Category: #History

  • Purrsiflage – Your Inner Cat Horoscope for 2026 with Alysse Aallyn

    Christmas Day

    Your Christmas Gift Is – You Were Born Lucky!  Let’s consider. What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered a piece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?

    How Lucky Do You Need to Be? Ever seen the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that we give thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps it’s really just our opportunity to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered it. These memories have one thing in common- i.e. the “ability”, which is not the luck, the luck is YOU. Give thanks for yourself and your abilities. Let’s learn to develop “gratitude thinking”.

    Purrson Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’t happen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s try adopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.

    Purrson Danger – Now that you’re committed to the Purrson path, the danger is always the same – recognizing your power but possibly ceding control over it to some other entity that almost certainly doesn’t have your best interests at heart. We’re usually not even aware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that even mean?  “Lucky” in whose eyes? Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead of us. Do we want to go there? Do we really trust these people? Or are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach the illusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?

    Purrson Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique chance to take advantage of serendipitous appearances and encounters. If we can recognize them. Compare your path to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?

    How Did We Get Here? Turns out your map was only a suggestion.

    We are mapping as we go along. However, life is even more interesting, it turns out, than our imaginations.

    After the Storm – Comes the Rainbow! Every visible color – carefully separated out – forming an arch to give us a glimpse of heaven! If it didn’t provably exist, would we still believe in it?

    List Your Rainbows – Clouds may or may not have silver linings. Rainbows are a complete surprise – unconnected to the storms that spawned them. Write about the surprises in your life in your Training Journal. How many were nasty? How many joyous?

    The Universe Conspired – To bring you to this moment. You zigged, you zagged, you wound up here. Give thanks!

    Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult”

    – Erin McKean

    “Steer Into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh

    “Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh

    “There are no coincidences” – Sigmund Freud

  • Purrsiflage – The Purrson’s Daily Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 24

    Today the Universe Mandates We Educate Ourselves to manage risk intelligently and get what we want out of life!

    Never Quit Learning. Synchronicity lubricates the magic of daily life; where does it come from?  You can’t recognize synchronicity without Education. 

    Do you dream of the fulfillment of longed-for events? Glorious parties of blissful happiness where life finally seems to be unfolding exactly the way it should? Synchronous events are harmonious, as if the universe is a vast perfectly working clockwork machine. Understanding the physics of the universe as well as machines, systems, attribution and calibration are the subject of the educational process. This is the reason we spend the first twenty plus years of our lives in instructive settings.

    Purrsons Learn for a Lifetime – You are a fierce absorber of knowledge. Advertisers know this, as do the designers of games and entertainment generally. We adore self-educating mazes. The complex dance between our skills, our bodily manifestation and the physics of reality is never-ending. Purrsons determinedly master the synchrony of Right Thought, Right Instruction & Right Action.

    Purrsons Have Young Brains but Old Souls – We have seen, known, learned and struggled so much. We have much knowledge to pass on to the brash beginners. But we ourselves confront each day with Gratitude Practice – re-experiencing the thrill of being alive and relishing the challenge of bending the universe toward light.

    As We Fill Our Souls with Light We Confront the Darkness – Remember – always get the oxygen mask over your own face before you try to help others. We need to design a life-long learning plan that benefits US, not one that puts our hard-earned money in someone else’s pocket.

    Beware the Quicksand – The culture seeks to bog us down in titles, degrees, honors, acquisitions and pro forma protocols. Don’t succumb. Our motion is always upward, our benchmark always health. Are we becoming stronger, smarter and more peaceful? Can we pass this flexible, constructive protocol along? Danger: we are seducible. We get tired, we long for reinforcements and approval. We just want to put our feet up.

    You Are Attracted to Synchronicity – You have something to learn today to calibrate your balance in this uncertain world. Write it out in your training journal before you go to sleep – what new thing have I learned today? Where will it fit along my map? But we are smart! Our self-designed goal system must contain refreshment and renewal breaks. Most importantly, we will be needing a buddy as we go through the system, and a spiritual guru who provably has our best interests at heart. You can recognize them by the fact that they don’t trap you into a dominance/submission matrix.

    Models & Mentors – “Education is the key to unlocking the world. It is the passport to freedom.” – Oprah Winfrey

    “Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci

    “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela

    “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X

  • Purrsiflage – Your Inner Kitty Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 23

    The Universe Has a Warning For You – Look out. Are you a worrier?  Anxiety driven? Haunted by nightmares and worst-case scenarios? Do you wake up gasping and trying to forget what you’ve just experienced?

    You are Alert – Nightmares mean you’re paying attention. Life is scary, but we need to grow, and growth requires we learn to cultivate risk if we are ever to expand and venture outside our comfort zone.

    The Number One Complaint About the Freedom of Becoming a Purrson? – Fear management. The only way to manage fear? Become a Purrson.

    Study Risk Intelligently. No point being afraid of dragons if dragons are only symbolic. No point being “afraid” of “foreigners” if the man telling us to be afraid has a reputation for befriending people and then fleecing them.

    Managing Fear:

    1. Don’t rely on rumor and innuendo
    • Dangers must be proven Real
    • Dangers Need to be Historically verified by data: “How likely is injury?”
    • Assemble likely risk-avoidance strategies that have performed well for others in your situation.
    • What exactly is your situation? Quantify.
    • Know who your friends are
    • Be prepared to alter strategy to maximize success and to learn from mistakes

    Purrsons Prepare Because Cats are notoriously wily. Purrsons accept, identify and study the challenges. They learn to make sophisticated risk assessments and pick their battles cleverly. To do that, Purrsons need a Purpose. You get to find out who your friends are. Friends want the best for you, but the relationship must be reciprocal. You have each other’s backs. Know the difference between a Team and a Gang. Gangs work to suck power from individual members and concentrate it in one individual. Teams work for the success of all. Coach can’t win if the team doesn’t win.

    Purrsons Test – their and mental physical abilities constantly against life’s games & mazes

    Purrsons Transform – The physical pleasure of meeting the moment cannot be overstated. Soon the training itself becomes a rush of joy. You are making love to the universe and the universe loves you back

    What About Defeat? – There are no defeats, there are only lessons. Everything is practice for The Greater Contest.

    Won’t You Ultimately Lose? Truly, we all die, some sooner, some in startlingly less dignified ways. This is where your purpose upholds you. Study your models. What allowed Nelson Mandela to be “captain of his soul” after more than 20 years in brutal captivity? Are we just bodies? Or are we also souls? Are our souls so easily defeated? Can we also train, test and transform our souls?

    Remember –  a caterpillar’s “defeat” is a butterfly.

    Models & Mentors – “Extreme Fear can neither fight nor fly.”

    – William Shakespeare

    “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear” – Mark Twain

    “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will return stronger” – Deepak Chopra

    “We’re more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than reality.” – Seneca

  • Purrsiflage – Your Purrson Horoscope for Today with Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 22

    Today The Past Consumes You – Is this a good thing or a bad one? Check your conscious/subconscious/

    unconscious/collective consciousness levels. How comfortable are you with the very existence, not to mention the depth, of all these levels?

    You Are Multiple People Blending Lives – Do you ruminate about past events? Are you haunted by what was done & left undone? Do you feel nostalgia for a past that never was? Do you have a favorite period in history or a fantasy universe that you wish you lived in, instead of this one?

    You are the Hero of Your Purrson Saga – Accept your centrality in your own myth. It doesn’t matter what other people think – they are the bit players. Think of your past as a Quest Saga. What did you want? How did it change? What blocked you? What tools have you got at your command? Where do you go from here?

    Rewrite the Past – You absolutely CAN, but first you first must face its full horror and that effect on you. Generally, because we were immature, we didn’t understand what was going on, were co-opted by our persecutors and prevented from fighting back. Things are different now! The hardest thing to accept is that beloved caregivers didn’t want the best for us – they only wanted us to be just like them.

    “I Don’t Believe in Ghosts but I Never Met a Person Who Wasn’t Haunted” is a very wise saying. What haunts you exactly? Or who? Ghosts are malignant – if they weren’t they would be power spirits, fairy godmothers or guardian angels. What malignancies from your past are out to get you and how do they make themselves known? One of Freud’s contributions was to point out that people prefer their neurosis – ie imprisonment – to liberation. Why? What’s in it for you?

    You Define YOU. Yes, you have scars – these are bragging rights! You have been through the wars! ‘Rewriting” the past means understanding what really happened, the limitations of those who surrounded you, and exploring your chances and choices today. Just because parents, teachers or “society” sentenced you to play a role, you can step out of it at any time. Buddhist thought is very helpful here. Buddha teaches that life itself is an illusion – a dream. It changes depending on how we think about it. In the present, inside your mind, you hold all the keys to your own liberation. Re-visit Pema Chodron’s Noble Heart and Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now to explore how you can assume immediate control of your life and your mind and turn your past into fuel to power your growth.

    Purrsons Know Who They Are – Remember, you’ve got a purpose. You’ve got a future. You’ve thought about your past and worked out conflicts with a mentor and in your Training Journal.

    Purrsons Develop A Sense of History – You understand that history is a spiral, not a circle – the same things do keep coming around but in a different form. You see all around you the operation of karma.

    Choosing Evil is Choosing Chaos – and condemning yourself to death. It can’t work out for anyone except temporarily. You understand the battle between darkness and light and you have committed yourself firmly to The Light.

    Purrsons Are Storytellers – You pass the message on with your life, with your words, with your body, with your very presence. You have become one link in the unbreakable chain of Eternal Perfection and you will have your reward.

    Models & Mentors –  “You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory” – Dr Seuss

    “Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things” – Cicero

    “In the end, we’ll all become stories.” – Margaret Atwood

    “Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining a task or actually doing it”-  Yo Yo Ma

  • Purrsiflage – Your Kitten Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

     Don’t Let Dormancy Consume You –  There Will Be Paperwork! – Today’s Purroscope reminds us that dreams must be brought into consciousness to become real. Do you dream of paths diverging in a yellow wood? Checklists? Maps? Are you talking to yourself as you follow your routine? What IS your routine? How has your routine evolved? What efforts have you made to change it to newly perceived needs and discoveries? Or is your routine formed outside your will, strictly for the benefit of others? 

    Purrsons Practice Self Respect. If you talking to yourself throughout your routine that self-talk needs to be positive. Become an encouraging coach.  Don’t hold yourself hostage or you can’t complete your steps. If You Have No Goal, Any Path Will Take You There – But you won’t like where you end up. Purrsons are Place-Centered and Goal-oriented. As you become more adept at change, you realize that dividing effort into “steps” to achieve a goal is critical. It won’t happen fast. Your conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious (not to mention your pre-conscious!) are going to kick up a helluva fuss. But that’s the interesting part!  Change is guaranteed. 

    Purrsons Are Sore-Muscled Athletes – Day 2 of any program is always spent thinking, I CAN’T DO THIS. Guess what? EVERYBODY THINKS THAT!  Even the non-sensitive thinks it. Expect it! You treat yourself with loving compassion and grooming, petting, cuddling and massage. In other words, there is an established map, a way to GET THROUGH THIS. In order to CUSTOMIZE your map to suit you, exactly, you need to figure out who you are, and grow into the Purrson you want to be. 

    Being is Movement. As we shape our Goal Path, it shapes us. Even the most anti-social creatures are constantly making paths for others to follow.  Such delight when we uncover a ready-made Path because path-making is exhausting!  A ready-made path is a mysterious invitation.  All paths lead Somewhere.  Every Path, Visible or not, speaks of the mysterious existence of The Other. 

    Paths Speak of Destination, Intention, Design, History. Paths are our Robinson Crusoe footprint. They represent Hope: this Path worked not just once, but many times.  We are proud of being Path-makers, Ice-piercers in our turn, Long-distance voyagers.  We lead the weary, frightened traveler of the future toward confidence and reliability. 

    Purrsons Use Models.  We need a constantly evolving & revolving pit crew of helpers. A side effect of routine remodeling is “crazy thinking.” We all need somebody to talk us off the ledge, somebody who is familiar with not just our goals but what we are going through. Your “id” ie your kitten self – is holding the rest of you hostage, and you need an experienced hostage negotiator. 

    Waves of “Fear” Surfacing from your collective unconscious require symbolic release and expression in art, dance, love-making, sport or theatre. 

    Disowned Longings from Your Subconscious threaten your secure sense of self and may require therapeutic intervention. 

    Unconscious Drives from Depths no one’s ever plumbed can’t be faced without the courage of a Friend or Soulmate.  So, don’t try making it through this crisis without a buddy AND a coach. 

    Halt!  AA has a useful acronym – HALT –  representing: 

    Hungry

    Angry

    Lonely

    Tired 

    These are the Emotion States of Bad Decision-making. So, when you see these conditions developing – Halt. Call your hostage negotiator immediately. 

    Models & Mentors – “Setting goals is the first step into turning the invisible into the visible” – Tony Robbins 

    “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things”– Albert Einstein 

    “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine St. Exupery 

    “Always remember your focus determines your reality” – George Lucas

  • Purrsiflage – your Purrson Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 19

    The Universe Tells You –  It’s Time to Wake up!  Do you look forward to dreaming? I like waking up in the early dawn because when I go back to sleep I can set an intention for dreaming – all the best dreams (and the most memorable ones) happen at the very end of sleep while you are coming up through the layers of sub- to semi-consciousness.

    Purrsons Are in Tune With Their Inner Voice – Jung tells us that in your dreams, you are everyone. Every life you have ever lived and every life you will ever live comes to you through your dreams.

    Remember – As Purrson, You’re the Pilot – Do you long for caretaking? Are you eager to give over the reins of your life to someone else? If so, your dreams are likely to become scary, unmanageable and unsatisfying. It is time for you to take charge of your power – to admit that you are in control of your own brain.

    Purrsons Are Seekers – We are self-defining. Self-validating. We are on a quest. Purrsons experience to the fullest the nature of having a self. Become alert to the possibilities inherent in this particular incarnation and explore.  Feel free to release your imagination.

    Dream Journal – Start a Dream Journal. Date it, and write, “I want to dream about…” Fill in the blank. Be as detailed and specific as you can manage. It is OK to allow your waking mind to construct desirable dreams – great works of art got their start in just this way! You may hear a voice… someone from the past who discouraged your “day-dreaming” and wanted you to focus on your work, on the present and on them. Explore this memory fearlessly. It is not rejecting or “hating on” that person to disagree with them – there are certainly times when the priority is to focus on other things – but right now you are exploring your own brain and testing out its powers. Clearly that’s an important and necessary project. Gently take control from this Remembered Forbidder and say, “This is my time now. I am in charge.”

    Purrson Danger – We all know the cautionary tale of Scary Guy Who Lives for Video Games and Doesn’t Have a Life. Do you secretly fear that the power of dreams and the pleasures of daydreaming will suck you away from Real World Competence? They won’t – so long as you are reality centered. Some people only dream of different outcomes, futures that are impossible – instead of finding workable avenues of growth and advancement.

    Positive Dreaming Deepens and Enhances, doesn’t evade reality. It’s just that reality is so much wilder – and we are so much more powerful than we can credit!

    Dream Group – Form a Dream Group with others to share the content of your dreams and listen to their fresh interpretations.  You can even try Group Dreaming. Lie on the floor holding hands in semi-darkness playing drowsy music. Share whatever comes up. These are models for your future. Some of us believe this growth goes on forever – even after death.

    Models & Mentors – “I dream things that never were and I say, “Why Not?” – George Bernard Shaw

    “A dreamer finds his way by moonlight…sees dawn before the rest of the world.” – Oscar Wilde

    ‘You have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world”

    – Harriet Tubman

    “I’ve had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.” – Jonas Salk

  • Purrsiflage – Your Purrperson Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 14

    Today the Universe Has a Message for You – You Don’t Have to Go Through This Alone. Check your friend list. Do you dream of love, sex, connection? Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? You were born to search for Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must each decide your motive (“I Could Use a Friend”) and approach with the CERTAINTY that you are WORTHY of friendship. This last one is tricky because we are ALL looking for validation.  This is the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class, unprepared on Test Day!

    Love Begins With Friendship: You Are a Giver and Worthy of Help – We can’t see everything because we don’t have eyes in the back of our heads. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans, struggling, just like us.  If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters? We don’t want to end up devoured; someone else’s temporary “fuel”.

    Purrson Danger  – When someone is trying to mangle your self-esteem, recognize that fact. Some Purrsons purposely diminish themselves to attract mates: Bad Idea. Even if it comes in the guise of “friendship” any person who takes you up on that offer is an enemy. This is not what friends, and certainly not lovers,  are for. When someone is trying to “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-taker looking for slaves. NOT a friend.

    Purrson Challenge – How to recognize friends? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.” Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.”  Friends are fun, “Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest, forgiving,  fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend. Friendship is a good place to start. Be the friend you want to have – warm, funny, loyal, truthful.

    Love Enriches – It Does Not Deplete – – Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, we can expand our reach.  Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts.  Our sorrows are halved and our ideas are increased exponentially.  Reach out! You never know until you try. And there’s always the possibility of Love and a deepening sexual connection.

    Love Transforms as Purrpersonhood Transforms – Things you thought you could not do seem possible now because someone believes in you. Believe in yourself because they do, and honor them by believing in them, in return.

    Locked Back to Back the Purrson Pair Sees Everything – Gaze turns outward at the world, not inward on each other. Are you chewing or strengthening? Learn the steps of your tango. Add new steps of your own.

    As You Change, the Couple Changes – Compare Training Journals. Are you evolving? Can you evolve together? Is it safe to speak the truth? Does one partner try to dominate? Does one partner use infantile behaviors to get “their way”? There is no “one way.” As joint Purrsons, the couple has goals also. Compare. Allow differences. The truth will be revealed.

    Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”

    – e.e. cummings

    “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

    “Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place” – Zora Neale Hurston

    “Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth” –

    II Corinthians

    “Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi

  • Purrsiflage – A Daily Cat Horoscope for the Purrson Within by Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 13

    There is Conflict in Today’s Horoscope – Something’s Coming. Are you having bad dreams? Maybe about natural disasters like storms, volcanoes and  flooding?  Do you fear war, robbery, violation, home invasion? Or do you dream about your loved one’s face turning bitter and their words cutting sharply?  Conflict is inevitable.  It is even necessary – birth pangs couldn’t be more natural but seem objectively terrifying. In dreams, we rehearse our fears until some of us fear to dream.

    It Always Comes Before You’re Ready – Here it is – the reason you became a Purrson. To figure out, even if only metaphorically, what is going on. You will have to seize control of yourself to seize control of your tools. It’s battle or go under. The force against you is superior – no question about that – you must be wily and assess when to expend energy and when to conserve your strength.

    You are a Force Field.  By virtue of your temperament as a Purrson you are a magnet for desire, change, for evolution itself.  Others may tell you to stand back, take your place in line or wait your turn but your appearance into this chaotic universe triggered no such guarantee. We are here to learn to use our power.

    Conflict Makes a Purrson – Force stirs up resistance.  Actions create re-action as we swing back and forth in our determination and direction. We clash and crash.  Sometimes we regret it bitterly, “why did I do that?”  Sometimes we fear loss or harm so much we become immobilized.  The challenge is to assume your stride, elucidate your goals and plan a direction.

    Purrson Danger – It’s all too easy to make others fear you. The one with the biggest weapon THINKS he wins every fight. But what looks like compliance to you could be revolution – you will be toppled and lose your heart’s desire.

    Purrson Opportunity – Learning to use conflict constructively and Purrson-ly is a Superpower.  Other people are force fields, too.  If there is any way to blend these powers and head in the same direction, we become invincible. Welcome the knowledge provided by the Conflict archetype in your Purrsiflage Horoscope.

    Study Your Opponent – Some clever scholar has separated these opponents into groups & classes. Read up! Some opponents – physical contests, weather conditions – don’t even have a brain. So who – or what – are you playing against?

    You Are Playing Against Yourself – your own fear, incapacity, beginner status. Seek mentoring so you have advice along the journey. Who is the sensei who will guide you? Someone who desires both your safety and your growth.

    Reward Yourself – The best place to do this is your training journal. Think hard about every contest and how you performed.  Assess your challenges and accomplishments. Way to go!

    Models & Mentors –  “I used to tell myself, boy, if you can survive this, you can survive anything” – Tom Lichtenberg

    “Laughter is the proof that our tragedies don’t define us. Laughter is the survivor’s language” – Josh James

    “Cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet”

    – Michael Douglas

    “If you want to awaken humanity, awaken yourself. If you want to eliminate suffering, eliminate what is negative in yourself. Your gift to the world is our self-transformation.” Lao Tzu

  • Purrsiflage – Your Cat Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 11

    Today is all good news! The Universe is telling us hard-working Purrpersons to Relax.  But can we afford to relax?  Seems counterintuitive right before a big project, doesn’t it, and aren’t we always revving up for Some Big Push? Well, First Lesson of Purrson Boot Camp is that Purrpersonhood is Counterintuitive. Other people rush away from the burning building – planning on being EVEN MORE SCARED the next time. But we are Caretakers.  We are going to master our fear. We are going in.

    That’s right! Purrsons aren’t cats THEMSELVES – we take care of cats! We have to think ahead, into the future, the place that cats can’t see. Thank goodness we have Purrsiflage, the art of Universe Divination, to help us.

    Let’s consider a “Letting Go” archetype – Such as swimming, flying, dreaming. Does this stir something within you? Cats don’t swim but – tigers do. Cats don’t fly – but they do have powerful imaginations. And cats can pounce.

    We’re declaring our place in the world. Past memories are of others firmly trying to “place” you and keep you there. Dismiss those from your thoughts.  You’re alone now, encountering Universal Mind, to speak and listen, about your own potential – and it’s the most exciting place to be in the world. 

    Everybody Panics  – Even Cats. I had my first panic attack at age 5 (I  got lost outside a movie theatre) and another at age 11 when I descended deep, deep, deep into a cave. (I think the guide was deliberately trying to scare us.) I didn’t know at the time what these episodes were – my parents and sisters saw them as embarrassing annoyances – but looking back it’s clear what was happening to me physically was as a result of what was happening to me mentally.

    Learn to Relax In the Face of Panic – To tolerate psychic dissonance, be curious about it and interested in it and challenged by it is what we’re all about. 

    Cats Are Curious – We’re in the presence of the Deep Stuff – the things that galvanize our deep subconscious and if we can just seize control of that, we’ll be able to access our true power.

    Learn Relaxation Techniques – There are so many and you should experiment with all of them! Learn what works for you and – key – what you enjoy. You will find yourselves using these techniques all the time. To get to sleep, to get through difficult experiences or just to access your subconscious when you have a question.

    Breathe Deeply – The very first thing is mastering control of the breath. Pregnant women learn all kinds of helpful breathing techniques in Lamaze; panting, counting; deliberately slowing down and speeding up your breathing. In yoga you will learn Lion Breaths to make you feel powerful. They are very similar to the gasps and shouts in martial arts and will affect your opponents. Watch the Maori war dance on YouTube.

    Get Out Your Training Journal – write down the techniques and your reactions. Appoint a time to practice these every day. Your breath connects you to the universe and all living things.

    Models & Mentors: “The first thing to learn is the breath.” – Confucius

    ‘Breathe In. Let Go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure, and give thanks for that.”

    – Oprah Winfrey

    Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor” –

    Thich Nhat Hanh

    “While we breathe, we hope” – Barack Obama

  • Purrsiflage – Your Purrsonhood Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Dec 10

    The “Power” Issue will control your day – Is this your archetype? If so, consider yourself one of the Elect. Most people feel that archetype of Power it’s the most valuable archetype in the Purrson Oracle.  But purrsonhood 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 Power 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.

    Purrson 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.

    Purrson 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.

    Purrson 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 purrsons? 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 Purrson: 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 Purrson. 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 power 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