Alysse Aallyn

Category: #History

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Poppy – Success:

    If This Card Chooses You – Maybe it’s time you upgrade your concept of success. Do you dream of adulation? Applause? The Poppy, source of lifesaving modern analgesics, represents eternal sleep and endless dreaming. Perhaps it reminds us that the journey, not the arrival matters, because the successful life is one long journey. The tired and footsore warrior needs heartwarming visions to sustain joy for the voyage.

    Success Is a Worse Hazard for Warriors Than Failure – If the journey, not the arrival matters, battle-hardened warriors collapse on reaching Road’s End. The Poppy, source of lifesaving modern analgesic morphine, also represents loss of self and a derailment of energy. Future plans are torpedoed in pursuit of a momentary fix. Greeks and Romans used these orange and red flowers as offerings to the dead – Westerners emblazon them on tombstones. Could it be that the very idea of “success” is something of a mirage?

    Success Is How 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 and approval by others, haven’t we given away the 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 freely admitting nobody “needs” that much money. They don’t seem to be using it very responsibly either, so I would judge them as “unsuccessful.” If the most important standards are your own personal ones then the only person to please is yourself and those you love. Let’s rephrase the challenge: are you content?

    Warrior Challenge – When success is “arrival”, a “finish line” is implied. Do you really want to be finished? As we desire constant progress, then reaching the goal is death. But the opposite – endless striving – is just a treadmill. A “rat race”, in point of fact. So the ultimate success must be “contentment”. To be content we must assess our lives and come to terms with our missteps. Sometimes we discovered something even more wonderful that we didn’t even know we were searching for.

    Warrior Danger – Success is a drug: be careful. Don’t get addicted. Our society views everything as a competition, and the fundamental danger is you 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 visualize each other’s sadness and pain, only display and showmanship.

    Warrior Opportunity – is to feel compassion for another’s hurt and struggle. 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 and have a look at the big map. I like resting, thinking, reading and writing. Retired, 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

    “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

    #Haiku: The Future Is Now

    Quotidian
    Maps built
    From shreds of
    Daily goals –
    Invisible glue

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Daffodil – Enlightenment:

    If This Card Chooses You – You are coming closer. You are on the cusp of a major discovery that will explain much. Are you dreaming of books, reading, classes, school? Do you often feel you are on a pursuit and the prey is within view?

    Warriors Seek the Light – We are all born in a condition of yearning. As children, we try desperately to understand the world we find ourselves in. The truth is we are all warriors on a quest for enlightenment. We know there is a message out there for us, we know we have the capacity to understand it, but we are waiting for the lightning strike of “enlightenment” to put it all together.

    The Truth Is Simple – Jesus said we have to become children again to enter the kingdom of heaven. This certainly implies that “enlightenment” is more a state of mind than any received wisdom. The daffodil, that simple fresh flower that is the harbinger of spring, is Warrior Oracle’s symbol of the mystical understanding and the lightning universal comprehension we call “enlightenment.”

    Warrior Challenge – Enlightenment literature recommend two things: a good teacher and time alone. Every night when we go to sleep we enter the alone-time of our own mind. We can prep ourselves in advance with some “good teaching”; Socrates, Plato, Montaigne, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Batchelor, the Dalai Lama – savor these models until you get a sense which one speaks especially to you. Then set aside twenty-minutes or a half an hour for reading (or listening) right before sleep.

    Warrior Danger – Zen teachers say that if anyone represents themselves as a Zen teacher they are cannot be. Gnostic gospels say prophets asking for money are false prophets. Search for a guru is fraught with landmines. This is why I mention specific names of teachers available at any library who will not be trying to gain any ascendance or dominance over you personally. Be aware of giving your spirit into another’s care. If they have demanded submission they will be cruel. The sin against the Holy Ghost is the only sin that cannot be forgiven, and it is the sin of running roughshod over our spiritual receptors. Once trust and faith are destroyed, it is difficult to “become a child again” because of the terrible things we have known and seen.

    Warrior Opportunity – Broken places let in the light and healing is always available. Even when scarred by false prophets we feel there is a magic of universal love and resilience available to us. A variety of healing ceremonials – my favorite is the “miracle bath” and the “laying on of hands” – will reconnect you to the possibilities of joy, love and the insight leading to enlightenment.

    Models & Mentors -. “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” – Lao Tzu

    “Enlightenment is your felt state of Oneness with Being” – Eckhart Tolle

    “The road to enlightenment is long and difficult and you should not forget snacks and magazines” – Anne LaMott

    “Suffering is temporary, enlightenment is forever” – Buddha

    “Enlightenment does not come from the mind, it comes from just being. You are already enlightened. You have to realize it to allow it into your experience”- Anita Moorjani

    #Haiku: Enlighten-ment

    Dissolution reassembles;
    Enlightened wave knows
    It’s
    Ocean

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Clinging Vine – Dependency:

    If This Card Chooses You – You are suffering an entanglement. Do you secretly fear abandonment? Are you afraid of being alone? In Warrior Oracle, the Clinging Vine card reminds us of all of the unpleasant aspects of needing others’ constant support to function. A clinging vine can’t stand up by itself, it needs an immoveable shoulder to fasten upon. We Americans prefer to live by the fantasy of independence and self-determination. It’s just too threatening to imagine what might happen if the wall we’ve been covertly clinging to, suddenly comes down.

    Warriors Require Freedom of Action – We are all dependent on society for basic functions. At what point does mutual dependency become constrictive? Clinging vines can’t stand up by themselves; they need an immoveable shoulder to cling to. Are you locked into a position of support for someone else?

    Warriors Must Define Freedom in Their Relationships – Recognize and resist parasitic and exploitive relationships where the benefits are unbalanced. No need to over-react. Start drawing boundaries. Teaching the clinging vine to stand up for itself is doing it a favor.

    No One Stands Alone – The truth is, we’re all in this together. Billionaires, leaders, CEO’s, all actually need much more support than we ordinaries. But they insist on maintaining freedom of action – for good reason. Don’t make destructive deals involving your future. Warriors need to Become and their futures are always a Mystery. We are responsive to the fluttering of butterfly wings as well as the shifting of tectonic plates. Divest of pointless, usually “inherited” shame (from the collective unconscious) and acknowledge the truth that humans are, for good and ill, social creatures.

    Life Is a Negotiation– Make an experiment of listing your dependencies – bank, mail system, social security? Vehicle, gas availability, fuel affordability? Grocery stores, restaurants, our own two ambulatory feet? Weather, peace, law enforcement?

    Recognize the fragility of these systems. Confronting fear creates ruthlessness but warriors never check their brains at the door. We are strategic, planning, evolving. Our maps will always need an update and a redesign.

    Warrior Challenge – Are we hanging ourselves in loops of dependency? How can we free ourselves? What could we do to claim more psychic and physical independence? While Mormons may require a “year’s worth” of canned goods in the basement, the rest of us recognize the need for an emergency savings account. We are beginning to understand how a threatened supply chain can snap. Begin imagining some future failure scenarios and hash out the possibilities; if the elevator fail, is it possible to take the stairs? Your dream life will reward you with a lessening of existential anxiety.

    Models & Mentors – “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Fear is the memory of pain. Addiction is the memory of pleasure. Freedom is beyond both.” – Anonymous

    “Don’t work harder on someone else’s problems than they do” – Ross Rosenberg

    “Enjoy togetherness but allow space. Respect differing beliefs. Accept, don’t try to change each other. Appreciate the other, but always be prepared to survive alone” – Darlene Lancer

    #Haiku: Dis – Ability

    Limitations dissolve
    Hand in hand we
    Surmount
    Mental boundaries

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Hummingbird – The Soul:

    If This Card Chooses You – Your soul is speaking. Listen. Do you ever dream of hummingbirds? Of the ‘impossible” flight of the bumblebee? According to C.S. Lewis, we are not a Body with a Soul, we are a Soul with a Body. Our body may be very mutable, but our soul can be eternal. Do you dream of past lives? See yourself in historical contexts? Do you have dreams of utter bodilessness in which you are totally free, seeming to travel invisibly through the power of your mind?

    What Are Warriors Fighting For? Immortality is not a given, but an achievement. Souls are under threat. What is the Sin Against the Holy Spirit that the Bible talks about, the one sin that cannot be forgiven? It is any attempt to slaughter the soul, the stifle your inborne, God-given ability to detect the numinous and to access the sphere of eternality. Warriors therefore fight the greatest battle there is, to protect the power of their own Souls and those of others.

    Accept Your Immortality – Can we destroy our own immortality through abuse and disbelief? Sadly, yes, and some of us act like we want to! If “heaven” represents eternal bliss and “hell” eternal pain who would ever choose the latter? Those who find life itself such a stacked deck they turn away from the gamble. It’s soul suicide. This is as tragic as battling against one of our talents (“I’m never going near that guitar.”) Who exactly are you trying to harm? The direction we need to travel is in uncovering who we really are and freeing ourselves. To become a Self worth being.

    Everyone Has Experienced Flow – We have knowledge of eternality our daily life – actual accessible bliss in which Time and Impossibility vanish while we experience full connectedness with the universe. We become Warriors to master this ability – and to transfer it to others. It makes merely being ourselves a reliable, eternal pleasure.

    Warrior Challenge – Obviously, our minds change the same way our bodies do. We grow up! Think about the differences between you now, and you at say, three years old. Imagine the joyous understanding with which you will eventually “get” what seems now incomprehensible. If you just accept that possibility, you can enjoy the Now.

    Warrior Danger – What Christians call “sin”, Buddhists call “clinging”. We grab on to any passing thing in fear, to halt the frightening mystery of our flight but of course it doesn’t work! The G forces build up as space revolves around us, meanwhile we are clinging to some crappy object, or some person who is experiencing a different trajectory. Let those things go. Don’t be frightened by your feelings, just study them, turn them into huge iridescent bubbles, and spin them away. Learn to enjoy this flight, no matter how wild it gets.

    Warrior Opportunity – Think about the Biblical parable in which everyone is invited to a glorious feast. These “guests” are so threatened by this invitation, they not only don’t go, they murder the messenger. Watch the glorious film, Groundhog Day. Poor weather forecaster Bill Murray is sentenced to living the same reality over and over and over again, trying everything to escape, including suicide. Finally he decides to learn how to just enjoy the life he has been granted, and to be as nice as possible to the other frightened, enraged, confused souls around him. Only then is he able to move on to the next level which turns out to be the rewarding love of his dreams. That is the Progress of the Soul which we defend.

    Models & Mentors – “the living soul, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled”

    – Horace Mann

    “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.”

    – Carolyne Myss

    “Without applied awareness of the soul, happiness can’t arise” – Dada Bhagwan

    “The desire to know your own soul ends all other desires” – Rumi

    #Haiku: Last Minute

    Bone grows
    Mind crashed
    Soul merge
    Skin graft
    Intervention –
    Light shaft
    Angel…?
    Laughed.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Field – Fate:

    If This Card Chooses You – You are about to go through some things. 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 vast to resist or even rise above and visualize. Those caught in wars, in genocides, in natural disasters, are brutally unlucky. But the techniques of the Warrior can substantially save, improve, even alter their fates. Naturally we yearn for a trustworthy clue to extract us from this maze.

    Warriors Are Caught and Called – by History. Sometimes we are crushed by the gears of chaos. According to the philosopher Hegel, “Heroes are singular figures “whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit.” Such heroes interfere in and remake the world; their deeds produce “a complex of historical relations which appear to be only their interest, and their work.” 
    Remember, the Warriors’ Code is “Never Surrender”. Never consent to the misuse of human dignity.

    Warriors’ Challenge – Always try to comprehend the bigger picture by comparing it to several other proven scenarios. Were those who fled Germany before Hitler shut it down, France before the Terror or Indonesia before the tsunami just “lucky” or had they learned to read the signs? Rulers by whim are even more dangerous than the weather, for their brains inevitably become echo chambers rotting from within. The larger the council of power 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 dream of riding a whirlwind but no one can ever truly tame a whirlwind. As the Chinese say, you can ride the tiger but you can’t get off. The challenge is to see the whirlwind – and the tiger – coming.

    Warriors Inhabit Danger – Is the danger learned helplessness, our old enemy? Or is it comfort – we’ve created a berth for ourselves that’s just too cushy to leave? Sometime the danger is an inability to imagine evil: “it CAN’T get that bad” or “These people are my friends.” Famous last words. Or is panic the enemy? Don’t risk becoming too terrified to think. Study up.

    Warriors Seize Opportunity – Have you noticed, yet, that it’s always the same opportunity we must accept? To grow up. To embrace maturity. To become more like God, or as the Gnostic gospels call the Creator, “Good”. To regard each other with the wise generosity of compassion. Study all input intelligently. Learn to recognize and repudiate garbage. Don’t be lured by fantasy thinking of effortless achievements. In order to claim our opportunity we must seek out and 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

    #Haiku: Controlled Accidents

    All art’s
    “Controlled Accident”
    You plus God plus
    Fate:
    Steer into the skid