Alysse Aallyn

Category: #SoulTravel

  • 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

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Columbine – Addiction:

    If This Card Chooses You – Uh oh. You’ve become too attached. To … what? Investigate. Take it slow. Is your attachment harming your principles? Values? Relationships?

    The Warrior’s Fiercest Battle – Do you dream of imprisonment? Blank walls? Chains? Our neurocircuitry mandates habit-making behavior, but our intelligence recognizes entrapment, and our dreams send out distress signals. If you’re human, there is no way to avoid addiction. Welcome to the Club!

    We Are Wired For Addiction – If there’s no escaping it – that means you will have to fight this battle. But the good news is, this is exactly how you become Free. Anyone who hasn’t done it is still a slave to their hormones, instincts, patterning – just as animals are. Here’s the very thing you become a Warrior for – your best chance to develop a free will and a free soul.

    Study Your Opponent – Turns out we have tremendous choice over what we become addicted to. Some addictions are less corrupting than others. Visit an AA meeting and the consumption of sugar and tobacco is outright alarming. Are you addicted to gambling? Do you work in sales? Were you raised in a ritualistic faith? We easily become dependent on praise, on safety, on gratification, and our brains (and our general health) show our dependency. They threaten and panic when the “treat” is withdrawn.

    Warrior Challenge – This parasite doesn’t care if it kills its host. If you fear you are approaching a cliff-edge, you probably are. One test is to go on a “retreat” where your customary gratifications are not available, and attempt to form new gratifications. See what happens! Does your personality threaten to disintegrate? Great time to ask yourself: who am I really? This is such a good idea, we should build it into our lives, periodically. Just to keep us recognizing that cliff-edge where Soul and Self are lost.

    Warrior Danger – We always live with the possibility that we will lose our autonomy. We want to change, we know we SHOULD change, but we CAN’T. There’s no shame in needing outside help. This is the purpose of interventions, to demonstrate to our eyes and ears that we are harming ourselves and our relationships. Denial is a powerful defense mechanism, especially when we think we’ve finally found a substance/process that “magically” allows us to live on our particular cliff-edge – a dangerous job, risky sexual behaviors, risky recreational behaviors. We then have the choice of refusing to listen – giving up our relationships to keep up our self-abuse. Some hardened wretches tell anyone who listen that life itself isn’t worth it without their life-threatening self-abuse. They choose to die as slaves.

    Warrior Opportunity – You not only CAN free yourself, you MUST to deserve and preserve your Warrior Status. It is your spiritual obligation to live this territorial existence as an enlightenment opportunity. Familiar with the saying, “Live simply so that others may simply live” ? That mandates sharing. That means ALWAYS studying your consumption, NEVER allowing yourself to turn into a greedy pig and scheduling time to be alone with the universe and with God. To check on the hardiness of your Soul.

    Models & Mentors – “You can’t defeat the darkness by keeping it caged inside you”

    – Seth Adam Smith

    “All addictions are ways to not feel our feelings” – Ellen Burstyn

    “Sometimes you can only find heaven by backing slowly away from hell” – Carrie Fisher

    “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”. – Robert Collier

    “The most common way people give up their power is thinking they don’t have any” – Alice Walker

    #Haiku: The Columbine – Addiction

    Brain cells beggared;
    Lovelorn
    Oxytocin receptors misfire:
    “Feed me!”

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Tulip – Illusion:

    If This Card Chooses You – You need a re-set. Your operating instructions are faulty. But where did they go wrong? That is what we must figure out. Do you find yourself frequently fantasizing about some magic dissolution of “the rules”? The problem with mirages – especially those we long to believe in – is that they become illusions. Falsehoods. We need so desperately to cling to an obvious fantasy we willingly surrender our ability to discern fact from fiction.

    Illusions are Powerful – The seventeenth century Dutch needed a desirable luxury exchange item the privileged could trade back and forth for status reasons. Yes, that was the tulip bulb. It was a bubble – of course– the bottom fell out – of course – and left a whole lot of previously comfortable people bankrupt. We don’t have anything like that, these days, do we? Or do we? People are rushing to invest in crypto because of its complete lack of regulation. But without rules, it’s laughably easy to steal people’s money.

    We’re All Rubes Here – Other people are investing in admittedly worthless “tokens” – just in case they go up in value. Does anyone remember the Beanie Baby craze? I had a friend who stored Mrs. Butterworth bottles in her basement – she had a basement FULL of Mrs. Butterworth bottles – because they were just BOUND to be worth something – someday. Have you seen what happens when everyone runs to the same side of the ferryboat? It tips them into the water! Successful investing involves being where the crowd isn’t – before they get there. Luck –and manipulation of the credulous – is often involved.

    Some Illusions Are Life Strengthening – Others are Life-Depleting.
    I can’t stress this strongly enough: Warriors Need to Avoid Fantasy Thinking. Of all people, Warriors must traffic in reality. We create worthwhile magic, the kind that protects and enhances – so we can’t be deceived by the “magic” that punishes and stigmatizes. Your map must represent actual ground, not pie in the sky, or you won’t be able to maneuver across it. We understand the attraction of The Mirage. The problem with mirages – especially those we long to believe in – is that they evolve into illusions which create delusions.

    Illusions Become Delusions – The Buddhists say life itself is an illusion. But they mean that metaphorically, to keep you from become “attached” to the “ephemeral.” The physics, gravity, chemistry and hydraulics of everyday life are hardly illusive. Above all, we should avoid clinging to fake food and pushing away nutrition. When warriors end up battling FOR falsity – it’s the worst of all possible situations.

    Warrior Challenge – Let’s face facts. Learn to enjoy reality as a bracing polar dip. Are you trapped by an illusion that you used to need but now is killing you? You can identify this by your increasing suffering over an increasingly problematic life and your diminishing pleasure over things that once were reliable joys. Is it a relationship? An activity? A belief? Look at the problem honestly. Find others going through the same experience and generate honest discussion.

    Flying Monkeys Abound – If any group member rushes in defensively to shame and discourage you, to convince you you’re not feeling or understanding what you KNOW you ARE feeling and understanding then realize you’re being gaslighted. What you’re trying to exit is a “cult” that is NOT devoted to the health of its members but to their diminishment. Stop communicating with those flying monkeys and find somebody who supports the truth of your actual experience AND your desire to feel better.

    Warrior Danger – The path to re-making yourself is fraught with danger and you will require all sorts of help. Don’t be discouraged if your feelings are volatile and transitory and you are confused about their reality. Move slowly, consulting Models & Mentors – kind others who respect your autonomy, individuality and with whom you feel safe.

    Warrior Opportunity – Relax! Warriors will become adept at shifting vision from night vision to day vision, forward and backwards through time, manifesting others’ auras until we can all see possibility and love.

    We Transform Illusion Through Skill – The impossible takes longer, because language is not as flexible as reality. You are embarked on an exciting growth challenge where you leave a constricting carapace behind. Sometimes the “shell” was protective and served for a time to keep you safe while you matured. You don’t need to disparage the old you, or the old relationship; it served its purpose. Often people who have been through a trauma say afterwards they wouldn’t change the past, because they treasure and embrace the person they’ve become.

    Models & Mentors – “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours” – Richard Bach

    “The world is an illusion we must take seriously.” – Aldous Huxley

    “The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion – the tunnel’s the illusion” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Separation from each other is an optical illusion of reality” – Albert Einstein

    ‘Limit, like fear, is often an illusion” – Michael Jordan

    #Haiku: Coach Don’t Play

    When you learn the game
    Rise above the game;
    Insight
    Renders you
    Magic

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Daffodil – Enlightenment:

    If This Card Chooses You – You are coming closer. You are on the cusp of a major discovery that will explain much. Are you dreaming of books, reading, classes, school? Do you often feel you are on a pursuit and the prey is within view?

    Warriors Seek the Light – We are all born in a condition of yearning. As children, we try desperately to understand the world we find ourselves in. The truth is we are all warriors on a quest for enlightenment. We know there is a message out there for us, we know we have the capacity to understand it, but we are waiting for the lightning strike of “enlightenment” to put it all together.

    The Truth Is Simple – Jesus said we have to become children again to enter the kingdom of heaven. This certainly implies that “enlightenment” is more a state of mind than any received wisdom. The daffodil, that simple fresh flower that is the harbinger of spring, is Warrior Oracle’s symbol of the mystical understanding and the lightning universal comprehension we call “enlightenment.”

    Warrior Challenge – Enlightenment literature recommend two things: a good teacher and time alone. Every night when we go to sleep we enter the alone-time of our own mind. We can prep ourselves in advance with some “good teaching”; Socrates, Plato, Montaigne, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Batchelor, the Dalai Lama – savor these models until you get a sense which one speaks especially to you. Then set aside twenty-minutes or a half an hour for reading (or listening) right before sleep.

    Warrior Danger – Zen teachers say that if anyone represents themselves as a Zen teacher they are cannot be. Gnostic gospels say prophets asking for money are false prophets. Search for a guru is fraught with landmines. This is why I mention specific names of teachers available at any library who will not be trying to gain any ascendance or dominance over you personally. Be aware of giving your spirit into another’s care. If they have demanded submission they will be cruel. The sin against the Holy Ghost is the only sin that cannot be forgiven, and it is the sin of running roughshod over our spiritual receptors. Once trust and faith are destroyed, it is difficult to “become a child again” because of the terrible things we have known and seen.

    Warrior Opportunity – Broken places let in the light and healing is always available. Even when scarred by false prophets we feel there is a magic of universal love and resilience available to us. A variety of healing ceremonials – my favorite is the “miracle bath” and the “laying on of hands” – will reconnect you to the possibilities of joy, love and the insight leading to enlightenment.

    Models & Mentors -. “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” – Lao Tzu

    “Enlightenment is your felt state of Oneness with Being” – Eckhart Tolle

    “The road to enlightenment is long and difficult and you should not forget snacks and magazines” – Anne LaMott

    “Suffering is temporary, enlightenment is forever” – Buddha

    “Enlightenment does not come from the mind, it comes from just being. You are already enlightened. You have to realize it to allow it into your experience”- Anita Moorjani

    #Haiku: Enlighten-ment

    Dissolution reassembles;
    Enlightened wave knows
    It’s
    Ocean

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Foxglove – Medicine:

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

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

    Do You Trust Your Doctor? Maybe it’s spiritual healing that’s required. Try a naturopath, acupuncture, massage therapy – searching for that instinctively helpful healer. Revisit advice on managing gurus – they must not be greedy and must demonstrate they have your best interests at heart. Seek references from friends. Anyone attempting to isolate you and wall you off from information is not your friend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    #Haiku: Overcoming Narcissistic Disappointment

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