Tag: #Spirituality

  • The Book of You – Haiku Diary by Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku: The Sunflower

    Petaled abandon

    Squanders

    Heaven’s glory:

    Feeding all our

    Hungers

  • Diary of a Spiritual Journey – Haiku by Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku: Dear Jane Austen

    Formalized play

    Plumbs nature’s

    Riot;

    Edit

    Emote:

    Judge

    Love

    Rewrite

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Sunflowers – Spirituality

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are Thirsting for Light and the Light is Thirsting for You. Do you dream of other-worldly events? Parapsychological and out of body experiences? Flying and underwater breathing? These freedom dreams of otherworldly mastery tell us much about who we are. In the Creative Oracle, the sunflower represents our spirituality – a reaching out for connection with something others might insist is not there. But we feel – very strongly – that it is. Who’s right?

    Sunflowers Turn to The Light and So Do Creatives. Hundreds of years ago Blaise Pascal argued that we have so much to gain if the supernatural is true, and nothing to gain if it isn’t, so that the calculus is simple. When you act as if the universe was richly designed by a Carer who promotes Goodness and rewards Love, you create the ideal conditions for human flourishing, whereas, as we all know, and has been conclusively proven scientifically, pessimism about outcomes dramatically lowers future benefits. Certainly, one could argue that our communications with each other are fraught with mistake and misapprehension, but that’s an argument for increased effort and insight and hardly a quitter’s mandate.

    Creatives Cultivate Sixth Sense – Some people are born color blind – others are tone deaf – so it’s perfectly possible some are unable to access the extra dimensions. But the lucky creative few – know that there is a universal resource to be tapped into when we can maneuver ourselves to the “right wavelength.”

    Creatives Follow The Sunflower Path – What IS our mandate? Focus on increasing your ability to tell health and growth potential from sickness and disease enhancement. This will help you find the right path and the right people. Goodness never seeks your diminishment and constriction – the ruthless pursuit of human power does that. Test all wavelengths for generosity, balance and liveliness and contemplate what is beneficial in the universe. Bask in the flow of reassurance, resilience and recovery that intense spirituality provides.

    Creative Challenge – Fully explore your fears with a view to answering Immanuel Kant’s timeless question, “What can we hope?” Jesus focused his ministry on healing and met virulent rule-focused pushback. He found himself in a frenzy of status-seeking coupled with denigration. His life as well as his words teach us that the “Letter” kills, but the “spirit” gives Life. It is up to us to find and nourish that spirit. Once you can feel the “angels” – i.e. virtues – around you – (I picture them as nosing deer!) your fear subsides.

    Creatives Never Surrender Their Ability to Scent Danger – No journey can be free of risk. Trust requires us to follow where we cannot see the path, and so sometimes we lose the path. Sometimes we realize our “guide” REALLY looks to capture & constrain, not enhance & liberate. We must maintain our ability and reserve our right to recognize this so that we can reverse course before the cliff edge, telling malignant spirits “You no longer represent me” and to seek out a healthier program of progress.

    Creatives Enhance Opportunity for Everyone – We are never alone. All around us are pilgrims struggling with the same things we’re struggling with. Sharing and caring knits us together. The American two party political system benefits from stirring up hatreds to protect itself from change. Don’t accept it. We are not each other’s enemies. The possibilities for friendship and connection are huge, but hatred and anger lead in only one direction.

    Models & Mentors – “The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”- W.B. Yeats

    “You need not work to become spiritual – you are spiritual. You need only to recognize that fact” – Julia Cameron

    “The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love” – Marianne Williamson

    “Happy people build their inner world – unhappy people blame their outer world” – Dalai Lama

    “The power of God is with you at all times, through the activities of mind, sense, breathing, the emotions , doing all the work, using you as mere instrument” – Bhagavad Gita

    #Haiku: Hegira

    Fleeing outward
    Questing
    Fresh feathers
    Enabling
    Spirit’s
    Aching wings

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Planets & Stars – Eternity

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Models & Mentors – “Trust in dreams – they are the hidden gate to eternity” – Khalil Gibran

    “Launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment”
    Henry David Thoreau

    “What we do in life echoes in eternity” – Marcus Aurelius

    ‘Love is the emblem of eternity, effacing memory of its beginning and all fear of its end” – Mme. De Stael

    #Haiku: Beginners’ Mind

    I never
    Graduate;
    Freshened by
    Eternally
    Discovering.

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Loss – Suffering

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb. Every religion and philosophical system must account for the misery we see around us – storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration and animal predation.

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

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

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

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

    Creative Daring Frees the Universe – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through this many times. Further epiphanies await.

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

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

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

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

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

    #Haiku: Profit/Loss Analysis

    Does autumn lose summer
    Warmth or
    Gain snow-blanket?
    Peonies decide.

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Mystery – Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    #Haiku: Mystery

    Can’t
    “Get to the bottom of”
    World, thought, faith, time or Love; it’s
    Bottom-
    Less

  • Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

    Sunflowers = SPIRITUALITY “Curatrix”

    “Pressing beyond”

    The Sunflower cranes its black eye skyward. “Golden wings mirror heaven, petalled glories feed multitudes.” In the language of flowers “Helianthus” is a symbol of wealth and success. Sunflowers bring good luck in gardens (or kept under the bed at night they provide sweet dreams); in multiples this flower must astonish, seeming to create a path to Heaven.


    In the Tantric Garden the Sunflower blooms inside of YOU, expressing “spirituality”; your “extra dimension.”

    Spirituality means accepting and exploring the non-physical world. This is where the “living water” flows, the “ultimate refreshment” that brings peace and the kind of quiet joy that looks around for someone to share. You are becoming aware that people have “auras” – even while sleeping, under conditions when they are not consciously sending out “signals.”

    What is your aura? Think about it. What are you projecting? And how about your Beloved’s aura? If you have negative, angry, punitive and vengeful beliefs, these will get in the way of ultimate connection.

    Then there will be the aura you create together, you and your Soulmate, as you join in the life of the Spirit. Spirituality is a concept of eternality, meeting together in a world beyond your physical selves.

    Sexual ecstasy offers this elevated sensation of ultimate unity. To live in this reassuring cocoon feels like heaven on earth – no wonder we all search for it. But no aggressive quest can uncover our spirit, it requires patience, time, faith and practice. Yoga and meditation are always good places to start, as is quietly being alone with the Beloved and discussing whatever bubbles up in a life-enhancing, expansive spirit of curiosity.

    Curatrix

    Cold lonely core I was
    Before you found me
    Freed me from
    Ambition’s boundary.
    Now I’m a multi facet of your stone
    Unlike myself when I’m alone.
    Memories like stones I’m free to choose
    And on life’s river,
    Blissfully, cruise.