meet me where I am

badly informed crash course into Castañeda, come come.

Last night we had an old friend stay with us. He regularly says things like: “I’m off to see a friend. I met him during an expedition. He was recently liberated from a cult. They made a BBC documentary about it.” Please, at no point could I have guessed where that was going and I have questions about every part of it.

Now, he’s the person you wish wrote a book, or a blog, or something. Instead you get me, someone who hasn’t even been on a single expedition.

If I went on an expedition, it would be to Peru. These days, I regularly forget it exists. But there was a time, during my short time studying archaeology at university, when Peru was kind of central to my existence. My dream was to visit each of the six cradles of civilisation, and uncover, finally, traces of alien activity and advanced technology.

I also wanted to find Atlantis.

(Cradle of civilisation is an absolutely stunning term. These things were studied by scientists, named by poets.)

Peru is an enormous country in South America. It is home to one of the world’s most ancient civilisations: Norte Chico. Norte Chicos (see what I did there? a lil Spanish joke for you) left no trace of art, and little to no written language. They did leave a lot of quipu, a way of storing and recording numerical data using strings and knots.

Isn’t it amazing? A civilisation coming together so long ago and sprawling so wide, leaving behind incredible structures… and all of it was held together by some string.

My oversimplified takeaway is that we must really be overcomplicating things these days.

***

Carlos Castañeda was a Peruvian-American writer. Born in Peru in 1925, he moved to the States in 1951. He died in 1998 of liver cancer in Los Angeles. He was by then living away from the public eye, yet still remembered as the godfather of the new age. Let’s talk about it like it wasn’t all just a literary con. Which it was by the way - completely made up.

Castañeda came to literary prominence by publishing the account of his time with Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui shaman and sorcerer, and his teachings. These books were first published as works of anthropology. Non-fiction. Don Juan took Carlos on a spiritual journey of a lifetime. His early experiences are tied to consuming the hallucinogenic peyote plants, which allowed him to shed his limited view of the world and to see it for what it really is, in all its dimensions (or so they say).

The third book stepped away from the use of hallucinogenics. I read Journey to Ixtlan when I was around 16. By book three Don Juan informed Carlos that he was now ready to perceive reality the right way without the help of peyote. This would require for him to learn how to “stop the world”: suspend ordinary perception and access deeper layers of consciousness.

The ability to stop the world can be cultivated by following the path of a warrior, wherein one learns to live with mindfulness, intention, and integrity. This journey requires one to abandon their linear thinking, embrace mysticism, shed the limitations we are socialised into from birth. You know, your run of the mill faux religio-philosophical esoteric stuff.

Following the beloved tradition and habitual practice of most other religions I cherry picked my favourite concepts to carry with me, and I do to this day. They live in the back of my mind like a faint light, an invitation to see things from another perspective. More a reminder that other frameworks do exist than a viable alternative to my existing one.

One that I really quite like, but just can’t bring myself to believe in.

***

There’s a Peruvian myth about Cahuillaca, a beautiful young woman. A god named Cuniraya Huiracocha (these names man) fell in love with her, but she ignored him, since he disguised himself as a beggar. No matter which ancient part of the world you were in, the consensus was that poor people were gross.

She didn’t want him, which is fine, so he put his “germ” (that’s what the prehistoric Peruvian kids called it those days) into the fruit she was eating, which caused her to become pregnant. Don’t ask me, I guess god stuff works different.

Whether you believe in absolute or relative morality and cultural roots thereof, this is just wrong. Maybe it’s a good thing all these myths and legends were replaced in most of the world by organised religion. Maybe.

***

According to Don Juan, what we learn as children all serves to sever our connection to the natural world, to inhibit our ability to receive communication from the universe.

You should forget what you think is impossible, shift your attention away from your regular patterns of thought. A gust of wind, a cry of a crow, a falling branch, all are important messages from the universe. You must heed them and let the universe lead you on the path that is right for you.

I always found this idea quite beautiful. If you peel away its esoteric shell there is a glimmer of a fundamental truth there: we are surrounded by real feedback. From people, from ourselves, from how events play out. We take them as they are and forget to examine them outside of our busy noisy minds. Being mindful to smaller signs that come to us from our social and physical surroundings can help us navigate the world with more clear intentions.

Don Juan also tells Carlos to befriend his death; to accept that he can neither choose the time, nor avoid it forever. Death is an ever present companion, reminding you to live fully, every moment. In a world full of uncertainty and ambiguity, Castañeda is learning to take comfort in the constancy of death.

Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.’

As part of surrendering yourself to the inevitability of death you also must shed your ego. Abandon the need for control, for any feeling of having it is an illusion, anyway. You can only achieve freedom by letting go of attachments and embracing the uncertainty of life. You, therefore, have no need for personal history, either.

I was obsessed for a while with Don Juan’s take on personal history.

If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.

As a teenager I felt pinned down by other people’s thoughts; encumbered by their perception of me. I constantly felt the powerful pull to fit others’ understanding of who I was. I thought that maybe never letting people know who I was and keeping my real self locked away inside my mind while playing out this social part was the answer.

I never much liked the person others thought I was. But it seemed like the only way to act so as not to disappoint people’s expectations, one that would make me easy for them to perceive and understand. Thus I continued being confident and loud, and fun. Don Juan warns about things like social masks, and being entrapped by your social role.

Shedding your “bureaucratic” history is but a start. Your parents’ names, the day you were born. Where you’re from. None of that matters but the person you are right now. Where you are now.

No written language, no art. Just a bunch of knotted string.

A warrior is a stone, sculpted and polished by many years of breaking ocean waves; shaped by the will of the universe. No record of imaginary importance kept by men and their petty, small, limited structures is worth paying mind to.

(I tried finding you a quote from the conversation I remember him having with Carlos. Carlos asked, what Don Juan’s mother was called. Don Juan answered: “I called her, mom.” He asked, what his father was called, and Don Juan answered: “I called him, dad.”

But when I try to google this spoilers from some telenovela are all that comes up about some Don Juan and his mother. One of the search results reads: “Was the nun really the mother?” Honestly, sounds like actual gold content, so.)

I won’t urge you to take a dive into Castañeda’s work. There are many more fascinating perspectives to be discovered from these books, but the ethical implications of submitting fiction as scientific work make me cringe away from taking it seriously. Had it been presented as fiction from the start, ironically, I imagine it might have had a chance at achieving some more significant longevity.

***

I love spring.

Spring in London, I expect, is different from spring in Peru. It rains a lot here, but we can have fruit without getting pregnant, so. You win some, you lose some.

We forget more than we remember. If you’re into rounding up your percentages, you would say we forget everything. I don’t do that, so I say we forget almost everything. Like I forgot almost everything about Norte Chico, but I still think about the strings, and the knots. The naive clumsiness of it all. How these strings are to me more beautiful and meaningful than what the eye can immediately see; and still they say there was no art in Norte Chico.

I will also, most definitely, forget the peaceful desk I’m writing at on this early April afternoon. The light chilly breeze coming through the window, the shadow of our monstera plant cast on the floor by the setting sun. The coffee that’s always cold, the construction noise outside. The constant noise is part of ambient scenery in this part of the city. I used to hate it; I don’t now.

Maybe we came to live here too early. We should have waited for the neighbourhood to be finished. Eventually, it won’t matter.

I will forget the terrible decision of letting the children watch a movie with their dinner, and the good decision of serving broccoli. (You lose some, you win some.)

Yet by this mundane and insignificant afternoon, I am forever changed. I forget most of my afternoons and still they’re etched inside me just the same. I am stone shaped and sculpted by life washing over me again and again.

Every wave doesn’t matter as much as all of the waves put together; the sea that made me into who I am right now, that put me on this shore where I am. Meet me here for a little while.

***

I came out as an agnostic to my mom on a long drive to Liverpool around 2009.

It is a weird feeling, informing someone of your beliefs, or lack thereof. There’s also an unbridgeable gap between those that believe in God and those that no longer do. A fundamental disagreement about reality.

It’s kind of like saying: I used to believe what you believe, but I examined this belief and found it to be wrong. I don’t mean to say: you should examine this belief too, because I’m pretty sure you’re wrong; but it wouldn’t be fallacious to infer this. Maybe that’s a pessimistic view of relationships, I don’t know.

I had a slight fear that she might encourage me to pray my doubts away, or force me to come to Sunday services anyway. But the good thing about good parents is they are able to meet you where you are. I kind of felt like she was even proud of me, the way I feel proud watching my toddler figure out a fork. “Ah, look at this newborn 15 year old using independent critical thinking to assess the validity of incoming information… so cute!”

She asked me if I was interested in any other religion, or anything else that would serve as a spiritual outlet. I said I would like to read more about Buddhism. She told me about the time she was kicked out of a group meditation session for laughing uncontrollably at Buddha’s long earlobes. She also said Buddhism has a lot to recommend it and encouraged me to try.

“You can always look into esoterics, too. Like Castañeda.”

***

The fact that Castañeda’s work was mostly proven to be fictional didn’t justify to me its obscurity. We know Hubbard, a science fiction writer, wrote Dianetics. “You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.“ Why do we need Don Juan to be real? Why can’t words of Castañeda, your regular everyguy, have as much weight?

Maybe it is for the same reason we needed at one point, as a society, for God to tell us to cook our meat and not to victimise others. Faith implies the presence of an authority to believe in, something better informed than us. Someone who will remember all those small important things we forget. Like the fact that murder is bad. The finer details of life.

Maybe Castañeda’s own words don’t matter so much because, in reality, he would have had no lived experience of the things he was preaching and talking about. Is it really so different, though, from anyone sharing the word of any God?

It could, of course, be because all the power went to his head, after all. Despite the many ways in which his work has been discredited and disproved, he garnered a large following. It it true that the end of his life was secluded. Well, you know, save for a harem of brainwashed women that were called Witches (laudatory), who all disappeared following his death, some later found dead, some still missing.

Truly sometimes the only thing standing between a man and greatness is his ability to refrain from starting a death cult.

***

Back in ancient Peru, Cahuillaca had the baby and decided, after a while, to find out who the father was. She lined up all the gods (they went along with this?).

“I like a good practical joke as much as the next involuntarily inseminated single mamá, but it’s time to come clean,” she said. “Which one of you horny motherfuckers did THIS?!” *points at baby*

Since nobody came clean, she put the baby on the ground and told her to homepigeon her way to her dad. When the girl went over to and hugged the beggar, Cahuillaca was very disappointed. Not all gods are created equal, huh?

“Ew!” She said. Without even pausing to consider the socio-economic circumstances that might have led a god to end up a beggar, she took the baby, and threw herself, with the baby, off a cliff, or something.

Now that’s dramatic.

(Why is it always the women dying? Can’t the man at fault die for once?)

***

I always wanted to be interesting and mysterious. Alas, I’m not quiet and I’m not reserved. Now I understand that it takes more courage to make myself known. Embrace my personal history and refuse to be pinned down by the thoughts of others, anyway.

When we forget so much, maybe Castañeda is right: our personal history means so little. All it is is some knots on a string. But it is evidence of my life: I’m here. If you like where I am, meet me here. So I wear my knots proudly, yet remain a sculpted stone: all that truly matters is the shape you see now, created by every wave that ever came.

You don’t need to worry about where I’ve been.

I’ve been here, at this desk, sipping cold coffee, watching my children eat their dinner. Their understanding of written language and basic math already probably can surpass that of most of ancient Peruvians. But unlike the first civilisations, my children have all the existing knowledge to draw upon, as they become ready to take it in. There is knowledge to be taken in.

What was it like, being the first? The only word that comes to mind is lonely. So let’s tie many knots on many strings. And when our stone is ground to sand, and washed back into the ocean, we will leave that behind.

I’ve been here, trying to make sense of myself, and of you. Meet me where I am.