Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #DreamGroup

  • 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.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Age = WISDOM “Hungry Ghosts”

    “What would you advise your 20 yr old self?”

    When we start racking up the years, we see a choice. We can “grow up” or we can “grow down”. Growing down would mean becoming more self-absorbed, demanding and infantile, a mass of entitlement compromised by bodily aches and pains. Growing up means assuming the mantle of Wisdom, which is the crowning glory of Age.

    Wisdom is 4-D vision, seeing past, future, possibility and the most productive outcomes freed finally from the furnace of desire into understanding and compassion, as one member of a species instead of a competitive protagonist with multiple agendas and axes to grind. Age means insight, intuition, masterful judgment and correct calibrations.

    In the well-known prayer, we request the ability to “change the things we can change and to accept the things we can’t change “and for the wisdom to know the difference.” This is not just a question of “picking our battles” and learning not to “tilt at windmills” but of Self-Knowledge: knowing ourselves – deeply and thoroughly.

    What is possible for us? What’s a stretch – but a healthy stretch? We recognize that we need some taking “out of our comfort zone.” What will the “discomfort zone” feel like? We’re also familiar with the idea that once we make a resolution there’s a difficult period where the work we’re given feels hard, unfamiliar, even hopeless.

    “Wisdom” is knowing that period will have an end. “This too must pass” is the common phrase. Wisdom means we can begin to rely on ourselves: ”I always get discouraged at this point. By tomorrow I’ll feel better,” or “When I’m down in the dumps is not a good time to make a new plan. One foot in front of the other.” And tomorrow’s a new day. It always is.

    Is acquired wisdom worth the loss of youthful energy, and its crazy optimism? The pursuit of the Soulmate tells us that it is. We seek one who shares our gift of vision; seeing both forward and backwards, and we welcome the amplification of their experience and the magnification of their uniqueness .

    Just as “folie a deux” is shared madness, so is shared wisdom. Someone makes a statement you know will hurt your partner, who answers intelligently but compassionately. Then you share A Look – they know you know their truth, and in that moment a delicious balm falls upon the soul. You are making love invisibly, souls touching in the eternal now, where you can bask in the others’ pure and total comprehension. A joy shared is multiplied, pain shared is an indescribable comfort and release. The incomprehensible is suddenly clear as day.

    Hungry Ghosts

    We are all
    Hungry ghosts; I died
    On a highway, that’s why
    I avoid them –
    Clinging to towns
    Gazing adoringly
    Happy Bridal
    Hardy Technicians
    Mom & Pop Archery
    Bob’s Gas & Go
    Life!
    Life!
    Life!

  • the Language of Butterflies – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Dreams = IMAGINATION “Freud’s Wolfman”

    “Spiritual Connectivity”


    Your Soulmate is reaching out to you in dreams. In dreams we discover not just the Other but ourselves. Dreams give the lie to the idea that we are simple biological creatures tethered to rituals of attachment, food foraging, illness and death. In dreams we see visions, and we spend we rest of our lives puzzling out their meaning.

    There has not yet been a human culture unaware of the numinous nature of existence. Given the choice between symbol-saturated subjects and simple objects, we go for the symbol every time. We live entirely within our own heads, playing out a story line known to us alone.


    Dreams awaken us to different reveries. It is quite possible, as the philosophers suggest, that we are truly asleep in our everyday interactions and only fully conscious in our Dreams.
    Dreams consolidate the day’s learning with the night’s yearning, forging connections with our deepest selves and with others’ deepest selves, alive and dead. Dreams are the story our primitive self tells our grown-up, social selves.

    Dreams don’t necessarily even belong to us but can be “transferred” from those around us, including the dead, and even celebrities (such as literary figures and fictional characters) with whom we have forged an emotional bond. Therefore, the content of the dream, while important, is not as important as the soul from which it originates.


    Today we will work on “self-hypnosis;” a process of “asking a question”, relaxing into a “waking trance” and thinking about what bubbles up. Remember not all questions have answers, and few have immediate answers; but it is important to put the question “out there”.


    If fear is our primary reaction when we want to study our deepest links with others, that has to be dealt with so that we can move forward in our Soulmate Quest. What do we fear, exactly? We are not at the “mercy” of the universe, we are its “co-creators” and we must bravely claim our birthright.


    Dreams are to be welcomed; they are not simply warnings and stories but also teases, in a language we need to learn. Dreams celebrate our spiritual connectivity not just with all the creatures who have ever shared the gift of life but with ideas, group powers and abilities.

    They say when we go to sleep in one world, we awake in another. Perhaps it is our Soulmate’s world. Dreams show us our possibilities as well as our fears. I once had a dream in which I looked at myself in my coffin, but it was a powerful “my soul jumps!” experience and not a fearful one. When my son was a tiny boy he described dreamed of driving a truck “and my feet reached the pedals!”

    Sometimes we are such beginners we don’t even know what to dream about. Dreams have long been recognized as warnings. Our unconscious sees dangers our conscious self refuses to recognize. So it creates a worthwhile map – not to the way forward, but a method of understanding where you have been. If you are having nightmares about a love choice, this is something to pay attention to. Gavin de Becker tells us (Gift of Fear) to honor our fear, but not to be controlled by it. Move forward with caution.

    DREAM OF FREUD’S WOLFMAN

    The window opens of its own accord.
    He’s catapulted forward; waked.
    Outside, the walnut tree is hung with wolves
    Each to its branch; they watch him


    Blankly. Stillness has its
    Consequence. They are fat
    As lambs ready for castration; round
    As dogs; white as mother’s underdrawers.


    Such tails! Thick tails
    Perked and listening!
    Blue snow rumples up the bedclothes; stiffens
    Into plaster. This sky leads nowhere.


    The child’s eyes are frozen like the window
    They do not close; this tree
    Is butchered at the crown; it will
    Not grow.


    The wind that frosts the room is welcome
    Stirring like a scream and like a scream
    It alters what it sees.
    The wolves levitate.


    What they know the child
    Must discover.

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Homing – Forgiveness –
    Do you dream of home? What’s “home” to you? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. DreamTherapy posits that “home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and fall away from us. We are cleansed. We dream of ultimate understanding where our sins are not too terrible to be entirely forgotten. Jesus suggests to us that state will never arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.

    What Does It Mean to “Re-set”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we all contribute to frees us from painful rumination and helps explain how the search for blame becomes a prison. “I did this because you –“… Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.

    Challenge – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your tribe, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. Ask these questions of your Dream Journal: which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re all in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? Can you find a group – or even a moment (say, in yoga class) where you detach from the mess?

    Danger – Mixed up about “ultimate” right and wrong? Lots of atheists feel ”condemned” anyway. Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error” either. Martin Luther King Jr. made a wise comment that the type of government capitalism desires is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they have absolute freedom. It is important that our resistance not embitter us.

    Opportunity – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is requested. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, to yourself. “But if I’m not willing to try giving up my behavior because I think I’m not able to, this pattern will continually get worse.” And make an intelligent choice. “If it gets really bad I can always commit violence” is not an intelligent choice, “I need help” is.

    Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry

    “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world”
    – Marianne Williamson

    “The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong”

    – Mahatma Gandhi

    “To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman

    “Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes

    Mantra – “I forgive”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Forgiveness

    Returning home with
    New eyes
    Strong hands
    Fresh translations of
    Future past

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

    Yearning Defines Us – Once we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. But oh, how we long to be reminded, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.

    Challenge – We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We must practice uncertain techniques we can’t recall in a threateningly uncertain world. We truly are standing up and running across the ocean, just as in my dream, but this time, we have the confidence of memory. Someone loved us once, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic. In your Dream Journal, list all the aspects of love that you can remember. How many can you yourself practice?

    Danger – Danger lies in narrowing definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve the moment we feel gratified, Love is killed.

    Opportunity – Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours.

    Models & Mentors –“‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides”
    – David Viscott

    “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn

    “Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing”

    – Torquato Tasso

    “Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh

    “I love you for who I am when I’m with you”
    – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    Mantra – “I embrace”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Honesty

    Stop delusion
    No one’s fooled.
    Acknowledge
    Truth –
    Radiate
    Love:
    Know
    Peace.

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    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

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Dispossessed – Do you dream of transgressions committed against you? Are you being robbed, stolen from, deprived? We wake with a sense of loss. Something has been taken from us, but what? The “politics of grievance” has always waged particular power, breeding anger and revenge. “You took something from me I will take something from you.” Yet our loss remains amorphous. We cling to the concept that we were “entitled” to something we no longer have. Philosophers and psychologists speculate; is it the mother’s womb? The family nest? What exactly is this lost paradise?

    You Can’t Take It With You – There is much talk nowadays that “the American Dream” is no longer possible. Very relevant to our study of DreamTherapy! Dreams are our specialty! But what was that “lost dream”, exactly? Some mystical concept of “wholeness” – family, life, work, rewards – that shifts according to who you are and where you are looking from. Once you are part of a “team” – even if just a team of two – the stakes seem different. Is that loss? Or accretion?

    Marx said all property is theft. We no longer fill our tombs with the junk of real life for use in the Great Beyond, “terra cotta servants” who will “wake” to wait on us hand and foot. We are forced to satisfy ourselves with strictly “mental” pictures. Is the detachment of elder-hood a triumph of success or a long wail of departure?

    Challenge – The “de-cluttering” movement did us all an enormous favor. Marie Kondo asked us to rid ourselves of every object that does not “spark joy”. That’s a high standard! We soon discover that daily life stirs up a lot of “necessary” detritus that sparks joy in literally no one but is a misery to live without. Probably the best way to free ourselves is to freshly contemplate this entitlement mystique. Open your Dream Journal and consider: What is it we think we are entitled to, and the next question is, is everyone entitled to the same thing? How’s that work?

    Danger – What does it mean when we believe we are entitled to something others are not? How do we stop them from wanting what we “have”? Do we “have” anything, really? It doesn’t take much to see this American Dream turning into a nightmare. We may say we’ve worked very hard for what we get but the whole principle of capitalism is to benefit from the work of others. It doesn’t take much to see the grievances THAT would stir up. And yet “state” ownership churns up grievances of its own. Ownership itself is fraught with exclusion, hostility, and danger. If our frame for adventure is a casino, we are mandating not winning, but losing on a massive scale.

    Opportunity – Do we possess objects when we are not physically present? Can we ever possess people? Do we WANT to take responsibility for another’s entire existence? Ask your Dream Journal: how do our dreams of freedom comport with our dreams of possession? Who – or what – is held captive? What if we freed ourselves – mentally and spiritually? Can we still enjoy the world if it doesn’t belong to us and we don’t belong to it? What would it feel like to release ourselves from captivity?

    Models & Mentors – “The more stuff I donated the more I was able to breathe, the more trash I threw away, the more weight I felt was lifted, the more I was able to see a new life, the more joy I found” – Zina Harrington

    “Clutter is postponed decisions” – Barbara Hemphill

    “Life is your masterpiece. Edit frequently and ruthlessly” – Nathan W. Morris

    “To the spoils belong the victor” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    “Freedom is the oxygen of the soul” – Moshe Dayan

    Mantra – “I release”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Dispossessed

    We “own”
    Nothing:
    Objects, people, selves
    Sweated off
    As spirit
    Rises