Alysse Aallyn

Tag: Memoir

  • Purrsiflage – Today’s Horoscope for the Cat In You with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 29

    Today the Universe Reassures You – All suffering comes to an end.  Your depression will lift. You can master the cycle. The future awaits.

    Purrsons Know “This too shall pass”  – Like it or not, we serve the future. Every dream is followed by an awakening which is followed by another dream.  In the moment of relief from the fear and the tension that preceded it we are still shaking from the experience we went through. We are in no condition to make decisions. We are just so grateful that it is over. What is required of us, however, is appreciation and understanding of the cycle. We are surfing, whether we like it or not. Another wave will come. Purrsons learn how to ride it.

    Purrson Challenge – To rise above the cycle, take an honest look at it. This is hard to do when we are quivering and feeling victimized but it is necessary. What pattern do you see?  The surfing analogy is a good one because the tides are not rhythmic nor perfectly predictable, and they are CERTAINLY not “personal” plus we always know another wave will be coming along soon.

    Purrson Strategy – Sometimes there’s a way out; we can change jobs, switch professions, get a divorce. Figure out where the pressure is coming from. Assess your abilities. What parts are you good at? Where do you suck? Can you enjoy any of this? How can your performance be improved? Most of us take pleasure in things we are good at. Can your enjoyment be deepened?

    We’re Never Helpless –  Learned helplessness is real. People give up, stop trying to game or even understand the system. They lie down under the shocks, no longer even trying to escape, waiting for death. Never believe “Resistance is futile.” Don’t succumb.

    Purrsons Win –This game is bigger than our mortal understanding.  Nevertheless, you can comprehend the majesty of what we are up against and appreciate it as a knife appreciates the whetstone.  We learn through analogy, we remember through stories.

    Purrsons Are Free – Purrsons can always improve, becoming graceful, competent athletes of this mortal existence until we graduate into the next sphere.

    Purrsons Roll with the Punches – You can change and affect your fate. But you must roll with the punches. When Jesus says, “Resist not evil” he means, allow evil to roll over you and smash itself against your non-resistance. Studying martial arts increases our knowledge of how to manage, subvert, outwit, outwait and overcome Superior Force.

    Buddy Power – Friends, allies, buddies, sensei, even dead or fictional characters can be summoned to your aid. People choose such different characters as St. Francis, Sherlock Holmes, Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc, Mulan, Buddha and Jesus to be their “Dream buddies.” Some are more comfortable with an animal – your personal power creature; the jaguar, wolf, eagle or wolverine.

    Change Dream Buddies based on the problem confronting you. Ask their help before you go to sleep, solicit them to come to you in dreams to shed light upon your difficulty. Then the next morning, start writing and remembering the moment you wake up. Some key dreams take a lifetime to decipher.

    Models & Mentors – “Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do but you never get anywhere”

    – Erma Bombeck

    “For fast acting relief, try slowing down” – Lily Tomlin

    “Happiness is the relief after extreme tension”

    – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    “Laughter is the tonic, the release, the surcease of pain” – Charlie Chaplin

  • Purrsiflage – Today’s Horoscope for Your Inner Kitty with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 28

    Listen to the Universal Warning –  Something in you is out of whack today. Balance is a key law of nature to help us avoid the dreaded stagnancy that we experience as a kind of living death.   Once our conscious is in harmony with our subconscious, our dreams begin to balance our waking life. Even the worst nightmare can be looked at objectively in the light of day, as a warning story with curative potency and significance.

    Purrsons Seek Balance – Unfortunately our contemporary life has become a competitive pursuit of “highs”. A good life well-lived provides natural highs – learning a skill, reveling in physical and sensual gifts, falling in love, listening to music, sharing with children, enjoying the grandeurs of nature. Plus, our intellect teaches us that every “high” is dramatically enriched by thinking about it! That’s why we are called “homo sapiens.”

    Balance is a Law of Nature – The pursuit of competitive highs without the thinking and enshrining stages always leads to excess and grief. Highs for their own sake inevitably disappoint, leading to a pursuit of more and more dangerous highs, which, if we are not thinking about them, sharing them with others and incorporating them into our personal history and philosophy, damages our ability to experience joy. Understanding and managing our “emotional highs” is the key to future joys.

    Purrsons, Just Like Cats, Live on All Levels At Once – Purrsons learn to give thanks for and pay tribute to the Past, to enjoy and understand the Present, to anticipate and strategize for the Future and to revel in and be comforted by the promise of Eternity.

    Balancing the Levels – Joy that is held in the mind is joy endlessly re-experienced. It will be yours forever, and you will be able to share it with all the people you love for the rest of your life. Each of us briefly experiences heaven during our lifetimes; prolonged, immortalized and enriched by experiencing and re-experiencing with each other.

    Purrson Challenge – We need to personally set up our brain’s “reward system” to handle pleasure and suffering or we will be prescribed drugs in an attempt to achieve the same effect chemically. Drugs can be useful as training wheels; ideally we want to teach our systems to achieve the same effect naturally. Calm is the first step to balance, so we must learn how to soothe ourselves. Meditation, sleep and yoga offer the best methods for reliable self-calming. First, we assert calm over our breath, then our bodies, lastly our thoughts. It’s not that difficult! Reminder: this occurred naturally every night of our lives before we started stressing about it!

    Night Is the Leveler – Our species needs sleep to connect to the Universal Mind, and to the minds of all Dreamers, human and animal. Conscious dreaming (often called lucid dreaming) provides a trusted avenue to filter daily discoveries down to your subconscious level. Always have a joy to think about just as you are going to sleep, and another for when you are waking up. This will sharpen your connection with emotional ecstasy and deepen your life. Once our conscious is in harmony with our subconscious, our dreams will balance our waking life. Even the worst nightmare can be looked at objectively, as a story with potential significance.

    Models & Mentors – “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities” – Stephen Covey

    “Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life” – Dolly Parton

    “For everything there is a season,
        a time for every activity under heaven.
    2 A time to be born and a time to die.
        A time to plant and a time to harvest.
    3 A time to kill and a time to heal.
        A time to tear down and a time to build up.
    4 A time to cry and a time to laugh.
        A time to grieve and a time to dance.
    5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
        A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
    6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.
        A time to keep and a time to throw away.
    7 A time to tear and a time to mend.
        A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
    8 A time to love and a time to hate.
        A time for war and a time for peace. –  Ecclesiastes 3

    “Moderation in All Things” – Hesiod

  • Purrsiflage – Daily Horoscope for Your Inner Kitty with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 27

    Today Is Up to You – The Universe puts you in charge this morning. Time to make up your mind – will this be a good day – or a bad one? Do you wake up fearful, fretful and exhausted? You’re too much of a worrier. Worry borrows trouble and erases pleasure. It’s OK to plan but it’s destructive to worry. “Rumination” is endlessly thinking over a problem in a circular way – it isn’t going anywhere. If you dream only about your problems, you are at risk of wasting your valuable dreaming time.

    Purrsons Build Workable Routines – Then Explode Them Creatively

    We construct lists and calendars in our Training Journals that are very much Works In Progress. Every effort’s an experiment. If you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems, so we must build good systems. As Zig Ziglar reminds us, there’s no elevator to success. We’ve got to take the stairs, one step at a time. We will build ourselves up so strongly that ultimately we will be able to trust our subconscious, even our unconscious, to do the work for us. Purrsons create independent selves to transcend their quotidian selves. This is why cats appear so composed and self-sufficient.

    Taming Wild Mind to Focus Productively – Buddhists are fabulous at training the questing brain to calmness. This is a physical discipline and it does take practice. As in any practice, we start out needing both effort and commitment. You will have to “forgive” yourself over and over – “I suck at this” is a beginning, not an end. Learning to enjoy the process is key. Meditation teaches us how to live in the present moment. You are your own toddler, so mother yourself.  Be delighted by the effort and moved by the commitment. You don’t yell at a toddler for falling down. Study the work of Pema Chodron (libraries everywhere) for assistance.

    Your Toddler Self is Frightened by Everything.  As we meditate and the fears boil up, we talk to ourselves calmingly. Focus on small, pleasurable things, the green grass, the blue sky. In our gratitude practice, we give thanks for the green grass and the blue sky. Focus on the breath – out with the worry, in with the fresh day of joy and discovery. Now close your eyes. Are you still seeing the green grass and the blue sky? Isn’t that wonderful? Now they are yours forever. Tonight you will dream about them. Cherish them in your heart.

    How Strong is Your Negative Voice?  This is the first enemy we must defeat. We all have at least one – some of us have many. Banish them firmly. Your negative voice is belittling, angry and demeaning. It doesn’t think you can accomplish anything. It is not a helper, in fact it is toxic and we are going to tell it goodbye. Read Viktor Frankl’s wonderful Man’s Search for Meaning and Pinkola Estes’ excellent Women Who Run With the Wolves for advice on how to pluck the lotus of joy from the mud of despair.

    Purrson Opportunity – Learning to focus at our advanced age is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a daily practice of mindfulness and joy in the classroom of creation. Be proud of your effort, your commitment and the confidence you are modeling for all future generations that life itself is a dazzling gift. You are alive at this perfect moment for some perfect reason. Let us find it.

    Models & Mentors – “Your habits will determine your future” – Jack Canfield

    “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine.” – John Maxwell

    ‘Practice isn’t something you do when you’re good. It’s what makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell

    “It’s easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.” – Benjamin Franklin

  • Purrsiflage – Your Daily Cat Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 26

    Today the Universe Delivers a Warning – You are depressed or at risk of depression. Even in your dreams you hurt.  You feel such shuddering emptiness and loss it’s a physical relief to wake up and find your dream wasn’t real. Lots of people fear such sadness as some kind of prophecy. It’s enough to make a person fear going to sleep.

    The Depression Archetype – warns you are too “involved.” Check out life’s professional Purrsons – such as cops, firemen, paramedics – who all will tell you to “forget” the personal just to get the job done. They recommend you focus on the “healable” crisis– even though all that suffering reminds you of your Special People and the dangers they face unwittingly, every day.

    People Die. Even Worse – People Can Lose Their Purrsonhood BEFORE They Die – Better think your worldview through BEFORE the crisis happens. If death ends everything, surely you will fear it. But remember, what a caterpillar calls “the end”, Nature calls a “butterfly.”

    Don’t Postpone Grief – Even we lucky Purrsons will have reason to mourn. The same powerful forward drive we so admire in cats sometimes fools Purrsons into thinking that moving backward in the dance is a sign of weakness, when ebb and flow are laws of life for every creature, sacred cats included.

    Low Mood is Stigmatized in a society where perfect strangers feel comfortable demanding that you “smile.” Look at all these Instagram feeds with everybody showing their back teeth, grinning away because they’re having so much FUN and their lives are so PERFECT.  They never wake up shuddering with existential sadness. Cats don’t smile – they purr – but Purrsons are they are human too.  We know risk our exalted sensory advantages by trying to pretend ”everything’s fine” when all the red lights are flashing wildly.

    Mourning Postponed grinds you to a halt. Just because those

    who are better at covering up their true feelings are socially valorized we see no need to join their lonely ranks. They are lessening themselves. Admittedly some people are just shallow, and that is a misfortune we cannot envy. 

    They’ve worked hard to feel less deeply!  Narcissists may convince themselves that they can transfer their pain to others and “free” themselves by enjoying the suffering they’ve created but Purrsons recognize that trap is a Zero Sum Game. This gamble to stunt our own growth is a threat. It inevitably means we all have lots of work to do.

    First, We Sort Out “Real” from “Transferred” Suffering. Whose misery has been foisted upon you? If you’re in that position you are literally a “scapegoat” and will need all your Purrson skills to get out of it.

    DO NOT ACCEPT TRANSFERRED SUFFERING! – Even the collective suffering of history must be examined objectively. 

    Pain is inevitable but suffering is voluntary. We feel compassion for some, we pity others their willful darkness but we do not accept their world scheme of eternal punishment and torment. Every cat who finds a patch of sun to groom in turns their back on mandated self-hatred.

    We’ve Got Plenty of Legitimate, Necessary Mourning to catch up on. If you skate over “bargaining” and “acceptance”  all that’s left to you is denial and depression. Sometimes, the “causes” of your lost mourning seem inconsequential to our “adult” selves. “So your pet died when you were five,” everybody says. “Your parents got a divorce. You moved five times. Get over it, already!” But we say, Now is always the perfect time to accept the power and significance of your own feelings.

    Purrsons Feel Compassion for Everyone – Themselves Included. Begin with yourself. Why feel these things now, right before you set off on your next great, consequential adventure? Sometimes it is joy that brings to the surface those past unhealed hurts. That’s necessary, part of the ebb and flow. Because we are strong enough to feel it now.

    Purrsons Are the Heroes of the Collective Unconscious – Purrsons do battle for and honor centuries of collective suffering. (Inter-generational trauma.) It’s OK to think about that sadness, especially if it makes us feel closer to other Purrsons and their less lucky people. Everyone has these lost, wrecked treasures submerged in their lives.

    Purrsons Feel Deeply – Your power is to free the greatness of your emotion even as it protects your feelings and other people’s. Celebrate the fact that you are able to feel so deeply in a world where others feel forced to abuse themselves, numbing out, then taking risks and drugs in order to “feel something.”

    The Art of Detachment  allows Purrsons to rise above the fray, strategize, and plan. Even on the eve of battle they enjoy their lives.  Let go – finally –  of the toxic elements in your life. Time to go “no-contact” on the emotional vampires who waste, drain and suck your energy. Read up on sadism, the better to understand the people out there who revel in your suffering. Buddhists recommend surveying your thoughts and feelings from a distance, as in hypnotherapy, then setting them free.

    Detachment is Not Dissociation – Dissociation is more like floating through life with all our systems repressed, feeling numb. Dissociation is not good. You can use your quivering pool of tears to respond more intensely to life, to art, to music, and to each other.

    Resilience is the Cat’s Most Powerful Survival Trait and so it is ours.  This means that even after blight, we can flourish more strongly, just the way pruned plants will. It’s not necessary to explore all the caverns of your being, but it will make you stronger. 

    Meditation Teaches Mindfulness, and Mindfulness Teaches Detachment. Once again, choose a buddy and a guide. Think about the “hero’s journey” story you respond to most deeply. How would you explain your hero’s journey to someone else? Feel free to use metaphors, after all, when we were children we did feel our world to be populated by monsters and the supernatural.

    Models & Mentors – “Detachment is power. Release all things that no longer work for you” – Shane Steele

    “To be detached means to dive so fully into the experience you dropout the other side… with full understanding you can say, “Now that I know, I can let go”

    – Teal Swan

    “In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty…freedom from our prison of past conditioning…willingness to step into the unknown surrenders us to the Purrson mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe…” – Deepak Chopra

    “I release the subjective thoughts, energy and emotions I am holding about people, places and things that kept me trapped in dis-ease…I can step back and allow the feelings & thoughts & energy to dissipate…I am then free to act with compassion, love & acceptance” – Angela James

    “Attachment is the fabricator of illusions – reality can be attained only by one who is detached” – Simone Weil

    “Detachment is having your life be about you, not about other people”

    – Karen Casey

  • Purrsiflage – Today’s Horoscope for the Cat In You with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 25

    The Universe Says It’s Brain-Opening Day – Let the Knowledge Pour In – You didn’t even know there was a wall there! And suddenly, you’re through it and the world looks completely different on the other side.

    Are You Battering Against Barriers in your dreams? Are you breasting tape, cresting mountaintops, shedding light on darkness? You are seeking, or experiencing an epiphany. Let’s consider those pieces of your psyche/life that don’t add up.

    Eureka! – Purrsons Learn From Epiphanies – It’s possible to have a sudden enlightenment and NOT FULLY REALIZE it. Could it be that it is too threatening? Could be that you lack the language to explain the new connection you have made. Could be that your “discovery” started down so deep in your consciousness that it’s taking its time to percolate through to the surface.  

    Purrsons “Molt”!
      Shed what no longer serves you. In the meantime, pay attention to your dreams and track them in your Training Journal.  Dreams have the power to heal the jagged edges of our fear, our incomprehension and our daring.

    Purrson Danger – We almost always quit too early. Status quo is SO attractive. Let somebody else be the adventurer, let somebody else put into words what nobody else can say, let some other poor sucker stick their neck out and mention that the emperor has no clothes. Study your fears rationally. It’s OK to protect yourself – in fact, it’s mandatory – remember making sure that oxygen mask works on YOU, first? But that doesn’t stop us from evaluating the full “reality”, which also, I remind you, contains suspicions, insights, ideas and yes, dreams. These are the whispers of the multiverse through which you can read your own future.

    Grow New Skin – Purrsons are highly accomplished, well-trained professionals who sometimes find themselves at the bottom of a pecking order.  Are you in a group whose leader is making decreasing sense and ever more self-serving decisions? If you’ve been struggling with a knotty historical, mathematic or scientific problem nobody else can solve, why not try seeking the edges of light?

    Transform Your Thinking – how often have you had that experience of waking up from a dream whose conclusions were so real they were right in front of you, only to see them melt in the sand like the escaping tide until no longer perceptible. That’s OK. They’re still on the tip of your psychic tongue, just waiting for a little more encouragement.

    Learn New Things -We are all familiar with the “sleep on it” suggestion, but anything that takes your mind off the problem can be helpful. Sports, prayer, meditation, reading, a massage, a night out, but please – not too much liquor. Hold it at two if you can, if you can’t, don’t start. Liquor affects the brain, killing brain cells.  That might keep overlords seeking compliance happy but it’s not good for Purrsons’ growth and development.

     Develop a gratitude practice. Keep dreaming. Keep seeking those epiphanies. Keep using your fears as stepping stones to climb higher. Never give up. Remember; clever – like the fox, wily as the snake, gentle as the dove.

  • Purrsiflage – Your Daily Kitty Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 24

    Today the Universe Reminds – Eternity has need of your perfecting self. 

    Do you dream of astronomy? Vast deserts, steep, empty mountains, person-less vistas? These are eternity dreams, where change has slowed or stopped. You are struggling not with questions of death or afterlife, but the “ongoing everythingness” of reality itself. What is “time”? How long can “time” continue when nothing is “alive”?

    Purrsons Train to be Immortal – Immortality is never guaranteed. When you imagine “life forever” – where is the “you” in that context? Matter is already transmutably immortal – Your body is currently composed from the atoms of exploded stars. We all tremble at transitions; but do we really want certain phases of our existence to continue “indefinitely’? Seems not only impossible but repugnant.

    Change is Life – Changelessness is Stagnation. We are “perfecting”, never perfected. Without any human life, planets and stars continue to evolve. Eternity, like God, must exist outside of time. Fiercely we insist on the continuation of consciousness. But do we really want to know the terrible things God knows, or is what you really desire a return to an infancy safe inside the arms of a most loving mother?

    Purrson Challenge –  Some people feel so threatened, angry and violated by life that they want to harm the future itself. They don’t want anyone to be happy or gratified, ever. While admitting that life on earth can be very unfair and terrible, you don’t ever want to become one of those people. They have “eternalized” their own misery. That is the very definition of hell; and they themselves have sent their own selves there.  Purrsons can eternalize our finest moments, when we brimmed with love, ecstasy poured over us and generosity and joy poured out.

    Purrson Danger – Ultimate judgment is not up to us. We don’t know everything, our empathy and compassion are not boundless, we cannot “see” in all directions and dimensions. Purrsons are forced to make snap judgments on the ground, battlefield decisions and quick-time changes; but we must leave finality to God. Arrogance and solipsism are serious blinders that harm our spirit as they harm others and even the planet itself.

    Purrson Opportunity – We are offered repeated opportunities for growth, for humility, for insight. We need to take advantage of these, all the while admitting (and admiring) that since life is a see-saw process, it is usually two steps forward and one step back. Purrsons recognize and enhance growth; ideal growth conditions lead to health, while harm plunges everyone into darkness. Mentally we can wish others to avoid suffering and the roots of suffering even when we don’t understand what those are even for ourselves. When Purrsons connect meaningfully with others all spirits lighten.

  • Purrsiflage – Your Inner Kitty Horoscope with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 23

    Brace Yourself For a Difficult Day – You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb. You can get through it and you will. There’s even a good side to the mess you are about to go through. A silver lining if you will. 

    Every religion and philosophical system must account for the misery we see around us – storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration and animal predation.

    Purrsons Get Used to Loss – Cats have enormous personal power but little political power. Beloved objects & people come and they go. We all get old. And nobody controls the weather. 

    Do your dreams explore inner and outer pain? How much is fear, how much is anxiety, how much is collective unconscious and shared human history? We fear there is no possible paradise where everyone can be happy all at once. How do we educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma?

    Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding our breath on the edge of discovery.

    Purrsons Dare to Feel it All.  Bravely we take on the feelings of the entire planet to show that we can’t be destroyed by them. Purrsons are willing to explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion”; “Practice taming the wild mind”; or religious –  “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet.

    Don’t Surrender to Learned Helplessness – Too much suffering breeds inertia. We stop even trying to better our situation while attracting predators to such easy prey.  Even worse, we become predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.

    Purrsonal Daring Frees the Universe – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through this many times. This too shall pass. Tomorrow is a new day and the planets will readjust. Further epiphanies await.

    Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered”

    – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

    “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”

    – A.A. Milne

    “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them”

    – Leo Tolstoy

    “What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

    “Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live”  – Norman Cousins

  • Purrsiflage – Today’s Horoscope Releases Your Inner Kitty with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 22

    The Universe Formally Confirms Your Purrsonhood – You are a master of transitions; because you can live as a cat in this cruel Person World.

    You Are A Master of Transformations because you can acquire the best qualities of Person and Purr and blend both together.

    You are a Master of Metamorphosis– because you can change from hard-charging Human to Self-Fulfilling Cat right in front of everyone’s eyes.

    What are Your Specific Gifts? Are you a SciFi fan? Do you dream of bionic humans? Robots? Cryogenics? How about caterpillars becoming moths and butterflies? Acorns don’t look like oak trees, pollywogs don’t resemble frogs. It is quite common in nature to evolve into some unexpected form. What a metaphor for us, as Ovid’s Metamorphoses postulated centuries ago. We speculate about humans becoming invisible, disguising themselves as bats or wolves; Greek gods “became” swans and bulls to further their purposes. Our imagination is rich with all these possibilities, as is our literature, theatre and film. At a funeral, we look at a bird invading the church is a whole new light. Is it a message? An incarnation?

    Your Possibilities are Infinite – Every time you buy a bottle with an animal on the label you are calling on the powers of that creature just as your ancestors did. We suspect consuming even the “idea” of a creature might confer their powers. We also heard the legend that when a human husk breathes its last, the soul escapes and may reincarnate in heaven or even in another life as something entirely different, perhaps without blemish, wholly beautiful for once and for all.

    Purrson Power – Your Power Animal explicates the supernatural gifts you desire. Allow yourself the freedom to think about the talents you yearn for and the purposes you’d put them to. You can define yourself this way, experiment and play. You might not wish to be a dragon every day of the week, but once in a while it could be fun. How can you cultivate these gifts, desires and yearnings in your present-day life? Don’t these dreams make you a bigger, more important Purrson, even if nobody knows? What if they did know? How will you declare yourself and what will you say?

    Purrson Danger – We don’t aim to jump off buildings pretending we can fly. We’re expanding our psychic repertoire, not trying to escape into fantasy. The most commonly yearned for gift is omnipotence. But think how terrible life would be – not just for others but for YOU if your whims and fantasies were never checked? Often our wish is that we be spared the pain of growing up. But who wants to remain a toddler forever? 

    When we are REALLY coming into our own we are knowing and sharing our true self. A joy not to be missed. Pity the toddler who prays to fly through the air so he doesn’t have to learn to walk and risk falling down.

    Models & Mentors – “Nothing gets transformed in your life until your mind is transformed” – Ifeanyl Enoch Onuoha

    “Every success story is a tale or adaptation, constant revision, and change”

    – Richard Branson

    “Perfection is constant transformation” – Nia Peeples

    “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not fighting the old but building the new” – Socrates

  • Purrsiflage – Today’s Horoscope for Your Inner Cat with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 21

    Today You Confront a Mystery – You long to uncover the solution. Do you have faith that there IS a solution? What is your tolerance for the mysterious? Given how the universe works, you may need to crank that tolerance up a notch. Do you dream of apocalypses? Religious iconography? Are you a mystery fan but irritated and underwhelmed by most “reveals”?  How much uncertainty can you tolerate? Are you afraid of the dark? Chronically underslept? Fearful of being alone? The Faith archetype travelling through your life right now is warning you, you have a profound need for faith in your life.

    The Faithful Are Rewarded – Untrusting people are untrusted. George Bernard Shaw said it best: liars can’t believe anybody. Everyone knows this, but even so we often rush to trust where it isn’t warranted, then enter a cycle of disappointment, yearning and ill-placed hope that drives our mood still lower. We need somebody and something to rely on. How can we find them?

    “People Don’t Remember What You Said, They Remember How You Made Them Feel.”  Recall your childhood – the people you loved and trusted and the people you were scared by and nervous about. You were developing a “gut instinct.” Who were the friends that stayed with you in the face of adversity and who were the ones who dropped away?

    Love Always Makes the Difference. It is the magic salve that soothes and heals life’s inevitable bumps and scrapes. People who offer real love you can have faith in, people who offer something else – status, belonging, self-serving rationales – disappoint us. Faith gets stronger the more it is proved. We may hope for a good day, but we have faith that the sun will come up.

    Faith Is Trust in the Worthy -– Sometimes the mysteries of life are deliberate confusions to keep us confused. Why can’t our politicians ever inaugurate the policies that are the reason we elected them in the first place? They try to convince us that “secret cabals” and “unknown enemies” are at fault. They want us angry and befuddled so we won’t place the blame where it belongs and demand accountability. Secrecy serves the purposes of darkness. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

    Purrsons Demand Transparency & Accountability. Cats parade their world with confidence. Outline your beliefs and begin to act on them. Some mystery is endemic to existence but when people sharply change direction we can still track their path. Less smoke and mirrors and more step by step upgrades are something we can all agree on.

    Purrsons Grow in the Level of Mystery We Can Absorb. Algebra has logical answers, quantum theory does not. We solve the puzzles that mystified us as children and keep solving until we come to the puzzles no one can solve. But we keep trying! The limits and un-limits of physics and space are constantly being mapped. We are not content with the label “here be dragons” placed across the unknown. We no longer believe God resents and punishes exploration, science and development. A vaccine was developed against a mystery illness in just one year.

    No Hope Without Faith – Insoluble mysteries often concern motivation – the spring-work of the soul. Why do we make ourselves miserable? Artists teach us that these questions can be “solved” by reframing; posing them differently. Depth psychologists tell us that the shallow reasoning of our surface mind is far less important than deep memories and drives we can uncover through emotional and analytic spelunking. Purrsons love mysteries. Develop faith. Never give up.

    Models & Mentors – “Faith is taking the first step when you don’t see the whole staircase” – Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong.” – 1 Corinthians 16:13

    “Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there till some light returns” – Anne LaMott

    “If we fight with faith, we are twice armed” – Plato

  • Purrsiflage – Today’s Horoscope for Your Inner Kitty with Alysse Aallyn

    Jan 17

    Today the Universe Says: It’s Time to Release Your Power. Do you dream of fantastic feats? Sports? Circuses? Meritocratic competitions? Or are you held back by the “fear of standing up in front of the class?”  Your psyche yearns to muster passion, which is the fuel for courage. Passion is what propels us forward when it would be safer to hang back. Why is that?

    Passion Makes You a Purrson – From your youngest years, you recall there was a boiling collision inside of you, caused by shaming, praising, and an endless re-directing. It is in maturity that we begin to make sense of our passions and to see clearly that not everyone is born with the same ones.

    Define Your Passions – Our passions evolve while we grow in character 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 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 its existence 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 all these possibilities is the beginning of your education as a Purrson.

    Have You The Courage of Your Passions? Sometimes we want something concrete, but most of the time it is the adventure itself that we really seek.  We long to be transformed into an athlete of endurance who can far further 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 difficulties that you face.

    Broken Purrsons – 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 strengthen and 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.

    Purrson Danger – Derailment is common. It is endemic. It is not the end. We live in a capitalistic society where some will 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 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 will need a shock absorber if you seek to upgrade your courage.

    Purrson 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 require. 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 Purrsons!  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