Effort is the quintessence of Aspiration. “Success” is a different matter entirely. The struggle to achieve absorbs our attention; rest offers us the opportunity to dream yet another Aspiration.
Contemplate the construction of our bodies; the muscle mass and muscle fiber, the growing bone and sinew that power the temples of our quotidian existence. Resting regenerates, but exercise makes them strong. So, aspire we must, nor can we ever stop aspiring. When we relax to plan a new assault, we should concern ourselves less with whether our goals are reachable and more with whether they are worthy.
As we construct a disciplined path to create & curate our Best Other, we cultivate the perfect combination of both Present & Future living. We honor the beauty of our coming Soulmate by taking care of ourselves now. The worst thing that could happen would be if our Soulmate couldn’t recognize us because we dimmed our light in a bloat of self-indulgence. So even though we know loneliness, we feel at peace, because the future promises us glorious togetherness. Our Aspiration says so!
Impure Women
Between my breath And your breath Beneath the phallic Philanthropic statues Volcanic dragstrip Of my city The wounded in the scorched earth policy Of love Muster Linger Await Embodiment. We seek new flesh: Pills to make their Hearts race faster Stopped their faces Dead as clocks That witness Crimes unspeakable To mothers Versed in tabloid gore. Who will bring them Absolution now that I am gone? In the fresh wounds of a Seconal summer The stopped children meet And kiss.
“Are you ready to take care of the Beloved? Or do you just want to receive care?”
Nurturing is Stewardship plus Love. It is a non-exploitative relationship many of the fruits of which the Steward may not even live to see. Nurturing requires both Sensitivity and Balance; an appropriate combination of love, modeling and support which is constantly changing.
Nothing can be decided by rote; intelligence and commitment must be involved and practice and experimentation is required. Experiments mandate a certain proportion of failure: let’s face it; a high proportion. Failure requires recovery and forgiveness – of self and others – and a learning curve. We need to understand “what works” and forge new plans keeping new discoveries in mind. We are all caught up in the physics of existence. Many people who call themselves religious or spiritual wonder why, if there’s a loving God, Earth isn’t already Heaven.
Heaven is (so far as we know) a mental construct exhibiting all the pleasures & joys of earthly existence without the suffering and struggles of this painfully real world. Unfortunately a large proportion of our earthly pleasure revolves around taking, hoarding, and excluding.
Nurturing focuses on producing successful flourishing health and productivity. It literally makes the universe go round. I think it strongly suggests what Heaven really will be like: caring for others in general and promoting universal, not just personal well-being.
Are we patient, loving mothers to our struggling selves? Or are we looking for someone else to assume this role? The Nurturing card reminds us that to find a worthy, healthy other, we must be healthy and worthy ourselves. The symbiosis card told us that reciprocity is key, that this is not going to be a one-way street.
What are our nurturing capabilities? Do we have a pet? Have we mentored? Do we teach? We will represent a mystical wilderness to the Other as we represent a mysterious universe to them. There is so much we can share. There is so much we need to be given to have our Wisdom Eye fully opened.
Cedarwood Chest
Grandpa died young that’s why Grandma never opened The Cedarwood chest Till my twelve years unlocked The scent of dreams preserved Like mullet in red wine.
Never used the wilting nightgowns Featherstitched sheets Between whose coffee-colored creases Bay leaves crumbled (like my reserve when you laid hands upon it)
how it comes back that mossy sad perfume! I want to lay you away in darkness and tissue but I can’t I must use you and risk Your wearing out
“If we open ourselves, don’t we lose control over our transformation?”
Rendering a garden makes order out of chaos. And yet we want Nature – in all its rude, obstreperous glory – to pour out constantly through and on our little carefully tended patch – without, hopefully, overwhelming or destroying it. The Waterfall is a perfect metaphor for organizing chaos, making it beautiful and extracting our necessary nourishment from its dangerous jaws.
The Waterfall represents sudden, possibly violent change. Surprise reversals. In our quest for soulmate, we have to hold ourselves ready for these astonishments, because they are the essence of what the universe has to teach us. Right when we think we have it all figured out is when we are most in need of a surprise.
Often this comes in the form of chemistry: who we are attracted to versus who we THINK we are attracted to. At the beginning of our lives, our minds were unformed. Our wild, unique self lay still undiscovered. We often THINK we desire a High Status Individual, someone the Pod – the amorphous mass we came out of – would approve (even envy.)
Friendship often teaches us the delight of the quirky. Someone who loves us, whose face lights up when we share, becomes beautiful to us. Someone who reveals themselves, takes chances with us, becomes magical. There is a reason that rom-coms focus on the “surprise” in love; learning that the person who is good for you is not the source of dangerous thrills you’ve been desiring. That’s because this is often the way long-term love gets going. So – better be ready for your own Surprise.
PREPPY
Corseted with verbs French teacher sweeps Cherry blossoms from the tennis court As she would like to french The cherries, squelch them soundly Beneath her soccer-spiking shoes
While the headmistress Cello-breasted Polishes graffiti carved upon her coffin In Chaucerian High English, And the girls – Nun-white, nun-blue
Soar above the hockey fields like Foul-mouthed angels, anticipated ecstasy locked In narrow hope chests ripening on Amphetamines Free Love Bad dreams.
Symbiosis is interdependence: far from being exploitation, most species require another’s contribution in order to flourish. Sometimes symbiosis is unacknowledged, especially if one of the partners is using “win/lose” reasoning and agonizes about who’s getting “more” out of the relationship.
Turning a mutually beneficial relationship into a struggle for dominance marks the end of what could have been a thriving partnership.
You can have rapturous sex with anybody. You can have devoted friendships with lots of entertaining, interesting people. Soulmating is deeper than that.
You need each other. You can’t live without each other. Yes, you can bail out now if this sounds scary. Otherwise, that’s what you’re in for. You’re going to have to reveal – often discovering it for the first time yourself – what your needs are, and you’re going to have to be willing to put your shoulder to the other person’s wheel. You nourish each other.
You’re going to slay each other’s dragons and set each other free FOREVER. This is NOT for the faint of heart. Better leave now if you were just hoping for a nice date, delicious sex, or someone to take home to Mom. Because the dragons WILL show themselves.
Haiku: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
Only soulmates can Slay each other’s dragons Says Tibetan Master
Mourning = DETACHMENT “Hide & Seek in the Museum of Modern Art”
“Perfect is Enemy of Good”
After a loss, Mourning is required. Don’t recoil. Mourning is a growth process which, because it hurts so much, feels like retrenchment. But in the Garden, pruning IS growth.
Artists try to convince us that spaces – which may seem blank or even empty to us, are part of the design. But what is the design? It makes us hurt – it makes hearts and brains hurt – even to attempt understanding of all this emptiness. All this change.
Physicists remind us matter transforms; it doesn’t “vanish.” As we contemplate the empty spaces with a sore heart and a buzzing brain, we will need peace and compassion to appreciate the majesty of the whole design.
We expect sore muscles after exercise, but, oddly, we don’t expect a “sore heart” or “sore mind” as we struggle along our Soulmate path. Sometimes it’s a “sore spirit.” We’re not doing anything “wrong”; life is a rhythm. The “perfection” in our imagination is actually STASIS – the opposite of “life”. The nature of the Other is to break our immature expectations of Perfection with the Wildness of their Mystery.
If we are to create a New World together, the old world has to go! For a long time – possibly our whole life – we will be honoring our Loss. We may search for ways to reframe it (sometimes it is a blessed release) sometimes it was the shedding of a constricted skin.
Mourning means this is not an effortless adjustment. Even joining lives triggers a loss. It is scary and new, the loss of our proud loneliness. It can feel like sadness and there is sadness that our privacy will be invaded. There is terror: we will be exposed.
Mourning is Detachment – you can see the Lost Past drifting away from you like a child’s balloon. It is not just “OK” to mourn, it is necessary and there is no substitute. The fact that you had a worthy self, a worthy past, a dignified life and were “fine on your own” is part of what makes you Beloved.
Your Soulmate is feeling this too. This is another thing you can share, and there are all sorts of ways to honor it. Some Soulmates need at the beginning of a relationship to keep to their own schedule. You will always need your own room, or private and alone times for retreat. It is necessary to establish boundaries such as private journals, private phones, private work. We are developing trust, as well as changing at the same time.
Honor those sore muscles of honest effort. Just as sore muscles will slowly improve, so will this sore heart/mind/spirit. We must rub it with the liniment of love, trust, sharing, hope and self-regard. We are brave, and no mistake! Remember the promise “those who mourn will be comforted.”
HIDE & SEEK IN THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Life class; It’s my game but you started it. Here we are, lost This place resembles me, a Swollen storehouse where Nothing can be explained, Everything’s left Open to interpretation.
Outside a single tree flowers in Smug delusion; all this whiteness Weights the soul. Mastery bites Like teeth on lip; my Throbbing inner elbow Where the blood lies gathered. Lies gathered. Let’s admit it. Take Responsibility
For once, leave no work Unfinished. Anonymous Entries win no prize. Pan-flash –
Solitude is required for reflection, and reflection is required for growth. Growth is required for choosing a soulmate, because the choice cannot be haphazard but the result of self-knowledge.
Solitude is not loneliness; it is the Art of Being Alone. Wise Ones have told us that ultimately each of us is only alone; we are born alone and we die alone. Plainly, this cannot be true. We are as social a species as the ants and termites. But just as one could argue that every worthwhile achievement has been a collaboration, one could also argue that every worthwhile idea was conceived in solitude.
I prefer to think of our “mental, emotional and spiritual pores” having both an “on” and “off” position. There is outflow, there is in-flow and there is no flow. All are necessary to the health of the human being and all are necessary to the maximization of human potential. Depth psychology merely systematizes the layers of human consciousness and sub-consciousness whose existence dreams have always demonstrated.
Meditation and mindfulness seek to capture the exact moment when the soul experiences itself. This is not possible without regular periods of scheduled and enforced solitude. In-breath must equal outbreath until suddenly the lips of the psyche part and, as in a “magic eye” painting; the familiar world dramatically shifts to reveal under-worlds and over-worlds of multiple meanings and intense possibilities.
Self-Sufficiency: How panicked are we by the idea of being “alone”? Even those of us who are introverts are sustained by a complex net of relationships, any adjustment to which could drive us back to infancy. Are we alone even within our relationships? Are we alone on our planet? In the universe? It is surprising how much this fear can be seen lurking behind our consciously assumed states of mental “good cheer”.
Most of us work in collaborative ventures; nothing we do would be worthwhile without, at the very least, someone to assess or appreciate. It is time to take stock of our internal personal resources; those that owe nothing to the support of others.
Opportunity; Much of what we think during the day is in fact a dialogue. It is salutary to ask ourselves: who are we talking to? Is this person imaginary, dead, alive? Are they helpful – or cruel? It’s common knowledge that we speak more insultingly to ourselves than we might to anyone we know! Time for a “voices” upgrade. These are part of ourselves talking to each other; possibly parts of ourselves we could do without.
And is that the best way to accomplish our set goals? Now’s the time to understand that, given education and culture, we can never be “alone” in the sense of bereft of help. We have countless models we’ve been choosing from childhood up. Who are they? Do we need upgrade them, or just name them and learn to deploy them more effectively? Some of us are surrounded by a mix of celebrities (Humphrey Bogart in “Play it Again, Sam”) some of us by the loving dead (Granma and Grandpa) others by cultural icons (for me Shelley, Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson) some of us by imaginary friends or even angels.
What’s working for us and what isn’t? After all, we furnish our own brains. Let’s decorate by design.
Danger! An important component of the confidence we desire to cultivate is freedom and self-determination. We all know how unsettling a date’s visible desperation can be. We instinctively back away as from a sinking ship whose whirlpool threatens to suck us in. In other words, the best way to gain a soulmate is to be able – visibly! -to live without one. This sounds nonsensical; but look at it this way, you ARE living without one. Is your desire to change your life based on the indisputable fact that your life is a mess? If so, we have to turn our attention to THAT first thing, otherwise we are the sinking ship no one wants to get near, much less, on.
Challenge! To increase our chances of finding the best person who is right for us right now AND in our future, we have to GIVE ourselves a future. No other person can be our “future.” We need to have a vision of a future we are working towards. That is what we want to hear about our date, and that is what they will want to hear about us. It’s time to become your own best friend, the one who really cares about you and gives such good advice
HEDGEHOG CROSSING ROAD
Spines erect as swords She waits To tilt the windmills rushing by Machined from hell to trap Her tiny weight of soul and fur.
She fears not. He who protects the sparrows Comforts her. The air is sharp With winter not With false regret –
She lifts her head to gauge The moment ripe for flight Unaltered in her captaincy of self. She’ll reach eternity or the pond
Dependency – Do you dream of abandonment? Ruined gardens? Clinging vines? Are you afraid of being alone? In our dreams, we are reminded of all of the unpleasant aspects of needing others’ constant support in order to function. The clinging vine can’t stand up by itself, it needs an immoveable shoulder to cling to. We Americans prefer the fantasy of independence and self-determination. It’s just too threatening to imagine what might happen if the wall we’ve been clinging to ever comes down.
No One Stands Alone – The truth is, we’re all in this together. Billionaires, leaders, CEO’s, all actually need more support than we do. So it’s time to divest of pointless shame and acknowledge the truth that humans are, for good and ill, social creatures. Open your Dream Journal and take a good look at your dependencies. Are there any that are no longer serving you? How about those who depend on you? How many are burdens? What pleasures and meanings make those burdens lighter?
Challenge – The more we cling to a fantasy of who we are, the less we can see the true reality. List your actions for just one day and look at them in terms of ”dependencies” – bank, mail system, social security? Vehicle, gas availability, fuel affordability? Grocery stores, restaurants, our own two ambulatory feet? Weather, peace, law enforcement?
Danger – Refusing to recognize the fragility of these systems is one danger; the ruthlessness confronting our fear creates is another. We are accustomed to the American need to muster a personal armory just in case the daily struggle for existence becomes a shoot-out; imagine the long-term effects THAT fantasy will have.
Challenge – How can we free ourselves? What could we do to claim more psychic and physical independence? Mormons 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 fails, 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
Mantra – “I can”
Meditation –
#Haiku: The Clinging Vine
Lean too hard we’ll Fall together Allow freedom, we’re both Supported
Nurturing – Stewardship – Dreaming about pets? Comforting little wild animals? Gardening? These are Nurturing dreams. Like a child with a doll you long to care to another being and help it achieve its fullest potential. You long to protect it and succor it and at the same time, protect, succor and nourish the lost, frightened, wild, shy, needy parts of yourself.
You Are A Steward – Dreaming about climate change? Overwhelmed by horrendous weather conditions such as tornados and hurricanes? Are you vegetarian or vegan? Enraged by animal abuse, factory farming and climate denial? Do you fear tsunamis and volcanoes? Do you see the whole of Mother Earth in your care?
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 saved was grateful. Remember karma? Karma is your universal bank account. When that little girl gets to heaven and it turns out the starfish are in charge, she is Good to Go.
Danger – The only danger here is that you will forget to apply your own oxygen mask BEFORE you find oxygen for everyone else! Rookie mistake! Also a 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 a man to fish and you’ve upgraded a human. Develop a method of fish replenishment and you’ve got a sustainable economy.
Opportunity – As with the fishing analogy, this offers an endless chance for Learning, Invention and Creativity. You are lighting one candle after another in a very dark world, and benefiting everyone who come into contact with you. Open your Dream Journal. Dream.
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
Doyoudreamoflove,sex,connection?Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? You are searchingfor Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must firstdecide motive (“I Could Use a Friend” vs “I’m Looking For Romantic Connection”) and that you areWORTHY of connection. This last one is tricky because we are all looking to others for validation. Thisis the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class,unprepared on Test Day.
Open Your Dream Journal – Make a list of what you want in a friend/lover, then make a list of what you are prepared to give. The lists shouldn’t be unbalanced! Are you a “giver” or a “taker”? Neither can ever be satisfied, because the music of the spheres is all about rhythm and balance.
Learn the Steps – There is much talk of “love languages”. The man who comes and digs an unsightly hole in your front yard may be awkwardly tendering a gift. The woman who doesn’t mention you’ve been talking all night with spinach in your teeth is also trying to do “something nice.” But in each case, the ultimate effect may feel “hostile” to the recipient.
There’s No Substitute for Communication – If you are hoping to communicate interest without revealing yourself you are bound for confusion and disappointment. But relax; it turns out the process of communication – trying to figure out and express who you are – is satisfyingly absorbing. It always makes you feel better, even when you meet a person who “weaponizes” honesty.
How Can That Be? – Learning to recognize Exploiters is Two-Thirds of the Game. Exploiters probe for weakness, searching for hostages. We don’t want to end up as someone else’s meal.
Wecan’tgetthroughthisalone,andwedon’twantto. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans,struggling, just like us. If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters?
Danger – When someone is trying to destroy your self-esteem, recognize this. Even if it comes in theguise of “friendship” this person is an enemy. This is not what friends are for. When someone is tryingto “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-takerlooking for slaves. NOT a friend.
Challenge – what are friends for? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.”Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.” Friends are fun,“Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest,forgiving, fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend.
Opportunity– Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, wecan expand our reach. Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts. Our sorrows are halved andour ideas are increased exponentially. Reach out! You’re getting better at the game every time you try.
Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”
– e.e. cummings
“All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller
“Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place”– Zora Neale Hurston
“Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth” –
II Corinthians
“Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi
Are Goddesses Alone on Their Pinnacles?– No! Evolving your inner Goddess is discovering how to manifest and elevate your God-given attributes to timelessness. Once you have uncovered the powers of your real self, you will also see what you have been lacking and will feel the force of the natural mandate; “Go forth and be fruitful.” Being alone is a perfectly acceptable choice, but so is coupling – forever or briefly. Not only children are a couple’s progeny but ideas, achievements, duets.
Dreaming about weddings? Or just sex? How about romance, proposals, marriage? Ever fantasize about The One that got Away? Or do you just dream about partnership enterprises in general – gaming, sports – where an Ideal Partner/Helper’s got your back? It’s definitely more difficult to make it through life without a partner, and there are plenty of signs that successful partnership is very rewarding. Sure, we’ve got friends who come and go, sometimes special ones, but they’ve got obligations of their own. What if we had a Perfect Friend who made our Best Life their priority? What if we were not only willing to do the same for them but to promise this in public? Consider your ideal partnership contract.
Everybody Deserves Love – We come into adulthood with strong memories of familial dependence. We are all attracted to caretaking behaviors and easily seduced by promises to read our minds and give us what we really want, even if we haven’t figured that out for ourselves. Then our hormones click in and we discover Desire. Not only for bodies, but for Persons, Lives, Individualities. Other people are a spice, other people are a medicine, other people are a distraction – everything our lives appear to be lacking. What if we could combine all these needs together in one appetizing human package?
Goddess Challenge – We rarely ask our friends to change their lives for us. They are VERY rarely willing to do so. But a partner is someone to actively plan a life with. You get to talk through all the Wants, the Possibilities, the Fears. Heady stuff! The challenge is to know Yourself well enough to make any sort of honest statements about who you are, who you CAN be and who you want to be.
Allies Need a Long-Term Contract – Lives are uprooted. Possessions are shared. Long term strategy results in map-merging to create a new – but more exciting – map. If you’re a giver, learn your limits. Because takers don’t have any.
Someone Needs to Take Your Back – What if, as the great mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg suggested, each one of us is only half an angel. You need someone to cover the things you can’t cover. And if you were planning to start a goddess family, you need more than a partner, you need a spouse.
Spouses Teach Honesty – The person who knows you best doesn’t put up with a false front. You literally force each other to get to the root of emotions and behaviors that will open up your psyches not just to each other, but to yourselves. The spouse who falls in love with you and forgives you finally allows you to fall in love with and forgive yourself.
Staging, Experimental Life Lab and Boot Camp – We get to try out our ideas on each other. The Beloved Other is a Mirror and a Coach. The purpose of existence, the purpose of YOUR existence – suddenly becomes clear.
Goddess Danger – A substantial number of partnerships fail even at their short-term purpose. We all know this but we keep trying. Then there are the partnerships that evolve into Something Else, a Financial, Real Estate or Caregiving unit that is very necessary but also pretty far from what we had in mind originally. Our challenge remains the same. Is it possible to both know and be known? Can we find our Soulmate? Does such a creature exist? Is it possible to evolve with another soul to a higher plane of SuperSoul? Disappointment and betrayal are all too often the apparent outcomes.
Goddess Opportunity – Soulmates DO exist! They DO evolve together. It’s possible to change life for another while they change, blend, merge with us. Any interaction with another requires communication, boundary testing, honesty, planning and “rules”. I put rules in quotes because a good partner keeps “transforming” the game and we keep transforming ourselves to meet it. The best way ever to honestly know yourself is to keep your conscious, subconscious and unconscious in alignment. Purposeful journaling is the best way to achieve that goal!
Models & Mentors – “It’s not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes for unhappy marriages” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“What counts in making a happy marriage is not compatibility but how you deal with incompatibility” – Leo Tolstoy
“A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short”
– Andre Maurois
“The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they’re the right person if you want to be with them all the time” – Julia Child
Alysse Aallyn 