Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Family

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

    The Lovers = ALLIANCES: “Best Friends”


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


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

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


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

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


    The Duel

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

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

      Inspiration=INTUITION “Shock Pool”

        We are trying to choose, that means cultivating discernment. What is “discernment”? It really means just any
        old soulmate won’t do. But how do we cultivate
        the skills of discernment? Well, a major one is intuition. It is intuition that leads to “inspiration” ; that sudden “knowing” – ‘I feel like I’ve known him all my life.
        Science says we subconsciously collect subliminal signals.

        The danger comes from a cultural problem
        that women have been encouraged to bond with men they’re not chemically attracted to but might be seen as a “good fit” for social reasons, and discouraged from developing their sexual intuition. Guess what? You won’t find your soulmate that way!

        Men, however, make too many life decisions based on status or surface impressions – they don’t wait
        around to perceive “the beauty within.” The moral of this conundrum is: Pay attention to your gut, but don’t allow your gut to boss you! Question it. Think about it. Think of the love you have received in your life and where it came from. Sometimes love potential reveals itself slowly.

        The magic of the Garden comes from Inspiration. Inspiration is the breath the Life Force moves through us – we can’t summon it and we can’t control it. When lost, we greatly mourn its absence. But when we feel its power we are elevated above ourselves. We feel we can do anything we choose. Afterwards we wake feverish, as if from a dream. As every artist and designer knows, work is more than Inspiration, but without its occasional visits work is nothing; tasteless, lifeless and void.

        Artists always have a strong sense that inspiration comes from the “outside”, not from anything “within”. It uses the component of our minds and lives and forces us to “reach outwards” into the universe of resources to answer its call. Art without inspiration is just plain hard work. Unfortunately, there will be many times Inspiration sketches out a plan and then moves on. We know the plan is Inspired but now we must implement it! Late nights & elbow grease! Inspiration can be compared to Love. Both unaccountably come and go. Just because one isn’t feeling momentarily loving about a soulmate doesn’t mean that Love has Fled – in fact it usually just means we’re facing an onslaught of effort. Life is an uphill battle – 90% Hard Slog, alas. If we’re Ten Percent Inspired we’re in the high numbers! Love (and inspiration) will return. In the meantime we’ll have to treasure the memory and blueprint a Future Plan. Discuss.

        Shock Pool

        Bored by their game
        From my perch I watched them,
        Dismantling rules, I
        Wrote down their patterns
        In gold-crested diaries. I was
        Weary of history and

        Pole-axed by Europe –
        I was affrighted
        By what mattered frightfully.
        Culture-Mad-Mother
        Forced us to look
        Then forced us to blink;

        Her timing was off.
        Father dreamed oceans –
        Encapsulating daughters
        In unsinkable Fiberglas
        Against the madness of Nature
        Loathing masculine privilege; I

        Disliked you on sight
        Insulted by proctoring
        You must be divested of
        Corduroys, wingtips, tweed
        & leather; we posed under waterfalls
        For Swedish love bibles.

        Clove-scented ecstasies
        Kindled my fevers at
        The moment of quenching them;
        Sweeping West – you pulled the Atlantic –
        Drowning us both in the riptide you created.
        The captain lied when he said

        We’d go home. Lubricated by champagne, you
        Peeled off my shock-pants
        and asked me to marry you.
        Since then illusion scorched into reality
        Providing the universe
        With plenty to write.

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

        CONFLICT – “The Storm”- “Triggers & Pushback”


        How good are we at facing bad news? Do we even want to know what it is? It’s impossible to plan for the future if we don’t intelligently strategize the things that COULD go wrong. We must weigh up our assets and debits – some of which are certainly emotional.

        Are we self-sabotagers? Do we quit right before the final push? Do we make alliances with untrustworthy people? Do we make ourselves vulnerable to dangerous people? Are we secretly hoping for “rescue” – that someone all-powerful and all-competent will sweep in and take our “mess” away? Remember back to our inner power principle, the person we want to be. Maybe we get discouraged far too easily by the negative voices in our heads. The path of lifetime self-improvement after all, started with our neither being able to talk or even stand up! Practice, practice, practice: forming “muscle” – even spiritual muscle – takes a lot of time.

        Then we must face up to fearful destruction we had no part in; perhaps caused only by the principles of waste, loss and entropy to which the entire universe is subject. We need a philosophy to carry us through these times that helps us strategize thrifty methods of maximizing and healing what resources we have left. We need to know the difference between “value” and “price”. We need to recognize the outright gifts we have been given – such as the courage and determination that brings us to this place – and give thanks for them.

          Conflict is an inevitability. No heat without friction, no forward movement without energy expenditure, no flight without first shedding our comfort carapace. When we want change, we are inviting conflict.


          The question is how much in control we feel. Triggers “set us off”; i.e. trigger any chain of events we may feel helpless over. But are we? Can the chain be arrested at any point? Let’s bring our mind to focus on the problem. Human history is created by human intelligence; let’s problem-solve. “I will arrest and re-direct this change.”

          Whore De Combat

          My sutures hurt; I’m
          Completely unavailable,
          Unsheathing your ambition you
          Laced up my body like a jerkin
          Cut my breakfast with your corkscrew
          Swiss Army
          Doubled up and put away.

          I’m fasting now
          Bracing for the worst
          I can’t eat anything that won’t
          Look right at me
          And want to know the truth;
          Who’s for real?
          What’s the state of play?

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

          REGRET feeds DOUBT

            As soon as we begin refining our list in search of The One, we are filled with doubt. Fear of Missing Out dictates that even as we are talking to a Possible Soulmate our eyes search out the door to see what new person is coming in. There is a glorious book, essential to artists, called The War of Art (Steven Pressfield) which is actually about self-sabotage. In the very moments when we are trying to build something critically important to our emotional, psychic and spiritual health, a demonic voice comes out of Who Knows Where, whispering, “It’s the wrong thing and you’re doing it wrong.” According to Steven Pressfield, if you listen to this voice you will never accomplish anything, because Honest, Committed Effort is required to get your project off the ground, even if it ultimately fails. And if it ultimately fails, it will turn out to be the very project that helps you see what is Really Important, and understand What to Do Next. Choose wisely; searching for a relationship that is restorative, not exploitative, a partner who is complementary and complimentary, and push doubt aside.

            Cloverleaf


            Some roads lead nowhere;
            They’re my favorites.
            I held my breath while
            You drew my face in
            Blinding strokes
            Creamed my mouth with curling lines
            Destroyed one picture; then another
            Never let me see. You
            Left at dawn while I
            Ran in circles, calling
            Raging, spending blackened
            Nights without you,
            No blue thigh to guard
            My trusting heart while yours looks out
            To gauge the coming storm.
            Trapped in cloverleaves,
            Sentenced to school by
            Streams of angry judges –
            Balked by
             The enervating past
            Of unlived lives
            Every face I paint is yours.
            Open up the chilly ruffles
            Of my breasts
            One more time –
            To beauty; yours and mine
            Electrify your
            Eldritch spine –
             Your body so much lighter
            Than the mountain that you loved
            Better than you loved me –
             The course you learned
            Better than you learned me – so
            Overconfident that
             you’ll come back
            I float across the powdered snow
            In bird-winged silence
            All-enveloping
            Unless I’m
            Lost?

            Lost and frozen like your heart?

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

            MELT into the space your desire creates: “You Got This”


            You’ve realize the immensity of your need and the enormity of the challenge. You’ve looked into your capacities and they just don’t seem to match your expectations. Now you’re scared and feeling hopeless. I’m here to remind you to “relax.” Melt into the space your desire has created. Untense those muscles because fear and hysteria, rage and feelings of worthlessness all work against us.

            Realize somewhere out there your Soulmate is feeling all these things also. This is a process you need to go through, in order to recognize the vastness of the challenge ahead. This is your time in the desert, where you will be tested. This guarantees that when your and your Beloved melt together your success will be all the sweeter. Of necessity to valuing the Other is the realization that, although there may be plenty of fish in the sea, you need a very particular fish.


            HAUNTED WEDDING
            The pregnant car disgorges
            Only us. It’s winter.
            Drunk as silver fish
            We beat our gills as light
            As hummingbirds.
            In an amethyst ring
            Of drypoint trees
            The half-built house
            Gapes and swells
            Its timbers stink of sap.
            Windrill fields occlude
            Our crossing, so you carry me
            High above the thorny osiers.
            We sleep aloft for safety
            Locked and levitating
            In this space of air
            One season only,
            Unseen by angry outriders;
            Bloodless in our wedding robes
            Like the doubled membranes
            Of the frozen flowers.

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

              POWER: “Doubling”

                We are filled with the excitement and power of acquisition and multiplicity. We will finally have a helper, an interpreter, an enabler, a sharer. A Second Self with its rich promise of Difference – different memories, body type, fantasies, wishes, dreams – we can indulge ourselves in. We can’t wait to get going and find this person who promises us wings and immortality! The potential sexual ecstasy alone is keeping us up nights. Imagine thoroughly exploring another and being thoroughly explored yourself – with a lifetime to do it in. We can’t yet speak the language of butterflies, but we can imagine it. We are giving ourselves wings. With such commitment, every moment becomes a lifetime. We think we may have discovered the secret of eternal youth, to see and be seen through the eyes of love.

                Angel Clothes

                You are like a ripe peach
                Swollen in the summer of your life
                And as the peach surrounds its stone
                Your skeleton enwombs your soul
                But thinly.
                I often see it shining
                Through the hollows in your cheeks.
                I need your body
                Need to know its shadows
                Sound its pleasures
                But as the stone
                Though small at first
                Must grow; feeds off the dying peach
                So your spirit will transhume your flesh
                Disgorge it in
                A thousand peaches a thousand summers a
                Thousand eternities more beautiful than
                You or I

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

                The Life Force – “Why do we need each other?”


                Parents can watch this need for The Reciprocal Other awaken. At about the age of two the infant, who has belonged to the parents and who has felt like part of them, begins to show a lot of interest in the outside world. But when she sees a pint-sized someone exactly like herself, a certain sparkle comes into her eyes. She wants to clutch, bond with, play with that person. Hang on, because now the thrill-ride is beginning, the search Plato described as our search for our Missing Half. Mating behavior is an even more powerful driver in biology than feeding needs. Mating drives species to extravagant displays of seemingly dangerous behaviors, obsessive building, fighting and positioning. Species who mate for life put themselves through complex effort to secure The One. So this is biology, folks. You are in the grips of an instinctual drive it is pointless to resist. Hang on, and let’s make sure your brain becomes engaged.

                  Sex cadets

                  I shall orchestrate your life I say
                  Make your blood sing woodwind
                  Stretch my nerve harp-tight
                  Across your exo-shell
                  While you, heart racer
                  Put me through my paces
                  Pushing your muscle through
                  The gates of my life
                  Pushing past theories
                  of the pluperfect poetical
                  pushing like
                   a downhill artist
                  the speed racer you claim to be
                  Speed  devil
                  Speed demon
                  Speed dreamer.

                1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

                  Homing – Forgiveness –
                  Do you dream of home? What’s “home” to you? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. DreamTherapy posits that “home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and fall away from us. We are cleansed. We dream of ultimate understanding where our sins are not too terrible to be entirely forgotten. Jesus suggests to us that state will never arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.

                  What Does It Mean to “Re-set”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we all contribute to frees us from painful rumination and helps explain how the search for blame becomes a prison. “I did this because you –“… Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.

                  Challenge – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your tribe, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. Ask these questions of your Dream Journal: which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re all in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? Can you find a group – or even a moment (say, in yoga class) where you detach from the mess?

                  Danger – Mixed up about “ultimate” right and wrong? Lots of atheists feel ”condemned” anyway. Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error” either. Martin Luther King Jr. made a wise comment that the type of government capitalism desires is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they have absolute freedom. It is important that our resistance not embitter us.

                  Opportunity – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is requested. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, to yourself. “But if I’m not willing to try giving up my behavior because I think I’m not able to, this pattern will continually get worse.” And make an intelligent choice. “If it gets really bad I can always commit violence” is not an intelligent choice, “I need help” is.

                  Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry

                  “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world”
                  – Marianne Williamson

                  “The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong”

                  – Mahatma Gandhi

                  “To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman

                  “Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes

                  Mantra – “I forgive”

                  Meditation –

                  #Haiku: Forgiveness

                  Returning home with
                  New eyes
                  Strong hands
                  Fresh translations of
                  Future past

                2. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

                  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. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

                  Yearning Defines Us – Once we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. But oh, how we long to be reminded, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.

                  Challenge – We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We must practice uncertain techniques we can’t recall in a threateningly uncertain world. We truly are standing up and running across the ocean, just as in my dream, but this time, we have the confidence of memory. Someone loved us once, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic. In your Dream Journal, list all the aspects of love that you can remember. How many can you yourself practice?

                  Danger – Danger lies in narrowing definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve the moment we feel gratified, Love is killed.

                  Opportunity – 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.

                  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

                  Mantra – “I embrace”

                  Meditation –

                  #Haiku: Honesty

                  Stop delusion
                  No one’s fooled.
                  Acknowledge
                  Truth –
                  Radiate
                  Love:
                  Know
                  Peace.

                3. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

                  Crystal Ball – Prophecy – The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We already KNOW the “truth’. We fear the truth. We don’t want to face the truth. We fear the continuing “losses” of age because the accretions are so hard to see. Our dreams KNOW what is going on. But they are also Art, and art – especially good art – is as mysterious, meaningful and forceful as any living thing. It changes as you change, and it changes depending on how you look at it.

                  Accept the Revelation – Open Dream Journal. It is time to list the revelations. Your dreams tell you when you are afraid. Your dreams tell you when something is missing. Your dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself. The first obligation is to accept is the possibility that the truth is not so terrible. It is the endless hiding, the mounting fear, that can be really destructive.

                  Challenge – The truth is that we are human, that we are imperfect, and that we need each other. The truth is that humans need governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful 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 types must be weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous types have our own lives to live.

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

                  Opportunity – 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? It is not to hate one another and go to war with one another and people who tell you that it is 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 their brutal tactics are exposed for the empty promises that they are as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, they will acknowledge that their efforts to share their despair come from a desire to surmount despair, and that it has never worked and is not working. Then we will welcome them 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

                  Mantra – “I see”

                  Meditation –

                  #Haiku: The Future

                  Wisdom & will
                  Extinguish death;
                  Ides of Youth
                  Depower Fear
                  Share
                  Growth