The Fruit is the sweet result of day after day of concentrated sunshine. The Fruit is a summit of achievement; centuries of unique conditions ending in delight for the senses poetry for the tongue.
Raspberry, Strawberry, paw-paw, pomegranate, banana, apple, pear, cherry; so much nectar; so many wines. Together they symbolize for us the moment of celebration: Harvest, when there is nothing left to do but relax and enjoy. But Fruit has even more to offer than that.
We revel in the concept of a storehouse full to bursting; a pleasure-palace of magical alchemy where the very humblest fertilizers such as dirt and sweat are transformed into visible, taste-able joy. The blood of the planet becomes our blood and the most potent chemicals of its deepest mines flood our aching emptiness with repletion.
The Tantric Garden Harvest concept says you are about to enjoy the fruits of all your yearning, planning, efforts. You are looking into the eyes of, touching the hands of a potential Soulmate. You are close, close. The Harvest invites us to just revel in the bliss – actual and potential – of this moment. It is critical that you not “numb out.” The temptations will be there. There are plenty of chemical fast-tracks to ‘letting your guard down.” But you don’t want to do that. You want to explore that very “guard” and not make a dash for a mythical “finish-line” because the essence of Tantra is there is no finish line.
There is only the Now, a universe of infinite possibility which has just been doubled as you gaze into the Soulmate’s eyes and hold the Soulmate’s hand.
Sweet Family
I want you To deliver our children With your tongue That deft baker’s paddle would Lever them out Warm & fresh In their marzipan coats Trailing the pineapple Blood-rind Traced with poppy-seed adornments Marking them as ours. A little boy with a pastry-tube Rosette between his legs A girl as hard & round as A hot cross bun Petals furled on her Crystallized convolvulus In whose depths lie stored All the honeys of the future.
“Going to sleep in one world we awaken in another”
Night offers a frightening universe of the invisible and the unfamiliar. How many of us have lain in our comfortable bedrooms and imagined tossed clothes as threatening monsters and scratchy tree-branches as iniquitous invaders?
Night is the domain of nocturnal creatures we imagine are up to no good; otherwise, why seek darkness? Night is the land of dreams when all worries and anxieties bubble up from the deepest depths of our own brains and terrify us with startling and vivid visions. Childhood is largely spent trying to get used to this strange rhythm of sleep and wake, of brooding and action, of quiet and frenzy and attempting to master the suspicions and fears it rouses.
Isn’t sleep like death and isn’t night like Hell? Where is the sun? What has happened to our loved and loving world? It helps to fall in love with Night and uncover its beauties as well as its secrets.
Waking in the middle of the night for some exciting enterprise like Christmas, meeting a beloved, for some family ritual or religious vigil, can be a time of awe-inspiring discovery. In the Planetarium they deliberately create a mockery of Night to show us the majesty of stars and planets.
Lovers wait for night like thieves. This is when most children are conceived, most children are born and the most powerful dreams – the ones that reveal the future – are dreamed.
The night is a mysterious, unsettling boundary. Sages say we go to sleep in one world and wake in another. I say we go to sleep as one person and wake up as someone else. Both are true. But, quite possibly, we don’t like it. We fear the meanings, the realities, the potential behind all of this.
Desires come to us unbidden. Do dreams separate or unite? Sleep is the land of the subconscious, the unconscious, the preconscious and the collective conscious. These are worlds we need to integrate into our Being. “Balance” is a skill that allows us to make the best of all these worlds.
The Subconscious is just beneath the surface. We glimpse it frequently during the day through our reactions to art, music, jokes, accidents and friendly interactions. ‘Freudian slips” are meaning to say one thing and “accidentally” stating the opposite. Our Subconscious is our Mastermind. It can be relied on to recognize the Beloved.
The Unconscious is deeper. We cannot access it except through dreams. Hypnosis will not take you deep enough. The Unconscious is a huge repository of fear and dread. It manifests in our daytime self as anxiety, panic attacks and psychosomatic illness. “Dream therapy” teaches lucid dreaming, when we begin to recall, learn from, even manage our dreams.
The Preconscious is our Unborn Self. These are our Multiverse selves who chose another path, past incarnations and possible selves. It manifests itself in our daily life through mysterious attractions to styles of art, episodes of history or pattern re-enactments. Our Preconscious might recognize the Beloved because you were together in another life/world. Sometimes forging of this bond will be the most advanced stage of your souls’ journey. In both cases, recognizing and blending with the Other is a vital step in your Becoming.
The Preconscious and the Collective Unconscious alike are activated through study, research and learning to accept and enjoy art and history. The Collective Unconscious is our group dream on this planet. It is positively expressed through Art, Shamanism and acting. It is negatively expressed by addictions, circumstances when you know you are acting outside your own control (and against the best interests of your life, health and safety) or when you are “channeling” the soul of another – acting like someone you aren’t but you can’t seem to stop.
These patterns are broken by Rehabilitation Therapy that seeks to connect you to your True Soul, which is always waiting for you to claim it.
Sometimes in our quest for the other we are assaulted by demonic forces masquerading as love. This is easily recognized by the question: does your Beloved improve or worsen your psychic health? If Your spiritual integrity is under threat, you will need help escaping this demon. Don’t hesitate to ask for it.
RESURRECTIONIST
Unearth me, lover I’m a jewel now Melted In that crevice you once loved so Well; it’s an ingot now, a socket For our mingled liquid Essence Suck it up with Dust-lathered lips Strip The flesh as you once did The clothes; I’m burning Cinder-hot – Let me astound you with My time-perfected skill
Suddenly we see the way! Breakthroughs look forward, never back; we are different people afterwards. Often, we feel they have been “building up” for a long time; we are amazed at what we didn’t see. But what we see now cannot be unseen. We should congratulate ourselves on our new pair of eyes, our new pair of legs. Our new life.
You connected! A potential soulmate is now present and real. We explore our soulmate, past and future, psychically and physically. Each moment feels truthful and intense. You are on Cloud Nine.
However, new understanding raises us to a lofty plateau. We now see that how a relationship develops over time is as important as who the relationship is with. We understand that some Soulmates are not able to back up their promises with behavior. They “want” to but are weak and feel helpless.
Don’t get drawn into “fixing’ them – this keeps you away from finding your REAL Soulmate, the one who can deep dive all the way with you as well as ascend the highest heights. There’s no reason to be angry or embittered, the failed Soulmate already realizes that their fear and poor self-knowledge are keeping them back. This is a journey that asks the most of every one of us.
VALENTINE
I sent myself In a letter Heart-creased Like a glove, like an Anecdote Too much told Dear stranger don’t Lose me I forgot The rule; Hold back a copy.
“Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean”
The Night Sky above our Garden reveals many secrets. The first secret is that we are a World within Worlds. And we are assured that there are further worlds beyond (as well as within), through the contradictory notions that the universe is both infinite and expanding. What a metaphor for life & growth!
The poetry of the stars and planets is such that our history can be told through the names and patterns of constellations that are shifting. The ancients placed “heaven” right up there, with Gods & Goddesses looking down at us as we look up at them, playing with us as if we were scientific mice running an experimental maze.
We are even seeing dead light from stars that no longer burn; a time traveling conundrum that makes a hash of what we know of past & present. Given these facts alone many of our inherited concepts about “reality” seem naive to say the least. New physics posit the possibility that time travel could age us so slowly we become younger than our own children.
If our minds are our ticket to eternity, teaching us how to rise above our earthly circumstances, then we can learn to signal others; “I am eternal. Are you eternal?” Many people believe they are “in the Now” because they are bouncing on the surface of the moment, but they are really water spiders skimming the waves, fearful of “falling in.”
You are not a person who is afraid of depth. Instead, you will convey the deep peace and truth of living every moment connected to Eternity. Planets & Stars reminds us to turn on our inner searchlight. Our person is close; very close. “Are you Eternal?”
HELOISE TO ABELARD: “FROM THE FLAME TO THE FLAME”
Master, my Brother; Father Confessor; my all – Before you see a nun Abbess in fact – antiphon of grace enclosing Octaves of silence. I had rather be your whore. Slut, jade, poule – What sweets! I relished those words as I craved the Blows you struck like kisses. Five, like Christ’s wounds. I counted them.
No midwife cut my cord but You delivered me. Satan wormed your root; left Me whole but Empty. I’m still cinque-cut while You’re a smooth stockade. I “mistook” the veil – Impetuously as you stole me – Masquerading, copying the night We stole from uncle’s house In holy guise.
This veil is Jason’s wedding dress – It cannot be removed. It burns my flesh, these cerements Cremate me. You denied me thrice, False Peter Though I crawl to Bethany to earn One word. Master, cousin, lover – slave – We are bound. This grave is not so silent as you are.
Yes, I’ve chatted up the dead I’m closer to you than that tattoo you wear As if it became you. When you die I’ll be the fire that quickens In your veins – the centime on your eyes The empty scabbard left Along your thigh Your last escaping sigh – I.
You are looking for a partner in the joint project that is existence. Sometimes our longing is for a family; children. Just as we need mentoring, so we long to mentor.
Your focus shifts to the perfect combination of you and your Soulmate’s perfected traits, and on the legacy you will leave behind. No matter that there may be an “embarrassment of absence” in its’ non-presence, there is always time to dream and plan.
What would we wish others to write on our memorial plaque? Does the universe agree with us about what kind of person we are? What would others say about us and our importance – how would they describe us? It is time to bring these visions of self into synch. Some of us leave solid objects behind – buildings, say, and others leave people – human beings we have generated, affected or raised.
Some of us leave blueprints – foundations, trusts, writings, neighborhood alliances. Some of us leave works of art that fill the minds of watchers with mystery and awe.
And some people don’t care at all. “Après moi le deluge” is the “Let them eat cake” philosophy attributed to Louis XIV – why should he care what happens following his death? In the annals of selfishness this is the ultimate selfishness; a human being with vast power, privilege and control, who just doesn’t care about other human beings. How do we use our powers and privileges? How do we choose to be remembered?
“Parents’ unlived lives are child’s greatest burden,” says Jung. We get it! You could apply this to marriage partners. Is one of them suffering an “unlived life” to enhance the existence of the other partner? This can’t happen with Soulmates.
We have expectations for every relationship – where do they come from? “Expectations” – unrealistic, counter-intuitive, contra-indicated and downright destructive – are the ruination of soulmates. Parents are ALL about expectations.
They can’t help it so we can’t help it. Helicopter parents hovering are like farmers digging up their own crops to see how growth is coming. The kids are left with a disturbed sense of either never getting a personality started, or of having to cultivate a “secret” personality.
Such parents take the concept of “legacy” to mean that they personally will continue to magically exist on this planet, refusing to comprehend the real definition of resourcing and empowering persons familiar but distinctive from themselves.
Gratified parents are no easier on their progeny, if anything, they become MORE intrusive. So many of us are so exhausted by BEING children that the idea of HAVING children is unimaginable. We seek a soulmate with the same level of shock. It feels shameful to confess this, and it adds another worry – won’t we only attract selfish people?
But what if you WANT to have kids? What if you dare? What if that biological clock is gonging away and that’s why you’re in the Soulmate Market to begin with? Clearly someone like that is not looking for a soulmate, they’re seeking a Co-parent, (possibly a step-parent); a co-provider or maybe just an excellent set of genes.
Easier to focus on this requirement for a Soulmate to “join” your family. They’ll have to, and you’ll have to join theirs, if they join you.
Sometimes you “join” by rejecting. You’re going to have to listen to their horror story, and they’ll have to listen to yours. Sex makes babies; that does happen, and should be discussed. But first, you’re going to have to look deeply into someone’s eyes and know that they’re the one. This is the source of that mysterious feeling that you’ve known each other in some other life. And perhaps you have. No wonder they say, “Youth is wasted on the young.”
Today’s mantra is, “Embrace youth…while you have it.”
SONOGRAM
This crowded world could not make do without your life; Summoned up, you surged you split the crust Shocked, I shuddered in my sheaves as you uncored Loosened in my skin as we Unmerged.
We travelled to the rim; Your fragrant cell became a soul unsheathed. From my rind’s brim you blinkered on the world wondered at the fuss. We are you and yet You are not us.
Committed to a course beyond our love – a forfeit tithe; gentle as a snake and wiser than a dove; As stars consume their fuel you were birthed to speed our lives.
Against the odds we found you You found us against the odds. Consecrated to the great transformer We love like mothers; We create like gods.
Persistence is about not giving up. How could we accomplish anything without it? 99% of life is “just showing up” Woody Allen advises. “I didn’t fail,” said Edison, “I found ten thousand methods that didn’t work.” In other words, “trial and error” was a life style for him, a “modus vivendi.” He considered existence itself just one experiment after another. You can see that for somebody like that, “success” is, by definition, right around the corner. What a happy way to live!
When passion flags, when courage fails, when even grit founders, there is only determination. We will keep going. Our Other Half, our Lost Self is calling us and there is no going back. If we gave up now we would be at a place of cosmic distrust. It can’t happen. We may groan. We may collapse. We must sleep, the better to summon dreams to our assistance.
Sometimes we have to ask the uncomfortable questions: what am I missing? WHO am I missing? We summon up a distinctive song we want our Soulmate to hear, perhaps a song that ONLY our soulmate can hear. And we buckle up and keep on going.
VIRGINIA WOOLF: The Membraned Sieve
O bliss to be red admiral afeast Upon a rotten apple in the grass; she dreamed that guiltily Woke to Leonard bringing milk Nessa dancing bear-like on the lawn, woke To pain; cylindrical as seasons Burning white and burning blue like friends. The words fell fast, the blood fell faster; Split the membraned sieve. She raced the whitecaps out to sea Parting the waves with her mother’s hand.
Meditation is the Art of Looking Deeply. It takes concentration and practice and all the gifts that makes us human – but our physical, mental and cultural “tics” – fight against our cultivation of this vital skill. We must master our physicality to engage our brain in Deep Looking.
Begin with the breath, inhale, exhale, calm the tumult in our blood. As thoughts appear, set them one by one before your Inner Eye and turn each over in your mind without judgment. We are just floating by. The goal is to learn to feel compassion for the creatures of this earth; so that ultimately we can calm the tumult in everyone’s life journeys.
Before our eyes now is our yearning for our Other Half. If we are living in the past growth hurts like a requiem for a Lost Self. Yet deep looking into our “now” will rescue us from past suffering. We see past the pain of our perceived unworthiness and the inadequacy of others to the universal healing magic that is love. We perform the “thought experiment” of transforming our minds in order to recognize the Beloved and be recognized by them. This is the most powerful charm; a transformation that solves our earthborn dilemma.
Meditation is quieting and emptying. Once we soothe the rattle of panic and hysteria that infects each of us through the pressure of living, learn not to react to the “what ifs” and “shoulds”, the fears and preconceptions, we will become our own crystal ball. Push gently on the inevitable thought-balloons drifting through the cathedral of our minds and let them go. When we master the breath, we seize control of life itself.
Find a “mantra.” Some use prayer – I suggest St. Julian of Norwich’s “All will be well, and all things will be well.” or “the light in me honors the light in the world” or “I am peace” works as well. Feel free to invent your own mantra. Give yourself permission to take loving charge of thoughts and body. Be a tender mother to your new self. When you support your shy new self, you practice welcoming the Beloved. Picturing ocean waves rushing in, then rushing out again along the sand. Relax all your muscles, one by one. Wait. Begin again. Continue until flooded with peace.
The Poet on Her Walk
Who dares malign The intellectual consolations of this morning When every leaf becomes the corner of a star And every pond a covenant. Where Isles of light illumine Tracts of water – blind the Spaces where I first saw you. Transfix my grief with Arrows of wisdom Dissolve the veil that Separates me from Myself; eight years old.
Who are you that I should fear to Stroke you wrong, dissolving pride in Mansions of darkness that hood your eyes; the Terrible readiness , the Dissipated resolution; Deepening the silence Deepening between us Like the ocean between us; The silence of wheatfields Waiting for wind
Symbiosis is interdependence: far from being exploitation, most species require another’s contribution in order to flourish. Sometimes symbiosis is unacknowledged, especially if one of the partners is using “win/lose” reasoning and agonizes about who’s getting “more” out of the relationship.
Turning a mutually beneficial relationship into a struggle for dominance marks the end of what could have been a thriving partnership.
You can have rapturous sex with anybody. You can have devoted friendships with lots of entertaining, interesting people. Soulmating is deeper than that.
You need each other. You can’t live without each other. Yes, you can bail out now if this sounds scary. Otherwise, that’s what you’re in for. You’re going to have to reveal – often discovering it for the first time yourself – what your needs are, and you’re going to have to be willing to put your shoulder to the other person’s wheel. You nourish each other.
You’re going to slay each other’s dragons and set each other free FOREVER. This is NOT for the faint of heart. Better leave now if you were just hoping for a nice date, delicious sex, or someone to take home to Mom. Because the dragons WILL show themselves.
Haiku: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
Only soulmates can Slay each other’s dragons Says Tibetan Master
Mourning = DETACHMENT “Hide & Seek in the Museum of Modern Art”
“Perfect is Enemy of Good”
After a loss, Mourning is required. Don’t recoil. Mourning is a growth process which, because it hurts so much, feels like retrenchment. But in the Garden, pruning IS growth.
Artists try to convince us that spaces – which may seem blank or even empty to us, are part of the design. But what is the design? It makes us hurt – it makes hearts and brains hurt – even to attempt understanding of all this emptiness. All this change.
Physicists remind us matter transforms; it doesn’t “vanish.” As we contemplate the empty spaces with a sore heart and a buzzing brain, we will need peace and compassion to appreciate the majesty of the whole design.
We expect sore muscles after exercise, but, oddly, we don’t expect a “sore heart” or “sore mind” as we struggle along our Soulmate path. Sometimes it’s a “sore spirit.” We’re not doing anything “wrong”; life is a rhythm. The “perfection” in our imagination is actually STASIS – the opposite of “life”. The nature of the Other is to break our immature expectations of Perfection with the Wildness of their Mystery.
If we are to create a New World together, the old world has to go! For a long time – possibly our whole life – we will be honoring our Loss. We may search for ways to reframe it (sometimes it is a blessed release) sometimes it was the shedding of a constricted skin.
Mourning means this is not an effortless adjustment. Even joining lives triggers a loss. It is scary and new, the loss of our proud loneliness. It can feel like sadness and there is sadness that our privacy will be invaded. There is terror: we will be exposed.
Mourning is Detachment – you can see the Lost Past drifting away from you like a child’s balloon. It is not just “OK” to mourn, it is necessary and there is no substitute. The fact that you had a worthy self, a worthy past, a dignified life and were “fine on your own” is part of what makes you Beloved.
Your Soulmate is feeling this too. This is another thing you can share, and there are all sorts of ways to honor it. Some Soulmates need at the beginning of a relationship to keep to their own schedule. You will always need your own room, or private and alone times for retreat. It is necessary to establish boundaries such as private journals, private phones, private work. We are developing trust, as well as changing at the same time.
Honor those sore muscles of honest effort. Just as sore muscles will slowly improve, so will this sore heart/mind/spirit. We must rub it with the liniment of love, trust, sharing, hope and self-regard. We are brave, and no mistake! Remember the promise “those who mourn will be comforted.”
HIDE & SEEK IN THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Life class; It’s my game but you started it. Here we are, lost This place resembles me, a Swollen storehouse where Nothing can be explained, Everything’s left Open to interpretation.
Outside a single tree flowers in Smug delusion; all this whiteness Weights the soul. Mastery bites Like teeth on lip; my Throbbing inner elbow Where the blood lies gathered. Lies gathered. Let’s admit it. Take Responsibility
For once, leave no work Unfinished. Anonymous Entries win no prize. Pan-flash –
Solitude is required for reflection, and reflection is required for growth. Growth is required for choosing a soulmate, because the choice cannot be haphazard but the result of self-knowledge.
Solitude is not loneliness; it is the Art of Being Alone. Wise Ones have told us that ultimately each of us is only alone; we are born alone and we die alone. Plainly, this cannot be true. We are as social a species as the ants and termites. But just as one could argue that every worthwhile achievement has been a collaboration, one could also argue that every worthwhile idea was conceived in solitude.
I prefer to think of our “mental, emotional and spiritual pores” having both an “on” and “off” position. There is outflow, there is in-flow and there is no flow. All are necessary to the health of the human being and all are necessary to the maximization of human potential. Depth psychology merely systematizes the layers of human consciousness and sub-consciousness whose existence dreams have always demonstrated.
Meditation and mindfulness seek to capture the exact moment when the soul experiences itself. This is not possible without regular periods of scheduled and enforced solitude. In-breath must equal outbreath until suddenly the lips of the psyche part and, as in a “magic eye” painting; the familiar world dramatically shifts to reveal under-worlds and over-worlds of multiple meanings and intense possibilities.
Self-Sufficiency: How panicked are we by the idea of being “alone”? Even those of us who are introverts are sustained by a complex net of relationships, any adjustment to which could drive us back to infancy. Are we alone even within our relationships? Are we alone on our planet? In the universe? It is surprising how much this fear can be seen lurking behind our consciously assumed states of mental “good cheer”.
Most of us work in collaborative ventures; nothing we do would be worthwhile without, at the very least, someone to assess or appreciate. It is time to take stock of our internal personal resources; those that owe nothing to the support of others.
Opportunity; Much of what we think during the day is in fact a dialogue. It is salutary to ask ourselves: who are we talking to? Is this person imaginary, dead, alive? Are they helpful – or cruel? It’s common knowledge that we speak more insultingly to ourselves than we might to anyone we know! Time for a “voices” upgrade. These are part of ourselves talking to each other; possibly parts of ourselves we could do without.
And is that the best way to accomplish our set goals? Now’s the time to understand that, given education and culture, we can never be “alone” in the sense of bereft of help. We have countless models we’ve been choosing from childhood up. Who are they? Do we need upgrade them, or just name them and learn to deploy them more effectively? Some of us are surrounded by a mix of celebrities (Humphrey Bogart in “Play it Again, Sam”) some of us by the loving dead (Granma and Grandpa) others by cultural icons (for me Shelley, Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson) some of us by imaginary friends or even angels.
What’s working for us and what isn’t? After all, we furnish our own brains. Let’s decorate by design.
Danger! An important component of the confidence we desire to cultivate is freedom and self-determination. We all know how unsettling a date’s visible desperation can be. We instinctively back away as from a sinking ship whose whirlpool threatens to suck us in. In other words, the best way to gain a soulmate is to be able – visibly! -to live without one. This sounds nonsensical; but look at it this way, you ARE living without one. Is your desire to change your life based on the indisputable fact that your life is a mess? If so, we have to turn our attention to THAT first thing, otherwise we are the sinking ship no one wants to get near, much less, on.
Challenge! To increase our chances of finding the best person who is right for us right now AND in our future, we have to GIVE ourselves a future. No other person can be our “future.” We need to have a vision of a future we are working towards. That is what we want to hear about our date, and that is what they will want to hear about us. It’s time to become your own best friend, the one who really cares about you and gives such good advice
HEDGEHOG CROSSING ROAD
Spines erect as swords She waits To tilt the windmills rushing by Machined from hell to trap Her tiny weight of soul and fur.
She fears not. He who protects the sparrows Comforts her. The air is sharp With winter not With false regret –
She lifts her head to gauge The moment ripe for flight Unaltered in her captaincy of self. She’ll reach eternity or the pond
Alysse Aallyn 