Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Forgiveness

  • 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

    Nurturing = GROWTH “Cedarwood Chest”

    “Are you ready to take care of the Beloved? Or do you just want to receive care?”

    Nurturing is Stewardship plus Love. It is a non-exploitative relationship many of the fruits of which the Steward may not even live to see. Nurturing requires both Sensitivity and Balance; an appropriate combination of love, modeling and support which is constantly changing.

    Nothing can be decided by rote; intelligence and commitment must be involved and practice and experimentation is required. Experiments mandate a certain proportion of failure: let’s face it; a high proportion. Failure requires recovery and forgiveness – of self and others – and a learning curve. We need to understand “what works” and forge new plans keeping new discoveries in mind. We are all caught up in the physics of existence. Many people who call themselves religious or spiritual wonder why, if there’s a loving God, Earth isn’t already Heaven.

    Heaven is (so far as we know) a mental construct exhibiting all the pleasures & joys of earthly existence without the suffering and struggles of this painfully real world. Unfortunately a large proportion of our earthly pleasure
    revolves around taking, hoarding, and excluding.

    Nurturing focuses on producing successful flourishing health and productivity. It literally makes the universe go round. I think it strongly suggests what Heaven really will be like: caring for others in general and promoting universal, not just personal well-being.

    Are we patient, loving mothers to our struggling selves? Or are we looking for someone else to assume this role? The Nurturing card reminds us that to find a worthy, healthy other, we must be healthy and worthy ourselves. The symbiosis card told us that reciprocity is key, that this is not going to be a one-way street.

    What are our nurturing capabilities? Do we have a pet? Have we mentored? Do we teach? We will represent a mystical wilderness to the Other as we represent a mysterious universe to them. There is so much we can share. There is so much we need to be given to have our Wisdom Eye fully opened.

    Cedarwood Chest

    Grandpa died young that’s why
    Grandma never opened
    The Cedarwood chest
    Till my twelve years unlocked
    The scent of dreams preserved
    Like mullet in red wine.

    Never used the wilting nightgowns
    Featherstitched sheets
    Between whose coffee-colored creases
    Bay leaves crumbled
    (like my reserve when you laid hands
    upon it)

    how it comes back that mossy sad
    perfume! I want to lay
    you away in darkness and tissue but
    I can’t
    I must use you and risk
    Your wearing out

  • 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.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The Bridge = DISCIPLINE “Lovewings”

    “How to keep moving forward?”

    Sometimes we are stuck. Can we even envision the place where we would rather be? There is a yawning chasm between there and here. What we need is a Bridge but nothing is visible. Looks like we might have to build one, but what tools and materials do we have?

    Are there any similarities between where we are now and where we want to be? We want to approach from the closest possible point. Maybe the distance is illusory, maybe the place we plan to get to doesn’t exist at all. The Bridge, on the other hand is ours. We built it and we can own it. The Bridge itself may become the place where we want to be.

    Discipline is our resource. Discipline means doing something we’re committed to do even when we don’t want to do it. We’re forming new skin to become the person we want, need to be. It’s sore and tender at first. We’re charting a new path to finding our soulmate, but we lose confidence fast.

    The psychic rebellion starts early; right when we open one wakeful eye. Do I really have to get up? No one cares but me. I could make a new rule, a new plan…But we know the truth – this is just our devil messing with us. Trying to see how much it can get away with.

    The saving grace here is to fall in love with discipline. With path making as an art. Discipline is order. It’s building, like music. It’s the Beautiful Thing That Comes Next. If everything’s chaos then life is purposeless and nothing matters. Naturally we can change our plan – any time. Our real self always has the chance to make and change informed decisions. But is our Real Self, this niggling, seductive saboteur? No.

    We are on a journey to our real self, the self embodied by the Other (which is tantra) and the self we create together (Tantric Attachment.) We’re committed. And we’re excited! We’ll never get there if we sit by the side of the road in a bundle of sobbing bones and blubber. Here’s the kicker – it feels better the more you do it. You will come to the understanding that it’s all inside you. And you love it!

    LOVEWINGS

    My aunt’s a dancer
    She said “Feel my thighs
    Ain’t they hard
    They’re my love-wings
    Hard as heartwood
    I’m flying on ‘em half the time.
    Practice making perfect I’m
    Tightening up my style in case a valve
    On this here pressure cooker blows
    And splatters darkness like a
    Damsel in a murder case we might
    Solve someday.”
    She laughed and did an arabesque.
    My aunt is thirty-five. I said
    What beautiful thighs you’ve got

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars -Seeking Soulmate with Alysse Aallyn

    Symbiosis = INTERDEPENDENCE “Impure Women”

    “I need you because you need me”

    Symbiosis is interdependence: far from being exploitation, most species require another’s contribution in order to flourish. Sometimes symbiosis is unacknowledged, especially if one of the partners is using “win/lose” reasoning and agonizes about who’s getting “more” out of the relationship.


    Turning a mutually beneficial relationship into a struggle for dominance marks the end of what could have been a thriving partnership.

    You can have rapturous sex with anybody. You can have devoted friendships with lots of entertaining, interesting people. Soulmating is deeper than that.

    You need each other. You can’t live without each other. Yes, you can bail out now if this sounds scary. Otherwise, that’s what you’re in for. You’re going to have to reveal – often discovering it for the first time yourself – what your needs are, and you’re going to have to be willing to put your shoulder to the other person’s wheel. You nourish each other.

    You’re going to slay each other’s dragons and set each other free FOREVER. This is NOT for the faint of heart. Better leave now if you were just hoping for a nice date, delicious sex, or someone to take home to Mom. Because the dragons WILL show themselves.

    Haiku: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

    Only soulmates can
    Slay each other’s dragons
    Says Tibetan Master