Meeting Death and Destiny
"One can pursue forever and never catch, … .We Teach You How To Catch.”
The Ka Ta See Book Club will meet for the first time next Tuesday, March 12. To join, go to https://www.katasee.world/BookClub.
The Reluctant Shaman by Kay Cordell Whitaker is the quintessential work on the ancient teachings about healing and awakening while living a human life. After apprenticing for more than 13 years with Domano and Chea Hetaka, two Peruvian Shamans, Kay took what she learned, which seems unattainable in our modern world today, and shared it in a form that makes it easy for anyone to comprehend and thus achieve. A true masterpiece in guiding people to understand what it means to live awake and free.
And, you can join others in exploring and learning more of the teachings from The Reluctant Shaman and its sequel, Sacred Link, by joining the Ka Ta See Book Club. To join, go to https://www.katasee.world/BookClub.
Here is a short excerpt from Chapter Three of The Reluctant Shaman, Meeting Death And Destiny”
“We met again, the three of us, in the Hetakas' apartment two weeks later. I honestly didn't know why I went. They invited me in. I sat down in the same spot as before, on the bench in the sunlight. I was very nervous. I felt that I was in way over my head. Chea stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She was perhaps just under five feet tall, stocky, and about the same age as Domano. Her hair was thick, stark white and pulled back into a roll. She was not cheery and playful like Domano, and I felt peculiarly alarmed by her. She had no expression at all; I couldn't read her. I wondered what she was thinking about me. She just stood motionless, watching me.
She wore a pair of black corduroy slacks, a black sweatshirt with a hood, and sandals. I thought how unusually she was dressed for a woman of her age and background. But after all, this was Santa Cruz in 1974, and one could see just about anything in Santa Cruz in those days.
She smiled at me gently, then came and sat down next to me. I stiffened involuntarily. She was soft spoken, her eyes deep and quiet. She was highly alert but warm and consoling. Even though there was a great deal of strength about her, she was not manly. This was a quality that I had never observed before in a woman. I didn't understand it. And even though I felt I could trust her, I continued to feel an unexplainable alarm in her presence. I wished she weren't there. Domano had excused himself to go to the kitchen to fix me some coffee. "Special dark beans for you, and some sugar, I've got."
"We have much work to do." Chea tried to catch my eyes. I didn't want to look at her. "We will teach you as much as we can, the things our teachers taught to us. They were not from our village. In the beginning we believed them to be white people from the edge of the jungle lands. But later we learned they come from farther away. There were six of them altogether. Three taught Domano in his home village, and three lived in my village and taught me. After a few years we all came together. And that's when Domano and I became companions. This was long ago when we were very young. We will talk more about that later. First I will tell you about our Earth. She is changing. It is the time now that everything becomes different. The very center of our Earth and ourselves is shifting. This brings new knowledge and ways of being. We will teach you these things as they were taught to us." She spoke matter-of-factly, in a rather businesslike way. Her command of the language was much better than Domano's, but she still had a thick accent and a little confusion with syntax from time to time. I had trouble understanding her. I didn't want to listen to her. I was afraid she was going to be the one to do all the talking and teaching, and I wanted Domano to do that. He was light and fun. So, like a child, without consciously realizing it, I tried to ignore her. I hoped that if I did it well enough, she'd go away or disappear. And I wouldn't have to deal with her any longer.
"This will take place in the city. Here." Chea pointed down to the ground. "In town, instead of in the wild lands as we were taught. This is because most of your people now live in cities and this is where the central axis of group shifting is taking place. It is more difficult to learn these things in the city, but if you and your people can't learn them here and maintain control over the shifts, then you will not be able to do it at all.”
I didn't want to have to talk to her, but she struck my curiosity too hard. I had to ask, "What happens if we can't do it at all? What does that mean?"
Chea looked at me through just her left eye, like a bird, then said, "That means you have to learn a new way of being, or you will cease to be. Learn how to shift with your planet and solar system or face extinction.
"These traditions we have to pass on to you are learned by the doing. By action. We will tell you, but telling doesn't teach, it only prepares. To truly know a thing, one must live it completely. Through the body. When the body has learned, so has the heart, the inner parts of your being. The last to have the knowing is your thoughts. In your world you are taught that your thoughts are what needs to be taught. It is believed if this part of your mind thinks it knows, then surely that is all that is needed. So you try to teach just your thoughts and pay no attention to the rest of you." I could see her through the corner of my eye, watching me, calculating what she said. I realized then that she was actually quite a bit smaller than me.
Her voice became more animated. "Your thoughts are just that. Your thoughts. They know nothing for themselves. They are just movements and patterns. They are tools of greater, more elusive parts of ourselves. And without training and discipline they are very poor tools. They trick us and tell us that they are the master and the center. And then we spend our lives trapped in their movements and patterns. Hooked like a big fish."
Domano came back in with coffee and cookies and set them on the floor in front of us. I was relieved to have him back in the room. He spoke as he sat down on the other bench with his cup. "In the times passing we lived from here," he said, tapping his abdomen. "In this time, to shift, we must now learn to live from here." He tapped the center of his chest. "From the upper belly, the life of a person is strung from patterns that are two-directional only. They are made only this way or that way. Mine or yours. Black or white. Up or down. Good or evil. It is the habits of our thoughts and their feelings that make us see only in this way. And the foundation of these patterns is fear. Fear makes our cultures animate. It is the on switch, you could say, for all that people do."
Chea brought her legs up, crossing them under her, and pointed to her upper belly. "A world that puts all its attention to this part of its self and ignores its other parts becomes singular in its dimension and eventually will throw itself off balance, as we see in our world has happened. We see a world split into warring opposites, where the undisciplined thoughts are master, and control is elusive, and the pursuit of this control is all-consuming. Only the people don't know any more what it is they are needing to control. They just assume that more control over more and more is what is most advantageous. They are looking so hard outside themselves with the eyes of their warring thoughts, they never notice all of their own self." I didn't want to hear what she was saying. I knew she was right. Our culture was in bad shape. I could hear a real compassion and concern in her voice, even though her face didn't show it. But I didn't see why they were talking about world problems that to me seemed out of our reach to influence.
Then Chea's face softened slightly, and she said, "This makes them afraid. They are afraid of all that is unknown. Afraid of the loss of anything. Afraid of powerlessness. Afraid of pain. Afraid of failure. And most of all they have a fear that has all the other fears inside itself: they fear all death. Within the midst of their imagined annihilation they breathe every breath. Their bodies knowing only this fear and the fleeting divergences that distract them from it. The people of this planet are forgetting how to experience outside the tyrannical habits of their minds.
"It is our tradition we give to you that will lead you to break out of the habits of mind.”
"But I know plenty of people who are happy and fulfilled." I looked over to Domano.
He said softly, "This is just a picture of their masks. I assure you, what looks like happiness is just a picture for themselves and all to see that describes their distractions from the real condition beneath of love confused by pain and fear. And also, there is a whisper of something else, out of reach. Something more than what they know, something grand and exquisite. You know of this.
"Most of them do not pursue this mysterious thing. They are too lazy and fearful. They try to ignore it. But that just makes much confusion and pain for them. You are one who pursues it."
This was beginning to sound far more exotic and mysterious than the studying of tribal cultural and social applications, and technological historical advancements and variations, or, heaven forbid, kinship structures.
"Is that what your tradition is going to teach me? To pursue this unknown?"
"One can pursue forever and never catch," Chea said, imitating running with two fingers going round and round in front of her. "We teach you how to catch.””
To learn more about this and many other stories from The Reluctant Shaman and Sacred Link, go to https://www.katasee.world/BookClub.
Much Love,
Helmut
https://www.linktr.ee/katasee
Ka Ta See - Sharing the ancient teachings with a world in desperate need.