Alysse Aallyn

Category: #InnerLife

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Lotus Goddess – Healing Rituals –

    The Goddess’s Greatest Gifts – Do you dream of restoration, of nostalgia, of lost youth? Magic? Let the healing begin.

    Goddesses Believe in Magic Because They Have Seen It – It’s a magical world, where flowers push upwards through cement, the wounded rise and entanglement theory alchemizes quantum computation. Bravely, we put ourselves in the way of harm, and harm is done to us. But we believe in the magic of perfecting through transformation. These scars, these wounds, these experiences make us smarter, harder, brighter and as beautiful as the universe itself.

    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 Goddess’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 – Show Respect –  We are each other’s masters, we are each other’s pupils, we are each other’s lovers, siblings and rescuers. Drinking healing ginger tea from a  translucent porcelain chalice, we lift our cups to one another. We bathe together in steaming pools. I release you as you release me. When darkness falls, we touch one another’s hands before departing. To fulfill our yearning, we may blend bodies.

    Goddesses 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.

    Goddess Challenge – Paradoxically, no “medicine” can succeed unless we “accept” our healing spiritually. We must feel “worthy” of restoration, deserving of transformation.  What truth do we embody?  Think deeply. We are not self-punishing but state 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.

    Goddess Danger – Healing cannot occur in an atmosphere of self-hatred and self-blame, but many of us are STILL “blaming” ourselves (and others!) 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.

    Goddess 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 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

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

     Chain Goddess – Conquering Addiction –

    Uh oh. You’ve become too attached. Remember, Goddesses Rise Above – Investigate. To … what is the addition exactly?  Take it slow.  How is your attachment harming your principles? Values? Relationships? Carefully map it out.

    The Goddess’s Fiercest Battle – Do you dream of imprisonment? Blank walls? Chains? Our neurocircuitry mandates habit-making behavior, but our intelligence recognizes entrapment, and our dreams send out distress signals. If you’re human, there is no way to avoid addiction. Welcome to the Club!

    We Are Wired for Addiction – If there’s no escaping it – that means you will have to fight this battle. But the good news is, this is exactly how you become a Goddess, and Goddesses are Free. Anyone who hasn’t done investigated and broken the chains is still a slave to “factory settings” – hormones, instincts, patterning – just as animals are. Here’s the very challenge you became a Goddess for – your best chance to develop a free will and a free soul.

    Study Your Opponent – Turns out we have tremendous choice over what we become addicted to. Some addictions are less corrupting than others. Visit an AA meeting and the consumption of sugar and tobacco is outright alarming. Are you addicted to gambling? Do you work in sales? Were you raised in a ritualistic faith? We easily become dependent on praise, on safety, on gratification, and our brains (and our general health) show our dependency. These very brains threaten and panic when the “treat” is withdrawn.

    Goddess Challenge – This parasite doesn’t care if it kills the host. If you fear you are approaching a cliff-edge, you probably are. One test is to go on a “retreat” where your customary gratifications are not available, and attempt to form new, healthier gratifications, like sleep, prayer, meditation, the arts, cooking, sports, friendship. See what happens! Is your personality threatening to disintegrate?  Good! Let’s build a new one!  High time to ask yourself: who am I really? This is such a good idea, we should build it into our lives, periodically. Just to keep us recognizing that recurring cliff-edge where Soul and Self are lost.

    Goddess Danger – Free Goddesses live with the possibility that we will lose our autonomy. Most people want to evolve, know they SHOULD change, but fear they CAN’T.  There’s no shame in needing outside help. As we pointed out under “Cooperation” and “Alliances”, Goddesses need teams. This is the purpose of interventions, to demonstrate to our eyes and ears that we are harming ourselves and our relationships. Denial is a powerful defense mechanism, especially when we think we’ve finally found a substance/process that “magically” allows us to live on our particular cliff-edge – a dangerous job, risky sexual behaviors, risky recreational behaviors.

    Worst-Case Scenario – is that an addiction becomes our identity. We always have the choice of refusing to change – giving up focus, goals, principles and relationships to keep up our self-abuse. Some hardened wretches will tell anyone who listens that life itself isn’t worth it without their life-threatening self-abuse. They are choosing to die as slaves.

    Goddess Opportunity – You not only CAN free yourself, you MUST to deserve and preserve your Goddess Status. It is your spiritual obligation to live this territorial existence as an enlightenment opportunity. Familiar with the saying, “Live simply so that others may simply live” ? That mandates sharing. That means ALWAYS studying your consumption, NEVER allowing yourself to turn into a greedy pig and scheduling time to be alone with the universe and with God.  To check on the hardiness of your Soul.

    Models & Mentors – “You can’t defeat the darkness by keeping it caged inside you” – Seth Adam Smith

    “All addictions are ways to not feel our feelings”

    – Ellen Burstyn

    “Sometimes you can only find heaven by backing slowly away from hell”

    – Carrie Fisher

    “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”. – Robert Collier

    “The most common way people give up their power is thinking they don’t have any” – Alice Walker

    #Haiku: The Columbine – Addiction

    Brain cells beggared;

    Lovelorn

    Oxytocin receptors misfire:

    “Feed me!”

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Tulip Goddess – Illusion –

    The Tulip Goddess Masters Magic – the Art of Illusion. Much illusion is the art of Misdirection – allowing the credulous to deceive themselves. The Goddess of Magic has noticed that the development of  Maturity is NOT popular with everybody, because it prevents the Narcissistic Acting-Out so gratifying to the determinedly undeveloped. Unfortunately those who pursue power, instead of self-development, often achieve their goal.  The Goddess is always being governed by her inferiors. We aren’t in heaven yet.

    The Road to Enlightenment – is long and painful and currently has a bad press. The Tulip goddess understands the human desires behind wishing and subjugation – handing your soul over to a “collector” for “processing” feels like a relief.  A magic dissolution of “the rules”.  But the Goddess recognizes that mirages – especially those we close our eyes to believe in – are illusions. Falsehoods. Clinging to obvious fantasies triggers willing surrender of our ability to discern fact from fiction.

    Illusions are Powerful – The seventeenth century Dutch needed a desirable luxury exchange item the privileged could trade back and forth for status reasons. Yes, that was the tulip bulb. It was a bubble – of course– the bottom fell out – of course – and left a whole lot of previously comfortable people bankrupt. We don’t have anything like that, these days, do we? Or do we? People are rushing to invest in crypto because of its complete lack of regulation. But without any rules, it’s laughably easy to steal people’s money.

    Some Illusions Are Life Strengthening – Others are Life-Depleting. The Goddess knows the difference. Goddesses avoid fantasy thinking. Goddesses traffic in absolute reality. We create worthwhile magic, the kind that protects and enhances – so we can’t be deceived by the “magic” that punishes and stigmatizes. Your map must represent actual ground, not pie in the sky, or you won’t be able to maneuver across it. We understand the attraction of The Mirage. The problem with mirages – especially those we long to believe in – is that they evolve into illusions which create delusions.

    Illusions Become Delusions – The Buddhists say life itself is an illusion. But they mean that metaphorically, to keep you from become “attached” to the “ephemeral.”  The physics, gravity, chemistry and hydraulics of everyday life are hardly illusive.  Above all, we should avoid clinging to fake food and pushing away nutrition. When goddess end up battling FOR falsity – it’s the worst of all possible situations.

    Goddess Challenge – Face facts. Learn to recognize the difference between believable experts and carnival barkers.  Learn to enjoy reality as a bracing polar dip. Are you trapped by an illusion that you used to need but now is killing you? You can identify this by increasing suffering throughout an increasingly problematic life and your diminishing pleasure over things that once were reliable joys. Is it a relationship? An activity? A belief? Look at the problem honestly. Find others going through the same experience and generate honest discussion.

    Flying Monkeys Abound – When group members rush in defensively to shame and discourage you, to convince you you’re not feeling or understanding what you KNOW you ARE feeling and understanding then realize you’re being gaslighted.  What you’re trying to exit is a “cult” that is NOT devoted to the health of its members but to their diminishment. Stop communicating with those flying monkeys and find somebody who supports the truth of your actual experience AND your desire to feel better.

    Goddess Danger – The path to re-making yourself is fraught with danger and you will require all sorts of help. Don’t be discouraged if your feelings are volatile and transitory and you are confused about their reality. Move slowly, consulting Models & Mentors – kind others who respect your autonomy, individuality and with whom you feel safe.

    Goddess Opportunity –  Relax! Goddesses become adept at shifting vision from night vision to day vision, forward and backwards through time, manifesting others’ auras until we can all see possibility and love.

    We Transform Illusion Through Skill – The impossible takes longer, because language is not as flexible as reality. You are embarked on an exciting growth challenge where you leave a constricting carapace behind. Sometimes the “shell” was protective and served for a time to keep you safe while you matured. You don’t need to disparage the old you, or the old relationship; it served its purpose. Often people who have been through a trauma say afterwards they wouldn’t change the past, because they treasure and embrace the person they’ve become.

    Models & Mentors – “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours” – Richard Bach

    “The world is an illusion we must take seriously.”

    – Aldous Huxley

    “The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion – the tunnel’s the illusion” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Separation from each other is an optical illusion of reality” – Albert Einstein

    ‘Limit, like fear, is often an illusion” – Michael Jordan

    #Haiku: Coach Don’t Play

    When you learn the game

    Rise above the game;

    Insight

    Renders you

    Magic

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Diamond Goddess – Success –

    Goddesses Upgrade their Definition of Success – A surprising number of remarkably successful people aren’t “happy”. I put happiness in quotes because happiness wasn’t their goal, they were just hoping it would be a gratification of widely acknowledged success. But here’s the shocker; it isn’t. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone because the conditions of success – the eternal busyness, the ruthless ranking, the endless competition – crowd out both peace and bliss. So – do you give up on Success? Or do you give up on Bliss?

    Goddesses Redefine – they don’t allow others to tell them what to think. A pat on the back is nice, but goddesses are removed from the crowd. It’s awkward telling a wild orchid “you’re doing a great job.”

    Goddesses Dream of Bliss – Do you dream of adulation? Applause?  The Diamond’s checkered history reminds us that the journey, not the arrival matters, because goddesses say the “successful life” is one long journey to eternal perfection. The tired and footsore goddess needs heartwarming visions to sustain her joy for the voyage.

    Success Is a Worse Hazard for Goddesses Than Failure – If the journey, not the arrival matters, battle-hardened goddesses may collapse on reaching Road’s End.  Nothing pulls a goddess out of her cloud like subservience to other’s opinions.  Future plans are inevitably torpedoed in pursuit of a momentary “approval” fix.  If “success” is static and stasis is stagnation, then surely the process of improvement – the Goddess’ Mantra – is what we really want.  Success itself is a mirage.

    We’re Competing With Ourselves – 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? Most people define success in purely material ways – it’s the only way to explain the salaries CEO’s pay themselves, while they freely admit nobody “deserves” 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 this challenge:  are you content?

    Goddess 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.

    Goddess 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 know that’s nonsensical.  We don’t visualize each other’s sadness and pain, only display and showmanship.

    Goddess 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

    “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 Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Light Goddess – Enlightenment –

    Goddesses 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. Life is a quest for ultimate understanding that will make sense of all the confusion. 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.

    Enlightenment is Nothing to Be Feared – Forces of darkness are heavily invested in keeping us dependent and confused. They attempt to imply that “waking up” to reality will separate you forever from everything you loved about your past. This is nonsense. To be enlightened is to be far-seeking and far-seeing while comforted by the Ultimate Love that is the promise of the universe. It is to break the shell of ordinariness with its suspicions and superstitions and see the breathtaking grand plan in which we all have a part to play.

    Goddesses Must Constantly Rise – 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?

    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, calcified wisdom. The light that pierces darkness is Goddess Oracle’s symbol of the mystical understanding and lightning universal comprehension we call “enlightenment.”

    Goddess Challenge – Enlightenment literature recommends 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 go to sleep in one world and wake in another. 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.

    Goddess Danger – Zen teachers say that if anyone represents themselves as a Zen teacher they aren’t. 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 Wary 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.

    Goddess 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: Enlightenment

    Dissolution reassembles;

    Enlightened wave knows

    It’s

    Ocean

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Rose Goddess – Vulnerability –

    Goddesses Are Vulnerable Because of Heightened Perceptions –  You wake up trembling. Are you helpless in your dreams? Do you dream of children, of your own childhood? In Goddess Oracle, the rose represents the soft evanescence of youth when the merest thumbprint of emphasis can leave eternal impressions. As the emblem of beauty, the Rose warns us that this quivering, temporary vulnerability may be the very definition of loveliness.

    Goddesses Are Temporal Because Life is Evanescent – We are human, and while we live revel in our humanity. As goddesses we defend and define youth, beauty, and humanity, in order to deserve all three.

    We Remember Where We Came From – You well recollect how you were molded. Is it a pleasant nostalgic vision or a horror story? Do you resent all the other actors in this drama? Remember, resentment is a poison only we consume – we are the only ones it harms. Value Your Training – good and bad – as you value your humanity.

    Roses Have Thorns – Celebrate Yours – Everyone sees the thorn-stripped rose the florist sells, forgetting that roses were born with protections, just like the rest of us. Contemplate your Goddess Superpowers. Of these, long-distance perspective, serenity and mindfulness will serve you best. Comparative History explains many situations.

    Goddess Protections – Our Training, our Mental Agility, our Commitments, our Alliances – and most especially our long multiverse worldview. Others may surrender and fade away, but as we are designed for eternal power, we relish the bliss of Sight, Feeling and Thought. It is the essence of life to struggle, to mentally picture a goal and to design and redesign a gorgeous, life-changing, vision-enhancing map for all who follow.

    Goddess Challenge – Can we turn the building blocks of our own past into a constructive, hopeful framework for the future? Can you mentally accept and explore the powers of a hardening maturity?

    Goddesses Preserve & Build  – We do not destroy. The philosophy of “annihilation” is a psychic snare. Ultimate obliteration is up to God alone. Terrible things happen to ordinary people and they are changed forever.  We may wish those things hadn’t happened but regret prevents us from focusing on reality. We need to understand the world we’re in and map it for those who follow after. History and literature explore the coping mechanisms around disaster and the strong people it produces.

    Goddess Opportunity – Resilience is the art we cultivate.  We soon realize resilience has its own beauty; this rose may be cut down but the plant is hardly dead, in fact it offers an outpouring of constant roses. That is true beauty.

    Models & Mentors –  “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity”

    – Brene Brown

    “Being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure”

    – Bob Marley

    “Sometimes you have to drop your guard so your heart can breathe” – Emma Xu

    “The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility” – Paulo Coelho

    #Haiku: On the Vulnerability of Poets

    Dis –

    Composing

    To re-see;

    Melting to

    Re-form;

    Masking to un –

    Mask.

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Foxglove Goddess – Medicine –

    Goddesses Are In Synch With Their Physical Well-being. We know perfectly well when we’re doing something to threaten health and we strategize how to quit.

    But Sometimes a Doctor Visit is Necessary – Do you dream of hospitals? Doctors? Shamen? Magic pills? One of society’s proudest boasts is our seemingly mysterious ability to cure illness, or at least palliate its effects. Your dreams say you yearn for healing, and something in you recognizes you need help.

    Do You Trust Your Doctor? Establishing trust is key. Sometimes it’s spiritual healing that’s required. Try a naturopath, acupuncture, massage therapy – searching for that instinctively helpful healer. Revisit advice on managing gurus – they must not be greedy and must demonstrate they have your best interests at heart. Goddesses never become someone else’s sex toy or enabler or support another’s extravagant lifestyle. Seek references from friends. Anyone attempting to isolate you and wall you off from information is not your friend.

    The Goddess Path Can Be Exhausting.  There is resistance on every front to women who prioritize their own well-being. But you have to get the oxygen mask firmly on your own face before you can help anyone else. Goddesses also need constant support. No shame – it’s part of the calling.

    What Makes a Goddess’s Heart Race? – Anyone developing their own map gets lost frequently. How can we find the right path?  How can we develop the confidence to choose the “right diagnosis” for what ails us? When should we request a “second” or “third” opinion?  How can we stay on the “right” course, or even assess the “rightness” of any course, considering all our past mistakes?

    Goddesses Too Need “Heart Strengthening.” “Foxglove” the source of digitalis, (a powerful heart medication) tells us: Listen to your heart. Get out your Goddess Journal and start making notes. What questions do we wish to ask? Who do we want to be? Where are we trying to go?

    Goddess Danger – Can we tell the difference between a “fortifying” or a “harming” path? TV pharmaceutical ads list grisly side effects for pills tackling the vaguest malaise. Who can overlook these threats? Perhaps the ultimate “danger” lies in ignoring the warnings our “dis-ease” gives. What does “I want to be young again” really mean? We are all mortal. We have just so much time left to plan. To “become”.

    Goddess Opportunity – Some people are more confident following an “experts recommend” course, others adapt and customize as they go. Joy is the moment when planets and moments all click into alignment and we feel we accepted as a beloved child of the universe. Let’s unclog our ears, remove the plank from our vision and simplify our world to recapture the moments of joy experienced in childhood. If a loving, guiding force rescued us over and over again, we can summon the confidence to find several human healers to guide us through the healthcare system.

    Models & Mentors –  “Hugging is good medicine”

    – Karen Salmansohn

    “Medicine is the art of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease” – Voltaire

    “Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients” – C.J. Jung

    “Medicine cures doubt as well as disease” – Karl Marx

    “The arts are as essential to everyone’s lives as clean food and fresh air”

    – Renee Phillips

    #Haiku: Overcoming Narcissistic Disappointment

    Cuts hurt

    Scars heal

    Skin becomes

    Distinctive; you

    Become interesting.

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Vine Goddess – Dependency –

    To Be Human Is To Be Entangled – Goddesses cannot be entirely free of entanglement, but their ability to “rise above” helps them see when an attachment becomes unhealthy clinging.

    Fear of abandonment is the cause of unhealthy clinging – Goddesses never fear being alone, understanding solitude as a fount of deep thought and dreaming.  In Goddess Oracle, the Clinging Vine reminds us of all of the unpleasant aspects of needing others’ constant support to function. 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.

    Goddesses 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 object to cling to, and soon they become defined by that object as if they, too, were immoveable.  Are you locked into a position of support for someone else?

    Goddesses 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 the “ordinaries”. But they insist on maintaining freedom of action – for good reason. Don’t make destructive deals involving your future. Goddesses 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 goddess never check their brains at the door. We are strategic, planning, evolving. Our maps will always need an update and a redesign.

    Goddess 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 Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Wildflower Goddess – Beauty –

    Are Goddesses Shy? – Our elevated plane makes others suspect Goddesses seek exposure and acclaim. Not so the Wildflower Goddess, who thrives in secret, out of the limelight. 

    Goddesses Are Comfortable Alone – Are your dreams so beautiful you regret waking up? Do you imagine possessing great beauty yourself, caressing another’s gorgeous flesh, or having a dream lover turn those diamond eyes on you? Do you dream of beautiful places, caverns, waterfalls, chapels – that are spectacular in their glamor? We are all visual learners, attracted to beauty, hypnotized by color. Our relationship to the universe is naturally worshipful.

    Goddesses Don’t Waste Time Admiring Themselves – We’re here to preserve the beauty of the natural world, and of others. We alert when the planet slips into disharmony, but our love of beauty suggests how it can be restored.

    Beauty Is a Guide to Order and an education in symmetry. Wildflowers’ magnificence is otherworldly. It stands in contrast to the managed world which constantly attempts to freeze & fetishize the ephemeral, even the eternal. Wildflowers’ mysterious evanescence suggests what true beauty is. To become a servant of the seasons is to fill our lives to overflowing with constant pleasure.

    Train Your Goddess Eye – Take joy in your surroundings. Japanese samurai practice flower arranging, for the purpose not only of relaxation, but discernment. As there is “forest bathing”, so there is “flower bathing.” But nature is wide and we are part of it. The Goddess Mandate is vast and all encompassing. Puppies doing anything, kittens doing everything, a dance class of toddlers (all doing the wrong thing), flowers coming up through cement, a piece of brilliant stained glass on a battered utility truck, a book of cave paintings, the swirl in our coffee, old photographs, our beloved’s sleepy morning face – once you start “collecting”,  you realize beauty is all around you.

    Look in the Mirror – That is what beauty is – those lines, those scars, each one a history. That light behind the eyes is a directing soul, in tune with its guardian angel. Accept yourself.  It is necessary for the Goddess to love Self, in order to truly See, much less Love –  others.

    Unclutter Your Soul – Clutter is frustrating for the brain. We all love sharing beautiful pictures, but aggressively, officiously  “beautiful” people have been hogging the space. Be discriminating in the cherished mind-pictures that you gather.  Think of the wildflower. Is endless staging the path to joy or depression?

    Goddess Danger – We find ourselves caught in a frenzy of “likes”. A “like” button can have a plethora of meanings, but if we don’t take care, we will begin to “need” likes the way a drunk needs booze. Otherwise we fear we’re nothing. Specious approval from strangers – or at least attention – can never fill your heart. The quiet joy of certain pleasure inside your own head as you follow your bliss –– that’s lasting pleasure. Relax, refresh, renew.

    Models & Mentors –  “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it” – Confucius

    “Beauty is a light in the heart” – Khalil Gibran

    “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself” – Coco Chanel

    “Don’t think of all the misery but the beauty that remains” – Anne Frank

    “Beauty is reality seen with the eyes of love” – Rabindranath Tagore

    #Haiku: Hold Still Forever

    Beauty

    Herded toward capture –

    Resist!

    Reserve your right to

    Disappoint

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

     Sunflower Goddess – Spirituality

    Welcome, Sunflower! You are Thirsting for Light and the Light is Thirsting for You. Do you dream of other-worldly events? Parapsychology and out of body experiences? Flying and underwater breathing?  These freedom dreams of otherworldly mastery tell us much about who we are. In Goddess Oracle, the sunflower represents our spirituality – a Sunflower Goddess reaching out for connection with something others might insist is not there. But we feel – very strongly – that it is. Who’s right?

    Sunflowers Turn to The Light and So Do Goddesses – Hundreds of years ago Blaise Pascal argued that we have so much to gain if the supernatural is true, and nothing to gain if it isn’t, so that the calculus is simple. When you act as if the universe was richly designed by a Carer who promotes Goodness and rewards Love, you create the ideal conditions for human flourishing, whereas, as we all know, and has been conclusively proven scientifically, pessimism about outcomes dramatically lowers future benefits. Certainly, one could argue that our communications with each other are fraught with mistake and misapprehension, but that’s an argument for increased effort and insight and hardly a quitter’s mandate.

    Goddesses Cultivate the Sixth Sense – Some people are born color blind – others are tone deaf – so it’s perfectly possible some are unable to access the extra dimensions. But the lucky goddess few – know that there is a universal resource to be tapped into when we can maneuver ourselves to the “right wavelength.”

    Goddesses Follow The Sunflower Path – What is our mandate? Focus on increasing your ability to tell health and growth potential from sickness and disease enhancement. This will help you find the right path and the right people. Goodness never seeks your diminishment and constriction – the ruthless pursuit of human power does that. Test all wavelengths for generosity, balance and liveliness and contemplate what is beneficial in the universe. Bask in the flow of reassurance, resilience and recovery that intense spirituality provides.

    Goddess Challenge – Fully explore your fears with a view to answering Immanuel Kant’s timeless question, “What can we hope?”  Jesus focused his ministry on healing and met virulent rule-focused pushback. He found himself in a frenzy of status-seeking coupled with denigration. His life as well as his words teach us that the “Letter” kills, but the “spirit” gives Life. It is up to us to find and nourish that spirit. Once you can feel the “angels” – i.e. virtues – around you – (I picture them as nosing deer!) your fear subsides.

    Goddesses Never Surrender Their Ability to Scent Danger – No journey can be free of risk. Trust requires us to follow where we cannot see the path, and so sometimes we lose the path. Sometimes we realize our guide looks to capture & constrain, not enhance & liberate. We must maintain our ability and reserve our right to recognize this so that we can  reverse course before the cliff edge,  telling malignant spirits “You no longer represent me” and to seek out a healthier program of progress.

    Goddesses Enhance Opportunity for Everyone – We are never alone.  All around us are pilgrims struggling with the same things we’re struggling with. Sharing and caring knits us together. The American two party political system benefits from stirring up hatreds to protect themselves from change. Don’t accept it. We are not each other’s enemies. The possibilities for friendship and connection are huge, but hatred and anger lead in only one direction.

    Models & Mentors – “The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”- W.B. Yeats

    “You need not work to become spiritual – you are spiritual. You need only to recognize that fact” – Julia Cameron

    “The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love” – Marianne Williamson

    “Happy people build their inner world – unhappy people blame their outer world” – Dalai Lama

    “The power of God is with you at all times, through the activities of mind, sense, breathing, the emotions , doing all the work, using you as mere instrument”  – Bhagavad Gita

    #Haiku: Hegira

    Fleeing outward

    Questing

    Fresh feathers

    Enabling

    Spirit’s

    Aching wings