Category: #GoddessKnowledge

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

    The Goddess – Power

      When This Archetype Chooses You – Is this your archetype? You are one of the Elect. Most people feel that because the Goddess archetype represents power it’s the most valuable archetype in the Creative Oracle. But creativity builds over time, and power can destroy in an instant. We are well familiar with fires that get out of control, rage-fueled spirals, explosives that blow up in your face and escalating weaponry. How do we master such an overwhelming force?

      You Must Own Your Power – Accept that you have the force within you to get things done and to bend unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. To others, creativity looks like magic. Accept that. Isn’t that what we all want – a little magic?

      You Are Iconic – But the Goddess archetype is about the inherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably You. You have a power no one else has, incorporated in your being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories. This takes a lifetime to accept because we all nervously want to be Someone Else and experience existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned.

      Dreams Instruct You – Your dreams bring all these passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you want and what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic will be to seize conscious control of this potent power source.

      Creative Challenge – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our world Inside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and our fear.

      Creative Danger – We cannot take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is a fine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat others with respect and claim like respect for ourselves. Accept your “experiments”; do not fear them but allow them to take you where you need to go.

      Creative Opportunities – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOK like stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is why we must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most beloved child. You are your own Most Beloved Child. It is not selfish to commit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you can administer this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your journey, without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how to connect with others.

      Fear & Trembling: Where would we get the courage to become creatives? Human history begins with an enormous fear of God or whoever is causing all that lightning, those earthquakes and striking everybody down. Killing small helpless, pretty things was meant to be flattering and propitiatory to this God (I don’t get it either.) then Jesus came with a message about how God was really loving, generous and wanted the best for us. We know how that turned out.

      Becoming a Creative: As children, we struggled to understand where we fit on the power spectrum. I tried killing a snake and experimented with bullying other children the way I was bullied. I didn’t care for it. The only relief was in thinking about, researching and understanding what was going on. My earliest researches, as for many children, were in astronomy and dinosaurs. The cold magnificence of the planets and the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs gave me a way to stand back from the immediate suffering of the schoolyard. I then moved on to the early Egyptians who tried to solve their problems through magic and art. The art was visually appealing and the magic was emotionally soothing.

      Pick Your Battles: I saw that most schoolyard fights were a reaction to the immediate suffering of pain or confusion, and that they magnified, rather than solved, those problems. There was a manifest holiness about this discovery. It rescued me from the torture of everyday life and elevated me to a plane where every other contributing thinker had already become immortalized.

      Study & Strategy: I read everything I could get my hands on in history and biography (research) and in fairy tales (magic). When I fell in love with the novels of C.S. Lewis and Rumer Godden, the world judged my taste good – when I discovered Agatha Christie, it did not – but it turned out everyone else was reading her too. Agatha is a short course on human nature (original sin) and a proponent of both the scientific and Socratic methods. She’s great training for a Creative. I wrote it all down in my Training Journal.

      Claiming Your Power: By the time you’re a teenager you can see you have some power – some mental, some physical. The question is developing it and finding appropriate gurus. Avoid the dominance/submission game.

      Keep Going – Recognize that you have been touched by the goddess and honor her by being grateful for the glorious gifts of life.

      Models & Mentors: “I did not deceive you. I permitted you to deceive yourself.” Agatha Christie

      “An Indian proverb says everyone is a house with four rooms – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Most of us live in one room or the other but if you don’t visit each room each day you are not a complete person.” – Rumer Godden

      “You are never too old to dream a new dream or set a new goal”
      C. S. Lewis

      “You have to believe in yourself” – Sun Tzu

      Haiku: Wyvern

      My power
      Beast bristles
      Fire;
      Eats critics
      Guards path
      Sleeps in my
      Mirror

    1. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      The Tree = ENLIGHTENMENT “My Beautiful Twin Sister”

      “You can if you think you can”

      Trees knit a garden together. Thy hover over us the way we remember helpful adults from childhood. They are the elders of our loving garden family.

      To be “awakened” is to experience life as it really is. Lots of people are repelled by this notion. Why bother to wake up when the news is so bad? Remain in the happy dream state brought to you by the Sackler family or some other pharmaceutical conglomerate, or by your favorite source of baseless propaganda.

      That lasts as long as you can afford their product. As every rube discovers, Happy Dreamland’s price keeps getting steeper until one day, you can’t pay it at all. Then you are awake and desperately uncomfortable, whether you like it or not, and the life around you has gone to shit. And not the helpful, fertilizing kind.

      A common approach to Soulmate-seeking is to try to find someone to join you in Dreamland, or to aggressively shop for a Dreamland you want to join. What these people don’t know is that Soulmates create their own world together; and this is a process that can’t be rushed. Seeing yourself and life as it really is begins by being very uncomfortable, but enlightenment comes eventually, and it promises real peace.

      The first improvement is to stop complaining about other people and all the things you can’t fix. Look at and into each other. And then it hits you – that simple thing we always “knew” because we’ve been told over and over: Love is the answer. (“Why Live?” is the question.) Take a walk… together. Look at the stars…together.

      Stroll through an art gallery…together. Every joy is multiplied and magnified and now the question is, Aren’t we lucky? Well, aren’t you? And the gratitude for the chance to live for even a moment in this spectacular universe comes pouring out.

      MY BEAUTIFUL TWIN SISTER

      Twenty months
      Made you the boss
      But my twin just the same
      I gazed adoringly
      Into your dark power.
      You braved everything
      Always being first;
      Parting airspace with your muscle
      To improve my flight – you
      Schooled boyfriends
      Husbands, children
      Teachers
      Bent whole administrations to your will.
      For my benefit you
      Deconstructed history,
      Logic, told me
      Who to read and what to think;
      Volunteering for a better world.
      Protester, Marcher, you
      Learned Amslan
      Just to empathize;
      Conquered mountains
      Just for fun;
      Shifting derailleurs, snowshoeing
      Surefooted through so many
      Frosty seasons. Inside
      You were just like me;
      Scared, hesitant, fragile
      Pushing yourself out there;
      A revelation of
      Impossible courage
      Giving me a lifelong template
      To admire.

    2. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Foxglove = MEDICINE “Alyssum”

      “Intervention”

      We find ourselves now in an endless pandemic, a New Normal caused by our aggressive human interference with our planet’s wildlife. By a miracle the same pharmaceutical companies that have been competitively bleeding all of us dry have come up with a vaccine that seems effective at keeping most of us out of the hospital. Wouldn’t want to kill the golden geese!

      But it doesn’t work if you don’t take it and, wonder of wonders, a substantial number of Americans have become suspicious of the medical establishment! Since insurance companies have been advertising for years that healthcare is “our choice” based on “what plan we can afford” I for one am not surprised.

      This is the only possible end result of a gated health care system that actively despises “Public” health as “radical socialism”!

      So where is our Soul & our Soulmate in all this, our little, fragile, mortal, human body that drew the “medical intervention” card only this morning? “Medical intervention” is represented in the Tantric Garden by the humble foxglove.

      Foxgloves contain digitalis, the building block of cardiology care. Where do we stand on intervention? We may create a “perfect world” with our Soulmate but does that mean we can let no one in? A moment’s thought convinces that we must keep the freshening breezes of this world blowing as long as we are in this world! “Help” will always be needed and hopefully, offered.

      Can we learn to trust the Helpful Intervener? We don’t want to create a love nest so fragile it is threatened by any outsider. Instead, we want to make certain we avail ourselves of every good advancement and improvement opportunity in our oh so imperfect world.

      ALYSSUM

      What wound is this?
      Flowering? Flowering?
      I wake at two am
      Immobilized –
      A curvilinear clamp
      Half hoop clenching
      My right side.
      .

      It could be the strain of
      Fishing for a future
      Hooking sky through a
      Porthole window or
      I could be over-organized. The
      Doctors dismissed me in
      My mother’s name.
      “You dare to be angry?
      You dare to grow old?
      You are a false alarm.”

      I say a prayer to the great night heron, that
      Pregnant thief of dreams –
      Solitary hunter calling to collect me.
      Dream he rises
      To unleash the silken sinews
      Of submission from my torn and
      Tethered wing –
      Feathered like a revelation
      Stippled like the phases of the moon
      Birthing spirit, coming
      Coming, coming
      In his cloud of fire.

    3. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Fruit = FRUITION “Sweet Family”

      “Enjoy!”

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

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

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

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

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

      Sweet Family

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

    4. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Breakthrough = EPIPHANY “Valentine”

      “I get it!”

      Suddenly we see the way!
      Breakthroughs look forward, never back; we are different people afterwards. Often, we feel they have been “building up” for a long time; we are amazed at what we didn’t see. But what we see now cannot be unseen. We should congratulate ourselves on our new pair of eyes, our new pair of legs. Our new life.

      You connected! A potential soulmate is now present and real. We explore our soulmate, past and future, psychically and physically. Each moment feels truthful and intense. You are on Cloud Nine.

      However, new understanding raises us to a lofty plateau. We now see that how a relationship develops over time is as important as who the relationship is with. We understand that some Soulmates are not able to back up their promises with behavior. They “want” to but are weak and feel helpless.

      Don’t get drawn into “fixing’ them – this keeps you away from finding your REAL Soulmate, the one who can deep dive all the way with you as well as ascend the highest heights. There’s no reason to be angry or embittered, the failed Soulmate already realizes that their fear and poor self-knowledge are keeping them back. This is a journey that asks the most of every one of us.

      VALENTINE

      I sent myself
      In a letter
      Heart-creased
      Like a glove, like an
      Anecdote
      Too much told
      Dear stranger don’t
      Lose me I forgot
      The rule;
      Hold back a copy.

    5. The Language of Butterflies – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

      Winter = DORMANCY

      “What’s happening when nothing’s happening?”

      Winter’s force is shrouded, subtle. This unfolding happens on the universe’s timeline, not ours. There’s a lot of downtime – “thinking time.” Plenty of space for self doubt to creep in.

      All the important changes are happening just beyond our vision. The snowshoe rabbit changes fur to pure white for self-protection; he doesn’t have to think about it; it just happens. Other creatures work a little harder.

      Our art teacher always told us to value the white spaces, because they throw color and design into sharper relief, and so it is with winter. Finally, we see all things in clear perspective. Suddenly the humble woodpecker becomes a most exotic bird.

      Adventuresome humans love winter where gravity meets speed; we are always flying down one hill or another. And when we get to the bottom, we do it again! The thing I like best about winter is that it holds the promise of spring, tight in its protectively furled bud.

      Under the quiet surface much is happening, but little may be visible. (Psychologists call this “latency”.) Winter bears a real similarity to the state we call “sleep.” We yearn for sleep, even find it exciting, and researchers are constantly uncovering more benefits that it provides. It seems to “clean” our brains the way winter “cleans” the world!

      Winter has its own exotic creatures, the polar bear, the snow leopard, the precious ermine. These creatures seem magical to us as they make a living on the harshest landscapes.

      “Dormancy” is a necessary phase for anything living thing. All our energy is being conserved for maximum growth. We must ask ourselves: what is this thing that is gathering power? Is it a long desired consummation or some threateningly impossible monster?

      We remind ourselves that explorers saw the same “ice” bear we consider so adorable as a “monster.” Melville’s deadly whale was “white”. Perhaps beauty and monstrosity are flip sides of the same coin. What is happening to us? What do we want to happen? The real question is, Is our unconscious “for” us or against us?

      Jung said when we analyze our subconscious, it analyzes us: a marvelous phrase suggesting growth is a back-and-forth tennis match between our known and unknown selves. “Winter” gives us a chance to greet the unknown self and cuddle up with her. Much to think about!

      After our burst of energy planting seeds in searching for a soulmate, it may seem the world’s inert. But seeds are “taking hold.” The Bible reminds us that some will grow and some will not. We ourselves don’t know what we have planted and what it will look like when it finally enters sunlight.

      Once again, it’s all about us; how patient can we be? How do we handle uncertainty in this uncertain world? Can we relax against changes of pace, lessening of control, confusion? As we search for our “forever” person we need to BECOME a “forever person.”

      This is very unfamiliar, so of course we move slowly. No kneejerk reactions of anger or despair. There’s a joke about a motorist stranded without gas, carrying his can to a nearby farm but worried the farmer won’t cooperate. The motorist gets so angry at this imagined exchange that when he sees the farmer, he throws the gas can at him, screaming, “Keep your old gas!”

      He couldn’t “tolerate” the walk to the farmhouse without doubt, fear and shame sabotaging his thoughts. Let’s not handle our period of dormancy in that way. Let’s use it to toughen up. Sharpen up. Sweeten up, like maple syrup in the tree.

      TOO LATE IN THE YEAR

      The mind is double-edged as well as double-eyed
      She thinks; stands
      outside to watch him
      Sightlessly within;
      Safe within his private storm he
      Covers sheets with runes,  
      Purloined plans from somewhere else;
      Plagiarized love-letters –
      Sexual ivy casting
      Hawks-wing shadows
      on his bloodhound cheeks;
      That smile is too cautious;
      Too familiar;
      In season and out;
      Nurtured like his scars
      Deepening like his drama.
      Save him, save him voices cry but
      I know better; it’s too late
      Too late in the year.

    6. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Crystal Ball – Prophecy – The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We already KNOW the “truth’. We fear the truth. We don’t want to face the truth. We fear the continuing “losses” of age because the accretions are so hard to see. Our dreams KNOW what is going on. But they are also Art, and art – especially good art – is as mysterious, meaningful and forceful as any living thing. It changes as you change, and it changes depending on how you look at it.

      Accept the Revelation – Open Dream Journal. It is time to list the revelations. Your dreams tell you when you are afraid. Your dreams tell you when something is missing. Your dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself. The first obligation is to accept is the possibility that the truth is not so terrible. It is the endless hiding, the mounting fear, that can be really destructive.

      Challenge – The truth is that we are human, that we are imperfect, and that we need each other. The truth is that humans need governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful accord. The truth is also that humans who lust only for power will eternally angle to get themselves into positions of control, exclusion and punishment. These types must be weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous types have our own lives to live.

      Danger – Our dreams notify us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Our dreams offer a variety of plans for confrontation and escape, and a recipe for courage. At the present time, the Lethal Persons are banding together and hoarding weapons to give themselves even more guarantees for power and opportunities to enjoy our despair.

      Opportunity – Jesus said evil will not win. The challenge is to explore what ELSE he said, indeed, what is the message of all the great teachers? It is not to hate one another and go to war with one another and people who tell you that it is are agents of evil. The first challenge is to create peace in our own hearts, peace in our own lives, peace in our own homes, and then start developing compassion for those who are not so lucky. When their brutal tactics are exposed for the empty promises that they are as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, they will acknowledge that their efforts to share their despair come from a desire to surmount despair, and that it has never worked and is not working. Then we will welcome them back into the community of Sharing.

      Models & Mentors – “We write the future moment to moment”

      – Pema Chodron

      “The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and leave you to peer through for yourself” – Frank Herbert

      “The greatest thing a human soul can accomplish in this world is to see that poetry, prophecy & religion all are one”
      – John Ruskin

      “The best way to predict the future is to create it”
      – Abraham Lincoln

      “Yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not come, let us begin” – Mother Teresa

      Mantra – “I see”

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: The Future

      Wisdom & will
      Extinguish death;
      Ides of Youth
      Depower Fear
      Share
      Growth

    7. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      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:

      1. 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.
      2. 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.
      3. Blanket statements and generalizations –
      4. Misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity
      5. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts
      6. Changing the subject to evade accountability
      7. Covert and overt threats
      8. Name-calling – offensive labeling
      9. 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.
      10. Smear campaigns and stalking
      11. Playing the Martyr
      12. 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.
      13. Baits and badgers you – Feigns innocence
      14. Boundary testing – You are not allowed to have boundaries or even triggers
      15. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes
      16. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone
      17. 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

    8. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      The Field of Fate – Do you dream of costume drama? Historical characters? Ancient books? Do you consult tea leaves? Are you superstitious? We are all caught in the mesh of history.

      The field is too large for us to see it clearly. We can feel the pull of forces too large to resist or even rise above. We use our Dream Journal to track the stirrings of memories both past & future. Those caught in wars, in genocides, in natural disasters, are brutally unlucky. Naturally we yearn for a trustworthy clue to extract us from this maze.

      Challenge – Do you see the bigger picture? Were those who fled Germany before Hitler shut it down just “lucky” or had they learned to read the signs? Rulers by whim are especially dangerous, for their brain becomes an echo chamber rotting from within. The larger the council the better – true democracy is best, but even then there are those self-destructive ones among us desiring to “shake things up”; loving chaos for its own sake. They may hope to ride the whirlwind but no one can truly ride a whirlwind. The challenge is to see the whirlwind coming.

      Danger – Is the danger learned helplessness, our old enemy? Or is it comfort – we’ve created a prison for ourselves that’s just too cushy and familiar to leave? Sometime the danger is an inability to imagine evil: “it CAN’T get that bad” or “These people are my friends,” or ”He’s just trash talking. He doesn’t really mean it.” Famous last words. Or is it another enemy, panic? Fight and flight are not the only factory installed responses, there’s also “freeze.” Motionless, because we are too terrified to think.

      Opportunity – Have you noticed, yet, that it’s always the same opportunity we’re offered? Simply to grow up. Accept maturity. Become Godly; more like God, or as the Gnostic gospels call the Creator, “Good”. To regard each other with the wise generosity of compassion. In order to claim our opportunity we must create safe spaces to grow, think and learn.

      Models & Mentors – “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone” – William James

      “No matter how dirty your past, your future is spotless” – Drake

      “Our destiny is not written for us, but by us” – Barack Obama

      “If you can influence, direct or control your environment , you can make your life what you want it to be” – Napoleon Hill

      “Life is choice, not chance,” – Jean Nidetch

      “Winners fail until they succeed” – Robert T. Kiyosaki

      Mantra – “I choose”

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Karma

      Come round –
      Goes round.
      Love reaps love
      Law reaps
      Justice
      Violence reaps
      Whirlwind.

    9. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Ambisextrous – Do you dream of being the “opposite” sex? IS there an opposite sex? Are these threatening dreams or pleasurable ones? Do you dream of the fetish trophies of gender; makeup, wigs, shoes, sports equipment? Do you have frequent “freedom” dreams: flying, swimming? Wake up damp, pulses pounding? Sometimes we want to be our own romantic partner, the subject of a lifelong pursuit. This is nothing but the honorable, deep desire to truly know oneself, to master our selfhood before we leave the planet. C.S. Lewis says we are not a body with a soul, we are a Soul with a body.

      Remember – In the Dream, you are everyone. In dreams we confront ourselves, we challenge ourselves, we evolve ourselves. Write in your Dream Journal what it would be like to be your own opposite, your own Desire.

      Challenge – Woody Allen says bisexuality doubles your chances to get a date on Saturday night. Anything wrong with that? Nobody should force themselves to perform sexually; it is important at all times to move as slowly as you feel comfortable with. The sexual revolution was a lot of fun, but it was spoiled for many people by a witless prejudice against “hang-ups.” Revulsion and doubt tell us plenty. We are on this earth to hone our “gut” instinct as well as our sensitivities. Gavin de Becker, danger specialist, reminds us that fear is a “gift.” Honor it.

      Danger – Most “bad sex” stories when one sex disappoints or violates the other, start with substance abuse, undertaken with a nervous desire to get into a more relaxed or even transcendental state. All it actually does is skip over the “informed consent” part that is such an important feature of identity and will. Predators with a need for speed drug their prey! Afterwards the complex feelings of violation an shame take a life time to deal with. These facts mean we need to study trust before we study sex. What is trust? Safety? Honor? Let’s work on those issues while we develop a free space to evolve, experiment and grow.

      Opportunity – Fresh interpretations of gender make this a glorious time to be alive. I can recall when gender was a prison sentence! Now it is an invitation to live more fully, to experience oneself and others more richly, to participate in that fruitful life of which we all dream.

      Mantra – “I become”

      Models & Mentors – “The great gift of human beings is we all have empathy. We can sense a mysterious connection to each other” – Meryl Streep

      “Leadership is about empathy. It is about relating to people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives” – Oprah Winfrey

      “The capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter I which heart speaks to heart” – Pope Francis

      “I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization” – Roger Ebert

      “Empathy has no script…there is no right way or wrong way…there is only listening, emotionally connecting, communicating the incredibly healing message ‘You’re not alone” – Brene Brown

      Meditation –

      #Haiku – Ambisextrous

      Ambisexuality:
      Joyously roused;
      By beauty
      Everywhere