Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Soulmates

  • 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

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

    Memory = THE PAST – “Practice Cuts”

    “Where did you come from?”

    In Memory lies our Identity. There are probably no sadder words than “I don’t remember you.” We are born with wild, unexplored ambitions and we spend our lives trying to live up to them by learning & acquiring partnership, discipline & practice. And sometimes, trying to forget negative conditioning and poor patterning.

    Memory is the foundation of art, science and law as we try to reflect back what we have learned. Memory gives us the words to say to build and express our emotions & intent. Luckily our bodies have memories, too. Memory resides in hearing, touch, taste, sight and muscle; long after words have gone.

    Past Patterns – Sometimes we recognize a pattern coming around again, but more often, we don’t. We’re accustomed to treating each new crisis as if it blew in out of nowhere. This is where journaling can really pay off for us as we ask a series of questions: have I been here before? And what did it look like that time? Is there anything different – really new – about now?

    Negative Conditioning is when we learned unhelpful or destructive practices. If we grew up with parents who couldn’t forge strong intimate connections there is a danger we will re-experience all their trouble. We also learn from patterns experienced through art or viewed from a distance. And then there are “cultural ideals” – some of which are downright unhealthy and must be discarded.

    Sometimes we only see a situation clearly when it’s happening to someone else! What advice does our past self have to give us – our cockier, more youthful self? How about our wiser self – the mature self who can see the whole picture — the one who’s “arrived”?

    Memory is not just who we are, memory is where we live. Our Soulmate is not a mind-reader, so communication is constant and evolving. Memories change, as we change. Different aspects of our own story emerge into importance as we evolve. Previously, we might not have even noticed aspects of our own story that we now see as key. This has important implications for the presentation of self that is critical to our connection with another person.

    Are prepared for this “other” to dramatically transform the way we see ourselves; to change our story’s “meaning” as well as altering our past and empowering our future? There is an Official Version of our past we like to tell others as we introduce ourselves; now is the time to ponder the Secret Version. The version we only tell our most significant other.

    Is it secret because it is shameful? Soulmate Love is not an opportunity to escape our past but to heal it. That toxic shame may be the exact lens through which you and the Soulmate first “see” each other. Your connection will start as a series of conversations, which may be physical, verbal, or non-verbal.

    In literature, the tale of Cupid & Psyche embodies these processes, as Psyche (“The Soul”) first thinks she is married to a monster with whom she can only mate in darkness. She “steals a glance” at him when he is sleeping but, when he catches her, he is furious and flees. The plot twist: he was actually a beautiful young man, but he didn’t know it so was not ready to reveal himself. The “monster” was his toxic shame. How does the story end? You and your Soulmate will find out.

    PRACTICE CUTS

    The dead gush cruelly after dying.
    High time to make some changes;
    Get religion, have visions
    See god, become a nun


    Some self worth knowing.
    Time is gunning for me
    Arthritic fingers
    Scrabbling at my dreams


    Playing old tunes
    Scratchy now, less sensitive.

    I’m a body in search of a car wreck
    That old deus ex machina
    Disaster; blood is so good


    At erasing uncertainty &
    Bringing back a taste for life.
    Reduce me, silence: fortify
    Some other ego, mine’s too tired.


    Ebb out along the tide,
    Cauterize this woof-warp of a pattern
    So plain even I can see it.

    Reduce me to unbending bones of
    My essential self: sweet sister; she;
    The soul I was before I became me.

  • 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

    Dreams = IMAGINATION “Freud’s Wolfman”

    “Spiritual Connectivity”


    Your Soulmate is reaching out to you in dreams. In dreams we discover not just the Other but ourselves. Dreams give the lie to the idea that we are simple biological creatures tethered to rituals of attachment, food foraging, illness and death. In dreams we see visions, and we spend we rest of our lives puzzling out their meaning.

    There has not yet been a human culture unaware of the numinous nature of existence. Given the choice between symbol-saturated subjects and simple objects, we go for the symbol every time. We live entirely within our own heads, playing out a story line known to us alone.


    Dreams awaken us to different reveries. It is quite possible, as the philosophers suggest, that we are truly asleep in our everyday interactions and only fully conscious in our Dreams.
    Dreams consolidate the day’s learning with the night’s yearning, forging connections with our deepest selves and with others’ deepest selves, alive and dead. Dreams are the story our primitive self tells our grown-up, social selves.

    Dreams don’t necessarily even belong to us but can be “transferred” from those around us, including the dead, and even celebrities (such as literary figures and fictional characters) with whom we have forged an emotional bond. Therefore, the content of the dream, while important, is not as important as the soul from which it originates.


    Today we will work on “self-hypnosis;” a process of “asking a question”, relaxing into a “waking trance” and thinking about what bubbles up. Remember not all questions have answers, and few have immediate answers; but it is important to put the question “out there”.


    If fear is our primary reaction when we want to study our deepest links with others, that has to be dealt with so that we can move forward in our Soulmate Quest. What do we fear, exactly? We are not at the “mercy” of the universe, we are its “co-creators” and we must bravely claim our birthright.


    Dreams are to be welcomed; they are not simply warnings and stories but also teases, in a language we need to learn. Dreams celebrate our spiritual connectivity not just with all the creatures who have ever shared the gift of life but with ideas, group powers and abilities.

    They say when we go to sleep in one world, we awake in another. Perhaps it is our Soulmate’s world. Dreams show us our possibilities as well as our fears. I once had a dream in which I looked at myself in my coffin, but it was a powerful “my soul jumps!” experience and not a fearful one. When my son was a tiny boy he described dreamed of driving a truck “and my feet reached the pedals!”

    Sometimes we are such beginners we don’t even know what to dream about. Dreams have long been recognized as warnings. Our unconscious sees dangers our conscious self refuses to recognize. So it creates a worthwhile map – not to the way forward, but a method of understanding where you have been. If you are having nightmares about a love choice, this is something to pay attention to. Gavin de Becker tells us (Gift of Fear) to honor our fear, but not to be controlled by it. Move forward with caution.

    DREAM OF FREUD’S WOLFMAN

    The window opens of its own accord.
    He’s catapulted forward; waked.
    Outside, the walnut tree is hung with wolves
    Each to its branch; they watch him


    Blankly. Stillness has its
    Consequence. They are fat
    As lambs ready for castration; round
    As dogs; white as mother’s underdrawers.


    Such tails! Thick tails
    Perked and listening!
    Blue snow rumples up the bedclothes; stiffens
    Into plaster. This sky leads nowhere.


    The child’s eyes are frozen like the window
    They do not close; this tree
    Is butchered at the crown; it will
    Not grow.


    The wind that frosts the room is welcome
    Stirring like a scream and like a scream
    It alters what it sees.
    The wolves levitate.


    What they know the child
    Must discover.

  • 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.

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

    Sex = SOULMATES – ‘”Nocturne”

    “are Soulmates born or made?”


    In the Tantric Garden, Sex is sacred. In blindness we reach out to touch, to connect. This garden of existence demands that we inhale life through our every pore, and the central need of life is that we must share the flame that warms us or risk its ultimate extinction. There could be no garden without the mystery and joy of pollination and propagation; doubling and tripling not just our chances of survival but intensifying our savor and our senses.

    The garden becomes a hugely hungry mouth, a pulsating groin, and we moan with it. The shock of the sublime. To live the dream is to become the dream. We are constituted for pleasure; igniting and increasing pleasure in a firework display that mimic the creation of the universe itself. Relationships solidify; two strengthen into one; frail flesh solidifies and love itself becomes unbreakable.

    Spring is mating. We are searching for our lost half, our better AND our worse self. As we transform from a helpless to an intentional person, we seek the self we have been all along, as they seek themselves in us.

    NOCTURNE

    You reveal

    Yourself to me

    To my inner palate

    An artist’s palette

    Moth-winged hands

    Fluttering

    Out the phases of your moon-flat belly your

    Crescent thighs surging

    Urging

    Union undivided

    Prickly venus flytrap hairs that guard

    Your anis scented anus open up

    Your fleshy mandibles

    For a toothless suck

    In trembling sheaves

    Grouting for your smoky-salted dinner

    Double-snouted cock stiffens in

    My mango halves

    O I will baste you when its time

    With angel-spit, with love-spawn

    Dip you in my styx of roe

    Musky caviar

    You sensate wanderer you

    Suck

    Ubus

    I know you
    Open me.

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

    The shadow=DISSONANCE “Considering the Chill Factor

    “Confronting your shadow self”

    We were very young when first we became aware of The Shadow. No happy moment, no celebration of joy is unaffected by its subtle miasma. But what is it exactly?

    Much of childhood – history itself, in fact – is absorbed by the effort to put a name to this lurking angst.

    Demonic forces, bad dreams, animals, reptiles, insects, The Invisible – entire populations of seemingly foreign persons have been stigmatized by this label. Which is not to say that somebody, somewhere, didn’t experience trouble from the reality of these forces.

    Philosophers tell us that all we’re feeling is an inherent fear of death, but we can see that fear itself is hardwired into species who are otherwise unselfconscious of the limitations of existence. Perhaps all we have to fear is Fear itself, as the President put it. But who would willingly wish to walk fearless through this dangerous world? Isn’t it better to be prepared and take care?

    A great man once advised us to be as wily as serpents and as gentle as doves. Good advice for gardeners! The knowledge that joy is fragile heightens its ecstatic power. Without this triple vision of past, possibility and future courage itself would be impossible.

    Suspicion – There is something behind us. We can feel its unsettling presence. It seems to follow us everywhere, teasing a fine line between doubt and paranoia. In medieval times this “shadow” was represented by The Grim Reaper, complete with cape and scythe, reminding us the party would soon be over. We are warned to “Take care” by friends and loved ones; but against what exactly?

    Doctors tell us to be vigilant about our health while at the same time they mock hypochondriacs. There are people who never “take care” and who insist that suspicion itself creates the monster, but on the whole, these people are not enviable. They appear to have rejected a “sixth sense” we’re all born with. Who would willfully blind themselves?

    For those of us committed to exploring all our senses suspicion shadows joy as doubt shadows faith. Visually, shadows show us where things are. Like taste testers cultivating knowledge of the edge between sweet and sour we “feel” for the “turn” of the tide. The better to avoid it? Possibly to control it? At least to get an image – however brief – of the Thing that has been following, following?

    Ascetics need particularly to arm themselves with some sense of when “just enough” turns into “too much.” Many authorities try to convince us that being a little “hungry” is a good thing. Certainly being “sated” triggers a drowsy, relaxed, state in which our “guard” is down. We do lose consciousness of that quiet little “frenemy” following. Following. The Shadow symbolizes a problematic development just coming into perceptive range.

    Jung says we all seek our opposite, our “shadow self.” Feminists want house-husbands, wall street traders want supermodels. We yearn to recover our disavowed selves, blindly, subconsciously. Online profiles request specific “looks”, weights, backgrounds, experiences as if “soulmate” was a job. Yet we remain dissatisfied; feel  shortchanged. Perhaps the shadow is fear of change. The thoughtful among us blame ourselves: “I’m not right”; the shallow blame the world:  “I can never get what I want.”

    The truth is we are judging plants by seeds when what we want are gardeners. We want to become gardeners, we wish to BE the garden. But how on earth can we do THAT?

    Absence of understanding OR language renders our circumstances hopeless. We need another singer who will help construct a duet that doesn’t yet exist, a fellow artist of the sexual, the subconscious, the unconscious, who paints us as we photograph them. We need to be prepared to change places in a moment, to sing and redesign the other’s part. We must be willing dreamers with a huge repository of fantasy, fearless poets accessing a universal vocabulary. We will fall in love, then out of it, fall deeper, soar. It will feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar at every point as we blend swiftly changing roles of tutor and pupil.  Prepare yourself to plunge into another and become them, as they remodel you.

    CONSIDERING THE CHILL FACTOR
     
    Considering the chill factor
    As I always try to do –
    That day was hot
    Too hot for love or war.

    We sit in restaurants.  I pick
    The blue-veined shrimp
    He picks the black-veined news.

    Outside drunkards
    Carom off the plexiglass like entertaining fish.
    “They envy us” I say
    and Andrew says
    “How nice.”

    I see a couple coming in; she holds him up
    As I so often upheld you.
    I know that touch – like
    surgeons who
     manipulate the dying.

    She wears my dress
    the one I wore the day you
    Shamed me
    Stuck me sizzling to the sidewalk –
    Shamed us both
    with red red stains.

    “Andrew  I don’t think
    I have quite forgiven you.”
    Andrew says “How nice” and
    Lays his coffee spoon upon the cloth –
    I hate the brown stain –
    it spreads like murder
    Like the bad smell of death
    Breeding fumes as we do
    Corpses in the sun.

    I rise to speak
    Shrimp spewing from my mouth like
    Parasites.
    “We have always been
    So happy, you and I-“

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

    The path = GOALS -“A swan’s wing shows”

    “What do you want REALLY?”

    Tantra is the Path of Attachment. Being is travel. Movement. Closing in on a possible, seemingly viable Soulmate, we need to move forward slowly, checking items off our list and paying close attention to the items on THEIR LIST.

    That’s the focus of the passage we call “The Path” – bringing your intra-psychic “lists” to consciousness. Because you are always operating with a list, whether you are aware of it or not, but some of the items on it might be seriously out of date, illogical, contradictory or downright pernicious. (Such as, “I need my partner to guarantee they’ll never get sick or grow old.”)

    Think deeply about your dreams and do your best to verbalize them, if only to yourself or to a trusted other. Some of us benefit by writing it down. Accept that goals evolve because…we are alive. Being is travel, remember?

    Goals are all about communication. With yourself first, then with others. As we feel our way forwards, our goals change. Having a partner who’s the same as we are (an introvert, a careerist, a Democrat, to give a few examples) may suddenly stop being so important as we connect on a deeper plane. Some of our goals were designed to protect us, and it may be that as we begin to trust our partner and grow ourselves we need less and less protection.

    Being is Travel. As we shape the Path, it shapes us. Even the most anti-social creatures are constantly making paths for others to follow. Such delight when we uncover a ready-made Path! (Path-making is exhausting!) Such a mysterious invitation! Paths must lead Somewhere. Paths speak of Destination, Intention, Design, History. Every Path, Visible or not, speaks of the existence of The Other. Paths are our Robinson Crusoe footprint. They represent Hope: this Path worked not just once, but many times. We are proud of being Pathmakers in our turn, leading the weary, frightened traveler of the future toward confidence and reliability.

    Goals

    A swan’s wing shows
    The universe.
    No surprise to me –
    From this small window I see
    More than I can ever
    Understand; still I cast my nets
    And still I’m sinking;
    Restless; forced to move
    This unfriendly virus IS my blood –
    I see it in your eyes
    Thirties wasted and nothing come.
    It never quite meets –
    Attempt and reach.
    I see it in my dreams which
    Introduce me to the dead;
    Protect my essence from the hive.
    Wrapped tightly in this web of
    Earthly light; we
    Pray for mystery, glory; thought & sight.

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

    Danger = RISK, DESTRUCTION: “Online”

    “Face your fears” – Reaching out to others makes us vulnerable. We have to be trusting, and danger can be hard to recognize. It comes in forms we have never seen before; sometimes in forms no one’s ever seen before. Luckily, we are hardwired to perceive Danger. That doesn’t mean we will always perceive it, or even know which direction it’s coming from; Danger is a clever chameleon, prone to snares and disguise. But it does mean we should never put our “Danger perceptors” entirely to sleep the way others might demand – requesting an unnecessarily lavish display of trust. You will find those demanders frequently hold back a few cards themselves, sometimes for “our own good” but always for their own good.

    Challenge – Today we will examine “pushback”. While planning ways to intensify our presence in the world so that we can find our soulmate and our soulmate can find us, we must think about how much cooperation can we expect from the “universe” at large. Damn little! And why is that? Status quo? Inertia? Entropy? Too many dancers and too few partners? All of the above?

    In trying to create change are we water flowing downhill seeking a path “of least resistance” or are we more like an exhausted marathoner stumbling up a steep incline (in bad weather!)

    What will “resistance” against us look like and where will it come from? Most importantly, how will we react? Marathoners must conserve their strength. This course is unfamiliar: we have no idea what traps, snares and pitfalls lie ahead. How can we arm ourselves? One technique is to try not to take all this pushback personally. To do so might waste precious emotional resources. When we see others as preventing us from getting ahead, they see us as threatening their place in the world. “Resistance” may even be “blind” through Acts of God, devolution and just plain bad luck. We’re all familiar with the cataclysmic damage “being in the wrong place at the wrong time” can inflict.

    But if we are determined to move forward in our pursuit of a soulmate, we have committed ourselves to motion. Let us then “enlighten” and educate our intellect, studying what we might expect and strategizing how we can protect ourselves and achieve synchronicity.

    Don’t we secretly already know that our fear itself creates most monsters? And yet there ARE real things to be afraid of out there. For that reason, we need to face our fears squarely and list them, but we also need to honestly assess the risks. It never fails to surprise me that in exclusively online communications, people don’t make more of an effort to find out whether the other person is “real” or not. That can only be because they are enjoying the connection so enormously. It is filling a vacuum, and that pressure alone will render us willfully blind. The Buddhists counsel us to look at our emotions from a distance. Don’t judge them, don’t disregard them, simply observe them.

    It is “just” a feeling. It is OK to enjoy a conversation. But if the only reason you enjoy it is because you are entering into an impossible fantasy, danger signals should be flashing. No harm in running background checks! No harm in running this person’s “picture” through Google to see who they REALLY are – or aren’t. If the best conversations don’t happen with the masks off, then this person can’t be right for you.

    If we wish to build and not destroy, we will need a fellow engineer as committed as we are to the physics of existence – what behaviors enhance growth and flourishing, and what techniques gut and wither. Narcissists in particular try to entrap through “love bombing” – demonstrating dazzle & commitment far too soon. If it looks like “overkill” it probably is. We don’t want to be “killed” period! A healthy suspicion keeps you questioning – and on the road to reality.

    Online

    I quested
    You bested.
    I texted
    You sexted.
    I posted
    You ghosted
    I roasted