11-25-2014, 12:00 AM
What is Your Story?
I am not interested in your personal history so much. For all warriors there is something that hooks them onto the path. These are stories worth sharing.
How did you discover the sublime nature of the world? How did you find the path of a warrior? Did you have a mind blowing experience? Did the Castaneda books play a part? Did you have a teacher?
I will try to somehow briefly give you my story.
The foundation for me had been laid in my teenage years. My family, although Catholic, encouraged free-thinking, and there were always books around the house by Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Carl Sagan, and Carlos Castaneda. We even had shaman friends, one of them officially trained although she never made a loud noise of it. We even took off on adventures into the deep southwest where we met all kinds of interesting people. None of this seriously changed me though
A prelude to the real changes was a period of time when I worked hard for a seafood wholesale business my grandparents owned. This involved a lot of lifting, moving, steaming crabs, and cleaning, a LOT of cleaning. I remember distinctly a crab that had escaped from the steam pot, only to have caustic acid accidentally spilled on it. I saw the poor thing clawing at itself to remove whatever it thought was hurting it. I decided to end it's life myself. Later I tried to imagine what it felt, and imagine its death experience. I asked myself if it would be reborn in some other form. I visualized a glow of energy wherever the crab had acid spilled on it before it died and underwent it's transformation.
Not long after that I came down with the flu. Not knowing how to properly self treat, I even did martial arts while sick in an attempt to 'sweat it out'. This made me more severely sick. Well, finally one morning I woke up feeling just fine, in fact – great. I went to work, and managed to do my work with great efficiency and strength. Then an odd thing began to happen. I began to be jocular and spontaneous, not something I was known for at the time. I acted entirely out of character; daring, playful, and spunky. You have to understand what a serious introvert I was to really appreciate this personality shift. I even stood up to a bullying cousin and scared him into a run, who knows what would have happened had my uncle not intervened before I caught him and beat him up.
This state of very high energy and daring went on for a week, then it began to both fade and re-emerge, but not always as strong as before. I finally remembered the cause. The morning before I woke up feeling awesome I remember being in something like a dream state, and saying “I am going to heal myself.”
What happened after that is really difficult to recall or remember exactly. But, I remember being pealed apart layer by layer. Each piece was cleaned up, processed, and reassembled. There was certainly a spinning aspect to it, as if my pieces were flying off due to a spin before they were reassembled. As I started to wake up that morning the sunrise glow came through the east window. I also felt something like a liquid glow that I could move around my body, and I did this with great pleasure.
The alternate personality worried some family who thought I might be getting into drugs. I even told my mother 'I really don't have to be my father's son anymore.' So I began to try to figure out what the hell was actually happening to me. As the high-energy state began to settle down I found Castaneda's Fire from Within and began reading. At the time I had read The Teachings of Don Juan, Journey to Ixtlan, and Art of Dreaming. There was a paragraph in Fire from Withing about Don Genaro having a similar experience to me
--------------------------------------------------------
When their laughter had subsided, Genaro said that I had to be aware of a drawback, the fact thatfrom time to time the assemblage point returns to its original position. He told me that in his own case, the normal position of his assemblage point had forced him to see people as threatening andoften terrifying beings. To his utter amazement, one day he realized that he had changed. He wasconsiderably more daring and had successfully dealt with a situation that would have ordinarilythrown him into chaos and fear.
„I found myself making love,” Genaro continued, and he winked at me. „Usually I was afraid todeath of women. But one day I found myself in bed with a most ferocious woman, it was so unlikeme that when I realized what I was doing I nearly had a heart attack. The jolt made my assemblagepoint return to its miserable normal position and I had to run out of the house, shaking like a scared rabbit.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, I didn't seduce ferocious women or anything, but the principle of the shift is what I related to. There really was no better explanation. I had gone through a massive assemblage point shift which re-emerges for periods of time to this day. When I am in the 'daring' position, many possibilities seem to be available to me that normally are not.=1emI should note though, that there was another major experience. For a few years after this I had learned to recapitulate and did so almost daily, although I still was a messy young adult, and I would not call myself a warrior at that time. Still, I was very much into it
I had taken ecstasy a couple of times before. On this particular occasion my best friend gave me some ecstasy just as we were going in to see a movie, and this experience was nothing like before. I do not recall anything at all about the two hour movie. Instead a number of realizations were beginning to overwhelm me about labels, life experiences, and energy blocks. I called these at the time 'bullshit plugs'. There was a massive one on the left side of my abdomen. I went on to tell my friend about all my realizations after the movie. I said to him that we were 'globs of energy'. I 'knew' that I was seeing energy. We went to some friends who were also tripping and I could 'see' them too. This was very much a feeling experience more than a visual one, but my left eye occasionally flicked over by itself and made me semi cross – it was a weird eye movement and a very strange kind of focus. I can't really do that movement anymore, but the other sensations persist to this day.
The next day, barely remembering everything I had experienced the night before, I went to the book store and walked right to the newly released book Magical Passes by Castaneda. I bought it. After a few days when the ecstasy effects were thoroughly worn off, I tried some of the moves. I found myself in a state very quickly and very similar to the ecstasy state from a few days before.
I became an avid tensegrity practitioner. For some reason I felt averse to Cleargreen, and didn't want to be trapped in any kind of 'group'. I never attended any seminars but eventually found a practice group. I went on to have other revelations and dreaming experiences. I never sought a shaman guru after a couple of bad experiences, but I did find an outstanding traditional Chinese Kung Fu instructor, who taught me some really interesting energetic moves from his side of the world. I often still dream that he is teaching me something new.
After a while I think I lost the warrior's way somewhere. I am still trying to identify exactly where and why I lost it
Now I am finding that I 'need' it. I am to the point now where I have to be highly adaptive and strong to make a living and yet still have a full life. I need life to be imbued with the sublime and mystery, or I will grow old, filled with regret. The warrior's way is the only way I know to make this happen.
I am not interested in your personal history so much. For all warriors there is something that hooks them onto the path. These are stories worth sharing.
How did you discover the sublime nature of the world? How did you find the path of a warrior? Did you have a mind blowing experience? Did the Castaneda books play a part? Did you have a teacher?
I will try to somehow briefly give you my story.
The foundation for me had been laid in my teenage years. My family, although Catholic, encouraged free-thinking, and there were always books around the house by Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Carl Sagan, and Carlos Castaneda. We even had shaman friends, one of them officially trained although she never made a loud noise of it. We even took off on adventures into the deep southwest where we met all kinds of interesting people. None of this seriously changed me though
A prelude to the real changes was a period of time when I worked hard for a seafood wholesale business my grandparents owned. This involved a lot of lifting, moving, steaming crabs, and cleaning, a LOT of cleaning. I remember distinctly a crab that had escaped from the steam pot, only to have caustic acid accidentally spilled on it. I saw the poor thing clawing at itself to remove whatever it thought was hurting it. I decided to end it's life myself. Later I tried to imagine what it felt, and imagine its death experience. I asked myself if it would be reborn in some other form. I visualized a glow of energy wherever the crab had acid spilled on it before it died and underwent it's transformation.
Not long after that I came down with the flu. Not knowing how to properly self treat, I even did martial arts while sick in an attempt to 'sweat it out'. This made me more severely sick. Well, finally one morning I woke up feeling just fine, in fact – great. I went to work, and managed to do my work with great efficiency and strength. Then an odd thing began to happen. I began to be jocular and spontaneous, not something I was known for at the time. I acted entirely out of character; daring, playful, and spunky. You have to understand what a serious introvert I was to really appreciate this personality shift. I even stood up to a bullying cousin and scared him into a run, who knows what would have happened had my uncle not intervened before I caught him and beat him up.
This state of very high energy and daring went on for a week, then it began to both fade and re-emerge, but not always as strong as before. I finally remembered the cause. The morning before I woke up feeling awesome I remember being in something like a dream state, and saying “I am going to heal myself.”
What happened after that is really difficult to recall or remember exactly. But, I remember being pealed apart layer by layer. Each piece was cleaned up, processed, and reassembled. There was certainly a spinning aspect to it, as if my pieces were flying off due to a spin before they were reassembled. As I started to wake up that morning the sunrise glow came through the east window. I also felt something like a liquid glow that I could move around my body, and I did this with great pleasure.
The alternate personality worried some family who thought I might be getting into drugs. I even told my mother 'I really don't have to be my father's son anymore.' So I began to try to figure out what the hell was actually happening to me. As the high-energy state began to settle down I found Castaneda's Fire from Within and began reading. At the time I had read The Teachings of Don Juan, Journey to Ixtlan, and Art of Dreaming. There was a paragraph in Fire from Withing about Don Genaro having a similar experience to me
--------------------------------------------------------
When their laughter had subsided, Genaro said that I had to be aware of a drawback, the fact thatfrom time to time the assemblage point returns to its original position. He told me that in his own case, the normal position of his assemblage point had forced him to see people as threatening andoften terrifying beings. To his utter amazement, one day he realized that he had changed. He wasconsiderably more daring and had successfully dealt with a situation that would have ordinarilythrown him into chaos and fear.
„I found myself making love,” Genaro continued, and he winked at me. „Usually I was afraid todeath of women. But one day I found myself in bed with a most ferocious woman, it was so unlikeme that when I realized what I was doing I nearly had a heart attack. The jolt made my assemblagepoint return to its miserable normal position and I had to run out of the house, shaking like a scared rabbit.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, I didn't seduce ferocious women or anything, but the principle of the shift is what I related to. There really was no better explanation. I had gone through a massive assemblage point shift which re-emerges for periods of time to this day. When I am in the 'daring' position, many possibilities seem to be available to me that normally are not.=1emI should note though, that there was another major experience. For a few years after this I had learned to recapitulate and did so almost daily, although I still was a messy young adult, and I would not call myself a warrior at that time. Still, I was very much into it
I had taken ecstasy a couple of times before. On this particular occasion my best friend gave me some ecstasy just as we were going in to see a movie, and this experience was nothing like before. I do not recall anything at all about the two hour movie. Instead a number of realizations were beginning to overwhelm me about labels, life experiences, and energy blocks. I called these at the time 'bullshit plugs'. There was a massive one on the left side of my abdomen. I went on to tell my friend about all my realizations after the movie. I said to him that we were 'globs of energy'. I 'knew' that I was seeing energy. We went to some friends who were also tripping and I could 'see' them too. This was very much a feeling experience more than a visual one, but my left eye occasionally flicked over by itself and made me semi cross – it was a weird eye movement and a very strange kind of focus. I can't really do that movement anymore, but the other sensations persist to this day.
The next day, barely remembering everything I had experienced the night before, I went to the book store and walked right to the newly released book Magical Passes by Castaneda. I bought it. After a few days when the ecstasy effects were thoroughly worn off, I tried some of the moves. I found myself in a state very quickly and very similar to the ecstasy state from a few days before.
I became an avid tensegrity practitioner. For some reason I felt averse to Cleargreen, and didn't want to be trapped in any kind of 'group'. I never attended any seminars but eventually found a practice group. I went on to have other revelations and dreaming experiences. I never sought a shaman guru after a couple of bad experiences, but I did find an outstanding traditional Chinese Kung Fu instructor, who taught me some really interesting energetic moves from his side of the world. I often still dream that he is teaching me something new.
After a while I think I lost the warrior's way somewhere. I am still trying to identify exactly where and why I lost it
Now I am finding that I 'need' it. I am to the point now where I have to be highly adaptive and strong to make a living and yet still have a full life. I need life to be imbued with the sublime and mystery, or I will grow old, filled with regret. The warrior's way is the only way I know to make this happen.