Don Juan and the Art of Sexual Energy: The Rainbow Serpent of the Toltecs

190 Pages·2001·1.14 MB·English

by  Merilyn Tunneshende

To “Goyacle,” Geronimo, a great Chiricahua warrior
CONTENTS
Cover Image
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Dream Bridging
Practice One
Chapter 2: Making Peace with the Angry Mother–Father
Practice Two
Chapter 3: Recapitulation
Practice Three
Chapter 4: Exploring Celibacy
Practice Four
Chapter 5: Retrieving Our Lost Energy
Practice Five
Chapter 6: Drawing and Releasing Energy in Nature
Practice Six
Chapter 7: Shapeshifter Dreaming
Practice Seven
Chapter 8: Masculine and Feminine Polarity
Practice Eight
Chapter 9: Cultivating the Sexual Energy
Practice Nine
Chapter 10: Sisterhood and Brotherhood
Practice Ten
Chapter 11: Dreaming the Body
Practice Eleven
Chapter 12: Energy Healing
Practice Twelve
Chapter 13: The Female Orgasmic Practices
Practice Thirteen
Chapter 14: The Male Sexual Energy
Practice Fourteen
Chapter 15: The Celestial Wash
Practice Fifteen
Chapter 16: The Phallic Female
Practice Sixteen
Chapter 17: Life-Force Energy Dance
Practice Seventeen
Chapter 18: Sacred Union
Practice Eighteen
Chapter 19: The Unicorn
Practice Nineteen
Chapter 20: Non-Earthly Realms of Energy
Practice Twenty
Chapter 21: The Death Defier
Practice Twenty-One
Chapter 22: The Eagle
Practice Twenty-Two
Chapter 23: The Fire Within
Epilogue
About the Author
About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
Copyright & Permissions
PREFACE
HOW TO APPROACH THE PRACTICES PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK
INEUROPE, WHERE THIS BOOK WAS FIRST RELEASED, PEOPLE
have responded to its simplicity and have asked me if it is deliberate. I tell
them yes. My mentors and I feel that simplicity is required because we are but
children when sexual energy begins to complicate our lives. In fact, from the
moment of our conception, sexual energy plays a vital role as one of the major
forces that will shape our lives.
Gentleness, simplicity, and humor are the required medicine, sharing just
enough at first, and not too much, so as not to frighten, overload, or confound
and so as to allow the natural cleansing and liberating process to begin. A friend
of mine called Alfonsina said that she thought this book should be written to
resemble “lessons for big children” She said there is an inherent kindness in
even the most terrifying children’s stories that is very beneficial to the body. I
couldn’t agree with her more.
And so, following that advice, I have endeavored to share the kindness and
humor in all of this sexual energy work, in addition to some specific practices.
As to the practices themselves, take them slowly. Don’t be in a rush to fabricate
an experience. Take one practice at a time. Work with it consistently and gently
until it begins to produce beneficial effects in the body. Don’t be greedy to “get
it all” and race through to arrive at the last practice. There is so much more!
What I offer here is simply a beginning that will put your feet on the right road.
Some of the practices are more advanced than others. Some are quite advanced
indeed. These will always reference an earlier practice, which one needs to
experience successfully before moving on the the next level. All of the work,
even that which seems the most simple, will produce profound results. So again,
there is no need to rush. This is not a competition.
With that in mind, my last bit of advice is to enjoy! Joy is a quality we have all
but lost and it is very good medicine to rediscover it. The practices do flow in a
natural order, so simply trust the process. There is no need to skip around. Try to
maintain a relaxed focus and healthy, loving, enthusiastic curiosity as you
embark on this spiritual journey.
INTRODUCTION
IN1979 WHILE JOURNEYING TO MEXICO, I MET AN OLD native
gentleman in the desert of Arizona who was forever to change my life. He
was a solitary figure, a Yuma, or Kw’tsan as they like to be called, and was
notorious for a very potent and mysterious shamanic ability called Dream Power.
This Nagual (Shapeshifter Shaman) was commonly known by the Spanish pen
name of don Juan Matus. Over the years that I knew him, he endeavored to teach
me his special form of dreaming and share its potency with me. I discovered
under his tutelage and benevolence that Dream Power is an indispensable tool in
healing that literally makes miracles happen. I also came to realize that Dream
Power has strong links to our sexual energy and to the development of our
energy bodies, which, although it shouldn’t have, came as quite a surprise to me.
As we continued our association, my own Dream Power grew and I began to
acquire full-fledged entry into don Juan’s world. It was at this time that he
revealed to me that he had “seen” we were the same sort, energetic counterparts.
As I matured as a woman, my feelings toward him changed from awe to
something more like love. If I truly examine my perceptions and feelings,
though, I realize that I loved him on first sight, despite the differences in our
ages and cultures.
In 1994 my mentor and energetic counterpart leapt from this world by literally
walking out of his body, experiencing the Fire Within and Rainbow Crossing of
the Spirit Waters at death. These are the classic teachings of the Rainbow
Serpent, a body of transformational sexual energy wisdom found within the
culture of the Toltec-Maya. Having been joined with don Juan in a sacred union
of energies before, after, and at the time he left this world, I found myself the
inheritor of his magical realms and of his desert homeland. One among several
still-living members of this legacy is a powerful sorceress by the name of doña
Celestina de la Soledad. Another is the artful Dreamer and healer Chon Yakil,
once pen-named don Genaro by Carlos Castaneda.
At first glance, doña Celestina appears to be a full-blooded witch. There is no
doubt about it and no other way to put it. The Doña, now eighty-four years of
age, was sixty-six at the time of our first meeting in 1981. She stands a powerful
5'7", my exact height, has a Native face with gray hair, which she pulls up into a
head rag turban, and fully lives up to her given name “Soledad”—Solitude. She
always wears a simple black dress to cover her dark, lean, muscular body and
scarcely ever smiles, but has long, beautiful teeth. It was doña Celestina, terror
upon terror, who took charge of my instruction in the ways of female power.
I will never forget the day don Juan took me across the Mexican border into
San Luis Rio Colorado to meet her. Doña Celestina was standing on a street
corner in her black dress and sandals, whacking the stalks from large ears of
corn with a massive machete, partially husking the ears with forceful strokes and
tossing them into a metal washtub of boiling water which sat upon coals
smoldering on an old oil drum. She leered at me while she worked and her dark
shadow leapt in my direction, stretching over the sunlit curb at a diagonal. It
hovered where I stood. This is no healer, no medicine woman, I thought to
myself, chilled. She is a bona fide witch, through and through. Don Juan stared
at me fiercely, reading my thoughts. “This is your teacher,” he said, and made
the appropriate introductions.
Doña Celestina is a composite of Corn Mother and Dragon Lady. I found her
to be as fierce and as capable as they come. Among her areas of energetic
expertise are longevity wisdom, sexual energy practices, and powerful antidote
witchcraft. During my continued stays in her home in San Luis Rio Colorado,
Sonora, I worked daily to earn my keep, and still do when I visit. She tolerates
nothing less. In the beginning of the relationship I scrubbed the tile walls,
counters, and floors with a boar bristle brush until they glistened, and washed
clothing spotless by hand. Later I graduated to ironing the clothing over and over
until the creases were as sharp and straight as blades, and then mopped the tiles
until you could eat off the floors. Finally, having mastered the aforementioned
tasks, I joined a small rank of girls she taught to machine sew straight seams at a
lightning pace. Together we would finish piles of clothes for later sale in the
market, all following her expert example and under her witchly scrutiny. It never
once occurred to any of us to think to herself “this is an apprenticeship?” It was a
matter of survival.
At night, when the shadows crept and the younger girls went home or to bed,
doña Celestina and I always went into her dark workroom to learn “trabajitos”
(little jobs). This was her altar room for séance, counseling, and hex anti-hex. It
was forbidden to enter unless she was accompanying, and no one would have
ever dared break that rule. At the first hint of twilight, we’d dine in the old tiled
kitchen on simple but powerful fare—corn, squash, beans, chilies, and tortillas