Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Mysteries

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Danger – Risk

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Look out. Are you a worrier? Anxiety driven? Haunted by nightmares and worst-case scenarios? Do you wake up gasping and trying to forget what you’ve just experienced?

      You are Alert – Nightmares mean you’re paying attention. Life is scary, but we need to grow, and growth requires we learn to cultivate risk if we are ever to expand and venture outside our comfort zone.

      The Number One Complaint About the Freedom of Becoming a Creative? – Fear management. The only way to manage fear? Become a Creative.

      Study Risk Intelligently. No point being afraid of dragons if dragons are only symbolic. No point being “afraid” of “foreigners” if the man telling us to be afraid has a reputation for befriending people and then fleecing them.

      Managing Fear:

      1. Don’t rely on rumor and innuendo
      2. Dangers must be proven Real
      3. Dangers Need to be Historically verified by data: “How likely is injury?”
      4. Assemble likely risk-avoidance strategies that have performed well for others in your situation.
      5. What exactly is your situation? Quantify.
      6. Know who your friends are
      7. Be prepared to alter strategy to maximize success and to learn from mistakes

      Creatives Train – Creatives accept, identify and study the challenges. They learn to make sophisticated risk assessments and pick their battles cleverly. To do that, creatives need a Purpose. You get to find out who your friends are. Friends want the best for you, but the relationship must be reciprocal. You have each other’s backs. Know the difference between a Team and a Gang. Gangs work to suck power from individual members and concentrate it in one individual. Teams work for the success of all. Coach can’t win if the team doesn’t win.

      Creatives Test – their and mental physical abilities constantly against life’s games & mazes

      Creatives Transform – The physical pleasure of meeting the moment cannot be overstated. Soon the training itself becomes a rush of joy. You are making love to the universe and the universe loves you back

      What About Defeat? – There are no defeats, there are only lessons. Everything is practice for The Greater Contest.

      Won’t You Ultimately Lose? Truly, we all die, some sooner, some less dignified. This is where your purpose upholds you. Study your models. What allowed Nelson Mandela to be “captain of his soul” after more than 20 years in brutal captivity? Are we just bodies? Or are we also souls? Are our souls so easily defeated? Can we also train, test and transform our souls?

      Remember – a caterpillar’s “defeat” is a butterfly.

      Models & Mentors – “Extreme Fear can neither fight nor fly.”
      – William Shakespeare

      “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear” – Mark Twain

      “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will return stronger” – Deepak Chopra

      “We’re more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than reality.” – Seneca

      #haiku: Everything

      Everything you’ve
      Ever wanted
      Is on the other side
      Of fear

    1. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      The Daisy = LOVE “Is love real?” “Love Waves”

                  Love is the secret. Love is the answer. Love is what we say we feel when we look into the Soulmate’s eyes According to our long, rich tradition of romantic literature, it’s a connection/identification with someone else so powerful (and so rewarding) you would walk through fire for that person. 

                  Biblically defined as:

                  “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” 

                  Love is the opposite of the winner/loser “fuck you” ethos. 

                  Love is patient. We can’t expect the Soulmate to be on the same page with us immediately, or all the time. We must work out our differences, analyze our difficulties and strategize        solutions. Love takes time.

                  Love is kind. We handle each other gently, with care. Thoughtfully, with reverence. Slowly. Savoring.

                  Love does not envy. We are not competitive with each other. When we wrestle, it is in play, for joy, not because we want to         trounce the Soulmate or knock the feet out from under the Beloved.

                  Love does not boast. We are not seeking to impress each other. Love is not a hierarchy where we can lift our status above the Loved One.

                  Love is not proud. We can admit fault. We can say we are sorry. We can weep with the Beloved and we can begin again.

                  Love does not dishonor others. There is no “score”, no winner  and no loser. We don’t take tattletales of the Beloved to friends, family, social media or the public space. 

                  Love is not self-seeking. It is not transactional: “what can I get out of this” “you are not giving enough” “you are not making me look good.”

                  Love is not easily angered. We resist anger, touchiness, rage over our wounded narcissistic self-importance. If we are angry we cannot join, touch each other, embrace whole-heartedly or solve problems. When you get angry over a problem, now you have two problems. 

                  Love keeps no record of wrongs. When we say, “I forgive you”, we mean it.

                  Love does not delight in evil. We do not seek the diminishment or disrespect of the other. Popular “bondage” and “sadism” games that memorialize the helplessness and subjection of the Other are dangerous, volatile and can be triggers of past dangers and will map out a bleak and lonely future.

                  Love rejoices in the truth. The truth evolves because our brains evolve. Truth is a process as our lives are a process. We are all heading for an end goal – both together and separately – if we        can   figure out what it is. Truth is our ally in this dilemma, because it tells us the real results of all our strategies which allows us to calibrate our efforts and improve our outcomes.         We must speak truth to each other and we must grow in stature enough to dare to speak truth to Power.

                  Love protects. We shelter. We nourish. We steward. We cherish. We assess. We unite.

                  Love always trusts. We believe. We have the best assurance that God is good and that truth, justice and love will win in the end.

                  Love always hopes. Things will get better tomorrow. We will         work towards constant improvement.

                  Love perseveres. We will never quit. We are in this for the long haul.

      Meditation:  I am part of all I have met  – Tennyson

      #Haiku: Love Waves

      Sound travels forever

      Like love;

      Stars’ boundless dance

      Launched

      By mortal hearts

    2. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Cherry Blossoms = Paradise=BLISS “Love the Magician”

      Finding your bliss: Cherry blossoms promise: “Good things to come.”

      Everyone’s Paradise is different. For some it will be just like church, for others it’s the eternal “fish-fry” described in Green Pastures.

      Some people say it will be a place without animals, enemies, insects or unbelievers, others say it will be just like Earth. Some think it’s an endless loving embrace, others say a “roll in the hay” with “70 virgins.” (Imagine that being appealing!)

      These ideas are understandably small and based on limited and very individual human knowledge. This makes Paradise a mental construct; some kind of an existence of all joy and no pain. We can almost barely imagine that. What we can’t seem to imagine is a Paradise where all participate; in other words, how can we feel joy if “wrong thoughts”, “impure behaviors” and “bad people” are rewarded?

      Jesus was asked this question and his answer sounds suspiciously like “get over it.” He told a long story about toilers in the vineyards paid the same amount no matter how late they showed up, just because the owner was so full of generosity and joy.

      Something to think about. I personally treasure the idea that Paradise is a place where “every tear will be wiped away.”(Revelation)

      Once we have faced up to our personal inadequacies, admitted the power of our global longing and contemplated the possibility of severance, are we ready to surrender to bliss? Cherry Blossoms guarantee that ecstasy is coming. But what is ecstasy – how uncomfortable will it be and how will we recognize it?

      Ecstasy is the blurring of our boundaries into the beloved. Time vanishes, there is only the ecstatic present. You have experienced this before. Disappearing in to the safety of a loving parent’s arms you felt connected to them in a galvanic way – you and they were part of each other’s being. This is the connection Jesus offered when he called God “Daddy.”

      A mature connection with the Beloved is even more powerful, because we get to be both parent and child, recipient and giver, all at once and in the same moment. What joy!

      Meditation: Long live the weeds and the wildness – Gerard Manley Hopkins

      LOVE THE MAGICIAN

      The Magician is a Capricorn
      Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples
      Pale like mine but
      Maler.
      Illusion, he says is memory
      Of things that should have been.
      Doves and rabbits he entices
      From sacred groves between my legs
      Placed by ruse, and freed by art.
      When he dies, passion turns his eyes
      To quarters.
      He hears the world but faintly
      Through his one good ear.
      The other turns to me,
      Safecracker’s daughter.
      Trust the magician, voices tell me
      He knows when to drop the dice.

    3. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      The Gazing Ball = PROPHECY “You Are Not Lost”

      “Who can foretell the future?”

      If you could, would you?

      Would you find yourself performing all the same actions all over again?

      What do you most regret? Sometimes grief lies in wait for us at our happiest moments. What would you change, if anything? How about altering your Soulmate, fellow traveler on life’s journey? Would you roll those dice again?

      Skeptics say a stopped clock is right twice a day, but whatever the causation, sometime prophecies come true. A creeping suspicion bubbles up out of nowhere – manifesting as reality. We guess restlessly at “The Truth.”

      This glittering gazing ball at the center of our garden reflects our hopes, wishes and dreams, one of which is that it confers the gift of prophecy. We know we must be right about some future event; but if we share our knowledge too often we are discredited or disbelieved.

      Perhaps all we need is to cultivate our gift; forget “knowing”; concentrate on the blur of memory and project it forcefully into the future. Think about past, present and possibility, making all our choices with our Wisdom Eye fully open. It could be that the answer to the question we seek is already known to our Soulmate if we can only learn to trust and understand.

      What fresh new worlds might we create with our clear shared minds?.

      YOU ARE NOT LOST

      Do forests think?
      These trees know where they are
      In spite of all our attempts
      At subjugation
      We are all still here
      In spite of prophets who
      Calculated chances of survival
      With the eye of a murderous god
      Every one of us
      Who has ever been
      Is still here

    4. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      The Pond = JUDGEMENT “Devourer of Hearts”

      “Does truth ever come out?”

      The Pond may reflect what it sees, but we know it has depths. There are things in there, moving around, looking back at us, possibly making calculations about us. The pond is deep enough so that we could swim – and never touch bottom.
      When we look into a mirror, is the mirror looking into us? We know the answer is always Yes as long as we have a Soulmate. We function as each other’s mirrors. World within world; bubble within a bubble; our vision alters. We learn from each other what Truth really is.

      Truth lies just beyond our vision, but luckily our Soulmate provides eyes in the back of our head. The Truth will out. The Pond waits quietly, knowing someday it will repossess. Hidden creatures study us as we study them. We remember what it is like to dip beneath it surface and gaze back at the blurry universe – blurry now – where some breathe air. Goldfish will nibble at our skin while spiders tangle in our hair. Someday we must acclimate to a different ethos. Appearing in your spread, The Pond means Judgment is coming. It can be good or it can be bad: it is up to us.

      Because that’s what we’re scared of, isn’t it? We know how we make judgments: Interestingly, in our everyday life it seems like “judgment” is constantly changing. There’s appeals, and reconsiderations and every now and then some “delivered and done” decision is disinterred and we all publicly agree: “That was wrong.”

      So, like a lot of “finite” things, “judgment” is a “concept”, just like the theory that if you keep dividing a distance in half you’ll never reach zero. We’re afraid of “bad” judgments, that’s the truth; because we judge ourselves harshly: “Why can’t you do anything right?”

      And we are cognizant of a Group of Others – lets call them by their true name – bullies – who are actively seeking tender vulnerabilities they can exploit. Once they realize what a mess we are won’t that be the Final Judgment we can never recover from?

      We are a fearful species. And a lot of our fears, it turns out, are hardwired. Behavioral experts pointed out a hundred years ago that children are automatically afraid of things like snakes and cliffs but not speed or electric light sockets. Fear isn’t rational.

      And since we are a social species it only makes sense that at least some of our fears would be “social” in nature. But here’s the rub: defensiveness ramps up anxiety and most – if not all – of obsessive behavior is engineered to distract us from anxiety! We’re pigeons pecking at ourselves! So we’re not doing ourselves any favors by getting hysterical about “what other people think.” Better work on maintaining our calm and maintaining our wellness program. Remember, soulmates can save each other.

      Haiku: Devourer of Hearts

      Scaling hearts
      For final judgment:
      Soured hearts
      Desiccate;
      Tantric hearts
      Burgeon

    5. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Orchid = UNIQUENESS “In the Butterfly Pavilion”

      “Singletons”

      You will never rub the edges off each other, says the Orchid – and that is a good thing. You don’t want to. We’re not here to “bland out” or diminish each other. We are here to enhance and free each other.

      We pay homage to each other’s special qualities. Naturally it helps to know where each other is headed but not even the Self really know that. Ultimately, we are mysteries to each other.

      We must be each other’s Map and each other’s Mirror. The challenge is to accept and honor each other’s strangeness; singularity. You were drawn together for a reason. Sometimes it prickles and we feel ourselves shrink, or even withdraw. That is the rhythm of the tango we have undertaken.

      Many Soulmates welcome costume and role play to try to express the range of interests, the force of questions, the eagerness of exploring and adventuring we will always have. The key is to be aware of the rhythms of advance, retreat, resist, re-fashion, re-remember. Expect these. They are necessary to our continued growth. Our relationship is a greenhouse and we must check constantly on the health of our tiny plants. Fill air and soil with love and…release.

      In the Butterfly Pavilion


      This evening you said you wished
      I was more conventional.
      I bowed my head. I did not speak.
      Outside the animals leaned together,
      Holding breath
      To hear my answer.
      The cats-tongue ferns
      Swelled up like swords, pushed out the stink
      Of possibility while
      The rabbit-blooded lawn curled back: 
      Sows littered in the cyclamen
      Phlox flamed  
      Dwarf stars
      Broke free
      Spew molten ore
      Across a sky now
      Darkening to night.
      Nighttime is my kingdom.
      I fold my hands in my sleeves and
      Wait.

    6. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Foxglove = MEDICINE “Alyssum”

      “Intervention”

      We find ourselves now in an endless pandemic, a New Normal caused by our aggressive human interference with our planet’s wildlife. By a miracle the same pharmaceutical companies that have been competitively bleeding all of us dry have come up with a vaccine that seems effective at keeping most of us out of the hospital. Wouldn’t want to kill the golden geese!

      But it doesn’t work if you don’t take it and, wonder of wonders, a substantial number of Americans have become suspicious of the medical establishment! Since insurance companies have been advertising for years that healthcare is “our choice” based on “what plan we can afford” I for one am not surprised.

      This is the only possible end result of a gated health care system that actively despises “Public” health as “radical socialism”!

      So where is our Soul & our Soulmate in all this, our little, fragile, mortal, human body that drew the “medical intervention” card only this morning? “Medical intervention” is represented in the Tantric Garden by the humble foxglove.

      Foxgloves contain digitalis, the building block of cardiology care. Where do we stand on intervention? We may create a “perfect world” with our Soulmate but does that mean we can let no one in? A moment’s thought convinces that we must keep the freshening breezes of this world blowing as long as we are in this world! “Help” will always be needed and hopefully, offered.

      Can we learn to trust the Helpful Intervener? We don’t want to create a love nest so fragile it is threatened by any outsider. Instead, we want to make certain we avail ourselves of every good advancement and improvement opportunity in our oh so imperfect world.

      ALYSSUM

      What wound is this?
      Flowering? Flowering?
      I wake at two am
      Immobilized –
      A curvilinear clamp
      Half hoop clenching
      My right side.
      .

      It could be the strain of
      Fishing for a future
      Hooking sky through a
      Porthole window or
      I could be over-organized. The
      Doctors dismissed me in
      My mother’s name.
      “You dare to be angry?
      You dare to grow old?
      You are a false alarm.”

      I say a prayer to the great night heron, that
      Pregnant thief of dreams –
      Solitary hunter calling to collect me.
      Dream he rises
      To unleash the silken sinews
      Of submission from my torn and
      Tethered wing –
      Feathered like a revelation
      Stippled like the phases of the moon
      Birthing spirit, coming
      Coming, coming
      In his cloud of fire.

    7. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Wildflowers = BEAUTY “Beautiful”

      “Can you now recognize beauty where you once saw chaos?”

      What if a garden yearned not for care but to be ravished by wilderness? Wildflowers don’t care whether we look at them or not; they grow wherever they wish. Attempts have been made to translate this freedom into predictable practicality without success, because once a flower has been tamed it is no longer a Wildflower.

      Amusingly, however, we keep trying to reproduce that magic moment when we saw them blush in wood or field and were so entranced we set ourselves to copy surprise, to reproduce astonishment. It must be something about us that we so long to mirror God’s effects. In the meantime, Wildflowers sleep in earth and clay, and they keep coming up to gladden our hearts and surmount the sadness of all our petty certainties.

      Personal, cultural and historical beauty standards evolve. Online dating apps sort by “status”: not a good way to find a Soulmate. Georgia O’Keefe is famous for seeing a bleached cow skull abandoned in a desert landscape as beautiful and teaching us to see that, too.

      Today we embrace the Wildflowers in our Tantric Garden, (or more truthfully, Wildflowers embrace us). Traditionally wilderness is an undervalued resource in a planned garden. Gardeners sweep them away to plant something more intentional.

      The relevance to our Soulmate Quest is the question of Unintentional Beauty or Beauty Surprise. My question is, Is there any other kind? Beauty questing noisily (and showily!) for admiration is hardly as evocative as beauty that doesn’t care whether we see it or not, doesn’t represent an attempt to “control” or manipulate us and doesn’t position itself in a trophy race.

      Wildflowers remind us that we could be overlooking something natural, close at hand. That “something close” could be ourselves! Think how you undervalue your own wildness, the indigenous rather than “acquired” parts of your personality.

      Complete the phrase: “I am a natural______.” What? What’s so deep and automatic about you that it seems inborn? This is the level on which you hope to connect with The Beloved. You seek not just the promise of subtler pleasure but a necessary philosophical correction granting you the relaxing peace of evolving into an effortless, endless wonderment that doesn’t require a platform, management or positioning, but merely acceptance of deep joy and gratitude for life’s gifts.

      BEAUTIFUL

      He said you’re beautiful
      I said this carapace of flesh
      Is my bad fairy
      clamoring for attention like
      some approval junkie;
      People don’t look at me they
      Look over me
      Oh well he said
      All of us got
      Some cross to bear.

    8. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      FATE “Evolution”

      “Control”

      Outside the carefully groomed garden lies the true Wilderness; the ungroomed terrain. At first the eye is confused by the plethora of wildflowers, the riot of wild grasses, the proliferation of low shrubs. The fallen and the dying have not even been tidied away.

      Slowly our senses adjust to pick out hovering butterflies, nesting birds and evidence of even wilder visitors such as rabbits, skunks, weasels and raccoons. This is their world; they prefer it to ours.

      We must admit they have a point: how can something so haphazard radiate such magnetic beauty? Sometimes we’re forced to judge their world the winner; it is definitely more intricate, majestic and evocative than our carefully raked paths. We study it to comprehend, learn, possibly mimic its effects. And as we absorb their ethos we become one of them, lowly commoners of earth, enjoying a bounty of goodness, even wealth, poured out without regard to our intent or purchasing power.

      Destiny warns; “It’s not about you.” “Fundamental attribution error” in the social sciences means confusing individual causation as determinative when mass social movements are actually predeterminative. We would like to believe that we have control over keeping our parents together, preventing war, stopping climate change, averting pandemics, getting promotions, guaranteeing the constant love of worthy Soulmates. How much control do we really have over those things?

      We are tiny creatures – out of many – finding ourselves momentarily in a tiny corner of an ever-changing wilderness. This is not our “fault”, but still, we must live our lives as best we can. Can we guarantee our future good health? No, but we can improve it. Can we guarantee our Soulmate’s future health? No, but once again, we can lead a joint healthy life, together.

      Can we avoid sorrow? Most likely not; sorrow is endemic to those who think and feel. It’s how we manage sorrow that counts. The Dalai Lama says pain is unavoidable, but suffering is voluntary.

      We are creatures of wish & fear. The wish is that we will stay alert for dangerous and destructive incidents and behaviors. Our fear is that Fate is out to get us. And in a way, it is. Age stalks us. History stalks us. But if anxiety about the future only ruins the enjoyment of today, it is not doing its job, it is sabotaging you.

      With a Soulmate, you possess two souls, two futures plus a joint Soul and joint future. This gives us not just a reason but a mandate to celebrate the ecstasy, the bliss of every moment. You are Mine and I am Yours.

      EVOLUTION
      The world that seems to us so still
      And echoes no reflection of our will
      Somehow produced the seed that in us all
      Resurrected us from worm to fish, to crawl
      Upon the earth, to stand and then
      Return a child to creep and crawl again
      In some unending pattern, sane or not
      Judging by the brain that this same seed begot
      And yet within our every cell lies curled
      A revolutionary flag to be unfurled
      To lead us on to who knows what potential end
      Beyond the reach of enemy or friend?
      Can it be that simple balls of spinning glass
      Possessed the strength to lift from this morass
      All that we are; though we don’t understand
      This torch we pass so tenderly from hand to hand?

    9. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      AMBISEXTROUS – “I see myself in You”

      “Gender curious?”

      We were amorphous seacreatures once. We breathed liquid through our gills and rubbed our silvery sides against our mates. In the womb we roiled and reveled in our oceanic environment.
      Whenever we float, eyes closed, we channel what it felt like, shivering and shimmering in an upside-down world. So is the dexterity of melting into a concatenation of dizzyingly different avatars a souvenir of ancestral past or a premonition of some liquid, undiversified future? What can it tell us about recognizing our soulmate?


      We are reminded of skills we haven’t even tried yet, and our deep connections to inhabitants of universes we cannot even see.
      In the tantric garden, sex, gender, and identity are fluid; compromised constructs we create and share only with the Beloved. Let your imagination billow outwards, absorbing the Other. Our bodies express our memories, personhoods, dreams; evoke our aspirations and our lives. What does it mean to be truly open to another human? The level of trust must be so great the future vanishes into an endless present.

      God knows, we are willing. To be full of another is the ultimate mindfulness; we touch brains, hopes, memories as well as skin.

      I see myself in you –

      Moth to flame
      Your meteoric dust
      Drips ash into my upturned mouth.
      I taste stars.
      What manner of being
      Have you become?
      I only know you’re something that I need
      Your mirrored endlessness partakes
      Of nothing human; suggests an
      Completion.
      I’ll take that promise; your shadow arches
      Like an angry lover
      Refusing satisfaction.
      My hunger burns more purely
      in the titillation of neglect.
      Without you I’m just myself
      With you I’m everything;
      God of Worlds.
      Anyone can be born: eternity is
      The lover’s privilege.