Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #DreamGroup

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Version 1.0.0

    Thistle = RESISTANCE = “The thistle”

    “Do we really want love? Can we tolerate togetherness?”

    The thistle threatens, “Touch me Not.”

    It is inevitable that we experience Merging on some level as Identity Loss. This is the source of the power struggle which plagues, and should plague, all relationships: who’s going to drive this bus? (The answer is Each/Both/Neither. Power flows in, out and between, like the tide.)

    If “who will drive” doesn’t emerge into consciousness then the problem lies very deep and must be urgently addressed. It’s always important to keep in mind that one soul isn’t “absorbed” while the other “inflates”! That’s not how it works at all!

    For example, those who study the contemporary meanings of the word ”fuck” will be justifiably alarmed. If you are “fucked” you’ve been “taken.” You’ve been “had,” emptied, eviscerated, exploited. You are left worse off.

    One person is diminished, the other is a conqueror in this scenario. Soulmating cannot and will not happen under such conditions – both souls will be erased. Considering that sex is the glue that fuses souls, exploitational thinking is profoundly destructive. “Mated” is a much better term, but even that fails to encompass the transfer of self into a central Us that is so much desired, feared, dreaded and resisted.

    You desperately need each other’s pollen to ignite true fertility in the soul. Relax. Experiment. Allow the Other to instruct you in their Wildness. Offer up your own exotic difference. Join.

    #HAIKU: The Thistle

    Pry me out
    I fly back hard
    Invigorate world
    With wilder honey

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    LAW = “The Statue”

    “Vows”

    In the garden stone figures mock us and memorialize us. They can be reassuring or uncanny as if secretly intuiting our states of mind. We put them there to remind us – of what?

    Lovers make promises to each other. We do it spontaneously, offering ourselves on the altar of our own desire. We solidify our vows publicly in paper, legal filings, photographs, video, topiary, marble, even stone.

    What promises can we make and what promises can we keep? Do these promises allow space to evolve over time? At least we can answer that last question with a heartening “yes.” Our promises are not set in stone. We are not our statues.

    Soulmates are in tune with each other. We can feel each other’s evolving spirit, sometimes before the other even can. We know when the petals lose their glisten, when the wings droop.

    Did we make a promise to be “perfect”? We know this is not possible or even desirable. The only real promises we can make are to be present, to be honest, and to treat the desires of the Beloved Other as Sacred. But we all have boundaries and we must be honest about uncovering and examining those.

    Some can be broken and re-set, some can’t. Does that mean a Soulmate can be temporary? We are temporal beings, but someday we will meet on the eternal plain.

    #HAIKU: The Statue

    Rose-choked;
    Tagged;
    Sentenced by time
    I stand Mute.
    Freeze! I see you!
    Who has won?

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The Snake = ADDICTION “The Columbine”

    “Just when things are going so well -”

    Because we’re afraid of snakes, we attract the deadly columbine. We can’t recognize danger and we don’t know how to summon real assistance.

    In the language of flowers the Columbine means “Anxious Folly. Resolved to win.” Our folly prevents our winning.

    As for snakes, there are many of snakes we depend on in the garden. But every now and then a poisonous one wanders by. How do we tell the difference?


    How can we win when we poison ourselves? It’s to lessen that anxiety, to get back to what we assume is “baseline.” But it isn’t. We just haven’t found our baseline yet, and by mimicking the baseline of others we get farther and father from ourselves.

    This is why recovery from addiction involves finding ourselves. We can’t find a soulmate when we don’t know who we are.

    Our toy-box of pleasures is quite pathetic, but that’s not our fault. We are wired for addictions, with a biological view to turning such basic pursuits for food, mating and recreation subconscious so we can use the front of our mind to think about other things.

    You can tell addictions are destructive (and not all of them are!) if they crowd out human flourishing and ruin sharing and our ability to share. “I want to feel pleasure with you” becomes, “Let’s cycle through my tragic past of suffering before I found you.”

    Not good. To get out of this mess we cultivate the gift of change, of evolution. We will share and learn to tolerate discomfort. Hold tight. Often the addictions gained their grip over us because we were seeking to escape change or discomfort! The good news it, it’s never too late.

    The better news is, this re-discovery and re-creation of the self is one of the life-transforming experiences to share with a soulmate and if you have no soulmate yet, here’s a crucial step to getting yourself ready to present to the world as the Real, the Essential, the True You.

    Always look for help. Set up a program and a feedback system for accountability and efficiency and spiritual support for the inevitable withdrawal that’s coming. It’s only giving birth to your stronger, better, best self. You know it’s time.

    HAIKU: The Columbine

    Gambler’s inferno
    Dissolves will
    Slavery
    Wrecks pleasure-
    Luck? Loss?
    Choose.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The Poppy = SUCCESS “The Lovers”
    “Successful in your eyes”

    The Poppy signifies oblivion and eternal sleep in the Language of Flowers. This source of heroin and morphine will definitely obliterate your personality, despite protecting you from pain. Does that sound like success to you?

    The greatest pleasure of Soulmates is creating a world all our own, with its own rules and reality. If our Soul Unit is a success, we are a Success. The harsh judgments of the outside world, operating as it does casino-like with few winners and a vast “majority” of losers, fade in impact.

    All that is required for joy is that we must be a success to each other, and we must be a success together. This mandates constant soul-searching as we step through life’s landmines, both singly and alone. There is no more restful peace than ultimate confidence that someone’s got your back.

    Haiku: The Lovers

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

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The tulip = ILLUSION “Gothic Novel”

    “Seeing what isn’t there”

    Illusions are VERY attractive. We WANT them to be true. In my childhood Superman leapt tall buildings in a single bound – all us kids could recognize the fun, the power, the joy in that.

    Limitations are unpleasant. We can work to expand them, or…we can dream. Every culture warns the dreamer against getting lost in fantasy. The Tulip is a historic emblem of delusion – impoverishing generations of otherwise intelligent Dutch merchants in a fruitless gamble. Now the Tulip warns that you may be counting on something – or someone – that is false.

    Our society has been fueled by misinformation ever since Edward Bernays, founder of modern advertising, wrote his book Propaganda in the 1920’s. Since then legal beagles have defended the right to “puffery” and “spin”, even to saying something manifestly untrue; “miracle pills!”

    Advertisers are very honest about manipulating us through wish and fear. We are eager to buy the illusions that seem to promise a warm social life, a happy home or radiating beauty. Lately misinformation has taken a distinctly evil turn as billionaires base their fortunes on convincing us that pollution isn’t dangerous, the climate is fine, science is untrustworthy, the election was stolen and oligarchic rule is what we really want.

    The question to consider is, what is our benefit in believing and propagating obviously harmful facts? The rifle-toting man who broke into a Washington DC pizza parlor thought he was a heroic savior of children. He’s now serving a prison term.

    Why is violence such an attractive answer? Forget stockpiling bear mace and bullets to abuse your fellow citizens. We need some other way to soothe our raggedy self-esteem apart from clinging to grifters and liars.

    On the other side of illusion lies reality. We need to take a look at it, savor it. Often it’s a kid tugging at our clothes begging us to stay, focus, share; not lose ourselves in a fantasy world.

    The need for illusion prevents us from finding, seeing and keeping a Soulmate. We must work to make reality less terrible, so that we don’t become dependent on illusion as a pleasure source. Illusion rushes in when life seems meaningless. Joining groups of honest seekers directing their paths with love can save us. When we are surrounded by love we will attract love. Check the philosophy of the group you hang out with. Is it “Let’s you and him fight?” or “Let’s seek joy for all.”

    GOTHIC NOVEL

    A woman alone is open – gaping,
    Button hole without a button hook.
    She carries her muff held stiffly
    Out before her like an offering
    Flic, flic! The eyes of strangers
    Slit the pause like razors.
    This railway carriage stinks of creosote, wet fur.
    “I prefer the window up, thank you”
    “I prefer it down”.
    She lights a Sobranie to remind her
    Of Devon in the haying; the gentlemen
    Lean forward, reading the initials
    On her morocco case.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Orchid = UNIQUENESS “In the Butterfly Pavilion”

    “Singletons”

    You will never rub the edges off each other, says the Orchid – and that is a good thing. You don’t want to. We’re not here to “bland out” or diminish each other. We are here to enhance and free each other.

    We pay homage to each other’s special qualities. Naturally it helps to know where each other is headed but not even the Self really know that. Ultimately, we are mysteries to each other.

    We must be each other’s Map and each other’s Mirror. The challenge is to accept and honor each other’s strangeness; singularity. You were drawn together for a reason. Sometimes it prickles and we feel ourselves shrink, or even withdraw. That is the rhythm of the tango we have undertaken.

    Many Soulmates welcome costume and role play to try to express the range of interests, the force of questions, the eagerness of exploring and adventuring we will always have. The key is to be aware of the rhythms of advance, retreat, resist, re-fashion, re-remember. Expect these. They are necessary to our continued growth. Our relationship is a greenhouse and we must check constantly on the health of our tiny plants. Fill air and soil with love and…release.

    In the Butterfly Pavilion


    This evening you said you wished
    I was more conventional.
    I bowed my head. I did not speak.
    Outside the animals leaned together,
    Holding breath
    To hear my answer.
    The cats-tongue ferns
    Swelled up like swords, pushed out the stink
    Of possibility while
    The rabbit-blooded lawn curled back: 
    Sows littered in the cyclamen
    Phlox flamed  
    Dwarf stars
    Broke free
    Spew molten ore
    Across a sky now
    Darkening to night.
    Nighttime is my kingdom.
    I fold my hands in my sleeves and
    Wait.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Night = BALANCE “Resurrectionist”

    “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

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Transformation = METAMORPHOSIS “Dawn Walk”

    “What truth will you become?”

    What happens when we discover that to accept a New Soulmate, we too must become entirely new? We must turn our comically ugly caterpillars into gorgeous butterflies. It turns out that in wanting the Beloved what we were yearning for was a new self, as beautiful and as magical as we imagined the Beloved to be.

    Transformation is more than mere shape-shifting; it is a complete cellular mutation; a quantum victory of design over matter.

    In the garden transformation is law. The oldest things become new when seen through fresh eyes or a shift of visual imagination. Plants capture or seduce; pods fly into silks, colors wither, embolden or whiten, dust balls eject a thousand baby spiders, a worm becomes frog.

    When you “transform” you are reborn into a new being. Unlike simple masking or disguise, this change interpenetrates the very soul. When we tire of our selves, our path, our very thoughts, nothing will satisfy but complete and total rebirth.

    Seeking wholeness, we are slowly transformed by our own longing into a receptacle for the Beloved. But they must contain us, too, Two Truths will blend together into a singular, mighty Truth. To become The Lover, we must give up the griefs, the imperfections, the pettiness, the vindictiveness of the past.

    If we accept that our future is entirely new, we can be born freshly into this fresh moment. It is this deep looking, deep seeing, deep yearning and deep acceptance that attracts our tantric lover to our sphere. Yes, terrible things have happened outside the golden chalice we now offer. Sad lessons were learned.

    There has been triumph, vengeance, loss and play. No need to dwell on any of this, it no longer describes or confines us. What does describe us?

    The peace of perfected selfhood. We are now ready to merge with yet another enlightened Self.


    Dawn walk

    Thunder crusts a gelid sky
    Light or rain –
    Feathering
    My nest with longing
    Stippled soul flushing out
    New growth; bursting from
    The steepled trees.

    This is my world and I release it
    Stelliform; Readied
    For flying – tough as spidersilk –
    Unrecognized –
    Unrecognizable –
    Even to those who birthed me
    Spent my life creating this; now

    Released and
    Blown away.