Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Forgiveness

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The tulip = ILLUSION “Gothic Novel”

    “Seeing what isn’t there”

    Illusions are VERY attractive. We WANT them to be true. In my childhood Superman leapt tall buildings in a single bound – all us kids could recognize the fun, the power, the joy in that.

    Limitations are unpleasant. We can work to expand them, or…we can dream. Every culture warns the dreamer against getting lost in fantasy. The Tulip is a historic emblem of delusion – impoverishing generations of otherwise intelligent Dutch merchants in a fruitless gamble. Now the Tulip warns that you may be counting on something – or someone – that is false.

    Our society has been fueled by misinformation ever since Edward Bernays, founder of modern advertising, wrote his book Propaganda in the 1920’s. Since then legal beagles have defended the right to “puffery” and “spin”, even to saying something manifestly untrue; “miracle pills!”

    Advertisers are very honest about manipulating us through wish and fear. We are eager to buy the illusions that seem to promise a warm social life, a happy home or radiating beauty. Lately misinformation has taken a distinctly evil turn as billionaires base their fortunes on convincing us that pollution isn’t dangerous, the climate is fine, science is untrustworthy, the election was stolen and oligarchic rule is what we really want.

    The question to consider is, what is our benefit in believing and propagating obviously harmful facts? The rifle-toting man who broke into a Washington DC pizza parlor thought he was a heroic savior of children. He’s now serving a prison term.

    Why is violence such an attractive answer? Forget stockpiling bear mace and bullets to abuse your fellow citizens. We need some other way to soothe our raggedy self-esteem apart from clinging to grifters and liars.

    On the other side of illusion lies reality. We need to take a look at it, savor it. Often it’s a kid tugging at our clothes begging us to stay, focus, share; not lose ourselves in a fantasy world.

    The need for illusion prevents us from finding, seeing and keeping a Soulmate. We must work to make reality less terrible, so that we don’t become dependent on illusion as a pleasure source. Illusion rushes in when life seems meaningless. Joining groups of honest seekers directing their paths with love can save us. When we are surrounded by love we will attract love. Check the philosophy of the group you hang out with. Is it “Let’s you and him fight?” or “Let’s seek joy for all.”

    GOTHIC NOVEL

    A woman alone is open – gaping,
    Button hole without a button hook.
    She carries her muff held stiffly
    Out before her like an offering
    Flic, flic! The eyes of strangers
    Slit the pause like razors.
    This railway carriage stinks of creosote, wet fur.
    “I prefer the window up, thank you”
    “I prefer it down”.
    She lights a Sobranie to remind her
    Of Devon in the haying; the gentlemen
    Lean forward, reading the initials
    On her morocco case.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Clinging vine = DEPENDENCY “Old Masters”

    “Shock”

    A Clinging Vine can’t support itself. We ruthlessly exclude weeds from our garden, but if a vine flowers prettily enough there is a danger that we may tend to let it run until it has squeezed itself around our hearts.

    There is certainly a place in a Garden for a Clinging Vine, but we must think in terms of the supports first, the antique arbor, the sweetly unpainted shed, even, as V. Sackville-West liked to do, sending climbing roses up the trunks of apple trees to provide a profusion of springtime blossoms. Is our Vine beautifying our Garden, or subtly dragging everything ground-wards?

    Everyone, everywhere, is in “unequal” relationships. But the powerful try very hard to pretend they aren’t. Why is it so humiliating to admit that we depend on other people? Rich people and aristocrats of every stripe have voluminous social codes designed exclusively to deny the fact that they require support; in most practical ways they are as helpless as an infant. History often appears to suggest that it’s more admirable to act like a monster than to admit inadequacy.

    Interdependence is the acknowledged goal, but some gifts are rarer than others, certainly they’re more highly prized, which may give some partners an inflated view of their own ”value.”

    But market negotiations, like shallowness and lack of commitment, spell death to the romantic Tantric bond. To maintain vibrancy, to power the circuits of passion, a vigorous self must flourish. The give-and-take of our differing power sources versus our dependency needs will fuel a super-relationship. What blocks this ideal state?

    Youth is the time we experiment with being all things to all people while we fantasize about getting our “requirements” met as effortlessly – read “unconsciously” – as possible. That way we will never have to confront them, test them or question them.

    Maturity usually forces us to face the facts we have been dodging. We may begin our Soulmate dance with the hope of total sharing and equity, but we will wake up one morning and confront life’s truth; this relationship is not equal and never can be. As we gradually accept that we each have separate gifts and interests (I am never going to want to clean the garage) this growing understanding could evolve into fear, even paranoia – as we tell the world – and most importantly, convince ourselves – we can no longer ‘survive” without this person.

    In true Soulmate connection, the mirror image of this fear evolves on the other side. This scary dynamic can lead to a Dark Night of the Soul where partners will be tempted to proclaim “freedom” with public displays (bickering) or covert offensives (cheating financially, sexually, emotionally.)

    This never works – only destruction lies that way, but some of us whose bones tremble with memories of youthful abandonment conclude that “scorched earth” is preferable to publicly admitting another has invaded our very soul. This Dark Night must be lived through; in the fire, you will become the flame.

    The “save” always lies in honestly reaching out to each other and fully confessing to The Terror. Believe me, if you’re feeling it, they’re feeling it too. On the other side of this dread you will truly become One.


    Old Masters

    With age lubricity
    Darkens into sweat;
    We face each other
    Across the cooling dinner,
    Night by night
    Stiff as andirons
    Masterpieces best seen by candlelight
    To hide the cracks,
    Well-meant improvements by
    Another’s hand.
    A well-matched pair.
    Gardens edged perennially with stone
    Are called unkillable;
    One fountain singing
    This tune only. What oracle?
    It didn’t look this way
    Going forward
    Backward is a different view.

    I think I caught this from my mother,
    She played the crone in Wuthering Heights;
    Who preaches doom
    In guise of cheer. All
    I request is light enough
    To read my tarot; instead I’m fated
    Recycling tea brewed
    From murky bathwater.
    These leaves are dark and do not speak.
    I shiver with cold and you
    With anger; a well-matched pair, a
    Brace of disappointments.
    There’s still too much
    We can’t admit.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Hummingbird = THE SOUL “The Hummingbird”

    “Is Love Eternal?”

    “Hope is the thing with feathers.”
    -Emily Dickinson

    Hummingbirds are impossible. They can fly backwards, forwards and upside down. They can move their wings in a figure 8. The blinding whir of fast-moving iridescent feathers creates the “hum” that gave them their name. Hummingbirds have fast metabolisms and must lick nourishment all day long.

    Hummingbirds are carnivores, and they migrate long distances. Their feet are used for perching only, not for hopping or walking. They are strongly territorial and have been known to chase hawks away. They don’t expect a medal for it either. I’m guessing a hawk would be seriously unsettled by this dive-bombing ruby and have the sense to leave. If hummingbirds can do all this, what’s our excuse? As I say, hummingbirds are impossible.

    Love is an energy and as such is subject to many of the laws of energy. It can be wasted, it can be vitiated, it can run down. But when Love meets its Soulmate the two loves join together to become a Force that invigorates the Soul, that
    essence of our personhood that is immortal. Each of us is a single wing, and working together to lift each other up we are likelier to soar.

    Some theories of reincarnation suggest that we don’t so much remember past lives as “recognize” aspects of ourselves in history. Psychologists call that recognition more a process of identification and learning. I propose another idea; which is that souls recognize each other. This is what lies behind those magic moments we “suddenly” share with others, where we “understand” without knowing how we got there. It feels instinctual that a connection has been formed.

    We need to live as if the present moment is eternal because that is the true path to immortality. That means dialing up the love and pushing away the fear, along with the mad scramble towards the future.

    What if we were enough and we have always been enough? Your soul has been waiting to speak to you. What might it say? What does your partner’s soul say? What do your souls say together?

    HAIKU: The Hummingbird

    don’t you dare
    underestimate me
    am I small or are you
    oversized?

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Sunflowers = SPIRITUALITY “Curatrix”

    “Pressing beyond”

    The Sunflower cranes its black eye skyward. “Golden wings mirror heaven, petalled glories feed multitudes.” In the language of flowers “Helianthus” is a symbol of wealth and success. Sunflowers bring good luck in gardens (or kept under the bed at night they provide sweet dreams); in multiples this flower must astonish, seeming to create a path to Heaven.


    In the Tantric Garden the Sunflower blooms inside of YOU, expressing “spirituality”; your “extra dimension.”

    Spirituality means accepting and exploring the non-physical world. This is where the “living water” flows, the “ultimate refreshment” that brings peace and the kind of quiet joy that looks around for someone to share. You are becoming aware that people have “auras” – even while sleeping, under conditions when they are not consciously sending out “signals.”

    What is your aura? Think about it. What are you projecting? And how about your Beloved’s aura? If you have negative, angry, punitive and vengeful beliefs, these will get in the way of ultimate connection.

    Then there will be the aura you create together, you and your Soulmate, as you join in the life of the Spirit. Spirituality is a concept of eternality, meeting together in a world beyond your physical selves.

    Sexual ecstasy offers this elevated sensation of ultimate unity. To live in this reassuring cocoon feels like heaven on earth – no wonder we all search for it. But no aggressive quest can uncover our spirit, it requires patience, time, faith and practice. Yoga and meditation are always good places to start, as is quietly being alone with the Beloved and discussing whatever bubbles up in a life-enhancing, expansive spirit of curiosity.

    Curatrix

    Cold lonely core I was
    Before you found me
    Freed me from
    Ambition’s boundary.
    Now I’m a multi facet of your stone
    Unlike myself when I’m alone.
    Memories like stones I’m free to choose
    And on life’s river,
    Blissfully, cruise.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Fruit = FRUITION “Sweet Family”

    “Enjoy!”

    The Fruit is the sweet result of day after day of concentrated sunshine. The Fruit is a summit of achievement; centuries of unique conditions ending in delight for the senses poetry for the tongue.

    Raspberry, Strawberry, paw-paw, pomegranate, banana, apple, pear, cherry; so much nectar; so many wines. Together they symbolize for us the moment of celebration: Harvest, when there is nothing left to do but relax and enjoy. But Fruit has even more to offer than that.

    We revel in the concept of a storehouse full to bursting; a pleasure-palace of magical alchemy where the very humblest fertilizers such as dirt and sweat are transformed into visible, taste-able joy. The blood of the planet becomes our blood and the most potent chemicals of its deepest mines flood our aching emptiness with repletion.

    The Tantric Garden Harvest concept says you are about to enjoy the fruits of all your yearning, planning, efforts. You are looking into the eyes of, touching the hands of a potential Soulmate. You are close, close. The Harvest invites us to just revel in the bliss – actual and potential – of this moment. It is critical that you not “numb out.” The temptations will be there. There are plenty of chemical fast-tracks to ‘letting your guard down.” But you don’t want to do that. You want to explore that very “guard” and not make a dash for a mythical “finish-line” because the essence of Tantra is there is no finish line.

    There is only the Now, a universe of infinite possibility which has just been doubled as you gaze into the Soulmate’s eyes and hold the Soulmate’s hand.

    Sweet Family

    I want you
    To deliver our children
    With your tongue
    That deft baker’s paddle would
    Lever them out
    Warm & fresh
    In their marzipan coats
    Trailing the pineapple
    Blood-rind
    Traced with poppy-seed adornments
    Marking them as ours.
    A little boy with a pastry-tube
    Rosette between his legs
    A girl as hard & round as
    A hot cross bun
    Petals furled on her
    Crystallized convolvulus
    In whose depths lie stored
    All the honeys of the future.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    AMBISEXTROUS – “I see myself in You”

    “Gender curious?”

    We were amorphous seacreatures once. We breathed liquid through our gills and rubbed our silvery sides against our mates. In the womb we roiled and reveled in our oceanic environment.
    Whenever we float, eyes closed, we channel what it felt like, shivering and shimmering in an upside-down world. So is the dexterity of melting into a concatenation of dizzyingly different avatars a souvenir of ancestral past or a premonition of some liquid, undiversified future? What can it tell us about recognizing our soulmate?


    We are reminded of skills we haven’t even tried yet, and our deep connections to inhabitants of universes we cannot even see.
    In the tantric garden, sex, gender, and identity are fluid; compromised constructs we create and share only with the Beloved. Let your imagination billow outwards, absorbing the Other. Our bodies express our memories, personhoods, dreams; evoke our aspirations and our lives. What does it mean to be truly open to another human? The level of trust must be so great the future vanishes into an endless present.

    God knows, we are willing. To be full of another is the ultimate mindfulness; we touch brains, hopes, memories as well as skin.

    I see myself in you –

    Moth to flame
    Your meteoric dust
    Drips ash into my upturned mouth.
    I taste stars.
    What manner of being
    Have you become?
    I only know you’re something that I need
    Your mirrored endlessness partakes
    Of nothing human; suggests an
    Completion.
    I’ll take that promise; your shadow arches
    Like an angry lover
    Refusing satisfaction.
    My hunger burns more purely
    in the titillation of neglect.
    Without you I’m just myself
    With you I’m everything;
    God of Worlds.
    Anyone can be born: eternity is
    The lover’s privilege.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Dawn: Relief: “the Treehouse”

    “Tense, Relax”

    In Dawn we are between two worlds; our feet in night and our heads in the future yet to come. Sometimes we can’t wait to shake off the darkness; even pretend it never happened; other times we are sluggishly unwilling to give ourselves over to the cares of daylight hours. The ancients celebrated each “return” of the sun’s light as a religious and philosophical triumph; a sign that the mighty ones have forgiven us the past and will allow us to continue the grand experiment of life for another day.

    There is a special quality of light to Dawn when ordinary objects look different; magical, even the air feels different, full of portent and excitement. Often we find ourselves wishing this transitional period would last forever. Dawn is the Future itself; perhaps more thrilling as we contemplate its possibilities than when we begin the hard slog of making them come true.

    Dawn signals a freshening, a slackening of tension. We confronted Night alone; now we are going to get some company. We were all keyed up – now we are going to get a break. This can be interpreted as a Reward – finally! Some little crumb to keep us going. When we have been trying so hard and are allowed to relax, it’s almost as if a sense of shock sets in.

    We’re so exhausted from all our effort we don’t even want to TRY to figure out what’s REALLY going on. We just want to roll with it, for now. Get our breath back. Recover our mojo. We are plunged into a new dream-like state of particular value to Skryers hoping to Discern their future: Day Dreaming. As our “night terrors” subside, we are flooded with images, ideas, memories, yearnings, disconnected at first. Go with it.

    What do these visions say to you? How do you feel about it? It is in moments like these that we may get some unexpected insight. We may realize that the high-status Soulmate we THOUGHT we wanted (Financial bro! Super-model! Sports star!) is not what we want AT ALL. We feel new yearnings, for someone more in tune with our REAL lifestyle and our cherished, secret sense of self.

    As dawn breaks, the game re-sets. We get to start again! Allow yourself to celebrate all the fresh possibilities suddenly poured so generously into your lap.

    THE TREEHOUSE

    Eager I was to initial your flesh
    Mark it mine forever
    A fairly short forever as I recall.
    Trilling up my drainpipe

    Your hot unvaried song –
    “Who will know?”
    We were the ones who did not know.
    The treehouse was our yearbook –

     Memory’s coffin; there
     You swallowed me whole
    A circus act, a disappearing act 
    None saw

    Insects feasted on our
    Unwatched blood
    Bursting to the rhythm
    Of our bursting.

    If I mistake your face these days
    In a flower-field of faces
    Shifting to moon pressure
    Swaying to wind pressure

    Listing according to laws unknown
    Count me not along your abacus of traitors;
    I am she. The blood still flows, still glows
    In the treehouse.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Day = FOCUS “On Reading the Alumni Directory”

    “The Power of Routine”

    “Begin anew with the Day, as Nature does” says George Woodberry. What good advice! Every dawn is a fresh chance for us to put new principles into practice, make original resolves and absorb consequent lessons and engender successful strategies that bring us closer to our goals. If, as the sages say, “it’s the journey not the arrival that matters” then each and every day is, literally, the first day of the rest of our lives.

    We are launched on the journey of a thousand steps. Isn’t it the ideal to make each step as blissfully supportive as possible?

    On our quest for a soulmate, aren’t we really looking to be freed from the hum-drum round of daily ordinariness into the ecstatic upper stratosphere, the bliss of the spiritual? Isn’t that what we’re really after? This is what causes our frustration with where we’re at, right now.

    What we need is to infuse the ordinary with the spiritual, and like any skill, this attitude can be practiced and IMPROVED and we can start NOW. In Tantric Attachment, “Day” represents your supportive routine (both conscious and un.)

    Today’s goal is to make your habits conscious, improve them with mindfulness, then allow them to sink into the subliminal where they can be accessed emotionally and kinetically. We plan to turn OURSELVES into the exact life partner we have been looking for!

    Some of us are morning people – others most definitely Not. I started out in life as a night owl and after kids, I changed. Now I don’t think I can write anything intelligent past 3 PM! (It’s currently 7:25 AM.) Every morning must contain spiritual, physical and refreshment practices. Our great enemy is all this anxious doom-scrolling we all do, when we can clearly see it raises, rather than lessens our distress and confusion. Let’s figure out a way to contain it, because that helpless victim can never be our best self.

    In a frantic, worried or angry condition nobody can share or enjoy anything. The best choice would be a morning of thought, prayer, gratitude, healthful eating, gentle exercise but if this is not possible let’s keep our survey of The News, Email, etc. to a specific low number. To be loved, we must love ourselves. This is an inflexible rule. Therefore, you must keep telling yourself, “I love you. That’s why I’m taking such good care of you.” Commit to The Day!

    ON READING THE ALUMNI DIRECTORY

    I’m surprised
    So few of us have made it.
    The years seemed quiet
    The years seem far between.
    Through interstices the
    Class clowns fall –
    Sluts & giants; the
    Nobodies –
    Possessed & hunted
    Now as they were then;
    Haunted.
    “Address unknown”
    “Lives with Mom”
    “Religious cult”
    “Deadbeat”
    “Moved…nowhere.”
    My blood-mate’s still unmarried
    I wonder how
    We’d get along.
    I translate terpsichore to unknown
    Tongues, he’s Law and
    Journalism; how’s that
    Compatible?
    He lives so far away.
    Time off’s a bitch, plus
    They got my address wrong.

  • 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.