Alysse Aallyn

Category: #BestRevenge

  • 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.

  • Becoming a Warrior – The Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Sun – Truth:

    If This Card Chooses You – You thirst after righteousness. Do you dream of a fully lit landscape? Do you bask in warm rays or feel trapped by skin-scorching light? As the Sun card in Warrior Oracle represents Truth it also sheds light on our efforts to locate, explain and exploit that mysterious force.

    Warriors Are Bullshit Detectors – Throughout life you will encounter people searching for weapons and tools. They will try to make a weapon and a tool out of you. This is why understanding the back and forth nature of partnership is so key. When you are searching for a Teacher you are not searching for a Master. Use Truth to divine the difference.

    You Are a Truth Diviner – Truth is complex. Truth evolves to match our understanding. Dream are incontestably “real” but do they represent “Truth”? Can something be true one day and untrue the next? (see Ambivalence.) Is the storytelling child narrating “the truth”? Are myths true? Is the Bible true? Yes to all these questions. But No, also. Because the most important fact about truth is that, like us, it’s either progressive or regressive. You easily recognize this in your own life. Something that was true of you twenty years ago is no longer true. You have changed. Understandably, in a climate like this, people thirst for Unchanging Truth, and there are a few examples. Benjamin Franklin offered Death and Taxes, Jesus said evil can’t win, and Buddha said life itself is an illusion.

    It is enough to make us think that language is a poor descriptor of experience. The important variable in all this is we, ourselves – humanity. We are the eyes that think, the brain that evaluates, the mind that remembers. You are constantly developing Warrior Skills – Truth Seeking, Truth Telling and Truth Divining – and you are developing definitions. Congratulate yourself. Support yourself and others on this noblest of enterprises. Because to die in the Truth is to pass into the Light.

    The Truth Matters – Lying is the biggest red flag, and the question always is, why? Can your interlocutor not bear the truth or do they not know the truth? Do they attempt to fool others to take advantage? Law asks the question: who benefits? How would they take control if you accepted their falsity?

    Accept the Physics of Reality – Does the Liar promote growth and health, or suffering and squalor? Followers may be sickening and dying slowly, but you can quickly see that in the Liar’s universe, the benefit of others is never as important as leader gratification.

    Understanding Emotional Health – Challenge is necessary for growth. The fact that subjects are uncomfortable is usually a good reason to take a long look. Effort is important but not to the point of depletion. Who maintains the resources that refresh the spirit?

    The Warrior Is Worthy of Support – Rest, health, nourishment, fellowship and learning are the riches of the universe that should be available to all.

    Warrior Challenge – It’s so relaxing when you finally see the Truth. Suddenly you’re in the gulf stream, swimming WITH the tide! This is why fans love mystery stories – they explain what was REALLY going on and you see all past events in a new light with a new meaning. Our daily life seems to request of us one hideous compromise after another until we wake up one morning feeling that we are lying to everybody – ourselves included. The Warrior’s Challenge – should you accept it – is to bring your life more in harmony with what you currently know to be true, all the while seeking a higher elevation of The Truth.

    Warrior Danger – Nobody likes a hard-ass. Is your quest for truth turning you into a rigid, mean-spirited drill sergeant? I used to be authoritatively told that the mysteries I loved weren’t any good, that no way was Raymond Chandler as good as John Steinbeck. Worse, Emily Bronte wasn’t as good as Philip Roth! Ugh! I did appreciate that what was “true” for others was NOT true for me but unfortunately for me, THEY did not appreciate that. So, be humble. You can never see (or reveal) all the Truth. And it will evolve (as hopefully, you will) until you die and in my cosmology, are “perfected” and received into Bliss. You’re not required to believe in Bliss, by the way. Bliss believes in you.

    Warrior Opportunity –Truth, like everything interesting, meaningful and worth doing, is a PROCESS. Welcome aboard! We’re all passengers on this exciting thrill-ride! So buckle up! Assemble a team! Get out your journal! Let’s begin!

    Models & Mentors – “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”

    – David Foster Wallace

    “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell

    “Speaking your truth is the most powerful tool you have” – Oprah Winfrey

    “Truth is like the Sun. You can shut it out for a while, but it ain’t going away”– Elvis Presley

    #Haiku: Lady Samurai

    Loyal
    Poise;
    Courage in
    Truth
    Compassionate
    Respect
    Honest
    Honor

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Danger – Risk – If This Card Chooses You – Look out. Are you a worrier? Anxiety driven? Haunted by nightmares and worst-case scenarios? Do you wake up gasping and trying to forget what you’ve just experienced?

      You are Alert – Nightmares mean you’re paying attention. Life is scary, but we need to grow, and growth requires we learn to cultivate risk if we are ever to expand and venture outside our comfort zone.

      The Number One Complaint About Becoming a Warrior? – Fear management. The only way to manage fear? Become a Warrior.


      Study risk intelligently. No point being afraid of dragons if dragons are only symbolic. No point being “afraid” of “foreigners” if the man telling us to be afraid has a reputation for befriending people and then fleecing them.

      1. Don’t rely on rumor and innuendo
      2. Dangers must be proven Real
      3. Dangers Need to be Historically verified by data: “How likely is injury?”
      4. Assemble likely risk-avoidance strategies that have performed well for others in your situation.
      5. What exactly is your situation? Quantify.
      6. Know who your friends are
      7. Be prepared to alter strategy to maximize success and to learn from mistakes

      Warriors Train – Warriors accept, identify and study the challenges. They learn to make sophisticated risk assessments and pick their battles cleverly. To do that, warriors need a Purpose. You get to find out who your friends are. Friends want the best for you, but the relationship must be reciprocal. You have each other’s backs. Know the difference between a Team and a Gang. Gangs work to suck power from individual members and concentrate it in one individual. Teams work for the success of all. Coach can’t win if the team doesn’t win.

      Warriors Test – their and mental physical abilities constantly against life’s games & mazes

      Warriors Transform – The physical pleasure of meeting the moment cannot be overstated. Soon the training itself becomes a rush of joy. You are making love to the universe and the universe loves you back

      What About Defeat? – There are no defeats, there are only lessons. Everything is practice for The Greater Contest.

      Won’t You Ultimately Lose? Truly, we all die, some sooner, some less dignified. This is where your purpose upholds you. Study your models. What allowed Nelson Mandela to be “captain of his soul” after more than 20 years in brutal captivity? Are we just bodies? Or are we also souls? Are our souls so easily defeated? Can we also train, test and transform our souls?

      Remember – a caterpillar’s “defeat” is a butterfly.

      Models & Mentors – “Extreme Fear can neither fight nor fly.” – William Shakespeare

      “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear” – Mark Twain

      “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will return stronger” – Deepak Chopra

      “We’re more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than reality.” – Seneca

      #haiku: Everything

      Everything you’ve
      Ever wanted
      Is on the other side
      Of fear

    1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      The Goddess – Power !

        What It Means When This Card Chooses You – You are one of the Elect. Most people feel that because the Goddess card represents power it’s the most valuable card in the Warrior Oracle
        deck. But we are all familiar with fires that get out of control, rage-fueled spirals, explosives that blow up in your face and escalating weaponry. Owing to the Goddess’ power, much can go wrong.

        You Have The Power – The true meaning of this card is that you have the force within you to get things done and to bend unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. Isn’t that what we all want – a little magic?

        You Are Iconic – But the Goddess card is about more than magic, it is about the inherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably You. You have a power no one else has, incorporated in your being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories. This takes a lifetime to accept because we all nervously want to be Someone Else and experience existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned.

        Dreams Instruct You – Your dreams bring all these passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you want and what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic is to seize conscious control of this potent power source.

        Warrior Challenge – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our world Inside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and our fear.

        Warrior Danger – We cannot take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is a fine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat others with respect and claim like respect for ourselves. Accept your “experiments”; do not fear them but allow them to take you where you need to go.

        Warrior Opportunities – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOK like stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is why we must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most beloved child. You are your own Most Beloved Child. It is not selfish to commit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you can administer this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your journey, without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how to connect with others.

        Fear & Trembling: Where would we get the courage to become warriors? Human history begins with an enormous fear of God or whoever is causing all that lightning, those earthquakes and striking everybody down. Killing small helpless, pretty things was meant to be flattering and propitiatory to this God (I don’t get it either.) then Jesus came with a message about how God was really loving, generous and wanted the best for us. We know how that turned out.

        Becoming a Warrior: As children, we struggled to understand where we fit on the power spectrum. I tried killing a snake and experimented with bullying other children the way I was bullied. I didn’t care for it. The only relief was in thinking about, researching and understanding what was going on. My earliest researches, as for many children, were in astronomy and dinosaurs. The cold magnificence of the planets and the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs gave me a way to stand back from the immediate suffering of the schoolyard. I then moved on to the early Egyptians who tried to solve their problems through magic and art. The art was visually appealing and the magic was emotionally soothing.

        Pick Your Battles: I saw that most schoolyard fights were a reaction to the immediate suffering of pain or confusion, and that they magnified, rather than solved, those problems. There was a manifest holiness about this discovery. It rescued me from the torture of everyday life and elevated me to a plane where every other contributing thinker had already become immortalized.

        Study & Strategy: I read everything I could get my hands on in history and biography (research) and in fairy tales (magic). When I fell in love with the novels of C.S. Lewis and Rumer Godden, the world judged my taste good – when I discovered Agatha Christie, it did not – but it turned out everyone else was reading her too. Agatha is a short course on human nature (original sin) and a proponent of both the scientific and Socratic methods. She’s great training for a Warrior. I wrote it all down in my Training Journal.

        Claiming Your Power: By the time you’re a teenager you can see you have some power – some mental, some physical. The question is developing it and finding appropriate gurus. Avoiding the dominance/submission game.

        Keep Going – Recognize that you have been touched by the goddess and honor her by being grateful for the glorious gifts of life.

        Models & Mentors: “I did not deceive you. I permitted you to deceive yourself.” Agatha Christie

        “An Indian proverb says everyone is a house with four rooms – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Most of us live in one room or the other but if you don’t visit each room each day you are not a complete person.” – Rumer Godden

        “You are never too old to dream a new dream or set a new goal” – C. S. Lewis

        “You have to believe in yourself” – Sun Tzu

        #Haiku: Wyvern

        My power
        Beast bristles
        Fire;
        Eats critics
        Guards path
        Sleeps in my
        Mirror