The great Thunderbird

[Thunderbird]

The great Thunderbird appeared to me in a corn field when I was 11, it came up from behind accompanied by a strong wind. Its wing span was the size of a airplane, crows followed behind flying around its tail.
Its head was turned toward the left looking back at me with a fierce and noble eye.

It then cawed like a crow. Its beak resembled a stellar sea eagles, and had a crest red feathers on the top of its head. The over all color was dark steel gray with an under belly of alternating black and white feathers.
It flew north in a ultraslow wing pulses that kept me spellbound until it was just a thin line on the horizon.

At the time I had no knowledge of the Thunderbird. My parents explained "I had suffered a hallucination".
Years later I visited a park in the next county to see the petroglyphs.
There carved into the stone was what I had seen 22 years earlier, complete with the crows trailing behind.

Here is a poem I later wrote on the experience.

At work in the field, I felt the wave from behind, and then the shadow.

The magnificent bird filled the sky.

Its fierce nobility hit like a thunder bolt,
a forgotten truth stirred within my memory.

We are merely children, newly born, under the watchful eye of earthly kings.

Then the voice called down to me, out of the heart of the woodpecker, in the tongue of the crow, from the beak of an eagle.

Caw ! Caw !

[Buffy]

Too much Castaneda there dear....

Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone,
Buffy

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Too much Castaneda there dear....

Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone,
Buffy

I do not believe I had read Castaneda at 11 years old, this was obviously a very humbly experience for me and led me to keep an open mind.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

I do not believe I had read Castaneda at 11 years old, this was obviously a very humbly experience for me and led me to keep an open mind.

That's great! Personally I didn't start to read Castaneda until I was about 13, but I too found it very enlightening.

My strange experiences with animals have come with horses, who are very powerful and know it, and you have to become "at one" with them if you wish them to let you guide them (whips, spurs, and curb bits don't help unless you know what you're doing). I have a very vivid memory of a horse looking at a jump ahead of us, and then slowly looking back and staring at me saying "you've got to be kidding," and after a stare back, giving an abrupt sigh and galloping off toward it, heaving us up far higher than the jump required just to show me who was boss.

And some people say that animals don't engage in conscious behavior!

This probably has nothing to do with what you're talking about, so I'm sorry if I waste your time with such drivel.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it,
Buffy

[Thunderbird]

That was an unexpected turn. I believe you have read "The wheel of Time"

Quotations from The Wheel of Time by Carlos Castaneda

"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."

From Tales of Power


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse."

From Tales of Power


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Self-importance is man's greatest enemy. What weakens him is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of his fellow men. Self-importance requires that one spend most of one's life offended by something or someone."

From The Fire From Within


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid."

From A Separate Reality


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A warrior has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country; he has only life to be lived, and under these circumstances, his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. "

From A Separate Reality


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when there is something we can still cling to."

From The Second Ring of Power


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing for him to lose."

From Tales of Power


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I am already given to the power that rules my fate.
And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend.
I have no thoughts, so I will see.
I fear nothing, so I will remember myself.

Detached and at ease,
I will dart past the Eagle to be free."

From The Eagle's Gift


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else."

From A Separate Reality

[Thunderbird]

One caveat about reading these books.

Reading about the "warrior" does not make me one, but it does make me aware that they exist.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

One caveat about reading these books.

Reading about the "warrior" does not make me one, but it does make me aware that they exist.

Another caveat: not only does reading about Don Juan and other sorcerer warriors not make you one, it doesn’t guarantee that they actually exist, other than as imaginary, fictional characters. It’s pretty universally accepted among anthropologists nowadays that they don’t – though if you’re truly initiate into these or other books and the subculture around them, this isn’t necessarily a hard stop barrier. When I read them as a teen in the 1970s, people I discussed them with, including adult academics, generally believed the characters, though not necessarily the precise events, in Castenada’s books were real.

Even walking the Eagle’s Path - a tradition I can personally attest has real devotees, the last time I checked, ca. 1999, though Hopi, not Yaqui ones, with origins that cannot, by definition, date back further than 4/19/1943 – hasn’t to the best of my knowledge brought Don Juan into objective reality – though it’s an intensely interesting walk.

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Another caveat: not only does reading about Don Juan and other sorcerer warriors not make you one, it doesn’t guarantee that they actually exist, other than as imaginary, fictional characters. It’s pretty universally accepted among anthropologists nowadays that they don’t – though if you’re truly initiate into these or other books and the subculture around them, this isn’t necessarily a hard stop barrier. When I read them as a teen in the 1970s, people I discussed them with, including adult academics, generally believed the characters, though not necessarily the precise events, in Castenada’s books were real.

Even walking the Eagle’s Path - a tradition I can personally attest has real devotees, the last time I checked, ca. 1999, though Hopi, not Yaqui ones, with origins that cannot, by definition, date back further than 4/19/1943 – hasn’t to the best of my knowledge brought Don Juan into objective reality – though it’s an intensely interesting walk.

The funny and rather ingenious twist to the mystery is that both characters portrayed in the books were fictional.

The Castaneda he portrayed as himself , the bumbling anthropologist/sorcery apprentice, actually was the more fictional of the two.

In reading the latter books of Castaneda, and from scant interviews with people that knew him, it becomes apparent that the author was the true Don Juan.

I am also a big Joseph Campbell fan, and as he would attest, sometimes myth is more real than history,
And sometimes fictional characters are more truthful than real people.

The cryptic configuration of, character/ author, was part of Castaneda’s way of going about things. He was called the “trickster” by the people that knew him, and no one really knew him well.

Understanding this twist of; truth and illusion, is a good primer to deciphering these, as you stated “interesting walks.”
Oh, BTW did you ever read "The Art of Dreaming"?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Oh, BTW did you ever read "The Art of Dreaming"?

I’ve not read any Castaneda or Castaneda compilations more recent than 1981’s The Eagle’s Gift. I’ll catch up in the next few weeks, skipping ahead to “The Art of Dreaming”, which I just loaded onto my handheld. I get a lot of reading done “in the cracks”, waiting for busses, trains, people, and lying abed before I need to be doing anything on a schedule.

My enthusiasm for Castaneda’s writing waned a lot in the late 1970s, as I became increasingly aware of its fictional nature. I’m a consensus-seeking person. In the mid ‘70s, the consensus I found among the many people, peers and mentors, from whom I sought it was that his books described real, if very subjective, experiences. By late 1970s, the consensus had turned to “Castaneda’s full of s**t”. As pure fiction, the Don Juan books paled in comparison to the undisguised fiction of Tolkien, Moorcock, and a host of professional and amateurs from that period, and I found myself and the people in my community focused on the purely fictional – Intensely focused, as by then my community could be well described as “role playing gamers”, and my place in it as evangelist (translating in the 70s hemispheric vernacular and my local zeitgeist best, I think, to “young dude carrying the news” )

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

The cryptic configuration of, character/ author, was part of Castaneda’s way of going about things. He was called the “trickster” by the people that knew him, and no one really knew him well.

I never met him, and know only one person who has, but anybody who can get an anthropology PhD thesis, a wad of cash, and generations of fame out of an absolute fabrication has in my book shown extraordinary ability to P it h and D. My personal discomfort with trickster/coyote/Anansi types of people is, by the time I was 20, I’d both had enough of them, particularly the 40-ish OTO-traditioned pederastic kind I’d grown up with, and with practicing to be one. Microcomputers were appearing in places I could go and touch them, bringing for many folk my age with decent math backgrounds a heady sense of being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time good fortune and power, but demanding an introverted, objective, precise worldview. BS what would work with a thrown-together cult/coven was useless for getting silicon to do your bidding, and I found myself increasing discarding my complicated, verbose magical subjective world view for a stripped-down, essentially numeric, objective one.

In the mid 1980s, married, moved from rural West Virginia to urban Washington DC and working full time or more most of the time, I found myself reengaging with local esoteric new age communities. Castaneda was in low esteem among most of these folk, in favor of writers like Ram Dass and Starhawk, both of whom regularly appeared in the DC area, and were open and approachable – in short, untricky, nice, and very authentic people. Their non-fiction was really non-fiction. They are un-mysterious people who have been to and done what they write of, as witnessed and corroborated by many people. Those who write fiction, even when it contains autobiographical elements, represent it clearly as fiction. I also enjoy the company of “Hopis and hippies” (as the saying goes), though they’re mostly an emotive, un-intellectual bunch.

Although I’ve had no contact with Castaneda’s folk at Cleargreen (not surprising, as I’m on the east cost, and they’re on the West), the impression I get from reading about them in writings like Corey Donovan’s Sustained Action website’s is that I wouldn’t benefit from the contact.

Still, I’m very curious about what Castaneda and his folk did in the 1980s and ‘90s, after I’d lost interest in them. From just the beginnings I’ve made reading in the last 48 hours, I’m starting to sense a similarity between his story and that of folk OTO-based folk like Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard (like Castaneda, a consummate trickster, now dead, and in addition a mind-bogglingly prolific and proficient writer).

Perhaps the oddest connection I’ve noticed so far is Castaneda’s adoption/cooption of the concept of tensegrity, better know from the writings of Buckminster Fuller and art of Ken Snelson. Although connected in little more than name, tensegrity appears to be a major focus at Cleargreen these days.

[freeztar]

First of all, thank you Craig for the link to tensegrity. Very interesting stuff that I look forward to exploring.

I have a quaint admiration for Castaneda's work. I've read about 7-8 of his books and my personal favorite was "Tales of Power" for its wonderful imagery and enticing philosophy. I have not read a lot of his post-80's stuff as well, but I did find "The Power of Silence" an amusing read.

If they are read like fiction, then there is definitely some enjoyment, and just maybe a little insight, in the Castaneda books.