Alysse Aallyn

Tag: life

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    20 Aug 76 – 11 AM

                       I start The Mass at St Secaire for the thousandth

     time with one good idea:  Manage transitions by IGNORING them. 

    Just start abruptly somewhere else and worry about it later!  Outside 

    R sits in a lawn chair playing the guitar. When he falls silent he’s writing 

    down notes. He says I have a good effect on him, getting him writing again.

                       In the meantime, I made a list of literary essays I want to 

    write and to my surprise there were more than 20. When I get back I 

    will make a folder for each one and start collecting notes and ideas, 

    beginning when I feel I have enough. How to finish a book of poems, 

    finish and send out a novel, write 20 literary essays while working a 

    45 hr week? My heart quavers. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get a job 

    that isn’t straight typing – then having to type when I come home. 

                    Balzac could have done it. Trollope could have done it – I don’t 

    think I can do it. But I certainly don’t want to lose R – he is a rare 

    being. I need a deus ex machina of some kind. Maybe my gothic 

    will sell.

                       So glad this is our last day at Summer Camp. Couldn’t say that to R – 

    he would think I hadn’t enjoyed myself. Last night he stretched 

    me out naked on his lap and played me like a guitar – most 

    delicious thing. Waves of ecstasy bulging, rolling and crashing 

    inside me. He says I’m so fun to please. Talks about how he 

    would like to adopt deaf children. This means I would have to

     learn sign. Sounds good but I feel lazy and stubborn. Feel like 

    a fledgling – flight pattern undetermined.

                     R. wrote a song called Blue Lake Blues.  Bad. I wrote a 

    poem called Diaries. Don’t know what I think of it.

    Diaries

    I don’t remember anything –

    I’m an amnesiac so

    I write everything down

    Stuffed in my closet

    Beneath discarded ball gowns

    utterly useless but

    too beautiful to throw away.

    Recollect & treasure 

    Acts of writing

    An up and over downtime scrawl;

    Recall a surgeon

    Cutting flesh

     Tugging, swearing, splitting ,sweating

     peeling waste from want.

    Fierce liftoff –

    Airborne I’m granted

    Hawk’s-eye vision

    Backwards , forwards

    Past & future.

    Too much dig is spoilage-

    Freedom mined 

    Invaluable.

      Club Shalimar, Mon 23 Aug 76

                       Should be glad to be back but I’m so depressed. 

    Everything so mixed up. Promised R I’d get another job so 

    now I have to look for one, which won’t be pleasant. God 

    knows what I’ll have to say I was doing.  Once when I was 

    married I tried to get a loan and of course they wouldn’t give me 

    one without “collateral” – something of which I’d never heard. 

    Dad said tell them I had a basement filled with gold bullion.

     I guess I could just tell employers the bullion ran out.

                       Then I walk up to the club and whose car should be 

    there – but R’s. He had told me he wouldn’t come in as long as 

    I was working there. He said he just needed to talk to Rick because 

    Rick is helping him feel better. 

                       I think what will happen is that I won’t work there any

     more but R will drop in when he feels like it. I want to “ban” him 

    but I even more don’t want to be having these conversations.

    He says I just do it for the money and because it’s easy and of 

    course that’s perfectly true. If I got $500 a week from writing I 

    probably wouldn’t dance.  

                       The fact that something feels natural and pleasurable 

    and doesn’t leave you feeling depleted at the end of each day

     isn’t a point against it to my way of thinking.  He’s just an old 

    fashioned sexist pig.  On the other hand he is a special person 

    and I definitely don’t want to dance forever. 

                       Sometimes I think the whole problem is that he’s 

    getting a divorce and he’s so unready for a relationship he’s 

    giving me hoops to jump through.  But even if we got married 

    I’d have to be at financially independent – he’s just too different 

    from me for me to trust that he will agree with me about what’s 

    right for me. My theory is it doesn’t hurt to look for a job.   Maybe

     I’ll find something special or interesting.

                     11:20 PM – Avril called – R staggered in dead drunk, 

    said “Call Alysse and tell her I’m here and set the alarm for 5:30” 

    and then passed out on the sofa.  I told them to hide his car keys 

    in case he wakes up and tries to go someplace. I’m glad he’s safe, 

    on the other hand I’m annoyed that he’s been touring the bars. 

    He plainly didn’t go to his apartment, drink and then go to my 

    house. My guess is total strangers up and down Wisconsin 

    Avenue have been hearing his heartrending saga of the misery of 

    dating an exotic dancer.

                       11:00 AM – Tues 24 Aug 76

                       Lying in the same bed where R and I made love five 

    hours ago – just finished Tyler’s Clockwinder. Puzzled by the 

    lack of passion in her strange, sad, minor novels.  Tonight R is 

    picking me up and taking me “someplace” – I have my eye on 

    a little restaurant – where we can talk it out. I hope he’s paying 

    because I have exactly $177 to live on till Sept 7 and $125 of 

    that is rent. I’m trying to look at the future calmly – I love him, 

    he loves me – who knows what may happen?

                       2:40 PM Was feeling so much better I was going 

    to work on sending out poems until I looked around at this place. 

    A and I desperately need Maeve to live here to help out with 

    expenses and she is not the tidiest person.  A says she never 

    cleaned her other place after the party and it smells like a 

    dead body.  I cleaned and now I feel better but not in the mood 

    for literature – more in the mood to take my dishpan hands to 

    the mall. However I won’t because it would just result in 

    expenditures.

                       3:40 PM  Obviously R doesn’t really respect me. 

    Otherwise he wouldn’t manipulate me like this. I don’t think 

    he cares about me being a writer at all.  He would actually 

    like it better if he could introduce me to people as “my girlfriend 

    the insurance agent.” That makes sense in his little world. I 

    could break up with him but I’d have to find another place to

     work anyway – he’s ruined Shalimar for me.  One can understand 

    and deplore and get mad, but the alternative is loneliness. All I want 

    is to go out and have fun, have someone to play and smooch with. 

    Finding and then cultivating such a person is incredibly exhausting – 

    and aren’t 99% of them only going to have the same (or worse) 

    reactions he’s having anyway?

                       10:40 AM Thurs 26 Aug –76 – Club Shalimar

                       Yesterday morning Maeve and I lingering over coffee 

    and chat – no one wanting to return to their life – and the phone 

    rang. It was editor Ruby Jenkins at Pyramid wanting to make an 

    offer on my book. She says it has a lot of wit and depth and is 

    really extraordinary and if they don’t take it someone else will.  

    That’s two editors on my side. Asked all about me – so I told what I was 

    doing, schools, what I’d had published – that Harcourt just turned down Find Courtney.  

                      She’d called my parents in Maine because she couldn’t 

    get in touch with my agent but left a message.  I just put the 

    phone down and screamed for 20 solid minutes. Then went to 

    Shalimar and quit – gave them a week’s notice. 

                       Didn’t  tell them about book – Carmen guessed about 

    Ryder – narrowed her eyes into slits and tried to tell me a 

    lot of terrible stuff about him, about how he always pursued 

    dancers – although she admits, after me, not any more. She 

    said if I ever need the job again, they’d give it to me.  That 

    was nice. Randy the bouncer had tears in his eyes because 

    he says I’m so amusing and no one else can make him laugh. 

                       R’s “celebration” was to take me to Garfinckel’s at 

    the Montgomery Mall to buy me underwear. He takes it 

    strangely personally that I don’t wear a bra or underpants 

    half the time.  This could have been a fun, even erotic experience

    but he was so weird I almost had a nervous breakdown – so 

    bizarrely controlling like he doesn’t know what presents are.  

    The missionary purchasing fig leaves for the natives!  Felt 

    offensively “managed”.

                       If he had bought me lingerie and given it to me 

    that would have been one thing.  I could take them back if I 

    didn’t like them.  This was if he were my parent or something – 

    I really can’t explain why it was so insulting. I finally allowed him buy me 

    a pink silk robe, which I refused to try on – of course it will fit. 

    Duh. 

                       We should have been celebrating.  Not only can I 

    quit dancing but they’ve put him on the eleven pm news and 

    now we could have mornings together. But at the Japanese 

    steakhouse he really acted wooden headed. I think it’s some 

    sort of a gender problem – men understand that their self-respect 

    is tied up with autonomy but they seem to think the opposite 

    must be true about women. I’m trying too hard not to despise 

    him. Anything I could say sounds hurtful. 

                       At the very same time he’s trying to “tether” me he’s

     trying to free himself. He said, what if I want to take another girl 

    out? And I said, well you can but you have to tell me about it

     before hand. He said, I know how I’d feel if you said that to me. 

                      I told him he probably doesn’t have to worry – I can’t imagine 

    wanting another man. Now he’s “scared” I’m going to become 

    a famous writer!   So we went back to my place and made love

     for three hours and it was very satisfying. He was all over me 

    and it felt like the last time in some critical way.  

                       To me he seems less like a man getting out of a 

    marriage than some kind of shipwreck victim who has never 

    seen or imagined our society and is becoming increasingly 

    excited about the sexually liberated possibilities.   How can 

    we avoid breaking up over this?  Can’t I just get a fat check

     from  my book and be a young writer about town? I sincerely 

    hope that’s the way it will go. Reading Rose, my years in 

    Service about Lady Astor’s maid.

                       Sat 28 Aug 76 Shalimar

                       Ryder tried to pressure me not to go to work by 

    saying “we shouldn’t be seeing each other if you’re dancing”.  I remind him 

    we have a dinner party coming up and a vacation in Maine!  

    Why the hysteria? Reading Henri Peyre’s The Failures of 

    Criticism. Last set. 

                       3PM Mon 30 Aug 76

                       Wakened by air-conditioner going on – Ryder 

    climbing in bed with me fully clothed so there would be “no sex”

     – of course that didn’t work. He is very upset about my sense 

    of physical freedom – said wouldn’t “let” me be painted in the 

    nude by Andrew Wyeth!  I pointed out that his wife was his 

    ideal woman – totally restrained and untrained and ignorant 

    and unavailable in every way he wanted – and he hated it.  

    Can’t understand why he has to be such a jackass when all 

    his dreams are coming true.

                       3 Sept 76

                       Just back from the worst vacation of my life. Both 

    Avril and I took completely unacceptable men to our parents’ island – 

    alas, my man was the most unacceptable –   doing nothing but 

    fighting and sulking. He finally said such unforgiveable things I had

     to drive him to the ferry and push him off into space. His last 

    words were “I love you.”  Day late and a dollar short. The worst

     things he said were that I dress like a slut, anyone looking at 

    me would instantly assume I was a prostitute. This was said to me

     while I was wearing my gorgeous emerald scarf tied around my 

    breasts and my long denim skirt and Nefertiti necklace and looking

     like a goddess for parents’ dinner party. 

                       He said if I don’t start wearing a bra my breasts will 

    be “ruined” and he doesn’t want to wake up age 35 married to 

    only a “mind”. (The mind is in fact quite unimportant in his world.)

     His wife, he assured me, always dressed most tastefully – 

    nobody desiring her ever.  Didn’t cross his mind that the fact 

    that she was dead-on-arrival in the sack and her inability to 

    enjoy and celebrate her own body could be in any way connected. 

                   He told me my poems are awful and self-indulgent and I 

    live entirely in my own head.  I was finally forced to tell him

     that what with his long hair, leisure suits, stacked heels and 

    man-purse most people just assume he’s gay. 

                       But who cares what “most people” think – and 

    would we even ever know?  He really got on my bad side seemingly 

    justifying rape – women “ask for it” with their clothing, male 

    self control not an issue. I said if a crazy girl escaped from an 

    institution and ran down the street naked would men be “ justified” 

    raping her? He said yes so obviously it was over between 

    us from that moment. The truth, of course, is that he was 

    overwhelmingly jealous from the second he arrived on the island

     – possibly earlier – by the fact that I am a separate human being,  

    who has ever existed out of his sight.

                       17 Sept 76

                       It really is over with R.  My fault for going so fast. 

    R leaving messages on my answering machine every day, 

    trying to make me jealous with “don’t call back tonight I won’t

     be in”.  Finally decided I owe it to him to tell him where I’m

     working – I know he thinks I returned to dancing – the 

    scum. Sent him a card saying we should meet for dinner

     in a couple of months. Appt. with Georgetown Employment 

    Agency 10;30 AM tomorrow.

                       12;25 PM

                        Ryder came by to pick up his jackets. He said, 

    “You’re the most valuable person in the world to me.” Trying not

     to goad him into pyrotechnics, so, showed nothing. He was calm, 

    played with the dog, kissed me on the cheek and said, “I love you” 

    and left.  He is worthy of a hefty Freudian tome all to himself. I want to send him a copy of The Intimate Enemy but he wouldn’t 

    (couldn’t) read it. He’s totally about not wanting what he has, 

    having what he doesn’t want, wanting something else and 

    hating himself into the bargain. I pity anyone involved with him – 

    mainly I pity me – still fixated on his worthlessness apparently. 

                     Washing the dishes in floods of tears. I bragged to him that I didn’t want to change him – that isn’t true.  I don’t feel I have the right to change people while he wants to specify every detail about me.  

    The worst is I know how he would exult in his power over me. 

    Still wearing his black coral diver’s cross as a charm. When R 

    says dismissively “Be free” he means “Be alone”.

                       Sun. 12 Sept 76 – 12:05 PM 

                       Yesterday turned down job at art gallery that would 

    have been wonderful but paid dirt.  They say I “might” get 

    commissions on sales. Have a feeling Mom and Dad would 

    push for it – it was very upscale – just didn’t feel right to me.

                       FINALLY letter from agent; Pyramid offering $2500 

    advance, 6% to 150,000 copies, 8% thereafter, a few minor revisions. 

    Always less than you think but not as bad as the gallery – I say 

    hells yes. Still have to find job; something that lets me write.

                       I called Ryder with info, left message. Have to go 

    to NY to sign contract so job hunt suspended for now.

                       Mon 13 Sept 76

                       Avril and Mike met me and Ryder at The Royal 

    Warrant for drinks to celebrate my book. I wore long sexy 

    purple lace-up dress – nothing he’d object to however. 

    (Royal Warrant because their drinks are huge.) Wore 

    sandals with kitten heels and I was still  taller than him.  

    I wonder if that’s what this is about. I invited him home after 

    and he accepted.  He concentrated on making me come. Said

     he can’t consider dating a girl who doesn’t wear a bra. I said I 

    might wear one in my first pregnancy. Gave him my copy of 

    Intimate Enemy  when he left. Reading Brownmiller’s excellent 

    Against our Will.

                       11:45 AM 14 Sept 76 – Tues. Boiling hot.

                       I need a full-time psychiatric nurse, vicious guard dog 

    and a secretary. Phone ringing off the hook. Agent called 

    reversing charges.  Ryder wants to celebrate his salary bump. 

    How can two people who despise each other as much as we do 

    want to have sex all the time?  Beats me. Ryder’s latest charge is 

    that I wrote a novel for money.  Get it?  I’m a prostitute!  Then he 

    marches off to his yessir, nosir job whistling. You can’t win with him. 

    Cheered myself up reading old diaries about my marriage.  At least it’s not as bad as that.  I used to lock myself in the bathroom to howl.  

    Reading Simenon’s Venice Train.  He is too mannered.

                       Ryder forced me to look at his island pictures – I am the 

    ugliest beautiful woman in the world.  He tries to use this against me 

    but of course we were fighting the whole time.  No one can be lovely under such conditions. Does “love” entail not just “sacrifice” but loss of identity?  Went out and bought a pair of six inch heels. When I am with Ryder, I love him but when I’m away, the cloud lifts.  

    Attempting to seduce Devon by sending him a copy of the poem Cedarwood Chest.

    Cedarwood Chest

    Grandpa died young that’s why

    Grandma never opened

    The Cedarwood chest

    Till my twelve years unlocked

    The scent of dreams preserved

    Like mullet in red wine.

    Never used the wilting nightgowns

    Featherstitched sheets

    Between whose coffee-colored creases

    Bay leaves crumbled

    (Like my reserve when you laid hands

    Upon it) how it

    Comes back that mossy sad 

    Perfume! I want to lay

    You away in darkness and tissue but

    I can’t

    I must use you and risk

    Your wearing out

                       God knows what he’ll think but I know he’ll give a better 

    reaction than R.  Lunch in NY 12:30 Tues – have to take the 7 AM 

    train to make it work!

                       7:45 AM Mon 20 Sept 76

                       R’s latest accusation is that I fell in love first!!  So weird. 

    Reminiscent of Bruce.  Some version of gaslighting? It’s a definite 

    power grab. He said he was “embarrassed” by my emotional intensity! 

    I have a feeling he’s trying to cobble together a story he can tell other 

    people. As for me, I’m trying to figure out what really happened. Used 

    to think R’s lack of experience wouldn’t affect us but I can see it really 

    has. Got my hair cut; of course I think it’s too short. Dreading what 

    Genevieve will say.

                       10:40 AM Wed 22 Sept. 76

                       Woke up after horrible nightmare in which Jacqueline 

    Susann showed me her cancer to have R drive me to the station.  

    We’re in a financial nightmare – A’s rent check bounced twice so

     expenses going up. R says I have to start an exercise plan – 

    since I can’t dance.   He’s hilarious!

                       Lunch with Ruby and my agent.  Agent (Ruth) was euphoric.   

    Starting to feel the book was written by a stranger. I tried so hard to

     make it English and Victorian – I NEVER want to do that again. 

    Can’t say THAT, obviously, especially after Ruby remarked I was 

    “so good looking we should make it a series.”  Devlyn’s best gothic 

    they’ve ever read! They both drank heavily while disagreeing with 

    virtually everything I had to say about poetry and literature. Their 

    recommendation: write a love story. Pity we don’t know what love is, 

    isn’t it?  I MIGHT be able to manage a sex story. Oh well. Genevieve 

    full of secret divorce-and-getting-together-with-hush-hush-sweetie 

    plans.  Don’t tell her husband Kent anything. He asks me what’s going on – 

    I play dumb but not too well.  He must know something’s up.  

    Awkward! Walk to library and back thinking about St. Secaire. 

    How make that a love story?  Everyone’s a predator or an idiot.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The Bridge = DISCIPLINE “Lovewings”

    “How to keep moving forward?”

    Sometimes we are stuck. Can we even envision the place where we would rather be? There is a yawning chasm between there and here. What we need is a Bridge but nothing is visible. Looks like we might have to build one, but what tools and materials do we have?

    Are there any similarities between where we are now and where we want to be? We want to approach from the closest possible point. Maybe the distance is illusory, maybe the place we plan to get to doesn’t exist at all. The Bridge, on the other hand is ours. We built it and we can own it. The Bridge itself may become the place where we want to be.

    Discipline is our resource. Discipline means doing something we’re committed to do even when we don’t want to do it. We’re forming new skin to become the person we want, need to be. It’s sore and tender at first. We’re charting a new path to finding our soulmate, but we lose confidence fast.

    The psychic rebellion starts early; right when we open one wakeful eye. Do I really have to get up? No one cares but me. I could make a new rule, a new plan…But we know the truth – this is just our devil messing with us. Trying to see how much it can get away with.

    The saving grace here is to fall in love with discipline. With path making as an art. Discipline is order. It’s building, like music. It’s the Beautiful Thing That Comes Next. If everything’s chaos then life is purposeless and nothing matters. Naturally we can change our plan – any time. Our real self always has the chance to make and change informed decisions. But is our Real Self, this niggling, seductive saboteur? No.

    We are on a journey to our real self, the self embodied by the Other (which is tantra) and the self we create together (Tantric Attachment.) We’re committed. And we’re excited! We’ll never get there if we sit by the side of the road in a bundle of sobbing bones and blubber. Here’s the kicker – it feels better the more you do it. You will come to the understanding that it’s all inside you. And you love it!

    LOVEWINGS

    My aunt’s a dancer
    She said “Feel my thighs
    Ain’t they hard
    They’re my love-wings
    Hard as heartwood
    I’m flying on ‘em half the time.
    Practice making perfect I’m
    Tightening up my style in case a valve
    On this here pressure cooker blows
    And splatters darkness like a
    Damsel in a murder case we might
    Solve someday.”
    She laughed and did an arabesque.
    My aunt is thirty-five. I said
    What beautiful thighs you’ve got

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Foxglove – Medicine:

    If This Card Chooses You – It’s time to pay attention to your physical well-being. This doesn’t necessitate a doctor visit, it could mean you know perfectly well you’re doing something to threaten your health and it’s time to quit.

    But Sometimes a Doctor Visit is Necessary – Do you dream of hospitals? Doctors? Shamen? Magic pills? One of society’s proudest boasts is our seemingly mysterious ability to cure illness, or at least palliate its effects. Your dreams say you yearn for healing, and something in you recognizes you need help.

    Do You Trust Your Doctor? Maybe it’s spiritual healing that’s required. Try a naturopath, acupuncture, massage therapy – searching for that instinctively helpful healer. Revisit advice on managing gurus – they must not be greedy and must demonstrate they have your best interests at heart. Seek references from friends. Anyone attempting to isolate you and wall you off from information is not your friend.

    The Warrior Path Is Exhausting. We need constant support. No shame – it’s part of the calling.

    What Makes A Warrior’s Heart Race? – Anyone developing their own map gets lost frequently. How can we find the right path? How can we develop the confidence to choose the “right diagnosis” for what ails us? When should we request a “second” or “third” opinion? How can we stay on the “right” course, or even assess the “rightness” of any course, considering all our past mistakes?

    Warriors need “heart strengthening.” “Foxglove” the source of digitalis, (a powerful heart medication) tells us: Listen to your heart. Get out your Training Journal and start making notes. What questions do we wish to ask? Who do we want to be? Where are we trying to go?

    Warrior Danger – Can we tell the difference between a “fortifying” or a “harming” path? TV pharmaceutical ads list grisly side effects for pills tackling the vaguest malaise. Who can overlook these threats? Perhaps the ultimate “danger” lies in ignoring the warnings our “dis-ease” gives. What does “I want to be young again” really mean? We are all mortal. We have just so much time left to plan. To “become”.

    Warrior Opportunity – Some people are more confident following an “experts recommend” course, others adapt and customize as they go. Joy is the moment when planets and moments all click into alignment and we feel we accepted as a beloved child of the universe. Let’s unclog our ears, remove the plank from our vision and simplify our world to recapture the moments of joy experienced in childhood. If a loving, guiding force rescued us over and over again, we can summon the confidence to find several human healers to guide us through the healthcare system.

    Models & Mentors – “Hugging is good medicine” – Karen Salmansohn

    “Medicine is the art of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease” – Voltaire

    “Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients” – C.J. Jung

    “Medicine cures doubt as well as disease” – Karl Marx

    “The arts are as essential to everyone’s lives as clean food and fresh air” – Renee Phillips

    #Haiku: Overcoming Narcissistic Disappointment

    Cuts hurt
    Scars heal
    Skin becomes
    Distinctive; you
    Become interesting.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Hummingbird – The Soul:

    If This Card Chooses You – Your soul is speaking. Listen. Do you ever dream of hummingbirds? Of the ‘impossible” flight of the bumblebee? According to C.S. Lewis, we are not a Body with a Soul, we are a Soul with a Body. Our body may be very mutable, but our soul can be eternal. Do you dream of past lives? See yourself in historical contexts? Do you have dreams of utter bodilessness in which you are totally free, seeming to travel invisibly through the power of your mind?

    What Are Warriors Fighting For? Immortality is not a given, but an achievement. Souls are under threat. What is the Sin Against the Holy Spirit that the Bible talks about, the one sin that cannot be forgiven? It is any attempt to slaughter the soul, the stifle your inborne, God-given ability to detect the numinous and to access the sphere of eternality. Warriors therefore fight the greatest battle there is, to protect the power of their own Souls and those of others.

    Accept Your Immortality – Can we destroy our own immortality through abuse and disbelief? Sadly, yes, and some of us act like we want to! If “heaven” represents eternal bliss and “hell” eternal pain who would ever choose the latter? Those who find life itself such a stacked deck they turn away from the gamble. It’s soul suicide. This is as tragic as battling against one of our talents (“I’m never going near that guitar.”) Who exactly are you trying to harm? The direction we need to travel is in uncovering who we really are and freeing ourselves. To become a Self worth being.

    Everyone Has Experienced Flow – We have knowledge of eternality our daily life – actual accessible bliss in which Time and Impossibility vanish while we experience full connectedness with the universe. We become Warriors to master this ability – and to transfer it to others. It makes merely being ourselves a reliable, eternal pleasure.

    Warrior Challenge – Obviously, our minds change the same way our bodies do. We grow up! Think about the differences between you now, and you at say, three years old. Imagine the joyous understanding with which you will eventually “get” what seems now incomprehensible. If you just accept that possibility, you can enjoy the Now.

    Warrior Danger – What Christians call “sin”, Buddhists call “clinging”. We grab on to any passing thing in fear, to halt the frightening mystery of our flight but of course it doesn’t work! The G forces build up as space revolves around us, meanwhile we are clinging to some crappy object, or some person who is experiencing a different trajectory. Let those things go. Don’t be frightened by your feelings, just study them, turn them into huge iridescent bubbles, and spin them away. Learn to enjoy this flight, no matter how wild it gets.

    Warrior Opportunity – Think about the Biblical parable in which everyone is invited to a glorious feast. These “guests” are so threatened by this invitation, they not only don’t go, they murder the messenger. Watch the glorious film, Groundhog Day. Poor weather forecaster Bill Murray is sentenced to living the same reality over and over and over again, trying everything to escape, including suicide. Finally he decides to learn how to just enjoy the life he has been granted, and to be as nice as possible to the other frightened, enraged, confused souls around him. Only then is he able to move on to the next level which turns out to be the rewarding love of his dreams. That is the Progress of the Soul which we defend.

    Models & Mentors – “the living soul, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled”

    – Horace Mann

    “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.”

    – Carolyne Myss

    “Without applied awareness of the soul, happiness can’t arise” – Dada Bhagwan

    “The desire to know your own soul ends all other desires” – Rumi

    #Haiku: Last Minute

    Bone grows
    Mind crashed
    Soul merge
    Skin graft
    Intervention –
    Light shaft
    Angel…?
    Laughed.

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle

    Passion – Courage:

    If This Card Chooses You – It’s Time to Release Your Power. Do you dream of fantastic feats? Sports? Circuses? Meritocratic competitions? Do you fear standing up in front of the class? Your psyche yearns to muster passion, the fuel for courage. Passion propels us forward when it would be safer to hang back. Why?

    Passion Makes You a Warrior – From your youngest years, you recall that boiling inside of you. Some of us were shamed, some were praised, all of us were re-directed. It is in maturity that we begin to make sense of our passions and to see clearly that not everyone has the same ones.

    Define Your Passions – Passions evolve while you grow as a person. We are constantly re-defining the problem, as well as the Self with which we see the problem. You will “graduate” from one passion to another until you find Compassion, its highest form. This life trajectory is cause for enough for Celebration.

    Passion’s Worth Defending – Intense caring means you’re staking out ground in the universe. The desirable – justice, truth, art – whatever it is – is so important it needs advocates. You become aware that it’s under attack from people who, for personal reasons of their own, find it inconvenient. “Those who fail to stand up for something will fall for anything.”

    Passion Gives You Courage – Defending anything is extremely scary. You can expect to experience every sort of pushback. Studying these possibilities is the beginning of your education as a warrior.

    Have You The Courage of Your Passions? Sometime we want something concrete, but most of the time it is the adventure itself that we seek, we long to be transformed into an athlete of endurance who can farther faster, learn more better and imagine deeper and more vibrantly.

    Fear is a Reaction, Courage is a Decision – Even if you don’t like to fight with your fists you must fight with your mind, with your longing, with your desire. So much is impossible, yet humanity attempts the impossible every day, and a surprising extent of the time, we succeed. Our well-being, our future, depend upon this passion and this courage. Be as wily as a serpent and as gentle as a dove so that your power morphs to encompass the problem.

    Broken Warriors – Will your heart and your courage be broken? Many times, says the fable. But light comes in through the broken places. You will flex and bend. You will evolve and grow. Your passions will change. You will rise above your passions. Your courage will evolve. YOU WILL FLOURISH and the beauty of your effort, of your dream, joins together with all the other glorious human resolutions and accomplishments to power the planet.

    Warrior Danger – Derailment is common. It is endemic. It is not the end. We live in a capitalistic society where some deliberately harness the passion, the courage, the imaginations of others to benefit only themselves. It is heartbreaking to put all your keenest insight into discoveries and achievements that only serve to buy baubles for billionaires. Soldiers can find themselves giving everything for Very Bad Ideas. Artists watch their best installments torched and trashed. All of us face the shock of old age – if we are lucky. You need a shock absorber to upgrade your courage.

    Warrior Opportunity – The hum of the universe provides the refreshment we need. There is still much peace and beauty in the green places, and the eyes of children provide all the light we need. To be strong requires exercise – Push-relax, push-relax. Nutrition has the same requirement. There’s a time to eat and a time to fast and each of those spaces is holy. The less we take, the less we require, the finer tuned becomes our mechanism. The more there is to share. Share with holy people who recognize and honor the gifts of God, not those who try to inspire hate, divisiveness and violence. Naturally we have sore places – we are warriors! We all need to give and receive the magical healing of a loving touch. Let that courage be your passion.

    You Are Not Alone – Someone has your back. Find out who: among the people who love you, among historical figures, famous thinkers and contemporary philosophers. If you can’t find a group, start a group. True friends give each other courage.

    Models & Mentors – “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”

    – Brene Brown

    “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage” – Anais Nin

    “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute for experience.” – Paulo Coelho

    “It takes courage to become who you really are.” – e.e. cummings

    “Courage is contagious” – Billy Graham

    #Haiku: Devourer of Hearts

    Scaling hearts
    For final judgment:
    Soured hearts
    Desiccate;
    Passion hearts
    Burgeon

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Dreams – Imagination:

    If This Card Chooses You – 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.

    Warriors 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 Warrior, 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.

    Warriors Are Seekers – We are self-defining. We are on a quest. Warriors 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 perfectly 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.”

    Warrior 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 dream of different outcomes, things 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

  • Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

    Recovery – Rebirth –

      If This Card Chooses You – Re-Imagine Yourself. Have you been dreaming of rebirth? Second chances? Starting over? Do you wake up in the middle of the night screaming, “Mulligan!”

      “The bad news is time flies – the good news is, you’re the pilot.“ Recovery is what happens we repel a demonic force that kept us in thrall – could be addiction, illusion, corruption, compulsive behavior; even a poisonous culture. Were we hostage to another human being who didn’t want the best for us? This requires deep thought about our best interests. As our brains clear we get ideas. Ernest Hemingway used to say we are “stronger at the broken places”; Nietzsche expressed it as “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”. Healing provides peace as well as joy. We give thanks that we have begun the journey.

      Second Chances are about expecting to stumble. Watching toddlers try to “rise and walk” we consider it lucky that they don’t mind being laughed at. (In fact, they love it.) It takes them time to figure out this new challenge. Like beginning skiers, they cling to objects, sway exaggeratedly back and forth, slam into things, and plop down SPLAT; not just once or twice but over and over. The toddler hasn’t been born who suddenly vaults up suavely and starts swanning around in a sophisticated manner. Embrace the last step of Recovery: “Expect to go splat.” Of course we don’t WANT to – fingers crossed – it’s dangerous and bruising. We’d better arrange to have someone around – just in case. But you don’t fail unless you refuse to rise again. Don’t even bother counting the times you were “brave”. It’s only the “getting back up” that counts. As long as you’re doing that, you’re a true winner.

      Warrior Danger – Life never goes the way we planned. There’s the excitement of finding a plan, investigating goals, making them ours, and committing to the plan – and then there’s living the plan. Suddenly we don’t know how to get through the next ten minutes – worse, we make a “big mistakes” unconsciously. The rational self we’ve planned for fails to show up and instead we turn into some irrational monster who threatens murder when momentarily frustrated. This is like sport-learning. Allow each new behavior to penetrate every fiber of your whole body. Rehearse over and over. (10,000 times?) It’s ALL mistakes at first.

      Concepts of “perfection” and “purity” are completely misplaced here; this is more like forming calluses over tender new skin. It feels funny at first, sore. It might actually “hurt.” We’re on the early steps of a long journey to a wonderful place; and we won’t get there unless we forgive ourselves, pick ourselves up and keep going.

      Warrior Opportunity –
      Ever heard of a “dry drunk”? The phrase refers to the state of envying those who “indulge” and feeling that we are somehow lesser, damaged beings because we “can’t.” How does this regret pertain to the warrior’s pledge of mindful living? We are devoted to contrasting our planned empowerment with others’ benumbed abandon. Think about what this means. Who envies loss of consciousness? Wouldn’t it be better to remove the source of the pain, the shame we are escaping from? Is this nostalgic fantasy of mental sleep really some faint memory of union, with the lost, beloved Other? What would it mean to give up these blind yearnings, this cultivated pain and these unbearable memories to lead a fresh, released and intentional life? It means accepting and becoming a new self in all our exquisitely uniqueness, exploring everything that implies. Recovery is “self-forgiveness”; going forward with a clear-eyed, honest appraisal of ourselves, resources and desires. “I am free”

      Warriors Crest the Wave – Most people have too narrow a self-definition to dare to try new things, but daring and courage are essential features of being a Warrior. Just because something sounds uncomfortable doesn’t mean we won’t someday like it so much we make it part of ourselves. If you’re used to sleeping on the floor, going without breakfast and struggling with a new language, you’ve learned to be unafraid of those things.

      Warriors Are Cagey – We don’t expose ourselves to unnecessary danger. We are constantly developing our safety instincts to recognize insecure situations before they get out of control. A main reason for frugality is that situations can become “too comfortable” – your senses are being dulled! Sharpening senses is what Warriors are all about!

      Warrior Are Reborn Many Times – Creating our own maps means we go many wrong ways before we find the right one! It’s the process. Throughout our quest we transform ourselves many times to incorporate our new knowledge.

      Self-Definition Is Key – Should you be ashamed of taking a wrong turn? Or confident because you figured it out, and proud that you were able to change?

      You Chose the Recovery-Rebirth Card – Your body is completely new every seven years. You welcome every new day. You are eager to meet new people and find out what makes them tick. You like putting yourself in new situations and figuring out how to cope. Read “Survival” manuals and try out escape rooms with your friends. Explore the sport of orienteering.

      Models & Mentors – “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life”

      – J.K. Rowling

      “The airplane takes off against the wind, not with it” – Henry Ford

      “Believe you can and you’re halfway there” – Theodore Roosevelt

      “The best way to predict your future is to create it” – Abraham Lincoln

      #Haiku: Recovery = Rebirth

      Mulligan –
      Rare gift;
      A “do-over”
      ‘Cause you DO know
      What you know now

    1. Becoming a Warrior – the Warrior Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

      Rainbow – Serendipity

        If This Card Chooses You – You Were Born Lucky! What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered a piece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?

        How lucky do you need to be? Ever seen the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that we give thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps it’s really just our ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered it. These memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Let’s learn to develop gratitude thinking.

        Warrior Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’t happen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s try adopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.

        Warrior Danger – Now that you’re committed to the warrior path, the danger is always the same – recognizing your power but giving control of it over to some other entity that almost certainly doesn’t have your best interests at heart. We’re usually not even aware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes? Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead of us. Do we want to go there? Do we really trust these people? Or are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach the illusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?

        Warrior Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique chance to take advantage of serendipitous appearances and encounters. If we recognize it. Compare your path to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?

        How Did We Get Here? Turns out your map was only a suggestion.
        We are mapping as we go along. However, life is even more interesting, it turns out, than our imaginations.

        After the Storm – Comes the Rainbow! Every visible color – carefully separated out – forming an arch to give us a glimpse of heaven! If it didn’t provably exist, would we still believe in it?

        List Your Rainbows – Clouds may or may not have silver linings. Rainbows are a complete surprise – unconnected to the storms that spawned them. Write about the surprises in your life in your Training Journal. How many were nasty? How many joyous?

        The Universe Conspired – To bring you to this moment. You zigged, you zagged, you wound up here. Give thanks!

        Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult” – Erin McKean

        “Steer Into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn

        “Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh

        “Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh

        “There are no coincidences” – Sigmund Freud

        #Haiku: Rainbow – Serendipity

        Happenstance –
        Fortuitous
        Chance; we’re
        Born lucky
        We just don’t know it.