Florinda Donner Grau's Talk at the Los Angeles Workshop 1997 - Evening

Notes by Vincent Sargenti and Randy Stark

Los Angeles Workshop, August 23 to 27, 1997

After Florinda's first half hour lecture, the Elements came out and we began learning the new long form of the Westwood Series, a section at a time, repeating it from the beginning after each new part, until we had the whole thing as one long flowing sequence. What were previously taught as individual passes were slightly rearranged in places, and many repetitive moves reduced to three-counts. After practicing the whole thing several times, we moved on to the Masculinity Series, again learning previously individual passes as one long flowing form. We repeated the entire series several times, then broke for lunch.

In the afternoon, Florinda strolled back out in a white shirt, cream colored slacks and matching tan sandal-like heels. She said she wanted to demonstrate to us what it 'looked like' to move the attention to another position other than the ME position between the toes, yet still within the fringe of awareness that runs no more than anklebone high around the bottom of our luminosity. She said that we could move our attention anywhere within that fringe and that this was preferable as long as we were able to move it away from the ME position between the toes. She also made an important distinction between moving the assemblage point and moving the 'beam' of attention that comes from the assemblage point and fixates on a particular area or spot within the fringe of awareness.

As a word of warning, before her demonstration, Florinda related how she had fallen back and banged her head in a hotel room while squatting on a bed doing this. She explained how we should be very careful when we attempt to do this and she explained herself further by telling us the story of the first time she succeeded at doing it. She was told to sit up on her knees somewhere soft, like in her bed, so that when she fell forward she would not hurt herself. Well, when she finally moved her attention away from the ME position between the toes she fell not directly forward or back but kind of sideways and bashed her head open on a sharp marble-slated night stand. So she admonished us to find somewhere safe to attempt this.

She then introduced Miles, telling us that he is an actual MD. She flirtatiously and affectionately teased him calling out, "Oh, Doctor?" as he came up on stage to 'spot' her. Florinda took a second or two of quiet as she leaned her head forward and down, then she went limp and began to fall forward. Miles supported her, of course, and as she became alert once again she spoke with feigned, breathy, feminine passion, "Oh, THANK you, Doctor!" and smiled her classic mischievous smile.

She did the same thing again, all the while playfully having loads of fun teasing Miles. It seemed as if she were doing this maneuver for another level of the audience's awareness and not necessarily for their linear minds. There was something horribly incongruous about her demonstration that everyone in the room just allowed to hang in the air. It was obvious that this was an energetic shift of attention and intent that she was making and for now the audience would fail to apprehend anything of it but her falling forward and being caught by Miles. It was kind of like Carol's eye thing where you know something is going on but all you see is the physical first attention side of the event.

She repeated the demonstration several times facing different sides of the audience. Her point being that even though our awareness has been reduced to toe level, there are still a multitude of points to shift attention to in that area other than the one we're currently fixated on.

With regard to self-importance and the Flyers, part of a story was related about an elderly couple who were friends of both Taisha and Florinda. They are both presently in a nursing home. They were quite wealthy and prominent citizens of Los Angeles at one time. It was mentioned that the couple paid one million dollars a year to be attended to and to live at this facility. Despite their wealth, however, when someone wanted to give the woman a rose bush, the nursing home administrator refused to allow it. Later when a family friend put pressure on the administrator he seemingly acquiesced but still there was no rose bush. Florinda, upon hearing of this, aggressive and German as ever, had someone drive her up to the Santa Barbara area where she had words with the administrator.

"Why don't you let her have her fucking rose bush?" she asked.

"Well, you don't have to be so crass about it," the administrator replied.

"And you don't have to be so fucking stupid!" Florinda shot back.

She said the administrator didn't think it mattered all that much because her friend was so elderly and not all there. He was hoping Florinda's elderly friend would die before they ever got the rose bush to her. He didn't want to have to make a decision or get off his behind and do anything. He actually assumed that she would die before he had to, but she didn't, and now the rose bush issue had come back to haunt him.

She used the administrator as a metaphor saying that we are all like him to some degree. We all believe that we have more time than we really do. We are all like that administrator who doesn't want to have to make a decision one way or the other about anything.

She went on to speak about the Dark Sea of Awareness and the force of Intent, how the two comprise the entire universe as is perceivable to man. A subject that was returned to again and again in the workshop. She gave a fresh and formidable description of the assemblage point and how zillions of filaments of energy converge on that spot to give rise to our perception. She mentioned that we each have a line into the Dark Sea of Awareness through the assemblage point.

After Florinda's short lecture, the long form of the Series for Preparing Intent was taught by the Energy Trackers. After many repetitions, we broke for dinner.

In the evening, Florinda returned. She was wearing a thin white sweater this time with the same slacks and shoes as in the afternoon. She talked about the different ways don Juan referred to the Flyers, depending on his mood. 'Panchito' in lighter moments, 'Paco' at other times, and 'St. Francis' if he was feeling morbid and morose, "As only a Nagual can be," she said.

Flyers are not intelligent or superhuman, they're just there, and they're just like us. All of our ME characteristics are a reflection of them. But once we throw them off, once our sheen, our condom of awareness, rises back up to waist level we see them for what they are. Then, because we live in a predatory universe, yet another entity enters the picture, a type of being that she would only refer to as Seymour; a lean, mean, intelligent and nasty creature.

When Carlos was feeling morbid and morose he would sit for hours watching a line of ants on a wall. When someone would ask where he was, the joking reply would be, "Probably out gazing at ants."

Florinda gave graphic examples of the two ways in which human beings, children, are conceived. The great orgasmically passionate way (she imitated a woman having a monstrous orgasm), and the hyper-civilized, bored couple way. She gave a hilarious rendition of how the couple would sit in bed reading about politics, perhaps something on taxation, when suddenly the man would notice he has an erection (but only when he happened to look down). He would say, "Hmmm, what do we have here?" Then he would crawl on top and proceed to make love to his wife while she, all the while, is doing bills in her head and thinking of other things.

Sadly, most of us are conceived under similar circumstances. We are bored fucks, but the practice of Tensegrity can level the playing field.

After Florinda's lecture, the long form of the Heat Series was taught by the Energy Trackers, and day one of the workshop came to an end.

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