A Meeting In The Garden

I was eyeing my watch when I heard the door chime and Eileen's intimate greeting to "Carlos," the tardy mystery guest. Little did I realize who Carlos was until, at the dining room threshold, Eileen introduced Carlos Castaneda. "My God, it is actually him," I thought in reverential waves of delight and awe, recalling how much I'd enjoyed some of his books, especially Journey to Ixtlan. Within moments the room filed with the richest storytelling I'd ever heard. Accounts of a bizarre, magical childhood in South America; strange tales of Mexico; and incisive personality sketches of fascinating people in his life were all mesmerizingly interwoven by this master raconteur. No one else spoke. After three hours under his spell, I sudenly rose from my seat, excusing myself to go outside for a smoke. I was intoxicated with the deliciousness of both meals and needed a break. A fantasy film about a distant but familiar planet now seemed unnecessary.

Delightfully alone, savoring that first slow inhalation and the floating sensation it invoked (smoking was, for me, a well-exploited taboo), I realized that Carlos had followed me into the garden. "Brugh, I need to talk with you. I need some help." I hadn't the slightest idea what kind of help Carlos Castaneda could want from me. He explained. "You may be aware that I am working with a group of women to help me with the leap into the sky, past the Eagle that devours, into the mystery of Infinity." In fact, I was aware of it and wondered how he was going to accomplish it. "I am afraid of leaving the forces of earth," he continued. "What is it like to be part of the sky, the celestial forces, the airy ones, with insubstantiality and loss of containment of being, and how should I prepare for it?" I was startled by his expectations of me, yet I exclaimed excitedly, "There's nothing to it, Carlos!" Then I told him I was getting ready to enter my body - his realm, that of earth and the ancestors. I said I was very much afraid of leaving what he called the sky forces, that the density of the earth, the intensity of sexuality, emotions, and the appetites felt as if they would overwhelm the subtle presence I customarily enjoyed. I asked, "What advice do you have for me?" "Why, there is absolutely nothing to it!" he countered enthusiastically. Gazing into each other's eyes, we suddenly realized why we had both overcome a mutual resistance to dinner party invitations. We could feel an energetic transfer of resources - as when elders are leaving and nonverbally transmit accumulated wisdoms through a touch or a glance. We felt a familiarity like that of long-lost half brothers of different mothers and talked about meeting again soon. We could feel our exchanged forces gestating - nascent and very fragile. He offered his telephone number and I offered mine. Yet we never saw nor spoke to each other again.

On the North Shore of Kauai I initiated a more conscious physicality - through extemporaneous dance, lomi lomi massage work, hiking, swimming, and work with Hannah Veary, a Hawaiian Elder who awakened "the eye that can see matter as divine." My further development of the physical level included sweat lodges, a dream of Wave and Wind as Soul and Spirit, a Whipple procedure that cured pancreatic carcinoma, and an encounter in Brazil with the Ayahuasca deity. It all culminated this year in an illumination in which I welcomed and understood the divine empowerment of physical limitation. "The Soul is as wondrous as Spirit," I am thinking, "and earth is as transcendant as heaven!"

A Radiance of Love,

 N.B. Through dreams, the call to inner, personal work is stirring my soul. To honor it, I will be taking a two-year sabbatical from all conference work after July 2000. The annual New Year's Asilomar conferences will conclude this year with "Psycles of Spirit, Year Ten - The Bridge."