Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #DreamJournal

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

    Danger – Risk

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Look out. Are you a worrier? Anxiety driven? Haunted by nightmares and worst-case scenarios? Do you wake up gasping and trying to forget what you’ve just experienced?

      You are Alert – Nightmares mean you’re paying attention. Life is scary, but we need to grow, and growth requires we learn to cultivate risk if we are ever to expand and venture outside our comfort zone.

      The Number One Complaint About the Freedom of Becoming a Creative? – Fear management. The only way to manage fear? Become a Creative.

      Study Risk Intelligently. No point being afraid of dragons if dragons are only symbolic. No point being “afraid” of “foreigners” if the man telling us to be afraid has a reputation for befriending people and then fleecing them.

      Managing Fear:

      1. Don’t rely on rumor and innuendo
      2. Dangers must be proven Real
      3. Dangers Need to be Historically verified by data: “How likely is injury?”
      4. Assemble likely risk-avoidance strategies that have performed well for others in your situation.
      5. What exactly is your situation? Quantify.
      6. Know who your friends are
      7. Be prepared to alter strategy to maximize success and to learn from mistakes

      Creatives Train – Creatives accept, identify and study the challenges. They learn to make sophisticated risk assessments and pick their battles cleverly. To do that, creatives need a Purpose. You get to find out who your friends are. Friends want the best for you, but the relationship must be reciprocal. You have each other’s backs. Know the difference between a Team and a Gang. Gangs work to suck power from individual members and concentrate it in one individual. Teams work for the success of all. Coach can’t win if the team doesn’t win.

      Creatives Test – their and mental physical abilities constantly against life’s games & mazes

      Creatives Transform – The physical pleasure of meeting the moment cannot be overstated. Soon the training itself becomes a rush of joy. You are making love to the universe and the universe loves you back

      What About Defeat? – There are no defeats, there are only lessons. Everything is practice for The Greater Contest.

      Won’t You Ultimately Lose? Truly, we all die, some sooner, some less dignified. This is where your purpose upholds you. Study your models. What allowed Nelson Mandela to be “captain of his soul” after more than 20 years in brutal captivity? Are we just bodies? Or are we also souls? Are our souls so easily defeated? Can we also train, test and transform our souls?

      Remember – a caterpillar’s “defeat” is a butterfly.

      Models & Mentors – “Extreme Fear can neither fight nor fly.”
      – William Shakespeare

      “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear” – Mark Twain

      “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will return stronger” – Deepak Chopra

      “We’re more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than reality.” – Seneca

      #haiku: Everything

      Everything you’ve
      Ever wanted
      Is on the other side
      Of fear

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

      MEMORY – THE PAST

      If This Archetype Chooses You – Check your conscious/subconscious/
      unconscious/collective consciousness levels. How comfortable are you with the very existence, not to mention the depth, of all these levels?

      You Are Multiple People Blending Their Lives With Yours – Do you ruminate about past events? Are you haunted by what was done & left undone? Do you feel nostalgia for a past that never was? Do you have a favorite period in history or a fantasy universe that you wish you lived in, instead of this one?

      You are the Hero of Your Creative Saga – Accept your centrality in your own myth. It doesn’t matter what other people think – they are the bit players. Think of your past as a Quest Saga. What did you want? How did it change? What blocked you? What tools have you got at your command? Where do you go from here?

      Rewrite the Past – You absolutely CAN, but first you first must face its full horror and that effect on you. Generally, because we were immature, we didn’t understand what was going on, were co-opted by our persecutors and prevented from fighting back. Things are different now! The hardest thing to accept is that beloved caregivers didn’t want the best for us – they only wanted us to be just like them.

      “I Don’t Believe in Ghosts but I Never Met a Person who Wasn’t Haunted” is a very wise saying. What haunts you exactly? Or who? Ghosts are malignant – if they weren’t they would be power spirits, fairy godmothers or guardian angels. What malignancies from your past are out to get you and how do they make themselves known? One of Freud’s contributions was to point out that people prefer their neurosis – ie imprisonment – to liberation. Why? What’s in it for you?

      You Define YOU. Yes, you have scars – these are bragging rights! You have been through the wars! ‘Rewriting” the past means understanding what really happened, the limitations of those who surrounded you, and exploring your chances and choices today. Just because parents, teachers or “society” sentenced you to play a role, you can step out of it at any time. Buddhist thought is very helpful here.

      Buddha teaches that life itself is an illusion – a dream. It changes depending on how we think about it. In the present, inside your mind, you hold all the keys to your own liberation. Re-visit Pema Chodron’s Noble Heart and Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now to explore how you can assume immediate control of your life and your mind and turn your past into fuel to power your growth.

      Creatives Know Who They Are – Remember, you’ve got a purpose. You’ve got a future. You’ve thought about your past and worked out conflicts with a mentor and in your Training Journal.

      Creatives Develop A Sense of History – You understand that history is a spiral, not a circle – the same things do keep coming around but in a different form. You see all around you the operation of karma.

      Choosing Evil is Choosing Chaos – and condemning yourself to death. It can’t work out for anyone except temporarily. You understand the battle between darkness and light and you have committed yourself firmly to The Light.

      Creatives Are Storytellers – You pass the message on with your life, with your words, with your body, with your very presence. You have become one link in the unbreakable chain of Eternal Perfection and you will have your reward.

      Models & Mentors – “You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory” – Dr Seuss

      “Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things” – Cicero

      “In the end, we’ll all become stories.” – Margaret Atwood

      “Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining a task or actually doing it”- Yo Yo Ma

      #Haiku: No-Fault Apology

      Atone?
      Conspire:
      Delete:
      Rewire
      My memory and
      Yours; potent
      Fire.

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

      Winter – Dormancy

      If This Archetype Chooses You – You are torpid. What’s happening when nothing’s happening? Your dreams remain lively. Do you thirst for endless sleep? Deep snows? Hibernation? Do you identify with the drowsy bear and the sleepy sloth?

      Now’s the Time – This is the sacred moment before a burst of Creativity. You are gathering your forces. Compare it to a pregnancy. Things are happening, but so slowly and deeply you are not aware of them, with the result that you may feel confused and frustrated. Instead, revel in this burgeoning becoming in the midst of sleepy peace.

      Creatives Need To Hibernate
      Sometimes a plan isn’t ready. Sometimes you’re not ready. Timing is everything.

      It’s a Long Wait Sometimes, as anyone who’s ever been through eighteen years of schooling or a seemingly endless winter can tell you. But it comes faster if you turn your attention to other things.

      Waiting for Peak –– We cultivate our dreams without pushing or extracting them. We curate our sensations without monitoring and forcing them. Spin through pictures of animals – what jumps out? Who is speaking to you? What are they saying? What are you afraid of and why? Make notes and collect images. A collage creates a deeper, more resonant picture. Sometimes it’s all in the eyes.

      Creative Danger – In sleep we are entirely vulnerable and we have cultural and historic reason to fear that state. Guard yourself with supportive beings, with sleep music, with healing rituals. The triple-locked doors, the blackout-curtained windows, the silenced devices protect us in our chosen nest. Don a bracelet of “worry beads”, summon your happiest memories and tell them by touch, eyes closed, one by one. Send every ounce of your remembered love and joy out into the universe with a command to come back to you a hundred times. A thousand times so that your love can spill over and be shared with all you touch, near and far.

      Creative Opportunity – You are creating yourself. The fetus of this pregnancy is YOU. In every dreamy hibernation second you are rebuilding yourself, adding visions, promoting fresh understandings and positive interpretations. Life offers us the chances of joy and misery – use your conscious awareness to accept these tools and allow dream-time and prep-time to penetrate ever deeper into your subconscious, (sometimes called the “preconscious”) to the unconscious, and down down down, deepest of all, to the collective unconscious where we recall in our bones and teeth and cells everything that has ever happened to every living thing as if it happened to us. This is the source of all imagination and creativity, accessible to you in the dream state.

      Be Patient. A Watched Pot Never Boils. The mouse is a whole lot likelier to come out of the mouse-hole if the cat isn’t waiting on the other side. Free your mind to imagine what it feels like to be everyone, anyone, in your constructed scenarios.

      Over-thinking is Bad for your Brain – Ever heard the expression “Sleep on it!” The only time you shouldn’t sleep on it is in the heat of battle, and the clever creative AVOIDS battles to protect their birthing self-hood. ALWAYS sleep on it! Ask your dreams to send insight, bubbling up from the pre-conscious. Participate in artistic pursuits, allowing metaphor and symbol to work it’s magic in your subconscious. Do something completely different. Refresh yourself.

      Models & Mentors – “To lose patience is to lose the battle.”
      – Mahatma Gandhi

      “Grow in patience when you meet great wrongs and they will be powerless to vex your mind” – Leonardo da Vinci

      “Patience is not simply the ability to wait but how we behave when we are waiting” – Joyce Meyer

      “Patience and Time do more than strength and passion”
      – Jean de la Fontaine

      Haiku: Ghosts

      Ghosts
      Enable, unmask
      All our
      Dormant selves
      We could not
      Would not
      Be.

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

      Dreams – Imagination

      If This Archetype Chooses You – It’s Time to Wake up! Do you look forward to dreaming? I like waking up in the early dawn because when I go back to sleep I can set an intention for dreaming – all the best dreams (and the most memorable ones) happen at the very end of sleep while you are coming up through the layers of sub- to semi-consciousness.

      Creatives Are in Tune With Their Inner Voice – Jung tells us that in your dreams, you are everyone. Every life you have ever lived and every life you will ever live comes to you through your dreams.

      Remember – As Creative, You’re the Pilot – Do you long for caretaking? Are you eager to give over the reins of your life to someone else? If so, your dreams are likely to become scary, unmanageable and unsatisfying. It is time for you to take charge of your power – to admit that you are in control of your own brain.

      Creatives Are Seekers – We are self-defining. Self-validating. We are on a quest. Creatives experience to the fullest the nature of having a self. Become alert to the possibilities inherent in this particular incarnation and explore. Feel free to release your imagination.

      Dream Journal – Start a dream journal. Date it, and write, “I want to dream about…” Fill in the blank. Be as detailed and specific as you can manage. It is OK to allow your waking mind to construct desirable dreams – great works of art got their start in just this way! You may hear a voice… someone from the past who discouraged your “day-dreaming” and wanted you to focus on your work, on the present and on them. Explore this memory fearlessly. It is not rejecting or “hating on” that person to disagree with them – there are certainly times when the priority is to focus on other things – but right now you are exploring your own brain and testing out its powers. Clearly that’s an important and necessary project. Gently take control from this Remembered Forbidder and say, “This is my time now. I am in charge.”

      Creative Danger – We all know the cautionary tale of Scary Guy Who Lives for Video Games and Doesn’t Have a Life. Do you secretly fear that the power of dreams and the pleasures of daydreaming will suck you away from Real World Competence? They won’t – so long as you are reality centered. Some people only dream of different outcomes, futures that are impossible – instead of finding workable avenues of growth and advancement.

      Positive Dreaming Deepens and Enhances, doesn’t evade reality. It’s just that reality is so much wilder – and we are so much more powerful than we can credit!

      Dream Group – Form a Dream Group with others to share the content of your dreams and listen to their fresh interpretations. You can even try Group Dreaming. Lie on the floor holding hands in semi-darkness playing drowsy music. Share whatever comes up. These are models for your future. Some of us believe this growth goes on forever – even after death.

      Models & Mentors – “I dream things that never were and I say, “Why Not?” – George Bernard Shaw

      “A dreamer finds his way by moonlight…sees dawn before the rest of the world.” – Oscar Wilde

      ‘You have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world”
      – Harriet Tubman

      “I’ve had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.” – Jonas Salk

      #Haiku: Human Clay Sculpts Angel Wings

      We’re all
      Dirt:
      Humble beginnings launch
      Celestial imaginings

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

      Inspiration – Intuition

        When This Archetype Chooses You – Let’s help you find a way to hang on to those little ideas that keep flickering across your mind-screen. What inspires you? Are you waking up filled with exciting ideas you long to write down? Do you feel the potential of philosophical, profound revelations in your dreams which can never be captured in your waking state?

        Your Subconscious is Calling Out to You – You are experiencing a split between your Rational self and your Prophetic Self, a split which is not only potentially dangerous but completely unnecessary. Probably someone in your education blocked your inspiration by demeaning this interactive channel to the Collective Unconscious of Past and Future and warned you to ignore it. Often teachers think they are “protecting” us by claiming ignorance of intergenerational trauma, despising collective wisdom and its symbols. Education is a good thing when it teaches you to recognize, master and increase resources but it is certainly a bad thing if it countermands, neglects or destroys the yearning inside of you for a deeper connection to all of history and humanity.

        Creative Challenge – We can re-open this channel, but we will have to think about its potential in a more positive way. The great physicist said that all profound truths contain their opposite (i.e. are not dichotomous) and so require new theories about the Real and the Unreal. These ideas are not mutually exclusive. We must learn to flow with them, rather than fear & resist their bubblings of power.

        Creative Danger – “Either/Or” thinking is destructive because it requires we abandon access to vast methodologies of understanding. “Reductionism” reduces the world to “things” on the presumption that people are transient and “things” are more permanent. But if the magic of the universe encodes in relationships rather than objects this reductionism kills true discovery & thought itself.

        Creative Opportunity – Accept and ready yourself to explore your inspirations. Learn to separate them from fears and wishes. Cultivate your intuition, that precious gut instinct that warns us who and what to trust and who – and what – to back away from. Accept that – like all good things, this is a Process – thus endless (ie; to be enjoyed for all eternity.) Accept that it is a skill to be honed – one you will keep forever.

        Creatives’ Gut – You sense things. After you sleep on it, you know things. Develop these instincts through drumming, foot massage, chanting, meditation, whatever activities bring you “out” of your head.

        Confront Your Real Self – You can use a sauna as your own private ‘sweat lodge.” The goal is to locate your original self to ask its opinion.


        All too often people in our consumer culture seek a psycho-active product for brain “transformation”. You will need brain “purifying” instead. Consider the substances you fear being without. Caffeine? Nicotine? Carbohydrates? Alcohol? Pain pills? Consider trying to go without for short periods of time to develop your tolerance. Try intermittent fasting under the guidance of a responsible nutrition coach. Track your emerging thoughts in your Training Journal.

        Models & Mentors – “Intuition is the whisper of the soul” – Krishnamurti

        “A good artist lets intuition lead him wherever it wants” – Lao Tzu

        “Follow your instincts – it’s where true wisdom manifests itself” – Oprah Winfrey

        “Intuition and observation are the sources for our knowledge” – Rudolf Steiner

        Haiku: Inspiration – Intuition

        Faint voice
        Clear
        Harder you listen
        Heart
        Symphonics – re –
        Connecting
        World

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

        The Lovers – Alliances

          When This Archetype Chooses You – You Don’t Have to Go Through This Alone (and you don’t want to!) Check your friend list. Do you dream of love, sex, connection? Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? You were born to search for Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must each decide your motive (“I Could Use a Friend”) and approach with the CERTAINTY that you are WORTHY of friendship. This last one is tricky because we are ALL looking for validation. This is the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class, unprepared on Test Day!

          Love Begins With Friendship: You Are a Giver and Worthy of Help – We can’t see everything because we don’t have eyes in the back of our heads. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans, struggling, just like us. If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters? We don’t want to end up devoured; someone else’s temporary “meal”.

          Creative Danger – When someone is trying to mangle your self-esteem, recognize that fact. Many women purposely diminish themselves to attract mates: Bad Idea. Even if it comes in the guise of “friendship” any person who takes you up on that offer is an enemy. This is not what friends, and certainly not lovers, are for. When someone is trying to “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-taker looking for slaves. NOT a friend.

          Creative Challenge – How to recognize friends? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.” Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.” Friends are fun, “Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest, forgiving, fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend. Friendship is a good place to start. Be the friend you want to have – warm, funny, loyal, truthful.

          Love Enriches – It Does Not Deplete – – Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, we can expand our reach. Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts. Our sorrows are halved and our ideas are increased exponentially. Reach out! You never know until you try. And there’s always the possibility of Love and a deepening sexual connection.

          Love Transforms the way Creativity Transforms – Things you thought you could not do seem possible now because someone believes in you. Believe in yourself because they do, and honor them by believing in them, in return.

          Locked Back to Back the Creative Pair Sees Everything – Gaze turns outward at the world, not inward on each other. Are you chewing or strengthening? Learn the steps of your tango. Add new steps of your own.

          As You Change, the Couple Changes – Compare Training Journals. Are you evolving? Can you evolve together? Is it safe to speak the truth? Does one partner try to dominate? Does one partner use infantile behaviors to get “their way”? There is no “one way.” As joint creatives, the couple has goals also. Compare. Allow differences. The truth will be revealed.

          Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”
          – e.e. cummings

          “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

          “Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place” – Zora Neale Hurston

          “Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth” –
          II Corinthians

          “Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi

          #Haiku: The Lovers

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

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

          Doubt – Regret

            Stop Second-Guessing – Something’s bothering you. Do you lie awake at night recalling bad moments from the past? Doubt – Regret sabotages you from moving forward. From experimenting. This archetype says you need tackle the problem of “change” NOW. What moods flood in when you close your eyes? What would you change NOW? How do you WANT to change?

            Why are People So Afraid of Looking Inside their Psyches? Because of Regret, that’s why. The things we’ve already done or that we already are that can never be changed. Sorrow floods in – now we feel helpless, we hate ourselves and we can’t fix anything. We fear we are in for a bad, cold, frigid winter of discontent.

            Lighten Your Load – No one can do this but you. You are serving as prosecutor against your own life and guess what? – that’s not fair. Fundamental Attribution Error means people blaming individuals for actions that were the result of mass decisions or life circumstances over which they had no actual control. Look into it, if you want to. (Sometimes we need to.) Or you can just forgive yourself and move on. After all, we’ve got the future to think of. Creativity won’t be stymied.

            Creative Challenge – First, forgive yourself. You were held hostage by fortune (we all were) and inevitably you went full-on Stockholm Syndrome and identified with your attackers and tried to please them. (We all did. It’s called Society.) Now you’re madder at yourself than you are at them. Forgive yourself.

            Creative Danger – The moment you drop that burden, you’re in another part of the forest. Surprise! This wasn’t the plan but here you are. The Danger is – you’ll give up. Don’t. NEVER GIVING UP IS THE CREATIVE’S SUPERPOWER. We CREATE paths where none existed. You can easily see from every fairy tale and hero’s journey you’ve ever studied that now we’re getting to the Good Part. By testing your muscle you get to grow your muscle. If your muscle is never tested, it withers. So get ready.

            Creative Opportunity – We don’t know everything. Even Jesus demonstrated surprise about the way things turned out. Be gentle as a dove, he advised, but wily as a serpent. Serpents can get out of anything. (Ask a herpetologist.) And so can you. It’s just a bigger world than we knew – both inner and outer – so get mapping. I guarantee you – IT GETS BETTER.

            YOUR Superpower: You feel too deeply, that’s how you got into this snarl, but guess what? It’s a super power. Our brains are constructed in a way that allows us to move backward and forward through time, watching and judging ourselves from the outside, always considering multiple possibilities, outcomes and problems. We have a tendency to regard this power as a burden and envy those whose lack of questioning seems to make them more carefree. But it is this exact superpower that designates us as Creatives.

            Even When We Enjoy We Regret: There’s always something we could have done differently. And that unknown outcome is bound to seem preferable to the reality in which we find ourselves. Don’t waste time on regret. You drew the “Regret” archetype to remind you that time – even pleasurable time – is always limited. Restrict the amount of time you spend on regret! Congratulate yourself on your ability to play a multi-level game, forward and backward through time, peopled by a panoply of characters. Open up your Training Journal and take a God’s eye view of your world. See anything different? Fresh? Exciting? New?

            There’s Lots to Enjoy About Beginning! You’re going to surprise yourself. It’s never – ending! The world is freshening up and so can you.

            Models & Mentors – “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done.”
            – Lucille Ball

            “There are no regrets in life, only lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston

            “We have only one life, and the second life begins the moment we realize that fact” – Confucius

            “I was designed by my Creator to not only feel pain and love but to become whole inside it. I am a Creative” –Glennon Doyle

            “Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile” – William Cullen Bryant

            Haiku: Regret

            Coulda
            Woulda
            Shoulda
            Didn’t. Now you
            Wish
            Things
            Different.
            Clean slate.
            Write.

          1. 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.

          2. 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.

          3. 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?