My "barefoot journey" was meant to have been a journey of a 30 something year old man to fitness and his first race. I began the journey light-hearted and with much humor, expecting to reach a 10k race within six months. This did not happen. I did not get to my first race, nor did I win any medals...in fact some might say I had failed on my quest...but I have LEARNED a great deal...
I have been running a year Injury Free of course but the real change was perceptual just as much as it was physical. I soon found that my "barefoot journey" was a "spiritual" journey (spiritual in a very pragmatic sense). I was following lines of intent which in some strange sort of way related to that old fraud Carlos Castaneda, a man somewhat adverse to barefoot it seems, in the book Journey to Ixtlan he writes:
'I can't walk without shoes...Don Juan doubled up with laughter... he assured me again that he had meant what he had said...He was right of course. I had never walked barefoot and to walk in the desert without shoes would have been suicidal for me.
'"This desert is oozing power," don Juan whispered in my ear. "There is no time for being timid."'
But it was in his last book, The Active Side of Infinity that I found some great pointers (and corroboration) relating to my own experiences - it was a book which felt to me far more truthful than many of the other books that he had written.
The fact that I believed Castaneda to be a fake did not take away from the fact that many of his writing concurred, or was corroborated by, my own experiences. Further to this, the fact that it was running barefoot that was the precursor to my intense focus of these lines of infinity, quite frankly came as something of a surprise. This but can be attributed to, I believe, the stimulation of acupressure points or meridians in the foot, akin to Reflexology, causing a specific cognitive change.
That change in cognition, as I wrote in my last post, was a focus on my life's journey - in particular the past - past events of such clarity which stayed with me through the day and even into my dreams. Here I met with friends who I had not seen in years, I spoke to those who had passed on; it was quite profound. And somewhat shamanic in a visionary sort of way.
I realized that there were indeed two methods or units of cognition which are incompatible with each other. One relating to the everyday world and the other "unit" relating to the world of the shaman or sorcerer. I also realized that I had had many paranormal experiences in my life which had resided in a foggy place of semi-amnesia. I concluded that Castaneda was right in his view, or the Sorcerers of Antiquity's view, that there were two ways of "seeing": the mundane way and the clairvoyant way.
According to Castaneda, the Sorcerers of antiquity in ancient Mexico, saw clairvoyantly. that the body (in an energetic sense) was in fact a ball of energy. and that within this ball of energy was an even brighter ball called the Assemblage Point through which the lines of infinity enter and which relate to perception. When these Sorcerers engaged clairvoyant "seeing" (rather than mere looking) they entered a heightened state of perception, or clairvoyant vision, that these Sorcerers of Antiquity called the "Second Attention", and it was "seen" by these Sorcerers that when a person was perceiving in the Second Attention that this "Assemblage Point" had shifted from the normal position (located behind the shoulder blades) into a new position. Thus the memories of the Second Attention could not be actively remembered whilst in the everyday state of perception due to the relative location of the Assemblage Point at these two specific states of perception. Therefore these Sorcerers of Antiquity could only remember the events of the second attention by returning their Assemblage Point to the altered position in which the event had originally been perceived. The events of the Second Attention although profound were embedded within the physical form even though they were forgotten in the everyday world, or to say, the memories were off limits when the Assemblage Point was in the normal position perceiving the every day world.
I had thus found that the "spiritual" in some pragmatic and very real sense was embedded in the physical, in the tendons and muscles and nerve endings of the body; for my barefoot running was stimulating my life review, corroborated in Louise Hays book You can Heal Your Life and also corroborated by Castaneda acting as amanuensis to the Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Juan Matus in the book The Active Side of Infinity;
"Walking...precipitates memories...The sorcerers of ancient Mexico believed that everything we live we store as a sensation on the backs of the legs. They considered the backs of the legs to be the warehouses of man's personal history."
I felt, even before reading that quotation, to be compelled to start to collect certain experiences in a journal and to review my life in general - all stimulated (as I saw it) by barefoot running - which builds up the muscles on the back of the legs. As I continued this life review I found I was doing something that Castaneda referred to as Recapitulation.
"Sorcerers believe...that as we recapitulate our lives, all the debris...comes to the surface. We realize our inconsistencies. our repetitions, but something in us puts up a tremendous resistance to recapitulating. Sorcerers say that the road is free only after a gigantic upheaval...[a] memory of an event that shakes our foundations with its terrifying clarity of detail."
I have not finished this process - this life review: nor the barefoot running - so I cannot make any conclusions other to say that I find I am walking on a new line of intent...to an unknown destination.
All I know is that I am seeing and experiencing a new world of perception which directly impacts in the material world through the force of intent.
The fact that I believed Castaneda to be a fake did not take away from the fact that many of his writing concurred, or was corroborated by, my own experiences. Further to this, the fact that it was running barefoot that was the precursor to my intense focus of these lines of infinity, quite frankly came as something of a surprise. This but can be attributed to, I believe, the stimulation of acupressure points or meridians in the foot, akin to Reflexology, causing a specific cognitive change.
That change in cognition, as I wrote in my last post, was a focus on my life's journey - in particular the past - past events of such clarity which stayed with me through the day and even into my dreams. Here I met with friends who I had not seen in years, I spoke to those who had passed on; it was quite profound. And somewhat shamanic in a visionary sort of way.
I realized that there were indeed two methods or units of cognition which are incompatible with each other. One relating to the everyday world and the other "unit" relating to the world of the shaman or sorcerer. I also realized that I had had many paranormal experiences in my life which had resided in a foggy place of semi-amnesia. I concluded that Castaneda was right in his view, or the Sorcerers of Antiquity's view, that there were two ways of "seeing": the mundane way and the clairvoyant way.
According to Castaneda, the Sorcerers of antiquity in ancient Mexico, saw clairvoyantly. that the body (in an energetic sense) was in fact a ball of energy. and that within this ball of energy was an even brighter ball called the Assemblage Point through which the lines of infinity enter and which relate to perception. When these Sorcerers engaged clairvoyant "seeing" (rather than mere looking) they entered a heightened state of perception, or clairvoyant vision, that these Sorcerers of Antiquity called the "Second Attention", and it was "seen" by these Sorcerers that when a person was perceiving in the Second Attention that this "Assemblage Point" had shifted from the normal position (located behind the shoulder blades) into a new position. Thus the memories of the Second Attention could not be actively remembered whilst in the everyday state of perception due to the relative location of the Assemblage Point at these two specific states of perception. Therefore these Sorcerers of Antiquity could only remember the events of the second attention by returning their Assemblage Point to the altered position in which the event had originally been perceived. The events of the Second Attention although profound were embedded within the physical form even though they were forgotten in the everyday world, or to say, the memories were off limits when the Assemblage Point was in the normal position perceiving the every day world.
I had thus found that the "spiritual" in some pragmatic and very real sense was embedded in the physical, in the tendons and muscles and nerve endings of the body; for my barefoot running was stimulating my life review, corroborated in Louise Hays book You can Heal Your Life and also corroborated by Castaneda acting as amanuensis to the Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Juan Matus in the book The Active Side of Infinity;
"Walking...precipitates memories...The sorcerers of ancient Mexico believed that everything we live we store as a sensation on the backs of the legs. They considered the backs of the legs to be the warehouses of man's personal history."
I felt, even before reading that quotation, to be compelled to start to collect certain experiences in a journal and to review my life in general - all stimulated (as I saw it) by barefoot running - which builds up the muscles on the back of the legs. As I continued this life review I found I was doing something that Castaneda referred to as Recapitulation.
"Sorcerers believe...that as we recapitulate our lives, all the debris...comes to the surface. We realize our inconsistencies. our repetitions, but something in us puts up a tremendous resistance to recapitulating. Sorcerers say that the road is free only after a gigantic upheaval...[a] memory of an event that shakes our foundations with its terrifying clarity of detail."
I have not finished this process - this life review: nor the barefoot running - so I cannot make any conclusions other to say that I find I am walking on a new line of intent...to an unknown destination.
All I know is that I am seeing and experiencing a new world of perception which directly impacts in the material world through the force of intent.
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