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

Don Juan described an ally as being “a power capable of transporting a man beyond the boundaries of himself”; that is, an ally was a power that allowed one to transcend the realm of ordinary reality. Consequently, to have an ally implied having power; and the fact that a man of knowledge had an ally was by itself proof that the operational goal of the teachings had been fulfilled. Since that goal was to show how to become a person of knowledge, and since a person of knowledge was one who had an ally, another way of describing the operational goal of don Juan’s teachings was to say that they also showed how to obtain an ally. The concept “man of knowledge,” as a sorcerer’s philosophical frame, has meaning for anyone who wants to live within that frame only insofar as he had an ally.

Mother Earth is our ultimate ally, being the source of all other things. While there are numerous other allies, most of them come from the earth. Castaneda liked to make allies of power plants, specifically entheogens. They are good teachers and are instrumental in opening doorways and providing opportunities for perceiving in new or different ways by allowing us to see outside of the pre-conceived notions that are part of human conditioning and socialization. It should come as no surprise that the knowledge received from plant medicines is the knowledge held by our Earth Mother.

Mother Earth is a sentient being. She maintains consciousness and awareness. She gives us everything we need, selflessly and unconditionally. She is the host; humanity a parasite living off of her, and in many cases without regard or respect for her and instead benefitting at the expense of our host. As parasites reproduce and multiply, their consumption increases and their only goal is survival, no matter what the cost. Many parasites form symbiotic relationships with their host, living side by side in their efforts to mutually sustain each other, others often kill and consume their host. At the rate humanity is going, they will surely succeed in killing our beautiful, selfless host and consuming what is left of her.

Mother Earth is attempting to fight off the “infection”. She is erupting in places as a result of parasitic abscesses. She is enduring a fever and burning on some areas of her body uncontrollably. She is trembling and quaking and drying up. As her ecosystems are being destroyed, and her animal and plant children are dying away she is becoming sad and depressed and losing her will to live. The very air that she breathes is tainted and is preventing her from producing in the manner to which she is accustomed. Her cohorts in the infinite boundlessness of the sky are not penetrating her in the manner intended. As a result, her beautiful acts of creation are being surpassed by the acts of destruction upon her.

Humanity must, absolutely must, become aware of the intricate balance that is so necessary between us and mother earth. We have no choice but to make her our ultimate ally, for it is she who will provide us with any and all knowledge that we want or need. It is time for all of us to boost the assemblage point of the earth through wildly dancing in gratitude upon her, by drumming mightily so we can join heartbeats with her, by growing gardens and honoring the plants that sustain us, to once again ceremonialize the hunt and to gently cultivate animal foods instead of treating them inhumanely as lifeless merchandise. By so doing, we will shift our own assemblage points as well as Mother Earth’s resulting in shifting our combined fixation that reduces and limits our mutual freedom.

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 don’t 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