From Cleargreen's webpage for that specific event:
" On the path to dreaming, one stumbles upon a worthy opponent, and one of his best teachers: fear.
- don Juan Matus
"What are you dreaming?" Carlos Castaneda asked a group of students sitting on worn wooden benches near the Alameda in Mexico City one evening in Summer.
"What do you long for?" Florinda Donner-Grau added.
"Well," one student offered, "last night, I dreamt that I was in school studying economics; it felt great being around so many knowledgeable people – exchanging ideas, learning what I did not already know. I felt alive, excited, aware!.. And then I woke up,” continued the student, shrugging her shoulders. “It was just a dream…"
"What do you mean - 'just a dream?'" countered Florinda Donner-Grau. "Do you realize that a piece of yourself – your energy body, your double, your energetic twin – may be directing you towards acting on something that you came here to do and that another piece of yourself – your fears – are holding you back!"
“What do you mean, ‘my fears’?” questioned the student.
“Your reasons, your excuses, for not going to school…What are they?”
“Well, I don’t have enough money, for one thing…” said the student, “I don’t have enough time; I can’t leave my job; my family won’t let me!”
“When you speak in those words and tone, and with the body position that I now see you in of defeated, lowered shoulders and shortness of breath, I feel, see and hear nightmaring,” Florinda continued, “not dreaming! I feel, see and hear fear – fear of scarcity – that there won’t be enough; that you are not enough; that others will say ‘no’ – all of which affects your energetic field.”
“You need to dream as the seers of ancient Mexico dream,” Carlos Castaneda interjected, “from silence – beyond fear. And you need to dream this way in the first attention of daily life, in preparation for dreaming with awareness in the second attention of pure energy, either waking or asleep.”
“As the seers of Teotihuacan did!” exclaimed Florinda. “who each started in their first attention by memorizing every detail of a single object, holding it in their dreaming attention, moving on to more and more complex objects, and then finally, as a population, re-creating a totally veritable realm where they could exist.”
“That is what they did on the Avenue of the Dreamers,” Florinda continued. “There is where it is said that whole populations together dreamed.”
“And each of you can start by determining what it is that you want to dream in daily life; letting fear be your teacher by noting it, along with your excuses – where they come from and breathing past them; opening yourself up then to scenes of joy, presence, awareness – where you felt every cell of your body and every part of your being engaged.”
“From there, who knows what can happen next…One thing, however, is for sure: you will start telling different stories about yourself, your capabilities, about others and their capabilities – ones inspired by a fresh energy and intent, ones woven together with Spirit, affection and appreciation.
“Do as the seers of ancient Mexico did,” Florinda concluded. “Empty yourself out to let something larger than yourself in!”
* * *
In this workshop, open to newcomers as well as seasoned practitioners, participants will practice the art of Tensegrity – a special form of magical passes called The Plumed Serpent and self-inquiry exercises that help us identify what elements we carry from our past, lineage and culture: those that hold us back as well as those that spur us forward."
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Contrast this with the introductory page of Cleargreen's Main Website today Aug. 4, 2021:
"The Source Of A Magical Life
People yearn to tap into the magic, to live a phenomenal life. They want to create a vision for themselves and bring what they envision into reality. And yet … few actually succeed.
You’ve been told that “everything you need is inside of you.” You meditate, create vision boards, chant mantras, affirmations, hold onto tokens and sacred objects, which is great. Yet for some reason, these tools don’t seem to fully deliver on their promise.
If you’re not getting the results you truly desire it is because you’re using weak, diluted and derivative tools. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, yet the further away you are from the source of the tools … the weaker they are.
The weaker the tools … the poorer the results. It’s time to get Back to the Source."
""Whenever the internal dialogue stops, the world collapses, and extraordinary facets of ourselves surface, as though they had been kept heavily guarded by our words."
There is much more to the world than we usually acknowledge. We are taught, from an early age, how to see and understand it. The trick of this socialization is to convince us that the descriptions we agree upon define the limits of the real world. What we call reality is only one way of seeing, a way that is supported by a social consensus.
Carlos Castaneda’s Tensegrity® helps you ACTIVELY turn off that internal dialogue. It lets your body become an amazing receptor of an intelligent force much bigger than yourself … and puts you into a state of ‘ready-alertness’ – silent, yet alert and ready for what’s next … for your extraordinary life.
“Human beings are perceivers, but the world that they perceive is an illusion: an illusion created by the description that was told to them from the moment they were born.”
— Carlos Castaneda"
Dan's Facebook Cross-Post on this with Additional Commentary
Earlier Version of This Promotional Passage:
"“Dreams of the Plumed Serpent”
especially dedicated to the practitioners
of Brazil and its neighbors
. to take place in
Peruibe, Sao Paulo Area December 12 & 13, 2009
:::
"How is your dreaming?" Carlos Castaneda asked a cluster of students sitting in a studio one twilight in early Springtime.
"And what are you dreaming?" Florinda Donner-Grau added.
"Well," one student offered, "last night, I dreamt that I was working on a new software program and design; it was really a wonderful design, very functional and centered around a flowing spiraling shape and my boss was delighted…Well," the student continued, shrugging her shoulders, "it was just a dream…"
"What do you mean - 'just a dream?'" Florinda Donner-Grau asked. "Do you realize that infinity, the Spirit may be directing you towards that design and that you are holding yourself back?"
"Me, holding myself back?" asked the apprentice. "My boss is holding me back! He doesn't like anything I, or anybody else, designs; I don't want to present anything else for him to ridicule in front of others; and besides, who I am to propose something new to my boss? I don't dare!"
"You mean, you don't dare to dream past your limited perception, past the limitations of your lineage, your culture," Carlos Castaneda interjected. "Are some of the rest of you 'stuck' in your dreaming in the same way?" he asked. "If you are 'stuck' in the first attention of our daily agreement, you will be 'stuck' in the vastness of the second attention as well."
"Well," another student added, "I act the same. At college I really want to learn, but I hold back from asking my professor something I don't understand in favor of asking another student later. I think, “tudu bem,” and try not to worry about it. And if I can't find a student who knows the answer, then I tell myself, Why bother?' There is nothing I can do anyways; I probably won't make it through this class."
"Both of you sound like you are nightmaring to me," Florinda Donner-Grau said. "Not dreaming!"
"I know you all are reviewing your actions…" Florinda continued.
The students nodded.
"If you focus, for a moment, on scenes where you repeat to yourself such nightmaring syntactical commands as - "I can't'; 'I don't want to look stupid'; 'It's too hard'; 'He or She or They won't listen to me,' or 'He or She or They won't let me,' or 'Nothing good will ever come to me!'- and then look back into your past where scenes of this nature might have originated, you will find that these phrases, this mood, did not start with you! When you were a child, someone in your family line said these words, about themselves or about you, to you, and you, absorbing them, repeat them to this day."
"How can we stop that?" questioned one student.
"By looking directly at those scenes, by breathing into them, by lighting them up now with a new awareness, expanding your view of them to include the context of their origins and effects, their roots and their branches-in your own life, in your lineage, and in your cultures."
"And then?" asked another apprentice.
"Find other scenes in your life, scenes of joy, where you were present, aware, where you felt every cell of your body alive, every part of your being engaged! And you can find the roots of those scenes, in your own life and in your lineage, and your culture-and the branches, how those roots have grown, what kind of fruits they make, what kind of effect they have on the next generation-and take the elements of these dreams into now."
"And start telling a different story-let yourself be inspired by a new breath, a new current, a new intent…Rather than only repeating moments that didn't work-learn from those moments! Weave together a different shape-instead of a pile of blame, excuses and complaints, you can make a strand of resonant notes of appreciation."
"To help you with this, we will practice the magical passes of the Plumed Serpent. For the seers of ancient Mexico, the mythical figure of the plumed serpent represents a state of dreaming-awake, a state of full presence. Don Juan said that it was sky and earth embodied joyfully together in the heart of man-the interplay of the self and its energetic twin, the dreaming body. For the seers of his lineage, the dreaming body is the aspect of our being that scans through time and space and beyond, which travels the universe, the sea of awareness, to bring us dreams here in this human form, on this earth."
"Let's start with the magical passes of the left body and right body," he said. "As you do these," he said, lifting his left arm as if he were pulling it out of a sleeve, "feel how the plumed serpent cleanses the atmosphere with her feathers!"
"Feel how she is lifted by the current of wind, of intent of the Spirit that flows through and around her," he said, tracing a circle in front of him with his right hand. "When we bring the left and right bodies together," he said, "we are bringing together the best of what we inherited from mother and father, from our cultures, our ancestors, our ancestral DNA. We are flying, the way the plumed serpent flies in her dreams!" he said, and then everyone moved into what seemed like a timeless realm where they mixed the movements of left and right.
At the end of the form, the wings of the serpents opened to the back, as if they were catching a drift and riding on it.
When it was time to go, they all stepped out into the night. A gust of wind rose in the air, rippling their jackets.
"Look up!" Carlos Castaneda said, his eyes shining, "Venus-the Evening Star…and the Seven Sisters-the Pleiades!"
The bright light of the planet illuminated the sky around the stars, which seemed to flicker and twinkle from the deep distance.
"Look how those stars glow, sense the harmonics they make together," he said. "They let themselves be organized into that shape by something larger than themselves. We can all do this," he said, turning to look at everyone. "We can let our scales extend and lighten into plumage…and our flight begins there!"
* * *
In this workshop, open to newcomers as well as seasoned practitioners, participants will practice the art of Tensegrity, through the practice of magical passes and stalking exercises that help us identify what we might carry from our past, lineage and culture: those elements that seems to hold us back, as well as those that brings us strength, joy and purpose-the feeling of Yes, I can!"
Uh....
It may be very wise, but it amounts to self-soothing.
And, it didn't work. No one learned any sorcery.
Carlos died of course, so it would have worked eventually.
But as a technique, it really sucks.
Imagine if Carlos had emphasized darkroom practice for the years he had, and then died.
He wouldn't have gotten trashed the way he did, and everyone would know his sorcery works.
THEN, after you have something real going on as often as you like, you can add on the self-soothing stuff.
I'll even buy the smelly candles for people who get that far, and still need them.
(Evil Male point of view).
Maybe Cholita could pick out the candles instead.
Last time we got into a gay candle store in Westwood, it took more than 1 hour to get Cholita to leave.
Cholita likes gay men. They groom better.