Alysse Aallyn

Category: recovery

  • The Book of You – Haiku Diary by Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku: The Columbine

    Reckless

    Drought victims

    Seek flood;

    Drenching mimes

    Drowning;

    Overwhelms

    Parched cells

  • The Book of You – Haiku Diary by Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku:  The Bridge

    Stuck:

    I’m here and you’re there.

    I’ll meet you

    Across an

    Ocean’s loneliness.

  • Haiku Diary by Alysse Aallyn

    Haiku: The Life Force

    Energy

    Resurged –

    De-powers dread

    Re=powers health

    Re-focus

    Aim

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Meditation = MINDFULNESS “the Poet On Her Walk”

    “Understanding and accepting the moment”

    Meditation is the Art of Looking Deeply. It takes concentration and practice and all the gifts that makes us human – but our physical, mental and cultural “tics” – fight against our cultivation of this vital skill. We must master our physicality to engage our brain in Deep Looking.

    Begin with the breath, inhale, exhale, calm the tumult in our blood. As thoughts appear, set them one by one before your Inner Eye and turn each over in your mind without judgment. We are just floating by. The goal is to learn to feel compassion for the creatures of this earth; so that ultimately we can calm the tumult in everyone’s life journeys.

    Before our eyes now is our yearning for our Other Half. If we are living in the past growth hurts like a requiem for a Lost Self. Yet deep looking into our “now” will rescue us from past suffering. We see past the pain of our perceived unworthiness and the inadequacy of others to the universal healing magic that is love. We perform the “thought experiment” of transforming our minds in order to recognize the Beloved and be recognized by them. This is the most powerful charm; a transformation that solves our earthborn dilemma.

    Meditation is quieting and emptying. Once we soothe the rattle of panic and hysteria that infects each of us through the pressure of living, learn not to react to the “what ifs” and “shoulds”, the fears and preconceptions, we will become our own crystal ball. Push gently on the inevitable thought-balloons drifting through the cathedral of our minds and let them go. When we master the breath, we seize control of life itself.

    Find a “mantra.” Some use prayer – I suggest St. Julian of Norwich’s “All will be well, and all things will be well.” or “the light in me honors the light in the world” or “I am peace” works as well. Feel free to invent your own mantra. Give yourself permission to take loving charge of thoughts and body. Be a tender mother to your new self. When you support your shy new self, you practice welcoming the Beloved. Picturing ocean waves rushing in, then rushing out again along the sand. Relax all your muscles, one by one. Wait. Begin again. Continue until flooded with peace.

    The Poet on Her Walk

    Who dares malign
    The intellectual consolations of this morning
    When every leaf becomes the corner of a star
    And every pond a covenant. Where
    Isles of light illumine
    Tracts of water – blind the
    Spaces where I first saw you.
    Transfix my grief with
    Arrows of wisdom
    Dissolve the veil that
    Separates me from
    Myself; eight years old.

    Who are you that I should fear to
    Stroke you wrong, dissolving pride in
    Mansions of darkness that hood your eyes; the
    Terrible readiness , the
    Dissipated resolution;
    Deepening the silence
    Deepening between us
    Like the ocean between us;
    The silence of wheatfields
    Waiting for wind

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

    Recovery = REBIRTH “In the Hour of Our Death”

    “If you don’t have a loving relationship with yourself, no one else will.”

    Several times on your path you will feel the need to “re-boot” and start over. “Rebirth” is available to us any time, following a period of reflection, retreat and re-centering.

    “Recovery” begins to happen we manage to repel a demonic force that kept us in thrall – addiction, illusion, corruption, compulsive behavior; even a poisonous culture. Sometimes, we were hostage to another human being who didn’t have our best interests at heart.

    What ARE our best interests? As our brains begin to clear we begin to understand. Ernest Hemingway used to say we are “stronger at the broken places” and Nietzsche expressed it as “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” but obviously these maxims only hold true if a complete healing has taken place.

    Complete healing provides peace as well as joy. We give thanks that we have started on the journey.


    Second Chances – Expect to stumble. Watching toddlers try to “rise and walk” we must consider what a good thing it is that they don’t mind being laughed at. (In fact, they love it.) It takes them quite awhile to figure out this new challenge. Like beginning skiers, they cling to objects, sway exaggeratedly back and forth, slam into others, and plop down SPLAT; not just once or twice but over and over. In fact the toddler hasn’t been born who suddenly vaults up suavely and starts swanning around in a sophisticated manner.

    And those are the ones with no impediment to walking – watched hungrily by the less fortunate who only wish they could be blessed with this magical opportunity to make public fools of themselves.

    Once we take in the meaning of these facts we embrace the last step of Recovery: “Expect to go splat.” Of course we don’t WANT to – fingers crossed – it’s dangerous and bruising. We’d better arrange to have someone around – just in case. But you don’t fail unless you refuse to rise again. Don’t even bother counting the times you were “brave”. It’s only the “getting back up” that counts. As long as you’re doing that, you’re a true winner.

    As we study ourselves with a desire to put our best foot forward we are increasingly overwhelmed with despair. This old self won’t do. We are the club no one wants to join; us included.

    We have to ask ourselves if part of our desire for the Other is a longing to be rid of Self. But how is this to be accomplished, when we know that any relationship built on fakery must surely fail. How can a New Self be the Real One?

    Fortunately, there is a model for this in the recovery movement – legions of people giving up self-destructive habits and birthing a fresh new self. They say the relief is glorious, everything is more meaningful as their confidence grows. We want some of that. We must abjure all the behavior that have caused us suffering in the past. What are they, exactly? Let’s identify and enhance the wonderful things about us, the self we want to keep.

    And in the Hour of Our Death

    I am wind sucked
    The tempest starts without me
    Scuttled like a leaf


    I loose your hand
    My words come fire
    My blood blasts forth


    And vomits out
    This darkness
    Some god commands


    I push
    I flee – I won’t be born –
    I push


    And then relax.
    It can’t happen all at once.
    The corpses dance


    The trees devour their own roots
    I’m spat like pulp
    I push –


    I’ve gone too far
    To get back now.
    I’ve lost your cord


    Threaded in the frenzy
    That is life.
    My lips are ceremonies


    My hips are burial grounds.
    Silence rushes in to bear me up and I explode
    To atoms.


    What is this new lightness?
    Into this furnace of stars
    I collapse my burdens like


    A house of cards, I soar, I flirt
    My strength
    Is limitless


    My soul, my life
    An infinite caress.