Alysse Aallyn

Category: Creativity

  • Welcome to Dream Group – a Dream Journal by Alysse Aallyn

    Welcome to Dream Group

    Where we explore our dream together, uncovering meaning and enhancing psychic   and spiritual growth.

    YOU ARE A SEEKER – You are self-defining. You are on a quest. You wish to experience to the fullthe nature of having a self. You are becoming alert to the possibilities inherent in your particularmomentary incarnation and you wish to explore them.

    DANGERS – The danger of self-regard is that in turning our eyes inward we miss important signalscoming from other people and the world around us. Yet “retreating inward” is a vital path to self-knowledge and growth.

    CHALLENGE -The solution to this challenge is to set a Spirituality Schedule to reflect our needs andinterests. Appoint time to be absolutely alone, for meditation and reflection. If you cannot find a room toyourself, a closet will do. You can sit in the meditation position or assume any position that allows youto be comfortable enough to become physically forgetful.  Concentrate first on building a life that allowsboth inner and outer growth. Surround yourself with people who respect this decision.

    OPPORTUNITIES – This is a journey. Accept it. Begin a journal with 1. “I” and write down yourmeditation thoughts and desires. Tis can be a poem, a fantasy, a checklist – whatever pattern occurs toyou as supportive of your desires. Make a list of goals. Push shame away. This is about YOU. Of courseas you evolve, your goals will evolve, and your journal will reflect that. When you have completed yourTime Alone – ten minutes to an hour – whatever works for you – pat yourself on the back. What anachievement! You are started on a path of making changing Nightmares into Dreams and making dreamscome true.

    Get a notebook. We are starting our Dream Journal.

    Jung tells us that in your dream, you are everyone. You have dreamed of an Eye. The Eye is You. YourEgo is under threat. What does this mean?

    STUDY YOUR SURROUNDINGS  – Who? What? When? Where? And Why? We will begin mapping the people around you to determine whether you are in a growth or destructive environment, and building better patterns. Open your Dream Journal.

    WHO?  List the people around you and try to capture their chatter, their effect on you. It isn’t necessarily what they say directly to you, it is how they feel entitled to speak, it is what you are forced to hear. Sometimes we “correct” these oppressive effects with the conversation of dramatic personae in screen, literature & song. We flee into art to protect ourselves from the cruelties of existence. List these characters also – your heroes and villains – and what you like and need about them. We are going to assemble a ragbag team of defenders and collaborators for Dream Group.

    WHAT?   When you list what they say, note how that makes you feel. We are going to assume control over these emotions.

    WHEN?  At what time of day or night do these characters attempt to assume power over you? What is your state or rest or readiness?

    WHERE?  Where are you when this is going on? Work? Home? Friends’ place? Café? Bed? Inside your locked heart? Where do you feel safe? Where are you most yourself?

    WHY? How did you get here?  What was the plan? How has that changed? What’s the plan now?

    CLOSE YOUR BOOK – Close your eyes. Let’s end with a meditation.

    MEDITATION –

    #Haiku: Ego

    Pry:

    Beneath Eye:

    Compare

    My Shy

    Inside

    To your

    Wry outside. Cry.

    Why?

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Creator Goddess –  Generosity –

    Creator Goddesses Are Surrounded by Magical Possibilities. Are you dreaming of eternal bliss? Floating in connectedness? In Creation the boundaries of the other disappear in growth perfection. Obeying the call to flourish is the only commandment. Goddesses merge fearlessly, knowing you will be able to get yourself back any time, soothed, improved, and healed.

    Creation Goddesses Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans.  Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for human enhancement –  uncharged they are so much dead air. This is the space that goddesses protect. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

    Our Yearning Defines and Connects Us – As children we thought we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. As goddesses we fight for our ancestral memories of trust and closeness. How we long to be reminded of the ecstasy of selflessness, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.

    Love Is The Creator’s Armor – It’s a spiral, our labyrinth, remember? We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We practice techniques and invent others as we design and redesign purposeful maps in a threatening and uncertain world. We have the collective confidence of all the brilliance of the goddess who came before us. Someone loved us once, eternalizing the golden moment, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic.

    Goddess Danger – Danger lies in narrowing, exclusionary definitions. Answering the mandate of Creation, Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero-sum game with a shut-off valve focused on our own gratification, Love dies.

    Goddess Opportunity – The possibilities of a goddess are endless because we have chosen, in our flexibility and understanding, to be endless. Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours. Let’s venture forth together.

    Models & Mentors – ‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides”

    – David Viscott

    “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn

    “Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing” – Torquato Tasso

    “Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh

    “I love you for who I am when I’m with you”

    – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    #Haiku: Love Transfer

    The secret of breaking

    Any bad habit

    Is to love

    Something more

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Crystal Goddess – Prophecy –

    The future weighs on The Crystal Goddess, and she will not be found wanting – 

    The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. The Crystal Goddess knows the “truth’.  She knows many truths. Others may fear the truth.  People don’t want to face the truth. The continuing “losses” of age present as accretions that are hard to see. 

    But The Crystal Goddess Sees. She is an Artist, and art – especially good art – is as mysterious, meaningful and forceful as any living thing. It is predictive and presumptive. It changes as you change, and it changes depending on who is looking and how they look.

    Goddesses Understand Truth, Goddesses Accept Revelation – Visions tell us when to be afraid, Dreams warn when something is missing, Reverie uncovers all the secrets we keep from ourselves, Meditation forges pathways, Imagination rockets us heavenwards.  If the first obligation is that the truth is a predisposition of freedom,  the second, equally terrifying, is that truth is the lens of history. Goddesses spurn the hiding, lying, misrepresentation, that substitutes for truth.

    Goddess Can Handle Truth – We are human, we are imperfect, and we need each other. Humans require governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful, productive accord. The truth is also that humans who lust only for power will eternally angle to get themselves into positions of control, exclusion and punishment. These impulses must be identified and weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous goddesses also have our own lives to live.

    Goddess Danger – Intuition notifies us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Maps & models offer a variety of plans for confrontation and escape, and a recipe for courage. At the time of writing, Lethal Persons are banding together and hoarding weapons to give themselves even more guarantees for power and more opportunities to enjoy our despair.

    Goddess Promise – Jesus said evil will not win. The challenge is to explore what ELSE he said, indeed, what is the message of all the great teachers? People who tell you to hate one another and seek reasons for war are agents of evil. The first challenge is to create peace in our own hearts, peace in our own lives, peace in our own homes, and then start developing compassion for those who are not so lucky.

    When Brutal Tactics and Empty Promises are Exposed as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, we see clearly that efforts to spread and share despair come from a desire to surmount despair, also that it has never worked and is not working.  It allows the torturer the briefest respite. Only when the goal of increasing world suffering is given up can we welcome penitents back into the community of Sharing.

    Models & Mentors – “We write the future moment to moment” – Pema Chodron

    “The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and leave you to peer through for yourself” – Frank Herbert

    “The greatest thing a human soul can accomplish in this world is to see that poetry, prophecy & religion all are one”

    – John Ruskin

    “The best way to predict the future is to create it”

    – Abraham Lincoln

    “Yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not come, let us begin” – Mother Teresa

    #Haiku:  Prophecy

    Inward

    Resonates outward;

    Goddesses

    Blossom

    Inevitably

  • Becoming a Goddess – The Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Wolf Goddess – Resistance –

    Wolf Goddesses Dream of Battles – Armor up!  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?” You may be a Wolf Goddess.

    Resistance is Never Futile – We become goddesses for a reason. But what kind of goddess are we?  After all, we can’t make our contribution unless we know which kind of goddess 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 the warlords compete, waging schemes to entrap us into fighting for them. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.

    Goddess 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.

    Goddess 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.

    Goddess 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 goddess 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 perfecting 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 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

    #Haiku:  Counter-Pressure

    First –

    Relax;

    Melt;

    Slide;

    Upend

    Onslaught;

    Be attacker’s

    Banana peel

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

     Chain Goddess – Conquering Addiction –

    Uh oh. You’ve become too attached. Remember, Goddesses Rise Above – Investigate. To … what is the addition exactly?  Take it slow.  How is your attachment harming your principles? Values? Relationships? Carefully map it out.

    The Goddess’s Fiercest Battle – Do you dream of imprisonment? Blank walls? Chains? Our neurocircuitry mandates habit-making behavior, but our intelligence recognizes entrapment, and our dreams send out distress signals. If you’re human, there is no way to avoid addiction. Welcome to the Club!

    We Are Wired for Addiction – If there’s no escaping it – that means you will have to fight this battle. But the good news is, this is exactly how you become a Goddess, and Goddesses are Free. Anyone who hasn’t done investigated and broken the chains is still a slave to “factory settings” – hormones, instincts, patterning – just as animals are. Here’s the very challenge you became a Goddess for – your best chance to develop a free will and a free soul.

    Study Your Opponent – Turns out we have tremendous choice over what we become addicted to. Some addictions are less corrupting than others. Visit an AA meeting and the consumption of sugar and tobacco is outright alarming. Are you addicted to gambling? Do you work in sales? Were you raised in a ritualistic faith? We easily become dependent on praise, on safety, on gratification, and our brains (and our general health) show our dependency. These very brains threaten and panic when the “treat” is withdrawn.

    Goddess Challenge – This parasite doesn’t care if it kills the host. If you fear you are approaching a cliff-edge, you probably are. One test is to go on a “retreat” where your customary gratifications are not available, and attempt to form new, healthier gratifications, like sleep, prayer, meditation, the arts, cooking, sports, friendship. See what happens! Is your personality threatening to disintegrate?  Good! Let’s build a new one!  High time to ask yourself: who am I really? This is such a good idea, we should build it into our lives, periodically. Just to keep us recognizing that recurring cliff-edge where Soul and Self are lost.

    Goddess Danger – Free Goddesses live with the possibility that we will lose our autonomy. Most people want to evolve, know they SHOULD change, but fear they CAN’T.  There’s no shame in needing outside help. As we pointed out under “Cooperation” and “Alliances”, Goddesses need teams. This is the purpose of interventions, to demonstrate to our eyes and ears that we are harming ourselves and our relationships. Denial is a powerful defense mechanism, especially when we think we’ve finally found a substance/process that “magically” allows us to live on our particular cliff-edge – a dangerous job, risky sexual behaviors, risky recreational behaviors.

    Worst-Case Scenario – is that an addiction becomes our identity. We always have the choice of refusing to change – giving up focus, goals, principles and relationships to keep up our self-abuse. Some hardened wretches will tell anyone who listens that life itself isn’t worth it without their life-threatening self-abuse. They are choosing to die as slaves.

    Goddess Opportunity – You not only CAN free yourself, you MUST to deserve and preserve your Goddess Status. It is your spiritual obligation to live this territorial existence as an enlightenment opportunity. Familiar with the saying, “Live simply so that others may simply live” ? That mandates sharing. That means ALWAYS studying your consumption, NEVER allowing yourself to turn into a greedy pig and scheduling time to be alone with the universe and with God.  To check on the hardiness of your Soul.

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

    “All addictions are ways to not feel our feelings”

    – Ellen Burstyn

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

    – Carrie Fisher

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

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

    #Haiku: The Columbine – Addiction

    Brain cells beggared;

    Lovelorn

    Oxytocin receptors misfire:

    “Feed me!”

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Diamond Goddess – Success –

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    – Bill Gates

    #Haiku: The Future Is Now

    Quotidian

    Maps built

    From shreds of

    Daily goals –

    Invisible glue

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Rose Goddess – Vulnerability –

    Goddesses Are Vulnerable Because of Heightened Perceptions –  You wake up trembling. Are you helpless in your dreams? Do you dream of children, of your own childhood? In Goddess 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.

    Goddesses Are Temporal Because Life is Evanescent – We are human, and while we live revel in our humanity. As goddesses we defend and define youth, beauty, and humanity, in order to deserve all three.

    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 only 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 your Goddess Superpowers. Of these, long-distance perspective, serenity and mindfulness will serve you best. Comparative History explains many situations.

    Goddess Protections – Our Training, our Mental Agility, our Commitments, our Alliances – and most especially our long multiverse worldview. Others may surrender and fade away, but as we are designed for eternal power, we relish the bliss of Sight, Feeling and Thought. It is the essence of life to struggle, to mentally picture a goal and to design and redesign a gorgeous, life-changing, vision-enhancing map for all who follow.

    Goddess 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 powers of a hardening maturity?

    Goddesses Preserve & Build  – We do not destroy. The philosophy of “annihilation” is a psychic snare. Ultimate obliteration is up to God alone. 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.

    Goddess 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 Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Vine Goddess – Dependency –

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    #Haiku: Dis – Ability

    Limitations dissolve

    Hand in hand we

    Surmount

    Mental boundaries

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Wildflower Goddess – Beauty –

    Are Goddesses Shy? – Our elevated plane makes others suspect Goddesses seek exposure and acclaim. Not so the Wildflower Goddess, who thrives in secret, out of the limelight. 

    Goddesses Are Comfortable Alone – Are your dreams so beautiful you regret waking up? Do you imagine possessing great beauty yourself, caressing another’s gorgeous flesh, or having a dream lover turn those diamond eyes on you? Do you dream of beautiful places, caverns, waterfalls, chapels – that are spectacular in their glamor? We are all visual learners, attracted to beauty, hypnotized by color. Our relationship to the universe is naturally worshipful.

    Goddesses Don’t Waste Time Admiring Themselves – We’re here to preserve the beauty of the natural world, and of others. We alert when the planet slips into disharmony, but our love of beauty suggests how it can be restored.

    Beauty Is a Guide to Order and an education in symmetry. Wildflowers’ magnificence is otherworldly. It stands in contrast to the managed world which constantly attempts to freeze & fetishize the ephemeral, even the eternal. Wildflowers’ mysterious evanescence suggests what true beauty is. To become a servant of the seasons is to fill our lives to overflowing with constant pleasure.

    Train Your Goddess Eye – Take joy in your surroundings. Japanese samurai practice flower arranging, for the purpose not only of relaxation, but discernment. As there is “forest bathing”, so there is “flower bathing.” But nature is wide and we are part of it. The Goddess Mandate is vast and all encompassing. Puppies doing anything, kittens doing everything, a dance class of toddlers (all doing the wrong thing), flowers coming up through cement, a piece of brilliant stained glass on a battered utility truck, a book of cave paintings, the swirl in our coffee, old photographs, our beloved’s sleepy morning face – once you start “collecting”,  you realize beauty is all around you.

    Look in the Mirror – That is what beauty is – those lines, those scars, each one a history. That light behind the eyes is a directing soul, in tune with its guardian angel. Accept yourself.  It is necessary for the Goddess to love Self, in order to truly See, much less Love –  others.

    Unclutter Your Soul – Clutter is frustrating for the brain. We all love sharing beautiful pictures, but aggressively, officiously  “beautiful” people have been hogging the space. Be discriminating in the cherished mind-pictures that you gather.  Think of the wildflower. Is endless staging the path to joy or depression?

    Goddess Danger – We find ourselves caught in a frenzy of “likes”. A “like” button can have a plethora of meanings, but if we don’t take care, we will begin to “need” likes the way a drunk needs booze. Otherwise we fear we’re nothing. Specious approval from strangers – or at least attention – can never fill your heart. The quiet joy of certain pleasure inside your own head as you follow your bliss –– that’s lasting pleasure. Relax, refresh, renew.

    Models & Mentors –  “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it” – Confucius

    “Beauty is a light in the heart” – Khalil Gibran

    “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself” – Coco Chanel

    “Don’t think of all the misery but the beauty that remains” – Anne Frank

    “Beauty is reality seen with the eyes of love” – Rabindranath Tagore

    #Haiku: Hold Still Forever

    Beauty

    Herded toward capture –

    Resist!

    Reserve your right to

    Disappoint

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Birdsong – Art

    Goddesses Share the Power of Their Vision – to those whose Souls Cry Out for Definition – Birds sing. It’s who they are. Goddesses dream of artistic products – paintings, sculpture, film – and artistic endeavors such as performance and construction. Do you get ideas for fresh pieces and experience exciting nonconformist thinking that seem to evaporate upon waking?

    Art is Our Reason for Being – Art is the judge of our poetic confrontation with the world, the cure and the cause.  It is also our prime avenue for non-verbal healing. Only non-verbal healing can address pain that can’t be quantified.

    Art is a Language – Develop Your Own – Your inner self is signaling to you that it is time for you to explore art expression – mastering its terms, and to start inventing terms of your own. Only art can establish the secure connection with others required to nourish you now.

    Everyone Connects Through Art  – Every single one of us chooses mode and objects of expression, consciously or unconsciously, every single day. We buy one object over another because it gives us pleasure; we arrange our living spaces to express some intangible quality about ourselves – a self-definition that signals to others who we are and where we are on our journey.

    Artists & Goddesses  Are Free – Art demands individuality. We begin by copying but we must move on to expressing our uniqueness or our soul can’t evolve. If we are happy being part of an unthinking mass we are truly “unborn.”  This exploration will grant you a deep peace about being alone with yourself, a strong confidence in who you really are and a feeling of spiritual value.

    Art Offers New Battles to Fight – This journey is awkward at first, and in other people’s eyes it may remain awkward forever. Why wouldn’t you copy what’s popular? Why not mimic the uncontroversially successful? The problem is, while you are doing that the core of your self-hood is dying like an unwatered plant. And if your soul is dying, you are dying. Also, being bullied by the “art enforcers” is not what goddesses can tolerate.

    Sometimes We Bully Ourselves Worse – Perfection is not the answer – it is the enemy. Remember – we flee stagnation. Our soul’s “perfecting never reaches an end – that’s the definition of immortality. Constantly shaming yourself as a no-talent, pretending poseur is horrifyingly destructive to your precious infant specialness struggling for life.

    Goddesses Support Themselves – The fact that a work is unsuccessful, even a horrific mess, doesn’t mean it isn’t an advance for your vision, insight and style. These are the building blocks of creation. Don’t get hung up on approval. You need teachers, not fans. Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

    Models & Mentors – “Creativity takes courage” – Henri Matisse

    “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” – Henry David Thoreau

    “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight without vision” – Helen Keller

    “You were born an original, don’t die a copy” – Jon Mason

    “Life beats down and crushes the art in your soul to remind you that you have one” – Stella Adler

    “There are no rules, only confidence, aplomb, style & joy” – Neil Gaiman

    #Haiku: Disclaimer

    I don’t write haiku

    They write me

    Jaw slack

    Eyes closed

    Ego playing

    Dead