Carlos Castaneda’s Tensegrity
An Interview by Rita Sandau with Tensegrity Instructors Renata Murez and Nyei Murez
Published in Sein, November 2011, http://www.sein.de/archiv/2011/november-2011/carlos-castanedas-tensegrity.html
In the 1970s, the books of Carlos Castaneda about his apprenticeship with the Yaqui-Shaman don Juan created a following. But who really understood those books? The truth was palpable in the pages, but the experiences of Carlos Castaneda were far from those of daily life. But with Tensegrity, Castaneda left behind a system of spiritual exercises, which leads directly into the heart of the teachings of don Juan.
What is Tensegrity?
Tensegrity is the contemporary expression of the ‘path with heart,’ which don Juan Matus taught to his four students: Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs. Don Juan was a Yaqui Indian seer who lived in Yuma, Arizona and Sonora Mexico, and who came from a lineage of seers that originates in Mexico of more than 10,000 years ago. Don Juan said that the goal of that lineage of seers was freedom of perception—freedom to perceive the energetic basis of all that is, and its organization by an intelligent force or awareness he called intent.
Who is Carlos Castaneda?
Carlos Castaneda was a social scientist, doing anthropological field research when he met don Juan, and wrote about his apprenticeship with him in numerous books, including The Teachings of don Juan, Journey to Ixtlan, and later, Magical Passes. The works of Castaneda, it can be argued, really form part of the foundation of a new generation of exploration into consciousness, and who we are as human beings, and what is our purpose on this planet.
For don Juan, that purpose is the expansion of awareness itself, which includes the recognition that we are deeply connected with all beings—other human beings, trees, plants, animals—the planets and stars—all of these, in the view of the seers of don Juan’s line, are filled with awareness, with consciousness, and to fully be a human being, we must recognize the consciousness of all beings.
What is the central idea behind Tensegrity?
Tensegrity is the practice of recognizing this interconnectedness of all beings. The word tensegrity was coined by architect, inventor, and dreamer R. Buckminster Fuller. The word is a combination of tensional integrity, and a description of principles at work in nature, which Fuller applied to his architectural structures, such as his geodesic domes. He saw that the integrity of natural structures came from their “tension members”: in other words the flexible parts of a natural structure were what gave them their shape, their resiliency, their adaptability. One great example is a tree—the tree acts like a hydraulic system in which the water and gases inside the tree give the tree its flexibility, distributing any external pressure through the whole tree, so its branches can bend, rather than snap, in the wind.
So Carlos Castaneda gave the name Tensegrity to the modern adaptation of the practices which don Juan taught his four students. And we, their students, along with our associates, have been teaching the physical movements and awareness practices of Tensegrity in classes and workshops around the world, alongside our teachers since 1993, and then under their guidance, since 1998.
What are the practices of Tensegrity?
Tensegrity teaches a gradual expansion of awareness in three main ways:
Magical passes – which are body positions, movements and breaths discovered by the seers of don Juan’s lineage. These passes help us to gather energy, tuning the energetic fields that, according to seers, surround and flow through the body, and the body itself.
Recapitulation or ‘tracking’ exercises – a directed review of key scenes from our lives, accompanied by an expanded breathing pattern. For the seers of don Juan’s line, the breath and body are intimately connected to one’s perception. Expanding the breath helps one to expand or one’s perception of an original experience, and the story around it.
Dreaming practices – the art of seeing and acting on the openings, the entryways to new possibilities, both within one’s waking and sleeping states.
How do you choose what to share in a workshop?
We track energy, we track trends that we see amongst the participants. And our journey has led us to something Carlos Castaneda said to us early on—you have to look at your story. Don Juan guided Carlos Castaneda to do this—and he wrote about this in the Active Side of Infinity—to really see the gold in your story, you have to make a lifelong effort to review what you have learned from each experience—and what were the really salient experiences, moments and encounters that opened doors for you. This is the art and essence of recapitulation, which helps us bring 100% of our energy and awareness to the most important moment that ever existed: now.
Don Juan pointed out that if you are not aware of what your story really is, you tell yourself an inaccurate, or incomplete story—and that story runs your life. Maybe one of the most clear-sighted contemporary expressions of this, on a collective level, is depicted in Leonardo DiCaprio’s film, The Eleventh Hour.
Expert after expert appears in the film, pointing out that our excessive consumption is our futile and destructive attempt to fill a spiritual void, driven by the story or belief that we are “not enough,” and that somehow something “out there” is going to fill what is missing inside us.
Why would we as a species tell ourselves such a story? Don Juan said that the human condition was a function of what he called the assemblage point—our point of orientation to the universe. The seers of his line saw, energetically that the assemblage point of human beings was fixated on the point of “me,” the point of excessive self-reflection—a draining and destructive position that drives away our energetic twin, which don Juan called the dreaming body, or the energy body. No wonder we feel something missing! What’s missing is you, our teachers said—your full presence, that allows you to connect with the universe, with Spirit.
The good news, he said, was that human beings, if they gather their energy, and sustain their intention, could move their assemblage point to the many other positions possible—and simultaneously call back the energy body. The seers of his line called this the art of dreaming, and don Juan said that if the human species was going to survive, then it had to evolve—it had to move the assemblage point away from the position of self-reflection. It’s time for the human species, in other words, to begin to tell a new story, and to dream a new way of being!
It’s an effort that starts with the individual. That is another aspect of the phenomena of Tensegrity that our teachers pointed out—they said it’s like the Hundredth Monkey principle—a monkey on an island starts using a tool to get ants out of the ground. Other monkeys see it and follow suit. And a critical mass is reached when the hundredth monkey of that island group uses the tool; somehow, a monkey from a monkey group on a neighboring island, who hasn’t seen these other monkeys, starts doing it too.
Our teachers said awareness works this way—it is nonlinear. So our individual actions count. Everything we do is really in the service of humanity, in the service of all being. Every breath, every action, of each one of us can be a step forward for all of us. Many people from many different cultures, fields and regions are now waking up to this.
So this is what we will focus on in the upcoming Tensegrity workshop in Berlin: What story are you telling yourself and others? What are you giving voice to? How can you shift or open up that story to dream a new, more expansive way of being—for yourself, and your fellow beings on Earth?
What is the scientific basis for the major assumptions of Tensegrity?
First we can look at what is a scientist. Carlos Castaneda was a social scientist, doing anthropological fieldwork when he met don Juan in Nogales, Arizona. He thought don Juan would be his field informant. However, his informant became his teacher, as gradually Carlos recognized that he had to step out of the role of seeming “objectivity,” and approach what don Juan was presenting experientially—he had to take a leap of awareness and practice what don Juan was telling him, if he was ever going to begin to get a view of don Juan’s world. Rather than an observer, he had to become a participant.
And this is a great challenge of scientists as well. We have experiments like those written about by John Wheeler that show that the scientist is, necessarily, a participant in the experiment.
Carlos Castaneda encountered this in working with don Juan. As he wrote in Active Side of Infinity, in his dedication to two admired and beloved professors who encouraged him to do fieldwork: Clement Meighan and Harold Garfinkel: “Following their suggestions, I plunged into a field situation from which I never emerged. If I failed to fulfill the spirit of their teaching, so be it. I couldn’t help it. A greater force, which shamans call infinity, swallowed me before I could formulate clear-cut social scientists’ propositions.”
Nevertheless, don Juan encouraged his student, throughout his apprenticeship, to complete his studies—as our teachers encouraged us to complete ours. Tensegrity, they said, is not an attempt to escape the world. Rather, it’s a path of full presence in the world, without getting caught in its assumptions. If you want to go past certain social or intellectual assumptions, our teachers said, then you need to know what those assumptions are. And you need to train your mind. If you really want to dream, to access the unknown, you need to be able to concentrate, to think coherently, to be able to track a thought or question all the way through. If you can do that here, in the daily world, then you can do it in dreaming. If you can’t do it here, then your dreaming will be random, incoherent.
They described this integration of daily world and dream as the ability to navigate between the tonal – all manner of things upon which we agree and discuss – and the nagual – the mystery that can be experienced but which goes beyond understanding. They described this as the integration of the self, and the energy body, and said it is the core and the ineffable goal of this ancient tradition. To live with physical vitality, mental clarity, emotional integrity, inspired and guided by that greater force of universal intelligence and affection that seers call intent, or Spirit.
What unifies both worlds is awareness. Quantum physics now speaks of a unified “field.” Seers speak of awareness as an environment in which thought moves instantaneously—faster than the speed of light, or of neutrinos! And for them, we are extensions of the universe itself, and as we become aware of ourselves, the universe becomes aware of itself.
What experiences does one have with Tensegrity and how does it change one’s life?
The most striking thing we’ve witnessed is people gaining the self-confidence, concentration and persistence to really follow a path with heart in their own lives, whether that is teaching youth through encounters with rescued animals, which one practitioner is doing, or being a mother and wife and oceanographer, which another is doing, or contributing as a disaster relief specialist, or a gifted illustrator, or painter, or a conscious parent and family member, or an accomplished, joyful musician, to name a few roles that we’ve seen practitioners grow into. All of them have told us, in various ways, how they use the principles and practices of Tensegrity in their day-to-day activities—slowing down to breathe, and pause rather than escalating a conflict during a relief mission, or to help calm a sleepy child, or show some new possibilities to a troubled teenager or to “dream” a new illustration, or musical composition.
We see and hear a lot about how people change their stories about, and therefore their relationships with their co-workers, their parents, their families and friends—and ultimately with themselves.
Where do you locate Tensegrity and the magical passes today in our society?
Tensegrity really addresses, in an organized and pragmatic way, the fact that we are first and foremost energy, organized by universal intent—and that we embody our link with intent. So when we want to make real changes in our lives, we have to be aware of our beliefs and our actions, and our impact on others—and to see how we embody our beliefs. Our teachers had us do many exercises to corroborate how: our breath pattern is the reflection of our consciousness, and vice versa. Think a judgmental thought: “My neighbor is an idiot, just like my brothers were when I was growing up.” Now notice your breath—is it open, or is it tight and shallow?
Now shift that breath, breathe into the belly, release just one layer of tension, and keeping that open breath, try to at the same time hold that judgmental thought. Can you do it? We found that we really can’t. The thought shifts: “My neighbor is listening to music that is not my favorite. My brothers did that when I was a child. Now I am not a child. Maybe I can just ask my neighbor to play the music more quietly. Or since he only plays it once a month, I can just smile and let him play it. Maybe I can also ask my neighbor if the volume I play music is okay.” Etc.
Tensegrity explores this in a practical and accessible way, with directed exercises that help us to really become aware of how we live out our stories—and how we can open up the scope of those stories, and our whole experience.
How does this all fit into the content of this upcoming workshop? What does the Plumed Serpent stand for? Is this a workshop about dreaming as Carlos Castaneda has described it?
Yes, all of our workshops are about ‘dreaming,’ For our teachers, dreaming is something we are doing all the time—so the goal is to be conscious about that, and to have some choice in what we are dreaming.
And this workshop entitled “Song of the Plumed Serpent: Dreaming a New Story for Now, 2012 and Beyond” looks at acknowledging a ‘story’ we might have adopted since the time we were born, tell ourselves daily with our innermost thoughts, and act out in the habits of our daily lives, in order to then shift them so that we might see a more expanded, encompassing ‘story’—one that includes the element of the nagual, or the mystery, that has been present in our lives all along. The Plumed Serpent is an inspiration to do this – the embodiment of the transformative myth of a being who integrates earth and sky, matter and spirit, self and energy body – so that we can all then write a more complete version of our given story and live stronger, more aware, more interdependent and more creative lives.
All images Copyright 2011, Laugan Productions, Inc.
Nyei Murez and Reni Murez are longtime students of the four students of don Juan Matus: Carlos Castaneda, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar and Carol Tiggs, and Instructors/ Facilitators of Tensegrity—the modern version of the warrior-travelers way, the art of breath, movement, self-awareness and well-being that don Juan taught his students.
http://www.carlos-castaneda.de
Carlos Castaneda’s Tensegrity workshop:
“The Song of the Plumed Serpent: Dreaming a New Story for Now, 2012 and Beyond”, Saturday, November 26 (10-22 h) and Sun, November 27, 2011 (10-16 h)
One-Day workshop for newcomers on Sat, 26.11. , 9-17 h
Location: Sports Centre Siemensstadt
Information: www.carlos-castaneda.de
Hotline in Berlin:
Tel: 01577-174 74 09 or berlin-seminar@wachtraum.de
cleargreendreaming
