Alysse Aallyn

Category: #PersonalChange

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

    The Poppy – Success

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Maybe it’s time you upgrade your concept of success. Do you dream of adulation? Applause? The Poppy, source of lifesaving modern analgesics, represents eternal sleep and endless dreaming. Perhaps it reminds us that the journey, not the arrival matters, because the successful life is one long journey. The tired and footsore creative needs heartwarming visions to sustain joy for the voyage.

    Success Is a Worse Hazard for Creatives Than Failure – If the journey, not the arrival matters, battle-hardened creatives collapse on reaching Road’s End. The Poppy also represents loss of self and a derailment of energy. Future plans are torpedoed in pursuit of a momentary fix. Greeks and Romans used these orange and red flowers as offerings to the dead – Westerners emblazon them on tombstones. Could it be that the very idea of “success” is something of a mirage?

    Success Is How You Define It – Abraham Lincoln famously said people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If we define “success” as adulation and approval by others, haven’t we given away the ultimate power over our lives? Many people define success in material ways – it’s the only way to explain the salaries CEO’s pay themselves, while they freely admit nobody “needs” that much money. They don’t seem to be using it very responsibly either, so I would judge them as “unsuccessful.” If the most important standards are your own personal ones then the only person to please is yourself and those you love. Let’s rephrase the challenge: are you content?

    Creative Challenge – When success is “arrival”, a “finish line” is implied. Do you really want to be finished? As we desire constant progress, then reaching the goal is death. But the opposite – endless striving – is just a treadmill. A “rat race”, in point of fact. So, the ultimate success must be “contentment”. To be content we must assess our lives and come to terms with our missteps. Sometimes we discovered something even more wonderful that we didn’t even know we were searching for.

    Creative Danger – Success is a drug: be careful. Don’t get addicted. Our society views everything as a competition, and the fundamental danger is you comparing your INSIDES (i.e., how you feel) with everyone else’s “outsides” (i.e., how they LOOK.) You can see that’s nonsensical. We don’t visualize each other’s sadness and pain, only display and showmanship.

    Creative Opportunity – is to feel compassion for another’s hurt and struggle. Feel compassion (and forgiveness) for your own hurt and struggle. Assess your place on life’s path. Maybe you’re still on the edge of some great discovery, if so, keep going! Maybe it’s time to take stock of how far you’ve come and have a look at the big map. I like resting, thinking, reading and writing. Retired, I do exactly what I want to most days, surrounded by love. Feels like success to me.

    Models & Mentors – “without continual growth & progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning” – Benjamin Franklin

    “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” – Arthur Ashe

    “There is always light – if we’re brave enough to see it, we’re brave enough to be it “ – Amanda Gorman

    “Rules for success: 1. Believe in your ideas 2. Pick good people 3. Earn Respect 4. Always be a student 5. Enjoy what you do 6. Ask for advice 7. Learn to say No 8. Create the best products 9. Don’t take things personally 10. Create the future”
    – Bill Gates

    #Haiku: The Future Is Now

    Quotidian
    Maps built
    From shreds of
    Daily goals –
    Invisible glue

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

    Children – Legacy

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Time to think about what you will leave behind when you’re gone. Dreaming of pregnancy? Parenthood? Do you fantasize nostalgically about your own childhood? Do you dream of establishing a foundation, benefiting the community? Do you dream of death, funerals, will-making? Your subconscious is considering the legacy you will leave behind – how to live on forever when you’re no longer physically here.

    You Are the Future – Contributing to forming and shaping young lives is a key way we “replicate”. Hearing your own ideas advanced and improved upon is a unique thrill. Generativity is the necessary completion of the formation of Self. Super-Therapist Erik Erickson posits “Generativity versus Stagnation” as the stark choice facing us as we grow older.

    Creative Challenge – We’re usually full of criticisms of our own upbringing – behaviors we do NOT want to replicate. What would you change? What difference do you want to leave in the world? In our capitalist world we always think a legacy is “money” but money is a thorny gift. Think how easily it is lost, misused, wasted, stolen. A better legacy is wisdom: a codebook, “cheat sheet”, a treasure map, the ability to recognize and ENJOY treasure once it is located.

    Creative Danger – We all know about the monomaniacs who want to rebuild the universe in their image. Their view of possibility is restricted to what THEY want, what THEY can do. Time to consider whether our Legacy is just an ego trip. Did we consult anybody else? Will this contribute to a universe others want, need and can enjoy?

    Creative Opportunity – Once again we are offered a magical chance to increase our range, magnify our grasp and celebrate and share our unique joys and gifts. Leaving Granny’s plates or a recipe book to a relative in a will is so unrewarding compared to giving a party. Is there any way we can turn the struggles of ordinary existence into a joy for anyone else? Find out what others need. Think about your own luck and good fortune. Usually we can see a way the path can be smoothed for others. Then we can spend our golden years getting feedback (and usually thanks!) and fine-tuning. What a pleasure!

    Creatives Preserve Value – Creatives exist to increase safety where all living things can grow and flourish.

    Creatives Create Worth – In an atmosphere of respect, value is created. When humans are free to explore, imagination is unleashed. In a time of peace, playfulness and joy are prime.

    Creatives Understand Tradition – Creatives are hard-tested. They love to pass on what is valuable. Sharing skills and preventing common errors is the pride of their acquired wisdom. Our heirs are everyone on the planet.

    Creatives Enhance Sharing – understanding maps, history, techniques and strategies gives creatives a special interest in the experiences of others. You are never too old to learn.

    Creatives Deepen Relationships – It is beneficial for the young to see their elders’ humility as well as knowledge, kindness as well as determination and playfulness as well as persistence.

    Models & Mentors – “Every child is born a genius” – Buckminster Fuller

    “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children” – Nelson Mandela

    “Children make your life important” – Erma Bombeck

    “All kids need is a little help, a little hope and someone who believes in them” – Magic Johnson

    #Haiku: Hope Chest

    Halted at the steep cliff of 
Parental reason;
    Children
    Forge
    Launchpad.

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

    The Rose – Vulnerability

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You awake trembling. Are you helpless in your dreams? Do you dream of children, of your own childhood? In Creative Oracle, the rose represents the soft evanescence of youth when the merest thumbprint of emphasis can leave eternal impressions. As the emblem of beauty, the Rose warns us that this quivering, temporary vulnerability may be the very definition of eternal loveliness.

    Creatives Remain Vulnerable – We are human, and we have no desire to divest ourselves of our humanity. As creatives we defend youth, beauty, humanity, evanescence.

    We Remember Where We Came From – You well recollect how you were molded. Is it a pleasant nostalgic vision or a horror story? Do you resent all the other actors in this drama? Remember, resentment is a poison we consume – we are the only ones it harms. Value Your Training – good and bad – as you value your humanity.

    Roses Have Thorns – Celebrate Yours – Everyone sees the thorn-stripped rose the florist sells, forgetting that roses were born with protections, just like the rest of us. Contemplate yours.

    Creatives Have Many Protections – Our Training, Our Mental Agility, Our Commitments – but most especially our worldview. Others may surrender and fade away, but we know we are designed for eternal beauty, like the idea of stars. It is the essence of life to struggle, to mentally picture the goal and to design and redesign a gorgeous, life-changing map for all who follow.

    Creative Challenge – Can we turn the building blocks of our own past into a constructive, hopeful framework for the future? Can you mentally accept and explore the power of a hardening maturity?

    Creatives Preserve & Build – We do not destroy. The philosophy of “annihilation” is a psychic snare. Terrible things happen to ordinary people and they are changed forever. We may wish those things hadn’t happened but regret prevents us from focusing on reality. We need to understand the world we’re in and map it for those who follow after. History and literature explore the coping mechanisms around disaster and the strong people it produces.

    Creative Opportunity – Resilience is the art we cultivate. We soon realize resilience has its own beauty; this rose may be cut down but the plant is hardly dead, in fact it generously offers an outpouring of constant roses. That is true beauty.

    Models & Mentors – “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity”

    • Brene Brown

    “Being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure”
    – Bob Marley

    “Sometimes you have to drop your guard so your heart can breathe” – Emma Xu

    “The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility” – Paulo Coelho

    #Haiku: On the Vulnerability of Poets

    Dis –
    Composing
    To re-see;
    Melting to
    Re-form;
    Masking to un –
    Mask.

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

    Foxglove – Medicine

    If This Archetype Chooses You – It’s time to pay attention to your physical well-being. This doesn’t necessitate a doctor visit, it could mean you know perfectly well you’re doing something to threaten your health and it’s time to quit.

    But Sometimes a Doctor Visit is Necessary – Do you dream of hospitals? Doctors? Shamen? Magic pills? One of society’s proudest boasts is our seemingly mysterious ability to cure illness, or at least palliate its effects. Your dreams say you yearn for healing, and something in you recognizes you need help.

    Do You Trust Your Doctor? Maybe it’s spiritual healing that’s required. Try a naturopath, acupuncture, massage therapy – you are searching for that instinctively helpful healer. Revisit all our advice on managing gurus (See WISDOM) – they must not be greedy and must demonstrate they have your best interests at heart. You should not become their sex toy or support them in an extravagant lifestyle. Seek references from friends. Anyone attempting to isolate you and wall you off from information is not your friend.

    The Creative Path Is Exhausting. We need constant support. No shame – it’s part of the calling.

    What Makes a Creative’s Heart Race? – Anyone developing their own map is going to get lost frequently. It’s a wilderness out there. How can we find the right path? How can we develop the confidence to choose the “right diagnosis” for what ails us? When should we request a “second” or “third” opinion? How can we stay on the “right” course, or even assess the “rightness” of any course, considering all our past mistakes?

    Creatives Need “Heart Strengthening.” “Foxglove” the source of digitalis, (a powerful heart medication) tells us: Listen to your heart. Get out your Training Journal and start making notes. What questions do we wish to ask? Who do we want to be? Where are we trying to go?

    Creative Danger – Can we tell the difference between a “fortifying” or a “harming” path? TV pharmaceutical ads list grisly side effects for pills tackling the vaguest malaise. Who can overlook these threats? Perhaps the ultimate “danger” lies in ignoring the warnings our “dis-ease” gives. What does “I want to be young again” really mean? We are all mortal. We have just so much time left to plan. To “become”.

    Creative Opportunity – Some people are more confident following an “experts recommend” course, others adapt and customize as they go. Joy is the moment when planets and moments all click into alignment and we feel we accepted as a beloved child of the universe. Let’s unclog our ears, remove the plank from our vision and simplify our world to recapture the moments of joy experienced in childhood. If a loving, guiding force rescued us over and over again, we can summon the confidence to find several human healers to guide us through the healthcare system.

    Models & Mentors – “Hugging is good medicine”
    – Karen Salmansohn

    “Medicine is the art of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease” – Voltaire

    “Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients” – C.J. Jung

    “Medicine cures doubt as well as disease” – Karl Marx

    “The arts are as essential to everyone’s lives as clean food and fresh air”
    – Renee Phillips

    #Haiku: Overcoming Narcissistic Disappointment

    Cuts hurt
    Scars heal
    Skin becomes
    Distinctive; you
    Become interesting.

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

    Clinging Vine – Dependency

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are suffering an entanglement. Do you secretly fear abandonment? Are you afraid of being alone? In Creative Oracle, the Clinging Vine archetype reminds us of all of the unpleasant aspects of needing others’ constant support to function. A clinging vine can’t stand up by itself, it needs an immoveable shoulder to fasten upon. We Americans prefer to live by the fantasy of independence and self-determination. It’s just too threatening to imagine what might happen if the wall we’ve been covertly clinging to, suddenly comes down.

    Creatives Require Freedom of Action – We are all dependent on society for basic functions. At what point does mutual dependency become constrictive? Clinging vines can’t stand up by themselves; they need an immoveable shoulder to cling to. Are you locked into a position of support for someone else?

    Creatives Must Define Freedom in Their Relationships – Recognize and resist parasitic and exploitive relationships where the benefits are unbalanced. No need to over-react. Start drawing boundaries. Teaching the clinging vine to stand up for itself is doing it a favor.

    No One Stands Alone – The truth is, we’re all in this together. Billionaires, leaders, CEO’s, all actually need much more support than we ordinaries. But they insist on maintaining freedom of action – for good reason. Don’t make destructive deals involving your future. Creatives need to Become and their futures are always a Mystery. We are responsive to the fluttering of butterfly wings as well as the shifting of tectonic plates. Divest yourself of pointless, (usually “inherited”) shame (from the collective unconscious) and acknowledge the truth that humans are, for good and ill, social creatures.

    Life Is a Negotiation – Make an experiment of listing your dependencies – bank, mail system, social security? Vehicle, gas availability, fuel affordability? Grocery stores, restaurants, our own two ambulatory feet? Weather, peace, law enforcement?

    Recognize the Fragility of These Systems. Confronting fear creates ruthlessness but creatives never check their brains at the door. We are strategic, planning, evolving. Our maps will always need an update and a redesign.

    Creative Challenge – Are we hanging ourselves in loops of dependency? How can we free ourselves? What could we do to claim more psychic and physical independence? While Mormons may require a “year’s worth” of canned goods in the basement, the rest of us recognize the need for an emergency savings account. We are beginning to understand how a threatened supply chain can snap. Begin imagining some future failure scenarios and hash out the possibilities; if the elevator fail, is it possible to take the stairs? Your dream life will reward you with a lessening of existential anxiety.

    Models & Mentors – “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Fear is the memory of pain. Addiction is the memory of pleasure. Freedom is beyond both.” – Anonymous

    “Don’t work harder on someone else’s problems than they do” – Ross Rosenberg

    “Enjoy togetherness but allow space. Respect differing beliefs. Accept, don’t try to change each other. Appreciate the other, but always be prepared to survive alone” – Darlene Lancer

    #Haiku: Dis – Ability

    Limitations dissolve
    Hand in hand we
    Surmount
    Mental boundaries

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

    Fruit – Fruition

    If This Archetype Chooses You – A project of yours nears completion. Harvest approaches. Do you dream of fruit, perfectly ripe? Do you love to cook and entertain? Are you attracted by movies with long family dinner scenes, everyone celebrating outdoors beneath an arbor? Is touring wine country a popular fantasy of yours? You are a person who is propelled forward by imagining smiles on the faces of others as the work of community and you believe that family harmony is to be celebrated and enjoyed. This vision can keep us going through bitter hardships.

    Harvest Comes Because Creatives Prepare – You became a creative because you resisted others’ negativity, hopelessness and learned helplessness. Instead you turned your eyes to the inevitable rituals of seed care, the healthy promotion of living things, and now you are granted a front-row seat at the celebration of flourishing.

    Creative Challenge – Keeping these visions alive during the training phase is hard, because the growth cycle is long and can be boring and uneventful. That’s why planting occurs in stages, so all your psychic eggs aren’t resting in the same basket. Learn to enjoy all the seasons, without hungering for a single season. This is a good time to contrast group versus individual gratifications and ask ourselves, “What’s that about?”

    Creative Danger – Even Creatives can become thirsty for gratification until it takes more and more to satisfy us. “Winning” is a shallow goal if that’s all there is. Creatives seek harmony, blending community resources to make the whole family stronger. The worst outcome is to be locked in an addiction cycle and spiraling downwards; no longer part of the growth process, benefitting from training and spiritual renewal.

    Creatives Rest by Dreaming Forward – Sitting around the fire telling stories, modeling “success” as peaceful sharing rather than as an endless party. Luckily sleep and dreams are the best model of fruitful dormancy. We require those periods and we need to look forward to their relief and imaginative nourishment.

    Creative Opportunity – Every group celebration of the success and nourishment cycle is different. Are there leftover behaviors that no longer serve you? What fresh, exciting new ideas might you add? Is everyone in the family/community being well-served or are there grumpy holdouts? It’s fruitful to listen to the grumpy holdouts occasionally. How might they do things differently? If all they want is to harsh everyone else’s buzz, maybe they should no longer expect an automatic invitation to the feast.

    Models & Mentors – “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you will get but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

    “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter, enjoy” – William Blake

    “Every deed sows a seed, though the harvest you may not see”
    – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond” – Gwendolyn Brooks

    #Haiku: Return on Investment

    Summer pledges sweat
    Ecstatic harvest romp
    Inevitable cleanse.

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

    Hummingbird – The Soul

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Do you ever dream of hummingbirds? Of the ‘impossible” flight of the bumblebee? Your soul is speaking. Listen. According to C.S. Lewis, we are not a Body with a Soul, we are a Soul with a Body. Our bodies may be all too mutable, but our souls can be eternal. Do you dream of past lives? See yourself in historical contexts? Do you have dreams of utter bodilessness in which you are totally free, seeming to travel invisibly through the power of your mind?

    What Are Creatives Fighting For? Immortality is not a given, but an achievement. Souls are under threat. What is the Sin Against the Holy Spirit that the Bible talks about, the one sin that cannot be forgiven? It is any attempt to slaughter the soul, the stifle your inborne, God-given ability to detect the numinous and to access the sphere of eternality. Creatives therefore fight the greatest battle there is, to protect the power of their own Souls’ immortality and those of everyone else.

    Accept Your Immortality – Can we destroy our own immortality through abuse and disbelief? Sadly, yes, and some of us act like we want to! If “heaven” represents eternal bliss and “hell” eternal pain who would ever choose the latter? Those who find life itself such a stacked deck they turn away from the gamble. It’s soul suicide. This is as tragic as battling against one of our talents (“I’m never going near that guitar.”) Who exactly are you trying to harm? The direction we need to travel is in uncovering who we really are and freeing ourselves. To become a Self worth being.

    Everyone Has Experienced the “Flow “of Bliss– We have knowledge of eternality in our daily life – actual accessible ecstasy in which Time and Impossibility vanish while we experience full connectedness with the universe. We become Creatives just to master this ability – and to transfer it to others. This skill alone makes merely being ourselves a reliable, eternal pleasure.

    Creative Challenge – Obviously, our minds change the same way our bodies do. We grow up! Think about the differences between you now, and you at say, three years old. Imagine the joyous understanding with which you will eventually “get” what seems now incomprehensible. If you just accept that possibility, you can enjoy the Now.

    Creative Danger – What Christians call “sin”, Buddhists call “clinging”. We grab on to any passing thing in fear, to halt the frightening mystery of our flight but of course it doesn’t work! The G forces build up as space revolves around us, meanwhile we are clinging to some crappy object, or some person who is experiencing a different trajectory. Let those things go. Don’t be frightened by your feelings, just study them, turn them into huge iridescent bubbles, and spin them away. Learn to enjoy this flight, no matter how wild it gets.

    Creative Opportunity – Think about the Biblical parable in which everyone is invited to a glorious feast. These “guests” are so threatened by this invitation, they not only don’t go, they murder the messenger. Watch the glorious film, Groundhog Day. Poor weather forecaster Bill Murray is sentenced to living the same reality over and over and over again, trying everything he can think of to escape, including suicide. Finally he decides to learn how to just enjoy the life he has been granted, and to be as nice as possible to the other frightened, enraged, confused souls around him. Only then is he able to move on to the next level which turns out to be the rewarding love of his dreams. That is the Progress of the Soul which we defend.

    Models & Mentors – “the living soul, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled” – Horace Mann

    “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” – Carolyne Myss

    “Without applied awareness of the soul, happiness can’t arise” – Dada Bhagwan

    “The desire to know your own soul ends all other desires” – Rumi

    #Haiku: Last Minute

    Bone grows
    Mind crashed
    Soul merge
    Skin graft
    Intervention –
    Light shaft
    Angel…?
    Laughed.

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

    Wildflowers – Beauty

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Some shy, unpretentious glory awaits your consideration. It could be your own Self. Are your dreams so beautiful you regret waking up? Do you imagine possessing great beauty yourself, or do you dream of caressing another’s gorgeous flesh, the dream lover turning those diamond eyes on you? Do you dream of beautiful places, caverns, waterfalls, chapels –spectacular in their other-worldly glamor? We are all visual learners, attracted to beauty, hypnotized by color. Our relationship to the universe is naturally worshipful.

    Creatives Don’t Take Time to Appreciate Their Own Beauty – We’re here to preserve and exalt – in our own way – the beauty of our natural world. We alert when the planet slips into disharmony, but our love of beauty provides a guide suggesting how it can be restored.

    Beauty Is a Guide to Order and an Education in Symmetry. Wildflowers’ magnificence is numinous. It stands in contrast to the managed world which is constantly attempting to freeze & fetishize the ephemeral, even the eternal. Wildflowers’ mysterious evanescence suggests what true beauty is. To become a servant of the seasons is to fill our lives to overflowing with constant pleasure.

    Train Your Creative Eye – Take joy in your surroundings. Japanese samurai practice flower arranging, for the purpose not only of relaxation, but discernment. As there is “forest bathing”, so there is “flower bathing.” But nature is wide and we are part of it. The Creative Mandate is vast and all encompassing. Puppies doing anything, kittens doing everything, a dance class of toddlers (all doing the wrong thing), flowers coming up through cement, a piece of brilliant stained glass on a battered utility truck, a book of cave paintings, the swirl in our coffee, old photographs, our beloved’s sleepy morning face – once you start “collecting”, you realize beauty is all around you.

    Look in the Mirror – That is what beauty is – those lines, those scars, each one a history. That light behind the eyes is a directing soul, in tune with its guardian angel. Accept yourself. It is necessary for the creative to love Self, in order to truly See, much less Love – others.

    Unclutter Your Soul – Clutter is frustrating for the brain. We all love sharing beautiful pictures, but aggressively, officiously “beautiful” people have been hogging the space. Be discriminating in the cherished mind-pictures that you gather. Think of the brave wildflower, flourishing and free. Is fakery the path to joy or depression?

    Creative Danger – We find ourselves caught in a frenzy of “likes”. A “like” button can have a plethora of meanings, but if we don’t take care, we will begin to “need” likes the way a drunk needs booze. Without them we fear nothingness. Specious approval from strangers – or at least attention – can never fill your heart. The quiet joy of certain pleasure inside your own head as you follow your bliss –– that’s lasting pleasure. Relax, refresh, renew.

    Models & Mentors – “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it” – Confucius

    “Beauty is a light in the heart” – Khalil Gibran

    “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself” – Coco Chanel

    “Don’t think of all the misery but the beauty that remains” – Anne Frank

    “Beauty is reality seen with the eyes of love” – Rabindranath Tagore

    #Haiku: Hold Still Forever

    Beauty
    Herded toward capture –
    Resist!
    Reserve your right to
    Disappoint

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

    Sunflowers – Spirituality

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are Thirsting for Light and the Light is Thirsting for You. Do you dream of other-worldly events? Parapsychological and out of body experiences? Flying and underwater breathing? These freedom dreams of otherworldly mastery tell us much about who we are. In the Creative Oracle, the sunflower represents our spirituality – a reaching out for connection with something others might insist is not there. But we feel – very strongly – that it is. Who’s right?

    Sunflowers Turn to The Light and So Do Creatives. Hundreds of years ago Blaise Pascal argued that we have so much to gain if the supernatural is true, and nothing to gain if it isn’t, so that the calculus is simple. When you act as if the universe was richly designed by a Carer who promotes Goodness and rewards Love, you create the ideal conditions for human flourishing, whereas, as we all know, and has been conclusively proven scientifically, pessimism about outcomes dramatically lowers future benefits. Certainly, one could argue that our communications with each other are fraught with mistake and misapprehension, but that’s an argument for increased effort and insight and hardly a quitter’s mandate.

    Creatives Cultivate Sixth Sense – Some people are born color blind – others are tone deaf – so it’s perfectly possible some are unable to access the extra dimensions. But the lucky creative few – know that there is a universal resource to be tapped into when we can maneuver ourselves to the “right wavelength.”

    Creatives Follow The Sunflower Path – What IS our mandate? Focus on increasing your ability to tell health and growth potential from sickness and disease enhancement. This will help you find the right path and the right people. Goodness never seeks your diminishment and constriction – the ruthless pursuit of human power does that. Test all wavelengths for generosity, balance and liveliness and contemplate what is beneficial in the universe. Bask in the flow of reassurance, resilience and recovery that intense spirituality provides.

    Creative Challenge – Fully explore your fears with a view to answering Immanuel Kant’s timeless question, “What can we hope?” Jesus focused his ministry on healing and met virulent rule-focused pushback. He found himself in a frenzy of status-seeking coupled with denigration. His life as well as his words teach us that the “Letter” kills, but the “spirit” gives Life. It is up to us to find and nourish that spirit. Once you can feel the “angels” – i.e. virtues – around you – (I picture them as nosing deer!) your fear subsides.

    Creatives Never Surrender Their Ability to Scent Danger – No journey can be free of risk. Trust requires us to follow where we cannot see the path, and so sometimes we lose the path. Sometimes we realize our “guide” REALLY looks to capture & constrain, not enhance & liberate. We must maintain our ability and reserve our right to recognize this so that we can reverse course before the cliff edge, telling malignant spirits “You no longer represent me” and to seek out a healthier program of progress.

    Creatives Enhance Opportunity for Everyone – We are never alone. All around us are pilgrims struggling with the same things we’re struggling with. Sharing and caring knits us together. The American two party political system benefits from stirring up hatreds to protect itself from change. Don’t accept it. We are not each other’s enemies. The possibilities for friendship and connection are huge, but hatred and anger lead in only one direction.

    Models & Mentors – “The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”- W.B. Yeats

    “You need not work to become spiritual – you are spiritual. You need only to recognize that fact” – Julia Cameron

    “The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love” – Marianne Williamson

    “Happy people build their inner world – unhappy people blame their outer world” – Dalai Lama

    “The power of God is with you at all times, through the activities of mind, sense, breathing, the emotions , doing all the work, using you as mere instrument” – Bhagavad Gita

    #Haiku: Hegira

    Fleeing outward
    Questing
    Fresh feathers
    Enabling
    Spirit’s
    Aching wings

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

    Art

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Your Soul Cries Out for Definition


    Birds gotta sing. It’s who they are. Do you dream of artistic products – paintings, sculpture, film – or artistic endeavors such as performance and construction? Do you get ideas for fresh pieces and experience exciting nonconformist thinking that seem to evaporate upon waking?

    Some of Us Are Creatives for Art – Art is the judge of our poetic confrontation with the world, the cure and the cause. It is also our prime avenue for non-verbal healing. Only non-verbal healing can address pain that can’t be quantified.

    Learn A New Language Or Develop Your Own – Your inner self is signaling to you that it is time for you to explore other languages – art expression – mastering its terms, and to start inventing terms of your own. Only art can establish the secure connection with others required to nourish you now.

    You Are an Artist Whether You Like It Or Not – Every single one of us chooses modes and objects of expression, consciously or unconsciously, every single day. We buy one object over another because it gives us pleasure; we arrange our living spaces to express some intangible quality about ourselves – a self-definition that signals to others who we are and where we are on our journey.

    Artists Are Free – Art demands individuality. We begin by copying but we must move on to expressing our uniqueness or our soul can’t evolve. If we are happy being part of an unthinking mass we are truly “unborn.” This exploration will grant you a deep peace about being alone with yourself, a strong confidence in who you really are and a feeling of spiritual value.

    New Battles to Fight – This journey is awkward at first, and in other people’s eyes it may remain awkward forever. Why wouldn’t you copy what’s popular? Why not mimic the uncontroversially successful? The problem is, while you are doing that the core of your self-hood is dying like an unwatered plant. And if your soul is dying, you are dying. Also, being bullied by the “art enforcers” is not what creatives are about.

    Sometimes We Bully Ourselves Worse – Perfection is not the answer – it is the enemy. Remember – we flee stagnation. Our soul’s “perfecting never reaches an end – that’s the definition of immortality. Constantly shaming yourself as a no-talent, pretending poseur is horrifyingly destructive to your precious infant specialness struggling for life.

    Make a Resolution to Start Supporting Yourself. The fact that a work is unsuccessful, even a horrific mess, doesn’t mean it isn’t an advance for your vision, insight and style. These are the building blocks of creation. Don’t get hung up on approval. You need teachers, not fans. Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

    Models & Mentors – “Creativity takes courage” – Henri Matisse

    “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” – Henry David Thoreau

    “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight without vision” – Helen Keller

    “You were born an original, don’t die a copy” – Jon Mason

    “Life beats down and crushes the art in your soul to remind you that you have one” – Stella Adler

    “There are no rules, only confidence, aplomb, style & joy” – Neil Gaiman

    #Haiku: Disclaimer

    I don’t write haiku
    They write me
    Jaw slack
    Eyes closed
    Ego playing
    Dead