Alysse Aallyn

Category: #InnerLife

  • 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

  • Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Winter – Dormancy

      Even Goddesses Grow Torpid.  We accept the necessity of sleep, to clean the brain, connect with the Multi-Soul and refresh the spirit. But what about hibernation? What’s happening when nothing’s happening?

      When We’re in Too Big a Hurry to Slow Down We Need to Slow Down – The Multi-Soul is calling you. You have need of dreams. Do you dream of endless sleep? Deep snows? Hibernation? Do you identify with the drowsy bear and the sleepy sloth?

      Now’s the Time – This is the sacred moment before a burst of Goddess Creativity. You are gathering your forces. Compare it to a pregnancy. Things are happening, but so slowly and deeply you are not aware of them, with the result that you may feel confused and frustrated. Instead, revel in this burgeoning becoming in the midst of sleepy peace.

      Goddesses Can Surrender

      Sometimes a plan isn’t ready. Sometimes you’re not ready. Timing is everything.

      It’s a Long Wait Sometimes, as anyone who’s ever been through eighteen years of schooling or a seemingly endless winter can tell you. But it comes faster if you turn your attention to other things.

      Waiting for Peak –– We cultivate our dreams without pushing or extracting them. We curate our sensations. Spin through pictures of animals – what jumps out?  Who is speaking to you? What are they saying? What are you afraid of and why? Make notes and collect images. A collage creates a deeper, more resonant picture. Sometimes it’s all in the eyes.

      Goddess Danger – In sleep we are entirely vulnerable and we have cultural and historic reason to fear that state. Guard yourself with supportive beings, with sleep music, with healing rituals. The triple-locked doors, the blackout-curtained windows, the silenced devices protect us in our chosen nest. Don a bracelet of “worry beads”, summon your happiest memories and tell them by touch, eyes closed, one by one. Send every ounce of your remembered love and joy out into the universe with a command to come back to you a hundred times. A thousand times so that your love can spill over and be shared with all you touch, near and far.

      Goddess Opportunity – You are creating yourself. The fetus of this pregnancy is YOU. In every dreamy hibernation second you are rebuilding yourself, adding visions, promoting fresh understandings and positive interpretations. Life offers us the chances of joy and misery – use your conscious awareness to accept these tools and allow dream-time and prep-time to penetrate ever deeper into your subconscious, (sometimes called the “preconscious”) to the unconscious, and down down down, deepest of all, to the collective unconscious where we recall in our bones and teeth and cells everything that has ever happened to every living thing as if it happened to us. This is the source of all imagination and creativity, accessible to you in the dream state.

      Be Patient. A Watched Pot Never Boils. The mouse is a whole lot likelier to come out of the mouse-hole if the cat isn’t waiting on the other side. Free your mind to imagine what it feels like to be everyone, anyone, in your constructed scenarios.

      Over-thinking is Bad for your Brain – Ever heard the expression “Sleep on it!” The only time you shouldn’t sleep on it is in the heat of battle, and the clever goddess AVOIDS battles. ALWAYS sleep on it! Ask your dreams to send insight, bubbling up from the pre-conscious. Participate in artistic pursuits, allowing metaphor and symbol to work it’s magic in your subconscious. Do something completely different. Refresh yourself.

      Models & Mentors – “To lose patience is to lose the battle.”

      – Mahatma Gandhi

      “Grow in patience when you meet great wrongs and they will be powerless to vex your mind” – Leonardo da Vinci

      “Patience is not simply the ability to wait but how we behave when we are waiting” – Joyce Meyer

      “Patience and Time do more than strength and passion”

      – Jean de la Fontaine

      #Haiku: Ghosts

      Ghosts

      Enable, unmask

      All our

      Dormant selves

      We could not

      Would not

      Be.

    1. Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle

      Day – Focus –

      Becoming a Goddess One Step at a Time – Make up your mind – Good morning – or bad? If you wake up fearful, fretful and exhausted, you’re a worrier. Worry borrows trouble and erases pleasure. It’s OK to plan but it’s destructive to worry. “Rumination” is endlessly thinking over a problem in a circular way – it isn’t going anywhere. If you dream only about your problems, you are at risk of wasting your valuable dreaming time.

      Goddesses Build Routines – Then Explode Them

      We construct lists and calendars in our Goddess Training  Journals that are very much Works In Progress. Every effort’s an experiment. If you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems, we have to build good systems. As Zig Ziglar reminds us, there’s no elevator to success. We all have to take the stairs, one step at a time. We build ourselves so strong that ultimately we can trust our subconscious, even our unconscious, to do the work for us. Goddess create independent selves to transcend their selves.

      Taming Wild Mind to Focus Productively – Buddhists are fabulous at training the brain to calmness. This is a physical discipline and it does take practice. But as in any practice, we start out needing both effort and commitment. Even Goddesses have to “forgive” themselves over and over – “I suck at this.” Learning to enjoy the process is key. Meditation teaches us how to live in the present moment. You are your own adorable toddler, so mother yourself.  Be delighted by the effort and moved by the commitment. You don’t yell at a toddler for falling down. Study the work of Pema Chodron (libraries everywhere) for assistance.

      Your Toddler Self is Frightened by Everything.  As we meditate and the fears boil up, we talk to ourselves calmingly. Focus on small, pleasurable things, the green grass, the blue sky. Give thanks for the green grass and the blue sky. Focus on the breath – out with the worry, in with the fresh day of joy and discovery. Now close your eyes. Are you still seeing the green grass and the blue sky? Isn’t that wonderful? Now they are yours forever. Tonight you will dream about them. Cherish them in your heart.

      How Strong is Your Negative Voice?  This is the first enemy Goddesses must defeat. We all have at least one – some of us have many. Banish them firmly. Your negative voice is belittling, angry and demeaning. It doesn’t think you can accomplish anything. It is not a helper, in fact it is toxic and we are going to tell it goodbye. Read Viktor Frankl’s wonderful Man’s Search for Meaning and Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves for advice on how to pluck the lotus of joy from the mud of despair.

      Goddess Opportunity – Learning to focus at our advanced age is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a daily practice of mindfulness and joy in the classroom of creation. Be proud of your effort, your commitment and the confidence you are modeling for all future generations that life itself is a dazzling gift. You are alive at this perfect moment for some perfect reason. Let us find it.

      Models & Mentors – “Your habits will determine your future” – Jack Canfield

      “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine.” – John Maxwell

      ‘Practice isn’t something you do when you’re good. It’s what makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell

      “It’s easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.” – Benjamin Franklin

      #Haiku: Focus

      Energy

      Resurgent

      Depowers dread

      Repowers health-

      Dare –

      Aim –

      Fire

    2. Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      Detachment – Mourning –

      Goddesses Must Detach to Rise Above – Goddess-Vision sees the big picture. Is there loss? Yes, and it has a necessary place in the universe o birth freshness. Is there suffering? Yes – no one “rises above” without it. No one grows empathy and compassion without it. The generous Goddess feels your feelings with you, then she suggests you Get Over It. You still have a body on this planet; you will use your brain to Rise Above and Study the Multiverse.

      Do Goddesses Face Depression?  As we have discussed, goddesses feel all feelings, including lack of feeling. Discouragement is common. We must accept that the Universal Brain is bigger even than the goddess brain. Sometimes even our dreams hurt.  We experience such shuddering emptiness it’s a physical relief to wake up and find that dream wasn’t real. It’s enough to make a person fear going to sleep.

      The Cure is Detachment – Buddhism warns against  “clinging” as the source of all suffering. Life’s professional warriors – such as cops, firemen, paramedics – all will tell you to “forget’ the personal just to get the job done. Focus on the “healable” crisis– learn to enjoy the exercise of your gifts.

      Learn to Mourn. Mourning is the process of “letting it go” – releasing whatever it is – personality, idea, memory – into the multiverse. Goddesses know it will ultimately be cared for because in Jesus’ own words, those who mourn “will be comforted.”

      Remember there Is a Worse Loss than Death: People Can Lose Their Personalities BEFORE They Die. Be sure to think your worldview through BEFORE the crisis happens. Remember, what a caterpillar calls “the end”, Nature calls ”a butterfly.”

      We All Need to Mourn – Goddesses mourn, too. Goddesses’ powerful forward drive never fools them into thinking that moving backward in the dance is a sign of weakness, when ebb and flow are laws of life.

      Sadness is Stigmatized in a society where perfect strangers feel comfortable demanding that you “smile.” Look at all these Instagram feeds with everybody grinning away because they’re having so much FUN and their lives are so PERFECT they never wake up shuddering with sadness. Except they are human too, so we know that they risk their very humanity by trying to pretend ”everything’s fine” when the red lights are flashing.

      Maybe They’re Just Better at Covering It Up than we seem to be. And some people, admittedly are just plain shallower. They’ve worked hard to feel less deeply!  And narcissists convince themselves that they can transfer their pain to others and “free” themselves by enjoying the suffering they’ve created. This inevitably means we all have lots of work to do.

      First, We Sort Out “Real” from “Transferred” Suffering. Whose misery has been foisted on you? If you’re in that position you are literally a “scapegoat” and will need all your goddess skills to get out of it.

      DO NOT ACCEPT TRANSFERRED SUFFERING! – Pain is inevitable but suffering is voluntary. We feel compassion for some, we pity others their willful darkness but goddesses do not accept their world scheme of punishment and torment.

      We’ve All Got Plenty of Legitimate, Necessary Mourning to catch up on. If you skate over “bargaining” and “acceptance”  all that’s left to you is denial and depression. Sometimes, the “causes” of your lost mourning seem inconsequential to our “adult” selves. “So your pet died when you were five,” everybody says. “Your parents got a divorce. You moved five times. Get over it, already!” But we say, Now is always the perfect time to accept the power and significance of your own feelings.

      Goddesses Feel Compassion for Everyone – Themselves Included. Begin with yourself. Why feel these things now, right before you set off on your next great, consequential adventure? Sometimes it is joy that brings to the surface those past unhealed hurts. That’s necessary, part of the ebb and flow. Because we are strong enough to feel it now.

      Goddesses Are the Heroes of the Collective Unconscious – Goddess do battle for and honor centuries of collective suffering. (Inter-generational trauma.) It’s OK to think about that sadness, especially if it makes us feel closer to other people. Everyone has these lost, wrecked treasures submerged in their lives.

      Goddesses Feel Deeply – Your power frees the greatness of your emotion even as it protects your feelings and other people’s. Celebrate the fact that you are able to feel so deeply in a world where others feel forced to abuse themselves, taking risks and drugs in order to “feel something.”

      The Art of Detachment  allows the goddess to rise above the fray, strategize, plan. Even on the eve of battle they enjoy their lives.  Let go – finally –  of the toxic elements in your life. Time to go “no-contact” on the toxic people who waste your energy. Read up on sadism, the better to understand the people out there who are revel in your suffering. Buddhists recommend surveying your thoughts and feelings from a distance, as in hypnotherapy, then setting them free.

      Detachment is Not Dissociation – Dissociation is more like floating through life with all our systems repressed, feeling numb. Dissociation is not good. You can use that quivering pool of tears to respond more intensely to life, to art, to music, and to each other.

      Resilience is the Goddess’s Most Powerful Survival Trait. This means that even after blight, we can flourish more strongly, just the way pruned plants will. It’s not necessary to explore all the caverns of your being, but it will make you stronger. Once again, choose a buddy and a guide. Think about the “hero’s journey” story you respond to most deeply. How would you explain your hero’s journey to someone else? Feel free to use metaphors, after all, when we were children we did feel our world to be populated by monsters and the supernatural.

      Models & Mentors – “Detachment is power. Release all things that no longer work for you” – Shane Steele

      “To be detached means to dive so fully into the experience you dropout the other side… with full understanding you can say, “Now that I know, I can let go”

      – Teal Swan

      “In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty…freedom from our prison of past conditioning…willingness to step into the unknown surrenders us to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe…” – Deepak Chopra

      “I release the subjective thoughts, energy and emotions I am holding about people, places and things that kept me trapped in dis-ease…I can step back and allow the feelings & thoughts & energy to dissipate…I am then free to act with compassion, love & acceptance” – Angela James

      “Attachment is the fabricator of illusions – reality can be attained only by one who is detached” – Simone Weil

      “Detachment is having your life be about you, not about other people”

      – Karen Casey

      #Haiku: Detachment

      last phase of grief

      blesses wrestling angel –

      flourishes scar tissue wings

    3. Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle

       Breakthrough – Epiphany –

      Goddesses Let the Knowledge Pour In – You didn’t even know there was a wall there! And suddenly, you’re through it and the world looks completely different on the other side. Maturity turns the universe into a “magic picture” – goddesses can see it several ways – each way perfectly invisible to the other. It requires a brain switch. It also requires…

      Dissolving Barriers that prevent you from re-envisioning your world. In your dreams are you breasting tape, cresting mountaintops, shedding light on darkness? You are seeking, or experiencing an epiphany. It’s time for the Goddess Maneuver of Magic Vision. Let’s consider the shreds of your psyche/life that don’t add up.

      Goddess Aspirations Conflict with Humdrum Reality – At some point we have to face the fact that we see differently from other people. Goddessing is NOT a group endeavor and this is GOOD.  But it can be lonely. Others will not understand you. You will have to be content with shedding light and moving on.

      Eureka! – Goddesses Learn from Epiphanies – It’s possible to have sudden enlightenment and NOT FULLY REALIZE it. Could it be that this fresh new vision is just too threatening? Could be that you lack the language to explain the new connection you have made. Could be that your “discovery” started down so deep in your consciousness that it’s taking its time to percolate through to the surface.  YOU ARE “MOLTING”! Shed what no longer serves you. In the meantime, pay attention to your dreams and track them in your Goddess Journal.  Dreams have the power to heal the jagged edges of our fear, our incomprehension and our daring.

      Goddess Danger – Don’t quit too early. Status quo can be SO attractive. Let somebody else be the adventurer, let somebody else put into words what nobody else can say, let some other poor sucker stick their neck out and mention that the emperor has no clothes. Study your fears rationally. It’s OK to protect yourself – in fact, it’s mandatory – remember making sure that oxygen mask works on YOU, first? But that doesn’t stop us from evaluating the full “reality”, which also, I remind you,  contains suspicions, insights, ideas and yes, dreams. Whispers of the multiverse.

      Grow New Skin – Goddess are highly accomplished, well-trained professionals who sometimes find themselves at the bottom of a pecking order.  Are you in a group whose leader is making decreasing sense and ever more self-serving decisions? If you’ve been struggling with a knotty historical, mathematic or scientific problem nobody else can solve, why not try seeking the edges of light?

      Transform Your Thinking – how often have you had that experience of waking up from a dream whose conclusions were so real they were right in front of you, only to see them melt in the sand like the escaping tide until they’re no longer perceptible. That’s OK. They’re on the tip of your psychic tongue, just waiting for a little more encouragement.

      Learn New Things -We are all familiar with the “sleep on it” suggestion, but anything that takes your mind off the problem can be helpful. Sports, prayer, meditation, reading, a massage, a night out, but please – not too much liquor. Hold it at two if you can, if you can’t, don’t start. Liquor affects the brain, killing brain cells.  That might keep overlords seeking compliance happy but it’s not good for goddess’ growth and development. Develop a gratitude practice. Keep dreaming. Keep seeking those epiphanies. Keep using your fears as stepping stones to climb higher. Never give up. Be clever – like the fox, wily as the snake, gentle as the dove.

      Models & Mentors – “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” – John Milton

      “Record these epiphanies with care as the most delicate and evanescent of moments” – James Joyce

      “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising”

      – Isaiah 60: 1-3

      “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing” – Henry Miller

      #Haiku:  Epiphany

      Dominos crash:

      Picture resolves:

      Insight –

      Upside down is

      Right side up

    4. Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      Planets & Stars – Eternity –

      Eternity Requires the Goddess’ Perfecting Self. Do you dream of astronomy? Vast deserts, steep, empty mountains, person-less vistas? These are eternity dreams, where change has slowed or stopped. You are struggling not with questions of death or afterlife, but the “ongoing everythingness” of reality itself. What is “time”? How long can “time” continue when nothing is “alive”?

      Goddesses Train to be Immortal –When you imagine “life forever” – where is the “you” in that context? Matter is already transmutably immortal – Your body is currently composed from the atoms of exploded stars. We all tremble at transitions; but do we really want certain phases of our existence to continue “indefinitely’? Seems not only impossible but repugnant. It is our Souls that are Immortal.

      Change is Life – Changelessness is Stagnation. We are “perfecting”, never perfected. Without any human life, planets and stars continue to evolve. Eternity, like God, must exist outside of time. Fiercely we insist on the continuation of personal consciousness. But do we really want to know the terrible things God knows, or do you really desire a return to an infancy safe inside the arms of a most loving mother?

      Goddess Challenge –  Some people feel so threatened, angry and violated by life that they want to harm the future itself. They don’t want anyone to be happy or gratified, ever. While admitting that life on earth can be very unfair and terrible, you don’t ever want to be one of those people. They have “eternalized” their own misery. That is the very definition of hell; they themselves have sent their own selves there.  Goddesses can eternalize our finest moments, when we brimmed with love, ecstasy poured over us and generosity and joy poured out.

      Goddess Danger – Ultimate judgment is not up to us. We don’t know everything, our empathy and compassion are not boundless, we cannot “see” in all directions and dimensions. Goddesses make snap judgments on the ground, battlefield decisions and quick-time changes; but we must leave finality to God. Arrogance and solipsism are serious blinders that harm our spirit as they harm others and even the planet itself.

      Goddess Opportunity – We are offered repeated opportunities for growth, for humility, for insight. We need to take advantage of these, all the while admitting that since life is a see-saw process, it is usually two steps forward and one step back. Goddesses recognize and enhance growth; ideal growth conditions lead to health, while harm plunges everyone into darkness. Mentally we can wish others to avoid suffering and the roots of suffering even when we don’t understand what those are even for ourselves. When Goddesses connect meaningfully with others all spirits lighten.

      Models & Mentors – “Trust in dreams – they are the hidden gate to eternity” – Khalil Gibran

      “Launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment”

      – Henry David Thoreau

      “What we do in life echoes in eternity” – Marcus Aurelius

      ‘Love is the emblem of eternity, effacing memory of its beginning and all fear of its end” – Mme. De Stael

      #Haiku: Beginners’ Mind

      I never

      Graduate;

      Freshened by

      Eternally

      Discovering.

    5. Becoming a Goddess -the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      Loss – Suffering –

      Do Goddesses Suffer? – Lesser mortals are under the impression that Goddessing is about permanent smug satiety. The opposite is true. All Goddess emotions are magnified. You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb.

      Even Goddesses Hurt – We see the magnitude of the suffering around us. Every religion and philosophical system must account for this misery; storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration as well as animal (and human) predation.

      Goddesses Get Used to Loss – Goddess dreams are magnified as they explore inner and outer pain.  All fear, anxiety, terrible memories erupt out of the collective unconscious – our shared human history – and are laid at our feet. There is no universe where all these tears can be dried at once, there is only Eternity where we have been assured that “Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” How do Goddesses educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma?

      Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding our breath on the edge of discovery. Compassion elevates those we love to eternity.

      Goddesses Dare to Feel it All.  Bravely we take on the feelings of the entire planet to show that we can’t be destroyed by them. Goddesses explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion”;“ Practice taming the wild mind”; or religious –  “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet.

      Don’t Surrender to Learned Helplessness – Too much suffering breeds inertia. There is danger in giving up even trying to better our human situation – predators will be attracted to such easy prey.  The worst outcome would be to surrender enlightenment by becoming predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty and our claim on immortality is cancelled. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without  manufacturing more.

      Goddesses Dare to Frees the Universe – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through karmic debt many times. Further epiphanies await.

      Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered”

      – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

      “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”

      – A.A. Milne

      “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them”

      – Leo Tolstoy

      “What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

      “Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live”  – Norman Cousins

      #Haiku: Profit/Loss Analysis

      Does autumn lose summer

      Warmth or

      Gain snow-blanket?

      Peonies decide.