Here is some of the feedback we received from participants of the recent workshop:

  “¿Cuál es tu pesadilla? What is your nightmare?”
Bath, England
June 22, 23 & 24, 2007

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From Newcomers

A few months ago I started practicing the magical passes and reading Carlos Castaneda's books. Since then many beautiful things have happened, and for this reason I couldn't wait to attend a workshop with you. I must admit that it exceeded my expectations. Being my first workshop, I was also feeling so charged up and enthusiastic because I was curious about the workshop's name, as since I was a child I suffered a great deal from nightmares and always dreamed in a very "strong" way. Since I started practicing the magical passes and recapitulating, something before unknown to me has started to happen: I dream of people that I recognize in my dreams and for whom I feel great affection, but that in real life I cannot identify with any of the people I know. I feel an almost desperate wish to understand who they are and why I dream of them so intensely.
The week before the workshop I dreamed that there were some people doing great preparation work, in the people of my dream I recognized one of you after I saw him in reality. Dreaming of you even before meeting you, and seeing you afterwards, has given me a sense of confidence and familiarity already from the first moment I found myself amongst you.
As soon as the first day started, I perceived "my presence" very strongly, I felt at the center of everything, as though the others were not around, in such an intense way that it became bothering. In the following days, this sensation started disappearing until it was completely cancelled and substituted by a great feeling of emptiness! I didn't feel concentrated in myself anymore, I felt I had merged into an energy field created by all of us during the three days. A wonderful sensation that developed in the different practices.
During the second day, the "assignment" of dreaming together the chosen image has been extraordinary. Little by little, slowing down and lowering the inner voice with the help of the dowel, getting closer to silence I perceived the participants' energy, while the common intent took me farther and farther away from my self-reflection. Like one of us has told, I perceived not only that I was observing the trees, but also that we were observed by them, like in a mutual exchange. I never felt so observed by nature and by the earth as then, I could feel its welcome and affection. As we went on, the common intent was growing stronger and stronger. The passes, that in the first days were like codes to be deciphered, were slowly guiding the body towards the intent of those who perceived them, taking up a definitive role in awakening the body and the awareness of it and of our fears, to the point that in one of our jumps into the abyss I felt as though I was falling into emptiness with an initial scare followed by complete abandonment and joy. The plumed serpent magical passes made me discover not only the forgotten muscles in my back, but also transmitted to my body the intent of making my left body communicate with my right one, the nagual with the tonal… truly brilliant! Sensations that words cannot describe, because they go beyond the limits of the intellect. They are expressed and interpreted through the body, which in our life we are so little used to do! I perceived the final flight of the plumed serpent as a real flight, even now that I practice it alone at home, it gives me the sensation of seeing from above, like when one dreams of flying.
Up to now, even though I had read almost all of the books by Castaneda, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau, I had not yet quite understood the meaning of "stalking" and above all of stalking oneself. Intellectually I did, but I could see no practical effect or something concrete to use to one's advantage. At the beginning of the stalking exercises, they seemed fun to me, even though a bit uncomfortable, since I didn't care to tell about myself to people I didn't know, and so I chose what to say more to please than to expose myself…. Until you asked us to look for our body position in childhood that corresponds to our present body position of fear. I couldn't understand well what you meant. It seemed absurd to me to remember how my body was 15-20 years ago, and especially I couldn't see use of it. My witness was good and expert. He insisted with patience and made me isolate a scene and then describe it focusing on my body. At that point, something strange happened, little by little my perception of it changed. While I was feeling well, I started feeling "strange". A weight on my chest. I told it to him, laughing embarrassed, since I normally don't believe in certain things, given my scientific and rational education. He asked me to continue describing it, I almost felt like when I was a child, and not in a sense of a mental memory. A memory of my body of that time emerged: small and overpowered by the adult figures around me. It was too much. Tears started flowing. I could not stop. It was as though a dam had opened. I covered myself with my t-shirt, I was so ashamed, an instructor came near, and I said within myself, "Oh, no, not her…." I wanted to disappear. She asked me if everything was right. I told her I was sorry, I was not used not to control myself, especially in public. "You must not control yourself, I tell you what Carol Tiggs suggests in these cases. If you really need to cry, give yourself 10 minutes a day, set the kitchen clock and let it all go…." I realized that I was crying not for a sad scene, but because I had recalled the body position of that moment, and that by coming back to a more balanced position through breathing and the awareness of every part of my body, I can fight everything that leads me to my fears, like breaking a pathological mechanism. One of the most extraordinary discoveries in the workshop: stalking oneself!!!! And stalking oneself every day has become real fun!
The evening of the second day was really magic. We moved to Teotihuacan! I had visited it seven years ago, and for the umpteenth coincidence I had bought the CD with the music that accompanied us in that trip. The voice of Reni Murez that told the dream of the Toltecs, in the mental emptiness everything was transformed into a dream, observing the "Paseo de los Ensoñadores" with the people of that time, in a state of drowse. That night I would have liked to stay there to sleep, together with everyone else.
On the third day, nothing was left of me. I felt ethereal but also broken in one thousand pieces. I could not feel "me" anymore, and it was such a feeling of wellbeing!
The whole workshop was developed in a brilliant way and was structured to guide us towards the intent of facing our nightmares and recover the energy we use to sustain them. The result was magic! I was particularly impressed by your simplicity, your sobriety, your ability to play down, also when answering the questions we asked you. You'll remain in my heart, you and all the practitioners of those days. Every night since then I recall the scene of our Dreaming. My compliments and thanks for having shared with us the Intent, the Dream. I hope we'll meet again in the first and maybe even in the Second Attention….

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