Alysse Aallyn

Category: #PersonalChange

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Paradise – Bliss:

      If This Card Chooses You – Suffering isn’t eternal. Your ecstasy is guaranteed. But what is your definition of paradise? Some people want to see their enemies suffer. That’s what the view looks like – in hell. If you wanted to find your bliss, where would you look? Find yourself dreaming of a tropical getaway? Is your definition of heaven raised consciousness or lack of consciousness? Would you want to know what is happening in the world or would you want to be removed from the world? Can you really be happy if you know there is suffering anywhere?

      If There Is a Hell, Multiverse Declares Its Opposite Must Exist – As we mature, we can choose to either elevate or denigrate our consciousness. We are creating “heaven”, or “hell” – our choice. Which direction are you tending? Which direction do you want to go?

      Are Warriors Heaven Material? When we are young, we obsess about whether we are really liked or loved, whether we are really “popular.” As we get older we slowly realize that people like/love to the extent of their spiritual and emotional ability/depth. Shallow people offer very shallow love – nothing can take root there. It can flip in an instant. If the whole purpose of life on this planet – a struggle by any standard – is for humans to become more like God then we are being challenged to create the kind of emotional and psychic depth that sees ”inside’ – understands and accepts everyone’s struggle, everyone’s challenge.

      Warrior Challenge – Bliss is a scientifically provable psychic state of timeless ecstasy mapped by “alpha waves” which can be seen in the brain. This state is called “flow”. We drift outside ourselves and belong to the universe. It is the condition called “mastery.” This is such a happy state we long to cultivate and re-experience it, which we can do from immersing ourselves in art, meditation, love, sexual/emotional union, or thought.

      Warrior Soul – Non-Warriors bounce between self-obsession and living entirely in and through other people. Neither condition is optimal, although there are times in our lives when these states are necessary or unavoidable. Balance – sometimes called moderation – is the warriors’ secret. Warriors are IN the group, but we are not “the group”. We do not subjugate our brain to the “group mind” but contribute our educated brain-power to it. Warriors elevate the group with the our Soul power even when others try to drag it down through thoughtless replication of idiotic non-ideas.

      Self-Lessness is A Terrible Fate – Some people choose to never develop an individuated self. They pass from group to group, trying to “fit in” and quell the inner voice that says. “this isn’t right.” Warriors call attention to violations of our basic human mandate: to develop a soul that is worthy of God.

      Warriors are Individuals Who Become More and More Unique – You are on a hero’s quest: you are the hero and the quest is for your Soul. This is both an inner and an outer quest. We have responsibilities from birth onwards; when we come to consciousness we can clearly see we are our brother’s/sister’s keeper. We are our own keeper, too. Mistakes – sometimes devastating ones – are expected. It’s a dangerous world and we will meet more than one predator looking to make a meal of us.

      Warriors Know Where They are Going – Elevate, denigrate or disintegrate. Your choice: every minute of every day. consciousness. “Heaven”, or “hell” – your choice. Which direction are you tending? Which direction do you want to go?

      Warriors Know Bliss – Bliss is the haze that comes after successful efforts. Bliss is the warriors’ prize. It comes not only from doing well, but from intending to do well and shaping your soul and purpose and ideation toward Wellness.

      Warriors Choose Heaven – We must be wily as the snake and tender as the dove. Because in the end, it’s all about Love. The more you give, the more you feel. The more you give, the larger your capacity for ecstasy.

      Models & Mentors – “Follow your bliss and walls turn into doors” – Joseph Campbell

      “In a state of bliss – everything is love” – Deepak Chopra

      “Joy is a connection to what matters – a sustained sense of well-being and inner peace”

      – Oprah Winfrey

      “I need not sell my soul to buy bliss” – Charlotte Bronte

      #Haiku: Bliss

      You and
      I
      Merge;
      Evanesce;
      Solids
      Deliquesce:
      Fire,
      Air
      Acquiesce.

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

      Loss – Suffering:

      If This Card Chooses You – You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb. Every religion and philosophical system must account for the misery we see around us – storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration and animal predation.

      Warriors Get Used to Loss – Do your dream explore inner and outer pain? How much is fear, how much is anxiety, how much is collective unconscious and shared human history? We fear there is no possible paradise where everyone can be happy all at once. How do we 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.

      Warriors 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. Warriors 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. We stop even trying to better our human situation while attracting predators to such easy prey. Even worse, we become predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.

      Warrior Daring 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 this 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 snowblanket?
      Peonies decide.

    2. Becoming a Warrior -the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      Transformation – Metamorphosis:

      If This Card Chooses You – You are about to undergo a major transition. Are you a SciFi fan? Do you dream of bionic humans? Robots? Cryogenics? How about caterpillars becoming moths and butterflies? Acorns don’t look like oak trees, pollywogs don’t resemble frogs. It is quite common in nature to evolve into some unexpected form. What a metaphor for us, as Ovid’s Metamorphoses postulated centuries ago. We speculate about humans becoming invisible, disguising themselves as bats or wolves; Greek gods “became” swans and bulls to further their purposes. Our imagination is rich with all these possibilities, as is our literature, theatre and film. At a funeral, we look at a bird invading the church is a whole new light. Is it a message? An incarnation?

      Your Possibilities are Infinite – Every time you buy a bottle with an animal on the label you are calling on the powers of that creature just as your ancestors did. We suspect consuming even the “idea” of a creature might confer their powers. We also heard the legend that when a human husk breathes its last, the soul escapes and may reincarnate in heaven or even in another life as something entirely different, perhaps without blemish, wholly beautiful for once and for all.

      Warrior Power – Who’s your power animal? What supernatural gifts do you desire? Give yourself the freedom to think about the talents you yearn for and the purposes you’d put them to. You can define yourself this way, experiment and play. You might not wish to be a dragon every day of the week, but once in a while it could be fun. How can you cultivate these gifts, desires and yearnings in your present-day life? Don’t these dreams make you a bigger, more important warrior, even if nobody knows? What if they did know? How might you tell them and who would you tell?

      Warrior Danger – We don’t want to jump off buildings pretending we can fly. We’re expanding our psychic repertoire, not trying to escape into fantasy. The most commonly yearned for gift is omnipotence. But think how terrible life would be – not just for others but for YOU if your whims and fantasies were never checked? Often our wish is that we be spared the pain of growing up. But who wants to remain a toddler forever? As we get older we are REALLY coming into our own and knowing and sharing our true self. A joy not to be missed. Pity the toddler who prays to fly through the air so he doesn’t have to learn to walk and risk falling down.

      Models & Mentors – “Nothing gets transformed in your life until your mind is transformed” – Ifeanyl Enoch Onuoha

      “Every success story is a tale or adaptation, constant revision, and change” – Richard Branson

      “Perfection is constant transformation” – Nia Peeples

      “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not fighting the old but building the new” – Socrates

      #Haiku: Being Is Relationship

      Electric seeks
      Charge;
      Transformer –
      You’re my lock on
      Immortality

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

      Mystery – Faith:

      If This Card Chooses You – You long to uncover the solution. Do you have faith that there IS a solution? What is your tolerance for the mysterious? Given how the universe works, you may need to crank it up a notch. Do you dream of apocalypses? Religious iconography? Are you a mystery fan but irritated and underwhelmed by most “solutions”? How much uncertainty can you tolerate? Are you afraid of the dark? Chronically underslept? Fear being alone? The Mystery card warns, you have a profound need for faith in your life.

      The Faithful Are Rewarded – Untrusting people are untrusted. George Bernard Shaw said it best: liars can’t believe anybody. Everyone knows this, but even so we often rush to trust where it isn’t warranted, then enter a cycle of disappointment, yearning and ill-placed hope that drives our mood still lower. We need somebody and something to rely on. How can we find them?

      “People don’t remember what you said, they remember how you made them feel.” Recall your childhood – the people you loved and trusted and the people you were scared by and nervous about. You were developing a “gut instinct.” Who were the friends that stayed with you in the face of adversity and who were the ones who dropped away?

      Love always makes the difference. It is the magic salve that soothes and heals life’s inevitable bumps and scrapes. People who offer real love you can have faith in, people who offer something else – status, belonging, self-serving rationales – disappoint us. Faith gets stronger the more it is proved. We may hope for a good day, but we have faith that the sun will come up.

      Faith Is Trust & Belief in the Worthy -– Sometimes the mysteries of life are deliberate confusions to keep us confused. Why can’t our politicians ever inaugurate the policies that are the reason we elected them in the first place? They try to convince us that “secret cabals” and “unknown enemies” are at fault. They want us angry and befuddled so we won’t place the blame where it belongs and demand accountability. Secrecy serves the purposes of darkness. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

      Warriors demand transparency & accountability. Outline your beliefs and begin to act on them. Some mystery is endemic to existence but when people sharply change direction we can still track their path. Less smoke and mirrors and more step by step upgrades are something we can all agree on.

      Warriors grow in the level of mystery we can absorb. Algebra has logical answers, quantum theory does not. We solve the puzzles that mystified us as children and keep solving until we come to the puzzles no one can solve. But we keep trying! The limits and un-limits of physics and space are constantly being mapped. We are not content with the label “here be dragons” placed across the unknown. We no longer believe God resents and punishes exploration, science and development. A vaccine was developed against a mystery illness in just one year.

      No Hope Without Faith – Insoluble mysteries often have to do with motivation – the spring-work of the soul. Why do we make ourselves miserable? Artists teach us that these questions can be “solved” by posing them differently. Depth psychologists tell us that the shallow reasoning of our surface mind is far less important than deep memories and drives we can uncover through emotional and analytic spelunking. Warriors love mysteries. Develop faith. Never give up.

      Models & Mentors – “Faith is taking the first step when you don’t see the whole staircase” – Martin Luther King Jr.

      “Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong.” – 1 Corinthians 16:13

      “Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there till some light returns” – Anne LaMott

      “If we fight with faith, we are twice armed” – Plato

      #Haiku: Mystery

      Can’t
      “Get to the bottom of”
      World, thought, faith, time or Love; it’s
      Bottom-
      Less

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

      Sex – Soulmates:

      If This Card Chooses You – You are searching for your “other”. Do you look in the mirror and see another face? Do you dream of a lost twin? Do you imagine “the other” across a crowded room, and think when you touch their hand, you will feel a strange galvanic charge? Do you think soulmates are even possible? Is there only one or are soulmates developed? Are you disenchanted with sex? Do you have sex dreams that are more like night terrors? Does sex make you feel increasingly worthless and untouchable?

      Soulmates Are Real And You Have One – It’s never too late. You are never so “lost” you can’t find your soulmate. The problem is, your soulmate feels just the way you do and both of you are frightened of those feelings, isolating you further in an invisible, impenetrable membrane. You want your soulmate to rescue you, but warriors rescue each other. This takes a lot of bravery, a lot of humility, much insight and a little magic.

      When Warriors bond there is no going back.
      The potential magic of sexual connection ignites the search for a SoulMate. Warriors believe that once found, a Soul Pair becomes capable of Time Travel, TransSubstantiation, and Immortality. Genders merge; either one can be feminine, masculine or androgyne at will. One wing searches for another to form a bird and fly. The question we must ask ourselves is: are we willing to undergo the pain of having the boundaries of our borders breached to fully merge with another?

      Warriors Lift Each Other’s Souls – The power of a doubled pair is raised to the nth power by their knowledge, commitment and shared purpose.

      Warriors Release Each Other – There are so many permissions, forgivenesses, and skills we cannot give ourselves. Love literally gives you eyes in the back of your head. There is no hiding from your soulmate.

      Doubled Warriors Power the Universe – The constant clash of mating, sharing, satisfying and negotiating is the music of the spheres. It keeps us all spinning in an ecstasy of selfless selfhood.

      Warrior Challenge – There are plenty of frogs out there and some vipers, and you will kiss each. Possibly more than once. It’s also possible that we have “rewired” our system – through porn, games, and casual sex – so that it actually prevents us from recognizing a soulmate and forging a life bond. This is why starting as friends is so critical. It gets your defenses down to the point where you can talk about fears, desires and problematic reactions. Go slowly, welcome mistakes and be prepared to learn.

      Warrior Danger – Sometimes – let’s face it – most times, you and your soulmate are “sick.” You have “caught” infection from a society that says “fuck you” to eternal, mystical, mutual sexual union. That makes things hard. You don’t recover overnight. You must commit to good mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual hygiene and you will both have to figure out what it is. You need to make a plan – yes, a map – out of each other’s minds and bodies. If the other person refuses to accept health you will have to detach for your own sanity and safety. Vampires make other vampires, and bliss will elude them. The most important part of soulmating is the mutual pledge for health and growth – for both of you.

      Warrior Opportunity – My book, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead – is about the supernatural powers of soulmates. It’s about what to do when you dislike and distrust your soulmate at first. It’s about what to do when you and your soulmate both have horrific pasts and are pursued by actual demons. I can’t say it clearer than that. Don’t be frightened. Your bond is eternal, across time, geography and multiverses. Take it slow. You have all the time in the multiverse.

      Bereavement Is Never The End – As life itself is not the end, bereavement cannot be. The glory of perfecting still awaits, and detached Soulmates have been known to find each other and form new spiritual and physical connections.

      Models & Mentors – “A soulmate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life and then introduce you to your spiritual master” – Elizabeth Gilbert

      “A soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul to do the emotional work of self-discovery and awakening” – Kenny Loggins

      “They fought all the time and challenged each other every day. They were crazy about each other” – Nicholas Sparks

      “I know what love is, because of you.” – Herman Hesse

      #Haiku: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

      Only soulmates can
      Slay each other’s dragons
      Says Tibetan Master

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

      1. Spring – Hope:

      If This Card Chooses You – You Have Reason to Hope. You Cannot Be Too Hopeful. Is Spring your favorite season? Do you dream of unfolding buds and exploding flowers? Is “the mustard seed” your favorite parable? Spring Always Follows Winter – after dormancy, now arrives the season best calculated to provide ideal conditions for growth. Spring is beginning, freshness, newness. It starts small – barely recognizable – the tiniest frond of green among the blackness, calling forth an answering shiver from somewhere deep inside us. We are told that very cell in our body replaces itself in seven years, so springtime is a constant within us. Hope courses through your body with every flush of oxygen and blood empowering our systems.

      Hope is Warriors’ fuel. Hope is eternal. Do you dream of uncovering buried truths? What is your quest? Will it ever be over? Hope is not about “resolution” but about envisioning a future you have a hand in promoting. You feel a sense of awe, but also ownership and some pride. This is YOUR discovery. Now you want to share it with the whole world.

      Warrior Challenge – Don’t waste your imagination on games. Games can be a training ground but all too often our society seeks to harness and entrap your energies onto a treadmill that benefits only the few. Your dreams, your aspirations, your thirst for knowledge, is wider than this. You know the complexities of the universe are even more amazing than anyone has guessed and you want to call attention to them. You need to learn how.

      Hope Is a Sacred Obligation – Life persists in spite of entropy, In spite of darkness, in spite of destruction. Life is a perpetual motion machine fueled by hope, and warriors are the priests of life.

      Warriors Nurture Hope and Pass It On – Hope is the condition of believing better things are possible. It is mandated by the fact that all growing things need nurturing if they are to flourish. Warriors are the mothers of the universe.

      Warrior Dangers – include tunnel vision, paranoia and megalomania. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Obsession becomes obvious when harms become visible. Don’t “give up” because you can’t seem to impose your vision on the world. Are you eating and sleeping? Maintaining your relationships? You can’t achieve bigtime without a team and you need to keep your team happy & nourished. Conflating the majesty of discovery with your own personal majesty – needing that majesty – separates you from human kind and that can’t go well. It blinds you. Paranoia seeds fears that others are stealing from you, riding on your coattails, tarnishing your legacy. But each patch of fresh ground leads to more discoveries. The astonishment – and the astonishers – never stop! Practice humility and gratitude. Aren’t you lucky to be a part of all this? Isn’t it wonderful?

      Warrior Opportunity – Assembling a “team” is critical. TEAM isn’t a formal concept and it doesn’t mean maintaining a payroll. It requires finding the energy to keep your hope alive while keeping it realistic in the community. This implies explaining yourself over and over, developing your idea. Allow others to offer the energy of their perspectives. Even when you see them as wrong-headed, they can operate as whetstones, sharpening our vision. Most important are supporters who catch a “contact high” from the joy of your insights. This happiness creates a nourishing environment that powers us forward. Move confidently in the direction of growth and away from diminishment.

      Models & Mentors – “Hope is being able to see there is light in spite of the darkness” – Desmond Tutu

      “What I try to cultivate is not blind optimism but radical hope” – Junot Diaz

      “Everything that is done in this world is done by hope” – Martin Luther

      “Only in darkness can you see the stars” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

      #Haiku: Altruism

      Crows call “Come Eat!”
      Across trees in hope
      Someday strangers
      Feed baby
      Crows.

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

      Aspiration – The Future:

      If This Card Chooses You – Time To Make a Plan. Time to focus your desires. Do you dream about the future? We know the future is real – it keeps arriving every second! But how often does it match our aspirations? Does that even matter?

      Warriors Aspire – To aspire means to yearn for something better, to be able to imagine something better and to begin to mentally create a pathway to improvement. To eternally yearn for improvement means the ultimate can never be reached, and it is the process itself – the devotion to that process – that becomes the religion of the Warrior.

      Warriors Plan – Nothing comes to reality without a Plan. This is a main argument for the existence of God – a Planner of bluebells and quasars seems so real to us and the scope of the universe, its chemistry, math & physics, so orderly. Even the people who see only “chaos” don’t actually want chaos in their own lives. Is our mind greater than the universe? Clearly not. No single brain has been able to encompass the universal design – not even Einstein’s. Wishing is helpless and works out so seldom it leaves us worse off. But plans evolve, along with us, and even when they fail, WE succeed. Edison said he hadn’t failed at anything, he simply found “ten thousand ways things don’t work.” That’s the “empiric method.” It’s called knowledge!

      Warriors Take an Active Role – Don’t bother investing pride and honor in being “right” – with a universe this complex, NOBODY’S right. Invest instead in having a good, flexible plan that evolves along with you. Plans are adaptable – they must borrow from all disciplines. Plans can be Art – art is what this universe IS – including the people in it. Give your Plan room to grow.

      Warriors Create a Future Worth Having – Without this effort all our futures would fade into entropy, a constant winding down into muck, inertia and dissolution. Understanding the Warrior’s commitment to betterment means accepting our obligation to advance the lives not only of ourselves and our loved ones, but unmet and even unborn others.

      Warrior Danger – Never forget Fundamental Attribution Error. There’s a lot of coincidence and happenstance, which is what the phrase “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time” expresses. So our plan must always be modified to deal with tragedy –the ongoing and universal tragedy of illness, war and disaster. Warriors try to avert these things, will continue learning how better to avert them – but everything isn’t up to us. There are perverse, dark forces at work that enjoy harm and destruction. We can’t become over invested in “winning” because we can’t see or know everything.

      Warrior Faith – This is where Faith comes in. Jesus said evil will not win, and that’s good enough for me. Find your own mantra to help you stay strong and to keep working on a healthier you by designing a healthy plan and promoting people around you who can make your plan better. You will also be contributing to their plans – and that’s gratitude. And love. Win-win!

      Self-Definition is a Joy – Even though the Ultimate can never be reached by in this lifetime and is always just ahead, it gives us a concept of Paradise we can work for. This work provides the deepest pleasure and connection between persons that is achievable on this planet.

      Models & Mentors – “The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment” – Pema Chodron

      “The future starts today, not tomorrow” – Pope John Paul II

      “A good education is the foundation of a better tomorrow” – Elizabeth Warren

      “An uncertain future is not oppressive when Hope guides us” – Charlotte Bronte

      #Haiku: Freshness

      Each nonpareil moment
      Liquefies,
      Cascades into
      Flowing future

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

      Persistence – Commitment:

      If This Card Chooses You – Don’t Be A Flibbertigibbet. Do you dream of rings? Tokens? Trophies? Collecting and collectibles? Antiques, graduations, pawn shops, art museums? Ceremonies? Awards? Rewards? You are longing for the symbols that consolidate desire. But desire is nothing without will. What is your conscious will? Subconscious? Unconscious? Collective conscious will? What ignites you? You are a creature of Now, a chip on the whirlwind, but you will soon manifest power over yourself and the future.

      Warriors Are Athletes – Our skills aren’t very good at first. We know there’s nothing “magical’ about becoming a pro! Who said it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be good at something? Isn’t that, like 27 years? In other words, when you really want something, you’re going to have to make a major life commitment to make this possibility a part of yourself.

      Warriors Hang In There – Being committed means you already know it will be difficult and you will have to push through. Warriors do their best to inform themselves of the challenges ahead and to brush up all their skills, but nothing substitutes for dogged day to day stick-to-it-iveness.

      Warrior Challenge – Are you up for sacrifice? Not many people are! You’re going to have to skip the easy, tempting treats – physical, spiritual, emotional – to satisfy the demands of your training. There’s really only one way to do this. You’re going to have to change into a person who LIKES and PREFERS the goal-driven lifestyle. It’s easier if the lifestyle’s not TOO restrictive. By that logic, you can see that it makes sense to start off slow and build – just like you would in the gym. No sense overwhelming tender muscles with weight they can’t handle!

      Warriors Never Surrender – Retreat is only a re-framing. You wait to see a better way to reach your goal. And sometimes new information makes for a goal change. No shame, there! This is the sign of lifelong learning. Warriors are life-long learners.

      Warrior Danger – There’s the risk that our self-control will be sabotaged. Addiction. Getting obsessed by something that may have started off healthy, even noble. Suddenly you’re in a downward spiral.

      Admit when you need help. Is your obsession interfering with work? Relationships? Health? Are friends and family intervening, starting to talk? When a commitment turns deadly – and we know even romantic relationships can do so – reach out to someone with a balanced perspective. Likely there’s a plan already developed to get you back on track without losing the gains you’ve already made.

      Warrior Opportunity – Persistence in a healthy commitment is the best path to transformation there is. You truly can become a different person, the person you always wanted to be, over time and in tiny steps. When I wanted to give up sugar, I consumed a lot of fake sugar at first, then less and less over time, until now I can’t believe I ever liked or was satisfied by that stuff – real or fake. My palate has changed, so has my health and so have I. That doesn’t mean I don’t eat the occasional wedding cake! I enjoy my new-made self, and so can you.

      Find a buddy on the journey – a tried and true pathway. Use mindfulness to examine cravings, release them and calmly set yourself free. Track everything in your Training Journal.

      Warriors Honor Their Contracts – Warriors make alliances and promises. Some promises conflict with each other. Some contracts we end up not wanting to fulfill but there is just no way out but through. Warriors know how to concentrate on the future and keep trying to negotiate win-win modifications to ease everybody’s ride.

      Models & Mentors – “Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent” – Steve Martin

      “Failure is a requisite for success. If you want to succeed, double your rate of failure”

      – Brian Tracey

      “Success is the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes on something others would give up on after thirty seconds” – Malcolm Gladwell

      “Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism”

      – Albert Einstein

      #Haiku: Commitment

      Means you don’t give up
      Just because you want to
      Grit teeth
      Point jaw
      Plunge
      On

    8. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle

      Passion – Courage:

      If This Card Chooses You – It’s Time to Release Your Power. Do you dream of fantastic feats? Sports? Circuses? Meritocratic competitions? Do you fear standing up in front of the class? Your psyche yearns to muster passion, the fuel for courage. Passion propels us forward when it would be safer to hang back. Why?

      Passion Makes You a Warrior – From your youngest years, you recall that boiling inside of you. Some of us were shamed, some were praised, all of us were re-directed. It is in maturity that we begin to make sense of our passions and to see clearly that not everyone has the same ones.

      Define Your Passions – Passions evolve while you grow as a person. We are constantly re-defining the problem, as well as the Self with which we see the problem. You will “graduate” from one passion to another until you find Compassion, its highest form. This life trajectory is cause for enough for Celebration.

      Passion’s Worth Defending – Intense caring means you’re staking out ground in the universe. The desirable – justice, truth, art – whatever it is – is so important it needs advocates. You become aware that it’s under attack from people who, for personal reasons of their own, find it inconvenient. “Those who fail to stand up for something will fall for anything.”

      Passion Gives You Courage – Defending anything is extremely scary. You can expect to experience every sort of pushback. Studying these possibilities is the beginning of your education as a warrior.

      Have You The Courage of Your Passions? Sometime we want something concrete, but most of the time it is the adventure itself that we seek, we long to be transformed into an athlete of endurance who can farther faster, learn more better and imagine deeper and more vibrantly.

      Fear is a Reaction, Courage is a Decision – Even if you don’t like to fight with your fists you must fight with your mind, with your longing, with your desire. So much is impossible, yet humanity attempts the impossible every day, and a surprising extent of the time, we succeed. Our well-being, our future, depend upon this passion and this courage. Be as wily as a serpent and as gentle as a dove so that your power morphs to encompass the problem.

      Broken Warriors – Will your heart and your courage be broken? Many times, says the fable. But light comes in through the broken places. You will flex and bend. You will evolve and grow. Your passions will change. You will rise above your passions. Your courage will evolve. YOU WILL FLOURISH and the beauty of your effort, of your dream, joins together with all the other glorious human resolutions and accomplishments to power the planet.

      Warrior Danger – Derailment is common. It is endemic. It is not the end. We live in a capitalistic society where some deliberately harness the passion, the courage, the imaginations of others to benefit only themselves. It is heartbreaking to put all your keenest insight into discoveries and achievements that only serve to buy baubles for billionaires. Soldiers can find themselves giving everything for Very Bad Ideas. Artists watch their best installments torched and trashed. All of us face the shock of old age – if we are lucky. You need a shock absorber to upgrade your courage.

      Warrior Opportunity – The hum of the universe provides the refreshment we need. There is still much peace and beauty in the green places, and the eyes of children provide all the light we need. To be strong requires exercise – Push-relax, push-relax. Nutrition has the same requirement. There’s a time to eat and a time to fast and each of those spaces is holy. The less we take, the less we require, the finer tuned becomes our mechanism. The more there is to share. Share with holy people who recognize and honor the gifts of God, not those who try to inspire hate, divisiveness and violence. Naturally we have sore places – we are warriors! We all need to give and receive the magical healing of a loving touch. Let that courage be your passion.

      You Are Not Alone – Someone has your back. Find out who: among the people who love you, among historical figures, famous thinkers and contemporary philosophers. If you can’t find a group, start a group. True friends give each other courage.

      Models & Mentors – “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”

      – Brene Brown

      “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage” – Anais Nin

      “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute for experience.” – Paulo Coelho

      “It takes courage to become who you really are.” – e.e. cummings

      “Courage is contagious” – Billy Graham

      #Haiku: Devourer of Hearts

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

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

      Nurturing – Growth:

      If This Card Chooses You – Your caterpillar is bursting its cocoon. Have you been dreaming about pets? Little wild animals? Gardening? Shepherding projects through to completion? These are Nurturing dreams. Just like a child with totemic objects you long to care for another entity and encourage it to flourish to its fullest potential. You long to protect and succor and at the same time, protect, succor and nourish the lost, frightened, wild, shy, needy parts of yourself.

      Warriors are Anointed to protect the growth pattern of the universe. Through our bravery, intelligence and commitment we nurture the world and make the world safe for the magic of growth.

      Warriors Are Stewards – Anxious about climate change? Are you vegetarian or vegan? Find yourself enraged by animal abuse, factory farming and climate denial? Having nightmares about tsunamis and volcanoes? Do you see the whole of Mother Earth in your care?

      Warrior Challenge – You can stand up for your beliefs and test them. You will make a difference. Remember the legend of the one starfish the little girl saved? She couldn’t save all the starfish, but that one she freed made all the difference. Think about karma. Karma is your cosmic bank account. When that little girl gets to heaven and that starfish testifies, she is Good to Go.

      Warrior Danger – The only danger here is that you will forget to apply your own oxygen mask BEFORE you go seeking oxygen for everyone else! Rookie mistake! Also, a “gathering” signal to predators everywhere that you will neglect your own needs to give to others. A moment’s thought tells you this is a zero sum game where everyone, ultimately, loses. Replenishment is key. Give a man a fish and you have one less fish. Teach someone to fish and you’ve upgraded a human. Develop a method of fish replenishment and you’ve got a sustainable economy.

      Warrior Opportunity – Warriors balance the system. As in the fishing analogy, you are being offered endless chances for Learning, Invention and Creativity. You are lighting one candle after another in a very dark world, to the benefit of everyone who comes into contact with you.

      Warriors are Entitled – To be effective, Warriors must learn the paths of growth. Warriors become expert at detecting causes of destruction and disability. To see this, Warriors must acquire the Wisdom of the Ages, thus giving themselves the greatest benefit the universe can confer: becoming Visionaries and Old Souls who are the keepers of universal order.

      Warriors are Humble – The temptations of power are the number one cause of degradation, destruction and disablement. Warriors are constantly offered opportunities to interrupt the growth cycle and harm others. Humility keeps us sane, modesty keeps us honest and fellowship keeps us free.

      Receiving in Love, Warriors Will Be Received – Warriors are certain of their reward. When Love is the light you live by, you become a conduit for intergenerational, even interplanetary Love. Your faith ennobles you. The love of a child for trustworthy parents is the model Jesus set forth for our relationship to God.

      Models & Mentors – “The only limitation to our realization of tomorrow are the doubts of today” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

      “A tiny change today brings a dramatically different tomorrow” – Richard Bach

      “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, “I’m Possible.” – Audrey Hepburn

      “If a problem is fixable, there is no point in worrying. If a problem is not fixable, there is no point in worrying.” – The Dalai Lama

      #Haiku: Nurturing

      Loving attendant
      Blesses tender moment
      Refreshing
      Survival