Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Fate

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    ETERNITY “Heloise to Abelard”

    “Eternal Welcome”

    “Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean”

    The Night Sky above our Garden reveals many secrets. The first secret is that we are a World within Worlds. And we are assured that there are further worlds beyond (as well as within), through the contradictory notions that the universe is both infinite and expanding. What a metaphor for life & growth!

    The poetry of the stars and planets is such that our history can be told through the names and patterns of constellations that are shifting. The ancients placed “heaven” right up there, with Gods & Goddesses looking down at us as we look up at them, playing with us as if we were scientific mice running an experimental maze.

    We are even seeing dead light from stars that no longer burn; a time traveling conundrum that makes a hash of what we know of past & present. Given these facts alone many of our inherited concepts about “reality” seem naive to say the least. New physics posit the possibility that time travel could age us so slowly we become younger than our own children.

    If our minds are our ticket to eternity, teaching us how to rise above our earthly circumstances, then we can learn to signal others; “I am eternal. Are you eternal?” Many people believe they are “in the Now” because they are bouncing on the surface of the moment, but they are really water spiders skimming the waves, fearful of “falling in.”

    You are not a person who is afraid of depth. Instead, you will convey the deep peace and truth of living every moment connected to Eternity. Planets & Stars reminds us to turn on our inner searchlight. Our person is close; very close. “Are you Eternal?”

    HELOISE TO ABELARD: “FROM THE FLAME TO THE FLAME”

    Master, my Brother; Father
    Confessor; my all – Before you see a nun
    Abbess in fact – antiphon of grace enclosing
    Octaves of silence.
    I had rather be your whore. Slut, jade, poule –
    What sweets! I relished those words as I craved the
    Blows you struck like kisses.
    Five, like Christ’s wounds. I counted them.

    No midwife cut my cord but You delivered me.
    Satan wormed your root; left Me whole but
    Empty. I’m still cinque-cut while
    You’re a smooth stockade. I “mistook” the veil –
    Impetuously as you stole me –
    Masquerading, copying the night
    We stole from uncle’s house
    In holy guise.

    This veil is Jason’s wedding dress –
    It cannot be removed.
    It burns my flesh, these cerements
    Cremate me. You denied me thrice, False Peter
    Though I crawl to Bethany to earn
    One word. Master, cousin, lover – slave –
    We are bound.
    This grave is not so silent as you are.

    Yes, I’ve chatted up the dead
    I’m closer to you than that tattoo you wear
    As if it became you. When you die
    I’ll be the fire that quickens
    In your veins – the centime on your eyes
    The empty scabbard left
    Along your thigh
    Your last escaping sigh – I.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Children = LEGACY – “Sonogram”

    “How have you evolved?”

    You are looking for a partner in the joint project that is existence. Sometimes our longing is for a family; children. Just as we need mentoring, so we long to mentor.

    Your focus shifts to the perfect combination of you and your Soulmate’s perfected traits, and on the legacy you will leave behind. No matter that there may be an “embarrassment of absence” in its’ non-presence, there is always time to dream and plan.

    What would we wish others to write on our memorial plaque? Does the universe agree with us about what kind of person we are? What would others say about us and our importance – how would they describe us? It is time to bring these visions of self into synch. Some of us leave solid objects behind – buildings, say, and others leave people – human beings we have generated, affected or raised.

    Some of us leave blueprints – foundations, trusts, writings, neighborhood alliances. Some of us leave works of art that fill the minds of watchers with mystery and awe.

    And some people don’t care at all. “Après moi le deluge” is the “Let them eat cake” philosophy attributed to Louis XIV – why should he care what happens following his death? In the annals of selfishness this is the ultimate selfishness; a human being with vast power, privilege and control, who just doesn’t care about other human beings. How do we use our powers and privileges? How do we choose to be remembered?

    “Parents’ unlived lives are child’s greatest burden,” says Jung. We get it! You could apply this to marriage partners. Is one of them suffering an “unlived life” to enhance the existence of the other partner? This can’t happen with Soulmates.

    We have expectations for every relationship – where do they come from? “Expectations” – unrealistic, counter-intuitive, contra-indicated and downright destructive – are the ruination of soulmates. Parents are ALL about expectations.

    They can’t help it so we can’t help it. Helicopter parents hovering are like farmers digging up their own crops to see how growth is coming. The kids are left with a disturbed sense of either never getting a personality started, or of having to cultivate a “secret” personality.

    Such parents take the concept of “legacy” to mean that they personally will continue to magically exist on this planet, refusing to comprehend the real definition of resourcing and empowering persons familiar but distinctive from themselves.

    Gratified parents are no easier on their progeny, if anything, they become MORE intrusive. So many of us are so exhausted by BEING children that the idea of HAVING children is unimaginable. We seek a soulmate with the same level of shock. It feels shameful to confess this, and it adds another worry – won’t we only attract selfish people?

    But what if you WANT to have kids? What if you dare? What if that biological clock is gonging away and that’s why you’re in the Soulmate Market to begin with? Clearly someone like that is not looking for a soulmate, they’re seeking a Co-parent, (possibly a step-parent); a co-provider or maybe just an excellent set of genes.

    Easier to focus on this requirement for a Soulmate to “join” your family. They’ll have to, and you’ll have to join theirs, if they join you.

    Sometimes you “join” by rejecting. You’re going to have to listen to their horror story, and they’ll have to listen to yours. Sex makes babies; that does happen, and should be discussed. But first, you’re going to have to look deeply into someone’s eyes and know that they’re the one. This is the source of that mysterious feeling that you’ve known each other in some other life. And perhaps you have. No wonder they say, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

    Today’s mantra is, “Embrace youth…while you have it.”

    SONOGRAM

    This crowded world could not make do
    without your life;
    Summoned up, you surged
    you split the crust
    Shocked, I shuddered in my sheaves
    as you uncored
    Loosened in my skin as we 
    Unmerged. 

    We travelled to the rim;
    Your fragrant cell became
    a soul unsheathed.
    From my rind’s brim
    you blinkered on the world
    wondered at the fuss.
    We are you and yet
    You are not us.

    Committed to a course beyond our love –
    a forfeit tithe;
    gentle as a snake and
    wiser than a dove;
    As stars consume their fuel
    you were birthed to speed our lives.

    Against the odds we found you
    You found us
    against the odds.
    Consecrated to the great transformer 
    We love like mothers;
    We create like gods.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Transformation = METAMORPHOSIS “Dawn Walk”

    “What truth will you become?”

    What happens when we discover that to accept a New Soulmate, we too must become entirely new? We must turn our comically ugly caterpillars into gorgeous butterflies. It turns out that in wanting the Beloved what we were yearning for was a new self, as beautiful and as magical as we imagined the Beloved to be.

    Transformation is more than mere shape-shifting; it is a complete cellular mutation; a quantum victory of design over matter.

    In the garden transformation is law. The oldest things become new when seen through fresh eyes or a shift of visual imagination. Plants capture or seduce; pods fly into silks, colors wither, embolden or whiten, dust balls eject a thousand baby spiders, a worm becomes frog.

    When you “transform” you are reborn into a new being. Unlike simple masking or disguise, this change interpenetrates the very soul. When we tire of our selves, our path, our very thoughts, nothing will satisfy but complete and total rebirth.

    Seeking wholeness, we are slowly transformed by our own longing into a receptacle for the Beloved. But they must contain us, too, Two Truths will blend together into a singular, mighty Truth. To become The Lover, we must give up the griefs, the imperfections, the pettiness, the vindictiveness of the past.

    If we accept that our future is entirely new, we can be born freshly into this fresh moment. It is this deep looking, deep seeing, deep yearning and deep acceptance that attracts our tantric lover to our sphere. Yes, terrible things have happened outside the golden chalice we now offer. Sad lessons were learned.

    There has been triumph, vengeance, loss and play. No need to dwell on any of this, it no longer describes or confines us. What does describe us?

    The peace of perfected selfhood. We are now ready to merge with yet another enlightened Self.


    Dawn walk

    Thunder crusts a gelid sky
    Light or rain –
    Feathering
    My nest with longing
    Stippled soul flushing out
    New growth; bursting from
    The steepled trees.

    This is my world and I release it
    Stelliform; Readied
    For flying – tough as spidersilk –
    Unrecognized –
    Unrecognizable –
    Even to those who birthed me
    Spent my life creating this; now

    Released and
    Blown away.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Mystery: “The Bridesmaid

    “Words Fail Us”

    Mysteries lure us in; we are born puzzle mavens. It takes experience to learn that not every Mystery has a solution; or that some solutions only redefine the mystery into even larger questions.

    Sometimes by the time the answer comes back we find that we ourselves have changed. The answer to “Who’s out there?” as could well be “Who’s asking?” as well as “Why ask?” Problems tend to be solvable only as far as we can define them. Framing the question frames the answer.

    We turn a corner philosophically when we learn to enjoy Mystery for its own sake and welcome its presence in our lives, salute its effort to instruct our limitations and listen to whatever message it can deliver. There is the majestic silence of the universe, the explosive power of a single cell, the eye that looks upon us from the forest. We are part of the Mystery. It can’t be processed, absorbed or put behind us; it can only be lived. The Mystery is Us.

    Our Soulmate can’t be “solved” any more than the tiger can cease his “burning bright” or the hound of heaven his pursuit. There will be things about our Soulmates that we never know, just as there are things about ourselves that we will never see.

    This realization is an important one for Love, Acceptance and Ecstatic Communion to take place. Realize that “solutions” and “explanations” are language and time-bound, but you and your Soulmate meet in a place beyond language and time.

    When you touch, you speak a deeper language, you meet in a timeless place that is eternal. Arguments and misunderstandings fade away – they are captured in Language and you, your Spirit and the ecstasy your union engenders are not trapped by words. You are free of promises, mistakes, even aspirations.

    You are two rivers blending, two clouds merging, exchanging psychic atoms of thought and feeling that alter the definition of Being. You are One, you are Two In One, you are Whole.

    The Bridesmaid


    Yes, I know everything.
    You’re my poor relation.
    I know of your daddy’s desk where you
    Fucked with formaldehyde fingers
    Heard you tell your sad
    Rosary of abortions,
    I know everything.
    We made love on your letters undisturbed
    As two icons. She’s imperfect
    He told me.
    Unseated by hierarchy
    We two take our place
    With the king’s crazy mistresses;
    Brewing menstrual blood coffee
    And mandrake root tea.
    Swim away, little bridesmaid,
    You’re too young
    I’m in love – we’ve got
    Too much in common ever to meet.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Spring = HOPE “Peacock Pavement”

    “It’s always spring within”

    Spring means beginning, freshness, newness. It starts small – barely recognizable – the tiniest frond of green among the blackness, calling forth an answering shiver from somewhere deep inside us.

    We are told that every cell in our body replaces itself in seven years, so springtime is a constant within us. The best thing about Spring, to my way of thinking, is that it replaces winter. I am not a winter person, though I am told some are. I usually experience a sense almost of hopelessness, right before the end. Spring is the cure for hopelessness. Spring is hope itself.

    In the darkest season of loneliness, we must find reason for hope, and the reason is always the same: refreshment and rebirth are coming. We participate in the rejuvenation of the world. We transform ourselves into turnaround specialists, turning around hopelessness and a quitter mentality into can-do optimism & strategies.

    The green plant finds a way to surge forth, the beetles wait in the earth until their time is right, the egg contains a perfect hummingbird. So we strip away our fears, negativity and hopelessness to foster the growth inside, growth in the belief that our Soulmate is right around the corner.

    PEACOCK PAVEMENT


    Femininity has its Everests –
    I will climb them daily.
    The crow’s belly’s is black,

    Envy his womb-less contentment as I stroll 
    Among the old wrappers, used condoms;
    Joints rolled tight as bedsheets

    Letters used – abused – discarded.
    Crow envies me my
    Zircon hair; a lunar map of freedom,

    Battering-ram jaw, baroque nose, the
     Greek depths through which
    My eyes record their wanderings

    Outside the convent walls, between
    The stalls, corrals, the chained-up lambs,
    The leaf-filled swimming pools:

    First act, second act, third act
    Epilogue. Number days by counting
    Depth marks round your taproot

    Showing off sporadic questings not my own
    Belonging to some future – all
    Unknowing what anyone will make

    Of these Portentous Pleiades:
    Disparate sisters,
    Me, myself and I.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Aspiration=THE FUTURE “Impure Women”

    “Creating a bucket list”

    Effort is the quintessence of Aspiration. “Success” is a different matter entirely. The struggle to achieve absorbs our attention; rest offers us the opportunity to dream yet another Aspiration.

    Contemplate the construction of our bodies; the muscle mass and muscle fiber, the growing bone and sinew that power the temples of our quotidian existence. Resting regenerates, but exercise makes them strong. So, aspire we must, nor can we ever stop aspiring. When we relax to plan a new assault, we should concern ourselves less with whether our goals are reachable and more with whether they are worthy.

    As we construct a disciplined path to create & curate our Best Other, we cultivate the perfect combination of both Present & Future living. We honor the beauty of our coming Soulmate by taking care of ourselves now. The worst thing that could happen would be if our Soulmate couldn’t recognize us because we dimmed our light in a bloat of self-indulgence. So even though we know loneliness, we feel at peace, because the future promises us glorious togetherness. Our Aspiration says so!

    Impure Women

    Between my breath
    And your breath
    Beneath the phallic
    Philanthropic statues
    Volcanic dragstrip
    Of my city
    The wounded in the scorched earth policy
    Of love
    Muster
    Linger
    Await
    Embodiment.
    We seek new flesh:
    Pills to make their
    Hearts race faster
    Stopped their faces
    Dead as clocks
    That witness
    Crimes unspeakable
    To mothers
    Versed in tabloid gore.
    Who will bring them
    Absolution now that I am gone?
    In the fresh wounds of a
    Seconal summer
    The stopped children meet
    And kiss.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking by Alysse Aallyn

    Persistence=COMMITMENT ‘Virginia Woolf”

    “refuse to surrender”

    Persistence is about not giving up. How could we accomplish anything without it? 99% of life is “just showing up” Woody Allen advises. “I didn’t fail,” said Edison, “I found ten thousand methods that didn’t work.” In other words, “trial and error” was a life style for him, a “modus vivendi.” He considered existence itself just one experiment after another. You can see that for somebody like that, “success” is, by definition, right around the corner. What a happy way to live!

    When passion flags, when courage fails, when even grit founders, there is only determination. We will keep going. Our Other Half, our Lost Self is calling us and there is no going back. If we gave up now we would be at a place of cosmic distrust. It can’t happen. We may groan. We may collapse. We must sleep, the better to summon dreams to our assistance.

    Sometimes we have to ask the uncomfortable questions: what am I missing? WHO am I missing? We summon up a distinctive song we want our Soulmate to hear, perhaps a song that ONLY our soulmate can hear. And we buckle up and keep on going.

    VIRGINIA WOOLF: The Membraned Sieve

    O bliss to be red admiral afeast
    Upon a rotten apple in the grass; she dreamed that guiltily
    Woke to Leonard bringing milk
    Nessa dancing bear-like on the lawn, woke
    To pain; cylindrical as seasons
    Burning white and burning blue like friends.
    The words fell fast, the blood fell faster;
    Split the membraned sieve.
    She raced the whitecaps out to sea
    Parting the waves with her mother’s hand.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Passion = COURAGE “Diaries”

    “What’s the bravest you’ve ever been?”

    Passion is the fuel by which we live. It can warm us, it can inflame us, it can destroy us. Without it life is dry and pointless. We are born with majestic passions that seem ungovernable.

    Our specific passions may seem strange to other people, but no one’s yet been born with none at all. The trick is managing them and making them work for us. A complication is that our passions change and evolve. Fantasies that kept us warm in childhood seem empty to us now. Sometimes in the busyness of life we find ourselves working so hard for other people’s goals our own seem to vanish and life becomes dry and tasteless.

    What do we really want? What makes us happy? What ignites our best self and completes our growth process?

    It isn’t too soon to imagine how our eulogy should read! Explorer? Poet? Dreamer? Lover? Person?

    Passion gives us courage. Courage is hard-won. Whenever it seems to come “naturally”, that’s because we didn’t assess the possible consequences of our actions. That’s not courage, that’s foolhardiness. When we understand the dangers and move forward anyway, that’s true courage.

    When we contemplate sharing our deepest self with another, what do we risk? We risk exposure, humiliation, misinterpretation, minimization, stigmatization. Those are serious risks, but the only way forward is through. Don’t pretend you don’t care or it doesn’t matter; hardening ourselves only devalues the very prize we seek as well as our ability to enjoy it and be transformed by it.

    To seek depth we must give depth. The secret is self-compassion, to accept our own humanity. Once we can do that we are given the key of seeing deeply into others. We are not interested in those pretending they are less than human – they can neither help us nor themselves. We resolve to keep going – courageously – in our search for The One.

    Diaries

    I don’t remember anything –
    Amnesiacs
    Write everything down
    Stuffed in my closet
    Among discarded gowns
    (Smelling just the same)
    Useless but
    Too beautiful to throw away. How
    I recollect & treasure
    The act of writing
    An up and over downtime scrawl
    Recall the surgeon
    Cutting at my flesh
    Tugging splitting sweating
    Recall liftoff – finally
    Airborne ; my
    Hawk’s-eye vision sees
    Backwards & forwards –
    Past into future.
    Too much dig is spoilage;
    Freedom mined is
    Priceless.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Meditation = MINDFULNESS “the Poet On Her Walk”

    “Understanding and accepting the moment”

    Meditation is the Art of Looking Deeply. It takes concentration and practice and all the gifts that makes us human – but our physical, mental and cultural “tics” – fight against our cultivation of this vital skill. We must master our physicality to engage our brain in Deep Looking.

    Begin with the breath, inhale, exhale, calm the tumult in our blood. As thoughts appear, set them one by one before your Inner Eye and turn each over in your mind without judgment. We are just floating by. The goal is to learn to feel compassion for the creatures of this earth; so that ultimately we can calm the tumult in everyone’s life journeys.

    Before our eyes now is our yearning for our Other Half. If we are living in the past growth hurts like a requiem for a Lost Self. Yet deep looking into our “now” will rescue us from past suffering. We see past the pain of our perceived unworthiness and the inadequacy of others to the universal healing magic that is love. We perform the “thought experiment” of transforming our minds in order to recognize the Beloved and be recognized by them. This is the most powerful charm; a transformation that solves our earthborn dilemma.

    Meditation is quieting and emptying. Once we soothe the rattle of panic and hysteria that infects each of us through the pressure of living, learn not to react to the “what ifs” and “shoulds”, the fears and preconceptions, we will become our own crystal ball. Push gently on the inevitable thought-balloons drifting through the cathedral of our minds and let them go. When we master the breath, we seize control of life itself.

    Find a “mantra.” Some use prayer – I suggest St. Julian of Norwich’s “All will be well, and all things will be well.” or “the light in me honors the light in the world” or “I am peace” works as well. Feel free to invent your own mantra. Give yourself permission to take loving charge of thoughts and body. Be a tender mother to your new self. When you support your shy new self, you practice welcoming the Beloved. Picturing ocean waves rushing in, then rushing out again along the sand. Relax all your muscles, one by one. Wait. Begin again. Continue until flooded with peace.

    The Poet on Her Walk

    Who dares malign
    The intellectual consolations of this morning
    When every leaf becomes the corner of a star
    And every pond a covenant. Where
    Isles of light illumine
    Tracts of water – blind the
    Spaces where I first saw you.
    Transfix my grief with
    Arrows of wisdom
    Dissolve the veil that
    Separates me from
    Myself; eight years old.

    Who are you that I should fear to
    Stroke you wrong, dissolving pride in
    Mansions of darkness that hood your eyes; the
    Terrible readiness , the
    Dissipated resolution;
    Deepening the silence
    Deepening between us
    Like the ocean between us;
    The silence of wheatfields
    Waiting for wind

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The Waterfall = CHANGE “Preppy”

    “If we open ourselves, don’t we lose control over our transformation?”

    Rendering a garden makes order out of chaos. And yet we want Nature – in all its rude, obstreperous glory – to pour out constantly through and on our little carefully tended patch – without, hopefully, overwhelming or destroying it. The Waterfall is a perfect metaphor for organizing chaos, making it beautiful and extracting our necessary nourishment from its dangerous jaws.

    The Waterfall represents sudden, possibly violent change. Surprise reversals. In our quest for soulmate, we have to hold ourselves ready for these astonishments, because they are the essence of what the universe has to teach us. Right when we think we have it all figured out is when we are most in need of a surprise.

    Often this comes in the form of chemistry: who we are attracted to versus who we THINK we are attracted to. At the beginning of our lives, our minds were unformed. Our wild, unique self lay still undiscovered. We often THINK we desire a High Status Individual, someone the Pod – the amorphous mass we came out of – would approve (even envy.)

    Friendship often teaches us the delight of the quirky. Someone who loves us, whose face lights up when we share, becomes beautiful to us. Someone who reveals themselves, takes chances with us, becomes magical. There is a reason that rom-coms focus on the “surprise” in love; learning that the person who is good for you is not the source of dangerous thrills you’ve been desiring. That’s because this is often the way long-term love gets going. So – better be ready for your own Surprise.

    PREPPY

    Corseted with verbs
    French teacher sweeps
    Cherry blossoms from the tennis court
    As she would like to french
    The cherries, squelch them soundly
    Beneath her soccer-spiking shoes

    While the headmistress
    Cello-breasted
    Polishes graffiti carved upon her coffin
    In Chaucerian High English,
    And the girls –
    Nun-white, nun-blue

    Soar above the hockey fields like
    Foul-mouthed angels, anticipated ecstasy locked
    In narrow hope chests ripening on
    Amphetamines
    Free Love
    Bad dreams.