Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Mysteries

  • The Language of Butterflies – Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Creativity : “Harness your Uniqueness”

      When searching for your soulmate this is no time to “blend with the crowd.” You need to discover exactly who you are so you can seek your complementary and missing elements. If you are uncertain or mistaken about your essential self, you won’t even recognize The One. You will be guaranteed to choose a partner based on false considerations of status or appearance. This requires you stop hiding your true self and allow it to emerge. Easier said than done! Turns out we all have been babying the shyly unique aspects of ourselves that don’t win instant recognition from the crowd. Well, we are going to have to experiment with taking Baby out for daily strolls and develop a bit of muscle. Don’t worry if the “likes” fall away – you are not trying to appeal to everyone. The creativity card means you will need to become imaginative in how you present yourself. You want someone accepting? Be accepting. You want someone brave? Be brave. You want someone who looks deeper? Look deeper.

      Fire In the Dust

      In photographs
      The ladies scream or laugh
      It’s hard to tell
      Heads back they bare their
      Grief or joy or
      Agonized relief
      It’s hard to tell.
      All that remains of them
      Tattered icons growing ever dim.

      The fountains of our fear
      Leap high at first, like dancers
      Frozen at first burst
      Of freedom
      Paralyzed abreast
      The arc
      We cannot see
      What tortuous sign these fossils
      Meant to be.

      In that first winter
      We thought the earth was dead
      Statues mated
      Trees erupted dragonflies
      The angry lonely
      Sang and cried.
      Somewhere some fetus twists and jerks
      Convergence of dynastic quirks

      So drop the toxic cloak of bitter spite that
      Melts the flesh and terrorizes night –
      Waiting out a cycle’s sum
      Spinning down to kingdom come.
      For nothing vain, came nothing plain
      This world was born
      To live again.

    1. The Language of Butterflies – Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

      REGRET feeds DOUBT

        As soon as we begin refining our list in search of The One, we are filled with doubt. Fear of Missing Out dictates that even as we are talking to a Possible Soulmate our eyes search out the door to see what new person is coming in. There is a glorious book, essential to artists, called The War of Art (Steven Pressfield) which is actually about self-sabotage. In the very moments when we are trying to build something critically important to our emotional, psychic and spiritual health, a demonic voice comes out of Who Knows Where, whispering, “It’s the wrong thing and you’re doing it wrong.” According to Steven Pressfield, if you listen to this voice you will never accomplish anything, because Honest, Committed Effort is required to get your project off the ground, even if it ultimately fails. And if it ultimately fails, it will turn out to be the very project that helps you see what is Really Important, and understand What to Do Next. Choose wisely; searching for a relationship that is restorative, not exploitative, a partner who is complementary and complimentary, and push doubt aside.

        Cloverleaf


        Some roads lead nowhere;
        They’re my favorites.
        I held my breath while
        You drew my face in
        Blinding strokes
        Creamed my mouth with curling lines
        Destroyed one picture; then another
        Never let me see. You
        Left at dawn while I
        Ran in circles, calling
        Raging, spending blackened
        Nights without you,
        No blue thigh to guard
        My trusting heart while yours looks out
        To gauge the coming storm.
        Trapped in cloverleaves,
        Sentenced to school by
        Streams of angry judges –
        Balked by
         The enervating past
        Of unlived lives
        Every face I paint is yours.
        Open up the chilly ruffles
        Of my breasts
        One more time –
        To beauty; yours and mine
        Electrify your
        Eldritch spine –
         Your body so much lighter
        Than the mountain that you loved
        Better than you loved me –
         The course you learned
        Better than you learned me – so
        Overconfident that
         you’ll come back
        I float across the powdered snow
        In bird-winged silence
        All-enveloping
        Unless I’m
        Lost?

        Lost and frozen like your heart?

      1. The Language of Butterflies – Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

        MELT into the space your desire creates: “You Got This”


        You’ve realize the immensity of your need and the enormity of the challenge. You’ve looked into your capacities and they just don’t seem to match your expectations. Now you’re scared and feeling hopeless. I’m here to remind you to “relax.” Melt into the space your desire has created. Untense those muscles because fear and hysteria, rage and feelings of worthlessness all work against us.

        Realize somewhere out there your Soulmate is feeling all these things also. This is a process you need to go through, in order to recognize the vastness of the challenge ahead. This is your time in the desert, where you will be tested. This guarantees that when your and your Beloved melt together your success will be all the sweeter. Of necessity to valuing the Other is the realization that, although there may be plenty of fish in the sea, you need a very particular fish.


        HAUNTED WEDDING
        The pregnant car disgorges
        Only us. It’s winter.
        Drunk as silver fish
        We beat our gills as light
        As hummingbirds.
        In an amethyst ring
        Of drypoint trees
        The half-built house
        Gapes and swells
        Its timbers stink of sap.
        Windrill fields occlude
        Our crossing, so you carry me
        High above the thorny osiers.
        We sleep aloft for safety
        Locked and levitating
        In this space of air
        One season only,
        Unseen by angry outriders;
        Bloodless in our wedding robes
        Like the doubled membranes
        Of the frozen flowers.

        1. The Language of Butterflies – the Path of Attachment by Alysse Aallyn

          POWER: “Doubling”

            We are filled with the excitement and power of acquisition and multiplicity. We will finally have a helper, an interpreter, an enabler, a sharer. A Second Self with its rich promise of Difference – different memories, body type, fantasies, wishes, dreams – we can indulge ourselves in. We can’t wait to get going and find this person who promises us wings and immortality! The potential sexual ecstasy alone is keeping us up nights. Imagine thoroughly exploring another and being thoroughly explored yourself – with a lifetime to do it in. We can’t yet speak the language of butterflies, but we can imagine it. We are giving ourselves wings. With such commitment, every moment becomes a lifetime. We think we may have discovered the secret of eternal youth, to see and be seen through the eyes of love.

            Angel Clothes

            You are like a ripe peach
            Swollen in the summer of your life
            And as the peach surrounds its stone
            Your skeleton enwombs your soul
            But thinly.
            I often see it shining
            Through the hollows in your cheeks.
            I need your body
            Need to know its shadows
            Sound its pleasures
            But as the stone
            Though small at first
            Must grow; feeds off the dying peach
            So your spirit will transhume your flesh
            Disgorge it in
            A thousand peaches a thousand summers a
            Thousand eternities more beautiful than
            You or I

          1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            – Mahatma Gandhi

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

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

            Mantra – “I forgive”

            Meditation –

            #Haiku: Forgiveness

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

          2. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            – Torquato Tasso

            “Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh

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

            Mantra – “I embrace”

            Meditation –

            #Haiku: Honesty

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

          3. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

            Crystal Ball – Prophecy – The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We already KNOW the “truth’. We fear the truth. We don’t want to face the truth. We fear the continuing “losses” of age because the accretions are so hard to see. Our dreams KNOW what is going on. But they are also Art, and art – especially good art – is as mysterious, meaningful and forceful as any living thing. It changes as you change, and it changes depending on how you look at it.

            Accept the Revelation – Open Dream Journal. It is time to list the revelations. Your dreams tell you when you are afraid. Your dreams tell you when something is missing. Your dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself. The first obligation is to accept is the possibility that the truth is not so terrible. It is the endless hiding, the mounting fear, that can be really destructive.

            Challenge – The truth is that we are human, that we are imperfect, and that we need each other. The truth is that humans need governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful accord. The truth is also that humans who lust only for power will eternally angle to get themselves into positions of control, exclusion and punishment. These types must be weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous types have our own lives to live.

            Danger – Our dreams notify us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Our dreams offer a variety of plans for confrontation and escape, and a recipe for courage. At the present time, the Lethal Persons are banding together and hoarding weapons to give themselves even more guarantees for power and opportunities to enjoy our despair.

            Opportunity – Jesus said evil will not win. The challenge is to explore what ELSE he said, indeed, what is the message of all the great teachers? It is not to hate one another and go to war with one another and people who tell you that it is are agents of evil. The first challenge is to create peace in our own hearts, peace in our own lives, peace in our own homes, and then start developing compassion for those who are not so lucky. When their brutal tactics are exposed for the empty promises that they are as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, they will acknowledge that their efforts to share their despair come from a desire to surmount despair, and that it has never worked and is not working. Then we will welcome them back into the community of Sharing.

            Models & Mentors – “We write the future moment to moment”

            – Pema Chodron

            “The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and leave you to peer through for yourself” – Frank Herbert

            “The greatest thing a human soul can accomplish in this world is to see that poetry, prophecy & religion all are one”
            – John Ruskin

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

            “Yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not come, let us begin” – Mother Teresa

            Mantra – “I see”

            Meditation –

            #Haiku: The Future

            Wisdom & will
            Extinguish death;
            Ides of Youth
            Depower Fear
            Share
            Growth

          4. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            “Clutter is postponed decisions” – Barbara Hemphill

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

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

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

            Mantra – “I release”

            Meditation –

            #Haiku: Dispossessed

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

          5. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

            Legacy – Dreaming of having kids? Childbirth? Parenthood? Do you fantasize nostalgically about your own childhood? Do you dream of establishing a foundation, benefiting the community? Do you dream of death, funerals, will-making? You are considering the legacy you will leave behind – a way to live on forever when you’re no longer here.

            You Are the Future – Contributing to forming and shaping young lives is a key way we “replicate”. Hearing your own ideas advanced and improved upon is a unique thrill. Generativity is the necessary completion of the formation of Self. Erik Erickson posits “Generativity versus Stagnation” as the stark choice facing us as we grow older.

            Challenge – We’re usually full of criticisms of our own upbringing – behaviors we do NOT want to replicate. What would you change? What difference do you want to leave in the world? Time to think about your own legacy. In our capitalist world we always think “money” but money is a thorny gift. Think how easily it is lost, misused, wasted. A better legacy is wisdom: a codebook, “cheat sheet”, a treasure map, the ability to recognize and ENJOY treasure once it is located.

            Danger – We know about the monomaniacs who want to rebuild the universe in their image. Their view of possibility is restricted to what THEY want, what THEY can do. Open your Dream Journal to consider whether our Legacy hope is just an ego trip. Did we consult anybody else? Will this contribute to a universe others want, need and can enjoy?

            Opportunity – Once again we are offered a magical chance to increase our range, magnify our grasp and celebrate and share our unique joys and gifts. Leaving Granny’s plates or a recipe book to a relative in a will is so unrewarding compared to giving a party. Is there any way we can turn the struggles of ordinary existence into a joy for anyone else? Find out what others need. Think about your own luck and good fortune. Usually we can see a way the path can be smoothed for others. Then we can spend our golden years getting feedback (and usually thanks!) and fine-tuning. What a pleasure!

            Models & Mentors – “Every child is born a genius” – Buckminster Fuller

            “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children” – Nelson Mandela

            “Children make your life important” – Erma Bombeck

            “All kids need is a little help, a little hope and someone who believes in them” – Magic Johnson

            Meditation –

            Mantra –“ I multiply”

            #Haiku: Legacy

            Your essence is what’s
            Left behind
            Gift of
            Presence;
            Magic:
            Codified

          6. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

            The Labyrinth – Complexity – Last night I dreamed of being at a resort where people were able to run across the top of the ocean playing a curling game – but they had to move fast. I couldn’t figure out what kept their feet above the waves. Later it was my job to provide lunch but the food at the little store was appalling. Very little bread, all stale – some weird canned vegetables, no protein other than some very suspect cheese. In the dream, I felt actual agony at the paucity of my choices. Then, on waking, I had to laugh at myself and my tiny fake “dilemmas”!


            Do you Experience “Problem-solving dreams” you can’t seem to solve? Life is very complex. We are bombarded with daily reminders that many of its problems are too big for our tiny brains to tackle alone. We need help to decipher the maze – legions of engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and artists – living and dead. Our mythic history has always been: Tiny Helpless Human Confronts Huge Hostile Universe.

            You Are A Problem Solver – There is a always a way out of the labyrinth. You can follow string, leave breadcrumbs, mark walls, climb higher to get a birds’ eye view. My favorite cartoon shows a goat calmly eating his way through the maze. The key, problem solvers tell you, is not to panic. Whole years of primary education are devoted to getting you to sit down, breathe calmly and divide the problem into steps. Remember what you have been taught. Open your Dream Journal and recall your goals.

            Challenge – It is not necessary to solve the entire problem to solve the problem. Even a blind rat can get through a maze one step at a time. Algebra is the manipulation of unknowns. Guessing at the existence of x using the behavior of surrounding particles allows us to see without eyes. Many “hacks” are clever, and certain innovators have a gift for adaptation and reconfiguration. We can always get help. Repeat after me: “All my problems have a solution.” Often the solution is to view the “problem” differently. Maybe it isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity.

            Danger – Primary dangers are panic (inability to think) and defeatist thinking (lack of imagination). The lovely movie The Martian shows a scientist literally conquering the impossible. If you ”give up”, you never get there, but retreat, reconstitution, changing training regimens and getting help are NOT giving up. “Sleep on it” is always good advice, as is viewing the difficulty from some other angle or changing the definitions of the entities considered.

            Opportunity – Key to success is fostering excitement about the challenges. Our high school used to dump couples in the countryside at night and give a prize to the first couple who found their way home! (Following roads and train tracks always a good idea.) Scavenger hunts and orienteering cover much the same territory. The fact that a problem is difficult only makes it more fun. Ask chess players.

            Models & Mentors – “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity”
            – Douglas Horton

            “The labyrinth combines walking and thinking to open your power of imaginative perception” – Lauren Artress

            “Willingness to be puzzled is a valuable trait to cultivate” – Noam Chomsky

            “In a maze, find the center, in a labyrinth, find yourself” – Alysse Aallyn

            “Life is a puzzle, missing pieces guaranteed and you can’t cheat and look at the box” – Anonymous

            Mantra – “I solve”

            Meditation:

            #Haiku: Brainworms

            Cruel
            Thoughts niggle;
            Threatening
            Hijack:
            Breathe deep:
            Swipe left
            Swipe right
            Float
            Up