about past alliances; not just love relationships but all alliances dreamed of, suggested, made and broken.


      What hopes, plans and fears did we enter (and exit) with? What mistakes were made? The first thing that jumps out to us is that power differentials create more problems than they solve. An alliance needs to be a two-way street; any hint of “exploitation” turns it into a different kind of relationship entirely.

      Alliances must be freely chosen, with consequences fully appreciated and maturely understood. How often in life is this even possible for us? Sometimes we are limited by the power of our imaginations as well as the resilience of our hearts. Alliances should also be freely exited but how often does THAT happen? How often do our passions (and perceived needs) fall short of our principles and how much shame does this knowledge engender? And then there are issues of temperament: to what extent can introverts/extroverts hope to change their stripes?


      Think about your deepest and most rewarding friendships. You’re looking for a special kind of Best Friend, after all, so it only makes sense that most of the components appearing in your friendships will be found in your soulmate as well. Will you appreciate some of the same things? Speak the same language? Have the same values? Laugh at the same jokes? Share fears and dreams? Expose your worst/best? You still want all that! Because you need an Ally. An ally reliably comes to your defense, as you fearlessly come to theirs.

      An ally is someone you can rely on. It means you must be honest with that person, and we all know how hard that is, especially when you can’t figure out the truth, yourself. You’re feeling your way and you need a sympathetic ear. You know you will have to be their sympathetic ear as well because otherwise what you have isn’t a partnership, it’s an autocracy. Autocrats are lied to and cheated on and they die alone. That’s not what gratifies the soul. You are looking for someone who holds the key to You and by astonishing coincidence, you will hold the key to them, as well.


      The Duel

        Europe without you
        Was a funeral feast.
        I recall the procession of your letters
        Far better than
        The stream of luckless suitors
        Trying to distract me.
        Virgins aren’t distractible.
        Your seductive missives stalked me.
        Your fatal ploy was that nude picture
        Adam lonely in his garden.
        I came right home.
        I well recall the ceremonies
        Of that night!
        Your shyness
        My perfume
        Our ignorance
        Your penis
        Soft as a
        Messenger dove that folds
        To a familiar hand –
        Then wild and hard as
        A riderless horse.
        I did cry out as the candles burned.
        I swear there were some moments when
        We actually saw each other.
        But if this magic sword cuts both ways
        Why was I the only bleeder?
        They peeled me off
        Dropping me down miles
        Of antiseptic hallway –
        A princess in a bucket.
        It could have ended there
        But at your school I haunted you
        A chilly-breasted demon.
        My daytime incarnation seemed mature:
        I fooled you;
        We chatted as you prepared the skin.
        I bit down hard and
        Tasted only
        Suture wire.
        You wrote and broke off
        Our association.
        The years groaned by
        Like convicts chained
        We served our terms with no time off
        For bad behavior.
        Lust had luster,
        Excrement had ecstasy.
        The castaways the whirlwind
        Flung upon the sand
        Were calm, polite –
        We knew our way around.
        That look you gave me!
        Our unborn children shivered
        In their sausage skins
        Suddenly aware
        Their time had come.
        The tale was done
        The frog-mask
        Shivered off
        We saw:
        The you of you
        The me of me –
        Masks
        Unmirrored –
        Scars
        Unscored
        Virgins not but
        Innocence
        Restored.

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

          Creativity : “Harness your Uniqueness”

            When searching for your soulmate this is no time to “blend with the crowd.” You need to discover exactly who you are so you can seek your complementary and missing elements. If you are uncertain or mistaken about your essential self, you won’t even recognize The One. You will be guaranteed to choose a partner based on false considerations of status or appearance. This requires you stop hiding your true self and allow it to emerge. Easier said than done! Turns out we all have been babying the shyly unique aspects of ourselves that don’t win instant recognition from the crowd. Well, we are going to have to experiment with taking Baby out for daily strolls and develop a bit of muscle. Don’t worry if the “likes” fall away – you are not trying to appeal to everyone. The creativity card means you will need to become imaginative in how you present yourself. You want someone accepting? Be accepting. You want someone brave? Be brave. You want someone who looks deeper? Look deeper.

            Fire In the Dust

            In photographs
            The ladies scream or laugh
            It’s hard to tell
            Heads back they bare their
            Grief or joy or
            Agonized relief
            It’s hard to tell.
            All that remains of them
            Tattered icons growing ever dim.

            The fountains of our fear
            Leap high at first, like dancers
            Frozen at first burst
            Of freedom
            Paralyzed abreast
            The arc
            We cannot see
            What tortuous sign these fossils
            Meant to be.

            In that first winter
            We thought the earth was dead
            Statues mated
            Trees erupted dragonflies
            The angry lonely
            Sang and cried.
            Somewhere some fetus twists and jerks
            Convergence of dynastic quirks

            So drop the toxic cloak of bitter spite that
            Melts the flesh and terrorizes night –
            Waiting out a cycle’s sum
            Spinning down to kingdom come.
            For nothing vain, came nothing plain
            This world was born
            To live again.

          1. 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