Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Sexuality

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Nurturing = GROWTH “Cedarwood Chest”

    “Are you ready to take care of the Beloved? Or do you just want to receive care?”

    Nurturing is Stewardship plus Love. It is a non-exploitative relationship many of the fruits of which the Steward may not even live to see. Nurturing requires both Sensitivity and Balance; an appropriate combination of love, modeling and support which is constantly changing.

    Nothing can be decided by rote; intelligence and commitment must be involved and practice and experimentation is required. Experiments mandate a certain proportion of failure: let’s face it; a high proportion. Failure requires recovery and forgiveness – of self and others – and a learning curve. We need to understand “what works” and forge new plans keeping new discoveries in mind. We are all caught up in the physics of existence. Many people who call themselves religious or spiritual wonder why, if there’s a loving God, Earth isn’t already Heaven.

    Heaven is (so far as we know) a mental construct exhibiting all the pleasures & joys of earthly existence without the suffering and struggles of this painfully real world. Unfortunately a large proportion of our earthly pleasure
    revolves around taking, hoarding, and excluding.

    Nurturing focuses on producing successful flourishing health and productivity. It literally makes the universe go round. I think it strongly suggests what Heaven really will be like: caring for others in general and promoting universal, not just personal well-being.

    Are we patient, loving mothers to our struggling selves? Or are we looking for someone else to assume this role? The Nurturing card reminds us that to find a worthy, healthy other, we must be healthy and worthy ourselves. The symbiosis card told us that reciprocity is key, that this is not going to be a one-way street.

    What are our nurturing capabilities? Do we have a pet? Have we mentored? Do we teach? We will represent a mystical wilderness to the Other as we represent a mysterious universe to them. There is so much we can share. There is so much we need to be given to have our Wisdom Eye fully opened.

    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

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    The Waterfall = CHANGE “Preppy”

    “If we open ourselves, don’t we lose control over our transformation?”

    Rendering a garden makes order out of chaos. And yet we want Nature – in all its rude, obstreperous glory – to pour out constantly through and on our little carefully tended patch – without, hopefully, overwhelming or destroying it. The Waterfall is a perfect metaphor for organizing chaos, making it beautiful and extracting our necessary nourishment from its dangerous jaws.

    The Waterfall represents sudden, possibly violent change. Surprise reversals. In our quest for soulmate, we have to hold ourselves ready for these astonishments, because they are the essence of what the universe has to teach us. Right when we think we have it all figured out is when we are most in need of a surprise.

    Often this comes in the form of chemistry: who we are attracted to versus who we THINK we are attracted to. At the beginning of our lives, our minds were unformed. Our wild, unique self lay still undiscovered. We often THINK we desire a High Status Individual, someone the Pod – the amorphous mass we came out of – would approve (even envy.)

    Friendship often teaches us the delight of the quirky. Someone who loves us, whose face lights up when we share, becomes beautiful to us. Someone who reveals themselves, takes chances with us, becomes magical. There is a reason that rom-coms focus on the “surprise” in love; learning that the person who is good for you is not the source of dangerous thrills you’ve been desiring. That’s because this is often the way long-term love gets going. So – better be ready for your own Surprise.

    PREPPY

    Corseted with verbs
    French teacher sweeps
    Cherry blossoms from the tennis court
    As she would like to french
    The cherries, squelch them soundly
    Beneath her soccer-spiking shoes

    While the headmistress
    Cello-breasted
    Polishes graffiti carved upon her coffin
    In Chaucerian High English,
    And the girls –
    Nun-white, nun-blue

    Soar above the hockey fields like
    Foul-mouthed angels, anticipated ecstasy locked
    In narrow hope chests ripening on
    Amphetamines
    Free Love
    Bad dreams.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars -Seeking Soulmate with Alysse Aallyn

    Symbiosis = INTERDEPENDENCE “Impure Women”

    “I need you because you need me”

    Symbiosis is interdependence: far from being exploitation, most species require another’s contribution in order to flourish. Sometimes symbiosis is unacknowledged, especially if one of the partners is using “win/lose” reasoning and agonizes about who’s getting “more” out of the relationship.


    Turning a mutually beneficial relationship into a struggle for dominance marks the end of what could have been a thriving partnership.

    You can have rapturous sex with anybody. You can have devoted friendships with lots of entertaining, interesting people. Soulmating is deeper than that.

    You need each other. You can’t live without each other. Yes, you can bail out now if this sounds scary. Otherwise, that’s what you’re in for. You’re going to have to reveal – often discovering it for the first time yourself – what your needs are, and you’re going to have to be willing to put your shoulder to the other person’s wheel. You nourish each other.

    You’re going to slay each other’s dragons and set each other free FOREVER. This is NOT for the faint of heart. Better leave now if you were just hoping for a nice date, delicious sex, or someone to take home to Mom. Because the dragons WILL show themselves.

    Haiku: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

    Only soulmates can
    Slay each other’s dragons
    Says Tibetan Master

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Seeking a Soulmate with Alysse Aallyn

    Marriage = PARTNERSHIP ; “Marriage License”

    “The light in me honors the light in you”

    Marriage can be a spiritual partnership of equals, a conscientious joining of two lives seeking to shape a common purpose animated by love. If either partner is looking for a mule, hostage, trick mirror or foot soldier, the partnership will fail. The fact that our higher purpose can only be discovered after we have sealed the deal makes marriage the riskiest enterprise any of us can expect to tackle in a lifetime, but if we succeed, the payoff is tremendous and all effort, achievement and joy will be raised to the greatest power.

    Alliances: Very little in life is accomplished alone. We long to double and triple our efforts, to see 360 degrees at once , and to work while sleeping, like some double-headed god! We spend years fantasizing about the perfect partner who will provide the invisible cloak, the seven league boots, who will take over from us in the relay race while we are fainting or shivering with fever psychological or physical.

    And then there’s the love that give us x-ray vision; loving the person we learn from, seek comfort from, who gives us strength. Marriage is a blending; our partner bringing out gifts we didn’t know we had.

    Who can we partner with for today’s challenges? What does our soulmate seek in us? What can we do to be worthy of their faith? Marriage Card is a multiplicitous maximizer of power and potential as well as risk.

    Alliances are critical in life. None of us can survive, much less flourish, without some kind of team. The size of the team often determines our success, sometimes called “social capital.” This presents a special challenge to introverts, like me, who not only like but actually need to be alone, just to recharge, work and hear our own thoughts. The Fully Committed Other therefore has even more importance in our lives.

    Marriage is the ultimate commitment, publicly forswearing all others unless you specifically rewrite your vows differently (or take no vows at all.) Is marriage too great a step for you? Unimaginable, in fact? Or is this the future towards which you have been working? If so, you need a Beloved who truthfully companions, instead of pretending to agree.

    Marriage License

    This policy does not insure against
    disfigurement
    (controlled or uncontrolled)


    delirium; anguish approximate or anguish remote;
    dismembering scars
    that fever-chart a graph of life immutable to prayer


    intransigent of purpose;
    does not insure against
    my someday knowing you


    forcing pores to open where once
    you had no skin
    dining on your heart while you


    dine out on mine.
    When I forget this I know
    You will remind me


    As we are destined to
    Remind each other.

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Flight=INGENUITY “How did you meet?”

    What if you fall? What if you fly?

    We were all born knowing how to fly. In dreams (and ambition) we recapture that lost knowledge, soaring gravity-less above our quotidian terrain. But in our daytime lives, Flight becomes lost art, a feat mastered by moths, a state of freedom we can only envy. If we want to locate a soulmate, we will need to develop “wiles.”

    Ingenuity is a critical re-imagining of “same-old, same-old.” We need to release the rage behind our boredom and adopt fresh thinking in order to find our Soulmate. We need to consider some “unlikely” packages. Maybe you never imagined yourself with a younger person, someone with children, or someone from a very different background.

    To turn our useless, stubby appendages into wings we first project ourselves psychically into the air. Discover the world from a new angle. What does the hawk see as he floats above our traffic jam?

    Suddenly, falling becomes diving, lightness equals strength and floating becomes endurance. My old school had a challenge called “Night Problems” especially popular with daters – a blindfolded couple was dumped in the middle of Pennsylvania country and expected to find a way back to the school. Alert readers will recognize this as “orienteering”, a team sport in which participants’ true characters definitely emerge!

    Back when I was engaged, marriage counselors used to recommend sharing the same toothbrush or wallpapering a room together! Believe me, if you’re going to split up, it will happen then. True character most reveals itself under these stressful conditions.

    “HOW DID YOU MEET?”

    You saw me naked
    I saw you too close- up.
    You hovered, teaching,
    You drank vodka,
    I drank wormwood.

    Between green glimpses
    You cut mountains down to size;
    I’d no idea that one could
    Take such charge of space.

    Now I’m an icicle,
    Nostrils pierced by thorns, falling
    Face-first for every launch.
    You were the king the ghost pines saluted.

    From this height, I see everything;
    How you dove and danced!
    Speeding through your love-drunk universe,
    Infecting me with your own whiteness,

    I was dizzy, till all my blood drained out.
    You challenged God;
    I was the echo following after.
    Yet here I am after all this time;

    Does anything remain of you?

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Earth = RESOURCES
    “Green Thumb”

    The Garden we wish to share is an island in the universe that is Earth. As we travel, we soon find out that Earth itself is another Garden, almost too large for us to comprehend, containing many wonders.

    We are creatures of this planet that nourishes us; but who’s taking care of who? Gardens need a lot of care. The quality of the soil, timing and positioning of the plants, their symbiosis and synchronicity are critical. If we block the sun and clog the air with burning smoke we all suffer.

    Earth is our mother and we are her children. Mothers get old; they welcome renewal but they can’t last forever, so it is good to study sensible policies about health and healing. The key here is whether we even try to give back as much as we have received. If we make the effort, benefits will overflow.

    Our care for the earth is a model of the care we offer the Beloved Other. Is it an attractive deal? Are we givers as well as takers? Or are we just searching for a complicit Other to despoil the planet with?

    When it is a question of what we can give, we must examine our resources. This is the source of the famous kneeling offering of a diamond ring. Cynics would say a “taker” is hoping she’ll be so dazzled she won’t notice that’s ALL she’ll be getting. A honeymoon over before it even started.

    So what are the resources we are taking for granted? Often, having earth under our feet and a roof over our head is something we barely even think about. Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes. Our vision stretches so far down the road to imagined “somedays” that we are impatient with “today”. Today seems so modest, so ordinary. It isn’t until we really consider the people and places that have “always had our back” that we even form the words, “thank you.” A soulmate with contempt for the familiar doesn’t trust intimacy.

    Part of the reason we lose interest in our humblest resources is that we’ve done nothing to deserve them. It’s embarrassing for us even to admit there are resources we have no control over, that come to us just by virtue of where we chance to live, or work, or who we’re related to. It makes sense to add them up and give thanks for them right now. Sometimes we find that we can assume the reins of these neglected resources after all; sharpen them up, improve them, modify and share them into an aspect of our life-plan after all.

    A good example is the rude health that often comes to all of us simply as part of our youth. We can’t rely on that forever! Are there ways that we abuse good health, good sleep, warm familial connections and may even be unconsciously reducing our future opportunities of enjoying them? Let’s make them part of our conscious plan today and stop taking them for granted.

    Why do we harm our own resources? Why can’t we use the resources that we have? Why waste our time pining for those we DON’T have? Descending deeper through the subconscious we uncover the powerful, devastating wish is to be the exact opposite to what we actually are. Our fantasy is so powerful, we can picture this person – us, but better proportioned, more beautiful, intelligent, relaxed, powerful, magnetic. Mustering all these imagined resources, we yearn to attract someone who is ALSO just like that.

    Cat-fishers know this and try to lure us into their web with borrowed pix, false profiles and Fear of Missing Out. Fantasy not only WON’T save us, it makes us hate ourselves! Now is the time to study our REAL resources – they are UNIQUE. Is it our wonderful family? Our stubborn determination? Fantastic teeth? Interesting job? Ability to laugh? Interest in others? Generosity? Friends? Faith? All these things? Think about your resume, which describes where you ACTUALLY WENT and what you ACTUALLY DID. Now try to write one about what you learned and who you became and where that stands on the path to who you want to be.

    Didn’t the mistakes lead to insight? Didn’t the suffering deepen your compassion? Are we stronger at the broken places? The further into this exercise you go the more likely you are to realize your soulmate will be lucky to have you!

    Green Thumb

    You tend my body so well you can’t
    Surprise me anymore
    You’re the surprise and
    I’m used to you
    Folding back my lettuce leaves with your tongue
    Coaxing the reluctant caterpillar
    While I lie awake giddy with
    Self preservation until
    The final firecracker moment
    When you release and flourish
    The fragrant butterfly

  • The Language of Butterflies – for caterpillars or; Walking the Path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    The Sun=LIGHT&TRUTH “Sunbather”

    “Turning on the heat”

    We are all Sun Worshippers. It is easy to understand how this star became a deity to the ancients considering it warms and replenishes us into activity and strength. Turns out, all of us are batteried by solar power, just like the reptiles. Our doctors and cosmetologists tell us to “stay out of the sun” and get our Vitamin D in a pill but we ignore them, drawn by the need to sun ourselves on the nearest rock, eyes closed into seeming vulnerability while our planet perpetually circles this fiery blaze. The Sun therefore represents in our lives a nourishing force which could make us stupid should we over-indulge.


    Light defeats darkness. To understand what this means we need to shed any “nocturnal prejudices” we may have and concentrate on light as the necessary enabler of Sight. In total darkness, we are at a loss; we see nothing. To “shed light” on a problem means to finally “see” it for what it is. Light, in other words, is knowledge. Understanding. We finally get it! It’s the “forehead clapping” moment when the “magic picture” resolves itself into shapes that make sense. Without this basic road map we are unmoored – can make no meaningful plans.


    Light, then is the Beginning of Intelligence. Light is Truth. It helps us to see each other for what we really are so we can forge meaningful connections, create meaningful plans and map out shared goals. Even the blind can make important use of Light – and all of us are partially blind in one way or another. But it is what we can “see” –and share – that matters.


    If Truth is so important, why do we all lie? The religion of advertising is both ethos and atmosphere in American life. A policy of presenting yourself in “your best light” becomes researching other people’s needs and weaknesses to find out what they can’t resist and pretending you’re that thing. This is no way to locate a Soulmate.

    The anger, suspicion and mistrust, the contempt, derision and manipulation behind these ideas does not magically go away. Therefore, we hate others for forcing us to be fake, and they hate us for not accepting their real selves. It’s a perfect storm of secret rage that torpedoes any possibility of authentic relationships.

    The way out is to commit to a different “religion” – that of honesty and sharing. But honesty requires knowing oneself, and we’ve discussed how difficult (and discouraging) that can be. Still, there’s no other way. We are who we’ve BEEN, who we ARE, but also who we WANT to be. And we need to want to be that person for a better reason than it looks good on TikTok or it might exert appeal over someone who turns us on.

    Fearful that you’ll be lonely forever? Au contraire! It turns out all of us have been yearning to bask in the comfort, the promise, the safety of reality, a place where growing things can freely evolve and connect, in peace.

    SUNBATHER

    Poor periwinkle hides
    within the final
    spiny spiral of his shell, no
    stronghold that from
    hungry file-worms’ whippet tongues nor
    sun-mad amateur biologists nor
    ten year olds; while I
    more evolved, lie
    among the oval-jointed shells, the
    sheepswool sponges, camouflage
    my breasts as comb-jellies, my hair
    as seaweed, fooling none yet
    impressing those
    I can’t deceive.

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

    The Moon = SUBTLE INFLUENCE : “Botticelli’s Simonetta”

    “Secret crushing”

    The Moon and the Sun have nothing in common. The Moon is a planet, the Sun is a star. The Moon doesn’t give light; it reflects light; it must be tired of being compared to the Sun. What an unfair fight!

    The Moon is our hostage, circling us slowly. Balefully. Oh, it has its worshippers. I mean, which would you rather be, Moonstruck or Sun-struck? You can recover from The Moon. The Moon seems manageable; Earth has visited it many times. The Moon is symbolic; vital for poets; unavoidable for lovers. The Moon is the Planet for people who like to sneak around. The Moon manages our tides, but subtly. Cruelly. She is the Queen of passive aggression.

    There are two ways to accomplish anything: full-frontal or “sneak attack.” This knowledge, so dear to military strategists, is one of the first things we discovered as children. You rarely get what you want simply by asking for it. Instead, you must study “the target” and determine likely responses. As children, we usually realized it helped if “target” was in a good mood! Bad mood targets say “no” to everything!

    But this simple reality has important ramifications for us adult planners: there is also “weather” in the world of human desire and accomplishment. It’s much more difficult to “take off” in a storm. The Moon is visible entirely by borrowed light, but that’s the least important thing about her. Her power may be invisible, but we can feel it in our blood, in our bodies!

    There could be no more useful introduction to the potency of Subtle Power. Sometimes in order to achieve our desire we must prepare our target to even hear us. Jesus illustrated this brilliantly in a series of parables anyone would understand. When he was asked a question, he’d tell a story whose moral was obvious. He allowed seekers to answer their own questions by first determining what “paradigm” matched their circumstance.

    Plotting the “weather” and analyzing the “players” tells us much of what we need to know when planning to move forward. It can be admirable to lay all our cards on the table, or it can be foolhardy; as men discover who propose on the first date. We’ve been given complex brains. Let’s use them to think strategically.

    Do you have a secret crush? Do you know why — or is not knowing an important part of its power over you? What’s influencing you? Where is this pull coming from?

    The moon exemplifies subtle power; entrancing its quarry like a sidewinder. That means it’s time to “think outside the box” and take a deep dive into the “hard” wiring of your motives and desires. Just how “hard” is that wiring? Just because it’s “factory-installed” doesn’t mean it can‘t be improved upon.

    “Customization” according to your unique requirements is far superior to accepting whatever your biology throws at you. Let’s study our own blueprints with a view to a possible re-design if we don’t like what we see. We all have nonsensical fears, triggers and prejudices; keeping them in darkness allows them to proliferate, even assume command. The Moon is one of the Imposture archetypes (Fireflies is the other) but the moon is more about you posing to fool yourself. 

    We who seek our Perfect Other Half wish to be free of all that. We want to know what we actually want, what benefits and what harms us and all we want is the ability to speak it honestly. Let’s compare your real self, your desired self and your social self to your desirable self – and learn.

    Can you change? This is the most important question, because you’ll have to change to blend smoothly with your other. Resistance to change – to experimentation, to re-design – is the biggest red flag there is. It’s a deal-breaker.

    SIMONETTA:
    Botticelli’s Muse

    Ah Simonetta!
    You were always
    All the faces; how we

    Pity the griffon backed toad
    Who dreams of you
    And you alone;

    Excepting your fatality –
    Eyes flint deep, pebble shallow,
    Thunder lines coiled on
    Lips pursed tight

    A tantrummy child
    Punishing parents by
    Refusing to breathe.

    As this world is not
    Perfection you can’t be;
    Yet somehow you embody

    Everything we yearn for; your
    Pear-hard belly
    Anticipating ravages;

    Unto that scar that splits you twice
    Equator-wise, spilling out
    the thistle-tailed phoenix

    Who perpetuates your face, spinning
    Ropes of rubied veins and
    Clouds of gilded hair –

    Arching you back to
    Burst you, husk and all
    Against the sun.

  • The Language of Butterflies – walking the path of Attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Duality = AMBIVALENCE “The Sideways Smile”

    “Love/Hate”

    Dormancy casts us into contemplation, and contemplation heightens our uncertainty. Duality reminds us that meditating on the opposites in our natures must become part of our standard meditation practice. When we desire to bring a soulmate into existence we ask ourselves: what does it mean to be “opposite”?

    Consider all sides of this equation; consider, also, that we ourselves create and trigger our own “opposites” so we must observe the infinite potential conceived by the opposite of intention, designed by the opposite of desire, spawning the opposite of Being itself.

    It is human to want two conflicting and contradictory things at once. When we “choose” any one thing, we give its shadow power. We still “want” the neglected thing: perhaps more than ever now that we can no longer “have” it. This can’t “hurt” us so long as we’re aware of it.

    We must expect the path not taken to rear up in our dreams and stake its claim to our life. When we see it, we dismiss it again: “Begone, I don’t want you. I have not chosen you.” Every time we make this statement we diminish its force a tiny bit. The worst thing we can do is become its advocate: “Maybe that’s not so bad. Why can’t I have both?” If we make that mistake we are setting up a vicious circle of longing for the way not chosen; we may decide we are more about the bad choices than the good ones: “I just can’t help myself.” Speak the words “Begone. You have no power over me. I have not chosen you.”

    Every time we say them they become a little bit more true. We have the right to become good souls by design, not monsters controlled by appetite alone.

    Approach/Avoidance. Fear/Attraction. Love/Hate. We feel all these emotions at the same time, swirling together to form a new emotion, ambivalence, which some of us try to negotiate using experimentation, “safe words”, role play. It’s possible; but rigidity is always to be distrusted. If we are manipulating a series of masks to hide behind our purpose is automatically defeated.

    What is that purpose? Self-knowledge. Self-revelation. Authenticity, followed by the bliss of Other-knowledge; other-revelation. And the fact that, together, soulmates become a multiplied force of never-yet-seen-in-the-history-of-the-world power and personhood. To achieve this goal, we learn to accept and know, tolerate, negotiate, master and revel in the wilderness within each of us and the wilderness we create together.

    This course can be fearful, even shaming. We will decide several times a day: “This is too much for me”, “I can’t do this,” “I’m not good at this.” How dare I release you when I can’t release me? How can I create you when I can’t create me?” We dare. We can. With the ultimate result that we release and create, Us.

    The Sideways Smile

    I heard you singing and remembered
    All the things that you’d forgotten
    Seeing you clearly – like
    A fish in a hailstone.


    Seeing your hands
    Long for a man I always thought
    Your upper lip too short
    Like a lion’s – in fact
    You have an animal presence –


    Placing no trust in words
    Placing no trust in love
    Pretending you’d never met me
    Creating islands undiscovered
    Worlds unreachable;


    You were the joke
    I didn’t get; I recall your sideways smile
    Blowing smoke between us
    Refusing to forgive the essential fragility that
    Marks us humans;


    Fated as you were
    Always surrendering
    To the scornful cries of your
    Invisible hecklers.

  • The Language of Butterflies – walking the path of attachment with Alysse Aallyn

    Winter = DORMANCY

    “What’s happening when nothing’s happening?”

    Winter’s force is shrouded, subtle. This unfolding happens on the universe’s timeline, not ours. There’s a lot of downtime – “thinking time.” Plenty of space for self doubt to creep in.

    All the important changes are happening just beyond our vision. The snowshoe rabbit changes fur to pure white for self-protection; he doesn’t have to think about it; it just happens. Other creatures work a little harder.

    Our art teacher always told us to value the white spaces, because they throw color and design into sharper relief, and so it is with winter. Finally, we see all things in clear perspective. Suddenly the humble woodpecker becomes a most exotic bird.

    Adventuresome humans love winter where gravity meets speed; we are always flying down one hill or another. And when we get to the bottom, we do it again! The thing I like best about winter is that it holds the promise of spring, tight in its protectively furled bud.

    Under the quiet surface much is happening, but little may be visible. (Psychologists call this “latency”.) Winter bears a real similarity to the state we call “sleep.” We yearn for sleep, even find it exciting, and researchers are constantly uncovering more benefits that it provides. It seems to “clean” our brains the way winter “cleans” the world!

    Winter has its own exotic creatures, the polar bear, the snow leopard, the precious ermine. These creatures seem magical to us as they make a living on the harshest landscapes.

    “Dormancy” is a necessary phase for anything living thing. All our energy is being conserved for maximum growth. We must ask ourselves: what is this thing that is gathering power? Is it a long desired consummation or some threateningly impossible monster?

    We remind ourselves that explorers saw the same “ice” bear we consider so adorable as a “monster.” Melville’s deadly whale was “white”. Perhaps beauty and monstrosity are flip sides of the same coin. What is happening to us? What do we want to happen? The real question is, Is our unconscious “for” us or against us?

    Jung said when we analyze our subconscious, it analyzes us: a marvelous phrase suggesting growth is a back-and-forth tennis match between our known and unknown selves. “Winter” gives us a chance to greet the unknown self and cuddle up with her. Much to think about!

    After our burst of energy planting seeds in searching for a soulmate, it may seem the world’s inert. But seeds are “taking hold.” The Bible reminds us that some will grow and some will not. We ourselves don’t know what we have planted and what it will look like when it finally enters sunlight.

    Once again, it’s all about us; how patient can we be? How do we handle uncertainty in this uncertain world? Can we relax against changes of pace, lessening of control, confusion? As we search for our “forever” person we need to BECOME a “forever person.”

    This is very unfamiliar, so of course we move slowly. No kneejerk reactions of anger or despair. There’s a joke about a motorist stranded without gas, carrying his can to a nearby farm but worried the farmer won’t cooperate. The motorist gets so angry at this imagined exchange that when he sees the farmer, he throws the gas can at him, screaming, “Keep your old gas!”

    He couldn’t “tolerate” the walk to the farmhouse without doubt, fear and shame sabotaging his thoughts. Let’s not handle our period of dormancy in that way. Let’s use it to toughen up. Sharpen up. Sweeten up, like maple syrup in the tree.

    TOO LATE IN THE YEAR

    The mind is double-edged as well as double-eyed
    She thinks; stands
    outside to watch him
    Sightlessly within;
    Safe within his private storm he
    Covers sheets with runes,  
    Purloined plans from somewhere else;
    Plagiarized love-letters –
    Sexual ivy casting
    Hawks-wing shadows
    on his bloodhound cheeks;
    That smile is too cautious;
    Too familiar;
    In season and out;
    Nurtured like his scars
    Deepening like his drama.
    Save him, save him voices cry but
    I know better; it’s too late
    Too late in the year.