The nagual Elias used to tell me that the whole of humanity has moved away from the abstract, although at one time we must have been close to it. It must have been our sustaining force. And then something happened and pulled us away from the abstract. Now we can’t get back to it. He used to say that it takes years for an apprentice to be able to go back to the abstract, that is, to know that knowledge and language can exist independent of each other. ~ Don Juan, The Power of Silence

Don Juan goes on to tell Carlos, knowledge and language are separate; for a sorcerer an abstract is something with no parallel in the human condition. Sorcerers meet the abstract without thinking about it or seeing it or touching it or feeling its presence.

This is what I refer to as aligning with intent; merging with the abstract and no words to explain it. It’s like being a witness, an observer, to an unfolding of abstractions of incomparable proportion. To attempt to find words to describe that which cannot be described would be to attempt to reason something out instead of just accepting it for what it is. That’s why it is referred to as being in the abstract, it exists without reference to a specific thing or instance. To try to define the abstract minimizes and greatly diminishes that which is purely magical and sublime.

Like everything else, when one who has experienced the abstract attempts to define it for another by putting it into words, they have no choice but to compare it to events or instances from a state of reason. Someone who is receiving this information then endeavors to understand it and make sense of it by formulating a perceptual base through their own filters and obviously their own different experiences which immediately diminishes the initial experience and removes it from the abstract thereby placing the experience into a quasi-definable distinction in an attempt to give form or meaning to it.

The person who is now attempting to understand the abstract experience of another may even go as far as trying to duplicate and encounter the exact same experience (impossible!) and will either fail which may cause them to waste precious energy by attempting to experience something they cannot; or, they may assert to have achieved their goal in claiming to have had the exact same experience. They have taken that which came from emptiness and gave it form. Now others may attempt to reach the goal of experiencing this particular “abstract” through the definitions and the methodologies provided; and thus, a new myth is born.

The abstract is abstract and is unique to the perception of each individual. It’s an awesome thing to witness the abstract unfolding. There is no guide-book, no how-to guide. Carlos presented concepts, abstract cores, and philosophies for the path of freedom but those who attempt to hold you accountable to any path by imposing their will upon you have yet to experience the silent knowledge that resides in the abstract.  Don Juan didn’t tell Carlos that he had to move towards freedom through reason, protocols or dogma. He instructed Carlos on what he needed to remove from his “inventory” so he could become empty and connected with the power of silence. No two journeys for a warrior of freedom will ever be the same, cannot be the same.

The bottom line is and personal power and the resulting usable energy. Power is and power moves.

To move the fixation of the planet is the only way out from the dramatic state of slavery to which we have been reduced. The course of our civilization has no exit, because we are isolated in a remote location of the cosmos. If we do not learn how to travel along the avenues of awareness, we will come to such a state of frustration and despair that humanity will end up destroying itself. Our options are the way of the warrior, or extinction. ~ Carlos Castaneda, Encounters With The Nagual

In response to a recent questions about recapitulation the impersonal, recapitulating the impersonal encompasses the vast area of that which has been held by the position of the assemblage points of others, even if we never allowed our own assemblage points to fixate upon those lines of awareness. It is that which warriors see, that which enters into the scope of the warrior’s awareness when they have amassed enough personal power to truly see the vapidness, manipulative machinations, atrocities and stories of perpetuated myths of the monkey mind. Once a warrior has recapitulated the personal and has enough personal power to truly see all of the stories of the world that are maintained by the predator, they are then able to unwrite and recapitulate these impersonal lines of awareness. This territory is frightening to the extreme, walking deeply upon the lines that lie within the world of the predator, but it leads to even deeper levels of understanding, incredible awareness, and the potential to shift the assemblage point of the earth.

To do this one must be impeccable with their energy to ensure that they are able to move sleuth-like through the sludge and mire of the disease through which the earth and the majority of her inhabitants has been plagued for many, many centuries. I can’t go backwards to rewrite what I’ve already written but I am publishing all of my old writings for those of you who had not followed my previous posts of the past. They will be available soon. A number of lines of awareness that brought humanity to the current state they are in are outlined in those posts.

But why should we attempt to unwrite the stories that don’t belong to us? Because those stories are genetically encoded in our DNA whether we choose to acknowledge those stories or not. “To conduct our own personal research and to find out for ourselves, maybe all we need to do is listen to our inner DNA. Listen to the voices, feelings, sights and experiences of our ancestors. Their lives, joys and fears are within us. In that way, they are with us always.” ~ Steve Hammons

Unless we, as warriors, recapitulate them!

Recapitulation starts from inside and sustains itself. It is matter of silencing the mind, and our energy body will take control, doing what is a delight for it to do. You feel well, comforted; far from draining you, it gives you rest. Your body perceives it as an inexplicable energy bath. ~ Don Juan

Our DNA holds these memories and unless we recapitulate the stories we will be unable to come to a state of total freedom. The lines, the patterns, the stories are those that go back to the very beginning of time for a warrior, not only to the beginning of birth in this lifetime. The sorcerers’ revolution is that they refuse to honor agreements in which they did not participate. Nobody ever asked me if I would consent to be eaten by beings of a different kind of awareness. My parents just brought me into this world to be food, like themselves, and that’s the end of the story. – Don Juan, The Active Side of Infinity

And their parent’s parents brought them into the world to be food and their parent’s parent’s parents brought them into the world to be food…all the way back to the beginning of the infiltration of the predator which goes back a long way. Very few people are aware of the fact that the recapitulation includes that which lies beyond the personal because we are living in an era where myopic importance is placed upon the individual self with little regard for the greater whole.

When we are able to recapitulate and forget what we have been forced to remember along with that which we gain access to though seeing, we gain the personal power that is necessary to explore and create new bands of awareness. Beyond our personal stories, when we release the stories and myths of the world we begin to unwrite and break the patterns that bind us to the encoded strands of our DNA which have become encoded to hold humanity prisoner to those patterns. Free of that encoding, new strands of our DNA begin to awaken, providing us with the opportunities to energetically connect or reconnect to our potential and human abilities that allow for freedom from the predatory realm and evolution as a species; opportunities such as intuition, telepathy, teleportation, manifestation, etc. because in this, we are fully and truly aligned with intent!

The task which my teacher gave me, and my mission as a nagual for the era which is commencing, is to move the assemblage point of the Earth. Just like the other world has its mobile unit– the inorganic beings– Earth also has one, and it’s us. We are children of the Earth. The movement of the assemblage point of a sufficient number of warriors can change the modality of the time, and that is what I am working towards. We are children of the Earth, it is our ultimate source. The option of sorcerers is to unite with the awareness of the Earth, for as long as the Earth will live. ~ Carlos Castaneda, Encounters With The Nagual

The residue of consciousness, called the second attention, is brought into action, or is harnessed, through exercises of

A fellow warrior recently asked a number of questions on the post Choosing Evolution. I cannot succinctly answer all of the questions asked since my perspectives and perceptions lie deeply rooted in the energies that emanate from the womb but I will attempt to provide the evolutionary course that works for me.

A Warrior’s descriptions are conceived from experience and action and not whimsical notions concocted to entertain. Once a warrior acts she is able to share her descriptions of the world in freedom, without imposing her will upon others to travel upon the same lines of awareness.

In the world of sorcery releasing fixations is known as shifting the assemblage point. The actual act cannot be defined as a prescription of sorts. The only thing that will get one to release their fixation of the world that they have been conditioned to live within is personal power and this, I can say with certainty, can be arrived at through recapitulation, breaking the mold of man, erasing personal history or experiencing an event so dramatic that their assemblage points have no choice but to alter their course significantly.

As we amass personal power we are able to stop the world which is related to shifting the fixation of the assemblage point. Stopping the world allows the flow of interpretation to alter significantly from the reality of everyday life due to the fact that our personal power assists us in seeing that which we would not allow ourselves to previously perceive. Once we stop the world we are able to see and as we continue to increase personal power we are able to see even more of that which lies beyond the limited definitions and explanations that exists within the dogmatic structure that has been created and maintained by the social order.

A disciplined and committed warrior will utilize all of the sorcery practices with regularity to ensure that they are allowing themselves the opportunity to see all of the lines of awareness that are available for exploration and evolution.

The path of the warrior is not a hierarchical system with levels and stages. What applies in the beginning phases on this path of evolution applies in all phases of the warrior’s journey and near as I can tell it will continue in each new band of awareness that we enter into. This journey has come to be a very beautiful and circular journey for me as opposed to a linear timeline. Circles within circles.

As an example, I don’t recapitulate the personal anymore, it’s already been done. Living in the moment allows the recapitulation to occur simultaneously as each action occurs. My recapitulative efforts are now focused on releasing the stories of the earth and through this I continue to increase personal power. As I continue to assemble a new band of awareness and visit those that are already assembled it will become imperative for me to recapitulate those bands as well.

Anchors are good for some and useful at certain times. There was a time when I would always be sure to anchor myself to my reality for fear of slipping away into infinity forever. I no longer have that fear and fluidity has shown me that it is possible to manifest myself in whichever realm I so desire.

As to what am I going to BE beyond the illusion? I am not going to BE anything, I am aligned with intent and am allowing that which emerges from intent to guide me, propel me and boost me as I continue my dance towards infinity. A warrior is committed to a state of not-doing since not-doing serves to break perceptual barriers and allows for the warrior to be in a perpetual state of fluidity, grace and ease. It is the act of not-doing that allows us to dream and in dreaming we are able to channel intent and to recognize from within this state that there is only energy and power. Power is and power moves.

Keep Dancing!

On the cosmic scale, the strength of a being is not measured by its physical capability, but by its capacity to manipulate awareness. It follows that if we are to take the next evolutionary step, it must be done by means of discipline, determination, and strategy. Those are our weapons. In order to manipulate and understand the emanations which arrive to our senses, sorcerers develop the power of their attention, sharpening it through discipline to exquisite levels, which allow them to transcend human limitations and to fulfill all the possibilities of perception. Their concentration is so intense that they can penetrate the thick armor of appearances, and expose the essence of things. ~ Carlos Castaneda, Encounters with the Nagual

Recapitulation Complete? Check.

Mold of Man Broken? Check.

Personal History Erased? Check.

Death as an Advisor? Check.

Predator Defeated? Check.

It seemed impossible. Diligently walking the path of the warrior towards total freedom while being constantly mindful to use what Carlos referred to as the weapons of discipline, determination and strategy has had its payoffs. It seemed an arduous task, and it was; breaking the patterns, unplugging from the man-made matrix, experiencing the Toltec mysteries, traveling throughout Mexico, taking the journeys, abstract flights, meeting other warriors, writing, writing, and writing.

Through aligning with intent, a new band of awareness has emerged at where everything’s different and yet, familiar. Minimal words to express it since there are no patterns consistently reinforcing it, no repetitive stories available with which to compare it. Uncharted territory to which there is no context, no framework to hold it together. The framework would, I suppose, be the structure from which new myths are born, and yet, a warrior of freedom touches everyone and everything sparingly…moving gently and leaving no trace.

The big question is, and now what? Life is indeed an illusion and on the other side of illusion is total emptiness devoid of the myths, the drama, the battles with the ego, and the glory of the hero’s journey. Sought after words to describe a new state of being don’t come. Human concepts lie in still, green pools, stagnating and rotting away while at the same time having the ultimate experience of witnessing the awesomeness and beauty of the earth, constantly unfolding, changing, evolving. The quietude is a foreigner in my being.

So, how does a warrior proceed within a new band of awareness once total freedom and the ultimate emptiness is achieved if they cannot exist independently upon their causes and upon their parts of which they are dependent?  Do they simply exist and co-exist as observers, as awareness? What exactly does one perceive from a state of emptiness? Does pure awareness even include perception or does perception become like most everything else, an empty concept that loses its meaning when there is nothing left to reflect it?

Carlos didn’t write about this, in fact, there is really not much written about it anywhere. I guess it’s time to explore uncharted territory from within this new band of awareness to find out. The end of another era and the beginning of a new one; intent, intent, INTENT! Evolution! I sincerely hope that there are words to share. Dancing towards infinity!

We are perceivers.

The world is composed of a massive diversity of people, and of these, there are two classifications that define them; sustainers and creators. We are perceivers, however, the majority of people are sustaining illusions that was imparted upon them from the moment they were born. And since most people operate from a field of reason, they continue to assimilate the ideas and thoughts of others which ultimately puts them in a position of sustaining those ideas and thoughts. Those are the ideas and thoughts from which mythology, ritual and ideologies were born and are maintained. They are patterns that are replayed and slightly adjusted to justify ones current reality. They rarely consist of original thoughts, they are not born of creative expression, and they are obstacles to the evolution of humanity.

Sustainers exemplify the patterns that they have gathered and assemble their truth by allowing the fixation of their assemblage points to represent their reality. Creators, on the other hand, will question the patterns that they maintain as well as the patterns maintained by others and this questioning greatly challenges the fixation of the assemblage point. This is why erasing personal history and recapitulation are so important to warriors. In their fluidity and willingness to become free from the patterns the warrior creator will shift their assemblage point which allows them to create their reality. The sustainer, however, will defend the fixated position of their assemblage point and will perpetuate the patterns in order to preserve and maintain the myths, many times unwittingly.

Creators are warriors who are bold enough to risk everything in order to create their reality instead of just embodying someone else’s. They operate from a point of energetic efficiency because when one walks the truth of their creation into the world there is little energy wasted or lost in the arena of doubt. If a warrior were to question an aspect of her creation then all she would need to do is recapitulate it and shift her assemblage point to restructure that aspect in order to align her creation within the context of her current state of perception. This is called living in the moment while aligned with intent.

One will find that sustainers predominantly live in a state of doubt as a result of assembling their reality based upon the precepts of others. This self-doubt causes them to function in a mode that lacks integrity and, oftentimes, experience. Most sustainers can sense on a subconscious level that their “buy-in” to someone else’s vision lacks authenticity and vision because rather than creating their reality based on what they perceive they are merely attempting to embody an idea that was someone else’s creation and this is empty of their own authentic personal vision. They waste their energy defending the position of their assemblage point in an attempt to dutifully uphold a pattern that was created by someone else. Worse, they often impose those patterns upon others.

Toltec warriors are creators and they know that each moment unfolding presents new opportunities to create and recreate. What worked yesterday may not work today and since they know this they are not trapped within patterns. This allows them to be ephemeral and in a constant state of fluidity so that they may truly see the wonder, awe and beauty that constantly presents itself. Recapitulate the patterns! Allow your assemblage point to shift so that you can perceive energy directly which will allow you to assemble original and unique realities based upon what you see and what you perceive instead of maintaining the patterns and stories that were created by others. We each have the potential to assemble our worlds, to manifest our dreams and to create our realities free from the dominant patterns of the false web, the matrix. When we liberate ourselves from the patterns we evolve!

No two saguaros are the same!

The grand task of seers

Once awareness is free, intent will redirect it onto a new evolutionary path. What does this mean for the warrior? To free awareness one must recapitulate, erase personal history and allow for the assemblage point (AP) to shift significantly. When the AP shifts the warrior is able to perceive in a different way, free from the impositions of a long line of stories that had been conveyed as the right or only way to live for a very long time. Think about it. If you ever watch any history shows you will recognize the patterns that have been maintained and perpetuated from generation to generation.

Once awareness is free… no longer bound to the social order, you are free to perceive energy directly. Perceiving energy directly becomes different when you no longer attempt to define, label and compare every single experience as it unfolds. This act of perceiving is alignment with intent, to be in the ultimate flow of knowing that things are the way they are for a reason that lies beyond our ability to attempt to control or change it. This is not to say that warriors should not take responsibility for their actions; what it means is that we can only be observers, witnesses to an indescribable force (intent) that is much greater than ourselves while living with integrity and being impeccable.

Animals in the wild are aligned with intent. They roam, they play, they hunt, they eat, they mate and birth, they run, they sleep, they die. They pay attention to the forces of nature, the seasons, the energy that surrounds them and they don’t try to control or change anything. They are in the flow as not only witnesses to the mystery but as part of the mystery themselves.

Once awareness is free, intent will direct it… because when a warrior is aligned with intent, truly aligned, the warrior, like the animal that we are within the realm of earthly beings, will flow like a river to the sea, aligned with the current of that flow. It is when we fight against the current that we become unbalanced and deranged. In the movie Avatar, Mo’at, Neytiri’s mother said to Jake Sully, We have tried to teach other Sky People… It is hard to fill a cup which is already full. Learn well, Jakesully, then we will see if your insanity can be cured. Empty the cup, recapitulate, surrender, release the insanity. It is then, and only then, that intent will direct your awareness.

Once awareness is free, intent will direct it onto a new evolutionary path. When we recapitulate the stories of the social order, when we align with intent, our awareness will be free, flowing with the current and bringing us out of the patterns and into a new evolutionary path of awareness and perception. This will ultimately allow us to come to recognize the human potential that exists within us all but has been subverted by an unwitting agreement that we made to the social order.

The sorcerers’ revolution is that they refuse to honor agreements in which they did not participate. Nobody ever asked me if I would consent to be eaten by beings of a different kind of awareness. My parents just brought me into this world to be food, like themselves, and that’s the end of the story. – Don Juan, The Active Side of Infinity

Our evolution has been challenged on so many levels and warriors are connecting once again to the deep awareness that they are gleaning from silent knowledge. We must look deeply into the abyss, in silence, in order to reconnect to our true human lineage. The goal:  total freedom, the evolution of awareness which enables us to travel through the ocean of cosmic energy, perceiving all that is accessible to us. What we choose to experience is to satisfy our own need to know and to evolve. As warriors our commitment to evolve is to ourselves, not to another.

Evolution is possible when we have personal power. As La Gorda said in The Eagle’s Gift, “…there are no steps to anything a warrior does. There is only personal power.” Recapitulate and…

~ Keep Dancing!

Prickly Pear Cactus Skeleton ~ Photo by FW

He told me that, from the moment when the explosion which gave us origin occurred, until the moment of our death, we live within a flow. Those two episodes are unique, because they prepare us for the encounter of what lies further ahead. And what aligns us with that flow? An incessant battle, which only a warrior will attempt. Because of that, he lives in profound harmony with everything. For a warrior, to be harmonious is to flow, not to stop in the middle of the current and try to make a space of artificial and impossible peace. He knows that he can only give the very best of himself under conditions of maximum tension. ~ Carlos Castaneda, Encounters with the Nagual

Aligning with intent eventually becomes an action, not a goal. It is difficult to find the words to describe it. Aligning with intent differs vastly from connecting with intent or creating intent. While we can will ourselves to connect with intent (to see) and create with intent (to know), in order to align with intent one must arduously recapitulate (in the moment), erase even more personal history (the stuff we thought was “knowledge”) and zealously unplug from the foreign installation. In order to align with intent, we must have tons of energy and personal power. The foreign installation is so generationally ingrained that it seems as though we are stripping away the very cornerstone of our reality. And we are. Herein lies the incessant battle of the warrior.

When warriors align with intent, there we stand looking into and feeling into the unknown, the abyss, the void. Floating in complete surrender. And then something magical beings to occur. The veil has lifted so to speak and the conditioning that prevents one from seeing, feeling, sensing, knowing, intuiting things as they really are is gone and gratitude begins to replace thoughts like doubt, thought, control and confusion. We become, as one, within the luminous fibers of the universe.

Things begin to happen synchronistically; not just one cool thing here or there but many things become manifest. You think of someone you haven’t spoken to in a year and they call; you think about a particular thing you need and it appears in a most unconventional manner. You share an idea with someone and they simultaneously had the same idea or you remember an old song you like and it plays on the radio! It’s as if you are just in a constant act of creation and co-creation. It is not the law of attraction, because when aligned with intent, you are not attracting anything, you are just flowing and co-mingling and merging with the divine presence and being of intent. Just walking your thoughts awake and alive, each step an act of co-creation within the beautiful alignment of intent.

This is creative abundance and it ushers in such a deep sense of gratitude. It’s gratitude that is grounded in humility. It’s not simply a “thank you” for this or that, it’s more like a deep, heartfelt thank you to the very fabric of existence; to intent and the incredible joyfulness and harmony that is felt when one has aligned with it. Its awe at the awesomeness of what is possible when we get out of our own way and stop trying to make things happen. More than being “in the flow” (whose flow is that anyway?), we instead, by aligning with intent, become the flow, an extension of it, because of it. We become the creator, creation, created. And our humble knowing gratitude makes all things possible. ~ Keep Dancing!

Sonora, Mexico ~ photos by FW
Keep Dancing!

~ photo by FW

And thus with an awareness of his death, with his detachment, and with the power of his decisions a warrior sets his life in a strategical manner. The knowledge of his death guides him and makes him detached and silently lusty; the power of his final decisions makes him able to choose without regrets and what he chooses is always strategically the best; and so he performs everything he has to with gusto and lusty efficiency. When a man behaves in such a manner one may rightfully say that he is a warrior and has acquired patience! ~ don Juan, A Separate Reality

The holiday season is a weird time for a lot of warriors because many choose to appease their family members by maintaining a story that no longer serves them. They feel the pressure from the mold of man to spend time with their friends and loved ones and then they find themselves caught up in a lot of drama, drama that isn’t necessarily theirs but they become unwitting accomplices. And then they complain about the choice that they made to be there in the first place.

I had a wonderful time this season, going through the motions of the spirit of Christmas with family members and friends who live for the season whether it is to celebrate the winter solstice, the birth of Jesus or the madness of compulsive obligatory consumption. I used to rebel, the thought of repeating the patterns of a story that I recapitulated long ago seemed like a waste of energy to me. But it doesn’t matter anymore because all it boils down to is fluidity and an exercise in detachment.

For the warrior it doesn’t matter which season, occasion, holiday, or story is repeating itself, what matters is the efficiency and impeccability through which the warrior functions along with the choices she makes. When deciding or choosing to surround oneself with the monkey-mind, a warrior can only laugh and make every act one of controlled folly. If we choose to put ourselves into these types of situations then as impeccable warriors we must tolerate the sometimes outlandish, doltish or trivial dream of others and be patient with them while they repeat the patterns. If we don’t, we are not walking our talk by allowing the people we like and love to have the freedom of their dream even when we are so far removed from that reality.

This holiday season was fun for me and for my partner on this path. It started on the winter solstice, also the BIG date for the end of the world and concluded yesterday. Over the course of 8 days we had a total of nine people come to our house, for days at a time, and today is the first day we are alone. We had fun, we ate good food and too much of it, we drank good wine and good scotch and shared gifts. We hiked and we played music and we danced. We watched movies and together we shared the photos we took on our hikes with those who did not accompany us.

The best part of this 8 day marathon with friends and family ended with an impeccable warrior friend arriving, one who has no expectations, no connection to any stories and who is contented to simply be aligned with intent. We hiked; my partner, my friend and I, mostly in silence, for hours in the rugged and beautiful wilderness of northern Arizona along an amazing turquoise blue, crystal clear river. Without words we marveled at the fluidity of the river and of the old lava flows and at the massive root structure of trees.  We know that as the pure energy that we are there is nothing that can stop our flow or halt our dance in awareness and when we surrender we can no longer even halt it ourselves; all we can do is continue to flow. We aligned with the energies of the earth and we were energized beyond our wildest dreams by just merging our awareness with hers. And with this boost from the earth we have further strengthened our commitment to continue walking as impeccable warriors in our common goal of assembling a new band of awareness; laughing with carefree abandon all the way. ~ Keep Dancing and best wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2013!!!

When the assemblage point assembles a world, that world is total. This is the marvel that the old seers stumbled upon and never realized what it was: the awareness of the earth can give us a boost to align other great bands of emanations and the force of that new alignment makes the world vanish. Every time the old seers made a new alignment they believed they had descended to the depths’ or ascended to the heavens above. They never knew that the world disappears like a puff of air when a new total alignment makes us perceive another total world. ~ don Juan, The Fire from Within

Sonoran Desert ~ by FW

Sorcery makes us aware of different realities; different possibilities, not only about the world but also about ourselves, to the extent that we no longer are able to believe in even the most solid assumptions about ourselves and our surroundings. ~ Carlos Castaneda, Being in Dreaming

Don Juan used to take Carlos out into the desert chaparral for numerous reasons but most importantly to have what he called an appointment with knowledge. For many years I have visited such a place in the Sonoran desert of the greater Phoenix area that is affectionately known to us as the place of intent. It is an amazing place, a power place of great magnitude that unerringly alters ones perception and provides a heightened state of awareness just by sitting there.

Last weekend a fellow warrior and I hiked in one evening as the moon was waxing towards full. We brought no flashlights with us, the moon in the desert provides sufficient light and we were able to see quite clearly as we walked deeper into the illuminated darkness. That sounds paradoxical but it isn’t when you are in the desert at night with the light of the moon. Once the eyes adjust you can see everything just as well as you can during the day, everything is just bluer.

We arrived at the stone outcropping, the place of intent, and sat, as we always do, on the natural bench that is there. We marveled at the fact that the chaparral has thinned out significantly; fewer cactus, dying ocotillo and barely hanging on palo verde, mesquite and creosote shrubbery. The desert has become over-populated by humans in this particular area and the plant life is suffering immensely yet the stones remain just as they always have. The stones are the bones of the earth.

As we sat listening to the noise from the increased traffic in the area I shifted my assemblage point to a time when I would go there almost 20 years ago when suddenly everything became quieter, the air became cooler and more stars appeared in the sky. Aligning more deeply with intent I closed my eyes and was able to smell the strong and delightful aroma of damp creosote bushes and heard an owl nearby. I opened my eyes and saw the desert filled, as it was before, with cactus and desert plants that had once been so abundant there.

I lie back on a flat slab of stone and surrendered to the night. Becoming aware of the silence all around me I realized that I was beginning to see through someone else’s eyes, someone who had been to this exact spot, years before me. The temperature dropped again, so much so that I had to pull my sweatshirt on.  I smelled smoke and realized that there was a small fire burning nearby. Opening the eyes that were not mine I saw a round campfire ring made of stones encircling the flames. Startled I sat up and noticed an immense canopy of stars, the Milky Way, shining brightly above me, coyotes yipping playfully nearby and the thought that entered my mind was Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Everything was different and yet, nothing had changed; or maybe, everything changed and nothing was different. I couldn’t tell. With relief I noticed that my compañero was still there, leaning against a rock column with his eyes closed looking very content. I sat very still leaning forward with my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands watching the shadows move from the flames of a fire that wasn’t there. But it was there, I could see it. Well, I guess I couldn’t see it with my eyes but I could feel it so strongly that I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt it was there. Or it had been there. I had this feeling that I was a cowboy or maybe a Yaqui sorcerer or a Papago Indian from a different time sitting in the exact same place, perhaps sensing, feeling, seeing the exact same things. I perceived a few old, rusted tin cans lying there in that desert knowing that though I didn’t see them that he must have or maybe they were there, rusted out years later but before this moment because he had left them there to rust?

And then it occurred to me that this other entity and I had entered each other’s dream. For all I know, he could have been sitting at the exact same place, at the exact same time as me, with his fire and a lush and vibrant thriving desert with the rich smells of creosote filling his senses and the Milky Way shining brightly above because that was the dream in which he chooses to live and I received the rare gift of witnessing his because our dreams momentarily overlapped. Dancing through the desert in the place of intent!

This spot is a power place and it must become used to us before nightfall. You must sit here, as naturally as possible, without fear or impatience. ~ Don Juan, The Power of Silence