Last Dance

The Warrior’s last stand is an important aspect of Toltec teaching as it not only concerns “living like a warrior” but also the practical application; an alternate means of dying…..

Don Juan and his party is said to have “burnt with the fire from within and left the earth”.

The Eagle is the force in the universe from which everything emanates. Awareness is given to us from the Eagle, and when we die we our awareness returns to the source and is “consumed.”

The way to overcome this cycle of birth and death is according to Don Juan Matus, Recapitulation, which is an exercise to recall, review, release, and recharge energy. The impetus of the act of recapitulation, is to rid a person of many assumptions and preconceptions, freeing up locked energy while restoring balance. Our bodies are energy fields and constantly affected by outside energy fields and forces. All of our experiences have are stored inside our energy fields. Recapitulation is a process of remembering or reviving events and experiences. It happens naturally at the moment of death – described by your ‘life passing before your eye.’. To do it of or own volition, restores energy and strengthens to your energy body.

This is the principle act of the warrior – recapitulation, and through it is possible to create a double, within the energy body – which is bringing into awareness a double portion of the “Self” – this is why Nagual’s are considered double energy beings.

At the moment of death – when death can no longer be held back, or pushed back by the strength of the warrior’s will – the warrior is forced to make their last stand. This is when the warrior must dance for his death. He is bodily transported to the place of his predilection, which is the place where he has been many times before during his life and stored his energy there; this place becomes the place of his predestination. Here he will dance; while his death looks on.

When I went walkabout some 20 years ago, namely 2001, months before the events of 911 – I had one peak experience. My walk was three months and this was a ‘vision quest’ – I walked from Derbyshire to Newcastle – the long way round via the lake district and then across the North York Moors to Durham and then north to Newcastle – which all told was something like 500 miles.

It was my habit along the way to pick up cigarette butts – and I would put them in my tin and this gave me a smoke for along the way. It was part of my night-time routine to sort my ciggy butts and remove the filters and such. Often without much effort I would find the butt ends of joints, and often there was enough to build a joint somewhere down the road.

On one occasion I found a portion of weed like this and rolled a joint in a park; I was somewhere in Yorkshire, and smoked it. With the effect of walking miles every day, and the fact that I had not smoked weed for a while;- I nearly passed out!

But I didn’t pass out, no I had a vision…. I cannot described how I saw this vision, it seemed I was flying; hovering above the scene, and what I saw was myself – I had long dark hair, darker than it is now, and tied with a coloured beaded headband, I had a waistcoat on made of what looked like buckskin and maroon leggings made of what appeared to be leather. I had my arms raised in a gesture maybe holding them up to a creator. The vision was encapsulated in a mood of flying yet as I looked at myself, I saw myself standing on a hillside – above me yet below – like through a window into the past.

This is not the only former life I have seen – but the most notable due to the fact that, as I viewed myself; I danced to my death…..

“The dying sun will glow on you without burning, as it has done today. The wind will be soft and mellow and your hilltop will tremble. As you reach the end of your dance you will look at the sun, for you will never see it again in waking or in dreaming, and then your death will point to the south. To the vastness.”

~ Don Juan Matus