Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #DreamTherapy

  • 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

    Clinging vine = DEPENDENCY “Old Masters”

    “Shock”

    A Clinging Vine can’t support itself. We ruthlessly exclude weeds from our garden, but if a vine flowers prettily enough there is a danger that we may tend to let it run until it has squeezed itself around our hearts.

    There is certainly a place in a Garden for a Clinging Vine, but we must think in terms of the supports first, the antique arbor, the sweetly unpainted shed, even, as V. Sackville-West liked to do, sending climbing roses up the trunks of apple trees to provide a profusion of springtime blossoms. Is our Vine beautifying our Garden, or subtly dragging everything ground-wards?

    Everyone, everywhere, is in “unequal” relationships. But the powerful try very hard to pretend they aren’t. Why is it so humiliating to admit that we depend on other people? Rich people and aristocrats of every stripe have voluminous social codes designed exclusively to deny the fact that they require support; in most practical ways they are as helpless as an infant. History often appears to suggest that it’s more admirable to act like a monster than to admit inadequacy.

    Interdependence is the acknowledged goal, but some gifts are rarer than others, certainly they’re more highly prized, which may give some partners an inflated view of their own ”value.”

    But market negotiations, like shallowness and lack of commitment, spell death to the romantic Tantric bond. To maintain vibrancy, to power the circuits of passion, a vigorous self must flourish. The give-and-take of our differing power sources versus our dependency needs will fuel a super-relationship. What blocks this ideal state?

    Youth is the time we experiment with being all things to all people while we fantasize about getting our “requirements” met as effortlessly – read “unconsciously” – as possible. That way we will never have to confront them, test them or question them.

    Maturity usually forces us to face the facts we have been dodging. We may begin our Soulmate dance with the hope of total sharing and equity, but we will wake up one morning and confront life’s truth; this relationship is not equal and never can be. As we gradually accept that we each have separate gifts and interests (I am never going to want to clean the garage) this growing understanding could evolve into fear, even paranoia – as we tell the world – and most importantly, convince ourselves – we can no longer ‘survive” without this person.

    In true Soulmate connection, the mirror image of this fear evolves on the other side. This scary dynamic can lead to a Dark Night of the Soul where partners will be tempted to proclaim “freedom” with public displays (bickering) or covert offensives (cheating financially, sexually, emotionally.)

    This never works – only destruction lies that way, but some of us whose bones tremble with memories of youthful abandonment conclude that “scorched earth” is preferable to publicly admitting another has invaded our very soul. This Dark Night must be lived through; in the fire, you will become the flame.

    The “save” always lies in honestly reaching out to each other and fully confessing to The Terror. Believe me, if you’re feeling it, they’re feeling it too. On the other side of this dread you will truly become One.


    Old Masters

    With age lubricity
    Darkens into sweat;
    We face each other
    Across the cooling dinner,
    Night by night
    Stiff as andirons
    Masterpieces best seen by candlelight
    To hide the cracks,
    Well-meant improvements by
    Another’s hand.
    A well-matched pair.
    Gardens edged perennially with stone
    Are called unkillable;
    One fountain singing
    This tune only. What oracle?
    It didn’t look this way
    Going forward
    Backward is a different view.

    I think I caught this from my mother,
    She played the crone in Wuthering Heights;
    Who preaches doom
    In guise of cheer. All
    I request is light enough
    To read my tarot; instead I’m fated
    Recycling tea brewed
    From murky bathwater.
    These leaves are dark and do not speak.
    I shiver with cold and you
    With anger; a well-matched pair, a
    Brace of disappointments.
    There’s still too much
    We can’t admit.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Sunflowers = SPIRITUALITY “Curatrix”

    “Pressing beyond”

    The Sunflower cranes its black eye skyward. “Golden wings mirror heaven, petalled glories feed multitudes.” In the language of flowers “Helianthus” is a symbol of wealth and success. Sunflowers bring good luck in gardens (or kept under the bed at night they provide sweet dreams); in multiples this flower must astonish, seeming to create a path to Heaven.


    In the Tantric Garden the Sunflower blooms inside of YOU, expressing “spirituality”; your “extra dimension.”

    Spirituality means accepting and exploring the non-physical world. This is where the “living water” flows, the “ultimate refreshment” that brings peace and the kind of quiet joy that looks around for someone to share. You are becoming aware that people have “auras” – even while sleeping, under conditions when they are not consciously sending out “signals.”

    What is your aura? Think about it. What are you projecting? And how about your Beloved’s aura? If you have negative, angry, punitive and vengeful beliefs, these will get in the way of ultimate connection.

    Then there will be the aura you create together, you and your Soulmate, as you join in the life of the Spirit. Spirituality is a concept of eternality, meeting together in a world beyond your physical selves.

    Sexual ecstasy offers this elevated sensation of ultimate unity. To live in this reassuring cocoon feels like heaven on earth – no wonder we all search for it. But no aggressive quest can uncover our spirit, it requires patience, time, faith and practice. Yoga and meditation are always good places to start, as is quietly being alone with the Beloved and discussing whatever bubbles up in a life-enhancing, expansive spirit of curiosity.

    Curatrix

    Cold lonely core I was
    Before you found me
    Freed me from
    Ambition’s boundary.
    Now I’m a multi facet of your stone
    Unlike myself when I’m alone.
    Memories like stones I’m free to choose
    And on life’s river,
    Blissfully, cruise.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Birdsong = ART “Birdsong”

    “Express your emotions the better to understand them”


    We are not the only Creators in the Garden. We are surrounded by nest-makers and musical artists without whose Birdsong we would be tragically impoverished. Birds sing for the same reasons we do; to celebrate, to warn, to differentiate. To bond, and for the sheer joy of being alive in the Garden. Birdsong represents the artistic collaboration and complexity without which our lives would be meaningless.


    Art is our rescuer. Art forges connections at the deepest levels; preconscious & collective conscious. Art finds us when we are lost, can even locate love itself when we misplace it. Art sums up the mystery of what it’s like to be alive, questioning, yearning, negotiating, refusing, demanding.

    Back when we were mute children, longing to communicate and participate in the thrilling adult world surrounding us, we figured it was just a question of acquiring the tools of language.

    Education disabused us of that easy sentimentality. There will always be something within us that is wordless, a secret unknown to ourselves that we long to share. But what does it mean? Who can understand it? We artists devote our lives to fathoming these vast problems. Each question brings a new forest of questions. Each answer produces an ocean of answers.

    As our life crests its rise and heads for the downslope we are forced to conclude that we wish to express nothing more than our uniqueness, our exquisite irreplaceability – just like everyone else.

    The depth of the Tantric connection provides relief from the echo chamber – together we create a whole new force, immortal in feeling, universal in its application. We sing to each other in courtship, in despair, in longing, and the Soulmate sings our song back, in a different form, inviting collaborative collusion that will buttress our hopes and re-make our world.

    HAIKU: Birdsong

    Without your chord
    Duets are soulless;
    speechless
    without your
    harmony

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    FATE “Evolution”

    “Control”

    Outside the carefully groomed garden lies the true Wilderness; the ungroomed terrain. At first the eye is confused by the plethora of wildflowers, the riot of wild grasses, the proliferation of low shrubs. The fallen and the dying have not even been tidied away.

    Slowly our senses adjust to pick out hovering butterflies, nesting birds and evidence of even wilder visitors such as rabbits, skunks, weasels and raccoons. This is their world; they prefer it to ours.

    We must admit they have a point: how can something so haphazard radiate such magnetic beauty? Sometimes we’re forced to judge their world the winner; it is definitely more intricate, majestic and evocative than our carefully raked paths. We study it to comprehend, learn, possibly mimic its effects. And as we absorb their ethos we become one of them, lowly commoners of earth, enjoying a bounty of goodness, even wealth, poured out without regard to our intent or purchasing power.

    Destiny warns; “It’s not about you.” “Fundamental attribution error” in the social sciences means confusing individual causation as determinative when mass social movements are actually predeterminative. We would like to believe that we have control over keeping our parents together, preventing war, stopping climate change, averting pandemics, getting promotions, guaranteeing the constant love of worthy Soulmates. How much control do we really have over those things?

    We are tiny creatures – out of many – finding ourselves momentarily in a tiny corner of an ever-changing wilderness. This is not our “fault”, but still, we must live our lives as best we can. Can we guarantee our future good health? No, but we can improve it. Can we guarantee our Soulmate’s future health? No, but once again, we can lead a joint healthy life, together.

    Can we avoid sorrow? Most likely not; sorrow is endemic to those who think and feel. It’s how we manage sorrow that counts. The Dalai Lama says pain is unavoidable, but suffering is voluntary.

    We are creatures of wish & fear. The wish is that we will stay alert for dangerous and destructive incidents and behaviors. Our fear is that Fate is out to get us. And in a way, it is. Age stalks us. History stalks us. But if anxiety about the future only ruins the enjoyment of today, it is not doing its job, it is sabotaging you.

    With a Soulmate, you possess two souls, two futures plus a joint Soul and joint future. This gives us not just a reason but a mandate to celebrate the ecstasy, the bliss of every moment. You are Mine and I am Yours.

    EVOLUTION
    The world that seems to us so still
    And echoes no reflection of our will
    Somehow produced the seed that in us all
    Resurrected us from worm to fish, to crawl
    Upon the earth, to stand and then
    Return a child to creep and crawl again
    In some unending pattern, sane or not
    Judging by the brain that this same seed begot
    And yet within our every cell lies curled
    A revolutionary flag to be unfurled
    To lead us on to who knows what potential end
    Beyond the reach of enemy or friend?
    Can it be that simple balls of spinning glass
    Possessed the strength to lift from this morass
    All that we are; though we don’t understand
    This torch we pass so tenderly from hand to hand?

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    AMBISEXTROUS – “I see myself in You”

    “Gender curious?”

    We were amorphous seacreatures once. We breathed liquid through our gills and rubbed our silvery sides against our mates. In the womb we roiled and reveled in our oceanic environment.
    Whenever we float, eyes closed, we channel what it felt like, shivering and shimmering in an upside-down world. So is the dexterity of melting into a concatenation of dizzyingly different avatars a souvenir of ancestral past or a premonition of some liquid, undiversified future? What can it tell us about recognizing our soulmate?


    We are reminded of skills we haven’t even tried yet, and our deep connections to inhabitants of universes we cannot even see.
    In the tantric garden, sex, gender, and identity are fluid; compromised constructs we create and share only with the Beloved. Let your imagination billow outwards, absorbing the Other. Our bodies express our memories, personhoods, dreams; evoke our aspirations and our lives. What does it mean to be truly open to another human? The level of trust must be so great the future vanishes into an endless present.

    God knows, we are willing. To be full of another is the ultimate mindfulness; we touch brains, hopes, memories as well as skin.

    I see myself in you –

    Moth to flame
    Your meteoric dust
    Drips ash into my upturned mouth.
    I taste stars.
    What manner of being
    Have you become?
    I only know you’re something that I need
    Your mirrored endlessness partakes
    Of nothing human; suggests an
    Completion.
    I’ll take that promise; your shadow arches
    Like an angry lover
    Refusing satisfaction.
    My hunger burns more purely
    in the titillation of neglect.
    Without you I’m just myself
    With you I’m everything;
    God of Worlds.
    Anyone can be born: eternity is
    The lover’s privilege.

  • 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

    Day = FOCUS “On Reading the Alumni Directory”

    “The Power of Routine”

    “Begin anew with the Day, as Nature does” says George Woodberry. What good advice! Every dawn is a fresh chance for us to put new principles into practice, make original resolves and absorb consequent lessons and engender successful strategies that bring us closer to our goals. If, as the sages say, “it’s the journey not the arrival that matters” then each and every day is, literally, the first day of the rest of our lives.

    We are launched on the journey of a thousand steps. Isn’t it the ideal to make each step as blissfully supportive as possible?

    On our quest for a soulmate, aren’t we really looking to be freed from the hum-drum round of daily ordinariness into the ecstatic upper stratosphere, the bliss of the spiritual? Isn’t that what we’re really after? This is what causes our frustration with where we’re at, right now.

    What we need is to infuse the ordinary with the spiritual, and like any skill, this attitude can be practiced and IMPROVED and we can start NOW. In Tantric Attachment, “Day” represents your supportive routine (both conscious and un.)

    Today’s goal is to make your habits conscious, improve them with mindfulness, then allow them to sink into the subliminal where they can be accessed emotionally and kinetically. We plan to turn OURSELVES into the exact life partner we have been looking for!

    Some of us are morning people – others most definitely Not. I started out in life as a night owl and after kids, I changed. Now I don’t think I can write anything intelligent past 3 PM! (It’s currently 7:25 AM.) Every morning must contain spiritual, physical and refreshment practices. Our great enemy is all this anxious doom-scrolling we all do, when we can clearly see it raises, rather than lessens our distress and confusion. Let’s figure out a way to contain it, because that helpless victim can never be our best self.

    In a frantic, worried or angry condition nobody can share or enjoy anything. The best choice would be a morning of thought, prayer, gratitude, healthful eating, gentle exercise but if this is not possible let’s keep our survey of The News, Email, etc. to a specific low number. To be loved, we must love ourselves. This is an inflexible rule. Therefore, you must keep telling yourself, “I love you. That’s why I’m taking such good care of you.” Commit to The Day!

    ON READING THE ALUMNI DIRECTORY

    I’m surprised
    So few of us have made it.
    The years seemed quiet
    The years seem far between.
    Through interstices the
    Class clowns fall –
    Sluts & giants; the
    Nobodies –
    Possessed & hunted
    Now as they were then;
    Haunted.
    “Address unknown”
    “Lives with Mom”
    “Religious cult”
    “Deadbeat”
    “Moved…nowhere.”
    My blood-mate’s still unmarried
    I wonder how
    We’d get along.
    I translate terpsichore to unknown
    Tongues, he’s Law and
    Journalism; how’s that
    Compatible?
    He lives so far away.
    Time off’s a bitch, plus
    They got my address wrong.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Breakthrough = EPIPHANY “Valentine”

    “I get it!”

    Suddenly we see the way!
    Breakthroughs look forward, never back; we are different people afterwards. Often, we feel they have been “building up” for a long time; we are amazed at what we didn’t see. But what we see now cannot be unseen. We should congratulate ourselves on our new pair of eyes, our new pair of legs. Our new life.

    You connected! A potential soulmate is now present and real. We explore our soulmate, past and future, psychically and physically. Each moment feels truthful and intense. You are on Cloud Nine.

    However, new understanding raises us to a lofty plateau. We now see that how a relationship develops over time is as important as who the relationship is with. We understand that some Soulmates are not able to back up their promises with behavior. They “want” to but are weak and feel helpless.

    Don’t get drawn into “fixing’ them – this keeps you away from finding your REAL Soulmate, the one who can deep dive all the way with you as well as ascend the highest heights. There’s no reason to be angry or embittered, the failed Soulmate already realizes that their fear and poor self-knowledge are keeping them back. This is a journey that asks the most of every one of us.

    VALENTINE

    I sent myself
    In a letter
    Heart-creased
    Like a glove, like an
    Anecdote
    Too much told
    Dear stranger don’t
    Lose me I forgot
    The rule;
    Hold back a copy.