mwotw

I bought my first aquarium when I was 10 years old. It was one of those “everything” for $8.99 deals, where you got an Ambassador 10 gallon tank (trimmed in slick black plastic), an air pump, an inside filter, 2 feet of airline tubing, a packet of fish food and a plastic bag with 10 lucky souls paroled from the feeder goldfish tank. I remember it like it was yesterday. From the age of ten on, my obsession with the hobby grew rapidly. I think I graduated up to a 30-gallon six months later, and had already moved on to saltwater and reef tanks by the time I was fifteen. I had some sort of large, impressive display reef tank in my life pretty much continuously from fifteen to thirty. In 1998, I moved out to the Bay Area from New York, and the hobby was left behind.

About 2 years ago, on a whim and maybe because I was feeling a little optimistic, I dropped $80 on one of those “out of the box” 5 gallon kits, at Ocean Aquarium on Cedar. Justin and Aidie are just a few blocks from us, and have been a big part of my return to the hobby. I put the sweet, little tank on my desk (right beside my monitors), but it never thrived. For all my experience keeping fish back in NY, I was really not invested in it this time. I went with freshwater because I wanted it to be easy, you know. I wasn’t really interested in returning to the hobby in any fanatical sense. I just wanted to look at fish. As you would expect, I sacrificed many lives casually and carelessly in 2006. It wasn’t until a year ago, when my wife and I moved up a block higher on the slopes of Nob Hill (from Post to Sutter street), that I became interested in making my fish tank succeed.

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Those already familiar with Carlos Castaneda and his anthropological field work in Northern Mexico will recognize the term “Assemblage Point”. It is much used throughout Castaneda’s twelve books, which chronicle his experiences with a Yaqui Indian named Don Juan Matus between 1960 and about 1975.

Assemblage Point relates to the description of a human being as a “Luminous Egg”, the form in which they appear to sorcerers. Within the Luminous Egg of every person is visible a bundle of glowing fibers. These are called Fibers of Awareness, and the bright place where the fibers touch against the interior of the shell defines the location of the Assemblage Point.

According to Don Juan (by way of Castaneda’s narratives), it is the special ability of the sorcerer to move his Assemblage Point at will. This was among the principles of sorcery imparted to Castaneda by Don Juan during their association, which Castaneda describes as an apprenticeship.

I read this now, and realize I must have been at some sort of inflection point when I wrote this — a point of change. Having been “Sam” many times, I began to lift my desire for brilliant, beautiful women to a higher plane. Enter, “Mr. Carrier” (must thank Dearest Lauren for the name). I wanted to take and give, rather than take and leave empty-handed. The power of a genius, when so restrainted so long, so unfairly, can be released by the merest touch…

Zero Positive (more…)