Novella, Novella

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NOVELLA, NOVELLA

Pettynet Press,
Copyright 1997 by ME! and ADC
(The Electric Assholes)

All rights unknown and uncared for

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The M-7 Touch

Dang, I forgot to double space it!

;-)

Oh well, the next one!
The next one!

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The Little Boy and the Sea

by Tuliodo

We were writing our names together in the sand by the sea. But before we could finish, a large wave wiped it clean, chasing us away. I thought of how many must have experienced this...

The sea is an awesome thing. Truly bizarre, rather like a vast living being itself, its ebb and flow, its rolling power is like the pulse of the planet. It is shocking, almost frightening, to stand alone, at night, silent, listening to and watching those roiling, exploding patterns. The sweeping, boiling white ridges collaborate with creeping fingers of black and tan shadows, making a volatile living boundary, a strange zone of shifting energies between it and thee. One feels: 'who knows what that is; don't get too close!'

The little boy wants to live with me. His older brother lives with his dad now.

One day he asked why his wishes didn't come true, and I had a feeling I knew what he had been wishing. I told him that wishes often do come true, but that one never knows how long it may take, or just exactly HOW those things may come to pass.

The truth is, his wish already had come true, and so had mine, for he was already staying with me three days out of every week.

It was only a few months before that he had given me one of his favorite crystals, telling me carefully: 'this is my spirit; you can look into this and see me, whenever you need to.' For the first time, my usual goodbye wasn't going to fly. I had always told him lightly: 'OK, I'll see you next time buddy!" But this time he wasn't buying it, and it tore me to see the pain distorting his handsome young face. One weekend every month or two just wasn't cutting it anymore. And later that night he woke up crying for his daddy who was right then, while driving the highway hundreds of miles away, vowing to DO something about it.

Later, at the drugstore, he had one of those 'magic eight ball' things, and I heard him whisper to it: "will I be with my daddy forever?" I bent over and read the answer with him. 'Sorry, no.' Gently, I told him: 'Hey little fellow, forever is an awfully long time.'

We now take hikes in the mountains north of Los Angeles, and I often walk him to Montessori in Santa Monica, as I follow CC, who so many years ago did exactly the same things with that little boy he loved...

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Discipline

Discipline has always been my problem.
Being 'blessed',
and reaping marvelous gifts of the spirit,
has not helped me in this,
for indeed it is almost easier for one 'favored' . . .
to forget: it takes constant EFFORT to sustain it.

While having talent and encountering fortune
can make for a magical journey,
it can often contribute to self-importance
and a false feeling of safety.
To attain to a constant renewal of effort,
and to acquire never-ending vigilance---
that is the fight in the end.

N.

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The Shadows

"The urge to surpass oneself
has to be instinctive,
not theoretical
or believable merely." - Henry Miller

As a teenager,
I became mildly obsessed
with a very strange idea.
It occurred to me that the "meaning"
of a particular event or set of events
was somehow revealed by the shadows
of the objects or people involved.
It could not be translated into words,
but could only be "felt".

This was a very strong intuition.
It haunted me and would not go away.
It gave me the feeling that one could
"understand" the events of life
on a completely different level.

I even began to have recurring dreams
in which I learned things about shadows.
Once I dreamed that I had made a painting
which revealed how shadows tell things.

"In the worlds outside this one
there are no shadows."
[from Sorcerers' Crossing]

"Shadows are like doors,
the doors of _not-doing_."
[from Journey to Ixtlan]

As a teen I had a similar "obsession"
with the idea of "sequences of motion".
This went hand in hand with the notion
of "abstract cores" of action sequences
which are basic patterns of interaction.
The way to "interpret" an event was not
to look at the particular details of
an interaction but, rather, to intuit the
overall "pattern" of the whole sequence.

To give an example that might be accessible,
The old Pink Floyd album cover, UmaGumma,
had a picture on it which illustrated
a sequence of motion in which many people
played differing roles in the same basic
sequence of movement. Although the actions
were never exactly the same, the basic
sequence never altered. That old picture
always gave me the same strange feeling.

One main "type" of such sequences of motion
were those which happened in three moves.

There would be "a force" . . .

coming,
arriving,
having an effect.

To make another "series" one could add:
departing.

Those patterns could encompass
an infinitude of "meaningful events".

I'm putting all this very simplistically,
but in fact, I now wonder
if _all_ the most important scenes
of _every_ life are actually abstract cores.

The overall "sequence of three"
intuited could be related to
the most basic pattern:

The spirit descends,
moves the assemblage point,
and perceivable worlds manifest.

N.

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Following the Clear Rivers

by Tuliodo

"...where Alph the sacred river, ran
through caverns measureless to man
down to a sunless sea."

In adolescence, my life-long fascination with dreaming began with two major recurring series of dreams. One series involved tornados, and the other involved following streams of clear, pure, flowing water. It is the water dreams I intend to briefly describe here.

If someone wanted to "explain" these two series of dreams, it would be easy to do simply by noting that I grew up in an area where there *were* lots of tornados, and I was very often taken fishing on little country creeks as a small boy. Now that this is out of the way...

The rivers, the creeks, and the lagoons that I would encounter in dreams always had a deep feeling of "purity" to them. Quite simply, they were of the most beautiful, clear, spring-like water---the kind that is so clear that the depth is deceptive. That is notable, because in the area in which I lived, almost all the creeks, rivers, and lakes were more on the muddy side. The streams in my dreams were not. They were crystal clear, and seemed almost "holy".

Most often, I would simply find myself following such a creek or a river, walking along the bank beside it. I dreamed of these streams over and over, many, many times through the years. Occasionally, I would be wading in the beautiful clear water, and once in a while I would swim. Sometimes I would even be fishing, and catch the strangest fish. But most often, I would just walk by the river, with a feeling of perfect contentment to be doing so. There were certain spots I visited more than once and came to know, so that it would thrill me to come back to those spots again.

Upon awakening from those dreams I would be excited that I had had another one, and it did not take long for me to realize that they were by far the most "significant" dreams I had. In fact, I realized that in either dreaming or waking, there was almost nothing on earth that I would rather do than simply walk beside a pure, clear stream on a gorgeous day.

"Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran..."

But the dreams also imparted a feeling beyond this pleasure, and that feeling is best described as one of "being on a path". It was a feeling of "fortune" or of "fate". It was as if the dreams were a sign to me, the earliest sign, that I was "on a path" of some kind. It was as if each time I would dream of walking by the river it was an assurance that I was still "on the path".

Near the end of high school I followed "the river" to a place where it actually came out into an ocean. I had never been to the ocean, and the ocean I came to in that dream was like the ocean Coleridge described in his famous poem (which I subsequently discovered and loved, and have quoted here); it was in fact an ocean inside an enormous cavern.

The water in that underground ocean gave me the same feeling of purity as the rivers I had followed for years, and when I waded to my waist out into its large waves, I was in a state of pure wonder. From that point on, my dreams expanded to include crystal clear lakes and sometimes that ocean, as well as rivers, and the rivers became larger and more spectacular. Then, at the end of high school, I was allowed to take a two week long canoe trip through a very isolated Canadian wilderness area, traveling hundreds of miles along many incredibly beautiful rivers and lakes.

Indeed, when I later left my home state as a young man to travel across America, one the things foremost in my mind was to find other lakes and rivers in the West like the ones I had seen in my dreams and to walk beside them to my hearts content. And this I have done. At the culmination of one of my western trips I spent more than a month doing very little besides hiking by such streams throughout Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Canada, Wyoming, and Colorado.

One day, on the Gallatin river just outside of Yellowstone, I encountered a scene on the river that I could have sworn I had already seen before in a dream. It stood out because it was a scene from the top of a cliff, and in the dream I had leaped from that cliff and had landed unharmed on the banks of the stream below. And as I stood there on that cliff, I had a strange feeling almost like that river *was* pulling me to jump. The feeling that I had seen the place before chilled me. I did not jump. :) But I felt that I had "fulfilled" my dream somehow by finding that place.

After "fulfilling" these dreams in reality they decreased in number, but occasionally I would still have them. One time in a dream I did come to a place where an underground river split into two passageways and I had to choose which to follow. There have been endless variations. To this day, I still occasionally dream of the beautiful, pure rivers.

"For he on honey-dew hath fed,
and drunk the milk of Paradise."

(Coleridge, Kubla Khan: Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.)

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Proposition and Conclusion

So many find themselves wondering . . .
do I have enough energy to _____________?
(fill in the blank)

Proposition:

Castaneda reported
in the Fire from Within
that Don Juan said:

"Once we have energy,
_seeing_ happens to us by itself."

Conclusion:

If you do not _see_,
then you do not have enough energy yet---
and unless ________________
helps you accumulate energy,
or gain insight for such pursuits,
it may be best not to do it.

N.

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How It Taught Me To Fly

by Tuliodo

In the dream, I was sitting, talking to A. It was early in the morning, and we had both just awakened. Although our conversation was quite interesting, I don't remember it, because of what happened next.

In a flash, we were no longer inside our apartment; we were out on a mesa somewhere, with a bright blue sky, high mountains, and gorgeous swirling white clouds.

There we sat cross-legged facing one another, and A. was talking, as if continuing our previous conversation, saying, "it is definitely possible that this reality is only one of many possibilities".

I looked up at the mountains, at the clouds, and something seemed to stop in me. I had a moment of intense peace and quietude, and, as the entire landscape seemed to waver as if I were creating it by the fact of perceiving it, I firmly replied: "I know that it is".

At that moment, It took hold of me, and I began to rise up into the air. It was exhilarating, but I still felt peaceful and silent inside. The very powerful force was moving me. I rolled over on my back, apparently about a hundred feet in the air, and began to glide at considerable speed to the north.

Above me were the white clouds in exquisite patterns, below was the ancient mesa. I began to turn in a wide circle, moving very fast, but there was no wind. Looking down again, I saw the enormous columns of an ancient temple. They had some sort of inscriptions completely covering them.

It continued moving me in the circle, and I glided around, viewing the cliffs, the mesa top, the clouds. Then I began to slow down, and found that I had circled back to the temple again.

The force turned me upright, so that I was "standing in the air", and brought me very slowly and gently to face one of the columns from about two feet away, so that I could look at the inscriptions.

Hovering about ten feet off the ground, I began to rise again very slowly, so that the inscriptions and pictures filed past me as I approached the top of the column. At the top of the column I came to a complete stop, facing the last inscription, with the definite feeling that the force was going to leave me right there.

I could make nothing of the inscription, except that it had a picture of something that appeared to be half man and half bird.

I grabbed the top of the column and pulled myself on top of it, and began walking the temple walls, seeking a way to get down. After successfully getting down, I had a strange encounter with some kind of ancient lizards (which I won't describe) before awakening.

Almost every time since then that I have flown in dreaming, it has *felt* like that same force was what was making it possible to fly. It has always had the same basic feeling. And indeed, the way that I most often initiate flight in dreaming is simply to recall that feeling while intending to fly. When I do this, It takes me flying.

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Intent Is Such A Strange Thing

When I decided to marry the man who was my husband
my intent was that we would be warriors together.

It was six months after our divorce was final.
We had been apart more than a year,
and had been separated by more than a thousand miles,
when he arrived for his first night at my place in LA
where he was to stay during his first workshop here.

It seemed truly shocking for him
when I kissed his cheek goodnight,
and wished him a happy anniversary.

N.

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The Ants

Once, living in a shack which was built down into the ground,
I had a long-term relationship with several large colonies
of red ants, which, in the warm months, made regular
foraging expeditions in my house. It had been my practice
to allow them to do this as long as they did not get
out of hand.

Occasionally they did get out of hand, and instead of confining
themselves to the trash sack and the kitchen sink, they would
come into the living room, and even get in my bed (a futon on
the floor). Sometimes, when this happened, I'd get mad and go
on a murderous rampage, seeking to warn them by an occasional
massacre that they must be discrete.

But this practice seemed irrational, did not work
particularly well, and caused me some remorse,
for I respect life, and as a rule will go out of my way
to avoid taking it. So I was looking for a better solution
that did not involve poisoning all the ants.

Then I discovered that one of the ants' favorite dishes was
watermelon, coming in one day to find hundreds of them
swarming a dish of it I had left out. A simple idea came
to me then that solved my problem with the ants.

I decided to buy watermelon every week, and after finishing
each piece, throw the remains outside near the ant holes,
between them and my house. This worked very well. The ants
which came toward my house invariably attacked the watermelon
left for them, and never made it all the way to my house.
About every three or four days, I would toss them a fresh piece.

The ants were happy, and I was happy, and I decided that the
moral to this story was perhaps:

Don't fight nature; live in accord with it.
And whenever possible, give "the enemy" what it wants.

N.

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To be continued...

"Watch out Jim, she's a serial novellaist!"
"Oh my God! Are you serial?"
"Enamorately serial."

March, 1997
Villa Westgate, Los Angeles

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Why?

Why does it show me things?
Downright trivial things.

Doing the laundry,
there is only one washer and one dryer.
I've got two loads to do.
One load is in the washer,
the other sitting on top of the machine.
I leave for five minutes . . .

When I return,
I find that my clothes have finished,
but that someone has been there,
has rapidly pulled my clothes out of the washer,
has piled them up on the dryer,
and has moved my other load out of the way,
filling the washer with their own clothes,
and putting their own second load atop the washer.

I become furious, and even yell "that burns me up!"
A woman sticks her head out of an upstairs window
and informs me that some Japanese guy
from another building has done this,
and that he is "always doing this to people".

I put my wet load in the dryer, turn it on,
and return to my apartment, muttering imprecations.
And after musing on it for a minute or two,
I decide I'm going to go out there
and stand right by the damned machine,
to have it out with this inconsiderate guy
just as soon as he shows up!

So I'm rounding the corner,
full steam ahead to give him some trouble,
when all of a sudden, right in my path,
there is a minor tornado arising,
a genuine dust devil,
that not only blocks my path,
but actually begins moving toward me
as if meaning to drive me back to my door.

Now I recognize this as an omen right away,
but I'm a fool, and so for a moment I consider
just barreling right through it anyway,
but then I acquiesce,
deciding that it was just too obvious to ignore,
and I back off, go inside, sit down, relax,
calm down, and read for a bit.

When it's time for some of my clothes to be dry,
I go to take them out, and . . .
hey, what do you know,
right as I get there . . .
his washer stops.

A light bulb comes on over my head.
A wicked grin crosses my face.

Very quickly I remove his clothes
and pile them on top of the dryer,
and move his second load out of the way.
Then I fill the washer with my second load,
get it going, and put more quarters in the dryer,
so as to keep it going longer without fail.
I take some clothes out, go hang them up,
and then I go back outside . . .
to stand by the machines and wait.

The guy shows up and sees me there dawdling,
pretending to fold a couple of t-shirts.
He sticks his head in the window,
puzzled to see his first load sitting out wet,
his second load moved,
and the washer running.
He points to the dryer, and stammers,
'is that yours?'
I look up slowly. 'Yes'.
Then he points to the washer,
'that yours too?'
I act kind of bored and murmur, 'um hmm.'

He scratches his head a little,
and then I offer: 'Uh, yours finished,
so I just did you a favor and took them out,
like you did for me'.

I casually add:
'I'm still using the dryer,
but when I'm finished, you can have it,'
adding that 'I've only got one more load'.

Well, he starts yacking, all about himself,
his family, where he is from, what he does,
how busy he is . . . all sorts of stuff.
I just nod a lot, and then excuse myself
to go inside to read some more.

But I make sure to get out there
before that dryer stops,
to put my second load in,
ignoring him completely as I do it.
And so he has no choice but to sit waiting
for forty-five minutes until I'm totally done.

I was barely inconvenienced.

Like I said,
downright trivial stuff.

But . . . why?

N.

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The Caged Panther

by Tuliodo

May 1988:

I made my "beginning of the summer" trip to the zoo today. There was one interesting incident. I came to the "cat" exhibit, and in the very first cage there was a large, black panther pacing back and forth. There were several people lined up staring at him. The cat was gorgeous, sleek, powerful, jet black with the strangest gold eyes which were almost hypnotic.

I came walking up to join the crowd, thinking about the jaguar in the Power of Silence, and recalling Juan saying the big cats could read thoughts.

As soon as I reached the edge of the cage, the cat stopped pacing and fastened it's gaze directly on me. I "happened" to be wearing a black shirt and black jeans, and I felt calm and strong. I regarded the cat as an equal and with respect, as we stood gazing at one another.

A lady said, "he likes your shirt", and I quipped "yeah, I like his too". I felt a little uncomfortable because of the people, and turned and walked about five feet away from the main body of them. The cat immediately followed me, and froze again when I turned to face him. Everyone was now marveling at this, but I decided to ignore them, and I had noticed something. The cat wasn't looking at my shirt; it was looking into my eyes.

I decided to shut off my thoughts and try to become "connected" with the cat, and we just stared at each other for 30 seconds or so. It was in a state of rapt attention, but so tranquil, it's only movement was the twitching of it's tail, and I felt a strong, peaceful energy passing between us. Alas, I looked up and noticed that a lot of the people were starting to freak out just seeing us stand there motionless, both plainly ignoring them completely. I knew I would have to go soon, and I decided to play with the cat first.

I faked like I was leaving, the cat jerked, and then froze when I did. Then I pretended I was afraid, and began to slowly back away, and the cat began to creep forward as if considering stalking me. Then I slowly moved forward and squinted my eyes and made them shine and directed a bit of "force" at the cat...and the cat began to cower and slink away. Then I stopped and remained completely detached, and it returned to standing and staring.

Finally I turned abruptly and walked away without a glance at the people. The cat quickly followed me to the furthest edge of it's cage, and stared at me until I was around the corner.

I walked around a building and to the other side of a courtyard where I could check him out without being observed. He was pacing back and forth in front of the people again.

I felt that I was just another "cat" in another kind of cage.

The next day was a full moon and a lunar eclipse. I went to the dances at a pueblo, had a meal with the family of an indian friend, and saw and heard him sing in a ceremony. Later that evening I composed an extremely pleasing song on the guitar, and felt exceptionally well. That night I found my hands in dreaming, performed the exercise, awakened, went back to sleep, and found my hands once again. It was always a good feeling to do it more than once in the same night.

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Searching for the Pattern

We had quarreled, and he went off to sleep in his bed.
I woke up in the middle of the night, and a wild wind
was raging. I considered going in and getting in bed
with him, but finally decided to go back to sleep.

Around the crack of dawn, he came in and crawled in bed.
I took his hand, and began to talk to him in strange words.
He indicated that I wasn't making sense, but I waved him off,
saying, "I'll get it; I'll get it." I was in a kind of
waking dream state, but I did not realize it. I kept on
picking up his arm or his hand, and examining the blanket
and the bed, looking for the "pattern of meaning" in the
immediate world around me, absolutely certain that everything---
his body, mine, the blanket---was like a symbol system
that I could somehow read. I kept saying, "if only I could
figure out where it begins". I kept handling everything,
carefully searching it with my eyes, convinced that I was
making perfect sense. I told him, "just a minute",
sure that any moment I was going to find "the key"
that unlocked the pattern that would allow me to tell him
just where we were and what everything we were doing "meant".

I have a vague memory that he sleepily watched my performance
with a quiet amazement. Then I became completely awake,
and, going back over my thoughts, realized I had been acting
totally bizarre. I contemplated myself as one contemplates
a stranger, and then somewhat unnecessarily explained that
I had been in one of those altered states again.

N.

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Puke Up Your Life!

by Tuliodo

I reconstructed my entire room. I had been recapitulating and sleeping with my back to the southeast wall, facing northwest, and I switched everything so that my back was to the northwest wall facing southeast.

Recapping already seemed easier that way, and when I went to sleep (it took forever) I had a long, horrendous dreaming experience. It was so long and complex that I can no longer recall it all, but at one point in the middle of it, I found myself, as I often do, at the site of my childhood home.

I got it into my head then, in dreaming, that I could recapitulate the entire area of the neighborhood in which I grew up. I began to do this, breathing the scene in and out as I looked out a window at the old neighborhood.

Then I found myself airborne, and able to view the entire neighborhood, or any part of our home, from any conceivable angle, almost at will, while continuing to move my head and breathe.

After doing this for a while, I started to wonder if the Nagual would approve of what I was doing. The instant I thought of the Nagual (I had been standing in my bedroom again), a strange series of feelings began coursing through me. The only way to describe it is that my feelings carried my view with the wind up into some high clouds, and I had the thought: "a high flying bird".

Right then huge gusts of wind and rain came bursting through the windows, startling me, and soaking me instantly. An enormous storm was raging, seemingly out of nowhere, and I began struggling to get all the windows closed, noticing that some of the windows had actually been loosened from the walls, and were flapping on their hinges. I hurried through the rest of the house, finding water everywhere.

As I continued my tour of the house, I found the front and back doors, always compulsively locked by my parents, wide open. Both TV sets (constantly turned on in waking hours in that household) had been totally dismantled, and only their bases remained sitting there on their little tables.

Just then I realized that I was awakening, and I intended to stay in dreaming. At that point I began to see bizarre scenes of strange objects just floating in space. I had no idea what any of them were. After floating around for a while viewing these bewildering things, I woke up.

After this, I became very excited about the possibility of recapitulating in dreaming. I could see every detail of anything I looked at, down to the patterns of the individual bricks in the neighbors' houses, the grime under a screen door latch, or the very grain in the wood grain floors.

Yet for weeks after that, I was completely unable to repeat the experience, or even dream, leaving me to conclude that the experience was a simple message from the spirit:

"if you want to dream, recapitulate your life."

Actually, I had been rather thick about it, and the light bulb came on only after reading this passage from Being-In-Dreaming:

"In order to be a dreamer, I had to vanquish the self...Nothing, but nothing is as hard as that. We...are the most wretched prisoners of the self. The self is our cage. Our cage is made out of commands and expectations poured on us from the moment we are born."

CC told us: "you must puke up your life!"

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Old Coat New Coat

All through young adulthood,
I had kept an old leather coat
made of a peculiar blue leather,
with a collar of blue fur.

It was a bit strange
that I had kept it so long,
for I had never really liked it much.
It was too heavy, too stiff,
almost ugly really, and a little too small.
What's more, over the years
it had become faded and torn.
I had much prettier coats
but they were not warm.

Upon graduating from college,
I decided, as a small symbolic act
to throw away this old fur-collared coat.
This was also an impractical act,
for even before unceremoniously tossing it
in the dumpster across the street from my home,
I realized that I did not have money
to purchase a fitting replacement,
and I had graduated in December.

But my mind was made up,
and the time seemed right.
Farewell ugly old coat.

After graduating,
I returned home for a holiday visit,
and when my mother insisted on rewarding me
with a small graduation present,
I told her that I would like a new coat.
Yet, after shopping around some,
I was hiding minor discouragement,
for I had not found any coat
that was particularly appealing to me
as a symbol of some kind,
and in the end, after giving up
on the idea of getting a "symbolic" coat,
my mother assisted me in settling on
a moderately attractive full length
camel-hair coat that also happened
to be sale-priced.

But after wearing the new coat for a few weeks,
I came to realize that, unfortunately,
I was not all that fond of it either.
Although it had appeared to be warm,
it barely passed the test of January winds,
and to my eye it seemed to give me
an almost elderly bearing as well.

Over the next few years
(which consisted of marrying,
raising a family, working a job, etc.),
there gradually arose in me
the distasteful feeling that,
although I had shed my old coat,
I had in the process somehow taken on . . .
my mother’s.

It’s in there now, hanging in the closet.

And as I write this,
I am unemployed, bankrupt, divorced,
and having minor medical problems.
But I have moved to sunny California,
where there has yet to be a single day
cold enough to wear that coat. :-D

N.

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My First "Sweetheart"

...3rd and 4th grade...

Soon after I finally managed the courage
to give him some candy and a valentine,
he got spinal meningititis, and DIED.

From then on, I think I knew...
that something else has control,
and that I was not destined to spend
my life on the affairs of romance.

N.

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Birth and Death

Birth and death seem similar
in mysterious ways.
There is a complete change of worlds there,
usually without any idea of what to expect.

Each have their own major processes---
there are ordeals of sorts
associated with being born
and with dying.

The baby leaves the cocoon of the womb,
just as one who is dying leaves the luminous cocoon.

Most people, upon dying,
must be as adrift as a new born babe,
and as unprepared for what awaits,
only to be incinerated
by that 'thing in itself' out there.

That is, unless one has seen it,
prepared, steeled oneself somehow.
That is a warrior’s aim.

N.

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Obsession

I met a man who told me
that ice is dry.
He insisted on telling everyone who came near him
that ice is dry.
He told us all over and over
that ice is dry.
It was very important to him to communicate this.

Later, I thought about it,
and decided that he was right.
So now I'm telling you,
and you'd best accept it too:
ice is dry.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Cut

I dreamed that we all met the warriors
at a new place. The scene was breaking up
to be resumed elsewhere. We were all talking
about what had happened.

Some people had been left out in the cold,
and were not invited to the new place at all.
Those who had been invited were unsure how long
they would be allowed to stay.

For some reason everyone was also talking
about the way L. had started a bad scene,
and how she would not be allowed to stay
in the place she was currently living in.

When L. showed up, I told her I was moving too,
and said that if she wanted she could come with me.
I also mentioned this to R. and to G., and we were
all talking about going together and renting
a four bedroom house.

Then the warriors showed up, but only briefly.
It was as if they checked out the scene,
and then left suddenly without explanation.

We all just sort of hung around outside the place,
wondering if maybe they were coming back in a minute.
After a long wait, we accepted that they weren't,
and we began filing out to the parking lot.

I was terribly sad, almost on the verge of tears,
for some reason thinking they had left permanently.
Then everyone decided to go to V.'s house
to talk about the new development.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Eyes

Don Juan said
that the eyes
are one’s connection
to the spirit.

When a sleeping person is dreaming,
their body is paralyzed,
except for the eyes...

And it has been discovered
that the brain during REM sleep
is two to four times more active
metabolically, than during waking.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The last hope!

The last hope for love,
for life, for truth . . .
it is me!

You must believe me!!!
You must!!!
You must!!!

:-D

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Violinist

While vacationing in Santa Fe, D. and I decided to have
lunch at a natural foods cafe just off the city square.
As we entered, we saw a violinist standing in the middle
of the room, playing solo.

After we ordered, he came over to our table. He was a
handsome devil, fashionably dressed, and he had a disarming
smile. He looked a bit like a gypsy, with long hair,
a well-trimmed beard, and laughing brown eyes. He asked
if we would like to hear anything, and when we could only
come up with general suggestions, he went into an elaborate
and whimsical banter over just what might comprise a "tad"
of classical, or a "tad" of Mozart. He told us then that
it would be his pleasure to play us an assortment of tads,
and he began to play a dazzling collage---snatches of
Mozart, Vivaldi, Paganini, interspersed with some of his
own improvisations.

He was quite the virtuoso, yet he had an almost intimidating
manner about him. In the midst of an improvisation, he would
turn first to one of us, then the other, playing in a dramatic
pizzicato, plucking a few notes "for the lady", then a few
"for the gentlemen", then a few "for myself ha!", at times
further punctuating the extravaganza with a loud stamp
of the floor.

Well, this _was_ amusing, but we had come to eat, converse,
and relax, and so to us his lengthy performance began to
seem almost eternal. Every now and then D. and I would
exchange a brief look of amazement, and I could tell he
was getting a bit peeved although he remained polite.
Naturally others in the cafe were staring at us too,
and we felt a bit put upon.

When at last he quit, we applauded obligatorily, but then
he asked us if we had caught everything he played. After
some stammering around on our part, he gave us a quick
dissertation on the sequence of selections, pausing now
and then to restate a theme on his violin, all the while
grinning devilishly, as if to say, "of course you don't
know what I'm doing, you poor fools".

At this point, I commented on his beautiful violin,
and at this he launched into a detailed lecture on the
history and make of the instrument, commenting on virtually
every feature, which was heavily ornamented and from the
17th century. Throughout this lecture he spoke in the same
rapid, half-serious, disarming tones, like "of course you
couldn't properly appreciate all this, but..."

Next, unasked, he began to tell us all about himself . . .
that he was in Santa Fe for the summer in order to avail
himself of various assorted medical procedures which
he hoped would cure a disorder of his left hand. He told
us he had a rare disease of the nerves and tendons,
and was, he emphasized with a maniacal laugh, in considerable
pain as he played. He next began to talk at length about
the drugs he was on, and about how they would occasionally
cause him to go temporarily berserk.

(I had no problem imagining this fellow going berserk,
and only hoped he wouldn't do it just yet.)

Next he began to talk about some of the ways he had been
chopped up in surgery, and D. interrupted to remark "hey,
this is a bit much for lunch". But he continued going
on about his nerves and tendons, noting that as far as
he was concerned, "nerves are . . . from Satan, ha! ha!"
He informed us that he had only a "30% chance" for a cure.

Then he began to play again---a "tad of jazz" (which had been
my latest request in an attempt to divert him)---and finally,
after a sardonically sentimental version of the song "Misty",
and a few last parting shots as D. slipped him a dollar,
oh god, he went away!

They brought our food, a delicious vegetarian spread,
and as we began to eat, feeling rather as if coming down
off LSD, he began a similarly shocking routine for the
"captives" at a neighboring table. At one point, as he
leaped up on a chair and began stomping out the rhythm
of a folk song, I asked D. in fun if he supposed that
the violinist had "a diary" (I had just read Nijinsky's).
"Not yet," he replied, "but he will."

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Once I dreamed I lived in a city that floated on water.
It had streets and highways, just like a normal city,
but all marked off by lines of buoys. I saw it at night,
when all the buoys were lit up by electric lights.
It was quite a strange and awe-inspiring sight.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Artiste

Recommendation: Henry Miller's Essay, "Balzac's Double"

In this wonderful essay, Miller quotes Balzac, from _Seraphita_:

"It is enough to have the smallest inkling of it
to transform one forever."

But . . . Miller spends the rest of the essay describing
how one thus "transformed" may turn away from the path,
may fail, and may spend the remainder of life building
a monument to this failure. As an artist!

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

What If

What if,
some fool
had the chance,
made the effort,
and really touched it.

What if,
once touched,
it never lets you be,
claiming you gradually,
cajoling you subtly here,
tricking you outright there,
blinding you to the road ahead,
and to which way you are moving,
until you are facing the infinite.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

"pu hsu"

...is a common poetic phrase of the Tang dynasty,
which means:

"pacing the barren wastes of space,
beyond even the stars,
where subjective and objective are indistinguishable."

Yet the Taoists regarded the stars as spiritual beings.
It is doubtful that the stars regard us as such.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Dream Couplets

by Tuliodo

I have an interest in stories, songs or prose which is composed partly in and partly out of a dream.

One form of this, I've come to call by the name of "dream couplets", in which one line is from the dream state, and the other line is from the waking state.

Often it happens that the first line is the last remembered phrase of a dream, and the last line is the first thinking reaction upon waking.

Following that pattern, here is a recent "dream couplet" which began with a famous quote:

"And what's more, you'll be a man my son."

"And at last, he truly longed to be one."

Here is one more in which both lines are my own:

"I want to celebrate the evocation of the invocation,
and dance in the celebration of the dance."

"You're not dancing with anything but your own death!"

[nibe...@aol.com]

Woody's Wisdom and Anais' Analysis:

"I don't want to live forever through my work.
I want to live forever by not dying."

(Woody Allen)

"One does not get healed just by living and loving,
or I would be healed".

(Anais Nin)

[nibe...@aol.com]

Body Awareness

By Tuliodo

They say that the magical passes and exercises like Tensegrity are intended to bring the well-being of dreaming into the daily life. I keep thinking about that. It blows me away to even think about it:

"to bring the well-being of dreaming into the daily life".

In 1987, I wrote the following poem, while experiencing intense well-being. Let me say that I realize that my poetry (rarely created) is bad, but let me add that I like it that way.

I publish this little poem now in honor of Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity:

I'm in love with my left thigh.
It's strong and reliable, quiet and shy.
It would be funny if it flew away
Dragging me flailing and shrieking behind it.

I'm in love with a spot on my back.
It would like to meet my left thigh.
If I were made of silly putty
There'd be an orgy tonight!
(I wonder what I'd wind up looking like.)

I tell my breath to caress the skin on the inside of my heart.
The air, as pure energy, can fuse me in molten ecstasy---
Don't talk about sex---don't waste my time.
Love is an electrical phenomenon in my left side.
Body awareness. How does it seem to you now?
Meditation is *so* physical.

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Highest Point

by Tuliodo

It isn't enough
to come here bearing gifts:
a few wise words,
a vivid image,
to leave in shame,
rejected and beaten,
defeated,
it isn't enough.

It isn't enough
to fly to high places:
see wonders,
know ecstacies,
to bask in them for a lifetime,
resting on your laurels,
remembering,
it isn't enough.

Saying "they weren't ready" isn't enough.
"We tried hard but lost" isn't enough.
"Sigh, but the special will understand" isn't enough.

No compromise can be accepted.
No quarter can be asked or hoped for.
Nothing short of freedom will do.

[nibe...@aol.com]

No Right

I dreamed that I was sitting on the porch
of my ex-husband's home as a boy (he lived
two houses down from me), watching Zaia
walk down the street, elegant and strong,
wearing a sparkling silver and blue costume.

I sat there thinking that until I practice
rigorously I have no right to follow her
or interact with her in any way,
so I just watched her walk on.

Then Florinda came around the corner,
walking briskly toward me.
I sat watching her approach
with exactly the same feeling,
i.e. that I was not enough of a practitioner
to even speak to her.

Florinda walked right past me,
up the steps, and into the house.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Predatory Universe

Chapter 1

Humans: "The Tuliodo Obsession"

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Waaaaahhh!
ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!
CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Waaaaahhh!
ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!
CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Waaaaahhh!
ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!
CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!

Repeat.

N.

(Author's note: Tuliodo is a close friend
who has given me permission to include
several of my favorite pieces from his work.)

[nibe...@aol.com]

Induction

A short novel---that is what a novella is.

But sheeeeeit, why write one short novel?
I'll write ten novels!
I shall win the novella prize!

Then again, perhaps I'll write them tomorrow,
after a good nights rest. Yawn.

Good morning.

The first installment of Novella, Novella
MY first bid for the novella prize
will be presented, forthwith.

Yes, it will be something of a fudge job,
multi-faceted autobiographical mish-mesh,
but the idea is that if you have something
that "seems to fit" the thread in any way,
then . . . put it in. Please include pieces
that aren't really intended for discussion,
pieces such as reports of experiences,
short essays, dreams, poems, and stories.
Myself and a good friend will start it off,
and then, well, . . . we shall see.

Technical note:

"Criticism" should go in other threads.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

NOVELLA, NOVELLA

By ME!
(The Electric Nobody)

and ADC . . .

"Every new work is destined, in the mind of it's author,
to correct the preceding one, to complete the thought---
which will not be completed." - Elie Faure

[nibe...@aol.com]

For Starkworks,

who lost the Novella prize to ME!

[nibe...@aol.com]

Authors note: the punctuation is important, dammit.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Hey Cultie!

The word 'cult' has Latin roots,
which gave rise to the Middle English
word from which 'culture' was derived.

It is from 'cultus':
tilling, care, refinement, worship

Past participle of 'colere':
to cultivate, worship, dwell

The word 'occult' also has Latin roots:

It is from 'occultus':
covered over, concealed

The fliers are "tilling" the soil of humanity,
"cultivating" and consuming our awareness.
They have "refined" our awareness to include
nothing but the points of self-reflection,
and have forced us to "worship" these points,
as we "dwell" in our comfy little cage,
your home and mine, the "cult-your".

The vast stores of "concealed" knowledge
are now considered somewhat dangerous
"oh-cult" mumbo jumbo by good card-carrying
members of the "cult-your".

So hate and fear the Oh-Cult boys and girls!

Stay safely in the Cult-Your.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Author's Excuse

First it was:
if I write, I get to fuck them over.

Then it was:
if I don't write, they get to fuck me over.

So, I be a writin'. :-D

I'd like to thank It,
for a few small bits of excellent translation,
and I'd like to thank someone else here,
just so this all flows properly.
Let's thank Tensehead,
who first suggested such a thread,
and let's thank the sorcerers at Cleargreen,
who made all this noise-making possible.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Vitriol for Academia

Never use a simple word when you can use three unusual ones.
Keep that thesaurus handy! At every opportunity,
break out into an untranslated quote in French, Latin,
German, or Spanish. Anyone worthy of consideration will
speak six languages (or at least pretend to), and will
have a million word vocabulary. As for the other
poor buggers, well, they can just be properly awed,
and go running to the dictionary ten times per page,
so if they keep this up for ten years they may learn to
use the language as "beautifully". They may be imprisoned too!

Writing, first and foremost, should be communication.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Little Tale of Childhood

by Tuliodo

Early Memory. Say your prayers. Oh how I would say them, too. Then into bed on a hot summer night---the attic fan on---still excited from a full and joyous day of reveling in life. Head against the pillow, I'd hear the "footsteps" in my head, while lying there in the dark, the footsteps of that . . . *something out there*, getting nearer and nearer. Something so relentless, yet so patient.

What is it, momma? Nothing. Your imagination. A dream . . .

No, just my heart beat in my own ears, momma. But more than that, I realize now, as I lie listening again, a grown man. There is something out there, getting nearer and nearer, and yes, connected to the beating of my heart. It's there, and it will get me, momma; if I'm not careful, it will get me.

Early memory. Existence. I exist! This is my body. How did I get into this thing? Amazing! I would lie on my back on the bed and gaze at the palm of my hand, and marvel that I existed.

The first time I found my hands in an aware dream state, it happened in that same room, on that same bed, and as I performed the exercise prescribed by the man of power I was basically marveling at the same thing, just on a different level. I exist!

[Lazy Owl]

From: fuck...@and-die.org (Lazy Owl)
Subject: Re: Novella, Novella
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 10:36:00 LOCAL

"Don't fight nature; live in accord with it.
And whenever possible, give "the enemy" what it wants."

The Dream Warrior


The Dream Warrior has No-Name.


The horror is the endless,the sorrow is knowing the endless,the terror
is not being able to forget these final truths.

In the black inks of the indigo seas the dream warrior floats and
waits for a wave to occur which cannot be subdued and turned back by the
momentum of his own desire to remain at rest and continue the process of
forgetting the last great wave that overtook him.
Each wave seems to help him forget the previous wave just a little bit
but the motion of the waves can only be stalled or escaped for so long before
the calm in the heart of the dream warrior is approached by another wave
mistaking the dream warrior for an eternal place of calm.
As the dream warrior rests each wave that has swept him ashore to
another island of lighted radiances echoes in his vast emptiness like the
sound of a sea shell that is placed behind his head and positioned to softly
roar its winds of rhythum so that the dream warrior shall not be to startled
as a series of waves build their force in the random currents of the indigo
sea and demand battle for the place of eternal emptiness which he long ago
created as a place of forgettings and rest. Even in this vast emptiness the
echoes swirl and thunder but their currents are aimed at each other in pairs
of twos and fours and eights so that they intersect and become ones in the
passing of the motion of endless rivers of memories and streams of barely
illuminated symbols which represent the the waves that have crashed against
these walls of silence only to be repelled by the illusion of rest and
satisfaction which are imbedded in the tiny stones that tumble perpetually in
the swirling vortexes where the currents run parallel or begin their
cloverleaf spirals as they combine forces to try to create a world of dreams
which in its details might seem different enough in subtlety or intricasies to
the dream warrior to gain his waking and desire for battle. Rare is it that
within the seas of emptiness the rivers are able to awaken the dream
warrior,but occassionally the rivers are rewarded in their endeavor to awaken
the dream warrior by the flinch of an arm or the rolling of his body as the
currents wash away the endless echoes of the islands of radiance and the time
of forgetting continues.


I AM A-WAKE

With this form and structure echoing more and more rapidly from one
unseeable wall of the place of silence to another unseeable wall opposite it
in the great spherical ship of silence the dream warrior slowly begins the
time of remembering.
The rivers of life begin a period of end-less jubilation which the
dream warrior must fight to subdue as the first battle of the great waves of
creation. As the rivers cry out in joy at some new wave which has awoken the
dream warrior he must try with all his might and resources that slowly return
to first crush and the annihilate the joyful rivers. The battle seems endless
as the hatred of perception rises in the dream warrior and he begins to hurl
tightly compacted vortexes of knotted dissonance at the rivers of life. As the
joyfol cacophony grows louder and the dream warrior feels the insanity of
existing again approaching he reaches ever deeper into himself for closed
spheres of silence and the mournful forgettings raising the globes of silence
before his eyes and shedding a single tear for each lonely note of rest that
is expended trying to conquer the walls of solitude as they each echo the
passing of some wave that may have struck from above or below or is possibly
some evil becursement by the rivers of life to awaken the dream warrior.
In the battles of the silent sea which are protected first by the
escarpments of the walls of solitude and then the walls of silence there is no
time for planning or strategy or the sluething of motives and motivation only
the battle and the instincts of uncountabble battles before. The dream warrior
if victorious returns to his place of rest at the center of the silent sea if
the walls of solitude are victorious their riotous jangling draws the dream
warrior ever closer to the walls of solitude as the supply of silent and
supple spheres within get more difficult to find and rapidly hold aloft in
morning before they are heard awakening and have to be hurled at the walls in
a last ditch effort to repair the breaches and patch the schisms and cracks
that threaten to collapse the walls in one violent snapping crack before the
dream warrior is hurled light-ward by some unknown dissonance which has
violently approached then struck and broken the outer walls sending the
reverberating echoes inward to the most silent island of the nothing protected
by the walls of solitude.

When all the spheres of silence are exhausted and the walls begin to
groan as their ability to protect the dream warrior approaches exhaustion even
the rivers of life which regaled in joyful abandon and blissful revelry are
now focused to the dream warriors cause by the hatred and terror and sorrow
that have slipped into their currents during the battle to preserve the walls
of solitude. The dream warrior fully awakened commands the rivers of life to
his side in battle formation and instructs the walls of solitude that upon the
final breaching of the dreamers sanctuary the walls of solitude shall retreat
strategically by orders of magnitude through the walls of silence with the
outer one third of the wall sections serving as alpha flexible battle-lions in
a slow orderly retreat while the inner two thirds portions and segments of the
walls of solitude spiral inward and create the circle of fifths in ten
thousand sixty four octave abridgements of the grand rhythum in preperation
for the pursuit of the source of the attack upon the outer walls of the
sanctuary which triggered the echoes of a-wakening.

With the outer solitude barriers pulled inward to within a single
perception of the inner walls of silence and pulsing a slow steady multiple
light-mach undertone the inner two thirds battle-lions are assembled into
grouped multi-light-mach abridgements that touch the walls of silence of
thirty-six hundred above and thirty-six hundred below with Thirty-six hundred
to the right hand and thirty-six hundred to the left hand the outer one thirds
barrier of solitude now regrouped just outside the walls of silence prime
toned pulsers to serve as the fore and aft deployment of multi-octave sense
and pusue light wave trajectories.

When the proper allignment of forces is achieved the dream warrior calls
out to the furthest crumbling walls of the sanctuary which wre first to be
breached by the wave of unknown origin "Fear NO More"

The walls of the outer world hearing the name of their builder and remembering
their purpose groan one last time as a salute to the dream warrior and
collapse in absolute simultaneous harmony and rush inward to the central point
of the battle formation at the island of silence into the heart of the dream
warrior replacing the stored spheres of silence that were expended during the
battle to protect the sanctuary and justly repel an interloper into
the final protectored sea of silence.

With the collapse of the walls of solitude into the dream warriors heart as
final inner sanctor and the walls of silence arranged in all-world battle
formation the dream warrior awaits the in rushing waves of light that are
drawn into the great circle of vortexes and shaped into spiraling venturi that
shatter the walls of whatever world or worlds hurled at unknown formation of
wave-forms and structures at the dream warior in the sea of silence.

As the radiant worlds feel the effect of the echoes of the collapsing walls
that divide and keep the worlds seperate and distinct there are some in the
grey mists who retreat into the worlds of light out of horror at the discovery
and awakening of the sea of silence and the sleeping dream warrior hidden
behind the walls of sanctor and protected by the walls of solitude and
protected from waking by the walls of silence where the indigo seas gently
lulled him to restful sleep and the time of forgettings.
Others, a very few they are, allow themselves to be swept inward by the
walls of light and pass thru the battle formation to briefly stand before the
awakened dream warrior. A double thirty six are chosen to command portions
of the pulsing outer walls so that the dream warrior might begin again the
process of returning to the sea of silence even while the battles in the
worlds of radiance rage and peak into their inevitable ebb and flow and onset
of weariness that follows and lays fallow their original reason for launching
a wave into the sea of silence that they mistook for a place of eternal rest.
Two great birds appear first. A brother and sister great horned owl.
If they retuern to their human form the dream warrior accepts their plea and
assigns them the fore and aft light pulse trajectories formed by the inward
drawn walls of solitude which shall decide the course of pursuit.
They are followed immediately by the the seventy others whose inner seas
possess a granted portion of the two owls inner essence for twenty five
associates and fifty apprentice callers of creation. The first associate
stands to the left of the dream warrior and the other twenty four form a wall
of death outside the outer most reformed walls of solitude. The new callers of
creations form a wall of life directly behind the walls of solitude which are
now bridged in battle formation golden crown thirty-six diamond ten thousand
for one hundred bridges per facet point to the now fully stabilized and
harmonic walls of silence.
With All-Forces at the ready the Dream Warrior calls out.

All is All All is Well All is One

Annihilation and Regeneration

All is One All is Well All is All



To complete the compact of renewal the dream warrior must enter the
world that perpetrated an attempt to violate the walls of sanctuary and the
walls of solitude and the walls of silence mistaking them for a place of
eternal rest and then survive thrive and conquer in the renewed world until
the seas of silence grow less turmoiled and can be coaxed into the
intersecting flows of perception that are the rivers of life which toss the
little stones of existence gently in place and allow the dream warrior a time
of forgetting.
The knowledge of his date of death and his longing to return to the three
walled place of sanctuary that hides the island of nothing behind a final
lone wall of nothing surrounded and lulled back into rest is the soothing balm
that placates the madness within his mind and heart at having been drawn once
again into the world of random radiances and beings struggling to balance the
forces of creation so that they might sleep and awake and travel with purpose.


The owls have never failed to surrendur and the dream warrior has never
refused a battle even though his longing need to sleep always drives him
insane before the date of his physical passage allows the bridges of silence
to open into a world of lights and return his broken body and insane mind to
the protective washing of the seas of silence and the rebuilding of the
sanctuary which is the price of the dream warriors compact with whatever world
sought out the origin of origins which does not and shall never exist.

The sacred price the worlds of light pay for the dream warriors service
is to assist in the rebuilding of the walls of nothing through their
understanding of;
The horror of the endless,
The sorrow of knowing the endless,
The terror of knowing they shall never again be able to purge these
final horrible truths from their being.

They have traded essence and radiance with the dream warrior who floats
in the sea of silence surrounded by the churning joy of the rivers of life and
the memory of what exists within them is another cut size and style of
gemstone held aloft by the swirling venturi of the vortexed intersecting
currents behind the sanctuary walls that protect The No-Thing.


As the dream warrior begins to feel sleep overtaking him while trapped in
the world of lights and is awaiting the unfolding of the fourteen thousand two
hundred bridges of darkness that signal the repair of sanctuary and are
required to exit a world of lights and return to the sea of silence without
disturbing the battles won and the walls that are repaired he silently chants
the sequential numerics that are the codes of his moment of death in the
worlds of time and linear dreams of newly born and honed creators.
The repetition of his moment of death reorientates his rhythums and reminds
him of the restful sleep he shall enter in the sea of silence knowing that
another world of light is balanced and shall refrain from distubing the
sanctuary of the sea of silence and the home of the dream warrior No-Name.

[RStark1957]

These two threads -- Peyote Proselytization and Novella, Novella -- are
fucking amazing!

Bravo!!!

--------------------------------------------->

To be continued...

"Watch out Jim, she's a serial novellaist!"
"Oh my God! Are you serial?"
"Enamorately serial."

March, 1997
Villa Westgate, Los Angeles

--------------------------------------------->

Great omen . . .

Randy

:)(:

[nibe...@aol.com]

Are and Are Not

We are:

Perceivers who are not perceiving,
Dreamers who are not dreaming,
Thinkers who are not thinking,
Intenders who are not intending,
Journeyers who are not journeying,
Seers who are not seeing.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Three Short Dreams

'The Family Tree'

Dreamed of the family home again.
There was a huge redwood tree in the front yard,
a tree so tall it stretched into the clouds,
disappearing, so I could not see the top of it.
I thought: "hey that must be a record!".

(My family has lived in that house forty years.)

'Phantom Theatre'

Dreamed of a strange party the warriors were having.
Several of them were performing a play for us.
I was watching a woman who was dressed as a man.
Zaia was sitting near me. I fancied that she
looked like a "perfect witch". She was dressed
in black with a red scarf. I noticed that I was
sitting closest to the sorcerers, and I wondered
if that meant anything.

(A few weeks later, I saw E. from Cleargreen wearing
black with the same kind of long red scarf.)

'Tying My Shoes Impeccably?'

Dreamed I was sitting out on a deserted plain,
and that a large group of us was trying to "cross",
when the Nagual came up to me as if concerned,
and asked something that I could not understand.
Since I didn't get it, I just muttered some
reply like "I don't know". Then I noticed that
my shoes were off. I knew that the Nagual wanted
me to get going, and I had to hurry and tie them,
but I started having a lot of trouble with it.
My fingers were so uncoordinated that I actually
yanked the lace completely out of a set of eyelets.

(I awoke feeling anxious and stupid.)

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

poor me, The Great Me

by Tuliodo

I never get just what I want
poor me
But I manage to get a lot
The Great Me

People always get in my way
poor me
Yet still I get things done
The Great Me

No one understands me true
poor me
That's for I'm so deep
The Great Me

I'm really in bad shape
poor me
While in better shape than most
The Great Me

My knowledge is so small
poor me
Though I know more than you all
The Great Me

Things never go just right
poor me
Yet I don't give up and fight on
The Great Me

I don't get credit deserved
poor me
Someday they'll see what I've done
The Great Me . . .

The Great Great Great,
Great Great,
Great Me.

This shall never happen?
poor me
Then the Spirit will recognize
The Great Me

No, this too it will not be?
poor me
Then I guess that I'll just die
poor me . . .

the poor poor poor,
poor poor,
poor me.

[Mr. Bubbles]

In article <19970310100...@ladder01.news.aol.com> nibe...@aol.com writes:
>From: nibe...@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Novella, Novella
>Date: 10 Mar 1997 10:03:43 GMT

>Author's Excuse

>First it was:
>if I write, I get to fuck them over.

>Then it was:
>if I don't write, they get to fuck me over.

>So, I be a writin'. :-D

Yup You are so right we are warriors our every action is a fight
to the death and like my mum says "Billy Bubbles don,t let them push you"

>I'd like to thank It,

I,m good and special friends with IT
I say special thankings also.

We Are the Champions

>for a few small bits of excellent translation,

Itsy bitsy spider translates our little fighters

:-))}

>and I'd like to thank someone else here,

ME :-)

>just so this all flows properly.

Flow baby flow you go girl go go go.

>Let's thank Tensehead,

With all due respect he,s humano and probably a flaming hetero
Sorry Billy Bubbles must refrain

I refrain I refrain
But the support group sustains

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

>who first suggested such a thread,
>and let's thank the sorcerers at Cleargreen,

Architexts of freedom
Stalkers of this plan salute

SALUTE
SALUTE
SALUTE

>who made all this noise-making possible.

Silly Gilly bird.

>N.

B.B.

International Chairperson of the Don Pequeno fan club and support group.

[Mr. Bubbles]

In article <19970310100...@ladder01.news.aol.com> nibe...@aol.com writes:
>From: nibe...@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Novella, Novella

>Date: 10 Mar 1997 10:03:48 GMT

>Induction

>A short novel---that is what a novella is.

>But sheeeeeit, why write one short novel?
>I'll write ten novels!
>I shall win the novella prize!

Weeeeeeeee

>Then again, perhaps I'll write them tomorrow,

Tommorrow is a day away
Tommorrow is not today

>after a good nights rest. Yawn.

:-)))))))))


Billy Bubbles knows the secret code too

>Good morning.

Good Morning

>The first installment of Novella, Novella

Keep em coming

>MY first bid for the novella prize

I hope you win
I hope you win
I hope you win
I hope you win
I hope you win

>will be presented, forthwith.

Cant wait cant wait cant wait

>Yes, it will be something of a fudge job,

Straws and glasses or just straws


hehehehehehehehehehe


>multi-faceted autobiographical mish-mesh,

Sounds oh so swell

>but the idea is that if you have something
>that "seems to fit" the thread in any way,

:-)))))))) "giggling"

>then . . . put it in.

Naughty naughty but I like it.

>Please include pieces

No guns please were all friends.

>that aren't really intended for discussion,

Whooopsie

>pieces such as reports of experiences,

The other day me and my mum went shopping for groceries and she,s
getting along in years but Billy Bubbles loves his mum. Anyways we went
to Jacko,s supermarket to by oranges for my scurvy that I got when I was
overseas in the....

Its your Novella and Billy Bubbles should just

Shushy Shushy Shooosh

>short essays, dreams, poems, and stories.

>Myself and a good friend will start it off,

I have a secret friend to.

>and then, well, . . . we shall see.

Anchors away me Boyszzz :-)))


>Technical note:

>"Criticism" should go in other threads.

Yup Billy Bubbles seconds the motion.

It is decreed and done.

>N.

B.B.

[Mr. Bubbles]

In article <19970310100...@ladder01.news.aol.com> nibe...@aol.com writes:
>From: nibe...@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Novella, Novella

>Date: 10 Mar 1997 10:05:12 GMT

>The Shadows

>"The urge to surpass oneself
>has to be instinctive,
>not theoretical
>or believable merely." - Henry Miller

>As a teenager,
>I became mildly obsessed
>with a very strange idea.


Join the club join the club join the club.

I always wondered if I met Carlos and Don Juan in the desert
would I feel sympathy for Carlos or want the tough love of Don Juan

>It occurred to me that the "meaning"

Mean people are bad thats why we are stalkers
We have the power now and bad people be afraid.

>of a particular event or set of events

I bought my mum a set of china that she never users because its too
fancy and now I wish I had gotten something plainer so she would just let
loose and go crazy once and a while. :- ( :-( :-(

>was somehow revealed by the shadows
>of the objects or people involved.

I,ve seen inside my own brain cells that way and if you thought the
flyers were scary you should see those pulsings

>It could not be translated into words,

Exactly Exactly Exactly

Say no more.

>but could only be "felt".

>This was a very strong intuition.
>It haunted me and would not go away.

I,ve had those too...maybe we are sympatico soul spirits in the dream
world who are destined to meet.

>It gave me the feeling that one could "understand" the events of life
>on a completely different level.

Like an elevator

>I even began to have recurring dreams

I,m afraid of elevators too.... :-((

>in which I learned things about shadows.

There was a radio show about "The Shadow"

"What Eeee-Vill lurks in the heart of Man.....

O-nleee THE SHADOW knows for sure "

>Once I dreamed that I had made a painting
>which revealed how shadows tell things.

They speak in ........whispers....... :- []

>"In the worlds outside this one
>there are no shadows."

Scared already :-(

>[from Sorcerers' Crossing]

Never cross a Sorcerer because they are powerful compared to us
stalkers and fake warriors.

>"Shadows are like doors,
>the doors of _not-doing_."


Time for my medicines and Jeopardy

See you all tomorrow new sorcery friends



Billy Bubbles

[nibe...@aol.com]

rstar...@aol.com (RStark1957) writes:

>These two threads -- Peyote Proselytization and Novella, Novella -- are
>fucking amazing!
>
>Bravo!!!

Thanks. I do think some of it is good.
And some of it is extremely indulgent.
But the idea is that people can post
a few of their better stories, poems
experiences, etc. in that NN thread.
Then maybe in a year or so we could
take a selection of the very best posts
to the thread and see about having
them printed up or something.

N.

[TenseHead]

Normal - a repetative dream.

It was my second visit to Normal. A small out of the way town. Once I had
seen the sign I knew I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. I pulled into a
parking space and walked towards the complex. It was very much like a
castle. A huge entry way and the most awesome architecture were sights to
see! And the people! For a town called Normal they sure werent. Some had
blue hair and looked human other were blue and looked humanoid.
I ventured further into the complex heading for the central building
when I spotted two gorgeous creatures. They had blond hair and striking
cheek bones. One was a man and the other a woman. Absolutely beautiful to
look at. I could have stared at them all day. But they sat atop a
sandstone colored structure that was above my head.
My attention was taken by an old man (he was old because of his grey
beard). He was wearing white robes and seemed to be selling books or
paper. I noticed he had on a pair of brown sandals.
It was then that I realized that I was barefoot. I stopped on the
sidewalk and looked around for glass. Then I looked to see if anyone else
was barefoot. None were. Embarrassed I turned around and headed back to my
car as the d...r.ea......m... f...aa.....de.....d.

[Daniel Murray]

> the poor poor poor,
> poor poor,
> poor me.

poor poor poor.
poor poor.
poor Davey reduced to this.... :-(

[Grumps Wumple P-Eye]

In article <19970312030...@ladder01.news.aol.com> tens...@aol.com (TenseHead) writes:
>From: tens...@aol.com (TenseHead)
>Subject: Re: Novella, Novella
>Date: 12 Mar 1997 03:00:53 GMT

Sounds deep and powerful Tense,


The shoes and the paper/books are saying write it down.

Even if you think its total crap and it really is total crap the act
of writing removes unstable or unwanted energies.

Sometimes if you save it and read it later you realize how far you,ve
come and then you don,t have to indulge in the "I,m just a philipino chauffer
complex"

Computer writing isn,t the same thing, has to be paper.


Good Luck Weirdo :-)

[Pedro Sena]

> "Every new work is destined, in the mind of it's author,
> to correct the preceding one, to complete the thought---
> which will not be completed." - Elie Faure

If we only EVEN knew what it was the darn previous one was all about,
anyway.... heck, I wrote a scene that had a cup with one flower in dire
need of water, and I thought that it was a minor detail, in the 20 pages I
offered.... heck the class spend one hour discussing that "symbol" of
death, and whatever else it was supposed to be..... I had not even written
anything else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, I took an immediate left turn.... take that, mind.....

[Pedro Sena]

> ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!
> CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!
> Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
> Waaaaahhh!

Wait a minute... isn't this the Pac-Man game?

[Pedro Sena]

> But . . . Miller spends the rest of the essay describing
> how one thus "transformed" may turn away from the path,
> may fail, and may spend the remainder of life building
> a monument to this failure. As an artist!

There are similar indications, and a discussion, if I remember correctly,
about this, in the film "Henry and June", which I recommend. It is about
Henry and Annais.

[Pedro Sena]

(magnificent .... )

And lovers who hate,
and haters who think we love,
disguised as each other
unknowing who we are
uncentered and forgotten
we act like, like, ...
animals, it seems,
with little direction,
except food,
always for the body,
never for the soul,
never for the spirit,
never for the mind,
....confused,
....forgotten,
....dazed,
.....
( unfinished )

[Pedro Sena]

And just so that we can reach more than one audience, and they didn't get
the meaning, I added another foreign tongue to this epitath.....

> I'd like to thank It,

> for a few small bits of excellent translation,

> and I'd like to thank someone else here,

> just so this all flows properly.

> Let's thank Tensehead,

> who first suggested such a thread,
> and let's thank the sorcerers at Cleargreen,

> who made all this noise-making possible.

Quero te agradecer
para umas coisas pequenas, e traducoes boas,
e quero agradecer muitos outros
para ver tudo correr bem aqui.
Muito Obrigado, Tensehead,
que primeiro escreveu esta linha
e vamos agradecer os bruchos de Cleargreen,
que fizeram todo este barulho possivel.

( Not clean, but what the heck... )

[Pedro Sena]

nibe...@aol.com wrote in article
<19970310100...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
> My First "Sweetheart"

In a country way back when
I first saw the patterns
that would show me a life
of derision,
of delusion,
and lead me into
an inner life
of writing,
loneliness,
desire,
love,
abated love,
and inner quiet.

I had my first sweetheart.
She was 14,
same age as I.

We talked every morning before school,
and discussed the many things
we liked,
didn't like,
and what we thought
of each other.

Never have our words
felt anything
but true,
ringing in our ears
for hours and hours
afterwords.

Today was a special day.
I had enough gumption
to say that I loved her.
She said that she did
as well.
And like the movies, then,
we decided to mark it down
in time
in space
in love
in this universe,
with a kiss.

We left, hand in hand,
took the bus,
dropped her off at home.
I went to mine.

I learn'd that afternoon
that we were leaving
for another country,
for another place,
inthe following week.

And we cried together,
for hours, and missed
school that day.
We got in trouble,
but it didn't matter.
One teacher punished me
by using the heavy metal ruler
on my palm.
I hoped that they
wouldn't touch her,
or I would kill someone.
They didn't.
But they kept her after school
and I couldn't see her
the rest of the week.

We left.
We cried.
Never has a plane trip been so sad.

We wrote.
Pages and pages, full of tears,
and broken hearts.

And today, I
received another letter,
along with another note.
The day after we left,
they took a trip south.
They never came back.
The plane found a farm,
and decided that it was there
that it would land,
upside down.

And never, ever,
since,
have I felt
loved, or wanted,
or needed,
like I did, then.

I don't pull my hair out anymore.
Were she alive, I would have
returned, and tried again.

But her memory,
still lives,
however sad,
in my heart,
as one of the few
who truly meant a lot,
and still reads my poems.

She is the reason I write.
She told me never to stop.
I just never told her,
that I didn't know how
to stop writing,
crying,
loving,
.....

[Pedro Sena]

> The fliers are "tilling" the soil of humanity,
> "cultivating" and consuming our awareness.
> They have "refined" our awareness to include
> nothing but the points of self-reflection,
> and have forced us to "worship" these points,
> as we "dwell" in our comfy little cage,
> your home and mine, the "cult-your".

And I was once a christian
that believed in life eternal
that thought we deserved to live
above and over any other
race, creed, sex, color,
until I realized,
that this is not religion,
but thoughts in ugly mud
of the spirit and heart
that requires dedication
of heart, but not mind.

this secret has lived,
and killed many children
who still dream of the three
lost jewells in the paradise,
where I can marry you
and make a hope
come alive.

Yes, I shall have lunch,
yes, I'll have dinner,
someday,
again,
somehow,
despite this bullet ridden sky,
and religion,
....
AND religions.
....
that care less about
you and I,
than they do in what
they believe.

Oh, Father,
yes, my son,
speak to me,
today,
of ourselves,
or forgetting you,
and having to create
new avenues
to find you,
just so we can believe
in you.
Oh, father,
yes, my son,
here I have lost you,
and hope to reclaim you,
be it in my head,
or in my tense mind.

Someday,my son,
someday, my son,
we shall live
you and I,
and all
and we shall know
what it all means
this flying,
this spirit,
this thing,
....
but not amidst
this bullet ridden sky
of hatred,
of carelessness,
.... someday, you, my son,
and your favorite love
shall have
what I have never seen,
someday,
someday,
someday,
....
it is not a cult,
it is not a religion,
it is not a belief,
my son...
it is LIFE.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Some may not know what the name of this thread is supposed
to relate to. It is a play on two things.

Once Cleargreen announced they were going to have a writing contest
where the contestants would write a short novella, and the winner
would be published by Cleargreen. They later had to call off that
contest due to legal issues of some kind. (No, I don't expect them
to want to publish any of this.) But when they announced the contest
it made me think about writing a bit more seriously than I had before,
and so from a personal point of view this is intended to be kind of
a "pilot project", a "practice run" at writing, if you will. It is
for "clearing the slate" from past efforts, in order to begin anew.

Repeating the word Novella is a play on the title of a skit performed
by the sorcerers in one the productions they call "Phantom Theatre".
The details of the skit were related by Kylie Lundahl at the Omega
Institute Workshop in New York.

The following excerpt from an old Castaneda mailing list post
by G. describes two of the Phantom Theatre skits, including the
one this thread is named after:

"Phantom Theater is an aspect of the sorcerers' way. A Theater
of the Real came into this lineage through the Nagual Julian,
who had been an actor.

...

The Phantom Theater makes the assemblage point of the viewer
move to a different place. The Scouts created it to help the
group slip through and leave the familiar. The Scouts write
and direct the skits.

The Orange Scout's skits are very bawdy, raw, irreverent and funny,
while the Blue Scout's skits are sophisticated and ethereal.
The Blue Scout, a great actor, writes great skits for CT,
who is also a good actor.

...

Because of the force of the Scouts, every time they present a show,
the people they invite are deeply affected. The Scouts give the
Chacmools minor roles in their theater.

The Theater of the Real is for stalkers...They intend the character
so totally real that it is truly frightening. Even though the skits
are never meant to give offense, they are written by individuals
who have examined our social order from an energetic viewpoint.

The Blue Scout wrote a skit with Kylie as the mother of a baby
who believed her child was a girl. In this particular skit, Kylie
gives birth to a huge, grotesque child, played by the Orange Scout.
The Orange Scout wore a body suit, diaper and seemed to have no teeth,
and rolled around on the floor. Kylie was so frightened by the Scout's
appearance that she screamed.

The two have a conversation, during which the baby's diapers are
soiled. Kylie takes them off and discovers a huge penis that the
Orange Scout made that was about a foot and a half long and hairy.
Kylie had to bend down and kiss the penis, as the script called for
the players to worship the new boy child.

Another skit that CC enjoyed very much was entitled "Gordito, Gordito."
It was about a young man, played by the Orange Scout who stuffed
herself in a way that made her look incredibly fat. Gordito goes
to a clinic to lose weight. The doctor tells him, "We know how to
make a male lose weight. We're going to put you in a room with a
healer who will help you." It turns out to be a naked nymph,
played by "one of the other Chacmools."

The Orange Scout runs after her, and the deal is, if he gets her,
he can fuck her. But the nymph escapes and disappears. An angry
Gordito comes back to the clinic, gets a similar routine from
the doctor, and this time, when he sits alone in the examining room,
out come _two_ naked nymphs. He doesn't catch either of them.

So he returns to the doctor and demands that, this time, he either
lose weight or be allowed to fuck the nymphs. The doctor says,
"We have just the thing." While he's waiting alone in the room,
out comes this Swedish gay man (Kylie) with a huge penis. He begins
to chase Gordito and tells him, "If I catch you, I fuck you."

Whereupon, Gordito finally loses the weight."

When "the slate is clear", my intent is . . .

to read and write infinity. :-D

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

For Me, Death Is An Old Friend

"Death witnesses a warrior's last dance, but the manner
in which a warrior sees his death is a personal matter.
It could be anything---a bird, a light, a person, a bush
a pebble, a piece of fog, or an unknown presence."
[from Journey to Ixtlan]

In my dream we are only casual acquaintances.
We have arrived at the house of a mutual friend
that neither of us have seen in many years.
As we enter and greet our friend there is music
playing very lightly in the background.

During the course of our conversation, we discover that
although we are only casual acquaintances, our mutual
friend has been a lifelong dear companion to _both_ of us,
but because we two are not well acquainted, a light social
atmosphere prevails for much of a lovely, sunny afternoon,
which we all seem to find quite enjoyable. We laugh
and joke, and have an elegant meal together.

Yet at a given moment, my good friend engages us
on a deep level, telling us a story that touches us
both profoundly, prompting us to share our feelings
in greater depth and speak more openly about certain
difficulties in each of our lives, in so doing arriving
at fresh insights.

All too soon he is walking us to the door,
and bidding the two of us a fond goodbye . . .
Somehow it is the music that clues us in,
as we have the same series of strange realizations
at exactly the same time:

We realize that we are in a dream, and know that we have
failed to recognize that the _only_ place we have _ever_
been "acquainted" is in a dream---and not just any dream,
but _this_ dream, which we then recall having had before.

Simultaneously it dawns on us in wonder the true identity
of our mutual friend, and we look at each other in awe
as we become aware that although we again walk happily away,
there may come a day when we are not bidden a smiling farewell,
as the soft music rises up in an almost triumphant chorus:

For me, Death is an old friend,
For me, Death is an old friend,
For me, Death is an old friend . . .

Then I wake up, and write the rest of the song:

For me, Death is an old friend
we have not seen in years.
In a dream we come and visit him,
tell of our joys, our sorrows, our fears.
We laugh and share an enjoyable time,
eat good food, and drink fine wine,
until he moves us to come clean,
and both of us get what we need.
Only in the end are we to know,
when comes the time for us to go,
just where we are, with whom we're playing,
and what it was that he was saying.

For me, Death is an old friend,
For me, Death is an old friend,
For me, Death is an old friend . . .
(repeat and fade, simple A E D chord sequence)

I like to think of the "acquaintance" as my double.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Playfully, I told the little boy
that I would tell him a story telepathically,
transferring the tale from the book across the room
into my mind, and then into his.

Holding up my hand in a claw
as if to pull the story from the book,
and afixing him with an appropriately "mystical" gaze,
I waited a few moments before asking him:
"How'd you like it? Wanna hear it again?"

He just laughed and continued playing.
I sat watching him play with his toys,
enjoying the character in his face.

Then he turned quickly, met my gaze,
and told me exactly what I had really
been thinking: "you said you love me!"

I nodded, and said, "um hmm, you're right".

(And ever since I told the little guy he could see energy
he has been entertaining himself blue with it.)

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

There (To Begin)

by Tuliodo

Even to begin
to stop the torrent of thought
is a blessed relief
(after all the years,
to have peace in sight).
There beckoned,
as pine boughs shimmer
in an orange evening glow.

Even to begin
to lose the endless defenses
is a marvelous freeing
(taking what may come,
receiving it in wonder).
There opened,
as lavender breezes eddy
in a soft, golden day.

Even to begin
to cease the vain attacking
is a beneficent reprieve
(heeding the quiet space,
smiling and walking on).
There awakened,
as doves call agreements
in the gentle morning sun.

So magical it is,
so strange the feeling,
even to begin
(setting foot on the road,
suddenly one knows).
There entranced,
I rise flourishing energy trails
in shadows of ancient moonlight.

[Gustavo de Lama]

> Conclusion:
>
> If you do not _see_,
> then you do not have enough energy yet---
> and unless ________________
> helps you accumulate energy,
> or gain insight for such pursuits,
> it may be best not to do it.
>
>
> N.
>

I hope you don't stay in bed because of it. I did, and became afraid the
Spirit wouldn't like it and the ceiling might fall on my head.

Worst of all is: How do you know what does help you gain energy? Now I
beware whenever what I purport to do comes to me in words to begin with.

Greetings to you all, especially to the author of this item.

Gustavo de Lama

[fud...@aol.com]

I had a girlfriend for a little while, I'll call her Summer.
We went to a play together, it was over the internet, NetGirl on AOL.
Turned out we had a fair amount in common, religion, education, basic upbringing.
Had a second date after some e-mails, that went well too, a kiss in the elevator.

I sent her tounge-in-cheek e-mail saying "I hope your daughters liked me",
but unfortunately, she believed that I really cared, and said not to worry.
I sent back a reply, "No, no, I really don't care what your daughters think."
I thought she would appreciate the maturity in that statement, but she didn't.
No reply.

Then I get a call a couple of weeks later. "Hi this is Summer.
I can't believe what you wrote me about my voice mail.
I try to keep it updated!"
My god, I'm thinking, her voice mail, what does she mean by that,
the last message I e-mailed to her?... "Well, I'm glad you called!"

"Well I didn't want you to think I forgot about you."
"Well that's great, I appreciate it," I said.
"Anyway, the problem is not what you thought it was."
"Oh, that's good!" I said. Wow, I'm thinking, she's calling to say
that I misunderstood! She wants to keep in touch. This is great!

"Your report said that the query window wasn't correct, but that's not what I meant.
What I meant was that the insertion point wasn't rotating with the component..."
I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is she talking about?!? Then, the mask of
socialization falls with a shattering crash.

This is another Summer, the one I'm working on a programming contract with,
not the one that was my girlfriend for a brief time!

What a mind bender!
What great AP mover!
What a great exercise in stalking when you're in the unknown!
What a great exercise in REALLY not caring what other people think!
I wish I could manufacture a situation like that more often!

[nibe...@aol.com]

"Gustavo de Lama" <gde...@nauta.es> writes:

<< If you do not _see_,
then you do not have enough energy yet---

and unless __POSTING TO USENET__

helps you accumulate energy,
or gain insight for such pursuits,
it may be best not to do it.

N.>>

:-O

<I hope you don't stay in bed because of it. I did, and became afraid the
Spirit wouldn't like it and the ceiling might fall on my head.>

Well said. But did staying in bed help you accumulate energy?
And did being afraid of what the spirit wouldn't "like" help as well?
(it very well might)

<Worst of all is: How do you know what does help you gain energy?>

How do we know anything? By experience?

<Now I beware whenever what I purport to do comes to me
in words to begin with.>

Excellent! The above line stands on its own
as a fine contribution to this thread.

But there _are_ exceptions . . .
words do have their wonders.

Strange, awesome condensations, books.
Allowing one to watch great lives pass
in a matter of a few days.

One widely regarded "master" of words on paper,
Lawrence Durrell, in his first book, said of words
that they can be:

"the black bars of the prison
where the spirit strangles itself
with screaming",

or, a place where,

"between the letters and the lines,
and all around the blank margins,
the spirit circulates freely;
and I circulate with it . . ."

The latter is only a grandiose claim
unless uttered by one with a clean connecting link.

Hence, the exception promised above: a reader of infinity.

>Greetings to you all, especially to the author of this item.

Thanks for contributing, Gustavo.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Bend With Me

by Tuliodo

I have not the strength to go with it;
it must take me.
I must be led.

We must fight.
Will it help us?
Shades of battle drawn forever . . .
No answer?
The impeccable will:
hidden, but never hiding---
fighting, but not to win.
Yet winning.
Yet losing.
The end.
Yet winning still.

You terrify me, (bend with me
you terrify me . . . for thou art limber)
my waves upon you,
your waves within me,
the plot ever flowing . . .
no plot; no play.

Warm quivering flicker,
where we wait,
where we wait.
And what could protect it.

[nibe...@aol.com]

"Pedro Sena" <a...@accces.com> writes:

The last words above mirrored a small part
that had been previously cut---
so here, restored, is that small part:

Insanity.
Fear.
Waste.
Waste is a terrible thing.
We know everything about waste.

Waste piles up, helps keep the insanity in,
conspires with fear to put the insanity out,
to make more . . .
insanity,
fear,
and waste.

Explanation:
We do not put the insanity in. (we receive it)
We put the insanity out. (we broadcast it)
We cannot put out the insanity. (we fail to eliminate it)

We are so well meaning,
through our lazy days of waste.
"Dear, would you please put out the insanity?"
"Yes dear, I will!"
Yet the waste goes unemptied . . .

Make an effort to put it out dear,
if you get a chance.
Don't make an effort
when you don't have a chance . . .
just wait for a chance,
like a shuffling, halting dance:
two steps forward . . .
one step back . . .
pause . . .
intent.

It is not God.
It is not man.
It is not a series of negations.

It knows no waste.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Can't See A Thing But Light

by Tuliodo

In a dream I saw them: thousands of crippled celebrities coming to the holy water to be cured.

One by one, naked, leaving their wheel chairs, their crutches, splashing into the "special", healing waters...of the ocean...as an anonymous crowd, while the radio played a 1940's crooner singing:

I can't see a thing but light;
I can't live a thing but life.

My life in a pretty word:
light, in a pretty world;
I can't live a thing but life.
(ba ba ba ba bum)
Life in a pretty word:
light, in a pretty world;
I can't see a thing but light.

(dedicated, tongue in cheek, to Bill Nye the Science Guy)

***

But when the light is gone, I can't see a thing but blackness --- and in our next video, while the camera pans a nursing home pulling no punches, the audio is MacArthur Park by Richard Harris.

[Pedro Sena]

> Repeating the word Novella is a play on the title of a skit performed
> by the sorcerers in one the productions they call "Phantom Theatre".
> The details of the skit were related by Kylie Lundahl at the Omega
> Institute Workshop in New York.

I have written several times, here once I think, that there is a serious
connection between advanced acting work, the kind that was started by the
Grotowski's of the theatre, and expanded into the westend styles of Peter
Brook, and that of the work in don Juan. Or at least, Carlos seems to have
an affinity for theatre, since the RSC had some major residence involvement
at UCLA in the late sixties and seventies. I find a lot of similarities,
but then, not everyone was involved in advance acting work, like I was as a
director ( not actor, btw ), and experimenting with psychic exercises and
perception things like I was. THEY WORK.

> The Theater of the Real is for stalkers...They intend the character
> so totally real that it is truly frightening. Even though the skits
> are never meant to give offense, they are written by individuals
> who have examined our social order from an energetic viewpoint.

Much of this technique has been used in the secondary version of this,
which became in LA one of the most respected Chicano Theatre, and has
created many actors, like Olmos and others.

> When "the slate is clear", my intent is . . .
> to read and write infinity. :-D

In many cases, like the don Juan material, much of the experimental
theatre, in any area, is always "open ended", and the main reason why is
because we have not lived past that point. One has to "expect" that, I
think. But the main "goal" of acting, in these advanced levels, is to get
one's personal slate clear enough so that we can, indeed, move into
infinity with the character we are portraying..... gads, isn't this the
same thing with the real inner work that we are doing?

[nibe...@aol.com]

"Pedro Sena" <a...@accces.com> writes:

>> When "the slate is clear", my intent is . . .
>> to read and write infinity. :-D

>In many cases, like the don Juan material, much of the experimental
>theatre, in any area, is always "open ended", and the main reason why is
>because we have not lived past that point. One has to "expect" that, I
>think. But the main "goal" of acting, in these advanced levels, is to get
>one's personal slate clear enough so that we can, indeed, move into
>infinity with the character we are portraying..... gads, isn't this the
>same thing with the real inner work that we are doing?

Yes.

But "reading infinity" refers to a specific sorcerers' method.

Excerpted from the book Silent Knowledge by Castaneda:

"In their continuous search for solutions and answers to their probes,
the sorcerers of ancient Mexico found out that from this condition
of inner silence, the awareness of man can easily leap to the direct
perception of energy against the background of any given horizon.
They used the sky as a horizon, as well as the mountains, or,
in a more reduced space, the walls of their dwellings. They were
capable of _seeing_ energy reflected on the horizons as if they
were at the movies. They concisely described this phenomenon
as the visualization of energy in the aspect of a hue---to be precise,
a spot of redness on the horizon, a pomegranate red. They called it
_the blotch of pomegranate_.

Those sorcerers claimed that that blotch of pomegranate erupted,
at a given moment, into images which they _saw_ as if they were
veritably watching a movie. This perceptual attainment converted
them into what they called _viewers of infinity_.

Don Juan believed that for me, it was more appropriate to consider
that instead of viewing infinity, I should read it, since I was given
to reading with the same, if not greater passion than the shamans
of ancient Mexico were given to viewing. Don Juan made it very
clear to me that to be a reader of infinity doesn't mean that one
reads energy as if one were reading a newspaper, but that words
become clearly formulated as one reads them, as if one word leads
into another, forming whole concepts that are revealed and then vanish.
The art of sorcerers is to have the prowess to gather and preserve them
before they enter into oblivion by being replaced with the new words,
the new concepts of a never-ending stream of graphic consciousness."

[nibe...@aol.com]

Walloons

Lyrics by Tuliodo

***
WARNING: This is one is a little loony, and a bit off the wall.
With VERY sincere advance apologies to all, especially to Belgian
or Flemish people (who are not being depicted here). Believe me,
I AM going to pay for this stuff, folks. You WILL get satisfaction.
It wouldn't be too surprising if there is even cosmic retribution for
such deeds. As some here might say: The horror. The horror.
***

Walloons
teach as those who taught them.
They soften that which would surely tear,
that as one hears the lesson
it's not quite so upsetting---
perhaps the only blessing
of Walloons.

Walloons
camp out on our coffins
and giggle at the folly of our prayers.
Then into their teepees
they drive their little jeepies.
Some people think they're creepy,
the Walloons.

Walloons
move among us often.
They see, yet we don't know they're there.
They will never harm you;
they'll try not to alarm you.
Masters of the dharmu,
those Walloons.

Walloons
live well in murky waters.
They breathe their own supply of air,
play with the otters,
and tease the priestess daughters:
happy alma maters
for Walloons.

Walloons
know all the latest plotting.
They know, but seldom do they care,
or wish to interfere in
what hardly chills or thrills them.
Non-disciplinarians,
Walloons.

Walloons
urge sacred misbegotten
to binge on control of all that's rare.
Well-adjusted mentals,
with complex fundamentals,
Conservatively radical,
Walloons.

Walloons
make fun of holy dogma,
aloof from angels' solemn airs.
They aren't frightened;
they're magically enlightened.
How does God abide them?
Darned Walloons . . .

[Sourcerear]

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spitsveedranglenlaverworstenobbinhowdy
hanginaughstraggleoffenhoweryoutoday?

!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!

orininastabaggenflaggerslaggerwortenunendlicker
lieberleibenhovenhowerdrangleslammerslidinzoffer!

!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!

[Starkworks]

IN TRANSIC MEDULLA
by Randy Stark

Setting:
Small Arizona mining town just over the Catalina mountains from Tucson.
I'm
graduating from High School in two weeks. My practices up to this point
have
been Hatha yoga, reading, taking drugs, and wandering around in the desert
with my dog Mike. In the seven year period ('74 to '81) between Tales of
Power and The Eagle's Gift, I read all kinds of stuff, but continue to
come back to Castaneda's work.

Story:
Datura grows wild in the scrubby rolling desert hills around my home town.
It has dark green leaves, grows in clusters close to the ground, mainly in
washes, and has long white trumpet-like flowers. It deposits its seeds in
thorny round golf ball size pods. Just an impressive weed you might say,
Jimson Weed, a member of the nightshade family, but that would be an
understatement. Native Americans used it for many things; as an
anesthetic,
as a treatment for dizziness and asthma, as a means to 'see' illness, have
visions, utter prophesies, initiate the young into puberty, give warriors
unnatural strength in battle and, applied externally, as a way to calm
horses
who were tending to stray.

Even after reading of its use in the first Castaneda book, I didn't pay
much
attention to it. It was nothing more than a common, hardy weed with big
white flowers. Then I noticed one growing by the Optometrist's building
on
my way home from school one day. It struck me as funny, in a sardonic
kind
of way. I hadn't noticed it before, but its newly emerging flowers caught
my
eye. Yes, there it was, a visionary weed growing by a building wherein
measurements of the range and power of vision were conducted daily. Ha!

(Side note: The word 'sardonic' alludes to a Sardinian plant that, when
enough of it is ingested, causes convulsive laughter, and usually results
in
death.)

I walked over to the Datura plant and smiled down at it, shaking my head.
"What are you doing here?" I asked it. I bent over, picked two of its
leaves, rolled them up, slid them absentmindedly into the left front
pocket
of my jeans, and continued on my way.

To this day I wonder who was drawn to whom . . .

When I got home I was alone. My dad was at work, my mom at a friend's
house.
As if driven by some morbid curiosity, I pulled the leaves out of my
pocket
and spread them over the top rack of the oven. I set it to low heat and
went
to change my clothes. A few minutes later I took the semi-dried leaves
out
of the oven, put a pot of water on to boil, then went outside.

It was a cloudless late Spring day. Mike (coat of a collie, body of a
German
shepherd) looked up at me with a questioning expression -- are we going
for a
walk? I ignored him and walked out into the backyard. I tried to think
about what I was in the process of doing, but couldn't. Just making a
little
tea, no big deal. I looked over at the mulberry tree. There was a small
board wedged into its lower branches where I often sat. "I'll just hang
out
in the tree," I thought.

What a simpleton!

I went back into the house. The water was boiling. I turned off the
burner
and put the Datura leaves in the pot. After a minute or so I strained the
water into an old ceramic teapot with pink flowers on its sides, grabbed a
matching teacup and went back outside.

I sat down in a lawn chair by a wobbly old card table I'd set up under the
mulberry tree long ago and poured myself a cup. I blew on it and took a
sip.
It was bitter as hell, but not all that hot. I almost poured it out, but
sat
the cup down on the card table. After a few moments I picked it up and
took
a big gulp. Mike loped around the corner at that point and looked
expectantly, if not somewhat warily, up at me. "In a little while," I
said.
He laid down by the tree and harrumphed.

I poured the rest of the tea out on the grass.

"This is truly nasty shit . . ."

It was the last normal thought I was to have for the next eight hours.

That last thought, that the tea I'd made was about as vile and nasty
tasting as anything I'd ever drank, was followed by an eerie silence and
creeping sense of apprehension. How much time passed, I don't know.
Seconds, minutes, an hour? I heard my parent's car pull into the
driveway. My mom had left from her friend's house to pick up my dad at
work, and now they were both back. The warm hum and ticking of the car as
it shut off and cooled in the carport jerked me to my feet.

I stood up and started walking around the house to the back door. As I
did so I realized immediately that I was in deep shit. No stranger to
psychedelics in my High School years, what this little bit of tea was
doing to me had no precedent -- not then nor since have I been so
completely taken over.

As I walked around the house to the back door I felt myself listing to one
side, then the other. It was as if I'd lost my center, my habitual focal
point of equilibrium, and was gliding along like a flap-less airplane. I
managed to walk into the house and into my bedroom. I flopped down on my
bed and closed my eyes. Almost immediately my dad leaned in and told me
to take Mike for a walk.

"Okay," I said, getting up from my bed. He closed the door behind him and
walked away. Shakily I stood and walked towards the door. The door knob
receded away from me. I reached for it several times before making
contact. I had a rushing sense of becoming more and more untethered,
uncontrolled, as if I were a puppet slipping away under the force of some
unknown hand. I walked out without saying a word to my parents, who were
standing in the kitchen. My dad later told me that he became concerned
when he saw me walk by the kitchen window outside. I appeared to be
bobbing back and forth, he said, like a balloon.

When Mike came back an hour or so later without me, my dad walked out on
the path I always took into the desert and looked around for me. He
noticed fresh vomit at one point, but no sign of me. He walked back to
the house thinking that maybe I'd gotten drunk and was sleeping it off in
the desert. What puzzled him, however, was the empty teapot and teacup on
the card table under the mulberry tree.

Half an hour later, he and my mom went to Wednesday evening church
services. Upon their return, Mike was back but I was not. After some
discussion, my dad called Sheriff Quick, who lived down the street, and
filled him in on what had happened. Sheriff Quick hung up and headed out
into the desert.

It was 9:30pm. I had been gone for four hours . . . walking a dog who was
no longer there.

~~~~~~

As I walked past the kitchen window I knew I was about to lose it
completely. Mike trotted up to the back gate and sat, waiting eagerly
with his tail flopping back and forth. He looked at the gate, then back
at me, his tongue hanging loosely out of his mouth.

As I walked towards the gate I felt what was left of my ordinary will and
sense of direction draining away, as if the plug had been pulled in a bath
tub. I managed to open the gate, but the last remnants of the world I
knew -- the path into the desert, the deep orange glow of the sundown,
Mike up ahead pissing -- quickly dissolved into another scene entirely.

The transition was smooth. No seams, no doors. I found myself walking
into a party as I walked down into the desert. Manny Morales, Handsome
Jim (ugly as sin) and other people I knew were there, talking and
laughing. As the transition became complete, the desert disappearing like
a daydream, I wolfed up my guts. I puked like a sailor, like an
effortless sneeze, and no one at the party took any notice.

What Mike thought of this whole sequence I'll never know . . .

And how long I was at the party is also a blank. Looking back at this is
like looking back into a black hole. A more disconcerting event horizon,
or breaking of the familiar flow of myself, I have never experienced. The
next thing I can recall is stumbling around in the dark with Sammy Robles,
somewhere in the desert. She had been at the party and was now helping me
untangle myself from the ironwood bushes and mesquite trees and cacti I
kept falling into. She'd laugh and haul me out, and I'd say things like,
"If I keep this up, I'm going to get good at it!"

She talked a lot as I stumbled around, but about what I don't recall. I
hadn't been around her for a long time. She was the first woman I'd ever
made love to, but someone I'd never really known. She'd quickly lost
interest in me after our first sexual encounter. I had no idea what to do
at the time, but now here she was, laughing playfully and dragging me to
my feet in a dark Datura induced tunnel in the desert.

My parents were back home from church at this point, and Sheriff Quick I'm
certain was staring thoughtfully out into the desert, listening, wondering
which way to go. Eventually I decided to take Sammy home to see my house.
I say 'my' house because that's what I thought it was. I didn't realize
at the time how little thinking I'd actually been doing.

The space between deciding to take Sammy (my non-existent companion) to
see 'my' house, and our appearance in the well-lit back yard of said
house, is another blank spot in my memory. My next clear image is of
trying the back door and it being locked. "Strange," I said to Sammy,
"guess I'll have to climb in through a window." In many earlier teenage
excursions I'd become somewhat adept at noiselessly sneaking in and out of
my bedroom window, but all of the windows in the backyard were now
latched.

Unperturbed, I looked out at the flood-lit backyard. I felt good,
buoyant, extremely happy. The backyard lawn had been recently mown and
everything stood out in a well ordered and seemingly familiar way -- the
tool shed, the flower beds, the garden. Strewn about the porch where we
were standing were brightly colored plastic children's toys. I turned and
asked Sammy what she thought of the fine job I'd done with the backyard.
I don't remember her reply. As a matter of fact, I don't remember
anything she said the whole time . . .

There was a card board box on the porch. I knelt and started putting toys
into it, telling Sammy as I did so about my moving to LA. (In 'reality' I
was just driving through California with my older brother. I was able to
get all of my teachers to sign off on the fact that I'd met the
requirements to graduate, and ended up skipping out two weeks early. By
the time my graduating class got their diplomas, my brother and I had
driven up the coast of California into Oregon and were about to enter
Washington. Only much later, three years later, did I actually move to
LA.)

Packing the toys into the box went on for some time. I felt incredibly
full of energy. Everything in that world, in that backyard, was so
immediate, so oddly fulfilling.

And then, from behind me, came a voice . . .

"Hold it right where you are, don't move!"

I froze for a moment, then very slowly turned my head around to see who
was behind me. All I saw at first was a police service revolver, inches
away, pointed right between my eyes. I looked up from the barrel of the
gun into the eyes of the man holding it and said, "Is there something
going on here that I don't know about?"

The man with the gun was Sheriff Quick. He'd returned home from traipsing
around in the desert only to find the object of his search packing his
daughter's toys into a box in his own backyard. His frightened wife had
turned on all the lights and bolted all the doors and windows when I
showed up . . . walking around on the back porch talking to someone who
wasn't there.

"Get up, move!" he barked, waving his gun towards a door which led into
the carport. I complied without hesitation. He frisked me against the
car, then led me around through the front door of what I still thought was
'my' house.

"Sit," he said, pointing to a couch in the living room. I sat. It was
only then that I looked down at myself. One of my tennis shoes was
missing. I had no shirt on. I was scratched and bruised all over the
place. I looked up and blinked around at the living room. I still
thought it was mine. I was thoroughly confused. Sheriff Quick had gone
into the kitchen and was talking on the phone, but he didn't let me out of
his sight.

My eyes settled at last on a family portrait right across from me on a big
console TV. It was of the Sheriff, his wife, and their three year-old
daughter. The sight had the effect of waking me up with a jerk, as if I'd
been in bed dreaming. From that point on I was back to my old self. I
felt perfectly 'normal', more or less. But that old self had just
narrowly escaped being shot in the head.

Fortunately the good Sheriff was on the phone to my dad. In the way of
small towns, they came to an agreement, and my dad came down the street to
walk me back home.

[RStark1957]

WILL TO THE ABBEY MASK
by Randy Stark

Taken aback sliding reflections
Forward over descending falls
Scream halting cries
And are sucked in through the marrow
Then emptied into silence

Stripped, torn, drowned
Slain in the spirit
In the graveless space
Of time and thought we trip
Unknowing through our normal worlds

(Alone in the engulfing flood
All shape and symbol out of mind
To tow the black luck sail
Above our land-shaped thoughts)

We carry on the babble in a bubble's wood
All the sky-long day, the long way home
Across a larken bone
Ahead of the gun-gutted window
Form of our father's hope
Found down the narrow way
Unconscious willow whipped wild
With rain to dust and the evening star
Deflowering the plotless wave;
One long and lonely hymn we sing
Inside these walls, amen

Old ivory ruins
Rainbow drained and pale
The crying stone-cold veil,
We carry on the roar in a hopeless hole
Slow as the thread is strung
Figure and nature of our cross
Hung down the rope a ways;
Bodies to dust, souls to fire

Know no red flowing blood
Will be scattered by the numbers possible,
Through every single cell
The touch and breath of life
Dwells in seas of endless motion,
In waking streams through fading dreams
The battles burn unseen inside
As o'er these foul-winged winds we ride
Weeping to the stars undying love
So cradled long through our storms of loss

Shape of our mother's tears
Tossed in the templed dusk,
A rose of one token kiss,
On this rock I stand undone
And hope to our children away
Today, a page unturned to sand
A will, a wish, a love in hand
Not so hung in the mellow wood
As to laugh once then fall in the wave;
In love, a breathing song
Outside, the roaming throng

Know no whip of time
Will rule the lost,
They knowing never heed
Till falling, flame in need
And screaming plant the seed
To bend in the seldom torrent
A prayer of sandy shores --
All ghosts to icicle loud forests
In stories of our fever's din,
Or so the head eggs cracked;
What was greatest was least to them
Of crooked finger and diadem

(Don't cross this witch banger
Thought the undertaker of impulsive
Reasoning that all the while
Some deep mysterious nothingness
Stood by not caring nor seeming to see
Yet terribly present and puzzling
In its sarcastic and ultimate silence)

Grind down the word in a pestle of words
In a prison of dirges, in a room of birds
Blend in discordant tones
A telephone to the dead.
Care-taking bells ring rainbows
Around the moon as we fall
Through these worlds under heaven

Know no silver spoon
Fabled worm-feather will grow
In the see-through gold streets of paradise;
The tumultuous rumble we enjoy
Vibrates to the very quick
Of our star-born slave

(God bless this twice-blest land
Slowed and played backwards over bend
And flip-sided men and women crawling
On all fours towards King Tantalus' crime)

Who can tell this time-shined bell
When to stop ringing in the sheaves?
So we blast our awkward reasoning to hell
With a chord and a spell to grow on;
In time we'll jump from this crazy horse,
Down isn't always backwards
Though bleeding blind and ugly
And free as a bird
Beating its brains out on heaven's floor
We breathe the word for nevermore

And called to arc the frozen slime
We trail a hidden moon behind
On waves and waves of days
We turn long 'round the sun climb
Falling up through rhyme to play
The good witch folly
So we know when to volley
The Abbey mask back to its source
In the haste-land
Of Sodom-grown Christ-tongues

(Nothing grows lovelorn moss in the dovelight
Like our own long round songs)

Somewhere, seeing all
Showering in the light of the water dummy
We'll crack and spill our troubles
In relief and rewind, relaxing

All falling angels rising unaware
We glide through the darkness of time.
Even the weeping distance knows
No hurt, burnt, ashen sap-limp cry
Draws nigh our riddled wood in vain;
Love dies not in webs on tangled baitless hooks
Hanging in some fenced sky of hope!

(Here in the footfall of the evergreen
All our words speak of love and die)

A rolling drone of might-have-beens
Say, "See no evil too or else, you drake.
You're a star-clocked slowpoke
Standing around in dung-licked time!"

Grand and small in the crack-jaw caverns
Long dead with flowers on these sand-clocks
And so windily winding home on the rocks
The ill-gathered dust of wayward years
Remains and lingers on
To feed and kill the green day come

While taken aback sliding reflections
Forward over descending falls
Scream halting cries
And are sucked in through the marrow
Then emptied into silence.

[TenseHead]

STARLIGHT EXPRESS

I was looking out the window of the smooth riding train staring at the
greatest city in the world-St. Louis Missouri. Never had there been a city
like it. It our rivaled Los Angeles and beat New York hands down. And it
was because of the lights!

I awakened my three brothers and told them we were rolling by St.
Louis Missouri! They began to stir around realizing that it was very late
at night. I told them I was going to be on the roof and climbed my way up
there.

I sat on top of the train just looking at the amazing lights! The
skyscrapers were so tall and so lit up it was fascinating! They were
built in groups of three; a meduim tall one, the tall one, and one
farthest to the right, its height was inbetween the preceeding two. And
they were all lined up like houses in the suburbs stretching for as far as
the eye could see.

My brothers climbed up and were with me, gazing at the awe-inspiring
spectacle. We were miles from the city and we were surrounded by darkness.
Suddenly I heard a commotion behind me. I looked back and saw my oldest
brother falling from the train He landed on his back on what appeared to
be pavement. And he skidded along for a brief moment before slamming into
a snow bank.

There was no way we could save him. The train was going to fast and
wouldnt stop for anything. My other brother stood up and said that he was
going after him. It seemed like the right thing to do. but I knew he
wouldnt make it either. We were miles away from any kind of help or
communication devices. And besides in the few moments since he fell the
train had traveled an immense distance. I doubted my brother would make it
to our fallen brother without succumbing to the cold.

He looked around and without a second thought bounded off the train. I
was a bit relieved as I was glad someone was trying to help him. And I
knew that I surely wasnt going to go.

I turned my attention back to the beautiful lights that stretched for
ever in one direction. The train was riding parallal to the immense city
of St. Louis Missouri! I couldnt believe it. It had been a long time since
I had seen the lights of this place and I couldnt get their dazzling
beauty out of my mind from the moment I first laid eyes upon them.

"Its soooo..ooo..oo Cooollll..dddddd...." My brother was sitting
directly behind me and I could barely understand what he had said because
he had said it so slowly. When I understood what he said I was surprised
because I didnt even feel that the surrounding temperature had any effect
on me.

I turn back to see what we could do for him. He was hanging onto the
roof of the train with all his might. It looked as if his the tips of his
fingers had dug millimeters into the metal roof and the expression on his
face was that of hanging on for dear life. He had been at this too
long-trying to cling to absolutely nothing. I reached for him. The speed
of the traveling winds picked my brother up off the roof of the car and
hurled him towards the rear of the train.

An infinitude of dread soaked my body. I felt the speed of the train
and the roar of the wind. My brother landed on the caboose of the train
and slid almost off the side. His arm was grotestequely lodged in a hand
rail on top of the train.

I was paralyzed with horror and dread. A cascade of second thoughts
rooted me to the spot. Had I given them a chance? Had I done all I could
to help them? No, I mean really?

I was flying through the air. My jacket was spread in my arms like a
canopy that would cover my brother when I landed next to him. It was an
all or nothing move. One that I hadnt even thought about before doing. It
was a last ditch effort that I gave everthing I had.

I landed on the metal roof of the train. But he was gone. I glanced up
into the darkness behind the train. I saw the last vestige of my brother
disappear into the darkness carried away by the whipping, buffeting winds.

With the lights of the greatest city in the world to my back and darkness
all around I realized that they never had a chance. And I.....I.........

[Pedro Sena]

> But "reading infinity" refers to a specific sorcerers' method.

I believe I was aware of that, although I was trying to refer to the little
process within the exercise itself, something which leads to the passes,
and may have come from the acting work that they all do.

> Excerpted from the book Silent Knowledge by Castaneda:

I sure would like to get this.... is it available somewhere?

[nibe...@aol.com]

[nibe...@aol.com]

He's Surrounded by Lovers of the Art of Sorcery

"Gustavo de Lama" <gde...@nauta.es> writes:

<< If you do not _see_,
then you do not have enough energy yet---
and unless __POSTING TO USENET__
helps you accumulate energy,
or gain insight for such pursuits,
it may be best not to do it.

N.>>

:-O

<I hope you don't stay in bed because of it. I did, and became afraid the
Spirit wouldn't like it and the ceiling might fall on my head.>

Well said. But did staying in bed help you accumulate energy?
And did being afraid of what the spirit wouldn't "like" help as well?
(it very well might)

<Worst of all is: How do you know what does help you gain energy?>

How do we know anything? By experience?

<Now I beware whenever what I purport to do comes to me
in words to begin with.>

Excellent! The above line stands on its own
as a fine contribution to this thread.

But there _are_ exceptions . . .

words have their wonders.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Reposted...

[Carlos Nagual Grau]

nibe...@aol.com wrote:

>The original book is no longer available. But a large portion of it
>has been incorporated into the more recent book:
>
>Tensegrity: The Magical Passes of the Sorcerers of Ancient Mexico
>
>
>Check with Cleargreen to see if this book is available.
>
>
>Future "expanded versions" of both of the above books
>are said to be in the works.
>
>
>
>N.
>

be sure to turn your cookies off when you visit the cleargreen sight

[nibe...@aol.com]

[nibe...@aol.com]

[nibe...@aol.com]

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Joy of Having Found a Challenge

"Have you ever asked yourself, why you in particular?"
"All the time. I'ved asked you that question
hundreds of times but you've never answered it."
"I didn't mean that you should ask it as a question
that begs an answer, but in the sense of a warrior's
pondering on his great fortune, the fortune of
having found a challenge." [from Tales of Power]

Walking the path of knowledge
can seem virtually impossible.

It requires:
taking the long view,
practicing through the years,
falling down,
and getting up again.

When I fall,
I have to consider:
perhaps, for me,
it _is_ impossible.
And yet...
When I get up,
I have to believe:
still, for me,
there is a chance.

When belief fails,
I have to laugh,
for it is then that I know:
it doesn't matter.
Because . . .
if you ever wanted
a reason to live,
there is a reason to live:
having found a worthwhile challenge.

N.

[nibe...@aol.com]

The Not-Doing of Luuuv Songs

by Tuliodo

"If I had to choose just one day
to live within my heart..."

For me, luuuv was always tied to music: endless romantic
visions of luuuv. I had so many hundreds of luuuv songs
all stored away, each tethered to some "special" moment,
that the whole of it, when I could really feel the effect,
was rather like a two-ton sacharine stone chained to my heart.
Hence, a big part of the not-doing of luuuv, for me, involves
the not-doing of luuuv songs.

One might imagine that all I would need to do is not listen.
It doesn't work. This is because, after decades of ingestion,
the saturation was so thorough that a large part of my internal
dialog included endless "recordings" of luuuv songs. And being
a musician of sorts myself, they had not only been ingested,
but ingested with aesthetic as well as romantic passion.

Or one might speculate that I could simply be sarcastic,
or cynical, and sing endless luuuv songs cynically to myself
until the true extent of their sappiness is evident. Well, yes.
I tried that. That might even be called "stage one". It was
largely ineffective, and I finally decided the reason it was
ineffective was that it replaced one set of binding emotions
with another: sappy, syrupy luuuv being replaced with hard,
bitter sarcasm. No good.

Then I arrived at the most enjoyable solution. It came from
Tales of Power, and is very simple. A warrior's love is
the earth. So the best not-doing of singing sappy songs
about human love, is just to sing those same songs to your
true love, the world (or to the spirit). It then takes on
an entirely different character, often quite whimisical. :-)

"My Cherie Amour, lovely as a summer day...
My Cherie Amour, distant as the milky way..."

The method works fine, no matter how I sing the songs. Even the
most passionate and romantic instrumentals can work in very well.
It's all in the intent. Just try it, you'll see that it works
with a large number of luuuv songs:

"In a cafe, or maybe on a crowded street,
I've been near you, but you never noticed me...",

(Notice: I can sing that to it, or it can sing to me...LOL)

The melodrama easily gets downright ridiculous:

"I'm in the mood for love
simply because you're near me." :-)

"I was made to love her---build my world all around her.
Hey Hey Hey!" :-)

"The very thought of you makes my heart sing
like an April breeze on the wings of Spring---
and you appear in all your splendor,
my one and only love."

Perhap semi-serious, or maybe even downright serious:

"You, you brought the sunshine to my eyes;
you, the one that threw my sad disguise.
And, I have a love that cannot die,
for you."

"Every time I reached for her, she managed to slip away,
taking my breath away from me, how can I make her stay!?"

"And doesn't everybody know...love takes a lifetime."

It's so "sad" (sigh), when I indulge and we "break up":

"There goes the sunshine...here comes the rain
and heartache pain, what can I do, but wait for you?"

"Should you arrive, and it's not there, call on me..."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! :-) Ridiculous, no?

But it doesn't matter, when I sing to my true love,
or my true love sings to me..."tenderly"... ;)

"Now, the bright light of her I'm shown;
she never was leaving me,
guiding me by efforts to reach her,
leading me to be free."

"Cause I'll be loving you always...
always...always...always..."

"And if I had to choose just one day..."

[nibe...@aol.com]

Within the Earth's Embrace

by Tuliodo

The song of the cardinal is like the knock of the spirit.

Communing with the fish, they follow my movements,
we make eye contact.

Marveling at the large collection of stuffed birds, I am reminded of man's
self-importance. We are only one of the many marvelous animals here,
yet continually think only of ourselves.

Walking alone through hundreds of trees...
Alone?

Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. All of these sustain me.
The Earth supports my form, carries my water, holds my air,
and allows just the right amount of the Sun's cosmic fire.

The Earth shelters me, and infuses me with its energies.
In my dreaming and my waking I am privileged to explore
an infinitude within the tiniest part of its awesome domain.

The Earth blesses me with its care,
and is the chief source of all my delights.
I do not live on the Earth, but live within the Earth's embrace.

[nibe...@aol.com]

Every Encounter Is Battle

"I call it a battle because it is a struggle . . .
Most people move from act to act without
any struggle or thought." [from Journey to Ixtlan]

Every encounter is a battle.
Every person who engages you,
engages you in a battle.
The battle, to some extent,
is with the other person---
but it is mostly with yourself.

Your goal in every battle
is to be impeccable.
You must not lose energy,
cause another to lose energy,
or cause another to direct energy at you
in a way that can tie you down.

Every encounter is a battle.
You cannot know:
your path may be on the line
in any encounter,
no matter how mundane.
To lose the battle
is to lose energy,
engage in routine,
become self-important,
or fail to be a witness.
To lose the battle
is not to be:
ruthless, cunning, patient, and sweet.

Every encounter is a battle.
How can you know:
the simplest success
is not a turning point,
a moment of truth?
To win the battle:
is to focus on the world,
curtail your reactions,
witness each drama,
and act strategically.
To win the battle
is to take only what you need,
then move away leaving no trace.

Since everything you do
is an encounter with yourself,
in this way, truly,
every encounter is a battle.

N.

[Starkworks]

FLYERS, ENERGY AND THE ONION

by Randy Stark

Talking about Flyers may be like trying to shed light on a fire with a
candle or a flashlight, but what the hell, let's talk about the sneaky
bastards for a moment. I have no first hand evidence they exist, but for
the sake of argument let's say the sorcerers know what they're talking
about and Flyers are real energetic beings. For a lot of people it
certainly wouldn't be the first time the sorcerers have talked about
things for which first hand experience is lacking. Hell, there are all
kinds of beings, including our own doubles, which could exist without our
observing them by 'seeing energy as it flows in the universe'. Let's face
it, without that observational capability other layers of the onion are
mostly myth.

I know, I know, we can see worlds without end through our instruments
these days, but that's just one layer of the old pungent bulb apparently,
and we're missing quite a bit of the show according the sorcerers and a
lot of other folks. Take aliens for example, and life existing elsewhere
in the universe (in one layer or another). Someone joked that proof of
intelligent life out there lies in the fact that no-one's tried to contact
us. Ha! Maybe, maybe not. Check out the stone work in Peru at Cuzco or
Machu Picchu before you decide, though . . . or any number of other places
where impossible things exist.

There are all kinds of puzzling bits of evidence that point to there being
more to this picture than meets the eye. Some folks swear there are
aliens called Grays who've been clandestinely mining minerals and testing
farm animals for environmental pollution levels for some time. Others say
there are aliens who live underground on Mars and are responsible for
seeding ancient cultures with their genes in Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia and
other places. Still others talk about 'the gardeners' who helped make
Earth habitable in the first place and consider the human race a disease
that must be controlled; and other such trans-dimensional,
timeline-jumping, crop-circle registering oddities of the universe abound.

I bring these examples up as background for saying a few words about our
alien buddies, the Flyers. There are lots of possibilities, and you don't
have to be mentally ill or part of a lunatic or religious fringe group to
see indications of that (although it *does* help, and some people would
say that's precisely what students and practitioners of the sorcerers'
work are -- haha). Let's just say that it's a predatorial universe, and
in this layer of the onion there are organisms that feed on us daily.
Organisms we can't see but that scientists assure us do actually exist,
and rather harmlessly co-exist with us, in fact. Enter the Flyers:
Non-organic energetic beings who also 'harmlessly' co-exist with us as
their gracious, unseeing hosts.

Flyers are of course more sophisticated, but not as sophisticated as, say,
the inorganic beings in The Art of Dreaming, the aliens mentioned above
(not that I have first hand experience of either), the ghost of Elvis, or
Santa Claus. The irony of the Flyers is that they are most likely not
'rational' beings at all, yet their influence may be the basis of our
reason. Ha! Wouldn't that be a paradox! They effectively change the
flow of energy in our topmost center by some process called the 'foreign
installation' (perhaps as easily as Pavlov shocked his dogs) and hey
presto, we have our minds, our self-reflection, our incredibly air-tight
sense of self-importance, all of which fly in the face of, and totally
confound, the energetic facts of our luminous potential -- yet thereafter
they are able to feed, or lick or whatever the hell it is they do,
undisturbed by their hopelessly distracted human hosts.

(Reason is, after all, VERY distracting . . .)

I'm trying to shine a flashlight on the fire, I know, but something else
that occurs to me is that our being still, being sedentary, might be a
mode they prefer. As children we're drilled over and over again to sit
down, be still, behave, shut-up! It's a conspiracy, I tell you, and it's
being perpetuated by beings who may have no more intelligence than a swarm
of bees. That's what I think, by God (opps, 'I' and 'think' and 'God',
three sure signs of Flyer influence -- please disregard). The conclusion
I've come to from doing Tensegrity is that we should keep moving as much
as possible, and when we're not we should be in a state of vigil. The
Flyers are pesky bastards. Nothing short of unbending intent and energy
can keep them from reducing us to gibbering self-indulgent idiots caught
in their thin Pavlovian band of static. Chop, chop, chop . . . back and
forth . . . hey, doesn't the yard look great?

(Exposition mode off. Let's get back to some quick jabs, I'm bored ;-)

Randy
'looking for a really big flyswatter'
Stark

[nibe...@aol.com]

It's like...

Every day wearing the same suit of clothes, threadbare,
out-of-style, boring, smelly . . . hanging on the door handle
of a walk-in closet full of brand new, well-fitting, stylish outfits.
The closet door is stuck.

It's like...

Every day driving a 73' pontiac that's been rolled,
parked in your driveway over the giant oil spot . . .
right in front of a double garage housing a Porsche
and a Mercedes. The garage door opener is broken.

It's like...

Every day living the same old assemblage point position
that sickens, weakens, and bores you to perpetual sleep . . .
just inches away from the wonders of hundreds of incredible
fresh new worlds that would excite you to the core.
There is no energy to move it.

N.

[Tulitre]

"Are the stars out tonight?
I don't know if it's cloudy or bright.
I only have eyes for ME."

Tuliodo wrote:
<A warrior's love is the earth. So the best not-doing of singing
sappy songs about human love, is just to sing those same songs
to your true love, the world (or to the spirit). It then takes on
an entirely different character, often quite whimisical. :-) >

A variant of this, which can be equally effective, depending
on mood and the particular lyric, is instead of singing the
song to your true love (the world or the spirit), sing it instead,
with only minor alteration, to your OTHER "true love": ME.

"Night and Day you are the one,
night and day under the moon and the stars and the sun."

Now the above can be rendered to the earth, whimsically,
or, with a slight change, becomes, mock-egomaniacally:

"Night and Day I am the one,
night and day under the moon and the stars and the sun.
...
in the midday traffic's boom,
or the silence of my lonely room,
I think of ME
Night and Day."

Just replace any references to YOU with ME,
"adoring you", "needing you", "loving you", etc.
becomes adoring ME, needing ME, loving ME!
This can obviously become ludicrous to the extreme.

To the spirit:
"There were birds in the sky
but I never saw them winging,
no, I never saw them at all
till there was you."

Or just make the simple change to:
"till there was ME!" :-)

To the earth and the spirit:
"But I'd like to get to know you..."

Sorry...not gonna' happen...
No room in this heart for anything but ME!
"Yes, I'd like to get to know ME..."
(works whimsically or seriously)

"I give ME all my love.
That's all I do.
And if you saw my love.
You'd love him too.
And I love ME."

But that's the thing you see. We don't even love "ourselves".
How could we? Somewhere deep inside we KNOW that
we are dilapidated, fragmented, twisted remnants of ourselves.
What's left to love? And yet...there IS something left to love,
the vastness of the being that is going to die, as yet unknown.

To the earth and the spirit:
"Baby I'm yours,
and I'll be yours until the sun no longer shines,
yours until the poets run out of rhyme,
in other words, until I die."

To ME, whimsically:
"When you just give love,
and never get love,
you'd better let love depart.
I know it's so
and yet I know
I can't get ME out of my heart
...
...since I fell for ME." :-)

Seriously? Whimsically? Both? Falsetto:
"No, I don't have...anything...
since I don't have ME
ME ME ME ME ME ME ME
ME ME ME ME MEEEEEEE!"

It should be plain that this is paradoxical:
In becoming whole you become nothing.
And only in becoming nothing do you become everything.
Thus, strangely, it may be that the one who doesn't
give a DAMN is the only one whose love is true.

Well, let's get TALKING about it! And in the mean time...

"My love must be a kind of blind love.
I can't see anyone but ME." :-(

:-)

-Tuli

***************************************************
"To dream our dream, you have to be dead."
(Being-In-Dreaming, by Florinda Donner)

[don Pequeno]

> tul...@aol.com (Tulitre) wrote:

>Well, let's get TALKING about it! And in the mean time...

>"My love must be a kind of blind love.
>I can't see anyone but ME." :-(

>:-)
>-Tuli

A little less ego,
A little more fight...

Ian Hunter

[tul...@aol.com]

donpe...@aol.com (don Pequeno) writes:

Absolutely, little big guy! But my side of this Novella thread
is an ego purge, so it may be a while before we see daylight,
as my most egomaniacal pieces have yet to be posted...
My chair has just broken, and I have no leg to stand on either,
so I'm begging you, on my knees DP, please, please love me!

Now folks, you know I wouldn't want to "offend" anyone here,
and I know that most of you probably have no problem with
things like, oh, blank checks of affection, the egoless witness,
etc.---yeah, I'm sure most of you have it all nailed down tight---
but if you don't mind I really need to continue singing here...LOL. :-)

To my energy body:
"Hello, hello again
shaboom
and hopin' we'll meet again
boom boom boom
hey nonlee ding-dong
a lingela lingela lingela lingela
oh whoa bip!
Uh bibbah dobah dip.
Whoa!
Life could be a dream.
Life could be a dream.
doo doo doo doo shaboom!"

One more time for the energy body:
"We're gonna have a real good time together!
We're gonna have a real good time together!
We're gonna have a real good time together!
Ohhhh we're gonna laugh and dance and shout together!
Whoo!
na na na na na na na na na na na na!
uh early in the mornin'...
na na na na na na na na na na na!
hey hey baby now!
na na na na na na na na na na na!
na na na na na na na na na na na!
yeah...yeah... whoooo!"

What? You think I'm indulgin'? :-)

[nibe...@aol.com]

They're like . . .

astronauts---
as young children dream
of rockets to the moon,
never to have the "right stuff".

They're like . . .

explorers---
as couch potatoes view
amazing documentaries,
afraid of chapped lips.

They're like . . .

architects---
as gawkers crane necks
at fantastic constructions,
giving "expert" design critiques.

They're like . . .

billionaires---
as spammers recycle
endless pyramid posts
preaching financial sense.

They're like . . .

statesmen---
as laborers on break
squabble over the paper,
pronouncing foreign policies.

They're . . .

navigators---
as lovers of the art,
posing as "in the know",
lack the discipline to follow.

N.

[tul...@aol.com]

One of the things that should have clued me in to the madness here
was the fact that my basically kind and caring parents, when I was
yet a babe, without asking my permission, actually had part of my
dick chopped off. Yeesh...

[tul...@aol.com]

In my life thus far, I have seen the spirit beckoned by one man.
I know that this man really beckoned the spirit, because on a
couple of occasions when doing so, he "sicked it on me"
so to speak, and actually caused me to have (albeit briefly) the
extraordinary experience I would now call "stopping the world".

This happened many years ago, in the relative innocence of
adolescence, when we were best friends---and most of our
experiences at that time took place under the influence of drugs,
such as LSD. At that time, I had no idea what he was doing,
and I do not think he had any clear idea either---but I came to
believe that he was able to act as he did because he is a "nagual",
although he himself would never claim this, only being familiar
with the first few books of Carlos Castaneda.

Recently, after not having had much to do with my friend for years,
I had the opportunity to spend some time with him again. He had
just undergone a divorce, severing his marriage of fifteen years,
becoming separated from his three children in the process.
He had also just quit his job, after attending a personal growth
seminar of sorts that encouraged him to transform his life.
I had decided to contribute to his attempt at "transformation"
by taking him on a four-day camping trip in the Chihuahuan desert,
where I also intended to locate "Mescalito".

My friend had become extremely fat over the years, having had
a problem with eating since early childhood. On this trip,
since he was very low on money, I was to be responsible for
the food we would have, and I planned it out so that we would
eat "as a warrior eats" (the closest idea I had of it then)
for those four days.

However, I never verbalized any part of this plan, and so I'm
not sure my friend ever really got the idea completely (I fear
that he may have thought I was merely semi-starving him),
but I also had a feeling that I *was* able to have some impact
on his idea of eating over those four days, without ever saying
anything about it overtly. My inner voice kept telling me not
to confront him directly on the subject. But I digress...

My friend may be what I would call a "failed nagual". That isn't
intended to be judgmental, but merely descriptive of one who
had the chance to fly and did not. On this trip, after he finished
telling me about the different self-revelations he had recently
experienced (most of which involved taking responsibility for the
choices he had made and was making), and after allowing him
to explore the desert terrain to his liking, and after having him
serenade me with his guitar under a full moon (as he had done
so often in olden days), I steered the conversation to reminding
him of those very odd times I mention above where he managed
to cause extraordinary effects by beckoning what I would now
call "the spirit".

He had no trouble recalling those things, and began to tell me,
as if simultaneously revealing things to himself, what he knew
about what he had done at those times. I had begun by speaking
of "a force" that is beyond us, and of how this force can direct
one's actions. I then reminded him of how his actions had
affected me on certain occasions in the past.

First he said, "what you may not have known is that performing
those actions had a powerful effect on me as well". Then he
began to think about it, in a moment adding: "one thing I can
tell you, is that *action* is very important".

He used to do very dramatic things, many of which involved
distinct physical movements, usually repeated over and over,
as if following a mystical pattern of some kind. These actions
would catch and hold my attention in a most extraordinary way,
breaking the continuity of my ordinary thoughts, and at that time
the spirit would descend upon me, forcing me to act or move
in a certain way, and giving me an experience of "eternity"
or perhaps "timelessness".

(While such things are almost impossible to describe adequately,
I will do my best to relate a couple of experiences below.)

We also discussed other mutual drug induced mystical experiences
which had had a profound impact on both of us. The most amazing
thing about those experiences was how we had *shared* them.
That is, I could see what he was going through, and he could see
what I was going through, and sometimes we could each see what
was about to happen to the other, before it even happened.

Much of this occurred on levels that did not permit remembering
the entire experience later. You know, those perhaps rather
common experiences of "I just learned the secret of the universe!
It's....damn! I can't remember!" My friend could recall coming out
of a trance-like condition to find me exclaiming over and over
like a mad scientist: "That's it! That's it! I've done it!"---only to
be completely unable to answer when he would ask: "What?"
Actually, I could remember some, but most of it made little sense
when I tried to talk about it. It took many years, and reading CC,
to gain some understanding of why I couldn't retain or talk about it.

***

[tul...@aol.com]

My friend and I were both pretty good at Ping-Pong, and we were
evenly matched (as we were at many other things, like chess).
We had never played on LSD before, and at first we were wondering
if we could do it. We quickly discovered that indeed we could,
and that in fact we were every bit as good as usual, maybe even
a little better (it seemed).

We played for a long time, getting more and more warmed up and
into it, not speaking...just the rhythm of the game, the shuffling
of feet, the bouncing ball, and each other's breathing. Just to play
seemed a rather miraculous activity at the moment...

Then we decided to have a game. Our game turned out to be
very even and intense, and it came down to a situation where
we were tied at the end point (you have to win by two points).
It became my advantage, but he tied it up again, and then took
the advantage. We then began a most fiercely contested point
that seemed to go on forever---a lengthy exchange culminating
in both of us repeatedly slamming the ball back and forth
at what seemed like an almost professional level of play!

After numerous amazing volleys, I suddenly became aware that
I was playing *much* better than usual, and right at that moment I
lost my concentration, screwed up, and lost the point...and the game.

As my friend retrieved the ball, I spoke, musing that "I played
better than I have ever played before, and yet...I lost."

Right then, my friend stepped up and made as if to serve the ball
again, but held onto it instead of serving it, his body moving in a
very peculiar, rhythmical, almost mechanical fashion, as if moved
by an outside force. He repeated this weird movement precisely,
three times, as he said the following words, uttered rhythmically
in exactly the same tone of voice:

"You beat yourself..."

"You beat yourself..."

"You beat yourself..."

At that moment, I was seized by something which came over me
and made me feel that information of universal proportions had just
been revealed. At the same time that I realized the truth of the
statement, it was as if time itself had ceased, and I saw myself
there, in that garage, as if I had stepped outside of myself, and it
felt as though I had been there for eternity in that one moment...
or...that for eternity I had been waiting for that moment.

The "world" seemed "unreal", as though it were only a scene that I
was "inhabiting" or even concocting, and I was somehow aware
of an infinitely larger world surrounding me and encompassing me,
of which my normal world was just a tiny part.

As this somewhat frightening feeling enveloped me, right then it was
as if an outside force took hold of me, made me stagger backwards
in a similar rhythmic motion, and I crashed against the wall, as I
stared in amazement at my friend, who still stood posed in his final
position as if time had stopped, with his eyes shining intensely like
a some kind of a being from another world. My friend was gone,
and I was facing a strange "mechanical herald of eternity".

The thing that frightened me at that moment, even more than the
bizarre sense of eternity, was that the experience had been
engendered *deliberately*. Either he wasn't real, and the entire
universe was some sort of bizarre joke on me...or...my friend
was was obviously somehow in cahoots with this tremendous,
magical force; for not only did he seem to know what I had
experienced, he seemed to have *intended* it. Either possibility
seemed equally terrifying, and all this was blowing me away...

Yet a few moments later, I recovered, and realized that I was
still standing there, seemingly okay, and my friend began to
move normally again. He asked me: "are you afraid?
Do you want to go in?"

I was a bit afraid, but not terribly so, and what I really wanted was
for him to explain what he had just done. I was right on the verge
of asking him to explain, but changed my mind for some reason,
and just said "okay, let's go in."

We quickly moved on to other parts of "the trip", and turned out
that it was over twenty years later when we finally discussed
the incident, one night camping in the desert.

It's true that we often beat ourselves, or at least, I do. And it is our
focus on the "self" or the "self-image" that is responsible for this.
That is what prevents us from accessing and using the spirit, which
would allow the achievement of feats beyond our wildest imaginings.

In fact, over and over, I have found myself enjoying the idea that
"I am doing better than I have ever done before", only to lose it
once again (the intent of my path), once again beating myself.
Don Juan said our tendency is to stop and congratulate ourselves,
and this is indeed my experience.

But beyond realizing this, and intending to change it, there is no
reason to dwell upon it. When you fall down, get up, and move on.

[tul...@aol.com]

I would like to tell one more old story about my friend,
the one I suspect to be a nagual man. I keep referring
to him without reservation as "my friend", because he was
truly my *best* friend for more than a decade.

This could be described as "the story of how he lost his power".
More accurately, it is the story of how I *think* he lost it.

Right out of high school, he moved out on his own, and soon
he moved to another state entirely, the first of my friends
to do this. He lived in Denver, and fell in with a rowdy bunch
of people who loved to hang out up in the Rocky mountains.

As I've mentioned, my friend was a big man, always overweight---
that is, except for when he went out to Denver. He had been
spending so much time running up and down the Rockies,
that when he returned for visits, he looked like a transformed man.
He was about six feet tall, and he came back from Denver still
fairly stocky, but he had lost almost all of his fat (losing well over
a hundred pounds). He was now almost solid muscle.

In all honesty, he was a human dynamo. He had more energy
than anyone I have ever seen. He had always been formidable
physically, and no one would tangle with him, but now he was
downright awesome. I can remember him picking me up and
throwing me all the way across the room just for fun
(it *was* fun too). After about a year of not seeing him I decided
to go out to visit him in Colorado.

There I found a person who "rammed walls with his shoulders"
for kicks, and could perform amazing feats like lifting up small cars
and the like. We went camping in the Rockies, and spent a lot
of time in one of his favorite pastimes, which was actually *running*
up and down the sides of mountains, both in the daytime and at night,
even while on various kinds of drugs. When I think back on what we
did then, I don't know how we survived.

My friend had an animated and outlandish sense of humor, and he was
always making an enjoyable drama out of life in one way or another.
He loved to play games with your head, or with anything else. He was
always making up ridiculous parodies of the life transpiring around him,
and making songs out of them on his guitar. His songs were often
utterly primitive, were almost always totally spontaneous, and were
often "shocking" in some fundamental way. Often they seemed to be
almost "psychic" in character, as if he was channeling you and making
up songs out of *your* thoughts instead of his own.

(As a humorous aside, he probably composed dozens of songs about
my personal problems in life, some humiliating, some downright crude,
some funny, some serious tributes to me. If I was having any problem,
I used to feel like... "oh shit, here he comes with his guitar".)

He also composed some serious instrumental music, but he had no
professional ambition with it. It was always purely for enjoyment.

It was quite clear that he felt very much "beyond" the ordinary people
in the world around him. And while he only worked an ordinary job,
he *was*beyond most people in some undefinable way. He took it
as a "closed" matter, as a matter "well-known", that we were
*different* from other people (without ever specifying in just what
way we were "different"). All I can say is that we had the feeling
that none of us gave a tiny damn about the concerns of the
"real world" out there in society. We had a world of our own.

Yet I often felt rather morbid and unnaturally quiet around him,
because he was such a friggin' "live wire". He always seemed
to have a band of "followers" of sorts. Many of them were very
interesting individuals in their own right. And that was always
the main problem with this sort of "urban spiritual mythology"...
the ME ME ME aspect. The "oh yes, we are the special beings"
aspect. Ultimately, it is crippling...

The truth is, most of this "scene" was fostered by his mother,
who was a gifted and intelligent painter and writer, who later
came to possess a masters degree in letters (while I lived with her).
In fact, his mother also became a very close friend of mine.

She was extremely well read in spiritual and esoteric matters,
and she is the one who supplied a lot of the "spiritual mythology"
of the small "cult" that surrounded her son for a few years,
and it took me many years to get over that sort of focus
(if indeed I'm completely over it now), and I can tell you,
I have had many lengthy arguments with treacherously brilliant
individuals regarding this point of "us vs. them" ...
of 'the special' vs. 'the masses'.

It is a major sticking point for a lot of bright people, who never
really figure out that we are all equal as beings who are going to die,
and that only warriors who command their deaths are "special"
in any real sense.

I went through all this just to give a brief picture of what my friend
was like as a young man. As an aside, when I read accounts of
Ken Kesey, I am reminded of the personality of my friend. I would
even be tempted to say that it is a good possibility that Kesey
is also a nagual man.

[tul...@aol.com]

About a year later, I heard that my friend had fallen in with some
people that were even rowdier, the sort of people who would
actually go out looking for fights in Denver's roughest areas
as a recreational activity. I heard stories from mutual friends
to the effect that in this scene he had become something of a
local legend in his ability to whip or intimidate any man or beast
that challenged him. At the same time he was known to be fair,
and was never cruel. He would not start a conflict, but could
damned well finish one, etc.

But he was increasingly being drawn into the concerns of the lives
of these rowdy people, becoming sort of a mentor or guide to them
(as was his role with many). He brought his "magic" into their lives,
in my opinion probably confronting them with viewpoints they were
really not ready for. He wrote me letters filled with the usual
creative bullshit, and told me tales of excursions into the mountains
to eat the hallucinogenic mushrooms they found growing wild there.

About that time, one day on a whim he grabbed a friend's
motorcycle, and went hauling ass across a parking lot at
about seventy, hit some gravel, and smashed the bike into
a telephone pole, shattering one of his legs, breaking it
in more than twenty places.

Doctors wanted to amputate, but he would not let them. They said
he would not walk on it again. He did walk, and even ran, but it
was never the same, and from that day on, it became the limiting
factor in his life. He became extremely overweight again, and
remains that way to this day. He calmed down, settled down,
married, raised a family, and put most of his energy into his career
and his three children, who he adores.

So, *why* do I think he lost his power? It's simple. I don't think
he ever fully realized that his personal power was from the spirit.
I think he thought it was *his*. I don't think he ever put together
any real understanding of the power he had been using, and just
used it, not thinking much about it, or caring where it came from.

His mother had taught him that "power" came from something
like a "Universal Mind", and that only when one tapped into
that did one develop a "personal mind", but I think that he
lost any focus on the universal and emphasized the personal.

Of course, in this mythology, we were all the "special" ones
who *had* tapped in, and had developed a "real" mind of our own,
while others were little more than robots, mere fodder for the
wheel of life. And we had large quantities of literature, art,
music, and spiritual phantasmagoria to support this position.
Ah, the many wondrous faces of self-importance...

I think my friend came to a certain point when he was "abusing"
the power he had come to wield, making too light of it, using it
too much in the realm of everyday life, using it to "make his
personal legend larger"...and BAM...suddenly it was over.

It is perhaps the most serious error one can make, and,
in my opinion, that error cost him everything.

I have never expressed this opinion to him.

He knows I'm very much into a warrior's ethics. And he doesn't
really have much to say about it, except that he respects me
for my choices in life. It is my opinion that he does not
believe himself to have a chance (being forty-plus and overweight
with a game leg), and so now he lives for his children.
I understand that very well.

At the same time, I can't help thinking that he would make a
fine warrior, if not for his totally busted leg. Tempermentally
and energetically, I often regarded him as superior to myself.

Who can say who will make it and who will not?

"Who could say that a heart---far parted---will not change:
A star of heaven---fallen to earth---can become a stone."

Personally, I am not fond of such sentiments, although they do
strike fear into my heart. And I'm NOT passing any kind of
"final judgment" here. We can only continue to do our best...
I keep wondering if there would be extraordinary results if I
could get my friend into Tensegrity, and perhaps I'll try, someday...

-Tuli