Blog 8

I liked chapter 11 because it kind of put a suspense to the end of the book. When somebody talks about you losing your soul, its kind of a big deal. So when Castaneda and Don Juan seek to find his soul, it put somewhat of a climax for the end. The way Castaneda explained how he got his soul back on the porch was pretty exciting and climactic. I could just feel the anxiety and fear of not being sure of what he was doing, his indecision. It ended up coming to a good ending when he got his soul back because he overcame his fear.

It seems to me that the book keeps revolving around that principle of fear. Humans have always had fear of the unknown, and Castaneda is afraid because he does not know the ways that Don Juan knows. However Castaneda seemed to stick through all doubts and overcome and actually surprise Don Juan. For example earlier in the book when Mescalito "played" with him, and in chapter 9 with the devils weed how "she" was fond of him. I also noticed a small detail when Castaneda took the devils weed. He said he heard voices coming from his shoulder where he had placed one of the lizards. Maybe the lizard was talking to him? That lizard must of been a messanger of the devils weed.

The whole crow part was pretty interesting. I think it's impressive how don juan knows what is going to happen with each hallucination. You think today when people take drugs, they all see different things, those things are the random unimportant things that Don Juan tells Castaneda to forget about. Because people dont take drugs today for meaning. But since Castaneda and Don Juan have a common goal, they see the same things which makes me believe that these are true. I also kind of picked up when Castaneda did the smoke how he fell on the ground and couldn't move. The winking let don juan know that Castaneda was ready to listen so he could actually move to become a crow. However I never really understood the whole part with castaneda being away for 3 days? Was it in actual time or was this in an altered state. I may have missed the explanation.

Overall the ending was good. It was a happy ending when he got his soul back. It had the battle at the end along with an explanation and a closure of Castaneda's experiences. However I wish he would have maybe wrote a chapter about his life after the teachings. How was Castaneda's world now different after going through don juan's experiences. How did it change his life for the better or for the worse? Overall interesting book, but I wish there was more explanation for the experiences. It seemed that Don Juan never really explained the meanings of his teachings and left it up to the reader to make their own interpretation. Castaneda seemed to just go through the motions and not really have any input on what he thought of the meanings of what he saw. He just kind of explains what he saw then asked questions and didn't really tell us what he thought was the meaning of his experiences.