Category: #InnerLife

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Creativity – The Artist

      When This Card Chooses You – YOU ARE AN ARTIST ! You possess the warrior power of making Something out of Nothing. Think. Feel. Look at the tactile world around you and reach out your hands.

      Warriors and Artists immortalize themselves. Sometimes their works are so intriguingly beautiful that we are drawn in and our critical senses – our fear – is tranquillized while we allow the artist to work magic upon us. Artists aspire to be magicians of the mind and soul.

      Warrior Challenge – You create something unforgettable because you do not want to be forgotten. You want to open hearts, minds and brains just as yours were first opened, long ago, when you looked upon this amazing world for the first time and felt the power & potential of what you saw. Warriors feel the same thing. We march to a different drummer we feel inside ourselves. We are inner, not outer directed.

      Warrior Danger – There is possibility here for such overweening pride that you place your own psyche above Creation in importance. If you seek to divert worship of creation to yourself your own soul will harden unto death, and your creative powers will be extinguished.

      Warrior Opportunity – Join the goddess in creating something entirely new that the world will not want to live without. The joy of sharing, the rapture of being known, the ecstasy of expression, of gratitude of being understood, will be yours.

      Are you an artist because you say you are or because they say you are? Well, are you a warrior because you say you are or because they say you are? I think it should be obvious that is TOTALLY NOT UP TO THEM. You MUST decide you are a warrior, you have to FEEL like a warrior and they can NEVER “tell” you what you are. It’s exactly that way for artists, too. It’s a temperament, a way of viewing the world, and because it’s in harmony with Creation all around us, it’s enormously satisfying. Really gets those alpha waves going.
      The warrior in you needs to protect your creativity. It is always under threat.

      Hustle Culture – Art can’t hustle but the merchandisers and the monetizers hasten to tell you: “Close enough – let’s get this thing to market.” But you need to find out what’s there – why this subject, these tools are drawing you. You need to think, to explore, to experiment, to start the process of 10,000 “failures” Edison said are the steps to success.

      The Creative Warrior – If you’re not a creative warrior, you’re someone else’s warrior and that’s a living death. Strategize. Speculate. Get out that Training Journal. Dream. Speak to your soul. Allow it to shine.

      Models & Mentors – “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein

      “Creativity can’t get used up. The more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou


      “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs

      “There is no innovation, no creativity, without failure.” – Brené Brown

      “What’s so fascinating about life is the constant creativity of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

      #Haiku: “The more neurosis, the more wisdom”

      Difficulties create
      Enlightenment;
      Recognize,
      Participate.

    1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      Summer – Relax

        If This Card Chooses You – You need to relax! Can Warriors afford to relax? Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Well, Lesson #1 is that being a warrior is Counterintuitive. Other people rush away from the burning building – planning on being EVEN MORE SCARED the next time. Well, we are going to master our fear. We are going in.

        Let’s Panic – I had a panic attack at age 5 (I got lost outside a movie theatre) and another at age 11 when I descended deep, deep, deep into a cave. (I think the guide was deliberately trying to scare us.) I didn’t know at the time what these episodes were – my parents and sisters saw them as embarrassing annoyances – but looking back it’s clear what was happening to me physically as a result of what was happening to me mentally.

        Relaxation In the Face of Panic – Learning to tolerate psychic dissonance, to be interested in it and challenged by it is what we’re all about. It’s a sign that we’re in the presence of the Deep Stuff – the things that galvanize our deep subconscious and if we can just seize control of that, we’ll access our true power.

        Learn Relaxation Techniques – There are so many and you should experiment with all of them! Learn what works for you and – key – what you enjoy. You will find yourselves using these techniques all the time. To get to sleep, to get through difficult experiences or just to access your subconscious when you have a question.

        Breathe Deeply – The very first thing is mastering control of the breath. Pregnant women learn all kinds of helpful breathing techniques in Lamaze; panting, counting; deliberately slowing down and speeding up your breathing. In yoga you will learn Lion Breaths to make you feel powerful. They are very similar to the gasps and shouts in martial arts and will affect your opponents. Watch the Maori war dance on YouTube.

        Get Out Your Training Journal – write down the techniques and your reactions. Appoint a time to practice these every day. Your breath connects you to the universe and all living things.

        Models & Mentors: “The first thing to learn is the breath.” – Confucius

        ‘Breathe In. Let Go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure, and give thanks for that.” – Oprah Winfrey

        ‘Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor”

        – Thich Nhat Hanh

        “While we breathe, we hope” – Barack Obama

        #Haiku: Every Breath You Take

        Life isn’t numbered
        By breaths you take but
        Moments
        That take breath
        Away

      1. Becoming a Warrior: the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

        The Life Force: Energy !

          What It Means If This Card Chooses You – You are gathering force for a great work. Do your dreams pulse with some energy gathering within you? You are readying yourself for some great task.

          YOU ARE A POWER – You are struggling to find your force. You feel the power and strength of as yet undefined wishes and the longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to this wilderness, you will have to map this forest yourself. Be brave.

          YOUR CHALLENGE – There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow of energy pulses with your every heart beat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willingly seek to smooth your path.

          YOUR DANGERS – Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your set course. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.” We are all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If you aren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss.

          YOUR OPPORTUNITIES – We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a soulmate among them – for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, consult other maps in designing your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and fresh discovery. There will be many. Salut!

          HOW I BECAME A WARRIOR: I had three sisters so feel I was really raised by them, rather than by my parents. Each offered a modality for Being that was intriguing to me, the quiet, sensitive, observant one. My eldest sister was very cooperative with my rather demanding parents until it came to her love life, then she slammed the door on them. She was a Love Warrior. My second sister pretended to fulfill parental demands but she was actually full of subversive ideas. She was a Covert Warrior. My little sister just wanted everyone to get along and have a good time. She was a Peace Warrior. And me? I needed lots of alone time to study other people, read, think and design various futures. I was a Thought Warrior. I discovered people have much stronger mental powers than they give themselves credit for, and these powers can be developed.

          Planning: My diary has always been my staging area for figuring out what I want to do next, assessing reactions and sketching out scenarios. It helped me learn detachment – I am not locked into any one idea, and because I considered or experimented with something it does not define me. Your key in Strategy Sessions is to cultivate a sense of freedom.

          Warrior Danger: People will spend their time trying to get a handle on you so that they can control you, and they are not above using your own training journal to shame you. Don’t let it happen. “These are exercises,” you must tell them, “To develop my flexibility as a warrior I must play with multiple personae. The Life Force requires it.”

          Becoming a Warrior: Exercise is important to Warriors, especially thought warriors and introvert warriors. Becoming just a Brain in a slack body is imprisonment. Try out every different sport that is offered to you. The one that worked best for me was dance.

          How did the people you admire manifest the Life Force? Jesus spent an epic 40 day & nights in the desert. Margaret Mead lived in Samoa studying the Samoans. Carl Sagan describes his “defining moment” as visiting the World’s Fair at four years old. It exploded and expanded his mind. Who are your models? Research them and study their transitions and experiments.

          Magic & Mystery: A you accept yourself and accept your changes, you are confronting the dynamic of change, which is the manifestation of energy in existence. We are all alive and moving. This is a dance and you are the choreographer and star. Erik Erikson said “A good life is like a weaving. Energy is created in the tension. The pull and tug, the struggle, is everything.”

          Commit to tiring yourself out during the day with thought, exercise and interrelations so that you can enjoy healthy sleep at night.

          Models & Mentors – ‘Every thought has an energy. Thoughts send out a magnetic frequency” – Rhonda Byrne

          “Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it – for it is a faculty of the psyche” – Germaine Greer

          “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration” – Nikola Tesla
          “The more positive energy you throw into the universe, the more positive energy you get back” – Nitin Namdeo

          #Haiku: Catalytic Action

          Partake:
          Energy blooms;
          Whirlpools
          Dance;
          I am
          Limitless
          So are you

        1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

          Aspiration – The Future

            Being a warrior means you never give up, you modify goals and you redesign maps.

            My explorations into True Crime had taught me what people REALLY do. Clearly, there’s no necessity to make up plots; in my next novel the challenge would be explaining what humans get up to and why.

            After the weirdly destructive father/daughter vibe of my last full-time job I became interested in three real stories – a kidnapped toddler where the FBI became convinced the parents were lying, a father in Florida pulling out all the stops searching for his missing teen (later found to have been murdered by a serial killer) and a father pimping out his own daughter (later revealed to be a kidnap victim.)

            I swirled all these into the psychological thriller Find Courtney, where a college student helps a distraught father search for her missing roommate, only to discover that he is definitely NOT what he seems. I whipped the paintings of Edvard Munch, tales of long-dead fan dancers and arson scams into a fine froth of first-person storytelling.

            I got an offer from the first publisher I submitted it to, an exciting Bridgehampton start-up promising the personal touch. It was published to wonderful reviews, but there were unseen cliffs ahead! Luckily warriors are good at managing hard landings and surprise outcomes.

            #Haiku: Find Courtney

            In the
            Dead
            Killer’s house;
            Who needs
            A sexy pirate
            Playing Daddy?

          1. Becoming a Warrior – The Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

            EGO – YOU

              What It Means If You Choose This Card – Your ego has work to do. Jung tells us that in your dream, you are everyone. You chose the Ego card to start your day. Or did it choose you?

              YOU ARE A SEEKER – You are self-defining. You are on a quest. You wish to explore your possible incarnations.

              WARRIOR DANGERS– The danger of solipsism is that in turning our eyes inward we miss important signals coming from other people and the world around us. Yet you must “retreat inward” it’s a vital path to self-knowledge and growth.

              WARRIOR CHALLENGE -set a Spirituality Schedule to reflect your needs and interests. Appoint time to be absolutely alone, for meditation and reflection. If you cannot find a room to yourself, a closet will do. You can sit in the meditation position or assume any position that allows you to be comfortable enough to become physically forgetful. Concentrate first on building a life that allows both inner and outer growth. Surround yourself with people who respect this decision.

              WARRIOR OPPORTUNITY – This is a journey. Accept it. Begin a journal with 1. “I” and write down your meditation thoughts and desires. This can be a poem, a fantasy, a checklist – whatever pattern occurs to you as supportive of your desires. Make a list of goals. Push shame away. This is about YOU. Of course as you evolve, your goals will evolve, and your journal will reflect that. When you have completed your Time Alone – ten minutes to an hour – whatever works for you – pat yourself on the back. What an achievement! You are started on a path of making changing Nightmares into Dreams and making dreams come true.

              How I Became a Warrior: Am I me or is my diary me? I’ve been keeping a diary since I was seven years old. My first problem was who I was writing to – that took seven years to solve. (Answer: Me.) My second problem was who I was. I haven’t solved that one yet but since I became a warrior I feel I’m within sighting distance of the answer.

              • A warrior repels takeover because
              • A warrior knows what she has to defend
              • A warrior knows when to let down her guard
              • A warrior learns from mistakes and hones her art

              Planning: Warriors lead a designed life. A diary (also called a Training Journal)offers the ideal format in which to plan. Attempt to quantify the difficulties that you feel and assess possible reactions. Just because a situation is tough does not mean it shouldn’t be explored – on the contrary

              • Warriors aren’t afraid of difficulty:
              • Warriors look for opportunities for resistance training

              The First Resistance – Often savage, is from yourself. Slowly we realize we have hijackers inside our brains wrestling for control. You can recognize these by their negative content. They clearly wish to subdue us into clones which is NOT HEALTHY.

              Becoming a Warrior – It is this resistance that first marks our warrior status. Congratulate yourself. You are on the road.

              Training Journal – Carefully assess your desires versus the demands on you. List expected results if you gave in to either. Develop a concept of health. Is ”freedom” staying up all night, consuming whatever substance makes you “feel better”? Clearly not. Assess the negative voice; “You’re weak”, for example. Being “in flight” from the negative voice is actually giving it mastery, you must stand up to it. Learn to answer back – “I’m in training. I did better today than yesterday.” Keep track of your achievements. Even really small ones: “I meditated for 10 minutes” are significant.

              Models & Mentors: Always survey possible models. Who do you admire? Is it

              Bruce Lee: “The difference between a warrior and an average man is laser focus.”

              Is it Carl Jung: “I am not what happened to me I am what I choose to become.” Develop your own models.

              Accept mystery: Life isn’t “win or lose.” It can’t be quantified because we are magical souls with magic coursing through us. Sometimes it’s impossible to figure out and must simply be absorbed, not rationalized. Learn to enjoy art and accept the relief it offers. Reflect back as much magic & mystery as you can muster. Your tastes will develop according to your growth – that’s a good thing. Treat yourself like a loving sensei who wants the best for you.

              #Haiku: Id vs Ego

              Argumentative
              Executioner
              Prowls brain
              Seeking
              Loopholes