Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Family

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Discipline – The Bridge –

    No One Becomes a Goddess Without Discipline – Many fatally confuse discipline with punishment and avoid it until they sadly discover they’re now too debilitated to do anything. Uh oh! Don’t let this happen to you!

    Map-Making Means Map-Following – We adjust maps on the basis of experience. But we try them out first. Or we won’t know where they went wrong.  Goddesses are logical, not impulsive. Because impulses are outer-directed. Being a Goddess means being in control. Don’t apply if you don’t like being in control. Goddesses dislike the feeling of being out of control. 

    You’re Out of Control When You Don’t Know Where Impulses Are Coming From –  Lots of cues are subliminal and their directors want to keep it that way. They want you to think the desire is coming from INSIDE the house, not from their strategy room where bills are piling up. 

    You Become a Goddess by Getting to Know Yourself – YOUR ESSENTIAL SELF – that’s what makes you strong. Goddesses take the time to track the origin of their impulses down.

    1. Do I want it because I’ve done it before?
    2. Do I want it because other people are doing it?
    3. Do I want it because SOMEBODY ELSE insists?
    4. Do I want it because of advertisers & influencers?
    5. Do I need it to Join the Club?

    You’ve probably figured out Goddesses aren’t “Joiners.” 

    1. If you’re “used” to whatever it is, get “unused” to it. You’re in Goddess training, and it’s a whole new world. Relish the different feelings. If you sense you’re becoming unglued, contemplate substitutions.  You don’t need to go Cold Turkey on Pleasure, the Past, or your own physiology. What you need to do is get your body and mind acquainted with Trying New Things because of respectable scientific research says it will build you into the new person you need to be.
    2. Get loose from “the pack” right now. If you can’t, you’re not Goddess material. There’s two kinds of people, “swarmers” and “selves.” Swarmers don’t want to develop a self because it differentiates them from the pack. They want to do whatever the swarm is doing. It takes time – and can be ouchy – to develop a Self but the payoff is literally Eternal. Take the time. Or go down with the swarm if that sounds better.
    3. You’re being pressured to Follow a Course that suits Somebody Else. Let’s take a long look at this person and ask ourselves why they don’t care about our betterment, or who the hell we really are, or even anything other than their own Ego. Why are we servicing this person’s ego? We need to get AWAY from this person. They want a hostage or a slave or both.
    4. We’ve been seduced by the Virtual World!  It felt so good at the time. For a moment there it felt like maybe we found Our People. And they seemed so welcoming! Of course there is a price of admission, and you keep paying it with your denigration, not just in the service of someone’s ego, but a lot of people’s bank accounts. Figure out a way to tell these False Friends goodbye.

    From our Subconscious We Summon Rescue. In dreams sometimes it’s a hero, a fictional or historic figure or a spirit animal. Try reading folk or fairy tales right before bed. Fall asleep imagining strengthening muscles – physical, spiritual, emotional – growing inside you.

    You are Jack AND the Beanstalk! No giant can stand against you. Even the laziest, cruelest corner of the self ultimately collapses to reveal a Tiny Child yearning for effective mothering. Turns out, that’s what you were looking for all along. Time to give birth to yourself, then mother yourself.

    Discipline is the Only Path to Achieving What We Want. Nothing is achieved (or appreciated!)  without discipline, which only means conforming your behavior to a previously conceived pattern. What ideas spring up when you think about this? Is “discipline” always cruel?  Painful? Is it one of your fears? Or the map to the orderly life you long for?

    You Are Your Best Friend and Best Parent – Nothing works in your life until you learn delayed gratification and stick-to-itiveness. But first you must experiment with other patterns – some of which –depending on your upbringing – can be hellish.  So you have THAT to get past. You will definitely need to harness all your dream power to get yourself over the finish line.

    Goddesses Adapt Discipline to Enhance Thriving. But who’s doing the adapting  – the Cruel Taskmaster, the Disgusted Lover, the Generous Parent or the Permissive Saint? You contain all these (and they live in your dreams) so which will you listen to?  Who will you empower? Who do you feed?

    The Choice You Make Controls your Future. Consult appealing patterns that have worked for others and blend to taste. Realize it’s a process; a series of moments. You’re training like an athlete; every day you master new capabilities. Develop a sophisticated discernment you can trust to guide you.

    Goddesses Set Marks and Hit Them – Forming habits is easier than breaking them apart, so goddess know that preventing bad habits is the core of discipline. But bad habits sneak up on us, they will form anyway, so part of your discipline will always be turning away from something that was formerly pleasurable. Enjoy the peace that comes with each small step.

    Goddesses Know How to Keep Going – Discipline is the bridge that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. Always use a “spotter” – someone who wants the best for you – a professional who’s “been there” and who can keep you from going over the edge.

    Goddesses Celebrate Their Discipline – Self-acceptance comes from experiencing our humanity to the fullest. We are “parenting” our much-loved and respected self, the one who starts out as a toddler with no self-control whom we’re trying to keep out of the fire. Forgive yourself. And keep going.

    Make Discipline Visual – Charts, maps, graphs and lists that hearten & cheer are key to purposeful pathways. Figure out a way to picture your values. Checking off boxes and cherishing the “proof” of a successful day becomes your joy.

    Models & Mentors –  “Through self-discipline comes freedom” – Aristotle

    “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you going” – John C. Maxwell

    “All success begins with self-discipline. It starts with you.” – Dwayne Johnson

    ‘Day by day – what you choose, what you think, what you do, is who you become” – Heraclitus

    #Haiku: Discipline

    Discipline is

    Choosing

    Between what you want now

    And what you want

    Most

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Resilience – Youth –

    Goddesses Bounce Back – Resilience is the province of youth, and because Goddesses live with the advantages of past, present and future all at once, they  treasure the pleasures of both maturity and resilience. 

    Dreaming About Your Childhood? Your conscious mind is “mining” your subconscious for guides to your deepest feelings now. Are you pick on a wrong path, and if so, why? Is it possible to go back and fix it?

    “You’re as Young as You Feel” is a true saying! Youthful old people are interested in everything. They are not frightened by new ideas. They don’t talk endlessly about their illnesses, complaints, how the world has gone to hell.  

    Goddesses Don’t Fear the Future. The nature of “resilience” is that you “spring back”. You can actually use mistakes as energy, to improve your map-making. Surely you’re familiar with ”resistance training.” You get better muscles that way!

    Goddess Are Battle-Tested – How can anyone feel “young” when life keeps beating you down? Goddesses experience negative reactions too – probably more so than most, since they aren’t interested in joining someone’s army or “going with the flow.”

    Goddesses Create the Flow – The way to improve your resilience is to upgrade your philosophy. Do you secretly believe that when people can no longer participate in the rat race, they should be shoveled under and it’s over? There’s an inspiring pep talk for the locker room!

    Goddesses Are Young Forever. Combine that with the far-seeing wisdom of planning and experience and you have a Superpower.

    Love and Intelligence REQUIRE Wisdom – Adopt a philosophy that gives you hope. This is easier to do around young people. Grandparents cling to grandchildren. It’s good for both of them.

    Don’t Get Stuck in a “Feedback Loop.” Don’t hang around depressing, toxic people who mouth depressing, toxic notions. In our society, aging people are shunted off onto sidings, gathered together in communities that focus on “nursing”. Depressed yet? Re-orient your mind to focus on “health.” Resilience is a requirement for healing all types of wounds.

    Goddesses Preserve the Hope of Youth – Hope is the goddess’s religion. Life will always win out, growing even against despair.

    Goddesses Preserve the Joy of Youth – Fighting difficult battles (even with oneself) means the relaxation afterwards feels extra delicious. Goddesses can play with anyone because they are still child-like. That is part of what we are fighting for.

    Goddess Opportunity – In a famous letter to Ann Landers, someone who wanted to go to medical school bewailed that they would forty years old when they got out!  Forty! Landers asked, “How old will you be if you DON’T go?” “Wise” people are those who realize HOW YOUNG THE REST OF YOU really are, who are complaining about being “too old” to do what you want to do. You have plenty of time, because ALL time is NOW. Your new mantra? “Spring back.”

    Goddesses Never Give Up – Surrendering can be a strategy. It is not giving up. There may be snow on the roof but there is plenty of fire in the fireplace. Sometimes, however, it is good to keep our fires to ourselves. Goddesses know how to bide our time, planning for extractions and disappearances.

    Models & Mentors – “Reasons for hope – our clever brains, the indomitable human spirit and above all, the commitment of young people when they’re empowered to take action” – Jane Goodall

    “We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward” – Isabel Allende

    “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts’ – Winston Churchill

    “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny”

    – C. S. Lewis

    #Haiku: Reincarnation through Books

    Multiple lives –

    Rising youth –

    Thriving age –

    Released death; re

    Peat; re

    Learn

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Memory – The Past

    Time to check your consciousness levels – How comfortable are you with the very existence, not to mention the depth, of your conscious/subconscious/

    unconscious/collective unconscious levels?

    Consciousness is your awareness of the Now.

    Subconscious are all the memories and ideas pushed out of the Now into “Later”. With effort, you can become aware of these.

    The Unconscious you are completely unaware of. It takes considerable  mining effort to get down there, but it can be done. This is where you store everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve seen, even peripherally, even without bringing into awareness at the time. The Collective Unconscious is the most controversial.  Do you believe you are a historical repository of other people’s memories, including those of whose existence you are  entirely unaware? I do.

    You Have Multiple People Blending Their Lives With Yours – Do you ruminate about past events? Are you haunted by what was done & left undone? Do you feel nostalgia for a past that never was? Do you have a favorite period in history or a fantasy universe that you wish you lived in, instead of this one?

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

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

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

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

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

    Goddesses Develop A Sense of History – You understand that history is a spiral, not a circle – the same things do keep coming around but in a different form. You see all around you the operation of karma.

    Choosing Evil is Choosing Chaos – and condemning yourself to death. It can’t ever work out except temporarily. You understand the battle between darkness and light and you have committed yourself firmly to The Light.

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

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

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

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

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

    #Haiku: No-Fault Apology

    Atone?

    Conspire:

    Delete:

    Rewire

    My memory and

    Yours; potent

    Fire.

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Marriage – Partnership

                          Are Goddesses Alone on Their Pinnacles?– No!  Evolving your inner Goddess is discovering how to manifest and elevate your God-given attributes to timelessness. Once you have uncovered the powers of your real self, you will also see what you have been lacking and will feel the force of the natural mandate; “Go forth and be fruitful.”  Being alone is a perfectly acceptable choice, but so is coupling – forever or briefly. Not only children are a couple’s progeny but ideas, achievements, duets.

    Dreaming about weddings? Or just sex? How about romance, proposals, marriage? Ever fantasize about The One that got Away? Or do you just dream about partnership enterprises in general – gaming, sports – where an Ideal Partner/Helper’s got your back? It’s definitely more difficult to make it through life without a partner, and there are plenty of signs that successful partnership is very rewarding. Sure, we’ve got friends who come and go, sometimes special ones, but they’ve got obligations of their own. What if we had a Perfect Friend who made our Best Life their priority? What if we were not only willing to do the same for them but to promise this in public? Consider your ideal partnership contract.

    Everybody Deserves Love – We come into adulthood with strong memories of familial dependence. We are all attracted to caretaking behaviors and easily seduced by promises to read our minds and give us what we really want, even if we haven’t figured that out for ourselves. Then our hormones click in and we discover Desire. Not only for bodies, but for Persons, Lives, Individualities. Other people are a spice, other people are a medicine, other people are a distraction – everything our lives appear to be lacking. What if we could combine all these needs together in one appetizing human package?

    Goddess Challenge – We rarely ask our friends to change their lives for us. They are VERY rarely willing to do so. But a partner is someone to actively plan a life with. You get to talk through all the Wants, the Possibilities, the Fears. Heady stuff! The challenge is to know Yourself well enough to make any sort of honest statements about who you are, who you CAN be and who you want to be.

    Allies Need a Long-Term Contract – Lives are uprooted. Possessions are shared. Long term strategy results in map-merging to create a new – but more exciting – map. If you’re a giver, learn your limits. Because takers don’t have any.

    Someone Needs to Take Your Back – What if, as the great mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg suggested, each one of us is only half an angel. You need someone to cover the things you can’t cover. And if you were planning to start a goddess family, you need more than a partner, you need a spouse.

    Spouses Teach Honesty – The person who knows you best doesn’t put up with a false front. You literally force each other to get to the root of emotions and behaviors that will open up your psyches not just to each other, but to yourselves. The spouse who falls in love with you and forgives you finally allows you to fall in love with and forgive yourself.

    Staging, Experimental Life Lab and Boot Camp – We get to try out our ideas on each other. The Beloved Other is a Mirror and a Coach. The purpose of existence, the purpose of YOUR existence – suddenly becomes clear.

    Goddess Danger – A substantial number of partnerships fail even at their short-term purpose. We all know this but we keep trying. Then there are the partnerships that evolve into Something Else, a Financial, Real Estate or Caregiving unit that is very necessary but also pretty far from what we had in mind originally. Our challenge remains the same.  Is it possible to both know and be known? Can we find our Soulmate? Does such a creature exist? Is it possible to evolve with another soul to a higher plane of SuperSoul? Disappointment and betrayal are all too often the apparent outcomes.

    Goddess Opportunity – Soulmates DO exist! They DO evolve together. It’s possible to change life for another while they change, blend, merge with us. Any interaction with another requires communication, boundary testing, honesty, planning and “rules”. I put rules in quotes because a good partner keeps “transforming” the game and we keep transforming ourselves to meet it. The best way ever to honestly know yourself is to keep your conscious, subconscious and unconscious in alignment. Purposeful journaling is the best way to achieve that goal!

    Models & Mentors –  “It’s not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes for unhappy marriages” – Friedrich Nietzsche

    “What counts in making a happy marriage is not compatibility but how you deal with incompatibility” – Leo Tolstoy

    “A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short”

    – Andre Maurois

    “The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they’re the right person if you want to be with them all the time” – Julia Child

    #Haiku: Marriage: Partnership

    Merged.

    Eyes when

    I can’t see –

    Two extra hands;

    Relay race –

    Inspiration.

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Earth – Resources

    Goddesses See the Poverty of Magnificence – Goddesses aren’t all about trappings and add-ons. Their super power is seeing through “show” to the reality underneath. You can’t fool a goddess. Goddesses understand the building blocks of existence are our natural resources – the ones we have a right to simply by being born on this planet and offered a lifetime’s growth into an eternity’s immortality.

    Do you dream of wealth? Storehouses of goodies? Digging in the earth and finding treasure? Gold at the end of the rainbow? Everyone plays with these “resource” fantasies. In Goddess Oracle, the “Earth” card represents resources because Earth is the source of everything mortal that is valuable to us. Where we are born determines the very language we will use to quantify, remember, share and ennoble our world.

    You are a Wealthy Heir – Goddesses understand and are humbled by their vast inheritance. We are all born into fabulous possibility. However, the fear of emptiness and the dread of exclusion also start immediately. Focusing on the wealth we DON’T have prevents us from identifying the resources we possess now. Goddesses respond to the pressure to “rise above”.

    Goddess Are Anointed – We are goddesses BECAUSE we recognize the sacredness of the every day. One day while swimming, sailing, sunning, soaring or dreaming WE FELT THE UNIVERSE LOVE US BACK. We became Anointed Goddesses in Her honor on that day.

    Figure Out What You’ve Got Going for You. Health? Youth? Sight? Hearing? Intelligence? Talents? Love? Education? Family? Community? Faith? Roof over head? Food on Table? Money coming in? People we can depend on? Is there a sliver of sky where we can see the stars? Is there a patch of ground where we can see the flowers?

    Mustering & Mastering Resources is Key –  “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” says Shakespeare’s Richard III. But he doesn’t have a horse and his kingdom is lost. “A stitch in time”, etc. etc. Strategy is nothing without resources and resources are nothing if you waste them.

    Goddesses Know How To Love – It is demons who close their hearts to love. That is how we recognize them.

    Goddesses Nurture What They Love – Goddesses care for their equipment, their animals, their people and their environment.

    Goddesses Cultivate and Improve – We bring gardens where once were deserts, we bring children where life was future-less, we speak to animals and we communicate with trees.

    Goddesses Celebrate the Spirit of Life – We don’t mark joy with “getting wasted.” We nestle instead in the beautiful cradle of the universe we have helped to provide.

    Goddess Danger – There’s no question all our benefits can be improved upon. They are also subject to depredation, depreciation and degradation. It is a positive force to desire improvements, but it is dangerous to turn “wants” into rage.

    Goddess Opportunity – Often the one difference between happiness and misery is gratitude. Are you grateful for all you have been given? Do you feel lucky or fortunate in any way? To put things in perspective, lottery winners one year out are usually NOT AS HAPPY as those who have been in a serious accident one year previous!

    The Secret is Perspective. The lottery winners thought a pile of money would “solve” everything, while the accident sufferers thought everything was destroyed forever. Lottery winners learned how wrong they were about what they needed, while accident sufferers were focused on what they still had and what new caring relationships came into their lives. Begin to cultivate a practice of gratitude. It starts with a grateful “Thank You” to this astonishingly grateful universe.

    Models & Mentors – “Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” – Carl Sagan

    “I only feel angry when I see waste, people throwing away things we could use” – Mother Teresa

    “Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed” – Mahatma Gandhi

    “The Earth has music for those who listen” – Shakespeare

    “Earth sustains us and we must sustain her”

    – Chief Dan George

    #Haiku: Delayed Gratification

    Lifetime threat dodging and

    Garden planting

    Grants pleasure

    Embracing

    Now

  • Becoming a Goddess – The Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    22. Age – Wisdom

    Goddesses Embody Wisdom and Wisdom Is Hard-Won. Is it time to make peace with your elders?  Do you feel you require an experienced hostage negotiator to free you from an infestation of the past?  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?

    The Goddess’ 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.
    1. 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.
    1. 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.
    1. Blanket statements and generalizations – Thick layers of protective blather will keep you from getting through to discuss any task at hand.
    1. 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.
    1. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts – Different rules for everyone and every day.
    1. Changing the subject to evade accountability – “This is your fault – You shouldn’t have given me that job to begin with.”
    1. Covert and overt threats –“If people know what you REALLY are, say, do, no one would be your friend.”
    1. 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.
    1. Destructive conditioning – Abuse, frustration and disrespect are this person’s calling cards but it’s never their fault that they live in a cloud of toxicity. They want you in there, too. Decline.
    1. Smear campaigns and stalking – Endless power struggles. “Office politics.” Need I say more?
    1. Playing the Martyr – “Everyone’s lying about me. I have so many enemies!”
    1. 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.
    1. Baits and badgers you – testing your limits. Can you be made to lose control?
    1. Boundary testing –  “You owe me”  – “You’re committed” – “Everyone does it” to drag you into unethical enterprise
    1. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes – “Can’t you laugh about yourself? Everyone else is laughing.”
    1. 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 struggle is all about Control. Goddesses avoid those who seek to control or dominate. Revered Elders such as those mentioned above would not do that. Treat others with respect and expect respect yourself.

    Goddesses Know Their Allies – Goddess 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. Goddesses share their knowledge without fear of competition. We know we are unreproduceable.

    Goddesses 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.

    Goddesses Earn Peace – Random acts of kindness make everyone feel better. Goddess’ “can do” attitude spreads peace. Goddess 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;

    Regroup;

    Regift

    The rubble of your life

    Belongs to All.

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Lovers – Alliances

      Check your friend list. Do you dream of love, sex, connection? Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? We were all born to search for Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must each decide your motive (“I Could Use a Friend”).  Approach with the CERTAINTY that you are WORTHY of friendship. This last one is tricky because we are all looking for validation.  This is the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class, unprepared on Test Day!

      Goddesses Need Respect – A Goddess is a Soul Apart. You have a mission, and the Other must be worthy of you. You must be able to respect them, too. You can see that dominance/submission becomes a zero-sum game with each trying to knuckle the other under. No relationship can last under that stress and it degenerates into a destructive spiral.

      Goddesses Have Mystery – You are aware of vast reaches of your Self that are unknown and In Development. Most of your promises are tenuous. You are stepping forward with hope into uncharted and potentially dangerous wilderness. This means the pair must accept each other in good faith, as followers of the Light. You will rapidly see you cannot forge relationships until you have a working concept of what the Light is and what its potentialities are. Too many aspirants want the Lover to define them when our obligation is to define ourselves. Accept that with a mystery this vast, it can’t be “solved”. It can only be momentarily elucidated as we receive glimpses of our path and purpose.

      Good Relationships are Complementary – You don’t have to provide everything, and they don’t either. Each of you has lapses and blindness the other can improve. 

      You Are a Giver and Worthy of Help – We can’t get through this alone, and we don’t want to. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans, struggling, just like us.  If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters? We don’t want to end up as someone else’s meal.

      Goddess Danger  – When someone is trying to mangle your self-esteem, recognize this. Even if it comes in the guise of “friendship” this person is an enemy. This is not what friends are for. When someone is trying to “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-taker looking for slaves. NOT a friend.

      Goddess Challenge – How to recognize friends? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.” Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.”  Friends are fun, “Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest, forgiving, fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend. Friendship is a good place to start. Be the friend you want to have – warm, funny, loyal, truthful.

      Love Enriches – It Does Not Deplete – – Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, we can expand our reach.  Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts.  Our sorrows are halved and our ideas are increased exponentially.  Reach out! You never know until you try. And there’s always the possibility of Love and deepening sexual connection.

      Love Transforms as a Goddess Transforms – Things you thought you could not do seem possible now because someone believes in you. Believe in yourself because they do, and honor them by believing in them, in return.

      Locked Back to Back the Goddess Pair Sees Everything – Gaze turns outward at the world, not inward on each other. Are you chewing or strengthening? Learn the steps of your tango. Add new steps of your own.

      As You Change, the Couple Changes – Compare Training Journals. Are you evolving? Can you evolve together? Is it safe to speak the truth? Does one partner try to dominate? Does one partner use infantile behaviors to get “their way”? There is no “one way.” As joint goddess, the couple has goals also. Compare. Allow differences. The truth will be revealed.

      Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”

      – e.e. cummings

      “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

      “Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place” – Zora Neale Hurston

      “Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth” –

      II Corinthians

      “Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi

      #Haiku: The Lovers

      Falling upwards

      Into you

      My other wing, my second

      Clapping hand

    1. Becoming a Goddess – claiming your Superpower by Alysse Aallyn

      Summer – Relax

        Can Goddesses afford to relax? Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Well, Lesson #1 is that being a goddess is Counterintuitive. Other people rush away from the burning building – planning on being EVEN MORE SCARED the next time. Well, we are going to master our fear. We are going in.

        Everybody Panics  – I had a panic attack at age 5 (I  got lost outside a movie theatre) and another at age 11 when I descended deep, deep, deep into a cave. (I think the guide was deliberately trying to scare us.) I didn’t know at the time what these episodes were – my parents and sisters saw them as embarrassing annoyances – but looking back it’s clear what was happening to me physically as a result of what was happening to me mentally.

        Relaxation In the Face of Panic – Learning to tolerate psychic dissonance, to be interested in it and challenged by it is what we’re all about. It’s a sign that we’re in the presence of the Deep Stuff – the things that galvanize our deep subconscious and if we can just seize control of that, we’ll access our true power.

        Learn Relaxation Techniques – There are so many and you should experiment with all of them! Learn what works for you and – key – what you enjoy. You will find yourselves using these techniques all the time. To get to sleep, to get through difficult experiences or just to access your subconscious when you have a question.

        Breathe Deeply – The very first thing is mastering control of the breath. Pregnant women learn all kinds of helpful breathing techniques in Lamaze; panting, counting; deliberately slowing down and speeding up your breathing. In yoga you will learn Lion Breaths to make you feel powerful. They are very similar to the gasps and shouts in martial arts and will affect your opponents. Watch the Maori war dance on YouTube.

        Get Out Your Training Journal – write down the techniques and your reactions. Appoint a time to practice these every day. Your breath connects you to the universe and all living things.

        Models & Mentors: “The first thing to learn is the breath.” – Confucius

        ‘Breathe In. Let Go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure, and give thanks for that.”

        – Oprah Winfrey

        ‘Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor” –

        Thich Nhat Hanh

        “While we breathe, we hope” – Barack Obama

        #Haiku: Every Breath You Take

        Life isn’t numbered

        By breaths you take but

        Moments

        That take breath

        Away

      1. Animus – a ghost story by Alysse Aallyn

        SIX – FISHBABY

        Those who sleep alone risk scarifying dreams. I dreamed I’d had the baby, and it was some kind of hideous ordeal. Call it a “trauma trigger”. I came back into myself hospitalized, bandaged head to toe and in traction. At first I was so disoriented I thought I was upside down, floating on the ceiling, but the ceiling was stainless steel and it was my reflection that I saw. The nurse approached from a long way off, carrying something in stiffly held out arms. That nurse’s face was so familiar, but who was she? I had only seen my uncle’s housekeeper once so why should it be her and not merely one of those recycled faces that haunt our dreams? The bundle offered was a fish.

        I knew she expected me to reject it – call the maitre d’ it and demand a replacement, but I don’t do what people expect. Besides, it had very human eyes, big and sad, with tears woefully a-boiling in its depths. With great effort I wrenched out of my bandages and out of my traction, grabbed my baby and ran away. Obviously this was a terrible hospital, where people give birth in traction and your baby is a fish. A carp, from the look of him, and

        not the lucky kind.

        He said, “Mummy, mummy,” but whether he recognized me or commented on my bandages I couldn’t say. Hard work running through sand, because that’s where I bogged down. A bunch of golfers grabbed my baby, tossing him into the air with jeers and screams. The baby looked at me imploringly with its chocolate brown eyes, but what could I do? They had cleats and

        clubs and all I had bandages. And I was losing strength, keeping only just enough to wonder, why golfers at the seaside? They tossed my baby in the ocean but I wasn’t having it. Waded right in after him but to my shock I soon was drowning. Can’t swim in bandages. You’d think the fish would return the rescue favor, but no. He was nowhere to be seen. It seems you can’t rely on anyone.

        When a dream becomes this disgusting you know it’s past time to wake up. I was fighting my way out when I encountered Arnold’s eyes. Looking at me as if I were loathsome.

        right.

        help me.”

        “You’re all over blood,” he said. And he was I said, “That blood was our child. Help me, But it had been too late from the first. The

        hospital had a stainless steel ceiling; how could I have guessed? Time seemed to loop; there was a panic-driven moment as they wheeled me conscious right to the operating table. Is “awake till the end” the punishment for being a bad wife, bad hostess, or bad mother? Behind the anesthesiologist’s mask I thought I saw my uncle’s eyes. I was out before I could ask what “D & C” stands for. Diddled, then cauterized?

        SEVEN – HAUNTED

        Arnold was enormously relieved that I was no longer pregnant. I was enormously relieved that Stan and Willette went home. Arnold was further relieved that the satellite guy installed the dish the day of my return; I was relieved that without a special dish it seemed we could get no local stations. Bait and switch, said Arnold.

        But it meant I could pretend I was no longer here. Didn’t matter that this was my own ice floe; freely chosen. Somehow, even dead and stupid, my uncle had won and I had lost. Money meant nothing. The stupid dead had scored again.

        “We played strip poker because you went to bed so early,” Arnold defended himself. Thus the guilty flee where none pursue. “Jealousy does not become you.”

        But had I become jealousy? The better to consider this possibility I turned down the sound on the plasma TV, then finally the picture. It was more fun to watch the raindrops slide together. Raindrop sex. Boy drops and girl drops, maybe even gay drops. Meeting and joining. Becoming one.

        “You know it takes a village to maintain a marriage,” huffed Arnold. “Bartenders, bankers and stand- up comedians.”

        And pretty, pretty grad students? He didn’t say. I ignored him till he said the magic word. The magic word was “drink.”

        He said, “No reason you can’t drink now.”

        Over a baloney sandwich and a glass of Chianti I began to feel forgiving. Someday I would have to go on a diet, find out if my body was still there, but not today and not tomorrow. Percocet enhances Chianti wonderfully. Without that dualism, if you scrape away the op layer of pain, deeper pain just bubbles up from underneath.

        “I’ve seen your ghost,” said Arnold. “It’s a guy in a lumberjack shirt.”

        But he had never seen my uncle. Not even a picture. “Describe him.”

        “Hair the color of driftwood with a widow’s peak, and olive drab pants.”

        “Did he look at you? Speak to you?”

        “Looked through me. Came right into the study when I was working. I think he was looking for

        you.”

        That was just mean. Utterly uncalled for. He was punishing me for my jealousy by making all this up. Why would my uncle’s ghost appear to him? I bet Arnold read my diary while I was in the hospital, helpless. It was just the kind of thing that he would do. People without gifts batten on the bounty of others.

        “That diary is private,” I warned him. “You’re the one saying married people don’t share everything.”

        “Bet he thinks that this is his house,” mused Arnold, relentless. “Since you bought it with his money.” He rose, whistling cheerfully at freedom from the sickroom. “I’d better get back to work if I want to have something to show my agent.”

        “Leaving me, are you?”

        “Just a day trip to town on Friday. That is, if you’re feeling better.”

        He didn’t bother to invite me. Me, who had done so much for him!

        “You be careful,” I threatened, “You’ve got “Not me,” he sneered. “I’m a modernist.” Could it possibly be that easy? If

        “modernists” were truly ghost-blind, maybe you need a conscience to see ghosts. He should at least be haunted by his fishbaby. Find the meaning, the challenge was always the same. Without meaning everything’s just another trauma trigger. What do refrigerators and meatsafes have in common? They slow down time. If Time truly has no meaning, don’t you see? It means we are free. We always have been free.

        I climbed out of bed, awkward because my limbs still belonged to someone else, and checked my underpants. No blood. Maybe all my blood was gone. If I was a ghost that explained everything. Arnold couldn’t see me because he was a modernist. So it was up to me to tell him what we all had suffered. Being ghostly gave me such a rush of power I finally understood how hard it is for them to leave.

        I took time to gather flies’ wings as I walked. Little boys tear the wings off flies; ask anybody. I thought they’d stir to life beneath my hands, but they stayed dead, so perhaps they’re only unshed tears. I’m a beginner at this. What do I know?

        I pushed open the door to Arnold’s study. There was a bad smell in there and it was Arnold. He hummed Wagner as he worked; a classic song of triumph. On the wall were blow-ups of my diary, in my private, loopy handwriting, my private, private words. Tabloid articles he’d pasted to the wallpaper; “Mom Kills Twelve”; “Satan in Miami”, “BatBoy takes a Bride”.

        The wallpaper was so beautiful in this room; it was the best in the house; a Morris pattern of leaves and mulberries and I hadn’t grudged it. It was priceless, probably irreplaceable; and this what I get. Anger postponed becomes rage and rage is truly liberating. I picked up the scissors from a pile of newspapers. Stupidly he’d placed his desk in the window embrasure, allowing me to walk up behind him. “Modernists” are ignorant of fear.

        “So what’s it called?” Peeking over his shoulder.

        He jumped a mile, scampering to close and save, frantic, busy, ineffective. But the printout lay right next to him. MOODY BITCH SEEKS KIND, CONSIDERATE MAN. I laughed because it was funny.

        “It’s a comedy,” he said defensively.

        “Aren’t I laughing?” I agreed. The cold fire that doesn’t burn consumed me. I opened my fist to shower unshed tears along his keyboard and he saw the scissors. He went so white. I loved that finally he saw me as someone to fear. Now I knew what turned my uncle on. I opened my mouth to speak but my uncle’s dust boiled out of me and I can’t remember what I tried to say.

        That I had bled and now it was his turn? That it only hurts for the first five seconds? That the living are as deserving as the dead? I should have told him it’s the little things…the glasses of wine, the band-aids, the unshed tears – still breaths of life that spark the dying air; these are agents of the dead rescinding time and looping it backwards. Back towards them. Because time’s the thing they’re so jealous of, the only precious thing that we have left.

      2. Animus – a ghost story by Alysse Aallyn

        FOUR – IS THAT YOU?

        The phone man said the best that we could get was a party line. No real privacy – ever. I was dumbfounded. “There’s no real privacy on them other lines neither,” said Mr. Sterling, the phone man. “You just think there is.”

        “Don’t sweat it,” Arnold told me, right in the phone man’s presence. “We’ll get our phone through the Internet like all sane people. The land line is only for emergencies.”

        Sometimes when the phone rang we weren’t supposed to answer it because it wasn’t our “ring”. Maybe Arnold can ignore a ringing phone: I can’t. Especially if it goes off in the middle of the night. No counting a “ring pattern” there – not with the echoes of sleep rattling through your head.

        “Who could be calling at this hour?” I demanded of my husband. Rhetorically.

        But he said, “Cows. Bears.” In his dream or on the phone?

        As usual it was up to me to answer it. “Hello?” I quavered.
        A sharp intake of breath but no one spoke. I

        had played this game before. Could we have brought our own ghosts with us?

        ‘That you, Gayle?” I boldly inquired. “Just checking up on us? We’re fine. The baby’s fine. Arnold says hi.”

        155 – Awake Till the End – Stories by Alysse Aallyn

        It was only afterwards that I wondered if the caller was my uncle’s “housekeeper”. The unpaid one he swore would be compensated in his will. Who else would be angry enough to hound us? And there was always the possibility that it was my uncle himself, wanting to complain about the way I’d spent his money. It would be just like the stupid dead to initiate calls they can’t complete.

        FIVE – MEATSAFE

        Our first visitors came when before we were ready (as visitors will). Before the cable was connected. Willette had streaked her hair with an unbecoming dissipated rock star red which, considering her coal black eyebrows and pointed chin made her resemble Sarah Bernhardt in her coffin. She had two legs, however. Willette had always been High Maintenance. Compared with her, Stan, a little plumper, somewhat balder now, seemed refreshingly cooperative and easily amused. In honor of our upstate move he wore a sweaters with a vaguely Chistmassy theme.

        “Snowflakes! Moose!” he genially exclaimed. “What’s not to like?”

        “You’re not missing anything in the city,” said Willette. “We’ve been burgled.”

        take?”
        Stan.
        “Better glasses don’t help.”

        “Omigod,” I sympathized, “What did they “A Cuisinart and my reading glasses,” said “Those instructions are rough,” I agreed.

        “We told the cops to be on the lookout for a bandit with severe left eye astigmatism,” Stan joked.

        “Not that they’ll look,” said Willette gloomily. “They never do.”

        “Until the guy kills somebody,” agreed Arnold.

        “They don’t even care about that now,” asserted Willette. “They bargain murders down to “accidents” just to skew their crime statistics. Fighting crime from a desk chair.”

        “Nice work if you can get it,” echoed Arnold, a sociable host refilling wineglasses.

        They had been stuck in traffic so we were dining at nine-thirty, a distinct hardship for anyone with my raging metabolism. I had eaten the cheese and crackers all by myself and was forced to smack together some distinctly unappetizing crudités. Zucchini slices with sour cream, anyone? Fortunately it didn’t matter. They wanted dinner and dinner itself hardly mattered because the dining room was so dark. Without windows, but six doors, there were constant and mysteriously unaccountable drafts; the candles slanting first one way and then the other. Over Martel and coffee conversation languished. No Martel for me. No wine. I was trying to be good. Trying to be good does not a dinner party make.

        “I know,” I roused myself. “Let’s play

        Icicle.”


        “Icicle?” they all wanted to know. “How do you play that?”

        “One person hides and everyone goes looking for him. When you find him you have to squeeze in as close as you can get. Last person left is the icicle.”

        “That’s sardines!” scoffed Arnold. “I’ve played that.”

        But Willette was intrigued. “Good game for this house,” she said. “We’ll find cubbyholes and corners even you haven’t seen.”

        “I’m warning you, I’m the world-class champion sardines player,” said Stan. “I once won hanging for an hour in a garment bag.”

        With a challenge like that, he had to go first.

        “Basement off limits!” shouted Arnold. “It’s dangerous down there.” Was that an implied waiver of danger elsewhere? We listened to his footfalls clatter up the stairs and wander overhead.

        “Sounds like there are three of him,” said Willette. Of course we weren’t bothering to count.

        “I wouldn’t be surprised,” I teased. “Real estate agent says this house is haunted.”

        Willette seemed unintimidated. Stan I could have impressed.

        “Our refrigerator tried to eat the delivery man,” said Arnold, getting into the spirit. “Both recovered and doing fine.”

        “And there’s kind of a bad smell coming from Arnold’s study.” I suggested.

        Arnold gave me A Look. Ooo, snap! Talk about burning with a cold fire! I pulled out the Big Guns. “Oswald Pewlett saw a fireball.”

        “I feel a fireball coming on myself,” said Arnold, shaking the empty Martel bottle.

        “Maybe it’s an animus.” said Willette. “You know, like a malignant spirit that attaches itself to unfinished business.”

        I didn’t know. Upstairs a door slammed. Hard. We took that as a starter’s pistol. I let the others rush straight upstairs, elbowing each other like a middle- school recess, pretended at first to follow, then ducking behind a door.

        World Champion Stan could not make it this easy for us, not even in an unfamiliar house. If it was me I would make a lot of noise going up the front stairs and then sneak quietly down the back. How he slammed that door I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound difficult with our drafts. If you balanced something on it and opened a window…

        Outside had to be off-limits. I heard an unpleasant rustling in the rhododendrons. Think far enough outside the box, fall off the edge. I allowed myself to be seduced by the kitchen broom closet. It’s as narrow as an ironing board but runs the depth of the room, thus making an ideal crawlspace. And there was someone in there. I could hear him breathing. “Is that you, Stan?”

        The shadow rippled towards me. “I’ve missed you, Sharl.” That could have been my sigh, me just talking to myself. But then the voice spoke unmistakably and said the most surprising thing: “Time has no meaning.”

        That’s not a message I would ever give myself, and it was my uncle’s voice, I swear it. I backed out in a panic, slammed the door so hard the doorknob fell off. The ghost was locked in, ha ha. Serves him right for refusing to play dead.

        Willette and Arnold were upstairs together, looking equal parts smug and guilty. Like I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And they couldn’t say exactly where they’d searched. “Please yourselves,” I yawned. Maybe if I found Stan, he would show a sudden yen for pregnant women. Unlike everybody else.

        “He’s not downstairs,” I declared, so it was time to inspect the attic. My flashlight revealed footprints in the dust along the steps. I pursued a faint tapping sound. In the dark, Stan had locked himself in the old meatsafe. Dumb place to hide! And he wasn’t happy about it. Like it was our fault. Willette, feeling a bit one down after the exposure of her skirmishes with Arnold, seized advantage like a wolverine protecting its mate.

        “What if he had an asthma attack!”

        Then you’d be a merry widow, I thought. But honest Stan said, “I don’t have asthma.”

        “But an experience like that could give it to you,” said Willette. “Trauma triggers, they call it. “Traumatic inception”. Someone needs to take that door

        off at the hinges.”

        mandarin .”

        “Don’t look at me,” said Arnold. “I’m a

        The game was over. “Maybe in the morning,” I told Willette. “I’m gravid and I need my sleep.”

        When Arnold finally came to bed – could Stan possibly have agreed to a threesome? I refused to let him in. “You’re the icicle,” I told him.