The core of our being is the act of perceiving, and the magic of our being is the act of awareness. Perception and awareness can be a single, functional, inextricable unit with two domains. The first one is the attention of the tonal; that is to say, the capacity of average people to perceive and place their awareness on the ordinary world of everyday life: our first ring of power; our awesome but taken-for-granted ability to impart order to our perception of our daily world. ~ don Juan, The Second Ring of Power

I once read a quote that said “there is no truth, there is only perception” yet so many people hunger for the truth. They sit around and wait for a truth to be declared and when it is they either buy into it or reject it. Stopping the internal dialogue is the key to the sorcerers’ world, the mystery. The mystery, or the secret of the sorcerers’ explanation is that it deals with unfolding the wings of perception. The nagual by itself is of no use, it has to be tempered by the tonal. The sorcerers’ secret in using the nagual is in our perception.

It is pointless and a waste of energy for a warrior to attempt to ensure that others maintain your perception. It is possible that others will agree with your perception or even ask for clarification of your perception but the bottom line is everyone has their own perception. Some perception may come from a point of little awareness and some perception may come from a point of great awareness. For the average man, the ability to assemble their perception ensures their capacity to make sense and order of the ordinary world, the tonal. For a warrior, the ability to assemble their perception provides them the opportunity to harness the necessary energy in order to create a line of awareness that enables them to connect with the nagual, with silent knowledge.

There is nothing in me that would attempt to make others perceive the way I do. While I diligently adhere to a set of principles and practices that allows me to assemble my reality in the way that works for me it has become my truth and it has been carefully assembled through my perceptual filters. Whether or not anyone agrees with me or if I agree with someone else’s perception matters not. What matters is that we honor each other’s perception while maintaining the knowledge that our way of assembling our reality is unique and individual and cannot possibly be the same unless of course we resonate within the same band of awareness through the manner in which we perceive. While rare this is also possible and carries the potential to pair a nagual man and woman, or double beings.

Don Juan said that the warrior’s way is harmony, harmony between actions and decisions at first and then harmony between the tonal and the nagual. The tonal has to relinquish control and give up unnecessary things like self-importance and indulging, particularly in its attempts to maintain that there is a correct way through which one should maneuver through this world or to cling to the meanings made under the tonal’s order. When a warrior maneuvers through the world with ease she will then find the harmony between the tonal and nagual. This presents the ability to be fluid in all moments, with utter impeccability and in freedom. To just turn off your internal dialogue and let something in you flow out and expand. That something is your perception, but don’t try to figure it out. Just let the whispering of the nagual guide you and allow yourself to be astounded!

And then you’ll see and know the harmony that exists between the tonal and the nagual. For it is here in harmony between these two where the double resides within this bubble of perception. With enough personal power, the ability to arrange and rearrange the cluster of energy through your particular band of awareness can be made to assemble instantly anywhere. In other words, one can perceive the here and the there at once through the fibrous lines of perception through which they gather personal power.

It really is completely unbelievable and yet, so exquisitely ordinary!