A SEPARATE REALITY
During the period right after I got back from Vietnam
I was heavily influenced by two authors. One was Loren Eiseley, an anthropologist who wrote beautiful
little essays on everything from nose bleeds to man's place in the scheme of things. The other author
was Carlos Castenada, who wrote a series of very popular books about his experiences living with a
Yaqui brujo named Don Juan Matus.
The current thinking is that Castenada invented most if not all of it. Real or not, the books made a big impression on me. At a time when my life seemed pretty crazy, they were a doorway into a separate reality that seemed to make more sense than the one I was living in at the time.
There are lots of sites out there that have quotations from Castenada's writing. Here are the a few that stuck with me. They may not mean anything to you. That's fine. This stuff isn't for everyone, which is probably just as well.
| Hunting power is a strange affair. There is no way to plan it ahead of time. |
| The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior . . . A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. But once his calculations are over, he acts, He let's go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. |
| A hunter uses his world sparingly and with tenderness, regardless of whether the world might be things, or plants, or animals, or people. |
| A man of knowledge is one who has followed truthfully the hardships of learning. A man who has, without rushing or faltering, gone as far as he can in unraveling the secrets of personal power. |
| In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts, there is only time for decision. |
October 21, 2009
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