Alysse Aallyn

Category: #SoulTravel

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    The Moon – Influence:

    If This Card Chooses You – Time to re-calibrate your influences. What are they? Sometimes you can’t know it, but you can feel it. Something is pressing on you, like gravity, the way the moon’s pressure rolls and presses on our tidal waters.

    Your Subconscious Knows – You are a secret to yourself but your subconscious has the answers. Yet she only reveals herself covertly. Time for some dream interpretation. Object dreams are fear dreams, people dreams are love dreams, motion dreams are future dreams. Don’t look for rigid accuracy – we seek connections, not edges, interpretations, not walls and blocks. The purpose of dreaming is to splinter blocks. If you are a writer, automatic writing reveals what you think about. Collect pictures that speak to you and collage them from insight. Try to name the figures.

    Warriors Are In Tune With the Universe – The opposite of fear, remember, is attraction, the opposite of love is hate and the opposite of yearning for the future is stasis. Each forward pulse contains its opposite. Warriors must learn many languages, of which the most important are non-verbal. The sky, the moon, the stars, the animals, history, the past, the plants, the dead, the future – all are reaching out to you. Be unafraid to listen and interpret.

    Warriors Are Aware of the Unseen – We are all under influences of forces we have never even heard of, yet the Warrior’s Quest is to own their Self and present it in its most beautiful incarnation, to God. To understand who we are at our core and to perfect that is our obligation.

    Warrior Danger – We seek to heighten, not damage, your self-will. Others in your life – relative, friends, advertisers, politicians – are trying to take control of you. Don’t let them. The way to stop that is to take control of your fears yourself, so that you will never be ruled by them. Remember, the opposite of fear is attraction. We always seek a way upward. The direction of the spiral must always be UP.
    Some influences are demonic and purely destructive. We stand up to them, we name them, we reject them. We learn their weaknesses and their targets. If necessary, we will battle them.

    Warrior Challenge – Recognize Health, in yourself and others. Promote growth in yourself and others. Take time for retreat, to build yourself and your powers and to recognize and name where you have come from and what you have battled. Treasure your Training Journal, share it, learn to profit from the trainings and maps of others. Build partnerships. Work on your Gratitude Practice – this is a glorious universe the God/Goddess deigns to share with us; from Love alone.

    Models & Mentors – “Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars” – J. R. R Tolkien

    “Like the Moon, come out from behind the clouds. Shine!”– Buddha

    “Everyone is a Moon, and has a dark side he never shows to anybody”- Mark Twain

    “The moon gives pure solitude and tranquility” – Haruki Murakami

    #Haiku: The Echo

    Sharp night; cold
    Moon; shush your chatter.
    Naked
    Pond consecrates
    Abandon.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Dreams – Imagination:

    If This Card Chooses You – Wake up! Do you look forward to dreaming? I like waking up in the early dawn because when I go back to sleep I can set an intention for dreaming – all the best dreams (and the most memorable ones) happen at the very end of sleep while you are coming up through the layers of sub- to semi-consciousness.

    Warriors Are In Tune With Their Inner Voice – Jung tells us that in your dreams, you are everyone. Every life you have ever lived and every life you will ever live comes to you through your dreams.

    Remember – As Warrior, You’re the Pilot – Do you long for caretaking? Are you eager to give over the reins of your life to someone else? If so, your dreams are likely to become scary, unmanageable and unsatisfying. It is time for you to take charge of your power – to admit that you are in control of your own brain.

    Warriors Are Seekers – We are self-defining. We are on a quest. Warriors experience to the fullest the nature of having a self. Become alert to the possibilities inherent in this particular incarnation and explore. Feel free to release your imagination.

    Dream Journal – Start a dream journal. Date it, and write, “I want to dream about…” Fill in the blank. Be as detailed and specific as you can manage. It is perfectly OK to allow your waking mind to construct desirable dreams – great works of art got their start in just this way! You may hear a voice… someone from the past who discouraged your “day-dreaming” and wanted you to focus on your work, on the present and on them. Explore this memory fearlessly. It is not rejecting or “hating on” that person to disagree with them – there are certainly times when the priority is to focus on other things – but right now you are exploring your own brain and testing out its powers. Clearly that’s an important and necessary project. Gently take control from this Remembered Forbidder and say, “This is my time now. I am in charge.”

    Warrior Danger – We all know the cautionary tale of Scary Guy Who Lives for Video Games and Doesn’t Have a Life. Do you secretly fear that the power of dreams and the pleasures of daydreaming will suck you away from Real World Competence? They won’t – so long as you are reality centered. Some people dream of different outcomes, things that are impossible – instead of finding workable avenues of growth and advancement. Positive dreaming deepens and enhances, doesn’t evade reality. It’s just that reality is so much wilder – and we are so much more powerful than we can credit!

    DREAM GROUP – Form a Dream Group with others to share the content of your dreams and listen to their fresh interpretations. You can even try Group Dreaming. Lie on the floor holding hands in semi-darkness playing drowsy music. Share whatever comes up. These are models for your future. Some of us believe this growth goes on forever – even after death.

    Models & Mentors – “I dream things that never were and I say, “Why Not?”

    – George Bernard Shaw

    “A dreamer finds his way by moonlight…sees dawn before the rest of the world.” – Oscar Wilde

    ‘You have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world” – Harriet Tubman

    “I’ve had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.”

    – Jonas Salk

    #Haiku: Human Clay Sculpts Angel Wings

    We’re all
    Dirt:
    Humble beginnings launch
    Celestial imaginings

  • Becoming a Warrior – The Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Synchronicity – Education

      If This Card Chooses You – Never Quit Learning. Synchronicity is the magic of daily life, but you can’t see it without Education. Do you dream of longed-for events and fulfillment? Glorious parties of perfect happiness where life finally seems to be unfolding exactly the way it should? Synchronous events are harmonious, as if the universe is a vast perfectly working clockwork machine. Understanding machines, systems, attribution and calibration are the subject of the educational process. This is the reason we spend the first twenty plus years of our lives in instructive settings.

      Warriors Learn for a Lifetime – You are a fierce absorber of knowledge. Advertisers know this, as do the designers of games and entertainment generally. We adore self-educating mazes. The complex dance between our skills, our bodily manifestation and the physics of reality is never-ending. Warriors determinedly master the synchrony of Right Thought, Right Instruction & Right Action.

      Warriors Have Young Brains but Old Souls – We have seen, known, learned and struggled so much. We have much knowledge to pass on to the brash beginners. But we ourselves confront each day with Gratitude Practice – re-experiencing the thrill of being alive and relishing the challenge of bending the universe toward light.

      As We Fill Our Souls With Light we Confront the Darkness – Remember – always get the oxygen mask over your own face before you try to help others. We need to design a life-long learning plan that benefits US, not one that puts our hard-earned money in someone else’s pocket.

      Beware the Quicksand – The culture seeks to bog us down in titles, degrees, honors, acquisitions and pro forma protocols. Don’t succumb. Our motion is always upward, our benchmark always health. Are we becoming stronger, smarter and more peaceful? Can we pass this flexible, constructive protocol along? Danger: we are seducible. We get tired, we long for reinforcements and approval. We just want to put our feet up.

      You Chose the Synchronicity Card – You have something to learn today to perfect your balance in this uncertain world. Write it out in your training journal before you go to sleep – what new thing have I learned today? Where will it fit along my map? But we are smart! Our self-designed goal system must contain refreshment and renewal breaks. Most importantly, we will be needing a buddy as we go through the system, and a spiritual guru who provably has our best interests at heart. You can recognize them by the fact that they don’t trap you into a dominance/submission matrix.

      Models & Mentors – “Education is the key to unlocking the world. It is the passport to freedom.” – Oprah Winfrey

      “Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci

      “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela

      “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X

      #Haiku: The Dark Ages

      Treasure Learning
      Compassion &
      Trust
      Bastion against
      These Dark Ages

    1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      Solitude – Self-Sufficiency –

        If This Card Chooses You – Time to Make Friends With Yourself. Have you been fearing time alone? It is vital that we carve out time to reflect on all that is happening to us and the part we play and want to play. Our dreams alone could fill a shelf of books – plus we have to cultivate, curate and care for our daytime warrior. Sometimes we have other people to care for and relationships to manage. We need to learn how to be our own best friend.

        Your Mind Is Your Most Important Tool – Sun Tzu reminds us that all battles are won and lost in the brain. Your mind determines your experience which controls your mind which develops your experience in a perfect feedback loop. In a culture based on “likes” from strangers we are all too ready to hand the reins of our brain over to God know who. Advertisers, influencers and partisans do NOT have your best interests at heart. We must learn how to turn that feedback loop into an upward trending spiral.

        After the Party Comes Cleanup – We need to develop self-confidence. Frustrated Warriors devour themselves. We need to trust, not fear, our own reactions. This takes practice – “reps” in the words of the physical trainers. There is no need for two weeks alone on the Appalachian Trail (nice as that would be) because we are already alone inside our heads. Check your voices: what are you saying to yourself? “Good effort” or “Idiot”? It matters! Many of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat any other human (or animal.) That must change today.

        Warrior Danger – We are not proposing a life without feedback or a divorce from reality. If you really were your own best friend, you would protect, not exalt yourself. You would strategize towards health and sharing, not secrecy and isolation.

        Do You Hate Your Thoughts? – A recent poll discovered that most people would rather experience electric shocks than spend time alone with their thoughts, doing nothing but thinking. Just as mapping your future is a Warrior’s job, so is mapping your brain. Make yourself a person it’s a pleasure to spend time with. You are not lonely when you enjoy your own company.

        Your Training Journal Is Your Mirror – It anchors you with its reflection. It is not necessary to write long pieces – lists or single words are adequate. Visual thinkers may want to sketch out or paste in pictures. Your Training Journal answers the following questions: Where Have I Been? Where Am I Going? Who Am I? Meditate 20 minutes a day on these issues.

        Warrior Opportunity – find a voice you respect and admire to model your internal voice. Can you check with this person that you are on the right path? We all need a life coach or a cheerleader in our corner. Learn to enjoy time alone by building in rewards – indulging in nourishing hobbies as simple as walking and reading. You don’t need rocket science, you need a healthful day to day peaceful retreat inside your own head.

        Ask Yourself What You Take For Granted – This is the part of the picture that’s hardest to see. Because we take it for granted! Here is where your study of models can be helpful because you will be surprised by what other people take for granted. For example, some people assume being a warrior is constant suffering and hardship, but to me, it is the peace of totally owning oneself and being responsible for oneself. It is serfdom that is suffering and hardship.

        Gratitude Practice – Gratitude must be part of your everyday practice. Give thanks for this wonderful body, with its aches and cuts and bruises, eagerly shaping itself according to your efforts. Give thanks for the freedom of your mind. Give daily thanks for the honor of being a Warrior.

        Models & Mentors – “Loneliness is the poverty of self – Solitude is the richness of self.”

        – May Sarton

        “The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude” – Voltaire

        “Solitude is necessary for creativity” – Picasso

        “The best thinking is done in solitude” – Thomas Edison

        #Haiku: Selfish Armor

        Imagination untrammeled –
        My alone time’s
        For your protection

      1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

        Rainbow – Serendipity

          If This Card Chooses You – You Were Born Lucky! What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered a piece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?

          How lucky do you need to be? Ever seen the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that we give thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps it’s really just our ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered it. These memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Let’s learn to develop gratitude thinking.

          Warrior Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’t happen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s try adopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.

          Warrior Danger – Now that you’re committed to the warrior path, the danger is always the same – recognizing your power but giving control of it over to some other entity that almost certainly doesn’t have your best interests at heart. We’re usually not even aware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes? Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead of us. Do we want to go there? Do we really trust these people? Or are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach the illusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?

          Warrior Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique chance to take advantage of serendipitous appearances and encounters. If we recognize it. Compare your path to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?

          How Did We Get Here? Turns out your map was only a suggestion.
          We are mapping as we go along. However, life is even more interesting, it turns out, than our imaginations.

          After the Storm – Comes the Rainbow! Every visible color – carefully separated out – forming an arch to give us a glimpse of heaven! If it didn’t provably exist, would we still believe in it?

          List Your Rainbows – Clouds may or may not have silver linings. Rainbows are a complete surprise – unconnected to the storms that spawned them. Write about the surprises in your life in your Training Journal. How many were nasty? How many joyous?

          The Universe Conspired – To bring you to this moment. You zigged, you zagged, you wound up here. Give thanks!

          Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult” – Erin McKean

          “Steer Into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn

          “Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh

          “Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh

          “There are no coincidences” – Sigmund Freud

          #Haiku: Rainbow – Serendipity

          Happenstance –
          Fortuitous
          Chance; we’re
          Born lucky
          We just don’t know it.

        1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

          Peace – Serenity –

            If This Card Chooses You – You need to learn to enjoy your time off. Are your reveries organized around beaches, vacations, relaxation, memories of happy times when you had nothing to do but enjoy yourself feeling only the moment?

            Peace is Possible. Serenity is an Idea. Most of us are familiar with the “serenity prayer” written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

            “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right.“

            The Serenity Prayer works as an inoculation against pointless worry, which is seen as “borrowing trouble.”

            Warrior Challenge – Like meditation, serenity is a mental state that takes practice. Make a list of your most pressing concerns. Can you do anything about any of them today? If so, appoint a time when you will take a step towards resolving this concern. If you can’t do anything about it, put it forcefully out of your mind. Imagine your worries as a bunch of balloons. Now let them go, one by one. Put each useless worry on a piece of paper and burn them slowly, one by one.

            Warrior Mantra – Give yourself a “serenity mantra”- a word or phrase you find comforting and centering, and repeat it out loud to yourself. St. Julian of Norwich recommended: ”All will be well”, Coué offered, “Every day, in every way I am getting better and better”, some yoga enthusiasts chant a simple “Om.” You can use a phrase from your own past said to you by a Beloved Person – “now you’ll be fine” “You’re safe” “You’re perfect” “Everything’s all right”or the tried and true: “I love you.” My favorite is from Book of Revelation: “Every tear wiped away.”

            Warrior Danger – Don’t be tempted to become a mentor while you’re still learning. Warriors want to be helpful but this is a snare. Mentoring is an end-of-life honor, but you are still placing the oxygen mask on your own face so that you can stay on your plan. Show friends the basics but don’t walk them through it. You’re busy.

            FOMO -We are all worried about “missing” something. Often that “centering person”, that reassuring person from our past is not just the one who gave us the relaxation code, but is also the same one who told us what to worry about: ie. ”Make sure all the locks are locked” “Have you done your homework?” There certainly are things to be concerned about (“Are you registered to vote?”) but there are plenty of worries we CAN’T address. Return to the serenity prayer and start weeding out – on paper – your Justifiable Concerns. One of the best things about Anxiety – and I mean this – is that it offers an opportunity to ask for help. Yes, I say “opportunity”! Because life is all about RELATIONSHIPS.

            Worries can be chances to forge meaningful, worthwhile relationships. Get ready to experiment. As with any other relationship in your life, your requirements, tolerance, communication goals are unique. Many people yearn to speak to a “professional” – therapist or life coach – and plenty of professionals out there are auditioning for a little – or a lot – of your hard-earned cash. An excellent place to start is with Proven Gurus like Tolle Eckhart or Pema Chodon who can be accessed for free from any library. See what you think. Evaluate their assistance. Inquire further.

            Warriors Know What They Have to Do – Others are envious that we have laid out a plan for our lives, that it is flexible, that it is life-enhancing and that it gives us permission to Enjoy. Be humble about this jealousy.

            You’re Entitled – Others also could find peace if they began to take control of the drama that rages within them. Point them in a hopeful direction but don’t get sucked in.

            Meditation Looks Like Dreaming – The secret is, there is enormous pleasure in being a warrior. You finally feel your strength, and when you know the value of your time, you feel your own value. This is what others yearn for. They can learn it, too. But in the mean time you are enjoying your hard-fought serenity.

            We Need So Little To Be Happy – This is the great realization. One bowl, one mat, one dawn. The comfort of another’s presence or the pleasure of your own thoughts. The joy of another morning, another night’s rest. The confidence of a clear head. Welcome to the Universe.

            Models & Mentors – “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.”

            – The Dalai Lama

            “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

            “Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action make up the sum of life” – Vita Sackville-West

            “Enjoy the peace of nature and declutter your inner world” – Amit Ray

            #Haiku: Peace

            Melting heart;
            Compassion
            Purges
            Life’s shudders
            Restores
            Unruffled Depth

          1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

            Inspiration – Intuition –

              When This Card Chooses You – You need to find a way to hang on to those little ideas that keep flickering across your mind-screen. What inspires you? Are you waking up filled with exciting ideas you long to write down? Do you feel the potential of philosophical, profound revelations in your dreams which can never be captured in your waking state?

              Your Subconscious is Calling Out to You – You are experiencing a split between your Rational self and your Prophetic Self, a split which is not only potentially dangerous but completely unnecessary. Probably someone in your education blocked your inspiration by demeaning this interactive channel to the Collective Unconscious of Past and Future and warned you to ignore it. Often teachers think they are “protecting” us by modeling ignorance of the importance of intergenerational trauma, ignoring collective wisdom and its symbols. Education is a good thing when it teaches you to recognize, master and increase resources but it is certainly a bad thing if it countermands, neglects or destroys the yearning inside of you for a deeper connection to all of history and humanity.

              Warrior Challenge – We can re-open this channel, but we will have to think about its potential in a more positive way. The great physicist said that all profound truths contain their opposite (i.e. are not dichotomous) and so require new theories about the Real and the Unreal. These ideas are not mutually exclusive. We must learn to flow with them, rather than fear & resist their bubblings of power.

              Warrior Danger – “Either/Or” thinking is destructive because it requires we abandon vast methodologies of knowledge. “Reductionism” reduces the world to “things” on the presumption that people are transient and “things” are more permanent. But if the magic of the universe encodes in relationships rather than objects this reductionism kills true discovery & thought itself.

              Warrior Opportunity – Accept and ready yourself to explore your inspirations. Learn to separate them from fears and wishes. Cultivate your intuition, that precious gut instinct that warns us who and what to trust and who – and what – to back away from. Accept that – like all good things, this is a Process – thus endless (ie; to be enjoyed for all eternity.) Accept that it is a skill to be honed – one you will keep forever.

              Develop Warriors’ Gut – You sense things. After you sleep on it, you know things. Develop these instincts through drumming, foot massage, chanting, meditation, whatever activities bring you “out” of your head.

              Confront Your Real Self – You can use a sauna as your own private ‘sweat lodge.” The goal is to locate your original self to ask its opinion.
              All too often people in our consumer culture seek a psycho-active product for brain “transformation”. You will need brain “purifying” instead. Consider the substances you fear being without. Caffeine? Nicotine? Carbohydrates? Alcohol? Pain pills? Consider trying to go without for short periods of time to develop your tolerance. Try intermittent fasting under the guidance of a responsible nutrition coach. Track your emerging thoughts in your Training Journal.

              Models & Mentors – “Intuition is the whisper of the soul” – Krishnamurti

              “A good artist lets intuition lead him wherever it wants” – Lao Tzu

              “Follow your instincts – it’s where true wisdom manifests itself” – Oprah Winfrey

              “Intuition and observation are the sources for our knowledge” – Rudolf Steiner

              #Haiku: Inspiration – Intuition

              Faint voice
              Clear
              Harder you listen
              Heart
              Symphonics – re –
              Connecting
              World

            1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

              The Lovers – Alliances –

                When This Card Chooses You – Check your friend list. Do you dream of love, sex, connection? Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? You were born to search for Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must each decide your motive (“I Could Use a Friend”) and approach with the CERTAINTY that you are WORTHY of friendship. This last one is tricky because we are all looking for validation. This is the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class, unprepared on Test Day!

                You Are a Giver and Worthy of Help – We can’t get through this alone, and we don’t want to. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans, struggling, just like us. If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters? We don’t want to end up as someone else’s meal.

                Warrior Danger – When someone is trying to mangle your self-esteem, recognize this. Even if it comes in the guise of “friendship” this person is an enemy. This is not what friends are for. When someone is trying to “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-taker looking for slaves. NOT a friend.

                Warrior Challenge – How to recognize friends? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.” Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.” Friends are fun, “Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest, forgiving, fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend. Friendship is a good place to start. Be the friend you want to have – warm, funny, loyal, truthful.

                Love Enriches – It Does Not Deplete – – Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, we can expand our reach. Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts. Our sorrows are halved and our ideas are increased exponentially. Reach out! You never know until you try. And there’s always the possibility of Love and deepening sexual connection.

                Love Transforms As A Warrior Transforms – Things you thought you could not do seem possible now because someone believes in you. Believe in yourself because they do, and honor them by believing in them, in return.

                Locked Back to Back the Warrior Pair Sees Everything – Gaze turns outward at the world, not inward on each other. Are you chewing or strengthening? Learn the steps of your tango. Add new steps of your own.

                As You Change, the Couple Changes – Compare Training Journals. Are you evolving? Can you evolve together? Is it safe to speak the truth? Does one partner try to dominate? Does one partner use infantile behaviors to get “their way”? There is no “one way.” As joint warriors, the couple has goals also. Compare. Allow differences. The truth will be revealed.

                Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”
                – e.e. cummings

                “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

                “Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place” – Zora Neale Hurston

                “Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth”

                – II Corinthians

                “Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi

                #Haiku: The Lovers

                Falling upwards
                Into you
                My other wing, my second
                Clapping hand

              1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

                The Storm – Conflict –

                  When This Card Chooses You – Something’s coming. Are you having bad dreams? Of natural disasters like storms, volcanoes and flooding? Do you fear war, robbery, violation, home invasion? Or do you dream about your loved one’s face turning bitter and their words cutting sharply? Conflict is inevitable. It is even necessary – birth pangs seem terrifying. In dreams we rehearse our fears until some of us fear to dream.

                  It Always Comes Before You’re Ready – Here it is – the reason you became a warrior. You have to battle or go under. The force against you is superior – no question about that – you will have to be wily and know when to expend energy and when to conserve your strength.

                  You are a Force Field. You are a magnet for desire, change, for evolution itself. This comes by virtue of your warrior birth. Others may tell you to stand back, take your place in line or wait your turn but your appearance into this chaotic universe triggered no such guarantee. We are here to learn to use our power.

                  Conflict Makes a Warrior – Force stirs up resistance. Actions create re-action as we swing back and forth in our determination and direction. We clash and crash. Sometimes we regret it bitterly, “why did I do that?” Sometimes we fear loss or harm so much we become immobilized. The challenge is to assume your stride, elucidate your goals and plan a direction.

                  Warrior Danger – It’s all too easy to make others fear you. The one with the biggest weapon THINKS he wins every fight. But what looks like compliance to you could be revolution – you will be toppled and lose your heart’s desire.

                  Warrior Opportunity – Learning to use conflict constructively and creatively is a Superpower. Other people are force fields, too? If there is any way to blend these powers and head in the same direction, we become invincible. Welcome the knowledge provided by the Storm card in your Warrior Oracle deck.

                  Study Your Opponent – Some clever scholar has separated these opponents into groups & classes. Read up! Some opponents – physical contests, weather conditions – don’t even have a brain. So who – or what – are you playing against?

                  You Are Playing Against Yourself – your own fear, incapacity, beginner status. Seek mentoring so you have advice along the journey. Who is the sensei who will guide you? Someone who desires both your safety and your growth.

                  Reward Yourself – The best place to do this is your training journal. Think hard about every contest and how you performed. Assess your challenges and accomplishments. Way to go!

                  Models & Mentors – “I used to tell myself, boy, if you can survive this, you can survive anything” – Tom Lichtenberg

                  “Laughter is the proof that our tragedies don’t define us. Laughter is the survivor’s language” – Josh James

                  “Cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet” – Michael Douglas

                  “If you want to awaken humanity, awaken yourself. If you want to eliminate suffering, eliminate what is negative in yourself. Your gift to the world is our self-transformation.” – Lao Tzu

                  #Haiku: Sleuth

                  Named is
                  Tamed.
                  Brainstorm:
                  Exceed
                  Outstrip
                  Surpass
                  Unveil
                  Lay bare
                  Prevail

                1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

                  Creativity – The Artist –

                    When This Card Chooses You – YOU ARE AN ARTIST ! You possess the warrior power of making Something out of Nothing. Think. Feel. Look at the tactile world around you and reach out your hands.

                    Warriors and Artists immortalize themselves. Sometimes their works are so intriguingly beautiful that we are drawn in and our critical senses – our fear – is tranquillized while we allow the artist to work magic upon us. Artists aspire to be magicians of the mind and soul.

                    Warrior Challenge – You create something unforgettable because you do not want to be forgotten. You want to open hearts, minds and brains just as yours were first opened, long ago, when you looked upon this amazing world for the first time and felt the power & potential of what you saw. Warriors feel the same thing. We march to a different drummer we feel inside ourselves. We are inner, not outer directed.

                    Warrior Danger – There is possibility here for such overweening pride that you place your own psyche above Creation in importance. If you seek to divert worship of creation to yourself your own soul will harden unto death, and your creative powers will be extinguished.

                    Warrior Opportunity – Join the goddess in creating something entirely new that the world will not want to live without. The joy of sharing, the rapture of being known, the ecstasy of expression, of gratitude of being understood, will be yours.

                    Are you an artist because you say you are or because they say you are? Well, are you a warrior because you say you are or because they say you are? I think it should be obvious that is TOTALLY NOT UP TO THEM. You MUST decide you are a warrior, you have to FEEL like a warrior and they can NEVER “tell” you what you are. It’s exactly that way for artists, too. It’s a temperament, a way of viewing the world, and because it’s in harmony with Creation all around us, it’s enormously satisfying. Really gets those alpha waves going.
                    The warrior in you needs to protect your creativity. It is always under threat.

                    Hustle Culture – Art can’t hustle but the merchandisers and the monetizers hasten to tell you: “Close enough – let’s get this thing to market.” But you need to find out what’s there – why this subject, these tools are drawing you. You need to think, to explore, to experiment, to start the process of 10,000 “failures” Edison said are the steps to success.

                    The Creative Warrior – If you’re not a creative warrior, you’re someone else’s warrior and that’s a living death. Strategize. Speculate. Get out that Training Journal. Dream. Speak to your soul. Allow it to shine.

                    Models & Mentors – “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein

                    “Creativity can’t get used up. The more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou


                    “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs

                    “There is no innovation, no creativity, without failure.” – Brené Brown

                    “What’s so fascinating about life is the constant creativity of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

                    #Haiku: “The more neurosis, the more wisdom”

                    Difficulties create
                    Enlightenment;
                    Recognize,
                    Participate.