Taisha Abelar's Talk at the Los Angeles Workshop 1997 - Morning

Notes by Vincent Sargenti and Randy Stark

Los Angeles Workshop, August 23 to 27, 1997

What follows covers Taisha's morning and afternoon lectures. After the morning lecture, the Energy Trackers taught the long form of the Womb Series (with lots of hissing in the wrong places at one point), and reviewed the Preparing Intent and Heat Series.

After a lunch break, the Elements reviewed the Westwood and Masculinity Series, then went through, The Series For Devices Used In Conjunction With Specific Magical Passes, which is the sixth in, THE SIX SERIES OF TENSEGRITY.

Taisha entered the room in the morning smiling very sweetly as she stepped up onto the small stage. She greeted everyone and stated her name. Florinda had done this as well before each of her lectures, jokingly saying in the afternoon that, "Yes, I am still Florinda Donner-Grau." Taisha mentioned, as had Florinda, that she wasn't quite sure who she was, but that she was still Taisha Abelar. She said that this was because of circumstances that would have to be addressed later. She told the audience that Carol would address this issue. In Pasadena they were having an energy crisis, and now in Los Angeles they were having an identity crisis. They weren't sure who they were any more, but it seemed to be due in part to the energetic mass of this workshop.

Taisha went on to talk about what her life was like as a little girl growing up in a house with two brothers. Like Florinda, she said that she too had a substantial amount of German in her background, so Florinda wasn't the only person among them to suffer from it. She said that her brothers were always allowed to play outside and do whatever they wanted to do most of the time. She said that that had made her rather envious on occasion because she wanted to play outside too. Being a girl, she said, certain things were expected of her. She explained how, from a very early age, she had been raised to conform to a life of servitude and how her brothers were not imposed upon in this way.

Her brothers were outside all the time, playing and swimming in the river. They had certain privileges she didn't have and wished she did. She wanted to be able to play outside and go swimming in the river, but she had to be inside doing housework and helping her mom. She explained how she was given the typical girls toys, toys that socialized her towards being somebody's servant. Taisha said that her brothers had bats and balls and gloves and things that looked like they'd be a lot of fun. But she was given, like all little girls, toys that were designed to make her a good little homemaker. She was given little miniature cookware sets and little kitchen utensils, little pots and pans, domestic items. She was being told, indirectly, to be a servant.

She wanted to go outside and do the types of things her brothers did but she was required to be inside helping her mother get dinner ready, helping with the laundry or sewing socks. She was brought up to believe that her life was for the sole purpose of serving the men in her family, without ever being told that directly. That's just the way it was, and hence, because she couldn't get out and about much, she ended up becoming a scrawny, weak person.

Taisha mentioned that the old nagual detested servitude. She spoke of her own adolescence and how human beings are mesmerized at this age and programmed by songs from very early on. That's one way in which Bobby drums his social patterns into us. We are caught by social themes, by social constructs that lock us into set behavioral patterns. We are given a very limited range of possibilities and never suspect that it's all set up from the beginning by our dubious friend, Bobby. We fall right into his trap without a struggle and accept, without so much as a whimper, an agreement we were not parties to.

Taisha spoke of her favorite singer when she was a young girl, of the songs that wooed her over. She said she fell hopelessly in love with this singer, who had became her idol. She would not name him for fear of dating herself (Paul Anka :-), but said she would listen to his records over and over again. Anything that had to do with him was all she wanted to talk about, all she wanted to think about. He became her whole world.

She touched on the subject of working in a little pizza parlor, or some such place, and talked about how love really does make you blind. She mentioned her pimply-faced boyfriend and how there was really nothing at all attractive about him. She said that one night in the back of the kitchen area they were talking and he said, "Oh, you like that singer? He's my favorite too." He began to sing the singer's songs to her word for word, note for note, and that was all it took. She fell head over heels in love with this guy. "So much so . . . well that's another story!" she laughed.

Taisha used that story as an onramp to discussing how we are drawn in by Bobby's social structures, how we are trapped by them. We are easy prey because we don't know any better. We can't see any other possibilities. We get caught in the social themes of our time, in the trappings of relationships and love, and never learn to look beyond them for other possibilities.

Taisha somehow worked her way onto the subject of the assemblage point. She said that through the assemblage point we have a connection, or a line, into the Dark Sea of Awareness. She explained how the Dark Sea of Awareness is an entity unto itself, that it is self-aware. She called it Spirit, saying that as we progress on the evolutionary path as energetic beings, the Dark Sea of Awareness gives us the things we need to continue evolving, and it responds to those needs based on our degree of discipline. According to our own energy, it nurtures us through that connection. She said the shallow stream of awareness around our feet is where we first begin to dip into the Dark Sea of Awareness.

Taisha indicated that it takes immense dedication and determination to have the necessary discipline that is required to be subtle enough to acquiesce to our connection with the infinite. The Not-Doing passes were the key element that finally broke her.

She returned to the subject of not feeling like herself. She said that something had happened recently that rendered all four of them unknown to themselves. She said that she wasn't the person whom she knew herself as, more and more, and that that was what most would call senility. She began to elaborate on the subject -- what it is, what it does to people -- which lead into another story about her and Florinda's affluent friend in the convalescent home. This man, by the way, had a dam named after him.

"It was a small dam," she laughed, "but still, that's something."

Taisha said the man was 84 years old, but he was no longer aware of who he was. He would just sit and stare out the window, or at TV all day. At one time he was a very successful boss. He would tell everyone what to do. He would handle all the money and tell associates and family how much to spend, and on what. He would tell them what to do, where to dine, what the best vacation spots were. He would even demand that people go to the places he recommended for dinner or vacations. She said he was the type of person who would make reservations two years in advance and keep calling back to confirm them.

So this man was senile and living in a nursing home that cost a million dollars a year for him and his wife to live in. And he was quite handful at times, apparently. A number of psychologists had been unable to work with him. But one psychologist, who thought of him as an interesting and challenging case, decided he would have a go with the old Boss. He explained to Florinda and Taisha's friend who he was, and that he wanted to study the old man. He said that other psychologists would charge $150 to $175 an hour, but since he was especially interested in this case he would only charge $90 an hour.

The old Boss became somewhat lucid at this moment and his eyes began to clear. He looked at the psychologist and said, "If you're so interested in my case, you should pay ME $90 an hour god damn it!"

Even in his terminally senile state, the old man's sense of self-importance could be aroused. Self-importance and life-long social patterns die hard.

Taisha went on to tell the audience how don Juan would sometimes imitate an old man in an utterly convincing way. She said he'd wheeze and cough and start to look really old and feeble, as if he were going to kick the bucket any minute. He enjoyed poking fun at senility and self-importance.

Don Juan and his companions were constantly revamping themselves, Taisha said. They maintained that they were on a journey to infinity, and that they had to travel light. She said that when she was younger she would always make fun of the sorcerers' journey to infinity because she never really understood what it meant to be involved in such a journey. She would jokingly say, "Well, I sure hope they pack enough underwear."

It was precisely because they were on a journey to infinity that they were constantly revamping themselves, remaking themselves, taking themselves down to their bare needs and starting over.

"They always had great stuff," Taisha said. Whenever they revamped themselves she'd pick up some of their things. She mentioned a few of the exquisite items she had picked up at their 'garage sales' -- a vase, a few other small items. Taisha and company also revamp themselves often and have 'garage sales'. It's a crucial part of staying fluid and untethered by self-reflection.

Taisha went on to talk about the nagual Lujan, who was four generations removed from don Juan -- Julian, Elias, Rosendo, Lujan -- and explained that Lujan's cultural background was Chinese. He was encountered through an accident with the nagual Santisteban. As the nagual Santisteban was walking briskly around a corner, the two collided terribly, knocking heads and both of them to the ground. Since an accident of this nature is not something that normally happens to a nagual, Santisteban took the accident as an omen and made Lujan his apprentice.

Lujan's name was not originally Lujan. It was a longer Chinese name that Santisteban and his warriors eventually rendered into Spanish as the shorter, more pronounceable name of Lujan.

Taisha continued to talk about old Lu. She said that his cultural background, being Chinese, was very influential to the way the magical passes were handed down from then on. In his culture, martial arts were a part of everyday life for everyone, no matter what age or social class. It was something they were raised with, something that was part of the daily life and culture in China. So Lujan's influence on the transmission of the magical passes was substantial.

Taisha then told a story about how, when she first came around, the witches of don Juan's party would not give her the time of day. She would try to approach them to express an interest in something, or to ask questions, and they would simply dismiss and rebuke her.

"What do you want? You look like a toothpick! Look at you! You're no good for anything except fucking! And you're not even good for that! You're too weak and frail. Go away!"

To her chagrin, when she went to don Juan seeking solace, and complaining about her dilemma, he sided with his cohorts. He told her that she needed to take a martial arts course to toughen her up.

She wound up finding a class on Judo and told the audience a humorous tale of her days practicing it. Her classmates, mostly large men, liked to use her to practice throwing an opponent to the mat because she was so light. They would fling her effortlessly through the air, often into walls. She despaired about Judo being a full-contact form of martial arts, and receiving an inordinate amount of bruising to her legs and arms.

When Taisha showed her bruises to don Juan he nearly died laughing, but was nevertheless concerned for her well-being. He told her to choose a different form of martial arts, one that was not so hard on her body.

She decided to enroll in a Karate class, then ended up having trouble with the outfit (the wide, stiff, baggy pants especially). She tried sprucing it up by wearing the belt to one side and a scarf around her neck, but there was no way for her to look good in it. No matter what she tried, it was uncomfortable, and very unflattering.

She had decided to choose a Karate class in the first place because it was supposed to be softer than Judo. She explained that the word Karate meant 'empty hand' and that her classmates considered it to be like Zen, because Zen was about being empty.

Well, Taisha related how she was caught up in internal dialogue the whole time, how she would watch these guys practicing their katas and making their high kicks, and would say to herself, "Oh, look at that guy, he thinks he knows so much."

One time her sensei (teacher) sat her down in his office and tried to explain that his dojo was different from most Karate schools because they saw Karate as a form of Zen, and that Zen was about being empty, void of the self, etc. At which point she thought, "Boy, if this guy could only meet the old nagual."

Taisha laughed at this, then went on to explain how she used to use her internal dialogue to pick other people apart. She would look at her sensei and say, "He's just so . . ." this or that. She would do it to anyone, people driving by in an old beat up car or pick-up truck. She'd observe them and think, "They aren't very nice looking," or, "They sure look strange." She would find fault with just about anyone, then pick on those faults with her internal dialogue. But she confessed that all she was really doing was trying to find ways to make herself feel superior to those people, when in fact she wasn't.

One day Taisha's sensei was having her do high kicks. When he saw that she was not doing them correctly, he came up and told her to put her leg on his shoulder. He began to work with her on the proper method of performing high kicks. As she struggled to get her leg up in the air the way he wanted her to, she noticed that his eyes were looking up her big baggy pant leg.

Needless to say, she was very disillusioned that someone she saw as being centered in Zen and integrity, this 'spiritual' guy, would be so sexually oriented, and towards a student no less. In the end it fueled her feelings of superiority to all new heights!

At the conclusion of her afternoon lecture, Taisha introduced the second musical theme of the workshop -- Thinking About You. As it began to play, she left the stage and walked to the side door Florinda had used the day before. There she stopped and stood motionless, looking out over the audience as they listened to the music.

The song eloquently evoked a powerful mood that carried with it a chilling sense of wonder and boundless affection. The image of her standing there with an incredible shine and longing in her eyes was one of the moving moments of the workshop.

THINKING ABOUT YOU

by Alfonso Torres

I thought that this new love
Could push you out of my mind
Calming my pain
But these caresses from a stranger
Are killing me
They are not your lips
They are not your kisses

Two unknown arms embrace me
And I close my eyes thinking
About you, only about you
And I feel your soul very close to mine

I live thinking about you, about you.

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