Alysse Aallyn

Category: Creativity

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

    4. CALESITA –THE MERRY GO ROUND

    EVA
    Did I leave my diary behind?
    Don’t read it, not that you would.
    It’s anaphrodisiac. I am filled with envious admiration
    For the way you spend your time.
    It’s an incentive to work, being alone.
    Diplomats are never lonely.

    EVAN
    My bed gets so icy in the small hours of the morning –
    I am losing interest in sex.
    Perhaps I am already part of the spirit world.
    I am in limbo and will never escape this place.

    The teenager remains alive in me, I have a
    Panic fear of conformity
    So I cast myself as the elderly rake.
    I fear I’m the bore –
    Marriage gets me down.

    EVA
    When you go on and on about yourself
    You’re a man I don’t recognize.
    I prefer your adolescent self.
    The man of the house should be a free agent.
    A respected prowler
    Never lonely, housebound,
    Eating baked beans and drinking stewed tea.

    EVAN
    In other countries women
    Are less bossy and more decorative.
    You are jealous of my life –
    I am jealous of yours.

    EVA
    Ah the pain of your reproach!
    Not seeing you would kill me.
    I live for the memory of our every moment.
    I wouldn’t give a damn if I died tomorrow.

    EVAN
    This is the letter I would write you if I dared,
    if I weren’t frightened by the cancer
    Of your wife-hatred.
    I am overworked, wrung out.
    Possessed by you.

    You make me live at the pitch of anguish.
    Our love has roots in good and evil,
    It lives in the darkest places of our natures
    Shall we end by destroying each other?
    You have the deadlier weapons.

    EVA
    I do have a bad effect on people.
    Guilt, conspiracy, love,
    I cannot breathe without them.

    EVAN
    Boredom, dissipation, remorse,
    And apprehension– I can’t escape this obsessive cycle.
    Beneath the controlled surface of my mind
    Opportunities to be frenzied are endless.
    I’m afraid of saying something ruthless which many stick.

    EVA
    This place is full of you.
    I can no longer look at hyacinths
    Gratitude for our happiness chokes me.
    The restlessness of pleasure going to waste.
    Missing you is like an illness.

    EVAN
    If there’s a worm in this bud
    Who is the corruptor?
    Your insights are so powerful they alter mine.

    EVA
    I believe we should exchange rings.
    Is this a faux pas? Would your wife object?
    I need something in case you die of your itch or
    I fall out of an airplane.

    I wonder why Elayna’s throat won’t heal?
    I believe she is ice-bound.
    Sealing you away from life.

    EVAN
    You witch, you have
    Frozen poor Elayna’s throat.
    I begged you not to. You make all
    Suffering physical.

    EVA
    Elayna’s frozen her own throat –
    I wish you’d see it.
    Depression is hallucinatory.
    Guilt and sorrow undermine my confidence,
    I refuse to give them credence.

    EVAN
    I’m grateful when we talk calmly,
    Our fearful scenes seem so long ago.
    I’m sure the panic of youth has played its part.
    I used to hope you would love me less over time
    But now I think we love each other equally.

    EVA
You are so near me I feel we are one person.
    I feel you now beside me.
    I will make you real.

    EVAN
    I feel your longing
    As I fear your signaling.
    I owe you happiness
    But I can’t express it.
    We must believe life is as beautiful as music
    Says it is.

    EVA
    The illusions we cultivate are
    A form of courage.
    Forget my deficiencies
    Find amusement in the worldly game.

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

    3. LATIGAZO – WHIPPING

    EVAN
    Do you really love me?
    Why should you?
    I don’t any longer
    Believe In friendship.

    EVA
    It is a horror, an outrage
    That we should not be together. I struggle against
    The wound of not knowing where you are each minute.
    Everything you do is more important to me than my own life.
    The whole of me is with you.
    I see and feel you so distinctly,
    Your beloved cold hand in mine
    Your touch on the nape of my neck.

    Joy and agony
    – my insides torn by pincers.
    A double goodbye would have been awful
    – two bites on the bullet of pain.

    This love is like something we have given birth to.
    We must never blunt our imagination or tenderness.
    Don’t get a cold in your soul.

    EVAN
    Are these abortive suicide attempts?
    I disappoint everyone.
    Cut the cable. Set me free.

    I deliberately left one of your letters for Elayna to find.

    With me love is linked with
    A need to betray. I invite possessiveness.
    She made me promise our love would never be physical.
    I lied fluidly.

    EVA
    Even the thought of
    Such a loss of pleasure tears at my heart
    Like some medieval torture.

    You harrow me unbearably.
    My defenses are down.
    I’m filled me with a sense of ghastly injury.
    How I wish I were more beautiful –
    It’s my mouth that ages me.
    It reveals my greedy secrets.

    I want you seeing all of me –
    Even if it hurts. My work
    Is my legacy –
    You are your own child.
    You preserve your youth with the harm
    That you cause.

    I feel I am dead and already
    Interred – in you.
    You are my eternity.

    EVAN
    Repressed boredom causes blocks
    You can’t have everything.
    I am kept aloft by the conflict of
    Unbearables.
    It makes me happy.

    EVA
    If our dancing life is over –
    Should I enter a convent?
    There’s no point in being alive
    if we’re not together.
    I show my deepest self to you alone.

    EVAN
    Please – no more shaming conversations
    Over Irish whisky. Let’s cut our losses
    And get some fun from life.
    Your miraculous capacities awaken
    My belief in myself.

    EVA


    The gash in our love might close
    But I’ll never forget it’s there.
    Life with you is a remote happiness to which I cling

    EVAN
    And all this time you write such
    Fantastic books. If you were as unhappy as you say,
    You couldn’t write so well.
    I’m proud to be
    The whetstone on which you sharpen –
    I should be thanked for all your works.

    Writing to you
    Makes me itch with a beastly itch –
    Exhilarated, punch drunk
    Feeling your enthrallment
    Despite the day’s malaise.

    I can’t put my heart back in the hollow
    Where it used to be.
    You force me to see
    Myself.

    At the peak of my ambition,
    Beauty and power curdle within me.
    People are so easily fooled, so
    Satisfied with little
    identify my performance with my Soul.

    You’ve spoiled me for everything.
    Stop warning me you’ll take a lover –
    I don’t own your life and never aspired to.
    There is heartbreak here, but is the ghost in the house
    Or in me? We argue about who has the worst friends,
    But our friends are all the same. Please
    Send another psychic telegram, “You’re the One.”

    EVA
    Your last screed was a masterpiece.
    I believe writing it
    Creates that eczema from which
    You say you suffer.
    My friends at Tosca said it’s bad manners
    To make a depressing fuss
    And get other people down.

    EVAN
    Is the strength I draw from you a fairy tale?
    I am appalled by the joint misery we feel.
    Why should we not rebel?

    EVA
    You shed your light around me.
    If only we could stand each other.
    You’ll keep the blood
    Running in my veins
    Threatening to spill.

    EVAN
    Someone said I look ten years younger
    From drinking your life, I’m sure.
    I need my own room because I sleep badly and
    I like to roam at night.

    Tosca is too emotional to be good taste
    But I’m happy you enjoyed it.
    I feel far from you right now but
    Underneath
    I’m outrageously glad.

    EVA
    Your diplomacy fascinates me.
    Your mettle is the stuff of history.
    When young I resisted education
    Like a fool – But
    It makes everything comprehensible.
    What kills me is having to deal with people.

    I tie myself up writing
    Imaginary conversations with you –
    It’s possible you’re a creature of
    My invention. Our pattern seems set –
    Or is it?
    If treachery can’t break it,
    There is no death.

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Miracles – Love

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are surrounded by magical possibilities. Are you dreaming of eternal bliss? Floating in connectedness? In Love the boundaries of the other disappear, all is forgiveness. Merge fearlessly, knowing you will be able to get yourself back any time, soothed, improved, and healed.

    We Are Creatives for Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. This is the space that creatives 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 about miracles but it seems we have forgotten. As creatives 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 a dead universe come alive.

    Love Is Our 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 creatives who came before us. Someone loved us once, eternalizing the golden moment, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic by creating our own miracles.

    Creative Danger – Danger lies in narrowing, exclusionary definitions of what ‘can’t” happen, what “won’t” work. Creatives explode restrictions all the time. 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 narrow gratification, Love dies.

    Creative Opportunity – Love Is always a Miracle – It can restore the dead to life. It can open minds, it can awaken hearts. The possibilities of a creative are endless because we have chosen, with our flexibility and our sympathetic 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 and the limits 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

    “Miracles don’t happen to you, they happen through you.” – Mary Davis

    “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

    “You’ve got to see the miracle to be the miracle.” – Jandy Nelson

    “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

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Peace – Serenity

      If This Archetype Chooses You – You need to learn to enjoy yourself. Enjoy your time off. Do you find your reveries organized around beaches, vacations, relaxation, memories of happy times when you had nothing to do but bliss out; feeling only the moment?

      Peace is Possible. Serenity is an Idea. Most of us are familiar with the “serenity prayer” written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

      “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right.“

      The Serenity Prayer works as an inoculation against pointless worry, which is seen as “borrowing trouble.”

      Creative Challenge – Like meditation, serenity is a mental state that takes practice. Make a list of your most pressing concerns. Can you do anything about any of them today? If so, appoint a time when you will take a step towards resolving this concern. If you can’t do anything about it, put it forcefully out of your mind. Imagine your worries as a bunch of balloons. Now let them go, one by one. Put each useless worry on a piece of paper and burn them slowly, one by one.

      Creative Mantra – Give yourself a “serenity mantra” a word or phrase you find comforting and centering, and repeat it out loud to yourself. St. Julian of Norwich recommended: ”All will be well”, Coué offered, “Every day, in every way I am getting better and better”, some yoga enthusiasts chant a simple “Om.” You can use a phrase from your own past said to you by a Beloved Person – “now you’ll be fine” “You’re safe” “You’re perfect” “Everything’s all right” or the tried and true: “I love you.” My favorite is from the Book of Revelation: “Every tear is wiped away.”

      Creative Danger – Don’t be tempted to become a mentor while you’re still learning. Creatives want to be helpful but this is a snare. Mentoring is an end-of-life honor, but you are still placing the oxygen mask on your own face so that you can stay on your plan. Show friends the basics but don’t walk them through it. You’re busy.

      FOMO – We are all worried about “missing” something. Often that “centering person”, that reassuring person from our past is not just the one who gave us the relaxation code, but is also the same one who told us what to worry about: ie. ”Make sure all the locks are locked” “Have you done your homework?” There certainly are things to be concerned about (“Are you registered to vote?”) but there are plenty of worries we CAN’T address. Return to the serenity prayer and start weeding out – on paper – your Justifiable Concerns. One of the best things about Anxiety – and I mean this – is that it offers an opportunity to ask for help. Yes, I say “opportunity”! Because life is all about RELATIONSHIPS.

      Worries can be Chances to Forge Meaningful, Worthwhile Relationships. Get ready to experiment. As with any other relationship in your life, your requirements, tolerance, communication goals are unique. Many people yearn to speak to a “professional” – therapist or life coach – and plenty of professionals out there are auditioning for a little – or a lot – of your hard-earned cash. An excellent place to start is with Proven Gurus like Tolle Eckhart or Pema Chodron who can be accessed for free from any library. See what you think. Evaluate their assistance. Inquire further.

      Creatives Know What They Must Do – Others are envious that we have laid out a plan for our lives, that it is flexible, that it is life-enhancing and that it gives us permission to Enjoy. Be humble about this jealousy, but don’t get dragged into making others “feel better” about being stymied. They may be seeking fellowship in their tarpit.

      You’re Entitled – Others also could find peace if they began to take control of the drama that rages within them. Point them in a hopeful direction but don’t agree to sit idly with them in their misery. Don’t get sucked in.

      Meditation Looks Like Dreaming – The secret is, there is enormous pleasure in being a creative. You finally feel your strength, and when you know the value of your time, you feel your own value. This is what others yearn for. They can learn it, too. But in the mean time you are enjoying your hard-fought serenity.

      We Need So Little to Be Happy – This is the great realization. One bowl, one mat, one dawn. The comfort of another’s presence or the pleasure of your own thoughts. The joy of another morning, another night’s rest. The confidence of a clear head. Welcome to the Universe.

      Models & Mentors – “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” – The Dalai Lama

      “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

      “Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action make up the sum of life”
      – Vita Sackville-West

      “Enjoy the peace of nature and declutter your inner world” – Amit Ray

      #Haiku: Peace – Serenity

      Melting heart;
      Compassion
      Purges
      Life’s shudders
      Restores
      Unruffled Depth

    1. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Empaths & Sensitives with Alysse Aallyn

      The Labyrinth – Respect Complexity

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Is our brain’s labyrinth powerful enough to solve the universe’s complexity? Each of us experiences slow-growing learning difficulties as we heave from infancy into psychic awareness. How are we going to figure out the space-time continuum? In order to tackle these vast problems we have to get some sense of their dimensions.

      Are You Dreaming of the Impossible? Last night I dreamed of being at a resort where people were able to run across the top of the ocean playing a curling game – but they had to move fast. I couldn’t figure out what kept their feet above the waves. Later it was my job to provide lunch but the food at the little store was appalling. Very little bread, all stale – some weird canned vegetables, no protein other than some very suspect cheese. I was so relieved to wake up!

      Don’t Try This Alone – Life is very complex. We are bombarded with daily reminders that many of its problems are too big for our tiny brains to tackle alone. We need help deconstructing and deciphering the maze – we require the assistance of legions of engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and artists – living and dead. Our mythic history is nothing but re-runs of: Tiny Human Confronts Huge Universe.

      Is Your God Too Small? – We have a regrettable tendency to try to solve problems by reducing them to the size of our individual brains. Don’t. There’s no shame in admitting the problem is of awe-inspiring size; there’s no shame in requesting help. But any concept of God must be of something mightier than our own understanding, our problems, bigger even than space and time.

      Creatives Are Puzzle Solvers – There is a way out of this labyrinth. You can follow string, leave breadcrumbs, mark walls, climb higher to get a birds’ eye view. You can call in a favor, study history, learn a skill, consult experts, request advice, find out what’s worked in the past. My favorite cartoon shows a goat calmly eating his way through maze walls. The key, problem solvers tell you, is not to panic. Whole years of primary education are devoted to getting you to sit down, breathe calmly and focus on the problem. Remember what you have been taught. Recall your goals.

      Creative Challenge – It is not necessary to solve the entire problem to solve a problem. Even a blind rat can get through a maze one step at a time. Algebra came into being to manipulate unknowns. Guessing at the existence of x using the behavior of surrounding particles allows us to see without eyes. Many “hacks” are clever, and certain innovators have a gift for adaptation and reconfiguration. We can always use help. We can always form teams. Repeat after me: “All my problems have some solution.” Often the solution is viewing the “problem” differently. Maybe it isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity.

      Creative Danger – Primary dangers consist of Panic (inability to think) and Defeatist Thinking (lack of imagination). The lovely movie The Martian shows a scientist literally conquering the impossible. If you ”give up”, you’ll never get there, but retreat, reconstitution, changing training regimens and getting help are NOT giving up. Promoting your physical health and “Sleeping on it” are always good advice, as is viewing the difficulty from some other angle or changing the definitions of the entities considered.

      Creative Opportunity – Key to success is fostering excitement about challenges. Our high school used to dump couples in the countryside at night and give a prize to the first couple who found their way home! (Following roads and train tracks always a good idea.) Scavenger hunts and orienteering cover much the same territory. The fact that a problem is difficult only makes it more fun. Ask chess players.

      Models & Mentors – “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity”
      – Douglas Horton

      “The labyrinth combines walking and thinking to open your power of imaginative perception” – Lauren Artress

      “Willingness to be puzzled is a valuable trait to cultivate” – Noam Chomsky

      “In a maze, find the center, in a labyrinth, find yourself” – Alysse Aallyn

      “Life is a puzzle, missing pieces guaranteed and you can’t cheat and look at the box” – Anonymous

      # Haiku: Every Book is a Zen Book

      Puzzle
      Words –
      Assume
      Solution –
      Labyrinths
      Demand
      Escape;
      Look
      Up

    2. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      The Thief – Dispossessed

      If This Archetype Chooses You – you’re boiling inside. You’re so mad you can’t think straight. You had something and now it’s gone – you have less. It was stolen from you by some trickster. The fact that you stole it originally and you’re a thief too isn’t making you any happier. You were supposed to get this thing, you were in line for it, and now all bets are off.

      Broken Dreams – Do you dream of plunder? Strong rooms? Treasure palaces? Security systems?

      If Property Is Theft, then We’re all Thieves – Don’t covet, says the Bible. Don’t envy. But we are born with a sense of loss we spend lifetimes trying to remedy. Something has been taken from us, but what? This “politics of grievance” has always waged a peculiar power, seemingly breeding the anger and revenge that come so naturally to the human genome. “If something has been taken from me I will take something from you.” Yet our loss remains amorphous. We cling to the concept that we were “entitled” to something we no longer have. Philosophers and psychologists speculate; is it the mother’s womb? The family nest? What exactly is this lost paradise?

      Only Creatives Are Truly Free – Creatives own nothing. We are not interested in acquiring burdens but in freeing the human psyche of its pinions. To do that, we must first free ourselves.

      Don’t Chain Yourself to a Nightmare – There is much talk nowadays that “the American Dream” is no longer possible. Very relevant to our study of The Creative Oracle! Dreams & visions are our specialty! But what was that “dream”, exactly? It was a mystical concept of “wholeness” – family, life, work, rewards – that always shifted according to who you are and from where you are looking.

      Once You are Part of a “Team” – even if just a team of two – the look can change dramatically. Is that a loss or a gain? Depends on what you see as value, and what as “hoarding”? We know if we eat more than our cells can burn we get fat, and that if we eat too much too fast we will choke. How can we slip psychically through this physically demanding life, light as a feather, bright as sunlight, strong as fire, without acquiring the very accretions – the barnacles – that slow us down, encumber and defeat us?

      By Becoming Creatives, That’s How! We no longer fill our tombs with the junk of real life for use in the Great Beyond, “terra cotta servants” who will “wake” to wait on us hand and foot. We are always required to satisfy ourselves with strictly “mental” pictures. Is the detachment of elder-hood a triumph of success or a long wail of departure?

      You Can’t Take It With You and You Don’t Want To – Not if you expect to fly! The “de-cluttering” movement did us all an enormous favor. Marie Kondo asked us to rid ourselves of every object that does not “spark joy”. That’s a high standard! We soon discover that daily life stirs up a lot of “necessary” detritus sparking joy in literally no one but is a hardship and a misery to live without. Probably the best way to free ourselves is to challenge the entitlement mystique with a philosophy of sharing.

      Creative Danger – The whole principle of capitalism is to benefit from the work of others. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the grievances THAT can stir up. And yet “state” ownership churns up grievances of its own. Ownership itself is always fraught with exclusion, hostility, and danger. The nature of the Creative is to “Be” rather than to “own”. Can we still enjoy the world if it doesn’t belong to us and we don’t belong to it? Creatives say Yes!

      Creative Challenge – Do we still possess objects when we are not physically present? Can we ever possess people? Do we WANT to take responsibility for another’s entire existence? How do our dreams of freedom comport with our dreams of possession? Who – or what – is held captive? Creatives deliberately loosen the bonds – mentally and spiritually – but this is a way of life that must be refreshed daily due to the temporal demands of our physical existence. That means creatives forgive ourselves daily.

      Being a Creative Means Acknowledging That Wounds are a condition of our physical existence. Creatives come to terms with their wounds, evaluating them, celebrating them (often giving thanks for them), creating conceptual art projects about them and strategizing around them.

      Many Wounds come from happenstance, birth order, parental crises, national dilemmas, international catastrophes. We’re all pushed out of the nest before we’re ready.

      Models & Mentors – “The more stuff I donated the more I was able to breathe, the more trash I threw away, the more weight I felt was lifted, the more I was able to see a new life, the more joy I found” – Zina Harrington

      “Clutter is postponed decisions” – Barbara Hemphill

      “Life is your masterpiece. Edit frequently and ruthlessly” – Nathan W. Morris

      “To the spoils belong the victor” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

      “Freedom is the oxygen of the soul” – Moshe Dayan

      #Haiku: The Thief

      If
      Property’s theft:
      My greed’s your crime
      I consume –
      Disperse –
      Your evidence.

    3. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      Chamomile – Healing Rituals

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Let’s access the gifts of the Creative. Let the healing begin. Are you a believer in magic? Do you dream of restoration, of nostalgia, of lost youth?

      Creatives Believe in Magic – Bravely, we put ourselves in the way of harm, and harm is done to us. But we believe in the magic of restoration through transformation. These scars, these wounds, these experiences make us smarter, harder, brighter and more beautiful.

      Understand the Meaning of Your Scars – These are life’s tattoos, which have ennobled you. It is your honor to embody the story of the universe with your blood and your bone. But it is the Creative’s Brain that brings us closest to God. The mystery of suffering is that it educates us into the greatest mystery of all – that God is willing to suffer with us because Love means holding each other through pain and infusing our strength into another’s sadness.

      Bow To Each Other – Show Respect – We are each other’s masters, we are each other’s pupils, we are each other’s lovers, siblings and rescuers. Drinking ginger tea from translucent porcelain cups, we lift our cups to each other. We bathe together in steaming pools. I release you as you release me. When darkness falls, we touch one another’s hands before departing. If we can bear it, we touch bodies.

      Creatives Recognize That We Cannot Diagnose Ourselves – We offer ourselves for the universe’s good and so it takes a world to cure us. Healing and diagnosis alike will come from the welcome lips of another. It has been scientifically proven that even plants respond to kind words. We yearn for the laying on of hands, for the gentle rituals that pass us from one stage of life to another.

      Creative Challenge – Paradoxically, no “medicine” can succeed unless we “accept” our healing spiritually. We must feel “worthy” of restoration. What are we fighting for? Think deeply. We are not self-punishing but stating as clearly as we can that life is valuable in all its forms. If you are only as “young” as you feel, are we only as “healthy” as we allow ourselves to be? Forgive yourself. Accept change. Contrary to our fears, it is change that keeps us young.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      #Haiku: I Don’t Know

      Admit ignorance
      No shame –
      It’s healthy –
      Empty glass
      Asks for water

    4. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      The Thistle – Resistance

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Armor up. It’s coming. Are you feeling muzzled? Do you dream of battles? 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 creatives for a reason. But what kind of creatives 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 while international corporate overlords compete, waging schemes to entrap us into fighting for them. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.

      Creative 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.

      Creative 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.

      Creative 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 creative 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 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

    5. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      The Statue – Law

      If This Archetype Chooses You – You have a legal issue. Is there some illegality in your secret life? Are you stepping over lines in public or private? Remember, lawbreakers break themselves.

      Do You Dream of Judges? Lawyers? Court? Are you obsessed with TV programs about justice? When justice is delayed or denied, do you obsess about that? Are you feeling unjustly punished? Do you envy or rage against those who have “gotten away with something”?

      Creative’s Desire for Justice is Hardwired – Do you envy or rage against those who have “gotten away with something”? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” In my view, the mere concept of Complete Justice is heaven enough. We are repeatedly warned that it won’t ever match our earthly ideologies, that we are children scrapping in a sandbox who haven’t noticed, much less comprehended, the real issues.

      What Is Our Armor? – What laws resonate with you? Do you believe in karma? How would you define it? What laws make you angry? Which laws would you modify? What is your attitude towards the police – protectors of order or agents of mayhem? Dick Nixon was famous for talking endlessly about “restoring law and order” until just before he was forced to resign because of his multiple crimes. Many Trump followers insist everything Trump has done is “justified because Democrats are worse.” Is this a race to the bottom? Where’s the off-ramp?

      Creative Danger – “Judge not lest ye be judged” is a scary proposition. How would we come off if our standards were used against us? Come to think of it, what are our standards? Are they fluid? Flexible? Jesus also said the “letter” i.e. “written rule” KILLS. That it’s the “spirit that gives life.”

      Law Is Our Armor – Creatives dream of a “spirit-filled” Law. Maybe you wanted to go to Law School but life intervened. It’s never too late to study any subject that’s close to our heart. We become creatives because we wish for heroes; I think that’s the sole reason for the wild popularity of the Marvel movie series.

      Do You Admire Heroes Because They Break the Rules, or because they uphold them? We acknowledge the need for rules, but how can we make sure they’re “spirit-filled”? In what areas of your life are you too rigid? In which are you too flexible? Imagine yourself speaking in court, making a case for yourself. What arguments would you give? Ask your dreams to start imagining a Justice World. How would it look?

      Models & Mentors – “Law is not law if it violates the principles of eternal justice” – Lydia Maria Child

      “The only stable state is one where all are equal before the law” – Aristotle

      “Law is the public conscience” – Thomas Hobbes

      ‘Able in argument, accurate in analysis, strict in study, candid with clients and honest with adversaries, today I shall not, to win a point, lose my soul” – St. Thomas More

      “If we desire respect for the law, we must make law respectable” – Louis D. Brandeis

      #Haiku: Karma

      Come round –
      Go round.
      Love reaps love
      Law reaps
      Justice
      Violence reaps
      Whirlwind.

    6. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      Age – Wisdom

      If This Archetype Chooses You –Because you require an experienced hostage negotiator to help free you it is time to make peace with your elders. Have you been dreaming of old people? Funerals? Aging in general? Dreaming of gurus atop mountains? Buddhas, caves, palaces of wisdom? Or are you fixating on a specific elder who had an influence – bad or good – on your young life?

      Creatives’ Effort Is Sacred – Failure is when you don’t try. Experience is the great teacher. Bad Judgment leads to Experience which leads to Wisdom which leads to Good Judgment.

      You Are Wiser Than You Know –– Contrast elders you admire with those you avoid. Aren’t the latter complainers who stress to everyone they meet what a bad hand life has dealt them? They complain about their health, politics, the weather, other people – whatever crosses the windscreen of their increasingly tightening minds. In their world children never call, doctors don’t help, media is lying, weather’s getting worse, food is adulterated and we are all going to hell. This person is clamoring ever more loudly for ego strokes without apparently noticing the discomfort and distaste of those around them. Rather than trying a new strategy, they step up their whingeing.

      Read the Room! Is what you want to scream at them but you realize they can no longer “learn.” This is the opposite of wisdom. This is senility. A brain is shutting down, a personality is beggared and no one wants to be around it.

      Think of an Elder you Admire. Nelson Mandela, Joe Biden, St. Joan, Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Pema Chodron, the Pope? These persons are Ego-Less. Someone who talks about others, not themselves. They authentically care for others. They discuss ideas rather than gossip and have a long memory of problems, solutions, trial and error. They keep themselves “young” in all the ways that matter. People flock to them.

      There’s an Old Cherokee Story about how each of us is born with a good wolf and a bad wolf inside of us. The one that gets stronger and takes control is the one you feed. Your challenge is to figure out how to practice your increasing wisdom every day. Accepting your dreams and encouraging their deepening understanding is the beginning of wisdom.

      The Pursuit of Gurus is Inherently Dangerous because there are a lot of con artists out there seeking hostages and slaves. Avoid dominance/submission games and people who use any of the following interpersonal techniques:

      1. They’re never “wrong.” Nothing is ever their fault. Only they know what is fashionable, appropriate and right. You are always wrong.
      2. Circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting – They are the gate-keepers of reason and you the thirsty aspirant who will never succeed without their help.
      3. People only capable of hierarchical – vertical, not horizontal relationships. Someone needs to be “on top.” It will never be “your turn.” You will always be dragooned into doing their bidding.
      4. Blanket statements and generalizations – Thick layers of protective blather will keep you from getting through to discuss any task at hand.
      5. Misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity – You are a poorly educated simplistic thinker and a deficient reasoner and they are in on all the secrets and are the source of all wisdom. There’s no “cooperating” with these people.
      6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts – Different rules for everyone and every day.
      7. Changing the subject to evade accountability – “This is your fault – You shouldn’t have given me that job to begin with.”
      8. Covert and overt threats –“If people know what you REALLY are, say, do, no one would be your friend.”
      9. Name-calling , stigmatizing, limiting– “Identity politics.” “You are a _” Fill in the blank. And that’s all you’ll ever be in this guy’s eyes.
      10. Destructive conditioning – Abuse, frustration and disrespect are this person’s calling archetypes but it’s never their fault that they live in a cloud of toxicity. They want you in there, too. Decline.
      11. Smear campaigns and stalking – Endless power struggles. “Office politics.” Need I say more?
      12. Playing the Martyr – “Everyone’s lying about me. I have so many enemies!”
      13. Demands Immediate Unthinking Fealty – When someone stresses the fact that they are a “nice guy” or girl, that you should “trust them” right away or emphasizes their credibility without any provocation from you whatsoever, WALK AWAY.
      14. Baits and badgers you – testing your limits. Can you be made to lose control?
      15. Boundary testing – “You owe me” – “You’re committed” – “Everyone does it” to drag you into unethical enterprise
      16. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes – “Can’t you laugh about yourself? Everyone else is laughing.”
      17. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone – Know-It-Alls

      No One Using the Above Techniques has your best interests at heart.

      Our Scars Define Beauty – You can see this is all about Control. Avoid those who seek to control or dominate you. Revered Elders such as those mentioned above would not do that. Treat others with respect and expect respect yourself.

      Creatives Know Their Allies – Creatives don’t fear becoming experienced. We seek it. People come and go, but the right ones stay. Time shows you the difference between the strength and honor of another’s heart. Creatives share their knowledge.

      Creatives Can Read the Signs – If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. Train yourself to trust yourself. You can read and write maps, you can interpret Nature, you see Red Flags before they wave for others.

      Creatives Earn Peace – Random acts of kindness make everyone feel better. Creatives’ “can do” attitude spreads peace. Creatives welcome other peaceful spirits. We challenge the troubled to take their drama elsewhere.

      Models & Mentors – “You can’t control the wind but you can learn to adjust your sails.” – Jimmy Dean

      “It always seems impossible till it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

      “Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens” – Jimi Hendrix

      “I am thankful to those who said No. Because of them, I did it myself.”
      – Albert Einstein

      “Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley

      “It is never too late to be who you might have been” – George Eliot

      ‘Wisdom is the journey no one can take for us” – Marcel Proust

      #Haiku: Noble Heart

      Sit
      In peace
      Regift
      The rubble of your life:
      Wreckage
      Belongs to All.