The recapitulation is a technique to gather your energy. There is more than one way to do the recapitulation, the formal and the fluid, as well as the daily. The method thing that ties them all together is the magic breath. Here we talk about the first.

The formal recapitulation beings with a list, what Don Juan calls an act of war – a war against self-importance. The list comprises all of your known associations from birth until present day, starting with your lovers. You can list your family, your friends, your schoolmates, your coworkers. You then use the list as your guide for the breath exercise, where you sit and meditate on an association, fanning your in breath from should to shoulder, right to left, then your out breath from shoulder to shoulder, left to right. As you focus on your interactions, you want to set your intent to align with the Sorcerers of Antiquity and reclaiming your energy.

We lose and take on energy through our social interactions, or should I say socialized interactions. We are entrained to act in certain ways and the recapitulation helps uncover your own misguided behaviors. There are lots of insights to be had once the recapitulation begins. It took me about a year and a half of meditating daily for an hour or an hour and a half to get through my list.

To complete the recapitulation, you can write the name on a sheet of paper or a leaf, and burn then when you are done. You can also write the name on sand or with water on a hot sidewalk.

As warrior-travelers, we have an obligation to free up our energy for our journey toward greater awareness. It is also on track with developing a sense of well-being. Cultivating positive effects is a way of maintaining the energy you do reclaim. 

The fluid recapitulation involves a less strict regimen, where you recapitulate your daydreams, memories, and nostalgic moments. Reminiscing is an indication that you have energy to recover. When you stop daydreaming, you free yourself to think of other things, or to not think at all. It is very liberating. Along with a sense of release is a sense of relief.

Emotional attachments only serve to bind us to the social infrastructure that is kept in place through domestication, and those emotional and mental reactions you’ve developed fall away. You reactions might also be physical, expressed as tension, stress, anxiety, depression, fear… you can see how entangled we can become just through natural interactions. The ebb and flow of life tells us these conditions for living can all be changed, released, and regained.

Beginning now presents the perfect opportunity to reclaim that energy stuck in time.