Carlos Castaneda - The Second Ring of Power

THE SECOND RING OF POWER

The Second Ring of Power - 1977 by Carlos Castaneda

Preface

A flat, barren mountaintop on the western slopes of the Sierra Madre in central Mexico was the setting for my final meeting with don Juan and don Genaro; and their other two apprentices, Pablito and Nestor. The solemnity and the scope of what took place there left no doubt in my mind that our apprenticeships had come to their concluding moment, and that I was indeed seeing don Juan and don Genaro for the last time. Toward the end we all said good-bye to one another, and then Pablito and I jumped together from the top of the mountain into an abyss.

Prior to that jump don Juan had presented a fundamental principle for all that was going to happen to me. According to him, upon jumping into the abyss I was going to become pure perception and move back and forth between the two inherent realms of all creation, the tonal and the nagual.

In my jump my perception went through seventeen elastic bounces between the tonal and the nagual. In my moves into the nagual I perceived my body disintegrating. I could not think or feel in the coherent, unifying sense that I ordinarily do, but I somehow thought and felt. In my moves into the tonal I burst into unity. I was whole. My perception had coherence. I had visions of order. Their compelling force was so intense, their vividness so real, and their complexity so vast that I have not been capable of explaining them to my satisfaction. To say that they were visions, vivid dreams or even hallucinations does not say anything to clarify their nature.

After having examined and analyzed in a most thorough and careful manner my feelings, perceptions and interpretations of that jump into the abyss, I had come to the point where I could not rationally believe that it had actually happened. And yet another part of me held on steadfast to the feeling that it did happen; that I did jump.

Don Juan and don Genaro are no longer available, and their absence has created in me a most pressing need; the need to make headway in the midst of apparently insoluble contradictions.

I went back to Mexico to see Pablito and Nestor to seek their help in resolving my conflicts. But what I encountered on my trip cannot be described in any other way except as a final assault on my reason; a concentrated attack designed by don Juan himself. His apprentices, under his absentee direction, in a most methodical and precise fashion demolished in a few days the last bastion of my reason. In those few days they revealed to me one of the two practical aspects of their sorcery; the 'art of dreaming'; which is the core of the present work.

The 'art of stalking' was the other practical aspect of their sorcery, and was also the crowning stone of don Juan's and don Genaro's teachings. It was presented to me during subsequent visits. The art of stalking was by far the most complex facet of their being on the Earth as individuals seeking the 'totality of themselves'.

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1. The Transformation of Dona Soledad

I had a sudden premonition that Pablito and Nestor were not home. My certainty was so profound that I stopped my car. I was at the place where the asphalt came to an abrupt end, and I wanted to reconsider whether or not to continue that day the long and difficult drive on the steep, coarse gravel road to their hometown in the mountains of central Mexico.

I rolled down the window of my car. It was rather windy and cold. I got out to stretch my legs. The tension of driving for hours had stiffened my back and neck. I walked to the edge of the paved road. The ground was wet from an early shower. Rain was still falling heavily on the slopes of the mountains to the south a short distance from where I was; but right in front of me toward the east, and also toward the north, the sky was clear. At certain points on the winding road I had been able to see the bluish peaks of the sierras shining in the sunlight a great distance away.

After a moment's deliberation, I decided to turn back and go to the city because I had a most peculiar feeling that I was going to find don Juan in the market. After all, I had always done just that; found him in the marketplace.

Since the beginning of my association with him, as a rule, if I did not find him in Sonora, I would drive to central Mexico and go to the market of that particular city; and sooner or later don Juan would show up. The longest I had ever waited for him was two days. I was so habituated to meeting him in that manner, that I had the most absolute certainty that I would find him again as I always had.

I waited in the market all afternoon. I walked up and down the aisles pretending to be looking for something to buy. Then I waited around the park.

At dusk I knew that he was not coming. I had then the clear sensation that he had been there, but had left. I sat down on a park bench where I used to sit with him and tried to analyze my feelings.

Upon arriving in the city I had been elated with the sure knowledge that don Juan was there in the streets. What I felt had been more than the memory of having found him there countless times before. My body had known that he was looking for me.

But then as I sat on the bench, I had another kind of strange certainty. I knew that he was not there anymore. He had left and I had missed him.

After a while I discarded my speculations. I thought that I was beginning to be affected by the place. I was starting to get irrational. That had always happened to me in the past after a few days in that area.

I went to my hotel room to rest for a few hours and then I went out again to roam the streets. I did not have the same expectation of finding don Juan that I had had in the afternoon. I gave up. I went back to my hotel in order to get a good night's sleep.

Before I headed for the mountains in the morning, I drove up and down the main streets in my car; but somehow I knew that I was wasting my time. Don Juan was not there.

It took me all morning to drive to the little town where Pablito and Nestor lived. I arrived around noon. Don Juan had taught me never to drive directly into the town so as not to arouse the curiosity of onlookers. Every time I had been there I had always driven off the road just before reaching the town- onto a flat field where youngsters usually played soccer. The dirt was well packed all the way to a walking trail which was wide enough for a car and which passed by Pablito's and Nestor's houses in the foothills south of town. As soon as I got to the edge of the field I found that the walking trail had been turned into a gravel road.

I deliberated whether to go to Nestor's house or Pablito's. The feeling that they were not there still persisted. I opted to go to Pablito's. I reasoned that Nestor lived alone whereas Pablito lived with his mother and his four sisters. If he was not there, the women could help me find him.

As I got closer to his house, I noticed that the path leading from the road up to the house had been widened. It looked as if the ground was hard, and since there was enough space for my car, I drove almost to the front door.

A new porch with a tile roof had been added to the adobe house. There were no dogs barking, but I saw an enormous one sitting calmly and alertly observing me from behind a fenced area. A flock of chickens that had been feeding in front of the house scattered around cackling. I turned the motor off and stretched my arms over my head. My body was stiff.

The house seemed deserted. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps Pablito and his family had moved away and that someone else was living there. Suddenly the front door opened with a bang and Pablito's mother stepped out as if someone had pushed her. She stared at me absentmindedly for an instant.