Alysse Aallyn

Category: #InnerLife

  • The Language of Butterflies – Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Inspiration=INTUITION “Shock Pool”

      We are trying to choose, that means cultivating discernment. What is “discernment”? It really means just any
      old soulmate won’t do. But how do we cultivate
      the skills of discernment? Well, a major one is intuition. It is intuition that leads to “inspiration” ; that sudden “knowing” – ‘I feel like I’ve known him all my life.
      Science says we subconsciously collect subliminal signals.

      The danger comes from a cultural problem
      that women have been encouraged to bond with men they’re not chemically attracted to but might be seen as a “good fit” for social reasons, and discouraged from developing their sexual intuition. Guess what? You won’t find your soulmate that way!

      Men, however, make too many life decisions based on status or surface impressions – they don’t wait
      around to perceive “the beauty within.” The moral of this conundrum is: Pay attention to your gut, but don’t allow your gut to boss you! Question it. Think about it. Think of the love you have received in your life and where it came from. Sometimes love potential reveals itself slowly.

      The magic of the Garden comes from Inspiration. Inspiration is the breath the Life Force moves through us – we can’t summon it and we can’t control it. When lost, we greatly mourn its absence. But when we feel its power we are elevated above ourselves. We feel we can do anything we choose. Afterwards we wake feverish, as if from a dream. As every artist and designer knows, work is more than Inspiration, but without its occasional visits work is nothing; tasteless, lifeless and void.

      Artists always have a strong sense that inspiration comes from the “outside”, not from anything “within”. It uses the component of our minds and lives and forces us to “reach outwards” into the universe of resources to answer its call. Art without inspiration is just plain hard work. Unfortunately, there will be many times Inspiration sketches out a plan and then moves on. We know the plan is Inspired but now we must implement it! Late nights & elbow grease! Inspiration can be compared to Love. Both unaccountably come and go. Just because one isn’t feeling momentarily loving about a soulmate doesn’t mean that Love has Fled – in fact it usually just means we’re facing an onslaught of effort. Life is an uphill battle – 90% Hard Slog, alas. If we’re Ten Percent Inspired we’re in the high numbers! Love (and inspiration) will return. In the meantime we’ll have to treasure the memory and blueprint a Future Plan. Discuss.

      Shock Pool

      Bored by their game
      From my perch I watched them,
      Dismantling rules, I
      Wrote down their patterns
      In gold-crested diaries. I was
      Weary of history and

      Pole-axed by Europe –
      I was affrighted
      By what mattered frightfully.
      Culture-Mad-Mother
      Forced us to look
      Then forced us to blink;

      Her timing was off.
      Father dreamed oceans –
      Encapsulating daughters
      In unsinkable Fiberglas
      Against the madness of Nature
      Loathing masculine privilege; I

      Disliked you on sight
      Insulted by proctoring
      You must be divested of
      Corduroys, wingtips, tweed
      & leather; we posed under waterfalls
      For Swedish love bibles.

      Clove-scented ecstasies
      Kindled my fevers at
      The moment of quenching them;
      Sweeping West – you pulled the Atlantic –
      Drowning us both in the riptide you created.
      The captain lied when he said

      We’d go home. Lubricated by champagne, you
      Peeled off my shock-pants
      and asked me to marry you.
      Since then illusion scorched into reality
      Providing the universe
      With plenty to write.

    1. The Language of Butterflies – Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

      Creativity : “Harness your Uniqueness”

        When searching for your soulmate this is no time to “blend with the crowd.” You need to discover exactly who you are so you can seek your complementary and missing elements. If you are uncertain or mistaken about your essential self, you won’t even recognize The One. You will be guaranteed to choose a partner based on false considerations of status or appearance. This requires you stop hiding your true self and allow it to emerge. Easier said than done! Turns out we all have been babying the shyly unique aspects of ourselves that don’t win instant recognition from the crowd. Well, we are going to have to experiment with taking Baby out for daily strolls and develop a bit of muscle. Don’t worry if the “likes” fall away – you are not trying to appeal to everyone. The creativity card means you will need to become imaginative in how you present yourself. You want someone accepting? Be accepting. You want someone brave? Be brave. You want someone who looks deeper? Look deeper.

        Fire In the Dust

        In photographs
        The ladies scream or laugh
        It’s hard to tell
        Heads back they bare their
        Grief or joy or
        Agonized relief
        It’s hard to tell.
        All that remains of them
        Tattered icons growing ever dim.

        The fountains of our fear
        Leap high at first, like dancers
        Frozen at first burst
        Of freedom
        Paralyzed abreast
        The arc
        We cannot see
        What tortuous sign these fossils
        Meant to be.

        In that first winter
        We thought the earth was dead
        Statues mated
        Trees erupted dragonflies
        The angry lonely
        Sang and cried.
        Somewhere some fetus twists and jerks
        Convergence of dynastic quirks

        So drop the toxic cloak of bitter spite that
        Melts the flesh and terrorizes night –
        Waiting out a cycle’s sum
        Spinning down to kingdom come.
        For nothing vain, came nothing plain
        This world was born
        To live again.

      1. The Language of Butterflies – Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

        MELT into the space your desire creates: “You Got This”


        You’ve realize the immensity of your need and the enormity of the challenge. You’ve looked into your capacities and they just don’t seem to match your expectations. Now you’re scared and feeling hopeless. I’m here to remind you to “relax.” Melt into the space your desire has created. Untense those muscles because fear and hysteria, rage and feelings of worthlessness all work against us.

        Realize somewhere out there your Soulmate is feeling all these things also. This is a process you need to go through, in order to recognize the vastness of the challenge ahead. This is your time in the desert, where you will be tested. This guarantees that when your and your Beloved melt together your success will be all the sweeter. Of necessity to valuing the Other is the realization that, although there may be plenty of fish in the sea, you need a very particular fish.


        HAUNTED WEDDING
        The pregnant car disgorges
        Only us. It’s winter.
        Drunk as silver fish
        We beat our gills as light
        As hummingbirds.
        In an amethyst ring
        Of drypoint trees
        The half-built house
        Gapes and swells
        Its timbers stink of sap.
        Windrill fields occlude
        Our crossing, so you carry me
        High above the thorny osiers.
        We sleep aloft for safety
        Locked and levitating
        In this space of air
        One season only,
        Unseen by angry outriders;
        Bloodless in our wedding robes
        Like the doubled membranes
        Of the frozen flowers.

        1. The Language of Butterflies – the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

          POWER: “Doubling”

            We are filled with the excitement and power of acquisition and multiplicity. We will finally have a helper, an interpreter, an enabler, a sharer. A Second Self with its rich promise of Difference – different memories, body type, fantasies, wishes, dreams – we can indulge ourselves in. We can’t wait to get going and find this person who promises us wings and immortality! The potential sexual ecstasy alone is keeping us up nights. Imagine thoroughly exploring another and being thoroughly explored yourself – with a lifetime to do it in. We can’t yet speak the language of butterflies, but we can imagine it. We are giving ourselves wings. With such commitment, every moment becomes a lifetime. We think we may have discovered the secret of eternal youth, to see and be seen through the eyes of love.

            Angel Clothes

            You are like a ripe peach
            Swollen in the summer of your life
            And as the peach surrounds its stone
            Your skeleton enwombs your soul
            But thinly.
            I often see it shining
            Through the hollows in your cheeks.
            I need your body
            Need to know its shadows
            Sound its pleasures
            But as the stone
            Though small at first
            Must grow; feeds off the dying peach
            So your spirit will transhume your flesh
            Disgorge it in
            A thousand peaches a thousand summers a
            Thousand eternities more beautiful than
            You or I

          1. The Language of Butterflies – the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

            The Life Force – “Why do we need each other?”


            Parents can watch this need for The Reciprocal Other awaken. At about the age of two the infant, who has belonged to the parents and who has felt like part of them, begins to show a lot of interest in the outside world. But when she sees a pint-sized someone exactly like herself, a certain sparkle comes into her eyes. She wants to clutch, bond with, play with that person. Hang on, because now the thrill-ride is beginning, the search Plato described as our search for our Missing Half. Mating behavior is an even more powerful driver in biology than feeding needs. Mating drives species to extravagant displays of seemingly dangerous behaviors, obsessive building, fighting and positioning. Species who mate for life put themselves through complex effort to secure The One. So this is biology, folks. You are in the grips of an instinctual drive it is pointless to resist. Hang on, and let’s make sure your brain becomes engaged.

              Sex cadets

              I shall orchestrate your life I say
              Make your blood sing woodwind
              Stretch my nerve harp-tight
              Across your exo-shell
              While you, heart racer
              Put me through my paces
              Pushing your muscle through
              The gates of my life
              Pushing past theories
              of the pluperfect poetical
              pushing like
               a downhill artist
              the speed racer you claim to be
              Speed  devil
              Speed demon
              Speed dreamer.

            1. The Language of Butterflies: the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

              The Language of Butterflies: the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

              Assess your potential to connect. We wake alone, but we are on the path of Attachment. Ask yourself; do you seek balanced, indestructible attachment, synchronous, not disharmonic relationship; a connection that is symbiotic, not exploitative. If the answer is Yes, you are on the path of Paradise.

              How can we achieve these goals? First, we must understand and accept our Self, our Ego, with all its quirks and flaws, needs and yearnings, limits and possibilities. Then we must understand the Other; the Lover. We must attune ourselves to the structure of their yearning to begin to construct our duet, our dance. After that we must negotiate the rapids of relationship with each other and with the outside world. Danger! Excitement! Ecstasy! Despair…Compassion.
              Union.

              We are caterpillars, you and I, attempting to learn the language of butterflies. We are unprepossessing creatures, daily absorbed in infantile needs of eating and excreting, but we have a firm promise of a future in which we stretch our gorgeous wings.

              Paradise

              Without eyes

              Ambitious goldfish float

              Dream of skies

              Where fins are wings

              Lily pads are clouds

              Swollen tight

              as seed pearls; gullets

              Safe forever from

              vengeful squid or

              Killer waves.

              Who can say if in their time of death

              Those dreams don’t live

              Bursting skin;
              Trailing comets,

              Scattering scales like stars

              Spilling the pond and soaring limitless

              To be whales

              To be gods

              To be free?

            2. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

              Homing – Forgiveness –
              Do you dream of home? What’s “home” to you? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. DreamTherapy posits that “home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and fall away from us. We are cleansed. We dream of ultimate understanding where our sins are not too terrible to be entirely forgotten. Jesus suggests to us that state will never arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.

              What Does It Mean to “Re-set”? – 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 all contribute to frees us from painful rumination and helps explain how the search for blame becomes a prison. “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.

              Challenge – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your tribe, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. Ask these questions of your Dream Journal: 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 all in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? Can you find a group – or even a moment (say, in yoga class) where you detach from the mess?

              Danger – Mixed up about “ultimate” right and wrong? Lots of atheists feel ”condemned” anyway. 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” either. Martin Luther King Jr. made a wise comment that the type of government capitalism desires 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 have absolute freedom. It is important that our resistance not embitter us.

              Opportunity – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is requested. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, to yourself. “But if I’m not willing to try giving up my behavior because I think I’m not able to, this pattern will continually get worse.” And make an intelligent choice. “If it gets really bad I can always commit violence” is not an intelligent choice, “I need help” is.

              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

              Mantra – “I forgive”

              Meditation –

              #Haiku: Forgiveness

              Returning home with
              New eyes
              Strong hands
              Fresh translations of
              Future past

            3. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

              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. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

              Yearning Defines Us – Once we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. But oh, how we long to be reminded, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.

              Challenge – We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We must practice uncertain techniques we can’t recall in a threateningly uncertain world. We truly are standing up and running across the ocean, just as in my dream, but this time, we have the confidence of memory. Someone loved us once, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic. In your Dream Journal, list all the aspects of love that you can remember. How many can you yourself practice?

              Danger – Danger lies in narrowing definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve the moment we feel gratified, Love is killed.

              Opportunity – 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.

              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

              Mantra – “I embrace”

              Meditation –

              #Haiku: Honesty

              Stop delusion
              No one’s fooled.
              Acknowledge
              Truth –
              Radiate
              Love:
              Know
              Peace.

            4. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

              The Labyrinth – Complexity – Last night I dreamed of being at a resort where people were able to run across the top of the ocean playing a curling game – but they had to move fast. I couldn’t figure out what kept their feet above the waves. Later it was my job to provide lunch but the food at the little store was appalling. Very little bread, all stale – some weird canned vegetables, no protein other than some very suspect cheese. In the dream, I felt actual agony at the paucity of my choices. Then, on waking, I had to laugh at myself and my tiny fake “dilemmas”!


              Do you Experience “Problem-solving dreams” you can’t seem to solve? Life is very complex. We are bombarded with daily reminders that many of its problems are too big for our tiny brains to tackle alone. We need help to decipher the maze – legions of engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and artists – living and dead. Our mythic history has always been: Tiny Helpless Human Confronts Huge Hostile Universe.

              You Are A Problem Solver – There is a always a way out of the labyrinth. You can follow string, leave breadcrumbs, mark walls, climb higher to get a birds’ eye view. My favorite cartoon shows a goat calmly eating his way through the maze. The key, problem solvers tell you, is not to panic. Whole years of primary education are devoted to getting you to sit down, breathe calmly and divide the problem into steps. Remember what you have been taught. Open your Dream Journal and recall your goals.

              Challenge – It is not necessary to solve the entire problem to solve the problem. Even a blind rat can get through a maze one step at a time. Algebra is the manipulation of unknowns. Guessing at the existence of x using the behavior of surrounding particles allows us to see without eyes. Many “hacks” are clever, and certain innovators have a gift for adaptation and reconfiguration. We can always get help. Repeat after me: “All my problems have a solution.” Often the solution is to view the “problem” differently. Maybe it isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity.

              Danger – Primary dangers are panic (inability to think) and defeatist thinking (lack of imagination). The lovely movie The Martian shows a scientist literally conquering the impossible. If you ”give up”, you never get there, but retreat, reconstitution, changing training regimens and getting help are NOT giving up. “Sleep on it” is always good advice, as is viewing the difficulty from some other angle or changing the definitions of the entities considered.

              Opportunity – Key to success is fostering excitement about the challenges. Our high school used to dump couples in the countryside at night and give a prize to the first couple who found their way home! (Following roads and train tracks always a good idea.) Scavenger hunts and orienteering cover much the same territory. The fact that a problem is difficult only makes it more fun. Ask chess players.

              Models & Mentors – “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity”
              – Douglas Horton

              “The labyrinth combines walking and thinking to open your power of imaginative perception” – Lauren Artress

              “Willingness to be puzzled is a valuable trait to cultivate” – Noam Chomsky

              “In a maze, find the center, in a labyrinth, find yourself” – Alysse Aallyn

              “Life is a puzzle, missing pieces guaranteed and you can’t cheat and look at the box” – Anonymous

              Mantra – “I solve”

              Meditation:

              #Haiku: Brainworms

              Cruel
              Thoughts niggle;
              Threatening
              Hijack:
              Breathe deep:
              Swipe left
              Swipe right
              Float
              Up

            5. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

              Judgement – Do you dream of gossips, shunners, condemnation? Franz Kafka’s brilliant novels are about the feeling of being sentenced for unexplained crimes we didn’t intentionally commit with no way to defend ourselves.

              Do you dream of a great eye? Walls of eyes? We know other people are looking. We know we are being assessed, ranked, possibly dismissed. We defensively assess, dismiss and gossip about each other. It’s so hard to know what’s really going on when we are right in the middle of it. Do you dream of trials? Punishment? Hangovers?

              Cultivate Discernment – You notably have the right to judge for yourself, but you have the obligation. We are familiar with the experience of disliking some experience until a friend teaches us “how” to like it. We treasure the interesting adventure of seeing the world through another’s eyes , feeling with their hands, tasting with their tongue and remembering through their memory. An out of body experience for sure, as well as a bonding exercise. But always keep an eye out for “end results”? Is developing a taste for absinthe or designer drugs “good” for us? How does it benefit our bottom line to cultivate an enjoyment of “ghost cars”?

              Challenge – There is a saying that youth produces Bad Experiences and Bad Experiences develop Good Judgment. But you ought to be able to see some of these Bad Experiences coming because in our competitive capitalistic society these can be wipeout events. How many decades of your life can you devote to unethical corporations, scammy multi-level marketing schemes, bad marriages and “secret” investments? Our time, our youth, our energy and our assets are limited. Open your Dream Journal and sketch out your limits.

              Danger – Regret is a potent force. Sometimes it is possible to be too cautious. But can you just “dip a toe?” The principle of “dollar cost averaging” suggests that you keep “paying yourself back” for investments that offer the promise of paying off big, so that if they suddenly plunge, you will never have actually lost money. This requires that we not get swept up in the experience and maintain a mind unaffected by inebriating substances. Ask yourself honestly, is that possible for me?

              Opportunity – “If everyone else jumped, would you?” Now’s the time for you to develop yourself outside “the group.” How often do you do things because “the group” is doing them? How smart is your group? Who controls it? How close to the cliff ARE you? Think about the nature of leadership. Of models. Once you start evincing discernment you will be challenged but respected. Sometimes you lose your taste for the group, or you find a new group that suits you better. Evolve.

              Models & Mentors – “Good judgment comes from bad experience”

              – Will Rogers

              “At the end of the day, you need someone who listens to you without judgment” – Payal Rohatgi

              “A rush to judgment makes a fair trial hard to get”
              – John Grisham

              “When you judge another you define yourself” – Wayne Dyer

              ‘It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but hard to dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities” – Josiah Stamp

              Mantra – “I judge”

              Meditation –

              #Haiku: After Magritte

              In the dream you play
              Every role –
              Perp, victim,
              Voyeur, Cleaner, Pimp
              Judge