Everyone’s is different. For some it will be just like church, for others it’s a “fish-fry”. Some people say it will be a place without animals, enemies, insects or unbelievers, others say it will be just like Earth. Some think it’s an endless loving embrace, others, a “roll in the hay” with “70 virgins.” These ideas are understandably small and based on limited and extremely personal human knowledge. This makes a mental construct; some kind of an existence of all joy and no pain. We can almost barely imagine that. What we can’t seem to imagine is awhere all participate; in other words, how can we feel joy if “wrong thoughts”, “impure behaviors” and “bad people” are rewarded? Jesus was asked this question and his answer sounds suspiciously like “get over it.” He told a long story about toilers in the vineyards paid the same amount no matter how late they showed up, just because the owner was so full of generosity and joy. Definitely something to think about. I personally like the idea that Paradiseis the place where “every tear will be wiped away.” Bliss: “Follow your bliss” is advice designed to bring you to your highest functioning where a veritable storm of alpha waves in your brain erases any sense of time-and body-bound accomplishment as we merge with other universal powers to achieve and experience the Ultimate. Must be what heaven feels like! Representational of the eternal embrace of our highest self with the highest selves of others, the Paradise card offers dreams of achievement of the highest quality. Whether the physically and mentally bound universe will appreciate it is another question entirely. Still, bliss awaits; and it is the grandest gift. How will we know when we’ve “arrived”? Life-changers live for the “future” – or so we think, considering the “future” never arrives! In other words, there has to be something wonderful about the “now”. I happen to think that the resolve to “be your best self” is part of a peaceful mind, a clear spirit, a joyous soul and a happy day. We start off in the morning; greeting the new day and listing the challenges we are expecting (and leaving room for the unexpected ones!), searching our hearts for the strength to meet them and giving thanks for that strength. In the power of peace and clarity we can accomplish much; surprising others as well as ourselves. It’s true we’ve fallen short in the past; understandably so, and we humbly acknowledge these shortfalls, forgive ourselves, and plan to meet difficulties differently with an improved chance of success. Gratitude – forgiveness – strategy – resolve and joy ; these are our morning companions. And that’s paradise.
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Alysse AallynAlysse Aallyn is a poet who sees tarot as a key to accessing the unconscious. She is the author of four well-received thrillers, Find Courtney, Depraved Heart, Woman Into Wolf and I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, one historical novel (Devlyn) and a book of short stories (Awake Till the End.) She has three published books of poetry – The Sacred Quiver, TheHot Skin and The Five Wounds and edited another (The Feathered Violin.) She trained in theatre at Circle in the Square Theatre School and Martha Graham School of Dance. She appeared in the part of Isabella in Jean Giraudoux’s The Enchanted at the New Yorker Theatre. She has held writing fellowships at Brooklyn College and LaSalle University. Her novel Depraved Heart won a 2011 CT Press Club fiction award and her play Queen of Swords was a semi-finalist in the 2014 National Arts Council First Play award. She has been invited to read her original work at The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC and has taught creative writing at Catonsville Community College. Woman Into Wolf was a semi-finalist for The National Playwrights Conference (2016) and her play Our Father’s Restaurant was performed on Pacifica Radio. She has also appeared as a crime commentator on ID - TV’s Blood Relatives.Her play, Let’s Speak Vietnamese was published in Dramatika Magazine. She directed The Maids for Theatre Upstairs in Columbia, Maryland. Other plays she’s written are The Honey & the Pang about Emily Dickinson’s posthumous career, Cuck’d– a modern Othello, and Caving, in which the theatre is transformed into a cave for a spelunking dare. Rough Sleep, (based on her novel I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead) was produced by Manhattan Repertory Theatre (W. 45thSt) in 2019. Her latest play, The Dalingridge Horror, (short version Leonard & Virginia) explores the partnership between Leonard & Virginia Woolf in their own words and was a finalist for the Tennessee Williams 2021 award. Her newest poetry collection, Haunted Wedding will be appearing in 2022 from Thriller Library. Archives
September 2022
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