To: The Ixtlan Mailing List
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:10:05 +0000
The Seattle workshop was held in The Student Activities Center in Central Seattle Community College. It began at 9:00am sharp when Kylie and Reni entered the room. They appeared lighter than ever before, stronger, harder, much more relaxed and from the heart. Their sense of humor and kindness was immediately evident. The entire day was very relaxed and loose yet focused. They were extremely friendly and nurturing to any student who asked a question or raised a point. Kylie gave a 22-minute talk about Tensegrity while Reni sat on the floor with the audience. She started out asking questions about how many people had never been to a workshop or done any Tensegrity before. It seemed to be nearly a third to half of the room. It was a small group of maybe 200.
The room was a basketball-oriented gymnasium on the second floor of the building. The scent of chlorine and a higher humidity was immediately evident as you entered the building as there was a swimming pool on the ground floor. The Gymnasium has a two-story high ceiling with grayish blue streaming banners all around the four sides of the large room. They had big yellow squares on the ends of every third banner that said in black letters: SEATTLE CENTRAL. The gym had large, modern-looking windows on three sides that let in a lot of natural light. All the windows were etched with large Ancient Mexico type images. The north side had no windows. It was a very light and open space. The stage was set up in the center of the room.
Kylie's lecture was very concise and to the point. After giving the general information about who Carlos Castaneda is and about what Tensegrity is she described the original four lines of magical passes as they were given to Carlos, Carol, Florinda and Taisha. She said that the passes were tailor-made for the individual energetic configurations of each of the four disciples of don Juan. She said that each of the four energetic lines of passes affected each individual disciple specifically in the energetic centers where they needed it. Each line of magical passes were custom-tailored for each of their body styles and energetic configurations, as well as their energetic strengths and weaknesses. Kylie described the original passes as four energetic lines of force that were handed down to Carlos, Carol, Florinda and Taisha by the sorcerers of don Juan's lineage.
She went on to talk about the secrecy that had always surrounded the passes and how they were taught to each of the four disciples of don Juan. She mentioned that the subject of the magical passes had never been talked about in any of the books and that they were so secret that Carlos himself had not even realized that the passes had been taught to him. She told the story of how don Juan told Carlos about the passes. The story is the one where don Juan tells Carlos that he is way too chubby and that he should really take the magical passes seriously and practice them. And Carlos says, "What magical passes, don Juan?" Kylie went on to describe how the Passes had only been referred to in the books as don Juan cracking his joints. She said that Carlos, being so very thorough, would always try to imitate his movements but could never get his joints to actually crack. She made a few gestures as to how don Juan would look as he were doing this. Her movements were very forceful and direct as if she were going to crack her joints. Something in the way she moved was jolting, magical. There was a sense of flair and power in her two-second demonstration of don Juan's movements.
Kylie then said that Carol Tiggs' return was what made it possible for them to come into the picture. She said Carol's return was an unprecedented event that opened up doors of energetic possibility, doors had never been opened before in the entire history of don Juan's lineage of sorcerers. The return of Carol Tiggs made it possible for them to come, to be present into the Nagual's world or group. She said that they (Kylie, Reni and Nyie) did not truly understand what this meant for a long time and that they took it all rather lightly, she said that for a long time they did not comprehend the true gravity of the event. Kylie described how Carol had physically disappeared and was gone for ten years and that to this day Carol is still trying to unravel the mystery of where she actually was. Kylie emphasized that this was a real event that actually took place.
She continued by saying that the possibility of such an event taking place was not part of the taxonomy of our world of everyday life, that we had no parallel for it in our highly taxonomized inventory of possibilities. That ever since we were born we were told, in very definite terms, we were given the elaborate taxonomy of what the world is and we were brought up to disregard all else, all other possibilities. She described how absolutely all of our available energy is employed in upholding that inherited, highly taxonomized view of the world and that we have no energy left, no other energy is available to us with which we could consider other possibilities. She said this view of life is final and that it goes uncontested for our entire lives. She further stated that because of this we live in a dead world, a world closed-off from the flow of infinite possibility. Because of this we are unable to perceive energy directly as it flows in the universe or to witness it's ceaseless flux. Our endless categorizing and taxonomizing closes us into itself and renders us incapable of considering the possibility that someone like Carol Tiggs could go somewhere else for ten years and then return. She said again that Carol really was physically gone and that she was not in this world for those years. Driving the point deeper still.
At this point Kylie returned to the idea of seers and how they are able to perceive the universe as millions of conglomerate fields of energy. She digressed further, to the idea of how the original four lines of magical passes appeared to the seers as "these four massive lines of energy." She said that each line contained perhaps hundreds of intricate movements designed to redeploy and redistribute the energy encrusted on the outside shell of the luminous egg and return it to the vital centers. She said, "if you could imagine each one of our categories and taxonomies as being connected to us by a little line of energy." She, ever so daintily, made gestures of drawing an abundance of tiny, little lines in front of her. She said that, "you would be able to see how all these categories, these schemes of taxonomizing the world, actually build a prison around us, around our perception. And it is this prison that holds us in within it to the death. . . and it is a death that is unnecessary. It doesn't have to happen. But we are incapable of perceiving any other possibility, incapable of becoming aware that there is way out, because we don't have the energy available to consider the possibility. All our available energy is already being employed in maintaining our categorizing and taxonomizing prisons."
She continued talking about how the energy that we have at birth is enclosed and cannot escape or be taken from us or given away to someone else. It is simply being redistributed within the luminous sphere. It is either dissipating and being encrusted on the outer portions of our luminous cocoon, where it is not available to us or it is being redeployed to our vital centers where it is available to us.
She said that as we grow older, we succumb to the globally held agreement that all of our energy must become encrusted on the outer shell of our luminous egg. Once it is no longer in our vital centers, we are dead, gone. She said that since all of our available energy is being employed in the upholding of all our elaborate categorizing and taxonomizing schemes, in maintaining our "Taxonomizing Prisons," it easily becomes encrusted as we agree to grow old. We then become weaker, fall prey to disease and the luminous egg becomes brittle, cracks and we die.
She briefly mentioned how we are affected by the agreements that have been made without our being aware. "I wasn't there when these agreements were made. Who says that we have to grow old and allow our energy become encrusted, to lose our vitality. Who said this? I wasn't there. They said? Who the hell is they? Why do we have to honor agreements that we had nothing to do with?"
"Tensegrity frees the encrusted energy on the periphery of the luminous sphere," she went on, "and redeploys that energy to the vital centers where we then have access to it. "Once we begin to redistribute the encrusted energy and free it, to redeploy it to the vital centers, it becomes available to us so that we are then capable of perceiving previously unconsidered possibilities." We are able to consider the possibility that we ARE capable of extricating ourselves from our prisons of taxonomy and endless categorization. We find that we are capable of it by way of inner-silence.
Tensegrity allows us brief moments of inner-silence and as we persist in practicing the magical passes we accumulate enough of these moments to tip the scales. The doors of possibility open up. The possibility that Carol Tiggs left the world of everyday life and returned ten years later is capable of being taken seriously. We have the available energy with which to deal with it, to consider the possibility. Right now most of our energy is encrusted on the outside of our luminous spheres where it is not available to us. Tensegrity is the act that gives us back our energy! If you do the Tensegrity movements, you will return the energy to your vital centers and it will become available energy.
"So let's do it!" Kylie smiled, " Let's get moving!"
We were shown three passes in the morning that I had never seen before and then went on to cover all the passes from each of the three videos, in order. At the end of the day we were shown another three passes that were quite familiar, the last of which was The Female and Male Winged Warrior. I never take notes so I can't be of much help to anyone trying to remember exactly what was what in regards to specific passes. Everything is to the best of my recollection and I apologize in advance for any errors on my part.
During the lunch break I fell asleep on the floor of the gym. I woke up when Kylie and Reni entered the room. As a result of that Reni's lecture on The Mood of the Warrior is stored at a much deeper position and I am unable to recover it completely at this time. I will touch on it only briefly.
After lunch Reni took the stage for about ten minutes. She introduced herself as Renata Murez and said that they always state their names for magical purposes. She used a little notecard to speak from and seemed a little less at ease speaking then did Kylie. She covered the area of the mood of the warrior, talking about how to do Tensegrity, the mood required to do Tensegrity correctly. She mentioned that when she first came she carried a huge chip on her shoulder that she wouldn't allow any one to see it, especially herself.
About 3:40pm we took a break and Kylie and Reni remained on the stage talking to workshop participants. I didn't feel inclined to join them but eventualyy I went over and listened to Reni talking with a group of perhaps 30 people and they were talking about a new book by Carlos Castaneda that has already been delivered to HarperCollins. She said that it is basically the Purple Book from The Long Beach Workshop but that it will have photographs and a lot of other stuff that wasn't in the purple book. She didn't know when HarperCollings was set to release it.
Also during the break, I wandered over to where Kylie was also talking with a group of maybe 30 or 40 people. She answered some questions about the recapitulation. She said that it is definitely necessary to write the list out on paper and to adhere to it chronologically until you have done a complete recapitulation of your life as much as twice through. She said that we need to have that rigidity at first. She continued to field comments on it and then she said something that rang in my ears all the way home. It stuck a chord in me with something Dan Lawton had mentioned during the lunch break. He mentioned something along the line of: Carlos said that it has become evident that many of us are here for the wrong reasons. And that some people in particular had left because they were here for the wrong reasons.
Kylie stated during the break that we shouldn't do the recapitulation or any of this because expect to get anything out of it. "We are always asking ourselves before we do anything, "What's in it for me?" she said, "We have to learn to act impeccably, simply for the hell of it. Simply because we like the way it feels to be imbued with available energy. We shouldn't do it because want to be great warriors or for any other reason like that. Because all of that is foolish. We should, for once in our lives, just do something solely for the hell of it. We should do it as an abstract gesture. We should act impeccably as our gesture to It."
Tomorrow is promised to no one.
Vini
To: The Ixtlan Mailing List
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:10:05 +0000
Hi. I'm Juan Jose Yera, and I just recently came back from the workshop in Seattle. I was thoroughly reenergized. I had recently came back from a long sea cruise and something happened to me there. When I got back all I was doing was the long passes and some sprinkling of others. However this seminar has hopefully rekindled my desire to be free and start my recapitulation in earnest. When Kyle arrived she was her normal self, the accomplished stalker and formidable warrior that she is. She said that she was going to teach us some passes that The Nagual had given her, just for us. I was hooked. You know, our butts just puckered up and we thought "OOOOH he sent that just for MEEE!! He probably knows I'm here". Played right up to our self importance. Kyle played it like a pro. I thank her for her great performance that day and for having her thumb on the pulse of the group. Somehow she seemed to know exactly how we felt. She stopped when I felt I could go no more. We did all three videos and we learned some new passes. The Egg and Primate something can't remember exactly and I don't know if the Release passes have been taught elsewhere. I'll describe the best ones I liked.
The egg: Two large, in succession back strokes. Then a slam down with both palms sort of facing in at the level of the stomach. Then 3 circles, palms down and open like if you were rubbing the top of a big, big egg, from front to back . Then palms & fingers spread facing each other, arms held as wide as your hips, at hip level three quick flicks up and down. Next with the hands in same position three large circles as if rubbing the sides of a big egg in front of you starting at your waist level down to the bottom of your thighs. Then you bend down and do three circles as if tracing the bottom of the egg just as at the top of the egg, palms facing up. While still bent over spread both arms wide and come in fast in a motion as if to pick up the egg. Quickly stand up holding the egg in both hands. Then take the egg your holding and smash it against your chest. Then rub it in and say MMMMMMM as you rub. This sounds too humorous for life. But it is a heck of a lot of fun. (Wouldn't it be funny If they were pulling our leg, and these passes are just a bunch of ridiculous movements.) But even if they are, I sure am having fun doing them!
The next, like I said I can't remember what the name is right now but the movements were simian in nature . It starts out by bending over and hanging your arms and hands down in front of you. Then it continues with alternating as if you were a monkey standing up as you raised your hands your hands continue about a count of six to the middle of your body then the simian gestures turn into a climbing like movement again as far as you can reach about a count of six. when all the way up you grab an imaginary bar or pipe and bring it down on your head in a breaking motion and then shower yourself with that energy touching your head face, neck and continue to your chest and down to your sides.
Reni spoke about three main points. 1. moods of the warriors. And living the mood. Warriors actions don't come from the same place. Not what's in it for me 2. Driving force is the knowledge that we are on our way to die. All is lost we have nothing to do but gain. 3. Universe is not linear and can not be understood with straight line logic. We have a finite amount of energy and simply when you use it up you die. We use energy foolishly so Tensegrity redeploys that energy that is encrusted on the inside of our luminous egg. Parable: Energy in this instance is similar to a man in the desert looking for water although he has a big jug of water tied to his back he can't drink because he does not have the tools necessary to get to the water. Tensegrity is the tool to get to that water (energy) that we need. (In the language of the 90's Recycle that energy: mine)
Another thing addressed was Carol Tiggs. She said (Kyle) that it is a fact that she was gone for 10 years and is back. She was gone from this world shoes and all. I seem to be running into different people at these seminars the same ones many times. All very interestingly different beings. Many that have stopped doing what they have always done & seem to have left the world and dedicated themselves to Tensegrity and the warriors way. One thing that I learned from someone concerned the Blue Scout. For the longest time I seemed to be fixated on the scout. And I believed that she was a person that had gotten trapped there (world of the inorganic beings)as a result of dreaming. The questions that came to mind were: But were did she come from before, how did she learn to go to that world. I'm sure some of the same questions we all have. But now I realize that is not the case, she is actually another form of being , I suppose she has now fixed her assemblage point at the habitual place for Human beings. This realization was rather overwhelming at the time and awesome in its implications. Is there anyone out there that can agree with this or have any comments about this subject? I mean if everyone else knew this, silly me I didn't remember. If I have left something out, well I probably have forgotten that too, and hope that it is all stored in a position of my assemblage point. If there is any thing that I can tell you about the passes is this, in the words of the Nagual "just do them" 
Juan Jose Yera. yera@hotmail.com
