(Corrections and additions welcome)
It had rained before the weekend of the seminar in Los Angeles and Saturday, my first day in L.A. was beautiful and clear. The sun was dazzling and the islands opposite Santa Monica appeared much nearer, etched clearly on the horizon, just like the coast line up past Malibu and the Santa Monica mountains.
The day of the seminar there was a fresh breeze blowing and again a clear blue sky with a beautiful dazzling sun. It felt like a cool Spring day. The venue was a sports hall with a lovely arched ceiling in Redondo Beach.
My notes are in the form of short annotations.
We started with the Intent series. The variation was: Grinding energy with the feet with the balls of the feet on the ground moving the heels, and then grinding energy with the heels on the ground moving the toes. Then mixing energy by striking the floor with the heels, kicking energy in front and back of the body, lifting energy from the soles of the feet (putting on a stocking), fusing right and left energy, stirring up energy for the adrenals (hands on knees), cracking the circle of energy and finished again with grinding energy with the feet
Nyei gave the first lecture
The title of this seminar is calling Intent for the new year. We want to begin with the exciting news that there are nearly 20 first time practitioners here. New practitioners bring in a new silence, a new attention, a new mood. They learn fast, right away. They can do the new passes in moments. Hands up for beginners, please (to experienced practitioners) go and stand by and help the newcomers.
Acknowledgement to the LA practitioners. We admire your warrior spirit and we feel a new mood, that you uphold your purpose with the magical passes and other warrior arts which aim for freedom of perception, which includes freedom from our judgments.
You uphold that purpose for each other, this is like a pool that you can dip in to during your day at any time, even with no one else around. That common purpose unites. You have been noticing a quicker movement out of judgment thanks to the other practitioners. You still have disagreements, but you laugh at yourselves.
We want to explore the possibilities of this shared purpose, we want to tap into this shared purpose and reach inner silence for the new year. We want to make a bridge into the New Year and bring this awareness.
Seers use everything for their purpose. When something ends or begins we don't ignore it or fight it, we use it. We take a look at what worked and what didn't work, and we use that for intending into the next year.
We will do magical passes for Inner Silence, so that from Inner Silence we can move into a new direction.
Seers see that when we are born we have huge amounts of energy. Our daily judgments causes us to form a crust with that energy (you're crusting!) our judgments form a crust on the edges of the luminous sphere.
Stalkers get rid of what is unnecessary and crusting is the biggest waste of energy we have. It costs us our freedom. How do we crust? How do we make this crust? We find out and then we re-deploy that energy.
We want to navigate, life is a tour of awareness. We come from the stars, from infinity, from the Sea of Awareness. We enhance that awareness by exploring, by finding a thread and following it - it could be music, it could be anything, and we follow it through.
Interaction really helps us to become aware of ourselves and of the universe. We do this as much as we can and then we return it to infinity. We return this gift to the Sea of Awareness, we return this life gift.
With our energy, we can re-deploy it, we can choose, we can make a crust or enhance awareness.
A warrior chooses his playing field, his field of action.. The choices. She didn't call, I know I shouldn't think of her badly, but I bet she is messed up her day and she eats too much and why does she wear that shirt anyway. Or we can say maybe she needs help? This is redeploying energy. Redeployment in our actions.
Impeccability is the wise use of energy, away from self importance, towards our journey of perception.
Dreaming is the volitional purposeful movement of the assemblage point to a new view, and stalking is fixing the assemblage point in a new position. We have a beam of energy that goes through us, this beam of energy can move, when it shifts we have a shift in our perception of the world. To see other views is dreaming.
The instructors used to ask the Nagual: Yes, but what am I? A dreamer or a stalker? We are no longer in the same format of the lineage, that is a small group of warriors. Our possibilities come from our number and combined purpose. We need to learn both stalking and dreaming and we start in our daily interactions. (Dreaming a new direction would be taking a new view of a situation, such as in the example Nyei gave, to think that when she didn't call, it is maybe because she needs help, and stalking would be to maintain that new view)
We dream a new direction for the New Year. How can we do that? With our number and dreaming together. We are going to practice "Forging the Dreaming Attention" Scanning, we realized that this form is ideal for intending together a new direction.
A warrior strikes out on his own, not blaming anyone, or expecting to be bailed out. A warrior takes full responsibility for his actions. The masculinity series is ideal for this. In other series we rub the energy into the different vital centres. In this series we strike the crust and the energy goes where it is most needed. It is a form for dreaming and it is ideal for dreaming together. With the sticks we make a vibration and with this vibration we intend together because we are vibrational beings, luminous beings. Our concreteness is not our essence or our nature. With the vibration of the sticks we make a link with the vibratory force that permeates everything. Intent is the force of intelligence, we are all linked to it and we must polish our link. The vibration of the sticks can stir the vibration of our own nature, we polish that link with the vibrational force.
We entice it with the sound, the sound gives a jolt to our internal dialogues, to the judgments we repeat to ourselves.
A Nagual is a person who has double energy, plus is tuned, trained, so that he does not reflect. He only reflects It, infinity. We can follow the energy trail he left.
Judging the judgments. We are not going to change, our judgments don't go away, we just put them aside, and acknowledge them: my little friend judgment, competition, welcome!
We did the series "Forging the Dreaming Attention", with the sticks.
Second lecture Miles
The nagual left a blueprint, we could forge unbending purpose to dream together. The old seers were carried by the vibration of the sticks, they took off. We find ourselves at this point of unbending purpose, establishing it at this moment. The reverberation set off by the sticks reverberates in our luminous body, shuts off our internal dialogue.
How can we truly listen, be attentive? Be attentive to what is happening, what we are telling others and ourselves. Miles told a story.
When I talked with the Nagual I always wanted to convey what I said very clearly. The Nagual always said things as if it was his last act on earth. I wanted to convey an idea very clearly but I felt that I always failed. I failed in my words and was left with the feeling that I hadn't said it properly. The Nagual picked this up and asked me who told you that you aren't clear when you talk, who was the one? I tried to figure out who it was that had showed me this. I discovered that nobody had told me. I then had a dream with the Nagual and I was talking with him and he asked me again, who told you that you aren't clear? Then I said to him I know who told me that, I told myself every time, it was me who said it, no one else.
The judgments we have is how we talk to ourselves.
We want to eliminate that judgment but it doesn't go away. But we can change the tone, and that change of tone lifts the weight of that judgment. Change the tone with which you talk to yourselves. So I acknowledge the judgments and then found I couldn't take myself so seriously, just by changing my tone.
Stalkers reach a second point, a stalker doesn't take himself so seriously, that is the direction we are going in at the end of this year. We look at how we talk to ourselves and we bring another tone to it. We bring our attention to truly listen to ourselves.
We did the series "Gazing with the Ears" (also called "Hearing Energy")
Third lecture Miles
We are now at the turn of a new cycle. For seers the end of the year is a good moment to acknowledge the things we have received, the things we have.
To give thanks.
The seminars are the context of our apprenticeship. What we say here in the seminars is not ours, it does not belong to us. If I enjoy doing a pass very much it doesn't mean that I will show that pass in the next seminar. What we show here is not our decision. The Nagual said something else decides, the Spirit decides.
The Nagual would ask a wall a question, and if that question was pertinent, the wall would become a ray of energy. What we show belongs to the lineage of seers... we hook our intent to it, we do it lightly, it does not belong to us.
Our lineage started with the nagual Santiesteban and compromises 8 generations of naguals. This is an oral tradition. After the nagual Santiesteban came the nagual Sebastián, the nagual Luján , the nagual Rosendo, the nagual Elias, the nagual Julián, the nagual Juan Matus and the nagual Carlos Castaneda. The nagual Carlos Castaneda, together with Florinda Donner Grau, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs passed all their knowledge to the apprentices, the instructors, and through them to all who are interested in learning. The format nowadays is an open apprenticeship. The lineage ended with Don Juan.
The Nagual Carlos Castaneda said there is another way, a format ends because a new one begins. All of us are inheritors of the seers of this lineage. We all care of this with the same intent.
I watched the Nagual practice magical passes. Integrity in movement and action. He was interested in the specifics of the passes, the effects, all the parts engaged, etc. He exuded being in his last moment on earth, his last statement, and that is how he did the magical passes. We are all capable of tuning into that mood, that every moment counts, every act can be our last. With the magical passes we are doing our last act on earth.
We did the series "Gazing with the Ears" followed immediately by "Forging the Dreaming Attention". While doing Gazing with the ears we had our sticks in our pockets so as to follow through smoothly from one series to another.
Fourth lecture Miles, Nyei and Aerin
An oral tradition implies that we listen, that we listen with all our being.
In our desire to group everything we take notes. Our whole being recalls it. We have two luminous spheres, our physical and our energy body, with both parts we can recall everything said. The task is to move the assemblage point to claim back everything that took place everything that was said.
>From here onwards they told us not to take notes and to keep the communication about what they were going to say oral (phone included) until after the New Year.
How to approach a transition? Take time to clean up loose ends (name them), clean and organise, make space at home, a physical space. Tidy it, clean it, let go of needless things. This has an abstract purpose. It's a blueprint.
When seers navigate in the Sea of Awareness this clean space is an anchor for sobriety, a place that acts even if we are not there physically. With this new perception our dreams also become organised. An important point for this transition is what the New Year finds you doing.
Aerin said that Florinda had given her this task to do for the New Year. When the time came she didn't know exactly what to do so she phoned Florinda asking her. Florinda replied "Don't say another word, just do your best" and put down the phone. So Aerin tidied and organised her room, and on her clean desk she put her University project that she was doing at that moment on one side, on the other side another project she had planned for the following year with some symbolic items attached, and in the centre one of her favourite projects which was a script she was writing. By the script she placed a little bit of celluloid film. She then started to work on her project. And the New Year found her writing her script.
The instructors asked us to write down on paper our projects and plans for the New Year. Then several of us read out aloud what we had written. Some were general responses like I want to find peace for the next year and we were asked to write again our plans and projects but being very specific and concrete. How were we going to find more peace…
Then we were invited to the bonfire on the beach they had announced for after the seminar. We were all going to write down the impediments we had for our projects on a piece of paper, put the papers in a cardboard box they had there ready, and then burn the box on the bonfire. Then we were all going down to the sea to shout once, in as loud a voice as we wanted, Intent. They said that the sea has the quality of dissipating those things that are heavy, those impediments. So we all wrote a list of our impediments and placed them in the box.
We should shed light on what is necessary for us in the New Year, our new projects, etc, and also on what is not necessary. A warrior give equal attention to both things.
Aerin told us that at another New Year, Carol phoned her and said to her that precisely during the New Year the Spirit comes up and takes a close look at us. Aerin was so astonished by this statement that she put down the phone without even answering. Then after some time she remembered that the Nagual had been telling her all along. The Nagual used to say that he had regular appointments with Infinity, then she understood that the Spirit doesn't just take a close look at us at New Year, but all the time.
So the task we were proposed to do was to clean and tidy a physical space in our homes, and put on our desk those plans and projects we have for the New Year, and let the New Year find us doing our projects. (Doesn't have to be exactly midnight). They said that a warrior walks on a razor's edge, the edge between the abstract and the concrete. Abstract goals are accompanied by concrete actions. Those concrete actions are controlled folly, but you give them your best even though they are controlled folly. And the concrete actions are the path with a heart. Because we follow a path with a heart, with passion, we can dream our project in the second attention.
We did the "Tour of Awareness" and "The Moth"
And then we all went to our cars and drove down to the beach. A splendid blaze of pine and olive wood was already under way. The horizon on the sea split two worlds, two consistencies. A light pastel-blue rippled sea below, against the last hues of dark red and yellow in the sky, flushed onto an amazing cloudscape. The gap between the worlds, for sure. The fire caught everyone's attention and as we gazed at it, darkness became night and silence fell. Miles put the box on the fire. It burnt for quite a while, the flames flickering like fast dancing elves, yellow and orange, but somehow also green. Then we walked to where the waves broke and shouted intent altogether. That ended the Redondo Beach Seminar.
From unsomni mailing list: R.B. PureBlue
Gazing With Ears
1. With a slight rotation from the waist, bring the right arm, lax, to the left hip. At the same time, left arm, equally loose, goes behind the back to the right hip. The forearms and hands touch the body at the end of each turn.Then repeat on the right body. Repeat these swings two more times on each side. The movements are the same as in Olinda's pass and are commonly used to warm the body at the beginning of most tensegrity sessions.
2. Next we place our palms on our knees, wrapping them. The finger tips softly press right below the joint. Then we pull them along the tighs, with hands in claws, while start inhaling. Hands go all the way upon the abdomen, chest and so on, until the arms are completely stretched and the fingers point to the zenith. Arms go down slowly while you exhale.
3. Bring the left foot a bit forward. Place your right hand behind your right ear, in claws. The thumb is placed over a hole between the right tendon of the nape of the neck and the skull's edge, at the earlobe level. Let the remaining fingers evenly spread above the ear. Elbow points to the right. Finally extend your left arm to the front, perpendicular to the body. Fingers firmly extended and palm facing to the left (some folks bend the wrist inward and spread fingers apart. I've made it both ways, but feel much better with the first extended. It's up to you).
Thus prepared the stance, start inhaling and slowly rotate the waist 180 degrees to the left, sweeping the air with the arm. Eyes follow hand, gazing Infinity. When we reach the rear point, we rotate the trunk again to the right. In the meantime the left arm return to its normal position at the flank, very slowly, and with your exhalation imitate the howling wind all the way 'till face front again. Right ear gazes infinity at the same time. Then the left foot rotate to the right, resting on its heel, until the tip points 90 degrees to the right. We drag the right foot backwards along the right flank, drawing a semicircle on the floor (like the 2nd pass for Inner Silence). The right hand's always on the head. We're now facing "east", with right foot frontwards. Extend left arm again and repeat the movements mentioned above (sweeping backwards and howling wind). When you're finished, pivote 90 degrees same way as before and face "south". Repeat the ga! zing thing. And so on, until you're facing the original direction. Then you reflect movements with the other body.
4. When you're finally facing "north" again, place hands on the head, like before, but both. Slowly tilt trunk to the left (like the 9th pass for Decisions), with an inhalation. Return to balance exhaling. Then tilt to the right, inhaling and return exhaling.
5. Without descending your arms, start inhaling and crouch, with your chin on the chest. Keep crouching a bit more, bending your waist until you face your stomach. Then, without stopping, raise a little while turning your face to the left. It's just one movement since you start crouching and finishes leaving left elbow pointing the zenith and the right one to nadir. There you stop inhaling. You're still semibowed. Freeze for a few seconds without breathing and then, with an exhalation, return in "reverse camera". When you're vertical again, mirror movements, that is to say, repeat on the right side.Hands are always on head.
6. Next, with hands still on the head, bow down again, but this time both elbows point forehead, palms upon ears. Inhale. At the same time, with a squat, drag the left foot frontwards. Then the right one and stand up. To do this particular movement, imagine you have snow skis on and have to cross below a low tree branch. Drag left foot, then right, then stand, wrapping your ears and skull sides. Stop inhaling when you stand. But, uh-oh, you have to go back again, 'cause you're at an abyss edge. The skis difficult your turn, so you have to crouch again in "reverse camera", right foot first and exhaling. This last one stops when you're vertical again.
7. Don't descend arms. The right hand shakes head with the finger tips(like in Olinda's), then left. Two more times on each side. finally start separating extremely slowly your hands, like if you're head were inflating. Feel your hearing expanding to infinity. Slow, very, very slowly, drawing up an arch. Palms face ears, then the sky, then forehead, and finally, after months, arms are at the flanks. Stay still for a moment. You can close now.
translated in unsomni from german