Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Gender

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                       Fri. 24 Sept 76

                       Checked my acct – $54!! Don’t know where it came from 

    but I will spend it.  Sent poems to Chloe Aparo, borrow bike from 

    Shoulders. Ryder wants to go horseback riding, we went to see 

    The Tenant instead. (Cheaper).  R managed to discuss it intelligently. 

    Trying to research the occult for Secaire.  Reading bad suspense 

    novel – Geoffrey Turtons Devil’s Churchyard. I liked all his other 

    books. Dump it for Aleister Crowley’s Diary of a Drug Fiend. $10 

    to live on for 2 weeks. Mom & Dad sent emergency check.

                       6:25 PM – Sun 3 Oct 76

                       Fabulous dinner party last night. Steak tartare, crab 

    and cheese casserole, lots of wine. R and I fall asleep in each 

    other’s arms.  We have more sex “broken up” than when we were 

    dating. Got offered $3.50 an hour for 4 hr a day legal secretary!!! 

    Out of their minds.  Trying to sell my wedding dress for $150 – 

    got one porno call.

                       Tues 5 Oct 76

                       4pm appt with Environmental Defense Fund. Howard 

    Nemerov such a relief after Auden.

                       Thurs 11:30 PM 7 Oct 76

                       Typical Tyler St evening. Lying in bed (alone) powdered 

    and polished from bath. Maeve and Avril out on dates. R is working,

     I’m reading Quest for Theseus. Got too depressed reading 

    Shirley Jackson. Her life solutions: food and cigarettes – plenty 

    of both.  Lost EDF job –  as soon as they turned me down I 

    decide I want it!  To WTTG to apply for “production asst” job – 

    200 people spilling into street!  Didn’t bother.  How write about 

    love if it’s impossible?

                       I owe Maeve money – she doesn’t like it and I don’t

     like it. Tension almost unbearable waiting for my check.

                       R offered jobs in Pittsburgh & Detroit. (He says he 

    doesn’t ever want to leave though it’s the only way to make more $$.)

                       12:55 PM Wed 13 1976 These are the times that try 

    women’s souls. Desperately accepted switchboard job at Broadcasters Agency because it looks easy and I can think my own thoughts.  

    Replacing a girl going on maternity leave so I’m not stuck if I don’t 

    like it. Agent sent check told me not to cash it for a week!!! Thinking 

    they’re all scam artists. Reading Diane Johnson’s brilliant Lesser

     Lives. Avril depressed over Mason. Maeve depressed over George.

     I am buying diet pills because of sedentary job.

                       Switchboard – Broadcast Agency 9:15 AM – Fr. 18 Feb 77

                       New notebooks such a thrill. Always a fresh start:  

    I could almost become anyone. Worked 3 full days this week – 

    more $$ in the coffers. Avril coming in to Broadcasters Agency 

    to apply for Zelma’s old job – $8500/yr for 7 hr day.  Hope she 

    gets it. Brought in The Voyage Out today – I WILL finish it –

     bring it to its knees. Perfect example of everything usually wrong 

    with first novels. Don’t like her novels as much as letters and diaries.  

    Talk about peering through a glass darkly. Oh well. Still drinking 

    coffee and picking the fuzz out of my eyes. Period’s arrived with its 

    usual exquisite timing. Once I’ve finished Secaire (needs a final burst)

     can rewrite Find Courtney. Sort of a love story there.

                       10:30AM Sun 20 Feb 77

                       R and I went on ski weekend to Massanutten.  

    Didn’t work.  Never felt so far from him, and he realized it. 

    Opal & Garrett over for dinner last night – their relationship is 

    boring when I’m alone and don’t have R doing all the work for me. 

                      Drank too much out of sheer boredom and because I was 

    depressed over R, then I get depressed over being depressed 

    and drink more.  Clearly he’s worthless and I must be too if I can 

    get depressed over him. No good work on novel. Filing, cleaning, 

    paying bills takes up all my time and my room still looks like a filthy hole. 

    Hermiting seems only option (cheaper, too). Must learn to roll 

    with the punches.

    Fantasizing about Devon because 24th is his birthday. Bad sign.

                       1:00PM 21 Feb 77

                       Dizzy from dieting. Not dancing very bad for my body.

     Current weight 122. (Opal says I have the perfect body. Glad 

    someone appreciates it.) Ryder suggested jogging – bad mistake.  

    Instantly attacked by colds & flu. Instead of eating go to library on 

    my lunch hr to take out books. Went to see The Sentinel somewhere

     in the burbs with Avril and Mason, who drove like a crazy person 

    (“I’m not afraid of death!”) Never again. Ghastly flick. Mason moving in

     – his money is good.  Another secret to be kept from landlord. A guy 

    at work (Keith Dalrymple) is courting me. He looks all right, though 

    he has receding hairline. Kind of old.  Asked to read my novel. I gave 

    him my poems instead. He needs to hit the ground running.

                       Tues. 22 Feb 77

                       Mason trying to talk A into moving to Calif with him. Uh oh. 

    Maeve also wants to move out because I’m critical of her

     “dating” her married boss (they have sex in the supply closet). 

    She believes his tiredest lines.  “Drop him – he’s outrageous 

    and destructive,”  I say.  I’m one to talk. Will use her room for 

    my study.  Try to live without roommates. Sent Devon a long 

    grey silk scarf for his birthday.

                       3:40 PM Wed 23 Feb 77

                       Keith Dalrymple amazingly told me he loves my 

    poems. Wow. Having good literary taste definitely works with me! 

     Having a drink with him tonight.  Had to struggle to keep myself 

    from hurling cash at a gorgeous $50 suit in going-out-of-business 

    dress shop on Dupont Circle. Slogging through Mrs Dalloway –

     it’s her best book. But all this blind struggle not my thing. Require 

    some consciousness. I guess we were reptiles in those days just turning amphibious.

                       Thurs. 24 Feb 77

                       Can’t seem to write poetry anymore. Cocktail bar buffet 

    with Keith (Avril calls him a “dim bulb”. We are very critical of each 

    other’s honeys.)  He’s a Woolf novel – smooth glossy surface, 

    violence and trauma beneath.  He is intelligent – quoted Frost – 

    38 yrs old – divorced (was married 15 years!!!) I sat swilling 

    Scotch and giving him the hairy eyeball – do I have the strength 

    for this? He blanched when I ordered escargots chablisienne. 

                    Wouldn’t even kiss him. I demand exceptionality and refuse to settle for less.  Whatever else you can say about Ryder, he’s definitely one of a kind. I am in a unique position compared to other women writers. Given the chance to rise above sexual 

    strictures.  Bought an exquisite pair of very high-heeled boots. I tower over Ryder – in more ways than one. Heheheh. 

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    6. ENTREGARME – SURRENDER


    EVAN
    I am utterly becalmed.
    What I dread most is silence,
    The latest form of impotence.
    I need stringing up and tautening.
    This is the
    Revenge of love. Its revenge on me.

    EVA
    I am suffused with love because I am free.
    My work becomes our child,
    Our extension. Immortal. Still,
    Something vanishes when you’re not there.

    EVAN
    Elayna broke her hip.
    How irreplaceable she is to me.
    Our brand of married happiness is entirely unsung.
    I shrink to leave her even for a day.

    EVA
    I’m sorry it wasn’t fatal.
    Am I so dispensable to you?
    You love no one. If you turn against me
    I’ll die in a week because
    I have no one looking after me.

    EVAN
    Turn against you! Agonizing!
    In spite of the hangover of humiliation
    I broke down all reserves so we could be together.
    A very happy day and I was sorry to leave you.

    EVA
    Wed & sad.
    Past distress muffled by age & habit.
    Today we meet formally as if at a garden party.
    A promise unfulfilled.
    Miracles happen but
    The gift of love is guilt & pain.

    EVAN
    You looked so ill
    I was nagged by fear I bored you.
    I long for the happiness of old age,
    Guilt free, pain free, fear free.

    EVA
    I invited Elayna to lunch.

    EVAN
    I am not best pleased.
    Your ghost will haunt me till I die.
    The day you come to like each other
    It will be poison to our love.

    Elayna rarely admits depression.
    I have had not just love but loyalty.
    You force ruthlessness.
    It is a good thing your throat is sore
    Or you would never stop talking.

    EVA
    Are you sending me your signet ring?
    I want something solid to remember you by.
    A last communion.
    Dodging death, I fight off this
    Paralyzing loneliness.

    (EVA fades away. EVAN is alone.)

    EVAN
    Is the flaw in love a flaw in me?
    I never should have married.
    My heart jumps with pain like a hooked fish.
    I am rudderless. Upon your death
    My ring comes back,
    All your contrivances revealed.

    Now that you are gone, I find you everywhere.
    It’s hard to take in the fact that
    We will never see each other again;
    Never, never, never.
    You are gone from me forever.

    I walk the streets and weep.
    Is this delayed shock? Boredom or despair?
    I will never cease to feel this pain till
    I cease feeling anything.
    For the last three nights, I dreamed of you.

    Did I anger you, neglect you?
    It’s too late to pray –
    I await your final book with horror.
    I need to know I was your life.
    Please come back one last time
    For just an hour.
    If you ever thought you loved more than I
    You are now
    Revenged.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    4. CALESITA –THE MERRY GO ROUND

    EVA
    Did I leave my diary behind?
    Don’t read it, not that you would.
    It’s anaphrodisiac. I am filled with envious admiration
    For the way you spend your time.
    It’s an incentive to work, being alone.
    Diplomats are never lonely.

    EVAN
    My bed gets so icy in the small hours of the morning –
    I am losing interest in sex.
    Perhaps I am already part of the spirit world.
    I am in limbo and will never escape this place.

    The teenager remains alive in me, I have a
    Panic fear of conformity
    So I cast myself as the elderly rake.
    I fear I’m the bore –
    Marriage gets me down.

    EVA
    When you go on and on about yourself
    You’re a man I don’t recognize.
    I prefer your adolescent self.
    The man of the house should be a free agent.
    A respected prowler
    Never lonely, housebound,
    Eating baked beans and drinking stewed tea.

    EVAN
    In other countries women
    Are less bossy and more decorative.
    You are jealous of my life –
    I am jealous of yours.

    EVA
    Ah the pain of your reproach!
    Not seeing you would kill me.
    I live for the memory of our every moment.
    I wouldn’t give a damn if I died tomorrow.

    EVAN
    This is the letter I would write you if I dared,
    if I weren’t frightened by the cancer
    Of your wife-hatred.
    I am overworked, wrung out.
    Possessed by you.

    You make me live at the pitch of anguish.
    Our love has roots in good and evil,
    It lives in the darkest places of our natures
    Shall we end by destroying each other?
    You have the deadlier weapons.

    EVA
    I do have a bad effect on people.
    Guilt, conspiracy, love,
    I cannot breathe without them.

    EVAN
    Boredom, dissipation, remorse,
    And apprehension– I can’t escape this obsessive cycle.
    Beneath the controlled surface of my mind
    Opportunities to be frenzied are endless.
    I’m afraid of saying something ruthless which many stick.

    EVA
    This place is full of you.
    I can no longer look at hyacinths
    Gratitude for our happiness chokes me.
    The restlessness of pleasure going to waste.
    Missing you is like an illness.

    EVAN
    If there’s a worm in this bud
    Who is the corruptor?
    Your insights are so powerful they alter mine.

    EVA
    I believe we should exchange rings.
    Is this a faux pas? Would your wife object?
    I need something in case you die of your itch or
    I fall out of an airplane.

    I wonder why Elayna’s throat won’t heal?
    I believe she is ice-bound.
    Sealing you away from life.

    EVAN
    You witch, you have
    Frozen poor Elayna’s throat.
    I begged you not to. You make all
    Suffering physical.

    EVA
    Elayna’s frozen her own throat –
    I wish you’d see it.
    Depression is hallucinatory.
    Guilt and sorrow undermine my confidence,
    I refuse to give them credence.

    EVAN
    I’m grateful when we talk calmly,
    Our fearful scenes seem so long ago.
    I’m sure the panic of youth has played its part.
    I used to hope you would love me less over time
    But now I think we love each other equally.

    EVA
You are so near me I feel we are one person.
    I feel you now beside me.
    I will make you real.

    EVAN
    I feel your longing
    As I fear your signaling.
    I owe you happiness
    But I can’t express it.
    We must believe life is as beautiful as music
    Says it is.

    EVA
    The illusions we cultivate are
    A form of courage.
    Forget my deficiencies
    Find amusement in the worldly game.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    3. LATIGAZO – WHIPPING

    EVAN
    Do you really love me?
    Why should you?
    I don’t any longer
    Believe In friendship.

    EVA
    It is a horror, an outrage
    That we should not be together. I struggle against
    The wound of not knowing where you are each minute.
    Everything you do is more important to me than my own life.
    The whole of me is with you.
    I see and feel you so distinctly,
    Your beloved cold hand in mine
    Your touch on the nape of my neck.

    Joy and agony
    – my insides torn by pincers.
    A double goodbye would have been awful
    – two bites on the bullet of pain.

    This love is like something we have given birth to.
    We must never blunt our imagination or tenderness.
    Don’t get a cold in your soul.

    EVAN
    Are these abortive suicide attempts?
    I disappoint everyone.
    Cut the cable. Set me free.

    I deliberately left one of your letters for Elayna to find.

    With me love is linked with
    A need to betray. I invite possessiveness.
    She made me promise our love would never be physical.
    I lied fluidly.

    EVA
    Even the thought of
    Such a loss of pleasure tears at my heart
    Like some medieval torture.

    You harrow me unbearably.
    My defenses are down.
    I’m filled me with a sense of ghastly injury.
    How I wish I were more beautiful –
    It’s my mouth that ages me.
    It reveals my greedy secrets.

    I want you seeing all of me –
    Even if it hurts. My work
    Is my legacy –
    You are your own child.
    You preserve your youth with the harm
    That you cause.

    I feel I am dead and already
    Interred – in you.
    You are my eternity.

    EVAN
    Repressed boredom causes blocks
    You can’t have everything.
    I am kept aloft by the conflict of
    Unbearables.
    It makes me happy.

    EVA
    If our dancing life is over –
    Should I enter a convent?
    There’s no point in being alive
    if we’re not together.
    I show my deepest self to you alone.

    EVAN
    Please – no more shaming conversations
    Over Irish whisky. Let’s cut our losses
    And get some fun from life.
    Your miraculous capacities awaken
    My belief in myself.

    EVA


    The gash in our love might close
    But I’ll never forget it’s there.
    Life with you is a remote happiness to which I cling

    EVAN
    And all this time you write such
    Fantastic books. If you were as unhappy as you say,
    You couldn’t write so well.
    I’m proud to be
    The whetstone on which you sharpen –
    I should be thanked for all your works.

    Writing to you
    Makes me itch with a beastly itch –
    Exhilarated, punch drunk
    Feeling your enthrallment
    Despite the day’s malaise.

    I can’t put my heart back in the hollow
    Where it used to be.
    You force me to see
    Myself.

    At the peak of my ambition,
    Beauty and power curdle within me.
    People are so easily fooled, so
    Satisfied with little
    identify my performance with my Soul.

    You’ve spoiled me for everything.
    Stop warning me you’ll take a lover –
    I don’t own your life and never aspired to.
    There is heartbreak here, but is the ghost in the house
    Or in me? We argue about who has the worst friends,
    But our friends are all the same. Please
    Send another psychic telegram, “You’re the One.”

    EVA
    Your last screed was a masterpiece.
    I believe writing it
    Creates that eczema from which
    You say you suffer.
    My friends at Tosca said it’s bad manners
    To make a depressing fuss
    And get other people down.

    EVAN
    Is the strength I draw from you a fairy tale?
    I am appalled by the joint misery we feel.
    Why should we not rebel?

    EVA
    You shed your light around me.
    If only we could stand each other.
    You’ll keep the blood
    Running in my veins
    Threatening to spill.

    EVAN
    Someone said I look ten years younger
    From drinking your life, I’m sure.
    I need my own room because I sleep badly and
    I like to roam at night.

    Tosca is too emotional to be good taste
    But I’m happy you enjoyed it.
    I feel far from you right now but
    Underneath
    I’m outrageously glad.

    EVA
    Your diplomacy fascinates me.
    Your mettle is the stuff of history.
    When young I resisted education
    Like a fool – But
    It makes everything comprehensible.
    What kills me is having to deal with people.

    I tie myself up writing
    Imaginary conversations with you –
    It’s possible you’re a creature of
    My invention. Our pattern seems set –
    Or is it?
    If treachery can’t break it,
    There is no death.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    2 – Cadena – Enchainment

      EVAN
      A happy guilty day full of betrayals
      Kept me in an extraordinary state
      Of fascination. I’ve lied to everyone for
      So long, I feel certain that truth
      Is beyond me.

      EVA
      I’d rather see you dead at my feet
      Than dead ON your feet.
      That would be a mercy killing –
      The last unbearable agony –
      Wondering if you existed at all.

      I have small talent for this.
      I have disgraced my idealism,
      Pretending boredom can be fruitful.
      Waiting, waiting for you everywhere. I
      Wake one day to find I’ve lost my looks, my hair,
      fascination, brain – everything.

      EVAN
      You’re only waking up
      In an empty hotel.
      The light is always different
      The morning after.
      This is what middle-aged people do.
      I love the brutality of your world.
      You never fade. You are my word made flesh.

      EVA
      You are my religion.
      Until In fell in love with you I was 25 inside.
      I lived in a world of dreams and theories.
      Your experiences seem realer to me than mine.

      EVAN
      Social instinct is my religion.
      You have the bravery and intelligence
      Men are supposed to have
      But never do.
      To have touched the same places
      Is a bond between us.
      I never think of my deficiencies –
      Or how could I forgive myself?

      EVA
      Middle-aged people go to weddings
      Out of perverse fascination for the bride.
      I was that bride –
      My day was all champagne.
      Anaesthetized
      It doesn’t hurt so much.
      Such a sense of enormity came over me
      I almost fainted. I gave Allen the dirtiest look: “You caused this.”


      Without a wedding dress
      I was a restless, dowdy snob.
      People were falling in love left and right –
      Even in decaying marriages.
      I wanted that –
      He read my subtext.
      And I was caught.

      EVAN
      These dreary parties have a decaying effect.
      My loneliness for you is like a whiplash.
      Your absence is a bitter injury
      But nothing can injure our love –
      We’re too strong for them.
      I’m silenced till I hear from you.


      If I let myself go I would feel desperate.
      I can’t bear you’re going to France without me –
      But –
      isn’t love our country?

      EVA
      I won’t say “I’ll die if you don’t come”
      Because I know you would come if you possibly could.
      What a skeleton in the cupboard a wife is.

      EVAN
      Don’t be jealous of Elayna. You are the only goal
      Toward which my life is tending.
      You are the meaning of my life.
      I could never live for work alone.

      EVA
      You enlarge my soul.
      In your mind is my existence.
      You’re more real to me than me.
      I’m in a peculiar psychic state.
      It’s an atmosphere of illusion.
      I envy Elayna all the time.
      It drips like an irritant over my nerves.

      EVAN
      What of Allen? You
      Have your worse half too.
      I don’t waste my time
      Being jealous of him.

      EVA
      Oh, Allen spends time lost in woods,
      Falling in love with trees. He’s
      No threat to anyone.

      EVAN
      To understand one’s destiny
      One needs a framework for this mass of experience.
      How can I live separated from you?
      If I stopped caring for you
      I couldn’t care for anything.

      I need my wife, her whip-cracking organization.
      I loathe living in the squalor I get to on my own.
      Having breakfast OUT of bed is the last horror.
      Miasmic feelings of impossibility and terror. Help me.

      EVA
      We help each other
      By existing. Except for God I have no help but you.
      Our love is growing more formidable as our unshakeable belief
      Grows stronger. Like grace, it renews itself.
      All yesterday I glowed. My inability to accept your wife
      Is my deformity – help me with it.
      The light of our love is the only light for me.

    1. The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

      THE DEMON LOVER

      I. ABRAZO – THE EMBRACE

      EVAN

      I like women willful, late
      For appointments,
      fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy,
      yet of course all of that is tiresome.

      Love mingles with irritation.
      But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality.
      Women who turn on me saying,
      “You don’t love me.”

      What good is it to have been so happy
      when it ends so painfully?
      I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”,
      “Murderer.” She makes me feel a monster.

      Below the surface of the will
      I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives
      Hidden away somewhere; perhaps
      That is why I had to marry
      My present wife.

      EVA
      If you start “trying to be good”
      that will really come between us.
      It’s too unattractive. What are you up to?

      I dream of a small house in Burgundy but
      You must help me pay the rent.
      Having a home is a form of egotism.
      My beautiful one, you could make me so happy.

      Selfishly I want you here
      So I don’t have to hallucinate your nearness.
      What’s that wife of yours –
      What do you call her –
      Elayna –
      Thinking in her frozen chamber?

      I’m feeling sorrow at our growing separation.
      Can’t we pull out of the world’s battle and live in retreat?
      Grant me one last happiness
      Before the sufferings of
      Pain and old age.

      EVAN
      I can’t keep up with life’s ambiguous futility.
      Is happiness just “freedom from pain”?
      Life is unendurable without you.
      People here are flirtatious but not sexy.
      it’s so boring here
      I’m hardening my heart to give up my home.

      EVA
      I find your misery gratifying.
      This power of enjoyment comes from being an artist,
      It is the secret of my strength.
      When I was younger I used to
      Accommodate everyone –
      Now I’m recalcitrant.

      It hurts because the sword runs through both of us.
      You’re never out of my thoughts, but
      Sadness dulls one.
      Honestly, I always risk failing you,
      Failing you in outstandingness.

      You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary,
      we have been extraordinary together.
      Specimens under glass.

      The agonizing force of missing you
      Is sweeping over me.
      We have eternity connecting us,
      Backward & forward but I just
      Can’t get anyone to believe it.

      EVAN
      Would my death simplify things?
      My wife struggles with carrying the conversation
      While I stare glumly at the rain.
      We go to an expensive little restaurant
      And pretend we are on a date to really talk.
      My double life begins the moment
      I say “Are you in love with me”?
      And really mean “Am I in love with you?”

      EVA
      That woman’s killing you.
      Imagine if you were dead and your wife
      Wrote a book explaining you
      To everyone! That’s true suffering –
      Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.

      EVAN
      My wife won’t be writing any books
      About me or about anything. You’re the one
      To write the book. And
      I feel safe in your witch-like hands.

      EVA
      Except I’ve told you over and over
      You’ll outlive me. Because
      You’re a killer.
      Or your wife is.

      You look younger than I’ve ever seen you.
      Have you gone queer? I fear
      I’ll die of my addiction –
      We always do.
      We prefer it.
      Will you write about me?

    2. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      The Thistle – Resistance

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Armor up. It’s coming. Are you feeling muzzled? Do you dream of battles? Do you wake up angry? Worried? Afraid? Do you gnash your teeth while you sleep? Do you love proving others wrong? When others speak are you eager to jump in and “set them right”? Is your favorite word, “No?”

      Resistance is Never Futile – We become creatives for a reason. But what kind of creatives are we? After all, we can’t make our contribution unless we know who we are. Strangely, we get a lot of push-back on this seemingly basic investigation. First, there’s enormous cultural pressure against us defining ourselves while international corporate overlords compete, waging schemes to entrap us into fighting for them. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.

      Creative Challenge – We must be protective of our special gifts. Specify under what circumstances you are relaxed, happy, creative and “In-Flow.” The ‘flow” state is “bliss” – your brain oozes alpha waves as you sink into some interesting exploration, losing any sense of time and feeling at one with the universe. Suddenly, we are experiencing the pleasures of “Eternity” while still very much a part of this sphere. Is “flow” achieved for you through music? Dance? Composition? Reading? Sex? Some lucky people access this state through meditation alone. It is certainly worth a try; meditation is very good for your brain.

      Creative Danger – The danger of Eternal Resistance is that it becomes reflexive. Our Resistance must be chosen, carefully thought out and promoted by History and Fact.

      Creative Opportunity – You are a work of art. Your whole life, your experiences, your very dreams, have brought you to this moment. Your resistance to invasion, to malformation, to co-option, to corruption, has blossomed into an individualized focus that must defeat their blander, blunter, self-serving opposition. You lose nothing – gain everything – by becoming yourself; a unique creative nonpareil who has never existed before and will never exist again. You are the opposite of a faceless soldier, you are rare, sui generis, customized for this moment of space and time but perfected for eternity. What fears are left to surmount? What can you dream?

      Models & Mentors – ‘When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” – Thomas Jefferson

      “Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory” – Frederick William Faber

      “To fly we must have resistance” – Maya Lin

      “The history of liberty is a history of resistance”
      – Woodrow Wilson

      “The more important an activity is to your soul’s evolution the more resistance you will feel” – Steven Pressfield

      #Haiku: Counter-Pressure

      First –
      Relax;
      Melt;
      Slide;
      Upend
      Onslaught;
      Be attacker’s
      Banana peel

    3. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      The Pond – Judgment

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Decisions are being made. About you. What will they be? What are your fears? Are you dreaming of courts? Prison? Are you haunted by religious fears of hell and condemnation? Are you confused about innocence in general and your virtues in particular? Some people say we can’t break God’s laws, we can only break ourselves against them. That’s certainly true of the laws of Science!

      Who Judges the Creative?
      We know other people are looking. We know we are always being assessed, ranked, possibly dismissed. We defensively assess, dismiss and gossip about each other. All of us wish to be judged by our intent, by the content of our hearts, rather than by results, which owe so much to Fate.

      Creatives Cultivate Discernment – We are familiar with what it feels like to dislike some experience until a friend teaches us “how” to like it. We treasure the interesting adventure of seeing the world through another’s eyes, feeling with their hands, tasting with their tongue and remembering through their memory. An out of body experience for sure, as well as a bonding exercise. Seeing ourselves through another’s eyes can also be very uncomfortable. How about history’s eyes? What will be said about us? How will we be remembered?

      Creative Challenge – Youth produces Bad Experiences and Bad Experiences develop Sophisticated – i.e. “Good” Judgment. Seriously, you need to be able to see some of these Bad Experiences coming because in our competitive capitalistic society these can become “extinction” events. How many decades of your life do you have to devote to unethical corporations, scammy multi-level marketing schemes, bad marriages, unreliable friends and “secret” investments? Our time, youth, energy and assets are limited. Respect your limits.

      Creative Danger – Fear and Regret are potent forces. Sometimes it is possible to be too cautious. But can you just “dip a toe?” The principle of “dollar cost averaging” suggests that you must keep “paying yourself back” for investments that seem to be accumulating big-time, so if they suddenly plunge, you will never have actually lost money. In other words, study your progress as you go. This requires that we not get swept up in the experience with a mind affected by inebriating substances. Ask yourself honestly, is that possible for me?

      Creative Opportunity – Now’s the time for you to develop yourself outside “the group.” How often do you do things because “the group” is doing them? How smart is your group? Who controls it? How close to the cliff ARE you? Think about the nature of leadership. Of models. Once you start evincing discernment you will be challenged but respected. Sometimes you lose your taste for the group, or you find a new group that suits you better. Creatives evolve.
      Fearlessly.

      Models & Mentors – “Good judgment comes from bad experience” – Will Rogers

      “At the end of the day, you need someone who listens to you without judgment” – Payal Rohatgi

      “A rush to judgment makes a fair trial hard to get”
      – John Grisham

      “When you judge another you define yourself” – Wayne Dyer

      ‘It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but hard to dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities” – Josiah Stamp

      #Haiku: Dear Jane Austen

      Formalized play
      Mines nature’s
      Riot;
      Edit
      Emote:
      Judge
      Love-
      Rewrite

    4. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      Sex – Soulmates

      If This Archetype Chooses You – You are searching for your “other”. Do you look in the mirror and see another face? Do you dream of a lost twin? Do you imagine “the other” across a crowded room, and think when you touch their hand, you will feel a strange galvanic charge? Do you think soulmates are even possible? Is there only one or are many soulmates potentially developed over a lifetime? Are you disenchanted with sex? Does it seem like more trouble than it is worth? Do you have sex dreams that feel more like night terrors? Does sex make you feel increasingly worthless and untouchable?

      Soulmates Are Real and You Have One – It’s never too late. You are never so “lost” you can’t find your soulmate. The problem is, your soulmate feels just the way you do and both of you are frightened of those feelings, isolating you further in an invisible, impenetrable membrane. You want your soulmate to rescue you, but creatives rescue each other. This takes a lot of bravery, a lot of humility, much insight and a little magic.

      Desire Can Be Slaked – Temporarily. Creative must stay alert. We don’t pursue numbness – or even satiety. It’s good to get acquainted with hunger. Pro tip – hunger keeps you young. Hunger is a condition of youth.

      When Creatives Bond There is No Going Back. – The potential magic of sexual connection ignites the search for a SoulMate. Creatives believe that once found, a Soul Pair becomes capable of Time Travel, TransSubstantiation, and Immortality. Genders merge; either one can be feminine, masculine or androgyne at will. One wing searches for another to form a bird and fly. The question we must ask ourselves is: are we willing to undergo the pain of having the boundaries of our borders breached to fully merge with another?

      Creatives Lift Each Other’s Souls – The power of a doubled pair is raised to the nth power by their knowledge, commitment and shared purpose.

      Creatives Release Each Other – There are so many permissions, forgivenesses, and skills we cannot give ourselves. Love literally gives you eyes in the back of your head. There is no hiding from your soulmate.

      Doubled Creatives Power the Universe – The constant clash of mating, sharing, satisfying and negotiating is the music of the spheres. It keeps us all spinning in an ecstasy of selfless selfhood.

      Creative Challenge – There are plenty of frogs out there and some vipers, and you will kiss each. Possibly more than once. It’s also possible that we have “rewired” our system – through porn, games, and casual sex – so that it actually prevents us from recognizing a soulmate and forging a life bond. This is why starting as friends is so critical. It gets your defenses down to the point where you can talk about fears, desires and problematic reactions. Go slowly, welcome mistakes and be prepared to learn.

      Creative Danger – Sometimes – let’s face it – most times, you and your soulmate are “sick.” You have “caught” infection from a society that says “fuck you” to eternal, mystical, mutual sexual union. That makes things hard. You don’t recover overnight. You must commit to good mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual hygiene and you will both have to figure out what it is. You need to make a plan – yes, a map – out of each other’s minds and bodies. If the other person refuses to accept health you will have to detach for your own sanity and safety. Vampires make other vampires, and bliss will elude them. The most important part of soulmating is the mutual pledge for health and growth – for both of you.

      Creative Opportunity – My book, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead – is about the supernatural powers of soulmates. It’s about what to do when you dislike and distrust your soulmate at first. It’s about what to do when you and your soulmate both have horrific pasts and are pursued by actual demons. I can’t say it clearer than that. Don’t be frightened. Your bond is eternal, across time, geography and multiverses. Take it slow. You have all the time in the multiverse.

      Bereavement Is Never the End – As life itself is not the end, bereavement cannot be. The glory of bliss still awaits, and detached Soulmates have been known to find each other and form new spiritual and physical connections.

      Models & Mentors – “A soulmate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life and then introduce you to your spiritual master” – Elizabeth Gilbert

      “A soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul to do the emotional work of self-discovery and awakening”
      – Kenny Loggins

      “They fought all the time and challenged each other every day. They were crazy about each other” – Nicholas Sparks

      “I know what love is, because of you.” – Herman Hesse

      #Haiku: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

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

    5. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      Marriage – Partnership

      Time to consider your ideal partnership contract. What would it be like? Have you been dreaming lately about weddings? Love, proposals, marriage? About The One that got Away? About partnership enterprises in general – video gaming, tennis – where an Ideal Partner/Helper’s got your back?

      Creatives can’t make it through life without a partner. 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?

      Everybody Deserves Somebody – 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 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?

      Creative 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.

      Sometimes 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 – As the great mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg pointed out, 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 creative 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 the world and 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.

      Creative Danger – A substantial number of partnership contracts fail. 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.

      Creative Opportunity – Soulmates DO exist! They DO evolve. We WILL change our life for another and they will change, blend, merge with us. Any interaction with another requires communication, boundaries, 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 conscious, subconscious and unconscious in alignment. Purposeful dreaming, journaling and planning is the best way to achieve that goal! Get out your Training Journal and start with absolute honesty, realizing that tomorrow you may see things differently. Accept it!

      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.