Alysse Aallyn

Category: #SoulTravel

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (At Hadleigh Hall, a body lies under a tarp)

    SOLIZ

    They’re not letting anyone in. Do you know who lives in Room 824?

    JAZZ

    Actually, I live there.

    SOLIZ

    Oh, you do, do you? Well, some guy fell out your window.

    JAZZ

    Just like your dream!

    SOLIZ

    (threateningly)

    I don’t know what you’re talking about.

    CHASE

    Some guy? Who?

    SOLIZ

    Unidentified.  You can’t see him, he’s under a tent.

    CHASE

    Can’t Jazz collect her stuff?

    SOLIZ

    Come back later. It’s chaos over there.

    (SOLIZ frees them from tape; JAZZ and CHASE lurch off downstage)

    JAZZ

    This is Soliz’s dream. I remember if she doesn’t.

                               CHASE

    Except this was a guy.

    JAZZ

    Let’s hope it was Bex.

    CHASE

    So now you’re pro-violence?

    JAZZ

    Who’s saying I pushed him? It would be so unlike me.

    CHASE

    So, no going home for you.

    JAZZ

    Hadleigh was never my home.

    CHASE

    Well, you can camp out at my place while we figure out what to do with this new corpse.

    JAZZ

    Makes me harder for Bex to find. On the other hand when he does, he’ll just get madder.

    CHASE

    We’ve got enough problems without worrying about satisfying his unsatisfiable psyche. We’ve got three dead bodies!

    JAZZ

    And God knows how many crime scenes. Explain exactly why soulmating requires detective work?

    CHASE

    Maybe nature is one big crime scene. Red of tooth and claw.

    JAZZ

    You and your classical education.

                               CHASE

    Voilã! Here we are at my place.  

    SCENE VIII – Lights go up on CHASE’S APT – disheveled male bedroom/kitchenette

    JAZZ

    This is definitely a crime scene.

    (Throws herself into a low-slung chair)

    CHASE

    (Sitting close)

    You expected harp music? Hey, you admitted your life was a crime scene too. 

    JAZZ

    I guess I thought the point of soulmates is all the hard work would be magically be done.

    CHASE

    So no going over the past trying to understand and explain the mess? Wouldn’t that be nice!

    JAZZ

    Why can’t we just escape the mess?  The mess would no longer matter. We could rise above the mess.

    CHASE

    Your fantasy forgets about the demons. If we’ve unleashed demons –

    JAZZ

    Who’s to say we unleashed them?  I’m not responsible for Bex.

    CHASE

    Yet he’s out there, rampaging. At least I know I’m responsible for Corso.

    JAZZ

    But Corso’s using your involvement to keep his rampage going. Oh. Touché. I see what you mean.

    CHASE

    We’re dissociating. Living each other’s nightmares.

    JAZZ

    At least we’re braving hell together.

    (they touch hands) 

    CHASE

    If it’s purgatory, graduation’s a possibility.

    JAZZ

    We’re on a multiple universe scavenger hunt! 

    CHASE

    A time and space jigsaw puzzle!

    JAZZ

    We need to get to the crime scene before the crime happens.

    CHASE

    How would we know it was a crime scene?

    JAZZ

    Tell me what you know. What Corso did to you.

    CHASE

    God! You know I don’t want to talk about it.

                               JAZZ

    What specifically are you afraid will happen if you talk about it?

    CHASE

    That this whole thing would shatter right in front of me. I would wreck – whatever this is happening between us.

    JAZZ

    Maybe we’re meant to reveal, not repair, each other’s real selves.

    CHASE

    Let’s talk about your fears and malfeasance. That’s more fun for me.

    JAZZ

    Somebody increased power by sucking out ours. We’re going to reclaim it. Tell your soulmate what Dr. Corso did to you. 

    CHASE

    If you know, aren’t you ruined too? How can I stay with someone who knows this disgusting thing about me?

    JAZZ

    I guess we’ll just have to see.  We need to free ourselves to be with each other. 

    CHASE

    But there’s the difference, right there – you left Bex,  I pursued Corso. I came after him. 

    JAZZ

    You are so competitive. If you need to be “worst”, prove it.

    CHASE

    He was a teacher at my choir school. Latin, of all things. We spent an eternity on the Aeneid. God, I hate talking about this. I haven’t talked about it since I was fifteen, with the lawyers and judges.

    JAZZ

    He molested you?

    CHASE

    Between my ninth and thirteenth years. He had a way of making us compete to be “the favorite”. If you could just get on that easy street, life became golden. Finally I saw what a prisoner I was. Mustered up the courage to get the hell out of there.

    JAZZ

    Jesus.

    CHASE

    Great pillow talk, huh?  And that’s not the worst of it.

    JAZZ

    How could it get worse?

    CHASE

    I brought him other boys.  Whatever he wanted.

    JAZZ

    You were a kid.  None of this could possibly be your fault.

    CHASE

    Yet here I am. Still a slave.

    JAZZ

    But you found your soulmate.

    (They hug)

    How did it end?

    CHASE

    It hasn’t ended. I mean, the sex thing ended when Corso met my sister – my twin sister – and decided he was ready to branch out. He was like, deliver her or else.  That woke me up. I went home and refused to go back to school.  I finally told my parents.

    JAZZ

    And?

    CHASE

    They pretty much behaved the worst they possibly could.  First, they didn’t believe me. My dad has always been a total bastard making fun of me for singing in a high voice and wearing a lace collar and Mom was sort of a “the church can do no wrong” nut. You know, like, who are you going to believe, a priest or your own lying eyes?  They just couldn’t take it in.  But then a kid at school hanged himself and things started to snowball. Corso got kicked out. People started suing. My dad smelled a payday. The other families accepted settlements not to squeal. Everybody settled except my father. He was holding out for the Big Money that was going to make all his dreams come true.

    JAZZ

    Then what?

    CHASE

    What always happens with my Dad.  He was having such a good  time holding the whip, he waited too long. The minute I turned sixteen, I got legally emancipated. I could prove that Dad was hitting me – I had the sense to record him – so the judge refused to give Dad the cash. Dad declared bankruptcy and I finished high school on my own. Living at the Y.

    (Restless pacing)

    So on top of everything else, I’m singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of my family.

    JAZZ

    Scapegoating. People need someone to blame, it’s another form of hostage-taking. This isn’t your fault.  Time to forgive yourself.

    CHASE

    Oh, that’ll be easy. Walk in the park.

    JAZZ

    I’m still here.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (CORSO doesn’t like CHASE and JAZZ’s new alliance. They walk toward steps while lights go down on DREAM LAB. CORSO exits huffily)

    Scene V – Cafe

    JAZZ

    You owe me a sandwich for backing up your lie, you lying liar.

    CHASE

    Liar? I was just being a gentleman. Don’t kiss and tell.

    JAZZ

    Somehow I doubt your motives.

    CHASE

    Never give monsters bones to make their soup.  

    (He shepherds JAZZ up the steps to SCENE V –  CAFÉ set: table and chairs are set up beneath Tiffany lamp upstage another table with two hunched unidentifiable figures in close conversation at distant table)

    Any truth you give Corso, he’ll use it against you.

    (Calls offstage)

    Two specials!  Meat on the side! And plenty of Joe.

    JAZZ

    What’s the special?

    CHASE

    Whatever it is, it’s the only thing they didn’t make yesterday. That’s why we call it “Chem Lab”. I take it you’ve never been here before? Vegan?  Gluten-intolerant? I’ll eat anything you don’t.

    JAZZ

    I’m on meal plan. I’m currently omnivorous but I aspire to someday be selective. How about your aspirations?

    CHASE

    Aspirations are good.  I’m pro-aspiration. At the moment, I aspire to anonymity.

    JAZZ

     You failed anonymity in dream lab. 

    CHASE

    I had a job to do. I did it.

    JAZZ

    Getting yourself kicked out?

    CHASE

    That was inevitable. I made it through one round, and I found out what kinds of dreams everybody’s having. Now we put it together, like a psychotic jigsaw puzzle.

    JAZZ

    Are you ever going to tell me why are you so pissed at Corso?

    CHASE

     Because he took something from me and he won’t give it back.

    JAZZ

    Maybe. What’d he take?

    CHASE

    My future. 

    JAZZ

    Can he prevent you from graduating?

    CHASE

    If he makes me a killer. Corso needs to be put down like a rabid dog. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.

    JAZZ

    Please don’t even joke like that. Nobody can take away your future without your cooperation. Go be a lawyer. You’d make such a great lawyer. You argue with everybody.

    CHASE

    So help me get evidence against him and I’ll let the cops take him off my hands.

    JAZZ

    You’re obsessed.

    CHASE

    I call it goal-oriented. Russian-Irish is a volatile mixture.

    JAZZ

    It’s tunnel vision. There we were, standing right at the edge of the soulmate multiverse and where do you want to go? Corso’s apartment! What is it with men and threesomes?

    CHASE

    You went to a morgue. So what do you know about the multiverse?

    JAZZ

    You should have done the reading! Retrocausation. Many Worlds theory.  If the universe is infinite then every possible outcome must happen somewhere.

    CHASE

    So I kill Corso in some other world?

    JAZZ

    Haven’t you heard that if you look too long at a monster you become the monster?

    CHASE

    Too late. 

    JAZZ

    Are you telling me that my soulmate is a monster?

    CHASE

    I’m starting to see why we belong together. You should segue out of pre-fashion into pre-law.

    JAZZ

    I’m allergic to violence. Violence is flirtation with losing control. It gives you nowhere to go. 

    CHASE

    You referring to that big bruiser who’s stalking you?

    JAZZ

    Maybe.  He represents my official knowledge of crazy. But now it’s over and I don’t have to talk about it.

    CHASE

    “Those who make a peaceful revolution impossible make violence inevitable.” 

    JAZZ

    Oh, please. Your evidence hunt makes sense at least. Let’s do that instead. You get to find out about Corso and I get to find out about you. Where would you go first?

    CHASE

    Well, I want to go to his office but I’m afraid he’s in there. That nympho-slut Nurse Howk is probably his weak link.

    JAZZ

    Don’t slut-shame. She’s probably one of his victims.

    CHASE

    Naah. She’s a fully consenting sub-monster. Didn’t she try to ooze all over you?

    JAZZ

    She’s just living up to the archetype. It’s one of the signs of a victim.

    CHASE

    Meaning what?

    JAZZ

    Don’t you know what an archetype is?

    CHASE

    I’m a psychology major, I hope I know what an archetype is. I’m asking if you know what it is, and since I’m not getting any answers, I’m going to go see what’s keeping our food.

    (Stands up, exits.  Big, ugly, longhaired BEX looms up from darkness and pounds his hands on JAZZ’s table)

    BEX

    Is that the guy? That’s the weasel you’re dumping me for?

    JAZZ

    Bex! I told you to get gone.

    BEX

    I’m just trying to talk to you since you won’t talk to me.

    JAZZ

    (Tries to stand up but he’s pushing the table into her)

    Bex it’s over!  How many ways can I say it? Don’t you have a job to get back to?

    BEX

    And that player doesn’t?  So now I’m not good enough for you?  Is that it?

    JAZZ

     I don’t get what you’re making a big deal about – you’re the one that said we’d never be exclusive! Go find someone else to torture!

    BEX

    (Leaning in threateningly)

    You’re not the boss of me. 

    (CHASE returns with tray) 

    CHASE

    This dude harassing you?

    JAZZ

    Just go, Bex. Go home.

    BEX

    Who’s gonna make me?

    (Two figures stand up at the distant table and advance – it’s ZANE and KOO)

    ZANE

    Having trouble here?

    (BEX knows when he’s outnumbered and retreats)

    BEX

    (Shouting over his shoulder)

    Better get ready! This means war!

    (ZANE and CHASE high-five, ZANE returns to his table – KOO puts a hand on JAZZ’s shoulder)

    KOO

    We’ve all been there.

    (Exit KOO and ZANE)

    CHASE 

    (Comforting JAZZ whose head is in her hands)

    Nice guy.  I think I understand what you saw in him.

    JAZZ

    (Writhing with mortification, sits down, head on table)

    I’m so sorry. What can I say? He’s a jerk, but pickings were slim. 

    CHASE

    (Serving sandwiches and coffee)

    Hey, everyone’s entitled to at least one monster. The good news is, today’s special is meatloaf.

    (JAZZ inspects inside her sandwich)

    JAZZ

    I think I lost my appetite.

    CHASE

    More for me.

    JAZZ

    The coffee’s good. Say, Zane and Koo! Huh?

    CHASE 

    I know, right? Think something’s – going on there? Traumatic bonding?

    JAZZ

    They didn’t say anything.

    CHASE 

    We didn’t say anything.

    JAZZ

    It’s hard to say anything when you don’t know what’s going on,

    CHASE

    More fodder for my theory that reality is totally submerged – it’s never what you think you see.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (JAZZ shakes head impatiently and crabwalks out of Dream Lab down the steps toward audience. 

    JAZZ

    Where is this place? It smells like death. The end of everything.

    (A dead body falls from rafters ands hangs by its elbows obstructing JAZZ’s path – she struggles with it)

    JAZZ

    Hey! Watch where you’re going! Get out of my way!

    (Feels up the body in a panicked way)

    JAZZ

    Oh, my God, I’m so sorry! Did I bump into you? Are you all right? Are you OK?. What’s wrong?

    (She wrestles & dances with swinging corpse, batters it like a punching bag.  EnterCHASE who pulls her away. His eyes are open)

    CHASE

    What is this – a morgue?  Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.

    JAZZ

    (Can’t leave her partner)

    Someone died and I’ve gone blind. 

    CHASE

    You’re not blind.  Open your eyes. Just don’t look behind you.

    (Turns her, kisses her.  She resists at first, then leans into him as the kiss deepens.  She opens her eyes, feeling his face)

    JAZZ

    It’s you.

    CHASE

    What are you doing in a morgue?

    JAZZ

    This is the basement. 

                      (Turns, sees corpse)

    Aaagh!

    CHASE

    Leave her. She’s past help.

    JAZZ

    Did she fall?

    CHASE

    Not with her head bashed in.  Come on. We’re urgently required elsewhere.

    (Hustles her past the orchestra pit and back up on stage)

    JAZZ

    Shouldn’t we call somebody?

    CHASE

    We’ve got to keep moving. Something’s stalking us. 

    JAZZ

    That’s just my boyfriend. He won’t go home. Keeps threatening me.

    (Grabbing CHASE frenziedly)

    Maybe the dead body is me!

    CHASE

    It’s some old lady past her sell-by date.

    JAZZ

     Where are you taking me? Won’t we get into trouble for leaving?  Where are we?

    (SCENE III – Lights go up on CORSO’s APARTMENT set. Door stands between JAZZ, CHASE and a room of bed, bureau, chairs. Ambiance created by candles, tossed books and clothes)

    JAZZ

    Where did this come from? Did we like – soul travel?  

    CHASE

    (laughs)

    Maybe that bastard Corso really hit on something! The irony – you can’t imagine. Flying! Couldn’t you feel it? While we were kissing. 

    JAZZ

    All I know is you dragged me somewhere I don’t want to be. Where is this?  YUCK!  Smells like old socks in here.

    CHASE

    Better than your morgue. This is Corso’s place. 

    JAZZ

    How do you know?

    CHASE

    I helped him move in.

    JAZZ

    But why are we here? Is lab over? Maybe we won’t get paid.

    CHASE

    (Opening drawers and tossing clothes and papers)

    There are more important things than money.

    JAZZ

    Said by someone who obviously has some. Are we dreaming?

    CHASE

    Together? In my dream you would be more cooperative.

                               JAZZ

    And in my dream you wouldn’t waste time dragging me to Professor Corso’s bachelor hideaway.

                               CHASE

    We’re real. It’s Corso’s razzle-dazzle that isn’t real.

    JAZZ

    Why? How do you know? I need that money and those credits.

    CHASE

    The closer you get to it the further it will recede.

    JAZZ

    You don’t talk like a soulmate. I don’t think you care anything about me.

    CHASE

    I don’t know you. I’ve got obligations, is all.

    JAZZ

    You’re wasting precious dream time pawing through Dr. Corso’s private stuff when we should be getting to know each other.

    CHASE

     In my experience opportunities like this are one time only. 

    JAZZ

    It just doesn’t feel the way I expected.

    CHASE

    Don’t be so self-referential.

    JAZZ

    You literally CAN’T be my soulmate. I thought Corso lived on a farm in the country.

    CHASE

    His wife kicked him out.

    JAZZ

    She did? Aren’t you going to have to put everything back?

    CHASE

    He’ll never prove it was us – we’ve got the perfect alibi.

    JAZZ

    Why is my soulmate a criminal?  Lucky me. I really can pick ‘em. So what are you searching for?

    CHASE

    Evidence. What he’s really up to.  Don’t ever believe the magician’s misdirection. He’s the king of mind games. Look at this.

    (Flourishes paper)

    JAZZ

    What’s that?

    CHASE

    Bankruptcy filings! Divorce filings!

    JAZZ

    What’s THAT have to do with anything?

    CHASE

    A desperate Corso is a dangerous Corso. 

    (Throws her a scrapbook)

    See if there’s anything in here.

    JAZZ

    (Studying the pictures)

    “First mass, 1978!”  He did say he used to be a priest.

    CHASE

    True. Imagine Corso absolving people!

    JAZZ

     He told me the church expelled him.

    CHASE

    True again. The best lies always contain some truth.

    JAZZ

    For falling in love, he said.

    CHASE

    Bzzz! Not! Lie!

    JAZZ

    No pictures of his wife in here. I wonder what she looks like. All these pictures are of him.

    CHASE

    The prince of fauxmance cares only about himself. He married her for cash.   Look, here’s a picture of you. You must be his type.

    JAZZ

    That’s Bettie Page. People are always saying I look like her. I ‘ve never worn a leopardskin bra.  He certainly was a buck-toothed, buzz-cut wunderkind.  Must have had work done.

    CHASE

    Sold his soul to the devil, is what happened.

    JAZZ

    If this is astral projection – how come I still have a body?

    CHASE

    (Looks up briefly)

    You don’t like your body?  I like your body.

    JAZZ

    That’s not it…I just figured we’d be essences. I was looking forward to floating around like an essential spirit.

    CHASE

    But how would we recognize each other? Dante recognized the spirits that he saw in hell and heaven.  Makes sense to me. All things considered, I’d rather have a body to experience things with.

    JAZZ

    I get that. But why do some bodies wind up dead? I keep thinking about that poor old lady –

    CHASE

    (Still looting)

    Here’s a restraining order. He’s not allowed to come within a thousand feet of Evangeline Corso.

    JAZZ

    Wow. Have you ever met Mrs. Corso?

    CHASE

    Twice.  She was very nice the first time.  Obviously older than him, but an interesting talker.  But the second time she started screaming about eco-terrorism, about how something was poisoning her, how she was suddenly allergic to everything.  He had to pull her off me.

    JAZZ

     Corso, you suspect?

    CHASE

    Big time. He’s the only terrorist I know.

    JAZZ

    You can add Bex to that list.

    CHASE

    I doubt he equals Corso’s sheer lethality.

    JAZZ

    Give him time. You really have it in for Corso.

    CHASE

    He had it in for me.

    (The TV has its back to us. When CHASE bumps it, blue light flickers on)

    JAZZ

    Look at this.  Seems like Corso and the Howk are having a Thing.

    CHASE

    Are you surprised?  She really throws down, if you know what I’m saying. I was there at the same time as Soliz and she came on to both of us.

    JAZZ

    Some people are like that. It’s all performance art. 

    CHASE

    This look like performance art to you?

    (JAZZ jumps)

    JAZZ

    That’s disgusting! Turn it off.

    (TV off)

    Nobody really wants to be strangled. That must be a performance, for sure. Because don’t we know she’s still alive?

                               CHASE

    Do we?

                               JAZZ

    (She sits down on bed to watch him loot)

    Think we’ll remember this when we get back to normal?

    CHASE

    I’m pretty sure you and I have different definitions of normal.  I can’t tell you what will happen.  I’m a first timer, too. We have to play it the best we can.

    JAZZ

    If this is a dream, maybe we’re making it up as we go along.

    CHASE

    If you’re not a psychology major, you don’t know about the maze-solving worms.

    JAZZ

    (JAZZ puts chin on hand)

    You’re right. Never heard of it. Do tell.

    CHASE

    They taught these worms to solve complex mazes, you know, by giving them rewards.  And then they ground them up and fed them to these other worms.

    JAZZ

    What a mean thing to do!

    CHASE

    Except the new worms knew the maze first time.

    JAZZ

    So that proves…what?

    CHASE

    Memory is chemical.

    (Taps his head)

    JAZZ

    So Corso’s going to grind us up and feed us…to the alternates?

    CHASE

    Trust me.  He would if he could.

    (Pulling out drawers.  JAZZ tosses CORSO’s messy sheets)

    JAZZ

    I can’t believe we’ll get away with this.

                      (Jumps to her feet)

    Yuck! I’m wet. I sat in their wet spot! It’s blood!

    (Looks in a panic at her hands, wipes them on her pants, touches her cheeks, increasingly upset.)

    Yuck, yuck, yuck!  There’s blood on this sheet and now it’s on me!

    CHASE

    Sssh. You’re not really here.

    JAZZ

    You just said we were!

    (She throws the papers he’s gathering in the air, he grabs her and starts kissing her)

    Now you’re getting it on you.

    CHASE

    I’m getting you on me. I’m starting to think you really are my soulmate. 

    JAZZ

    (Kissing him back)

    So please get me out of this disgusting place. 

    CHASE

    I’m sorry I’m so bad at this. It’s just that I can never forget. 

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    (Perceptual Studies Student Lab at College . Enter CORSO in Burberry, cap and scarf)

    CORSO

    Sorry I’m late.  I’ll make it up.  Time’s our bitch, but that’s what we’re here for – get on top of it.  I see you’ve met my teaching assistant, Mr. Quinn. 

    (Indicates CHASE) 

    CHASE

    I thought you fired me.

    CORSO

    But you’re so charming as my warm-up act.  Who could resist you? Consider yourself re-hired.

    ZANE

    (Pointing at CHASE)

    Ringer! Ringer!

    CORSO

    (Opens a door)

    Welcome to Paradise. After you.

    (Lights up on  DREAM RESEARCH LAB ;  six recliners arranged in a circle – lockers to either side– students study their environment. Glittering disco ball lowers from ceiling shedding fractals. Padded floor; students step gingerly.  At center of recliners a black chalice on a tripod emits dry ice smoke)

    CORSO

    (Slams door aggressively)

    Now you’re committed.

    RAD

    My folks always said I’d end up committed.

                               ZANE

    And in a padded cell.

    CORSO

    God forbid you should fall down in your dream-throes and sue the institute that birthed your intellect.

    CHASE

    Where are the sensors?

    CORSO

    Everything’s wireless these days, poor Mr. Quinn! What are you worried about? Nobody would dare to censor you. 

    KOO

    (Gestures at the disco ball)

    Is that a camera?

    CORSO

    The Eye of History.

    (Claps hands)

    Chop, chop, little ones – Enough rubbernecking.  Time’s a-wasting.  Male locker room there, females that-away. Discard outerwear and belongings. Let’s get going.

    (As CHASE passes him, CORSO says dryly)

    The old razzle dazzle?  REALLY?

    (Banging of locker doors)

    CHASE

    We’ll see.

    CORSO

    We certainly will. Now, if you children would arrange yourselves male, female – thusly.

    RAD

    Like some antique dinner party?

    CORSO

    Sacred geometry.  We need all the energy we can harness. We are immersing ourselves in the flip side of reality- the Unseen. 

    (JAZZ and CHASE are side by side. CORSO distributes mugs)

    CORSO

    Tea time!

    CHASE

    What is this stuff?

    CORSO

    Sorry, Mr. Quinn, research is not a democracy. All that’s guaranteed is, you sleep on cue without allergic overdrive.

    ZANE

    I’m not allergic to Nurse Howk, either. Yowza!

    RAD

    (Shaking his hand as if from a burn)

    I know, right?

    CORSO

    Drink up and settle down.  I am collecting mugs so I will know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.

    JAZZ

    Yuck! This stuff tastes like bark.

    (RAD barks like a dog)

    CORSO

    Shotgun it, Miss Suzino. Knock it back. Isn’t that the college way?

    .        (CORSO collects mugs, turning them upside down to be sure they’re empty)

    Musical selection?  Classical or non-classical?

    ZANE

    Anything so long as it’s not classical.

    CHASE

    Anything – so long as it’s classical.

    (They glare at each other. CORSO laughs)

    CORSO

    The bulls do clash! Ocean sounds it is!

    (He conducts the music) 

    Everyone hold hands and close eyes please. Let the bonding begin!

    CHASE

    (Muttering)

    Bondage, more like.

    CORSO

    Mr. Quinn!  Must I gag you? That can be arranged!

    (CHASE finally closes his eyes, rocking back and forth to get comfortable. Lights go down to twilight level on DREAM LAB.  CORSO ascends on TOWER LIFT, wearing earphones and holding a conductor’s baton)

    CORSO

    Welcome to cosmic dreaming. You will dream at such a depth your mind will burst the bonds of selfhood and explode free and untrammeled into the universe. Free from the chains of time, from identity itself, we uncover the truth the quotidian obscures;  we are one. Think on it. Think what it would means to be freed from debt, obligation, relationship, guilt, regret or loss. There are no mistakes.  Without identity you are released from suffering.  Everything you have ever wanted we can achieve together, effortlessly, and in abundance. Desires and longing are the fuel that rocket us to the stratosphere of rarest air. Once we merge in the great Oneness, we will dream uniquely and together.  

    (CORSO turns a page on his music stand)

    Learning to harness our dream, we will control it, uniting our powers generously to become a potent force of reckoning. Prepare yourselves for the ultimate luxury – surrender – lost in the imaginative union that has always been your birthright.  Time to claim and master your entitlement. In our relaxation mass consciousness will seize control…But you must be quick! The garden door is closing and you’ll be left behind… See, the stars are out. The world inside and the world without await your signal – longing to merge.  Only the clatter in your head prevents the natural fruition of your indissoluble longing. 

    Doesn’t it feel good leaving the world behind? The universe itself is lost beneath you now.  Now flesh itself melts away as invisible imperfections open themselves to perfection. Accept the freedom you are offered. When you open your eyes, you will be gazing down at the husk of your unwelcome, banished self.  

    (CORSO’S spot is extinguished, spot rises on JAZZ who stands up eyes closed, feeling out in front of her like sleepwalker.  She feels her way to the edge of the stage. No other students stir.  CORSO’s voice orates as if from space.)

    CORSO

    Now the room itself vanishes, your earthly fears becoming someone else’s problem. Release those worries.  Look how tiny they seem, as they disappear over the horizon. 

    (JAZZ shakes head impatiently and crabwalks down the steps toward audience. 

    JAZZ

    Where is this place? It smells like death. The end of everything.

  • Rough Sleep – a play by Alysse Aallyn

    CHARACTERS

    Jazz Suzino – female college student – edgy, artistic

    Chase Quinn – male college student – angry wrestler

    Koo Loflin – female college student – petite cheerleader

    Soliz D’Accosta – female college student – chip on her shoulder- ethnic – smart transfer student

    Grady “G-Rad” Borden –male, black “in the closet” college student

    Zane Pettigrew – male college student – jock biz major

    Dr. Richard Corso – “Lord of Perceptual Studies” – charismatic older man with plummy, stagey voice

    Zoya Farrell – older female – tiny, hopeful but easily discouraged – Chase’s mom

    Cutter Farrell – older male – Chase’s mean, scary cold-eyed dad

    Bex – male youth – Jazz’s scary biker ex

    SCENE I – WAITING ROOM (i.e. circle of chairs) outside DREAM RESEARCH LAB.  Visible DOOR to one side. Students – edgy, impressionable JAZZ , angry suspicious,  punked out wrestler CHASE, King-of-the-World jock business major ZANE,  RAD (Black, light-sprung guy with ornate dreads and gay overtones) SOLIZ (pretty, smoky, hot, ethnic, resentful) KOO (tiny blond cheerleader, very anxious  alternately sprawl and rock on uncomfortable “waiting room” chairs)

    JAZZ

    (Fanning)

    God, it’s hot in here. I’m melting.

    CHASE

    (Offering a hand)

    And I’m Chase.

    JAZZ

    (Blushing – takes his hand)

    I mean, I’m Jazz.  Hi.

    SOLIZ

    (A tad hostile)

    Who’s named Jazz?

    JAZZ

    (shrugs)

    Short for Jasmyn. Mothers – Disney – what can you do?

    RAD

    You got that right. My parents call me Grady. Grady Borden! Get a brother killed on the street.  I go by Rad. Or G-Rad.

    (He and Zane trade complicated fist bumps & bicep grabs)

    SOLIZ

    Shouldn’t it be “Raid”?

    CHASE

    Let people have the nickname they want.  And you are?

    SOLIZ

    Soliz.  I should be a third year but I transferred so I’m only a sophomore. That’s all the credits they would give me – and I graduated junior college. 

    RAD

    Hey, I’m a transfer too!  They turned me down straight outta high school.  I mean, is this place a snob factory or what?

    CHASE

    I just assumed we’d all be psych majors but I don’t recognize anyone. 

    (Points)

    ZANE

    Zane. Business major. 

    (He waves)

    KOO

    I’m Koo.  Like koo–kool. I was a communications major but they gave me such a bad internship I really couldn’t hack it. Now I’m uncommitted. I don’t know what to do. Everything available you hear bad things about.

    RAD

    (Points to KOO)

    I know I’ve seen you.  Top of the pyramid, right?

    KOO

    (Shrugs –  happy at the perks of fame)

    I’m the flier. My feet never touch ground.

    RAD

    You’re the one goes with that quarterback? Am I correct?

    KOO

    Bo Boyd. Yes.

    RAD

    Woo-hoo! Humptious!

    (Fanning)

    Hells YES it’s hot in here!

    (Takes off his bomber jacket stunned by KOO’s hotness)

    CHASE

    It would be just like Dr. Corso turning up the heat to make us squirm.

    (Waves up at presumably unseen camera)

    Hi, doc!

    ZANE

    That’s a sprinkler, dog.

    CHASE

    You better believe there’s a camera in here someplace. He needs to collect his little trophies. Bargaining chips. His little icons.

    RAD

    So he turns up the heat till we boil?  Like frogs in the experiment?

    KOO

    What frogs?

    RAD

    The frogs that were too stupid to get out of the hot water. ‘Cause it happened so slowly.

    SOLIZ

    Those frogs were in search of a paycheck.

    ZANE

    They never boiled any frogs!  That’s for sure an urban legend!

    CHASE

    Listen to the marketing major! Always first with the non-facts.

    ZANE

    Well at least we know we’re not going to get boiled.

    CHASE

    Did you read what you signed? He can do any goddam thing he wants to us.

    KOO

    Well he can boil me if he pays me.  You should see my VISA bill.

    RAD

    (Sycophantically trying – and failing – to be ZANE’s best buddy)

    Like there’s a difference between psychology and marketing. Am I right? Everyone’s trying to sell you something.

    JAZZ

    Am I the only freshman?

    CHASE

    You’re a freshman?

    JAZZ

    I’m an old freshman. Took me awhile to get here.

    KOO

    If you’re a freshman you must live in Hadleigh!

    JAZZ

    Is that bad?

    KOO

    It’s pathetic is what it is!  Hadleigh has sick building syndrome. And  the girls are at the top where the bad air collects and it’s like the worst.

    CHASE

    All the poor little freshmen jumping out their windows!

    JAZZ

    Those windows don’t even open!

    ZANE

    They don’t open now because of all the suicides.

    KOO

    Because of the sick building syndrome!

    (BEX – big, mean, long haired, motorcycle jacket & boots, appears on the opposite side of the door and starts hammering)

    BEX

    Jazz! Jazz! Jazz!

    (Embarrassed JAZZ slides out the door and closes it carefully after her.  BEX grabs her immediately)

    JAZZ

    Omigod, Bex, what are you doing here?  You have to go!

    BEX

    Don’t answer my texts, don’t answer my emails – You’re forcing me to stalk you. Your choice, babe. MY LIFE.

    (JAZZ tries to detach)

    JAZZ

    You’ve GOT a life. You need to get back to it. We broke up, remember?

    BEX

    So that’s it?  Kicking me to the curb?

    JAZZ

    You knew I wanted to go to college. I was lucky to get this scholarship.

    BEX

    So now you’re too good for me, is that it? Now you’re hanging out with that old guy who looks like your granddad!

    JAZZ

    (Pushing him away)

    He’s my advisor. So stop with the paparazzi scheme, Bex, stop spying on me and posting the pictures. Scram.  Go home.

    (Manages to get behind the door – slams it in his face – barricades it shut.  BEX marches offstage with a look of determination – like – he’s not quitting)

    RAD

    (Clueless)

    Thought you were making a break for it.

    CHASE

    Need help with that?

    JAZZ

    Nah. No.

                      (She sits down but nervous glance at door)

    RAD

    It’s crunch time, am I right?  Better get out now! More for us!

    ZANE

    Did you hear we all have alternates?

    RAD

    No. No way!

    ZANE

    Way. These are juicy gigs.  Paid research jobs – I mean, it never happens.

    CHASE

    Makes you wonder what he’s up to.

    ZANE

    Just making sure we show, is all.

    CHASE

    And here we are.  Why did you show up? 

    (points at JAZZ)

    JAZZ

     I’m sort of hoping it’s true. The soulmate thing.

    RAD

    The wha-?

    JAZZ

    Skydancers. Dakinis, they call them. Dreampower.

    KOO

    Didn’t you read the book?  You were supposed to read the book. Soulmates can soultravel. Like, everywhere.

    RAD

    There’s an urban legend right there for sure.

    ZANE

    It’s the remote viewing thing that I want.  Weapon of the future. Business of a lifetime.  Defense contractors throw mad money at that stuff.

    RAD

    Mad money! 

    (High fives with ZANE.)

    SOLIZ

    Astral projection? Out of body experiences? Impossible. I hope it doesn’t work because I need the sleep. I’ve got like, two other jobs.

    ZANE

    Sleep’s a luxury. Too luxurious for us bottom feeders – this is hustle time.

    KOO

    Think everyone’s got a soulmate?  Each one of us?  Out there somewhere?

    RAD

    What’s Bo Boyd say to THAT?

    KOO

    Maybe it’s him. 

    (Not like she believes it)

    CHASE

    What is the likelihood we’ll find soulmates AMONG EACH OTHER? Six strangers? Seriously!

    JAZZ

    Maybe soulmates create each other.

    CHASE

    This here is exactly why Dr. Corso chose non-psych majors!  Soulmates! Out-of-body experiences! It’s the old razzle-dazzle!  Cover story. Dr. Corso’s the king of bullshit. That’s not what he’s interested in at all! They never tell you what they’re really testing.

    RAD

    Well, then, what do you think he’s testing?

    CHASE

    Beats me. But I sure would love to know.

    JAZZ

    He’s testing our dreams. I never dreamed before I came here.  And ever since I moved in I’ve been having these fantastic dreams.

    KOO

    It’s that sick building. I’m telling you.

    ZANE

    It’s the drug the nurse gave us.  You know, at the Health Center? The tolerance test? Whatever that stuff was. My dreams were crazy, too!

    RAD

    Who can forget Tolerance Test with Nurse Humptious! God knows what she did to me while I was out of it. Probably me-tooed this poor homeboy.

    ZANE

    Yeah, she got you in trouble and now she’ll have to marry you.

    CHASE

    Whatever it is…Corso knows.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Daisy – Love:

    If This Card Chooses You – You are surrounded by magical possibilities. Are you dreaming of eternal bliss? Floating in connectedness? In Love the boundaries of the other disappear, all is forgiveness. Merge fearlessly, knowing you will be able to get yourself back any time, soothed, improved, and healed.

    We Are Warriors For Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. This is the space that warriors protect. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

    Our Yearning Defines Us – As children we thought we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. As warriors we fight for our ancestral memories of trust and closeness. How we long to be reminded of the ecstasy of selflessness, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.

    Love Is Our Armor – It’s a spiral, our labyrinth, remember? We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We practice techniques and invent others as we design and redesign purposeful maps in a threatening and uncertain world. We have the collective confidence of all the brilliance of the warriors who came before us. Someone loved us once, eternalizing the golden moment, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic.

    Warrior Danger – Danger lies in narrowing, exclusionary definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve focused on our own gratification, Love dies.

    Warrior Opportunity – The possibilities of a warrior are endless because we have chosen, in our flexibility and understanding, to be endless. Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours. Let’s venture forth together.

    Models & Mentors – ‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides” – David Viscott

    “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn

    “Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing” – Torquato Tasso

    “Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh

    “I love you for who I am when I’m with you” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    #Haiku: Love Transfer

    The secret of breaking
    Any bad habit
    Is to love
    Something more

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Gazing Ball – Prophecy:

    If This Card Chooses You – The future weighs on you. Will you be found wanting?

    Ask your dreams. The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We KNOW the “truth’. We fear the truth. We don’t want to face the truth. We fear the continuing “losses” of age because the accretions are so hard to see. Our dreams KNOW what is going on. But they are also Art, and art – especially good art – is as mysterious, meaningful and forceful as any living thing. It changes as you change, and it changes depending on how you look at it.

    Warriors Need Truth. Warriors Accept Revelation – Dreams tell us when to be afraid. Dreams warn when something is missing. Dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself. The first obligation warriors accept is that the truth will set you free. The second, is that although terrifying, the truth is necessary. Warriors spurn the hiding, lying, misrepresentation, that substitutes for truth.

    Warriors Can Handle The Truth – We are human, we are imperfect, and we need each other. The truth is that humans need governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful accord. The truth is also that humans who lust only for power will eternally angle to get themselves into positions of control, exclusion and punishment. These impulses must be identified and weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous warriors also have our own lives to live.

    Warrior Danger – Our dreams notify us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Our maps & models offer a variety of plans for confrontation and escape, and a recipe for courage. At the present time, the Lethal Persons are banding together and hoarding weapons to give themselves even more guarantees for power and opportunities to enjoy our despair.

    Warrior Promise – Jesus said evil will not win. The challenge is to explore what ELSE he said, indeed, what is the message of all the great teachers? People who tell you to hate one another and go to war with one another are agents of evil. The first challenge is to create peace in our own hearts, peace in our own lives, peace in our own homes, and then start developing compassion for those who are not so lucky. When brutal tactics and empty promises are exposed as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, we see clearly that efforts to share despair come from a desire to surmount despair, and that it has never worked and is not working. Only when the goal of increasing world suffering is given up can we welcome penitents back into the community of Sharing.

    Models & Mentors – “We write the future moment to moment” – Pema Chodron

    “The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and leave you to peer through for yourself”

    – Frank Herbert

    “The greatest thing a human soul can accomplish in this world is to see that poetry, prophecy & religion all are one” – John Ruskin

    “The best way to predict the future is to create it” – Abraham Lincoln

    “Yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not come, let us begin” – Mother Teresa

    #Haiku: Prophecy

    Inward
    Resonates outward;
    Warriors
    Blossom
    Inevitably

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Labyrinth – Complexity:

    If This Card Chooses You – Is our brain’s labyrinth powerful enough to solve the universe’s complexity? Each of us experiences slow-growing difficulties just heaving from infancy into psychic awareness. How are we going to figure out the space-time continuum? In order to tackle these vast problems we have to get some sense of their dimensions.

    Are You Dreaming of the Impossible? Last night I dreamed of being at a resort where people were able to run across the top of the ocean playing a curling game – but they had to move fast. I couldn’t figure out what kept their feet above the waves. Later it was my job to provide lunch but the food at the little store was appalling. Very little bread, all stale – some weird canned vegetables, no protein other than some very suspect cheese. I was so relieved to wake up!

    Don’t Try This Alone – Life is very complex. We are bombarded with daily reminders that many of its problems are too big for our tiny brains to tackle alone. We need help deconstructing and deciphering the maze – we require the assistance of legions of engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and artists – living and dead. Our mythic history is nothing but re-runs of: Tiny Human Confronts Huge Universe.

    Is Your God Too Small? – We have a regrettable tendency to try to solve problems by reducing them to the size of our individual brains. Don’t. There’s no shame in admitting the problem is of awe-inspiring size; there’s no shame in requesting help. But the concept of God must be of something mightier than ourselves, our problems, even bigger than space and time.

    Warriors Are Puzzle Solvers– There is a way out of this labyrinth. You can follow string, leave breadcrumbs, mark walls, climb higher to get a birds’ eye view. You can call in a favor, study history, learn a skill, consult experts, request advice, find out what’s worked in the past. My favorite cartoon shows a goat calmly eating his way through maze walls. The key, problem solvers tell you, is not to panic. Whole years of primary education are devoted to getting you to sit down, breathe calmly and focus on the problem. Remember what you have been taught. Recall your goals.

    Warrior Challenge – It is not necessary to solve the entire problem to solve a problem. Even a blind rat can get through a maze one step at a time. Algebra came into being to manipulate unknowns. Guessing at the existence of x using the behavior of surrounding particles allows us to see without eyes. Many “hacks” are clever, and certain innovators have a gift for adaptation and reconfiguration. We can always use help. We can always form teams. Repeat after me: “All my problems have some solution.” Often the solution is viewing the “problem” differently. Maybe it isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity.

    Warrior Danger – Primary dangers are panic (inability to think) and defeatist thinking (lack of imagination). The lovely movie The Martian shows a scientist literally conquering the impossible. If you ”give up”, you never get there, but retreat, reconstitution, changing training regimens and getting help are NOT giving up. Promoting your physical health and “Sleeping on it” are always good advice, as is viewing the difficulty from some other angle or changing the definitions of the entities considered.

    Warrior Opportunity – Key to success is fostering excitement about challenges. Our high school used to dump couples in the countryside at night and give a prize to the first couple who found their way home! (Following roads and train tracks always a good idea.) Scavenger hunts and orienteering cover much the same territory. The fact that a problem is difficult only makes it more fun. Ask chess players.

    Models & Mentors – “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity” – Douglas Horton

    “The labyrinth combines walking and thinking to open your power of imaginative perception” – Lauren Artress

    “Willingness to be puzzled is a valuable trait to cultivate” – Noam Chomsky

    “In a maze, find the center, in a labyrinth, find yourself” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Life is a puzzle, missing pieces guaranteed and you can’t cheat and look at the box” – Anonymous

    #Haiku: Every Book is a Zen Book

    Puzzle
    Words –
    Assume
    Solution –
    Labyrinths
    Demand
    Escape;
    Look
    Up

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Thief – Dispossessed:

    If This Card Chooses You – you’re boiling inside. You’re so mad you can’t think straight. You had something and now it’s gone – you have less. It was stolen from you by some thief. The fact that you stole it originally and you’re a thief too isn’t making you any happier. You were supposed to get this thing, you were in line for it, and now all bets are off.

    Broken Dreams – Do you dream of plunder? Strong rooms? Treasure palaces? Security systems?

    If Property Is Theft, then We’re all Thieves – Don’t covet, says the Bible. Don’t envy. We are born with a sense of loss we spend lifetimes trying to remedy. Something has been taken from us, but what? This “politics of grievance” has always waged a peculiar power, seemingly breeding the anger and revenge that come so naturally to the human genome. “If something has been taken from me I will take something from you.” Yet our loss remains amorphous. We cling to the concept that we were “entitled” to something we no longer have. Philosophers and psychologists speculate; is it the mother’s womb? The family nest? What exactly is this lost paradise?

    Only Warriors Are Truly Free – Warriors own nothing. We are not interested in acquiring burdens but in freeing the human psyche of its burdens. To do that, we must first free ourselves.

    Don’t Chain Yourself to a Nightmare– There is much talk nowadays that “the American Dream” is no longer possible. Very relevant to our study of Warrior Oracle! Dreams are our specialty! But what was that “dream”, exactly? a mystical concept of “wholeness” – family, life, work, rewards – always shifting according to who you are and from where you are looking. Once you are part of a “team” – even if just a team of two – the look can change dramatically. Is that a loss or a gain? What is value, what is hoarding? We know if we eat more than our cells can burn we get fat, and that if we eat too much too fast we will choke. How can we slip magically through this problematic life, light as feathers, bright as sunlight, strong as fire?

    By Becoming Warriors, that’s how. We no longer fill our tombs with the junk of real life for use in the Great Beyond, “terra cotta servants” who will “wake” to wait on us hand and foot. We are forced to satisfy ourselves with strictly “mental” pictures. Is the detachment of elder-hood a triumph of success or a long wail of departure?

    You Can’t Take It With You And You Don’t Want To – Not if you expect to fly! The “de-cluttering” movement did us all an enormous favor. Marie Kondo asked us to rid ourselves of every object that does not “spark joy”. That’s a high standard! We soon discover that daily life stirs up a lot of “necessary” detritus that sparks joy in literally no one but is a misery to live without. Probably the best way to free ourselves is to challenge the entitlement mystique with sharing.

    Warrior Danger – The whole principle of capitalism is to benefit from the work of others. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the grievances THAT can stir up. And yet “state” ownership churns up grievances of its own. Ownership itself is fraught with exclusion, hostility, and danger. The nature of the Warrior is to “Be” rather than to “own”. Can we still enjoy the world if it doesn’t belong to us and we don’t belong to it? Warriors say Yes!

    Warrior Challenge – Do we possess objects when we are not physically present? Can we ever possess people? Do we WANT to take responsibility for another’s entire existence? How do our dreams of freedom comport with our dreams of possession? Who – or what – is held captive? Warriors deliberately free ourselves – mentally and spiritually – but this is a commitment that must be refreshed daily due to the temporal demands of our physical existence. That means warriors forgive ourselves daily.

    Being a warrior means acknowledging that being wounded is a condition of life. Warriors come to terms with their wounds, evaluating them (often giving thanks for them), creating conceptual at projects about them and strategizing around them.

    Many of our wounds come from happenstance, birth order, parental crises, national dilemmas, international catastrophes. We’re all pushed out of the nest before we’re ready.

    Asked to comment on having sisters, Diana Mitford Guinness Mosley, of the six famous Mitford sisters, said “Sisters stand between one and life’s cruel circumstances” to which her sister Nancy replied, “Sisters are life’s cruel circumstances.” Both are true. But when I consider a life without sisters, that would definitely be worse. The only benefit no sisters would confer that I can imagine would be more attention from parents, and knowing them, could be I dodged a bullet.

    Sisters are models, Warriors who go Before. All three are warriors (our father was a noted warrior imprisoned for his crime of Free Thought). My eldest sister got a Masters degree in Fiber Sculpture – I’ve got to say I think this is even more bodacious than a PhD in Haiku. She still weaves in the morning – designs she sells among the jewelry and art of Archipelago in Rockport, ME. In the afternoons she kayaks the inlets of coastal Maine, mastering tides, wandering sea-animals and adventuring humans.

    My second sister is a world-adventuring cyclist, speaks Amslan, hikes, cherishing the widest group of friends.

    My youngest sister tends a labyrinth & two ponds on a glorious estate with three or four residences, a creek – all visited by otters, minks, bears, foxes, bobcat, coyote and all the feathered, furred and scaly Maine creatures.

    Models & Mentors – “The more stuff I donated the more I was able to breathe, the more trash I threw away, the more weight I felt was lifted, the more I was able to see a new life, the more joy I found” – Zina Harrington


    “Clutter is postponed decisions” – Barbara Hemphill

    “Life is your masterpiece. Edit frequently and ruthlessly” – Nathan W. Morris

    “To the spoils belong the victor” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    “Freedom is the oxygen of the soul” – Moshe Dayan

    #Haiku: The Thief

    If
    Property’s theft:
    My greed’s your
    Crime
    I consume –
    Disperse –
    Your evidence.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Chrysanthemum – Healing Rituals:

    If This Card Chooses You – you have reached the point of access to the gifts of the Warrior. Let the healing begin. Are you a believer in magic? Do you dream of restoration, of nostalgia, of lost youth?

    Warriors Believe In Magic – Bravely, we put ourselves in the way of harm, and harm is done to us. But we believe in the magic of restoration through transformation. These scars, these wounds, these experiences make us smarter, harder, brighter and more beautiful.

    Understand the Meaning of Your Scars – These are life’s tattoos, which have ennobled you. It is your honor to embody the story of the universe with your blood and your bone. But It is the Warrior’s Brain that brings us closest to God. The mystery of suffering is that it educates us into the greatest mystery of all –that God is willing to suffer with us because Love means holding each other through pain and infusing our strength into another’s sadness.

    Bow To Each Other – We are each other’s masters, we are each other’s pupils, we are each other’s lovers, siblings and rescuers. Drinking ginger tea from translucent porcelain cups, we lift our cups to each other. We bathe together in steaming pools. I release you as you release me. When darkness falls, we touch one another’s hands before departing. If we can bear it, we touch bodies.

    Warriors Recognize That We Cannot Diagnose Ourselves – We offer ourselves for the universe’s good and so it takes a world to cure us. Healing and diagnosis alike will come from the welcome lips of another. It has been scientifically proven that even plants respond to kind words. We yearn for the laying on of hands, for the gentle rituals that pass us from one stage of life to another.

    Warrior Challenge – Paradoxically, no “medicine” can succeed unless we “accept” our healing spiritually. We must feel “worthy” of restoration. What are we fighting for? Think deeply. We are not self-punishing but stating as clearly as we can that life is valuable in all its forms. If you are only as “young” as you feel, are we only as “healthy” as we allow ourselves to be? Forgive yourself. Accept change. Contrary to our fears, it is change that keeps us young.

    Warrior Danger – Healing cannot occur in an atmosphere of self-hatred and self-blame, but many of us are STILL “blaming” ourselves for twists of fate, for unlucky genetic, social and medical outcomes. “Fundamental attribution error” consists of blaming individuals for group effects. We are all caught up in the machinery of temporality. Never forget that we are souls who happen to have bodies, not bodies who happen to have souls.

    Warrior Opportunity – “Restoration” is such a glorious promise that early Christians found themselves ensnared in decades of argument about PHYSICAL resurrection. How would it work in cases of burning and dismemberment, exactly? It is easy to laugh at these painfully ridiculous theological conflicts. One is reminded of St. Joan of Arc’s response to interrogators at her trial who asked if angels appeared to her naked – “Do you think God cannot afford to clothe his angels?” Accept the power accorded to you by the universe. Accept the strength of your own mind, the control given by your chosen attitude. Healing is not just possible, it is a life-force in which we can all participate. Jesus came to us as a healer.

    Models & Mentors – “Healing yourself is connected with healing others” – Yoko Ono

    “What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.” – Haruki Murakami

    Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy.” ~ Catherine Rippinger Fenwick

    “We are healed of suffering only if we experience it to the full – Marcel Proust

    “Maybe the dragons in our lives are princesses” – Rainer Maria Rilke

    #Haiku: I Don’t Know

    Admit ignorance
    No shame –
    It’s healthy –
    Empty glass
    Asks for water