Don Juan describes how a warrior is not born; they are essentially made. He repeatedly emphasises that a warrior is a product of unyielding effort and a “revolution” against one’s own habits. The exact quote is:
“Nobody is born a warrior in exactly the same way that no one is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other”
There is, however, as with every other aspect of life, a differential nature to each of us…. Through our experiences, our treatment at the hands of life, and our genetic factors, some of us have a greater proclivity to act like warriors, and there are those of us with a tendency to indulge.
I believe in life, there is a wave of destiny; something Don Juan would call INTENT. The choice to become a warrior is always there. There are pointers to this path – like signs, omens, and opportunities. Technically, I feel one’s readiness is the determining factor in our being able to achieve this. Although some might refuse, the pull is ever-present, pushing us towards rising to the challenge of making something extraordinary from our lives. The only requirement is ultimately having the guts. Refusing to become a warrior or not even attempting is essentially going back to sleep. Some wake and heed the call, others try for a while and later give up, but mostly people are too ‘numb’ to the concept, which, of course, is most of us….
So to be a warrior is like anything else, a ‘calling’. You are called, you answer the call, or you become an average man.
Having said this:
When I was a child, I used to have a recurring dream. I would go to bed most nights thinking about this dream, and would often dream this same dream.
I lived in a town in the east of England. It had three open areas of land, which were known locally as the south, east, and west Commons. I knew the west common the best as this was closest to my house. The South and East Commons were some way away. I don’t think it mattered which of these places the dreamscape related to, as at different times, the location of the dreamscape was in some way connected to each. Primarily, though, the dream was located on this spot, which was familiar to me.
I started dreaming this dream at a young age, maybe four or five. At that age, it just seemed to happen to me. I couldn’t understand it in any way, and what it felt like was watching a scary movie – i.e. it was certainly a nightmare, from which I would awake terrified.
So the dream continued until I was about 13 years old. I would have bouts of it – some months the dream would occur more than others. Then it would go quiet for a while, but it would always come back to haunt me.
The dream:
I would fall asleep, and at that moment, I would be transported bodily to this place of open ground (The West Common). This dream was always totally lucid. I felt the early experience of it was scary for this reason. I would be standing in a crowd of people; as a child, this was a bewildering phenomenon at the best of times, even in waking life – so to be teleported to a place occupied by so many strangers was an uncomfortable feeling for me. It was anachronistic anyway that the Common had so many people on it. That was my first thought. The crowd, then I would realise, was formed into the shape of a queue. The queue itself was about 3 – 6 people deep, but the queue extended infinitely when I checked, or at least as far as the eye could see. I realised that everyone in the world was in this queue. So, what were we queuing for? I looked again, to my right, and there was an enormous slot machine. A huge one-armed bandit stood thirty feet high, even more incongruously, in the middle of the West Common. I was about three or four people from the front of the queue at this point.
The idea, or rather the concept of the Slot-Machine, was that each person (which was everyone in the world, at varying degrees of distance from the slot-machine) would get the opportunity to gamble everything they had in the form of a “token” for the win. No one had any idea, but there was always a lot of talk in the crowd about what we might actually win?!
My worry was whether to take my turn. I would be shuffled forward in the queue, but due primarily to my reluctance to pull the lever, I never seemed to reach the front of the queue. Until one day, or rather, one night, I fell asleep and was transported in the normal way to this place; I was a bit older at this stage. The point came in the dream where I was being shuffled toward the front of the queue, but this time I realised I could maybe pull the lever too. The thought of the idea seemed to make it also possible. I placed my token in the monstrous machine, and I pulled the lever….to my utter astonishment, and horror, the world opened up beneath my feet as the One Armed Bandit struck “Orange Orange Orange”.
I WON! But in the winning, the earth itself opened up and was eating me and everything else along with it……
At that moment, as I was being pulled into the ground, I saw everything else being sucked into an ever-increasingly large hole as well. All the people, all the things, all the hopes and the dreams; everything pulled down into the act of the world’s swallowing itself.
I would wake up at that point, always somewhat distressed.
These things are sent by our destiny to warn us!
Some years later, in 2014, a long time after I had stopped having the dream, I was in Las Vegas. I was visiting a friend there, and we happened to stumble across “SLOTZILLA” in the Fremont Experience in the heart of downtown Las Vegas. This was a thirty foot high Slot-Machine just the same as I had dreamt of as a child, and made me recall the dream in a most powerful way….
I never forgot the dream, and it certainly had a huge impact on my life and my decision to live like a warrior, when destiny called for me to do so….! As to what it means, I will leave the reader to ponder that for themselves….
Vision of the Nagual 