The Waiting Room

It had been a long weekend, though not particularly eventful. After so many years of doing these renaissance faires as a merchant, it all starts to blend together, and at times I find myself not quite remembering what city we're in or what day it is. Most of the time, that's okay - it allows the internal dialogue to stop almost naturally, and quite often I realize I am simply gazing up at the sky or watching the wind stir the leaves of the trees. Unless something happens to disturb that assemblage point, I tend to exist in a state of almost perpetually heightened awareness - on the bridge between first & second attention. Prime real estate, if you ask me.

This is also true when driving home from these long weekends, particularly when I find myself alone in the motorhome as I did on Monday morning. Because the motorhome is a noisy beast of burden, I don't tend to play music while driving, much preferring to let my mind create its own entertainment. So as we drove through north Escondido, through border patrol checkpoints and areas once-green, but now scarred with the signs of more and more new housing developments, I realized I was communing with Orlando (my double).

Can't really say what we were discussing, if anything - though the communion was pleasant and alluring. I was aware of other traffic moving past me as I crested a large hill outside of Escondido, when suddenly a small black boxy car - the type most preferred by shaved-headed rudesters in the age bracket of 21-30 - went zooming past me at such a high rate of speed I was instantly jolted back into hyper-awareness. Because he cut me off when he zipped in front of me, I was forced to slam on the brakes and swerve to the left to avoid smashing him like a bug on the windshield.

What I could not have seen was that ANOTHER rudester - probably "the other guy" with whom Rudester #1 was road-racing - was already moving into the same lane I had just swerved into, and the laws of physics being what they are (two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time), I was pretty certain Rudester #2 was going to end up as a greasy red smear on the side of the motorhome - a real bitch to clean.

Somehow, though, the collision didn't happen, and both rudesters went racing off in the direction of the wind when I suddenly found myself "out of body" in a manner that tends to happen in moments of great danger. Much to my surprise, it was not much different from this world. I was in a nondescript house, with a sense of being in an upstairs bedroom. The walls were grey-white, no decorations that I could discern, silver-grey carpets, and one window that seemed to face north. The only furniture was a king-size bed with a white chenille spread, and a single nightstand where a pile of old hardcover books were stacked at least 2 feet high.

All of this I observed in a split second, as I became aware that Orlando was standing next to the bed, dressed in jeans and a white long-sleeve shirt, arms folded over his chest as he regarded me with a knowing little smile that was almost sinister. Just seeing him in that manner brought my heart into my throat. I wondered briefly if that collision had happened after all - if not in ordinary awareness, then certainly in some parallel reality. Was this all there was? Just a nondescript room in a nondescript house on the edge of nowhere in particular? And the Nagual man standing there like some dark spirit of a night that never ends? Despite the fact that it had been daytime in the motorhome, it was night here - black like silk velvet, with a star hanging on a thin thread in the open window.

As if hearing my thoughts, Orlando laughed. "This is just the waiting room," he said with a shrug. "When I'm not manifesting as a little boy in Greece or a pirate on the old seas, or a prince in the leg irons of responsibility, this is as good a place to wait as any."

I didn't need to ask what he was waiting for. I had almost just experienced it - that last dance with the eagle that may come in the form of a car wreck or a heart attack or simply closing one's eyes and never waking up. I didn't bother asking if I were dead. Didn't seem to matter much, either way. To my amusement, I was okay with that.

"So what next?" I asked, sitting on the edge of the huge white bed. The chenille was soft against my palms, every bit as real as anything in first attention. He knew what was on my mind, but I spelled it out for him anyway. "Just seems these past few months haven't exactly gone according to plan. And frankly I've even started to question the path. We like to think things happen for a reason, but the only meaning is what we assign to it all, and the only path is the one behind us."

Though he had been standing by the bed, I realized he had moved to the window. I say "moved" because that's how my first attention mind defines the results, but the reality of it was that he had simply shifted his assemblage point from A to B. No real "movement" occurred in the traditional sense. It made me smile. So he stood there at the window with his back to me, gazing out at the vast expanse of infinity while his chest rose and fell as if he were just an ordinary man breathing in a slow, even manner.

What he said next rattled me to the core of my foundation. "You've come to the end of the path." Now he turned and met my eyes, and in his gaze were galaxies and universes and entire vistas of the nagual glittering like diamonds just out of reach.

I forced myself not to look away even though it was like gazing into the depth of the abyss itself. I was reminded of the first time I spoke to this "man" when he was in manifestation almost 20 years in the past. He had scared me then. He scared me a lot more now. And yet, at the same time and in the same breath, I was without fear, for none of it mattered anymore.

"Creation rises out of the nothing at the command of those who follow no path, you see. Every action you have taken on the journey has led you to this moment, when the road disappears beneath your feet and you realize it has led you to the source of all power... and that source is only yourself." Though his words held a twinge of melancholy, the irony appeared to amuse him. "What you do next is a matter of intent - but far more importantly, it is a movement of Will."

And then, before I could argue or agree or even think, I was back in the world of first attention, on a freeway that was too brightly lit and too noisy and far too coarse and vulgar somehow. The motorhome was still lumbering down the road, the rudesters were long gone, and for a strange moment outside of time, it was as if I were looking at a movie playing out on the windshield - two-dimensional, flat-line, unreal. A quick vision of The Matrix reminded me of the character who, after a lifetime of staring at it all, only saw the coding.

I realized that's how I have felt for quite some time. Having stripped away the illusions and the programs and the role-playing games, we are left with the code that runs it all, but appears to have no real source other than the code itself. Suffice it to say that the coding is every bit as visible as the sunrise, and every bit as predictable. It's why I have been able to predict every unpredictable turn of events that has occurred over the past few weeks - and it is in the coding itself that I begin to realize why I have felt powerless at times to alter the course of that coding in my own life.

"...what you do next... is a movement of Will..."

That movement of will has to do with operating at a level above or beyond or simply aside from the code - for as long as we are part of the code, as long as we are stuck on any "path", we are not truly free to create from the heart of the nagual. As long as we are part of the code, we are playthings of the eagle, extensions of the tonal.

Over the days that followed since this incident in the waiting room, I thought at length about Orlando's words. When we come to the end of the path, we begin to see that each of us is "the one."
What's next is always what we create.

____________________

copyright 2007-2015, by Della Van Hise

All Rights Reserved

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The Singular Duality of the Warrior

In a recent discussion where the subject was touched upon, some of the comments put forth included: "I don't believe in the double." "The double doesn't exist except as a component of self." "The double can ONLY be like what Carlos described of Genaro's double. It's an exact duplicate of the warrior."

As I read the transcript of this discussion, where the conversation actually turned somewhat volatile, it occurred to me that a lot of the reactions I am seeing with regard to this subject are based almost wholly in the assemblage point of fear - a fear generated by 1) lack of comprehension; and 2) the insecurities of the ego as it resides in the tonal.

When an otherwise advanced warrior proclaims, "I don't believe in the double," to me it's usually a signal that some old program is running in the background, which is distorting one's perception of oneself. One warrior whom I questioned about this recently told me, "The double is just a myth, isn't it? It's just a way of explaining a feeling - like Santa Claus being used to promote some essence of Christmas."

Another warrior friend once asked me, "If you had to define the double in 5 minutes or less, what would you say?"

My response: "The double is the evolved self, projected initially by the mortal warrior as a manifestation of the intent to preserve awareness beyond the threshold of 'death'. It is created from the energy of the warrior, literally, but takes on a life of its own as a projection of the warrior's Will. We give the double 'life'. When the warrior puts forth the intent which says, "Teach me," or "Make me whole," the double is the teacher who then begins 'dreaming the warrior'. In this manner, the warrior is able to perceive well beyond the assemblage point of the tonal, and actually begins to utilize information and Knowledge gleaned directly from the assemblage point of the double - which might also be termed the AP of the nagual. As the warrior progresses on her path, the two assemblage points begin moving closer together, so that when the warrior's tonal is vacated at death, the dual assemblage points conjoin to create 'the totality of oneself' - or what I have come to call 'a singularity of consciousness'." (Yes, this is a MUCH simplified definition.)

Carlos Castaneda wrote:

"The self dreams the double. Once it has learned to dream the double, the self arrives at this weird crossroad and a moment comes when one realizes that it is the double who dreams the self. Your double is dreaming you. No one knows how it happens. We only know that it does happen. That's the mystery of us as luminous beings. You can awaken in either one." (Don Juan, TALES OF POWER)

Though these words have been perceived as a riddle by many over the years, my own work has shown that CC was speaking in a very literal sense here - but our own understanding will be either limited or enhanced, depending entirely on the preconceived notions we bring to the table. Put another way: if someone has already determined that they don't "believe" in the double, or that the double is "only a component of self", then

that is the colored filter through which the words will be viewed, and from that filter, the warrior's own understanding will be limited at best, and often even thwarted altogether. Why? Because when we do not allow ourselves to even consider what might lie beyond what we already "believe", we have closed off the energetic connection to the realm of all possibility, and have confined ourselves to our own narrow and rigid belief systems.

The double is not a theory. It is not a religion. And it is not a belief system. To the warrior who has experienced her double, it is simply what-is. To the warrior who has not experienced her double, it remains as an energetic potential in the realm of all possibility which must be forced to go through the motions of actually occurring.

So much of this Toltec path (or any serious path of Knowledge) lies within our ability to set aside what we "believe" and deal instead with what we have never even considered - those concepts and otherworlds which exist beyond the worlds and in the realm of actual experience. But that's where the ego can become fragile and fearful and slam on the brakes with blanket statements such as, "I don't believe in the double." Obviously, the ego may not want to believe in the double, for the simple reason that the double tends to represent something "larger" than the sum of our human parts - and the ego is not particularly forgiving of anything which it may perceive as "greater" than itself.

I mention this primarily as a tool for our own awareness, and it is a tool I use ruthlessly in my own journey. If I find myself recoiling and stating, "I don't believe in this or that!" it is often helpful to turn and look the demon in the face and ask oneself why I am so closed to the possibility which elicits such a response in the first place. Most often, I will discover that my "beliefs" are generated as a comfort zone for the ego, rather than based in any sort of actuality. And, of course, once this is *seen* and acknowledged, it is a relatively simple matter to put the ego aside, shift awareness to a more fluid position, and look at the whole concept from an entirely different point of view. So, it's awareness OF the ego that essentially enables us to BYPASS the ego when dealing with matters of the double, the nagual, or any other unknown which may be frightening to our animal-humanform awareness.

To limit the double is to limit the self. To limit the self is to defeat the purpose of the double. To see and acknowledge only the tonal self is nothing more than a manifestation of the ego's insecurities. Please consider that - for it is ultimately the insecurities of the ego which have the greatest potential to derail the warrior entirely. If you are given to meditation, this is a topic which almost always yields new insights & perspectives. What do we have the potential to BE when we set aside ego and belief, and open the door to the manifestation of "all possibility"?

So ultimately, the double represents the other half of the dual assemblage point of man. We perceive the tonal with our 5 ordinary senses. We perceive the nagual with the *other* senses (no way to know how many) which are inherent in the energetic construct of the double. When these assemblage points overlap (through dreaming, meditation or gnosis/silent knowing), the warrior gains glimpses of her connection to the infinite. When the two assemblage points conjoin at death, the warrior may be said to inhabit the totality of herself, achieving what some have referred to as "ultimate freedom."

Of course... my personal sense is that the ultimate freedom of our totality is most likely only one more step in an infinite journey. From the wholeness of our totality, we embrace the first step of the next evolution.
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