Author Archives: Female Warrior

Inorganic Beings

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Shamans like don Juan Matus defined their quest as the quest of becoming, in the end, an inorganic being, meaning energy aware of itself, action as a cohesive unit, but without an organism. They called this aspect of their cognition total freedom, a state in which awareness exists, free from the impositions of socialization and syntax. ~ Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Don Miguel Ruiz calls them parasites, Susan Gregg calls them angels, fairies and gnomes, Ekhardt Tolle calls them “the pain body”, and others call them walk-ins, manifestations of dreams or fears, abstract forces or spirits.

They can be all of the above, except angels, fairies and gnomes which is merely an attempt at fixating the attention on something that cannot be labeled, only experienced. They reside in a realm, according to Castaneda, that exists outside of our own. They are only interested in energy.

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Ritual Habitual

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Ritual can trap our attention better than anything I can think of. But it also demands a very high price. That high price is morbidity; and morbidity could have the heaviest liens and mortgages on our awareness. ~ The Power of Silence

Don Juan said, in The Fire from Within, that rituals are necessary at one time in every warrior’s life but only for purposes of luring one’s first attention away from the power of self-absorption, which keeps his assemblage point rigidly fixed. The obsessive entanglement of the first attention in self-absorption or reason is a powerful binding force, and ritual behavior, because it is repetitive, forces the first attention to free some energy from watching the inventory, as a consequence of which the assemblage point loses its rigidity.

The downside of ritual, however, is that it can trap the attention and over time the assemblage point becomes fixated on the ritual instead of seeing the ritual as, perhaps, a means of shifting the assemblage point. As a result, the ritual becomes empty and meaningless and freedom is further hindered as a result of the amount of energy spent performing the habitual ritual.

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Freedom

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Freedom is an adventure with no end, in which we risk our lives and much more for a few moments of something beyond words, beyond thoughts or feelings. To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle. ~ The Art of Dreaming

Allow your assemblage point to move from its habitual position and don’t get lost in perceiving the familiar. Better yet, don’t insist that others identify with your perception.

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Self-Importance Continued

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In response to the post on Transcending Self Importance, here is a great quote that someone sent in from The Power of Silence:

“Self-importance is a monster that has three thousand heads. And one can face up to it and destroy it in any of three ways. The first way is to sever each head one at a time; the second is to reach that mysterious state of being called the place of no pity, which destroys self-importance by slowly starving it; and the third is to pay for the instantaneous annihilation of the three-thousand-headed monster with one’s symbolic death. Consider yourself fortunate if you get the chance to choose. For it is the spirit that usually determines which way the sorcerer is to go, and it is the duty of the sorcerer to follow.”

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Transcending Self-Importance

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Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it – what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone. ~ The Fire from Within

Humility is a virtue that is rapidly slipping away. Self-importance is prevalent in this day and age and humility barely exists. This is unfortunate and the cause of much unrest in the world. Every spiritual belief system talks about releasing the ego yet so few people actually do it.

It is frustrating and sad to live in a world where everyone constantly needs to be right or worse yet, one-up somebody. The level of competition for existence is maddening and proof of just how many petty tyrants there are constantly surrounding us. The trick to overcoming self-importance is to ignore the petty tyrants! As long as you continue to allow a petty tyrant to push your buttons then you are still swimming in the arena of self-importance.

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Ephemeral Warriors

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The word “ephemeral” is such a beautiful word to me. It basically means something that leaves no permanent trace, something that is transitory and without lasting significance, something random, transient, brief, lasting a very short time.

In Journey to Ixtlan don Juan said, For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn’t use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.

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Loneliness on the Warrior’s Path

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People often ask about the loneliness they experience on this path of awareness and express that it seems difficult to maintain awareness on a path of freedom in a world where the majority of people are not aware or free.

Sometimes the greatest role a warrior can play is the part of the observer. It is through detached observation that we can truly appreciate the foibles of man and when we recognize this, there really is no other choice except to laugh and laugh and laugh! Don Juan laughed at Carlos all the time. Carlos was a struggling warrior apprentice in the beginning of his association with don Juan, with a lot of self-importance and attachment to the world at large. (Carlos was not, in my opinion, the idiot he made himself out to be but he wrote his books in a way that allowed each person to see themselves, regardless of their individual struggles as warriors on the path to freedom and he deftly outlined the obstacles that we may allow to get in our way.)

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The Love of a Sorcerer

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A warrior’s love is the world. He embraces this enormous earth. The earth knows that he loves it and it bestows on him its care. That’s why his life is filled to the brim and his state, wherever he’ll be, will be plentiful. He roams on the paths of his love and, wherever he is, he is complete. ~ Don Juan, Tales of Power

In spite of the fact that sorcerers are intensely depthful and are so efficient with their energy they are often misunderstood. Impeccable warriors speak few words and those few words are often direct as a result of speaking from the place of intent, the place of pure knowing. Those words convey an essence which, to some, falls short of human emotion.

The following is an excerpt from a 1997 interview with Carol Tiggs, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau.

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The Power of Silence

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You must reach the point where you understand what intent is. And, above all, you must understand that that knowledge cannot be turned into words. That knowledge is there for everyone. It is there to be felt, to be used, but not to be explained. One can come into it by changing levels of awareness, therefore, heightened awareness is an entrance. But even the entrance cannot be explained. One can only make use of it. ~  Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence

This quote, from the book The Power of Silence is one of my favorite quotes. So many people hunger for the words, as if by hearing them they could have the ultimate experience or make sense of why such and such is so and so. My journey has provided me with the ability to discern that which can be talked about and that which cannot. And as each day passes it gets more and more difficult to discuss anything.

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Warrior’s Path of Freedom

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A recent discussion with a long-time friend who has walked this warrior’s path raised some good questions about the energy of this paradigm potentially becoming a trap when a person attempts to understand it on the deepest levels. This conversation has come up before and this seemed like a good time to discuss it.

Castaneda’s books are an incredibly detailed account of his journey of awareness. The books are, at times, repetitive and even contradictory but his point was to drive home the larger awareness in a way that could be perceived and understood by almost all people. For years my advice to aficionados has been to “connect to the energy behind the words”. As a woman, this is easy for me. Most men on this path approach the stories with much more ration than is possible for me thereby making the stories a necessity for them.

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