Merilyn Tunneshende - Don Juan and the Art of Sexual Energy: The Rainbow Serpent of the Toltecs

To Goyacle, Geronimo, a great Chiricahua warrior

PREFACE

HOW TO APPROACH THE PRACTICES PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK

IN EUROPE, WHERE THIS BOOK WAS FIRST RELEASED, PEOPLE have responded to its simplicity and have asked me if it is deliberate. I tell them yes. My mentors and I feel that simplicity is required because we are but children when sexual energy begins to complicate our lives. In fact, from the moment of our conception, sexual energy plays a vital role as one of the major forces that will shape our lives.

Gentleness, simplicity, and humor are the required medicine, sharing just enough at first, and not too much, so as not to frighten, overload, or confound and so as to allow the natural cleansing and liberating process to begin. A friend of mine called Alfonsina said that she thought this book should be written to resemble lessons for big children She said there is an inherent kindness in even the most terrifying childrens stories that is very beneficial to the body. I couldnt agree with her more.

And so, following that advice, I have endeavored to share the kindness and humor in all of this sexual energy work, in addition to some specific practices. As to the practices themselves, take them slowly. Dont be in a rush to fabricate an experience. Take one practice at a time. Work with it consistently and gently until it begins to produce beneficial effects in the body. Dont be greedy to get it all and race through to arrive at the last practice. There is so much more! What I offer here is simply a beginning that will put your feet on the right road.

Some of the practices are more advanced than others. Some are quite advanced indeed. These will always reference an earlier practice, which one needs to experience successfully before moving on the the next level. All of the work, even that which seems the most simple, will produce profound results. So again, there is no need to rush. This is not a competition.

With that in mind, my last bit of advice is to enjoy! Joy is a quality we have all but lost and it is very good medicine to rediscover it. The practices do flow in a natural order, so simply trust the process. There is no need to skip around. Try to maintain a relaxed focus and healthy, loving, enthusiastic curiosity as you embark on this spiritual journey.

INTRODUCTION

IN 1979 WHILE JOURNEYING TO MEXICO, I MET AN OLD native gentleman in the desert of Arizona who was forever to change my life. He was a solitary figure, a Yuma, or Kwtsan as they like to be called, and was notorious for a very potent and mysterious shamanic ability called Dream Power. This Nagual (Shapeshifter Shaman) was commonly known by the Spanish pen name of don Juan Matus. Over the years that I knew him, he endeavored to teach me his special form of dreaming and share its potency with me. I discovered under his tutelage and benevolence that Dream Power is an indispensable tool in healing that literally makes miracles happen. I also came to realize that Dream Power has strong links to our sexual energy and to the development of our energy bodies, which, although it shouldnt have, came as quite a surprise to me.

As we continued our association, my own Dream Power grew and I began to acquire full-fledged entry into don Juans world. It was at this time that he revealed to me that he had seen we were the same sort, energetic counterparts. As I matured as a woman, my feelings toward him changed from awe to something more like love. If I truly examine my perceptions and feelings, though, I realize that I loved him on first sight, despite the differences in our ages and cultures.

In 1994 my mentor and energetic counterpart leapt from this world by literally walking out of his body, experiencing the Fire Within and Rainbow Crossing of the Spirit Waters at death. These are the classic teachings of the Rainbow Serpent, a body of transformational sexual energy wisdom found within the culture of the Toltec-Maya. Having been joined with don Juan in a sacred union of energies before, after, and at the time he left this world, I found myself the inheritor of his magical realms and of his desert homeland. One among several still-living members of this legacy is a powerful sorceress by the name of doa Celestina de la Soledad. Another is the artful Dreamer and healer Chon Yakil, once pen-named don Genaro by Carlos Castaneda.

At first glance, doa Celestina appears to be a full-blooded witch. There is no doubt about it and no other way to put it. The Doa, now eighty-four years of age, was sixty-six at the time of our first meeting in 1981. She stands a powerful 5'7", my exact height, has a Native face with gray hair, which she pulls up into a head rag turban, and fully lives up to her given name SoledadSolitude. She always wears a simple black dress to cover her dark, lean, muscular body and scarcely ever smiles, but has long, beautiful teeth. It was doa Celestina, terror upon terror, who took charge of my instruction in the ways of female power.

I will never forget the day don Juan took me across the Mexican border into San Luis Rio Colorado to meet her. Doa Celestina was standing on a street corner in her black dress and sandals, whacking the stalks from large ears of corn with a massive machete, partially husking the ears with forceful strokes and tossing them into a metal washtub of boiling water which sat upon coals smoldering on an old oil drum. She leered at me while she worked and her dark shadow leapt in my direction, stretching over the sunlit curb at a diagonal. It hovered where I stood. This is no healer, no medicine woman, I thought to myself, chilled. She is a bona fide witch, through and through. Don Juan stared at me fiercely, reading my thoughts. This is your teacher, he said, and made the appropriate introductions.

Doa Celestina is a composite of Corn Mother and Dragon Lady. I found her to be as fierce and as capable as they come. Among her areas of energetic expertise are longevity wisdom, sexual energy practices, and powerful antidote witchcraft. During my continued stays in her home in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, I worked daily to earn my keep, and still do when I visit. She tolerates nothing less. In the beginning of the relationship I scrubbed the tile walls, counters, and floors with a boar bristle brush until they glistened, and washed clothing spotless by hand. Later I graduated to ironing the clothing over and over until the creases were as sharp and straight as blades, and then mopped the tiles until you could eat off the floors. Finally, having mastered the aforementioned tasks, I joined a small rank of girls she taught to machine sew straight seams at a lightning pace. Together we would finish piles of clothes for later sale in the market, all following her expert example and under her witchly scrutiny. It never once occurred to any of us to think to herself this is an apprenticeship? It was a matter of survival.

At night, when the shadows crept and the younger girls went home or to bed, doa Celestina and I always went into her dark workroom to learn trabajitos (little jobs). This was her altar room for sance, counseling, and hex anti-hex. It was forbidden to enter unless she was accompanying, and no one would have ever dared break that rule. At the first hint of twilight, wed dine in the old tiled kitchen on simple but powerful farecorn, squash, beans, chilies, and tortillas usually, followed by strong coffee. Wed leave the dishes to soak, and enjoy the change in light and breeze from bentwood rockers on her inner patio. And then at dark, like two drifting shadows, wed enter the smoky altar room and sit across from one another at her rustic worktable. The large room was then and is still now always lit only by candlelight, and every conceivable energy can be found within it.