Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Mysteries

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Night = BALANCE “Resurrectionist”

    “Going to sleep in one world we awaken in another”

    Night offers a frightening universe of the invisible and the unfamiliar. How many of us have lain in our comfortable bedrooms and imagined tossed clothes as threatening monsters and scratchy tree-branches as iniquitous invaders?

    Night is the domain of nocturnal creatures we imagine are up to no good; otherwise, why seek darkness? Night is the land of dreams when all worries and anxieties bubble up from the deepest depths of our own brains and terrify us with startling and vivid visions. Childhood is largely spent trying to get used to this strange rhythm of sleep and wake, of brooding and action, of quiet and frenzy and attempting to master the suspicions and fears it rouses.

    Isn’t sleep like death and isn’t night like Hell? Where is the sun? What has happened to our loved and loving world? It helps to fall in love with Night and uncover its beauties as well as its secrets.

    Waking in the middle of the night for some exciting enterprise like Christmas, meeting a beloved, for some family ritual or religious vigil, can be a time of awe-inspiring discovery. In the Planetarium they deliberately create a mockery of Night to show us the majesty of stars and planets.

    Lovers wait for night like thieves. This is when most children are conceived, most children are born and the most powerful dreams – the ones that reveal the future – are dreamed.

    The night is a mysterious, unsettling boundary. Sages say we go to sleep in one world and wake in another. I say we go to sleep as one person and wake up as someone else. Both are true. But, quite possibly, we don’t like it. We fear the meanings, the realities, the potential behind all of this.

    Desires come to us unbidden. Do dreams separate or unite? Sleep is the land of the subconscious, the unconscious, the preconscious and the collective conscious. These are worlds we need to integrate into our Being. “Balance” is a skill that allows us to make the best of all these worlds.

    The Subconscious is just beneath the surface. We glimpse it frequently during the day through our reactions to art, music, jokes, accidents and friendly interactions. ‘Freudian slips” are meaning to say one thing and “accidentally” stating the opposite. Our Subconscious is our Mastermind. It can be relied on to recognize the Beloved.

    The Unconscious is deeper. We cannot access it except through dreams. Hypnosis will not take you deep enough. The Unconscious is a huge repository of fear and dread. It manifests in our daytime self as anxiety, panic attacks and psychosomatic illness. “Dream therapy” teaches lucid dreaming, when we begin to recall, learn from, even manage our dreams.

    The Preconscious is our Unborn Self. These are our Multiverse selves who chose another path, past incarnations and possible selves. It manifests itself in our daily life through mysterious attractions to styles of art, episodes of history or pattern re-enactments. Our Preconscious might recognize the Beloved because you were together in another life/world. Sometimes forging of this bond will be the most advanced stage of your souls’ journey. In both cases, recognizing and blending with the Other is a vital step in your Becoming.

    The Preconscious and the Collective Unconscious alike are activated through study, research and learning to accept and enjoy art and history. The Collective Unconscious is our group dream on this planet. It is positively expressed through Art, Shamanism and acting. It is negatively expressed by addictions, circumstances when you know you are acting outside your own control (and against the best interests of your life, health and safety) or when you are “channeling” the soul of another – acting like someone you aren’t but you can’t seem to stop.

    These patterns are broken by Rehabilitation Therapy that seeks to connect you to your True Soul, which is always waiting for you to claim it.

    Sometimes in our quest for the other we are assaulted by demonic forces masquerading as love. This is easily recognized by the question: does your Beloved improve or worsen your psychic health? If Your spiritual integrity is under threat, you will need help escaping this demon. Don’t hesitate to ask for it.


    RESURRECTIONIST

    Unearth me, lover
    I’m a jewel now
    Melted
    In that crevice you once loved so
    Well; it’s an ingot now,
    a socket
    For our mingled liquid
    Essence
    Suck it up with
    Dust-lathered lips
    Strip
    The flesh as you once did
    The clothes; I’m burning
    Cinder-hot –
    Let me astound you with
    My time-perfected skill

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    ETERNITY “Heloise to Abelard”

    “Eternal Welcome”

    “Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean”

    The Night Sky above our Garden reveals many secrets. The first secret is that we are a World within Worlds. And we are assured that there are further worlds beyond (as well as within), through the contradictory notions that the universe is both infinite and expanding. What a metaphor for life & growth!

    The poetry of the stars and planets is such that our history can be told through the names and patterns of constellations that are shifting. The ancients placed “heaven” right up there, with Gods & Goddesses looking down at us as we look up at them, playing with us as if we were scientific mice running an experimental maze.

    We are even seeing dead light from stars that no longer burn; a time traveling conundrum that makes a hash of what we know of past & present. Given these facts alone many of our inherited concepts about “reality” seem naive to say the least. New physics posit the possibility that time travel could age us so slowly we become younger than our own children.

    If our minds are our ticket to eternity, teaching us how to rise above our earthly circumstances, then we can learn to signal others; “I am eternal. Are you eternal?” Many people believe they are “in the Now” because they are bouncing on the surface of the moment, but they are really water spiders skimming the waves, fearful of “falling in.”

    You are not a person who is afraid of depth. Instead, you will convey the deep peace and truth of living every moment connected to Eternity. Planets & Stars reminds us to turn on our inner searchlight. Our person is close; very close. “Are you Eternal?”

    HELOISE TO ABELARD: “FROM THE FLAME TO THE FLAME”

    Master, my Brother; Father
    Confessor; my all – Before you see a nun
    Abbess in fact – antiphon of grace enclosing
    Octaves of silence.
    I had rather be your whore. Slut, jade, poule –
    What sweets! I relished those words as I craved the
    Blows you struck like kisses.
    Five, like Christ’s wounds. I counted them.

    No midwife cut my cord but You delivered me.
    Satan wormed your root; left Me whole but
    Empty. I’m still cinque-cut while
    You’re a smooth stockade. I “mistook” the veil –
    Impetuously as you stole me –
    Masquerading, copying the night
    We stole from uncle’s house
    In holy guise.

    This veil is Jason’s wedding dress –
    It cannot be removed.
    It burns my flesh, these cerements
    Cremate me. You denied me thrice, False Peter
    Though I crawl to Bethany to earn
    One word. Master, cousin, lover – slave –
    We are bound.
    This grave is not so silent as you are.

    Yes, I’ve chatted up the dead
    I’m closer to you than that tattoo you wear
    As if it became you. When you die
    I’ll be the fire that quickens
    In your veins – the centime on your eyes
    The empty scabbard left
    Along your thigh
    Your last escaping sigh – I.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Passion = COURAGE “Diaries”

    “What’s the bravest you’ve ever been?”

    Passion is the fuel by which we live. It can warm us, it can inflame us, it can destroy us. Without it life is dry and pointless. We are born with majestic passions that seem ungovernable.

    Our specific passions may seem strange to other people, but no one’s yet been born with none at all. The trick is managing them and making them work for us. A complication is that our passions change and evolve. Fantasies that kept us warm in childhood seem empty to us now. Sometimes in the busyness of life we find ourselves working so hard for other people’s goals our own seem to vanish and life becomes dry and tasteless.

    What do we really want? What makes us happy? What ignites our best self and completes our growth process?

    It isn’t too soon to imagine how our eulogy should read! Explorer? Poet? Dreamer? Lover? Person?

    Passion gives us courage. Courage is hard-won. Whenever it seems to come “naturally”, that’s because we didn’t assess the possible consequences of our actions. That’s not courage, that’s foolhardiness. When we understand the dangers and move forward anyway, that’s true courage.

    When we contemplate sharing our deepest self with another, what do we risk? We risk exposure, humiliation, misinterpretation, minimization, stigmatization. Those are serious risks, but the only way forward is through. Don’t pretend you don’t care or it doesn’t matter; hardening ourselves only devalues the very prize we seek as well as our ability to enjoy it and be transformed by it.

    To seek depth we must give depth. The secret is self-compassion, to accept our own humanity. Once we can do that we are given the key of seeing deeply into others. We are not interested in those pretending they are less than human – they can neither help us nor themselves. We resolve to keep going – courageously – in our search for The One.

    Diaries

    I don’t remember anything –
    Amnesiacs
    Write everything down
    Stuffed in my closet
    Among discarded gowns
    (Smelling just the same)
    Useless but
    Too beautiful to throw away. How
    I recollect & treasure
    The act of writing
    An up and over downtime scrawl
    Recall the surgeon
    Cutting at my flesh
    Tugging splitting sweating
    Recall liftoff – finally
    Airborne ; my
    Hawk’s-eye vision sees
    Backwards & forwards –
    Past into future.
    Too much dig is spoilage;
    Freedom mined is
    Priceless.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Seeking a Soulmate with Alysse Aallyn

    Chrysalis = Potential

    “Hot Prowl”

    The Chrysalis looks dead; that is its disguise. A simple, broken leaf, soon to be swept away by wind or rain. But in fact, it’s a puzzle box that holds the whole universe inside itself; an unbroken chain of DNA, an augury of “becoming” dating from the dawn of Life itself. So is each of us a Chrysalis…of what? For what?

    We are powerhouses seeking ignition. We can feel the slow-gathering strength within, but we are still mysteries to ourselves. We need the Other to become a Full Being. Plato posited that man/woman are separated angels endlessly seeking their other half. Your duty is to protect the chrysalis so that it can unfold in its own good time. Be patient, your day of flight and connection comes ever closer.

    HOT PROWL

    Don’t wake up.
    Surveilled by night
    Your chiseled torso
    Slackened with exhaustion.
    Touching things that once
    You touched,
    Listening to your apnea;
    I turn away before you turn.
    Making peace with all my choices.
    It’s been worth everything –
    Winning in divorce a
    Hard-won superpower:
    Invisibility

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Memory = THE PAST – “Practice Cuts”

    “Where did you come from?”

    In Memory lies our Identity. There are probably no sadder words than “I don’t remember you.” We are born with wild, unexplored ambitions and we spend our lives trying to live up to them by learning & acquiring partnership, discipline & practice. And sometimes, trying to forget negative conditioning and poor patterning.

    Memory is the foundation of art, science and law as we try to reflect back what we have learned. Memory gives us the words to say to build and express our emotions & intent. Luckily our bodies have memories, too. Memory resides in hearing, touch, taste, sight and muscle; long after words have gone.

    Past Patterns – Sometimes we recognize a pattern coming around again, but more often, we don’t. We’re accustomed to treating each new crisis as if it blew in out of nowhere. This is where journaling can really pay off for us as we ask a series of questions: have I been here before? And what did it look like that time? Is there anything different – really new – about now?

    Negative Conditioning is when we learned unhelpful or destructive practices. If we grew up with parents who couldn’t forge strong intimate connections there is a danger we will re-experience all their trouble. We also learn from patterns experienced through art or viewed from a distance. And then there are “cultural ideals” – some of which are downright unhealthy and must be discarded.

    Sometimes we only see a situation clearly when it’s happening to someone else! What advice does our past self have to give us – our cockier, more youthful self? How about our wiser self – the mature self who can see the whole picture — the one who’s “arrived”?

    Memory is not just who we are, memory is where we live. Our Soulmate is not a mind-reader, so communication is constant and evolving. Memories change, as we change. Different aspects of our own story emerge into importance as we evolve. Previously, we might not have even noticed aspects of our own story that we now see as key. This has important implications for the presentation of self that is critical to our connection with another person.

    Are prepared for this “other” to dramatically transform the way we see ourselves; to change our story’s “meaning” as well as altering our past and empowering our future? There is an Official Version of our past we like to tell others as we introduce ourselves; now is the time to ponder the Secret Version. The version we only tell our most significant other.

    Is it secret because it is shameful? Soulmate Love is not an opportunity to escape our past but to heal it. That toxic shame may be the exact lens through which you and the Soulmate first “see” each other. Your connection will start as a series of conversations, which may be physical, verbal, or non-verbal.

    In literature, the tale of Cupid & Psyche embodies these processes, as Psyche (“The Soul”) first thinks she is married to a monster with whom she can only mate in darkness. She “steals a glance” at him when he is sleeping but, when he catches her, he is furious and flees. The plot twist: he was actually a beautiful young man, but he didn’t know it so was not ready to reveal himself. The “monster” was his toxic shame. How does the story end? You and your Soulmate will find out.

    PRACTICE CUTS

    The dead gush cruelly after dying.
    High time to make some changes;
    Get religion, have visions
    See god, become a nun


    Some self worth knowing.
    Time is gunning for me
    Arthritic fingers
    Scrabbling at my dreams


    Playing old tunes
    Scratchy now, less sensitive.

    I’m a body in search of a car wreck
    That old deus ex machina
    Disaster; blood is so good


    At erasing uncertainty &
    Bringing back a taste for life.
    Reduce me, silence: fortify
    Some other ego, mine’s too tired.


    Ebb out along the tide,
    Cauterize this woof-warp of a pattern
    So plain even I can see it.

    Reduce me to unbending bones of
    My essential self: sweet sister; she;
    The soul I was before I became me.

  • The Language of Butterflies – for caterpillars or; Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    The Sun=LIGHT&TRUTH “Sunbather”

    “Turning on the heat”

    We are all Sun Worshippers. It is easy to understand how this star became a deity to the ancients considering it warms and replenishes us into activity and strength. Turns out, all of us are batteried by solar power, just like the reptiles. Our doctors and cosmetologists tell us to “stay out of the sun” and get our Vitamin D in a pill but we ignore them, drawn by the need to sun ourselves on the nearest rock, eyes closed into seeming vulnerability while our planet perpetually circles this fiery blaze. The Sun therefore represents in our lives a nourishing force which could make us stupid should we over-indulge.


    Light defeats darkness. To understand what this means we need to shed any “nocturnal prejudices” we may have and concentrate on light as the necessary enabler of Sight. In total darkness, we are at a loss; we see nothing. To “shed light” on a problem means to finally “see” it for what it is. Light, in other words, is knowledge. Understanding. We finally get it! It’s the “forehead clapping” moment when the “magic picture” resolves itself into shapes that make sense. Without this basic road map we are unmoored – can make no meaningful plans.


    Light, then is the Beginning of Intelligence. Light is Truth. It helps us to see each other for what we really are so we can forge meaningful connections, create meaningful plans and map out shared goals. Even the blind can make important use of Light – and all of us are partially blind in one way or another. But it is what we can “see” –and share – that matters.


    If Truth is so important, why do we all lie? The religion of advertising is both ethos and atmosphere in American life. A policy of presenting yourself in “your best light” becomes researching other people’s needs and weaknesses to find out what they can’t resist and pretending you’re that thing. This is no way to locate a Soulmate.

    The anger, suspicion and mistrust, the contempt, derision and manipulation behind these ideas does not magically go away. Therefore, we hate others for forcing us to be fake, and they hate us for not accepting their real selves. It’s a perfect storm of secret rage that torpedoes any possibility of authentic relationships.

    The way out is to commit to a different “religion” – that of honesty and sharing. But honesty requires knowing oneself, and we’ve discussed how difficult (and discouraging) that can be. Still, there’s no other way. We are who we’ve BEEN, who we ARE, but also who we WANT to be. And we need to want to be that person for a better reason than it looks good on TikTok or it might exert appeal over someone who turns us on.

    Fearful that you’ll be lonely forever? Au contraire! It turns out all of us have been yearning to bask in the comfort, the promise, the safety of reality, a place where growing things can freely evolve and connect, in peace.

    SUNBATHER

    Poor periwinkle hides
    within the final
    spiny spiral of his shell, no
    stronghold that from
    hungry file-worms’ whippet tongues nor
    sun-mad amateur biologists nor
    ten year olds; while I
    more evolved, lie
    among the oval-jointed shells, the
    sheepswool sponges, camouflage
    my breasts as comb-jellies, my hair
    as seaweed, fooling none yet
    impressing those
    I can’t deceive.

  • The Language of Butterflies – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Winter = DORMANCY

    “What’s happening when nothing’s happening?”

    Winter’s force is shrouded, subtle. This unfolding happens on the universe’s timeline, not ours. There’s a lot of downtime – “thinking time.” Plenty of space for self doubt to creep in.

    All the important changes are happening just beyond our vision. The snowshoe rabbit changes fur to pure white for self-protection; he doesn’t have to think about it; it just happens. Other creatures work a little harder.

    Our art teacher always told us to value the white spaces, because they throw color and design into sharper relief, and so it is with winter. Finally, we see all things in clear perspective. Suddenly the humble woodpecker becomes a most exotic bird.

    Adventuresome humans love winter where gravity meets speed; we are always flying down one hill or another. And when we get to the bottom, we do it again! The thing I like best about winter is that it holds the promise of spring, tight in its protectively furled bud.

    Under the quiet surface much is happening, but little may be visible. (Psychologists call this “latency”.) Winter bears a real similarity to the state we call “sleep.” We yearn for sleep, even find it exciting, and researchers are constantly uncovering more benefits that it provides. It seems to “clean” our brains the way winter “cleans” the world!

    Winter has its own exotic creatures, the polar bear, the snow leopard, the precious ermine. These creatures seem magical to us as they make a living on the harshest landscapes.

    “Dormancy” is a necessary phase for anything living thing. All our energy is being conserved for maximum growth. We must ask ourselves: what is this thing that is gathering power? Is it a long desired consummation or some threateningly impossible monster?

    We remind ourselves that explorers saw the same “ice” bear we consider so adorable as a “monster.” Melville’s deadly whale was “white”. Perhaps beauty and monstrosity are flip sides of the same coin. What is happening to us? What do we want to happen? The real question is, Is our unconscious “for” us or against us?

    Jung said when we analyze our subconscious, it analyzes us: a marvelous phrase suggesting growth is a back-and-forth tennis match between our known and unknown selves. “Winter” gives us a chance to greet the unknown self and cuddle up with her. Much to think about!

    After our burst of energy planting seeds in searching for a soulmate, it may seem the world’s inert. But seeds are “taking hold.” The Bible reminds us that some will grow and some will not. We ourselves don’t know what we have planted and what it will look like when it finally enters sunlight.

    Once again, it’s all about us; how patient can we be? How do we handle uncertainty in this uncertain world? Can we relax against changes of pace, lessening of control, confusion? As we search for our “forever” person we need to BECOME a “forever person.”

    This is very unfamiliar, so of course we move slowly. No kneejerk reactions of anger or despair. There’s a joke about a motorist stranded without gas, carrying his can to a nearby farm but worried the farmer won’t cooperate. The motorist gets so angry at this imagined exchange that when he sees the farmer, he throws the gas can at him, screaming, “Keep your old gas!”

    He couldn’t “tolerate” the walk to the farmhouse without doubt, fear and shame sabotaging his thoughts. Let’s not handle our period of dormancy in that way. Let’s use it to toughen up. Sharpen up. Sweeten up, like maple syrup in the tree.

    TOO LATE IN THE YEAR

    The mind is double-edged as well as double-eyed
    She thinks; stands
    outside to watch him
    Sightlessly within;
    Safe within his private storm he
    Covers sheets with runes,  
    Purloined plans from somewhere else;
    Plagiarized love-letters –
    Sexual ivy casting
    Hawks-wing shadows
    on his bloodhound cheeks;
    That smile is too cautious;
    Too familiar;
    In season and out;
    Nurtured like his scars
    Deepening like his drama.
    Save him, save him voices cry but
    I know better; it’s too late
    Too late in the year.

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

    The shadow=DISSONANCE “Considering the Chill Factor

    “Confronting your shadow self”

    We were very young when first we became aware of The Shadow. No happy moment, no celebration of joy is unaffected by its subtle miasma. But what is it exactly?

    Much of childhood – history itself, in fact – is absorbed by the effort to put a name to this lurking angst.

    Demonic forces, bad dreams, animals, reptiles, insects, The Invisible – entire populations of seemingly foreign persons have been stigmatized by this label. Which is not to say that somebody, somewhere, didn’t experience trouble from the reality of these forces.

    Philosophers tell us that all we’re feeling is an inherent fear of death, but we can see that fear itself is hardwired into species who are otherwise unselfconscious of the limitations of existence. Perhaps all we have to fear is Fear itself, as the President put it. But who would willingly wish to walk fearless through this dangerous world? Isn’t it better to be prepared and take care?

    A great man once advised us to be as wily as serpents and as gentle as doves. Good advice for gardeners! The knowledge that joy is fragile heightens its ecstatic power. Without this triple vision of past, possibility and future courage itself would be impossible.

    Suspicion – There is something behind us. We can feel its unsettling presence. It seems to follow us everywhere, teasing a fine line between doubt and paranoia. In medieval times this “shadow” was represented by The Grim Reaper, complete with cape and scythe, reminding us the party would soon be over. We are warned to “Take care” by friends and loved ones; but against what exactly?

    Doctors tell us to be vigilant about our health while at the same time they mock hypochondriacs. There are people who never “take care” and who insist that suspicion itself creates the monster, but on the whole, these people are not enviable. They appear to have rejected a “sixth sense” we’re all born with. Who would willfully blind themselves?

    For those of us committed to exploring all our senses suspicion shadows joy as doubt shadows faith. Visually, shadows show us where things are. Like taste testers cultivating knowledge of the edge between sweet and sour we “feel” for the “turn” of the tide. The better to avoid it? Possibly to control it? At least to get an image – however brief – of the Thing that has been following, following?

    Ascetics need particularly to arm themselves with some sense of when “just enough” turns into “too much.” Many authorities try to convince us that being a little “hungry” is a good thing. Certainly being “sated” triggers a drowsy, relaxed, state in which our “guard” is down. We do lose consciousness of that quiet little “frenemy” following. Following. The Shadow symbolizes a problematic development just coming into perceptive range.

    Jung says we all seek our opposite, our “shadow self.” Feminists want house-husbands, wall street traders want supermodels. We yearn to recover our disavowed selves, blindly, subconsciously. Online profiles request specific “looks”, weights, backgrounds, experiences as if “soulmate” was a job. Yet we remain dissatisfied; feel  shortchanged. Perhaps the shadow is fear of change. The thoughtful among us blame ourselves: “I’m not right”; the shallow blame the world:  “I can never get what I want.”

    The truth is we are judging plants by seeds when what we want are gardeners. We want to become gardeners, we wish to BE the garden. But how on earth can we do THAT?

    Absence of understanding OR language renders our circumstances hopeless. We need another singer who will help construct a duet that doesn’t yet exist, a fellow artist of the sexual, the subconscious, the unconscious, who paints us as we photograph them. We need to be prepared to change places in a moment, to sing and redesign the other’s part. We must be willing dreamers with a huge repository of fantasy, fearless poets accessing a universal vocabulary. We will fall in love, then out of it, fall deeper, soar. It will feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar at every point as we blend swiftly changing roles of tutor and pupil.  Prepare yourself to plunge into another and become them, as they remodel you.

    CONSIDERING THE CHILL FACTOR
     
    Considering the chill factor
    As I always try to do –
    That day was hot
    Too hot for love or war.

    We sit in restaurants.  I pick
    The blue-veined shrimp
    He picks the black-veined news.

    Outside drunkards
    Carom off the plexiglass like entertaining fish.
    “They envy us” I say
    and Andrew says
    “How nice.”

    I see a couple coming in; she holds him up
    As I so often upheld you.
    I know that touch – like
    surgeons who
     manipulate the dying.

    She wears my dress
    the one I wore the day you
    Shamed me
    Stuck me sizzling to the sidewalk –
    Shamed us both
    with red red stains.

    “Andrew  I don’t think
    I have quite forgiven you.”
    Andrew says “How nice” and
    Lays his coffee spoon upon the cloth –
    I hate the brown stain –
    it spreads like murder
    Like the bad smell of death
    Breeding fumes as we do
    Corpses in the sun.

    I rise to speak
    Shrimp spewing from my mouth like
    Parasites.
    “We have always been
    So happy, you and I-“

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

    The Rainbow = “SERENDIPITY”

      Rainbows have vast cultural, religious, and psychological implications. They announce that the storm is past and offer a gateway to somewhere obviously special, right up there in the sky, a glittering gateway offering us every color in the spectrum. “There’s a land that I dream of,” sang Judy Garland yearningly and we sang and yearned right along with her.


      Rainbows have their head in the heavens and their feet lost somewhere on earth; sheltering a “pot of gold” or so they say. But if you soar through their beckoning gates obviously you will have to leave the gold behind. Rainbows are clearly magic, yet everyone, even skeptics, even the unimaginative, can see them. This Rainbow is a gateway to whatever we desire, if we just could figure out what it is. There’s nothing earthly about the transcendence that it promises. We’re even a little afraid of it. We’re not ready for it YET. But we’re so, so glad it’s there. Just like Serendipity itself.


      What role does luck and chance play in our lives? We are all familiar with the phrase, “The harder I work the luckier I get.” But how about chance? Chance seems to determine who will be our mate, for one thing! True, we often strategize about putting ourselves in the “right place at the right time” and we want the same thing for our kids, otherwise there wouldn’t be this deadly serious skirmishing over “the right pre-school.” We are very aware of “unlucky accidents” and try to prevent those as best with can with a seatbelt and a multi-vitamin; even those of us who smoke and gamble know that much.


      But sometimes we don’t value “good luck”, especially if it’s completely unexpected. Do we feel it’s “undeserved?” If we have children who sleep easily or get good grades do we just take that for granted while focusing on “what’s wrong?” How about our own health and good looks – not to mention the love we feel around us — are those things only “treasured” when they’re gone? I think of the woman who said she doesn’t focus on whether a glass is half empty or half full but instead on who’s going to drink it and whether she will get any?

      We need more than beauty, more than strategy, more than alliances. We need Good Luck. Serendipity is Chance. What are the odds you would walk into that grocery store, check a disused social media account, return an item, misdial a call? Our whole lives seem to be comprised of Lucky Accidents and Near Misses.

      Yes, we try to learn from them, but we are spooked as well. It’s enough to make a person superstitious, because, How can you engineer happy fortune? This way: “The harder you work the luckier you get.”

      Be there. In the right place at the right time. When you’re looking for a soulmate it’s like looking for a job – it helps if everybody knows about it. Let’s widen our opportunity to Get Lucky.

      Serendipity

      All art’s
      “Controlled Accident” –
      Maybe Love is also –
      You plus God plus
      Fate:
      Equals serendipity –
      Give up power steering
      Float – Dream – Surrender
      Unto the skid

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

      Peace=SERENITY “Everything Will Work Out”


      What does it mean to have confidence in the future? We know the most attractive thing about others is “confidence.” Unfortunately, confidence can be faked, so there are a lot of people who believe that’s all it is: a shiny shop window. But if the goods don’t match the advertising, frustration and anger sets in.

        We’re looking for the long-term – immortality in fact – which can be achieved by two souls in perfect synch. We want to exude not just confidence but serenity. We want to be the person it’s peaceful and re-charging to be around because THAT person is VERY attractive.


        That kind of serenity and confidence comes from communing with the eternal. Yes, you’re going to have to “iron out” your philosophy BEFORE you find your soulmate. Christians satisfy themselves by getting to know God. Buddhists bathe in eternity itself. Karma is the “vibe” you send – if it is a peaceful one, it will come back to you.


        Peace is the absence of strife; a sense of repletion and comfort. It is less active than joy, and people are actually afraid of it, the way they’re afraid of heaven. If everything’s already achieved, then isn’t hope dead? That’s why they stir things up by taking pokes at people. Develop a concept of “peace”. A related concept is “plenty” and another is “enough.”


        When you are not actively looking for attachment, when you are feeling “enough”, people flock to you. It is because of that very sense of being “at peace” with yourself. Others want that sense for themselves, they are intensely attracted to a peaceful aura, which comes across as confidence, even if you haven’t got a single accomplishment to brag about. People like that are a relief…a relaxation…a vacation to be around.

        Can a sense of peace be “faked”? Obviously not. Time – and it doesn’t take much time – will fast reveal the truth. Much less trouble to cultivate ACTUAL peace. How do we do that? Through the calming disciplines of mindfulness, yoga and gratitude cultivation. If we can demonstrate that we are open to joy, people inevitably desire what we have.


        We are creatures of hope. If we sharpen ourselves against others as if they were cuttle bones, isn’t the absence of effort an absence of self-definition? We would just sink back into the undifferentiated mass of persons as into a heavenly cloud, all light, without defining shadow. Stop worrying! This is just “semantics” because Peace makes no sense without love and love is active. Harmony is desirable; disharmony is not. Listening to a cacophony is wearisome after the first few seconds, while harmonics, however subtle and complex, produce feelings of rightness, joy and Peace.


        What if we lose confidence and serenity?
        Doubt is human. Uncertainty is human. We armor ourselves with our belief in the promises of the eternal.

        But isn’t doubt disabling? At what point can we just relax? Most Americans think confidence comes from a track record of rewarded accomplishments. In pursuit of a soulmate, let’s imagine you in conversation with a stranger. As you’re wondering about them and trying to get to know them, you rapidly realize that spouting your resume and listening while they brag is NOT, actually, informative communication. What you really want to do is get a “feel for the other person’s “essence.”


        Are they “itchy? Restless? Or are they yearning for peace? If so, you can work with that! Experiment by “relaxing together.”

        Soulstice

        In this the Purgatory of the year
        the crystal cracks the future clear
        The fire maple stands unleaved
        And stalks the bony breast of earth bereaved;
        The sap within the corpse unseen
        Boils up a ready dynamo of green;
        The fetal fish child stirs and yawns
        An equinoctial birthday dawns.
        This is the zero hour when
        Our future dances with its end
        This winter music, echoless
        Raised up the chalice that is Us
        He gives, we are the offerings
        Unto the center and the focus of all things.