Alysse Aallyn

Category: #BestRevenge

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    Scene I

    EVAN

    I like women willful, late
    For appointments,
    fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy,
    yet of course all of that is tiresome.
    But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality.
    Women keep turning on me saying,
    “You don’t love me.”
    What good is it to have been so happy
    when it ends so painfully?
    I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”,
    “Murderer.” She has made me feel a monster.
    Below the surface of the will
    I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives
    Hidden away somewhere
    To marry my present wife.

    EVA
    I find your misery gratifying.
    When I was younger I used to
    Accommodate everyone –
    Now I’m recalcitrant.
    You’re never out of my thoughts, but
    Sadness dulls one.
    Honestly, I always risk failing you,
    Failing you in outstandingness.
    You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary,
    we have been extraordinary together.
    We’re specimens under glass.
    It hurts because the pin runs through both of us.
    The agonizing force of missing you
    Is sweeping over me.
    We have eternity connecting us,
    Backward & forward but
    I can’t get anyone to believe it.

    EVAN
    Would my death simplify things?
    My wife struggles with carrying the conversation
    While I stare glumly at the rain.
    We go to an expensive little restaurant
    And pretend we are on a date to really talk.

    EVA
    That woman’s killing you.
    Imagine if you were dead and your wife
    Wrote a book explaining you
    To everyone! That’s true suffering –
    Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.

    EVAN
    My wife won’t be writing any books
    About me or about anything. You’re the one
    To write the book.
    I feel safe in your hands.

    EVA
    Except I’ve told you over and over
    You’ll outlive me.
    You’re killing me.
    Or your wife is.
    I’ll die of my addiction –
    We always do.
    We prefer it.
    Will you write about me?

    EVAN
    I’ve lied to everyone for
    So long, I’m sure that truth
    Is beyond me.

    EVA
    I’d rather see you dead at my feet
    Than dead ON your feet.
    That would be a mercy killing –
    The last unbearable agony –
    Wondering if you existed at all.
    I have small talent for this.
    I have disgraced my idealism,
    Pretending boredom can be fruitful.
    Waiting, waiting for you everywhere. I
    Wake one day to find I’ve lost my looks, my hair,
    fascination, brain – everything.

    EVAN
    You’re simply waking up
    In an empty hotel.
    The light is always different
    The morning after.
    This is what middle-aged people do.
    I love the brutality of your world.
    You never fade. You are my word made flesh.

    EVA
    You are my religion.
    Until In fell in love with you I was 25 inside.
    I lived in a world of dreams and theories.
    Your experiences seem realer to me than mine.

    EVAN
    To have touched the same places
    Is a bond between us.
    Social instinct is my religion.

    EVA
    Middle-aged people go to weddings
    Out of perverse fascination for the bride.
    I was that bride –
    My day was all champagne.
    Anaesthetized
    It doesn’t hurt so much.
    Such a sense of enormity came over me
    I almost fainted. I gave Allen the dirtiest look: “You caused this.”
    Without wedding dress
    I was a restless, dowdy snob.
    People were falling in love left and right –
    Even in decaying marriages.
    I wanted that –
    He read my subtext.
    And I was caught.

    EVAN
    These dreary parties have a decaying effect.
    My loneliness for you is like a whiplash.
    Your absence is a bitter injury
    But nothing can injure our love –
    We’re too strong for them.
    I’m silenced till I hear from you.
    If I let myself go I would feel desperate.
    I can’t bear you’re going to France without me –
    isn’t love our country?

    EVA
    I won’t say “I’ll die if you don’t come”
    Because I know you would come if you possibly could.
    What a skeleton in the cupboard a wife is.

    EVAN
    Don’t be jealous of Elayna. You are the only goal
    Toward which my life is tending.
    You are the meaning of my life.
    I could never live for work alone.

    EVA
    You enlarge my soul.
    In your mind is my existence.
    You’re more real to me than me.
    I’m in a peculiar psychic state.
    It’s an atmosphere of illusion.
    I envy Elayna all the time.
    It drips like an irritant over my nerves.

    EVAN
    What of Allen? You
    Have your worse half too.

    EVA
    Oh, Allen spends his time lost in woods,
    Falling in love with trees. He’s
    No threat to anyone.

    EVAN
    To understand one’s destiny
    One needs a framework for this mass of experience.
    How can I live separated from you?
    If I stopped caring for you
    I couldn’t care for anything.
    I need my wife, her whip-cracking organization.
    I loathe living in the squalor I get into on my own.
    Having breakfast OUT of bed is the last horror.
    Miasmic feelings of impossibility and terror. Help me.

    EVA
    We help each other
    By existing. Except for God I have no help but you.
    Our love is growing more formidable as our unshakeable belief
    Grows stronger. Like grace, it renews itself.
    All yesterday I glowed. My inability to accept your wife
    Is my deformity – help me with it.
    The light of our love is the only light for me.

  • Secrets of the Self – Second Book Contract by Alysse Aallyn

    My second book contract was a two-book contract. I had long been working on a novel, Model Prisoner, that was based largely on the true crime story described in Barthel’s Death in California , where a man murdered his best friend and kidnapped the friend’s wife. I was working through the issues created when women are forced to cooperate with dangerous men. As often happens, the characters hijacked the story. The relationship between the two men became more and more important – my poor heroine was just a marker of success or loss. In a lucky flash of intuition, I realized the mythic proportions of what I was dealing with – my protagonist became Persephone, uncomfortably contended over by two Lords of Darkness.

    Another character pushed his way onstage – Persey’s dog, Digger. Because Persey loved him, he was an object of jealousy by the Lords of Darkness, who wanted her all to themselves. This evoked the legends around domesticating wild creatures into household pets and the story became Woman Into Wolf.

    When I was ready to submit the novel I discovered my publisher Bridgeworks had been bought by another publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, so I sent it to them and prepared myself for the uncomfortable weeks long wait for consideration lowly authors are subjected to. A few weeks later I heard from my old editor (who I’d dedicated my second novel to!) that Rowman & Littlefield in fact had no editorial department, and so my contract was essentially null and void. I submitted Woman Into Wolf to my old editor to see if she had any good ideas about what I should do next. She suggested I de-emphasize one of the characters (the Bird Lady) and play down Persey’s past life – I took all her suggestions. But when I sent her the revised manuscript I discovered she had forgotten all about it and wanted me to tell her how the novel USED to be!

    At that point I lost faith in her. My trusty Girl Focus Group (my daughter’s friends) loved the book, and I feared further monkeying around might break something important! It seemed a better idea to jut publish the thing myself. And the reviews bore me out.

    …a thrill-ride, unique and highly recommended reading.” –Entrepreneur.com


    “deceit, rape, fertility, imprisonment and a mother’s grief…as each piece of the tightly coiled fiction was loosed I waited for the revelation to come…she couldn’t imagine the extent of the deception until it was spelled out. Neither could I.” – MyShelf.com

    “one of the most unusual mysteries I have ever read…I loved reading Woman Into Wolf … kept me on the edge of my seat right through the end…I highly recommend this novel to fans of crime mysteries that also
    enjoy some extra spice in their stories.” – Readerviews.com

    “a very fine psychological thriller…
    the characters in this book are as bright
    as crystal and as sharp as shattered glass.
    Aallyn not only can describe them to a
    neo-noun, she can make them speak
    true to those characters.
    Quite a talent…a novel every bit as worthy as
    her first.” –ArmchairInterviews.com

    “Satisfying as hell.” – Quoth the Raven

  • Becoming a Warrior – The Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Thistle – Resistance:

    If This Card Chooses You – Armor up. It’s coming. Do you dream of battles? Are you feeling muzzled? Do you wake up angry? Worried? Afraid? Do you gnash your teeth while you sleep? 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 become warriors for a reason. But what kind of warriors are we? 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 investigation. First, there’s enormous cultural pressure against us defining ourselves as warlords compete, waging schemes to entrap us into fighting for them. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.

    Warrior Challenge – We must be protective of our special gifts. Specify under what circumstances you are relaxed, happy, creative and “In-Flow.” The ‘flow” state is “bliss” – your brain oozes alpha waves as you sink into some interesting exploration, losing any sense of time and feeling at one with the universe. Suddenly, we are experiencing the pleasures of “Eternity” while still very much a part of this sphere. Is “flow” achieved for you through music? Dance? Composition? Reading? Sex? Some lucky people access this state through meditation alone. It is certainly worth a try; meditation is very good for your brain.

    Warrior Danger – The danger of Eternal Resistance is that it becomes reflexive. Our Resistance must be chosen, carefully thought out and promoted by History and Fact.

    Warrior Opportunity – You are a work of art. Your whole life, your experiences, your very dreams, have brought you to this moment. Your resistance to invasion, to malformation, to co-option, to corruption, has blossomed into an individualized focus that must defeat their blander, blunter, self-serving opposition. You lose nothing – gain everything – by becoming yourself; a unique warrior nonpareil who has never existed before and will never exist again. You are the opposite of a faceless soldier, you are rare, sui generis, customized for this moment of space and time but perfected for eternity. What fears are left to surmount? What can 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 have to 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

    #Haiku: Counter-Pressure

    First –
    Relax;
    Melt;
    Slide;
    Upend
    Onslaught;
    Be attacker’s
    Banana peel

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Rose – Vulnerability:

    If This Card Chooses You – You wake up trembling. Are you helpless in your dreams? Do you dream of children, of your own childhood? In Warrior Oracle, the rose represents the soft evanescence of youth when the merest thumbprint of emphasis can leave eternal impressions. As the emblem of beauty, the Rose warns us that this quivering, temporary vulnerability may be the very definition of loveliness.

    Warriors Remain Vulnerable – We are human, and we have no desire to divest ourselves of our humanity. As warriors we defend youth, beauty, humanity, evanescence.

    We Remember Where We Came From – 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. Value Your Training – good and bad – as you value your humanity.

    Roses Have Thorns – Celebrate Yours – Everyone sees the thorn-stripped rose the florist sells, forgetting that roses were born with protections, just like the rest of us. Contemplate yours.

    Warriors Have Many Protections – Our training, Our Mental Agility, Our Commitments – But most especially our worldview. Others may surrender and fade away, but we know we are designed for eternal beauty, like the stars. It is the essence of life to struggle, to mentally picture the goal and to design and redesign a gorgeous, life-changing map for all who follow.

    Warrior Challenge – Can we turn the building blocks of our own past into a constructive, hopeful framework for the future? Can you mentally accept and explore the power of a hardening maturity?

    Warriors Preserve & Build – We do not destroy. The philosophy of “annihilation” Is a psychic snare. Terrible things happen to ordinary people and they are changed forever. We may wish those things hadn’t happened but regret prevents us from focusing on reality. We need to understand the world we’re in and map it for those who follow after. History and literature explore the coping mechanisms around disaster and the strong people it produces.

    Warrior Opportunity – Resilience is the art we cultivate. We soon realize resilience has its own beauty; this 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

    #Haiku: On the Vulnerability of Poets

    Dis –
    Composing
    To re-see;
    Melting to
    Re-form;
    Masking to un –
    Mask.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Ladyslipper – Singularity:

    If This Card Chooses You – Have you been running with the crowd too much? Feeling unappreciated, even exhausted? Are you waiting for someone to celebrate You? Maybe it’s time to celebrate yourself.

    Warriors Are Always Alone in the Crowd – Do you frequently find yourself walking in a different direction from everyone else? Do you often feel ganged up on, bullied? The Ladyslipper card represents all that 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 Warrior is Unique – We may be civilized into groups, but society only advances because of its singletons. Becoming a warrior means insisting on the right to make your own special contribution. Recognize how much the world needs you, and congratulate yourself for it.

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

    Warriors Will Not Be “Used” – Warriors train themselves to out-think people and situations. Confronting Narcissism is a real danger in our society. People are encouraged to perform, push themselves forward and try to harvest “likes” from absolute strangers by sheer outrageousness, rather than develop their 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.

    Warrior 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 Training Journal. Time for a redesign?

    Warrior Opportunity – The warrior 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 in order to check our placement and effectiveness but much criticism is sharpened to spike & derail. Recognize that the following techniques are attempts to harvest YOU and feed off your power and are designed to re-direct your effort to the critic’s own ends.

    Projection – Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility for one’s negative behaviors by attributing them to someone else. It acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.

    Nonsensical Argument;- Big words, word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting are meant to disorient you and get you off track


    Blanket statements and generalizations –
    Misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity 
    Nitpicking and moving the goal posts 


    Abrupt changes of subject – you’ll NEVER win because they decide what’s “important”
    Covert and overt threats – “You’ll never-“ “No one will ever-“ they control mysterious armies and powers


    Name-calling – attempts to associate you with the publicly despicable


    Covert and overt put-downs – the critic’s superiority is thereby established

    Smear campaigns – behind your back


    Demands for loyalty – When someone stresses that you should “trust them” right away or emphasizes their inherent credibility, be wary.


    Baits and badgers you, trying to get an emotional reaction, all while feigning innocence


    Boundary testing – Trying to subvert your boundaries or disparage your triggers


    Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes 


    Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone 


    Belittling, degrading. Shaming

    Warrior Freedom – Much human interaction is a subtle or unsubtle attempt to divide people into camps and to enlist you to carry someone else’s banner. But warriors 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 Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Path – Goals:

    If This Card Chooses You – There Will Be Paperwork! – Do you dream of paths diverging in a yellow wood? Checklists? Maps? Are you talking to yourself as you follow your routine? What IS your routine? How has your routine evolved? What efforts have you made to change it to newly perceived needs and discoveries? Or is your routine formed outside you, for the benefit of others?

    Warriors Dream of Maps. If you talking to yourself throughout your routine that self-talk needs to be positive. Become an encouraging coach. Don’t hold yourself hostage or you can’t complete your steps.

    If You Have No Goal, Any Path Will Take You There – But you won’t like where you end up. Warriors are Goal-oriented. As you become more adept at change, you realize that dividing effort into “steps” to achieve a goal is critical. It won’t happen fast. Your conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious (not to mention your pre-conscious!) are going to kick up a helluva fuss. But that’s the interesting part! Change is guaranteed.

    Warriors Are Sore-muscled Athletes. Day 2, thinking, I CAN’T DO THIS. Guess what? EVERYBODY THINKS THAT! Expect it! You treat yourself with loving compassion and cold compresses, hot baths and massage. In other words, there is an established map, a way to GET THROUGH THIS. The challenge is to CUSTOMIZE your map.

    Being is Movement. 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 because path-making is exhausting! A ready-made path is a mysterious invitation. All paths lead Somewhere. Every Path, Visible or not, speaks of the existence of The Other.

    Paths speak of Destination, Intention, Design, History. 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.

    Warriors Use Models. We need a constantly evolving pit crew of helpers. A side effect of routine remodeling is “crazy thinking.” We all need somebody to talk us off the ledge, somebody who is familiar with not just our goals but what we are going through. Your id is holding the rest of you hostage, and you need an experienced hostage negotiator.

    Waves of “fears” from your collective unconscious require symbolic release and expression in art, dance, love-making, sport or theatre.


    Disowned longings from your subconscious threaten your secure sense of self and may require therapeutic intervention.

    Unconscious drives from depths you’ve never plumbed can’t be faced without the courage of a Friend or Soulmate. So, don’t try making it through this crisis without a buddy AND a coach. AA has a useful acronym – HALT – representing:
    Hungry
    Angry
    Lonely
    Tired

    These are the Emotion States of Bad Decisions. So, when you see these conditions developing – Halt. Call your hostage negotiator immediately.

    Models & Mentors – “Setting goals is the first step into turning the invisible into the visible” – Tony Robbins

    “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things” – Albert Einstein

    “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine St. Exupery

    “Always remember your focus determines your reality” – George Lucas

    #Haiku: Facing the Boogeyman

    Mimics dread
    Mocks goals
    Derails
    Ambition;
    Seize him and
    Laugh
    In his face

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Breakthrough – Epiphany:

    If This Card Chooses You – Let the Knowledge Pour In – You didn’t even know there was a wall there! And suddenly, you’re through it and the world looks completely different on the other side.

    Are you battering against barriers in your dreams? Are you breasting tape, cresting mountaintops, shedding light on darkness? You are seeking, or experiencing an epiphany. Let’s consider the pieces of your psyche/life that don’t add up.

    Eureka! – Warriors Learn From Epiphanies – It’s possible to have a sudden enlightenment and NOT FULLY REALIZE it. Could it be that it is too threatening? Could be that you lack the language to explain the new connection you have made. Could be that your “discovery” started down so deep in your consciousness that it’s taking its time to percolate through to the surface. YOU ARE “MOLTING”! Shed what no longer serves you. In the meantime, pay attention to your dreams and track them in your Training Journal. Dreams have the power to heal the jagged edges of our fear, our incomprehension and our daring.

    Warrior Danger – We quit too early. Status quo is SO attractive. Let somebody else be the adventurer, let somebody else put into words what nobody else can say, let some other poor sucker stick their neck out and mention that the emperor has no clothes. Study your fears rationally. It’s OK to protect yourself – in fact, it’s mandatory – remember making sure that oxygen mask works on YOU, first? But that doesn’t stop us from evaluating the full “reality”, which also, I remind you, contains suspicions, insights, ideas and yes, dreams. Whispers of the multiverse.

    Grow New Skin – Warriors are highly accomplished, well-trained professionals who sometimes find themselves at the bottom of a pecking order. Are you in a group whose leader is making decreasing sense and ever more self-serving decisions? If you’ve been struggling with a knotty historical, mathematic or scientific problem nobody else can solve, why not try seeking the edges of light?

    Transform Your Thinking – how often have you had that experience of waking up from a dream whose conclusions were so real they were right in front of you, only to see them melt in the sand like the escaping tide until they’re no longer perceptible. That’s OK. They’re on the tip of your psychic tongue, just waiting for a little more encouragement.

    Learn New Things – We are all familiar with the “sleep on it” suggestion, but anything that takes your mind off the problem can be helpful. Sports, prayer, meditation, reading, a massage, a night out, but please – not too much liquor. Hold it at two if you can, if you can’t, don’t start. Liquor affects the brain, killing brain cells. That might keep overlords seeking compliance happy but it’s not good for warriors’ growth and development. Develop a gratitude practice. Keep dreaming. Keep seeking those epiphanies. Keep using your fears as stepping stones to climb higher. Never give up. Be clever – like the fox.

    Models & Mentors – “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” – John Milton

    “Record these epiphanies with care as the most delicate and evanescent of moments”

    – James Joyce

    “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” – Isaiah 60: 1-3

    “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing” – Henry Miller

    #Haiku: Epiphany

    Dominos crash:
    Picture resolves:
    Insight –
    Upside down is
    Right side up

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Loss – Suffering:

    If This Card Chooses You – You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb. Every religion and philosophical system must account for the misery we see around us – storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration and animal predation.

    Warriors Get Used to Loss – Do your dream explore inner and outer pain? How much is fear, how much is anxiety, how much is collective unconscious and shared human history? We fear there is no possible paradise where everyone can be happy all at once. How do we educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma?

    Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding our breath on the edge of discovery.

    Warriors Dare to Feel it all. Bravely we take on the feelings of the entire planet to show that we can’t be destroyed by them. Warriors explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion”; “Practice taming the wild mind”; or religious – “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet.

    Don’t Surrender to Learned Helplessness – Too much suffering breeds inertia. We stop even trying to better our human situation while attracting predators to such easy prey. Even worse, we become predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.

    Warrior Daring Frees the Universe – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through this many times. Further epiphanies await.

    Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

    “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard” – A.A. Milne

    “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them” – Leo Tolstoy

    “What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

    “Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live” – Norman Cousins

    #Haiku: Profit/Loss Analysis

    Does autumn lose summer
    Warmth or
    Gain snowblanket?
    Peonies decide.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Waterfall – Change:

    If This Card Chooses You – You Instinctively Resist Stagnation. Your conscious mind seeks stasis, which it interprets as “security”, but your subconscious rebels. It demands change! In the meanwhile, outside of your awareness, your unconscious IS changing, evolving fiercely along with the drama playing out in the entropical human race. Tune in!

    Consult Your Dreams – Dreams signal a desire for change. When was the last time you had a falling dream? Or a rushing water dream? A surprise dream or an accident dream?

    Change Is Inevitable – Not just change, but revolution. Revolution is what we warriors are all about. Cultivate flexible thinking. Don’t invest psychologically in rigid, one-way requirements.

    Thought Exercise – What if everything were completely different? What if things turned upside down? This is the kind of planning and strategizing asked of warriors. What’s the “Last Best Option?” Shape your change towards growth by asking, is this making me a better, stronger person, or a more fearful person? More competent, less dependent, more unique, less compliant, more imaginative, less angry, more joyous, less envious? Evolve with me! Let’s streamline!

    Fundamental attribution error says we blame ourselves for world conditions over which we have no control. Check your guilt/anxiety levels. If they are raging, is there anything you can do to ameliorate the causative circumstances? Being without guilt or anxiety is NOT the goal – that would describe a sociopath! But being crippled by guilt OR anxiety when there’s nothing you can do about it is disabling. And we’re in the empowerment department here.

    Manage Your Evolution, or you’re headed downhill. Traveling ever upward along the spiral. What are the attributes you admire? Develop a picture of yourself as a wise being emitting light. Nurture calm, contentment, gratitude – in the midst of a thirst for new ideas and experiences to add to your expanding galaxy of knowledge.

    Be Ready for Anything – Play out the scenarios in your Training Journal. Have a plan A, B, C. Learn chess to help with thinking of several moves ahead. Ask others, “What would you do?” As you read/watch a piece of fiction, imagine yourself inside this problem. You can also learn a lot from history. Start a “What IF? Club” in which members dream up survival scenarios. Play the game Worst Case Scenario.

    Models & Mentors – “Progress is impossible without change” – George Bernard Shaw

    “Change is the law of life. Those who look only to past and present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy

    “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes after continuous struggle.” – Martin Luther King

    “It is not the strongest of our species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin

    #Haiku: Unwanting

    Curbing desire
    Won’t work;
    Evolving desire will.
    Admit it:
    We’ve changed

  • Becoming a Warrior – The Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    . Memory – The Past:

    If This Card Chooses You – Check your conscious/subconscious/unconscious/collective consciousness levels. How comfortable are you with the depth of these levels? Do you ruminate about past events? Are you haunted by what was done & left undone? Do you feel nostalgia for a past that never was? Do you have a favorite period in history or a fantasy universe that you wish you lived in, instead of this one?

    You are the Hero of Your Warrior Saga – Accept your centrality in your own myth. It doesn’t matter what other people think – they are the bit players. Think of your past as a Quest Saga. What did you want? How did it change? What blocked you? What tools have you got at your command? Where do you go from here?

    Rewrite the Past – You absolutely CAN, but first you first must face its full horror and that effect on you. Generally, because we were immature, we didn’t understand what was going on, were co-opted by our persecutors and prevented from fighting back. Things are different now! The hardest thing to accept is that beloved caregivers didn’t want the best for us – they only wanted us to be just like them.

    “I don’t believe in ghosts but I never met a person who wasn’t haunted” is a very wise saying. What haunts you exactly? Or who? Ghosts are malignant – if they weren’t they would be power spirits, fairy godmothers or guardian angels. What malignancies from your past are out to get you and how do they make themselves known? One of Freud’s contributions was to point out that people prefer their neurosis – ie imprisonment – to liberation. Why? What’s in it for you?

    You became YOU. Yes, you have scars – these are bragging rights! You have been through the wars! ‘Rewriting” the past means understanding what really happened, the limitations of those who surrounded you, and exploring your chances and choices today. Just because parents, teachers or “society” sentenced you to play a role, you can step out of it at any time. Buddhist thought is very helpful here. Buddha teaches that life itself is an illusion – a dream. It changes depending on how we think about it. In the present, inside your mind, you hold all the keys to your own liberation. Re-visit Pema Chodron’s Noble Heart and Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now to explore how you can assume immediate control of your life and your mind and turn your past into fuel to power your growth.

    Warriors Know Who They Are – Remember, you’ve got a purpose. You’ve got a future. You’ve thought about your past and worked out conflicts with a mentor and in your Training Journal.

    Warriors Develop A Sense of History – You understand that history is a spiral, not a circle – the same things do keep coming around but in a different form. You see all around you the operation of karma.
    Choosing evil is choosing chaos – it can’t work out for anyone except temporarily. You understand the battle between darkness and light and you have committed yourself firmly to The Light.

    Warriors Are Storytellers – You pass the message on with your life, with your words, with your body, with your very presence. You have become one link in the unbreakable chain of Eternal Perfection and you will have your reward.

    Models & Mentors – “You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory”

    – Dr Seuss

    “Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things” – Cicero

    “In the end, we’ll all become stories.” – Margaret Atwood

    “Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining a task or actually doing it”– Yo Yo Ma

    #Haiku: No-Fault Apology

    Atone?
    Conspire:
    Delete:
    Rewire
    My memory and
    Yours; potent
    Fire.