06-17-2007, 12:00 AM
In the early days of reading Castaneda and re-reading Castaneda "the abstract cores" were a mystery to me; much as they were to CC when he learned of them. Over time and learning to see, I have begun mapping them. That and the big bone CC threw us via the book: The Power Of Silence.
I want to throw out an example of how I stalk abstract cores. It is an indirect way of seeing. And is actually a good exercise to learn how to see directly eventually.
Here's my example:
Part 1:
My grandmother was born in the very early 1900s. She rode a horse to school with her 12 brothers and sisters from the family farm in the Midwest. We have a picture of her and four of her siblings on the same big gelding. Anyway, she became a school teacher during the 1920s, had two babies in the Depression, saw the advance of automobiles, airplanes, WWI and WWII, Korea, Vietnam. She saw the advent of biochemistry and lived to see penicillin developed, a cure for polio via the vaccine, saw men go to the moon, satellites, telephones, fax machines, cell phones and the like. Not long before she died she kept complaining of being very tired of it all...wanting to "go home". What she meant of course was go home to her beginnings. It had all been too much for her in the end.
Part 2:
I was telling my kids about this story and how weird all the new stuff they took for granted was to her. They nodded in understanding and replied that for them, the mileau she was born into was weird to them. Even being raised on our farm like they have; imagining a world without modern medicines, electronics, transportation and advancing technology is an odd concept to them.
Part 3: [The stalking of the abstract core]
It occured to me at this point that an animal born into a particular environment is stamped by that environment. To overcome that stamping is the exercising of the muscle of intent. Those who progress with the times and do not get nostalgic for this or that old memory are exercising their core being...that which survives stamping...that which is truly our inner essence.
In the elderly it's easy to pick out those who have stayed flexible and those who have not. Their bodies can no longer hide the wear and tear of fixation and the stress it causes to the body. I would say at this point that from the description of don Juan CC gave us as being extraordinarily youthful for his advanced age, it means he didn't give a rat's ass for his past.
**********
So by pitting the story of my grandmother's environment against my kids' I saw in the middle, the abstract core.
It's not the same as seeing, but it is a good precurser to it."The Reailty Is That You Will Die. The Uncertainty Is What Will Happen After That.."
I want to throw out an example of how I stalk abstract cores. It is an indirect way of seeing. And is actually a good exercise to learn how to see directly eventually.
Here's my example:
Part 1:
My grandmother was born in the very early 1900s. She rode a horse to school with her 12 brothers and sisters from the family farm in the Midwest. We have a picture of her and four of her siblings on the same big gelding. Anyway, she became a school teacher during the 1920s, had two babies in the Depression, saw the advance of automobiles, airplanes, WWI and WWII, Korea, Vietnam. She saw the advent of biochemistry and lived to see penicillin developed, a cure for polio via the vaccine, saw men go to the moon, satellites, telephones, fax machines, cell phones and the like. Not long before she died she kept complaining of being very tired of it all...wanting to "go home". What she meant of course was go home to her beginnings. It had all been too much for her in the end.
Part 2:
I was telling my kids about this story and how weird all the new stuff they took for granted was to her. They nodded in understanding and replied that for them, the mileau she was born into was weird to them. Even being raised on our farm like they have; imagining a world without modern medicines, electronics, transportation and advancing technology is an odd concept to them.
Part 3: [The stalking of the abstract core]
It occured to me at this point that an animal born into a particular environment is stamped by that environment. To overcome that stamping is the exercising of the muscle of intent. Those who progress with the times and do not get nostalgic for this or that old memory are exercising their core being...that which survives stamping...that which is truly our inner essence.
In the elderly it's easy to pick out those who have stayed flexible and those who have not. Their bodies can no longer hide the wear and tear of fixation and the stress it causes to the body. I would say at this point that from the description of don Juan CC gave us as being extraordinarily youthful for his advanced age, it means he didn't give a rat's ass for his past.
**********
So by pitting the story of my grandmother's environment against my kids' I saw in the middle, the abstract core.
It's not the same as seeing, but it is a good precurser to it."The Reailty Is That You Will Die. The Uncertainty Is What Will Happen After That.."

