Alysse Aallyn

Category: #History

  • Queen of Swords – the Tarot play by Alysse Aallyn

    SCENE 4


    (Lights up on Strip club., “Guilty Pleasures”. Pole, stage, café table with chairs on top. MR BUTTERBATCH wearing apron is sweeping floor. Enter WHITNEY with wheeled suitcase)


    WHITNEY
    Didn’t this club used to be The Gentleman’s Secret?

    BUTTERBATCH
    Long, long ago. Are you the new dancer?


    WHITNEY
    Not hardly.


    BUTTERBATCH
    Well, that’s lucky.


    (Shakes his head.)


    WHITNEY
    I’m looking for the owner.


    BUTTERBATCH
    Oh, the owners never come in. Day manager arrives after eleven.


    WHITNEY
    Maybe you can help me. Were you here sixteen years ago?


    BUTTERBATCH
    Lady, I’ve been here since the beginning of time. Butterbatch is the name. Butter by name and bachelor by nature.


    WHITNEY
    You’re just who I’m looking for…if your memory is any good.


    (Takes down a chair and sits exhaustedly)

    BUTTERBATCH
    My memory is fantastic. It’s pretty much all I’ve got these days. What is it that you want to know exactly? Are you implying I’m too old to know anything because I said you were too fat to be a dancer?


    WHITNEY
    Did you say that?


    BUTTERBATCH
    No. I’m polite. So maybe you shouldn’t go casting aspersions.


    WHITNEY
    Honestly I wasn’t casting aspersions. I’m too tired to cast aspersions. I’ve been up all night, flying standby.


    BUTTERBATCH
    (Vigorously sweeping)


    Traveling steerage, were you? Well, that was dumb. That one’s on you.


    WHITNEY
    Let’s start over. I’m investigating a murder.


    BUTTERBATCH
    We’ve got two. Bar fight 96 or stage manager 99?


    WHITNEY
    (Eyes popping)


    Stage manager 1999! Wow! You get right to it.


    BUTTERBATCH
    See? You’ve come to the right place. I know everything. We oldsters are the guardians of the past. Not that anyone cares these days. Crime shows don’t like unsolved crimes. Can’t get the media interested. What’s the “spin” is all they want to know. I can answer any question you’ve got but first, I’ve got a little question of my own.


    (Getting comfortable leaning on his broom)


    What’s it to you?


    WHITNEY
    I don’t understand.


    BUTTERBATCH
    Of course you don’t understand, that’s what I’m here for. I’m gonna explicate. But first you’ve got to riddle me this; Why ya wanna know?


    WHITNEY
    Oh. Well, I think I know who might have killed that guy.


    BUTTERBATCH
    Really? Cold case like that? Why ain’t you talkin’ to the police?


    WHITNEY
    Because I need to talk to you first.


    (Shows her phone)


    Recognize this woman?

    BUTTERBATCH
    I’m not sure. She wasn’t a waitress, I can tell you that, and she wasn’t a patron any night I was here. But those dancers – they change. Wigs, makeup. Costumes. They transform themselves. Professional chameleons.


    WHITNEY
    Her name was Pearleen Purdy.


    BUTTERBATCH
    Oh, Pearleen! Of course I remember her. Destiny! She barely used the pole! She worked the edge of the stage. Everyone remembers her. I’ve got guys that still ask about her. Poor Lester Westerhaven ain’t never got over her.


    WHITNEY
    Destiny?


    BUTTERBATCH
    That was her stage name. On account of the palm reading. Yup, she had quite a following. Now I always thought she was kind of scary.


    WHITNEY
    You did? Why?


    BUTTERBATCH
    She had these terrible eyes. She looked at people like she was trying to figure out how much space they took up and whether she could relieve them of it. Gave me the heebie-jeebies. You think Pearleen killed Burt?

    WHITNEY
    Tell me more about these “heebie-jeebies”.


    BUTTERBATCH
    You know how when women, like, go for things they want, they go all roundabout? Making nice? Playing coy? She wasn’t like that at all! She told you what she wanted right up front! The audience never saw that part. But when she was looking at everybody, it was like she was looking at nobody. I always felt like this was her world and the rest of us were just passing through.


    WHITNEY
    So what did she want?


    BUTTERBATCH
    Well, not me, I can tell you that much. And not Burt either, though he was pretty handsy. Casper the Grasper the girls called him. She was dating a couple of customers, I seem to remember. Rich guys. Married guys. She blew through Lester’s little stash like he was standing still.


    WHITNEY
    (Reads her phone)


    Says here Burt was found dead at nine AM June 16.


    BUTTERBATCH
    By yours truly! You never saw such blood! Handcuffed to his chair; throat slit with a frog-gigger. Nasty little knife. Right here in the office. Blood everywhere!


    (Shivers)

    WHITNEY
    A frog-gigger?


    BUTTERBATCH
    I’m still not over it. But you know I just don’t see how a little thing like Pearleen could manhandle a fellow that size! Burt was 250 pounds of hard blubber! Even handcuffed to a chair…


    WHITNEY
    How about surprise? I mean, what if she just came up behind him? Say he was blindfolded.


    BUTTERBATCH
    That would work. Now you’re talking. And he could have been high. He liked to be high when he thought he was gonna get some.


    WHITNEY
    So what happened to Pearleen? Where was she at the time of the murder? Or after it?


    BUTTERBATCH
    Who knows! You kidding me? Them dancers scattered like cockroaches in the sunlight! Half of ‘em were undocumented and the rest were violating parole. Everybody’s wanted for something or other.


    WHITNEY
    But who had a motive?

    BUTTERBATCH
    Everyone had a motive with Burt! Yours truly excepted, natch. Burt was the drug connection. The police pounced right on the drug angle because his stash was missing. Nobody wanted to be connected to that. Nobody even went to the poor guy’s funeral. It was just me and the owners. This place closed down entirely for a couple of weeks. We had to reopen under a new name, new dancers, everything.


    WHITNEY
    Anything else you can tell me about Pearleen?


    BUTTERBATCH
    Oh, she was a fortuneteller. She’d look deep in your eyes – right through to the back of your head – pretending to read your palm. Oh, my God! Gives me the shiverbumps now.


    WHITNEY
    She never told your fortune?


    BUTTERBATCH
    (Shudders)
    Heck no. I stay away from that stuff. Feels like they’re trying to put a mark on you. Somebody gives you a fortune, it might come true. I like to keep the future unexpected. Keeps life interesting. I wasn’t expecting you, see? Keeps me alert. And I’m still here, aren’t I?


    WHITNEY
    This is just what I needed. Thanks for all your help.

    BUTTERBATCH
    (Calling after her)


    Off to the police? Planning to star on one of them crime shows?


    WHITNEY
    Why not?


    BUTTERBATCH
    Don’t waste your breath. They “lost” all the evidence. It’s just another grassy knoll!


    (Punctuates with finger commas.)


    Lost the evidence! That’s what I’m telling you. Thing they said was, “We don’t have the room to store all that stuff.”


    WHITNEY
    Who said that?


    BUTTERBATCH
    Cold case guy. I called him up because Burt’s dealer turned up dead in a mobile home out on Rt. 80. You’re not the only one wants to star in a crime show. I said should they take DNA for Burt’s case and they told me –


    WHITNEY
    Evidence destroyed. Just my luck.


    (Wheels suitcase away, staggering.)


    BUTTERBATCH
    Don’t take it so hard. What comes around goes around. I always say.


    WHITNEY
    And that helps how?


    BUTTERBATCH
    Nobody gets away with nothing, not in my experience. Say, you’re sure you don’t want to audition? Talking to you now, I see a glimmer of light beneath that bushel of yours. Could be hidden talent. Let ‘er out and let ‘er rip. Tips here are very good.


    WHITNEY
    Thanks but no thanks.


    (Dragging away depressed. Lights out. )

  • Queen of Swords – the Tarot play by Alysse Aallyn

    WHITNEY
    That went HORRIBLY.


    (Goes to sit disconsolately on the beach behind the boulder, hidden from the house. EIGHT appears, wielding his metal detector.)


    WHITNEY
    (Sarcastically)


    Well if it ain’t the Prince of Wands.


    EIGHT
    Excuse me? Name’s Eight. Like pieces of eight?


    WHITNEY
    Well, I found out the demon’s name. And it got me exactly nowhere. It’s Creature from the Black Lagoon one, and Firewalkers zero.


    EIGHT
    One battle ain’t a war. What happened?


    WHITNEY
    She stole someone’s identity! And then that person disappeared! She killed her mentor. Probably robbed her into the bargain.


    EIGHT
    That one’s a piece of work all right.

    WHITNEY
    It’s real bad. But it was fourteen years ago. The missing person’s been declared dead even though no one ever found the body, my father’s trust says it doesn’t matter who he was married to when he died, and if Charmayne hasn’t already legally changed her name now she’s probably going to.


    EIGHT
    Nothing works when you give up that fast.


    WHITNEY
    She even had the nerve to accuse ME of Black Magic.


    EIGHT
    She did? Oh, Whit! Don’t you see how great that is? You recognized the demon, called it by name, and it recognized YOU! You’re on your way, girl!


    WHITNEY
    I thought you were the one warning me against descending to her level.


    EIGHT
    (Hunkers down beside her)


    She believes this stuff, is all I’m saying. She’s not your ordinary con. You can’t get her where she’s fake, so you have to get her where she’s real.


    WHITNEY
    Well, I’m going to need a lot more magic. You got any on you?


    EIGHT
    (Running his metal detector over her body – it rattles excitedly)


    You don’t need my magic. You’ve got plenty of your own!


    WHITNEY
    (Collapsing disconsolately)


    Prove it.


    EIGHT
    Look. I’d say there’s at least two reasons to steal an identity. One is, you actually want to be that person. The other is, you don’t want to be yourself.


    WHITNEY
    Because?


    EIGHT
    Do I have to spell everything out for you? I’m saying, if you’re willing to get rid of one person…


    WHITNEY
    (Starting to get worked up)


    You mean maybe she’s done it before? My stepmom, the serial killer!


    (As EIGHT ambles down the beach)


    Please don’t go! I need you!


    EIGHT
    Don’t you feel the temperature dropping?


    (Shivers)


    Time to take cover.

  • Queen of Swords – the Tarot play by Alysse Aallyn


    (Lights up on The Library Basement Stacks at Dead Lake Community College a mini set with bookcase and elderly woman – MRS PREECE – wearing coke bottle glasses perched atop library ladder, putting books away. )


    MRS PREECE
    Why are all these students so freakishly tall? I’m going to kill myself, one of those days, trying to approximate the eye line of some basketball-playing mutant.
    (WHITNEY appears shyly around the bookcase.)


    WHITNEY
    Are you Mrs. Preece?


    MRS. PREECE
    No need to shout. I’m half-blind, not deaf. Depends who’s asking.


    WHITNEY
    I’ve been researching past Dead Lake students and the girl at the front desk said you know everything.


    MRS. PREECE
    (Coming down the ladder)
    Then I’m that Mrs. Preece. For all I knew you were looking for my mother in law and she’s been dead these forty years. And believe you me, she was no picnic when she was alive, and now that she’s dead she’s been particularly troublesome.


    (Looks WHITNEY up & down)


    Aren’t you a nice young lady! Most girls these days look so terrible I pity them. They want to look terrible is what I conclude. It’s all I can do to keep from jumping back and gagging when I see one coming – it’s like some vision of the Apocalypse. They’re arming up for something – God knows what.


    (Crosses herself)


    You look like a strong healthy girl. Not like those female zombies.


    WHITNEY
    I missed a lot. I guess I’ve been… held back.


    MRS. PREECE
    Well, stay in school forever, that’s my advice. You, – you play hockey? What’s your sport?


    WHITNEY
    God no. I hate sports.


    MRS. PREECE
    Don’t say that, girl. Games are all we have to look forward to. The only time we get to win. I was a left wing in my time. But you can’t even say “left-wing” these days.
    Teatime!


    (She swivels the ladder & bookcase to reveal two basket chairs and a squat bookcase holding a smoking kettle, which she unplugs. She pours two mugs of tea and settles into chair with a sigh.)


    WHITNEY
    (Accepting a mug)
    Do you live down here?

    MRS. PREECE
    Might as well. They’ve got facilities, haven’t they? Heat, light, the whole ball of wax. I’ve got a home but why go there? The spirit of my dead mother-in-law makes it clear she doesn’t approve of my housekeeping. No, libraries are where it’s at! Temples of learning, sanctuaries of knowledge. And they’re too cheap to hire a security guard for all this treasure. Scary. All they’ve got is little old me. When I go, it’s “poof” for all these memories. If I’m going to be haunted by somebody, I choose Emerson. Or any of the Transcendentalists, really.


    (Waves a hand)


    Education is SO wasted on the young. And it don’t stick long on the old folks, neither. People remember the way things SHOULD have happened. But I –


    (Taps her head)


    Been blessed in the brain-basket. I like the past. I remember the way things REALLY happened. So, long story short, you’ve come to the right place. Sit down and make yourself to home.


    (Long sip)


    Such a pleasure having company I’d smoke if I thought I could get away with it, but they’ve got them damn detectors. Interested in the Lake, you say? Good riddance to it! The Black Lagoon, we used to call it! Oh, it was a pile of muck after all the frogs died. You one of those conservation nuts? An echo-terrorist?


    WHITNEY
    Eco-terrorist? No. Actually I’m looking for a person. I’m Whitney Quantreau, and I’m looking for Charmayne Carr. She claims she attended this school. Charmayne Carr?

    MRS. PREECE
    I should have guessed right away that’s what you wanted! EVERYBODY’S looking for that one. Nobody knows what became of her. She just abandoned her house and walked away! But she wasn’t a student, she was a teacher. Health Ed.


    WHITNEY
    She was? Who – who’s looking for her?


    MRS. PREECE
    Her family. They need to know where she’s at! Got no idea in hell what’s become of her! And she used to support the lot of them. So it came as a shock. Does make a motive for sneaking away, having that pack hounding after you, I’d be thinking. And the cops say adults can go where they please. It’s a free country. You know what became of her?


    WHITNEY
    Well – she got married. That’s all.


    MRS. PREECE
    Married? To a MAN?


    WHITNEY
    (Flustered)
    To my father, actually. What did you think?


    MRS. PREECE
    Well, I’m not sure what’s the PC word for it, but she was one of them long-time dykes. Dressed like a man most of the time! Oh she was miserable when they tried to get her up into any sort of skirt. Nowadays she’d just go and get her sex fixed to something matching her desires.


    WHITNEY
    (Shows her phone)


    Is this her?


    MRS. PREECE
    (Clutches her heart like she’s seen a ghost)
    Oh my goodness!


    (Takes the phone)


    Never thought I’d see HER again. So she’s a blonde now? She was a redhead when I knew her.


    WHITNEY
    Isn’t that Charmayne Carr?


    MRS. PREECE
    No, it most certainly isn’t! That’s Pearleen Purdy – Charmayne’s – I don’t know WHAT you’d call her. Doctor Carr’s girlfriend.


    WHITNEY
    Are you certain?


    MRS. PREECE
    How could a body be wrong about a thing like that? Nobody ever forgot Pearleen once they saw her. I’ve even got a picture of them together here somewhere.


    (Produces a pile of college yearbooks from squat bookcase and shuffles through them)


    These are my own personal Firewalkers. I don’t let them out of my hands.


    WHITNEY
    Firewalkers!


    MRS. PREECE
    Name of our basketball team, you know, the Firewalkers. Ought to be Airwalkers, but that was taken and we’re obligated to honor the Indians since we took their land whether they like it or not. Everyone walks through fire around here. Burning up the countryside’s practically a ritual. Let’s see, fourteen years ago, wasn’t it? The two of them were in a play together. “The Real Inspector Hound.”


    (Offers the book)


    Charmayne’s the one with the moustache. She was playing a man of course. Inspector Foot of the Yard.


    (Agitated)


    Now don’t you get stains on that!


    WHITNEY
    (Puts mug down respectfully)


    She – Pearleen looks so different!


    MRS. PREECE
    Pearleen was older than most of the students. Word was she’d been a stripper out of Branson, Missouri. You’ve heard of Branson, Missouri? At The Gentleman’s Secret.
    Well, Dr. Carr had a nice big house out on the Heights and poor Pearleen grew up on that sorry lake. She came home when the developers passed out education money. Dr. Carr liked to invite girl students – poor students – I should say PRETTY students out to the Heights to live with her. She “helped” them. Folks around here called her place “The Opium Den” because it was so – I don’t know what you’d call it. Eastern-like. Cultish. With draperies and bronzes and incense. The works.


    WHITNEY
    Cult-ish?


    MRS. PREECE
    Yeah, Dr. Carr had one of them goddess religions she was the queen of. To each her own, I say. Live and let live.


    WHITNEY
    Isis? TAROT? Let me guess, was she…the Queen of Swords?


    MRS. PREECE
    Bingo. That’s it exactly. She played the cards and Pearleen played her. Dr. Carr made a pot of money with one of them role-playing games. Dr. Carr was the Queen and Pearleen was supposed to be a Princess, I think that’s the way it went. But Pearleen got rid of all those other girls one by one. Reminds me of a cat I used to have. He just couldn’t share. He chased all the other cats right off my bed. Couldn’t abide the competition. We try to turn the other cheek to promote a professional atmosphere but I‘m telling you, it was the scandal of the campus!


    WHITNEY
    (Produces phone, uses zoom)


    Did Charmayne Carr – Dr Carr – ever wear this necklace?


    MRS. PREECE
    That dagger there? Well, it looks familiar. She had lots of totem like materials. But Dr. Carr had all these folds around her neck, you see… No one wants to gaze at that too closely! No, she was never one of the “pretty ones!”


    WHITNEY
    And then she disappeared! Didn’t anybody find it suspicious?


    MRS PREECE
    Suspicious! Wasn’t I telling you her family had a meltdown! They came out here screaming like banshees! Finally declared her legally dead so they could sell her property!


    WHITNEY
    Do you remember any of their names?

    MRS PREECE
    Her brother had some very ordinary name. Like John. But I’m telling you, they don’t care anymore. The estate’s settled! They’ve even got a fake gravesite established somewhere – had a service with shrieking and wailing. Be quite a shock to them when she comes back. They’re not wanting to resurrect the dead. You’ve got a different problem than that.


    WHITNEY
    My stepmom’s an identity thief!


    MRS. PREECE
    Your poor dad’s the one got trouble, bless his heart. Play and then pay, I say! Usually through the nose. I demand all my bills up front.


    WHITNEY
    Too late for that. He’s dead, too.


    (MRS PREECE drops her Firewalker with a resounding bang. Lights out.)

  • Queen of Swords – the Tarot play by Alysse Aallyn

    WHITNEY

    (Thinking aloud)

    A demon’s real name…

    (Silence while WHITNEY thinks.  Decision.)

    WHITNEY

    Be not afraid.

    (She resumes hammering on the door.)

    Charmayne! Charmayne! Charmayne!

    CHARMAYNE

    (Seductively from the door open only a slit)

    I thought we had an agreement, Whitney.

    WHITNEY

    (Bravely)

    I’d like you to tell my fortune.  Give me a reading.  You know.  With the cards.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Instantly interested)

    Oh, you’d like that, would you? Why the sudden change of tune?

    WHITNEY

    (Graceless shrug)

    I don’t want to come back on Thursday.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Rippling laugh)

    I like you, Whitney. You shouldn’t be so teasable.  I guess it’s Ramon who will have to come back Thursday.  Surprises refresh me. You’ve never availed yourself of my gift of cartomancy before. Let me get my cards.

    (Door snaps shut)

    WHITNEY

    (Seats herself in a patio chair)

    Here goes nothing.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Appearing with a full tray)

    Here, take this.  

    (Lumbers WHITNEY with enormous tray while CHARMAYNE carefully closes door behind her)

    Careful with that!

    (WHITNEY unloads tray onto patio table)

    CHARMAYNE

    I’m so pleased about this little tête a tête. Choose your poison. Kids these days drink only vodka. Vodka! (She snorts) Youth is so wasted on the young.

    WHITNEY

    I drink tequila.

    CHARMAYNE

    Oh, I bet you do.  Care to knock back some shots?

    (She mimes it)

    In vino veritas, Whitney. I’ll save you the worm.

    WHITNEY

    Please don’t quote Latin at me.  It makes me feel I’m back at boarding school.

    CHARMAYNE

    Life’s one school after another, Whitney.  Endless initiation into unimagined horizons.  All birth’s painful. A little medicine eases the transition.

    WHITNEY

    No thanks.  I still have to drive home.  Water’s fine.

    CHARMAYNE

    You always were as stubborn as a mule.  So be it! Ready to concentrate on the future?

    WHITNEY

    I still have some questions about the past.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Sits, bounces a leg impatiently)

    Oh, Whitney, Whitney!  If I could only get you to see that your obsession with the past is so self-defeating!  Here you are a young girl – an almost beautiful young girl who could be better than beautiful if she made any effort – and all you do is look back.  On a mere nineteen years of life!

    (Shakes her head)

    If I’d stayed stuck like you, I’d still be gigging frogs down by the lake.

    WHITNEY

    What lake?

    CHARMAYNE

    (Immediate self-protection)

    Oh, I grew up on a lake.  Didn’t I mention?  A sad sleazy little lake surrounded by wooden cabins – some of them actually on wheels. It’s all gone now.

    WHITNEY

    Maybe, but surely the lake is still there.

    CHARMAYNE

    Oh no.  It’s all gone now. Paved over. Things change, Whitney.  Get used to it!  The past is always more disgusting than people are willing to concede.

    WHITNEY

    But who would pave a lake?

    CHARMAYNE

    The water was attacked by some invasive…they had to get rid of it. I would have walked through fire to get out of that place.

    WHITNEY

    (Very stubborn)

    But how could you still be at the lake if it’s gone?

    CHARMAYNE

    I would have fought the changes, that’s my point.  But what would I get? A dead lake and a dying life ! Instead, look at this!

    (Waves over the audience)

    I have the ocean!  The whole Atlantic Ocean…

    WHITNEY

    So tell me about that dagger you wear around your neck.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Playing with it)

    A girl after my own heart!  No sooner do I give one gift than you want another. This golden dagger is a dear memento given to me by my mentor years ago. On completing my study of tarot.

    WHITNEY

    (Flat footedly)

    What was her name?

    CHARMAYNE

    Oh, Whitney…Whitney…You can never bathe in the same river twice!  I only care about the future. All this could be yours someday… if you play your cards right.  

                                                    WHITNEY

    Depends which deck we’re using.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Silvery laughter)

    My deck of course! You don’t have a deck! Whitney, I want to be your friend. I treasured my own mentor – she made all the difference in my life –  I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a protégée. I never knew it would be you.

                                                    WHITNEY

    Why do you think so? 

    CHARMAYNE

    You’re so young, so unformed. And you have such a thirst for knowledge!  I was that way once, wondering how things work.

    (Reaches out to touch WHITNEY’S hair – WHITNEY steels herself)

    If only you knew how much I want to give you things.

    WHITNEY

    You do?

    (This disturbs her)

    Like what?

    CHARMAYNE

    I could show you the lynchpins of the universe if only you would let me.  Very few of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouths and a golden rattle clutched in our chubby baby hands the way you were, Whitney.  You need to see the world for what it really is. You don’t accept what’s on offer – you go your own way – I was like that, too. I can teach you how to never be defeated. But first I must know.  Are you a Querent or a Firewalker?

    WHITNEY

    A what?

    CHARMAYNE

    Is this idle curiosity or will you accept the challenge that is offered – whatever it requires? Can you stand up to what must be revealed?

    (She produced and shuffles the tarot cards – with threatening skill)

    The time is never riper.  Open your mind, Whitney and accept.  IF that’s what you’re here for.

    WHITNEY

    I’m definitely a firewalker.

    CHARMAYNE

    I thought so! Welcome to the Way of Fire.  Enter the temple. Cut.

    (Offers cards to WHITNEY who cuts the deck and selects one.)

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    Don’t just take a card. Wait for the proper moment. 

    WHITNEY

    Did you ever wait? 

    CHARMAYNE

    (CHARMAYNE takes the card from her and studies it)

                Touché!

    I suppose you chose the card most eager to speak to you.  Look, it’s The Fool!

    (Tarot of The Fool springs up as a hologram or on projection screen)

    WHITNEY

    That’s supposed to be me?

    CHARMAYNE

    It’s the card you chose so yes, it has something to say to you. Look at it.

    WHITNEY

    That I‘m a number zero? Is that what it’s telling me? I don’t like your tarot language.

    CHARMAYNE

    You’re always braced for insult, Whitney. In your private language you can never be defined by someone else. Open your cage. The Fool is stuck, he can’t move on. Moving on is the First Principle of Life.

    WHITNEY

    (Leaning across the table)

    My father is gone.

    CHARMAYNE

    He was almost ninety, Whitney.  Death happens.  You had him longer than I did.  Get over it. I never question the past.

    WHITNEY

    I was raised to appreciate history because if you don’t understand it, you repeat it.

    CHARMAYNE

    We all were born graceless and angry, raging and accusatory.  It’s only a shame if you stay that way. Look at the fool’s face. He thinks he’s free.  See the rose he picked?  All the while he’s standing on a cliff edge!

                                                    WHITNEY

    I reject this card. I demand another card.

     (Snatches one up. CHARMAYNE is unflustered.)

    CHARMAYNE

    That’s not the way this game is played.

    WHITNEY

    Maybe it’s the way I play.  You don’t get to define me.

    CHARMAYNE

    Fortunately the tarot is wiser than you. Look what you’ve chosen! The Tarot laughs!

    (Queen of Swords card appears onscreen – bare breasted and swinging double knives)

                                                    WHITNEY

    You put that there!

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    You chose it yourself!

    WHITNEY

    You probably had that card up your sleeve. Here’s my card – I’ll turn it up myself.

    (Priestess Tarot card onscreen)

    CHARMAYNE

    The High Priestess! How appropriate! 

    WHITNEY

    What’s appropriate about that?

    CHARMAYNE

    The High Priestess is a woman pretending to be a man, Whitney.  She abhors feminine wiles. Because you’re so interested in history you might as well know she’s base on Pope Joan,  the only female Pope.  She’s the guardian of hidden knowledge. See, she’s holding the Torah with the last letter hidden.

    (WHITNEY bridles)

                                                    WHITNEY

    She looks like a little old man.

    CHARMAYNE

    Don’t take everything so personally.  Seekers are often forced to wear disguise. Life’s a contest and the weak go to the wall.  Look at the Priestess standing on the moon between the lotus pillars and ask yourself, how does that make you feel?

    WHITNEY

    Weak.   

    CHARMAYNE

    Well don’t admit it ever. Never spill your guts. The first law is bluster.  After awhile it comes naturally. 

    WHITNEY

    I thought the first law was moving on.

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    (Irritated)

    That’s the first principle.  Try to keep up.

                                                    WHITNEY

    Doesn’t bluster risk losing yourself? 

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    There is no self! We are self-created. Your father always used to say – oh, never mind. The Priestess reveals her secret when the time is right.

                                                    WHITNEY

    What did my father always say?

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now allow me to choose a card for you.

     (Prince of Wands appears. He looks a lot like EIGHT) 

    CHARMAYNE

    I knew a man would show up sooner or later. Do you know this handsome devil?  What do you suppose is the meaning of his big, big stick?

    (She laughs)

    (WHITNEY works hard to stay cool)

    WHITNEY

    I‘ve met him.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Surprised and nettled that there’s anything she doesn’t know)

    Oh? Where? Is he your boyfriend?

                                                    WHITNEY

    (Smug)

    You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

    CHARMAYNE

    Still waters run deep!  Possibly he’s your power card, Whitney. The elegant Prince of Wands has been pushed out of his home and sent on a journey with no weapon to protect himself other than sticks he picks up.  He’s a dowser.

    WHITNEY

    He’s a treasure seeker.

    CHARMAYNE

    Well I’d very much like to meet him.  We could have a tequila party. Would you like that?

                                                    WHITNEY

    No. Just tell me what it means.

    CHARMAYNE

    This must be very new – I don’t blame you wanting to keep him to yourself. The Prince of Wands is about developing intuition, cultivating talents. He’s a wily character, not well born like the Prince of Swords. He’s scrappy, like me, came from nothing. He’s had to learn to excel at something – to master it. He presages sudden changes of direction, even a journey.  It could be a lucky card, Whitney, especially since you rejected The Fool.  But like everything else in life, you must claim it. Claim your power, Whitney, I can show you how. Should you fail; the card’s power is reversed.  Then it presages devastating loss, capture, and imprisonment.

    WHITNEY

    Imprisonment?

    CHARMAYNE

    (Exasperated)

    I could say more if you would tell me about him.

                                                    WHITNEY

    Forget it. Give me another card.

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    You’re entitled to an eight card spread.

    WHITNEY

    Eight?

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    Is that your lucky number?

    WHITNEY

    Maybe.

    (WHITNEY spreads cards messily over the table)

    CHARMAYNE

    This isn’t slapjack, Whitney. We all have to play the cards the goddess deals. You’ll cancel out the reading!

    (WHITNEY throws cards to the ground.)

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    Some reverence if you please!

    WHITNEY

    (Produces a card triumphantly)

    Here’s the one I want!  Judgment!

    (The Judgment card appears onscreen)

    Even this one’s not very impressive. Why does the Tarot show nothing but little old men? 

    CHARMAYNE

    It doesn’t. The Major Arcana is strongly female. 

    WHITNEY

    Well the Judgment Card looks like my Dad to me.

    CHARMAYNE

    That shows your ignorance. Some have eyes but are too blind to see.

    (Wearily picking up cards)

    The Tarot won’t be mocked, Whitney.  You’re asking for trouble.

    WHITNEY

    I don’t think I’m the one in trouble.

                                                    CHARMAYNE

    Believe me, you are.

                                                    WHITNEY

    I DON’T believe you. Your threats are vague – you can’t even be specific.

    CHARMAYNE

    (Threateningly)

    It’s whatever you most fear that stalks you. Behind the fear lies…the wish.

    (She laughs)

    The ignorant are so helpless! This card doesn’t even signify what you think it means.

    WHITNEY

    So what does it mean, then? 

    CHARMAYNE

    It’s the regeneration card. See the dead rising on the bottom of the card there? That angel’s going to suck them right up into her trumpet!

    (She laughs wildly)

    WHITNEY

    You don’t think the dead can rise?

    CHARMAYNE

    Depends on how they died.

                                                    WHITNEY

    What do you mean, HOW?

    CHARMAYNE

    (Threateningly)

    They can’t rise if they’ve lost their souls.

    WHITNEY

    (Shaken)

    Oh, that’s bullshit.  Who says that?

    CHARMAYNE

    The Book of the Dead.  They’re the experts. Your firewalk is just beginning, Whitney! I’ve been doing it for years. My feet are well-hardened. There’s so much you don’t know.

    WHITNEY

    (Overturns the table standing up)

    I guess the reading’s over.

    (They face each other across the mess)

    CHARMAYNE

    I guess it is.  Some people can’t be helped. 

    (As CHARMAYNE bends down WHITNEY pretends to leave but hides behind the boulder, trying to calm her breathing).

    CHARMAYNE

    (Calling after her)

    That was a one-time offer! Let me know if you ever get serious about claiming your power!

    (Shrugs)

    Kids. They insist on leaving the field to me. Which is fine, knowing how I hate to share.

    (Clears the table, takes tray into house EXIT).

    WHITNEY

    (Pulls out her phone and starts typing)

    Book of the Dead, eh?   I have some magic of my own and it’s called Google.  I remember now, that faked up résumé said something about Dead Lake Community College…

    (Lights down.)

  • Writing a novel for class – a memoir by Alysse Aallyn

    THE PINCH OF DEATH – Writing a novel for class

    After my fiancé graduated law school in Kentucky, we came East – where our families lived – to get married. I applied to Brooklyn College for the MFA program and was hired as a writing fellow. What followed was an experience so discouraging I can well understand why graduate students are at a high risk of suicide.

    First, there’s the contrast between the high prestige of the position and the pitiable pay. You could literally make more money (and spend the same amount of time) combing the subway for lost change.

    Next, there’s the “job” they want you to do, which is to prepare seriously undereducated freshman to write an essay justifying their admission into the hallowed world of academe.

    I had fun developing my own syllabus, which was basically teaching critical thinking in the most fun way I could possibly imagine. A teacher “reviewer” who came to watch the class wrote me a rave review – I don’t think anyone in my life has ever praised me as much as he did. I still cherish that evaluation. But don’t get excited – the second guy (months later) disparaged me so much that if you add the two reviews together I think you’d have to give me a sad C-. But at that point, They Knew About Me – that I had no college degree -and so they were trying to get rid of me. Really, you can’t blame them – how could I prepare students to get something I didn’t have myself? And what – you may ask – was wrong with MY thinking and reasoning powers that I had not expected this?

    The truth is, I had flouted “rules” all my life – they always seemed ridiculous – and because I was a “rara avis” I usually got away with it. But clearly, this could not continue. Much chastened by my brush with the universe (which represented itself as “sanity”) I did go ahead and get a BA degree in psychology from LaSalle. I even got half a masters under my belt from Springfield College until I saw that it was useless.

    But back to Brooklyn. There were classes I took, of course, in WRITING – which was my absorbing interest and passion. I kept the fact that I had actually published a novel a secret because the class expressed such a tragic belief that being published was their deepest desire and most desperate and holy quest. I knew that it was the writing of the book itself – finding the subject AND the expression that was your spiritual release into the world – that was the most important absorbing and exciting. My first book was written to specifications – what was “popular” – under the ingenuous theory that I would develop important publishing relationships (my editor lost her job, my company bought out and revamped.) You could hardly brag about an experience like that.

    For my class on the Novel I decided to write a novel. I thought it would be fun. If you wrote a chapter every week you would have a novel at the end.

    One of my classmates was an ex-nun – a most interesting person – whose experiences strongly affected me. I effortlessly adapted her into my heroine, because my book was a mystery. Surely these are the easiest to write – they must evolve according to a plan. You have to introduce the problem, then the suspects, give clues, and make the reader care about the outcome. I had an idea it would be less emotional than my first book, which got bogged down into a bizarre love story about a fatherless girl pathetically seeking mentorship. THIS book would be all business.

    I got such massive pushback from the class I’m kind of surprised I went through with it – but I was enjoying the writing and the characters were alive to me. “Criticism” in class was students laboriously reading each others’ work, describing its emotional effect on them and describing different ways things could be said. The forward motion of a novel – the sweep, the assumption of power – was thereby utterly dissipated. Everyone just rewrote the first chapters of different books endlessly. So it shouldn’t have been called “Novel Writing”, it should have been called “Paragraph Writing” – a class I wouldn’t take.

    This teacher and I butted heads on all kinds of issues. First off, he said great writing couldn’t have a “happy ending.” I saw his point but I thought it shallow. Surely completion of a quest – solving a mystery – is an enormous relief. But mysteries aren’t serious writing, he insisted. (Uh oh. Since I was engaged on one.) Well, what about the Odyssey? Jane Austen? {Probably Tom Jones, if I could recall the ending.)

    MODERN literature!! He insisted. We can’t have happy endings anymore!

    That was when I realized the whole thing was bogus. If I was bogus, they were even more bogus. I was eight months’ pregnant at the time and this man’s feeble philosophy defied the spinning of the planets, the arrival of spring, the creation of Life itself. What a silly fellow.

    I finished Pinch of Death, and still reread it with pleasure, A very charming book.

  • Motive: a curtain-raiser play by Alysse Aallyn

    (A chorus of Cardinals, sedate & proper, approaches from right, a more colorful chorus of Goombas from left.)

    CARDINALS
    Oyez, oyez, oyez.
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
    pro in iudico minimum definitionem,
    quo justo intellegebat ne.

    GOOMBAS
    A guy’s gotta live
    Ain’t a guy gotta live? You
    Do right by me and I’ll do right
    By you.

    JACK RUBY
    (Appearing on balcony – flat affect – as crowd blends in below)

    The world will never know the true facts
    Of what occurred. My motives.
    I’m the only person in the background
    That knows the truth pertaining to
    Everything relating to my
    Circumstances. The people who have had
    So much to gain and had such an
    Ulterior motive to put me in this position
    Will never let the true facts come
    Out to the world.

    GOOMBA # 1
    But you’re crazy!

    JACK RUBY
    I have locomotor attacks-you.

    (Spreading his arms, he falls ritualistically off balcony & is absorbed into crowd. JOE KENNEDY
    appears on balcony)

    JOE KENNEDY
    Has anybody seen my son? I’m looking for my son.

    GOOMBAS & CARDINALS TOGETHER
    Woe is you! Woe is you!

    JOE
    Has anyone seen my boy?

    CARDINAL VOICE
    Which one, your honor?

    GOOMBA # 1
    You rat, you.

    JOE KENNEDY
    The big one. My big boy.

    GOOMBA #2
    But he’s crazy.

    JACK RUBY
    He’s been struck. He’s been struck down.

    GOOMBA #3
    We all get hit. Take a rap, be a prince.

    CARDINALS
    (together, waving arms)
    Vidit scriptorem vix in,
    ceteros tractatos assentior pro no.
    Ius etiam ornatus voluptua ne. Invenire democritum
    consectetuer an eum.

    GOOMBA #4
    Give us a taste! Just a little taste!

    CARDINALS
    An offering! An offering!

    JOE
    (Rains fluttering bills upon the crowd)
    My wife went to church
    My daughters prayed –
    I had four fine sons.
    Joe was smart, Jack was charming
    Bobby was loyal and Teddy –

    (Pauses. Sighs.)

    Teddy runs to keep up.

    GOOMBA #5
    Didn’t you make a deal?

    JOE
    Deal? I made plenty
    Turned one dollar into twenty
    To forty, to five million.
    Of course I made deals.

    CARDINAL #1
    The father shall eat sour grapes
    And the children’s teeth
    Shall be set on edge.

    (The CARDINALS break ranks and look at each other, amazed.)

    CARDINAL #2
    If you sow the wind you
    Reap the whirlwind.

    (The CARDINALS & GOOMBAS merge together, oohing and sighing as if a wind shudders through them.)

    GOOMBAS
    Omerta! Omerta!

    CARDINALS
    Qui habitat! Qui habitat!

    GOOMBAS & CARDINALS TOGETHER
    A deal’s a deal! A deal’s a deal!

    JOE
    But I wanted only fine things
    My boys to grow up

    Grab everything they wanted
    Take their place, rule the world.

    GOOMBAS
    But you gotta play ball!

    JOE
    I played ball with the unions!
    I played ball with the cruisers
    Settled scores with the bruisers.
    I know to grease skids
    I know to oil palms.

    GOOMBA #1
    We helped you with Jack
    And you sicced us with Bobby!

    JOE
    I never sicced anybody!

    (the crowd jeers and boos, CARDINALS cover faces in shame)

    GOOMBA #2
    Bobby won’t play right.

    GOOMBA #3
    Bobby’s a hard ass!

    CARDINAL #3
    (Very offended)
    Bobby’s a good boy!

    GOOMBA #4
    He’s TOO good a boy if you know what I mean.

    JOE
    I’ll speak to Bobby! Let me speak to Bobby!

    GOOMBAS
    Too late. It’s too late.

    JACK RUBY
    You can’t speak to nobody, Joe.
    You’ve been struck down.

    (JOE throws out his arms and falls into crowd as if dead. The CARDINALS rush out a wheelchair. NORMA JEANE appears sneaking through crowd. As JOE is whisked offstage, attention turns to her, in spite of the fact that she’s wearing dark glasses, a kerchief, halter top, ballet flats and Capri pants)

    GOOMBA #1
    Hey, guys, it’s Marilyn!

    GOOMBAS
    (chanting)
    Marilyn, Marilyn!

    NORMA JEANE
    That’s not me, boys, I’m Norma Jeane.

    GOOMBA #2
    Aw, come on Marilyn, there’s no disguising that shape!

    GOOMBA #3
    I can smell her!

    NORMA JEANE
    Marilyn is dead, boys, everyone knows that.

    (Takes off her glasses)

    See? It’s just me. Poor old Norma-never-been-nowhere-Jeane.

    CARDINAL #3
    Lying’s a sin, Marilyn.

    GOOMBA #1
    Dance for us, Marilyn. Do a little of this- and that –

    (he simulates a bump and grind)

    And these and those!

    CARDINAL #1
    Just give us a little song, Marilyn. Just for the kids. We’d be ever so grateful.

    NORMA JEANE
    You all know Marilyn’s dead. I’m just trying to find Bobby.

    CARDINAL #2
    Bobby? What do you want Bobby for?

    CARDINAL #3
    Are you trying to get that nice boy in trouble?

    GOOMBAS
    (Chanting)
    Marilyn! Marilyn!

    (They grab her up on their shoulders and lift her up to the balcony)

    NORMA JEANE
    No! I don’t want to go! There’s no more Marilyn!

    (But they are touching her everywhere. She gives up and climbs into the balcony.)

    OK, boys, one last time.

    (She throws off her glasses and kerchief, shakes out her hair, one grind, one bump, blows a kiss, EXITS.)

    THE END

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Daisy – Love:

    If This Card Chooses You – You are surrounded by magical possibilities. Are you dreaming of eternal bliss? Floating in connectedness? In Love the boundaries of the other disappear, all is forgiveness. Merge fearlessly, knowing you will be able to get yourself back any time, soothed, improved, and healed.

    We Are Warriors For Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. This is the space that warriors protect. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

    Our Yearning Defines Us – As children we thought we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. As warriors we fight for our ancestral memories of trust and closeness. How we long to be reminded of the ecstasy of selflessness, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.

    Love Is Our Armor – It’s a spiral, our labyrinth, remember? We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We practice techniques and invent others as we design and redesign purposeful maps in a threatening and uncertain world. We have the collective confidence of all the brilliance of the warriors who came before us. Someone loved us once, eternalizing the golden moment, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic.

    Warrior Danger – Danger lies in narrowing, exclusionary definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve focused on our own gratification, Love dies.

    Warrior Opportunity – The possibilities of a warrior are endless because we have chosen, in our flexibility and understanding, to be endless. Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours. Let’s venture forth together.

    Models & Mentors – ‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides” – David Viscott

    “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn

    “Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing” – Torquato Tasso

    “Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh

    “I love you for who I am when I’m with you” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    #Haiku: Love Transfer

    The secret of breaking
    Any bad habit
    Is to love
    Something more

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Homing – Forgiveness:

    If This Card Chooses You – Do you need to forgive? Or be forgiven? Most of us require both! Ask your dreams. Do you dream of home? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. “Home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and forgotten.

    Warriors Create The Future – We commit to the ultimate compassion that we are all in this together. Jesus suggests that understanding doesn’t arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.

    Warriors Create Heaven – Such forgiveness helps us achieve the state of spiritual lightness that allows a warrior to float through time, history, even the universe.

    Warriors Are At Home In the World – What’s your “dream home”? A warrior’s training emphasizes understanding and managing the fragility of the human body and the objective world, and accepting our healing and unifying mandate. Once we have scoped out the terrain and the inhabitants, Warriors are at “home” anywhere.

    Warriors are About Justice – But not the kind that leaves more brokenness behind. Warriors achievements and physical selves display the triumph of thought, will and love.

    What Does It Mean to “Start Over”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we are all contributing to frees us from painful rumination and helps escape and explain the prison of blame. “I did this because you –“… Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.

    It’s All About You – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. The question for Christians is, which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? In what group – or even in what “moment” can you detach from the mess?

    Warriors’ Danger – We can’t afford to get mixed up about right and wrong. “By their fruits shall you know them.” Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error”. The threat is NOT coming from inside the house. Martin Luther King Jr. made the wise comment that our specific brand of capitalism tends toward is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they demand absolute freedom.

    What Is The Bigger Picture? Health and safety for all living things to achieve their growth potential as part of a harmonious, non-exploitative whole. It is key that our resistance – which is necessary and life-giving – not embitter us.

    Forgiveness Is Our Armor – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is a request, not a demand. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party instead seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change – that’s the way I am” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not re-created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, (because of safety) only to yourself. “If I’m not willing to try giving up my participation in this suffering because I think I’m not able to, then this pattern will continually get worse.” Time to construct a better – more intelligent map.

    Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry

    “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world” – Marianne Williamson

    “The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi

    “To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman

    “Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes

    #Haiku: Forgiveness

    Returning home with
    Newborn eyes
    Strong hands
    Fresh translations
    Future’s past

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Gazing Ball – Prophecy:

    If This Card Chooses You – The future weighs on you. Will you be found wanting?

    Ask your dreams. The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We 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.

    Warriors Need Truth. Warriors Accept Revelation – Dreams tell us when to be afraid. Dreams warn when something is missing. Dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself. The first obligation warriors accept is that the truth will set you free. The second, is that although terrifying, the truth is necessary. Warriors spurn the hiding, lying, misrepresentation, that substitutes for truth.

    Warriors Can Handle The Truth – We are human, we are imperfect, and 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 impulses must be identified and weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous warriors also have our own lives to live.

    Warrior Danger – Our dreams notify us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Our maps & models 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.

    Warrior Promise – 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? People who tell you to hate one another and go to war with one another 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 brutal tactics and empty promises are exposed as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, we see clearly that efforts to share despair come from a desire to surmount despair, and that it has never worked and is not working. Only when the goal of increasing world suffering is given up can we welcome penitents 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

    #Haiku: Prophecy

    Inward
    Resonates outward;
    Warriors
    Blossom
    Inevitably

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Chrysanthemum – Healing Rituals:

    If This Card Chooses You – you have reached the point of access to the gifts of the Warrior. Let the healing begin. Are you a believer in magic? Do you dream of restoration, of nostalgia, of lost youth?

    Warriors Believe In Magic – Bravely, we put ourselves in the way of harm, and harm is done to us. But we believe in the magic of restoration through transformation. These scars, these wounds, these experiences make us smarter, harder, brighter and more beautiful.

    Understand the Meaning of Your Scars – These are life’s tattoos, which have ennobled you. It is your honor to embody the story of the universe with your blood and your bone. But It is the Warrior’s Brain that brings us closest to God. The mystery of suffering is that it educates us into the greatest mystery of all –that God is willing to suffer with us because Love means holding each other through pain and infusing our strength into another’s sadness.

    Bow To Each Other – We are each other’s masters, we are each other’s pupils, we are each other’s lovers, siblings and rescuers. Drinking ginger tea from translucent porcelain cups, we lift our cups to each other. We bathe together in steaming pools. I release you as you release me. When darkness falls, we touch one another’s hands before departing. If we can bear it, we touch bodies.

    Warriors Recognize That We Cannot Diagnose Ourselves – We offer ourselves for the universe’s good and so it takes a world to cure us. Healing and diagnosis alike will come from the welcome lips of another. It has been scientifically proven that even plants respond to kind words. We yearn for the laying on of hands, for the gentle rituals that pass us from one stage of life to another.

    Warrior Challenge – Paradoxically, no “medicine” can succeed unless we “accept” our healing spiritually. We must feel “worthy” of restoration. What are we fighting for? Think deeply. We are not self-punishing but stating as clearly as we can that life is valuable in all its forms. If you are only as “young” as you feel, are we only as “healthy” as we allow ourselves to be? Forgive yourself. Accept change. Contrary to our fears, it is change that keeps us young.

    Warrior Danger – Healing cannot occur in an atmosphere of self-hatred and self-blame, but many of us are STILL “blaming” ourselves for twists of fate, for unlucky genetic, social and medical outcomes. “Fundamental attribution error” consists of blaming individuals for group effects. We are all caught up in the machinery of temporality. Never forget that we are souls who happen to have bodies, not bodies who happen to have souls.

    Warrior Opportunity – “Restoration” is such a glorious promise that early Christians found themselves ensnared in decades of argument about PHYSICAL resurrection. How would it work in cases of burning and dismemberment, exactly? It is easy to laugh at these painfully ridiculous theological conflicts. One is reminded of St. Joan of Arc’s response to interrogators at her trial who asked if angels appeared to her naked – “Do you think God cannot afford to clothe his angels?” Accept the power accorded to you by the universe. Accept the strength of your own mind, the control given by your chosen attitude. Healing is not just possible, it is a life-force in which we can all participate. Jesus came to us as a healer.

    Models & Mentors – “Healing yourself is connected with healing others” – Yoko Ono

    “What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.” – Haruki Murakami

    Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy.” ~ Catherine Rippinger Fenwick

    “We are healed of suffering only if we experience it to the full – Marcel Proust

    “Maybe the dragons in our lives are princesses” – Rainer Maria Rilke

    #Haiku: I Don’t Know

    Admit ignorance
    No shame –
    It’s healthy –
    Empty glass
    Asks for water