Eagle's Gift by Carlos Castaneda

 This is the sixth volume of Castaneda's works, and it continues the narrative thread of Carlos remembering all the things that were said and done when Don Juan has pushed him into the Second Attention, which is a higher version of the First Attention, the one we use in everyday life.  There are many stories about seeing and Carlos working with La Gorda and all the warriors of Don Juan's group ike Silvio Manuel, Florinda and others.  Florinda teaches Carlos the art of stalking, which is a counterpart to the art of dreaming, the warrior's in a Nagual's party being divided into two main groups, Stalkers and Dreamers, with Couriers rounding up the group.

Another concept that is developed in detail is "The Eagle" which could be described as the Godhead, or the Creator/Destroyer in other traditions.  Don Juan says that even calling it "The Eagle" is somewhat false, as it doesn't look like an eagle, and nobody knows or can know how it really looks.  The name of Eagle was something that the previous seers came up with to describe it, but it could have been any other metaphor.  

The Eagle is the one who gives consciousness to humans when they are born and then, upon their death, it consumes their consciousness.  The entire point of all the previous seers and their parties, just like Don Juan and his warrior party, all of the practices, all of the effort, all of the denials, all of it is for the purpose not to be consumed by the Eagle but to "dart" past it.  Dart into where?  Nobody knows.  Don Juan calls it "Freedom" but what does that actually mean is anyone's guess.  The logic goes that anything is better than being consumed by The Eagle.

My father died of covid three days ago.  I hope The Eagle had mercy on him.

Second Ring of Power by Carlos Castaneda

 The fifth book in the series starts with Castaneda going back to Mexico to talk to his friend, the apprentice of Don Genaro, but when he arrives at his house, the mother, Dona Soledad, attacks him and tells him that Don Juan told her to kill him and take his luminosity.  Castaneda, shocked, defends himself properly.  Then the three girls and La Gorda ("Fatty") who Castaneda thought were daughters of Dona Soledad, also try to trick him and attack him, trying to take his luminosity for themselves, but, at a crucial moment, Castaneda's double comes out of his body and almost kills the girls.

Then Castaneda discovers that Dona Soledad and the girls were actually apprentices of Don Juan as well and that he doesn't remember much of the time he spent with them and Don Juan.  Eventually he goes with La Gorda to various secret places that Don Juan told La Gorda in order to become the Nagual of the new group or "warrior party".  Towards the end of the book he and La Gorda start remembering that they spent time and trained with Don Juan's warrior party, but they were in the Second Attention (First Attention is of the physical body and the physical world) and they cannot remember it, or have very difficult time remembering exactly what happened, who they met and what they did.

This book is more exciting than the others, as it doesn't simply narrate the events as they happen, but it has the quality of a thriller with so many unknowns that one cannot help but simply keep turning the pages, which about with new characters and personalities, never before mentioned in the previous books.  It also makes a definite break with the non-fiction pretense of the previous books and dives deep into what most people would call pure fiction, but it is a good fiction, so there.

Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda

 Continuing my self-imposed tasks to read all the books Castaneda wrote, I moved on to the fourth volume in the series.  This book is the last one in the "real" Don Juan timeline, i.e. where the apprenticeship of Castaneda was described in a linear manner.  At the end of this book Don Juan and Don Genaro and their "band" of sorcerers leave this plane of existence and can never be encountered in what we call the physical world.  Other books, later in the series, feature Don Juan however it is in a form of memories or more detailed dive into the meaning of the teaching, not a linear explanation of their camaraderie.

This volume concentrates further on the ability to "see" that Don Genaro is trying to develop in Carlos.  Don Juan tells Carlos that Don Genaro is Castaneda's "benefactor" while he, himself is his teacher.  He says that every apprentice needs to have a teacher and a benefactor.  Here both of his instructors are explaining to him the world of the "Tonal" that is the everyday physical world we live in, and the world of the "Nagual" which is everything else, the unexpressed, formless or otherness that exists in the infinity.  These terms, although Spanish and used for other functions in Latin America, are used by Castaneda to mean something completely different.

At the end, the final test is for Castaneda to jump into an abyss (and survive).  Don Juan and Don Genaro say goodbye before that and "fold into the darkness".  The book ends with Castaneda jumping into the abyss.