Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Freedoms Not Free

In 1968, Carlos Castaneda wrote 'The Teachings of Don Juan,' where he describes traveling with an American Indian medicine man or shaman of the southwest. All that Carlos wanted was to write his thesis on medicine men, graduate, and get on with his life, yet the more he listened to this man the more uncertain he became of his own life and beliefs. Don Juan by modern standards was a simple, poor indigent who couldn't even drive a car, a man who believed in magical things impossible to be real. His tales of soaring through the air unattached from his physical body or attacking his enemies from miles away were only legends and could not fit in Carlos' world.

The more Castaneda listened to this uneducated man the more his life, based in reality became uncertain to him. His life was similar to a helium balloon tethered to a child's arm, as an educated man he was soaring above but he was limited to what he could believe or experience by the string of knowledge. He felt as if he were trapped between two worlds, he wanted to soar in the clouds as Don Juan taught but to do so would invalidate all he knew to be true. Clinging to that string, he fled the desert and his shaman teacher back to the 'real' world of the university.

Castaneda could not take that next leap; he refused the chance to see a different reality, even though in his heart it was the opportunity of a lifetime. After reading the book, I considered him a coward for taking the safe route instead of adventure. There is a chapter where Don Juan tries to teach Carlos a way of freeing the soul from his body. He talked of imagining a gnat flying in front of your eyes; you concentrate on the insect and nothing else. Just as the gnat flies between the visions of both eyes, your soul grabs it and flies away. Carlos tried it a number of times without success, of course, and the shaman tells him that it's his fear that holds him back. One warm afternoon I fell asleep in my chair and I awoke to a tiny gnat flying in front of my face. Immediately the teachings of Don Juan came to mind and I wondered if I had the ability to soar as the medicine man taught. What if his teachings were true, that my reality was merely a tether, what if... In a moment of sheer cowardice, I smashed the bug between my palms.

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