Tag Archives: tonal

The Flaw with Words

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Those of us attempting to access the essence of nagualism must accept an outrageous premise; even though the teachings of don Juan are now available in print, the silent knowledge that underlies those teachings remains completely beyond the power of the written word. The Toltecs insist that anything truly “of the spirit” must be actualized as a personal experience rather than simply written or talked about as an intellectual concept. – Tomas, Creative Victory

For years I have included in my blog posts, “Don’t believe a word I say, have your own experience!” Having spent the past couple of weeks contemplating my decade’s long journey in awareness on the Toltec path got me to thinking about – once again – recapitulating these teachings; it seems as though most of them have become superfluous for me. While there was a time when much of these practices were necessary, it is now time to actualize the fact that power is and power moves.

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Losing Form

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…a profound recapitulation is the most expedient means to lose the human form. Thus it is easier for stalkers, after recapitulating their lives, to make use of all the not-doings of the self, such as erasing personal history, losing self-importance, breaking routines and so forth. ~ Carlos Castaneda, The Eagle’s Gift

The Nagual told me that when the second attention has to be called upon to assemble itself, all that is needed is the motion of opening that door. That’s the secret of the Toltec dreamers once they are formless. ~ Carlos Castaneda, The Second Ring of Power

Throughout his books, Castaneda discusses sweeping the island of the tonal or liberating oneself from the mundane details of first attention. This basically has to do with recognizing the mold of man for what it is and freeing ourselves from the mold. Doing so allows us to view the world from a new state of perception; choosing to go beyond states of conscious awareness of the first attention and entering into the realm of dream, second attention, or the unconscious. When we connect with second attention we are able to bring ourselves into a state of natural balance. When we integrate the first and second attentions, the second attention accesses new energetic frequencies, and the first attention then organizes the new information. This integration provides heightened awareness and acute perception.

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Switching Gears

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I now understand why it is so difficult to be able to trust in the flow of life because in order to do so, we must make a conscious choice to not allow our minds to control our every moment, our every thought. When we take a stand to be in our power, we come to recognize that our power isn’t really ours, per se, but belongs to the flow of the universe that is guiding us, providing for us, and orchestrating our life’s events with or without our approval or consent. ~ Lorraine Voss, Becoming Awareness

So what to write now? Writing a book of non-fiction is as big of a distraction as any, one that anchors the writer into patterns and stories that have, in the case of my book, already been recapitulated. While writing this book I had to recount decades of experiences and information. There was no other choice than to reconnect to the energy of all those stories. In such an arduous undertaking, there was little time for being present for dancing along new lines of awareness. Continue reading →

Aligning with the Energy of the Trees

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The feeling I had developed for the trees was beyond words. I had the certainty that I was able to absorb their moods, know their age, their insights and what they sensed. I could communicate with a tree directly through a sensation that came out from the inside of my body. And I also knew that once communication is engaged, tree pour themselves out in affection. ~ Taisha Abelar, The Sorcerers’ Crossing

I’m a tree hugger. I don’t live in California and I don’t wear Birkenstocks with socks but I love a good tree hug. They have so much to tell us if we pay attention and align with their energy, their intent. Last Sunday I was hiking through an old growth forest in Northern Arizona and when approaching a gigantic old ponderosa pine I just had to embrace it.

I couldn’t wrap my arms around even half of her, she was so big. I pressed my ear against her rugged bark and listened. And then she spoke. She told me that we have to become “conduits” like them so we can bridge the energy of the earth as it moves up through our bodies and into the warmth and light of the sun. This allows us to merge with the abysmal void of infinity. Emptiness is form, form is emptiness.

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Perception

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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.

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