You will never rub the edges off each other, says the Orchid – and that is a good thing. You don’t want to. We’re not here to “bland out” or diminish each other. We are here to enhance and free each other.
We pay homage to each other’s special qualities. Naturally it helps to know where each other is headed but not even the Self really know that. Ultimately, we are mysteries to each other.
We must be each other’s Map and each other’s Mirror. The challenge is to accept and honor each other’s strangeness; singularity. You were drawn together for a reason. Sometimes it prickles and we feel ourselves shrink, or even withdraw. That is the rhythm of the tango we have undertaken.
Many Soulmates welcome costume and role play to try to express the range of interests, the force of questions, the eagerness of exploring and adventuring we will always have. The key is to be aware of the rhythms of advance, retreat, resist, re-fashion, re-remember. Expect these. They are necessary to our continued growth. Our relationship is a greenhouse and we must check constantly on the health of our tiny plants. Fill air and soil with love and…release.
In the Butterfly Pavilion
This evening you said you wished I was more conventional. I bowed my head. I did not speak. Outside the animals leaned together, Holding breath To hear my answer. The cats-tongue ferns Swelled up like swords, pushed out the stink Of possibility while The rabbit-blooded lawn curled back: Sows littered in the cyclamen Phlox flamed Dwarf stars Broke free Spew molten ore Across a sky now Darkening to night. Nighttime is my kingdom. I fold my hands in my sleeves and Wait.
The Firefly lights our dark with his luciferous magic. In some species it’s only the male, but in others both genders use this cool heat to signal to each other and we are all beneficiaries of their romantic opera.
And it’s a complete drama with every plot twist you can think of; some fireflies impersonate desire only to attract and then kill the hopeful lover. Other fireflies deliberately use a poor impersonation to warn away competing lovers and decimate the field.
If attacked, fireflies use “reflex bleeding” to literally poison predators with their blood. This last fact generates warnings never to feed fireflies to your hungry pet reptile! What are we to make of this mix of beauty, falsity and carnivorous intent? Fireflies may be beautiful impostors, but they are never to be envied. They exist only to mate, lay eggs and die. Some fireflies live lives without nourishment. They never even get the chance to dine.
We are all attracted by fantasy. We each have or think we have – a list of “musts” and “deal-breakers.” Danger waits when we meet someone who actually matches all our specifications! Probably they are lying. Maybe you are, too. Possibly you didn’t even realize it until this moment.
Maybe you want one thing on the page and another In Real Life. Maybe you want one thing in the dark and another in the light. Maybe you don’t know yourself very well! Lust hardens, love softens; how solve that essential inner/outer conflict? We need to melt – together – into a glorious plasticity that allows us to undertake the “experiment” of entering the life, desires, viewpoint of another.
But this is only “safe” when goodwill and honorable attentions are present. If someone’s looking for a hostage, a slave, a mimic or even worse – prey – they will falsely claim anything to entice us. How can we tell the difference?
Sometimes their presentation is TOO “good”. A “pediatric oncologist” who “volunteers at an animal shelter?” Really? Is the attraction a “problem-free” relationship without any of that scary sandpaper of conflict that molds our rough edges to fit together more harmoniously? Or is this attraction just “high-status” and “bragging rights”?
As your grandmother warned, any salesman trying to hustle you into an instant decision is up to no good. Predators try to convince the young that by taking time to choose and trust we are ruining the experience! Don’t buy it! You’re getting smarter, and stronger by the minute! You’re within your rights –you owe it to yourself – to demand that deeds match words, and that intentions line up with performance.
Allow yourself time to discover, evolve and revel. Live!
BED & BREAKFAST
“That wing of course is closed” said Magda whose venomous green eyeshadow matched her voice; “I’d have that lanced if I were you” thinks Reni Who never says exactly what she thinks. “Wrong word: wing” Thinks Andreas “to use about a house tethered toad-like to the lawn”. But Andreas never says what he thinks either. It’s too late now. At dinner, they quarrel about Ezra Pound; Pretending to agree. Squeaky bedsprings bastardize this sad romance; Hopeless beds mandate sex is standing up. ( This butler may be deaf and dumb, But knew the best way out: He was in for the tip of a lifetime.) At breakfast the debate about Plath Turns violent; the biggest danger Of murdering yourself with a kitchen appliance is: They’re everywhere. Refreshing holiday, says Reni. We should do it more often says Andreas. Truth never spoken once. Mission accomplished.
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.
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
Assess your potential to connect. We wake alone, but we are on the path of Attachment. Ask yourself; do you seek balanced, indestructible attachment, synchronous, not disharmonic relationship; a connection that is symbiotic, not exploitative. If the answer is Yes, you are on the path of Paradise.
How can we achieve these goals? First, we must understand and accept our Self, our Ego, with all its quirks and flaws, needs and yearnings, limits and possibilities. Then we must understand the Other; the Lover. We must attune ourselves to the structure of their yearning to begin to construct our duet, our dance. After that we must negotiate the rapids of relationship with each other and with the outside world. Danger! Excitement! Ecstasy! Despair…Compassion. Union.
We are caterpillars, you and I, attempting to learn the language of butterflies. We are unprepossessing creatures, daily absorbed in infantile needs of eating and excreting, but we have a firm promise of a future in which we stretch our gorgeous wings.
Bristling – Resistance – Feeling muzzled by day? Do you wake up angry from unrefreshing sleep? Worried? Afraid? Do you gnash your teeth while unconscious? 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 woke on this planet for a reason. Its sensible to conclude that self-definition must be key – 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 enterprise. First, enormous cultural pressure: “We have only a few slots available for specific individuals!” Educational advice seems to be: Make yourself one of those Designated Persons no matter who you are, really. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.
Challenge – It’s never too late to Get Real. Open your Dream Journal and doodle out the circumstances where you are relaxed, happy, creative and “In-Flow.” That “flow” state is true “bliss” – your brain oozes alpha waves as you sink into an interesting reverie, losing your usual sense of separation from the universe. Suddenly, we experience “Eternity”. Is this achieved for you through music? Dance? Composition? Reading? Sex? Prayer? Some lucky people access this state through meditation alone. It is certainly worth a try; meditation is very good for your brain.
Danger – The danger is not navel-gazing (micro study can be very revealing) but solipsism. If you are not accessing the universe through your Self, then you are truly Alone, which is a hideous condition (may in fact be Hell.) In our increasingly autocratic world we are becoming very familiar with Aging Babies who expect the rest of us to nursemaid their fussy, immature modality because Growing Up is Ouchy. For God’s sake, for your own sake, for the benefit of the Universe and in hope of Eternity, don’t become one of THOSE. OR one of their enablers.
Opportunity – Resistance Training Makes Us Stronger. Your whole life, your experiences, your very dreams, have brought you to this moment. Your resistance has blossomed into an individualized focus that must defeat their blander, blunt opposition. You lose nothing – gain everything – by becoming yourself. How? Begin the investigation. What do you like? What do you wish? What fears can you surmount? What do 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
Mantra – “Self-determined”
Meditation –
#Haiku: The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good
Static “Perfection” is Death’s alluring guise; Resist: Demand Birth pangs
Age – Wisdom – Dreaming of old people? Funerals? Yourself getting old? Dream of gurus on mountaintops, buddhas, palaces of wisdom? Or are you dreaming of a specific elder who had an influence – bad or good – on your young life?
You Are Wiser Than You Know – Jung said- in the dream, you are everyone you dream about. This is a rather primitive expression of an obvious truth – you ”control”, “create” and hold the key to all these different people. You, alone, know exactly what their symbology represents. They are “shadows” of yourself. Jung called them “animas.” You summon them into being when you need them. DreamTherapy suggests you are yearning for insight, yearning for strength, desiring a map to explain the maze in which you find yourself. You contain the secrets of your own release.
Challenge – in your Dream Journal, contrast elders you admire with those you avoid. Aren’t the latter complainers who stress to everyone they meet the bad hand life has dealt them? They complain about their health, politics, the weather, other people – whatever crosses the windscreen of their increasingly tiny minds. In their world the children never call, the doctors don’t help, the weather’s getting worse, the food is adulterated and we are all going to hell. There may be some truth to these claims but all we see is Ego. This person is clamoring ever more loudly for more ego strokes without apparently noticing the discomfort and distaste of those around them. Rather than trying a new strategy, they step up their whingeing. Read the room! Is what you want to scream at them but you realize they can no longer “learn.” This is the opposite of wisdom. This is senility. A brain is shutting down, a personality is beggared and no one wants to be around it.
List in your Dream Journal the elders you admire. Nelson Mandela, Joe Biden, Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Pema Chodron, the Pope? This person is Ego-Less. This is a person who talks about others, not themselves. They care for others. They discuss ideas rather than gossip and have a long memory of problems, solutions, trial and error. They keep themselves “young” in all the ways that matter. People flock to them.
There’s an old Cherokee story about how each of us is born with a good wolf and a bad wolf inside of us. The one that gets stronger and takes control is the one you feed. Your challenge is to figure out how to practice wisdom every day. Accepting your dreams and encouraging their deepening understanding is the beginning of wisdom.
Danger – The pursuit of gurus is inherently dangerous because there are a lot of con artists out there seeking hostages and slaves. Learn to avoid people who use:
Projection – Subject is unwilling to see their own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of one’s negative behaviors by attributing them to someone else. It acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.
Nonsensical conversations from hell – Word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way.
Blanket statements and generalizations –
Misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity
Nitpicking and moving the goal posts
Changing the subject to evade accountability
Covert and overt threats
Name-calling – offensive labeling
Destructive conditioning – Someone tries to condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about idealized qualities and traits; sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re essentially “trained” over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.
Smear campaigns and stalking
Playing the Martyr
Demands Immediate Unthinking Fealty – When someone stresses the fact that they are a “nice guy” or girl, that you should “trust them” right away or emphasizes their credibility without any provocation from you whatsoever, be wary.
Baits and badgers you – Feigns innocence
Boundary testing – You are not allowed to have boundaries or even triggers
Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes
Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone
Belittling and degrading – Shaming
You can see this is all about Control. Avoid those who seek to control or dominate you. The Revered Elders mentioned above would not do that.
Opportunity – You are being offered a chance to become a lighthouse to the world – resembling the people you admire. Don’t fear “age”, fear bitterness and self-seeking. Once you have advanced enough in your soul to feel compassion you will learn peace.
Models & Mentors – “You can’t control the wind but you can learn to adjust your sails.” – Jimmy Dean
“It always seems impossible till it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
“Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens” – Jimi Hendrix
“I am thankful to those who said No. Because of them, I did it myself.” – Albert Einstein
“Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley
“It is never too late to be who you might have been” – George Eliot
‘Wisdom is the journey no one can take for us” – Marcel Proust
Mantra – “I understand”
Meditation –
#Haiku: Namaste
Light Glows Within me Honoring The wisdom of The light Within you
Success – Do you dream of adulation? Applause? Accomplishments? Trophies? Rewards? Or are you really dreaming of receiving Universal Love? When we wake, we feel faintly embarrassed, as if we have “given ourselves away”. Could it be that the very idea of “success” is something of a mirage?
Success Is However You Define It – Abraham Lincoln famously said people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If we define “success” as adulation by others haven’t we given away ultimate power over our lives? Many people define success in material ways – it’s the only way to explain the salaries CEO’s pay themselves, while publicly admitting nobody “needs” that much money. They don’t seem to be using it very responsibly either, so I judge them to be “unsuccessful.” Clearly the most important person to please is yourself and the challenge is: are you content now, and what would it take to make you so?
Challenge – If success is “arrival”, doesn’t that imply a “finish line”? Do you really want to be finished? Do we want to be in constant progress, just reaching for the goal – or does that imply a treadmill? A “rat race”, in fact? Isn’t the ultimate success “contentment”? To be content we must assess our lives and come to terms with our missteps. Sometimes we discovered something even more wonderful than we didn’t even know we were searching for.
Danger – Our scarcity-oriented society views everything as a competition, and the fundamental danger is that you end up comparing your INSIDES (i.e., how you feel) with everyone else’s “outsides” (i.e., how they LOOK.) You can see that’s nonsensical. We don’t see each other’s sadness and pain, only display and showmanship.
Opportunity – Feel compassion for the hurt and struggle of others. Feel compassion (and forgiveness) for your own hurt and struggle. Assess your place on life’s path. Maybe you’re still on the edge of some great discovery, if so, keep going! Maybe it’s time to take stock of how far you’ve come, have a look at the big map and refresh your goals. Open your Dream Journal and give yourself a high five. My goals are, dreaming, thinking, reading and writing. I do exactly what I want to most days, surrounded by love. Feels like success to me.
Models & Mentors – “without continual growth & progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning” – Benjamin Franklin
“Beauty in the struggle, ugliness in success’ – Jermaine Cole
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” – Arthur Ashe
“There is always light – if we’re brave enough to see it, we’re brave enough to be it “ – Amanda Gorman
“Rules for success: 1. Believe in your ideas 2. Pick good people 3. Earn Respect 4. Always be a student 5. Enjoy what you do 6. Ask for advice 7. Learn to say No 8. Create the best products 9. Don’t take things personally 10. Create the future” – Bill Gates
Mantra – ‘Refreshed”
Meditation –
#Haiku: Success
Mountain summits Have another side Where sun shines And gravity Helps
Flourish – Singularity – Do you dream of feeling alone in a crowd? Are you always walking in a different direction? Do you feel ganged up on, bullied? “Flourish” represents all that Uniqueness out there that is needing its own space, and because there are so many of us, there is a lot of singularity! If you doubt it, consider the humble snowflake.
Be Proud of Your Specialness – Humans are civilized into groups, but society advances on its singletons, so even if you never do anything about it, honor the ways in which you are different. List them in your Dream Journal. Respect your own uniqueness and don’t allow others to shame you for it. The world needs you.
Challenge – We spend a lot of time accommodating other people and trying to figure out how to get along with them. How about figuring out your own extraordinariness and imaging ways and how to accommodate that?
Danger – Narcissism is a real danger in our society. People are encouraged to perform, push themselves forward and try to harvest as many “likes” from absolute strangers as their outrageousness possibly can. Honoring your uniqueness begins in absolute privacy as you contemplate your real self and the last time you expressed it. Could be quite long ago!
Opportunity – It’s never too late to change direction, especially when you find out you’ve been traveling the wrong way. What would it mean if you did things your way, for once?
Models & Mentors – “What sets you apart can feel like a burden, but it’s what makes you great” – Emma Stone
“If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be” – Maya Angelou
“Always remember you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else” – Margaret Mead
“Be yourself – everyone else is already taken” – Oscar Wilde
Mantra – “I flourish”
Meditation –
#Haiku: Singularity
There’s only one of me; I’m the one That got away – Blink: You missed me.
Beauty – Are your dreams so beautiful you regret waking up? Do you dream of possessing great beauty yourself, caressing gorgeous flesh, or having a gorgeous lover turn diamond eyes upon you? Do you dream of beautiful places, caverns, waterfalls, chapels – that are spectacular in their glamor? We are all visual learners, attracted to beauty, hypnotized by color. Our relationship to the universe is naturally worshipful.
You Don’t Know How Beautiful You Are – We never do. People who think they are beautiful are trapped into fetishizing the ephemeral, which everyone knows is mysterious and evanescent, just like wildflowers. But there is a beauty that lasts forever and training oneself to recognize it fills our lives to overflowing with constant pleasure. Puppies doing anything, kittens doing everything, a dance class of toddlers (all doing the wrong thing), flowers coming up through cement, a piece of brilliant stained glass on a utility truck, a book of cave paintings, the swirl in our coffee, old photographs, our beloved’s sleepy morning face – once you start collecting a list you realize beauty is all around you. Open your Dream Journal and lose yourself in the pleasures of making a list.
Challenge – Take joy in your surroundings. Cultivate your own pleasure in the beautiful. Marie Kondo became famous for having few possessions and arranging them like jewels. Clutter is frustrating for the brain. We love sharing beautiful pictures, but momentarily “beautiful” people have taken to hogging the space. The more difficult it is to take a seemingly “perfect” picture with filters and Photoshop, the more they treasure it. Be discriminating. Think of the wildflower. Is all this fakery the path of joy or depression?
Danger – We soon find ourselves in a frenzy of “likes”. A “like” button can have a plethora of meanings, but we don’t care, we need likes the way a drunk needs booze. Otherwise we’re nothing. Possible approval from strangers – or at least momentary attention – how needy can you get? The quiet joy of certain pleasure inside your own head as you follow your bliss – “I restore old cars” and share them with loved ones – “This is what I’m working on” – is lasting pleasure.
Opportunity – Artists teach us to appreciate new beauty. Incredible as it may seem, the magical paintings of the Impressionists were first seen as offensively ugly. Lady Gaga, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, all are educators of our eye. We can become appreciative not just “ahead of the wave” but of the past – African masks, Egyptian art, illuminated manuscripts all possess a special beauty. Not only are we learning to love our past and hope for our future, we are beginning to see the natural beauty in ourselves – learning to appreciate the splendid gifts we have each been given.
Models & Mentors – “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it” – Confucius
“Beauty is a light in the heart” – Khalil Gibran
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself” – Coco Chanel
“Don’t think of all the misery but the beauty that remains” – Anne Frank
“Beauty is reality seen with the eyes of love” – Rabindranath Tagore
Alysse Aallyn 