In the Tantric Garden, Sex is sacred. In blindness we reach out to touch, to connect. This garden of existence demands that we inhale life through our every pore, and the central need of life is that we must share the flame that warms us or risk its ultimate extinction. There could be no garden without the mystery and joy of pollination and propagation; doubling and tripling not just our chances of survival but intensifying our savor and our senses.
The garden becomes a hugely hungry mouth, a pulsating groin, and we moan with it. The shock of the sublime. To live the dream is to become the dream. We are constituted for pleasure; igniting and increasing pleasure in a firework display that mimic the creation of the universe itself. Relationships solidify; two strengthen into one; frail flesh solidifies and love itself becomes unbreakable.
Spring is mating. We are searching for our lost half, our better AND our worse self. As we transform from a helpless to an intentional person, we seek the self we have been all along, as they seek themselves in us.
What does it mean to have confidence in the future? We know the most attractive thing about others is “confidence.” Unfortunately, confidence can be faked, so there are a lot of people who believe that’s all it is: a shiny shop window. But if the goods don’t match the advertising, frustration and anger sets in.
We’re looking for the long-term – immortality in fact – which can be achieved by two souls in perfect synch. We want to exude not just confidence but serenity. We want to be the person it’s peaceful and re-charging to be around because THAT person is VERY attractive.
That kind of serenity and confidence comes from communing with the eternal. Yes, you’re going to have to “iron out” your philosophy BEFORE you find your soulmate. Christians satisfy themselves by getting to know God. Buddhists bathe in eternity itself. Karma is the “vibe” you send – if it is a peaceful one, it will come back to you.
Peace is the absence of strife; a sense of repletion and comfort. It is less active than joy, and people are actually afraid of it, the way they’re afraid of heaven. If everything’s already achieved, then isn’t hope dead? That’s why they stir things up by taking pokes at people. Develop a concept of “peace”. A related concept is “plenty” and another is “enough.”
When you are not actively looking for attachment, when you are feeling “enough”, people flock to you. It is because of that very sense of being “at peace” with yourself. Others want that sense for themselves, they are intensely attracted to a peaceful aura, which comes across as confidence, even if you haven’t got a single accomplishment to brag about. People like that are a relief…a relaxation…a vacation to be around.
Can a sense of peace be “faked”? Obviously not. Time – and it doesn’t take much time – will fast reveal the truth. Much less trouble to cultivate ACTUAL peace. How do we do that? Through the calming disciplines of mindfulness, yoga and gratitude cultivation. If we can demonstrate that we are open to joy, people inevitably desire what we have.
We are creatures of hope. If we sharpen ourselves against others as if they were cuttle bones, isn’t the absence of effort an absence of self-definition? We would just sink back into the undifferentiated mass of persons as into a heavenly cloud, all light, without defining shadow. Stop worrying! This is just “semantics” because Peace makes no sense without love and love is active. Harmony is desirable; disharmony is not. Listening to a cacophony is wearisome after the first few seconds, while harmonics, however subtle and complex, produce feelings of rightness, joy and Peace.
What if we lose confidence and serenity? Doubt is human. Uncertainty is human. We armor ourselves with our belief in the promises of the eternal.
But isn’t doubt disabling? At what point can we just relax? Most Americans think confidence comes from a track record of rewarded accomplishments. In pursuit of a soulmate, let’s imagine you in conversation with a stranger. As you’re wondering about them and trying to get to know them, you rapidly realize that spouting your resume and listening while they brag is NOT, actually, informative communication. What you really want to do is get a “feel for the other person’s “essence.”
Are they “itchy? Restless? Or are they yearning for peace? If so, you can work with that! Experiment by “relaxing together.”
Soulstice
In this the Purgatory of the year the crystal cracks the future clear The fire maple stands unleaved And stalks the bony breast of earth bereaved; The sap within the corpse unseen Boils up a ready dynamo of green; The fetal fish child stirs and yawns An equinoctial birthday dawns. This is the zero hour when Our future dances with its end This winter music, echoless Raised up the chalice that is Us He gives, we are the offerings Unto the center and the focus of all things.
Becoming a lover forges an alliance for the future. We’re not talking of two raindrops crashing into each other for sex, but a mutual declaration of interest and benefit. Spend today thinking about past alliances; not just love relationships but all alliances dreamed of, suggested, made and broken.
What hopes, plans and fears did we enter (and exit) with? What mistakes were made? The first thing that jumps out to us is that power differentials create more problems than they solve. An alliance needs to be a two-way street; any hint of “exploitation” turns it into a different kind of relationship entirely.
Alliances must be freely chosen, with consequences fully appreciated and maturely understood. How often in life is this even possible for us? Sometimes we are limited by the power of our imaginations as well as the resilience of our hearts. Alliances should also be freely exited but how often does THAT happen? How often do our passions (and perceived needs) fall short of our principles and how much shame does this knowledge engender? And then there are issues of temperament: to what extent can introverts/extroverts hope to change their stripes?
Think about your deepest and most rewarding friendships. You’re looking for a special kind of Best Friend, after all, so it only makes sense that most of the components appearing in your friendships will be found in your soulmate as well. Will you appreciate some of the same things? Speak the same language? Have the same values? Laugh at the same jokes? Share fears and dreams? Expose your worst/best? You still want all that! Because you need an Ally. An ally reliably comes to your defense, as you fearlessly come to theirs.
An ally is someone you can rely on. It means you must be honest with that person, and we all know how hard that is, especially when you can’t figure out the truth, yourself. You’re feeling your way and you need a sympathetic ear. You know you will have to be their sympathetic ear as well because otherwise what you have isn’t a partnership, it’s an autocracy. Autocrats are lied to and cheated on and they die alone. That’s not what gratifies the soul. You are looking for someone who holds the key to You and by astonishing coincidence, you will hold the key to them, as well.
The Duel
Europe without you Was a funeral feast. I recall the procession of your letters Far better than The stream of luckless suitors Trying to distract me. Virgins aren’t distractible. Your seductive missives stalked me. Your fatal ploy was that nude picture Adam lonely in his garden. I came right home. I well recall the ceremonies Of that night! Your shyness My perfume Our ignorance Your penis Soft as a Messenger dove that folds To a familiar hand – Then wild and hard as A riderless horse. I did cry out as the candles burned. I swear there were some moments when We actually saw each other. But if this magic sword cuts both ways Why was I the only bleeder? They peeled me off Dropping me down miles Of antiseptic hallway – A princess in a bucket. It could have ended there But at your school I haunted you A chilly-breasted demon. My daytime incarnation seemed mature: I fooled you; We chatted as you prepared the skin. I bit down hard and Tasted only Suture wire. You wrote and broke off Our association. The years groaned by Like convicts chained We served our terms with no time off For bad behavior. Lust had luster, Excrement had ecstasy. The castaways the whirlwind Flung upon the sand Were calm, polite – We knew our way around. That look you gave me! Our unborn children shivered In their sausage skins Suddenly aware Their time had come. The tale was done The frog-mask Shivered off We saw: The you of you The me of me – Masks Unmirrored – Scars Unscored Virgins not but Innocence Restored.
We are filled with the excitement and power of acquisition and multiplicity. We will finally have a helper, an interpreter, an enabler, a sharer. A Second Self with its rich promise of Difference – different memories, body type, fantasies, wishes, dreams – we can indulge ourselves in. We can’t wait to get going and find this person who promises us wings and immortality! The potential sexual ecstasy alone is keeping us up nights. Imagine thoroughly exploring another and being thoroughly explored yourself – with a lifetime to do it in. We can’t yet speak the language of butterflies, but we can imagine it. We are giving ourselves wings. With such commitment, every moment becomes a lifetime. We think we may have discovered the secret of eternal youth, to see and be seen through the eyes of love.
Angel Clothes
You are like a ripe peach Swollen in the summer of your life And as the peach surrounds its stone Your skeleton enwombs your soul But thinly. I often see it shining Through the hollows in your cheeks. I need your body Need to know its shadows Sound its pleasures But as the stone Though small at first Must grow; feeds off the dying peach So your spirit will transhume your flesh Disgorge it in A thousand peaches a thousand summers a Thousand eternities more beautiful than You or I
Parents can watch this need for The Reciprocal Other awaken. At about the age of two the infant, who has belonged to the parents and who has felt like part of them, begins to show a lot of interest in the outside world. But when she sees a pint-sized someone exactly like herself, a certain sparkle comes into her eyes. She wants to clutch, bond with, play with that person. Hang on, because now the thrill-ride is beginning, the search Plato described as our search for our Missing Half. Mating behavior is an even more powerful driver in biology than feeding needs. Mating drives species to extravagant displays of seemingly dangerous behaviors, obsessive building, fighting and positioning. Species who mate for life put themselves through complex effort to secure The One. So this is biology, folks. You are in the grips of an instinctual drive it is pointless to resist. Hang on, and let’s make sure your brain becomes engaged.
Sex cadets
I shall orchestrate your life I say Make your blood sing woodwind Stretch my nerve harp-tight Across your exo-shell While you, heart racer Put me through my paces Pushing your muscle through The gates of my life Pushing past theories of the pluperfect poetical pushing like a downhill artist the speed racer you claim to be Speed devil Speed demon Speed dreamer.
Assess your potential to connect. We wake alone, but we are on the path of Attachment. Ask yourself; do you seek balanced, indestructible attachment, synchronous, not disharmonic relationship; a connection that is symbiotic, not exploitative. If the answer is Yes, you are on the path of Paradise.
How can we achieve these goals? First, we must understand and accept our Self, our Ego, with all its quirks and flaws, needs and yearnings, limits and possibilities. Then we must understand the Other; the Lover. We must attune ourselves to the structure of their yearning to begin to construct our duet, our dance. After that we must negotiate the rapids of relationship with each other and with the outside world. Danger! Excitement! Ecstasy! Despair…Compassion. Union.
We are caterpillars, you and I, attempting to learn the language of butterflies. We are unprepossessing creatures, daily absorbed in infantile needs of eating and excreting, but we have a firm promise of a future in which we stretch our gorgeous wings.
Crystal Ball – Prophecy – The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We already 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.
Accept the Revelation – Open Dream Journal. It is time to list the revelations. Your dreams tell you when you are afraid. Your dreams tell you when something is missing. Your dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself. The first obligation is to accept is the possibility that the truth is not so terrible. It is the endless hiding, the mounting fear, that can be really destructive.
Challenge – The truth is that we are human, that we are imperfect, and that 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 types must be weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous types have our own lives to live.
Danger – Our dreams notify us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Our dreams 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.
Opportunity – 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? It is not to hate one another and go to war with one another and people who tell you that it is 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 their brutal tactics are exposed for the empty promises that they are as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, they will acknowledge that their efforts to share their despair come from a desire to surmount despair, and that it has never worked and is not working. Then we will welcome them 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
Mantra – “I see”
Meditation –
#Haiku: The Future
Wisdom & will Extinguish death; Ides of Youth Depower Fear Share Growth
Bristling – Resistance – Feeling muzzled by day? Do you wake up angry from unrefreshing sleep? Worried? Afraid? Do you gnash your teeth while unconscious? Do you love proving others wrong? When others speak are you eager to jump in and “set them right”? Is your favorite word, “No?”
Resistance is Never Futile – We woke on this planet for a reason. Its sensible to conclude that self-definition must be key – after all, we can’t make our contribution unless we know who we are. Strangely, we get a lot of push-back on this seemingly basic enterprise. First, enormous cultural pressure: “We have only a few slots available for specific individuals!” Educational advice seems to be: Make yourself one of those Designated Persons no matter who you are, really. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.
Challenge – It’s never too late to Get Real. Open your Dream Journal and doodle out the circumstances where you are relaxed, happy, creative and “In-Flow.” That “flow” state is true “bliss” – your brain oozes alpha waves as you sink into an interesting reverie, losing your usual sense of separation from the universe. Suddenly, we experience “Eternity”. Is this achieved for you through music? Dance? Composition? Reading? Sex? Prayer? Some lucky people access this state through meditation alone. It is certainly worth a try; meditation is very good for your brain.
Danger – The danger is not navel-gazing (micro study can be very revealing) but solipsism. If you are not accessing the universe through your Self, then you are truly Alone, which is a hideous condition (may in fact be Hell.) In our increasingly autocratic world we are becoming very familiar with Aging Babies who expect the rest of us to nursemaid their fussy, immature modality because Growing Up is Ouchy. For God’s sake, for your own sake, for the benefit of the Universe and in hope of Eternity, don’t become one of THOSE. OR one of their enablers.
Opportunity – Resistance Training Makes Us Stronger. Your whole life, your experiences, your very dreams, have brought you to this moment. Your resistance has blossomed into an individualized focus that must defeat their blander, blunt opposition. You lose nothing – gain everything – by becoming yourself. How? Begin the investigation. What do you like? What do you wish? What fears can you surmount? What do you dream?
Models & Mentors – ‘When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” – Thomas Jefferson
“Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory”
– Frederick William Faber
“To fly we must have resistance” – Maya Lin
“The history of liberty is a history of resistance” – Woodrow Wilson
“The more important an activity is to your soul’s evolution the more resistance you will feel” – Steven Pressfield
Mantra – “Self-determined”
Meditation –
#Haiku: The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good
Static “Perfection” is Death’s alluring guise; Resist: Demand Birth pangs
Age – Wisdom – Dreaming of old people? Funerals? Yourself getting old? Dream of gurus on mountaintops, buddhas, palaces of wisdom? Or are you dreaming of a specific elder who had an influence – bad or good – on your young life?
You Are Wiser Than You Know – Jung said- in the dream, you are everyone you dream about. This is a rather primitive expression of an obvious truth – you ”control”, “create” and hold the key to all these different people. You, alone, know exactly what their symbology represents. They are “shadows” of yourself. Jung called them “animas.” You summon them into being when you need them. DreamTherapy suggests you are yearning for insight, yearning for strength, desiring a map to explain the maze in which you find yourself. You contain the secrets of your own release.
Challenge – in your Dream Journal, contrast elders you admire with those you avoid. Aren’t the latter complainers who stress to everyone they meet the bad hand life has dealt them? They complain about their health, politics, the weather, other people – whatever crosses the windscreen of their increasingly tiny minds. In their world the children never call, the doctors don’t help, the weather’s getting worse, the food is adulterated and we are all going to hell. There may be some truth to these claims but all we see is Ego. This person is clamoring ever more loudly for more ego strokes without apparently noticing the discomfort and distaste of those around them. Rather than trying a new strategy, they step up their whingeing. Read the room! Is what you want to scream at them but you realize they can no longer “learn.” This is the opposite of wisdom. This is senility. A brain is shutting down, a personality is beggared and no one wants to be around it.
List in your Dream Journal the elders you admire. Nelson Mandela, Joe Biden, Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Pema Chodron, the Pope? This person is Ego-Less. This is a person who talks about others, not themselves. They care for others. They discuss ideas rather than gossip and have a long memory of problems, solutions, trial and error. They keep themselves “young” in all the ways that matter. People flock to them.
There’s an old Cherokee story about how each of us is born with a good wolf and a bad wolf inside of us. The one that gets stronger and takes control is the one you feed. Your challenge is to figure out how to practice wisdom every day. Accepting your dreams and encouraging their deepening understanding is the beginning of wisdom.
Danger – The pursuit of gurus is inherently dangerous because there are a lot of con artists out there seeking hostages and slaves. Learn to avoid people who use:
Projection – Subject is unwilling to see their own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of one’s negative behaviors by attributing them to someone else. It acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.
Nonsensical conversations from hell – Word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way.
Blanket statements and generalizations –
Misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity
Nitpicking and moving the goal posts
Changing the subject to evade accountability
Covert and overt threats
Name-calling – offensive labeling
Destructive conditioning – Someone tries to condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about idealized qualities and traits; sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re essentially “trained” over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.
Smear campaigns and stalking
Playing the Martyr
Demands Immediate Unthinking Fealty – When someone stresses the fact that they are a “nice guy” or girl, that you should “trust them” right away or emphasizes their credibility without any provocation from you whatsoever, be wary.
Baits and badgers you – Feigns innocence
Boundary testing – You are not allowed to have boundaries or even triggers
Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes
Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone
Belittling and degrading – Shaming
You can see this is all about Control. Avoid those who seek to control or dominate you. The Revered Elders mentioned above would not do that.
Opportunity – You are being offered a chance to become a lighthouse to the world – resembling the people you admire. Don’t fear “age”, fear bitterness and self-seeking. Once you have advanced enough in your soul to feel compassion you will learn peace.
Models & Mentors – “You can’t control the wind but you can learn to adjust your sails.” – Jimmy Dean
“It always seems impossible till it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
“Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens” – Jimi Hendrix
“I am thankful to those who said No. Because of them, I did it myself.” – Albert Einstein
“Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley
“It is never too late to be who you might have been” – George Eliot
‘Wisdom is the journey no one can take for us” – Marcel Proust
Mantra – “I understand”
Meditation –
#Haiku: Namaste
Light Glows Within me Honoring The wisdom of The light Within you
The Soul – Do you dream of hummingbirds? The impossible flight of the bumblebee? According to C.S. Lewis, we are not a Body with a Soul, we are a Soul with a Body. Our body may be very mutable, but our soul can be immortal. Do you dream of past lives? See yourself in historical contexts? Do you ever have dreams of utter bodilessness where you are totally free, seeming to travel invisibly through the power of your mind?
Accept Your Immortality – Can we destroy our own immortality through abuse and disbelief? Some of us would like to! Many people fearfully, officiously, vocally, and publicly, refuse this gift. But even if heaven and hell are choices some continuation of our will and our energy will continue. If we fight against this, it’s as tragic as battling against one of our talents (“I’m never going near that guitar.”) Think: Who are you harming? The direction we need to travel is in making our own company a reliable, eternal pleasure.
Challenge – What if our mind changes inevitably – just the way our body does? Think about the differences between you, all grown up, and you at say, three years old. Imagine the joyous understanding with which you finally “get” the previously incomprehensible. If you just accept that future possibility, you can enjoy future understanding now. List in your Dream Journal the incomprehensible things you would like to understand NOW.
Dangers – Christians locate the misery of non-progress in “sin”. Buddhists call it “clinging”. We grab on to any passing thing to stay our flight but of course it doesn’t work! The G forces start building up, creating a suction around us, meanwhile we are clinging to some crappy object, or some person who’s on an inevitably different trajectory. Relax. Let those things go. Don’t be frightened by your feelings, just study them, turn them imaginatively into huge iridescent bubbles, and “blow” them out. Enjoy the flight.
Opportunity – Think about one of the parables, in which everyone is invited to a glorious feast. People are so threatened by this, they not only don’t attend, they murder the messenger. Watch the glorious film, Groundhog Day. Poor weather forecaster Bill Murray is sentenced to living the same things over and over and over again, trying everything to get out of these repeats, including suicide. Finally he decides to learn how to simply just enjoy himself, while being as nice as possible to the other frightened, enraged, confused souls around him. Only then is he able to move on to the next level – which turns out to be the rewarding, much-desired love of his dreams.
Models & Mentors – “the living soul, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled” – Horace Mann
“The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” – Carolyne Myss
“Without applied awareness of the soul, happiness can’t arise”
– Dada Bhagwan
“The desire to know your own soul ends all other desires” – Rumi
Mantra – “Love is forever”
Meditation –
#Haiku: Last Minute
Bone grows Mind crashed Soul merge Skin graft Intervention – Light shaft Angel…? Laughed.
Alysse Aallyn 