Castaneda wrote: “The power that governs the destiny of all living beings is called the Eagle … The Eagle is devouring the awareness of all the creatures that, alive on Earth a moment before and now dead, have floated to the Eagle’s beak, like a ceaseless swarm of fireflies, to meet their owner, their reason for having had life … for awareness is the Eagle’s food.” This seems like an incomplete description of the Creator of All That Is. Accurate to a point, but missing the quality of love, and the desire on the part of Creator for partnership with his creations. This is further reflected in this passage: “The Eagle, that power that governs the destinies of all living things, reflects equally at once all those living things. There is no way, therefore, for man to pray to the Eagle, to ask favors, to hope for grace. The human part of the Eagle is too insignificant to move the whole.” As powerful as he was, was Don Juan missing the forest for the trees? What can Creator tell us?

We would say you have hit the nail on the head in seeing there is indeed something missing here, and this wise and knowing shaman had, in fact, a blind spot in his thinking and awareness, that the force behind all he saw and did energetically was, in fact, a consciousness fully aware of him and all his doings and the lives in fine detail of everyone and everything else—all creatures great and small. So the shaman was appreciating the interconnectedness of everything, and that somehow this traced back to some kind of fundamental energy of origin with some kind of mysterious meaning, but not one that could be fully comprehended and described, and certainly not in any detail. That is why the description turned to the symbolism of the Eagle as a kind of metaphor representing something above the Earth, something lofty, something that can soar and is not constrained but still mysterious in its workings and with an unstated and unknown reason for existence and agenda. You see this dilemma in the teachings of most indigenous peoples. There is an intuitive appreciation of something greater out there and sometimes varying awareness and descriptions of that mysterious causal force having a purposeful influence on things, as in causing storms, for example, that could be rewards or punishment. You see this in the Native American cultures talking of Mother Earth and Father Sky and many symbolic representations of actual phenomena concerning the existence of spirits and the Great Spirit Above All. The idea of interaction in a purposeful way is a more advanced notion that was not usually thought to be possible on a personal level. This is why many indigenous peoples have rituals done by groups, the entire village, for example, engaging in a ceremony of some kind with music, song, or chanting, and sometimes a ritual sacrifice to pay homage to the Great Force Beyond that was poorly understood and the best they could do was appeal to it in human terms, assuming that making a sacrifice, even of the life of another human being, would be recognized as something of great value and the highest of tributes because it was surrendered through suffering, pain, and grief of surviving friends and family. That, to be sure, depicts the level of importance seen in this Great Force Beyond needing appeasement with some attempt to cultivate at least a relationship where the humans are accepted and seen as being in good standing. That is a far cry from a personal one on one partnership available to all for the asking that is governed by your own mind but will always be heard and acted upon from our side—even if you cannot see or hear us, we see and hear you, and things will flow from there.