The method used to achieve the near-surrealist scenes is so simple and ring quite true for psychedelic endeavors undertaken in the desert: the perception of scale is a matter of one’s perspective. As well, in each, there is a clarity regarding that stark but ravishing beauty one encounters in those environs.
The method used to achieve the near-surrealist scenes is so simple and ring quite true for psychedelic endeavors undertaken in the desert: the perception of scale is a matter of one’s perspective. As well, in each, there is a clarity regarding that stark but ravishing beauty one encounters in those environs.
Journey to Ixtlan
Author: Carlos Castaneda
Publication date: 1977
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Cover art: Roger Hane
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“What was wrong with you when I saw you, and what is wrong with you now, is that you don’t like to take responsibility for what you do,” he said slowly, as if to give me time to understand what he was saying. “When you were telling me all those doings in the bus depot you were aware that they were lies. Why were you lying?”
I explained that my objective had been to find a ‘key informant’ for my work.
Don Juan smiled and began humming a Mexican tune.
“When a man decides to do something he must go all the way," he said, "but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.”
He examined me. I did not know what to say. Finally I ventured an opinion, almost as a protest.
“That’s an impossibility!” I said.
He asked me why, and I said that perhaps ideally that was what everybody thought they should do. In practice, however, there was no way to avoid doubts and remorse.
“Of course there is a way,” he replied with conviction.
“Look at me,” he said. “I have no doubts or remorse. Everything I do is my decision and my responsibility. The simplest thing I do, to take you for a walk in the desert, for instance, may very well mean my death. Death is stalking me. Therefore, I have no room for doubts or remorse. If I have to die as a result of taking you for a walk, then I must die.
“You, on the other hand, feel that you are immortal, and the decisions of an immortal man can be cancelled or regretted or doubted. In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.”