blog 8

“But how will I know for sure whether a path has a heart or not?”
“Anybody would know that. The trouble is nobody asks the question.”
This seems to refer back to the noise & distractions we have discussed so much in The Field and in failed attempts to reach states of non-ordinary reality, we as a culture just trudge along, without asking too many questions about why we do the things we do. We don’t have time to “stop & smell the flowers.”
I guess that after reading this book I find myself trying to read into what an underlying message might be. Through all the details of each altered state experience and ritual and practice, there is a sense of another world that we are not accustomed to. In almost every aspect of the book, there is a sense of another place, person or thing that we don’t naturally connect to. Even don Juan is not a person we naturally come across or connect with on a daily basis. I find myself asking, “ am I missing out on another level of living?”
Pg. 174 – talks about how a crow see’s…through movement of light. A crow can tell what to avoid and what to seek. A rotting, dead animal is seen as a different kind of light.
All of this relates to The Field. The concepts of light, wavelengths & everything is a form of energy.
The final experience for Castaneda with don Juan was rather intriguing. I had a hard time believing that maybe don Juan wasn’t playing with him. If I look at the whole book though and how Castaneda had made mistakes, taken rituals lightly and one of the last times, rubbed the paste on his forehead, which is for Brujos only…I can see how something like this may have happened. There were definitely moments where I felt like he took the whole thing a little too lightly. One of my thoughts (which had crossed my mind in the beginning of the book), was that don Juan knew how Castaneda would react to most of the experiences. He was able to see into him already. He knew before any of this started that this is how it would turn out. He also knew that he wanted someone who was intellectual enough to put the experiences into words and onto paper so that his teachings and knowledge could be passed on. He would need someone who was slightly open enough to experience the altered states, but not so open that he would want to remain in that status, else he would not want to write about it. Castaneda was perfect for the job because he could do both.
I thought that something interesting about the Structural Analysis is that it portrays Castenda’s ability to ponder and maybe over-think some of the details, not that it isn’t thoughtful and well put together, I just wonder, why so much…? Is there any room for other interpretation? Is there any room for self exploration? Why is there such a need for concrete answers and final thoughts? I wonder if anyone chucked at little when they read it….
All I know is, I dont know much.