CARLOS CASTANEDA'S TENSEGRITY SEMINARS

Bulletin - April 5, 1998

Information for New Participants

On May 2, 1998, Cleargreen Incorporated will be giving a one-day intensive seminar and workshop at the Pavilion of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California. The seminar will take place from 2 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (Santa Monica Schedule Information) This seminar and workshop will deal with the most mysterious aspect of the series of magical passes for not-doing: the second series, called On the Run. This series is the most mysterious for reasons that are impossible to explain, not only from our point of view, but also from within the framework of the world of the shamans of ancient Mexico.
The nagual Juan Matus told his disciples that this series has remained untouched throughout the millennia. All the other series have changed. Change was the primary drive behind everything the shamans of old Mexico did. Among them, there was a continuous flux of ideas, conclusions and practices. This flux continues to this day, and can be best judged in Tensegrity: the magical passes which are taught and practiced nowadays.
It has already been stated that Tensegrity is the modernization of the magical passes, movements discovered hundreds of years ago by the shamans of ancient Mexico. Tensegrity, because of the mood in which it was created - a mood of freedom and inquiry - has been regarded as the most fertile ground for the practical application of everything those shamans did.
For a long time, it was assumed that it was the newness of Tensegrity which lent itself to this quality of change, but that is not true. Change was an inherent part of the world view of the shamans of antiquity. Everything was in constant flux for them, everything except the second set of magical passes for not-doing. Shamans have speculated, throughout the centuries, about what kept that second set unchanged.
The nagual Juan Matus proposed that it was thoroughly accidental, that there was no premeditation behind all this on the shamans' part. He explained that a code existed, which was applied to all the magical passes of all the series for not-doing. This code was a new sequence appended to the natural sequence in which those magical passes were taught. It altered the order in such a fashion that it produced a spectacular result, felt instantaneously by all the practitioners: an enhancement of perceptual possibilities. The effect was so remarkable that the code became a total secret, something dealt with only by the most advanced initiates.
A tremendous upheaval seemed to have rocked the foundations of the shamans' world at that time. The aftermath of such an upheaval was a disruption of the shamans' way of life. Before the upheaval, male and female shaman practitioners had worked together, in unison, for the total enhancement of perception. After the upheaval, motives of personal origin made their appearance and broke those shamans' order and purpose.
They reacted violently, burning the code. The nagual Juan Matus assured his disciples that the only piece left was the one that applied to the second set of magical passes for not-doing.
The second possible cause that the nagual Juan Matus gave for the second series to remain unchanged was more speculative. It had to do with a premeditated drive of those shamans to maintain an element of a certain order that used to be prevalent among them, but which was no longer in function. The nagual Juan Matus made it sound like an attempt to maintain a survivor unit that would attest to something that once was, but which was no longer.
Be that as it may, the code was lost, and the only thing that remains is a fraction of it. The nagual added a warning that such a code could not be practiced. In order to put it in function, the practitioners needed to reach a level of profound amenity, affinity for each other. The practitioners had to be a male and a female who had no desire whatsoever to set up standards or to establish any preconceived scenarios of priority or superiority. They had to be a pair of practitioners who were abandoned and free from the encumbering imposition of egomania or self-importance about their personal place in history and time.
The two practitioners who fit the bill are Zaia Alexander and Miles Reid. It has fallen upon them - thoroughly independent of their volition - to be the spokesmen of a new era. The best way of expressing this era of newness is through the execution of the magical passes of the second series for not-doing. They will be the ones conducting this seminar, and they will be the ones who will help the participants to arrive at a moment of profound egolessness. Even if it's only for a fraction of a second, that fraction is enough.
Cleargreen is very proud to announce another intensive one-day seminar and workshop that will take place on June 6 in the city of Mountain View, California. This seminar and workshop will be taught by a team of Energy Trackers: the team that teaches the last series of magical passes for not-doing: The Wheel of Time.
It was the belief of the shamans of ancient Mexico that The Running Man introduces the practitioners to the realm of enhanced awareness. The three remaining series, On the Run, Unbending Purpose, and The Legs Rule Vitality, guide the practitioners across a state of enhanced awareness, but it is the fifth series, the most complex and sophisticated of them all, which will allow them to cement all their gains.
As its name indicates, The Wheel of Time has to do with what modern man calls, "the manipulation of time and space," and which the shamans of ancient Mexico called intending forward and intending backward. To do this with the properness it deserves, a practitioner must learn to handle the wheel of time, which is a small wheel in our case, made out of foam rubber. The wheel of time was originally made of wood, with a smooth metal rim, but wood is too heavy to handle until a total expertise is gained.
The instructors of Tensegrity will conduct this seminar with the idea of compressing time-in a psychological manner, so to speak-and render time into a unit adapted for maximum use by the practitioners.
The limited time of the seminar will be employed by the instructors in a most functional manner, bringing participants the deep possibility of collapsing time in order to elongate it.
As an integral part of the seminar and workshop, on Friday, June 5, Florinda Donner-Grau is going to deliver a lecture entitled, "The Transcendental Importance of the Magical Passes of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico."
The framework that she will follow to organize the lecture is that, more than ever in our history, we need a unifying factor, an idea that would infuse us with the desire to act. This action must be inspired by the impersonality of that idea, and by its undeniable pragmatic value.
The shamans of ancient Mexico found that format in their practice of the magical passes. The practice of the magical passes is impersonal, and so is the effect that it produces. It has to do only with the individual practitioner.
On May 23 and 24, 1998, Cleargreen will sponsor a seminar and workshop in Munich, taught and conducted by our German team. Only German will be spoken. This seminar and workshop will consist of a review of the Westwood and the Heat Series, and a team of male and female practitioners will teach and direct the performance of the second series of magical passes for not-doing: On the Run.
On July 31 and August 1 and 2, 1998, Cleargreen will sponsor its yearly seminar. It will be a most intensive three-day seminar, in which all the series of magical passes for not-doing will be reviewed, along with all the other series in their fluid, long forms.
More information will be given in due time about this seminar and workshop. It is the most important of them all for the shamanistic practitioners involved in teaching, because of its scope and the depth of perceptual possibilities that the shamanistic practitioners want to reach.

[CARLOS CASTANEDA'S TENSEGRITY]
[SEMINARS]

CARLOS CASTANEDA'S TENSEGRITY
Seminar and Workshop
May 23 & 24, 1998, Munich, Germany

Information for New Participants

Cleargreen, Incorporated, in conjunction with CLAIR, is involved in the production of a seminar and workshop in the city of Munich, Germany, which will take place on May 23 and 24 of this year. The disciples of the nagual Juan Matus - Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs - are deeply interested in disseminating the concept and practice of some ancient movements discovered and developed by the shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times, movements which they themselves called magical passes for their staggering effect on the well-being, plenitude and physical and mental balance of human beings.
Such a group of movements were the ultimate heirlooms, so to speak, which don Juan Matus left to his disciples. The most staggering effect produced by such magical passes is the effect of the magical passes for not-doing. Not-doing has been defined by the old shamans of Mexico as: the condition in which an innate flow of energy, which is the force that holds us together as energy fields, is momentarily interrupted, giving in such a fashion a millisecond's time for the entire body to change directions in terms of behavior and deep-set ideas which human beings practice from the moment they are born.
All the seminars produced by Cleargreen from here on will be concerned with some aspect of the magical passes for not-doing. The one to be given in Munich, Germany will consist of two parts. The first part is the careful explanation of all the intricacies of an entire series of magical passes, called the Series of the Five Concerns, nicknamed The Westwood Series. This series is the one chosen by Carlos Castaneda to depict in his book Magical Passes, which was just published this week.
His choice was not arbitrary, but obeys the mandates of shamanistic tradition. The shamans of ancient Mexico consider this series the golden vehicle for bringing to the surface all the hidden resources of perception and awareness stored in the body and never used.
The second part of this seminar and workshop will consist of a detailed demonstration, by a team of two practitioners called Awareness Through Harmony, of the series of magical passes for not-doing entitled On the Run.
This is the proposed schedule for the seminar and workshop of Munich. This schedule is subject to change:

SATURDAY, MAY 23

9 to Introductory lecture entitled "The Nature of the Magical 9:45 am Passes of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico and How They Were Adapted to Modern-Day Tensegrity." This lecture is going to be delivered by one of the male practitioners of Tensegrity, a member of a group of practitioners called the Elements. There are eight Elements, and all of them are guided directly by Carlos Castaneda.
There are eight female practitioners called The Energy Trackers, and every one of them is directly attached to one of the three female apprentices of don Juan Matus.

9:45 am A group of three Elements will teach and demonstrate The to 12 Series of the Five Concerns. noon As previously stated, The Series of the Five Concerns had already been selected generations ago as the most inclusive for awakening all the resources of the body: physical, mental, emotional and perceptual resources which never come to the surface under normal conditions.
As the final touch of this session, every one of these magical passes will be grouped together by the three Elements, who will teach how they are used today in what is called The Westwood Long Series.

12 to 2 Lunch
PM

2 to An explanatory lecture called, "The Different Principles of 2:30 PM Bodily Dynamics Used by the Shamans of Ancient Mexico" will be delivered by one of the female disciples of Juan Matus.

2:30 to A process of movement saturation which started with The 4 pm Series of the Five Concerns will continue, and include one more long series presented in the book Magical Passes - The Separation of the Left Body and the Right Body: The Heat Series - as a unified and homogeneous block of movement.

4 to Short Break
4:15 pm

4:15 to A team of two Tensegrity instructors, a male and a female, 6 pm will introduce the participants to the magical passes for not-doing. This team is a team of unique value. They, when they work together, are called Awareness Through Harmony, because they have succeeded in erasing the natural barriers and boundaries between the sexes. Their homogeneity is so extraordinary that none of don Juan's disciples has words to explain it or describe it.
The story says that there was a primeval time, when women shamans and men shamans were in a state of such harmony, in a very natural way. But then, the women shamans took the reins of power, and ruled the shamans' world for hundreds of years with such a heavy hand that in the end,
they were ousted bodily, creating in this fashion the deepest rift imaginable between the males and the females; a rift which persists to this day.
To overcome such a barrier is a triumph of the discipline and imagination which is proper to the spirit of man. This team of practitioners has succeeded in doing this. In this fashion, together, they are capable of exploring, in terms of awareness and perception, areas thoroughly veiled to a normal practitioner. In order to enter into those areas, a normal practitioner would need a boost of energy that cannot be obtained under the shamans' normal conditions of life, which are, by an enormous measure, more exigent and harder than the conditions of life for an average person.

6 to 8 Dinner Break
pm

8 to A lecture entitled "The Essence of Not-Doing," delivered by 8:30 pm one of the Energy Trackers.

8:30 to The team of Awareness Through Harmony will guide the 10 pm participants through the intricacies of the second series of magical passes for not-doing, called On the Run.
This series has kept its original form for reasons that were a mystery to all the shamans of don Juan's lineage, because it has no logical, mystical, or mythical explanation. It appears to obey reasons beyond the scope of shamans' comprehension. All the movements that the participants will learn are the original ones discovered and used by the shamans of Mexican antiquity. Another strange feature of the second series of magical passes for not-doing is an unusual, and by all indications, accidental feature. The shamans' story is that prior to the rift between male and female practitioners, there existed a code for all the five series that comprise the total group of magical passes for not-doing. The five series are Running Man, On the Run, Unbending Purpose, The Legs Rule Vitality, and The Wheel of Time.
This mysterious code is a sequential order in which the shamans of ancient Mexico rearranged the magical passes for not-doing. All the series are taught following what seems to be a traditional pattern. All the magical passes for not-doing, when they are taught, follow a natural order. For example, from 1 to 12, 1 to 26, and so forth and so on. This original order seemed to have been their ultimate secret. They appended a new, rearranged sequence to the original one; they scrambled the numbers to fit another order, because this new order gave them instantaneous and staggering results in terms of enhancing their perception.
When the tragic rift occurred between the male and female practitioners, the code apparently was purposefully destroyed. Don Juan believed that destroying the code was the equivalent of cutting off your arm to show your father-in-law that you were very displeased with him.
However, the only fragment of the code that remains is the code of the second set, which the team of practitioners Awareness Through Harmony will teach and demonstrate in all its intricacies.

SUNDAY, MAY 24

9 to Concluding lecture delivered by one of the female disciples 9:30 am of don Juan Matus.

9:30 to The Elements will review the long series demonstrated and 10:45 taught in this seminar and workshop.
am

10:45 Awareness Through Harmony will review all the movements of to 12 the second series.
noon

All the lectures and explanations will be given in German.

Translation to English, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish will be available.

Cost of the workshop is $375 USD, or DM 680. Payment is due by May 1.

The performance of the magical passes for not-doing will require the use of a mat. Mats are going to be used in two ways: to perform the movements while lying down on the back with the mat completely stretched out, or rolled to sit on; for this reason mats must be at least 1.25 cm (about 1/2") thick. A thin towel will not suffice. They should be no longer than 2 meters (72") and no wider than .6 meters (19").
Participants may bring their own mat, or order one in advance and pick it up at the workshop. Cost is $11 or 20DM, and may be paid in advance. There will be a limited supply available for purchase at the workshop, but it is highly recommended that participants purchasing mats reserve one in advance, as this is the only means to guarantee availability.

Participants should wear shoes during the portion of the instruction in which they are sitting on their mats. In that position, rubbing the skin of the feet, especially the heel, against the floor is not recommended. This sitting-down position is the precursor to more agile possibilities of performing the magical passes for not-doing which will be discussed and taught in the future. For this reason, it is extremely important that the magical passes performed in a sitting-down position be executed as accurately and as forcefully as possible, something that cannot be done without shoes.

The Tensegrity instructors recommend that women wear light slacks or shorts, rather than skirts, since part of the instruction will be carried out with practitioners lying on their backs.

It is also recommended that participants bring a jacket, in case they feel cold during or after the practice of the magical passes for not-doing which will be carried out in a lying-down position.
   

To: The Ixtlan Mailing List
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 13:05:24 EST

Pomona Not-Doing Workshop
February 7th & 8th, 1998

by Fred Turnbuckle and Bab Lynn Inanities

Prelude

The Fairplex Convention Center, located in the rolling hills of Pomona, California, east of  Los Angeles, was the site of an intensive two day seminar and workshop on Tensegrity organized by Cleargreen, Incorporated. Early the Friday before, another in a series of El Niño storms dropped buckets of rain on the LA area, closing down freeways for a while  and making the hour drive from LAX an adventure for some of the attendees who flew in.

Fortunately, Pomona is located on higher ground and didn't suffer the flooding some of the lower lying areas to the west and north did. By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, the bulk of the storm had blown inland leaving the air refreshingly clear. The lush  greenery and flowers surrounding the convention center complex stood out with rain- washed clarity, and the colors of sunset were in eye-popping contrast to the previous  grayness of the day.

Saturday morning

The next morning broke sunny blue and warm as workshop participants made their way to  Building 5 on the Fairplex grounds. It was a short walk for those in the Sheraton, which was a stone's throw away, and a drive of several miles for those in surrounding hotels.  Building 5 was a large rectangular structure with a round Quonset hut looking roof and a  tan facade. Along the top, running the length of the building, was a row of those whirly  bulb-like exhaust fans spinning merrily in the morning breeze.

Almost a thousand attendees filed past the security folks and their metal-detecting paddles  into the huge cavernous space where tables were set up immediately inside to check  people in. Plastic reddish-pink-orange ID badges were issued along with yarn strings to hang them around the neck. The concrete floor past the tables was marked off with white tape in rectangles for attendees to lay down on their mats in while practicing the not-doing  passes. As at the previous LA workshop, large, slightly concave projection screens were set up -- three evenly spaced along each of the two long walls -- and three platforms had  been positioned down the middle of the hall.

On the center platform a podium had been set up facing the entrance to the southeast.  Attendees milled about, checking out the bookstore tables to the right of the entrance,  greeting friends, and generally settling in for an hour or two. Eventually Lorenzo Drake went up to the podium, welcomed us to the workshop, and made a few announcements. He said a workshop was being planned for the beginning of August this year which would  cover The Wheel of Time series. He also mentioned the availability of the 30th  anniversary edition of Castaneda's first book, The Teachings of don Juan, which contained a new section called Author's Commentaries.

He told a little story about the editor at Washington Square Press that was responsible for  the new commentary. Apparently this woman spent days and days reading and re-reading what Castaneda had written but couldn't understand any of the concepts. She sent it back  to Castaneda's literary agent saying that the type of thing she wanted to have in the new commentary were things like, 'What have you been doing in the last 30 years?' and, 'Do you have any children?', etc.

The manuscript sat on the editor's desk until the publication date became imminent.  Carlos did not submit another commentary. The editor's boss pressed her to take what  Castaneda had already written, which is what the publisher finally did. Lorenzo concluded  his story by mentioning that the editor has since had a nervous breakdown.

Shortly after Lorenzo's announcements, around 10am, Florinda walked in from a side entrance beaming happily at the crowd as she strolled over and stepped up on the platform to the podium. Most everyone was now either to one side or in front of the platform.  Those sitting on the floor stood up and there was a warm round of applause.

"I am Florinda Donner-Grau," Florinda said as the applause died down.

She welcomed us to the 33rd Tensegrity seminar and workshop, the first of which was  held in 1994. Before that they had met with people in informal groups but hadn't gotten  anywhere, so they decided to teach in a more formal, regimented fashion. She went on to  give a short history of how the teaching of Tensegrity had come about.

It all started when Carol came back and changed everything. Her return was an  unprecedented occurrence in the lineage of the sorcerers up to that point. She had apparently left with don Juan's party ten years before, thus fulfilling her role as the Nagual woman of Castaneda's party.

Carol's sudden reappearance was quite a shock and threw open doors energetically for all of them as far as what was possible. It also confirmed once and for all that the four of them -- Florinda, Taisha, Carlos and Carol -- were in fact the end of don Juan's lineage.

Carol's return is what gave them the energy and motivation to publicly open up and reveal  the secrets of the sorcerers' world which they had been so meticulously taught by don Juan and his party of warriors. Carol's return meant there was no longer reason to keep their knowledge of the magical passes veiled in secrecy.

The challenge for them had been to take the four separate individualized lines of passes they had been taught and render them usable to anyone, while removing a certain morbid  aspect that lingered from the mood of the sorcerers of ancient Mexico who had originally discovered the passes in their dreaming practices.

This is where the Energy Trackers and Elements came in. Their work over several years is what enabled a transformation of the passes into what we now know as Tensegrity, and  allows them to be taught to anyone who is interested.

There's currently a new configuration of two instructors that will be teaching the not- doing passes, in addition to Miles and Zaia. Their names are Nuri Alexander and Haley  Alexander Van Austin. These two are the same, not because they look alike but because  their energy is exactly the same. The team of Miles and Zaia are referred to as 'Awareness through Harmony'. The team of Nuri and Haley are referred to as 'Awareness through Sameness'.

"We believe the ancient sorcerers knew of such an occurrence, but don't think that don Juan or the 27 generations of sorcerers before him ever saw it," Florinda said concerning  Nuri and Haley. "The effect of these two is so powerful that we guarantee that everyone  will feel the effects of the not-doing passes because of them. If not today, then after you leave the workshop."

Even Carlos feels the impact of Nuri and Haley leading the not-doing passes. When he is  with them they apparently have a dramatic effect on his awareness. He says they take him  and smash his head into the ceiling again and again until it goes into the attic and he  reaches a new level of awareness. He has gone into fits of rage over their effect on him  because he's too old to be affected by these young people! Florinda thinks what Carlos is really mad about is change, though. None of us really like to change.

She went on to say that they had thought the not-doing passes taught in August were the  final versions but, as happened to don Juan and Julian before him, the more they focused on remembering the not-doing passes in order to teach them, the more complete versions  of the forms slowly emerged. In the past, the not-doing passes were taught to disciples in  order for them to reach a new level of awareness. After this enhanced level of awareness  was achieved, the not-doing passes were immediately forgotten until the need arose for them to be recalled and taught to others in turn by the next generation.

Florinda commented that The Series of the Five Concerns which we were about to learn,  nicknamed the Westwood Series for where it was originally taught, was a very important series, one which was extremely complementary to the practice of the not-doing passes. It  stirred up energy in all directions. The sorcerers of ancient Mexico, and those who came  after, all considered the unique saturation engendered by the Westwood Series to be vital in performing the passes for not-doing.

After Florinda concluded her short lecture, which she read primarily from notes (much to all the translators' relief -- they only had to ask her to slow down once , she departed  through the side entrance to enthusiastic applause.

The almost one thousand attendees then spread out across the huge room after a short break and took their places around the three platforms. Three Elements -- Brandon, Jules and Gavin -- walked out and took their places. Brandon, on the center platform with the live mic, then led in the instruction of the individual Westwood Series passes as portrayed  in the book, Magical Passes.

Before completing the series, there was a two hour lunch break, at which point attendees filed out into the bright sunshine of a beautiful southern California day in search of food.

Saturday afternoon

After lunch and a few words from Lorenzo, some of which were about the availability of a Vivaldi CD at the bookstore tables in back that participants would really appreciate after this evening, Taisha came out to speak.

She introduced herself by saying, "I am Taisha Abelar."

She went on to explain that for the last six months, since the August workshop, she's been Ann Marie Carter, one of three stalking personalities. The other two are Anna Maria  Cordova and Sheila Walters. Taisha wanted to give us an example of the all inclusive  world that is created when a stalker enters into another persona. She told a story of what  had happened to her recently.

Anne Marie promised a friend of hers that she would put up some kitchen cabinets. She  got involved in the measuring, figuring of angles (few of which were 90 degrees), figuring the height of the cabinets, collecting and computing a long list of numbers. She then went to a giant cabinet wholesaler and worked through the dizzying array of cabinets they had  available. After all this was done, Ann Marie wanted to treat herself to lunch.

Taisha at this point explained that Ann Marie treats herself very, very well. She used to  go out and Carlos would wonder what Ann Marie was treating herself to now.

"If he only knew!" Taisha exclaimed.

Ann Marie went to a very nice restaurant down by the ocean, and was seated at a table. The harried waitress ran over, gave Ann Marie a menu and said, "It doesn't matter how  bad my day is, a sorcerer walks in and I'm walking on a cloud."

The waitress was gone in a flash to wait on another table. Ann Marie thought to herself, 'What? Who is she talking about?' She looks around and sees a man behind her and  wonders if that is the sorcerer the waitress is talking about, but decides, 'No, he doesn't have the lean look of a sorcerer.' As Taisha related this part of the story she gestured around her lower midsection to indicate a paunch or a big ass.

When the waitress comes by again, Ann Marie says, "Excuse me, what was it you said to  me before?"

The waitress again says, "It doesn't matter how bad my day is, a sorcerer walks in and I'm walking on a cloud."

All of a sudden, as if through a haze, Ann Marie remembers something. She remembers  Taisha Abelar as if Taisha is a dream. Ann Marie asks the waitress if she has ever been to  a seminar (not mentioning what type of seminar she is talking about).

The waitress says, "Oh yes, I've been to two of them."

The waitress then starts asking Ann Marie questions about recapitulation, but Ann Marie  is clueless to help her. She knows that Taisha knows all about it and is desperately trying to bring Taisha back but because she is so deeply 'in' Ann Marie, she can hardly remember anything, and ends up being of little help to the waitress.

She doesn't want to disappoint the waitress and tries to be Taisha. She skips desert because Taisha never eats sugar, and even ends up picking at some lettuce and a  hamburger patty when what she really wanted, and the whole reason she had gone to that  restaurant, was the hazelnut torte.

Taisha went on to explain that what we need to move the assemblage point from one  persona to the other is FLUIDITY, ENERGY and DETACHMENT.

She said the reason they all called don Juan the old Nagual is that he had four separate personas, one of which was unique to each disciple. Taisha believed that he could live an  entire lifetime in one of those personas, but he was fluid and switched between them as he  saw fit. For Taisha he was John Michael Abelar, for Carol he was Melchior Yowkeeskay, for Carlos he was Juan Matus, and for Florinda he was Mariano Aureliano.

Taisha went on to talk about our names, how we learn to identify with them, how they pin us down. She pointed out that many of us are named after someone else, and with that  name often come expectations to be like the person we're named after. She said that we  are stuck in the persona we create for ourselves, that we are attached to our names and family history. We will go to great lengths to explore our family tree and talk proudly of  great uncle Omar, the pioneer. Taisha told us that there is a company that will for a fee guarantee finding royalty in your family tree.

'Dona Perfecta' by Benito Perez Galdos is a novel Taisha went on to talk about. It's been  translated into English, but the Spanish version is better. Cleargreen wanted to get it to offer at the bookstore but it's out of print. They're looking at re-publishing it so they can have it available in the future.

It's the story of a 'perfect woman'. A woman who in her own eyes can do nothing wrong. Everyone around her makes mistakes and it is dona Perfecta's self-appointed responsibility  to 'help' these people, trying to get them to behave in her 'perfect' way. Taisha says she keeps a copy of the book by her bedside and reads it every night (sparingly, of course,  because it's painful to see oneself).

Taisha also read from notes during her short lecture, but not quite as much as Florinda had  (which Florinda mainly did for the benefit of the translators). Her notes were more of an outline which she glanced at from time to time while pacing around behind the podium telling stories. Florinda had started things out on a somewhat concrete level, then Taisha launched off from her foundation into the abstract.

Taisha concluded her short lecture and left through the side entrance.

After her talk, the three Elements completed showing the individual Westwood passes, then led us in the long form version, which had been changed slightly since it was last shown at Omega in October and LA in August.

After repeating the long form several times we took a break, after which a serious spreading out of the participants began. It was dim-the-lights, roll-out-the-mats, time!  The six huge video projection screens came alive, and shortly thereafter Nuri and Haley  walked out to the center platform. When everyone was settled in, like a bunch of extras  on some strange movie set, the lights in the arched ceiling dimmed and light shown on the center platform revealing on-screen the image of Nuri and Haley laying down wearing dark sunglasses.

Nuri gave a short talk. She spoke eloquently and passionately, in a calm sort of way,  about what had become the Elements and Energy Tracker's primary motivation -- the enhancement of awareness. Everything else in their daily lives was secondary to this  single-minded pursuit. It was their purpose.

"This is how we live. We don't do one thing and say another. This is our life."

She then led instruction of The Legs Rule Vitality.

The next not-doing series to be taught, Unbending Purpose, was led by Haley. Before doing so she spoke briefly about vitality and awareness and how enhanced awareness  heralds true behavioral change. She also spoke of the explosive, eruptive nature of the revised versions of the passes, saying they were more appropriate to our time.

As participants filed out for the dinner break, there was little doubt that this was going to  be an 'intensive' seminar/workshop. People walked off in different directions looking for  food; some to the van pulled up on the right side of the building, some to the Sheraton for  its restaurant, or Cleargreen sponsored buffet set up in nearby rooms, others drove off to  points unknown as the sun slowly set on a graying southern California sky.

Saturday evening

During the dinner break it began to rain. The Los Angeles area was catching the southern part of yet another El Nino inspired storm. Workshop attendees walked and trotted back into Building 5 with umbrellas, coats and other things over their heads, or in some cases, nothing at all. The sound of rain on the roof from inside the large hall was soothing.

As participants settled down on their mats, mostly thin blue ones, Nuri and Haley came out and got situated on the center platform, which was being projected onto the six video  screens. After a few minutes, the lights were dimmed.

On the handout attendees had been given, there were three series of not-doing passes listed. Nuri and Haley had been teaching them in reverse order from the list, so the first  one on the list was now being taught -- The Running Man.

Nuri made a few comments about the series before beginning. She said The Running Man series was sufficient in and of itself, that of the different not-doing series it was the most  important and could be practiced by itself. She said the shamans of ancient Mexico had discovered that what they considered 'filler' passes, ones that were done in between the  others, like the 'back' pass where one pulled one's feet back and held them tense to a count  of 20, were actually the most powerful. The ancient sorcerers had hence collected them together in The Running Man series.

Nuri said that performing The Running Man series delivered a weird, mysterious punch.  She went on to make a few comments about coveting awareness and vitality, then she and  Haley, wearing sunglasses as before, lay down and began instruction.

Very few words were used and very few questions were asked, perhaps two or three. The  mood was amazingly quiet for as many people as there were, all laying down moving their legs and feet to the sound of rain in the dimly lit hall. Looking up into the three-story high bowed ceiling, there was a certain tensegrity-like feel to its construction. The technique of using horizontal rods with turnbuckles had been employed to make the ceiling bow out, and on its inner surface there were offset braces which formed a diamond pattern painted black.

After going through The Running Man series a few times, Nuri sat up and explained that in ancient times The Running Man would sometimes be performed to sounds, whether  sounds of nature, such as wind or rain, or the sound of music. The speed and rhythm at which the passes were executed would be determined by the sound. The execution of the  passes would then become non-volitional, she said, and dictated by the sounds of nature or  whatever music was being played.

Nuri went on to say that we were now going to do The Running Man series one last time  to the music of Vivaldi's Four Seasons*. She made comments about the feet not often having a chance to experience joy and freedom, and that they would be ending The Running Man series on the next to the last piece so that we could listen to the end in silence and let our feet exult!

Or something like that . . .

She also sang a bit of verse from the song, 'Tomorrow'.

Some participants later commented that they weren't into classical music, or that it was too loud, but the sound quality in that cavernous space was superb. The music mixing with the steady down-pour of rain pounding on the roof was mesmerizing. A certain non- volitional movement indeed seemed to take over, and during the motionlessness of the last  movement almost a thousand pairs of feet exulted in the beauty of it all.

And old Lang died . . .

Sometime during the evening, a thousand-year-old oak tree in Encino fell over in the pouring rain.