Alysse Aallyn

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  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Let Go of the Past – Don’t Worry.

      Can Creatives afford to relax? Seems counterintuitive right before a big project, doesn’t it? Well, First Lesson of Creative Boot Camp is that creativity is Counterintuitive. Other people rush away from the burning building – planning on being EVEN MORE SCARED the next time. Well, we are going to master our fear. We are going in.

      Consider the “Letting Go” archetype – swimming, flying, dreaming. Does it speak to you? You’ve summoned up your power – now you’re overwhelmed with fear – are we challenging the goddess? Insulting the universe? This is an age-old dread felt by every human that intended to accomplish anything since the beginning of time. You’re declaring your place in the world. Your past memories are of others firmly trying to “place” you and keep you there. Dismiss them from your thoughts. You’re alone now, with your own potential – and it’s the most exciting place to be in the world.

      Everybody Panics – I had my first panic attack at age 5 (I got lost outside a movie theatre) and another at age 11 when I descended deep, deep, deep into a cave. (I think the guide was deliberately trying to scare us.) I didn’t know at the time what these episodes were – my parents and sisters saw them as embarrassing annoyances – but looking back it’s clear what was happening to me physically was as a result of what was happening to me mentally.

      Relaxation In the Face of Panic – Learning to tolerate psychic dissonance, to be interested in it and challenged by it is what we’re all about. It’s a sign that we’re in the presence of the Deep Stuff – the things that galvanize our deep subconscious and if we can just seize control of that, we’ll access our true power.

      Learn Relaxation Techniques – There are so many and you should experiment with all of them! Learn what works for you and – key – what you enjoy. You will find yourselves using these techniques all the time. To get to sleep, to get through difficult experiences or just to access your subconscious when you have a question.

      Breathe Deeply – The very first thing is mastering control of the breath. Pregnant women learn all kinds of helpful breathing techniques in Lamaze; panting, counting; deliberately slowing down and speeding up your breathing. In yoga you will learn Lion Breaths to make you feel powerful. They are very similar to the gasps and shouts in martial arts and will affect your opponents. Watch the Maori war dance on YouTube.

      Get Out Your Training Journal – write down the techniques and your reactions. Appoint a time to practice these every day. Your breath connects you to the universe and all living things.

      Models & Mentors: “The first thing to learn is the breath.” – Confucius

      ‘Breathe In. Let Go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure, and give thanks for that.”
      – Oprah Winfrey

      ‘Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor” –
      Thich Nhat Hanh

      “While we breathe, we hope” – Barack Obama

      #Haiku: Every Breath You Take

      Life isn’t numbered
      By breaths you take but
      Moments
      That take breath
      Away

    1. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      The Goddess – Power

        When This Archetype Chooses You – Is this your archetype? You are one of the Elect. Most people feel that because the Goddess archetype represents power it’s the most valuable archetype in the Creative Oracle. But creativity builds over time, and power can destroy in an instant. We are well familiar with fires that get out of control, rage-fueled spirals, explosives that blow up in your face and escalating weaponry. How do we master such an overwhelming force?

        You Must Own Your Power – Accept that you have the force within you to get things done and to bend unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. To others, creativity looks like magic. Accept that. Isn’t that what we all want – a little magic?

        You Are Iconic – But the Goddess archetype is about the inherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably You. You have a power no one else has, incorporated in your being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories. This takes a lifetime to accept because we all nervously want to be Someone Else and experience existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned.

        Dreams Instruct You – Your dreams bring all these passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you want and what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic will be to seize conscious control of this potent power source.

        Creative Challenge – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our world Inside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and our fear.

        Creative Danger – We cannot take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is a fine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat others with respect and claim like respect for ourselves. Accept your “experiments”; do not fear them but allow them to take you where you need to go.

        Creative Opportunities – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOK like stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is why we must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most beloved child. You are your own Most Beloved Child. It is not selfish to commit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you can administer this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your journey, without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how to connect with others.

        Fear & Trembling: Where would we get the courage to become creatives? Human history begins with an enormous fear of God or whoever is causing all that lightning, those earthquakes and striking everybody down. Killing small helpless, pretty things was meant to be flattering and propitiatory to this God (I don’t get it either.) then Jesus came with a message about how God was really loving, generous and wanted the best for us. We know how that turned out.

        Becoming a Creative: As children, we struggled to understand where we fit on the power spectrum. I tried killing a snake and experimented with bullying other children the way I was bullied. I didn’t care for it. The only relief was in thinking about, researching and understanding what was going on. My earliest researches, as for many children, were in astronomy and dinosaurs. The cold magnificence of the planets and the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs gave me a way to stand back from the immediate suffering of the schoolyard. I then moved on to the early Egyptians who tried to solve their problems through magic and art. The art was visually appealing and the magic was emotionally soothing.

        Pick Your Battles: I saw that most schoolyard fights were a reaction to the immediate suffering of pain or confusion, and that they magnified, rather than solved, those problems. There was a manifest holiness about this discovery. It rescued me from the torture of everyday life and elevated me to a plane where every other contributing thinker had already become immortalized.

        Study & Strategy: I read everything I could get my hands on in history and biography (research) and in fairy tales (magic). When I fell in love with the novels of C.S. Lewis and Rumer Godden, the world judged my taste good – when I discovered Agatha Christie, it did not – but it turned out everyone else was reading her too. Agatha is a short course on human nature (original sin) and a proponent of both the scientific and Socratic methods. She’s great training for a Creative. I wrote it all down in my Training Journal.

        Claiming Your Power: By the time you’re a teenager you can see you have some power – some mental, some physical. The question is developing it and finding appropriate gurus. Avoid the dominance/submission game.

        Keep Going – Recognize that you have been touched by the goddess and honor her by being grateful for the glorious gifts of life.

        Models & Mentors: “I did not deceive you. I permitted you to deceive yourself.” Agatha Christie

        “An Indian proverb says everyone is a house with four rooms – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Most of us live in one room or the other but if you don’t visit each room each day you are not a complete person.” – Rumer Godden

        “You are never too old to dream a new dream or set a new goal”
        – C. S. Lewis

        “You have to believe in yourself” – Sun Tzu

        Haiku: Wyvern

        My power
        Beast bristles
        Fire;
        Eats critics
        Guards path
        Sleeps in my
        Mirror

      1. Sleeping Orchid – Boot Camp for Sensitive Creatives with Alysse Aallyn

        The Eagle – Energy

          What It Means If This Archetype Chooses You – Do your dreams pulse with power and excitement? You are gathering force for a great work. You are readying yourself for some great task.

          You Are The Power – You struggle to take command of your force. You feel the power and strength of undefined wishes and an inchoate longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to this wilderness, you will have to map this forest yourself. Be brave.

          All Connection Is an Energy Transfer –When you make any contact – even exchange a glance – with another living being, a current of energy passes between you, even if the “other” has been ruled “non-sentient” by our limited – and limiting – standards. In the depth of your being, you feel the electric thrill. This is the basis for “crowd bathing”, “flash mobs”; “forest bathing”; “garden bathing.” Even museum and gallery visits and cinema attendance can inspire and renew your power.

          Energy Drainage – This sets up the possibility that energy – your life force – can be sucked right out of you. Recognize when this is happening – you are being fed upon. Get away from the predator as fast as you can go.

          Creative Challenge – There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow of energy pulses with your every heartbeat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willingly seek to stir, supplement and smooth your path.

          Creative Danger – Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your set course. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.” We are all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If you aren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss.

          Creative Opportunity – We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a Soulmate among them – for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, feel free to consult other maps in designing your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and fresh discovery. There will be many. Salut!

          How Did People You Admire Manifest the Life Force? Jesus spent an epic 40 day & nights in the desert. Margaret Mead lived in Samoa studying the Samoans. Carl Sagan describes his “defining moment” as visiting the World’s Fair at four years old. It exploded and expanded his mind. Who are your models? Research them and study their transitions and experiments.

          Magic & Mystery: A you accept yourself and accept your changes, you are confronting the dynamic of change, which is the manifestation of energy in existence. We are all alive and moving. This is a dance and you are the choreographer and star. Erik Erikson said “A good life is like a weaving. Energy is created in the tension. The pull and tug, the struggle, is everything.”

          Commit to tiring yourself out during the day with thought, exercise and interrelations so that you can enjoy healthy sleep at night.

          Models & Mentors – ‘Every thought has an energy. Thoughts send out a magnetic frequency” – Rhonda Byrne

          “Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it – for it is a faculty of the psyche” – Germaine Greer

          “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration” – Nikola Tesla


          “The more positive energy you throw into the universe, the more positive energy you get back”

          • –– Nitin Namdeo

          Haiku: Catalytic Action

          Partake:
          Energy blooms;
          Whirlpools
          Dance;
          I am
          Limitless
          So are you

        1. The Sleeping Orchid – Toughening up Empaths & Sensitives & Fostering Creativity with Alysse Aallyn

          1. Eye – You Your ego has work to do. Jung tells us that in your dream, you are everyone. You chose the Ego archetype to start your day. Or did it choose you? Life is a battle. You are a warrior for art, as well as an advocate for yourself.

          You Are A Seeker – You are self-defining and self-validating. You are on a quest. You wish to explore your possible incarnations.

          Planning & Mapping: Creatives lead a designed life. A diary (also called a Training Journal) offers the ideal format in which to plan. Attempt to quantify the difficulties that you feel and assess possible reactions. Just because a situation is tough does not mean it shouldn’t be explored – on the contrary:

          • Repel takeover – You are your own creative – not somebody else’s hired gun.
          • Feel what you have to defend – your soul will reveal it to you – through relationships, through instinct, through time and through dreams.
          • Know when to let down your guard – there are times to connect, to share, to Love.
          • Learn from mistakes to hone your art. There is no Failure: only Learning. All education is precious.
          • Respect criticism; it is resistance training – it sharpens our game. We are each other’s cuttle bones, as well as cuddle bones.
          • Don’t Fear Difficulty – Take the attitude that the more time it takes the more fun it is. Your life is a long story, full of exciting challenges. Creatives love gathering around the campfire to share adventures.

          The First Resistance – Often it is our own self who resists most deeply; even savagely. Ultimately we must realize we have hijackers inside our brains wrestling for control. You can recognize these by their negative content. These negative voices clearly wish to subdue us into clones which is NOT HEALTHY.

          Becoming a Creative – It is this resistance that first marks our Creative status. Congratulate yourself. You are on the road.

          Danger– The worst hazard of self-reflection is not navel-gazing (micro study can be very revealing) but solipsism. Aloneness may in fact be Hell. We can never lose touch with those around us because it is others we are inspiring us. Avoid anyone who fail to treat you with respect. In our increasingly autocratic world we are very familiar with Aging Babies who want 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 cater to or worse yet, BECOME one of THOSE.

          Challenge -set a Spirituality Schedule to reflect your needs and interests. Appoint time to be absolutely alone, for meditation and reflection. If you cannot find a room to yourself, a closet will do. You can sit in the meditation position or assume any position that allows you to be comfortable enough to become physically forgetful. Concentrate first on building a life that allows both inner and outer growth. Surround yourself with people who respect this decision.

          Opportunity – This is a journey. Accept it. Begin a journal with 1. “I” and write down your meditation thoughts and desires. This can be a poem, a fantasy, a checklist – whatever pattern occurs to you as supportive of your desires. Make a list of goals. Push shame away. This is about YOU. Naturally as you evolve, your goals will evolve, and your journal will reflect that. When you have completed your Time Alone – ten minutes to an hour – whatever works for you – pat yourself on the back. What an achievement! You are started on a path of making changing Nightmares into Dreams and making dreams come true.

          Training Journal – Carefully assess your desires versus the demands on you. List expected results if you gave in to either. Develop a concept of health. Is ”freedom” staying up all night, consuming whatever substance makes you “feel better”? Clearly not. Assess the negative voice; “You’re weak”, for example. Being “in flight” from the negative voice is actually giving it mastery, you must stand up to it. Learn to answer back – “I’m in training. I did better today than yesterday.” Keep track of your achievements. Even really small ones: “I meditated for 10 minutes” are significant.

          Accept mystery: Life isn’t “win or lose.” It can’t be quantified because we are magical souls with magic coursing through us. Sometimes it’s impossible to figure out and must simply be absorbed, not rationalized. Learn to enjoy art and accept the relief it offers. Reflect back as much magic & mystery as you can muster. Your tastes will develop according to your growth – that’s a good thing. Treat yourself like a loving sensei who wants the best for you.

          Models & Mentors: Always survey possible models. Who do you admire?
          Is it

          Bruce Lee? “The difference between a creative and an average man is laser focus.”

          Is it Carl Jung? “I am not what happened to me I am what I choose to become.” Read. Study. Educate yourself. Develop your own models.

          “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego falls with it” – Colin Powell

          “Don’t let your ego get in the way of your success”- Tony Horton

          “The ego seeks to divide and separate. The spirit seeks to unify and heal.” – Pema Chodron

          Haiku: Id vs Ego

          Argumentative
          Executioner
          Prowls brain
          Seeking
          Loopholes

        2. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

          The Daisy = LOVE “Is love real?” “Love Waves”

                      Love is the secret. Love is the answer. Love is what we say we feel when we look into the Soulmate’s eyes According to our long, rich tradition of romantic literature, it’s a connection/identification with someone else so powerful (and so rewarding) you would walk through fire for that person. 

                      Biblically defined as:

                      “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” 

                      Love is the opposite of the winner/loser “fuck you” ethos. 

                      Love is patient. We can’t expect the Soulmate to be on the same page with us immediately, or all the time. We must work out our differences, analyze our difficulties and strategize        solutions. Love takes time.

                      Love is kind. We handle each other gently, with care. Thoughtfully, with reverence. Slowly. Savoring.

                      Love does not envy. We are not competitive with each other. When we wrestle, it is in play, for joy, not because we want to         trounce the Soulmate or knock the feet out from under the Beloved.

                      Love does not boast. We are not seeking to impress each other. Love is not a hierarchy where we can lift our status above the Loved One.

                      Love is not proud. We can admit fault. We can say we are sorry. We can weep with the Beloved and we can begin again.

                      Love does not dishonor others. There is no “score”, no winner  and no loser. We don’t take tattletales of the Beloved to friends, family, social media or the public space. 

                      Love is not self-seeking. It is not transactional: “what can I get out of this” “you are not giving enough” “you are not making me look good.”

                      Love is not easily angered. We resist anger, touchiness, rage over our wounded narcissistic self-importance. If we are angry we cannot join, touch each other, embrace whole-heartedly or solve problems. When you get angry over a problem, now you have two problems. 

                      Love keeps no record of wrongs. When we say, “I forgive you”, we mean it.

                      Love does not delight in evil. We do not seek the diminishment or disrespect of the other. Popular “bondage” and “sadism” games that memorialize the helplessness and subjection of the Other are dangerous, volatile and can be triggers of past dangers and will map out a bleak and lonely future.

                      Love rejoices in the truth. The truth evolves because our brains evolve. Truth is a process as our lives are a process. We are all heading for an end goal – both together and separately – if we        can   figure out what it is. Truth is our ally in this dilemma, because it tells us the real results of all our strategies which allows us to calibrate our efforts and improve our outcomes.         We must speak truth to each other and we must grow in stature enough to dare to speak truth to Power.

                      Love protects. We shelter. We nourish. We steward. We cherish. We assess. We unite.

                      Love always trusts. We believe. We have the best assurance that God is good and that truth, justice and love will win in the end.

                      Love always hopes. Things will get better tomorrow. We will         work towards constant improvement.

                      Love perseveres. We will never quit. We are in this for the long haul.

          Meditation:  I am part of all I have met  – Tennyson

          #Haiku: Love Waves

          Sound travels forever

          Like love;

          Stars’ boundless dance

          Launched

          By mortal hearts

        3. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

          Cherry Blossoms = Paradise=BLISS “Love the Magician”

          Finding your bliss: Cherry blossoms promise: “Good things to come.”

          Everyone’s Paradise is different. For some it will be just like church, for others it’s the eternal “fish-fry” described in Green Pastures.

          Some people say it will be a place without animals, enemies, insects or unbelievers, others say it will be just like Earth. Some think it’s an endless loving embrace, others say a “roll in the hay” with “70 virgins.” (Imagine that being appealing!)

          These ideas are understandably small and based on limited and very individual human knowledge. This makes Paradise a mental construct; some kind of an existence of all joy and no pain. We can almost barely imagine that. What we can’t seem to imagine is a Paradise where all participate; in other words, how can we feel joy if “wrong thoughts”, “impure behaviors” and “bad people” are rewarded?

          Jesus was asked this question and his answer sounds suspiciously like “get over it.” He told a long story about toilers in the vineyards paid the same amount no matter how late they showed up, just because the owner was so full of generosity and joy.

          Something to think about. I personally treasure the idea that Paradise is a place where “every tear will be wiped away.”(Revelation)

          Once we have faced up to our personal inadequacies, admitted the power of our global longing and contemplated the possibility of severance, are we ready to surrender to bliss? Cherry Blossoms guarantee that ecstasy is coming. But what is ecstasy – how uncomfortable will it be and how will we recognize it?

          Ecstasy is the blurring of our boundaries into the beloved. Time vanishes, there is only the ecstatic present. You have experienced this before. Disappearing in to the safety of a loving parent’s arms you felt connected to them in a galvanic way – you and they were part of each other’s being. This is the connection Jesus offered when he called God “Daddy.”

          A mature connection with the Beloved is even more powerful, because we get to be both parent and child, recipient and giver, all at once and in the same moment. What joy!

          Meditation: Long live the weeds and the wildness – Gerard Manley Hopkins

          LOVE THE MAGICIAN

          The Magician is a Capricorn
          Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples
          Pale like mine but
          Maler.
          Illusion, he says is memory
          Of things that should have been.
          Doves and rabbits he entices
          From sacred groves between my legs
          Placed by ruse, and freed by art.
          When he dies, passion turns his eyes
          To quarters.
          He hears the world but faintly
          Through his one good ear.
          The other turns to me,
          Safecracker’s daughter.
          Trust the magician, voices tell me
          He knows when to drop the dice.

        4. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

          The Calla Lilly = FORGIVENESS “My Grandmother’s Ghost”

          “Is forgiveness possible?”

          In the language of flowers, the Calla Lily is forgiveness. Forgiveness is like coming home. It hypothesizes a place where the past doesn’t matter, mistakes are healed, and love conquers all. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

          Soulmates create heaven for each other, but we can taste and enjoy it, now. Nothing is held back.

          Love requires that each desire the other’s “good.” There is no tiny part of us hoping for the other’s denigration so that we can rise. This means forswearing the Scarcity Mentality. We must believe there is enough love for us both.

          Love without status, without competition. Just closeness, forgiveness and togetherness. If a Soulmate keeps pushing his Beloved into position of Enforcer, Critic, Teacher or Detective, the relationship is under such threat its future is imperiled. One can hardly be forgiven until one stops being a danger to the soul of the Beloved and the soul of the relationship. We must commit to desiring the other’s good, and to demanding health and life for ourselves.

          When the Calla lily arrives at your door, not just forgiveness but absolution is in the offing. We know there can be no forgiveness for us unless we have learned to forgive others, but perhaps the hardest thing is to learn to forgive ourselves.

          We must even forgive God for the pulse of history and the electricity of circumstance, for the physical web in which we are all caught. Give up trying to assess who did what to who and why; letting it all go as your eyes turn to the future.

          There is no resolution in simply showing wounds or admitting wrongdoing; but there is healing available when we hold each other up in the light. But we have to want it. We must want to come home.

          How many times do we have to forgive ourselves? When asked how many times we need to forgive others Jesus made the quick calculation of “seventy times seven” meaning, “a lot.” If you think about it, you’ll realize we are going to have to forgive each other and ourselves a lot more times than that! Possibly multiple times per day for the rest of our lives. Don’t we have to forgive ourselves for constantly underestimating ourselves, for saying “I can’t do this” without even trying, for insulting ourselves and verbally (and for all I know physically!) Be a loving partner to yourself so that your Beloved knows how to love you.

          Meditation: We’re branches of the same tree – W.B. Yeats

          My Grandmother’s Ghost

          My grandmother never cried
          Emmie you’re a stoic
          Everyone admired her. That’s why
          She haunts us; pressing her face accusingly
          Against the glass beneath the stairs.
          On windy nights she
          Threatens God, maligns
          His angels; for the little boy who died
          Of scarlet fever; without once
          Calling her name; and the collie dog run over
          And the storm that forever uprooted
          Her wedding tulips.
          Mother shakes her head, says, “Poor Gran
          Will never be done; she’s got
          Too much grief to catch up on.”

        5. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

          The Gazing Ball = PROPHECY “You Are Not Lost”

          “Who can foretell the future?”

          If you could, would you?

          Would you find yourself performing all the same actions all over again?

          What do you most regret? Sometimes grief lies in wait for us at our happiest moments. What would you change, if anything? How about altering your Soulmate, fellow traveler on life’s journey? Would you roll those dice again?

          Skeptics say a stopped clock is right twice a day, but whatever the causation, sometime prophecies come true. A creeping suspicion bubbles up out of nowhere – manifesting as reality. We guess restlessly at “The Truth.”

          This glittering gazing ball at the center of our garden reflects our hopes, wishes and dreams, one of which is that it confers the gift of prophecy. We know we must be right about some future event; but if we share our knowledge too often we are discredited or disbelieved.

          Perhaps all we need is to cultivate our gift; forget “knowing”; concentrate on the blur of memory and project it forcefully into the future. Think about past, present and possibility, making all our choices with our Wisdom Eye fully open. It could be that the answer to the question we seek is already known to our Soulmate if we can only learn to trust and understand.

          What fresh new worlds might we create with our clear shared minds?.

          YOU ARE NOT LOST

          Do forests think?
          These trees know where they are
          In spite of all our attempts
          At subjugation
          We are all still here
          In spite of prophets who
          Calculated chances of survival
          With the eye of a murderous god
          Every one of us
          Who has ever been
          Is still here

        6. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

          The labyrinth = COMPLEXITY

          “What’s the ultimate secret?”

          The Labyrinth draws us in, yet we are fearful. In the garden lies this ultimate puzzle – that for which there is no solution, because the Labyrinth keeps adding corridors toward – where?

          We don’t recognize that our longing for stasis is really a longing for death, so that if we wish to live, we must commit ourselves to the constant flow of fresh experiences, discoveries that train our eyes in new ways of seeing.

          The Labyrinth changes us at the same time as we demand – and sometimes succeed in forcing – changes from it. We have pledged to leave our mark upon it. Nothing shakes our certainty that this puzzle pines for us every bit as much as we yearn for it. Is your soulmate waiting in the center of the labyrinth? What if the labyrinth has no center?

          Soulmates have an edge; we have eyes in the back of our heads. Our sixth sense seeks the others out and once we join hands, we become a four-eyed dragon. Not only can our eyes see forward in time and backwards in history – but now we have the benefit of two Third Eyes – two seats of wisdom.

          Why does the Labyrinth keep separating us? Because labyrinths are a series of puzzles without answers – designed to educate us to embrace the next problem.

          You were just around that corner – now suddenly your essence has departed. The aura I counted on with certainty has evanesced.

          What happens if one day you look at me with a different face and I realize your brain – that Seat of Self – has been affected and You and no Longer You?

          And then there’s Bad Magic – the lies that draw us – or one of us – in – to live – however momentarily – in Crazy World. The defining feature of Crazy World is sickness. Sickness, death and hopelessness are cultivated as if they were precious plants. You know you must get out as fast as you can. Yes, you should try to save each other but you will both be lost if you can’t get the oxygen mask over your own face first and return the trustworthy flow of life-giving reality.

          Our brain, the thinking organ with which we confront and negotiate the Labyrinth – is a labyrinth itself – possibly the model for all the labyrinths to come, but to comprehend the vastness of the universe all we have is this tiny human brain. Even as Soulmates touch Third Eyes together to join through Literature, Science, History and Art with all the human brains there have ever existed, can we gauge the immensities of inner and outer space? We can, if we are unafraid of complexity.

          The further we journey, the more we see. Every “solution” posits yet more problems. Hold hands and don’t be frightened. Our simplified language will inhibit our understanding until we invent placeholder terms to represent the “unknown” – just as in math – so we can begin to imagine a way to place them into our calculations. Luckily you don’t need to know everything there is to know about the ocean just to ride its waves; but you do need to appreciate the majesty, the mystery and the danger keeping you afloat.

          Heraclitus said you can never dip your hand in the “same river” twice. Even if you dip for the second time just moments later, the water itself is completely different. We are all rushing forward and there is no going back. Soulmates rush on together.

          She

          At the heart of the labyrinth
          She sits
          Repairing
          Sores of everyday
          Occurrence
          Insults, slights, poor
          Choice of Words &
          Turns of phrase.

          From the heart of the pond she
          Heals the otter’s sorrow
          The bobcat’s grief
          Orchestrating cries of loons
          Into family symphony
          Forever exploring but
          Having home to come
          Back to.

        7. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

          Thorns = The thief = DISPOSSESSED “On Being Disinherited”

          “Could you steal? Have you?”

          The rose attacks; you are cut, pierced. Thorns signify “Don’t mess with me or you’ll be sorry.” The Garden itself has the capacity to cut you to the quick.

          What if the garden itself is under attack? Ravaged? Despoiled? Extinct?

          Dispossession is much more complicated than mere loss. It means something we thought was ours isn’t. “Thorns” remind us of hidden dangers. Ownership may be quietly transferred behind the scenes, or they may convince you it never existed at all. What is “ownership”, anyway? Are we entitled to the Soulmate’s love?

          Entitlement of some kind is at risk. Property? Dignity? Expectations? It can be very modest; a chair, a single room, a blanket. Not yours anymore. Nothing you can rely on. We must ask ourselves; are those we trust to act for us are fundamentally untrustworthy? Who or what do they represent?

          Contracts dissolve. In a class based society we suddenly find ourselves divested, plummeting down, down to the despised and the ignored. This is frightening and disorienting.

          The rules have shifted; the law has changed. We are looked on as an interloper at someone else’s party. Now we are viewed as dishonorable supplicants in danger of capture and incarceration.

          Thorns remind us of a wider meaning; a warning that ultimately we can “own” nothing: everything we use is shared. Even our own body, this ship we use to forage through the seas of life, can turn against us, behaving in completely unpermitted and unfamiliar ways.

          Feeling dispossessed is a shock to the system. Hustle culture places pressure on us to take, take, take, grab or “lose out.” When ‘Thorns” appear in your daily meditation it means it is time to have some serious thoughts about the nature of “ownership”; what you want versus what you can have; what you can control versus what you can’t and ultimately, who you can trust. Who’s feathering their private nest instead of honoring a contract?

          How can you gain through losing? Does real freedom lurk behind these dispossessions? The hermit crab carries his house on his back. When he outgrows it is when he shops for another house. It clearly wouldn’t benefit him to be dragging two houses around; he wouldn’t be able to move.

          But some of us are so burdened with junk we’re completely immobilized. Yet being robbed not only isn’t any kind of relief, the sense of violation lasts for years. The only person who can rid us of our stuff is Us. We just must set to it and figure out what’s baby and what’s bathwater. It’s a lifelong process. But being light and free can be intoxicating and addictive. Maybe a contract needs renegotiation, or shouldn’t exist in the first place.

          Sometimes a Soulmate fails the test or sharing, caring and giving. Or we fail. Maybe it is just once, and after a recovery period we will be better communicators. But maybe, like the hermit crab, we have outgrown this particular shell.

          After all, we’re planning to end up with wings. Maybe once we’ve soared we won’t want to live any other way.

          ON BEING DISINHERITED

          These are the tasks
          Performed without feeling;
          The snipping the
          Slashing
          The shredding
          Bundling into bunches
          You are the remote ogre
          And I the crying child.
          Why do partitioned pieces
          Melt before they touch?
          You fear to give;
          I am helpless to receive.
          Imagine we change places.
          Would that explain
          Your fear of me?