Все Женщины - Dreamers,
правда некоторые - более одарённые, чем другие ! Dreamer - это человек,
который умеет себя гипнотизировать и поднимать себя на более высокую
вибрацию, зная или не зная этого. Обычно среди мужчин это : Колдуны,
первопроходцы Роберта Монро, маги, индийские гуру, некоторые монахи и
т.д. У всех Женщин этот дар есть из-за того, что у них есть Матка (если
она не вырезана), но этот дар иеется у очень малого количества мужчин и
этот дар ещё должен быть развит огромным трудом. Dreaming-Awake -
означает быть в самогипнозе, т.е. сознательно или бессознательно
поднимать себя выше, на более высокую вибрацию, не теряя контроль над
собой и исполняя поставленные задачи !
All Women are Dreamers,
though among them there are more gifted, then others. Dreamer is a
person, who can hypnotize herself and lift herself up, to a faster and
higher vibrational level. All Women are Dreamers, but Dreamers among
Men are usually: Sorcerers, Robert Monroe' s Institute explorers, some
magicians, indian gurus, some buddists, some priests/cledgy and so on.
All Women, because of their Womb (if it's still inside), have this
gift, but Men have to work a great deal to develop this ability !
Dreaming-Awake is
self-hypnosis,
means consciously or subconsciously raise herself to a higher
consciousness level (vibration), without loosing control and to perform
certain tasks.
Carlos
Castaneda "Separate
Reality"

Index:
Introduction...............................................................................3
Part 1:The Preliminaries of “Seeing”
Chapter
1...................................................................................12
Chapter
2...................................................................................15
Chapter
3...................................................................................25
Chapter
4...................................................................................32
Chapter
5...................................................................................42
Chapter
6...................................................................................49
Part 2: Task of “Seeing”
Chapter
7...................................................................................58
Chapter
8...................................................................................66
Chapter
9...................................................................................69
Chapter
10.................................................................................75
Chapter
11.................................................................................80
Chapter
12.................................................................................88
Chapter
13.................................................................................95
Chapter
14.................................................................................104
Chapter
15.................................................................................114
Chapter
16.................................................................................118
Chapter
17.................................................................................127
Epilogue....................................................................................135
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Introduction
7
Ten years ago I had the fortune of meeting a Yaqui Indian from
north-western Mexico. I call him "don
Juan." In Spanish, don is an appellative (class) used to denote
respect. I made don Juan's acquaintance under the
most fortuitous circumstances. I was sitting with Bill, a friend of
mine, in a bus depot in a
border town in Arizona. We were very quiet. In the late afternoon the
summer heat seemed
unbearable. Suddenly he leaned over and tapped (knock) me on the
shoulder.
"There's the man I told you about," he said in a low voice. He nodded
casually toward the entrance. An old man had just walked in.
"What did you tell me about him?" I asked.
"He's the Indian, that knows about peyote. Remember?"
I remembered, that Bill and I had once driven all day looking for the
house of an "eccentric"
Mexican Indian, who lived in the area. We did not find the man's house
and I had the feeling, that
the Indians, whom we had asked for directions, had deliberately misled
us. Bill had told me, that the
man was a "yerbero", a person, who gathers and sells medicinal herbs,
and that he knew a great deal
about the hallucinogenic cactus, peyote. He had also said, that it
would
be worth my while to meet
him. Bill was my guide in the Southwest, while I was collecting
information and specimens of
medicinal plants, used by the Indians of the area. Bill got up and went
to greet the man. The Indian was of medium height. His hair was white
and
short, and grew a bit over his ears, accentuating the roundness of his
head. He was very dark; the deep wrinkles on his face gave him the
appearance of age, yet his body seemed
to be strong and fit.
8-9
I watched him for a moment. He moved around with
a nimbleness, that I would
have thought impossible for an old man. Bill signaled me to join them.
"He's a nice guy," Bill said to me. "But I can't understand him. His
Spanish is weird, full of
rural colloquialisms, I suppose." The old man looked at Bill and
smiled.
And Bill, who speaks only a few
words of Spanish, made up an
absurd phrase in that language. He looked at me, as if asking whether
he was making sense, but I did
not know, what he had had in mind; he then smiled shyly and walked
away.
The old man looked at me
and began laughing. I explained to him, that my friend sometimes
forgot, that he did not
speak Spanish.
"I think he also forgot to introduce us," I said, and I told him my
name.
"And I am Juan Matus, at your service," he said. We shook hands and
remained quiet for some time. I broke the silence
and told him about my
enterprise. I told him, that I was looking for any kind of information
on plants, especially peyote.
I talked compulsively (conditioned
by obsession)
for a long
time, and although I was almost
totally ignorant on the subject, I
said, I knew a great deal about peyote. I thought, that if I boasted
about my knowledge, he would
become interested in talking to me. But he did not say anything. He
listened patiently. Then he
nodded slowly and peered at me. His eyes seemed to shine with a light
of their own. I avoided his
gaze. I felt embarrassed.
I had the certainty, that at that moment he
knew, I was talking
nonsense. "Come to my house some time," he finally said, taking his
eyes away
from me. "Perhaps, we could talk
there with more ease." I did not know what else to say. I felt uneasy.
After a while Bill came
back into the room. He
recognized my discomfort and did not say a word. We sat in tight
silence for some time. Then the
old man got up. His bus had come. He said goodbye.
"It didn't go too well, did it?" Bill asked.
"No."
"Did you ask him about plants?"
"I did. But I think, I goofed (spoilt)."
"I told you, he's very eccentric. The Indians around here know him, yet
they never mention him. And
that's something."
"He said, I could come to his house, though."
"He was bullshitting you. Sure, you can go to his house, but what does
it mean? He'll never tell
you anything. If you ever ask him anything, he'll clam up (restrict,
prohibit, not approve), as if you were
an idiot, talking nonsense."
Bill said convincingly, that he had encountered people like him before,
people, who gave the
impression of knowing a great deal. In his judgment, he said, such
people were not worth the
trouble, because sooner or later one could obtain the same information
from someone else, who did
not play hard to get. He said, that
he had neither patience, nor time
for
old fogies, and that it was
possible, that the old man was only presenting himself, as being
knowledgeable about herbs, when in
reality he knew as little, as the next man. Bill went on talking, but I
was not listening. My mind kept on wondering about the old Indian. He
knew, I had been bluffing
(cliff, river bank,
mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate). I remembered
his eyes. They had actually
shone. I went back to see him a couple of months later, not so much as
a student of anthropology,
interested in medicinal plants, but as a person with an inexplicable
curiosity. The way, he had
looked at me, was an unprecedented event in my life. I wanted to know,
what was involved in that
look, it became almost an obsession with me. I pondered it and, the
more
I thought about it, the more
unusual it seemed to be. Don Juan and I became friends, and for a year
I paid innumerable visits. I found his manner very
reassuring and his sense of humor superb; but, above all, I felt there
a
silent consistency about his
acts, a consistency, which was thoroughly baffling to me. I felt a
strange delight in his presence
and at the same time I experienced a strange discomfort. His mere
company forced me to make a
tremendous reevaluation of my models of behavior.
I had been reared,
perhaps like everyone else, to
have a readiness to accept man, as an essentially weak and fallible
creature. What impressed me,
about don Juan, was the fact, that he did not make a point of being
weak
and helpless, and just being
around him insured an unfavorable comparison between his way of
behaving and mine.
10-11
Perhaps one of the most impressive statements, he
made to me at that time, was concerned with our
inherent difference. Prior to one of my visits I had been feeling quite
unhappy about the total
course of my life and about a number of pressing personal conflicts,
that I had. When I arrived at
his house, I felt moody and nervous.
We were talking about my interest
in knowledge; but, as usual, we were on two different tracks. I
was referring to academic knowledge, that transcends (rise above,
excel, pass beyond) experience, while
he was talking about direct
knowledge of the world.
"Do you know anything about the world around you?" he asked.
"I know all kinds of things," I said.
"I mean do you ever feel the world around you?"
"I feel as much of the world around me, as I can."
"That's not enough. You must feel everything, otherwise the world loses
its sense." I voiced the classical argument, that I did not have to
taste the soup,
in order to know the recipe,
nor did I have to get an electric shock, in order to know about
electricity. "You make it sound stupid," he said. "The way I see it,
you want to
cling to your arguments,
despite the fact, that they bring nothing to you; you want to remain
the
same, even at the cost of
your well-being."
"I don't know, what you're talking about."
"I am talking about the fact, that you're not complete. You have no
peace." That statement annoyed me. I felt offended. I thought, he was
certainly
not qualified to pass
judgment on my acts or my personality. "You're plagued with problems,"
he said. "Why?"
"I am only a man, don Juan," I said peevishly (contrary). I made that
statement in
the same vein (mood, tendency), my father used to make it. Whenever he
said,
he was only a
man, he implicitly (hinting) meant, he was weak and helpless and his
statement,
like mine, was filled with an ultimate
sense of despair. Don Juan peered at me, as he had done the first day
we met.
"You think about yourself too much," he said and smiled. "And that
gives you a strange fatigue, that
makes you shut off the world around you and cling to your arguments.
Therefore, all you have, is
problems. I'm only a man too, but I don't mean, that the way you do."
"How do you mean it?"
"I've vanquished (conquer in battle) my problems. Too bad my
life
is so short, that I can't
grab onto all the things, I
would like to. But that is not an issue; it's only a pity." I liked the
tone of his statement. There was no despair or self-pity in
it.
In 1961, a year after our first meeting, don Juan disclosed to me, that
he had a secret knowledge of
medicinal plants. He told me, he was a "brujo." The Spanish word brujo
can be rendered (presented for consideration) in English as
sorcerer, medicine man, curer. From that point on, the relation between
us changed; I became his
apprentice and for the next four years he endeavored to teach me the
mysteries of sorcery. I have
written about that apprenticeship in The Teachings of Don Juan:
A Yaqui
Way of Knowledge. Our conversations were conducted in Spanish, and,
thanks to don Juan's
superb command of that
language, I obtained detailed explanations of the intricate means of
his
system of beliefs. I have
referred to that complex and well-systematized body of knowledge, as
sorcery and to him as a
sorcerer, because those categories he, himself, used in informal
conversations. In the context of more
serious elucidations, however, he could use the terms "knowledge" to
categorize sorcery and "man of
knowledge" or "one, who knows" to categorize a sorcerer. In order to
teach and corroborate (confirm) his knowledge
don Juan used three
well-known psychotropic plants:
peyote, Lophophora williamasii; jimson weed, Datura inoxia; and a
species of mushroom which belongs
to the genus Psylocebe. Through the separate ingestion of each of these
hallucinogens, he produced
in me, as his apprentice, some peculiar states of distorted perception,
or altered consciousness,
which I have called "states of non-ordinary reality."
12-13
I have used the
word "reality", because it was
a major premise (subject, belief) in don
Juan's system of beliefs, that the states of
consciousness, produced by the
ingestion of any of those three plants, were not hallucinations, but
concrete, although unordinary,
aspects of the reality of everyday life. Don Juan behaved toward these
states of nonordinary
reality, not "as if" they were real, but "as" real. To classify these
plants, as hallucinogens and the states, they produced,
as nonordinary reality, is,
of course, my own device. Don Juan understood and explained the plants,
as being vehicles, that would
conduct or lead a man to certain impersonal forces or "powers" and the
states, they produced, as
being the "meetings", that a sorcerer had to have with those "powers",
in
order to gain control over
them.
He called peyote "Mescalito" and he explained it, as being a benevolent
teacher and protector of
men. Mescalito taught the "right way to live." Peyote was usually
ingested at gatherings of sorcerers
called "mitotes," where the participants would gather specifically to
seek a lesson on the right way to live. Don Juan considered the jimson
weed and the mushrooms to be powers of a
different sort. He called
them "allies" and said, that they were capable of being manipulated; a
sorcerer, in fact, drew his
strength from manipulating an ally. Of the two, don Juan preferred the
mushroom. He maintained, that
the power contained in the mushroom, was his personal ally and he
called it "smoke" or "little
smoke." Don Juan's procedure, to utilize the mushrooms, was, to let
them
dry into a fine powder inside a small
gourd. He kept the gourd sealed for a year and then mixed the fine
powder with five other dry plants and
produced a mixture for smoking in a pipe. In order to become a man of
knowledge, one had to "meet" with the ally
as many times, as possible;
one had to become familiar with it. This premise (subject, belief) implied,
of course,
that one had to smoke the
hallucinogenic mixture quite often. The process of "smoking" consisted
of ingesting the fine
mushroom powder, which did not incinerate, and inhaling the smoke of
the other five plants, that
made up the mixture. Don Juan explained the profound effects, that the
mushrooms had on one's
perceptual capacities, as the "ally removing one's body." Don Juan's
method of teaching required an extraordinary effort on the part of the
apprentice. In fact, the degree of participation and involvement
needed, was so strenuous, that by the end of 1965 I had to withdraw
from the apprenticeship. I can say now, with the perspective of the
five years, that have elapsed, that at that time don Juan's teachings
had begun to pose a serious threat to my "idea of the world." I had
begun to lose the certainty, which all of us have, that the reality of
everyday life is something, we can take for granted. At the time of my
withdrawal I was convinced, that my decision was final; I did not want
to see don Juan ever again. However, in April of 1968, an early copy of
my book was made available to me and I felt compelled (forced) to show
it to
him. I paid him a visit. Our link of teacher-apprentice was
mysteriously reestablished, and I can say, that on that occasion I
began a second cycle of apprenticeship, very different from the first.
My fear was not as acute, as it had been in the past. The total mood of
don Juan's teachings was more relaxed. He laughed and also made me
laugh a great deal. There seemed to be a deliberate intent on his part
to minimize seriousness in general. He clowned during the truly crucial
moments of this second cycle, and thus helped me to overcome
experiences, which could easily have become obsessive. His premise
(belief) was, that a light and amenable (obidient,
responsible) disposition was needed, in order to withstand the
impact and the strangeness of the knowledge, he was teaching me. "The
reason, you got scared and quit, is because you felt too damn
important," he said, explaining my previous withdrawal. "Feeling
important makes one heavy, clumsy, and vain. To be a man of knowledge
one needs to be light and fluid." Don Juan's
particular interest, in his second cycle of apprenticeship,
was to teach me to "See."
Apparently, in his system of knowledge there was the possibility of
making a semantic difference
between "Seeing"
and "looking", as two distinct manners of perceiving.
"Looking" referred to the
ordinary way, in which we are accustomed to perceive the world.
14-15
While
"Seeing"
entailed a very
complex process, by virtue of which a man of knowledge allegedly
perceives the "essence" of the
things of the world. In order to present the intricacies of this
learning process in a
readable form, I have condensed
long passages of questions and answers, and thus, I have edited my
original field notes. It is my
belief, however, that at this point my presentation cannot possibly
detract from the meaning of don
Juan's teachings. The editing was aimed at making my notes flow, as
conversation flows, so they
would have the impact, I desired; that is to say, I wanted, by means of
a
reportage, to communicate to
the reader the drama and directness of the field situation. Each
section, I have set as a chapter,
was a session with don Juan. As a rule, he always concluded each of our
sessions on an abrupt note;
thus the dramatic tone of the ending of each chapter is not a literary
device of my own, it was a
device proper of don Juan's oral tradition. It seemed to be a
mnemonic (assisting)
device, that helped me to
retain the dramatic quality and importance of the lessons. Certain
explanations are needed, however, to make my reportage cogent (powerful,
forcibly convincing), since
its clarity depends on
the elucidation of a number of key concepts or key units, that I want
to
emphasize. This choice of
emphasis is congruous (harmonious,
appropriate) with my
interest in social science. It is
perfectly possible, that another
person with a different set of goals and expectations, would single out
concepts, entirely different
from those, I have chosen myself. During the second cycle of
apprenticeship don Juan made a point of assuring me, that the use of
the
smoking mixture was the indispensable (necessary) prerequisite to "Seeing".
Therefore I had to use it as often,
as possible.
"Only the smoke can give you the necessary speed to catch a glimpse of
that fleeting world," he
said. With the aid of the psychotropic mixture, he produced in me a
series of states of nonordinary
reality. The main feature of such states, in relation to what don Juan
seemed to be doing, was a
condition of "inapplicability." What
I perceived, in those states of
altered consciousness, was incomprehensible and impossible to
interpret by means of our everyday mode of understanding the world. In
other words, the condition
of inapplicability entailed the cessation of the pertinence (relevance)
of my world
view. Don Juan used this condition of inapplicability of the states of
nonordinary reality, in order to
introduce a series of preconceived (form opinion beforehand), new
"units of meaning." Units of
meaning were all the single
elements, pertinent (relevant) to the
knowledge, don Juan was striving to teach me.
I have called them units of
meaning, because they were the basic conglomerate of sensory data and
their interpretations, on which
more complex meaning was constructed. One example of such a unit is the
way, in which the
physiological effect of the psychotropic mixture was understood. It
produced a numbness and loss of motor control, that was interpreted in
don Juan's system, as an
act, performed
by the smoke, which in this case was the ally, in order "to remove the
body of the
practitioner."
Units of
meaning were grouped together in a specific way, and each
block, thus created, formed, what I
have called a "sensible interpretation." Obviously, there has to be an
endless number of possible
sensible interpretations, that are pertinent (relevant) to sorcery,
that a sorcerer
must learn to make. In our
day-to-day life we are confronted with an endless number of sensible
interpretations pertinent (relevant) to
it. A simple example could be, the no longer deliberate interpretation,
which we make scores of
times every day, of the structure, we call "room." It is obvious, that
we
have learned to interpret
the structure, we call room, in terms of room; thus room is a sensible
interpretation, because it
requires, that at the time we make it, we are cognizant (conscious, aware), in one way
or
another, of all the elements,
that enter into its composition.
A system of sensible interpretation
is, in other words, the
process, by virtue of which a practitioner is cognizant (conscious, aware) of all the
units
of meaning, necessary to
make assumptions (logic), deductions, predictions, etc., about all the
situations pertinent to his
activity. By "practitioner" I mean a participant, who has an adequate
knowledge of
all, or nearly all, the
units of meaning, involved in his particular system of sensible
interpretation. Don Juan was a
practitioner; that is, he was a sorcerer, who knew all the steps of his
sorcery.
16-17
As
a practitioner, he attempted to make his system of sensible
interpretation, accessible to me. Such
an accessibility, in this case, was equivalent to a process of
re-socialization, in which new ways
of interpreting perceptual data were learned. I was the "stranger," the
one, who lacked the capacity to make
intelligent and congruous (harmonious,
appropriate)
interpretations of the units of meaning, proper to sorcery. Don Juan's
task, as a practitioner, making his system accessible to me,
was to disarrange a
particular certainty, which I share with everyone else, the certainty,
that our "common-sense" views
of the world are final. Through the use of psychotropic plants, and
through well-directed contacts
between the alien system and myself, he succeeded, in pointing out to
me,
that my view of the world
cannot be final, because it is only an interpretation. For the American
Indian, perhaps for thousands of years, the vague
phenomenon, we call sorcery, has
been a serious bona fide practice, comparable to that of our science.
Our difficulty, in
understanding it, stems, no doubt, from the alien units of meaning,
with
which it deals. Don Juan had once told me, that a man of knowledge had
predilections (inclinations,
preference). I
asked him to explain his
statement.
"My predilection is to See," he said.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I like to See" he said, "because only by Seeing can a man of
knowledge
know."
"What kind of things do you See?"
"Everything."
"But I also see everything and I'm not a man of knowledge."
"No. You don't see.
"I think, I do."
"I tell you, you don't."
"What makes you say that, don Juan?"
"You only look at the surface of things."
"Do you mean, that every man of knowledge actually Sees through
everything, he looks at?"
"No. That's not what I mean. I said, that a Man of Knowledge has his
own
predilections (inclinations, preference); mine is just
to See and to Know; others do other things."
"What other things, for example?"
"Take Sacateca, he's a Man of Knowledge and his predilection
(inclinations, preference) is
dancing. So he dances and Knows."
"Is the predilection (inclinations, preference) of a Man of Knowledge
something, he does, in order
to know?"
"Yes, that is correct."
"But how could dancing help Sacateca to know?"
"One can say, that Sacateca dances with all,, he has."
"Does he dance like I dance? I mean like dancing?"
"Let's say, that he dances, like I See and not like you may dance."
"Does he also See, the way you See?"
"Yes, but he also dances."
"How does Sacateca dance?"
"It's hard to explain that. It is a peculiar way of dancing, he does,
when he wants to know. But all,
I can say about it, is that, unless you understand the ways of a man,
who
knows, it is impossible to
talk about Dancing or Seeing."
"Have you seen him doing his dancing?"
"Yes. However, it is not possible for everyone, who looks at his
dancing,
to See, that it is his
peculiar way of Knowing."
I knew Sacateca, or at least I knew, who he was. We had met and once I
had bought him a beer. He was
very polite and told me, I should feel free to stop at his house
anytime,
I wanted to. I toyed for a
long time with the idea of visiting him, but I did not tell don Juan.
On
the afternoon of May 14,
1962, I drove up to Sacateca's house; he had given me directions, how
to
get there and I had no
trouble finding it. It was on a corner and had a fence all around it.
The gate was closed. I walked
around it to see, if I could peek inside the house. It appeared to be
deserted.
"Don Elias," I called out loud. The chickens got frightened and
scattered about, cackling furiously.
A small dog came to the fence. I expected it to bark at me; instead, it
just sat there, looking at
me. I called out once again and the chickens had another burst of
cackling.
18-19
An old woman came out of the house. I asked her to call don Elias.
"He's not here," she said.
"Where can I find him?"
"He's in the fields."
"Where in the fields?"
"I don't know. Come back in the late afternoon. He'll be here around
five."
"Are you don Elias wife?"
"Yes, I'm his wife," she said and smiled. I tried to ask her about
Sacateca, but she excused herself and said, that
she did not speak Spanish
well. I got into my car and drove away. I returned to the house around
six o'clock. I drove to the door and
yelled Sacateca's name. This
time he came out of the house. I turned on my tape recorder, which, in
its brown leather case, looked
like a camera, hanging from my shoulder. He seemed to recognize me.
"Oh, it's you," he said, smiling. "How's Juan?"
"He's fine. But how are you, don Elias?"
He did not answer. He seemed to be nervous. Overtly, he was very
composed, but I felt, that he was
ill at ease.
"Has Juan sent you here on some sort of errand?"
"No. I came here by myself."
"What in the world for?" His question seemed to betray very bona fide
surprise.
"I just wanted to talk to you," I said, hoping to sound as casual, as
possible. "Don Juan has told
me marvelous things about you, I got curious and wanted to ask you a
few questions."
Sacateca was standing in front of me. His body was lean and wiry. He
was wearing khaki pants and
shirt. His eyes were half-closed; he seemed to be sleepy or perhaps
drunk. His mouth was open a bit
and his lower lip hung. I noticed, that he was breathing deeply and
seemed to be almost snoring. The
thought came to me, that Sacateca was undoubtedly plastered out of his
mind. But that thought seemed
to be very incongruous (inharmonious, incompatible with
surroundings), because only a few minutes before, when he came
out of his house, he had
been very alert and aware of my presence.
"What do you want to talk about?" he finally said. His voice was tired;
it was, as though his words dragged after each
other. I felt very uneasy. It
was, as if his tiredness was contagious and pulling me.
"Nothing in particular," I answered. "I just came to chat with you in a
friendly way. You once
asked me to come to your house."
''Yes, I did, but it's not the same now."
"Why isn't it the same?"
"Don't you talk with Juan?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then what do you want with me?"
"I thought maybe I could ask you some questions?"
"Ask Juan. Isn't he teaching you?"
"He is, but just the same, I would like to ask you about, what he is
teaching me, and have your
opinion. This way I'll be able to know, what to do."
"Why do you want to do that? Don't you trust Juan?"
"I do."
"Then why don't you ask him to tell you, what you want to know?"
"I do. And he tells me. But if you could also tell me about, what don
Juan is teaching me, perhaps I
will understand better."
"Juan can tell you everything. He alone can do that. Don't you
understand that?"
"I do, but then I'd like to talk with people like you, don Elias. One
does not find a man of
knowledge every day."
"Juan is a man of knowledge."
"I know that."
"Then why are you talking to me?"
"I said, I came to be friends,"
"No, you didn't. There is something else about you this time."
I wanted to explain myself and all I could do was mumble incoherently.
Sacateca did not say
anything. He seemed to listen attentively. His eyes were half-closed
again, but I felt, he was
peering at me.
20-21
He nodded almost imperceptibly. Then his lids opened and
I saw his eyes. He seemed
to be looking past me. He casually tapped the floor with the tip of his
right foot, just behind his
left heel. His legs were slightly arched; his arms were limp against
his sides. Then he lifted
his right arm; his hand was open with the palm turned perpendicular to
the ground; his fingers were
extended and pointing toward me. He let his hand wobble a couple of
times, before he brought it to
my face level. He held it in that position for an instant and then he
said a few words to me. His
voice was very clear, yet the words dragged. After a moment he dropped
his hand to his side and remained motionless,
taking a strange position.
He was standing, resting on the ball of his left foot. His right foot
was crossed behind the heel
of the left foot and he was tapping the floor rhythmically and gently
with the tip of his right
foot, I felt an unwarranted apprehension, a form of restlessness. My
thoughts seemed to be
dissociated. I was thinking unrelated nonsensical thoughts, that had
nothing to do, with what was
going on. I noticed my discomfort and tried to steer my thoughts back
to the situation at hand, but
I couldn't in spite of a great struggle. It was, as if some force was
keeping me from concentrating
or thinking relevant thoughts. Sacateca had not said a word, and I
didn't know, what else to say or do.
Quite automatically, I
turned around and left. Later on, I felt compelled (forced) to tell don
Juan about my encounter with
Sacateca. Don Juan roared with
laughter.
"What really took place there?" I asked.
"Sacateca danced!" don Juan said. "He Saw you, then he danced."
"What did he do to me? I felt very cold and dizzy."
"He apparently didn't like you and stopped you by tossing a word at
you."
"How could he possibly do that?" I exclaimed incredulously.
"Very simple; he stopped you with his will."
"What did you say?"
"He stopped you with his will !"
The explanation did not suffice. His statements sounded like gibberish
to me. I tried to probe him
further, but he could not explain the event to my satisfaction.
Obviously that event or any event, that occurred within this alien
system of sensible interpretation,
could be explained or understood only in terms of the units of meaning,
proper to that system. This
work is, therefore, a reportage and should be read, as a reportage. The
system, I recorded, was
incomprehensible to me, thus the pretense to anything, other than
reporting about it, would be
misleading and impertinent (not relevant). In this respect I have
adopted the
phenomenological method and have
striven (exert, struggle against) to deal with sorcery solely as
phenomena, that were presented to
me. I, as the perceiver,
recorded, what
I perceived, and at the moment of recording, I endeavored (acheived)
to suspend judgment.
Part
1
-
The
Preliminaries of “Seeing”
25
April 2. 1968. Don Juan looked at me for a moment and did not seem at
all surprised to
see me, even though it had
been more, than two years since I last visited him. He put his hand on
my shoulder and smiled gently
and said, that I looked different, that I was getting fat and soft. I
had brought him a copy of my book. Without any preliminaries I took it
out of my brief case and
handed it to him.
"It's a book about you, don Juan," I said. He took it and flipped
through the pages, as if they were a deck of cards. He liked the green
color
on the dust jacket and the height of the book. He felt the cover with
his palms, turned it around a
couple of times, and then handed it back to me. I felt a great surge of
pride.
"I want you to keep it," I said. He shook his head with a silent laugh.
"I better not," he said, and then added with a broad "You know, what we
do with paper in
Mexico." I laughed. I thought his touch of irony was beautiful. We
where sitting
on a bench in the park of a small town in the mountainous area of
central Mexico.
I had absolutely no way of letting him know about my intention of
paying him a visit, but I was
certain, I was going to find him, and I did. I waited only a short
while
in that town, before don
Juan came down from the mountains and I found him at the market, at the
stand of one of his
friends.
26-27
Don Juan told me, matter-of-factly, that I was there just in
time to take him back to Sonora, and
we sat in the park to wait for a friend of his, a Mazatec Indian with
whom he lived. We waited about three hours. We talked about different
unimportant things, and toward the end of
the day, right before his friend came, I related to him some events, I
had witnessed a few days
before. During my trip to see him my car broke down in the outskirts of
a city
and I had to stay in town
for three days while it was being repaired. There was a motel across
the street from the auto shop,
but the outskirts of towns are always depressing for me, so I took
lodgings in a modern eight-story
hotel in the center of town.

The bellboy told me, that the hotel had a restaurant, and when I came
down to eat, I found, that there
were tables out on the sidewalk. It was a rather handsome arrangement
set on the street corner
under some low brick arches of modern lines. It was cool outside and
there were empty tables, yet I
preferred to sit in the stuffy indoors. I had noticed upon entering,
that a group of shoeshine boys
were sitting on the curb in front of the restaurant, and I was certain,
they would have hounded me,
had I taken one of the outside tables. From where I was seated, I could
see the group of boys through the glass window. A couple of young
men took a table and the boys flocked around them, asking to shine
their shoes. The young men
refused and I was amazed to see, that the boys did not insist and went
back to sit on the curb.
After a while three men in business suits got up and left and the boys
ran to their table and began
eating the leftovers; in a matter of seconds the plates were clean. The
same thing happened with
leftovers on all the other tables. I noticed, that the children were
quite orderly; if they spilled water they sponged it up with their
own shoeshine cloths. I also noticed the thoroughness of their
scavenging procedures. They even ate
the ice cubes, left in the glasses of water and the lemon slices from
the tea, peel and all. There
was absolutely nothing, that they wasted. In the course of the time I
stayed in the hotel, I found out, that there was an agreement between
the
children and the manager of the restaurant; the boys were allowed to
hang around the premises (subject, belief, spaces) to
make some money from the customers and were also allowed to eat the
leftovers, provided, that they
did not harass anybody and did not break anything. There were eleven in
all, ranging in age from
five to twelve; the oldest, however, was kept a distance from the rest
of the group. They
deliberately ostracized (banish, exclude from the group) him, taunting
him with a singsong, that he
already had pubic hair and was
too old to be among them. After three days of watching them go like
vultures after the most meager (scanty, deficient in quantity) of
leftovers, I became
despondent (dishearted,
dejected),
and I left
that city feeling, that there was no hope for
those children, whose world was
already molded by their
day-after-day struggle for crumbs.

"Do
you feel sorry for them?" don Juan exclaimed in a questioning tone.
"I certainly do," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I'm concerned with the well-being of my fellow men. Those are
children and their world is
ugly and cheap."
"Wait! Wait! How can you say, that their world is ugly and cheap?" don
Juan said, mocking my
statement.
"You think, that you're better off, don't you?" I said I did; and he
asked me why; and I told him, that in comparison to
those children's world, mine
was infinitely more varied and rich in experiences and in opportunities
for personal satisfaction
and development. Don Juan's laughter was friendly and genuine. He said,
that I was not careful, with what I was
saying, that I had no way of knowing about the richness and the
opportunities in the world of those
children. I thought don Juan was being stubborn. I really thought, he
was taking the opposite view just to
annoy me. I sincerely believed, that those children did not have the
slightest chance for any
intellectual growth. I argued my point for a while longer and then don
Juan asked me bluntly:
"Didn't you once tell me,
that in your opinion, man's greatest accomplishment was to become a Man
of Knowledge?"
28-29
I had said that, and I repeated again, that in my opinion to become a
man of knowledge was one of
the greatest intellectual accomplishments.
"Do you think, that your very rich world would ever help you to become
a
man of knowledge?" don Juan
asked with slight sarcasm. I did not answer and he then worded the same
question in a different
manner, a thing I always do to
him, when I think, he does not understand. "In other words," he said,
smiling broadly, obviously aware, that I was
cognizant (conscious,
aware) of
his ploy,
"can
your freedom and opportunities help you to become a man of knowledge?"
"No!" I said emphatically (positive, striking, definite).
"Then how could you feel sorry for those children?" he said seriously.
"Any of them could become a
man of knowledge. All the men of knowledge, I know, were kids like
those,
you saw, eating leftovers and
licking the tables." Don Juan's argument gave me an uncomfortable
sensation. I had not felt
sorry for those
underprivileged children, because they did not have enough to eat, but
because in my terms their
world had already condemned them to be intellectually inadequate. And
yet, in don Juan's terms, any
of them could achieve, what I believed to be the epitome of man's
intellectual accomplishment, the
goal of becoming a Man of Knowledge.
My reason, for pitying them, was
incongruous (not
appropriate). Don Juan had
nailed me neatly.
"Perhaps you're right," I said. "But how can one avoid the desire, the
genuine desire, to help our
fellow men?"
"How do you think one can help them?"
"By alleviating their burden. The least one can do for our fellow men
is to try to change them. You
yourself are involved in doing that. Aren't you?"
"No. I'm not. I don't know, what to change or why to change anything in
my fellow men."
"What about me, don Juan? Weren't you teaching me, so I could change?"
"No. I'm not trying to change you. It may happen, that one day you may
become a Man of Knowledge—there's no way to know
that—but that will not
change you.
Some day perhaps you'll be able
to see men in another mode and then you'll realize, that there's no way
to change anything about
them."
"What's this other mode of Seeing men, don
Juan?"
"Men look different, when you See. The little smoke will help you to
See
men, as fibers of (Sunlight) light"
"Fibers of light?"
"Yes. Fibers, like white cobwebs. Very fine threads, that circulate
from
the head to the navel. Thus
a man looks like an egg of circulating fibers. And his arms and legs
are like luminous bristles (short, stiff hair),
bursting out in all directions."
"Is that the way everyone looks?"
"Everyone. Besides, every man is in touch with everything else, not
through his hands, though, but
through a bunch of long fibers, that shoot out from the center of his
abdomen. Those fibers join a
man to his surroundings; they keep his balance; they give him
stability. So, as you may See some day, a man is a Luminous
Egg,
whether he's a beggar or a king, and there's no way to change
anything; or rather, what could be
changed in that luminous egg? What?"
30-31
My visit to don Juan started a new cycle. I had no
trouble, falling back
again into my old pattern
of enjoying his sense of drama and his humor and his patience with me.
I definitely felt, that I had
to visit him more often. Not to see don Juan was indeed a great loss
for me; besides, I had
something of particular interest, that
I wanted to discuss with him.
After I had finished the book about his teachings, I began to reexamine
the field notes, I had not
used. I had discarded a great deal of data, because my emphasis had
been
on the states of
nonordinary reality. Rehashing my old notes, I had come to the
conclusion, that a skillful sorcerer
could bring forth the most specialized range of perception in his
apprentice by simply
"manipulating social cues." My whole argument about the nature of these
manipulatory procedures
rested on the assumption (logic), that a leader was needed to bring
forth the
necessary range of perception.
I took, as a specific test case, the sorcerer's peyote meetings. I
contended (fight,
debate),
that in
those meetings
sorcerers reached an agreement about the nature of reality, without any
overt exchange of words or
signs, and my conclusion was, that a very sophisticated code was
employed by the participants, to
arrive at such an agreement. I had constructed a complex system to
explain the code and procedures,
so I went back to see don Juan, to ask his personal opinion and advice
about my work.
May 21,
1968
Nothing out of the ordinary happened during my trip to see don Juan.
The temperature in the desert
was over a hundred degrees and was quite uncomfortable.
The heat
subsided in the late afternoon and,
by the time I arrived at his house, in the early evening, there was a
cool breeze. I was not very
tired, so we sat in his room and talked, I felt comfortable and
relaxed, and we talked for hours.
It was not a conversation, that I would have liked to record; I was not
really trying to make great sense or trying to draw great meaning; we
talked about the
weather, the crops, his grandson, the Yaqui Indians, the Mexican
government. I told don Juan how
much I enjoyed the exquisite sensation, of talking in the dark. He
said,
that my statement was
consistent with my talkative nature; that it was easy for me to like
chattering in the darkness,
because talking was the only thing, I could do at that time, while
sitting around. I argued, that it
was more, than the mere act of talking, that I enjoyed. I said, that I
relished the soothing warmth of
the darkness around us. He asked me, what I did at home, when it was
dark. I said, that invariably I
would turn on the lights or I would go out into the lighted streets,
until it was time to go to
sleep.
"Oh!"
he said incredulously. "I thought you had learned to use the
darkness."
"What
can you use it for?" I asked. He said the darkness—and he
called it
"The darkness of the day"—was the
best time to "See." He
stressed the word "See" with a peculiar inflection. I wanted to know,
what he meant by that, but he
said, it was too late to go into it then.
May 22,1968
As soon, as I woke up in the morning, and without any preliminaries, I
told don Juan, that I had
constructed a system to explain, what took place at a peyote meeting, a
mitote, I took my notes and
read to him, what I had done. He listened patiently, while I struggled
to
elucidate my schemata. I said, that I believed a covert leader was
necessary, in order to cue the participants, so they could
arrive at any pertinent agreement. I pointed out, that people attend a
mitote to seek the presence
of Mescalito and his lessons about the right way to live; and that
those persons never exchange a
word or a gesture among them.
32-33
Yet they agree about the presence of
Mescalito and his specific
lesson. At least, that was what they purportedly (obviously) did in the
mitotes, I
had attended;
they agreed, that
Mescalito had appeared to them individually and had given them a
lesson. In my personal experience
I had found, that the form of the individual visit of Mescalito and his
consequent lesson were
strikingly homogeneous, although varying in content from person to
person. I could not explain this
homogeneity, except as a result of a subtle and complex system of
cueing. It took me close to two hours to read and explain to don Juan
the scheme, I had constructed. I ended
my talk, by begging him to tell me, in his own words, what were the
exact
procedures for reaching
agreement. When I had finished, he frowned. I thought, he must have
found
my explanation challenging; he
appeared to
be involved in deep deliberation. After a
reasonable silence I asked him, what he thought about my
idea.
My question made him suddenly turn his frown into a smile and
then into roaring laughter. I tried
to laugh too and asked nervously, what was so funny.
"You're deranged (disturbed)!" he exclaimed. "Why should anyone be
bothered with
cueing at such an important
time as a mitote? Do you think one ever fools around with Mescalito?" I
thought for a moment, that he was being evasive (foggy); he was not
really
answering my question. "Why should anyone cue?" don Juan asked
stubbornly. "You have been in
mitotes. You should know, that
noone told you how to feel, or what to do, noone except Mescalito
himself." I insisted, that such an explanation was not possible and
begged him
again to tell me, how the
agreement was reached. "I know why you have come," don Juan said in a
mysterious tone. "I
can't help you in your endeavor,
because there is no system of cueing."
"But how can all those persons agree about Mescalito's presence?"
''They agree, because they See" don Juan said dramatically, and then
added casually, "Why don't you
attend another mitote and see for yourself?"
I felt, that was a trap. I did not say anything, but put my notes away.
He did not insist. A while later he asked me to drive him to the house
of one of his friends.
We spent most of the day
there. During the course of a conversation his friend John asked me,
what had become of my interest in
peyote. John had provided the peyote buttons for my first experience
nearly eight years before. I
did not know, what to say to him. Don Juan came to my aid and told
John,
I was doing fine.
On our way back to don Juan's house I felt obliged to make a comment
about John's question and I
said, among other things, that I had no intention of learning any more
about peyote, because it
required a kind of courage, I did not have; and that I had really meant
it, when I said, I had quit.
Don Juan smiled and did not say anything. I kept on talking, until we
got to the house. We sat on the clean area in front of the door. It was
a warm, clear day, but there was enough of a
breeze in the late afternoon to make it pleasant. "Why do you have to
push so hard?" don Juan said suddenly. "How many
years now have you been saying,
that you don't want to learn any more?"
"Three."
"Why are you so vehement (strong with emotion) about it?"
"I feel, that I'm betraying you, don Juan. I think, that's why I'm
always
talking about it."
"You're not betraying me."
"I have failed you. I have run away. I feel, I am defeated."
"You do, what you can. Besides, you haven't been defeated yet. What I
have to teach you is very
hard. I, for instance, found it perhaps even harder, than you."
"But you kept at it, don Juan. My case is different. I gave up and I
have come to see you, not
because I want to learn, but only because I wanted to ask you to
clarify a point in my work."
Don Juan looked at me for a moment and then he looked away.
34-35
"You ought to let the smoke guide you again," he said forcefully.
"No, don Juan, I can't use your smoke any more. I think, I have
exhausted myself."
"You haven't begun."
"I am too afraid."
"So you're afraid. There is nothing new about being afraid. Don't think
about your fear. Think
about the wonders of !"
"I sincerely wish I could think about those wonders, but I can't. When
I think of your smoke, I feel
a sort of darkness coming upon me. It is, as if there were no more
people on the Earth, noone to
turn to. Your smoke has shown me the ultimate of loneliness, don Juan."
"That's not true. Take me, for example. The smoke is my ally and I
don't feel such a
loneliness."
"But you're different; you've conquered your fear."
Don Juan patted me gently on the shoulder. "You're not afraid," he said
softly. His voice carried a strange
accusation.
"Am I lying about my fear, don Juan?"
"I'm not concerned with lies," he said severely. "I'm concerned with
something else. The reason, you
don't want to learn, is not because you're afraid. It's something
else." I vehemently (strong with
emotion)
urged him to tell me, what it was. I pleaded with him, but
he did not say anything; he
just shook his head, as if he could not believe, I did not know it. I
told him, that perhaps it was inertia, which kept me from learning. He
wanted to know the meaning
of the word "inertia." I read to him from my dictionary: "The tendency
of matter to remain at rest,
if at rest, or, if moving, to keep moving in the same direction, unless
affected by some outside
force."
"'Unless affected by some outside force,'" he repeated. "That's about
the best word you've found.
I've told you already, only a crackpot would undertake the task of
becoming a man of knowledge of
his own accord, a sober-headed man has to be tricked into doing it."
"I'm sure, there must be scores of people, who would gladly undertake
the
task," I said.
"Yes, but those don't count. They are usually cracked. They are like
gourds, that look fine from the
outside and yet they would leak, the minute you put pressure on them,
the minute you filled them
with water. I had to trick you into learning once, the same way my
benefactor
tricked me. Otherwise you
wouldn't have learned as much, as you did. Perhaps it's time to trick
you again." The tricking, to which he was referring, was one of the
most crucial
points of my apprenticeship. It
had taken place years before, yet in my mind it was as vivid, as if it
had just happened. Through
very artful manipulations don Juan had once forced me into a direct and
terrifying confrontation
with a woman, reputed to be a sorceress. The clash resulted in a
profound animosity (active hostility) on her part. Don Juan
exploited my fear of the woman, as
motivation to continue with the apprenticeship, claiming, that I had to
learn more about sorcery, in
order to protect myself against her magical onslaughts. The end results
of his "tricking" were so
convincing, that I sincerely felt, I had no other recourse, than to
learn
as much, as possible, if I
wanted to stay alive.
"If you're planning to scare me again with that woman, I simply won't
come back any more," I
said.
Don Juan's laughter was very joyous. "Don't worry," he said
reassuringly. "Tricks with fear won't work with
you any more. You're no
longer afraid. But if it is needed, you can be tricked wherever you
are; you don't have to be
around here for that." He put his arms behind his head and lay down to
sleep. I worked on my
notes, until he woke up a
couple of hours later; it was almost dark then. Noticing, that I was
writing, he sat up straight
and, smiling, asked me, if I had written myself out of my problem.
May 23,1968 - We were talking about Oaxaca. I told don Juan, that once
I had arrived
in the city on a day, when the
market was open.
36-37
A day
when scores of Indians from all over the area
flock to town to sell food and
all kinds of trinkets. I mentioned, that I was particularly interested
in a man, who was selling
medicinal plants. He
carried a wooden kit, in which he kept a number of small jars with dry,
shredded plants, and he
stood in the middle of the street, holding one jar, yelling a very
peculiar singsong: "I bring here," he would say, "for fleas, flies,
mosquitoes, and lice. Also for pigs, horses, goats, and cows.
"I have here for all the maladies of man. The mumps, the
measles, rheumatism, and gout. I bring here for the
heart, the liver, the stomach,
and the loin.
"Come near, ladies and gentlemen. I bring here for fleas, flies,
mosquitoes, and lice."
I had listened to him for a long time. His format consisted of
enumerating a long list of man's
diseases, for which he claimed to have a cure; the device, he used to
give rhythm to his singsong, was
to pause after naming a
set of four. Don
Juan said,
that he also used to sell herbs in the market in Oaxaca,
when he was young.
He
said, he
still remembered his selling pitch and he yelled it for me. He said,
that he and his friend Vicente
used to make concoctions. "Those concoctions were really good," don
Juan said. "My friend Vicente
used to make great extracts
of plants." I told don Juan, that once during one of my trips to
Mexico, I had met
his friend Vicente. Don Juan
seemed to be surprised and wanted to know more about it. I was driving
through Durango at that time and remembered, that don Juan
had once told me, I should
pay a visit to his friend, who lived there. I looked for him and found
him, and talked to him for a
while. Before I left, he gave me a sack with some plants and a series
of
instructions for replanting
one of them. I stopped on my way to the town of Aguas Calientes. I made
sure, there
were no people around. For at
least ten minutes I had been watching the road and surrounding areas.
There had not been any houses
in sight, nor cattle grazing alongside the road. I stopped on the top
of a small hill; from there I
could see the road ahead and behind me. It was deserted in both
directions as far into the distance,
as I could see. I waited for a few minutes to orient myself and to
remember don Vicente's
instructions. I took one of the plants, walked into a field of cacti on
the east side of the road,
and planted it, as don Vicente had instructed me. I had with me a
bottle
of mineral water, with which
I intended to sprinkle the plant. I tried to open it by hitting the cap
with the small iron bar, I
had used as a digging stick, but the bottle exploded and a glass sliver
(splinter)
nicked (cut) my upper lip and
made it bleed. I walked back to my car to get another bottle of mineral
water. As I
was getting it out of my trunk,
a man, driving a VW station wagon, stopped and asked me, if I needed
help.
I said, that everything was
all right and he drove away. I returned to water the plant and then I
started back toward my car.
When I was perhaps a hundred feet away, I heard some voices. I hurried
down a slope onto the highway
and found three Mexicans at the car, two men and one woman. One of the
men was sitting on the front
bumper. He was perhaps in his late thirties, of medium height, with
black curly hair. He was
carrying a bundle on his back and was wearing old slacks and a worn-out
pinkish shirt. His shoes
were untied and perhaps too big for his feet; they seemed to be loose
and uncomfortable. He was
sweating profusely. The other man was standing about twenty feet away
from the car. He was
small-boned and shorter, than
the other man, and his hair was straight and combed backwards. He
carried a smaller bundle and was
older, perhaps in his late forties. His clothes were in better
condition. He had on a dark blue
jacket, light blue slacks, and black shoes. He was not perspiring at
all and seemed aloof,
uninterested. The woman appeared to be also in her forties. She was fat
and had a
very dark complexion. She wore
black Capris, a white sweater, and black, pointed shoes. She did not
carry a bundle, but was
holding a portable transistor radio. She seemed to be very tired and
her face was covered with
beads of perspiration. When I approached them the younger man and the
woman accosted (approach and boldly speak) me. They
wanted a ride. I told them I
did not have any space in my car. I showed them, that the back seat was
loaded to capacity and there
was really no room left.
38-39
The
man suggested, that if I drove slow, they
could go, perched on the back
bumper, or lying across the front fender (car wing, mudguard). I
thought the idea was
preposterous (foolish,
absurd).
Yet there was such
an urgency in their plea, that I felt very sad and ill at ease. I gave
them some money for their bus
fare.
The younger man took the bills and thanked me, but the older man
turned
his back disdainfully (dispise, contempt). "I want transportation," he
said. "I'm not interested in money." Then he turned to me. "Can't you
give us some food or water?" he asked.
I really had nothing to give them. They stood there looking at me for a
moment and then they began
to walk away. I got into my car and tried to start the motor. The heat
was very
intense and the motor seemed to
be flooded. The younger man stopped, when he heard the starter grinding
and came
back and stood behind my car,
ready to push it. I felt a tremendous apprehension. I was actually
panting desperately. The motor
finally ignited and I zoomed away. After I had finished relating this,
don Juan remained pensive (deeply thoughtful) for a
long while.
"Why haven't you told me this before?" he said without looking at me. I
did not know what to say. I shrugged my shoulders and told him, that I
never thought, it was
important. "It's damn important!" he said. "Vicente is a first-rate
sorcerer. He
gave you something to plant,
because he had his reasons; and if you encountered three people, who
seemed to have popped out of
nowhere right after you had planted it, there was a reason for that
too; but only a fool, like you,
would disregard the incident and think, it wasn't important." He wanted
to know exactly, what had taken place, when I paid don Vicente
the visit. I told him, that I was driving across town and passed by the
market; I
got the idea then of looking
for don Vicente.

I walked into the market and went to the section for
medicinal herbs. There were
three stands in a row, but they were run by three fat women. I walked
to
the end of the aisle and
found another stand around the corner. There I saw a thin, small-boned,
white-haired man. He was at that
moment selling a birdcage to a
woman.
I waited around, until he was by himself and then I asked him, if he
knew
Vicente Medrano. He looked
at me without answering.
"What do you want with that Vicente Medrano?" he finally said. I told
him, I had come to pay him a visit on behalf of his friend, and
gave him don Juan's name.
The
old man looked at me for an instant and then he said, he was Vicente
Medrano and was at my service.
He asked me to sit down. He seemed to be pleased, very relaxed, and
genuinely friendly. I told him
about my friendship with don Juan, I felt, that there was an immediate
bond of sympathy between us.
He told me, he had known don Juan since they were in their twenties.
Don
Vicente had only words of
praise for don Juan. Toward the end of our conversation he said in a
vibrant tone: "Juan is a true Man of Knowledge. I, myself, have dwelled
only briefly with plant powers.
I was always interested in
their curative properties; I have even collected botany books, which I
sold only recently." He remained silent for a moment; he rubbed his
chin a couple of times.
He seemed to be searching
for a proper word.
"You may say, that I am only a man of lyric knowledge," he said. "I'm
not like Juan, my Indian
brother." Don Vicente was silent again for another moment. His eyes
were glassy
and were staring at the floor
by my left side. Then he turned to me and said almost in a whisper,
"Oh, how high soars
my Indian brother!" Don Vicente got up. It seemed, that our
conversation was finished. If
anyone else had made a statement about an Indian brother, I would
have taken it for a cheap
cliche. Don Vicente's tone, however, was so sincere and his eyes were
so clear, that he enraptured
me with the image of his Indian brother, soaring so high. And I
believed,
he meant, what he had
said.
"Lyric knowledge, my eye!" don Juan exclaimed, after I had recounted
the
whole story. "Vicente is a
brujo. Why did you go to see him?"
40-41
I reminded him, that he himself had asked me to visit don Vicente,
"That's absurd!" he exclaimed
dramatically. "I said to you, some day, when you know how to See, you
should pay a visit to my
friend Vicente; that's what I said. Apparently, you were not
listening." I argued, that I could find no harm in having met don
Vicente, that
I
was charmed by his manners and
his kindness. Don Juan shook his head from side to side and in a
half-kidding tone
expressed his bewilderment, at
what he called my "baffling good luck". He said, that my visiting don
Vicente was like walking into
a lion's den, armed with a twig. Don Juan seemed to be agitated, yet I
could not see any reason for
his concern. Don Vicente was a beautiful man. He seemed so frail; his
strangely haunting eyes made
him look almost ethereal. I asked don Juan, how a beautiful person,
like
that, could be dangerous. "You're a damn fool," he said and looked
stern for a moment "He won't
cause you any harm by
himself. But knowledge is power, and once a man embarks (set out on a
venture) on the road of
knowledge, he's no longer
liable for what may happen to those, who come in contact with him. You
should have paid him a visit,
when you knew enough to defend yourself; not from him, but from the
power, he has harnessed,
which, by the way, is not his
or anybody else's. Upon hearing, that you were my friend, Vicente
assumed, that you knew how to
protect yourself and then made you a gift.
He apparently liked you and
must have made you a great
gift, and you chucked it. What a pity!"
May
24,1968
I had been pestering don Juan all day to tell me about don Vicente's
gift. I had pointed out to him
in various ways, that he had to consider our differences; I said, that
what was self-explanatory for
him, might be totally incomprehensible for me. "How many plants did he
give you?" he finally asked, I said four, but I
actually could not
remember. Then don Juan wanted to know exactly, what had taken place,
after I left don Vicente and
before I stopped on the side of the road. But I could not remember
either. "The number of plants is important and so is the order of
events," he
said. "How can I tell you,
what his gift was, if you don't remember, what happened?" I struggled
unsuccessfully to visualize the sequence of events. "If you would
remember everything that happened," he said, "I could at
least tell you how you
chucked your gift." Don Juan seemed to be very disturbed. He urged me
impatiently to
recollect, but my memory was
almost a total blank.
"What do you think, I did wrong, don Juan?" I said, just to continue
the
conversation.
"Everything."
"But I followed don Vicente's instructions to the letter."
"So what? Don't you understand, that to follow his instructions was
meaningless?"
"Why?"
"Because those instructions were designed for someone, who could See,
not for an idiot, who got out
with his life just by sheer luck. You went to see Vicente without
preparation. He liked you and
gave you a gift. And that gift could easily have cost you your life."
"But why did he give me something so serious? If he's a sorcerer, he
should've known, that I don't
know anything."
"No, he couldn't have Seen that. You look, as though you know, but you
don't know much really."
I said, I was sincerely convinced, that I had never misrepresented
myself, at least not
deliberately.
"I didn't mean that," he said. "If you were putting on airs, Vicente
could've Seen through you. This
is something worse, than putting on airs. When I See you, you look to
me,
as if you know a great
deal, and yet I myself know, that you don't."
"What do I seem to know, don Juan?"
"Secrets of power, of course; a brujo's knowledge. So when Vicente Saw
you, he made you a gift and
you acted toward it, the way a dog acts toward food when his belly is
full. A dog pisses on food,
when he doesn't want to eat any more, so other dogs won't eat it.
42-43
You
did that on the gift. Now
we'll never know, what really took place. You have lost a great deal.
What a waste!" He was quiet for some time; then he shrugged his
shoulders and smiled. "It's useless to complain," he said, "and yet
it's so difficult not to.
Gifts of power happen so
rarely in one's life; they are unique and precious. Take me,
for
instance; nobody has ever made me
such a gift. There are few people, to my knowledge, who ever had one.
To waste something, so unique,
is a shame."
"I see, what you mean, don Juan," I said. "Is there anything, I can do
now to salvage (save)
the gift?"
He laughed and repeated several times, "To salvage (save) the gift."
"That sounds nice," he said. "I like that. Yet, there isn't anything,
one
can do to salvage your
gift."
May
25,1968
Don Juan spent nearly all his time today, showing me how to assemble
trapping devices for small
animals. We had been cutting and cleaning branches nearly all morning.
There
were many questions in my mind.
I had to talk to him, while we worked, but he had made a joke and said,
that of the two of us, only I
could move my hands and my mouth at the same time. We finally sat down
to rest and I blurted out a
question. "What's it like to See, don Juan?"
"You have to learn to See, in order to know that. I can't tell you."
"Is it a secret I shouldn't know?"
"No. It's just that I can't describe it."
"Why?"
"It wouldn't make sense to you."
"Try me, don Juan. Maybe it'll make sense to me."
"No. You must do it yourself. Once you learn, you can See every single
thing in the world in a
different way."
"Then, don Juan, you don't see the world in the usual way any more."
"I see both ways. When I want to look at the world, I see it, the way
you
do. Then when I want to See
it, I look at it, the way I know and I perceive it in a different way."
"Do things
look consistently the same every time you see them?"
"Things don't change. You change your way of looking, that's all".
"I mean, don Juan, that if you see, for instance, the same tree, does
it remain the same, every time
you see it?"
"No. It changes and yet it's the same."
"But if the same tree changes, every time you see it, your Seeing may be
a mere illusion."
He laughed and did not answer for some time, but seemed to be thinking.
Finally he said: "Whenever
you look at things, you don't See them. You just look at them,
I
suppose, to make sure, that
something is there. Since you're not concerned with Seeing, things look
very much the same, every
time you look at them. When you learn to See, on the other hand, a
thing is never the same every
time you See it, and yet it is the same. I told you,
for instance, that a human is like an egg. Every time I See
the same human, I See an egg, yet it is not the same
egg."
"But you won't be able to recognize anything, since nothing
is the same; so what's the advantage of learning to See?"
"You can tell things apart. You can see them, for what they
really are."
"Don't I see things, as they really are?"
"No. Your eyes have learned only to look. Take, for example,
the three people you encountered, the three Mexicans. You have
described them in detail, and even
told me what clothes they wore. And that only proved to me, that you
didn't See them at all. If you
were capable of Seeing,
you would have known on the spot, that they
were not
people."
"They were not people? What were they?"
"They were not people, that's all."
"But that's impossible. They were just like you and
me."
"No, they were not. I'm sure of it." I asked him, if they
were ghosts, spirits, or the souls of dead people. His reply was, that
he did not know what ghosts,
spirits, and souls were. I translated for him the Webster's New World
Dictionary definition
of the word 'ghosts'.
44-45
"The supposed disembodied spirit of a dead person, conceived (think,
consider, formulated, become posessed)
of, as appearing to the living, as
a pale, shadowy apparition." And then the definition of spirit:
"A
supernatural being, especially
one thought of... as a ghost, or as inhabiting a certain region, being
of a certain (good or evil)
character."
He said, they could perhaps be called spirits, although the definition,
I
had read, was not quite
adequate to describe them.
"Are they guardians of some sort?" I asked.
"No. They don't guard anything."
"Are they overseers? Are they watching over
us?"
"They are forces, neither good, nor bad, just forces, that a
brujo (a Man of Knowledge) learns to harness."
"Are they the allies, don Juan?"
"Yes, they are the allies of a Man of Knowledge."
This was the first time in eight years of our association,
that don Juan had come close to defining an "ally." I must have asked
him to do so dozens of
times.
He usually disregarded my question, saying, that I knew, what an
ally was and, that it
was stupid to voice, what I already knew. Don Juan's direct statement,
about the nature of an ally,
was a novelty and I was compelled (forced) to probe
him. "You told me the allies were in the plants," I said, "in the
jimson
weed and in the mushrooms."
"I've never told you that," he said with great conviction. "You always
jump to your own
conclusions."
"But I wrote it down in my notes, don Juan."
"You may write, whatever you want, but don't tell me I said that." I
reminded him, that he had at first told me his benefactor's ally was
the jimson weed and his own
ally was the little smoke; and that he had later clarified it by
saying, that the ally was
contained in each plant. "No. That's not correct," he said, frowning.
"My ally is the little
smoke, but that doesn't mean,
that my ally is in the smoking mixture, or in the mushrooms, or in my
pipe. They all have to be put
together, to get me to the ally, and that ally I call little smoke for
reasons of my own."
Don Juan said, that the three people, I had seen, whom he
called "those who are not people"—los que no son
gente—were in reality
don Vicente's allies.
I
reminded him, that he had established, that the difference, between an
ally and Mescalito, was that an
ally could not be seen, while one could easily see Mescalito. We
involved ourselves in a long discussion then. He
said, that he had established the idea, that an ally could not be seen,
because an ally adopted any
form. When
I pointed out, that he had once also said, that
Mescalito adopted any form,
don Juan dropped the whole conversation, saying that the "Seeing", to
which he was referring, was not
like ordinary "looking at things" and, that my confusion stemmed from
my
insistence on talking.
Hours later don Juan himself started back again on the topic of the
allies. I had felt, he was
somehow annoyed by my questions, so I had not pressed him any further.
He was showing me then, how to
make a trap for rabbits; I had to hold a long stick and bend it as far,
as possible, so he could tie
a string around the ends. The stick was fairly thin, but still demanded
considerable strength to
bend. My head and arms were shivering with the exertion (exercise, put into
vigorous action) and I was
nearly exhausted, when he finally
tied the string. We sat down and began to talk. He said, it was obvious
to him, that I could not comprehend anything,
unless I talked about it, and
that he did not mind my questions and was going to tell me about the
allies. "The ally is not in the smoke," he said. "The smoke takes
you to, where the ally is, and, when you become one with the ally, you
don't ever have to smoke again.
From then on, you can summon your ally at will and make him do anything
you want. The allies are neither good nor evil, but are put to use by
the sorcerers, for whatever purpose they see fit. I
like the
little smoke as an ally,
because it doesn't demand much of me. It's constant and fair."
"How does an ally look to you, don Juan? Those three people
I saw, for instance, who looked like ordinary people to me; how would
they look to
you?"
46-47 - (about Allies)
"They would look like ordinary people."
"Then
how can you tell them apart from real
people?"
"Real
people look like luminous eggs, when you See them.
Non-people always look like people. That's what I meant, when I said,
you
cannot See an ally. The
allies take different forms. They look like dogs, coyotes, birds, even
tumbleweeds, or anything
else. The only difference is, that when you See them, they look just
like what they're pretending
to be. Everything has its own way of being, when you See. Just like men
look like eggs, other
things look like something else, but the allies can be seen only in the
form they are portraying.
That form is good enough to fool the eyes, our eyes, that is. A dog is
never fooled, neither is a
crow."
"Why
would they want to fool us?"
"I
think, we are all clowns. We fool ourselves. The allies
just take the outward appearance of whatever is around, and then we
take
them, for what they are not.
It is not their fault, that we have taught our eyes only to look at
things."
"I'm not clear about their function, don Juan. What do
allies do in the world?"
"This is like asking me, what we men do in the world. I
really don't know. We are here, that's all. And the allies are here
like us; and maybe they have
been here before us."
"What do you mean before us, don Juan?"
"We, men, have not always been here."
"Do you mean here in this country or here in the
world?"
We involved ourselves in another long argument at this
point. Don Juan said, that for him there was only the world, the place,
where he put his feet. I
asked him, how he knew, that we had not always been in the world. "Very
simple," he said. "We, men, know very little about the
world. A coyote knows much more, than we do.
A coyote is hardly ever fooled by the world's
appearance."
"How come we can catch them and kill them?" I asked. "If
they are not fooled by appearances, how come they die so easily?"
Don Juan stared at me, until I became
embarrassed.
"We may trap or poison or shoot a coyote," he said. "Any way
we do it, a coyote is an easy prey for us, because he is not familiar
with man's
machinations. If the coyote survived, however, you could rest assured,
that we'd never catch up with him again. A good hunter knows that
and never sets his trap twice on the same spot, because if a coyote
dies in a trap, every coyote can see his
death, which lingers on, and thus they will avoid the trap or even the
general area, where it was set.
We, on the
other hand, never see death, which lingers on the spot, where one of
our
fellow men has died; we may suspect it, but
we never see it."

"Can a coyote see an ally?"
"Certainly."
"How
does an ally look to a coyote?"
"I
would have to be a coyote, to know that. I can tell you,
however, that to a crow, it looks like a pointed hat. Round
and
wide at the bottom, ending in a long point. Some of them
shine, but the majority are dull and appear to be very
heavy. They resemble a dripping piece of cloth. They are foreboding
(premonition, apprehension, evil omen, portent)
shapes."
"How
do they look to you, when you See them, don
Juan?"
"I've
told you already; they look like, whatever they're
pretending to be. They take any shape or size, that
suits them.
They could be shaped like a pebble or a
mountain."
"Do
they talk, or laugh, or make any
noise?"
"In
the company of men, they behave like men. In the company
of animals, they behave like animals. Animals are
usually afraid of them; however, if they are accustomed to Seeing the Allies,
they leave them
alone. We ourselves do something similar. We have
scores of Allies among us, but we don't bother them. Since our eyes
can only look at things, we don't notice them."
"Do
you mean, that some of the people, I see in the street, are
not really people?" I asked, truly bewildered by his
statement.
"Some
of them are not," he said emphatically (positive,
striking, definite). His
statement
seemed preposterous (foolish,
absurd) to me, yet I
could not seriously conceive (think,
consider, formulated, become posessed) of don
Juan's making such a remark
purely for effect. I told him, it sounded like a science-fiction tale
about Beings from another
planet. He said, he did not care how it sounded, but some people in the
streets were not
people. "Why must you think, that every person in a moving crowd is
a Human Being?" he asked with an air of utmost seriousness.
48-49
I really could not explain why, except, that I was
habituated to believe, that as an act of sheer faith on my part.
He
went on to say, how much he liked to watch busy places
with a lot of people, and how he would sometimes see a crowd of men,
who looked like eggs, and
among the mass of egg-like creatures, he would spot one, who looked
just like a
person (an ally). "It's very enjoyable to do that," he said, laughing,
"or at
least it's enjoyable for me. I like to
sit in parks and bus depots and
watch. Sometimes I can spot
an ally right away; at other times I can see only real people. Once I
saw two allies, sitting in a
bus, side by side. That's the only time in my life I have seen two
together."
"Did
it have a special significance for you to see two of
them?"
"Certainly.
Anything they do is significant. From their
actions a brujo (Seer) can sometimes draw his power. Even if a brujo (Seer) does not
have an ally of his own, as
long, as he
knows how
to See, he can handle power by watching
the acts of the allies. My benefactor taught me to do
that, and for years, before I had my own
ally,
I watched for
allies among crowds of people and every time I saw
one, it taught me something. You found three together. What
a magnificent lesson you wasted."
He did not say anything else, until we finished assembling the rabbit
trap. Then he turned to me and
said suddenly, as if he had just remembered it, that
another
important thing, about the allies, was that, if one found two of
them, they were always two of the same kind. The two allies, he saw,
were
two men, he said; and since
I had seen two men and one woman, he concluded, that
my experience was even more unusual. I asked, if the allies portray
children; if the children could be of the
same or of different sex;
if the allies portrayed people of different races; if they could
portray a family composed of a
man, a woman, and a child; and finally, I asked him, if he had ever
Seen
an ally, driving a car or a
bus. Don Juan did not answer at all. He smiled and let me do the
talking. When he heard my last
question, he burst out laughing and said, that I was being careless
with
my questions, that it would have been more appropriate to ask,
if he had ever seen an
ally driving a motor
vehicle. "You don't want to forget the motorcycles, do you?" he said
with a
mischievous glint in his eye. I
thought, his making fun of my question, was funny and lighthearted and
I
laughed with him.
Then he explained, that the allies could not take the
lead or act upon anything directly; they could, however, act
upon
man in an indirect way. Don Juan said, that coming in contact
with an ally was dangerous, because the ally was
capable of bringing out the worst in a person.
The
apprenticeship was
long and arduous, he said,
because one had to reduce to a minimum all, that was
unnecessary in one's life, in order to withstand the impact of such
an encounter. Don Juan said, that his benefactor, when he
first
came in
contact with an ally, was driven to burn himself and
was scarred, as if a mountain lion had mauled him. In his own case, he
said, an ally pushed him into
a pile of burning wood, and he burned himself a
little on the knee and shoulder blade, but the scars disappeared in
time, when he became one with the ally.
50-51
On June 10, 1968, I started on a long journey with don Juan to
participate in a mitote. I had been
waiting for this opportunity for months, yet I was not really sure,
I
wanted to go. I thought my
hesitation was due to my fear, that at a peyote meeting I would have to
ingest peyote, and I had no
intention whatsoever of doing that.
I had repeatedly expressed those
feelings to don Juan. He
laughed patiently at first, but finally he firmly stated, that he did
not want to hear one more
thing about my fear. As far, as I was concerned, a mitote was ideal
ground for me to verify
the schemata, I had
constructed. For one thing, I had never completely abandoned the idea,
that a covert leader was
necessary at such a meeting, in order to insure agreement among the
participants. Somehow I had the
feeling, that don Juan had discarded my idea for reasons of his own,
since he deemed it more
efficacious to explain everything, that took place at a mitote in terms
of "Seeing". I thought,
that
my interest, in finding a suitable explanation in my own terms, was not
in accordance with, what he,
himself, wanted me to do; therefore he had to discard my rationale, as
he was accustomed to doing
with whatever did not conform to his system. Right before we started on
the journey, don Juan eased my apprehension,
about having to ingest peyote,
by telling me, that I was attending the meeting only to watch. I felt
elated. At that time I was
almost certain, I was going to discover the covert procedure, by which
the participants arrive at an
agreement. It was late afternoon, when we left; the Sun was almost on
the horizon;
I felt it on my neck and
wished I had a Venetian blind in the rear window of my car. From the
top of a hill I could see down
into a huge valley; the road was like a black ribbon, laid flat over
the
ground, up and down
innumerable hills.

I followed it with my eyes for a moment, before we
began descending; it ran due
south, until it disappeared over a range of low mountains in the
distance. Don Juan sat quietly, looking straight ahead. We had not said
a word
for a long time. It was
uncomfortably warm inside the car. I had opened all the windows, but
that did not help, because it
was an extremely hot day. I felt very annoyed and restless. I began to
complain about the heat. Don Juan frowned and looked at me quizzically.
"It's hot all over Mexico this time of the year," he said. "There is
nothing one can do about
it."

I did not look at him, but I knew, he was gazing at me. The car
picked
up speed going down the
slope. I vaguely saw a highway sign, Vado—dip. When I
actually saw the
dip, I was going quite fast,
and although I did slow down, we still felt the impact and bobbed up
and down on the seats. I
reduced the speed considerably; we were going through an area, where
livestock grazed freely on the
sides of the road, an area, where the carcass of a horse or a cow, run
down by a car, was a common
sight. At a certain point I had to stop completely and let some horses
cross the highway. I was
getting more restless and annoyed. I told don Juan, that it was the
heat; I said, that I had always
disliked the heat since my childhood, because every summer I used to
feel suffocated and I could
hardly breathe.
"You're not a child now," he said.
"The heat still suffocates me."
"Well, hunger used to suffocate me, when I was a child," he said
softly.
"To be very hungry was the
only thing I knew as a child, and I used to swell up, until I could not
breathe either. But that was
when I was a child. I cannot suffocate now, neither can I swell like a
toad, when I am hungry." I didn't know what to say. I felt, I was
getting myself into an
untenable (be
defended/vindicated) position and
soon I would
have to defend a point, I really didn't care to defend. The heat was
not
that bad.
52-53
What disturbed me
was the prospect of driving for over a thousand miles to our
destination. I felt annoyed at the
thought of having to exert (exercise, put into
vigorous action) myself.
"Let's stop and get something to eat," I said. "Maybe it won't be so
hot once the sun goes
down."
Don Juan looked at me, smiling, and said, that there were not any clean
towns for a long stretch and
that he had understood my policy was not to eat from the stands on the
roadside. "Don't you fear diarrhea any more?" he asked. I knew he was
being sarcastic, yet he kept an inquisitive and, at the
same time, serious look on his
face. "The way you
act," he said, "one would think, that diarrhea is lurking
out there, waiting for you to
step out of the car to jump you. You're in a terrible fix; if you
escape the heat, diarrhea will
eventually get you." Don Juan's tone was so serious, that I began to
laugh. Then we drove in
silence for a long time.
When we arrived at a highway stop for trucks called Los
Vidrios—
Glass—it was already quite
dark. Don Juan shouted from the car, "What do you have to eat today?"
"Pork meat," a woman shouted back from inside.
"I hope for your sake, that the pig was run down on the road today,"
don
Juan said to me,
laughing. We got out of the car. The road was flanked on both sides by
ranges of
low mountains, that seemed to
be the solidified lava of some gigantic volcanic eruption. In the
darkness the black, jagged (rough,
uneven) peaks
were silhouetted against the sky like huge menacing walls of glass
slivers (splinters). While we ate
I told don Juan, that I could see the reason, why the place
was called Glass. I said,
that to me the name was obviously due to the glass-sliver (splinter) shape of the
mountains. Don Juan said in a convincing tone, that the place was
called Los
Vidrios, because a truck loaded
with glass, had overturned on that spot and the glass shreds were, left
lying, around the road for
years. I felt, he was being facetious (elegant) and asked him
to tell me, if that was the
real reason. "Why don't you ask someone here?" he said. I asked a man,
who was sitting at a table next to ours; he said
apologetically, that he didn't know.
I went into the kitchen and asked the women there, if they knew, but
they all said they didn't; that
the place was just called Glass. "I believe, I'm right," don Juan said
in a low voice. "Mexicans are not
given to noticing things
around them. I'm sure, they can't see the glass mountains, but they
surely can leave
a mountain of glass shreds,
lying around for years." We both found the image funny and laughed.
When we had finished eating, don Juan asked me how I felt. I told him
fine, but I really felt
somewhat queasy (nauseated). Don Juan gave me a steadfast look and
seemed to detect
my feeling of
discomfort. "Once you decided to come to Mexico, you should have put
all your petty
fears away," he said very
sternly. "Your decision to come should have vanquished
(conquer in battle) them. You
came, because
you wanted to come. That's the
warrior's way. I have told you time and time again, the most effective
way to live is as a warrior.
Worry and think, before you make any decision, but once you make it, be
on your way free from
worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still
awaiting you. That's the
warrior's way."
"I believe, I do that, don Juan, at least some of the time. It's very
hard to keep on reminding
myself, though."
"A warrior thinks of his death, when things become unclear."
"That's even harder, don Juan. For most people death is very vague and
remote. We never think of
it."
"Why not?"
"Why should we?"
"Very simple," he said. "Because the idea of death is the only thing,
that tempers (harden, strengthen, toughen) our spirit." By the time we
left Los Vidrios it was so dark, that the jagged (rough,
uneven)
silhouette of the mountains had
emerged into the darkness of the sky. We drove in silence for more,
than
an hour.
54-55
I felt tired. It
was, as though I didn't want to talk, because there was nothing to talk
about. The traffic was
minimal. Few cars passed by from the opposite direction.
It seemed, as
if we were the only people,
going south on the highway. I thought, that was strange, and I kept on
looking in the rear-view
mirror, to see if there were other cars coming from behind, but there
were none. After a while I stopped looking for cars and began to dwell
again on
the prospect of our trip. Then
I noticed, that my headlights seemed extremely bright in contrast with
the darkness all around, and I
looked again in the rear-view mirror. I saw a bright glare first and
then two points of light, that
seemed to have emerged from the ground. They were the headlights of a
car on a hilltop in the
distance behind us. They remained visible for a while, then they
disappeared into the darkness, as
if they had been scooped away; after a moment they appeared on another
hilltop, and then they
disappeared again. I followed their appearances and disappearances in
the mirror for a long time.
At one point it occurred to me, that the car was gaining on us. It was
definitely closing in. The lights
were bigger and brighter. I deliberately stepped on the gas
pedal. I had a sensation of
uneasiness. Don Juan seemed to notice my concern, or perhaps, he was
only noticing, that I was
speeding up. He looked at me first, then he turned around and looked at
the distant headlights. He asked me, if there was something wrong with
me. I told him, that I had
not seen any cars behind us
for hours and that suddenly, I had noticed the lights of a car, that
seemed to be gaining on us all
the time. He chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself) and asked me, if I
really thought it was a car. I told him,
that it had to be a car and
he said, that my concern revealed to him that, somehow, I must have
felt,
that, whatever was behind us,
was something more, than a mere (being nothing more, than what it
specified) car.
I insisted, that I thought, it was
just another car on the
highway, or perhaps a truck.
"What else can it be?" I said loudly. Don Juan's probing had put me on
edge. He turned and looked straight at me, then he nodded slowly, as if
measuring, what
he was going to
say.

"Those are the lights on the head of death," he said softly. "Death
puts them on like a hat and
then shoots off on a gallop. Those are the lights of death on the
gallop, gaining on us, getting
closer and closer." A chill ran up my back. After a while I looked in
the rear-view mirror
again, but the lights were
not there any more. I told don Juan, that the car must have stopped or
turned off the road.
He did not look back; he
just stretched his arms and yawned.
"No," he said. "Death never stops. Sometimes it turns off its
lights,
that's all."
We arrived in north-eastern Mexico on June 13. Two old Indian women,
who
looked alike and seemed to be
sisters, and four girls were gathered at the door of a small adobe
house. There was a hut behind
the house and a dilapidated barn, that had only part of its roof and
one wall left. The women were
apparently waiting for us; they must have spotted my car by the dust,
it
raised on the dirt road,
after I left the paved highway a couple of miles away. The house was in
a deep valley, and, viewed
from the door, the highway looked like a long scar high up on the side
of the green hills. Don Juan got out of the car and talked with the old
women for a moment. They pointed to some wooden
stools in front of the door. Don Juan signaled me to come over and sit
down. One of the old women
sat with us; the rest went inside the house. Two of the girls remained
by the door, examining me with curiosity.
I waved at them; they giggled and ran inside. After a few minutes two
young men came over and
greeted don Juan. They did not speak to me or even look at me. They
talked to don Juan briefly;
then he got up and all of us, including the women, walked to another
house, perhaps half a mile
away. We met there with another group of people. Don Juan went inside,
but told me to stay by the door.
I
looked in and saw an old Indian man around don Juan's age, sitting on a
wooden stool. It was not quite dark.
56-57
A group of young Indian men and
women were standing quietly around an old
truck, parked in front of the house. I talked to them in Spanish, but
they deliberately avoided
answering me; the women giggled, every time I said something, and the
men
smiled politely and turned
their eyes away. It was, as if they did not understand me, yet I was
sure, all of them spoke Spanish,
because I had heard them talking among themselves. After a while don
Juan and the other old man came out and got into the
truck and sat next to the
driver. That appeared to be a signal for everyone to climb onto the
flatbed of the truck. There
were no side railings, and when the truck began to move, we all hung
onto a long rope, that was tied
to some hooks on the chassis. The truck moved slowly on the dirt road.
At one point, on a very steep
slope, it stopped and
everybody jumped down and walked behind it; then two young men hopped
onto the flatbed again and
sat on the edge without using the rope. The women laughed and
encouraged them to maintain their
precarious (lacking in stability) position. Don Juan and the old man,
who was referred to as
don Silvio, walked together
and did not seem to be concerned with the young men's histrionics
(exaggerated emotional behavior). When
the road leveled off,
everybody got on the track again. We rode for about an hour. The floor
was extremely hard and
uncomfortable, so I stood up and held
onto the roof of the cab and rode that way, until we stopped in front
of
a group of shacks. There
were more people there; it was very dark by then and I could see only a
few of them in the dim,
yellowish light of a kerosene lantern, that hung by an open door. Everybody
got off the truck and mingled with the people in the houses.
Don Juan told me again to
stay outside. I leaned against the front fender (car wing, mudguard) of
the truck and, after
a minute or two, I was joined
by three young men. I had met one of them four years before at a
previous mitote. He embraced me by
grabbing my forearms. "You're fine," he whispered to me in Spanish. We
stayed very quietly by the truck. It was a warm, windy night. I
could hear the soft rumble of a
stream close by. My friend asked me in a whisper, if I had any
cigarettes. I passed a pack around.
By the glow of the cigarettes I looked at my watch. It was nine
o'clock. A group of people emerged from inside the house soon
afterwards and the
three young men walked
away. Don Juan came over to me and told me, that he had explained my
presence
to everybody's satisfaction
and, that I was welcome to come and serve water at the mitote. He said,
we would be going right
away. A group of ten women and eleven men left the house. The man,
heading the
party, was rather husky (rugged, strong); he
was perhaps in his mid-fifties. They called him "Mocho," a nickname,
which means "cropped." He
moved with brisk, firm steps. He carried a kerosene lantern and waved
it from side to side, as he
walked. At first I thought, he was moving it at random, but then I
discovered, that he waved the
lantern to mark an obstacle or a difficult pass on the road. We walked
for over an hour. The women
chatted and laughed softly from time to time. Don Juan and the other
old man were at the head of
the line; I was at the very tail end of it. I kept my eyes down on the
road, trying to see, where I
was walking. It had been four years since don Juan and I had been in
the hills at
night, and
I had lost a great
deal of physical prowess (outstanding courage, daring). I kept
stumbling and involuntarily kicking
small rocks. My knees did not
have any flexibility; the road seemed to come up at me, when I
encountered a high spot, or it
seemed to give in under me,
when I hit a low spot. I was the noisiest walker and, that made me into
an unwilling clown. Someone
in the group said, "Woo," every time I stumbled and everyone laughed.
At one point, one of the
rocks, I kicked, hit a woman's heel and she said out loud, to
everyone's
delight, "Give a candle to
that poor boy!" But the final mortification (humiliation) was, when I
tripped and had
to hold onto the person in
front of me; he nearly lost his balance with my weight on him and let
out a deliberate scream, that
was out of all proportion. Everyone laughed so hard, that the
whole
group had to stop for a
while. At a certain moment the man, who was leading, jerked his lantern
up and
down. It seemed, that was the
sign, we had arrived at our destination. There was a dark silhouette of
a low house to my right, a
short distance away.
58-59
Everyone in the group scrambled in different
directions. I looked for
don Juan. It was difficult to
find him in the darkness. I stumbled noisily for a while, before
noticing, that he was sitting on a
rock. He again told me, that my duty was to bring water for the men,
who
were
going to participate. He had
taught me the procedure years before. I remembered every detail of it,
but he insisted on refreshing
my memory and showed me again how to do it. Afterwards we walked to the
back of the house, where all the men had
gathered. They had built a
fire. There was a cleared area, covered with straw mats perhaps fifteen
feet away from the fire.
Mocho, the man, who had led us, sat on a mat first; I noticed, that the
upper edge of his left ear
was missing, which accounted for his nickname. Don Silvio sat to his
right and don Juan to his left. Mocho was sitting
facing the fire. A young
man advanced toward him and placed a flat basket with peyote buttons in
front of him; then the
young man sat down between Mocho and don Silvio. Another young man
carried two small baskets and
placed them next to the peyote buttons and then sat between Mocho and
don Juan. Then two other
young men flanked don Silvio and don Juan, closing a circle of seven
persons. The women remained
inside the house.
Two young men were in charge of keeping the fire
burning all night, and one
teenager and I kept the water, that was going to be given to the seven
participants after their
all-night ritual. The boy and I sat by a rock. The fire and the
receptacle (container) with water were opposite
each other and at an equal distance from the circle of participants.
Mocho, the headman, sang his peyote song; his eyes were closed; his
body bobbed up and down. It was
a very long song. I did not understand the language. Then all of them,
one by one, sang their
peyote songs. They did not seem to follow any preconceived (form opinion
beforehand) order.
They
apparently sang, whenever
they felt like doing it. Then Mocho held the basket with peyote
buttons, took two of them, and
placed it back again in the center of the circle; don Silvio was next
and then don Juan. The four young men, who seemed
to be a separate unit, took
two peyote buttons each, following a counter-clockwise direction. Each
of the seven participants sang and ate two peyote buttons four
consecutive times, then they
passed the other two baskets, which contained dried fruit and meat.
They repeated this cycle at various times during the night, yet I could
not detect any underlying
order to their individual movements. They did not speak to one another;
they seemed rather to be by
themselves and to themselves. I did not see any of them, not even once,
paying attention to what
the other men were doing. Before daybreak they got up and the young man
and I gave them water.
Afterwards I walked around to
orient myself. The house was a one-room shack, a low adobe construction
with a thatched roof. The
scenery, that surrounded it, was quite oppressive. The shack was
located
in a harsh plain with mixed
vegetation. Shrubs and cacti grew together, but there were no trees at
all. I did not feel like
venturing beyond the house. The women left during the morning. The men
moved silently in the area,
immediately surrounding the
house. Around midday all of us sat down again in the same order, we had
sat the
night before. A basket with
pieces of dried meat, cut to the same size as a peyote button, was
passed
around. Some of the men
sang their peyote songs. After an hour or so all of them stood up and
went off in different
directions. The women had left a pot of gruel (watery porridge) for the
fire and water attendants (servants). I
ate some of it and then I
slept most of the afternoon. After dark the young men in charge of the
fire built another one and
the cycle of intaking peyote
buttons began again. It followed roughly the same order, as the
preceding night, ending at
daybreak. During the course of the night I struggled to observe and
record every
single movement, performed by
each of the seven participants, in hopes of discovering the slightest
form of a detectable system
of verbal or nonverbal communication among them. There was nothing in
their actions, however, that
revealed an underlying system. In the early evening the cycle of
intaking peyote was renewed.
60-61
By
morning I knew, that I had
completely failed to find clues, that would point out the covert
leader,
or to discover any form of
covert communication among them or any traces of their system of
agreement. For the rest of the day
I sat by myself and tried to arrange my notes. When the men gathered
again for the fourth night,
I knew somehow, that
this was to be the last
meeting. Nobody had mentioned anything about it to me, yet I knew they
would disband the next day.
I sat by the water again and everyone else resumed his position in the
order, that had already been
established. The behavior of the seven men in the circle was a replica
of, what
I
had
observed during the three
previous nights. I became absorbed in their movements, as I had done
before. I wanted to record
everything they did, every movement, every utterance, every gesture. At
a certain moment I heard a sort of beep in my ear; it was a common
sort of buzzing in the ear
and I did not pay attention to it. The beep became louder, yet it was
still within the range of my
ordinary bodily sensations. I remembered, dividing my attention between
watching the men and
listening to the buzzing, I was hearing. Then, at a given instant, the
faces of the men seemed to
become brighter; it was, as if a light had been turned on.
But it
was
not quite like an electric
light, or a lantern, or the reflection of the fire on their faces. It
was rather an
iridescence; a pink luminosity, very tenuous (thin, slender), yet
detectable, from where I was. The
buzzing seemed to increase. I
looked at the teenage boy, who was with me, but he had fallen asleep.
The pink luminosity became more noticeable by then. I looked at don
Juan; his eyes were closed; so
were don Silvio's and so were Mocho's. I could not see the eyes of the
four younger men, because two
of them were bent forward and the other two had their backs turned to
me. I became even more involved in watching. Yet I had not fully
realized,
that I was actually hearing a
buzzing and was actually seeing a pinkish glow, hovering over the men.
After a moment I became aware,
that the tenuous pink light and the buzzing were very steady, I had a
moment of intense
bewilderment and then a thought crossed my mind, a thought, that had
nothing to do with the scene I
was witnessing, nor with the purpose I had in mind for being there. I
remembered something, my
mother had told me once when I was a child. The thought was distracting
and very inappropriate; I
tried to discard it and involve myself again in my assiduous (diligent,
busy) watching,
but I could not do it. The thought recurred; it was stronger,
more
demanding,
and then I clearly heard my
mother's voice, calling me. I heard the shuffling of her slippers and
then her laughter. I turned
around, looking for her; I conceived (think,
consider, formulated, become posessed),
that I was going to be transported
in time by some sort of
hallucination or mirage and
I was going to see her, but I saw only the
boy sleeping beside me. To
see him jolted me and I experienced a brief moment of ease, of
sobriety. I looked again at the group of men. They had not changed
their
positions at all. However, the
luminosity was gone, and so was the buzzing in my ears. I felt
relieved. I thought, that the
hallucination, of hearing my mother's voice, was over. Her voice had
been
so clear and vivid. I said
to myself over and over, that for an instant the voice had almost
trapped me. I noticed vaguely, that
don Juan was looking at me, but that did not matter. It was the memory
of my mother's voice, calling
me, that was mesmerizing.
I struggled desperately to think about
something else. And then I heard
her voice again, as clearly, as if she had been behind me. She called
my
name. I turned quickly, but
all, I saw, was the dark silhouette of the shack and the shrubs beyond
it. Hearing my name caused me the most profound anguish (mental
torture). I whined
involuntarily. I felt cold and very
lonely and I began to weep. At that moment I had the sensation, that I
needed someone to care for
me. I turned my head to look at don Juan; he was staring at me. I did
not want to see him, so I
closed my eyes. And then I saw my mother. It was not the thought of my
mother, the way I think of
her ordinarily. This was a clear vision of her, standing by me. I felt
desperate. I was trembling
and wanted to escape. The vision of my mother was too disturbing, too
alien, to what I was pursuing
in that peyote meeting. There was apparently no conscious way to avoid
it. Perhaps I could have
opened my eyes, if I really wanted the vision to vanish, but instead, I
examined it in detail. My
examination was more, than merely looking at her.
62-63
It was a compulsive
(conditioned
by obsession) scrutiny
and
assessment. A
very peculiar feeling enveloped me, as if it were an outside force, and
I suddenly felt the
horrendous burden of my mother's love. When I heard my name, I was torn
apart; the memory of my
mother filled me with anguish and melancholy, but when
I examined her,
I
knew, that I had never liked
her. This was a shocking realization. Thoughts and images came to me,
as an avalanche. The vision of my mother
must have vanished in the
meantime; it was no longer important. I was no longer interested, in
what the
Indians were doing either. In
fact, I had forgotten the mitote. I was absorbed in a series of
extraordinary thoughts,
extraordinary, because they were more, than thoughts; these were
complete
units of feeling, that were
emotional certainties, indisputable evidences about the nature of my
relationship with my
mother. At a certain moment these extraordinary thoughts ceased to
come. I
noticed, that they had lost their
fluidity and their quality of being complete units of feeling. I had
begun to think about other
things. My mind was rambling (wandering). I thought of other members of
my
immediate family, but there were no
images to accompany my thoughts. Then I looked at don Juan. He was
standing; the rest of the men
were also standing, and then they all walked toward the water. I moved
aside and nudged the boy, who
was still asleep. I related to don Juan the sequence of my astounding
vision almost as
soon, as he got into my car. He
laughed with great delight and said, that my vision was a sign, an omen
as important, as my first
experience with Mescalito.
I remembered, that don Juan had interpreted the reactions I had, when I
first ingested peyote, as an
all important omen; in fact, he decided to teach me his knowledge,
because
of it. Don Juan said, that during the last night of the mitote,
Mescalito had
hovered over me so obviously,
that everyone was forced to turn toward me, and that was why he was
staring at me, when I looked at
him. I wanted to hear his interpretation of my vision, but he did not
want
to talk about it. He said,
that whatever I had experienced was nonsense, in comparison to the
omen.
Don Juan kept on talking about Mescalito's light, hovering over me, and
how everyone had seen it. "That was really something," he said. "I
couldn't, possibly, ask for a
better omen."
Don Juan and I were obviously on two different avenues of thought. He
was concerned with the
importance of the events, he had interpreted as an omen, and I was
obsessed with the details of the
vision, I had had. "I don't care
about omens," I said. "I want to know, what happened to
me."
He frowned, as if he were upset, and remained very stiff and quiet for
a
moment. Then he looked at
me. His tone was very forceful. He said, that the only important issue
was, that
Mescalito had been very
gentle with me, had engulfed me with his light and had given me a
lesson with no other effort on my
part, than being around.
64-65
On
September
4, 1968, I went to Sonora to visit don Juan. Following a
request he had made during my
previous visit to him, I stopped on the way, in Hermosillo, to buy him
a noncommercial tequila
called bacanora. His request seemed very odd to me at the time, since I
knew, he disliked drinking,
but I bought four bottles and put them in a box along with other
things,
I had brought for him. "Why, you got four bottles!" he said, laughing,
when he opened the box.
"I asked you to buy me one.
I believe, you thought the bacanora was for me, but it's for my
grandson
Lucio, and you have to give
it to him, as though it's a personal gift of your own."
I had met don Juan's grandson two years before; he was twenty-eight
years old then. He was very
tall, over six feet, and was always extravagantly well dressed for his
means and in comparison to
his peers. While the majority of Yaquis wear khakis and Levis, straw
hats, and homemade sandals
called guaraches, Lucio's outfit was an expensive black leather jacket
with frills of turquoise
beads, a Texan cowboy hat, and a pair of boots, that were monogrammed
and hand decorated.
Lucio was delighted to receive the liquor and immediately took the
bottles inside his house,
apparently to put them away. Don Juan made a casual comment, that one
should never hoard (accumulate by hiding) liquor and
drink alone. Lucio said he was not really hoarding, but was putting it
away, until that evening, at
which time he was going to invite his friends to drink with him. That
evening around seven o'clock I returned to Lucio's place. It was
dark. I made out the vague
silhouette of two people, standing under a small tree; it was Lucio and
one of his friends, who were
waiting for me and guided me to the house with a flashlight. Lucio's
house was a flimsy, two-room, dirt-floor, wattle-and-daub
construction. It was perhaps
twenty feet long and supported by relatively thin beams of the mesquite
tree. It had, as all the
houses of the Yaquis have, a flat, thatched roof and a nine-foot-wide
ramada, which is a sort of
awning over the entire front part of the house. A ramada roof is never
thatched; it is made of branches arranged in a
loose fashion, giving enough
shade and yet permitting the cooling breeze to circulate freely. As I
entered the house, I turned on my tape recorder, which I kept
inside my brief case. Lucio
introduced me to his friends. There were eight men inside the house,
including don Juan. They were
sitting casually around the center of the room under the bright light
of a gasoline lantern, that
hung from a beam, Don Juan was sitting on a box. I sat facing him at
the end of a six-foot bench,
made with a thick wooden beam, nailed on two prongs (sharply pointed
projection), planted in the
ground. Don Juan had placed his hat on the floor beside him. The light
of the
gasoline lantern made his
short white hair look more brilliantly white. I looked at his face; the
light had also enhanced the
deep wrinkles on his neck and forehead, and made him look darker and
older. I looked at the other men; under the greenish-white light of the
gasoline lantern all of them
looked tired and old. Lucio addressed the whole group in Spanish and
said in a loud voice,
that we were going to drink one
bottle of bacanora, that I had brought for him from Hermosillo. He went
into the other room, brought
out a bottle, uncorked it, and gave it to me along with a small tin
cup. I poured a very small
amount into the cup and drank it. The bacanora seemed to be more
fragrant and more dense, than regular
tequila, and stronger too. It
made me cough. I passed the bottle and everyone poured himself a small
drink, everyone except don
Juan; he just took the bottle and placed it in front of Lucio, who was
at the end of the line. All of them made lively comments about the rich
flavor of that
particular bottle.
66-67
All
of them
agreed, that the liquor must have come from the high mountains of
Chihuahua. The bottle went around a second time. The men smacked their
lips,
repeated their statements of
praise, and engaged themselves in a lively discussion about the
noticeable differences between the
tequila, made around Guadalajara and that made at a high altitude in
Chihuahua. During the second time around don Juan again did not drink
and I poured
only a dab for myself, but
the rest of them filled the cup to the brim. The bottle went around
once more
and was finished. "Get the other bottles, Lucio," don Juan said. Lucio
seemed to vacillate (hesitate), and don Juan quite casually explained
to the
others, that I had brought
four bottles for Lucio. Benigno, a young man of Lucio's age, looked at
the brief case, that I
had placed inconspicuously
(instability,
not readily noticeable) behind me and
asked, if I was a tequila salesman. Don Juan answered,
that
I was not, and that I had
really come to Sonora to see him. "Carlos is learning about Mescalito,
and I'm teaching him," don Juan
said. All of them looked at me and smiled politely. Bajea, the
woodcutter, a
small, thin man with sharp
features, looked at me fixedly for a moment and then said, that the
storekeeper had accused me of
being a spy from an American company, that was planning to do mining in
the Yaqui land. They all
reacted, as if they were indignant (outraged) at such an accusation.
Besides, they
all resented the
storekeeper, who was a Mexican, or a Yori, as the Yaquis say. Lucio
went into the other room and returned with another bottle of
bacanora. He opened it, poured
himself a large drink, and then passed it around. The conversation
drifted to the probabilities of
the American company coming to Sonora and its possible effect on the
Yaquis. The bottle went back
to Lucio. He lifted it and looked at its contents to see how much was
left. "Tell him not to worry," don Juan whispered to me. "Tell
him
you'll
bring him more next time you
come around." I leaned over to Lucio and assured him, that on my next
visit I was
going to bring him at least half
a dozen bottles. At one moment the topics of conversation seemed to
wane away (decrease). Don Juan turned to me and said loudly: "Why don't
you tell
the guys
here about your encounters with
Mescalito? I think, that'll be much more interesting, than this idle
chat about what
will happen, if the American
company comes to Sonora."

"Is Mescalito peyote, Grandpa?" Lucio asked curiously.
"Some people call it that way," don Juan said dryly. "I prefer to call
it Mescalito."
"That confounded thing causes madness," said Genaro, a tall, husky,
middle-aged man.
"I think it's stupid to say, that Mescalito causes madness," don Juan
said softly. "Because, if that
were the case, Carlos would be in a strait-jacket this very moment,
instead of being here, talking to
you. He has taken it and look at him. He is fine."
Bajea smiled and replied shyly, "Who can tell?" and everybody laughed.
"Look at me then," don Juan said. "I've known Mescalito nearly all my
life and it has never hurt
me." The men did not laugh, but it was obvious, that they were not
taking him
seriously. "On the other hand," don Juan went on, "it's true, that
Mescalito drives
people crazy, as you said,
but that's only when they come to him without knowing, what they're
doing." Esquere, an old man, who seemed to be don Juan's age, chuckled (laugh
quietly or to oneself) softly, as
he shook his head from side
to side.
"What do you mean by 'knowing,' Juan?" he asked. "The last time I saw
you, you were saying the same
thing."
"People go really crazy, when they take that peyote stuff," Genaro
continued. "I've seen the Huichol
Indians eating it. They acted, as if they had rabies. They frothed and
puked and pissed all over the
place. You could get epilepsy from taking that confounded thing. That's
what Mr. Salas, the
government engineer, told me once. And epilepsy is for life,
you know."
"That's being worse, than animals," Bajea added solemnly.
"You saw only, what you wanted to see about the Huichol Indians,
Genaro," don Juan said.
68-69
"For one
thing, you never took the trouble of finding out from them, what it's
like to get acquainted with
Mescalito. Mescalito has never made anyone epileptic, to my knowledge.
The government engineer is a
Yori and I doubt, that a Yori knows anything about it. You really don't
think, that all the thousands
of people, who know Mescalito, are crazy, do you?"
"They must be crazy, or pretty nearly so, to do a thing like that,"
answered Genaro.
"But if all those thousands of people were crazy at the same time, who
would do their work? How
would they manage to survive?" don Juan asked.
"Macario, who comes from the 'other side'"—the
U.S.A.—"told me, that
whoever takes it there, is
marked for life," Esquere said.
"Macario is lying, if he says that," don Juan said. "I'm sure, he
doesn't
know, what he's talking
about."
"He really tells too many lies," said Benigno.
"Who's Macario?" I asked.
"He's a Yaqui Indian, who lives here," Lucio said. "He says, he's from
Arizona and that he was in
Europe during the war. He tells all kinds of stories."
"He says, he was a colonel!" Benigno said.
Everyone laughed and the conversation shifted for a while to Macario's
unbelievable tales, but don
Juan returned again to the topic of Mescalito.
"If all of you know, that Macario is a liar, how can you believe him,
when he talks about
Mescalito?"
"Do you mean peyote, Grandpa?" Lucio asked, as if he were really
struggling to make sense out of
the term.
"God damn it! Yes!" Don Juan's tone was sharp and abrupt. Lucio
recoiled involuntarily, and
for a moment I felt, they
were all afraid. Then don Juan smiled broadly and continued in a mild
tone. "Don't you fellows see, that Macario doesn't know, what he's
talking
about? Don't you see, that in
order to talk about Mescalito, one has to know?"
"There you go again," Esquere said. "What the hell is this knowledge?
You are worse, than Macario.
At least he says, what's on his mind, whether he knows it or not. For
years I've been listening to
you say, we have to know. What do we have to know?"
"Don Juan says, there is a spirit in peyote," Benigno said.
"I have seen peyote in the field, but I have never seen spirits or
anything of the sort," Bajea
added.
"Mescalito is like a spirit, perhaps," don Juan explained. "But
whatever he is doesn't, become clear,
until one knows about him. Esquere complains, that I have been saying
this for years. Well, I have.
But it's not my fault, that you don't understand. Bajea says, that
whoever takes it, becomes like an
animal. Well, I don't see it that way. To me, those, who think they are
above animals, live worse, than
animals. Look at my grandson here. He works without rest. I would say,
he lives to work, like a
mule. And all he does, that is not animal-like, is to get drunk."
Everybody laughed, Victor, a very young man, who seemed to be still in
adolescence, laughed in a
pitch, above everybody else. Eligio, a young farmer, had not uttered a
single word so far. He was
sitting on the floor to my
right, with his back against some sacks of chemical fertilizer, that
had
been piled inside the house
to protect them from the rain. He was one of Lucio's childhood friends,
powerful looking and, although
shorter, than Lucio, more
stocky and better built. Eligio seemed concerned about don Juan's
words. Bajea was trying to come
back with a comment, but Eligio interrupted him.
"In what way would peyote change all this?" he asked. "It seems to me,
that a man is born to work
all his life, like mules do."
"Mescalito changes everything," don Juan said, "yet we still have to
work like everybody else, like
mules. I said, there was a spirit inside Mescalito, because it is
something like a spirit, which
brings about the change in men. A spirit we can see and can touch, a
spirit, that changes us, sometimes
even against our will."
"Peyote drives you out of your mind," Genaro said, "and then of course,
you believe you've changed.
True?"
"How can it change us?" Eligio insisted.
"He teaches us the right way to live," don Juan said. "He helps and
protects those, who know him.
The life, you fellows are leading, is no life at all.
70-71
You don't know the
happiness, that comes from
doing things deliberately. You don't have a protector!"
"What do you mean?" Genaro said indignantly. "We certainly have. Our
Lord Jesus Christ, and our
Mother the Virgin, and the little Virgin of Guadalupe. Aren't they our
protectors?"
"Fine bunch of protectors!" don Juan said mockingly. "Have they taught
you a better way to
live?"
"That's because people don't listen to them," Genaro protested, "and
they only pay attention to the
devil."
"If they were real protectors, they would force you to listen," don
Juan
said. "If Mescalito becomes
your protector, you will have to listen, whether you Iike it or not,
because you can see him and you
must take heed (pay attention), of what he says. He will make you
approach him with
respect. Not the way you fellows
are accustomed to approach your protectors."
"What do you mean, Juan?" Esquere asked.
"What I mean is, that for you, to come to your protectors, means, that
one
of you has to play a fiddle,
and a dancer has to put on his mask and leggings and rattles, and
dance,
while the rest of you
drink. You, Benigno, you were a dancer once, tell us about it."
"I gave it up after three years," Benigno said. "It's hard work."
"Ask Lucio," Esquere said satirically. "He gave it up in one week!"
Everybody laughed except don Juan. Lucio smiled, seemingly embarrassed,
and gulped down two huge
swallows of bacanora.
"It is not hard, it is stupid," don Juan said. "Ask Valencio, the
dancer, if he enjoys dancing. He
does not! He got accustomed to it, that's all. I've seen him dance for
years, and every time I
have, I've seen the same movements badly executed. He takes no pride in
his art, except when he
talks about it. He has no love for it, therefore year after year he
repeats the same motions. What
was bad, about his dancing at the beginning, has become fixed. He
cannot
see it any longer."
"He was taught to dance that way," Eligio said. "I was also a dancer in
the town of Torim. I know,
you must dance, the way they teach you."
"Valencio is not the best dancer anyway," Esquere said. "There are
others. How about Sacateca?"
"Sacateca is a Man of Knowledge, he is not in the same class with you
fellows," don Juan said
sternly. "He dances, because that's the bent of his nature. All I
wanted
to say was, that you, who
are not dancers, do not enjoy it. Perhaps, if the dances are well
performed, some of you will get
pleasure. Not many of you know that much about dancing, though;
therefore you are left with a very
lousy piece of joy. This is why you fellows are all drunkards. Look at
my grandson here!"
"Cut it out, Grandpa!" Lucio protested.
"He's not lazy or stupid," don Juan went on, "but what else does he do,
besides drink?"
"He buys leather jackets!" Genaro remarked, and the whole audience
roared. Lucio gulped down more bacanora.
"And how is peyote going to change that?" Eligio asked.
"If Lucio would seek the protector," don Juan said, "his life would be
changed. I don't know
exactly how, but I am sure, it would be different."
"He would stop drinking, is that what you mean?" Eligio insisted.
"Perhaps he would. He needs something else, besides tequila, to make
his
life satisfying. And that
something, whatever it may be, might be provided by the protector."
"Then peyote must taste very good," Eligio said.
"I didn't say that," don Juan said.
"How in the hell are you going to enjoy it, if it doesn't taste good?"
Eligio said.
"It makes one enjoy life better," don Juan said.
"But if it doesn't
taste good, how could it make
us enjoy our lives better?" Eligio persisted. "It doesn't make sense."
"Of course it makes sense," Genaro said with conviction. "Peyote makes
you crazy and, naturally, you
think, you're having a great time with your life, no matter what you
do." They all laughed again.
"It does make sense," don Juan proceeded, undisturbed, "if you think,
how little we know and how
much there is to see.
72-73
Booze
is, what makes people crazy. It blurs the images.
Mescalito, on the other
hand, sharpens everything. It makes you See so very well. So very
well!" Lucio and Benigno looked at each other and smiled, as though
they had
already heard the story
before. Genaro and Esquere grew more impatient and began to talk at the
same
time. Victor laughed above all
the other voices. The only one interested seemed to be Eligio.
"How can peyote do all that?" he asked.
"In the first place," don Juan explained, "you must want to become
acquainted with him, and I think,
this is by far the most important thing. Then you must be offered to
him, and you must meet with
him many times, before you can say, you know him."
"And what happens then?" Eligio asked.
Genaro interrupted. "You crap on the roof with your ass on the ground."
The audience roared.
"What happens next is entirely up to you," don Juan went on without
losing his self-control. "You
must come to him without fear and, little by little, he will teach you,
how to live a better
life." There was a long pause. The men seemed to be tired. The bottle
was
empty. Lucio, with obvious
reluctance, opened another.
"Is peyote Carlos' protector too?" Eligio asked in a joking tone.
"I wouldn't know that," don Juan said. "He has taken it three times, so
ask him, to tell you about
it."
They all turned to me curiously and Eligio asked, "Did you really take
it?"
"Yes. I did." It seemed don Juan had won a round with his audience.
They were either
interested in hearing about
my experience or too polite to laugh in my face.
"Didn't it hurt your mouth?" Lucio asked.
"It did. It also tasted terrible."
"Why did you take it, then?" Benigno asked. I began to explain to them
in elaborate terms, that for a Western man,
don Juan's knowledge about
peyote, was one of the most fascinating things, one could find. I said,
that everything he had said
about it, was true and that each one of us could verify that truth for
ourselves. I noticed, that all of them were smiling, as if they were
concealing their contempt (despise). I grew very
embarrassed. I was aware of my awkwardness in conveying, what
I really
had in mind. I talked for a
while longer, but I had lost the impetus (stimulus) and only
repeated, what don
Juan had already said. Don Juan came to my aid and asked in a
reassuring tone, "You were not looking for a protector, when
you first came to Mescalito, were you?" I told them, that I did not
know, that Mescalito could be a protector,
and that I was moved only by
my curiosity and a great desire to know him. Don Juan reaffirmed, that
my intentions had been faultless and said, that
because of it, Mescalito had
had a beneficial effect on me.
"But it made you puke and piss all over the place, didn't it?" Genaro
insisted.
I told him, that it had, in fact, affected me in such a manner. They
all
laughed with restraint. I
felt, that they had become even more contemptuous (scornful, despise)
of me.
They didn't
seem to be interested, except
for Eligio, who was gazing at me. "What did you See?" he asked. Don
Juan urged me to recount for them all or nearly all the salient
(striking, outstanding)
details of my experiences, so I
described the sequence and the form, of what I had perceived. When I
finished talking, Lucio made a
comment.
"If peyote is that weird, I'm glad I've never taken it."
"It is just like I said," Genaro said to Bajea. "That thing makes you
insane."
"But Carlos is not insane now. How do you account for that?" don Juan
asked Genaro.
"How do we know, he isn't?" Genaro retorted (return, pay back, reply,
answer). They all broke out laughing, including don Juan.
"Were you afraid?" Benigno asked.
"I certainly was."
74-75
"Why did you do it, then?" Eligio asked.
"He said, he wanted to know," Lucio answered for me. "I think, Carlos
is
getting to be like my
grandpa. Both have been saying, they want to know, but nobody knows,
what
in the hell they want to
know."
"It is impossible to explain that knowing," don Juan said to Eligio,
"because, it is different for
every man. The only thing, which is common to all of us, is that
Mescalito reveals his secrets
privately to each man. Being aware of how Genaro feels, I don't
recommend, that he meet Mescalito.
Yet, in spite of my words or his feelings, Mescalito could have a
totally beneficial effect on him.
But only he could find out, and that is the knowing, I have been
talking
about." Don Juan got up.
"It's time to go home," he said. "Lucio is drunk and
Victor is asleep."
Two days later, on September 6, Lucio, Benigno, and Eligio came over to
the house, where I was
staying, to go hunting with me. They remained silent for a while, as
I
kept on writing my notes. Then
Benigno laughed politely, as a warning, that he was going to say
something important. After a preliminary embarrassing silence,
he laughed again and said,
"Lucio here says, that he would
take peyote."
"Would you really?" I asked.
"Yes. I wouldn't mind it."
Benigno's laughter came in spurts spurts (short burst of
energy or activity). "Lucio says,
he will eat peyote, if
you buy him a motorcycle." Lucio and Benigno looked at each other and
broke out laughing.
"How much is a motorcycle in the United States?" Lucio asked.
"You could probably get one for a hundred dollars," I said.
"That isn't very much there, is it? You could easily get it for him,
couldn't you?" Benigno
asked.
"Well, let me ask your grandpa first," I said to Lucio.
"No, no," he protested. "Don't mention it to him. He'll spoil
everything. He's a weirdo. And
besides, he's too old and feeble-minded and he doesn't know, what he's
doing."
"He was a real sorcerer once," Benigno added. "I mean a real one. My
folks say, he was the best. But
he took to peyote and became a nobody. Now he's too old."
"And he goes over and over the same crappy stories about peyote," Lucio
said.
"That peyote is pure crap," Benigno said. "You know, we tried it once.
Lucio got a whole sack of it
from his grandpa. One night, as we were going to town,
we chewed it. Son
of a bitch! It cut my mouth
to shreds. It tasted like hell !"
"Did you swallow it?" I asked.
"We spit it out," Lucio said, "and threw the whole damn sack away."
They both thought the incident was very funny. Eligio, in the meantime,
had not said a word.
He was
withdrawn, as usual. He did not even laugh.
"Would you like to try it, Eligio?" I asked.
"No. Not me. Not even for a motorcycle." Lucio and Benigno found the
statement utterly funny and roared again.
"Nevertheless," Eligio continued, "I must admit, that don Juan baffles
(puzzle, bewilder)
me."
"My grandfather is too old to know anything," Lucio said with great
conviction.
"Yeah, he's too old," Benigno echoed. I thought the opinion, the two
young men had of don Juan, was childish
and unfounded. I felt it was
my duty to defend his character and I told them, that in my judgment,
don
Juan was then, as he had
been in the past, a great sorcerer, perhaps even the greatest of all. I
said, I felt there was
something about him, something truly extraordinary. I urged them to
remember, that he was over seventy years old and yet he
was more energetic and
stronger, than all of us put together. I challenged the young men to
prove it to themselves, by
trying to sneak up on don Juan.
"You just can't sneak up on my grandpa," Lucio said proudly. "He's a
brujo."
I reminded them, that they had said, he was too old and feeble-minded,
and that a feeble-minded
person does not know, what goes on around him.
76-77
I said, that I had
marveled at don Juan's alertness
time and time again.
"Noone can sneak up on a brujo, even if he's old," Benigno said with
authority. "They can gang up
on him, when he's asleep, though. That's what happened to a man, named
Cevicas. People got tired of
his evil sorcery and killed him."
I asked them to give me all the details of that event, but they said,
it
had taken place before
their time, or when they were still very young. Eligio added, that
people secretly believed, that
Cevicas had been only a fool, and that noone could harm a real
sorcerer. I tried to question them
further on their opinions about sorcerers.
They did not seem to have much interest in the subject; besides, they
were eager to start out and
shoot the rifle, I had brought. We were silent for a while, as
we walked toward the thick chaparral,
then Eligio, who was at the
head of the line, turned around and said to me, "Perhaps, we're the
crazy ones. Perhaps don Juan is
right. Look at the way we live."
Lucio and Benigno protested. I tried to mediate. I agreed with Eligio
and told them, that I, myself,
had felt, that the way I lived, was somehow wrong. Benigno said, that I
had no business, complaining
about my life, that I had money and I had a car. I retorted (return, pay
back, reply, answer), that I
could easily say, that they
themselves were better off, because each owned a piece of land. They
responded in unison, that the
owner of their land was the federal bank. I told them, that I did not
own my car either, that a bank
in California owned it, and that my life was only different, but not
better, than theirs. By that
time we were already in the dense shrubs. We did not find any deer or
wild boars, but we got three jack rabbits.
On our return we stopped at
Lucio's house and he announced, that his wife was going to make rabbit
stew. Benigno went to the
store to buy a bottle of tequila and get us some sodas. When we came
back, don Juan was with
him.
"Did you find my grandpa at the store, buying beer?" Lucio asked
laughing.
"I haven't been invited to this reunion," don Juan said. "I've just
dropped by to ask Carlos, if
he's leaving for Hermosillo."
I told him, I was planning to leave the next day, and while we talked,
Benigno distributed the
bottles. Eligio gave his to don Juan, and, since among the Yaquis, it
is
deadly impolite to refuse,
even as a courtesy, don Juan took it quietly. I gave mine to Eligio,
and he was obliged to take it.
So Benigno in turn gave me his bottle.
But Lucio, who had obviously
visualized the entire scheme of
Yaqui good manners, had already finished drinking his soda. He turned
to Benigno, who had a
pathetic look on his face, and said, laughing, "They've screwed you out
of your bottle."
Don Juan said, he never drank soda and placed his bottle in Benigno's
hands. We sat under the ramada
in silence. Eligio seemed to be nervous. He fidgeted (moved nervously)
with the brim of his hat. "I've been thinking about, what you said the
other night," he said to
don Juan. "How can peyote
change our life? How?"
Don Juan did not answer. He stared fixedly at Eligio for a moment and
then began to sing in Yaqui.
It was not a song proper, but a short recitation. We remained quiet for
a long time. Then I asked
don Juan to translate the Yaqui words for me.
"That was only for Yaquis," he said matter-of-factly. I felt dejected.
I was sure, he had said something of great importance.
"Eligio is an Indian," don Juan finally said to me, "and as an Indian
Eligio has nothing. We
Indians have nothing. All you see around here belongs to the Yoris. The
Yaquis have only their
wrath and what the land offers to them freely."
Nobody uttered a sound for quite some time, then don Juan stood up and
said goodbye and walked
away. We looked at him until he had disappeared behind a bend of the
road. All of us seemed to be
nervous. Lucio told us in a disoriented manner that his grandfather had
not stayed because he hated
rabbit stew. Eligio seemed to be immersed in thoughts. Benigno turned
to me and said loudly, "I
think the Lord is going to punish you and don Juan for what you're
doing."
Lucio began to laugh and Benigno joined him. "You're clowning,
Benigno," Eligio said somberly. "What you've just
said, isn't worth a damn."
78-79
September
15, 1968
It was nine o'clock Saturday night. Don Juan sat in front of Eligio in
the center of the ramada of
Lucio's house. Don Juan placed his sack of peyote buttons between them
and sang, while rocking his
body slightly back and forth. Lucio, Benigno, and I sat five or six
feet behind Eligio with our
backs against the wall. It was quite dark at first. We had been sitting
inside the house under the
gasoline lantern, waiting for don Juan. He had called us out to the
ramada, when he arrived, and had
told us, where to sit. After a while my eyes became accustomed to the
dark. I could see everyone
clearly. I noticed, that Eligio seemed to be terrified. His entire body
shook; his teeth chattered
uncontrollably. He was convulsed with spasmodic jerks of his head and
back. Don Juan spoke to him, telling him not to be afraid, and to trust
the protector, and to think of
nothing else. He casually took a peyote button, offered it to Eligio,
and ordered him to chew it
very slowly. Eligio whined like a puppy and recoiled. His breathing was
very rapid, it sounded like
the whizzing (hissing) of bellows (roar, shout). He took off his hat
and wiped his forehead. He
covered his face with his
hands. I thought, he was crying. It was a very long, tense moment,
before
he regained some control
over himself. He sat up straight and, still covering his face with one
hand, took the peyote button
and began chewing it. I felt a tremendous apprehension. I had not
realized until then, that I was perhaps, as scared, as
Eligio. My mouth had a dryness similar to that, produced by peyote.
Eligio chewed the button for a
long time. My tension increased. I began to whine involuntarily, as my
respiration became more accelerated. Don Juan began to chant louder,
then he offered another button to Eligio and, after Eligio had
finished it, he offered him dry fruit and told him to chew it very
slowly. Eligio got up repeatedly
and went to the bushes. At one point he asked for water. Don Juan told
him not to drink it, but only
swish it in his mouth. Eligio chewed two more buttons and don Juan gave
him dry meat. By the time he had chewed his tenth button, I was nearly
sick with anxiety. Suddenly Eligio slumped forward and his forehead hit
the ground. He rolled on his left side and
jerked convulsively. I looked at my watch. It was twenty after eleven.
Eligio tossed, wobbled, and moaned for over an
hour, while he lay on the floor. Don Juan maintained the same position
in front of him. His peyote songs were almost a murmur.
Benigno, who was sitting to my right, looked inattentive; Lucio, next
to him, had slumped on his
side and was snoring. Eligio's body crumpled (crush together, become
wrinkled) into a contorted position.
He lay on his right side with his front toward me
and his hands between his legs. His body gave a powerful jump and he
turned on his back with his
legs slightly curved. His left hand waved out and up with an extremely
free and elegant motion. His right hand repeated
the same pattern, and then both arms alternated in a wavering, slow
movement, resembling that of a
harpist. The movement became more vigorous by degrees.
His arms had a
perceptible vibration and
went up and down like pistons (). At the same time his hands rotated
onward at the wrist and his fingers quivered. It was a
beautiful, harmonious, hypnotic sight. I thought his rhythm and
muscular control were beyond
comparison. Eligio then rose slowly, as if he were stretching against
an enveloping force. His body shivered.
He squatted and then pushed himself up to an erect position. His arms,
trunk, and head trembled, as
if an intermittent electric current were going through them. It was, as
though a force, outside his
control, was setting him or driving him up. Don Juan's chanting became
very loud. Lucjo and Benigno woke up and looked at the scene
uninterestedly for a while and then went back to sleep. Eligio seemed
to be moving up and up. He was apparently climbing. He cupped his hands
and seemed to
grab onto objects beyond my vision. He pushed himself up and paused to
catch his breath.
80-81
I wanted to see his eyes and moved closer to him, but don Juan gave me
a fierce look and I recoiled
to my place. Then Eligio jumped. It was a final, formidable leap. He
had apparently reached his goal. He puffed
and sobbed with the exertion (exercise, put into
vigorous action). He seemed to
be holding onto a ledge. But
something was overtaking
him. He shrieked desperately. His grip faltered (hesitated) and he
began to fall.
His body arched backward and
was convulsed from head to toe with the most beautiful, coordinated
ripple. The ripple went through
him perhaps a hundred times, before his body collapsed like a lifeless
burlap sack. After a while, he extended his arms in front of him, as
though he was protecting his face. His legs
stretched out backward, as he lay on his chest; they were arched a few
inches above the ground,
giving his body the very appearance of sliding or flying at an
incredible speed. His head was
arched as far back, as possible, his arms locked over his eyes,
shielding them. I could feel the
wind hissing around him. I gasped and gave a loud involuntary shriek.
Lucio and Benigno woke and
looked at Eligio curiously.
"If you promise to buy me a motorcycle, I will chew it now," Lucio said
loudly. I looked at don Juan. He made an imperative gesture with his
head. "Son of a bitch!" Lucio mumbled, and went back to sleep. Eligio
stood up and began walking. He took a couple of steps toward me
and stopped. I could see him
smiling with a beatific (joy of heaven) expression. He tried to
whistle. There was no
clear sound, yet it had
harmony. It was a tune. It had only a couple of bars, which he repeated
over and over. After a
while the whistling was distinctly audible, and then it became a sharp
melody. Eligio mumbled
unintelligible words. The words seemed to be the lyrics to the tune. He
repeated it for hours. A
very simple song, repetitious, monotonous, and yet strangely beautiful.
Eligio seemed to be looking at something, while
he sang. At one moment
he got very close to me. I
saw his eyes in the semidarkness. They were glassy, transfixed. He
smiled and giggled. He walked
and sat down and walked again, groaning and sighing. Suddenly something
seemed to have pushed him from behind. His body arched in the middle,
as though
moved by a direct force. At one instant Eligio was balanced on the tips
of his toes, making nearly
a complete circle, his hands touching the ground. He dropped to the
ground again, softly, on his
back, and extended his whole length, acquiring a strange rigidity. He
whimpered (sobbed, cried) and groaned for a while, then began to snore.
Don Juan
covered him with some burlap
sacks. It was 5:35 A.M. Lucio and Benigno had fallen asleep shoulder to
shoulder with their backs against the wall. Don
Juan and I sat quietly for a very long time. He seemed to be tired. I
broke the silence and asked
him about Eligio. He told me, that Eligio's encounter with Mescalito
had
been exceptionally
successful; Mescalito had taught him a song, the first time they met,
and
that was indeed
extraordinary. I asked him, why he had not let Lucio take some for a
motorcycle. He said, that Mescalito would have
killed Lucio, if he had approached him under such conditions. Don Juan
admitted, that he had prepared
everything carefully to convince his grandson; he told me, that he had
counted on my friendship with
Lucio, as the central part of his strategy. He said, that Lucio had
always been his great concern,
and that at one time they had lived together and were very close, but
Lucio became gravely ill, when
he was seven, and don Juan's son, a devout Catholic, made a vow to the
Virgin of Guadalupe, that
Lucio would join a sacred dancing society, if his life were spared.
Lucio recovered and was forced
to carry out the promise. He lasted one week as an apprentice, and then
made up his mind to break
the vow. He thought, he would have to die as a result of it, braced
himself, and for a whole day he
waited for death to come.

Everybody made fun of the boy and the
incident was never forgotten. Don Juan did not speak for a long time.
He seemed to have become engulfed by thoughts.
"My set up was for Lucio," he said, "and I found Eligio instead. I
knew,
it was useless, but when we
like someone, we should properly insist, as though it were possible to
remake men.
82-83
Lucio had courage,
when he was a little boy and then he lost it along the way."
"Can you bewitch him, don Juan?"
"Bewitch him? For what?"
"So he will change and regain his courage."
"You don't bewitch for courage. Courage is something personal.
Bewitching is for rendering (presented for
consideration, give in return) people
harmless or sick or dumb. You don't bewitch to make warriors. To be a
warrior, you have to be
crystal clear, like Eligio. There you have a man of courage!"

Eligio snored peacefully under the burlap sacks. It was already
daylight. The sky was impeccably
blue. There were no clouds in sight.
"I would give anything in this world," I said, "to know about Eligio's
journey. Would you mind, if I
asked him to tell me?"
"You should not under any circumstances ask him to do that!"
"Why not? I tell you about my experiences."
"That's different. It is not your inclination to keep things to
yourself. Eligio is an Indian. His
journey is all, he has. I wish it had been Lucio."
"Isn't there anything you can do, don Juan?"
"No. Unfortunately, there is no way to make bones for a jellyfish. It
was only my folly."
The sun came out. Its light blurred my tired eyes. "You've told me time
and time again, don Juan, that a sorcerer cannot
have follies. I've never
thought, you could have any." Don Juan looked at me piercingly. He got
up, glanced at Eligio and then
at Lucio. He tucked his hat
on his head, patting it on its top.
"It's possible to insist, to properly insist, even though we know,
that,
what we're doing, is
useless," he said, smiling, "But we must know first, that our acts are
useless, and yet, we must
proceed, as if we didn't know it. That's a sorcerer's controlled folly."
I returned to don Juan's house on October 3, 1968, for the sole purpose
of asking him about the
events, surrounding Eligio's initiation. An almost endless stream of
questions had occurred to me,
while rereading the account of what took place then. I was after very
precise explanations, so I
made a list of questions beforehand, carefully choosing the most
appropriate words. I began by asking him: "Did I See that night, don
Juan?"
"You almost did."
"Did you See, that I was Seeing Eligio's
movements?"
"Yes. I Saw, that Mescalito was allowing you to See part of Eligio's
lesson, otherwise you would've
been looking at a man sitting there, or perhaps lying there. During the
last mitote you did not
notice, that the men were doing anything, did you?" At the last mitote
I had not noticed any of the men performing
movements out of the ordinary. I
told him, I could safely say, that all I had recorded in my notes, was
that some of them got up and
went to the bushes more often, than others.
"But you nearly saw Eligio's entire lesson," don Juan went on. "Think
about that. Do you understand
now, how generous Mescalito is with you? Mescalito has never been so
gentle with anyone, to my
knowledge. Not anyone. And yet you have no regard for his generosity.
How can you turn your back on
him so bluntly? Or perhaps, I should say, in exchange for what, are you
turning your back on
Mescalito?" I felt, that don Juan was cornering me again. I was unable
to answer his
question. I had always
believed, I had quit the apprenticeship, in order to save myself, yet I
had no idea, from what I was
saving myself, or for what.
84-85
I wanted to change the direction of our
conversation quickly, and to
that end, I abandoned my intention to carry on with all my
precalculated
questions, and brought out
my most important query.
"I wonder, if you could tell me more about your controlled folly," I
said.
"What do you want to know about it?"
"Please tell me, don Juan, what exactly is controlled folly?"
Don Juan laughed loudly and made a smacking sound by slapping his thigh
with the hollow of his
hand. "This is controlled folly!" he said, and laughed and slapped his
thigh
again.
"What do you mean ... ?"
"I am happy, that you finally asked me about my controlled folly after
so many years, and yet it
wouldn't have mattered to me in the least, if you had never asked.
Yet, I
have chosen to feel happy,
as if I cared, that you asked, as if it would matter, that I care. That
is controlled folly!" We both laughed very loudly. I hugged him.
I found his explanation
delightful, although I did not
quite understand it. We were sitting, as usual, in the area right in
front of the door of
his house. It was mid-
morning.
Don Juan had a pile of seeds in front of him and was picking the debris
from them. I had offered to
help him, but he had turned me down; he said the seeds were a gift for
one of his friends in central
Mexico and I did not have enough power to touch them.
"With whom do you exercise controlled folly, don Juan?" I asked after a
long silence. He chuckled (laugh
quietly or to oneself).
"With everybody!" he exclaimed, smiling.
"When do you choose to exercise it, then?"
"Every single time I act."
I felt, I needed to recapitulate at that point and I asked him, if
controlled folly meant, that his
acts were never sincere, but were only the acts of an actor.
"My acts are sincere," he said, "but they are only the acts of an
actor."
"Then everything you do must be controlled folly!" I said truly
surprised.
"Yes, everything," he said.
"But it can't
be true," I protested, "that every one of your acts is
only controlled folly."
"Why not?" he replied with a mysterious look.
"That would mean, that nothing matters to you and you don't really care
about anything or anybody.
Take me, for example. Do you mean, that you don't care, whether or not
I
become a Man of Knowledge,
or whether I live, or die, or do anything?"
"True! I don't. You are like Lucio, or everybody else in my life, my
controlled folly."
I experienced a peculiar feeling of emptiness. Obviously, there was no
reason in the world, why don
Juan had to care about me, but on the other hand I had almost the
certainty, that he cared about me
personally; I thought it could not be otherwise, since he had always
given me his undivided
attention during every moment,
I had spent with him. It occurred to me,
that perhaps don Juan was
just saying that, because he was annoyed with me. After all, I had quit
his teachings.
"I have the feeling, we are not talking about the same thing," I said.
"I shouldn't have used myself,
as an example. What I meant to say, was that there must be something in
the world, you
care about in a way, that is
not controlled folly. I don't think, it is possible to go on living, if
nothing really matters to
us."
"That applies to you" he said. "Things matter to you.
You asked me
about my controlled folly and I
told you, that everything I do in regard to myself and my fellow men,
is
folly, because nothing
matters."
"My point is, don Juan, that if nothing matters to you, how can you go
on living?" He laughed and after a moment's pause, in which he seemed
to deliberate
whether or not to answer,
he got up and went to the back of his house. I followed him. "Wait,
wait, don Juan." I said. "I really want to know; you must
explain to me, what you mean."
86-87
"Perhaps
it's not possible to explain," he said. "Certain things
in
your life matter to you, because
they're important; your acts are certainly important to you, but for
me, not a single thing is
important any longer, neither my acts, nor the acts of any of my fellow
men. I go on living, though,
because I have my Will. Because I have tempered (harden,
strengthen, toughen) my Will
throughout my
life, until it's neat and
wholesome, and now it doesn't matter to me, that nothing matters. My
Will
controls the folly of my
life."
He squatted and ran his fingers on some herbs, that he had put to dry
in
the sun on a big piece of
burlap. I was bewildered. Never would I have anticipated the direction,
that my
query had taken. After a
long pause I thought of a good point. I told him, that in my opinion,
some of the acts of my fellow
men were of supreme importance. I pointed out, that a nuclear war was
definitely the most dramatic
example of such an act. I said,
that for me destroying life on the face of the Earth was an act of
staggering enormity.
"You believe that, because you're thinking. You're thinking about
life,"
don Juan said with a glint
in his eyes.
"You're not Seeing."
"Would I feel differently, if I could See?" I asked.
"Once a man learns to See, he finds himself alone in the world with
nothing, but folly," don Juan
said cryptically. He paused for a moment and looked at me, as if
he
wanted to judge the
effect of his words. "Your acts, as well, as the acts of your fellow
men, in general, appear
to be important to you,
because you have learned to think, they are important." He used the
word "learned" with such a peculiar inflection, that it
forced me to ask, what he meant
by it. He stopped handling his plants and looked at me. "We learn to
think about everything," he said, "and then we train our
eyes to look, as we think
about the things, we look at. We look at ourselves, already
thinking, that
we are important. And
therefore we've got to feel important ! But then, when a man learns to
See, he realizes, that he can
no longer think about the things, he looks at, and, if he cannot think
about what he looks at,
everything becomes unimportant." Don Juan must have noticed my puzzled
look and repeated his statements
three times, as if to make
me understand them. What he said sounded to me like gibberish at first,
but upon thinking about it,
his words loomed more like a sophisticated statement about some facet
of perception. I tried to think of a good question, that would make him
clarify his
point, but I could not think of
anything. All of a sudden I felt exhausted and could not formulate my
thoughts
clearly. Don Juan seemed to notice my fatigue and patted me gently.
"Clean these plants here," he said, "and then shred them carefully into
this jar." He handed me a large coffee jar and left. He returned to his
house hours later, in the late afternoon. I had
finished shredding his plants
and had plenty of time to write my notes. I wanted to ask him some
questions right off, but he was
not in any mood to answer me. He said, he was famished and had to fix
his food first. He lit a fire
in his earthen stove and set up a pot with bone-broth stock. He looked
in the bag of groceries I
had brought and took some vegetables, sliced them into small pieces,
and dumped them into the pot.
Then he lay on his mat, kicked off his sandals, and told me to sit
closer to the stove, so I could
feed the fire. It was almost dark; from where I sat, I could see the
sky to the west.
The edges of some thick cloud
formations were tinted with a deep buff (pale yellow), while the center
of the clouds
remained almost black. I was going to make a comment on how beautiful
the clouds were, but he
spoke first. "Fluffy edges and a thick core," he said, pointing at the
clouds. His statement was so perfectly apropos (appropriate,
pertinent), that it made me jump.
"I was just going to tell you about the clouds," I said.
"Then I beat you to it," he said, and laughed with childlike abandon. I
asked him, if he was in a mood to answer some questions.
"What do you want to know?" he replied.
"What you told me this afternoon about controlled folly has disturbed
me very much," I said.
88-89
"I
really cannot understand, what you meant."
"Of course you cannot understand it," he said. "You are trying to think
about it, and what I said
does not fit with your thoughts."
"I'm trying to think about it," I said, "because that's the only way I,
personally, can understand
anything. For example, don Juan, do you mean, that once a man learns to
See, everything in the whole
world is worthless?"
"I didn't say worthless. I said unimportant. Everything is equal and
therefore unimportant. For
example, there is no way for me to say, that my acts are more
important,
than yours, or that one
thing is more essential, than another, therefore all things are equal
and, by being equal, they are
unimportant."
I asked him, if his statements were a pronouncement, that what he had
called "Seeing" was, in
effect, a
"better way", than merely "looking at things." He said, that the eyes
of
man could perform both
functions, but neither of them was better, than the other; however, to
train the eyes only to look
was, in his opinion, an unnecessary loss. "For instance, we need to
look with our eyes to laugh," he said,
"because only when we look at
things, can we catch the funny edge of the world. On the other hand,
when our eyes See, everything
is so equal, that nothing is funny."
"Do you mean, don Juan, that a man, who Sees cannot ever laugh?' He
remained silent for some time.
"Perhaps, there are men of knowledge, who never laugh," he said. "I
don't
know any of them, though.
Those I know, See and also look, so they laugh."
"Would a Man of Knowledge cry as well?"
"I suppose so. Our eyes look, so we may laugh, or cry, or rejoice, or
be
sad, or be happy. I
personally don't like to be sad, so whenever I witness something, that
would ordinarily make me sad,
I simply shift my eyes and See it, instead of looking at it. But when I
encounter something funny, I
look and I laugh."
"But then, don Juan, your laughter is real and not controlled folly."
Don Juan stared at me for a moment.
"I talk to you, because you make me laugh," he said. "You remind me of
some bushy-tailed rats of the
desert, that get caught, when they stick their tails in holes, trying
to
scare other rats away, in
order to steal their food. You get caught in your own questions. Watch
out ! Sometimes those rats
yank their tails off, trying to pull themselves free." I found his
comparison funny and I laughed. Don Juan had once shown me
some small rodents with
bushy tails, that looked like fat squirrels; the image of one of those
chubby rats, yanking its tail
off was sad and at the same time morbidly funny. "My laughter, as well,
as everything I do, is real," he said, "but it
also is controlled folly,
because it is useless; it changes nothing and yet I still do it."
"But, as I understand it, don Juan, your laughter is not useless. It
makes you happy."
"No! I am happy, because I choose to look at things, that make me happy
and then my eyes catch their
funny edge and I laugh. I have said this to you countless times. One
must always choose the path
with heart, in order to be at one's best, perhaps, so one can always
laugh."
I interpreted, what he had said, as meaning, that crying was inferior
to
laughter, or at least perhaps
an act, that weakened us. He asserted (affirm, state positevely), that there
was no intrinsic
(inherent)
difference
and
that both were
unimportant; he said, however, that his preference was laughter,
because laughter made his body
feel better, than crying. At
that point I suggested, that, if one has a preference, there is no
equality; if he preferred
laughing to crying, the former was indeed more important. He stubbornly
maintained, that his preference did not mean, they were not
equal; and I insisted, that
our argument could be logically stretched to saying, that if things
were
supposed to be so equal, why
not also choose death? "Many Men of Knowledge do that," he said. "One
day they may simply
disappear. People may think, that
they have been ambushed and killed, because of their doings.
90-91
They choose
to die, because it doesn't
matter to them. On the other hand, I choose to live, and to laugh, not
because it matters, but
because, that choice is the bent of my nature. The reason I say, I
choose, is because I See, but it isn't, that I choose
to live; my Will makes me go
on living, in spite of anything I may See. You don't understand me now,
because of your habit of thinking, as you
look and thinking, as you
think." This statement intrigued me very much. I asked him to explain,
what he
meant by it. He repeated the same construct various times, as if giving
himself time
to arrange it in different
terms, and then delivered his point, saying, that by "thinking", he
meant
the constant idea, that we
have of everything in the world. He said, that "Seeing" dispelled
(dispense, scattering) that
habit and, until I learned to
"See", I could not really understand, what he meant.
"But if nothing matters, don Juan, why should it matter, that I learn
to See?"
"I told you once, that our lot, as men, is to learn, for good or bad,"
he
said. "I have learned to See
and I tell you, that nothing really matters; now it is your
turn;
perhaps some day you will See and
you will know then, whether things matter or not. For me nothing
matters, but perhaps for you
everything will. You should know by now, that a Man of Knowledge lives
by acting, not by thinking
about acting, nor by thinking about, what he will think, when he has
finished acting. A Man of Knowledge chooses a patlh with heart and
follows it; and then he looks
and rejoices and laughs; and
then he Sees and Knows. He knows, that his life will be over altogether
too soon; he knows, that he,
as well, as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he
Sees, that nothing is more
important, than anything else. In other words, a Man of Knowledge has
no
honor, no dignity, no
family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and, under
these
circumstances, his only tie
to his fellow men, is his controlled folly. Thus a Man of Knowledge
endeavors, and sweats, and
puffs, and, if one looks at him, he is just like any ordinary man,
except,
that the folly of has life
is under control. Nothing being more important, than anything else, a
man of knowledge chooses any
act, and acts it out, as if it matters to him. His controlled folly
makes him say that, what he does,
matters and makes him act, as if it did, and yet he knows, that it
doesn't; so when he fulfills his
acts, he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or
worked or didn't, is in no way
part of his concern. A Man of Knowledge may choose, on the other hand,
to remain totally
impassive
(apathetic, emotionless) and never
act, and
behave, as if to be impassive
(apathetic, emotionless) really
matters to him; he will be
rightfully true at that too, because
that would also be his controlled folly." I involved myself at this
point in a very complicated effort to explain
to don Juan, that I was
interested in knowing, what would motivate a Man of Knowledge to act in
a particular
way, in spite of the fact, that
he knew: nothing mattered. He chuckled (laugh
quietly or to oneself) softly before
answering. "You
think about your acts," he said. "Therefore you have to believe:
your acts are as important, as
you think they are, when in reality, nothing of, what one does, is
important. Nothing ! But then, if
nothing really matters, as you asked me, how can I go on living? It
would be simple to die; that's
what you say and believe, because you're thinking about life, just as
you're thinking now, what Seeing would be
like. You wanted me to describe it to you, so you could
begin to think about it, the
way you do with everything else. In the case of Seeing, however,
thinking is not the issue at all,
so I cannot tell you, what it is like to See. Now you want me to
describe the reasons for my
controlled folly and I can only tell you, that controlled folly is very
much like Seeing;
it is
something you cannot think about."
He yawned. He lay on his back and
stretched his arms and legs. His
bones made a cracking sound. "You have been away too long," he said.
"You think too much." He got up and walked into the thick chaparral at
the side of the house.
I fed the fire to keep the
pot boiling. I was going to light a kerosene lantern, but the
semidarkness was very soothing. The
fire from the stove, which supplied enough light to write, also created
a reddish glow all around
me. I put my notes on the ground and lay down. I felt tired.
92-93
Out of
the
whole conversation with don
Juan, the only poignant (touching, affecting) thing in my
mind, was, that he did not care about
me; it disturbed me immensely Over a period of years I had put my trust
in him. Had I not
had complete confidence in
him, I would have been paralyzed with fear at the prospect of learning
his knowledge; the premise (subject, belief), on
which I had based my trust, was the idea, that he cared about me
personally; actually I had always
been afraid of him, but I had kept my fear in check, because I trusted
him. When he removed that
basis, I had nothing to fall back on and I felt helpless. A very
strange anxiety possessed me. I became extremely agitated and
began pacing up and down in
front of the stove. Don Juan was taking a long time. I waited for him
impatiently.
He returned a while later. He sat down again in front of the fire and I
blurted out my fears. I
told him, that I worried, because I was incapable of changing
directions
in midstream. I explained to
him, that together with the trust, I had in him, I had also learned to
respect and to regard his way
of life, as being intrinsically (inherently) more
rational, or at least more
functional, than mine. I said, that
his words had plunged me into a terrible conflict, because they
entailed
my having to change my
feelings. To illustrate my point I told don Juan the story of an old
man of my culture, a very
wealthy, conservative lawyer, who lived his life convinced, that he
upheld the truth. In the early
thirties, with the advent of the New Deal, he found himself
passionately involved in the political
drama of that time. He was categorically sure, that change was
deleterious to the country, and out
of devotion to his way of life and the conviction, that he was right,
he
vowed to fight, what he
thought to be a political evil. But the tide of the time was too
strong, it overpowered him. He
struggled for ten years against the political arena and in the
realm of his personal life. Then the Second World War sealed his
efforts into total defeat. His
political and ideological
downfall resulted in a profound bitterness: he became a self-exile for
twenty-five years. When
I
met him, he was eighty-four years old and had come back to his home
town
to spend his last years in
a home for the aged. It seemed inconceivable (unbelievable) to me, that
he had lived
that long, considering the way
he had squandered (spend extravagantly) his life in bitterness and
self-pity. Somehow he
found my company
(obidient,
responsible)
and we
used to talk at great length. The last time I saw him, he had concluded
our conversation with the
following:
"I have had time to turn around and examine my life. The
issues of my time are today
only a story; not even an interesting one. Perhaps I threw away years
of my life, chasing something,
that never existed. I've had the feeling lately, that I believed in
something farcical (ludicrous, absurd). It wasn't
worth my while. I think, I know that. However, I can't retrieve the
forty years, I've lost."
I told don Juan, that my conflict arose from the doubts, into which,
his
words about controlled folly,
had thrown me. "If nothing really matters," I said, "upon becoming a
Man of Knowledge,
one would find oneself,
perforce (by
necessity, willy-nilly), as empty, as
my friend and in no better position."
"That's not so," don Juan said cuttingly. "Your friend is lonely,
because he will die without Seeing.
In his life he just grew old and now he must have more self-pity, than
ever before.
He feels, he threw away forty
years, because he was after victories and found only defeats. He'll
never know, that to be victorious
and to be defeated are equal. So now you're afraid of me, because I've
told you, that you're equal to
everything else. You're
being childish. Our lot, as men, is to learn, and one goes to knowledge
as one goes to
war; I have told you this
countless times. One goes to knowledge or to war with fear, with
respect, aware, that one
is going to war, and with
absolute confidence in oneself. Put your trust in yourself, not in me.
And so, you're afraid of the emptiness of your friend's life. But
there's no emptiness in the life
of a Man of Knowledge, I tell you. Everything is filled to the brim."
Don Juan stood up and extended his arms, as if feeling things in the
air. "Everything is filled to the brim," he repeated, "and everything
is
equal. I'm not like your friend,
who just grew old. When I tell you, that nothing matters, I don't mean
it
the way,
he does. For him,
his struggle was not worth his while, because he was defeated.
94-95
For me
there is no victory, or
defeat, or emptiness. Everything is filled to the brim and everything
is equal and my struggle was
worth my while.
"In order to become a Man of Knowledge, one must be a warrior, not a
whimpering child. One must
strive (exert, struggle against) without giving up, without a
complaint, without flinching, until
one Sees, only to realize
then, that nothing matters." Don Juan stirred the pot with a wooden
spoon. The food was ready. He
took the pot off the fire and
placed it on an adobe rectangular block, which he had built against the
wall and which he used, as a
shelf or a table. With his foot he shoved two small boxes, that served
as comfortable chairs,
especially if one sat with his back against the supporting beams of the
wall. He signaled me to sit
down and then he poured a bowl of soup. He smiled; his eyes were
shining, as if he were truly
enjoying my presence. He pushed the bowl gently toward me. There was
such a warmth and kindness in
his gesture, that it seemed to be an appeal to restore my trust in him.
I felt idiotic; I tried to
disrupt my mood by looking for my spoon, but
I
couldn't find it. The
soup was too hot to be drunk
directly from the bowl, and while it cooled off, I asked don Juan, if
controlled folly meant, that a Man of Knowledge could not like anybody
any more. He stopped eating and laughed. "You're too
concerned
with liking people or with being liked yourself,"
he said. "A Man of Knowledge likes, that's all. He likes whatever or
whoever he wants, but
he uses his controlled
folly to be unconcerned about it. The opposite, of what you are doing
now. To like people or to be
liked by people is not all one can do, as a man." He stared at me for a
moment with his head, tilted a little to one side. "Think about that,"
he said.
"There is one more thing, I want to ask, don Juan. You said, that we
need
to look with our eyes to
laugh, but I believe, we laugh, because we think. Take a blind man, he
also laughs."
"No," he said. "Blind men don't laugh. Their bodies jerk a little with
the ripple of laughter. They
have never looked at the funny edge of the world and have to imagine
it. Their laughter is not
roaring." We did not speak any more. I had a sensation of well-being,
of
happiness. We ate in silence; then
don Juan began to laugh. I was using a dry twig to spoon the vegetables
into my mouth. At a certain moment today I asked don Juan, if he minded
talking a bit
more about "Seeing." He
seemed to deliberate for an instant, then he smiled and said, that I
was
again involved in my usual
routine, trying to talk, instead of doing. "If you want to See, you
have to let the smoke guide you," he said
emphatically (positive,
striking, definite). "I won't
talk about
this any more." I was helping him clean some dry herbs. We worked in
complete silence
for a long time. When I am
forced into a prolonged silence, I always feel apprehensive, especially
around don Juan. At a given
moment I brought up a question to him in a sort of compulsive (conditioned
by obsession),
almost
belligerent (marked
by hostile behaviour) outburst.
"How does a Man of Knowledge exercise controlled folly, when it comes
to
the death of a person, he
loves?" I asked. Don Juan was taken aback by my question and looked at
me quizzically. "Take your grandson Lucio," I said. "Would your acts be
controlled
folly at the time of his
death?"
"Take
my son Eulalio, that's a better example," don Juan replied
calmly. "He was crushed by rocks,
while working in the construction of the Pan-American Highway. My acts
toward him, at the moment of
his death, were controlled folly. When I came down to the blasting
area,
he was almost dead, but his
body was so strong, that it kept on moving and kicking. I stood in
front of him and told the boys in
the road crew, not to move him any more; they obeyed me and stood
there,
surrounding my son, looking at his mangled (mutilated,
disfigured) body. I stood there too,
but I did not look. I shifted my eyes, so I would See his personal life
disintegrating, expanding
uncontrollably beyond its limits, like a fog of crystals, because that
is the way life and death
mix and expand. That is what I did at the time of my son's death.
That's all
one could ever do, and
that is controlled folly.
96-97
Had
I looked at him, I would have watched him,
becoming immobile and I
would have felt a cry inside of me, because never again would I look at
his fine figure, pacing the Earth. I saw his death instead, and there
was no sadness, no feeling.
His death was equal to
everything else." Don Juan was quiet for a moment.
He seemed to be sad, but then he
smiled and
tapped (knocked on) my head. "So you may say, that when it comes to the
death of a person I love, my
controlled folly is to shift
my eyes." I thought about the people, I love myself, and a terribly
oppressive wave of self-pity enveloped
me.
"Lucky you, don Juan," I said. "You can shift your eyes, while I can
only look."
He found my statement funny and laughed. "Lucky, bull!" he
said.
"It's hard work." We both laughed. After a long silence I began probing
him again,
perhaps only to dispel (dispense,
scatter) my
own
sadness.
"If
I have understood you correctly then, don Juan," I said, "the only
acts in the life of a Man of Knowledge, which are not controlled folly,
are those he performs with
his ally or with Mescalito.
Isn't that right?"
"That's
right," he said, chuckling. "My ally and Mescalito are not on a
par with us, human beings.
My controlled folly applies only to myself and to the acts I perform,
while in the company of my
fellow men."
"However, it is a logical possibility," I said, "to think, that a Man
of Knowledge may also regard
his acts with his ally or with Mescalito, as controlled folly, true?"
He stared at me for a moment. "You're thinking again," he said. "A Man
of Knowledge doesn't think, therefore he cannot encounter
that possibility. Take me, for example. I say, that my controlled folly
applies to the acts I
performed, while in the company of my fellow men; I say that, because I
can see my fellow men.
However, I cannot see through my ally and that makes it
incomprehensible to me, so how could I
control my folly, if I don't see through it? With my ally or with
Mescalito I am only a man, who
knows, how to See and finds, that he's baffled (puzzled,
bewildered),
by what he
Sees; a man,
who knows, that he'll never
understand all, that is around him. "Take your case, for instance. It
doesn't matter to me, whether you
become a Man of Knowledge or
not; however, it matters to Mescalito. Obviously, it matters to him or
he wouldn't take so many steps, to
show his concern about you. I can notice his concern and I act toward
it, yet his reasons are
incomprehensible to me."
98-99
Just
as we were getting into my car to start on a trip to central
Mexico, on October 5, 1968, don
Juan stopped me. "I have told you before," he said with a serious
expression, "that one
should never reveal the name,
nor the whereabouts of a sorcerer. I believe you understood, that you
should never reveal my name,
nor the place, where my body is. Now I am going to ask you to do the
same with a friend of mine, a
friend, you will call Genaro. We are going to his house; we will spend
some time there." I assured don Juan, that I had never betrayed his
confidence. "I know that," he said without changing his serious
expression. "Yet I
am concerned with your
becoming thoughtless." I protested and don Juan said, his aim was only
to remind me, that every
time one was careless in
matters of sorcery, one was playing with an imminent and senseless
death, that could be averted (avoided) by
being thoughtful and aware. "We will not touch upon this matter any
longer,"
he said. "Once we
leave my house, we will not
mention Genaro, nor will we think about him. I want you to put your
thoughts in order now. When you
meet him,
you must be clear and have no doubts in your mind."
"What kinds of doubts are you referring to, don Juan?"
"Any kinds of doubts, whatever. When you meet him, you ought to be
crystal clear. He will See
you!" His strange admonitions (warnings) made me very apprehensive. I
mentioned, that
perhaps I should not meet his
friend at all, but only drive to the vicinity of his friend's house and
leave him there. "What I've told you, was only a precaution," he said.
"You've met one
sorcerer already, Vicente, and
he nearly killed you. Watch out this time!"
After we arrived in central Mexico, it took us two days to walk from
where I left my car to his
friend's house, a little shack perched on the side of a mountain.

Don
Juan's friend was at the
door, as if he had been waiting for us. I recognized him immediately. I
had already made his
acquaintance, although very briefly, when
I brought my book to don
Juan. I had not really looked at
him at that time, except in a glancing fashion, so I had had the
feeling, he was as old, as don Juan.
As he stood at the door of his house, however, I noticed, that he was
definitely younger. He was
perhaps in his early sixties. He was shorter, than don Juan and
slimmer, very dark and wiry. His
hair was thick, graying and a bit long; it ran over his ears and
forehead. His face was round
and hard. A very prominent nose made him look like a bird of prey with
small dark eyes. He talked to don Juan first. Don Juan nodded
affirmatively. They conversed briefly. They were not
speaking Spanish, so I did not understand, what they were saying. Then
don Genaro turned to me.

"You're welcome to my humble little shack," he said apologetically in
Spanish. His words were a polite formula, I had heard before in various
rural areas of Mexico. Yet, as he said
the words, he laughed joyously for no overt reason, and I knew, he was
exercising his controlled
folly. He did not care in the least, that his house was a shack. I
liked don Genaro very much.
For the next two days we went into the mountains to collect plants. Don
Juan, don Genaro, and I
left each day at the crack of dawn. The two old men went together to
some specific, but unidentified
part of the mountains and left me alone in one area of the woods.

I had
an exquisite feeling there.
I did not notice the passage of time, nor was I apprehensive at staying
alone; the extraordinary
experience, I had both days, was an uncanny capacity to concentrate on
the delicate task of finding
the specific plants, don Juan had entrusted me to collect.
100-101
We
returned to the house in the late afternoon and both days I was so
tired, that I fell asleep
immediately. The third day, however, was different. The three of us
worked together, and don Juan asked don
Genaro to teach me, how to select certain plants. We returned around
noon and the two old men sat
for hours in front of the house, in complete silence, as if they were
in a state of trance. Yet
they were not asleep. I walked around them a couple of times; don Juan
followed my movements with
his eyes, and so did don Genaro. "You must talk to the plants before
you pick them," don Juan said. He dropped his words casually
and
repeated his statement three times, as if to catch my attention. Nobody
had said a word, until he
spoke. "In order to see the plants, you must talk to them personally,"
he went
on. "You must get to know
them individually; then the plants can tell you anything you care to
know about them." It was late in the afternoon. Don Juan was sitting on
a flat rock,
facing the western mountains; don
Genaro was sitting by him on a straw mat with his face toward the
north. Don Juan had told me, the
first day we were there, that those were their "positions" and, that I
had to sit on the ground at
any place opposite to both of them. He added, that while we
sat
in
those positions, I had to keep my face toward the south-east and look
at them only in brief glances. "Yes, that's the way it is with plants,
isn't it?" don Juan said and
turned to don Genaro, who
agreed with an affirmative gesture. I told him, that the reason I had
not followed his instructions was,
because I felt a little stupid,
talking to plants.
"You fail to understand, that a sorcerer is not
joking," he said
severely. "When a sorcerer attempts
to See, he attempts to Gain Power."
Don Genaro was staring at me. I was taking notes and that seemed to
baffle
(puzzle, bewilder) him. He
smiled at me,
shook his head, and said something to don Juan. Don Juan shrugged his
shoulders. To see me writing
must have been quite odd for don Genaro. Don Juan was, I suppose,
habituated to my taking notes,
and the fact, that I wrote, while he spoke, was no longer odd to him;
he
could carry on talking,
without appearing to notice my acts. Don Genaro, however, kept on
laughing, and
I had to stop
writing, in order not to disrupt the mood of the conversation. Don Juan
affirmed again, that a sorcerer's acts were not to be taken
as
jokes, because a sorcerer
played with death at every turn of the way. Then he proceeded to relate
to don Genaro the story of,
how one night I had looked at the lights of death, following me during
one of our trips.

The story
proved to be utterly funny; don Genaro rolled on the ground, laughing.
Don Juan apologized to me and said, that his friend was given to
explosions of laughter. I glanced
at don Genaro, who, I thought, was still rolling on the ground, and saw
him performing a most unusual
act. He was standing on his head without the aid of his arms or hands,
and his legs were crossed, as
if he were sitting. The sight was so incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings), that it made
me jump.
When I realized, he was doing
something almost impossible, from the point of view of body mechanics,
he had gone back again to a
normal sitting position.
Don Juan, however, seemed to be cognizant (conscious, aware) of
what was involved and
celebrated don Genaro's performance with roaring laughter. Don Genaro
seemed to have noticed my confusion; he clapped his hands a couple of
times and rolled
on the ground again; apparently he wanted me to watch him. What, had at
first appeared to be rolling
on the ground, was actually leaning over in a sitting position, and
touching the ground with his
head. He seemingly attained his illogical posture by gaining momentum,
leaning over several times,
until the inertia carried his body to a vertical stand, so that for an
instant he "sat on his
head." When their laughter subsided, don Juan continued talking; his
tone was very severe. I shifted the
position of my body, in order to be at ease and give him all my
attention.
He did not smile at all,
as he usually does, especially when I try to pay deliberate attention,
to what he is saying. Don
Genaro kept looking at me, as if he were expecting me to start writing
again, but I did not take
notes any more.
102-103
Don Juan's words were a reprimand for not talking to the plants, I had
collected, as
he had always told me to do. He said, the plants, I had killed, could
also
have killed me; he said, he
was sure they would, sooner or later, make me get ill. He added, that
if I became ill, as a result of
hurting plants, I would, however, slough it off
(discarded,
got rid of)
and believe,
I had only
a touch of the flu. The two of them had another moment of mirth, then
don Juan became serious again and said, that,
if I
did not think of my death, my entire life would be only a personal
chaos. He looked very stern. "What else can a man have, except his life
and his death?" he said to
me. At that point I felt it was indispensable (necessary) to take notes
and I began
writing again. Don Genaro
stared at me and smiled. Then he tilted his head back a little and
opened his nostrils. He
apparently had remarkable control over the muscles operating his
nostrils, because they opened up
to perhaps twice their normal size. What was most comical, about his
clowning, was not so much his gestures, as his own reactions to them.
After
he enlarged his nostrils, he tumbled down, laughing, and worked his
body
again into the same,
strange, sitting-on his-head, upside-down posture. Don Juan laughed,
until tears rolled down his cheeks. I felt a bit embarrassed and
laughed
nervously.
"Genaro doesn't like writing," don Juan said, as an explanation. I put
my notes away, but don Genaro assured me, that it was all right to
write, because he did not
really mind it. I gathered my notes again and began writing. He
repeated the same hilarious motions
and both of them had the same reactions again. Don Juan looked at me,
still laughing, and said, that his friend was portraying me; that my
tendency
was to open my nostrils, whenever I wrote; and that don Genaro thought,
that trying to become a
sorcerer, by taking notes, was as absurd, as sitting on one's head and
thus he had made up the
ludicrous (absurd)
posture of
resting the weight of his sitting body on his
head. "Perhaps you don't think it's funny," don Juan said, "but only
Genaro
can work his way up to
sitting on his head, and only you can think of learning to be a
sorcerer by writing your way
up." They both had another explosion of laughter and don Genaro
repeated his
incredible movement. I liked him. There was so much grace and
directness in his acts.
"My apologies, don Genaro," I said, pointing to the writing pad.
"It's all right," he said and chuckled (laugh
quietly or to oneself) again. I
could not write any
more. They went on talking for a very long time about how plants could
actually kill and how sorcerers used plants in that capacity. Both of
them kept staring at me, while
they talked, as if they expected me to write.
"Carlos is like a horse, that doesn't like to be saddled," don Juan
said. "You have to be very slow
with him. You scared him and now he won't write."
Don Genaro expanded his nostrils and said in a mocking plea, frowning
and puckering his mouth: "Come on, Carlitos, write! Write until your
thumb falls off."
Don Juan stood up, stretching his arms and arching his back. In spite
of his advanced age his body
seemed to be powerful and limber (strong). He went to the bushes at the
side of
the house and I was left
alone with don Genaro. He looked at me and I moved my eyes away,
because
he made me feel
embarrassed.
"Don't tell me, you're not even going to look at me?" he said with a
most hilarious intonation. He opened his nostrils and made them quiver;
then he stood up and repeated don Juan's movements,
arching his back and stretching his arms, but with his body contorted
into a most ludicrous
(absurd)
position;
it was truly an indescribable gesture, that combined an
exquisite sense of pantomime and a
sense of the ridiculous. It enthralled me. It was a masterful
caricature of don Juan. Don Juan came back at that moment and caught
the gesture and obviously the meaning also. He sat
down chuckling. "Which direction is the wind?" don Genaro asked
casually. Don Juan pointed to the west with a movement of his head.
"I'd better
go, where the wind blows," don Genaro said with a serious
expression.
104-105
He then turned and shook his finger at me. "And don't you pay any
attention, if you hear strange noises," he said.
"When Genaro shits, the
mountains tremble."
He leaped into the bushes and, a moment later I heard a very strange
noise, a deep, unearthly
rumble. I did not know, what to make of it. I looked at don Juan for a
clue, but he was doubled over
with laughter. I don't remember, what prompted (inspired) don Genaro to
tell me
about the arrangement of the "other world," as
he called it. He said, that a master sorcerer was an eagle, or rather,
that he could make himself
into an eagle. On the other hand, an evil sorcerer was a "tecolote," an
owl. Don Genaro said, that
an evil sorcerer was a child of the night, and for such a man the most
useful animals were the
mountain lion or other wild cats, or the night birds, especially the
owl. He said, that the "brujos
liricos," lyric sorcerers, meaning the dilettante sorcerers, preferred
other animals—a crow, for example. Don Juan laughed;
he had
been
listening in silence. Don
Genaro turned to him and said, "That's true, you know that, Juan." Then
he said, that a master sorcerer could take his disciple on a
journey with him and actually pass
through the ten layers of the other world. The master, provided, that
he was an eagle, could start
at the very bottom layer and then go through each successive world,
until he reached the top. Evil
sorcerers and dilettantes could at best, be said, go through only three
layers. Don Genaro gave a description, of what those steps were by
saying, "You
start at the very bottom and
then your teacher takes you with him in his flight and soon, boom! You
go through the first layer.
Then a little while later, boom! You go through the second; and boom!
You go through the
third..." Don Genaro took me through ten booms to the last layer of the
world.
When he had finished talking,
don Juan looked at me and smiled knowingly.
"Talking is not Genaro's predilection (inclinations, preference)," he
said, "but if you care to
get a lesson, he will teach
you about the equilibrium of things."
Don Genaro nodded affirmatively; he puckered up his mouth and closed
his eyelids halfway. I thought
his gesture was delightful. Don Genaro stood up and so did don Juan.
"All right," don Genaro said.
"Let's go, then. We could go and wait for Nestor and Pablito. They're
through now. On Thursdays they're through
early."
Both of them got into my car; don Juan sat in the front. I did not ask
them anything, but simply
started the engine. Don Juan directed me to a place, he said, was
Nestor's home; don Genaro went into
the house and a while later came out with Nestor and Pablito, two young
men, who were his
apprentices. They all got in my car and don Juan told me to take the
road toward the western
mountains. We left my car on the side of the dirt road and walked along
the bank of a river, which was perhaps
fifteen or twenty feet across, to a waterfall, that was visible from
where I had parked. It was late
afternoon. The scenery was quite impressive. Directly above us there
was a huge, dark, bluish cloud,
that looked like a floating roof; it had a well-defined edge and was
shaped like an enormous
half-circle (UFO). To the west, on the high mountains of the Cordillera
Central, the rain seemed to be
descending on the slopes. It looked like a whitish curtain falling on
the green peaks. To the east
there was the long, deep valley; there were only scattered clouds over
the valley and the sun was
shining there. The contrast between the two areas was magnificent.

We
stopped at the bottom of the
waterfall; it was perhaps a hundred and fifty feet high; the roar was
very loud. Don Genaro fastened a belt around his waist. He had at least
seven items hanging from it. They
looked like small gourds. He took off his hat and let it hang on his
back from a cord, tied around
his neck. He put on a headband, that he took from a pouch,
made of a
thick wool fabric. The headband
was also made of wool of various colors; a sharp yellow was the most
prominent of them. He inserted
three feathers in the headband. They seemed to be eagle feathers. I
noticed, that the places, where
he had inserted them, were not symmetrical.
106-107
One feather was above the
back curve of his right ear,
the other was a few inches to the front, and the third was over his
left temple. Then he took off
his sandals, hooked or tied them to the waist of his trousers, and
fastened his belt over his
poncho. The belt seemed to be made of woven strips of leather. I could
not see, whether he tied it
or buckled it. Don Genaro walked toward the waterfall. Don Juan
manipulated a round rock into a steady position and sat down on it. The
other two young
men did the same with some rocks and sat down to his left. Don Juan
pointed to the place next to
him, on his right side, and told me to bring a rock and sit by him.

"We must make a line here," he said, showing me, that the three were
sitting in a row. By then don Genaro had reached the very bottom of the
waterfall and had begun climbing a trail on
the right side of it. From where we were sitting, the trail looked
fairly steep. There were a lot of
shrubs, he used as railings. At one moment he seemed to lose his
footing
and almost slid down, as if the dirt were slippery. A
moment later the same thing happened and the thought crossed my mind,
that perhaps, don Genaro was
too old to be climbing. I saw him slipping and stumbling several times,
before he reached the spot,
where the trail ended. I experienced a sort of apprehension, when he
began to climb the rocks. I could not figure out, what
he was going to do.

"What's he doing?" I asked don Juan in a whisper.
Don Juan did not look at me: "Obviously he's climbing." Don Juan was
looking straight at don Genaro. His gaze was fixed. His
eyelids were half-closed. He
was sitting very erect with his hands resting between his legs, on the
edge of the rock. I leaned over a little bit, to see the two young men.
Don Juan made an
imperative gesture with his
hand to make me get back in line. I retreated immediately. I had only a
glimpse of the young men.
They seemed to be as attentive, as he was.
Don Juan made another
gesture with his hand and pointed to the direction of the waterfall. I
looked again. Don Genaro had climbed quite a way on the rocky wall.
At
the moment I looked, he was
perched on a ledge, inching his way slowly, to circumvent (get around)
a huge
boulder. His arms were spread, as
if he were embracing the rock. He moved slowly toward his right and,
suddenly, he lost his footing. I
gasped involuntarily. For a moment his whole body hung in the air. I
was sure he was going to fall, but he did not. His
right hand had grabbed onto something and very agilely (easily,
quickly) his feet went
back on the ledge again.
But
before he moved on, he turned to us and looked. It was only a glance.
There was, however, such a
stylization to the movement of turning his head, that I began to
wonder. I remembered then, that he
had done the same thing, turning to look at us, every time he slipped.
I had thought, that don
Genaro must have felt embarrassed by his clumsiness and turned to see,
if we were looking. He climbed a bit more toward the top, suffered
another loss of footing and hung perilously (exposed to the danger) on
the
overhanging rock face. This time he was supported by his left hand.
When he regained his balance, he
turned and looked at us again. He slipped twice more, before he reached
the top. From where we were
sitting, the crest of the waterfall seemed to be twenty to twenty-five
feet across. Don Genaro stood motionless for a moment. I wanted to ask
don Juan, what don Genaro was going to do
up there, but don Juan seemed to be so absorbed in watching, that I did
not dare disturb him. Suddenly don Genaro jumped onto the
water. It was
such a thoroughly unexpected action, that I felt a
vacuum in the pit of my stomach. It was a magnificent, outlandish leap.
For a second I had the
clear sensation, that I had seen a series of superimposed images of his
body, making an elliptical
flight to the middle of the stream. When my surprise receded
(diminished), I noticed,
that he had landed on a rock on the edge of the fall, a rock,
which was hardly visible, from where we were sitting. He stayed,
perched
there, for a long time. He seemed to be fighting the
power of the onrushing water.
Twice he hung over the precipice, and
I could not determine, what he was
clinging to.
108-109
He gained his
balance and squatted on the rock. Then he leaped again, like a tiger. I
could barely see the next
rock, where he landed; it was like a small cone on the very edge of
the fall. He remained there almost ten minutes. He was motionless. His
immobility
was so impressive to me,
that I was shivering. I wanted to get up and walk around. Don Juan
noticed my nervousness and told
me imperatively to be calm. Don Genaro's stillness plunged me into an
extraordinary and mysterious terror. I felt, that if he
remained perched there any longer, I could not control myself. Suddenly
he jumped again, this time all the way to the other bank of
the waterfall.
He landed on
his feet and hands, like a feline. He remained in a squat position for
a moment, then he stood up
and looked across the fall, to the other side, and then down at us. He
stayed dead still looking at
us. His hands were clasped at his sides, as if he were holding onto an
unseen railing. There was something truly exquisite about his posture;
his body seemed so nimble, so frail. I
thought, that don Genaro with his headband and feathers, his dark
poncho and his bare feet was the
most beautiful human being, I had ever seen. He threw his arms up
suddenly, lifted his head, and flipped his body swiftly in a sort of
lateral
somersault to his left. The boulder, where he had been standing, was
round and when he jumped, he
disappeared behind it. Huge drops of rain began to fall at that moment.
Don Juan got up and so
did the two young men.
Their movement was so abrupt, that it confused me. Don Genaro's
masterful feat had thrown me into a
state of profound emotional excitement. I felt, he was a consummate
(supremely skilled)
artist and I wanted to see him
right then, to applaud him. I strained to look on the left side of the
waterfall to see, if he was coming down, but he was not.
I insisted on knowing, what had happened to him. Don Juan did not
answer.
"We better hurry out of here," he said. "It's a real downpour. We have
to take Nestor and Pablito
to their house and then, we'll have to start on our trip back."
"I didn't even say goodbye to don Genaro," I complained.
"He already said goodbye to you," don Juan answered harshly. He peered
at me for an instant and then softened his frown and smiled. "He has
also wished you well," he said. "He felt happy with you."
"But aren't we going to wait for him?"
"No!" don Juan said sharply, "Let him be, wherever he is. Perhaps he is
an eagle, flying to the
other world, or perhaps he has died up there. It doesn't matter now."
October 23, 1968
Don Juan casually mentioned, that he was going to make another trip to
central Mexico in the near
future.
"Are you going to visit don Genaro?" I asked.
"Perhaps," he said without looking at me.
"He's all right, isn't he, don Juan? I mean nothing bad happened to him
up there on top of the
waterfall, did it?"
"Nothing happened to him; he is sturdy."
We talked about his projected trip for a while and then I said, I had
enjoyed don Genaro's company
and his jokes. He laughed and said, that don Genaro was truly like a
child. There was a long pause;
I struggled in my mind, to find an opening line to ask about his
lesson.
Don Juan looked at me and
said in a mischievous tone:
"You're dying to ask me about Genaro's lesson, aren't you?" I laughed
with embarrassment. I had been obsessed with everything, that
took place at the waterfall.
I had been hashing and rehashing all the details, I could remember and
my conclusions were, that I
had witnessed an incredible feat of physical prowess (daring,
outstanding
courage). I
thought
don
Genaro was beyond doubt a
peerless master of equilibrium; every single movement, he had
performed, was highly ritualized and, needless to say, must have had
some inextricable (complicated to solve), symbolic meaning. "Yes," I
said. "I admit I'm dying to know, what his lesson was."
"Let me tell you something," don Juan said. "It was a waste of time for
you. His lesson was for
someone, who can See. Pablito and Nestro got the gist (essence) of it,
although
they don't See very well.
110-111
But
you, you went there to look. I told Genaro, that you are a very strange
plugged-up fool and, that
perhaps, you'd get unplugged with his lesson, but you didn't. It
doesn't
matter, though. Seeing is
very difficult. I didn't want you to speak to Genaro afterwards, so we
had to leave.
Too bad. Yet it would have
been worse to stay. Genaro risked a great deal, to show you something
magnificent. Too bad you can't See."
"Perhaps, don Juan, if you tell me, what the lesson was, I may find
out, that I really Saw."
Don Juan doubled up with laughter. "Your best feature is asking
questions," he said. He was apparently going to drop the subject again.
We were sitting, as usual, in the area in front
of his house; he suddenly got up and walked inside. I trailed behind
him and insisted, on describing to him what I
had seen. I faithfully followed the sequence of events, as I remembered
it. Don Juan kept on smiling,
while I spoke. When I had finished, he shook his head. "Seeing is very
difficult," he said. I begged him to explain his
statement. "Seeing
is not a matter of talk," he said imperatively.
Obviously he was not going to tell me anything more, so I gave up and
left the house to run some
errands for
him. When I returned, it was already dark; we had something to eat and
afterwards, we walked out to the
ramada; we had no sooner sat down, than don Juan began to talk about
don
Genaro's lesson. He did not give me
any time to prepare myself for it. I did have my notes with me, but it
was too dark to write and I
did not want to alter the flow of his talk by going inside the house
for the kerosene lantern. He said, that don Genaro, being a master of
balance, could perform very complex and difficult
movements. Sitting on his head was one of such movements and with it he
had attempted to show me, that it was
impossible to "See", while I took notes. The action of sitting on his
head, without the aid of his
hands, was, at best, a freakish (abnormal, outlandish) stunt (feat of
unusual daring), that lasted only an instant. In don Genaro's opinion,
writing
about "Seeing" was the
same; that is, it was a precarious (lacking in
stability)
maneuver, as
odd and as unnecessary, as
sitting on one's head. Don Juan peered at me in the dark and in a very
dramatic tone said, that while don Genaro was
horsing around, sitting on his head, I was on the very verge of
"Seeing". Don Genaro
noticed it and
repeated his maneuvers over and over, to no avail, because I had lost
the thread right away. Don Juan said, that afterwards don Genaro, moved
by his personal liking for me, attempted in a very
dramatic way to bring me back to that verge of "Seeing". After very
careful deliberation he decided
to show me a feat of equilibrium by crossing the waterfall. He felt,
that the waterfall was like the
edge, on which
I was standing, and was confident, I could also make it
across.
Don
Juan then explained
don Genaro's feat. He said, that he had already told me, that human
beings were, for those, who "Saw," Luminous Beings, composed of
something like fibers of Light, which
rotated from the front to the
back, and maintained the appearance of an egg. He said, that he had
also told me, that the most
astonishing part of the egg-like creatures, was a set of long fibers,
that came out of the area
around the navel; don Juan said, that those fibers were of the
uttermost importance in the life of a
man. Those fibers were the secret of don Genaio's balance and his
lesson had nothing to do with
acrobatic jumps across the waterfall.
His feat of equilibrium was in
the way, he used those
"tentacle-like" fibers.
Don Juan dropped the subject as suddenly, as he had started it, and
began
to talk about something,
thoroughly unrelated. I cornered don Juan and told him,
I intuitively felt, that I was never
going to get another lesson in
equilibrium and, that he had to explain to me all the pertinent
details,
which I would otherwise
never discover by myself. Don Juan said, I was right, in so far as
knowing, that don Genaro would
never give me another lesson.
"What else do you want to know?" he asked.
"What are
those tentacle-like fibers, don Juan?"

112-113
"They
are the tentacles, that come out of a man's body, which are
apparent to any sorcerer, who Sees.
Sorcerers act toward people, in accordance to the way they See their
tentacles. Weak persons have
very short, almost invisible fibers; strong persons have bright, long
ones. Genaro's, for instance,
are so bright, that they resemble thickness. You can tell from the
fibers, if a person is healthy, or
if he is sick, or if he is mean, or kind, or treacherous. You can also
tell from the fibers, if a
person can See. Here is a baffling problem. When Genaro Saw you, he
knew, just like my friend
Vicente did, that you could See; when I See you, I See, that you can
See and yet I know myself, that
you can't. How baffling! Genaro couldn't get over that. I told him,
that you were a strange fool. I
think, he wanted to See that for himself and took you to the waterfall."
"Why
do you think, I give the impression I can See?"
Don
Juan did not answer me. He remained silent for a long time. I did
not want to ask him anything
else. Finally he spoke to me and said, that he knew why, but did not
know, how to explain it.
"You
think everything in the world is simple to understand," he said,
"because everything you do is
a routine, that is simple to understand. At the waterfall, when you
looked at Genaro moving across
the water, you believed, that he was a master of somersaults, because
somersaults was all, you could
think about. And that is all, you will ever believe, he did. Yet Genaro
never jumped across that
water. If he had jumped, he would have died. Genaro balanced himself on
his superb, bright fibers.
He made them long, long enough, so that he could, let's say, roll on
them across the waterfall. He
demonstrated the proper way to make those tentacles long, and how to
move them
with precision. "Pablito Saw nearly all of Genaro's movements. Nestor,
on the other
hand, Saw only the most obvious
maneuvers. He missed the delicate details. But you, you Saw nothing at
all."
"Perhaps,
if you had told me beforehand, don Juan, what to look for ..."
He
interrupted me and said, that giving me instructions would only have
hindered don Genaro. Had I
known, what was going to take place, my fibers would have been agitated
and would have interfered
with don Genaro's. "If you could See," he said, "it would have been
obvious to you, from
the first step, that Genaro
took, that he was not slipping, as he went up the side of the
waterfall. He was loosening his
tentacles. Twice he made them go around boulders and held to the sheer
rock like a fly. When he got
to the top and was ready to cross the water, he focused them onto a
small rock in the middle of the
stream, and when they were secured there,
he
let the fibers pull him.
Genaro never jumped,
therefore he could land on the slippery surfaces of small boulders at
the very edge of the water.
His fibers were at all times neatly wrapped around every rock, he used.
He did not stay on the first boulder very long, because he had the rest
of his fibers, tied onto
another one, even smaller, at the place, where the onrush of water was
the greatest. His tentacles
pulled him again and he landed on it. That was the most outstanding
thing, he did.
The
surface was
too small for a man, to hold onto; and the onrush of the water would
have washed his body over the
precipice, had he not had some of his fibers still focused on the first
rock. He stayed in that second position for a long time, because he had
to draw out his tentacles again
and send them across to the other side of the fall. When he had them
secured, he had to release the
fibers, focused on the first rock. That was very tricky. Perhaps only
Genaro could do that. He
nearly lost his grip; or maybe he was only fooling us, we'll never know
that for sure. Personally, I
really think, he nearly lost his grip. I know that, because he became
rigid and sent out a
magnificent shoot, like a beam of light across the water. I feel, that
beam alone could have pulled
him through. When he got to the other side, he stood up and let his
fibers glow like a cluster of
lights. That was the one thing, he did just for you. If you had been
able to See, you would have Seen
that. Genaro stood there looking at you, and then he knew, that you had
not Seen."
Part 2 - The
task of “Seeing”
117
Don Juan was not at his house, when I arrived there at midday on
November 8, 1968. I had no idea,
where to look for him, so I sat and waited. For some unknown reason I
knew, he would soon be home. A
short while later don Juan walked into his house. He nodded at me. We
exchanged greetings. He
seemed to be tired and lay down on his mat. He yawned a couple of
times. The idea of "Seeing" had become
an obsession with me and I had made up
my mind to use his
hallucinogenic smoking mixture again. It had been a terribly difficult
decision to make, so I still
wanted to argue the point a bit further.
"I want to learn to See, don Juan," I said bluntly. "But I really don't
want to take anything; I
don't want to smoke your mixture. Do you think, there is any chance,
I
could learn to See without
it?"
He sat up, stared at me for a moment, and lay down again. "No!" he
said. "You will have to use the smoke."
"But you said, I was on the verge of Seeing with don
Genaro."
"I meant, that something in you was glowing, as though you were really
aware of Genaro's doings, but
you were just looking. Obviously there is something in you, that
resembles Seeing, but isn't;
you're
plugged up and only the smoke can help you."
"Why does one have to smoke? Why can't one simply learn to See by
oneself? I have a very earnest
desire. Isn't that enough?"
"No, it's not enough. Seeing is not so
simple and only the smoke can
give you the speed, you need to
catch a glimpse of that fleeting world. Otherwise you will only look."
"What do you mean by a fleeting world?"
"The world, when you See, is not, as you think, it is now.
118-119
It's rather a Fleeting World, that moves
and changes. One may perhaps, learn to apprehend (grasp mentally) that
Fleeting World by
oneself, but it won't do any good,
because the body decays with the stress. With the smoke, on the other
hand, one never suffers from
exhaustion. The smoke gives the necessary speed to grasp the Fleeting
movement of the World and at
the same time it keeps the body and its strength intact."
"All right!" I said dramatically. "I don't want to beat around the bush
any longer. I'll
smoke."
He laughed at my display of histrionics (exaggerated emotional
behaviou). "Cut it out," he said. "You always hook onto the wrong
thing. Now you
think, that just deciding, to
let the smoke guide you, is going to make you See. There's much more to
it. There is always much
more to anything." He became serious for a moment. "I have
been
very careful with you, and my acts have been deliberate,"
he said, "because it is
Mescalito's desire, that you understand my knowledge. But I know, that
I won't have time to teach you
all I want. I will only have time to put you on the road and trust,
that you will seek in the same
fashion, I did. I must admit, that you are more indolent (habitually
lazy) and more
stubborn, than I. You have other
views, though, and the direction, that your life will take, is
something
I cannot foresee." His deliberate tone of voice, something in his
attitude, summoned up an
old feeling in me, a
mixture of fear, loneliness, and expectation. "We'll soon know, where
you stand," he said cryptically. He did not say
anything else. After a while
he went outside the house. I followed him and stood in front of him,
not knowing, whether to sit
down or to unload some packages, I had brought for him.
"Would it be dangerous?" I asked, just to say something.
"Everything is dangerous," he said. Don Juan did not seem to be
inclined to tell me anything else; he gathered some small bundles, that
were piled in a corner and put them inside a carrying net. I did not
offer to help him, because I
knew, that if he had wished my help, he would have asked me. Then he
lay
down on his straw mat. He
told me to relax and rest. I lay down on my mat and tried to sleep, but
I was not tired; the night
before I had stopped at a motel and slept until
noon, knowing, that I had only a three-hour drive to don Juan's place.
He was not sleeping either.
Although his eyes were closed, I noticed an almost imperceptible,
rhythmical movement of his head.
The thought occurred to me, that he was perhaps chanting to himself.
"Let's eat something," don Juan said suddenly, and his voice made me
jump. "You're going to need
all your energy. You should be in good shape." He made some soup, but I
wasn't hungry.
The
next day, November 9, don Juan let me eat only a morsel (bite, smal
portion) of food and
told me to rest. I lay
around all morning, but I could not relax. I had no idea, what don Juan
had in mind, but, worst of
all, I was not certain, what I had in mind myself. We were sitting
under his ramada at around 3:00 P.M. I was very hungry. I had suggested
various times,
that we should eat, but he had refused. "You haven't prepared your
mixture for three years," he said suddenly.
"You'll have to smoke my
mixture, so let's say, that I have collected it for you. You will need
only a bit of it. I will fill
the pipe's bowl once. You will smoke all of it and then rest. Then the
keeper of the other world
will come. You will do nothing, but observe it. Observe how it moves;
observe everything it does. Your life may depend on, how well you
watch." Don Juan had dropped his instructions so abruptly, that I did
not know,
what to say or even what to
think. I mumbled incoherently for a moment.
I could not organize my
thoughts. Finally I asked the
first clear thing, that came to my mind.
"Who's this guardian?"
Don Juan flatly refused to involve himself in conversation, but I was
too nervous to stop talking
and I insisted desperately, that he tell me about this guardian.
"You'll see it," he said casually. "It guards the other world."
"What world? The world of the dead?"
120-121
"It's not the world of the dead or the world of anything. It's just
another world. There's no use
telling you about it. See it for yourself."
With that don Juan went inside the house. I followed him into his room.
"Wait, wait, don Juan. What are you going to do?"
He did not answer. He
took his pipe out of a
bundle and sat down on a straw mat in the center of the room, looking
at me inquisitively. He
seemed to be waiting for my consent. "You're a fool," he said softly.
"You're not afraid. You just say,
you're afraid." He shook his head slowly from side to side. Then he
took the little bag
with the smoking mixture
and filled the pipe bowl.
"I am afraid, don Juan. I am really afraid."
"No, it's not fear." I desperately tried to gain time and began a long
discussion about the
nature of my feelings. I
sincerely maintained, that I was afraid, but he pointed out, that I was
not panting, nor was my heart
beating faster, than usual. I thought for a while about what he had
said. He was wrong; I did have many of the physical changes
ordinarily associated with fear, and I was desperate. A sense of
impending doom permeated
everything around me. My stomach was upset and I was sure,
I was pale;
my hands were sweating
profusely; and yet I really thought, I was not afraid. I did not have
the feeling of fear, I had been
accustomed to throughout my life. The fear, which has always been
idiosyncratically () mine, was not
there. I was talking, as I paced up and down the room in front of don
Juan, who was still sitting on
his mat, holding his pipe, and looking at me inquisitively; and upon
considering the matter, I
arrived at the conclusion, that what I felt, instead of my usual fear,
was a profound sense of
displeasure, a discomfort at the mere thought of the confusion, created
by the intake of
hallucinogenic plants. Don Juan stared at me for an instant, then he
looked past me, squinting, as if he were struggling to
detect something in the distance. I kept walking back and forth in
front of him, until he forcefully told me to sit down and relax. We
sat quietly for a few minutes. "You don't want to lose your clarity, do
you?" he said abruptly.
"That's very right, don Juan," I said. He laughed with apparent
delight.
"Clarity, the second enemy of a Man of Knowledge, has loomed upon you.
You're not afraid," he said reassuringly, "but now you hate to lose
your clarity, and since you're
a fool, you call that fear." He chuckled (laugh
quietly or to oneself). "Get me some
charcoals," he
ordered. His tone was kind and reassuring. I got up automatically and
went to the back of the house and
gathered some small pieces of burning charcoal from the fire, put them
on top of a small stone
slab, and returned to the room. "Come out here to the porch," don Juan
called loudly from outside. He placed a straw mat on the spot, where I
usually sit. I put the charcoals next to him and he blew
on them to activate the fire. I was about to sit down, but he stopped
me and told me to sit on the
right edge of the mat. He then put a piece of charcoal in the pipe and
handed it to me. I took it.
I was amazed at the silent forcefulness, with which don Juan had
steered (direct) me. I could not think of
anything to say. I had no more arguments. I was convinced, that I was
not afraid, but only unwilling
to lose my clarity.

"Puff, puff," he ordered me gently. "Just one bowl this time." I sucked
on the pipe and heard the chirping of the mixture catching on
fire. I felt an
instantaneous coat of ice inside my mouth and my nose. I took another
puff and the coating extended
to my chest. When I had taken the last puff, I felt, that the entire
inside of my body was coated
with a peculiar sensation of cold warmth. Don Juan took the pipe away
from me and tapped (knock) the bowl on his palm to loosen the residue.
Then, as
he always does, he wet his finger with saliva and rubbed it inside the
bowl. My
body was numb, but I could move. I changed positions to sit
more comfortably.
122-123
"What's going to happen?" I asked. I had some difficulty vocalizing.
Don Juan very carefully put his pipe inside its sheath and rolled it up
in a long piece of cloth.
Then he sat up straight, facing me. I felt dizzy; my eyes were closing
involuntarily. Don Juan
shook me vigorously and ordered me to stay awake. He said, I knew very
well, that if I fell asleep, I
would die. That jolted me. It occurred to me, that don Juan was
probably just saying that, to keep me
awake, but on the other hand,
it also occurred to me, that he might be
right. I opened my eyes as
wide, as I could, and that made don Juan laugh. He said, that I had to
wait for a while and keep my
eyes open all the time and, that at a given moment I would be able to
See the guardian of the other
world. I felt a very annoying heat all over my body; I tried to change
positions, but I could not move any
more. I wanted to talk to don Juan; the words seemed to be so deep
inside of me, that I could not
bring them out. Then
I tumbled on my left side and found myself looking
at don Juan from the
floor. He leaned over and ordered me in a whisper not to look at him,
but to stare fixedly at a point on my
mat, which was directly in front of my eyes. He said, that I had to
look with one eye, my left eye,
and that sooner or later I would see the guardian. I fixed my stare on
the spot he had pointed to, but I did not see anything. At a
certain moment,
however, I noticed a gnat (biting insect) flying in front of my eyes.
It landed on the
mat. I followed its
movements. It came very close to me, so close, that my visual
perception blurred. And then, all of a
sudden, I felt, as if I had stood up. It was a very puzzling sensation,
that deserved some pondering,
but there was no time for that. I had the total sensation, that I was
looking straight onward from
my usual eye level, and what I saw, shook up the last fiber of my
Being.
There is no other way to
describe the emotional jolt I experienced. Right there facing me,
a short distance away, was a
gigantic, monstrous animal. A truly monstrous thing! Never in the
wildest fantasies of fiction had
I encountered anything like it. I looked at it in complete, utmost
bewilderment. The first thing I really noticed was its size. I thought,
for some reason, that it must be close to
a hundred feet
tall. It seemed to be standing erect, although I could not
figure
out how it stood. Next, I noticed,
that it had wings, two short, wide wings. At that point I became aware,
that I insisted on examining
the animal, as if it were an ordinary sight; that is, I looked at it.
However, I could not really
look at it in the way I was accustomed to looking. I realized, that I
was, rather, noticing things
about it, as if the picture were becoming more clear, as parts were
added. Its body was covered with
tufts (cluster) of black hair. It had a long muzzle (projected jaw and
nose) and was drooling. Its eyes
were bulgy and round, like two
enormous white balls. Then it began to beat its wings. It was not the
flapping motion of a
bird's wings, but a kind of
flickering, vibratory tremor. It gained speed and began circling in
front of me; it was not flying,
but rather skidding with astounding speed and agility, just a few
inches above the ground. For a
moment I found myself engrossed (absorbed wholly) in watching, it move.
I thought, that its
movements were ugly and yet
its speed and easiness were superb. It circled twice in front of me,
vibrating its wings, and whatever was
drooling out of its mouth
flew in all directions. Then it turned around and skidded away at an
incredible speed, until it
disappeared in the distance. I stared fixedly in the direction it had
gone, because there was
nothing else I could do. I had a most peculiar sensation of being
incapable of organizing my
thoughts coherently. I could not move away. It was, as if I were glued
to the spot. Then I saw
something like a cloud in the distance; an instant later the gigantic
beast was circling again at
full speed in front of me.
Its wings cut closer and closer to my eyes,
until they hit me. I
felt,
that its wings had actually hit whatever part of me was there. I yelled
with all my might in the
midst of one of the most excruciating pains, I have ever had. The next
thing I knew, I was seated on my mat and don Juan was rubbing
my forehead.
124-125
He rubbed my
arms and legs with leaves, then he took me to an irrigation ditch
behind his house, took off my
clothes, and submerged me completely, then pulled me out and submerged
me over and over again. As I lay on the shallow bottom of the
irrigation ditch, don Juan pulled
up my left foot from time
to time and tapped (knocked) the sole
gently. After a while I felt a
ticklishness. He noticed it and said,
that I was all right. I put on my clothes and we returned to his house.
I sat down again on my
straw mat and tried to talk, but I felt, I could not concentrate on,
what
I wanted to say, although
my thoughts were very clear. I was amazed to realize how much
concentration was necessary to talk.
I also noticed, that in order to say something, I had to stop looking
at
things. I had the impression,
that I was entangled (confused) at a very deep level and when I wanted
to talk, I
had to surface like a diver;
I had to ascend, as if pulled by my words. Twice I went as far, as
clearing my throat in a fashion,
which was perfectly ordinary. I could have said then, whatever I wanted
to, but I did not. I
preferred to remain at the strange level of silence, where I could just
look. I had the feeling, that
I was beginning to tap (knock, learn), what
don Juan had called "Seeing" and that
made
me very happy. Afterwards don Juan gave me some soup and tortillas and
ordered me to
eat. I was able to eat
without any trouble and without losing, what I
thought to be, my "power
of Seeing."
I focused my gaze
on everything around me. I was convinced, I could "See" everything, and
yet the world looked the
same to the best of my assessment. I struggled to "See", until it was
quite dark. I finally got
tired and lay down and went to sleep. I woke up, when don Juan covered
me with a blanket. I had a headache and
I was sick to my stomach.
After a while I felt better and slept soundly, until the next day. In
the morning I was myself again. I asked don Juan eagerly, "What
happened to me?"
Don Juan laughed coyly. "You went to look for the keeper and of course
you found it," he said.
"But what was it, don Juan?"
"The guardian, the keeper, the sentry of the other world," don Juan
said factually. I intended to relate to him the details of the
portentous (pompous, ominous) and ugly
beast, but he disregarded my
attempt, saying, that my experience was nothing special, that any man
could do that. I told him, that the guardian had been such a shock to
me, that I really
had not yet been able to
think about it. Don Juan laughed and made fun of, what he called, an
overdramatic bent of
my nature.
"That thing, whatever it was, hurt me," I said. "It was as real, as you
and I."
"Of course it was real. It caused you pain, didn't it?" As I
recollected my experience, I grew more excited. Don Juan told me to
calm down. Then he asked me,
if I had really been afraid of it; he stressed the word "really."
"I was petrified," I said. "Never in my life have I experienced such an
awesome fright."
"Come on," he said, laughing. "You were not that afraid."
"I
swear to you," I said with genuine fervor (intensity of emotion,
passion, zeal), "that if I could have
moved, I would have run
hysterically." He found my statement very funny and roared with
laughter. "What was the point of making me See that monstrosity, don
Juan?" He became serious and gazed at me.
"That was the guardian," he said. "If you want to See, you must
overcome
the guardian."
"But how am I to overcome it, don Juan? It is perhaps a hundred feet
tall." Don Juan laughed so hard, that tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Why don't you let me tell you, what I Saw, so there won't be any
misunderstanding?" I said.
"If that makes you happy, go ahead, tell me." I narrated everything, I
could remember, but that did not seem to change
his mood. "Still, that's nothing new," he said, smiling.
"But how do you expect me to overcome a thing like that? With what?"
126-127
He was silent for quite a while. Then he turned to me and said, "You
were not afraid, not really.
You were hurt, but you were not afraid." He reclined against some
bundles and put his arms behind his head. I
thought he had dropped the
subject. "You know," he said suddenly, looking at the roof of the
ramada, "every
man can See the guardian.
And the guardian is sometimes for some of us an awesome beast as high,
as the sky. You're lucky; for
you it was only a hundred feet tall. And yet its secret is so simple."
He paused for a moment and hummed a Mexican song. "The guardian of the
other world is a gnat," he said slowly, as if he
were measuring the effect of
his words.
"I beg your pardon."
"The guardian of the other world is a gnat," he repeated. "What you
encountered yesterday was a
gnat; and that little gnat will keep you away until you overcome it."
For a moment I did not want to believe, what don Juan was saying, but
upon recollecting the sequence
of my vision, I had to admit, that at a certain moment I was looking at
a
gnat, and an instant later
a sort of mirage had taken place, and I was looking at the beast.
"But how could a gnat hurt me, don Juan?" I asked, truly bewildered.
"It was not a gnat, when it hurt you," he said, "it was the guardian of
the other world. Perhaps
some day you will have the courage to overcome it. Not now, though; now
it is a hundred-foot-tall
drooling beast. But there is no point in talking about it. It's no feat
to stand in front of it, so
if you want to know more about it, find the guardian again."
Two
days later, on November 11, I smoked don Juan's mixture again. I had
asked don Juan to let me smoke once more to find the guardian. I
had not asked him on the
spur (stimulus)
of
the moment, but after long deliberation. My curiosity about the
guardian was
disproportionately greater, than my fear, or the discomfort of losing
my
clarity. The procedure was the same. Don Juan filled the pipe bowl once
and when
I had finished the entire
contents, he cleaned it and put it away. The effect was markedly
slower;
when I began to feel a bit dizzy, don
Juan came to me and, holding
my head in his hands, helped me to lie down on my left side. He told me
to stretch my legs and
relax and then helped me put my right arm in front of my body, at the
level of my chest. He turned
my hand, so the palm was pressing against the mat, and let my weight
rest on it. I did not do
anything to help or hinder him, for I did not know, what he was doing.
He sat in front of me and
told me not to be concerned with anything. He said, that the guardian
was going to come, and that I
had a ringside seat to see it. He also told me, in a casual way, that
the guardian could cause
great pain, but that there was one way to avert (avoid) it. He said,
that two
days before he had made me sit
up, when he judged, I had had enough.
He pointed to my right arm and said,
that he had deliberately
put it in that position, so
I could use it as a lever to push myself up, whenever I wanted to. By
the time he had finished telling me all that, my body was quite
numb. I wanted to call to his
attention the fact, that it would be impossible for me to push myself
up,
because
I had lost control
of my muscles. I tried to vocalize the words but I could not. He seemed
to have anticipated me,
however, and explained, that the trick was in the Will. He urged me to
remember the time, years
before, when I had first smoked the mushrooms. On that occasion I had
fallen to the ground and
sprung up to my feet again by an act of, what he called, at that time,
my ''Will"; I had "thought
myself up." He said, that was in fact the only possible way to get up.
What, he was saying, was useless to me, because I did not remember what
I
had really done years
before. I had an overwhelming sense of despair and closed my eyes.
128-129
Don
Juan grabbed me by the hair, shook my head vigorously, and ordered
me imperatively not to close
my eyes. I not only opened my eyes, but I did something,
I
thought, was
astonishing. I actually said,
"I don't know, how I got up that time." I was startled. There was
something very monotonous about the rhythm of
my voice, but it was
plainly my voice, and yet I honestly believed, I could not have said
that, because a minute before I
had been incapable of speaking. I looked at don Juan. He turned his
face to one side and laughed. "I didn't say that," I said. And again I
was startled by my voice. I felt elated. Speaking, under
these conditions, became an
exhilarating process. I wanted to ask don Juan to explain my talking,
but I found, I was again
incapable of uttering one single word. I struggled fiercely to voice my
thoughts, but it was
useless. I gave up and at that moment, almost involuntarily, I said,
"Who's talking, who's
talking?" That question made don Juan laugh so hard, that at one point
he bobbed (move up/down)
on his side. Apparently it was possible for me to say simple things, as
long, as I
knew exactly, what I wanted to
say.
"Am I talking? Am I talking?" I asked. Don Juan told me, that, if I did
not stop horsing around, he was going to
go out and lie down under
the ramada and leave me alone with my clowning.
"It isn't clowning," I said. I was very serious about that. My thoughts
were very clear; my body,
however, was numb; I did not
feel it. I was not suffocated, as I had once been in the past under
similar conditions; I was
comfortable, because I could not feel anything; I had no control
whatever over my voluntary system
and yet,
I could talk. The thought occurred to me, that if I could talk, I
could probably stand up, as
don Juan had said.
"Up," I said in English, and in a flicker of an eye I was up. Don Juan
shook his head in disbelief and walked out of the house.
"Don Juan!" I called out three times. He came back.
"Put me down," I said.
"Put yourself down," he said. "You seem to be doing very well."
I said, "Down," and suddenly I lost sight of the room. I could not See
anything. After a moment the
room and don Juan came back again into my field of vision.
I thought,
that I must have lain down
with my face to the ground and he had grabbed me by the hair and lifted
my head.
"Thank you," I said in a very slow monotone.
"You are welcome," he replied, mocking my tone of voice, and had
another attack of laughter. Then he took some leaves and began rubbing
my arms and feet with them.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I am rubbing you," he said, imitating
my painful monotone. His body convulsed with laughter. His eyes were
shiny and very friendly. I liked him. I felt, that
don Juan was compassionate, fair and funny. I could not laugh with
him, but I would have liked
to. Another feeling of exhilaration invaded me and I laughed;
it was such
an awful sound, that don Juan was taken aback for
an instant. "I better take you to the ditch," he said, "or you're going
to kill
yourself, clowning." He put me up on my feet and made me walk around
the room. Little by
little I began to feel my feet,
and my legs, and finally my entire body. My ears were bursting (break,
swell) with a
strange pressure. It was like
the sensation of a leg or an arm, that has fallen asleep. I felt a
tremendous weight on the back of
my neck and under the scalp on the top of my head. Don Juan rushed me
to the irrigation ditch at the back of his house; he
dumped me there fully
clothed. The cold water reduced the pressure and the pain, by degrees,
until it was all gone. I changed my clothes in the house and sat down
and I again felt the
same kind of aloofness, the
same desire to stay quiet.
I noticed this time, however, that it was
not clarity of mind, or a
power to focus; rather, it was a sort of melancholy and a physical
fatigue. Finally I fell
asleep.
130-131
November 12,1968. This morning don Juan and I went to the nearby hills
to collect plants.
We walked about six miles
on extremely rough terrain. I became very tired. We sat down to rest,
at my initiative, and he
began a conversation, saying, that he was pleased with my progress.
"I know now, that it was I, who talked," I said, "but at the time I
could
have sworn, it was someone
else."
"It was you, of course," he said.
"How come I couldn't recognize myself?"
"That's what the little smoke does. One can talk and not notice it; or
one can move thousands of
miles and not notice that either. That's also how one can go through
things. The little smoke
removes the body and one is free, like the wind; better, than the wind,
the wind can be stopped by a
rock or a wall or a mountain. The little smoke makes one as free, as
the
air; perhaps even freer,
the air can be locked in a tomb and become stale, but with the aid of
the little smoke one cannot
be stopped or locked in." Don Juan's words unleashed a mixture of
euphoria and doubt. I felt an
overwhelming uneasiness, a
sensation of undefined guilt.
"Then one can really do all those things, don Juan?"
"What do you think? You would rather think, you're crazy, wouldn't
you?"
he said cuttingly.
"Well, it's easy for you to accept all those things. For me it's
impossible."
"It's not easy for me. I don't have any more privileges, than you.
Those
things are equally hard for
you or for me or for anyone else to accept."
"But you are at home with all this, don Juan."
"Yes, but it cost me plenty. I had to struggle, perhaps more, than you
ever will. You have a
baffling way of getting everything to work for you. You have no idea,
how hard I had to toil to do,
what you did yesterday. You have something, that helps you every inch
of
the way. There is no other
possible explanation for the manner, in which you learn about the
powers. You did it before with
Mescalito, now you have done it with the little smoke. You should
concentrate on the fact, that you have a great gift, and
leave other considerations on
the side."
"You make it sound so easy, but it isn't. I'm torn inside."
"You'll be in one piece again soon enough. You have not taken care of
your body, for one thing.
You're too fat. I didn't want to say anything to you before. One must
always let others do, what
they have to do. You were away for years. I told you, that you would
come back, though, and you did.
The same thing happened to me.
I quit for five and a half years."
"Why did you stay away, don Juan?"
"For the same reason you did. I didn't like it."
"Why did you come back?"
"For the same reason you have come back yourself, because there is no
other way to live." That statement had a great impact on me, for I had
found myself
thinking, that perhaps, there was no
other way to live. I had never voiced this thought to anyone, yet don
Juan had surmised (make a guess) it
correctly. After a very long silence I asked him, "What did I do
yesterday, don Juan?"
"You got up, when you wanted to."
"But I don't know, how I did that."
"It takes tune to perfect that technique. The important thing, however,
is that you know, how to do
it."
"But I don't. That's the point, I really don't."
"Of course you do."
"Don Juan, I assure you, I swear to you . . ." He did not let me
finish; he got up and walked away. Later on we talked again about the
guardian of the other world.
"If I believe, that whatever I have experienced, is actually real," I
said, "then the guardian is a
gigantic creature, that can cause unbelievable physical pain.
132-133
And if I
believe, that one can actually
travel enormous distances by an act of Will, then it's logical to
conclude, that I could also Will
the monster to disappear. Is that correct?"
"Not exactly," he said. "You cannot Will the guardian to disappear.
Your Will can stop it from
harming you, though. Of course, if you ever accomplish that, the road
is
open to you. You can
actually go by the guardian and there's nothing, that it can do, not
even whirl around madly."
"How can I accomplish that?"
"You already know how. All, you need now, is practice." I told him,
that we were having a misunderstanding, that stemmed from our
differences in perceiving
the world. I said, that for me, to know something, meant, that I had to
be
fully aware of, what I was
doing and, that I could repeat, what I knew at Will. But in this case,
I
was neither aware of, what I
had done under the influence of the smoke, nor could I repeat it,even
if my
life depended on it. Don Juan looked at me inquisitively.
He seemed to be amused, by what I
was saying. He took off his
hat and scratched his temples, as he does, when he wants to pretend
bewilderment. "You really know, how to talk and say nothing, don't
you?" he said
laughing. "I have told you, you
have to have an Unbending Intent, in order to become a Man of
Knowledge.
But you seem to have an Unbending Intent to confuse yourself with
riddles. You insist on
explaining everything, as if the
whole world were composed of things, that can be explained. Now you are
confronted with the guardian
and with the problem of moving by using your will. Has it ever occurred
to you, that only a few
things in this world can be explained your way? When I say, that the
guardian is really blocking
your passing and could actually knock the devil out of you, I know,
what
I mean. When I say, that one can move by one's Will, I also know, what
I mean. I
wanted to teach you, little
by little, how to move, but then I realized, that you know, how to do
it,
even though you say, you
don't."
"But I really don't know how," I protested.
"You do, you fool," he said sternly, and then smiled. "It reminds me of
the time, when someone put
that kid Julio on a harvesting machine; he knew how to run it, although
he had never done it
before."
"I know, what you mean, don Juan; however, I still feel, that I could
not
do it again, because I am
not sure of, what I did."
"A phony sorcerer tries to explain everything in the world with
explanations, he is not sure about,"
he said, "and so everything is witchcraft. But then, you're no better.
You also want to explain
everything your way, but you're not sure of your explanations either."

134-135
Saturday,
January 18, 1969. Don Juan asked
me abruptly, if I was planning to leave for home during
the weekend. I said, I
intended to leave Monday morning. We were sitting under his ramada
around midday, taking a rest after a long walk in the nearby hills.
Don Juan got up and went
into the house. A few moments later he called me inside. He was sitting
in the middle of his room
and had placed my straw mat in front of his. He motioned me to sit down
and, without saying a word,
he unwrapped his pipe, took it out of its sheath (cover), filled its
bowl with
his smoking mixture, and lit
it. He had even brought into his room a clay tray filled with small
charcoals. He did not ask me, whether I was willing to smoke.
He just handed me the
pipe and told me to puff. I
did not hesitate. Don Juan had apparently assessed my mood correctly;
my overwhelming curiosity
about the guardian must have been obvious to him. I did not need any
coaxing (persuasion) and eagerly smoked the
entire bowl. The reactions, I had, were identical to those, I had had
before. Don Juan
also proceeded in very much
the same manner. This time, however, instead of helping me to do it, he
just told me to prop my
right arm on the mat and lie down on my left side. He suggested, that I
should make a fist, if that
would give me a better leverage. I did make a fist with my right hand,
because I found, it was easier,
than turning my palm against
the floor, while lying with my weight on it. I was not sleepy; I felt
very warm for a while, then I
lost all feeling. Don Juan lay down on his side facing me; his right
forearm rested on
his elbow and propped his head
up like a pillow. Everything was perfectly placid, even my
body, which
by then lacked tactile
sensations. I felt very content.
"It's nice," I said. Don Juan got up hurriedly.
"Don't you dare start with this crap," he said forcefully. "Don't talk.
You'll waste every bit of
energy talking, and then the guardian will mash you down, like you
would smash a gnat." He must have thought, that his simile (figure of
speech) was funny, because he began to
laugh, but he stopped
suddenly. "Don't talk, please don't talk," he said with a serious look
on his
face.
"I wasn't about to say anything," I said, and I really did not want to
say that. Don Juan got up. I saw him walking away toward the back of
his house. A
moment later
I noticed, that
a gnat had landed on my mat and, that filled me with a kind of anxiety,
I
had never experienced
before. It was a mixture of elation, anguish, and fear.
I
was totally
aware, that something
transcendental
(mystical) was
about to
unfold in front of me; a gnat, who guarded
the other world. It was a
ludicrous (absurd) thought; I
felt like laughing out loud, but then I realized,
that my elation was
distracting me and I was going to miss a transition period, I wanted to
clarify. In my previous
attempt to See the guardian, I had looked
at the gnat first with my
left
eye, and then I felt, that I
had stood up and looked at it with both eyes, but I was not aware, how
that transition had
occurred. I saw the gnat, whirling around on the mat in front of my
face,
and
realized, that I was looking at it
with both eyes. It came very close; at a given moment I could not See
it with both eyes any longer
and shifted the view to my left eye, which was level with the ground.
The instant I changed focus, I
also felt, that I had straightened my body to a fully vertical position
and I was looking at an
unbelievably enormous animal. It was brilliantly black. Its front was
covered with long, black, insidious hair, which looked
like spikes coming through the
cracks of some slick, shiny scales. The hair was actually arranged in
tufts (clusters).
136-137
Its body was massive,
thick and round. Its wings were wide and short, in comparison to the
length of its body. It had two
white, bulging eyes and a long muzzle. This time it looked more like
an alligator. It seemed to have long
ears, or perhaps horns, and it
was drooling. I strained myself, to fix my gaze on it, and then became
fully aware, that
I could not look at it in
the same way, I ordinarily look at things. I had a strange thought;
looking at the guardian's body, I
felt, that every single part of it was independently alive, as the eyes
of men are alive. I realized
then for the first time in my life, that the eyes were the only part of
a man, that could show, to
me, whether or not he was alive. The guardian , on the other
hand, had a
"million eyes." I thought, this was a remarkable finding. Before this
experience I had
speculated on the similes (figure of
speech),
that could describe the "distortions", that rendered (represent,
presented for consideration, give in return) a gnat, as a
gigantic beast;
and I had thought, that a good
simile was "as if looking at an insect through the magnifying lens of a
microscope." But that was
not so. Apparently viewing the guardian was much more
complex than
looking at a magnified
insect. The guardian began to
whirl in front of me. At one moment it
stopped
and I felt it was looking at
me. I noticed then, that it made no sound. The dance of the guardian was
silent. The awesomeness was
in its appearance: its bulging eyes; its horrendous mouth; its
drooling; its insidious hair; and
above all its incredible size. I watched very closely the way it moved
its wings, how it made them
vibrate without sound. I watched how it skidded over the ground like a
monumental ice skater. Looking at that nightmarish creature in front of
me, I actually felt
elated. I really believed I
had discovered the secret of overpowering it.
I thought the guardian
was only a moving picture on a
silent screen; it could not harm me; it only looked
terrifying. The guardian was standing
still, facing me; suddenly it fluttered its
wings and turned around. Its
back looked like brilliantly colored armor; its shine was dazzling but
the hue was nauseating; it
was my unfavorable color.
The guardian remained with its back turned to me for a
while and then, fluttering its wings, again
skidded out of sight. I was confronted with a very strange dilemma. I
honestly believed that
I had overpowered it by
realizing that it presented only a picture of wrath. My belief was
perhaps due to don Juan's
insistence that I knew more than I was willing to admit. At any rate, I
felt, I had overcome the guardian and the path
was free. Yet I did not know how to proceed. Don
Juan had not told me what to
do in such a case. I tried to turn and look behind me, but I was unable
to move. However, I could
see very well over the major part of a 180-degree range in front of my
eyes. And what I saw was a cloudy, pale-yellow horizon; it seemed
gaseous. A sort of lemon hue uniformly covered all I could see.
It
seemed, that I was on a plateau
filled with vapors of sulphur. Suddenly the guardian appeared
again at
a point on the horizon. It
made a wide circle before stopping in front of me; its mouth was wide
open, like a huge cavern; it
had no teeth. It vibrated its wings for an instant and then it charged
at me. It actually charged
at me like a bull, and with its gigantic wings it swung at my eyes. I
screamed with pain and then I
flew up, or rather I felt I had ejected myself up, and went soaring
beyond the guardian , beyond the
yellowish plateau, into another world, the world of men, and I found
myself standing in the middle
of don Juan's room.
January 19, 1969
"I really thought I had overpowered the guardian ," I said to
don Juan.
"You must be kidding," he said. Don Juan had not spoken one word to me
since the day before and I did
not mind it I had been
immersed in a sort of reverie and again I had felt that if I looked
intently I would be able to
"See." But I did not see anything that was different. Not talking,
however, had relaxed me
tremendously. Don Juan asked me to recount the sequence of my
experience, and what
particularly interested him
was the hue I had seen on the guardian's back. Don
Juan sighed and
seemed to be really
concerned.
"You were lucky, that the color was on the guardian's back," he said
with a serious face.
138-139
"Had it
been on the front part of its body, or worse yet, on its head, you
would be dead by now. You must
not try to see the guardian ever again. It's not your temperament to
cross that plain; yet I was
convinced that you could go through it. But let's not talk about it any
more. This was only one of
a variety of roads."
I detected an unaccustomed heaviness in don Juan's tone.
"What will happen to me if I try to see the guardian again?"
"The guardian will take you
away," he said, "It will pick you up in its
mouth and carry you into
that plain and leave you there forever. It is obvious, the guardian
knew, that it is not your
temperament, and warned you to stay away.”
"How do you think the guardian knew that?"
Don Juan gave me a long, steadfast (steady) look. He tried to say
something, but
gave up, as though he was
unable to find the right words. "I always fall for your questions," he
said, smiling. "You were not really thinking, when you asked me that,
were you?" I protested and reaffirmed, that it puzzled me,
that the guardian knew my
temperament. Don Juan had a strange glint in his eye when he said, "And
you had not
even mentioned anything
about your temperament to the guardian , had you?"
His tone was so comically serious, that we both laughed. After a while,
however, he said, that the
guardian, being the keeper, the watchman of that world, knew many
secrets, that a brujo was entitled
to share. "That's one way a brujo gets to See" he said. "But that will
not be
your domain, so there is no
point in talking about it."
"Is smoking the only way to See the guardian ?" I asked.
"No. You could also See it without it. There are scores of people, who
could do that. I prefer the
smoke, because it is more effective and less dangerous to oneself.
If
you try to See the guardian
without the aid of the smoke, chances are, that you may delay in
getting
out of its way. In your
case, for instance, it is obvious, that the guardian was warning you,
when it turned its back, so you
would look at your enemy color. Then it went away; but when it came
back, you were still there, so it charged at you. You
were prepared, however, and
jumped. The little smoke gave you the protection, you needed; had you
gone into that world without
its aid,
you wouldn't have been able to extricate (disengage, release from
difficulty) yourself from the
guardian's grip."
"Why not?"
"Your movements would have been too slow. To survive in that world, you
need to be as fast, as
lightning. It was my mistake to leave the room, but I didn't want you
to talk any more. You are a
blabbermouth, so you talk even against your desire. Had I been there
with you, I would've pulled
your head up. You jumped up by yourself, which was even better;
however, I would rather not run a
risk like that; the guardian is not something, you can fool around
with."
140-141
For three months don Juan systematically avoided talking about the
guardian. I paid him four visits
during these months; he involved me in running errands for him every
time, and when I had performed
the errands, he simply told me to go home. On April 24, 1969, the
fourth
time I was at his house, I
finally confronted him, after we had eaten dinner and were sitting next
to his earthen stove. I told
him, that he was doing something incongruous (incompatible
with surroundings) to me; I was
ready to learn
and yet he did not even
want me around. I had had to struggle very hard to overcome my aversion
to using his hallucinogenic
mushrooms and I felt,
as he had said himself, that I had no time to
lose. Don Juan patiently listened to my complaints. "You're too weak,"
he said. "You hurry, when you should wait, but you
wait, when you should hurry.
You think too much. Now you think, that there is no time to waste. A
while back you thought, you
didn't want to smoke any more. Your life is too damn loose; you're not
tight enough to meet the
little smoke. I am responsible for you and I don't want you to die like
a goddamn fool."
I felt embarrassed. "What can I do, don Juan? I'm very impatient."
"Live like a warrior! I've told you already, a warrior takes
responsibility for his acts; for the
most trivial of his acts. You act out your thoughts and that's wrong.
You failed with the guardian,
because of your thoughts."
"How did I fail, don Juan?"
"You think about everything. You thought about the guardian and thus
you couldn't overcome it. First you must live like a warrior. I think
you understand that very
well." I wanted to interject something in my defense, but he gestured
with his
hand to be quiet. "Your life is fairly tight," he continued. "In fact,
your life is
tighter, than Pablito's or
Nestor's, Genaro's apprentices, and yet they See and you don't. Your
life is tighter, than Eligio's
and he'll probably See before, you do. This baffles (puzzle,
bewilder) me.
Even
Genaro cannot get over that. You've faithfully
carried out everything, I have
told you to do. Everything, that my benefactor taught me, in the first
stage of
learning, I have passed on to you.
The rule is right, the steps cannot be changed. You have done
everything, one has to do, and yet you
don't See; but to those, who See, like Genaro, you appear, as though
you See. I rely on that and I am
fooled. You always turn around and behave like an idiot, who doesn't
See, which of course is right
for you." Don Juan's words distressed me profoundly. I don't know why,
but I was
close to tears. I began to
talk about my childhood and a wave of self-pity enveloped me. Don Juan
stared at me for a brief
moment and then moved his eyes away. It was a penetrating glance. I
felt, he had actually grabbed me
with his eyes. I had the sensation of two fingers gently clasping me
and I acknowledged a weird
agitation, an itching, a pleasant despair in the area of my solar
plexus. I became aware of my
abdominal region. I sensed its heat. I could not speak coherently any
more and I mumbled, then
stopped talking altogether.
"Perhaps, it's the promise," don Juan said after a long pause.
"I beg your pardon."
"A promise you once made, long ago."
"What promise?"
"Maybe you can tell me that. You do remember it, don't you?"
"I don't."
"You
promised something very important once. I thought, that perhaps
your promise was keeping you
from Seeing."
"I don't know, what you're talking about."
"I'm talking about a promise you made! You must remember it."
142-143
"If you know, what the promise was, why don't you tell me, don Juan?"
"No. It won't do any good to tell you."
"Was it a promise I made to myself?" For a moment I thought, he might
be referring to my resolution to quit
the apprenticeship.
"No. This is something, that took place a long time ago," he said. I
laughed, because I was certain don Juan was playing some sort of game
with me. I felt mischievous.
I had a sensation of elation at the idea, that I could fool don Juan,
who, I was convinced, knew as
little, as I did about the alleged promise. I was sure,
he was fishing in
the dark and trying to
improvise. The idea, of humoring him, delighted me.
"Was it something I promised to my grandpa?"
"No," he said, and his eyes glittered. "Neither was it something you
promised to your little
grandma." The ludicrous intonation, he gave to the word "grandma", made
me laugh. I
thought don Juan was
setting some sort of trap for me, but I was willing to play the game to
the end. I began
enumerating all the possible individuals, to whom I could have promised
something of great
importance. He said no to each. Then he steered the conversation to my
childhood. "Why was your childhood sad?" he asked with a serious
expression. I told him, that my childhood had not really been sad, but
perhaps a bit
difficult. "Everybody feels that way," he said, looking at me again. "I
too was
very unhappy and afraid, when I
was a child. To be an Indian is hard, very hard. But the memory of that
time no longer has meaning
for me, beyond that, it was hard. I had ceased to think about the
hardship of my life, even before I
had learned to See."
"I don't think about my childhood either," I said.
"Why does it make you sad, then? Why do you want to weep?"
"I don't know. Perhaps, when I think of myself as a child, I feel sorry
for myself and for all my
fellow men. I feel helpless and sad."
He looked at me fixedly and again my abdominal region registered the
weird sensation of two gentle
fingers clasping it. I moved my eyes away and then glanced back at him.
He was looking into the
distance, past me; his eyes were foggy, out of focus. "It was a promise
of your childhood," he said after a moment's silence.
"What did I promise?"
He did not answer. His eyes were closed. I smiled involuntarily; I
knew,
he was feeling his way in
the dark; however, I had lost some of my original impetus (stimulus) to humor him.
"I was a skinny child," he went on, "and I was always afraid."
"So was I," I said.
"What I remember the most is the terror and sadness, that fell upon me,
when the Mexican soldiers
killed my mother," he said softly, as if the memory was still painful.
"She was a poor and humble
Indian. Perhaps it was better, that her life was over then. I wanted to
be killed with her, because
I was a child. But the soldiers picked me up and beat me. When I
grabbed onto my mother's body they
hit my fingers with a horsewhip and broke them. I didn't feel any pain,
but I couldn't grasp any
more, and then they dragged me away." He stopped talking. His eyes were
still closed and I could detect a
very slight tremor in his lips.
A profound sadness began to overtake me. Images of my own childhood
started to flood my mind.
"How old were you, don Juan?" I asked, just to offset the sadness in
me.
"Maybe seven. That was the time of the great Yaqui wars. The Mexican
soldiers came upon us
unexpectedly, while my mother was cooking some food. She was a helpless
woman. They killed her for
no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference, that she died that
way, not really, and yet for me
it does. I cannot tell myself why, though; it just does. I thought,
they
had killed my father too,
but they hadn't. He was wounded. Later on they put us in a tram like
cattle and closed the door.
For days they kept us there in the dark, like animals. They kept us
alive with bits of food they
threw into the wagon from time to time.
144-145
"My father died of his wounds in that wagon. He became delirious with
pain and fever, and went on
telling me, that I had to survive. He kept on telling me that, until
the
very last moment of his
life. The people took care of me; they gave me food; an old woman curer
fixed the broken bones of my
hand. And as you can see, I lived. Life has been neither good, nor bad
to me;
life has been hard. Life is
hard and for a
child, it is sometimes horror itself." We did not speak for a very long
time. Perhaps an hour went by in
complete silence. I had very
confusing feelings. I was somewhat dejected and yet I could not tell
why. I experienced a sense of
remorse. A while before I had been willing to humor don Juan, but he
had suddenly turned the tables
with his direct account. It had been simple and concise (expressing
much in few words), and had
produced a strange feeling in me.
The idea of a child, undergoing pain, had always been a touchy subject
for me. In an instant my
feelings of empathy for don Juan gave way to a sensation of disgust
with myself. I had actually
taken notes, as if don Juan's life were merely a clinical case. I was
on the verge of ripping up my
notes, when don Juan poked my calf with his toe to attract my
attention.
He said he was "Seeing" a
light of violence around me and wondered, whether I was going to start
beating him. His laughter was
a delightful break. He said, that I was given to outbursts of violent
behavior, but, that I was not
really mean and, that most of the time the violence was against myself.
"You're right, don Juan," I said.
"Of course," he said, laughing. He urged me to talk about my childhood.
I began to tell him about my
years of fear and loneliness
and got involved, in describing to him, what I thought to be, my
overwhelming struggle to survive and
maintain my spirit. He laughed at the metaphor of "maintaining my
spirit." I talked for a long time. He listened with a serious
expression. Then,
at a given moment his eyes
"clasped" me again and I stopped talking. After a moment's pause he
said, that
nobody had ever humiliated me
and, that was the reason, I was not really mean. "You haven't been
defeated yet," he said. He repeated the statement
four or five times, so I felt
obliged to ask him, what he meant by that. He explained, that to be
defeated was a condition of life,
which was unavoidable. Men were either victorious or defeated and,
depending on that, they became
persecutors or victims. These two conditions were prevalent as long, as
one did not "See"; "Seeing"
dispelled (dispense,
scatter) the
illusion of victory, or defeat, or suffering. He added,
that I should learn to "See",
while I was victorious, to avoid ever having the memory of being
humiliated.
I protested, that I was not and had never been victorious
at anything;
and that my life was, if
anything, a defeat. He laughed and threw his hat on the floor. "If your
life is such a defeat, step on my hat," he dared me in jest (joke). I
sincerely argued my point. Don Juan became serious. His eyes squinted
to a fine slit. He said,
that I thought my life was a defeat for reasons other, than defeat
itself. Then in a very quick and
thoroughly unexpected manner, he took my head in his hands by
placing
his palms against my temples.
His eyes became fierce, as he looked into mine. Out of fright I took an
involuntary deep breath
through my mouth. He let my head go and reclined against the wall,
still gazing at me. He had
performed his movements with such a speed, that by the time he had
relaxed and reclined comfortably
against the wall,
I was still in the middle of my deep breath. I felt
dizzy, ill at ease. "I See a little boy crying," don Juan said after a
pause. He repeated it various times, as if I did not understand. I had
the
feeling, he was talking about me,
as a little boy crying, so I did not really pay attention to it. "Hey!"
he said, demanding my full concentration.
"I see a little boy
crying." I asked him, if that boy was me. He said no. Then I asked him,
if it was
a vision of my life or just
a memory of his own life. He did not answer. "I see a little boy," he
continued saying. "And he is crying and
crying."
"Is he a boy I know?" I asked.
146-147
"Yes."
"Is he my little boy?"
"No."
"Is he crying now?"
"He's crying now," he said with conviction. I thought don Juan was
having a vision of someone, I knew, who was a
little boy and who was at that
very moment crying. I voiced the names of all the children, I knew, but
he
said those children were
irrelevant to my promise and the child, who was crying, was very
important to it.
Don Juan's statements seemed to be incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings). He had said,
that I had
promised something to
someone during my childhood, and that the child, who was crying at that
very moment, was important to
my promise. I told him, he was not making sense. He calmly repeated,
that
he "Saw" a little boy
crying at that moment, and that the little boy was hurt. I seriously
struggled to fit his statements into some sort of orderly
pattern, but I could not
relate them to anything I was aware of.
"I give up," I said, "because I can't remember, making an important
promise to anybody, least of all
to a child."
He squinted his eyes again and said, that this particular child, who
was
crying at that precise
moment, was a child of my childhood.
"He was a child during my childhood and is still crying now?" I asked.
"He is a child crying now," he insisted.
"Do you realize, what you're saying, don Juan?"
"I do."
"It doesn't make sense. How can he be a child now, if he was one, when
I
was a child myself?"
"He's a child and he's crying now," he said stubbornly.
"Explain it to me, don Juan."
"No. You must explain it to me." For the life of me, I could not
fathom, what he was referring to.
"He's crying! He's crying!" don Juan kept on saying in a mesmerizing
tone. "And he's hugging you
now. He's hurt! He's hurt! And he's looking at you. Do you feel his
eyes? He's kneeling and hugging
you. He's younger, than you. He has come running to you. But his arm is
broken. Do you feel his arm?
That little boy has a nose, that looks like a button. Yes! That's a
button nose." My ears began to buzz and I lost the sensation of being
at don Juan's
house. The words "button
nose" plunged me at once into a scene out of my childhood. I knew a
button-nose boy! Don Juan had edged
his way into one of the most recondite (not easy understood, abstruse)
places of my life. I knew then
the promise, he was talking
about. I had a sensation of elation, of despair, of awe for don Juan
and his splendid maneuver. How
in the devil did he know about the button-nose boy of my childhood? I
became so agitated by the
memory don Juan had evoked in me, that my power to remember took me
back
to a time, when I was eight
years old. My mother had left two years before and I had spent the most
hellish years of my life,
circulating among my mother's sisters, who served as dutiful mother
surrogates and took care of me
a couple of months at a time. Each of my aunts had a large family, and
no matter how careful and
protective the aunts were toward me, I had twenty-two cousins to
contend (discuss, dispute, fight) with. Their cruelty was
sometimes truly bizarre. I felt then, that I was surrounded by enemies,
and in the excruciating
years, that followed, I waged a desperate and sordid (foul, filthy,
dirty) war. Finally,
through means, I still do not know
to this day, I succeeded in subduing all my cousins. I was indeed
victorious. I had no more
competitors, who counted. However, I did not know that, nor did I know
how to stop my war, which
logically was extended to the school grounds. The classrooms of the
rural school, where I went, were mixed and the
first and third grades were
separated only by a space between the desks. It was there, that I met a
little boy with a flat nose,
who was teased with the nickname "button-
nose." He was a first-grader.
I used to pick on him
haphazardly, not really intending to. But he seemed to like me, in
spite
of everything I did to him.
He used to follow me around and even kept the secret, that I was
responsible for some of the pranks,
that baffled
(puzzle,
bewilder) the
principal. And yet I still teased him. One day
I
deliberately toppled (overturn, overthrown) over a heavy
standing blackboard; it fell on him.
148-149
The desk, in which he was sitting,
absorbed some of the impact,
but still the blow broke his collarbone. He fell down. I helped him up
and saw the pain and fright
in his eyes, as he looked at me and held onto me. The shock of seeing
him in pain, with a mangled
(mutilated, disfigured) arm, was more, than I could bear. For years
I had viciously battled
against my cousins and I had
won; I had vanquished (conquer in
battle)
my foes; I had felt good and powerful up to the
moment, when the sight of the
button-nose little boy crying, demolished my victories. Right there I
quit the battle. In whatever way I was capable
of, I made a resolution not
to win ever again. I thought his arm would have to be cut off, and I
promised, that if the little
boy was cured, I would never again be victorious. I gave up my
victories
for him. That was the way I
understood it then. Don Juan had opened a festered (decayed, rot) sore
in my life. I felt dizzy,
overwhelmed. A well of unmitigated (unrelived, absolute)
sadness beckoned (invited) me and I succumbed (gave in, gave up) to it.
I felt the weight of my acts
on me. The memory of that
little button-nose boy, whose name was Joaquin, produced in me such a
vivid anguish, that I wept. I
told don Juan of my sadness for that boy, who never had anything, that
little Joaquin, who did not
have money to go to a doctor and whose arm never set properly. And all,
I had to give him, were my
childish victories. I felt so ashamed.
"Be in peace, you funny bird," don Juan said imperatively. "You gave
enough. Your
victories were
strong and they were yours. You gave enough. Now you must change your
promise."
"How do I change it? Do I just say so?"
"A promise, like that, cannot be changed by just saying so. Perhaps,
very
soon you'll be able to know,
what to do about changing it. Then perhaps, you'll even get to See."
"Can you give me any suggestions, don Juan?"
"You must wait patiently, knowing, that you're waiting, and knowing,
what
you're waiting for. That is
the warrior's way. And if it is a matter of fulfilling your promise,
then you must be aware, that you
are fulfilling it. Then a time will come, when your waiting will be
over and you will no
longer have to honor your
promise. There is nothing you can do for that little boy's life. Only
he could cancel that
act."
"But how can he?"
"By learning to reduce his wants to nothing. As long, as he thinks,
that
he was a victim, his life
will be hell. And as long, as you think the same, your promise will be
valid. What
makes us unhappy is to want. Yet,
if we would learn to cut our wants to nothing, the smallest thing, we'd
get, would be a true gift. Be
in peace, you made a good gift to Joaquin. To be poor or wanting is
only a thought; and so is to
hate, or to be hungry, or to be in pain."
"I
cannot truly believe that, don Juan. How could hunger and pain be
only thoughts?"
"They are only thoughts for me now. That's all I know. I have
accomplished that feat. The power, to
do that, is all we have, mind you, to oppose the forces of our lives;
without that power we are
dregs (residue), dust in the wind."
"I have no doubt, that you have done it, don Juan, but how can a simple
man like myself or little
Joaquin accomplish that?"
"It is up to us, as single individuals to oppose the forces of our
lives. I have said this to you
countless times: only a warrior can survive. A warrior knows, that he
is waiting and what
he is waiting for; and
while he waits, he wants nothing and thus whatever little thing, he
gets,
is more, than he can take. If
he needs to eat, he finds a way, because he is not hungry; if something
hurts his body, he finds a
way to stop it, because he is not in pain. To be hungry or to be in
pain means, that the man has
abandoned himself and is no longer a warrior; and the (alien) forces of
his
hunger and pain will destroy
him." I wanted to go on arguing my point, but I stopped, because I
realized,
that by arguing, I was making a
barrier, to protect myself from the devastating force of don Juan's
superb feat, which had touched me
so deeply and with such a power. How did he know? I thought, that
perhaps I had told him the story
of the button-nose boy during one of my deep states of nonordinary
reality. I did not recollect
telling him, but my not remembering under such conditions was
understandable.
"How did you know about my promise, don Juan?"
"I Saw it."
150-151
"Did you See it, when I had taken Mescalito, or when I had smoked your
mixture?"
"I Saw it now. Today."
"Did you See the whole thing?"
"There you go again. I've told you, there's no point, in talking about
what Seeing
is like. It is
nothing." I did not pursue the point any longer. Emotionally I was
convinced. "I also made a vow once," don Juan said suddenly. The sound
of his
voice made me jump. "I promised
my father, that I would live to destroy his assassins. I carried that
promise with me for years. Now
the promise is changed. I'm no longer interested in destroying anybody.
I don't hate
the Mexicans. I don't hate
anyone. I have learned, that the countless paths, one traverses (travel
across) in one's
life, are all equal.
Oppressors and oppressed meet at the end, and the only thing, that
prevails (be
the same
or current),
is that life
was
altogether too short for both. Today I feel sad, not because my mother
and father died the way they
did; I feel sad, because they were Indians. They lived like Indians and
died like Indians and never
knew, that they were, before anything else, humans."
I went back to visit don Juan on May 30, 1969, and bluntly told him,
that I wanted to take another
crack at "Seeing". He shook
his head negatively and laughed, and
I felt
compelled (forced) to protest.
He
told me, I had to be patient and the time was not right, but I doggedly
(practice trickery, avoid a blow)
insisted, I was ready.
He did not seem annoyed with my nagging (bothering) requests. He tried,
nevertheless, to change the subject. I
did not let go and asked him to advise me, what to do, in order to
overcome my impatience. "You must act like a warrior," he said.
"How?"
"One learns to act like a warrior by acting, not by talking."
"You said, that a warrior thinks about his death. I do that all the
time; obviously, that isn't
enough." He seemed to have an outburst of impatience and made a
smacking sound
with his lips. I told him,
that I had not meant to make him angry and, that if he did not need me
there at his house, I was
ready to go back to Los Angeles. Don Juan patted me gently on the back
and said, that he never got
angry with me; he had simply assumed, I knew, what it meant to be a
warrior.
"What can I do to live like a warrior?" I asked.
He took off his hat and scratched his temples. He looked at me fixedly
and smiled. "You like everything spelled out, don't you?"
"My mind works that way."
"It doesn't have to."
152-153
"I
don't know how to change. That is why, I
ask you to tell me exactly,
what to do to live like a
warrior; if I knew that, I could find a way to adapt myself to it."
He must have thought my statements were humorous; he patted me on the
back, as he laughed. I had the feeling, he was going to ask me to leave
any minute, so
I
quickly sat down on my straw mat,
facing him, and began asking him more questions. I wanted to know, why
I
had to wait. He explained, that if I were to try to "See" in a
helter-skelter manner,
before I had "healed the
wounds", I received, battling the guardian, chances were, that I would
encounter the guardian again,
even though
I was not looking for it. Don Juan assured me, that no man,
in that position, would be
capable of surviving such an encounter. "You must completely forget the
guardian, before you can again embark (go aboard) on
the quest of Seeing", he
said.
"How can anyone forget the guardian?"
"A warrior has to use his Will and his patience to forget. In fact, a
warrior has only his Will and
his patience, and with them he builds anything, he wants."
"But I'm not a warrior."
"You have started learning the ways of sorcerers. You have no more time
for retreats or for
regrets. You only have time to live like a warrior and work for
Patience and Will, whether you like
it or not."
"How does a warrior work for them?" Don Juan thought for a long time
before answering.
"I think there is no way of talking about it," he finally said.
"Especially about Will. Will is
something very special. It happens mysteriously. There is no real way
of telling, how one uses it,
except that the results, of using the Will, are astounding. Perhaps the
first thing, that one should
do, is to know, that one can develop the Will, a warrior knows that and
proceeds to wait for it. Your
mistake is not to know, that you are waiting for your Will. My
benefactor told me, that a warrior knows, that he is waiting and
knows what he is waiting for. In
your case, you know, that you're waiting. You've been here with me for
years, yet you don't know,
what you are waiting for. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for
the average man to know, what
he is waiting for. A warrior, however, has no problems; he knows, that
he is waiting for his Will."
"What exactly is the Will? Is it determination, like the determination
of your grandson Lucio to
have a motorcycle?"
"No," don Juan said softly and giggled. "That's not Will. Lucio only
indulges. Will is something
else, something very clear and powerful, which can direct our acts.
Will is
something a man uses, for
instance, to win a battle, which he, by all calculations, should lose."
"Then Will must be, what we call courage," I said.
"No. Courage is something else. Men of courage are dependable men,
noble men, perennially surrounded
by people, who flock around them and admire them; yet, very few men of
courage have Will. Usually
they are fearless men, who are given to performing daring, common-sense
acts; most of the time a
courageous man is also fearsome and feared. Will, on the other hand,
has to do with astonishing
feats, that defy our common sense."
"Is Will the control, we may have over ourselves?" I asked.
"You may say, that it is a kind of control."
"Do you think I can exercise my Will, for instance, by denying myself
certain things?"
"Such as: asking questions?" he interjected. He said it in such a
mischievous tone, that I had to stop writing to
look at him. We both
laughed. "No," he said. "Denying yourself is an indulgence and I don't
recommend
anything of the kind. That
is the reason, why I let you ask all the questions, you want. If I told
you to stop asking questions,
you might warp (corrupt, twist out of shape) your Will, trying to do
that. The indulgence of denying
is by far the worst; it
forces us to believe, we are doing great things, when in effect, we are
only fixed within ourselves.
To stop asking questions is not the Will, I'm talking about. Will is a
Power. And since it is a Power, it has to be controlled and tuned, and
that takes time. I know
that and I'm patient with you.
When I was your age, I was as impulsive (act on
impulse, not thought), as you. Yet
I have changed. Our Will operates, in spite of
our indulgence. For
example,
your Will is already opening your gap,
little by little."

154-155 (ABOUT THE WILL)
"What
Gap are you talking about?"
"There
is a gap in us; like the soft spot on the head of a child, which
closes with age, this gap
opens, as one develops one's Will."
"Where
is that gap?"
"At
the place of your luminous fibers," he said, pointing to his
abdominal area.
"What
is it like? What is it for?"
"It's
an Opening. It allows a space for the Will to shoot out, like an
arrow."
"Is
the Will an object? Or like an object?"
"No.
I just said that, to make you understand. What a sorcerer calls Will is
a Power within
ourselves. It is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. To stop asking
questions is not Will,
because it needs thinking and wishing. Will is: what can make you
succeed, when your thoughts tell
you, that you're defeated. Will is: what makes you invulnerable. Will
is:
what sends a sorcerer
through a wall; through space; to the moon, if he wants."
There was nothing else I wanted to ask. I was tired and somewhat tense.
I was afraid, don Juan was
going to ask me to leave, and that annoyed me.
"Let's go to the hills," he said abruptly, and stood up. On the way he
started talking about Will again and laughed at my dismay (discourage,
fill with dread)
over not being able to take
notes.
He
described Will as a Force, which was the true link between men and
the world. He was very careful
to establish, that the world was, whatever we perceive, in any manner
we
may choose to perceive. Don
Juan maintained, that "perceiving the world", entails a process of
apprehending, whatever presents
itself to us.
This particular "perceiving" is done with our senses and
with our Will. I asked him, if Will was a sixth sense. He said, it was
rather a relation
between ourselves and the
perceived world. I suggested, that we halt, so I could
take notes. He
laughed and kept on
walking. He did not make me leave that night, and the next day, after
eating
breakfast, he himself brought up
the subject of Will.
"What
you, yourself call Will, is character and strong disposition," he
said. "What a sorcerer calls Will is a Force, that comes from within
and attaches itself to the world
out there. It comes out
through the belly, right here, where the luminous fibers are." He
rubbed his navel to point out the area. "I say, that it comes out
through here, because one can feel it coming
out."
"Why
do you call it Will?"
"I
don't call it anything. My benefactor called it Will, and other Men
of Knowledge call it Will."
"Yesterday
you said, that one can perceive the world with the senses as
well, as with the Will. How
is that possible?"
"An
average man can 'grab' the things of the world only with his hands,
or his eyes, or his ears,
but a sorcerer can grab them also with his nose, or his tongue, or his
Will, especially with his Will. I cannot really describe
how it is done, but you yourself, for
instance, cannot describe to
me, how you hear. It happens, that I am also capable of hearing, so we
can talk about, what we hear,
but not about how we hear. A sorcerer uses his Will to perceive the
world. That perceiving,
however, is not like hearing. When we look at the world or when we hear
it, we have the impression,
that it is out there and that it is real. When we perceive the world
with our Will, we know, that it
is not as 'out there' or 'as real' as we think."
"Is
Will the same as Seeing?"
"No. Will is a Force, a Power. Seeing
is not a Force, but rather a way
of getting through things. A
sorcerer may have a very strong Will and yet he may not See; which
means, that only a Man of Knowledge perceives the world with his
senses, with his Will and
also with his Seeing."
I told
him, that I was more confused, than ever, about how to use my Will to
forget the guardian. That
statement and my mood of perplexity (bewilderment) seemed to delight
him. "I've told you, that when you talk, you only get confused," he
said and
laughed. "But at least now,
you know, you are waiting for your Will. You still don't know, what it
is, or how it could happen to
you. So watch carefully everything you do. The very
thing, that could
help you develop your Will, is
amidst all the little things you do."
156-157
Don Juan was gone all morning; he returned in the early afternoon with
a bundle of dry plants. He
signaled me with his head to help him and we worked in complete silence
for hours, sorting the
plants. When we finished we sat down to rest and he smiled at me
benevolently. I said to him in a very serious manner, that I had been
reading my notes
and I still could not
understand, what being a warrior entailed or what the idea of will
meant.
"Will is not an idea," he said. This was the first time he had spoken
to me the whole day. After a long pause he continued: "We are
different, you and I. Our characters are not alike. Your nature
is more violent than mine.
When I was your age I was not violent but mean; you are the opposite.
My benefactor was like that;
he would have been perfectly suited to be your teacher. He was a great
sorcerer but he did not see;
not the way I see or the way Genaro Sees. I understand the world and
live guided by my Seeing. My
benefactor, on the other hand, had to live as a warrior. If a man Sees,
he doesn't have to live like
a warrior, or like anything else, for he can see things as they really
are and direct his life
accordingly. But, considering your character, I would say, that you may
never learn to see, in which
case you will have to live your entire life like a warrior. My
benefactor said, that when a man embarks on the paths of sorcery he
becomes aware, in a gradual
manner, that ordinary life has been forever left behind; that knowledge
is indeed a frightening
affair; that the means of the ordinary world are no longer a buffer for
him; and that he must adopt
a new way of life, if he is going to survive. The first thing he ought
to do, at that point, is to want to become a warrior, a very important
step and decision. The frightening nature of knowledge leaves one no
alternative, but to become a warrior. By the time knowledge becomes a
frightening affair, the man also realizes, that death is the
irreplaceable partner, that sits next to him on the mat. Every bit of
knowledge, that becomes power,
has death as its central force. Death lends the ultimate touch, and
whatever is touched by death indeed becomes power. A man who follows
the paths of sorcery is confronted with imminent annihilation every
turn of the
way, and unavoidably he becomes keenly aware of his death. Without the
awareness of death he would
be only an ordinary man involved in ordinary acts. He would lack the
necessary potency, the
necessary concentration, that transforms one's ordinary time on earth
into magical power. Thus to be a warrior a man has to be, first of all,
and rightfully so, keenly aware of his own
death. But to be
concerned with death would force any one of us to focus on the self and
that would be debilitating.
So the next thing one needs to be a warrior is detachment. The
idea of imminent death, instead of
becoming an obsession, becomes an indifference."
Don
Juan stopped talking and looked at me. He seemed to be waiting for
a comment. "Do you understand?" he asked. I understood what he had
said, but I personally could not see how anyone could arrive at a sense
of
detachment. I said, that from the point of view of my own
apprenticeship, I had already experienced
the moment when knowledge became such a frightening affair. I could
also truthfully say, that I no
longer found support in the ordinary premises (subject, belief) of my daily
life. And I
wanted, or perhaps even more,
than wanted, I needed, to live like a warrior.
"Now you must detach yourself," he said.
"From what?"
"Detach yourself from everything."
"That's impossible. I don't want to be a hermit."
"To be a hermit is an indulgence and I never meant that. A hermit is
not detached, for he willfully
abandons himself to being a hermit. Only the idea of death makes a man
sufficiently detached so he is incapable of abandoning himself
to anything. Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached
so he can't deny himself anything.
158-159
A man
of that sort, however, does not crave, for he has acquired a silent
lust for life and for all
things of life. He knows his death is stalking him and won't give him
time to cling to anything, so
he tries, without craving, all of everything. A detached man, who knows
he has no possibility of fencing off his death, has only one thing to
back himself with: the power of his decisions. He has to be, so to
speak, the master of his
choices. He must fully understand that his choice is his responsibility
and once he makes it there
is no longer time for regrets or recriminations. His decisions are
final, simply because his death
does not permit him time to cling to anything. And thus with an
awareness of his death, with his detachment, and with the power of his
decisions
a warrior sets his life in a strategical manner. The knowledge of his
death guides him and makes
him detached and silently lusty; the power of his final decisions makes
him able to choose without
regrets and what he chooses is always strategically the best; and so he
performs everything he has
to with gusto and lusty efficiency. When a man behaves in such a manner
one may rightfully say that he is a warrior and has acquired
patience!"
Don Juan asked me, if I had anything to say, and I remarked, that the
task he had described would
take a lifetime. He said, I protested too much in front of him and,
that
he knew I behaved, or at least tried to
behave, in terms of a warrior in my day-to-day life.
"You have pretty good claws," he said, laughing. "Show them to me from
time to time. It's good
practice."
I made a gesture of claws and growled, and he laughed. Then he cleared
his throat and went on
talking.
"When a warrior has acquired patience he is on his way to Will. He
knows how to wait. His death
sits with him on his mat, they are friends. His death advises him, in
mysterious ways, how to
choose, how to live strategically. And the warrior waits! I would say
that the warrior learns
without any hurry because he knows he is waiting for his will; and one
day he succeeds in
performing something ordinarily quite impossible to accomplish. He may
not even notice his extraordinary deed.
But as he keeps on performing
impossible acts, or as
impossible things keep on happening to him, he becomes aware that a
sort of power is emerging. A
power that conies out of his body as he progresses on the path of
knowledge. At first it is like an
itching on the belly, or a warm spot that cannot be soothed; then it
becomes a pain, a great
discomfort. Sometimes the pain and discomfort are so great that the
warrior has convulsions for
months, the more severe the convulsions the better for him. A fine
power is always heralded by
great pain. When the
convulsions cease the warrior notices, he has
strange feelings about things. He notices,
that he can actually touch anything, he wants, with a feeling, that
comes
out of his body from a spot
right below or right above his navel. That feeling is the Will, and
when he is capable of grabbing
with it, one can rightfully say, that the warrior is a sorcerer, and
that he has acquired Will."
Don Juan stopped talking and seemed to await my comments or questions.
I had nothing to say. I was
deeply concerned with the idea, that a sorcerer had to experience pain
and convulsions, but I felt
embarrassed about asking him if I also had to go through that. Finally,
after a long silence, I
asked him, and he giggled, as if he had been anticipating my question.
He said, that pain was not
absolutely necessary; he, for example, had never had it and will had
just happened to him.
"One day I was in the mountains," he said, "and I stumbled upon a puma,
a female one; she was big
and hungry. I ran and she ran after me. I climbed a rock and
she stood
a few feet away ready to
jump. I threw rocks at her. She growled and began to charge me. It was
then, that my Will fully came
out, and I stopped her with it, before she jumped on me.
"I caressed her with my Will. I actually rubbed her tits with it. She
looked at me with sleepy eyes
and lay down and I ran like a son of a bitch, before she got over it."
Don Juan made a very comical gesture to portray a man, running for dear
life, holding onto his
hat. I told him, that I hated to think, I had only female mountain
lions or
convulsions to look forward
to, if I wanted Will.
160-161
"My benefactor was a sorcerer of great powers," he went on. "He was a
warrior through and through.
His will was indeed his most magnificent accomplishment.
But a man can
go still further, than that;
a man can learn to see. Upon learning to see he no longer needs to live
like a warrior, nor be a
sorcerer. Upon learning to See, a man becomes everything, by becoming
nothing. He, so to speak,
vanishes and yet he's there. I would say that this is the time when a
man can be or can get
anything he desires. But he desires nothing, and instead of playing
with his fellow men like they
were toys, he meets them in the midst of their folly. The only
difference between them is, that a
man, who Sees controls his folly, while his fellow men can't. A man,
who Sees, has no longer an active
interest in his fellow men. Seeing has already
detached him from
absolutely everything, he knew
before."
"The sole idea of, being detached from everything I know, gives me the
chills," I said.
"You must be joking! The thing, which should give you the chills, is
not
to have anything to look
forward to, but a lifetime of doing that, which you have always done.
Think of the man, who plants
corn year after year, until he's too old and tired to get up, so he
lies
around like an old dog. His
thoughts and feelings, the best of him, ramble aimlessly to the only
things, he has ever done, to
plant corn. For me, that is the most frightening waste there is. We are
men and our lot is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable
(unbelievable)
new
worlds."
"Are there any new worlds for us really?" I asked half in jest (joke).
"We have exhausted nothing, you fool," he said imperatively. "Seeing
is for impeccable men. Temper your spirit now, become a
warrior, learn to See, and then
you'll know, that there is no end to the new worlds for our vision."
Don Juan did not make me leave, after I had run his errands, as he had
been doing lately. He said, I
could stay, and the next day, June 28, 1969,
just before noon he told
me, I was going to smoke
again.

"Am I going to try to See the guardian again?"
"No, that's out. This is something else." Don Juan calmly filled his
pipe with smoking mixture, lighted it, and
handed it to me. I
experienced no apprehension, a pleasant drowsiness enveloped me right
away. When I had finished
smoking the whole bowl of mixture, don Juan put his pipe away and
helped me stand up. We had been
sitting, facing each other on two straw mats, he had placed in the
center
of his room. He said, that
we were going for a short walk and encouraged me to walk, shoving me
gently. I took a step and my
legs sagged. I did not feel any pain, when my knees hit the ground. Don
Juan held my arm and pushed me up on my feet again. "You have to walk,"
he said, "the same way you got up the other time.
You must use your Will." I seemed to be stuck to the ground. I
attempted a step with my right
foot and almost lost my
balance. Don Juan held my right arm at the armpit and gently catapulted
me forward, but my legs did
not support me and I would have collapsed on my face, had don Juan not
caught my arm and buffered my
fall. He held me by the right armpit and made me lean on him. I could
not feel anything, but
I was
certain, that my head was resting on his shoulder; I was Seeing the room
from a slanted perspective.
He dragged me in that position around the porch.
162-163
We circled it twice in
a most painful fashion;
finally, I suppose my weight became so great, that he had to drop me on
the ground. I knew, he could
not move me.
In a certain way it was, as if part of myself deliberately
wanted to become lead-heavy.
Don Juan did not make any effort to pick me up. He looked at me for an
instant;
I was lying on my
back facing him, I tried to smile at him and he began to laugh; then he
bent over and slapped me on
the belly. I had a most peculiar sensation.
It was not painful or
pleasurable or anything I could
think of. It was rather a jolt. Don Juan immediately began to roll me
around. I did not feel
anything; I assumed,
he was rolling me around, because my view of the
porch changed in accordance
with a circular motion. When don Juan had me in the position he wanted,
he stepped back. "Stand up!" he ordered me imperatively. "Stand up the
way you did it
the other day. Don't piddle (waste time)
around. You know how to get up. Now get up !"
I intently tried to recollect the actions, I had performed on that
occasion, but I could not think
clearly; it was, as if my thoughts had a Will of their own, no matter
how
hard I tried to control
them. Finally, the thought occurred to me, that if I said "up", as I
had
done before, I would certainly
get up. I said, "Up," loud and clear, but nothing happened. Don Juan
looked at me with obvious displeasure and then walked around
me toward the door. I was
lying on my left side and had a full view of the area in front of his
house; my back was to the
door, so when he walked around me, I immediately assumed, he had gone
inside. "Don Juan!" I called loudly, but
he did not answer. I had an
overpowering feeling of impotence and despair. I wanted to get
up. I said, "Up," again and
again, as if that were the magic word, that would make me move. Nothing
happened. I had an attack of
frustration, and I went through a sort of tantrum. I wanted to beat my
head against the floor and
weep.
I spent excruciating moments, in which I wanted to move or talk,
and I could not do either. I
was truly immobile, paralyzed. "Don Juan, help me!" I finally managed
to bellow (roar, shout). Don
Juan came back and sat in front of me, laughing. He said, that I was
getting hysterical and, that
whatever, I was experiencing, was inconsequential (petty, lacking
importance). He lifted my head and,
looking straight at me,
said, that I was having an attack of sham (empty pretence) fear. He
told me not to fret (agitate).
"Your life is getting complicated," he said. "Get rid of whatever it
is,
that's causing you to lose
your temper. Stay here quietly and rearrange yourself."
He placed my head on the ground. He stepped over me and all, I could
perceive, was the shuffling of
his sandals, as he walked away. My first impulse was to fret (agitate) again, but I
could not gather the energy
to work myself into it.
Instead, I found myself slipping into a rare state of serenity; a great
feeling of ease enveloped
me. I knew what the complexity of my life was. It was my little boy. I
wanted to be his father more,
than anything else on this Earth. I liked the idea of molding his
character and taking him hiking
and teaching him "how to live," and yet I abhorred the idea of coercing
(dominate, restrain, force)
him into my way of life,
but that was precisely, what I would have to do, coerce (dominate,
restrain, force)
him with
force
or with that artful set of
arguments and rewards, we call understanding.
"I must let him go," I thought. "I must not cling to him. I must set
him free." My thoughts brought on a terrifying feeling of melancholy. I
began to
weep. My eyes filled with
tears and my view of the porch blurred. Suddenly I had a great urge to
get up and look for don Juan,
to explain to him about my little boy; and the next thing
I knew, I was
looking at the porch from
an upright position. I turned around to face the house and found don
Juan standing in front of me.
Apparently he had been standing there behind me all the time. Although
I could not feel my steps, I must have walked toward him,
because I moved. Don Juan came
to me smiling and held me up by the armpits. His face was very close to
mine.
"Good, good work," he said reassuringly. At that instant I became
aware, that something extraordinary was taking
place right there.
164-165
I had the
feeling at first, that I was only recollecting an event, that had taken
place years before. At one
time in the past I had seen don Juan's face at very close range; I had
smoked his mixture and I had
had the feeling then, that don Juan's face was submerged in a tank of
water. It was enormous, it
was luminous and
it moved. The image had been so brief, that I did not
have time to really take
stock (make an estimate) of it. This time, however, don Juan was
holding me, and his face
was no more, than a foot away
from mine, and I had time to examine it. When I stood up and turned
around, I definitely saw don
Juan; "the don Juan I know" definitely walked toward me and held me.
But when I focused my eyes on
his face, I did not See don Juan, as I am accustomed to seeing him;
instead, I saw a large object in
front of my eyes. I knew, it was don Juan's face, yet that knowledge
was
not guided by my
perception; it was, rather, a logical conclusion on my part; after all,
my memory confirmed, that
the instant before, "the don Juan I know" was holding me by the
armpits. Therefore the strange,
luminous object in front of me had to be don Juan's face; there was a
familiarity to it; yet it had
no resemblance, to what I would call don Juan's "real" face. What, I
was
looking at, was a round
object, which had a Luminosity of its own. Every part in it moved. I
perceived a contained,
undulatory (movement in waves), rhythmical flow; it was, as if the
flowing was enclosed
within itself, never moving
beyond its limits, and yet the object, in front of my eyes, was oozing
(emit/radiate in abandance, leaking, dripping)
with movement at any place on
its surface. The thought, that occurred to me, was, that it oozed (radiate) life. In
fact, it was so alive, that I
became engrossed (absorbed wholly), looking at
its movement. It was a mesmerizing
fluttering. It became more and more
engrossing, until I could no longer tell, what the phenomenon, in front
of my eyes, was. I experienced a sudden jolt; the luminous object
became blurry, as if
something were shaking it,
and then it lost its glow and became solid and fleshy. I was then
looking at don Juan's familiar
dark face. He was smiling placidly. The view of his "real" face lasted
an instant and then the face
again acquired a glow, a shine, an iridescence. It was not light, as I
am accustomed to perceiving
light, or even a glow; rather it was movement, an incredibly fast
flickering of something.
The
glowing object began to bobble up (quick jerking movement) and down
again and, that disrupted its
undulatory (movement
in
waves)
continuity. Its
shine diminished, as it shook, until it again became the "solid" face
of
don Juan, as I see him in
everyday life. At that moment I vaguely realized, that don Juan was
shaking me. He was also speaking
to me. I did not understand, what he was saying, but, as he kept on
shaking me, I finally heard
him. "Don't stare at me. Don't stare at me," he kept saying. "Break
your
gaze. Break your gaze. Move
your eyes away." Shaking my body seemed to force me to dislodge my
steady gaze;
apparently, when
I
did not peer
intently into don Juan's face, I did not See the luminous object. When
I
moved my eyes away from his
face and looked at it with the corner of my eye, so to speak, I could
perceive his solidity; that
is to say, I could perceive a three-dimensional person; without really
looking at him, I could, in
fact, perceive his whole body, but when I focused my gaze, the face
became at once the luminous
object. "Don't look at me at all," don Juan said gravely. I moved my
eyes away and looked at the ground. "Don't fix your gaze on anything,"
don Juan said imperatively, and
stepped aside, in order to help
me walk. I did not feel my steps and could not figure out, how I
performed the
act of walking, yet with don
Juan, holding me by the armpit, we moved all the way to the back of his
house. We stopped by the
irrigation ditch. "Now gaze at the water," don Juan ordered me. I
looked at the water, but I could not gaze at it. Somehow the movement
of the current distracted
me, Don Juan kept on urging me in a joking manner to exercise my
"gazing powers," but I could not
concentrate. I gazed at don Juan's face once again, but the glow did
not
become apparent any
more. I began to experience a strange itching on my body, the sensation
of a
limb, that has fallen asleep;
the muscles of my legs began to twitch. Don Juan shoved me into the
water and I tumbled down all
the way to the bottom. He had, apparently, held my right hand, as he
pushed me, and when I hit the
shallow bottom, he pulled me up again. It took a long time for me to
regain control over myself.
166-167
When we got
back to his house hours
later, I asked him to explain my experience. As I put on my dry
clothes,
I excitedly described, what
I had perceived, but
he
discarded my entire account, saying, that there
was nothing of importance in
it. "Big deal!" he said, mocking me. "You Saw a glow, big deal." I
insisted on an explanation and he got up and said, he had to leave. It
was almost five in the
afternoon. The next day I insisted again on discussing my peculiar
experience.
"Was it Seeing, don Juan?" I
asked. He remained quiet, smiling mysteriously, as I kept pressing him
to
answer me.
"Let's say, that Seeing is somewhat
like that," he finally said. "You
were gazing at my face and Saw
it shining, but it was still my face. It just happens, that the little
smoke makes one gaze like
that. Nothing to it."
"But in what way would Seeing be different?"
"When you See, there are no longer familiar features in the world.
Everything is new. Everything has
never happened before. The world is incredible!"
"Why do you say incredible, don Juan? What makes it incredible?"
"Nothing is any longer familiar. Everything, you gaze at, becomes
nothing! Yesterday you didn't See.
You gazed at my face and, since you like me, you noticed my glow. I was
not monstrous, like the
guardian, but beautiful and interesting. But you did not See me. I
didn't become nothing in front
of you. And yet you did well.
You took the first real step toward Seeing. The only
drawback was, that
you focused on me, and in
that case, I'm no better, than the guardian for you. You succumbed (gave in, gave
up)
in
both instances and didn't See."
"Do things disappear? How do they become nothing?"
"Things don't disappear. They don't vanish, if that's what you mean;
they simply become nothing and
yet, they are still there."
"How can that be possible, don Juan?"
"You have the damnedest insistence on talking!" don Juan exclaimed with
a serious face. "I think, we
didn't hit it right about your promise. Perhaps, what you really
promised was to never, ever stop
talking." Don Juan's tone was severe. The look in his face was
concerned. I
wanted to laugh, but I did not
dare. I believed, that don Juan was serious, but he was not. He began
to
laugh. I told him, that if I
did not talk, I got very nervous. "Let's walk, then," he said. He took
me to the mouth of a canyon at the bottom of the hills. It was
about an hour's walk. We
rested for a short while and, then he guided me through the thick
desert
underbrush to a water hole;
that is, to a spot, he said, was a water hole. It was as dry, as any
other
spot in the surrounding
area. "Sit in the middle of the water hole," he ordered me.
I
obeyed and sat down. "Are you going to sit here too?" I asked. I saw
him fixing a place to sit some twenty yards from the center of
the water hole, against the
rocks on the
side of the mountain. He said, he
was going to watch me from there. I was sitting with my
knees against my chest. He
corrected my position and told me to sit with my left leg tucked under
my seat and my right one
bent, with the knee in an upward position. My right arm had to be by my
side with my fist resting
on the ground, while my left arm was crossed over my chest. He told me
to face him and stay there,
relaxed, but not "abandoned." He then took a sort of whitish cord from
his pouch. It looked like a
big loop. He looped it around his neck and stretched it with his left
hand, until it was taut (strained, tense, stiff). He
plucked the tight string with his right hand. It made a dull, vibratory
sound. He relaxed his grip and looked at me and told me, that I had to
yell a
specific word, if I began to
feel, that something was coming at me, when he plucked the string. I
asked what was supposed to come at me and he told me to shut up. He
signaled me with his hand,
that he was going to commence. He did not; instead, he gave me one more
admonition (warning).
168-169
He said, that if something came at me in
a very menacing way, I had to
adopt a fighting form, that he had taught me years before, which
consisted of dancing, beating the
ground with the tip of the left foot, while I slapped my right thigh
vigorously. The fighting form
was part of a defense technique, used in cases of extreme distress and
danger. I had a moment of genuine apprehension. I wanted to inquire
about the
reason for our being there,
but he did not give me time and began plucking the string. He did it
various times at regular
intervals of perhaps twenty seconds. I noticed, that, as he kept
plucking
the string, he augmented (increased) the
tension.
I could clearly see, that his arms and neck were shivering
under the stress. The sound
became more clear and I realized then, that he added a peculiar yell
every time he plucked the
string. The combined sound of the tense string and the human voice
produced a weird, unearthly
reverberation. I did not feel anything coming at me, but the sight of
don Juan's
exertion (exercise,
put into
vigorous action) and the eerie
sound, he
was producing, had me almost in a state of trance. Don Juan relaxed his
grip and looked at me. While he played, his back
was turned to me and he was
facing the southeast, as I was; when he relaxed, he faced me.
"Don't look at me, when I play," he said. "Don't close your eyes,
though. Not for anything. Look at
the ground in front of you and listen." He tensed the string again and
began playing. I looked at the ground
and concentrated on the sound,
he was making. I had never heard the sound before in my life. I became
very frightened. The eerie reverberation filled the narrow
canyon and began to echo. In
fact, the sound don Juan was making, was coming back to me, as an echo
from all around the canyon
walls. Don Juan must have also noticed that, and increased the tension
of his string. Although don
Juan had changed the pitch, the echo seemed to subside, and then it
seemed to concentrate on one
point, toward the southeast. Don Juan reduced the tension of the string
by degrees, until I heard a
final dull twang. He put the
string inside his pouch and walked toward me. He helped me stand up. I
noticed then, that the
muscles of my arms and legs were stiff, like rocks; I was literally
soaked in perspiration. I had
no idea, I had been perspiring so heavily. Drops of sweat ran into my
eyes and made them burn. Don Juan practically dragged me out of the
place. I tried to say
something, but he put his hand over
my mouth. Instead of leaving the canyon the way we had come in, don
Juan made a
detour. We climbed the side
of the mountain and ended up in some hills very far from the mouth of
the canyon. We walked in dead silence to his house. It was already dark
by the time
we got there. I tried to
talk again, but don Juan put his hand on my mouth once more. We did not
eat and did not light the kerosene lantern. Don Juan put my
mat in his room and pointed
at it with his chin. I understood it as a gesture, that I should lie
down and go to sleep.
"I have the proper thing for you to do," don Juan said to me as soon,
as
I woke up the next morning.
"You will start it today. There isn't much time, you know."
After a very long, uneasy pause I felt compelled (forced) to ask him,
"What did
you have me doing in the
canyon yesterday?" Don Juan giggled like a child.
"I just tapped (found, knock, learn) the spirit of
that water hole," he said. "That type of
spirit should be tapped (found, knock, learn), when
the water hole is dry, when the spirit has retreated into the
mountains. Yesterday I, let us say,
woke him up from his slumber. But he didn't mind it and pointed to your
lucky direction. His voice
came from that direction."
Don Juan pointed toward the southeast. "What was the string you played,
don Juan?"
"A spirit catcher."
"Can I look at it?"
"No. But I'll make you one. Or better yet, you will make one for
yourself some day, when you learn
to See"
"What is it made of, don Juan?"
"Mine is a wild boar. When you get one you will realize, that it is
alive and can teach you the
different sounds it likes.
170-171
With practice you will get to know your
spirit catcher so well, that
together you will make sounds full of power."
"Why did you take me to look for the spirit of the water hole, don
Juan?"
"You will know that very soon." Around 11:30 A.M. we sat under his
ramada, where he prepared his pipe
for me to smoke. He told me to stand up when my body was quite numb; I
did that with
great ease. He helped me walk
around, I was surprised at my control; I actually walked twice around
the ramada by myself. Don
Juan stayed by my side but did not guide me or support me. Then he took
me by the arm and walked me
to the irrigation ditch. He made me sit on the edge of the bank and
ordered me imperatively to gaze
at the water and think of nothing else. I tried to focus my gaze on the
water but its movement distracted me.
My mind and my eyes began to
wander onto other features of the immediate surroundings. Don Juan
bobbed my head up and down and
ordered me again to gaze only at the water and not think at all. He
said it was difficult to stare
at the moving water and that one had to keep on trying. I tried three
times and every time I became
distracted by something else. Don Juan very patiently shook my head
every time. Finally I noticed
that my mind and my eyes were focusing on the water; in spite of its
movement. I was becoming
immersed in my view of its liquidness. The water became slightly
different. It seemed to be heavier
and uniformly grayish green. I could notice the ripples it made as it
moved. The ripples were
extremely sharp. And then, suddenly, I had the sensation that I was not
looking at a mass of moving
water but at a picture of water; what I had in front of my eyes was a
frozen segment of the running
water. The ripples were immobile. I could look at every one of them.
Then they began to acquire a
green phosphorescence and a sort of green fog oozed out of them. The
fog expanded in ripples and as
it moved, its greenness became more brilliant until it was a dazzling
radiance that covered
everything. I don't know how long I stayed by the irrigation ditch. Don
Juan did
not interrupt me. I was
immersed in the green glow of the fog. I could sense it all around me.
It soothed me. I had no
thoughts, no feelings. All I had was a quiet awareness, the awareness
of a brilliant, soothing
greenness. Being extremely cold and damp was the next thing I became
aware of.
Gradually I realized that I was
submerged in the irrigation ditch. At one moment the water slipped
inside my nose, and I swallowed
it and it made me cough. I had an annoying itch inside my nose and I
sneezed repeatedly.
I stood up
and had such a forceful and loud sneeze that I also farted. Don Juan
clapped his hands and
laughed.
"If a body farts, it's alive," he said. He signaled me to follow him
and we walked to his house. I thought of keeping quiet. In a way, I
expected to be in a detached
and morose mood, but I really
did not feel tired or melancholy. I felt rather buoyant and changed my
clothes very rapidly. I
began to whistle. Don Juan looked at me curiously and pretended to be
surprised; he opened his
mouth and his eyes. His gesture was very funny and I laughed quite a
bit longer than it called
for.
"You're cracking up," he said, and laughed very hard himself. I
explained to him that I did not want to fall into the habit of
feeling morose after using his
smoking mixture. I told him that after he had taken me out of the
irrigation ditch,
during my attempts to meet the
guardian, I had become convinced, that I could "See", if
I stared at things around me
long enough. "Seeing is not a
matter of looking and keeping quiet," he said. "Seeing
is a technique, one has to
learn. Or maybe it is a technique some of us already know." He peered
at me as if to insinuate (), that I was one of those, who already
knew the technique.
"Are you strong enough to walk?" he asked. I said I felt fine, which I
did. I was not hungry, although I had not
eaten all day.
172-173
Don Juan put
some bread and some pieces of dry meat in a knapsack, handed it to me,
and gestured with his head
for me to follow. "Where are we going?" I asked.
He pointed toward the hills with a slight movement of his head. We
headed for the same canyon where
the water hole was, but we did not enter it. Don Juan climbed onto the
rocks to our right, at the
very mouth of the canyon. We went up the hill. The sun was almost on
the horizon. It was a mild day
but I felt hot and suffocated.
I could hardly breathe. Don Juan was quite a way ahead of me and had to
stop to let me catch up
with him. He said I was in
terrible physical condition and that it was perhaps not wise to go any
further. He let me rest for
about an hour. He selected a slick, almost round boulder and told me to
lie there. He arranged my
body on the rock. He told me to stretch my arms and legs and let them
hang loose. My back was
slightly arched and my neck relaxed, so that my head also hung loose.
He made me stay in that
position for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then he told me to uncover my
abdominal region. He carefully
selected some branches and leaves and heaped them over my naked belly.
I felt an instantaneous
warmth all over my body. Don Juan then took me by the feet and turned
me until my head was toward
the south-
east.
"Now let us call that, spirit of the water hole," he said. I tried to
turn my head to look at him. He held me vigorously by the
hair and said that I was in a
very vulnerable position and in a terribly weak physical state and had
to remain quiet and
motionless. He had put all those special branches on my belly to
protect me and was going to remain
next to me in case, I could not take care of myself. He was standing
next to the top of my head, and if I rolled my eyes, I
could see him. He took his
string and tensed it and then realized I was looking at him by rolling
my eyes way into my
forehead. He gave me a snappy tap (found, knock, learn) on the head
with his knuckles and
ordered me to look at the sky,
not to close my eyes, and to concentrate on the sound. He added, as if
on second thought, that I
should not hesitate to yell the word he had taught me, if I felt
something was coming at me. Don Juan and his "spirit catcher" began
with a low-tension twang. He
slowly increased the tension,
and I began to hear a sort of reverberation first, and then a definite
echo which came consistently
from a southeasterly direction. The tension increased. Don Juan and his
"spirit catcher" were
perfectly matched. The string produced a low-range note and don Juan
magnified it, increasing its
intensity, until
it was a penetrating cry, a howling call. The apex was an eerie shriek,
inconceivable (unbelievable)
from
the point
of view of
my own experience. The sound reverberated in the mountains and echoed
back to us. I
fancied it was coming directly
toward me. I felt it had something to do with the temperature of my
body. Before
don Juan started his calls I
had been very warm and comfortable, but during the highest point of his
calls I became chilled; my
teeth chattered uncontrollably and I truly had the sensation that
something was coming at me. At
one point I noticed that the sky had become very dark. I had not been
aware of the sky, although
I
was looking at it. I had a moment of intense panic and I yelled the
word don Juan had taught
me. Don Juan immediately began to decrease the tension of his eerie
calls,
but that did not bring me
any relief.
"Cover your ears," don Juan mumbled imperatively. I covered them with
my hands. After some minutes don Juan stopped altogether and came
around to my
side. After he had taken the
branches and leaves off my belly, he helped me up and carefully put
them on the rock where I had
been lying. He made a fire with them, and while it burned he rubbed my
stomach with other leaves
from his pouch. He put his hand on my mouth when I was about to tell
him that I had a
terrible headache.
We stayed there, until all the leaves had burned. It was fairly dark by
then. We walked down the
hill and I got sick to my stomach. While we were walking along the
irrigation ditch, don Juan said, that I
had done enough and I should
not stay around. I asked him to explain, what the spirit of the water
hole was, but he gestured me
to be quiet.
174-175
He said, that we would talk about it some other time, then
he deliberately changed the
subject and gave me a long explanation about "Seeing." I said it
was
regrettable that I could not
write in the darkness. He seemed very pleased and said that most of the
time I did not pay
attention to what he had to say, because
I was so determined to write
everything down. He spoke about "Seeing" as a process
independent of the allies and the
techniques of sorcery. A
sorcerer was a person who could command an ally and could thus
manipulate an ally's power to his
advantage, but the fact, that he commanded an ally did not mean that he
could "see." I reminded him
that he had told me before that it was impossible to "see" unless one
had an ally. Don Juan very
calmly replied that he had come to the conclusion it was possible to
"see" and yet not command an
ally. He felt there was no reason why not, since "seeing" had nothing
to do with the manipulatory
techniques of sorcery, which served only to act upon our fellow men.
The techniques of "seeing," on
the other hand, had no effect on men. My thoughts were very clear. I
experienced no fatigue or drowsiness and
no longer had an
uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, as I walked with don Juan. I was
terribly hungry, and when we
got to his house, I gorged myself with food. Afterwards I asked him to
tell me more about the techniques of
"Seeing."
He smiled broadly at me
and said, that I was again myself.
"How is it," I said, "that the techniques of Seeing have no
effect on
our fellow men?"
"I've told you already," he said. "Seeing is not
sorcery. Yet one may
easily confuse them, because
a man who sees can learn, in no time at all, to manipulate an ally and
may become a sorcerer. On
the other hand, a man may learn certain techniques in order to command
an ally and thus become a
sorcerer, and yet he may never learn to See.
"Besides, seeing is contrary to sorcery. Seeing makes one
realize the
unimportance of it all."
"The unimportance of what, don Juan?"
"The unimportance of everything."
We did not say anything else. I felt very relaxed and did not want to
speak any more. I was lying
on my back on a straw mat. I had made a pillow with my windbreaker. I
felt comfortable and happy
and wrote my notes for hours in the light of the kerosene lantern.
Suddenly don Juan spoke
again.
"Today you did very well," he said. "You did very well at the water.
The spirit of the water hole
likes you and helped you all the way."
I realized then that I had forgotten to recount my experience to him. I
began to describe the way I
had perceived the water. He did not let me continue. He said, that he
knew, I had perceived a green
fog. I felt compelled (forced) to ask, "How
did you know that, don Juan?"
"I Saw you."
"What did I do?"
"Nothing, you sat there and gazed into the water and finally you
perceived the green mist."
"Was it Seeing?"
"No. But it was very close. You're getting close."
I got very excited. I wanted to know more about it. He laughed and made
fun of my eagerness. He
said that anyone could perceive the green fog because it was like the
guardian, something that was
unavoidably there, so there was no great accomplishment in perceiving
it.
"When I said you did well, I meant that you did not fret (agitate)," he said,
"as
you did with the guardian.
If you had become restless I would have had to shake your head and
bring you back. Whenever a man
goes into the green fog his benefactor has to stay by him in case it
begins to trap him. You can
jump out of the guardian's reach by
yourself, but you can't escape the clutches of the green fog by
yourself. At least not at the
beginning. Later on you may learn a way to do it. Now we're trying to
find out something else."
"What are we trying to find out?"
"Whether you can See the water."
"How will I know, that I have Seen it, or that I am Seeing it?"
"You will know. You get confused only, when you talk."
176-177
August
8, 1969.
Working on my notes, I had come across various questions. "Is the green
fog, like the guardian, something, that one has to
overcome, in order to See?" I asked
don Juan as soon, as we sat down under his ramada.
"Yes. One must overcome everything," he said.
"How can I overcome the green fog?"
"The same way you should have overcome the guardian, by letting it turn
into nothing."
"What should I do?"
"Nothing. For you, the green fog is something much easier, than the
guardian. The spirit of the
water hole likes you, while it certainly was not your temperament to
deal with the guardian. You
never really Saw the guardian."
"Maybe that was, because I didn't like it. What if I were to meet a
guardian, I liked? There must be
some people, who would regard the guardian I Saw, as being beautiful.
Would they overcome it, because
they liked it?"
"No! You still don't understand. It doesn't matter, whether you like or
dislike the guardian. As
long, as you have a feeling toward it, the guardian will remain the
same, monstrous, beautiful, or
whatever. If you have no feeling toward it, on the other hand, the
guardian will become nothing and
will still be there in front of you."
The idea, that something as colossal, as the guardian, could become
nothing and still be in front of
my eyes, made absolutely no sense. I felt, it was one of the alogical
premises
(subject,
belief) of don Juan's
knowledge. However, I also felt, that if he wanted to, he could explain
it to me. I insisted on
asking him, what he meant by that.
"You thought the guardian was something, you knew, that's what I mean."
"But I didn't think, it was something, I knew."
"You thought, it was ugly. Its size was awesome. It was a monster. You
know, what all those things
are. So the guardian was always something, you knew, and as long, as it
was something you knew, you
did not See it. I have told you already, the guardian had to become
nothing and yet, it had to stand
in front of you. It had to be there and it had, at the same time, to be
nothing."
"How could that be, don Juan? What you say is absurd."
"It is. But that is Seeing. There is
really no way to talk about it. Seeing, as I said
before, is
learned by Seeing. Apparently,
you have no problem with water. You nearly Saw it the other
day. Water is your 'hinge.'
All, you need now, is to perfect your technique of Seeing. You have a
powerful helper in the spirit
of the water hole."
"That's another burning question I have, don Juan."
"You may have all the burning questions, you want, but we cannot talk
about the Spirit of the water
hole in this vicinity. In fact, it is better not to think about it at
all. Not at all. Otherwise
the Spirit will trap you and, if that happens, there is nothing a
living
man can do, to help you. So
keep your mouth shut and keep your thoughts on something else."
Around ten o'clock the next morning don Juan took his pipe out of its
sheath, filled it with
smoking mixture, then handed it to me and told me to carry it to the
bank of the stream. Holding
the pipe with both hands, I managed to unbutton my shirt and put the
pipe inside and hold it tight.
Don Juan carried two straw mats and a small tray with coals. It was a
warm day. We sat on the mats
in the shade of a small grove of brea trees at the very edge of the
water. Don Juan placed a
charcoal inside the pipe bowl and told me to smoke. I did not have any
apprehension or any feeling
of elation. I remembered, that during my second attempt to "See" the
guardian, after don Juan had
explained its nature, I had had a unique sensation of wonder and awe.
178-179
This time, however, although
don Juan had made me cognizant (conscious, aware) of the
possibility of actually "Seeing"
the water, I was not
involved emotionally;
I was only curious. Don Juan made me smoke twice the amount, I had
smoked during previous
attempts. At a given moment he
leaned over and whispered in my right ear, that he was going to teach
me,
how to use the water, in
order to move. I felt his face very close, as if he had put his mouth
next to my ear. He told me
not to gaze into the water, but to focus my eyes on the surface and
keep them fixed, until the water
turned into a green fog. He repeated
over and
over, that I had to put all my attention on the fog, until I could not
detect anything else. "Look at the water in front of you," I heard him
saying, "but don't let
its sound carry you
anywhere.
If
you let the sound of the water carry you, I may never be
able to find you and bring you
back. Now get into the green fog and listen to my voice." I heard and
understood him with extraordinary clarity. I began looking
at the water fixedly, and
had a very peculiar sensation of physical pleasure; an itch; an
undefined happiness. I stared for a
long time, but did not detect the green fog. I felt, that my eyes were
getting out of focus and I had
to struggle, to keep looking at the water. Finally, I could
not
control
my eyes any longer and I must have closed
them, or blinked, or perhaps,
I just lost my capacity to focus; at any rate, at that very moment the
water became fixed; it
ceased to move. It seemed to be a painting. The ripples were immobile.
Then the water began to
fizzle; it was, as if it had carbonated particles, that exploded at
once.
For an instant, I saw the
fizzling, as a slow expansion of green matter. It was a silent
explosion; the water burst into a brilliant green mist, which expanded,
until it
had enveloped me. I remained suspended in it, until a very sharp,
sustained, shrill noise
shook everything; the fog
seemed to congeal (solidify) into the usual features of the water
surface. The
shrill noise was don Juan
yelling, "Heyyyy!" close to my ear. He told me to pay attention to his
voice and go back into the
fog and wait there, until he called me. I said, "O.K.," in English and
heard the cackling noise of
his laughter. "Please, don't talk," he said. "Don't give me any more
O.K.s." I could hear him very well. The sound of his voice was
melodious and
above all friendly. I knew,
that without thinking; it was a conviction, that struck me and then
passed. Don Juan's voice ordered me to focus all my attention on the
fog, but
not abandon myself to it. He
said repeatedly, that a warrior did not abandon himself to anything,
not
even to his death. I became
immersed in the mist again and noticed, that it was not fog at all, or
at least it was not, what I
conceive (think,
consider, formulate, become posessed) fog to be
like. The foglike phenomenon was composed of tiny
bubbles, round objects, that
came into my field of "vision" and moved out of it with a floating
quality. I watched their
movement for a while, then a loud, distant noise jolted my attention
and I lost my capacity to
focus and could no longer perceive the tiny bubbles. All, I was aware
of
then, was a green,
amorphous, foglike glow. I heard the loud noise again and, the jolt it
gave, dispelled (dispense,
scatter) the
fog at
once, and I found myself, looking at the water of the irrigation ditch.
Then I heard it again much
closer; it was don Juan's voice. He was telling me to pay attention to
him, because his voice was
my only guide. He ordered me to look at the bank of the stream and at
the vegetation directly in
front of me. I saw some reeds and a space, which was clear of reeds. It
was a small cove on the bank, a place, where don Juan steps across to
plunge his bucket and fill
it with water. After a few moments don Juan ordered me to return to the
fog and asked
me again to pay attention to
his voice, because he was going to guide me, so I could learn how to
move; he said, that once I saw
the bubbles, I should board one of them and let it carry me. I obeyed
him and was at once surrounded by the green mist, and then I
saw the tiny bubbles. I heard
don Juan's voice again, as a very strange and frightening rumble.
Immediately, upon hearing it, I
began losing my capacity to perceive the bubbles. "Mount one of those
bubbles," I heard him saying. I struggled to
maintain my perception of the green bubbles and still
hear his voice. I don't know
how long I fought to do that.
180-181
When
suddenly, I was aware, that I could
listen to him and still keep
sight of the bubbles, which kept on passing through, floating slowly
out of my field of perception.
Don Juan's voice kept on urging me to follow one of them and mount it.
I wondered, how I was supposed to do that and automatically I voiced
the
word, "How." I felt, that
the word was very deep inside me and, as it came out, it carried me to
the surface. The word was like
a buoy, that emerged out of my depth. I heard myself saying, "How," and
I sounded like a dog
howling. Don Juan howled back, also like a dog, and then he made some
coyote sounds, and laughed. I
thought it was very funny and I actually laughed. Don Juan told me very
calmly to let myself become affixed to a bubble
by following it. "Go back again," he said. "Go into the fog! Into the
fog!" I went back and noticed, that the movement of the bubbles had
slowed
down and they had become as
large, as basketballs. In fact, they were so large and slow, that I
could
examine any one of them in
great detail. They were not really bubbles, not like a soap bubble, nor
like a balloon, nor any
spherical container.
They were not containers, yet they were
contained.
Nor were they round,
although when I first perceived them, I could have sworn, they were
round
and the image, that came to
my mind was "bubbles." I viewed them, as if I were looking through a
window; that is, the frame of
the window did not allow me to follow them, but only permitted me to
view them, coming into and going
out of my field of perception. When I ceased to view them as bubbles,
however, I was capable of
following them; in the act of following them I became affixed to one of
them and I floated with it.
I truly felt, I was moving. In fact, I was the bubble, or that thing,
which resembled a bubble. Then I heard the shrill (high pitched,
piercing) sound of don Juan's voice. It jolted me and I
lost my feeling of being
"it." The sound was extremely frightening; it was a remote voice, very
metallic, as if he were
talking through a loud-speaker. I made out some of the words. "Look at
the banks," he said. I saw a very large body of water. The water was
rushing. I could hear
the noise it made. "Look at the banks," don Juan ordered me again. I
saw a concrete wall. The sound of the water became terribly loud; the
sound engulfed me. Then it
ceased instantaneously, as if it had been cut off. I had the sensation
of blackness, of sleep. I became aware, that I was immersed in the
irrigation ditch. Don Juan
was splashing water in my face,
as he hummed. Then he submerged me in the ditch. He pulled my head up,
over the surface, and let me
rest it on the bank, as he held me by the back of my shirt collar. I
had
a most pleasant sensation
in my arms and legs. I stretched them. My eyes were tired and they
itched; I lifted my right hand
to rub them. It was a difficult movement. My arm seemed to be heavy. I
could hardly lift it out of
the water, but when I did, my arm came out covered with a most
astonishing mass of green mist. I
held my arm in front of my eyes. I could see its contour, as a darker
mass of green, surrounded by a
most intense greenish glow. I got to my feet in a hurry, stood in
the middle of the stream and
looked at my body; my chest, arms, and legs were green, deep green. The
hue was so intense, that it
gave me the feeling of a viscous substance. I looked like a figurine,
don Juan had made for me, years
before, out of a datura root. Don Juan told me to come out. I noticed
an urgency in his voice.
"I'm green," I said.
"Cut it out," he said imperatively. "You have no time. Get out of
there. The water is about to trap
you. Get out of it! Out! Out!" I panicked and jumped out.
"This time you must tell me everything, that took place," he said
matter-of-factly, as soon, as we
sat, facing each other inside his room. He was not interested in the
sequence of my experience; he wanted to
know only, what I had
encountered, when he told me to look at the bank. He was
interested in
details.
182-183
I
described the wall,
I had seen. "Was
the wall to your left or to your right?" he asked. I told him, that the
wall had really been in front of me. But he
insisted, that it had to be either
to the left or to the right. "When you first saw it, where was it?
Close your eyes and don't open
them, until you have
remembered." He stood up and turned my body, while I had my eyes
closed, until he had
me facing east, the same
direction I had faced, when I was sitting in front of the stream. He
asked me, in which direction I
had moved. I said, I had moved onward, ahead, in front of me. He
insisted, that I
should remember and
concentrate on the time, when I was still viewing the water, as
bubbles. "Which way did they flow?" he asked. Don Juan urged me to
recall, and, finally, I had to admit, that the
bubbles had seemed to be moving to
my right. Yet, I was not as absolutely sure, as he wanted me to be.
Under
his probing I began to
realize, that I was incapable of classifying my perception. The bubbles
had moved to my right, when I
first viewed them, but when they became larger, they flowed everywhere.
Some of them seemed to be
coming directly at me, others
seemed to go in every possible direction. There were bubbles moving
above and below me. In fact,
they were all around me. I recollected hearing their fizzing; thus, I
must have perceived them
with my ears as well, as with
my eyes. When the bubbles became so large, that I was able to "mount"
one of
them, I "saw" them, rubbing each
other like balloons. My excitement increased, as I recollected the
details of my perception.
Don Juan, however, was
completely uninterested.
I told him, that I had Seen the bubbles
fizzing. It was not a purely
auditory or purely visual effect, but something undifferentiated, yet
crystal clear; the bubbles
rasped (scraped harshly) against each other. I did not See or hear
their movement, I felt
it; I was part of the sound
and the motion. As I recounted my experience, I became deeply moved. I
held his arm and
shook it in an outburst of
great agitation. I had realized, that the bubbles had no outer limit;
nonetheless, they
were contained and their
edges changed shape and were uneven and jagged (rough, uneven). The
bubbles
merged and
separated with great speed,
yet their movement was not dazzling. Their movement was fast and at the
same time slow. Another thing I remembered, as I recounted my
experience, was the
quality of color, that the bubbles
seemed to possess. They were transparent and very bright, and seemed
almost green, although it was
not a hue, as I am accustomed to perceiving hues. "You're stalling
(employing delaying tactics)," don Juan said. "Those things are not
important.
You're dwelling on the wrong
items. The direction is the only important issue." I could only
remember, that I had moved without any point of reference,
but don Juan concluded, that
since the bubbles had flowed consistently to my
right—south—at the
beginning, the south was the
direction, with which I had to be concerned. He again urged me
imperatively to recollect, whether the
wall was to my right or my left.
I strained to remember. When don
Juan "called me" and I surfaced, so to speak, I think, I had
the wall to my left. I was
very close to it and was able to distinguish the grooves and
protuberances of the wooden armature
or mold, into which the concrete had been poured. Very thin strips of
wood had been used and the
pattern, they had created, was compact The wall was very high. One end
of
it was visible to me, and I
noticed, that it did not have a corner, but curved around. He sat in
silence for a moment, as if he were thinking, how to decipher
the meaning of my
experience; he finally said, that I had not accomplished a great deal,
that I had fallen short, of
what he expected me to do.
"What was I supposed to do?" He did not answer, but made a
puckering gesture with his lips.
"You did very well," he said. "Today you learned, that a brujo uses the
water to move."
"But did I See?" He looked at me with a curious expression. He rolled
his eyes and said,
that I had to go into the
green mist a good many times, until I could answer that question
myself.
184-185
He changed the direction of
our conversation in a subtle way, saying, I had not really learned, how
to move, using the water, but
I had learned, that a brujo could do that, and he had deliberately told
me to look at the bank of
the stream, so I could check my movement. "You moved very fast," he
said, "as fast, as a man, who knows how to
perform this technique. I had a
hard time keeping up with you." I begged him to explain, what had
happened to me from the beginning. He
laughed, shaking his head
slowly, as though in disbelief. "You always insist on knowing things
from the beginning," he said. "But
there's no beginning; the
beginning is only in your thought."
"I think, the beginning was, when I sat on the bank and smoked," I
said.
"But before you smoked, I had to figure out, what to do with you," he
said. "I would have to tell you,
what I did, and I can't do that, because it would take me to still
another point. So perhaps, things
would be clearer to you, if you didn't think about beginnings."
"Then tell me, what happened, after I sat on the bank and smoked"
"I think you have told me that already," he said, laughing.
"Was anything I did of any importance, don Juan?" He shrugged his
shoulders.
"You followed my directions very well and had no problem getting into
and out of the fog. Then you
listened to my voice and returned to the surface every time,
I called
you. That was the exercise.
The rest was very easy. You simply let the fog carry you. You behaved,
as though you knew, what
to do. When you were very far
away, I called you again and made you look at the bank, so you would
know, how far you had gone. Then
I pulled you back."
"You mean, don Juan, that I really traveled in the water?"
"You did. And very far too."
"How far?"
"You wouldn't believe it." I tried to coax (persuade) him into
telling me, but he dropped the subject and
said, he had to leave for a
while. I insisted, that he should at least give me a hint.
"I don't like to be kept in the dark," I said.
"You keep yourself in the dark," he said. "Think about the wall, you
Saw. Sit down here on your mat and remember
every detail of it. Then
perhaps, you, yourself, may discover, how far you went. All, I know
now, is,
that you traveled very far. I
know that, because I had a terrible time, pulling you back. If I had
not
been around, you might have
wandered off and never returned, in which case all, that would be left
of you now, would be your dead
body on the side of the stream. Or perhaps, you might have returned by
yourself. With you I'm not
sure. So judging by the effort, it took me, to bring you back, I'd say
you were clearly in ..." He made a long pause; he stared at me in a
friendly way. "I would go as far, as the mountains of central Mexico,"
he said. "I
don't know, how far you would
go, perhaps as far, as Los Angeles, or perhaps even as far, as Brazil."
Don Juan returned the next day late in the afternoon. In the meantime I
had written down everything, I could recollect about
my perception. While I wrote,
it occurred to me to follow the banks up and down the stream in each
direction and corroborate (confirm),
whether I had actually Seen a feature on either side, that might have
elicited (evoke, bring out something latent) in me the image of a
wall. I conjectured (guessed), that don Juan might have made me walk,
in a state
of stupor, and then might
have made me focus my attention on some wall on the way. In the hours,
that elapsed between the time,
I first detected the fog, and the time, I got out of the ditch and went
back to his house, I
calculated, that, if he had made me walk, we could have walked, at the
most, two and a half miles. So
I followed the banks of the stream for about three miles in each
direction, carefully observing
every feature, which might have been pertinent to my vision of the
wall.
The stream was, as far,
as I
could tell, a plain canal used for irrigation. It was four to five feet
wide throughout its length,
and I could not find any visible features in it, that would have
reminded me or forced the image of
a concrete wall.
186-187
When don Juan arrived at his house in the late afternoon, I accosted (approach and
boldly speak)
him
and insisted on reading my
account to htm. He refused to listen and made me sit down. He sat,
facing me. He was not smiling. He
seemed to be thinking, judging by the penetrating look in his eyes,
which were fixed above the
horizon.
"I think you must be aware by now," he said in a tone, that was
suddenly
very severe, "that
everything is mortally dangerous. The water is as deadly, as the
guardian. If you don't watch out,
the water will trap you. It nearly did that yesterday. But in order to
be trapped, a man has to be
willing. There's your trouble. You're willing to abandon yourself." I
did not know, what he was talking about. His attack on me had been so
sudden, that I was
disoriented. I feebly asked him to explain himself. He reluctantly
mentioned, that he had gone to
the water canyon and had "Seen" the Spirit of the Water Hole and had
the profound conviction, I had
flubbed (ruin) my chances to "See" the water.
"How?" I asked, truly baffled (puzzle,
bewilder).
"The Spirit is a Force," he said, "and as such, it responds only to
strength. You cannot indulge in
its presence."
"When did I indulge?"
"Yesterday, when you became green in the water."
"I did not indulge. I thought, it was a very important moment and I
told
you, what was happening to
me."
"Who are you to think or decide, what is important? You know nothing
about the forces, you're
tapping (running into). The Spirit of the Water Hole exists out there
and could have
helped you; in fact, it was
helping you, until you flubbed (ruin) it. Now I don't know, what will
be the outcome of your doings. You have
succumbed
(gave in, gave up) to the force
of the Water-Hole Spirit and now it can take you any time."
"Was it wrong to look at myself, turning green?"
"You abandoned yourself. You willed to abandon yourself. That was
wrong. I have told you this
already and I will repeat it again. You can survive in the world of a
brujo only, if you are a
warrior. A warrior treats everything with respect and does not trample
(treat ruthlessly, stamp upon)
on anything, unless he has
to. You did not treat the water with respect yesterday. Usually you
behave very well. However,
yesterday you abandoned yourself to your death, like a god-damned fool.
A warrior does not abandon
himself to anything, not even to his death. A warrior is not a willing
partner; a warrior is not
available, and if he involves himself with something, you can be sure,
that he is aware of, what he
is doing." I did not know, what to say. Don Juan was almost angry. That
disturbed
me. Don Juan had rarely
behaved in such a way with me. I told him, that I truly had no idea, I
was doing something wrong.
After some minutes of tense silence he took off his hat, smiled and
told me, that I had gained
control over my indulging self. He stressed, that I had to avoid water
and keep it from touching the
surface of my body for three or four months.
"I don't think, I could go without taking a shower," I said. Don Juan
laughed, until tears rolled down his cheeks. "You can't go without a
shower! At times, you're so weak, I think, you're
putting me on. But it is not
a joke. At times you really have no control and the forces, of your
life,
take you freely." I raised the point, that it was humanly impossible to
be controlled at
all times. He maintained, that
for a warrior there was nothing out of control. I brought up the idea
of accidents and said, that
what happened to me, at the water canal, could certainly be classed as
an
accident, since I neither
meant it, nor was I aware of my improper behavior. I talked about
different people, who had
misfortunes, that could be explained as accidents; I talked especially
about Lucas, a very fine old
Yaqui man, who had suffered a serious injury, when the truck, he was
driving, overturned.
"It seems to me, it is impossible to avoid accidents," I said. "No man
can control everything around
him."
"True," don Juan said cuttingly. "But not everything is an unavoidable
accident. Lucas doesn't live
like a warrior. If he did, he'd know, that he is waiting and what he is
waiting for; and he wouldn't
have driven that truck, while he was drunk. He crashed against the rock
side of the road, because he
was drunk and mangled (mutilated, disfigured) his body for nothing.
188-189
Life
for a warrior is an exercise in strategy," don Juan went on. "But
you want to find the
meaning of life. A warrior doesn't care about meanings. If Lucas lived
like a warrior—and he had a
chance to, as we all have a chance to—he would set his life
strategically. Thus, if he couldn't
avoid an accident, that crushed his ribs, he would have found means to
offset that handicap, or
avoid its consequences, or battle against them. If Lucas were a
warrior,
he wouldn't be sitting in
his dingy house, dying of starvation. He would be battling to the end."
I posed an alternative to don Juan, using him as an example, and asked
him, what would be the
outcome, if he himself were to be involved in an accident, that severed
his legs. "If I cannot help it, and lose my legs," he said, "I won't be
able to
be a man any more, so I will
join that, which is waiting for me out there." He made a sweeping
gesture with his hand, to point all around him. I
argued, that he had
misunderstood me. I had meant to point out, that it was impossible for
any single individual to
foresee all the variables, involved in his day-to-day actions. "All I
can say to you," don Juan said, "is that a warrior is never
available; never is he standing
on the road, waiting to be clobbered (maul, strike violently and
repeatedly). Thus he cuts to a minimum his
chances of the unforeseen. What
you call accidents are, most of the time, very easy to avoid, except
for fools, who are living
helter-skelter."
"It is not possible to live strategically all the time," I said.
"Imagine, that someone is waiting
for you with a powerful rifle with a telescopic sight; he could spot
you accurately five hundred
yards away. What would you do?" Don Juan looked at me with an air of
disbelief and then broke into
laughter. "What would you do?"
I urged him.
"If someone is waiting for me with a rifle with a telescopic sight?" he
said, obviously mocking
me.
"If someone is hiding out of sight, waiting for you. You won't have a
chance. You can't stop a
bullet."
"No. I can't. But I still don't understand your point."
"My point is, that all your strategy cannot be of any help in a
situation like that."
"Oh, but it can. If someone is waiting for me with a powerful rifle
with a telescopic sight, I
simply will not come around."
190-191
My next
attempt at "Seeing" took place
on September 3, 1969. Don Juan
made me smoke two bowls of
the mixture. The immediate effects were identical to those,
I
had
experienced during previous
attempts. I remember, that when my body was thoroughly numb, don Juan
held me by my right armpit and
made me walk into the thick desert chaparral, that grows for miles
around his house. I cannot
recollect, what I or don Juan did, after we entered the brush, nor can
I
recall, how long we walked;
at a certain moment I found, I was sitting on top of a small hill. Don
Juan was sitting on my left side, touching me. I could not feel him,
but I could see him with
the corner of my eye. I had the feeling, that he had been talking to
me,
although I could not
remember his words. Yet I felt, I knew exactly, what he had said, in
spite of the fact, that I could
not bring it back into my clear memory. I had the sensation, that his
words were like the cars of a
train, which was moving away and his last word was like a square
caboose. I knew, what that last word
was, but I could not say it or think clearly about it. It was a state
of
half wakefulness with a
dreamlike image of a train of words. Then very faintly I heard don
Juan's voice, talking to me.
"Now you must look at me," he said, as he turned my head to face him.
He
repeated the statement
three or four times. I looked and detected right away the same glowing
effect, I had
perceived twice before, while looking
at his face; it was a mesmerizing movement, an undulatory (movement in
waves)
shift of
light within contained areas.
There were no definite boundaries to those areas, and yet the waving
light never spilled over, but
moved within invisible limits. I scanned the glowing object in front of
me and immediately it started
to lose its glow and the
familiar features of don Juan's face emerged, or rather became
superimposed on the fading glow. I
must have then focused my gaze again; don Juan's features faded and the
glow intensified. I had
placed my attention on an area, which must have been his left eye. I
noticed, that there the movement
of the glow was not contained. I detected something, perhaps,
resembling
explosions of sparks. The
explosions were rhythmical and actually sent out something like
particles of light, that flew out
with apparent force toward me and then retreated, as if they were
rubber
fibers. Don Juan must have turned my head around. Suddenly I found
myself,
looking at a plowed field.
"Now look ahead," I heard don Juan saying. In front of me, perhaps two
hundred yards away, was a large, long hill;
its entire slope had been
plowed. Horizontal furrows ran parallel to each other from the bottom
to the
very top of the hill. I
noticed, that in the plowed field there were quantities of small rocks
and three huge boulders, that
interrupted the lineality of the furrows. There were some bushes right
in front of me, which
prevented me from observing the details of a ravine or water canyon at
the bottom of the hill. From
where I was, the canyon appeared as a deep cut, with green vegetation
markedly different from the
barren hill. The greenness seemed to be trees, that grew in the bottom
of the canyon. I felt a
breeze, blowing in my eyes. I had a feeling of peace and profound
quietness. There were no sounds of
birds or insects. Don Juan spoke to me again. It took me a moment to
understand, what he
was saying.
"Do you See a man in that field?" he kept on asking. I wanted to tell
him, that there was no man in that field, but I could
not vocalize the words. Don
Juan took my head in his hands from behind—I could see his
fingers over
my eyebrows and on my
cheeks—and made me pan (move to
follow a moving aim) over the
field, moving my head slowly from right
to left and then in the
opposite direction.
192-193
"Watch every detail. Your life may depend on it," I heard him saying
over and over. He made me pan four times over the 180-degree visual
horizon in front
of me.
At one moment, when he
had moved my head to face the extreme left, I thought, I detected
something moving in the field. I
had a brief perception of movement with the corner of my right eye. He
began to shift my head back
to my right and I was capable of focusing my gaze on the plowed field.
I saw a man walking
alongside the furrows. He was a plain man, dressed like a Mexican
peasant; he wore sandals, a pair
of light gray pants, a long-sleeved beige shirt, and a straw hat, and
carried a light brown bag
with a strap over his right shoulder. Don Juan must have noticed, that
I had Seen the man. He asked me
repeatedly, if the man was looking
at me or if he was coming toward me. I wanted to tell him, that the man
was walking away and that
his back was turned to me, but I could only say, "No." Don Juan said,
that if the man turned and
came to me, I should yell, and he would turn my head away, in order to
protect me. I had no sense of fear or apprehension or involvement.
I coldly watched
the scene. The man stopped
walking at the middle of the field. He stood with his right foot on a
ledge of a large round
boulder, as if he were tying his sandal. Then he straightened up,
pulled a string from his bag, and
wrapped it around his left hand. He turned his back to me and, facing
the top of the hill, began
scanning the area in front of him. I thought, he was scanning, because
of
the way he moved his head,
which he kept turning slowly to his right; I saw him in profile, and
then he began to turn his
whole body toward me, until he was looking at me. He actually jerked
his
head, or moved it in such a
way, that I knew beyond a doubt, that he had seen me. He extended his
left arm in front of him,
pointing to the ground, and, holding his arm in that position, he began
to walk toward me.
"He's coming!" I yelled without any difficulty. Don Juan must have
turned my head around, for next I was looking at the
chaparral. He told me not
to gaze, but look "lightly" at things and scan over them. He said, that
he was going to stand a short
distance in front of me and then walk toward me, and that I should gaze
at him, until I Saw his
glow. I Saw don Juan moving to a spot perhaps twenty yards away. He
walked
with such incredible speed and
agility, that I could hardly believe, it was don Juan. He turned
around, faced me and ordered me
to gaze at him. His face was glowing; it looked like a blotch of light.
The light
seemed to spill over his chest
almost to the middle of his body. It was, as if I were looking at a
light through my half-closed
eyelids. The glow seemed to expand and recede (diminish). He must have
begun to
walk toward me, because the
light became more intense and more discernible. He said something to
me. I struggled to understand and lost my view of
the glow, and then I Saw don
Juan, as I see him in everyday life; he was a couple of feet away from
me. He sat down, facing
me. As I pinpointed ray attention on his face, I began to perceive a
vague
glow. Then it was, as if his
face were crisscrossed by thin beams of light. Don Juan's face looked,
as if someone were shining
tiny mirrors on it; as the light became more intense, the face lost its
contours and was again an
amorphous glowing object. I perceived once more the effect of pulsating
explosions of light,
emanating from an area, which must have been his left eye. I did not
focus my attention on it, but
deliberately gazed at an adjacent area, which
I surmised (made a guess) to be his right
eye, I caught at once the
sight of a clear, transparent pool of light. It was a liquid light. I
noticed, that perceiving was more, than sighting; it was feeling. The
pool of dark, liquid light
had an extraordinary depth. It was "friendly," "kind." The light, that
emanated from it, did not
explode, but whirled slowly inward, creating exquisite reflections. The
glow had a very lovely and
delicate way of touching me, of soothing me, which gave me a sensation
of exquisiteness. I saw a symmetrical ring of brilliant dashes (quick
stroke, rush) of light,
that expanded
rhythmically on the vertical
plain of the glowing area. The ring expanded to cover nearly all the
glowing surface and then
contracted to a point of light in the middle of the brilliant pool. I
saw the ring expanding and
contracting several times.
194-195
Then I deliberately moved back without
losing my gaze and was capable of Seeing
both eyes. I distinguished the rhythm of both types of light
explosions. The left eye sent
out dashes of tight (compact), that actually protruded out of the
vertical plain,
while the right eye sent out
dashes, that radiated without protruding. The rhythm of the two eyes
was
alternating, the light of
the left eye exploded outward, while the radiating light beams of the
right eye contracted and
whirled inward. Then the light of the right eye extended to cover the
whole glowing surface, while
the exploding light of the left eye receded (diminished). Don Juan
must have turned
me around once more, for I was again looking
at the plowed field. I heard
him telling me to watch the man. The man was standing by the boulder,
looking at me. I could not
distinguish his features; his hat covered most of his face. After a
moment he tucked his bag under
his right arm and began to walk away toward my right. He walked almost
to the end of the plowed
area, changed direction, and took a few steps toward the gully. Then I
lost control of my focusing
and he vanished and so did the total scenery. The image of the desert
shrubs became superimposed on it. I do not recollect, how I returned to
don Juan's house, nor do I
remember, what he did to me to
"bring me back." When I woke up, I was lying on my straw mat in don
Juan's room. He came to my side
and helped me up. I was dizzy; my stomach was upset. Don Juan in a very
quick and efficient manner
dragged me to the shrubs at the side of his house. I got sick and he
laughed. Afterwards I felt better. I looked at my watch; it was eleven
P.M. I
went back to sleep and by one
o'clock the next afternoon I thought, I was myself again. Don Juan kept
asking me, how I felt. I had the sensation of being
absent-minded. I could not really
concentrate. I walked around the house for a while under don Juan's
close scrutiny.
He followed me around. I
felt, there was nothing to do and I went back to sleep. I woke up in
the
late afternoon, feeling much
better. I found a great many mashed leaves around me. In fact, when I
woke up, I was lying on my
stomach on top of a pile of leaves. Their scent was very strong. I
remember becoming aware of the scent,
before I fully woke up. I wandered to the back and found don Juan
sitting by the irrigation
ditch. When he saw me
approaching, he made frantic gestures to make me stop and go back into
the house. "Run inside!" he yelled. I ran into the house and he joined
me a while later. "Don't ever come after me," he said.
"If
you want to see me, wait for me
here." I apologized. He told me not to waste myself in silly apologies,
which
did not have the power to
cancel my acts. He said, that he had had a very difficult time,
bringing
me back and, that he had been
interceding (act as mediator) for me at the water. "We have to take a
chance now and wash you in the water," he said. I assured him, I felt
fine. He gazed into my eyes for a long time. "Come with me," he said.
"I'm going to put you in the water."
"I'm fine," I said. "Look, I'm taking notes."
He pulled me up from my mat with considerable force. "Don't indulge!"
he said. "In no time at all, you will fall asleep
again. Maybe I won't be able to
wake you up this time." We ran to the back of his house. Before we
reached the water, he told me,
in a most dramatic tone, to
shut my eyes tight and not open them, until he said to. He
told me, that
if I gazed at the water even
for an instant, I might die. He led me by the hand and dunked me into
the irrigation ditch head
first. I kept my eyes shut, as he went on submerging and pulling me out
of the
water for hours. The change,
I experienced, was remarkable. Whatever was wrong with me, before I
entered the water, was so subtle,
that I did not really notice it, until I compared it with the feeling
of
well-being and alertness I
had, while don Juan kept me in the irrigation canal. Water got into my
nose and I began to sneeze. Don Juan pulled me out
and led me, with my eyes still
closed, into the house. He made me change my clothes and then guided me
into his room, had me sit
down on my mat, arranged the direction of my body, and then told me to
open my eyes.
196-197
I opened them
and, what I saw, caused me to jump back and grab onto his leg. I
experienced a tremendously confusing
moment. Don Juan rapped me with his knuckles on the very top of my
head. It was a quick blow, which
was not hard or painful, but somehow shocking. "What is the matter with
you? What did you see?" he asked. Upon opening
my eyes, I had Seen the same scene, I had watched before. I
had Seen the same man. This
time, however, he was almost touching me.
I saw his face. There was an
air of familiarity about it.
I almost knew, who he was. The scene vanished, when don Juan hit me on
the head. I looked up at don Juan. He had his hand ready to hit me
again. He
laughed and asked, if I would
like to get another blow. I let go of his leg and relaxed on my mat. He
ordered me to look straight
ahead and not to turn around for any reason in the direction of the
water at the back of his
house. I then noticed for the first time, that it was pitch black in
the
room.
For a moment, I was not sure,
whether I had my eyes open. I touched them with my hands to make sure.
I called don
Juan loudly and told him,
something was wrong with my eyes; I could not see at all, while a
moment before, I had seen him
ready to hit me. I heard his laughter over my head to my right, and
then he lit his kerosene
lantern. My eyes adapted to the light in a matter of seconds.
Everything was, as it always had been:
the wattle-and-daub walls of the room and the strangely contorted, dry
medicinal roots hanging on
them; the bundles of herbs; the thatched roof; the kerosene lantern
hanging from a beam. I had seen
the room hundreds of times, yet this time there was something unique
about it and about myself.
This was the first time I did not believe in the final "reality" of my
perception. I had been
edging toward that feeling and I had perhaps intellectualized it at
various times, but never had I
been at the brink of a serious doubt. This time, however,
I did not
believe the room was "real,"
and for a moment I had the strange sensation, that it was a scene,
which
would vanish, if don Juan
rapped me on top of my head with his knuckles. I began to shiver
without being cold. Nervous spasms ran down my spine.
My head felt heavy,
especially in the area right above my neck.
I complained, that I did not
feel well and told him, what
I had seen. He laughed at me, saying, that to succumb (gave in, gave
up) to
fright was a
miserable indulgence.
"You're frightened without being afraid," he said. "You Saw the ally,
staring at you, big deal. Wait
until you have him face to face, before you shit in your pants."
He told me to get up and walk to my car without turning around in the
direction of the water, and
to wait for him, while he got a rope and a shovel. He made me drive to
a
place, where we had found a
tree stump. We proceeded to dig it out in the darkness. I worked
terribly hard for hours. We did
not get the stump out, but I felt much better. We went back to his
house, ate and things were
again perfectly "real" and commonplace.
"What happened to me?" I asked. "What did I do yesterday?"
"You smoked me and then you smoked an ally," he said.
"I beg your pardon?"
Don Juan laughed and said, that next, I was going to demand, that he
start
telling me everything from
the beginning.
"You smoked me," he repeated. "You gazed into my face, into my eyes.
You Saw the lights, that mark a
man's face. I am a sorcerer, you Saw that in my eyes.
You did not know
that, though, because this
is the first time you've done it. The eyes of men are not all alike.
You will soon find that out.
Then you smoked an ally."
"Do you mean the man in the field?"
"That was not a man, that was an ally, beckoning (inviting) you."
"Where did we go? Where were we, when I saw that man, I mean that ally?"
Don Juan made a gesture with his chin to point out an area in front of
his house and said, that he
had taken me to the top of a small hill. I said, that the scenery, I
had
viewed, had nothing to do
with the desert chaparral around his house and he replied, that the
ally,
that had "beckoned" (invited) me, was
not from the surroundings.
"Where is it from?"
"I'll take you there very soon."
198-199
"What is the meaning of my vision?"
"You were learning to See, that was all; but now you are about to lose
your pants, because you
indulge; you have abandoned yourself to your fright. Maybe you should
describe everything you Saw." When I started to describe the way his
own face had appeared to me, he
made me stop and said, that
it was of no importance whatsoever, I told him, that I had almost Seen
him as a "luminous egg." He
said, that "almost" was not enough and that Seeing was going to
take me
a great deal of time and
work. He was interested in the scene of the plowed field, and in every
detail,
I could remember, about the
man. "That ally was beckoning (inviting) you,"
he said, "I made you move your head, when
he came to you, not because
he was endangering you, but because it is better to wait. You are not
in
a hurry. A warrior is never
idle and never in a hurry. To meet an ally, without being prepared, is
like attacking a lion with
your farts." I liked the metaphor. We had a delightful moment of
laughter.
"What would've happened, if you hadn't moved my head?"
"You would've had to move your head yourself."
"And if I didn't?"
"The ally would have come to you and scared you stiff. If you had been
alone, he might have killed
you. It is not advisable for you to be alone in the mountains or the
desert, until you can defend
yourself. An ally might catch you alone there and make mincemeat out of
you."
"What was the meaning of the acts, he performed?"
"By looking at you, he meant, he welcomes you. He showed you, that you
need a spirit catcher and a
pouch, but not from this area; his bag was from another part of the
country. You have three
stumbling blocks in your way, that make you stop; those were the
boulders. And you definitely are
going to get your best powers in water canyons and gullies; the ally
pointed out the gully to you.
The rest of the scene was meant to help you locate the exact place to
find him. I know now, where
the place is. I will take you there very soon."
"Do you mean, that the scenery I saw, really exists?
"Of course."
"Where?"
"I cannot tell you that."
"How would I find that area?"
"I cannot tell you that either, and not because I don't want to, but
because I simply don't know, how
to tell you." I wanted to know the meaning of Seeing the same
scene, while I was in
his room. Don Juan laughed and
imitated me holding onto his leg. "That was a reaffirmation, that the
ally wants you," he said. "He made
sure you or I knew, that he
was welcoming you."
"What about the face I Saw?"
"It is a familiar face to you, because you know him. You have Seen it
before. Maybe it is the face
of your death. You got frightened, but that was your carelessness.
He
was waiting for you and when
he showed up, you succumbed (gave in, gave
up) to
fright. Fortunately I was there to hit
you or he would've turned
against you, which would have been only proper. To meet an ally, a man
must be a spotless warrior or
the ally may turn against him and destroy him." Don Juan dissuaded me
from going back to Los Angeles the next morning.
Apparently he thought, I
still had not totally recovered. He insisted, that I sit inside his
room,
facing the southeast, in
order to preserve my strength. He sat to my left, handed me my
notebook, and said, that this time I had
him pinned down; he not
only had to stay with me, he also had to talk to me. "I have to take
you to the water again in the twilight," he said.
"You're not solid yet and you
shouldn't be alone today. I'll keep you company all morning; in the
afternoon you'll be in better
shape." His concern made me feel very apprehensive.
"What's wrong with me?" I asked.
"You've tapped (found) an ally."
"What do you mean by that?"
"We must not talk about allies today. Let us talk about anything else."
I really did not want to talk at all. I had begun to feel anxious and
restless.
200-201
Don
Juan apparently
found the situation utterly ludicrous (absurd); he laughed
till the tears came.
"Don't tell me, that at a time, when you should talk, you are not going
to
find anything to say," he
said, his eyes shining with a mischievous glint. His mood was very
soothing to me. There was only one topic, that interested me at that
moment: the ally.
His face was so familiar; it
was not, as if I knew him or as if I had seen him before. It was
something else. Every time I began
to think about his face, my mind experienced a bombardment of other
thoughts, as if some part of
myself knew the secret, but did not allow the rest of me to come close
to it. The sensation of the
ally's face, being familiar, was so eerie, that it had forced me into a
state of morbid melancholy.
Don Juan had said, that it might have been the face of my death. I
think,
that statement had clinched (settle definately) me. I wanted
desperately to ask about it
and I
had the clear sensation, that
don Juan was holding me back. I took a couple of deep breaths and
blurted out a question.
"What is death, don Juan?"
"I don't know," he said, smiling.

"I mean, how would you describe death? I want your opinions. I think,
everybody has definite
opinions about death."
"I don't know, what you're talking about." I had the Tibetan Book of
the Dead in the trunk of my car. It occurred
to me to use it, as a topic
of conversation, since it dealt with death. I said, I was going to read
it to him and began to get
up. He made me sit down, went out and got the book himself. "The
morning is a bad time for sorcerers," he said, as an explanation
for my having to stay put. "You're too weak to leave my room. Inside
here you are protected. If
you were to wander off now,
chances are, that you would find a terrible disaster. An ally could
kill
you on the road or in the
bush, and later on, when they found your body, they would say, that you
had either died mysteriously
or had an accident."
I was in no position or mood to question his decisions, so I stayed put
nearly all morning, reading
and explaining some parts of the book to him. He listened attentively
and did not interrupt me at
all. Twice I had to stop for short periods of time, while he brought
some water and food, but as
soon, as he was free again,
he urged me to continue reading. He seemed to
be very interested. When I finished he looked at me. "I don't
understand, why those people talk about death, as if death were
like life," he said
softly.

"Maybe, that's the way they understand it. Do you think the Tibetans
See?"
"Hardly. When a man learns to See, not a single thing, he knows,
prevails (be the same or be current). Not a single one. If the
Tibetans could See, they could tell right away, that not a single thing
is any longer the same. Once
we See, nothing is known; nothing remains, as we used to know it, when
we
didn't See."
"Perhaps, don Juan, Seeing is not the
same for everyone."
"True. It's not the same. Still, that does not mean, that the meanings
of life prevail
(be the same
or current).
When one
learns to See, not a single thing is the same."
"Tibetans obviously think, that death is like life. What do you think
death is like, yourself?" I
asked.
"I don't think death is like anything, and I think the Tibetans must be
talking about something
else. At any rate, what they're talking about is not death."
"What do you think, they're talking about?"
"Maybe you can tell me that. You're the one, who reads." I tried to say
something else, but he began to laugh. "Perhaps the Tibetans really
See," don Juan went on, "in which case
they must have realized, that
what they See, makes no sense at all and they wrote that bunch of crap,
because it doesn't make any
difference to them; in which case, what they wrote, is not crap at all."
"I really don't care about, what the Tibetans have to say," I said,
"but
I certainly care about, what
you have to say. I would like to hear, what you think about death."
He stared at me for an instant and then giggled. He opened his eyes and
raised his eyebrows in a
comical gesture of surprise. "Death is a whorl (curl, coil,
convolution)," he said. "Death is the face of the ally; death is a
shiny cloud over the
horizon; death
is the
whisper of Mescalito in your ears; death is me
talking;
202-203
death
is the
toothless mouth of the
guardian; death
is Genaro sitting on his head; death is you and your writing
pad; death is nothing. Nothing! It is here, yet it isn't here at all."
Don Juan laughed with great delight. His laughter was like a song, it
had a sort of dancing
rhythm. "I make no sense, huh?" don Juan said. "I cannot tell you, what
death is
like. But perhaps I could
tell you, about your own death. There is no way of knowing, what it
will
be like for sure; however, I
could tell you, what it may be like." I became frightened at that point
and argued, that I only wanted to know,
what death appeared to be
like to him; I emphasized, that I was interested in his opinions about
death in a general sense, but
did not care to know about the particulars of anybody's personal death,
especially my own. "I can't talk about death except in personal terms,"
he said. "You
wanted me to tell you about
death. All right ! Then don't be afraid of hearing about your own
death."
I admitted, that I was too nervous to talk about it. I said, that I
wanted to talk about death in
general terms, as he himself had done, when he told me, that at the
time
of his son Eulalio's death,
life and death, mixed like a fog of crystals. "I told you, that my
son's life expanded at the time of his personal
death," he said. "I was not
talking about death in general, but about my son's death. Death,
whatever it is, made his life
expand." I definitely wanted to steer the conversation out of the realm
of
particulars, and mentioned, that I
had been reading accounts of people, who had died for several minutes
and had been revived through
medical techniques. In all the cases I had read, the persons involved
had made statements,
upon reviving, that they
could not recollect anything at all; that dying was simply a sensation
of blacking out. "That's perfectly understandable," he said. "Death has
two stages. The
first is a blackout.

It is a
meaningless stage, very similar to the first effect of Mescalito, in
which one experiences a
lightness, that makes one feel happy, complete, and that everything, in
the world, is at ease. But
that is only a shallow state; it soon vanishes and one enters a new
realm, a realm of harshness and
power. That second stage is the real encounter with Mescalito. Death is
very much like this. The first stage is a shallow blackout.
The second, however, is the
real stage, where one meets with death; it is a brief moment, after the
first blackout, when we find,
that we are, somehow, ourselves again. It is then, that death smashes
against us with quiet fury and
power, until it dissolves our lives into nothing."

"How can you be sure, that you are talking about death?"
"I have my ally. The little smoke has shown me my unmistakable death
with great clarity. This is
why I can only talk about personal death." Don Juan's words caused me a
profound apprehension and a dramatic
ambivalence (simultaneous existence of conflicting feelings). I had a
feeling, he
was going to describe the overt, commonplace details of my death and
tell me how or when I was
going to die. The mere thought of knowing that, made me despair and at
the same time provoked my
curiosity. I could have asked him to describe his own death, of course,
but I felt, that such a
request would be rather rude and I ruled it out automatically. Don Juan
seemed to be enjoying my conflict. His body convulsed with
laughter. "Do you want to know, what your death may be like?" he asked
me with
childlike delight in his
face. I found his mischievous pleasure in teasing me rather comforting.
It
almost took the edge off my
apprehension.
"O.K., tell me," I said, and my voice cracked. He had a formidable
explosion of laughter. He held his stomach and
rolled on his side and mockingly
repeated:
" 'O.K., tell me,'" with a crack in his voice. Then he
straightened out and sat down,
assuming a feigned (pretend, fictitious) stiffness, and in a tremulous
(trembling, vibrating) voice he said: "The
second stage of your death may
very well be as follows." His eyes examined me with apparently genuine
curiosity. I laughed. I
clearly realized, that his
making fun was the only device, that could dull the edge of the idea of
one's death. "You drive a great deal," he went on saying, "so you may
find yourself,
at a given moment, behind
the wheel again.

204-205
It will be a very fast sensation, that won't give you
time to think. Suddenly,
let's say, you would find yourself driving, as you have done thousands
of times. But before you
could wonder about yourself, you would notice a strange formation in
front of your windshield. If
you looked closer, you'd realize, that it is a cloud, that looks like a
shiny whorl
(curl, coil,
convolution).
It would
resemble, let's say, a face, right in the middle of the sky in front of
you. As you watched it, you
would see it moving backward, until it was only a brilliant point in
the
distance, and then you
would notice, that it began moving toward you again; it would pick up
speed and in a blink of an eye
it would smash against the windshield of your car. You are strong; I'm
sure, it would take death a
couple of whams (thud, forceful blow) to get you.
"By then you would know, where you were and what was happening to you;
the face would recede (diminish) again
to a position on the horizon, would pick up speed and smash against
you. The face would enter
inside you and then you'd know—it was the ally's face all the
time, or
it was me talking, or you
writing. Death
was nothing all the time. Nothing. It was a little dot,
lost in the sheets of your
notebook. And yet it would enter inside you with uncontrollable force
and would make you expand; it
would make you flat and extend you over the sky, the Earth and
beyond. And you would be like a
fog of tiny crystals, moving, moving away."
I
was very taken by his description of my death. I had expected to hear
something so different. I
could not say anything for a long time. "Death enters through the
belly," he continued. "Right through the gap
of the Will. That area is
the most important and sensitive part of man. It is the area of the
Will and also the area, through
which all of us die. I know it, because my ally has guided me to that
stage. A sorcerer tunes his Will, by letting his death overtake him,
and when he is fiat and begins
to expand, his impeccable Will takes over and assembles the fog into
one person again."
Don
Juan made a strange gesture. He opened his hands like two fans,
lifted them to the level of his
elbows, turned them, until his thumbs were touching his sides, and then
brought them slowly together
at the center of his body over his navel. He kept them there for a
moment. His arms shivered with
the strain. Then he brought them up, until the tips of his middle
fingers touched his forehead, and
then pulled them down in the same position to the center of his body.
It was a formidable gesture. Don Juan had performed it with such force
and beauty, that I was
spellbound.
"It is his Will, which assembles a sorcerer," he said, "but, as his old
age makes him feeble, his Will
wanes (declines) and a moment unavoidably comes, when he is no longer
capable of
commanding his Will. He then
has nothing, with which to oppose the silent force of his death, and
his
life becomes like the lives
of all his fellow men, an expanding fog moving beyond its limits." Don Juan
stared at me and stood up. I was shivering. "You can go to the bushes
now," he said. "It is afternoon."
I needed to go, but I did not dare. I felt perhaps more jumpy, than
afraid. However, I was no longer
apprehensive about the ally. Don Juan said, that it did not matter how
I felt as long, as I was
"solid." He assured me, I was in
perfect shape and could safely go into the bushes as long, as I did not
get close to the water. "That is another matter," he said. "I need to
wash you once more, so
stay away from the water."
Later on he wanted me to drive him to the nearby town. I mentioned,
that
driving would be a welcome
change for me, because I was still shaky; the idea, that a sorcerer
actually played with his death,
was quite gruesome to me. "To be a
sorcerer is a terrible burden," he said in a reassuring tone.
"I've told you, that it is
much better to learn to See. A man, who Sees, is everything; in
comparison, the sorcerer is a sad
fellow."
"What
is sorcery, don Juan?"
He
looked at me for a long time, as he shook his head almost
imperceptibly. "Sorcery is
to apply one's Will to a key joint," he said. "Sorcery is
interference.
206-207
A sorcerer
searches and finds the key joint of anything, he wants to affect, and
then he applies his Will to it.
A sorcerer doesn't have to See to be a sorcerer, all
he has to know, is
how to use his Will." I asked him to explain, what he meant by a key
joint. He thought for a
while and then he said, that
he knew, what my car was.
"It's obviously a machine," I said.
"I
mean your car is the spark plugs. That's its key joint for me. I can
apply my Will to it and
your car won't work." Don Juan got into my car and sat
down. He
beckoned
(invited) me
to do
likewise, as
he made himself comfortable
on the seat. "Watch what I do," he said. "I'm a crow, so first, I'll
make my feathers
loose." He shivered (trembling, chilling) his entire body. His movement
reminded me of a
sparrow,
wetting its feathers in a
puddle. He lowered his head like a bird, dipping its beak into the
water. "That feels really good," he said, and began to laugh. His
laughter was strange. It had a very peculiar mesmerizing effect on
me. I recollected, having
heard him laugh in that manner many times before. Perhaps the reason, I
had never become overtly
aware of it, was, that he had never laughed like that long enough in my
presence. "A crow loosens its neck next," he said, and began twisting
his neck
and rubbing his cheeks on his
shoulders." Then he looks at the world with one eye and then with the
other." His head shook, as he allegedly shifted his view of the world
from one
eye to the other. The pitch
of his laughter became higher. I had the absurd feeling, that he was
going to turn into a crow in
front of my eyes. I wanted to laugh it off, but I was almost paralyzed.
I actually felt some kind of
enveloping force around me. I was not afraid, nor was I dizzy or
sleepy.
My faculties were
unimpaired, to the best of my judgment. "Turn on your car now," don
Juan said.
I turned on the starter and automatically stepped on the gas
pedal. The
starter began to grind,
without igniting the engine. Don Juan's laughter was a soft, rhythmical
cackle
(shrill, brittle laughter like hen). I tried it
again;
and again. I spent perhaps ten minutes grinding the starter of my car.
Don Juan cackled
(shrill, brittle laughter like hen) all that
time. Then I gave up and sat there with a heavy head. He stopped
laughing, scrutinized me and, I "knew" then, that his
laughter had forced me into a
sort of hypnotic trance. Although I had been thoroughly aware of, what
was taking place, I felt, I
was not myself. During the time I could not start my car, I was very
docile, almost numb. It was, as
if don Juan was not only doing something to my car, but also to me.
When
he stopped cackling, I was
convinced, the spell was over, and impetuously (impulse, rushing with
violence) I turned on the
starter
again. I had the certainty,
don Juan had only mesmerized me with his laughter and made me believe,
I
could not start my car.
With the corner of my eye I saw him looking curiously at me, as I
ground
the motor and pumped the
gas furiously. Don Juan patted me gently and said, that fury would make
me "solid" and
perhaps, I would not need to
be washed in the water again. The more furious I could get, the quicker
I could recover from my
encounter with the ally. "Don't be embarrassed," I heard don Juan
saying. "Kick the car." His natural everyday laughter exploded, and I
felt ridiculous and
laughed sheepishly. After a while don Juan said, he had released the
car. It started !
208-209
September 28, 1969. There was something eerie about don Juan's house.
For a moment I
thought he was hiding somewhere
around the place to scare me. I called out to him and then gathered
enough nerve to walk inside.
Don Juan was not there. I put the two bags of groceries I had brought
on a pile of firewood and
sat down to wait for him,
as I had done dozens of times before. But for the first time in my
years of associating with don
Juan I was afraid to stay alone in his house. I felt a presence, as if
someone invisible was there
with me. I remembered then, that years before, I had had the same vague
feeling, that something
unknown was prowling around me, when I was alone. I jumped to my feet
and ran out of the house. I had come to see don Juan to tell him, that
the cumulative effect of
the task of "Seeing" was
taking its toll on me. I had begun to feel uneasy; vaguely apprehensive
without any overt reason;
tired without being fatigued. Then my reaction, at being alone in don
Juan's house, brought back the
total memory of how my fear
had built up in the past. The fear traced back to years before, when
don Juan had forced the very
strange confrontation
between a sorceress, a woman he called "la Catalina," and me. It began
on November 23, 1961, when I
found him in his house with a dislocated ankle. He explained, that he
had an enemy, a sorceress, who
could turn into a blackbird and, who had attempted to kill him.
"As soon, as I can walk, I'm going to show you, who the woman is," don
Juan said. "You must know, who
she is."
"Why does she want to kill you?"
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently and refused to say anything else.
I came back to see him ten days later and found him perfectly well. He
rotated his ankle to
demonstrate to me, that it was fine and attributed his prompt recovery
to
the nature of the cast, he
himself had made. "It's good you're here," he said. "Today I'm going to
take you on a
little journey." He then directed me to drive to a desolate area. We
stopped there; don
Juan stretched his legs and
made himself comfortable on the seat, as if he were going to take a
nap. He told me to relax and
remain very quiet; he said, we had to be as inconspicuous (instability,
not readily noticeable), as possible,
until nightfall, because the
late afternoon was a very dangerous time for the business, we were
pursuing.
"What kind of business are we pursuing?" I asked.
"We are here to stake out (keep secret watch) la Catalina," he said.
When it was fairly dark, we slid out of the car and walked very slowly
and noiselessly into the
desert chaparral. From the place, where we stopped, I could distinguish
the black
silhouette of the hills on both
sides. We were in a flat, fairly wide canyon. Don Juan gave me detailed
instructions on how to stay,
merged with the chaparral, and taught me a way to sit "in vigil (watch
during sleeping hours)," as he
called it. He told me to
tuck my right leg under my left thigh and keep my left leg in a squat
position. He explained, that
the tucked leg was used as a spring, in order to stand up with great
speed, if it were necessary. He
then told me to sit facing the west, because that was the direction of
the woman's house. He sat
next to me, to my right, and told me in a whisper to keep my eyes
focused on the ground, searching,
or rather, waiting, for a sort of wind wave, that would make a ripple
in
the bushes. Whenever the
ripple touched the bushes, on which I had focused my gaze, I was
supposed to look up and see the
sorceress in all her "magnificent evil splendor." Don Juan actually
used those words.
210-211
When I asked him to explain, what he meant, he said, that if I detected
a
ripple, I simply had to look
up and see for myself, because "a sorcerer in flight" was such a unique
sight, that it defied
explanations. There was a fairly steady wind and I thought, I detected
a ripple in the
bushes many times. I looked
up each time, prepared to have a transcendental (mystical) experience,
but I did
not see anything. Every time
the wind blew the bushes, don Juan would kick the ground vigorously,
whirling around, moving his
arms, as if they were whips. The strength of his movements was
extraordinary. After a few failures to see the sorceress "in flight" I
was sure,
I was
not going to witness any
transcendental
(mystical)
event, yet
don Juan's display of "power" was so
exquisite, that I did not mind
spending the night there.
At daybreak don Juan sat down by me. He seemed to be totally exhausted.
He could hardly move. He
lay down on his back and mumbled, that he had failed to "pierce the
woman." I was very intrigued by
that statement; he repeated it several times and each time his tone
became more
downhearted, more desperate.
I
began to experience an unusual anxiety. I found it very easy to project
my feelings into don Juan's
mood. Don Juan did not mention anything about the incident or the woman
for
several months. I thought, he
had either forgotten or resolved the whole affair. One day, however, I
found him in a very agitated
mood, and in a manner, that was completely incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings) with his
natural
calmness. He told me, that the
"blackbird" had stood in front of him the night before, almost touching
him, and that he had not
even awakened. The woman's artfulness was so great, that he had not
felt
her presence at all. He
said, his good fortune was to wake up in the nick of time, to stage a
horrendous fight for his life.
Don Juan's tone of voice was moving, almost pathetic. I felt an
overwhelming surge of compassion
and concern. In a somber and dramatic tone he reaffirmed, that he had
no way to stop
her and, that the next time,
she came near him, was going to be his last day on Earth. I became
despondent (dishearted,
dejected) and was nearly
in
tears. Don Juan seemed to notice my profound concern and laughed, I
thought, bravely. He patted me
on the back and said, that I should not worry, that he was not
altogether lost yet, because he had
one last card, a trump card.
"A warrior lives strategically," he said, smiling. "A warrior never
carries loads, he cannot
handle." Don Juan's smile had the power to dispel (dispense,
scatter) the
ominous
clouds of doom. I
suddenly felt elated and we
both laughed. He patted my head. "You know, of all the things on this
Earth, you are my last card," he
said abruptly, looking
straight into my eyes."
What?"
"You are my trump card in my fight against that witch." I did not
understand, what he meant, and he explained, that the woman did
not know me and, that if I
played my hand, as he would direct me, I had a better, than good chance
to 'pierce her.'"
"What do you mean by 'pierce her'? "
"You cannot kill her, but you must pierce her like a balloon. If you do
that, she'll leave me alone.
But don't think about it now. I'll tell you, what to do, when the time
comes." Months went by. I had forgotten the incident and was caught by
surprise,
when I arrived at his house
one day; don Juan came out, running, and did not let me get out of my
car. "You must leave immediately," he whispered with appalling urgency.
"Listen carefully. Buy a
shotgun, or get one in any way you can; don't bring me your own gun, do
you understand? Get any
gun, except your own, and bring it here right away."
"Why do you want a shotgun?"
"Go now!"
I returned with a shotgun. I had not had enough money to buy one, but a
friend of mine had given me
his old gun. Don Juan did not look at it; he explained, laughing, that
he had been abrupt with me,
because the blackbird was on the roof of the house and he did not want
her to see me. "Finding the blackbird on the roof, gave me the idea,
that you could
bring a gun and pierce her with
it," don Juan said emphatically (positive,
striking, definite). "I don't
want anything to happen to
you, so
I suggested, that you
buy the gun or that you get one in any other way.
212-213
You see, you have to
destroy the gun after
completing the task."
"What kind of task are you talking about?"
"You must attempt to pierce the woman with your shotgun."
He made me clean the gun, by rubbing it with the fresh leaves and stems
of a peculiarly scented
plant. He himself rubbed two shells and placed them inside the barrels.
Then he said, I was to hide
in front of his house and wait, until the blackbird landed on the roof
and then, after taking
careful aim, I was supposed to let go with both barrels. The effect of
the surprise, more than the
pellets, would pierce the woman, and if I were powerful and determined,
I could force her to leave him alone. Thus my aim had to be
impeccable and so did my
determination to pierce her. "You must scream at the moment you shoot,"
he said. "It must be a
potent and piercing yell." He then piled bundles of bamboo and fire
sticks about ten feet away
from the ramada of his house.
He made me lean against the piles. The position was quite comfortable.
I was sort of half-seated;
my back was well propped and I had a good view of the roof. He said, it
was too early for the witch to be out, and that we had, until
dusk, to do all the
preparations; he would then pretend, he was locking himself inside the
house, in order to attract
her and elicit (evoke,
bring
out something latent) another
attack on his person. He told me to relax and
find a comfortable position,
that I could shoot from, without moving. He made me aim at the roof a
couple of times and concluded,
that the act, of lifting the gun to my shoulder and taking aim, was too
slow and cumbersome. He then
built a prop for the gun. He made two deep holes with a pointed iron
bar, planted two forked sticks
in them, and tied a long pole in between the forks. The structure gave
me a shooting support and
allowed me to keep the gun aimed at the roof. Don Juan looked at the
sky and said, it was time for him to go into the
house. He got up and calmly
went inside, giving me the final admonition (warning), that my endeavor
was not a
joke and, that I had to hit
the bird with the first shot. After don Juan left, I had a few more
minutes of twilight and then it
became quite dark. It seemed, as if darkness had been waiting, until I
was alone, and suddenly it
descended on me. I tried to focus my eyes on the roof, which was
silhouetted against the sky; for a
while there was enough light on the horizon, so the line of the roof
was
still visible, but then the
sky became black and I could hardly see the house. I kept my eyes
focused on the roof for hours
without noticing anything at all. I saw a couple of owls flying by
toward the north; the span of
their wings was quite remarkable and they could not be mistaken for
blackbirds. At a given moment,
however, I distinctly noticed the black shape of a small bird landing
on the roof. It was
definitely a bird! My heart began pounding (beating) hard; I felt a
buzzing in my
ears. I aimed in the dark
and pulled both triggers. There was quite a loud explosion. I felt a
strong recoil of the gun butt
on my shoulder and at the same time I heard a most piercing and
horrendous human shriek. It was
loud and eerie, and seemed to have come from the roof. I had a moment
of
total confusion. I then
remembered, that don Juan had admonished me to yell, as I shot and I
had
forgotten to do so. I was
thinking of reloading my gun, when don Juan opened the door and came
out
running. He had his
kerosene lantern with him. He appeared to be quite nervous. "I think
you got her," he said. "We must find the dead bird now." He brought a
ladder and made me climb up and look on the ramada, but I
could not find anything
there. He climbed up and looked himself for a while, with equally
negative results. "Perhaps you have blasted the bird to bits," don Juan
said, "in which
case we must find at least a
feather." We began looking around the ramada first and then around the
house. We
looked with the light of the
lantern, until morning. Then we started looking again all over the
area,
we had covered during the
night. Around 11:00 A.M. don Juan called off our search. He sat down
dejected, smiled
sheepishly at me, and said, that I
had failed to stop his enemy and that now, more than ever before, his
life was not worth a hoot,
because the woman was doubtlessly irked (annoyed), itching (had desire)
to take revenge. "You're safe, though," don Juan said reassuringly.
"The woman doesn't
know you."
214-215
As I was walking to my car to return home, I asked him, if I had to
destroy the shotgun. He said the
gun had done nothing and I should give it back to its owner.
I noticed
a profound look of despair
in don Juan's eyes. I felt so moved by it, that I was about to weep.
"What can I do to help you?" I asked, "There's nothing you can do," don
Juan said. We remained silent for a moment. I wanted to leave right
away, I felt
an oppressive anguish. I was
ill at ease.
"Would
you really try to help me?" don Juan asked in a
childlike tone. I told him again, that my total person was at his
disposal, that my
affection for him was so
profound, I would undertake any kind of action to help him. Don Juan
smiled and asked again, if I
really meant that, and I vehemently (strong with
emotion) reaffirmed my
desire to help him.
"If you really mean it," he said, "I may have one more chance." He
seemed to be delighted. He smiled broadly and clapped his hands
several times, the way he always
does, when he wants to express a feeling of pleasure. This change of
mood was so remarkable, that it
also involved me. I suddenly felt, that the oppressive mood, the
anguish, had been
vanquished (conquer
in
battle)
and life was
inexplicably exciting again. Don Juan sat down and I did likewise. He
looked at me for a long
moment and then proceeded to tell me in a very calm and deliberate
manner, that I was, in fact, the
only person, who could help him at that moment, and thus he was going
to
ask me to do something very
dangerous and very special. He paused for a moment, as if he wanted a
reaffirmation on my part, and
I again reiterated (repeat) my firm
desire to do anything for him. "I'm going to give you a weapon to
pierce her," he said. He took a long object from his pouch and handed
it to me. I
took it and
then examined it. I almost
dropped it. "It is a wild boar," he went on, "You must pierce her with
it." The object, I was holding, was a dry foreleg of a wild boar. The
skin was
ugly and the bristles were
revolting to the touch. The hoof was intact and its two halves were
spread out, as if the leg were
stretched. It was an awful-looking thing. It made me feel almost sick
to
my stomach. He quickly took
it back.
"You must ram (strike, drive into) the wild boar right into her navel,"
don Juan said.
"What?" I said in a feeble voice.
"You must hold the wild boar in your left hand and stab her with it.
She is a sorceress and the
wild boar will enter her belly and noone in this world, except another
sorcerer, will See it stuck
in there. This is not an ordinary battle, but an affair of sorcerers.
The danger, you will run, is,
that if you fail to pierce her, she might strike you dead on the spot,
or her companions and
relatives will shoot you or knife you. You may, on the other hand, get
out without a scratch.
"If you succeed, she will have a hellish time with the wild boar in her
body and she will leave me
alone." An oppressive anguish enveloped me again. I had a profound
affection
for don Juan. I admired him.
At the time of this startling request, I had already learned to regard
his way of life and his
knowledge, as a paramount accomplishment. How could anyone let a man,
like that, die? And yet how
could anyone deliberately risk his life? I became so immersed in my
deliberations, I did not notice, that don Juan
had stood up and was
standing by me, until he patted me on the shoulder. I looked up; he was
smiling benevolently. "Whenever you feel, that you really want to help
me, you should return,"
he said, "but not until
then. If you come back, I know, what we will have to do. Go now! If you
don't want to return, I'll
understand that too." I automatically stood up, got into my car, and
drove away. Don Juan had
actually let me off the
hook. I could have left and never returned, but somehow the thought, of
being free to leave, did not
soothe me. I drove a while longer and then impulsively turned around
and drove back to don Juan's
house.
He was still sitting underneath his ramada and did not seem surprised
to see me. "Sit down," he said. "The clouds in the west are beautiful. It will be
dark shortly.

216-217
Sit
quietly
and let the twilight fill you. Do whatever you want now, but when I
tell you, look straight at
those shiny clouds and ask the twilight to give you power and
calmness." I sat, facing the western clouds for a couple of hours. Don
Juan went
into the house and stayed
inside. When it was getting dark he returned. "The twilight has come,"
he said. "Stand up! Don't close your eyes, but
look straight at the
clouds; put your arms up with your hands open, your fingers extended
and trot in place." I followed his instructions; I lifted my arms over
my head and began
trotting. Don Juan came to my
side and corrected my movements. He placed the leg of the wild boar
against the palm of my left
hand and made me hold it with my thumb. He then pulled my arms down,
until they pointed to the
orange and dark gray clouds over the horizon, toward the west. He
extended my fingers like fans and
told me not to curl them over the palms of my hands. It was of crucial
importance, that I keep my
fingers spread, because if I closed them, I would not be asking the
twilight for power and calm, but
would be menacing it. He also corrected my trotting. He said, it should
be peaceful and uniform, as if I were actually running toward the
twilight
with my extended arms. I could not fall asleep during that night.
It was as if, instead of
calming me, the twilight had
agitated me into a frenzy.
"I still have so many things, pending in my life," I said. "So many
things unresolved."
Don Juan chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself) softly. "Nothing is
pending in the world," he said. "Nothing is finished, yet
nothing is unresolved. Go to
sleep."
Don Juan's words were strangely soothing.
Around ten o'clock the next morning, don Juan gave me something to eat
and then we were on our way.
He whispered, that we were going to approach the woman around noon, or
before noon, if possible. He
said, that the ideal time would have been the early hours of the day,
because a witch is always less
powerful or less aware in the morning, but she would never leave the
protection of her house at
those hours. I did not ask any questions. He directed me to the highway
and at a certain point he
told me to stop and park on the side of the road. He said, we had to
wait there. I looked at my watch; it was five minutes to eleven. I
yawned
repeatedly. I was actually sleepy; my
mind wandered around aimlessly. Suddenly, don Juan straightened up and
nudged me. I jumped up in my seat. "There she is!" he said. I saw a
woman, walking toward the highway on the edge of a cultivated
field. She was carrying a
basket, looped in her right arm. It was not until then, that
I noticed, we
were parked near a
crossroads. There were two narrow trails, which ran parallel to both
sides of the highway and
another, wider and more trafficked trail, that ran perpendicular to the
highway; obviously people, who
used that trail, had to walk across the paved road. When the woman was
still on the dirt road, don Juan told me to get out
of the car. "Do it now," he said firmly. I obeyed him. The woman was
almost on the
highway. I ran and overtook
her. I was so close to her,
that I felt her clothes on my face. I took the wild boar hoof from
under my shirt and thrust it at
her. I did not feel any resistance to the blunt (not sharp or pointed)
object,
I had in my
hand. I saw a fleeting shadow in
front of me, like a drape; my head turned to my right and I saw the
woman, standing fifty feet away
on the opposite side of the road. She was a fairly young, dark woman
with a strong, stocky body.
She was smiling at me. Her teeth were white and big and her smile was
placid. She had closed her
eyes halfway, as if to protect them from the wind. She was still
holding her basket, looped over
her right arm. I then had a moment of unique confusion.
I turned around
to look at don
Juan. He was making frantic
gestures to call me back. I ran back. There were three or four men,
coming in a hurry toward me. I
got into the car and sped away in the opposite direction.
218-219
I tried to
ask don Juan, what had happened, but I could not talk; my ears
were bursting with an
overwhelming pressure; I felt, that I was choking. He seemed to be
pleased and began to laugh. It
was, as if my failure did not concern him. I had my hands so tight
around the steering wheel, that I
could not move them; they were frozen; my arms were rigid and so were
my legs. In fact, I could not
take my foot off the gas pedal. Don Juan patted me on the back and told
me to relax. Little by little
the pressure in my ears
diminished.
"What happened back there?" I finally asked. He giggled like a child
without answering. Then he asked me, if I had
noticed the way the woman got
out of the way.
He praised her excellent speed. Don Juan's talk seemed
so incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings), that I could
not really follow him.
He praised the woman ! He said her power was
impeccable and she was a
relentless enemy. I asked don Juan, if he did not mind my failure. I
was truly surprised
and annoyed at his change of
mood. He seemed to be actually glad. He told me to stop. I parked
alongside the road. He put his hand on my
shoulder and looked
piercingly into my eyes.
"Whatever, I have done to you today, was a trick," he said bluntly.
"The
rule is, that a Man of Knowledge has to trap his apprentice. Today I
have trapped you and
I
have tricked you into
learning." I was dumfounded. I could not arrange my thoughts. Don Juan
explained,
that the whole involvement
with the woman was a trap; that she had never been a threat to him; and
that his job was to put me
in touch with her, under specific conditions of abandon and power, I
had
experienced, when
I tried to
pierce her. He commended my resolution and called it an Act of Power,
which demonstrated to the
woman, that I was capable of great exertion (exercise, put into
vigorous action).
Don Juan said, that even though I was not aware of it, all I did was to
show off in front of
her. "You could never touch her," he said, "but you showed your claws
to
her. She knows now, that you're
not afraid. You have challenged her. I used her to trick you, because
she's powerful, relentless
and never forgets. Men are usually too busy to be relentless enemies."
I felt a terrible anger. I told him, that one should not play with a
person's innermost feelings and
loyalties. Don Juan laughed, until tears rolled down his cheeks, and I
hated him. I
had an overwhelming desire
to punch him and leave; there was, however, such a strange rhythm in
his laughter, that it kept me
almost paralyzed. "Don't be so angry," don Juan said soothingly. Then
he said, that his acts had never been a farce, that he also had
thrown his life away a long
time before, when his own benefactor tricked him, just as he had
tricked
me. Don Juan said, that his
benefactor was a cruel man, who did not think about him the way he, don
Juan, thought about me. He
added very sternly, that the woman had tested her strength against him
and had really tried to kill
him. "Now she knows, that I was playing with her," he said, laughing,
"and
she'll hate you for it. She
can't do anything to me, but she will take it out on you. She doesn't
know yet how much power you
have, so she will come to test you, little by little. Now you have no
choice, but to learn, in order
to defend yourself, or you will fall prey to that lady. She is no
trick." Don Juan reminded me of the way, she had flown away. "Don't be
angry," he said. "It was not an ordinary trick. It was the
rule." There was something about the way, the woman moved away from me,
that was
truly maddening. I had
witnessed it myself: she had jumped the width of the highway in a flick
of an eyelash. I had no way
to get out of that certainty. From that moment on, I focused all my
attention on that incident, and
little by little, I accumulated "proof", that she was actually
following
me. The final outcome was,
that I had to withdraw from the apprenticeship under the pressure of my
irrational fear. I came back to don Juan's house hours later, in the
early afternoon. He
was apparently waiting for
me.
220-221
He came up to me, as I got out of my car, and examined me with
curious eyes, walking around me a
couple of times.
"Why the nervousness?" he asked, before I had time to say anything. I
explained, that something had scared me off that morning and, that I
had begun to feel something
prowling around me, as in the past. Don Juan sat down and seemed to be
engulfed in thoughts. His
face had an unusually serious expression. He seemed to be tired. I sat
by him and arranged my
notes. After a very long pause his face brightened up and he smiled.
"What you felt this morning was the Spirit of the Water Hole," he said.
"I've told you, that you
must be prepared for unexpected encounters with those forces. I thought
you understood."
"I did."
"Then why the fear?" I could not answer. "That Spirit is on your
trail," he said. "It already tapped (found) you in the
water. I assure you, it will
tap you again and, probably, you won't be prepared and that encounter
will be your end." Don Juan's words made me feel genuinely concerned.
My feelings were
strange, however;
I was
concerned, but not afraid. Whatever, was happening to me, had not been
able to elicit (evoke,
bring
out something latent) my old
feelings
of blind fear.
"What should I do?" I asked.
"You forget too easily," he said. "The path of knowledge is a forced
one. In order to learn, we must
be spurred (stimulated). In the path of knowledge we are always
fighting something,
avoiding something, prepared
for something; and that something is always inexplicable, greater, more
powerful, than us. The
inexplicable forces will come to you. Now it is the Spirit of the Water
Hole, later on it'll be
your own ally, so there is nothing you can do now, but to prepare
yourself for the struggle. Years ago la Catalina
spurred (stimulated) you, she was
only a
sorceress, though, and that was a beginner's trick. The world is indeed
full of frightening things, and we are helpless
creatures, surrounded by forces,
that are inexplicable and unbending. The average man, in ignorance,
believes, that those forces can
be explained or changed; he doesn't really know how to do that, but he
expects, that the actions of
Humankind will explain them or change them sooner or later. The
sorcerer,
on the other hand, does not
think of explaining or changing them; instead, he learns to use such
forces by redirecting himself and
adapting to their direction.
That's his trick. There is very little to sorcery once you find out its
trick. A sorcerer is only
slightly better off, than the average man. Sorcery does not help him to
live a better life; in fact, I should say,
that sorcery hinders him; it
makes his life cumbersome, precarious (not stable). By opening himself
to knowledge,
a sorcerer becomes more
vulnerable, than the average man. On the one hand his fellow men hate
him and fear him and will
strive (exert, struggle against) to end his life; on the other hand,
the inexplicable and
unbending forces, that surround every
one of us, by right of our being alive, are for a sorcerer a source of
even greater danger. To be
pierced by a fellow man is indeed painful, but nothing in comparison to
being touched by an ally. A
sorcerer, by opening himself to knowledge, falls prey to such forces
and has only one means of
balancing himself, his Will; thus he must feel and act like a warrior.
I will repeat this once
more: Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge.
What
helps a sorcerer, live a better
life, is the strength of being a warrior. It is my commitment to teach
you to see. Not because I personally want
to do so, but because you
were chosen; you were pointed out to me by Mescalito. I am compelled (forced) by
my personal desire,
however, to teach you to feel and act like a warrior. I personally
believe, that to be a warrior is
more suitable, than anything else. Therefore I have endeavored to show
you those forces, as a sorcerer
perceives them, because only
under their terrifying impact, can one become a warrior. To See,
without
first being a warrior, would
make you weak; it would give you a false meekness (weakness), a desire
to retreat;
your body would decay,
because you would become indifferent. It is my personal commitment to
make you a warrior, so you
won't crumble. I have heard you say time and time again, that you are
always prepared
to die. I don't regard that
feeling, as necessary. I think,
it is a useless indulgence. A warrior
should be prepared only to
battle.
222-223
I have also heard you say, that your parents injured your
spirit. I think the spirit of man
is something, that can be injured very easily, although not by the same
acts you yourself call
injurious. I believe, that your parents did injure you by making you
indulgent, soft and given to
dwelling. The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and
complaining,
nor is it geared to winning or
losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every
struggle is a warrior's last
battle on Earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his
last battle on Earth a warrior
lets his spirit flow free and clear. And, as he wages (engaged in) his
battle,
knowing that his Will is
impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs." I finished writing and looked
up. Don Juan was staring at me. He shook
his head from side to side
and smiled.
"You really write everything?" he asked in an incredulous tone. "Genaro
says, that he can never be
serious with you, because you're always writing. He's right; how can
anyone be serious, if you're
always writing?" He chuckled (laugh quietly) and I tried to defend my
position. "It doesn't matter," he said, "If you ever learn to See,
I suppose, you
must do it your own weird
way." He stood up and looked at the sky. It was around noon. He said,
there
was still time to start on a
hunting trip to a place in the mountains.
"What are we going to hunt?" I asked.
"A special animal, either a deer or a wild boar or even a mountain
lion." He paused for a moment and then added, "Even an eagle." I stood
up and followed him to my car. He said, that this time we were
going only to observe and to
find out, what animal we had to hunt. He was about to get in my car,
when
he seemed to remember
something. He smiled and said, that the journey had to be postponed,
until I had learned something,
without which our hunting would be impossible. We went back and sat
down again underneath his ramada. There were so
many things I wanted to ask,
but he did not give me time to say anything, before he spoke again.
"This brings us to the last point, you must know about a warrior," he
said. "A warrior selects the
items, that make his world.
"The other day when you saw the ally and I had to wash you twice, do
you know what was wrong with
you?"
"No."
"You had lost your shields."
"What shields? What are you talking about?"
"I said, that a warrior selects the items, that make his world. He
selects deliberately, for every
item, he chooses, is a shield, that protects him from the onslaughts of
the forces, he is striving to
use. A warrior would use his shields to protect himself from his ally,
for instance. An average man, who is equally surrounded by those
inexplicable forces,
is oblivious to them, because
he has other kinds of special shields to protect himself." He paused
and looked at me with a question in his eyes.
I had not
understood, what he meant.
"What are those shields?" I insisted.
"What people do," he repeated.
"What do they do?"
"Well, look around. People are busy, doing that which people do. Those
are their shields. Whenever a
sorcerer has an encounter with any of those inexplicable and unbending
forces, we have talked about,
his gap opens, making him more susceptible to his death, than he
ordinarily is; I've told you, that
we die through that gap, therefore, if it is open, one should have his
Will ready to fill it; that
is, if one is a warrior. If one is not a warrior, like yourself, then
one has no other recourse, but
to use the activities of daily life, to take one's mind away from the
fright of the encounter, and
thus to allow one's gap to close. You got angry with me that day, when
you met the ally. I made you
angry, when I stopped your car and I made you cold, when I dumped you
into the water. Having your
clothes on, made you even colder. Being angry and cold helped you close
your gap and you were
protected. At this time in your life, however, you can no longer use
those shields
as effectively, as an
average man.
224-225
You know too much about those forces and now you are
finally at the brink of feeling
and acting as a warrior. Your old shields are no longer safe."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Act like a warrior and select the items of your world. You cannot
surround yourself with things
helter-skelter any longer. I tell you this in a most serious vein (turn
of mind). Now
for the first time you are
not safe in your old way of life."
"What do you mean by selecting the items of my world?"
"A warrior encounters those inexplicable and unbending forces, because
he is deliberately seeking
them, thus he is always prepared for the encounter. You, on the other
hand, are never prepared for
it. In fact, if those forces come to you, they will take you by
surprise;
the fright will open your
gap and your life will irresistibly escape through it. The first thing
you must do, then, is be
prepared. Think, that the ally is going to pop in front of your eyes
any
minute, and you must be
ready for him. To meet an ally is no party or Sunday picnic, and a
warrior takes the responsibility
of protecting his life. Then, if any of those forces tap you and open
your gap, you must
deliberately strive (exert, struggle against) to close it by yourself.
For that purpose you must
have a selected number of
things, that give you great peace and pleasure, things which you can
deliberately use, to take your
thoughts from your fright, close your gap and make you solid."
"What kind of things?"
"Years ago I told you, that in his day-to-day life a warrior chooses to
follow the path with heart.
It is the consistent choice of the path with heart, which makes a
warrior different from the average
man. He knows, that a path has heart, when he is one with it, when he
experiences a great peace and
pleasure, traversing its length. The things, a warrior selects to make
his shields, are the items of a
path with heart."
"But you said I'm not a warrior, so how can I choose a path with heart?"
"This is your turning point. Let's say that, before you did not really
need to live like a warrior.
Now it is different, now you must surround yourself with the items of a
path with heart and you
must refuse the rest, or you will perish in the next encounter. I may
add, that you don't need to
ask for the encounter any longer. An ally can now come to you in your
sleep; while you are talking
to your friends; while you are writing."
"For years I have truly tried to live in accordance with your
teachings," I said. "Obviously, I have
not done well. How can I do better now?"
"You think and talk too much. You must stop talking to yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"You talk to yourself too much. You're not unique at that. Everyone of
us does that. We carry on
an internal talk. Think about it. Whenever you are alone, what do you
do?"
"I talk to myself."
"What do you talk to yourself about?"
"I don't know; anything, I suppose."
"I'll
tell you what we talk to ourselves about. We talk about our
world. In fact, we maintain our
world with our internal talk."
"How
do we do that?"
"Whenever
we finish talking to ourselves, the world is always, as it
should be. We renew it, we
kindle (give energy to) it with life, we uphold it with our internal
talk. Not only
that, but we also choose our
paths, as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over
and
over, until the day we die,
because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over,
until
the day we die.
"A warrior is aware of this and strives (exert, struggle against) to
stop his talking. This is
the last point you have to
know, if you want to live like a warrior."
"How can I stop talking to myself?"
"First of all, you must use your ears to take some of the burden from
your eyes. We have been using
our eyes to judge the world, since the time we were born.
We talk to
others and to ourselves mainly
about what we see. A warrior is aware of that and listens to the world;
he listens to the sounds of
the world." I put my notes away. Don Juan laughed and said, that he did
not mean, I
should force the issue, that
listening to the sounds of the world had to be done harmoniously and
with great patience.
226-227
"A
warrior is aware, that the world will change as soon, as he stops
talking to himself," he said,
"and he must be prepared for that monumental jolt."
"What
do you mean, don Juan?"
"The
world is such-and-such or so-and-so, only because we tell ourselves,
that that is the way it is.
If we stop telling ourselves, that the world is so-and-so, the world
will stop being so-and-so. At
this moment I don't think you're ready for such a momentous blow,
therefore you must start slowly
to undo the world."
"I really do not understand you!"
"Your problem is, that you confuse the world with, what people do.
Again
you're not unique at that.
Every one of us does that. The things people do are the shields against
the forces, that surround
us; what we do, as people, gives us comfort and makes us feel safe;
what
people do is rightfully very
important, but only as a shield. We never learn, that the things we do
as people, are only shields, we let shields dominate and
topple our lives. In fact, I could say, that
for Humankind, what people do
is greater and more important, than the world itself."
"What do you call the world?"
"The world is all, that is encased here," he said, and stomped the
ground. "Life, death, people, the
allies, and everything else, that surrounds us. The world is
incomprehensible. We won't ever
understand it; we won't ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat
it,
as it is, a sheer
mystery! An average man doesn't do this, though. The world is never a
mystery
for him, and, when he arrives
at old age, he is convinced, he has nothing more to live for. An old
man
has not exhausted the world.
He has exhausted only, what people do. But in his stupid confusion he
believes, that the world has no
more mysteries for him. What a wretched price to pay for our shields ! A warrior is
aware of this confusion and learns to treat things
properly. The things, that people
do, cannot, under any conditions, be more important, than the world.
And
thus a warrior treats the
world, as an endless mystery, and what people do, as an endless folly."
I began the exercise of listening to the "sounds of the world" and kept
at it for two months, as
don Juan had specified. It was excruciating at first, to listen and not
look, but even more
excruciating was, not to talk to myself. By the end of the two months I
was capable of shutting off my internal
dialogue for short periods
of time and I was also capable of paying attention to sounds.
I
arrived at
don Juan's house at 9:00 A.M. on November 10, 1969.
"We should start that trip right now," he said upon my arrival at his
house. I rested for an hour and then we drove toward the low slopes of
the
mountains to the east. We left
my car in the care of one of his friends, who lived in that area, while
we hiked into the mountains.
Don Juan had put some crackers and sweet rolls in a knapsack for me.
There were enough provisions
for a day or two. I had asked don Juan, if we needed more. He shook his
head negatively. We walked the entire morning. It was a rather warm
day. I carried one
canteen of water, most of
which I drank myself. Don Juan drank only twice. When there was no more
water,
he assured me, it was
all right to drink from the streams, we found on our way. He laughed at
my reluctance. After a short
while my thirst made me overcome my fears. In the early afternoon we
stopped in a small valley at the bottom of
some lush green hills. Behind
the hills, toward the east, the high mountains were silhouetted against
a cloudy sky.
228-229
"You can think, you can write about, what we say or about what you
perceive, but nothing about where
we are," he said. We rested for a while and then he took a bundle from
inside his shirt.
He untied it and showed me
his pipe. He filled its bowl with smoking mixture, lighted a match and
kindled (ignite) a
small dry twig, placed the
burning twig inside the bowl, and told me to smoke. Without a piece of
charcoal inside the bowl it
was difficult to light the pipe; we had to keep kindling twigs, until
the mixture caught on fire.
When I had finished smoking he said, that we were there, so I could
find
out the kind of game I was
supposed to hunt. He carefully repeated three or four times, that the
most important aspect of my
endeavor was to find some holes. He emphasized the word "holes" and
said, that inside them a sorcerer could find all sorts of messages
and directions. I wanted to ask, what kind of holes they were; don Juan
seemed to have
guessed my question and said,
that they were impossible to describe and were in the realm of
"Seeing." He repeated
at various
times, that I should focus all my attention on listening to sounds and
do my best to find the holes
between the sounds. He said, that he was going to play his spirit
catcher four times. I was supposed
to use those eerie calls as a guide to the ally, that had welcomed me;
that ally would then give me
the message, I was seeking. Don Juan told me, I should stay in complete
alertness, since he had no
idea how the ally would manifest himself to me. I listened attentively.
I was sitting with my back against the rock
side of the hill. I experienced
a mild numbness. Don Juan warned me against closing my eyes. I began to
listen and I could
distinguish the whistling of birds, the wind rustling the leaves, the
buzzing of insects. As I
placed my individual attention on those sounds, I could actually make
out four different types of
bird whistlings. I could distinguish the speeds of the wind, in terms
of slow or fast; I could also
hear the different rustlings of three types of leaves. The buzzings of
insects were dazzling. There
were so many, that
I could not count them or correctly differentiate
them. I was immersed in a strange world of sound, as I had never been
in my
life. I began to slide to my
right.
Don Juan made a motion to stop me, but I caught myself before he
did. I straightened up and
sat erect again. Don Juan moved my body, until he had propped me on a
crevice in the rock wall. He
swept the small rocks from under my legs and placed the back of my head
against the rock. He told me imperatively to look at the mountains to
the southeast. I
fixed my gaze in the distance,
but he corrected me and said, I should not gaze, but look, sort of
scanning, at the hills in front of
me and at the vegetation on them. He repeated over and over, that I
should concentrate all my
attention on my hearing. Sounds began to be prominent again. It was not
so much, that I wanted to
hear them; rather, they had
a way of forcing me to concentrate on them. The wind rustled the
leaves. The wind came high above
the trees and then it dropped into the valley, where we were. Upon
dropping, it touched the
leaves of the tall trees
first; they made a peculiar sound which I fancied to be a sort of rich,
raspy, lush sound. Then the
wind hit the bushes and their leaves sounded like a crowd of small
things; it was an almost
melodious sound, very engulfing and quite demanding; it seemed capable
of drowning everything else.
I found it displeasing. I felt embarrassed, because it occurred to me,
that I was like the rustle of
the bushes, nagging (bothering) and
demanding. The sound was so akin to me, that I
hated it. Then I heard the
wind rolling on the ground. It was not a rustling sound, but more of a
whistle, almost a beep or a
flat buzz. Listening to the sounds, the wind was making, I realized,
that
all three of them happened
at once. I was wondering, how I had been capable of isolating each of
them, when I again became
aware of the whistling of birds and the buzzing of insects. At one
moment there were only the
sounds of the wind and the next moment a gigantic flow of other sounds
emerged at once into my
field of awareness. Logically, all the existing sounds must have been
continually emitted during
the time, I was hearing only the wind. I could not count all the
whistles of birds or buzzings of insects, yet
I was convinced, I was
listening to each separate sound, as it was produced.
230-231
Together they
created a most extraordinary
order. I cannot call it any other thing, but "order." It was an order
of
sounds, that had a pattern;
that is, every sound happened in sequence. Then I heard a unique
prolonged wail. It made me shiver. Every other
noise ceased for an instant,
and the valley was dead still, as the reverberation of the wail reached
the valley's outer limits;
then the noises began again. I picked up their pattern immediately.
After a moment of attentive
listening,
I thought, I understood
don Juan's recommendation to watch for the holes between the sounds.
The pattern of noises had
spaces in between sounds! For example, specific whistles of birds were
timed and had pauses in
between them, and so had all
the other sounds, I was perceiving. The rustling of leaves was like a
binding glue, that made them
into a homogeneous buzz. The fact of the matter was, that the timing of
each sound was a unit in
the overall pattern of
sounds. Thus the spaces or pauses in between sounds were, if I paid
attention to them, holes in a
structure. I heard again the piercing wail of don Juan's spirit
catcher. It did
not jolt me, but the sounds
again ceased for an instant and I perceived such a cessation as a hole,
a very large hole. At that
precise moment I shifted my attention from hearing to looking. I was
looking at a cluster of low
hills with lush green vegetation. The silhouette of the hills was
arranged in such a way, that from
the place, where I was looking, there seemed to be a hole on the side
of
one of the hills. It was a
space in between two hills, and through it I could see the deep, dark,
gray hue of the mountains in
the distance. For a moment I did not know, what it was. It was, as if
the
hole, I was looking at, was
the "hole" in the sound. Then the noises began again, but the visual
image of the huge hole
remained. A short while later I became even more keenly aware of the
pattern of sounds and their
order, and the arrangement of their pauses. My mind was capable of
distinguishing and discriminating
among an enormous number of individual sounds. I could actually keep
track of all the sounds, thus
each pause between sounds was a definite hole. At a given moment the
pauses became crystallized in
my mind and formed a sort of solid grid, a structure. I was not seeing
or hearing it. I was feeling
it with some unknown part of myself. Don Juan played his string once
again; the sounds ceased, as they had
done before, creating a huge
hole in the sound structure. This time, however, that big pause blended
with the hole in the hills,
I was looking at; they became superimposed on each other. The effect of
perceiving two holes lasted
for such a long time, that I was capable of seeing-hearing their
contours, as they fit one another.
Then the other sounds began again and their structure of pauses became
an extraordinary, almost
visual perception. I began Seeing the sounds,
as they created patterns
and then all those patterns
became superimposed on the environment in the same way I had perceived
the two big holes, becoming
superimposed. I was not looking or hearing, as I was accustomed to
doing. I was doing something,
which was entirely different, but combined features of both. For some
reason my attention was
focused on the large hole in the hills. I felt, I was hearing it and at
the same time looking at it.
There was something of a lure about it. It dominated my field of
perception and every single sound
pattern, which coincided with a feature of the environment, was hinged
on
that hole. I heard once more the eerie wail of don Juan's spirit
catcher; all
other sounds stopped; the two
large holes seemed to light up and next, I was looking again at the
plowed field; the ally was
standing there, as I had seen him before. The light of the total scene
became very clear. I could
see him plainly, as if he were fifty yards away. I could not see his
face; his hat covered it. Then he began to come
toward me, lifting up his head
slowly, as he walked; I could almost see his face and that terrified
me.
I knew, I had to stop him
without delay, I had a strange surge in my body; I felt an outflow of
"power." I wanted to move my
head to the side to stop the vision, but I could not do it. At that
crucial instant a thought came
to my mind. I knew, what don Juan meant, when he spoke of the items of
a
"path with heart" being the
shields. There was something
I wanted to do in my life, something very
consuming and intriguing,
something, that filled me with great peace and joy.
232-233
I
knew the ally
could not overcome me. I moved
my head away without any trouble, before I could see his entire face. I
began hearing all the other sounds; they suddenly became very loud
and shrill, as if they were
actually angry with me. They lost their patterns and turned into an
amorphous conglomerate of
sharp, painful shrieks. My ears began to buzz under their pressure. I
felt, that my head was about
to explode. I stood up and put the palms of my hands to my ears. Don
Juan helped me walk to a very small stream, made me take off my
clothes, and rolled me in the
water. He made me lie on the almost dry bed of the stream and then
gathered
water in his hat and splashed
me with it. The pressure in my ears subsided very rapidly and it took
only a few
minutes to "wash" me. Don Juan
looked at me, shook his head in approval, and said I had made myself
"solid" in no time at all. I put on my clothes and he took me back to
the place, where I had been
sitting. I felt extremely
vigorous, buoyant, and clear-headed. He wanted to know all the details
of my vision. He said, that the
"holes" in the sounds were used by
sorcerers to find out specific things. A sorcerer's ally would reveal
complicated affairs through
the holes in the sounds. He refused to be more specific about the
"holes" and sloughed off (discarded, get rid of) my
questions saying, that since I did not have an ally, such information
would only be harmful to
me. "Everything is meaningful for a sorcerer," he said. "The sounds
have
holes in them and so does
everything around you. Ordinarily, a man does not have the speed to
catch the holes, and thus
he
goes through life without protection. The worms, the birds, the trees,
all of them can tell us
unimaginable things, if only one could have the speed to grasp their
message. The smoke can give us
that grasping speed. But we must
be on good terms with all the living
things of this world. This is
the reason, why we must talk to plants, we are about to kill, and
apologize for hurting them; the same
thing must be done with the animals, we are going to hunt. We should
take only enough for our needs,
otherwise the plants and the animals and the worms, we have killed,
would
turn against us and cause
us disease and misfortune. A warrior is aware of this and strives
(exert, struggle against) to
appease
(pacify) them, so
when he peers
through the holes, the trees, birds and the worms give him truthful
messages.
But all this is not important now. What is important is, that you Saw
the ally. That is your game!
I've told you, that we were going to hunt for something. I thought,
it
was going to be an animal. I
figured, that you were going to see the animal, we had to hunt. I
myself
saw a wild boar; my spirit
catcher is a wild boar."
"Do you mean your spirit catcher is made out of a wild boar?"
"No! Nothing in the life of a sorcerer is made out of anything else. If
something is anything at
all, it is the thing itself. If you knew wild boars, you would realize
my spirit catcher is
one."
"Why did we come here to hunt?"
"The ally showed you a spirit catcher, that he got from his pouch. You
need to have one, if you are
going to call him."
"What is a spirit catcher?"
"It is a fiber. With it I can call the allies, or my own ally, or I can
call the spirits of water
holes, the spirits of rivers, the spirits of mountains. Mine is a wild
boar and cries like a wild
boar. I used it twice around you, to call the spirit of the water hole
to help you. The spirit came
to you, as the ally came to you today. You could not See it, though,
because you did not have the
speed; however, that day I took you to the water canyon and put you on
a rock, you knew the spirit
was almost on top of you without actually Seeing it. Those
spirits are
helpers. They are hard to
handle and sort of dangerous. One needs an impeccable Will to hold them
at bay."
"What do they look like?"
"They are different for every man and so are the allies. For you an
ally would apparently look like
a man you once knew, or like a man you will always be about to know;
that's the
bent of your nature. You are
given to mysteries and secrets. I'm not like you, so an ally for me is
something very precise. The spirits of water holes are proper to
specific places. The one, I
called to help you, is one I
have known myself. It has helped me many times. Its abode (dwelling) is
that
canyon.
234-235
At
the time I called it
to help you, you were not strong and the spirit took you hard. That was
not its intention—they have
none—but you were lying there very weak, weaker, than I
suspected.
Later
on the spirit nearly lured
you to your death; in the water at the irrigation canal you were
phosphorescent. The spirit took
you by surprise and you nearly succumbed (gave
in, gave up). Once a
spirit does that, it
always comes back for its
prey. I'm sure it will come back for you. Unfortunately,
you need the
water to become solid again,
when you use the little smoke; that puts you at a terrible
disadvantage. If you don't use the water
you will probably die, but if you do use it, the spirit will take you."
"Can I use water at another place?"
"It doesn't make any difference. The spirit of the water hole around my
house can follow you
anywhere, unless you have a spirit catcher. That is why, the ally
showed
it to you. He told you, that
you need one. He wrapped it around his left hand and came to you, after
pointing out the water
canyon. Today he again wanted to show you the spirit catcher, as he did
the first time you met him.
It was wise of you to stop; the ally was going too fast for your
strength, and a direct jolt with
him would be very injurious to you."
"How can I get a spirit catcher now?"
"Apparently the ally is going to give you one himself."
"How?"
"I don't know. You will have to go to him. He has already told you,
where to look for it."
"Where?"
"Up there, on those hills, where you saw the hole."
"Would I be looking for the ally himself?"
"No. But he is already welcoming you. The little smoke has opened your
way to him. Then, later on,
you will meet him face to face, but that will happen only after you
know him very well."
We arrived in the same valley in the late afternoon of December 15,
1969. Don Juan mentioned
repeatedly, as we moved through the shrubs, that directions or points
of
orientation were of crucial
importance in the endeavor, I was going to undertake. "You
must
determine the right direction immediately upon arriving at
the top of a hill," don Juan
said. "As soon, as you are on the top, face that direction." He pointed
to the southeast. "That is your good direction and you should always
face it, especially
when you're in trouble.
Remember that." We stopped at the bottom of the hills, where I had
perceived the hole.
He pointed at a specific
place, where I had to sit down; he sat next to me and in a very quiet
voice gave me detailed
instructions. He said, that as soon, as I reached the hilltop, I had to
extend my right arm in front
of me with the palm of my hand down and my fingers stretched like a
fan, except the thumb, which
had to be tucked against the palm. Next I had to turn my head to the
north and fold my arm over my
chest, pointing my hand also toward the north; then I had to dance,
putting my left foot behind the
right one, beating the ground with the tip of my left toes. He said,
that when I felt a warmth,
coming up my left leg, I had to begin sweeping my arm slowly from north
to south and then to the
north again. "The spot, over which the palm of your hand feels warm as
you sweep your
arm, is the place, where you
must sit, and it is also the direction, in which you must look," he
said. "If the spot is toward the east, or if it is in that
direction"—he
pointed to the southeast
again—"the results will be excellent.
236-237
If the spot, where your hand gets
warm, is toward the north,
you will take a bad beating, but you may turn the tide in your favor.
If
the spot is toward the
south,
you will have a hard fight. You will need to sweep your arm up to four
times at first, but, as you
become more familiar with
the movement, you will need only one single sweep to know, whether or
not
your hand is going to get
warm. Once you establish a spot, where your hand gets warm, sit there;
that
is your first point, If you
are facing the south or the north, you have to make up your mind,
whether you feel strong enough to
stay. If you have doubts about yourself, get up and leave. There is no
need to stay, if you are not
confident. If you decide to stick around, clean an area big enough to
build a fire about five feet
away from your first point. The fire must be in a straight line in the
direction, you are looking.
The area, where you build the fire, is your second point. Then gather
all
the twigs, you can, in
between those two points, and make a fire. Sit on your first point and
look at the fire. Sooner or
later the Spirit will come and you will See it. If your hand does not
get warm at all after four sweeping movements,
sweep your arm slowly from
north to south, and then turn around and sweep it to the west. If your
hand gets warm on any place
toward the west, drop everything and rum. Run downhill toward the flat
area, and, no matter, what you
hear or feel behind you, don't turn around. As soon, as you get to the
flat area, no matter how
frightened you are, don't keep on running, drop to the ground, take off
your jacket, bunch it
around your navel, and curl up like a ball, tucking your knees against
your stomach. You must also
cover your eyes with your hands, and your arms have to remain tight
against your thighs. You must
stay in that position, until morning. If you follow these simple steps,
no harm will ever come to
you. In case you cannot get to the flat area in time, drop to the
ground
right where you are. You will
have a horrid time there. You will be harassed, but if you keep calm
and don't move or look, you
will come out of it without a single scratch.
Now, if your hand does not get warm at all, while you sweep it to the
west, face the east again and
run in an easterly direction, until you are out of breath. Stop there
and repeat the same maneuvers.
You must keep on running toward the east, repeating these movements,
until your hand gets
warm." After giving me these instructions, he made me repeat them,
until I had
memorized them. Then we sat
in silence for a long time. I attempted to revive the conversation a
couple of times, but he forced
me into silence each time, by an imperative gesture. It was getting
dark, when don Juan got up and without a word began
climbing the hill. I followed
him. At the top of the hill I performed all the movements, he had
prescribed. Don
Juan stood by, a short
distance away, and kept a sharp look on me. I was very careful and
deliberately slow. I tried to
feel any perceivable change of temperature, but I could not detect,
whether or not the palm of my
hand became warm. By that time it was fairly dark, yet I was still
capable of running in an
easterly direction without stumbling on the shrubs. I stopped running,
when I was out of breath,
which was not too far from my point of departure. I was extremely tired
and tense. My forearms
ached and so did my calves. I repeated there all the required motions
and again had the same
negative results. I ran in the
dark two more times, and then, while I was sweeping my arm for the
third time, my hand became warm
over a point toward the east. It was such a definite change of
temperature, that it startled me. I
sat down and waited for don Juan. I told him, I had detected a change
in
temperature in my hand. He
told me to proceed, and I picked all the dry brush, I could find, and
started a fire. He sat to my
left a couple of feet away. The fire drew strange, dancing silhouettes.
At times the flames became
iridescent; they grew bluish
and then brilliantly white. I explained that unusual play of colors by
assuming, that it was
produced by some chemical property of the specific dry twigs and
branches, I had collected. Another
very unusual feature of the fire was the sparks. The new twigs, I kept
adding, created extremely big
sparks. I thought, they were like tennis balls, that seemed to explode
in
midair.
238-239
I stared at the fire fixedly, the way, I believed, don Juan had
recommended, and I became dizzy. He
handed me his water gourd and signaled me to drink. The water relaxed
me and gave me a delightful
feeling of freshness. Don Juan leaned over and whispered in my ear,
that I did not have to
stare at the flames, that I
should only watch in the direction of the fire. I became very cold and
clammy (wet), after watching for
almost an hour. At a moment, when I was about to lean over and pick up
a
twig, something like a moth
or a spot in my retina, swept across from right to left, between myself
and the fire. I immediately
recoiled. I looked at don Juan and
he signaled me with a movement of
his chin to look back at the
flames. A moment later the same shadow swept across in the opposite
direction. Don Juan got up
hurriedly and began piling loose dirt on top of the burning twigs,
until
he had completely
extinguished the flames. He executed the maneuver of putting out the
fire with tremendous speed. By
the time I moved to help him, he had finished. He stomped on the dirt
on
top of the smoldering twigs
and then he nearly dragged me downhill and out of the valley. He walked
very fast without turning
his head back and did not allow me to talk at all. When we got to my
car hours later, I asked him, what was the thing, I had
seen. He shook his head
imperatively and we drove in complete silence. He went directly inside,
when we arrived at his house in the early
morning, and he again hushed me
up, when I tried to talk. Don Juan was sitting outside, behind his
house. He seemed to have been
waiting for me to wake up,
because he started talking, as I came out of the house. He said, that
the
shadow, I had seen the night
before, was a Spirit, a force, that belonged to the particular place,
where I had seen it. He spoke of
that specific Being, as a useless one. "It only exists there," he said.
"It has no secrets of power, so there
was no point in remaining
there. You would have seen only a fast, passing shadow, going back and
forth all night. There are
other types of Beings, however, that can give you Secrets of Power, if
you are fortunate enough to
find them." We ate some breakfast then and did not talk for quite a
while. After
eating, we sat in front of his
house.
"There
are three kinds of Beings," he said suddenly, "those, that cannot
give anything, because they
have nothing to give; those, that can only cause fright, and those,
that
have gifts. The one, you saw
last night, was a silent one; it has nothing to give; it is only a
shadow. Most of the time,
however, another type of Being is associated with the silent one, a
nasty Spirit, whose only quality
is to cause fear, and which always hovers around the abode (dwelling)
of a silent
one. That is why,
I decided to
get out of there fast. That nasty type follows people right into their
homes and makes life
impossible for them. I know people, who have had to move out of their
houses, because of them. There
are always some people, who believe, they can get a lot out of that
kind
of Being, but the mere fact,
that a Spirit is around the house, does not mean anything. People may
try to entice it, or they may
follow it around the house under the impression, that it can reveal
secrets to them. But
the only thing, people would
get, is a frightful experience. I know people, who took turns, watching
one of those nasty Beings, that
had followed them into their house.
They
watched the spirit for months;
finally someone else had to
step in and drag the people out of the house; they had become weak and
were wasting away. So the
only wise thing one can do with that nasty type is to forget about it
and leave it alone." I asked him, how people enticed a Spirit. He said,
that people took pains
to figure out first, where
the spirit would most likely appear and then they put weapons in its
way, in hopes, that it might
touch the weapons, because Spirits were known to like paraphernalia of
war. Don Juan said, that any
kind of gear, or any object, that was touched by a Spirit, rightfully
became a Power Object.
However, the nasty type of Being was known never to touch anything, but
only to produce the
auditory illusion of noise. I then asked don Juan about the manner, in
which those Spirits caused
fear. He said, that their most
common way, of frightening people, was to appear, as a dark shadow.
240-241
Shadow,
shaped
as a man, that would roam
around the house, creating a frightening clatter or creating the sound
of voices, or as a dark
shadow, that would suddenly lurch out from a dark corner. Don Juan
said,
that the third type of spirit was a true ally, a giver of
secrets; that special type
existed in lonely, abandoned places, places, which were almost
inaccessible. He said, that a man, who
wished to find one of these Beings, had to travel far and go by
himself.
At a distant and lonely
place the man had to take all the necessary steps alone. He had to sit
by his fire and, if he saw
the shadow, he had to leave immediately. He had to remain, however, if
he
encountered other
conditions, such as a strong wind, that would kill his fire and would
keep him from kindling (igniting) it
again during four attempts; or if a branch broke from a nearby tree.
The branch really had to break
and the man had to make sure, that it was not merely the sound of a
branch, breaking off. Other conditions, he had to be aware of, were
rocks,
that rolled, or
pebbles, which were thrown at his
fire, or any constant noise, and he then had to walk in the direction,
in which any of these
phenomena occurred, until the Spirit revealed itself. There were many
ways, in which such a Being put a warrior to the test.
It might suddenly leap in
front of him, in the most horrendous appearance, or it might grab the
man from the back, not
turn him loose, and keep him pinned down for hours. It might also
topple
a tree on him. Don Juan
said, that those were truly dangerous forces, and although they could
not kill a man hand to hand,
they could cause his death by fright, or by actually letting objects
fall on him, or by appearing
suddenly and causing him to stumble, lose his footing, and go over a
precipice. He told me, that if I ever found one of those Beings under
inappropriate
circumstances, I should
never attempt to struggle with it, because it would kill me. It would
rob my Soul. So I should throw
myself to the ground and bear it, until the morning. "When a man is
facing the ally, the giver of secrets, he has to muster
up all his courage and grab
it, before it grabs him, or chase it, before it chases him. The chase
must be relentless and then
comes the struggle. The man must wrestle the Spirit to the ground and
keep it there, until it gives
him power." I asked him, if these forces had substance, if one could
really touch
them. I said, that the very
idea of a "Spirit" connoted (suggested) something ethereal to me.
"Don't call them Spirits," he said. "Call them allies; call them
inexplicable forces." He was silent for a while, then he lay on his
back and propped his head
on his folded arms. I
insisted on knowing, if those Beings had substance. "You're damn right,
they have substance," he said after another moment
of silence. "When one
struggles with them, they are solid, but that feeling lasts only a
moment. Those Beings rely on a
man's fear; therefore, if the man, struggling with one of them, is a
warrior, the Being loses its
tension very quickly, while the man becomes more vigorous. One can
actually absorb the Spirit's
tension."
"What
kind of tension is that?" I asked.
"Power.
When one touches them, they vibrate, as if they were ready to
rip one apart. But that is
only a show. The tension ends, when the man maintains his grip."
"What
happens, when they lose their tension? Do they become like air?"
"No,
they just become flaccid (no firmness, limp). They still have
substance, though. But
it is not like anything, one
has ever touched."
Later on, during the evening, I said to him, that perhaps, what I had
seen the night before, could
have been only a moth. He laughed and very patiently explained, that
moths fly back and forth only
around light bulbs, because a light bulb cannot burn their wings. A
fire, on the other hand, would
burn them, the first time they came close to it. He also pointed out,
that the shadow covered the entire fire. When he
mentioned that, I remembered,
that it was really an extremely large shadow, and that it actually
blocked the view of the fire for
an instant. However, it had happened so fast, that I had not emphasized
it in my earlier
recollection. Then he pointed out, that the sparks were very large and
flew to my
left. I had noticed that myself.
242-243
I said, that the wind was probably blowing in that direction. Don Juan
replied, that there was no
wind whatsoever. That was true. Upon recalling my experience,
I could
remember, that the night was
still. Another thing, I had completely overlooked, was a greenish glow
in the
flames, which I detected, when
don Juan signaled me to keep on looking at the fire, after the shadow
had first crossed my field of
vision. Don Juan reminded me of it. He also objected to my calling it a
shadow.
He said, it was
round and more like a bubble.

Two days later, on December 17, 1969, don Juan said in a very casual
tone, that I knew all the
details and necessary techniques, in order to go to the hills by myself
and obtain a power object,
the spirit catcher. He urged me to proceed alone and affirmed, that his
company would only hinder
me. I was ready to leave, when
he seemed to change his mind. "You're not strong enough," he said.
"I'll go with you to the bottom of
the hills." When we were at the small valley, where I had Seen the
ally, he examined
from a distance the
formation in the terrain, that I had called a hole in the hills, and
said, that we had to go still
further south into the distant mountains. The abode (dwelling) of the ally
was at
the furthermost point, we
could See through the hole. I looked at the formation and all, I could
distinguish, was the bluish
mass of the distant mountains.
He guided me, however, in a south-easterly direction and after hours of
walking, we reached a point,
he said, was "deep enough" into the ally's abode (dwelling). It was late
afternoon, when we stopped. We sat down on some rocks. I was
tired and hungry; all I had
eaten during the day was some tortillas and water. Don Juan stood up
all of a sudden, looked at the
sky, and told me, in a commanding tone, to take off in the direction,
that
was the best for me, and to
be sure, I could remember the spot, where we were at the moment, so I
could return there, whenever I
was through. He said in a reassuring tone, that he would be waiting for
me, if it took me forever, I
asked apprehensively, if he believed, that the affair of getting a
spirit
catcher, was going to take a
long time.
"Who knows?" he said, smiling mysteriously. I walked away toward the
southeast, turning around a couple of times, to
look at don Juan. He was
walking very slowly in the opposite direction. I climbed to the top of
a large hill and looked at
don Juan once again; he was a good two hundred yards away. He did not
turn to look at me. I ran
downhill into a small bowl-like depression between the hills, and I
suddenly found myself alone. I
sat down for a moment and began to wonder, what I was doing there. I
felt ludicrous
(absurd), looking for
a
spirit catcher. I ran back up to the top of the hill to have a better
view of don Juan, but I could
not see him anywhere. I ran downhill in the direction, I had last seen
him. I wanted to call off the
whole affair and go home. I felt quite stupid and tired. "Don Juan!" I
yelled over and over. He was nowhere in sight. I again ran to the top
of another steep hill;
I could not see him from
there either. I ran quite a way, looking for him, but he had
disappeared.
I retraced my steps and
went back to the original place, where he had left me. I had the absurd
certainty, I was going to
find him, sitting there laughing at my inconsistencies (lack of
uniformity). "What in the hell have I gotten into?" I said loudly. I
knew then, that there was no way to stop, whatever I was doing there. I
really did not know, how to
go back to my car. Don Juan had changed directions various times and
the general orientation of the
four cardinal points was not enough. I was afraid of getting lost in
the mountains. I sat
down and, for the first time in
my life, I had the strange feeling, that there never really was a way
to
revert back to an original
point of departure. Don Juan had said, that I always insisted on
starting at a point, I called the
beginning, when, in effect, the beginning did not exist. And there in
the middle of those mountains I felt, I understood, what he
meant. It was, as if the point
of departure had always been myself; it was, as if don Juan had never
really been there; and when I
looked for him, he became what he really was—a fleeting
image, that
vanished over a hill.
244-245
I heard the soft rustle of leaves and a strange fragrance enveloped me.
I felt the wind, as a
pressure on my ears, like a shy buzzing. The sun was about to reach
some compact clouds over the
horizon, that looked like a, solidly tinted, orange band, when it
disappeared behind a heavy blanket
of lower clouds; it appeared again a moment later, like a crimson ball,
floating in the mist. It
seemed to struggle for a while, to get into a patch of blue sky, but it
was, as if the clouds would
not give the sun time, and then the orange band and the dark silhouette
of the mountains seemed to
swallow it up. I lay down on my back. The world around me was so still,
so serene and
at the same time so alien, I
felt overwhelmed. I did not want to weep, but tears rolled down easily.
I remained in that position for hours. I was almost unable to get up.
The rocks under me were hard,
and, right where I had lain down, there was scarcely any vegetation, in
contrast to the lush green
bushes all around. From where I was, I could see a fringe of tall trees
on the eastern hills. Finally it got fairly dark. I felt better; in
fact, I felt almost happy.
For me the semidarkness was
much more nurturing and protective, than the hard daylight. I stood up,
climbed to the top of a small hill, and began repeating the
motions don Juan had taught
me.
I ran toward the east seven times, and then I noticed a change of
temperature on my hand. I
built a fire and set a careful watch, as don Juan had recommended,
observing every detail. Hours
went by and I began to feel very tired and cold. I had gathered quite a
pile of dry twigs; I fed
the fire and moved closer to it. The vigil (watch during
sleeping hours)
was so
strenuous and so
intense, that it exhausted me; I
began to nod. I fell asleep twice and woke up only, when my head bobbed
to one side. I was so sleepy,
that I could not watch the fire any more. I drank some water and even
sprinkled some on my face to
keep awake. I succeeded in fighting my sleepiness only for brief
moments. I had somehow become
despondent (dishearted, dejected) and
irritable; I felt utterly stupid, being there, and that
gave me a sensation of
irrational frustration and dejection. I was tired, hungry, sleepy, and
absurdly annoyed with
myself. I finally gave up the struggle of keeping awake.
I added a lot
of dry twigs to the fire and
lay down to sleep. The pursuit of an ally and a spirit catcher was, at
that moment, a most ludicrous (absurd)
and foreign endeavor. I was so sleepy, that I could not even think or
talk to myself. I fell
asleep. I was awakened suddenly by a loud crack. It appeared, that the
noise,
whatever it was, had come from
just above my left ear, since I was lying on my right side. I sat up
fully awake. My left ear
buzzed and was deafened by the proximity and force of the sound. I must
have been asleep for only a short while, judging by the amount
of dry twigs, which were still
burning in the fire. I did not hear any other noises, but
I remained
alert and kept on feeding the
fire. The thought crossed my mind, that perhaps, what woke me up, was a
gunshot;
perhaps someone was around,
watching me, taking shots at me. The thought became very anguishing and
created an avalanche of
rational fears. I was sure, that someone owned that land, and, if that
was so, they might
take me for a thief and kill
me, or they might kill me to rob me, not knowing, that I had nothing
with me. I experienced a moment
of terrible concern for my safety. I felt the tension in my shoulders
and my neck. I moved my head
up and down; the bones of my neck made a cracking sound. I still kept
looking into the fire, but I
did not see anything unusual in it, nor did I hear any noises. After a
while I relaxed quite a bit and, it occurred to me, that perhaps
don Juan was at the bottom
of all this. I rapidly became convinced, that it was so. The thought
made me laugh. I had another
avalanche of rational conclusions, nappy () conclusions this time. I
thought, that don Juan must have
suspected, I was going to change my mind about staying in the
mountains,
or he must have seen me
running after him and taken cover in a concealed cave or behind a bush.
Then he had followed me
and, noticing I had fallen asleep, waked me up by cracking a branch
near my ear. I added more twigs to the fire and began to look
around in a casual and covert
manner, to see, if I could spot him.
246-247
Even though I knew, that if he was
hiding around there, I would
not be able to discover him. Everything was quite placid: the crickets,
the wind roughing the trees
on the slopes of the hills,
surrounding me, the soft, cracking sound of the twigs catching on fire.
Sparks flew around, but
they were only ordinary sparks. Suddenly,
I heard the loud noise of a branch, snapping in two. The sound
came from my left. I held my
breath, as I listened with utmost concentration. An instant later I
heard another branch snapping on
my right. Then I heard the faint faraway sound of snapping branches. It
was, as if
someone was stepping on
them and making them crack. The sounds were rich and full, they had a
lusty quality. They also
seemed to be getting closer, to where I was. I had a very slow reaction
and did not know, whether to
listen or stand up. I was deliberating what to do, when all of a sudden
the sound of snapping
branches happened all around me. I was engulfed by them so fast, that I
barely had time to jump to
my feet and stomp on the fire. I began to run downhill in the darkness.
The thought crossed my mind, as
I moved through the shrubs,
that there was no flat land. I kept on trotting and trying to protect
my eyes from the bushes. I
was halfway down to the bottom of the hill, when I felt something
behind
me, almost touching me. It
was not a branch; it was something, which, I intuitively felt, was
overtaking me. This realization
made me freeze. I took off my jacket, bundled it on my stomach,
crouched over my legs, and covered
my eyes with my hands, as don Juan had prescribed. I kept that position
for a short while and then
I realized, that everything around me was dead still. There were no
sounds of any kind. I became
extraordinarily alarmed. The muscles of my stomach contracted and
shivered spasmodically. Then I heard another cracking sound. It seemed
to have occurred far
away, but it was extremely
clear and distinct.
It happened once more, closer to me. There was an
interval of quietness and
then something exploded just above my head. The suddenness of the noise
made me jump involuntarily
and I nearly rolled over on my side. It was definitely the sound of a
branch being snapped in two.
The sound had happened so close, that I heard the rustling of the
branch
leaves, as it was being
cracked. Next there was a downpour of cracking explosions; branches
were being
snapped, with great force, all
around me. The incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings) thing,
at that point, was my reaction to the
whole phenomenon; instead
of being terrified, I was laughing. I sincerely thought, I had hit upon
the cause of all, that was
happening. I was convinced, that don Juan was again tricking me. A
series of logical conclusions
cemented my confidence; I felt elated. I was sure, I could catch that
foxy old don Juan in another
of his tricks. He was around me cracking branches, and knowing, I would
not dare to look up, he was
safe and free to do anything, he wanted to. I figured, that he had to
be
alone in the mountains,
since I had been with him constantly for days. He had not had fine time
or the opportunity to
engage any collaborators (co-workers). If he was hiding, as I thought,
he was hiding
by himself and logically, he
could produce only a limited number of noises. Since he was alone, the
noises had to occur in a
linear temporal sequence; that is, one at a time, or at most two or
three at a time. Besides, the
variety of noises also had to be limited to the mechanics of a single
individual. I was absolutely
certain, as
I remained crouched and still, that the whole experience
was a game and, that the only
way, to remain on top of it, was by emotionally dislodging myself from
it.
I was positively enjoying
it. I caught myself chuckling at the idea, that I could anticipate my
opponent's next move. I tried
to imagine, what I would do next, if I were don Juan. The sound of
something slurping (eat/drink noisily, чавкать) jolted me out of my
mental exercise. I
listened attentively; the
sound happened again. I could not determine, what it was. It sounded
like an animal slurping water.
It happened again very close by. It was an irritating sound, that
brought to mind the smacking noise
of a big-jawed adolescent girl chewing gum. I was wondering, how don
Juan could produce such a noise,
when the sound happened again, coming from the right. There was a
single sound first and then I
heard a series of slushing (soak with mud), slurping sounds, as if
someone were walking
in mud. It was an almost
sensual, exasperating sound of feet slushing in deep mud.
248-249
The noises
stopped for a moment and
started once more toward my left, very close, perhaps only ten feet
away. Now they sounded, as if a
heavy person were trotting with rain boots in mud. I marveled at the
richness of the sound. I could
not imagine any primitive devices, that I myself could use to produce
it. I heard another series of
trotting, slushing sounds toward my rear and then they happened all at
once, on all sides. Someone
seemed to be walking, running, trotting on mud all around me. A logical
doubt occurred to me. If don Juan was doing all that, he had
to be running in circles at
an incredible speed. The rapidity of the sounds made that alternative
impossible. I then thought,
that don Juan must have confederates after all. I wanted to involve
myself in speculation, as to who
his accomplices could be, but the intensity of the noises took all my
concentration. I really could
not think clearly, yet I was not afraid, I was perhaps only dumbfounded
by the strange quality of
the sounds. The slashings actually vibrated. In fact their peculiar
vibrations seemed to be
directed at my stomach, or perhaps I perceived their vibrations with
the lower part of my
abdomen. That realization brought an instantaneous loss of my sense of
objectivity and aloofness. The sounds
were attacking my stomach! The question occurred to me, "What if it was
not don Juan?" I panicked.
I tensed my abdominal muscles and tucked my thighs hard against the
bundle of my jacket. The noises increased in number and speed, as if
they knew, I had lost my
confidence, their
vibrations were so intense, I wanted to vomit. I fought the feeling of
nausea. I took deep breaths
and began to sing my peyote songs. I got sick and the slushing noises
ceased at once; the sounds of
crickets, wind and the distant
staccato barking of coyotes became superimposed. The abrupt cessation
allowed me a respite and I
took stock of myself. Only a short while before, I had been in the best
of spirits, confident and
aloof; obviously I had failed miserably to judge the situation. Even if
don Juan had accomplices,
it would be mechanically impossible for them to produce sounds, that
would affect my stomach. To
produce sounds of such intensity, they would have needed gadgetry
beyond
their means or their
conception. Apparently the phenomenon, I was experiencing, was not a
game
and the "another one of don
Juan's tricks" theory was only my rude explanation.
I had cramps and an
overwhelming desire to roll over and straighten my
legs. I decided to move to
my right, in order to get my face off the place, where I had gotten
sick.
The instant I began to
crawl, I heard a very soft squeak right above my left ear. I froze on
the spot. The squeak was
repeated on the other side of my head. It was a single sound. I
thought,
it resembled the squeak of
a door. I waited, but I heard nothing else, so I decided to move again.
No sooner had I started to
inch my head to the right, when I was nearly forced to jump up. A flood
of squeaks engulfed me at
once. They were like squeaks of doors at times; at other times they
were like the squeaks of rats
or guinea pigs. They were not loud or intense, but very soft and
insidious, and produced agonizing
spasms of nausea in me. They stopped, as they had begun diminishing
gradually, until I could hear
only one or two of them at a time. Then I heard something like the
wings of a big bird, sweeping over the
tops of the bushes. It seemed
to be flying in circles over my head. The soft squeaks began to
increase again, and so did the
flapping wings. Above my head there seemed to be something like a flock
of gigantic birds, beating
their soft wings. Both noises merged, creating an enveloping wave
around me. I felt, that I was
floating, suspended in an enormous undulating (smooth
wavelike motion) ripple. The squeaks and
the flapping were so smooth, I could feel them all over
my body. The flapping wings
of a flock of birds seemed to be pulling me up from above, while the
squeaks of an army of rats
seemed to be pushing me from underneath and from around my body. There
was no doubt in my mind, that through my blundering (foolish)
stupidity, I
had unleashed something
terrible on myself. I clenched my teeth and took deep breaths and sang
peyote songs. The noises lasted a very long time and I opposed them
with all my
might.
250-251
When
they subsided, there
was again an interrupted "silence", as I am accustomed to perceiving
silence; that
is, I
could
detect only the natural sounds of the insects and the wind. The time of
silence was for me more
deleterious, than the time of noises. I began to think and to assess my
position, and my
deliberation threw me into a panic. I knew, that I was lost; I did not
have the knowledge, nor the
stamina to fend off (turn aside, defend, deflect, parry) whatever was
accosting (approaching) me. I was utterly helpless,
crouched over my own vomit.
I thought, that the end of my life had come and I began to weep. I
wanted to think about my life, but
I did not know, where to start. Nothing, of what I had done
in my life,
was really worthy of that last
ultimate emphasis, so I had nothing to think about. That was an
exquisite realization. I had
changed, since the last time I experienced a similar fright. This time
I
was more empty. I had less
personal feelings to carry along. I asked myself, what a warrior would
do in that situation and I arrived
at various conclusions.
There was something about my umbilical region, that was uniquely
important; there
was something unearthly
about the sounds; they were aiming at my stomach; and the idea, that
don
Juan was tricking me, was
utterly untenable (be defended/
vindicated). The muscles of my stomach were very tight, although
I did not have
cramps any longer. I kept on
singing and breathing deeply and I felt a soothing warmth inundating
(overflowing) my
entire body. It had become
clear to me, that if I was going to survive, I had to proceed in terms
of
don Juan's teachings.
I
repeated his instructions in my mind. I remembered the exact point,
where the sun had disappeared
over the mountains, in relation to the hill, where I was and to the
place,
where I had crouched. I
reoriented myself and when I was convinced, that my assessment of the
cardinal points was correct, I
began to change my position, so I would have my head pointing in a new
and "better" direction, the
south-east. I slowly started moving my feet toward my left, inch by
inch, until I had them twisted
under my calves. Then I began to align my body with my feet, but no
sooner had I begun to creep
laterally, than I felt a peculiar tap; I had the actual physical
sensation of something touching the
uncovered area of the back of my neck. It happened so fast, that I
yelled involuntarily and froze
again. I tightened my abdominal muscles and began to breath deeply and
sing my peyote songs. A
second later I felt once more the same light tap on my neck. I cringed.
My neck was uncovered and
there was nothing I could do to protect myself. I was tapped again. It
was a very soft, almost
silky object, that touched my neck, like the furry paw of a giant
rabbit. It touched me again and
then it began to cross my neck back and forth, until I was in tears. It
was, as if a herd of silent,
smooth, weightless kangaroos were stepping on my neck. I could hear the
soft thump
(stomp, heavy steps) of the paws,
as
they stepped gently over me. It was not a painful sensation at all and
yet it was maddening. I knew,
that if I did not involve myself in doing something, I would go mad,
stand up and run. So I
slowly began again to maneuver my body into a new position. My attempt
at moving seemed to increase
the tapping on my neck. It finally got to such a frenzy (seizure of
violent agitation), that I
jerked
my body and at once aligned
it in the new direction. I had no idea whatsoever about the outcome of
my act. I was just taking
action to keep from going stark (bluntly, complete), raving mad. As
soon, as I changed
directions, the tapping on my neck ceased. After a
long, anguished pause I
heard a distant snapping of branches. The noises were not close any
more. It was, as if they had
retreated to another position far away from me. The sound of snapping
branches merged after a
moment with a blasting sound of leaves being rustled, as if a strong
wind were beating the entire
hill. All the bushes around me seemed to shiver, yet there was no wind.
The rustling sound and the
cracking of branches gave me the feeling, that the whole hill was on
fire. My body was as tight, as a
rock. I was perspiring copiously. I began to feel warmer and warmer.
For a moment I was utterly
convinced, that the hill was burning. I did not jump up and run,
because
I was so numb, I was
paralyzed; in fact I could not even open my eyes. All, that mattered to
me at that point, was to get
up and escape the fire. I had terrible cramps in my stomach, which
started to cut my intake of air.
I became very involved, in trying to breathe. After a long struggle I
was capable of taking deep
breaths again and I was also capable of noticing, that the rustling had
subsided; there was only an
occasional cracking sound.
252-253
The snapping sound of branches became more
and more distant and sporadic,
until it ceased altogether. I was able to open my eyes. I looked
through my half-closed lids to the
ground underneath me. It was already daylight. I waited a while longer
without moving and then I
started to stretch my body. I rolled on my back. The Sun was over the
hills in the east. It took me hours to straighten out my legs and drag
myself downhill. I
began to walk toward the
place, where don Juan had left me, which was perhaps only a mile away;
by mid-afternoon I was barely
at the edge of some woods, still a good quarter of a mile away. I could
not walk any more, not for any reason. I thought of mountain
lions and tried to climb up a
tree, but my arms could not support my weight. I leaned against a rock
and resigned myself to die
there.
I was convinced, that I would be food for mountain lions or
other
predators. I did not have
the strength even to throw a rock. I was not hungry or thirsty. Around
noon
I had found a small
stream and had drunk a lot of water, but the water did not help to
restore my strength. As I sat
there in utter helplessness, I felt more despondent (dishearted,
dejected), than afraid. I
was
so tired, I did not care about
my fate and I fell asleep. I woke up, when something shook me. Don Juan
was leaning over me. He
helped me sit up, gave me
water and some gruel (watery porridge). He laughed and said, that I
looked wretched (distressed, twisted). I
tried to tell him, what had
happened, but he hushed me up and said, that I had missed my mark, that
the place, where I was
supposed to meet him, was about a hundred yards away. Then he half
carried me downhill. He said, he was
taking me to a large stream
and was going to wash me there. On the way he plugged my ears with some
leaves, he had in his pouch,
and then he blindfolded me, putting one leaf on each eye and securing
them both with a piece of
cloth. He made me take off my clothes and told me to place my hands
over my eyes and ears, to make
sure I could not see or hear anything. Don Juan rubbed my entire body
with leaves and then dumped me in a
river. I felt,
it was a large
river. It was deep. I was standing and I could not touch the bottom.
Don Juan was holding me by the
right elbow. At first,
I did not feel the coldness of the water, but
little by little I began to
feel chilled, and then the cold became intolerable. Don Juan pulled me
out and dried me with some leaves, that had a
peculiar scent. I put on my clothes
and he led me away; we walked a good distance, before he took the
leaves
off my ears and my eyes.
Don Juan asked me, if I
felt strong enough to walk back to my car. The
weird thing was, that I felt
very strong. I even ran up the side of a steep hill to prove it. On the
way to my car I stayed very close to don Juan. I stumbled scores
of times and he laughed. I
noticed, that his laughter was especially invigorating and it became
the
focal point of my
replenishing; the more he laughed, the better I felt. The next day I
narrated to don Juan the sequence of events from the
time he left me.
He laughed all
the way through my account, especially when I told him, that I had
thought, it was one of his
tricks. "You always think, you're being tricked," he said. "You trust
yourself
too much. You act like you
know all the answers. You know nothing, my little friend, nothing."
This was the first time don Juan had called me
"my little friend." It
took me aback. He noticed it
and smiled. There was a great warmth in his voice, and that made me
very sad. I told
him, that I had been
careless and incompetent
(clumsy, very inefficient), because that
was the inherent bent of my
personality; and that I would
never understand his world. I felt deeply moved. He was very
encouraging and asserted
(affirm, state positevely), that I had
done fine. I asked him the meaning of my experience. "It has no
meaning," he replied. "The same thing could happen to
anyone, especially someone like
you, who has his gap already opened. It is very common. Any warrior,
who's gone in search of allies,
would tell you about their doings. What they did to you was mild.
However, your gap is open and
that is why you're so nervous. One cannot turn into a warrior
overnight.
Now you must go home and
don't return, until you're healed and your gap is closed."
254-255
I did not return to Mexico for months; I used the time to work on my
field notes and for the first
time in ten years, since I started the apprenticeship, don Juan's
teachings began to make real
sense. I felt, that the long periods of time I had, to stay away from
the
apprenticeship, had had a
very sobering and beneficial effect on me; they had allowed me the
opportunity to review my
findings and to arrange them in an intellectual order, proper of my
training and interest. The
events, that took place on my last visit to the field, however, pointed
to a fallacy in my optimism,
about understanding don Juan's knowledge. I made the last entry in my
field notes on October 16, 1970. The events, that took place on that
occasion, marked a transition. They not only closed a cycle of
instruction, but they also opened a
new one, which was so very different, from what I had done thus far,
that I feel, this is the point,
where I must end my reportage. As I approached don Juan's house, I saw
him sitting in his usual place
under his ramada in front of
the door. I parked in the shade of a tree, took my briefcase and a bag
of groceries out of the car
and walked toward him, greeting him in a loud voice. I then noticed,
that he was not alone. There
was another man sitting behind a high pile of firewood. Both of them
were looking at me. Don Juan
waved and so did the other man. Judging from his attire he was not an
Indian, but a Mexican from the
Southwest. He was wearing Levis, a beige shirt, a Texan cowboy hat and
cowboy boots. I talked to
don Juan and then looked at the man; he was smiling at me. I stared at
him for a moment.
"Here's little Carlos," the man said to don Juan, "and he doesn't speak
to me any more. Don't tell
me, that he's cross with me!"
Before I could say anything, they both broke up laughing and only then
did I realize, that the
strange man was don Genaro.
"You didn't recognize me, did you?" he asked, still laughing. I had to
admit, that his attire had baffled (puzzle,
bewilder) me.
"What are you doing in this part of the world, don Genaro?" I asked.
"He came to enjoy the hot wind," don Juan said. "Isn't that right?"
"That's right," don Genaro echoed. "You've no idea, what the hot wind
can do to an old body like
mine." I sat down between them.
"What does it do to your body?" I asked.
"The hot wind tells extraordinarily things to my body," he said. He
turned to don Juan, his eyes glittering. "Isn't that so?"
Don Juan shook his head affirmatively. I told them, that the time of
the hot Santa Ana winds was the worst part of the year for me, and
that it was certainly strange, that don Genaro would come to seek the
hot wind, while I was running
away from it.
"Carlos can't stand the heat," don Juan said to don Genaro. "When it
gets hot, he becomes like a
child and suffocates."
"Suffowhat?"
"Suffo ... cates."
"My goodness!" don Genaro said, feigning (pretending) concern, and made
a gesture of
despair, which was
indescribably funny. Don Juan explained to him next, that I had been
away for months, because of an unfortunate incident
with the allies.
"So, you've finally encountered an ally!" don Genaro said.
"I think, I did," I said cautiously. They laughed loudly. Don Genaro
patted me on the back two or three times.
256-257
It was a very light
tapping, which I interpreted, as a friendly gesture of concern. He
rested his hand on my shoulder, as
he looked at me, and I had a feeling of placid contentment, which
lasted only an instant, for next
don Genaro did something inexplicable to
me. I suddenly felt, that he had put the weight of a boulder on my
back. I
had the sensation, that he
had increased the weight of his hand, which was resting on my right
shoulder, until it made me sag
all the way down and I hit my head on the ground.

"We must help little Carlos," don Genaro said and gave a conspiratorial
look to don Juan. I sat up straight again and turned to don Juan, but
he looked away. I had a moment of vacillation (hesitation)
and the annoying thought, that don Juan was acting, as if he were
aloof,
detached from me. Don Genaro
was laughing; he seemed to be waiting for my reaction. I asked him to
put his hand on my shoulder once more, but he did not want to do it. I
urged him at
least to tell me, what he had done to me. He chuckled (laugh quietly or
to oneself). I turned to don
Juan again and told him, that
the weight of don Genaro's hand had nearly crushed me.
"I don't know anything about it," don Juan said in a comically factual
tone. "He didn't put his
hand on my shoulder." With that both of them broke up laughing.
"What did you do to me, don Genaro?” I asked.
"I just put my hand on your shoulder," he said innocently.
"Do it again," I said. He refused. Don Juan interceded at that point
and asked me to describe to don Genaro, what I had
perceived in my last experience. I thought,
he wanted me to give a bona
fide description of, what had
happened to me, but the more serious my description became, the more
they laughed. I stopped two or
three times, but they urged me to go on.
"The ally will come to you regardless of your feelings," don Juan said,
when I had finished my
account. "I mean, you don't have to do anything to lure him out.
You
may be sitting twiddling (fiddle with) your
thumbs, or thinking about women and then suddenly, a tap on your
shoulder, you turn around and the
ally is standing by you."
"What can I do, if something like that happens?" I asked.
"Hey! Hey! Wait a minute!" don Genaro said. "That's not a good
question. You shouldn't ask, what can
you do, obviously you can't do anything. You should ask, what can a
warrior do?" He turned to me, blinking. His head was slightly tilted to
the right,
and his mouth was
puckered.
I looked at don Juan for a cue, whether the situation was a joke, but
he
kept a solemn face. "All right!" I said. "What can a warrior do?"
Don Genaro blinked and made smacking sounds with his lips, as if he
were searching for a right
word. He looked at me fixedly, holding his chin.
"A warrior wets his pants," he said with Indian solemnity. Don Juan
covered his face and don Genaro slapped the ground, exploding in a
howling laughter.
"Fright is something one can never get over," don Juan said after the
laughter had subsided, "When
a warrior is caught in such a tight spot, he would simply turn his back
to the ally without thinking
twice. A warrior cannot indulge, thus he cannot die of fright. A
warrior allows the ally to come
only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple
(seize firmly with hands)
with the ally, he opens his gap
and lurches out (abrupt rolling), grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down
and maintains
his stare on him for exactly
the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally
and lets him go. A warrior,
my little friend, is the master at all times."
"What happens, if you stare at an ally for too long?" I asked. Don
Genaro looked at me and made a comical gesture of outstaring.
"Who knows?" don Juan said. "Maybe Genaro will tell you, what happened
to him."
"Maybe," don Genaro said and chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself).
"Would you please tell me?" Don Genaro got up, cracked his bones
stretching his arms, and opened
his eyes, until they were round
and looked crazy.
"Genaro is going to make the desert tremble," he said and went into the
chaparral.
258-259
"Genaro is determined to help you," don Juan said in a confidential
tone. "He did the same thing to
you at his
house and you almost Saw".
I thought, he was referring to what had happened at the waterfall, but
he was talking about some
unearthly rumbling sounds, I had heard at don Genaro's house.
"By the way, what was it?" I asked. "We laughed at it, but you never
explained to me, what it
was."
"You have never asked."
"I did."
"No. You have asked me about everything else, except that." Don Juan
looked at me accusingly. "That was Genaro's art," he said. "Only Genaro
can do that.
You almost Saw then." I told him, that it had never occurred to me to
associate "Seeing" with
the strange noises, I had
heard at that time."
And why not?" he asked flatly.
"Seeing
means the eyes to me," I said. He scrutinized me for a moment,
as if there were something wrong with me.
"I never said, that Seeing is a matter
of the eyes alone," he said and
shook his head in
disbelief.
"How does he do it?" I insisted.
"He has already told you, how he does it," don Juan said sharply. At
that very moment I heard an extraordinary rumble. I jumped up and don
Juan began to laugh. The rumble was like a thunderous
avalanche.
Listening to
it, I had the funny realization, that my inventory of experiences in
sound conies (rabbits) definitely from
the movies. The deep thunder, I heard, resembled the sound track of a
movie, when the whole side of a
mountain falls into a valley. Don Juan held his sides, as if
they hurt
from laughing. The thunderous rumble shook the ground, where
I stood. I distinctly heard the thump (stomp, heavy steps) of, what
seemed to be, a monumental
boulder, that was rolling on
its sides. I heard a series of crushing thumps (muffled sounds), that
gave me the
impression, that the boulder was
rolling inexorably (relentless, not capable of being persuaded) toward
me. I experienced a moment of supreme
confusion. My muscles were tense; my whole body was ready for
fleeing. I looked at don Juan. He was staring at me. I then heard the
most frightening thump
(stomp, heavy steps) , I had ever
heard in my life. It was, as if a monumental boulder had landed right
behind the house. Everything
shook, and at that moment I had a most peculiar perception. For an
instant I actually "Saw" a
boulder the size of a mountain right behind the house. It was not, as
if
an image had been
superimposed on the scenery of the house, I was looking at. It was not
the view of a real boulder
either. It was rather, as if the noise was creating the image of a
boulder, rolling on its monumental
sides. I was actually "Seeing" the noise.
The inexplicable character of
my perception threw me into
the depths of despair and confusion. Never in my life would I have
conceived (think,
consider, formulated, become posessed), that my
senses were
capable of perceiving in such a manner. I had an attack of rational
fright and decided to flee for
my life. Don Juan held me by the arm and ordered me imperatively not to
run away and not to turn
around either, but face the direction, in which don Genaro had gone. I
heard next a series of booming noises, which resembled the sound of
rocks, falling and piling on
top of each other, and then everything was quiet again. A few minutes
later don Genaro came back
and sat down. He asked me, if I had "Seen." I did not know, what to
say.
I turned to don Juan for a
cue. He was staring at me.
"I think, he did," he said and chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself).
I wanted to say, that I did not
know, what they were talking about. I felt terribly frustrated. I had
a physical sensation of wrath, of utter discomfort. "I think, we should
leave him here to sit alone," don Juan said. They
got up and walked by me. "Carlos is indulging in his confusion," don
Juan said very loudly. I
stayed alone for hours and had time to write my notes and to ponder on
the absurdity of my
experience. Upon thinking about it, it became obvious to me, that from
the very moment I saw don Genaro sitting
under the ramada, the situation had acquired a farcical mood.
260-261
The more
I deliberated about it, the
more convinced I became, that don Juan had relinquished the control
over to don Genaro and that
thought filled me with apprehension. Don Juan and don Genaro returned
at dusk. They sat down next to me,
flanking me. Don Genaro drew
closer and almost leaned on me. His thin and frail shoulder touched me
lightly and I experienced
the same feeling, I had had, when he tapped me. A crushing weight
toppled
me over and I tumbled onto
don Juan's lap. He helped me to sit up straight and asked in a joking
tone, if I was trying to sleep
on his lap. Don Genaro seemed to be delighted; his eyes shone. I wanted
to weep. I had the feeling I was like
an animal, that had been corralled.

"Am I frightening you, little Carlos?" don Genaro asked and seemed
really concerned. "You look like
a wild horse."
"Tell him a story," don Juan said. "That's the only thing, that calms
him." They moved away and sat in front of me. Both of them examined me
with
curiosity. In the
semidarkness their eyes seemed glassy, like enormous dark pools of
water. Their eyes were awesome.
They were not the eyes of men. We stared at each other for a moment and
then I moved my eyes away.
I noticed, that I was not afraid of them, and yet their eyes had
frightened me to the point, that I
was shivering. I felt a most uncomfortable confusion. After a moment of
silence don Juan urged don Genaro to tell me, what had happened to him
at the time,
he had tried to outstare his ally. Don Genaro was sitting a few feet
away, facing me; he did not
say anything. I looked at him; his eyes seemed to be four or five times
the size of ordinary human
eyes; they were shining and had a compelling (forceful) attraction.
What seemed to
be the light of his eyes
dominated everything around them. Don Genaro's body seemed to have
shriveled and looked more like
the body of a feline. I noticed a movement of his cat-like body
and became frightened. In a
completely automatic way, as if I had been doing it all my life, I
adopted a "fighting form" and
began beating rhythmically on my calf. When I became aware of my acts,
I
got embarrassed and looked
at don Juan. He was peering at me, as he does ordinarily; his eyes were
kind and soothing. He
laughed loudly. Don Genaro made a purring sound and stood up and went
inside the house. Don Juan explained to me, that don Genaro was very
forceful and did not like to piddle (waste time) around, and
that he had been just teasing me with his eyes. He said that, as usual,
I knew more, than I myself
expected. He made a comment, that everyone, who was involved with
sorcery, was terribly dangerous
during the hours of twilight, and that sorcerers, like don Genaro,
could
perform marvels at that
time. We were quiet for a few minutes. I felt better. Talking to don
Juan relaxed me and restored my
confidence. Then he said, that he was going to eat something and that
we were going
for a walk, so that don
Genaro could show me a technique for hiding. I asked him to explain,
what he meant by a technique for hiding. He said, he was through with
explaining things to me, because explaining only forced me to indulge.
We went inside the house. Don Genaro had lit the kerosene lantern and
was chewing a mouthful of
food. After eating, the three of us walked into the thick desert
chaparral, Don Juan walked almost next to
me. Don Genaro was in front, a few yards ahead of us. It was a clear
night, there were heavy clouds, but enough moonlight to
render (represent,
presented for consideration, give in return) the
surroundings
quite visible. At one moment don Juan stopped and told me to go ahead
and follow don Genaro. I vacillated (hesitated); he
pushed me gently and assured me, it was all right. He said, I should
always be ready and should
always trust my own strength. I followed don Genaro and for the next
two hours I tried to catch up with him, but no matter how
hard I struggled,
I could not overtake him. Don Genaro's silhouette was
always ahead of me.
Sometimes he disappeared, as if he had jumped to the side of the trail,
only to appear again ahead of
me. As far, as I was concerned, this seemed to be a strange and
meaningless walk in the dark. I
followed, because I did not know how to return to the house. I could
not understand, what don Genaro
was doing.
262-263
I thought he was leading me to some recondite (not easy understood)
place in the
chaparral to show me the
technique, don Juan had talked about. At a certain point, however, I
had the peculiar sensation, that
don Genaro was behind me. I turned around and caught a glimpse of a
person some distance behind me.
The effect was startling. I strained to see in the darkness and I
believed, I could make out the
silhouette of a man, standing perhaps fifteen yards away. The figure
was
almost merged with the
bushes; it was, as if he wanted to conceal himself. I stared fixedly
for a moment and I could
actually keep the silhouette of the man
within my field of perception, even though he was trying to hide behind
the dark shapes of the
bushes. Then a logical thought came to my mind. It occurred to me, that
the man had to be don Juan,
who must have been following us all the time. The instant I became
convinced, that that was so, I
also realized, I could no longer isolate his silhouette; all, I had in
front of me, was the
undifferentiated dark mass of the desert chaparral. I walked toward the
place, I had seen the man, but I could not find
anybody. Don Genaro was nowhere
in sight either, and since I did not know my way, I sat down to wait. A
half hour later, don Juan
and don Genaro came by.
They called my name out loud. I stood up and
joined them. We walked to the house in complete silence. I welcomed
that quiet interlude, for I felt completely
disoriented. In fact, I felt unknown to myself. Don Genaro was doing
something to me, something,
which kept me from formulating my thoughts, the way I am accustomed to
doing. This became evident to
me, when I sat down on the trail. I had automatically checked the time,
when I sat down and then I
had remained quiet, as if my mind had been turned off. Yet I sat in a
state of alertness, I
have
never experienced before. It was a state of thoughtlessness, perhaps
comparable to not caring about
anything. The world seemed to be, during that time, in a strange
balance; there was nothing, I could add to it and nothing I could
subtract from it. When we arrived at the house, don Genaro rolled out a
straw mat and went to sleep. I felt compelled (forced)
to render (represent,
present for consideration, give in return) my experiences
of the day to don Juan. He did not let me talk.
October 18, 1970
"I think, I understand, what don Genaro was trying to do the other
night," I said to don Juan. I said that, in order to draw him out. His
continual refusal to talk was unnerving me. Don Juan smiled and shook
his head slowly, as if agreeing with what I had said. I would have
taken
his gesture, as an affirmation, except for the strange glint in his
eyes.
It was, as if his eyes were
laughing at me.
"You don't think, I understand, do you?" I asked compulsively
(conditioned by obsession).
"I suppose you do... you do, in fact. You do understand, that Genaro
was behind you all the time.
However, understanding is not the real point" His statement, that don
Genaro had been behind me all the time, was
shocking to me. I begged him to
explain it. "Your mind is set to seek only one side of this," he said.
He took a
dry twig and moved it in the air. He was not drawing in the air or
making a figure; what
he did, resembled the movements he makes with his fingers, when he
cleans
the debris from a pile of
seeds. His movements were like a soft prodding (poke, urge) or
scratching the air
with the twig. He turned and looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders
automatically in
a gesture of bafflement (puzzlement,
bewilderment).
He
drew closer and repeated his movements, making eight points on the
ground.
He circled the first
point.
"You are here," he said. "We are all here; this is feeling, and we move
from here to here." He circled the second, which he had drawn right
above number one.
He
then moved his twig back and
forth between the two points to portray a heavy traffic. "There are,
however, six more points a man is capable of handling," he
said. "Most men know nothing
about them." He placed his twig between points one and two and pecked
(strike) on the ground
with it. "To move between these two points you call understanding.
You've been
doing that all your life. If
you say, you understand my knowledge, you have done nothing new."
264-265
He then joined some of the eight points to the others with lines; the
result was a long trapezoid
figure, that had eight centers of uneven radiation. Each of these six
remaining points is a world, just like feeling and
understanding are two worlds
for you," he said.
"Why eight points? Why not an infinite number, as in a circle?" I
asked. I drew a circle on the ground. Don Juan smiled.
"As far, as I know, there are only eight points a man is capable of
handling. Perhaps men cannot go
beyond that. And I said handling, not understanding, did you get that?"
His tone was so funny I laughed. He was imitating or rather mocking my
insistence on the exact
usage of words. "Your problem is, that you want to understand
everything, and that is
not possible. If you insist on
understanding, you're not considering your entire lot as a human being.
Your stumbling block is
intact. Therefore, you have done almost nothing in all these years. You
have been shaken out of your
total slumber, true, but that could have been accomplished anyway by
other circumstances." After a pause don Juan told me to get up, because
we were going to the
water canyon. As we were
getting into my car, don Genaro came out from behind the house and
joined us. I drove part of the
way and then we walked into a deep ravine. Don Juan picked a place to
rest in the shade of a large
tree. "You mentioned once," don Juan began, "that a friend of yours had
said,
when the two of you saw a
leaf falling from the very top of a sycamore, that that same leaf will
not fall again from that
same sycamore ever in a whole eternity, remember?" I remembered having
told him about that incident. "We are at the foot of a large tree," he
continued, "and now, if we look
at that other tree in front
of us, we may see a leaf falling from the very top." He signaled me to
look. There was a large tree on the other side of the
gully; its leaves were
yellowish and dry. He urged me with a movement of his head to keep on
looking at the tree. After a
few minutes wait, a leaf cracked loose from the top and began falling
to the ground; it hit other
leaves and branches three times, before it landed in the tall
underbrush. "Did you see it?"
"Yes."
"You would say, that the same leaf will never again fall from that same
tree, true?"
"True."
"To the best of your understanding, that is true. But that is only to
the best of your
understanding. Look again." I automatically looked and saw a leaf
falling. It actually hit the same
leaves and branches, as the
previous one. It was, as if I were looking at an instant television
replay. I followed
the wavy falling of the
leaf, until it landed on the ground. I stood up to find out, if there
were two leaves, but the tall
underbrush around the tree prevented me from seeing, where the leaf had
actually landed. Don Juan laughed and told me to sit down. "Look," he
said, pointing with his head to the top of the tree. "There
goes the same leaf
again." I once more saw a leaf falling in exactly the same pattern, as
the
previous two. When it had landed, I knew don Juan was about to signal
me again to look
at the top of the tree, but
before
he did, I looked up. The leaf was again falling. I realized then,
that I had only seen the
first leaf cracking loose, or, rather, the first time the leaf fell, I
saw it from the instant, it
became detached from the branch; the other three times the leaf was
already falling, when I lifted
my head to look. I told that to don Juan and I urged him to explain,
what he was doing.
"I don't understand how you're making me see a repetition, of what I
had
seen before. What did you
do to me, don Juan?" He laughed, but did not answer and
I insisted, that he should tell me, how
I could see, that leaf
falling over and over. I said, that according to my reason, that was
impossible. Don Juan said, that his reason told him the same, yet I had
witnessed
the leaf falling over and
over. He then turned to don Genaro.
266-267
"Isn't that so?" he asked. Don Genaro did not answer. His eyes were
fixed on me.
"It is impossible!" I said.
"You're chained!" don Juan exclaimed. "You're chained to your reason."
He explained, that the leaf had fallen over and over from that same
tree,
so I would stop trying to
understand. In a confidential tone he told me, that I had the whole
thing pat (exactly right) and
yet my mania always blinded me
at the end. "There's nothing to understand. Understanding is only a
very small
affair, so very small," he
said. At that point don Genaro stood up. He gave a quick glance to don
Juan;
their eyes met and don Juan
looked at the ground in front of him. Don Genaro stood in front of me
and began swinging his arms
at his sides, back and forth in unison.
"Look, little Carlos," he said. "Look! Look!" He made an
extraordinarily sharp, swishing (rustling, hissing) sound. It was the
sound of
something ripping. At the
precise instant the sound happened, I felt a sensation of vacuity
(vacuum) in my
lower abdomen. It was the
terribly anguishing sensation of falling, not painful, but rather
unpleasant and consuming. It
lasted a few seconds and then it subsided, leaving a strange itch in my
knees. But while the
sensation had lasted, I experienced another unbelievable phenomenon. I
saw don Genaro on top of some
mountains, that were perhaps ten miles away. The perception lasted only
a few seconds and
it
happened so unexpectedly, that I did not have time really to examine
it.
I cannot recall, whether I
saw a man-size figure, standing on top of the mountains, or a reduced
image of don Genaro. I cannot
even recall, whether or not it was don Genaro. Yet at that moment I was
certain beyond any doubt,
that I was Seeing
him, standing on top of the mountains. However, the
moment I thought, that I could
not possibly see a man ten miles away, the perception vanished. I
turned
around to look for don Genaro, but he was not there. The bafflement (puzzlement,
bewilder), I
experienced, was as unique, as everything else, that was
happening to me.
My mind
buckled under the strain. I felt utterly disoriented. Don Juan stood up
and made me cover the lower part of my abdomen with
my hands and press my legs
tightly against my body in a squat position. We sat in silence for a
while and then he said, that he
was truly going to refrain from explaining anything to me, because only
by acting can one become a
sorcerer. He recommended, that I leave immediately, otherwise don
Genaro
would probably kill me in
his effort to help me.
"You are going to change directions," he said, "and you'll break your
chains." He said, that there was nothing to understand about his or
about don
Genaro's actions, and that
sorcerers were quite capable of performing extraordinary feats. "Genaro
and I are acting from here," he said and pointed to one of the
centers of radiation in his
diagram. "And it is not the center of understanding, yet you know, what
it is." I wanted to say, that I did not really know, what he was
talking about,
but he did not give me time, stood up and signaled me to follow him. He
began to walk fast and
in no time at all I was
puffing and sweating, trying to keep up with him.
When we were getting
inside the car, I looked around for don Genaro.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"You know, where he is," don Juan snapped at me.
Before I left, I sat down with him, as I always do. I had an
overwhelming urge to ask for
explanations. As don Juan says, explanations are truly my indulgence.
"Where's don Genaro?" I asked cautiously.
"You know where," he said. "Yet you fail every time, because of your
insistence on understanding.
For example, you knew the other night, that Genaro was behind you all
the time; you even turned
around and saw him."
"No," I protested. "No, I didn't know that." I was truthful at that. My
mind refused to intake that sort of stimuli,
as being "real," and yet,
after ten years of apprenticeship with don Juan, my mind could no
longer
uphold my old ordinary
criteria of what is real.
268
However, all the speculations I had thus far,
engendered (procreate, propagate) about the nature
of reality, had been mere intellectual manipulations; the proof was,
that under the pressure of don
Juan and don Genaro's acts, my mind had entered into an impasse (dead
end, cul-de-sac, dead lock). Don
Juan looked at me and there was such sadness in his eyes, that I began
to weep. Tears fell
freely. For the first time in my life, I felt the encumbering (impede,
hinder) weight of
my reason. An indescribable
anguish overtook me. I wailed
involuntarily and embraced him. He gave me a quick blow with his
knuckles on the top of my head. I
felt it like a ripple down my spine. It had a sobering effect. "You
indulge too much," he said
softly.
EPILOGUE
Don
Juan slowly walked around me. He seemed to be deliberating whether
or not to say
something to me. Twice he stopped and seemed to change his mind.
"Whether or not you return is thoroughly unimportant," he finally said.
"However, you now have the
need to live like a warrior. You have always known that, now you're
simply in the position of
having to make use of something, you disregarded before. But you had to
struggle for this knowledge;
it wasn't just given to you;
it wasn't just handed down to you. You had
to beat it out of yourself.
Yet you're still a luminous being. You're still going to die like
everyone else. I once told you,
that there's nothing to change in a Luminous Egg." He was quiet for a
moment. I knew he was looking at me, but I avoided
his eyes. "Nothing has really changed in you," he said.
Carlos
Castaneda "The Journey to Ixtlan"

Index:
Introduction..................................................................................4
Part 1: Stopping the World 1. Reaffirmations From The World Around
Us............................9
2. Erasing Personal
History...........................................................14
3. Losing
Self-Importance.............................................................19
4. Death is an
Adviser....................................................................24
5. Assuming
Responsibility...........................................................30
6. Becoming a
Hunter....................................................................36
7. Being
Inaccessible.....................................................................42
8. Disrupting the Routines of Life
................................................49
9. The Last Battle on Earth
...........................................................53
10. Becoming Accessible to Power
..............................................59
11. The Mood of a
Warrior............................................................68
12. A Battle of
Power.....................................................................77
13. A Warrior's Last
Stand.............................................................87
14. The Gait of
Power....................................................................96
15.
Not-Doing................................................................................110
16. The Ring of Power
..................................................................120
17. A Worthy
Opponent.................................................................127
Part Two: Journey to Ixtlan 18. The Sorcerer's Ring of
Power..................................................137
19. Stopping the
World..................................................................145
20. Journey To
Ixtlan.....................................................................151

Introduction
7
On Saturday, 22 May 1971, I went to Sonora, Mexico, to see don Juan
Matus, a Yaqui Indian sorcerer,
with whom I had been associated since 1961. I thought, that my visit on
that day was going to be in
no way different from the scores of times, I had gone to see him in the
ten years, I had been his
apprentice. The events, that took place on that day, and on the
following
days, however, were
momentous to me. On that occasion my apprenticeship came to an end.
This was not an arbitrary (random)
withdrawal on my part, but a bona fide termination. I have already
presented the case of my apprenticeship in two previous
works: "The Teachings of Don
Juan" and "A Separate Reality". My basic assumption (logic) in both
books has
been, that the articulation (enunciation, clear pronounciation) points,
in learning to be a
sorcerer, were the states of nonordinary reality, produced by the
ingestion of psychotropic
plants. In this respect don Juan was an expert in the use of three such
plants:
Datura inoxia, commonly
known as jimson weed; Lophorphora williamsii, known as peyote; and a
hallucinogenic mushroom of the
genus Psilocybe. My perception of the world through the effects of
those psychotropics
had been so bizarre and
impressive, that I was forced to assume, that such states were the only
avenue to communicating and
learning, what don Juan was attempting to teach me. That assumption
(logic) was
erroneous. For the purposes of avoiding any misunderstandings about my
work with
don Juan, I would like to
clarify the following issues at this point.
8-9
So far I have made no
attempt whatsoever to place don
Juan in a cultural milieu (surroundings, environment). The fact, that
he considers himself to be a
Yaqui Indian, does not mean,
that his knowledge of Sorcery is known to or practiced by the Yaqui
Indians in general. All the conversations, that don Juan and I have had
throughout the
apprenticeship, were conducted in
Spanish, and only because of his thorough command of that language was
I capable of obtaining
complex explanations of his system of beliefs. I have maintained the
practice of referring to that system as sorcery,
and I have also maintained
the practice of referring to don Juan as a sorcerer, because these were
categories he, himself,
used. Since I was capable of writing down most ,of what was said in the
beginning of apprenticeship, and
everything, that was said in the later phases of it, I gathered
voluminous field notes. In order to
render (represent,
presented for consideration, give in return) those notes
readable and still preserve the dramatic unity of
don Juan's teachings, I have
had to edit them, but what I have deleted is, I believe, immaterial to
the points I want to
raise. In the case of my work with don Juan, I have limited my efforts
solely
to viewing him as a sorcerer
and to acquiring membership in his knowledge. For the purpose of
presenting my argument, I must first explain the
basic premise
(subject,
belief) of sorcery,
as don
Juan presented it to me. He said, that for a sorcerer, the world of
everyday life is not real, or
out there, as we believe it is. For a sorcerer, reality, or the world
we all know, is only a
description. For the sake of validating this premise (subject, belief), don Juan
concentrated the best
of his efforts into leading
me to a genuine conviction, that what I held in mind, as the world at
hand, was merely a description
of the world; a description, that had been pounded (beating) into me from
the
moment I was born. He pointed out, that everyone, who comes into
contact
with a child, is a
teacher, who incessantly
describes the world to him, until the moment, when the child is capable
of perceiving the world, as
it is described. According to
don Juan, we have no memory of that
portentous
(pompous,
ominous)
moment, simply
because none of us could possibly have had any point of reference to
compare it to anything
else. From that moment on, however, the child is a member. He knows the
description of the world; and his membership becomes full-fledged, I
suppose, when he is capable
of making all the proper
perceptual interpretations which, by conforming to that description,
validate it. For don Juan, then, the reality of our day-to-day life
consists of an
endless flow of perceptual
interpretations, which we, the individuals, who share a specific
membership, have learned to make in
common. The idea, that the perceptual interpretations, that make up the
world,
have a flow, is congruous (harmonious,
appropriate) with
the fact, that they run uninterruptedly and are rarely, if ever, open
to
question. In fact, the
reality, of the world we know, is so taken for granted, that the basic
premise
(subject,
belief) of sorcery,
that our
reality is merely one of many descriptions, could hardly be taken as a
serious proposition. Fortunately, in the case of my apprenticeship, don
Juan was not
concerned at all with whether or
not I could take his proposition seriously, and he proceeded to
elucidate his points, in spite of
my opposition, my disbelief, and my inability to understand, what he
was
saying. Thus, as a teacher
of sorcery, don Juan endeavored to describe the world to me from the
very first time, we talked. My
difficulty in grasping his concepts and methods stemmed from the fact,
that the units of his
description were alien and incompatible with those of my own. His
contention (verbal struggling, dispute) was, that he was teaching me
how to See, as opposed to
merely "looking", and that Stopping the World was the first step
to Seeing. For years I
had
treated the idea of Stopping the W,orld as a cryptic
metaphor, that really did not
mean anything. It was only during an informal conversation, that took
place towards the end of my
apprenticeship, that I came fully to realize its scope and importance,
as
one of the main
propositions of don Juan's knowledge. Don Juan and I had been talking
about different things in a relaxed and
unstructured manner.
I told
him about a friend of mine and his dilemma with his nine-year-old son.

10-11
The
child, who had been
living with the mother for the past four years, was then living with my
friend, and the problem was,
what to do with him? According to my friend, the child was a misfit in
school; he lacked
concentration and was not interested in anything. He was given to
tantrums, disruptive behavior,
and to running away from home. "Your friend certainly does have a
problem," don Juan said, laughing. I
wanted to keep on telling him all the "terrible" things the child had
done, but he interrupted
me. "There is no need to say any more about that poor little boy," he
said.
"There is no need for you
or for me to regard his actions in our thoughts one way or another."
His manner was abrupt and his tone was firm, but then he smiled.
"What can my friend do?" I asked.
"The worst thing he could do is to force that child to agree with him,"
don Juan said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that that child shouldn't be spanked or scared by his father,
when he doesn't behave the way,
he wants him to."
"How can he teach him anything, if he isn't firm with him?"
"Your friend should let someone else spank the child."
"He can't let anyone else touch his little boy!" I said, surprised at
his suggestion. Don Juan seemed to enjoy my reaction and
giggled.
"Your friend is not a warrior," he said. "If he were, he would know,
that the worst thing, one can do,
is to confront human beings bluntly."
"What does a warrior do, don Juan?"
"A warrior proceeds strategically."
"I still don't understand, what you mean."
"I mean, that if your friend were a warrior he would help his child to
Stop the World."
"How can my friend do that?"
"He would need personal power. He would need to be a sorcerer."
"But he isn't."
"In that case he must use ordinary means to help his son to change his
idea of the world. It is not Stopping the World, but it will work just
the same." I asked him to explain his statements. "If I were your
friend," don Juan said, "I would start by hiring
someone to spank the little
guy. I would go to skid row (трущобы) and hire the worst-looking man, I
could find."
"To scare a little boy?"
"Not just to scare a little boy, you fool. That little fellow must be
stopped, and, being beaten by
his father, won't do it. If one wants to stop our fellow men, one must
always be outside the
circle, that presses them. That way one can always direct the
pressure." The idea was preposterous (foolish, absurd), but somehow
it was appealing to
me. Don Juan was resting his chin on his left palm. His left arm was
propped against his chest on a
wooden box, that served as a low table. His eyes were closed, but his
eyeballs moved. I felt, he was
looking at me through his closed eyelids. The thought scared me.
"Tell me more about, what my friend should do with his little boy," I
said.
"Tell him to go to skid row and very carefully select an ugly-looking
derelict," he went on. Tell him to get a young one. One, who still has
some strength left in
him."
Don Juan then delineated a strange strategy. I was to instruct my
friend to have the man follow him
or wait for him at a place, where he would go with his son.
The man, in
response to a prearranged
cue, to be given after any objectionable behavior on the part of the
child, was supposed to leap
from a hiding place, pick the child up, and spank the living daylights
out of him. "After the man scares him, your friend must help the little
boy regain
his confidence, in any way
he can.
If he follows this procedure three or four times, I assure you,
that that child will feel
differently towards everything. He will change his idea of the world."
"What if the fright injures him?"

12-13
"Fright never injures anyone. What injures the spirit is having someone
always on your back,
beating you, telling you what to do and what not to do. "When that boy
is more contained (restrained), you must tell your friend to do one
last thing for him. He must
find some way to get to a dead child, perhaps in a hospital, or at the
office of a doctor. He must
take his son there and show the dead child to him. He must let him
touch the corpse once with his
left hand, on any place, except the corpse's belly. After the boy does
that, he will be renewed. The
world will never be the same for him." I realized then, that throughout
the years of our association don Juan
had been employing with me,
although on a different scale, the same tactics he was suggesting my
friend should use with his
son. I asked him about it.
He said, that he had been trying all along to
teach me how to Stop the World. "You haven't yet," he said, smiling.
"Nothing seems to work, because
you are very stubborn. If you
were less stubborn, however, by now you would probably have Stopped the
World with any of the
techniques I have taught you."
"What techniques, don Juan?"
"Everything, I have told you to do, was a technique for Stopping the
World."

A few months after that conversation don Juan accomplished, what he had
set out to do, to teach me
to Stop the World. That monumental event in my life compelled (forced) me to
re-examine in detail
my work of ten years. It became evident to me, that my original
assumption (logic) about the role of
psychotropic plants was
erroneous. They were not
the essential feature of the sorcerer's
description of the world, but were
only an aid to cement, so to speak, parts of the description, which I
had been incapable of
perceiving otherwise. My insistence on holding on to my standard
version of reality rendered (represent,
presented for consideration, give in return) me
almost deaf and blind to don Juan's aims. Therefore, it was simply my
lack of sensitivity, which had
fostered (incouraged, cultivated) their use. In reviewing the totality
of my field notes, I
became aware, that don
Juan had given me the bulk of
the new description at the very beginning of our association, in what
he
called "techniques for Stopping the World". I had discarded those parts
of my field notes in
my earlier works, because they
did not pertain (related) to the use of psychotropic plants. I have now
rightfully reinstated them in the
total scope of don Juan's teachings and they comprise (include) the
first
seventeen chapters of this
work. The last three chapters are the field notes, covering the events,
that
culminated in my Stopping the World. In summing up, I can say, that
when I began the apprenticeship,
there was
another reality, that is to
say, there was a sorcery description of the world, which I did not
know. Don Juan, as a sorcerer and a teacher, taught me that
description. The
ten-year apprenticeship, I
have undergone, consisted, therefore, in setting up that unknown
reality,
by unfolding its
description, adding increasingly more complex parts, as I went along.
The termination of the apprenticeship meant, that I had learned a new
description of the world in a
convincing and authentic manner and thus, I had become capable of
eliciting (evoke,
bring
out something latent) a
new perception of the
world, which matched its new description. In other words, I had gained
membership. Don Juan stated, that in order to arrive at Seeing,
one first had to Stop
the World. Stopping the World was indeed an appropriate
rendition
(interpretation) of certain states of Awareness, in which the reality
of
everyday life is altered, because the flow of interpretation, which
ordinarily runs uninterruptedly,
has been stopped by a set of circumstances, alien to that flow. In my
case the set of circumstances,
alien to my normal flow of interpretations, was the sorcery description
of the world. Don Juan's
precondition (knowledge of something in advance), for Stopping the
World, was, that one had to be convinced;
in other words, one had to
learn the new description in a total sense, for the purpose of pitting
(set in direct opposition)
it against the old one, and,
in that way, break the dogmatic certainty, which we all share, that the
validity of our perceptions,
or our reality of the world, is not to be questioned. After Stopping
the World the next step was Seeing. By that don Juan
meant, what I would like to
categorize, as responding to the perceptual solicitations (entice to
immoral action) of a world,
outside the description we have
learned to call reality."
14
My contention
(verbal
struggling, dispute)
is, that all these steps can only be understood in terms
of the description, to which
they belong; and since it was a description, that he endeavored to give
me from the beginning, I
must then let his teachings be the only source of entrance into it.
Thus, I have left don Juan's
words to speak for themselves.
Part 1: Stopping the World - 1. Reaffirmations From
The World Around Us
17
"I understand you know a great deal about plants, sir," I said to the
old Indian in front of
me. A friend of mine had just put us in contact and left the room, and
we
had introduced ourselves to
each other. The old man had told me, that his name was Juan Matus.
"Did your friend tell you that?" he asked casually.
"Yes, he did."
"I pick plants, or rather, they let me pick them," he said softly. We
were in the waiting room of a bus depot in Arizona. I asked him in
very formal Spanish, if he
would allow me to question him. I said, "Would the gentleman
[caballero] permit me to ask some
questions?"
"Caballero," which is derived from the word "caballo," horse,
originally meant horseman or a
nobleman on horseback. He looked at me inquisitively.
"I'm a horseman without a horse," he said with a big smile and then he
added, "I've told you, that
my name is Juan Matus." I liked his smile. I thought that, obviously he
was a man, that could
appreciate directness and I
decided to boldly tackle him with a request. I told him, I was
interested in collecting and studying medicinal
plants. I said, that my special
interest was the uses of the hallucinogenic cactus, peyote, which I had
studied at length at the
university in Los Angeles. I thought, that my presentation was very
serious. I was very contained
and sounded perfectly
credible to myself.
18-19
The
old man shook his head slowly, and I, encouraged by his silence,
added, that it would no doubt
be profitable for us to get together and talk about peyote. It was at
that moment, that he lifted his head and looked me squarely in
the eyes. It was a
formidable look. Yet it was not menacing or awesome in any way. It was
a look, that went through me.
I became tongue-tied at once and could not continue with the harangues
(long, pompous speech)
about myself. That was the
end of our meeting. Yet he left on a note of hope. He said, that
perhaps
I could visit him at his
house someday. It would be difficult to assess the impact of don Juan's
look, if my
inventory of experience is not
somehow brought to bear on the uniqueness of that event. When I began
to study anthropology and
thus met don Juan, I was already an expert in 'getting around'. I had
left my home years before and,
that meant in my evaluation, that I was capable of taking care of
myself. Whenever I was rebuffed (blunt refusal), I could usually cajole
(persuade
by flattery, coax)
my way in or
make
concessions, argue, get angry, or
if nothing succeeded, I would whine or complain; in other words, there
was always something I knew, I
could do under the circumstances, and never in my life had any human
being stopped my momentum so
swiftly and so definitely, as don Juan did that afternoon. But it was
not only a matter of being
silenced; there had been times, when I had been unable to say a word to
my opponent, because of some
inherent respect I felt for him, still my anger or frustration was
manifested in my thoughts. Don
Juan's look, however, numbed me to the point, that I could not think
coherently. I became thoroughly intrigued with that stupendous look and
decided to
search for him.
I prepared myself for six months, after that first
meeting, reading up
on the uses of peyote among
the American Indians, especially about the peyote cult of the Indians
of the Plains. I became
acquainted with every work available, and when I felt, I was ready, I
went back to Arizona.
Saturday, 17 December 1960. I found his house after making long and
taxing (excessive demand, strain) inquiries among the
local Indians. It was early
afternoon, when I arrived and parked in front of it. I saw him sitting
on a wooden milk crate. He
seemed to recognize me and greeted me, as I got out of my car. We
exchanged social courtesies for a while and then, in plain terms, I
confessed, that I had been
very devious (deviating from the usual) with him, the first time we had
met. I had boasted, that I
knew a great deal about
peyote, when in reality I knew nothing about it. He stared at me. His
eyes were very kind. I told him, that for six months I had been reading
to prepare myself for
our meeting and, that this
time I really knew a great deal more. He laughed. Obviously, there was
something in my statement, which was
funny to him. He was laughing
at me and I felt a bit confused and offended. He apparently noticed my
discomfort and assured me, that although I had
had good intentions, there
was really no way to prepare myself for our meeting. I wondered, if it
would have been proper to ask, whether that statement
had any hidden meaning, but I
did not; yet he seemed to be attuned to my feelings and proceeded to
explain, what he had meant. He
said, that my endeavours reminded him of a story about some people a
certain king had persecuted and
killed once upon a time. He said, that in the story the persecuted
people were indistinguishable
from their persecutors, except that they insisted on pronouncing
certain words in a peculiar manner,
proper only to them; that flaw, of course, was the giveaway. The king
posted roadblocks at critical
points, where an official would ask every man passing by, to pronounce
a
key word. Those, who could
pronounce it the way the king pronounced it, would live, but those, who
could not were immediately
put to death. The point of the story was, that one day a young man
decided to prepare himself for
passing the roadblock by learning to pronounce the test-word, just as
the king liked it. Don Juan said, with a broad smile, that in fact it
took the young man
“six months” to master such a
pronunciation. And then came the day of the great test; the young man
very confidently came upon
the roadblock and waited for the official to ask him to pronounce the
word.
20-21
At that point don Juan very dramatically stopped his recounting and
looked at me. His pause was
very studied and seemed a bit corny to me, but I played along. I had
heard the theme of the story
before. It had to do with Jews in Germany and the way one could tell,
who was a Jew by the way they
pronounced certain words. I also knew the punch line: the young man was
going to get caught, because
the official had forgotten the key word and asked him to pronounce
another word, which was very
similar, but which the young man had not learned to say correctly. Don
Juan seemed to be waiting for me, to ask what happened, so I did.
“What happened to him?” I asked, trying to sound
naive and interested
in the story.
“The young man, who was truly foxy,” he said,
“realized, that the
official had forgotten the key
word, and before the man could say anything else, he confessed, that he
had prepared himself for six
months.” He made another pause and looked at me with a
mischievous
glint in his
eyes. This time he had
turned the tables on me. The young man's confession was a new
element
and I no longer knew, how the
story would end.
“Well, what happened then?” I asked, truly
interested.
“The young man was killed instantly, of course,” he
said and broke into
a roaring laughter. I liked very much the way he had entrapped my
interest; above all, I
liked the way he had linked
that story to my own case. In fact, he seemed to have constructed it to
fit me. He was making fun
of me in a very subtle and artistic manner.
I
laughed with him. Afterwards I told him, that no matter how stupid I
sounded, I was really
interested in learning
something about plants. “I like to walk a great
deal,” he said. I
thought he was deliberately changing the topic of conversation to
avoid answering me. I did not want to antagonize him with my
insistence. He asked me,
if I wanted
to go with him on a short
hike in the desert. I eagerly told him, that I would love to walk in
the
desert. “This is no picnic,” he said in a tone of
warning.
I told him, that I wanted very seriously to work with him. I said, that
I
needed information, any
kind of information, on the uses of medicinal herbs, and that I was
willing to pay him for his time
and effort.
“You'll be working for me,” I said. “And
I'll pay you wages.”
“How much would you pay me?” he asked. I detected a
note of greed in
his voice.
“Whatever you think is appropriate,” I said.
“Pay
me for my time . . . with your time,” he said. I thought, he
was a most
peculiar fellow. I told him, I did not
understand, what he meant. He replied,
that there was nothing to say about plants, thus to take my money would
be unthinkable for him. He looked at me piercingly. “What are
you doing
in your pocket?" he asked, frowning. ”Are you
playing with your whanger (thong, whip)?” He was referring to
my taking
notes on a
minute pad, inside the enormous
pockets of my
windbreaker. When I told him, what I was doing, he laughed heartily. I
said, that I did not want to disturb him by writing in front of him.
“If you want to write, write,” he said.
“You don't disturb me.” We
hiked in the surrounding desert, until it was almost dark. He did not
show me any plants, nor did
he talk about them at all. We stopped for a moment to rest by some
large bushes. “Plants are very peculiar things,” he
said without
looking at me. “They
are alive and they
feel.” At the very moment
he made that statement, a strong gust of wind
shook
the desert chaparral around
us. The bushes made a rattling noise. “Do you hear
that?” he asked me,
putting his right hand to his ear, as
if he were aiding his
hearing. “The leaves and the wind are agreeing with
me.”
22-23
I laughed. The friend, who had put us in contact, had already told me
to
watch out, because the old
man was very eccentric. I thought the “agreement with the
leaves” was
one of his
eccentricities. We walked for a while longer, but he still did not show
me any plants,
nor did he pick any of them.
He simply breezed through the bushes touching them gently. Then he came
to a halt and sat down on a
rock and told me to rest and look around. I insisted on talking. Once
more I let him know, that I wanted very much
to learn about plants,
especially peyote. I pleaded with him to become my informant in
exchange for some sort of monetary
reward.
“You don't have to pay me,” he said. “You
can ask me anything, you
want.
I will tell you, what I know
and then, I will tell you, what to do with it.” He asked me,
if
I agreed with the arrangement. I was delighted. Then he
added a cryptic statement:
“Perhaps, there is nothing to learn about plants, because
there is
nothing to say about them.” I did not understand, what he had
said or
what he had meant by it.
“What did you say?” I asked. He repeated the
statement three times and
then the whole area was
shaken by the roar of an Air
Force jet flying low.
“There! The world has just agreed with me,” he
said, putting his left
hand to his ear. I found him very amusing. His laughter was contagious.
“Are you from Arizona, don Juan?” I asked, in an
effort to keep the
conversation, centered around
his being my informant. He looked at me and nodded affirmatively. His
eyes seemed to be tired. I
could see the white underneath his pupils. “Were you born in
this
locality?” He nodded his head again without answering me.
It seemed to be an
affirmative gesture, but it also
seemed to be the nervous head shake of a person, who is thinking.
"And where are you from yourself?" he asked.
"I come from South America," I said.
"That's a big place. Do you come from all of it?" His eyes were
piercing again, as he looked at me. I began to explain the
circumstances of my birth, but he interrup-
ted me. "We are alike in this respect," he said. "I live here now, but
I'm
really a Yaqui from Sonora."
"Is that so! I myself come from ..." He did not let me finish.
"I know, I know," he said. "You are, who you are, from wherever you
are,
as I am a Yaqui from
Sonora." His eyes were very shiny and his laughter was strangely
unsettling. He
made me feel, as if he had
caught me in a lie. I experienced a peculiar sensation of guilt. I had
the feeling, he knew
something, I did not know or did not want to tell. My strange
embarrassment grew. He must have noticed it, for he stood up
and asked me, if I wanted to
go eat in a restaurant in town. Walking back to his home and then
driving into town made me feel
better, but I was not quite
relaxed. I somehow felt threatened, although I could not pinpoint the
reason. I wanted to buy him some beer in the restaurant. He said, that
he never
drank, not even beer. I
laughed to myself. I did not believe him; the friend, who had put us in
contact, had told me, that
'the old man was plastered out of his mind most of the time". I really
did not mind, if he was lying
to me about not drinking. I liked him; there was something very
soothing about his person. I must have had a look of doubt on my face,
for he then went on to
explain, that he used to drink in
his youth, but that one day he simply dropped it. "People hardly ever
realize, that we can cut anything from our lives,
any time, just like that." He snapped his fingers.
"Do you think, that one can stop smoking or drinking that easily?" I
asked.
"Sure!" he said with great conviction." Smoking and drinking are
nothing. Nothing at all, if we want
to drop them." At that very moment the water, that was boiling in the
coffee percolator,
made a loud perking
sound.
24-25
"Hear that!" don Juan exclaimed with a shine in his eyes. "The boiling
water agrees with me." Then he added after a pause, "A man can get
agreements from everything
around him." At that crucial instant the coffee percolator made a truly
obscene (offensive)
gurgling (intermittent, broken sound) sound. He looked at the
percolator and softly said, "Thank you," nodded his
head, and then broke into a
roaring laughter. I was taken aback. His laughter was a bit too loud,
but I was genuinely
amused by it all. My first real session with my "informant" ended then.
He said good-bye
at the door of the
restaurant. I told him, I had to visit some friends and, that I would
like to see him again at the
end of the following week.
"When will you be home?" I asked. He scrutinized me.
"Whenever you come," he replied.
"I don't know exactly, when I can come."
"Just come then and don't worry."
"What if you're not in?"
"I'll be there," he said, smiling, and walked away. I ran after him and
asked him, if he would mind my bringing a camera
with me to take pictures of him
and his house.
"That's out of the question," he said with a frown.
"How about a tape recorder? Would you mind that?"
"I'm afraid there's no possibility of that either." I became annoyed
and began to fret (agitate). I said, I saw no logical
reason for
his refusal. Don Juan shook his head negatively. "Forget it," he said
forcefully. "And if you still want to see me, don't
ever mention it again." I staged a weak final complaint. I said, that
pictures and recordings
were indispensable (necessary) to my work.
He said, that there was only one thing, which was indispensable (necessary) for
anything we did. He called it
"the spirit". "One can't do without the spirit," he said. "And you
don't have it.
Worry about that and not about
pictures."
"What do you ...?"
He interrupted me with a movement of his hand and walked backwards a
few steps. "Be sure to come
back," he said softly and waved good-bye.
2. Erasing Personal
History
26-27
Thursday, 22 December 1960.
Don Juan was sitting on the floor, by the door of his house, with his
back against the wall. He
turned over a wooden milk crate and asked me to sit down and make
myself at home. I offered him
some cigarettes. I had brought a carton of them. He said, he did not
smoke, but he accepted the gift.
We talked about the coldness of the desert nights and other ordinary
topics of conversation. I asked him, if I was interfering with his
normal routine. He looked at
me with a sort of frown and
said,
he had no routines, and that I could stay with him all afternoon,
if I wanted to. I had prepared some genealogy and kinship charts, that
I wanted to fill
out with his help. I had
also compiled, from the ethnographic literature, a long list of culture
traits, that were purported
to belong to the Indians of the area. I wanted to go through the list
with him and mark all the
items, that were familiar to him. I began with the kinship charts.
"What did you call your father?" I asked.
"I called him Dad," he said with a very serious face. I felt a little
bit annoyed, but I proceeded on the assumption (logic), that he
had not understood. I showed him the chart and explained, that one
space was for the father
and another space was for
the mother. I gave, as an example, the different words, used in English
and in Spanish for father and
mother. I thought, that perhaps, I should have taken mother first.
"What did you call your mother?" I asked.
"I called her Mom," he replied in a naive tone.
"I mean, what other words did you use to call your father and mother?
How did you call them?" I
said, trying to be patient and polite. He scratched his head and looked
at me with a stupid expression.
"Golly!" he said. "You got me there. Let me think." After a moment's
hesitation he seemed to remember something and I got
ready to write. "Well," he said, as if
he were involved in serious thought, "how else
did I call them? I called
them Hey, hey, Dad! Hey, hey, Mom!" I laughed against my desire. His
expression was truly comical and at
that moment I did not know,
whether he was a preposterous (foolish, absurd) old man, pulling my leg, or
whether he was
really a simpleton. Using
all the patience, I had, I explained to him, that these were very
serious
questions and that it was
very important for my work to fill out the forms. I tried to make him
understand the idea of a
genealogy and personal history.
"What were the names of your father and mother?" I asked. He looked at
me with clear kind eyes.
"Don't waste your time with that crap," he said softly, but with
unsuspected force. I did not know, what to say; it was, as if someone
else had uttered those
words.
A moment before, he
had been a fumbling (proceeding awkwardly) stupid Indian scratching his
head, and then, in an
instant, he had reversed the
roles; I was the stupid one, and he was staring at me with an
indescribable look, that was not a
look of arrogance, or defiance (challenge), or hatred, or contempt (scornful,
despise).
His eyes were
kind and clear and
penetrating.
"I don't have any personal history," he said after a long pause. "One
day I found out, that personal
history was no longer necessary for me and, like drinking,
I dropped
it." I did not quite understand, what he meant by that. I suddenly felt
ill
at ease, threatened. I
reminded him, that he had assured me, that it was all right to ask him
questions. He reiterated (repeated),
that he did not mind at all. "I don't have personal history any more,"
he said and looked at me
probingly.
28-29
"I dropped it one day,
when I felt, it was no longer necessary." I stared at him, trying to
detect the hidden meanings of his words.
"How can one drop one's personal history?" I asked in an argumentative
mood.
"One must first have the desire to drop it," he said. "And then one
must proceed harmoniously to
chop it off, little by little."
"Why should anyone have such a desire?" I exclaimed. I had a terribly
strong attachment to my personal history. My family
roots were deep. I honestly
felt, that without them my life had no continuity or purpose. "Perhaps,
you should tell me, what you mean by dropping one's personal
history," I said.
"To do away with it, that's what I mean," he replied cuttingly. I
insisted, that I must not have understood the proposition.
"Take you for instance," I said. "You are a Yaqui. You can't change
that."
"Am I?" he asked, smiling. "How do you know that?"
"True!" I said. "I can't know that with certainty, at this point, but
you know it and that is, what
counts. That's what makes it personal history." I felt, I had driven a
hard nail in.
"The fact, that I know, whether I am a Yaqui or not, does not make it
personal history," he replied.
"Only when someone else knows that, does it become personal history.
And
I assure you, that noone
will ever know that for sure." I had written down, what he had said, in
a clumsy way. I stopped writing
and looked at him. I could
not figure him out. I mentally ran through my impressions of him; the
mysterious and unprecedented
way he had looked at me during our first meeting, the charm,
with which
he had claimed, that he
received agreement from everything around him, his annoying humour and
his alertness, his look of
bona fide stupidity, when
I
asked about his father and mother, and then
the unsuspected force of his
statements, which had snapped me apart. "You don't know, what I am, do
you?" he said, as if he were reading my
thoughts. "You will never know,
who or what I am, because I don't have a personal history." He asked
me, if I had a father. I told him, I did. He said, that my father
was an example of, what he
had in mind. He urged me to remember, what my father thought of me.
"Your father knows everything about you," he said. "So he has you all
figured out. He knows, who you
are and what you do, and there is no power on earth, that can make him
change his mind about
you." Don Juan said, that everybody, that knew me, had an idea about
me, and
that I kept feeding that idea
with everything, I did. "Don't you see?" he asked dramatically. "You
must renew your personal
history by telling your
parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the
other hand, if you have no
personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or
disillusioned with your acts. And above all, noone pins (locate
precisely) you down
with their thoughts." Suddenly, the idea became clear in my mind. I had
almost known it
myself, but I have never examined
it. Not having personal history was indeed an appealing concept, at
least on the intellectual
level; it gave me, however, a sense of loneliness, which I found
threatening and distasteful. I
wanted to discuss my feelings with him, but I kept myself in check;
something was terribly
incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings) in the situation at hand. I
felt ridiculous, trying to get
into a philosophical argument
with an old Indian, who obviously did not have the "sophistication" of
a
university student. Somehow
he had led me away from my original intention of asking him about his
genealogy.
"I don't know, how we ended up talking about this, when all, I wanted,
was
some names for my charts," I said, trying to steer the conversation
back to the topic,
I
wanted.
"It's terribly simple," he said. "'The way, we ended up talking about
it,
was, because I said, that to
ask questions about one's past is a bunch of crap." His tone was firm.
I felt, there was no way to make him budge (alter position), so I
changed my tactics.
30-31
"Is this idea of, not having personal history, something, that the
Yaquis
do?" I asked.
"It's something, that I do."
"Where did you learn it?"
"I learned it during the course of my life."
"Did your father teach you that?"
"No. Let's say, that I learned it by myself, and now I am going to give
you its secret, so you won't
go away empty-handed today." He lowered his voice to a dramatic
whisper. I laughed at his
histrionics (exaggerated
emotional behavior).
I had to admit, that he
was stupendous at that. The thought crossed my mind, that I was in the
presence of a born actor. "Write it down," he said patronizingly. "Why
not? You seem to be more
comfortable writing." I looked at him and my eyes must have betrayed my
confusion. He slapped
his thighs and laughed with
great delight. "It is best to erase all personal history," he said
slowly, as if
giving me time to write it down
in my clumsy way, "because that would make us free from the
encumbering (impede,
hindering)
thoughts of other
people." I could not believe, that he was actually saying that. I had a
very
confusing moment. He must have
read in my face my inner turmoil and used it immediately. "Take
yourself, for instance," he went on saying. "Right now you don't
know, whether you are coming
or going. And that is so, because I have erased my personal history. I
have, little by little,
created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure, who
I am or what I do."
"But you, yourself, know, who you are, don't you?" I interjected.
"You bet I ... don't," he exclaimed and rolled on the floor, laughing
at my surprised look. He had paused long enough to make me believe,
that he was going to say,
that he did know, as I was
anticipating it. His subterfuge (evasive, deceitful tactics, artifice)
was very threatening to me. I
actually
became afraid. "That is the little secret, I am going to give you
today," he said in a
low voice. "Nobody knows my
personal history. Nobody knows, who I am or what I do. Not even I." He
squinted his eyes. He was not looking at me, but beyond me, over my
right shoulder. He was sitting
cross-legged, his back was straight and yet he seemed to be so relaxed.
At that moment he was the
very picture of fierceness (ferocious, intense, ardent). I fancied him
to be an Indian chief, a
"red-skinned warrior" in the
romantic frontier sagas of my childhood. My romanticism carried me away
and the most insidious
feeling of ambivalence (simultaneous
existence of conflicting feelings) enveloped me. I could
sincerely say, that I
liked
him a great deal and, in the
same breath, I could say, that I was deadly afraid of him. He
maintained
that strange stare for a long moment. "How can I know, who I am, when I
am all this?" he said, sweeping the
surroundings with a gesture of
his head. Then he glanced at me and smiled. "Little by little you must
create a fog around yourself; you must erase
everything around you, until
nothing can be taken for granted, until nothing is any longer for sure,
or real. Your problem now
is, that you're too real. Your endeavours are too real; your moods are
too real. Don't take things
so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself."
"What for?" I asked belligerently (marked by hostile behaviour). It
became clear to me then, that he was prescribing behavior for me. All
my life I had reached a
breaking point, when someone attempted to tell me what to do; the mere
thought of being told, what to
do, put me immediately on the defensive.
"You said, that you
wanted to learn about plants," he said calmly. "Do
you want to get something for
nothing? What do you think this is? We agreed, that you would ask me
questions and I'd tell you, what
I know. If you don't like it, there is nothing else we can say to each
other." His terrible directness made me feel peeved (annoyed, contrary), and begrudgingly (envy
for possession) I
conceded (admit as true, acknowledge), that he was right. "Let's put it
this way then," he went on.
"If you want to learn about
plants, since there is really
nothing to say about them, you must, among other things, erase your
personal history."
"How?" I asked.
"Begin with simple things, such as not revealing, what you really do.
Then you must leave everyone,
who knows you well. This way you'll build up a fog around yourself."
32-33
"But that's absurd," I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me? What's
wrong with that?"
"What's wrong is, that once they know you, you are an affair, taken for
granted, and, from that moment
on, you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts.
I personally
like the ultimate freedom of
being unknown. Noone knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people
know you, for
instance."
"But that would be lying."
"I'm not concerned with lies or truths," he said severely. "Lies are
lies only, if you have personal
history." I argued, that I did not like to deliberately mystify people
or mislead
them. His reply was, that I
misled everybody anyway. The old man had touched a sore spot in my
life. I did not pause to ask
him, what he meant by that or
how he knew, that I mystified people all the time. I simply reacted to
his statement, defending
myself by means of an explanation. I said, that I was painfully
aware,
that my family and my friends
believed, I was unreliable, when in reality I had never told a lie in
my
life.
"You always knew, how to lie," he said. "The only thing, that was
missing,
was, that you didn't know,
why to do it. Now you do."
I protested. "Don't you see, that I'm really sick and tired of people
thinking, that
I'm unreliable?" I said.
"But you are unreliable," he replied with conviction.
"Damn it to hell, man, I am not!" I exclaimed. My mood, instead of
forcing him into seriousness, made him laugh
hysterically. I really despised
the old man for all his cockiness (nonsense). Unfortunately, he was
right about
me. After a while, I calmed down and he continued talking. "When one
does not have personal history,"
he explained, "nothing, that
one says, can be taken for a
lie. Your trouble is, that you have to explain everything to everybody,
compulsively
(conditioned
by obsession),
and at the
same time you want to keep the freshness, the newness of what you do.
Well, since you can't be
excited after explaining everything you've done, you lie, in order to
keep on going." I was truly bewildered by the scope of our
conversation. I wrote down
all the details of our
exchange in the best way I could
, concentrating on, what he was saying,
rather than pausing to
deliberate on my prejudices or on his meanings. "From now on," he said,
"you must simply show people, whatever you care
to show them, but without
ever telling exactly, how you've done it."
"I can't keep secrets!" I exclaimed. "What you are saying is useless to
me."
"Then change!" he said cuttingly and with a fierce glint in his eyes.
He looked like a strange wild animal. And yet he was so coherent in his
thoughts and so verbal. My
annoyance gave way to a state of irritating confusion. "You see," he
went on, "we only have two alternatives; we either take
everything for sure and real,
or
we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with
ourselves and with the world. If
we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around
us, a very exciting and
mysterious state, in which nobody knows, where the rabbit will pop out,
not even ourselves." I contended (discuss,
dispute, fight),
that erasing personal history would only increase our
sensation of insecurity. "When nothing is for sure, we remain alert,
perennially on our toes," he
said. "It is more exciting
not to know, which bush the rabbit is hiding behind, than to behave, as
though we know
everything." He did not say another word for a very long time; perhaps
an hour went
by in complete silence. I
did not know, what to ask. Finally he got up and asked me to drive him
to the nearby town. I did not know why, but our conversation had
drained me. I felt like
going to sleep. He asked me to
stop on the way and told me, that if I wanted to relax, I had to climb
to the flat top of a small
hill on the side of the road and lie down on my stomach with my head
towards the east. He seemed to have a feeling of urgency. I did not
want to argue or
perhaps I was too tired to even
speak. I climbed the hill and did, as he had prescribed.
34
I slept only two or three minutes, but it was sufficient to have my
energy renewed. We drove to the centre of town, where he told me to let
him off. "Come back,"
he said, as he stepped out of the car. "Be sure to come
back."
3. Losing
Self-Importance
35
I had the opportunity of discussing my two previous visits to don Juan
with the friend, who had put
us in contact. It was his opinion, that I was wasting my time.
I related
to him, in every detail,
the scope of our conversations. He thought, I was exaggerating and
romanticizing a silly old
fogey (old-fashioned habits). There was very little room in me for
romanticizing such a preposterous (foolish, absurd)
old man. I sincerely felt,
that his criticisms about my personality had seriously undermined my
liking him. Yet, I had to admit,
that they had always been apropos (appropriate,
pertinent),
sharply delineated, and true to the
letter. The crux (root) of my dilemma at that point was my
unwillingness to accept,
that don Juan was very capable
of disrupting all my preconceptions about the world, and my
unwillingness to agree with my friend,
who believed, that "the old Indian was just nuts". I felt compelled (forced) to pay him another visit,
before I made up my mind.
Wednesday, 28 December 1960.
Immediately after I arrived at his house, he took me for a walk in the
desert chaparral. He did not
even look at the bag of groceries, that I had brought him. He seemed to
have been waiting for
me. We walked for hours. He did not collect or show me any plants. He
did,
however, teach me an
"appropriate form of walking". He said, that I had to curl my fingers
gently, as I walked, so I would
keep my attention on the trail and the surroundings.
36-37
He
claimed, that my
ordinary way of walking was
debilitating and, that one should never carry anything in the hands. If
things had to be carried one
should use a knapsack or any sort of carrying net or shoulder bag. His
idea was, that by forcing the
hands into a specific position, one was capable of greater stamina and
greater awareness. I saw no point in arguing and curled my fingers, as
he had prescribed
and kept on walking. My
awareness was in no way different, nor was my stamina. We started our
hike in the morning and we stopped to rest around noon.
I was perspiring and tried
to drink from my canteen, but he stopped me by saying, that it was
better to have only a sip of
water. He cut some leaves from a small yellowish bush and chewed them.
He gave me some and remarked,
that they were excellent, and if I chewed them slowly, my thirst would
vanish. It did not, but I was
not uncomfortable either. He seemed to have read my thoughts and
explained, that I had not felt
the benefits of the "right way
of walking" or the benefits of chewing the leaves, because I was young
and strong, and my body did
not notice anything, because it was a bit stupid. He laughed. I was not
in a laughing mood and that seemed to amuse him
even more. He corrected his
previous statement, saying, that my body was not really stupid, but
somehow dormant. At that moment an enormous crow flew right over us,
cawing. That
startled me and I began to laugh.
I thought, that the occasion called for laughter, but to my utter
amazement he shook my arm
vigorously and hushed me up. He had a most serious expression. "That
was not a joke," he said severely, as if I knew, what he was
talking about. I asked for an explanation. I told him, that it was
incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings), that my
laughing at the crow had
made him angry, when we had laughed at the coffee percolator.
"What you saw was not just a crow” He exclaimed.
"But I saw it and it was a crow," I insisted.
"You saw nothing, you fool," he said in a gruff (harsh, stern, rough) voice. His rudeness was
uncalled for. I told him, that I did not like to make
people angry and, that perhaps, it would be better, if I left, since he
did not seem to be in a
mood to have company. He laughed uproariously, as if I were a clown,
performing for him.
My
annoyance and embarrassment
grew in proportion. "You're very violent," he commented casually.
"You're taking yourself
too seriously."
"But weren't you doing the same?" I interjected. "Taking yourself
seriously, when you got angry at
me?"
He said, that to get angry at me, was the farthest thing from his mind.
He looked at me
piercingly. "What you saw was not an agreement from the world," he
said.
"Crows
flying or cawing are never an
agreement. That was an omen!"

"An omen of what?"
"A very important indication about you," he replied cryptically. At
that very instant the wind blew the dry branch of a bush right to
our feet. "That was an agreement!" he exclaimed and looked at me with
shiny eyes
and broke into a belly
laugh. I had the feeling, that he was teasing me by making up the rules
of his
strange game, as we went
along, thus it was all right for him to laugh, but not for me. My
annoyance mushroomed again and I
told him, what I thought of him. He was not cross or offended at all.
He laughed and his laughter caused
me even more anguish and
frustration. I thought, that he was deliberately humiliating me. I
decided right then, that I had had
my fill of "field work". I stood up and said, that I wanted to start
walking back to his house,
because I had to leave for Los
Angeles. "Sit down!" he said imperatively. "You get peeved (annoyed) like an old lady. You
cannot leave now, because
we're not through yet." I hated him. I thought he was a contemptuous
(scornful, despise) man. He began to sing an
idiotic Mexican folk song. He was obviously
imitating some popular singer. He
elongated certain syllables and contracted others and made the song
into a most farcical affair. It
was so comical, that I ended up laughing. "You see, you laugh at the
stupid song," he said.
38-39
"But the man, who
sings it that way, and those, who
pay to listen to him, are not laughing; they think, it is serious."
"What do you mean?" I asked. I thought, he had deliberately concocted
the example, to tell me, that I
had laughed at the crow,
because I had not taken it seriously, the same way I had not taken the
song seriously. But he
baffled
(puzzled, bewildered) me
again. He said, I was
like the singer and the people, who
liked his songs, conceited (high opinion about himself, vain) and
deadly serious about some nonsense, that noone, in his right mind,
should
give a damn about. He then recapitulated, as if to refresh my memory,
all he had said
before on the topic of "learning
about plants". He stressed emphatically (positive,
striking, definite),
that if I really wanted to
learn, I had to remodel most of
my behavior. My sense of annoyance grew, until I had to make a supreme
effort to
even take notes.
"You take yourself too seriously," he said slowly. "You are too damn
important in your own mind.
That must be changed ! You are so goddamn important, that
you feel
justified to be annoyed with
everything. You're so damn important, that you can afford to leave, if
things don't go your way. I
suppose you think, that shows you have character. That's nonsense!
You're weak, and conceited (high
opinion about
himself, vain)
!" I tried to stage a protest, but he did not budge (alter position).
He pointed out, that in
the course of my life, I had
not ever finished anything, because of that sense of disproportionate
importance, that I attached to
myself. I was flabbergasted at the certainty, with which he made his
statements.
They were true, of course, and that made me feel not only angry, but
also threatened. "Self-importance is another thing, that must
be
dropped, just like
personal history," he said in a
dramatic tone. I certainly did not want to argue with him. It was
obvious, that I was
at a terrible
disadvantage; he was not going to walk back to his house, until he was
ready and I did
not know the way. I had to
stay with him.
He made a strange and sudden movement, he sort of sniffed the air
around him, his head shook
slightly and rhythmically. He seemed to be in a state of unusual
alertness. He turned and stared at
me with a look of bewilderment and curiosity. His eyes swept up and
down my body, as if he were
looking for something specific; then he stood up abruptly and began to
walk fast. He was almost
running. I followed him. He kept a very accelerated pace for nearly an
hour. Finally he stopped by a rocky hill and we sat in the shade of a
bush.
The trotting had exhausted me
completely, although my mood was better. It was strange, the way I had
changed. I felt almost elated,
but when we had started to trot, after our argument, I was furious with
him.
"This is very weird," I said,"but I feel really good." I heard the
cawing of a crow in the distance. He lifted his finger to
his right ear and smiled.
"That was an omen," he said. A small rock tumbled downhill and made a
crashing sound, when it landed
in the chaparral. He laughed out loud and pointed his finger in the
direction of the
sound. "And that was an agreement," he said. He then asked me, if I was
ready to talk about my self-importance. I
laughed; my feeling of anger
seemed so far away, that I could not even conceive (think, consider,
formulate, become posessed), how I had become so
cross with him.
"I can't understand, what's happening to me," I said. "I got angry and
now I don't know, why I am not
angry any more."
"The world around us is very mysterious," he said. "It doesn't yield
(provide, give in return, surrender in defeat, submit, relinquish)
its secrets easily." I liked his cryptic statements. They were
challenging and mysterious. I
could not determine, whether
they were filled with hidden meanings or whether they were just plain
nonsense. "If you ever come back to the desert here," he said, "stay
away from
that rocky hill, where we
stopped today. Avoid it like the plague."
"Why? What's the matter?"
"This is not the time to explain it," he said. "Now we are concerned
with losing
self-importance. As long, as you feel, that you are the most important
thing in the world
you cannot really appreciate
the world around you.
40-41
You are like a horse with blinkers, all you see
is yourself, apart from
everything else." He examined me for a moment. "I am going to talk to
my little friend here,"
he
said, pointing to a
small plant. He knelt in front of it and began to caress it and to talk
to it. I did
not understand, what he was
saying at first, but then he switched languages and talked to the plant
in Spanish. He babbled
inanities (absurd remarks) for a while. Then he stood up. "It doesn't
matter, what you say to a plant," he said. "You can just as
well make up words; what's important is the feeling of liking it, and
treating it as an
equal." He explained, that a man, who gathers plants must apologize
every time,
for taking them, and must
assure them, that someday his own body will serve as food for them.
"So, all in all, the plant and ourselves are even," he said. "Neither
we, nor they are more or less
important. "Come on, talk to the little plant," he urged me. "Tell it,
that you
don't feel important any
more."
I went as far, as kneeling in front of the plant, but I
could not bring
myself to speak to it. I felt
ridiculous and laughed. I was not angry, however. Don Juan patted me on
the back and said, that it was all right, that at
least, I had contained my
temper. "From now on, talk to the little plants," he said. "Talk, until
you lose
all sense of importance. Talk to them, until you can do it in front of
others. Go to those hills over there and practice by yourself." I asked
if it was all right to talk to the plants silently, in my mind. He
laughed and tapped my head. "No!" he said. "You must talk to them in a
loud and clear voice, if you
want them to answer
you." I walked to the area in question, laughing to myself about his
eccentricities. I even tried to talk
to the plants, but my feeling of being ludicrous (absurd) was overpowering.
After what I thought was an
appropriate wait, I went back to where don Juan was. I had the
certainty,
that he knew, I had not
talked to the plants. He did not look at me.
He signaled me to sit down by him. "Watch me carefully," he said. "I'm
going to have a talk with my little
friend." He knelt down in front of a small plant and for a few minutes
he moved
and contorted his body,
talking and laughing. I thought he was out of his mind. "This little
plant told me to tell you, that she is good to eat,"
he
said, as he got up from his
kneeling position. "She said, that a handful of them would keep a man
healthy. She also said, that
there is a batch of them growing over there." Don Juan pointed to an
area on a hillside perhaps two hundred yards
away. "Let's go and find out," he said. I laughed at his
histrionics (exaggerated
emotional behavior).
I was sure, we would find the plants,
because he was an expert in the
terrain and knew, where the edible and medicinal plants were.
As
we walked towards the area in question, he told me casually, that I
should take notice of the
plant, because it was both a food and a medicine. I asked him, half in
jest, if the plant had just told him that. He
stopped walking and examined me
with an air of disbelief. He shook his head from side to side. "Ah!" he
exclaimed, laughing. "Your cleverness makes you more silly,
than I thought. How can the
little plant tell me now, what I've known all my life?" He proceeded
then to explain, that he knew all along the different
properties of that specific
plant, and that the plant had just told him, that there was a batch of
them growing in the area, he
had pointed to, and that she did not mind, if he told me that. Upon
arriving at the hillside I found a whole cluster of the same
plants. I wanted to laugh, but he
did not give me time. He wanted me to thank the batch of plants. I felt
excruciatingly
selfconscious and could not bring myself to do it. He smiled
benevolently and made another of his cryptic statements.
42
He
repeated it three or four
times, as if to give me time to figure out its meaning. "The world
around us is a mystery," he said. "And men are no better,
than anything else. If a little
plant is generous with us, we must thank her, or perhaps she will not
let us go." The way he looked at me, when he said that, gave me a
chill.
I
hurriedly
leaned over the plants and
said, "Thank you," in a loud voice. He began to laugh in controlled and
quiet spurts (short burst of energy or activity).
We walked for another hour and then started on our way
back to his
house. At a certain time I
dropped behind and he had to wait for me. He checked my fingers to see,
if I had curled them. I had
not.
He told me imperatively, that whenever I walked with him, I
had to
observe and copy his
mannerisms or not come along at all. "I can't be waiting for you, as
though you're a child," he said in a
scolding tone. That statement sunk me into the depths of embarrassment
and
bewilderment. How could it be possible,
that such an old man could walk so much better, than I? I thought, I
was
athletic and strong, and yet
he had actually had to wait for me to catch up with him. I curled my
fingers and, strangely enough, I was able to keep his
tremendous pace without any effort.
In fact, at times I felt, that my hands were pulling me forward. I felt
elated. I was quite happy walking inanely (silly, foolish) with the
strange old
Indian. I began to talk and
asked repeatedly, if he would show me some peyote plants. He looked at
me, but did not say a
word.
4. Death is an
Adviser
43
Wednesday, 25
January 1961.
"Would you teach me someday about peyote?" I asked. He did not answer
and, as he had done before, simply looked at me, as if
I were crazy. I had mentioned the topic to him, in casual conversation,
various times
already, and every time he
frowned and shook his head. It was not an affirmative or a negative
gesture; it was rather a
gesture of despair and disbelief. He stood up abruptly. We had been
sitting on the ground in front of his
house. An almost
imperceptible shake of his head was the invitation to follow him. We
went into the desert chaparral in a southerly direction. He
mentioned repeatedly, as we walked,
that I had to be aware of the uselessness of my self-importance and of
my personal history.
"Your friends," he said, turning to me abruptly. "Those, who have known
you for a long time, you
must leave them quickly." I thought, he was crazy and his insistence
was idiotic, but I did not
say anything. He peered at me
and began to laugh. After a long hike we came to a halt. I was about to
sit down to rest,
but he told me to go some
twenty yards away and talk to a batch of plants in a loud and clear
voice. I felt ill at ease and
apprehensive. His weird demands were more, than
I could bear and I told
him once more, that I could
not speak to plants, because I felt ridiculous. His only comment was,
that my feeling of
self-importance was immense.
44-45
He seemed to have made a sudden decision
and said, that I should not try
to talk to plants, until I felt easy and natural about it. "You want to
learn about them and yet you don't want to do any work,"
he said accusingly. "What are you trying to do?" My explanation was,
that I wanted bona fide information about the uses
of plants, thus I had asked
him to be my informant. I had even offered to pay him for his time and
trouble. "You should take the money," I said. "This way we both would
feel
better. I could then ask you
anything, I want to, because you would be working for me and I would
pay
you for it. What do you
think of that?"
He looked at me contemptuously (scornful,
despise)
and made an obscene (неприличный) sound with his
mouth, making his lower lip and
his tongue vibrate by exhaling with great force. "That's, what I think
of it," he said and laughed hysterically at the
look of utmost surprise, that I
must have had on my face. It was obvious to me, that he was not a man,
I could easily contend (discuss,
dispute, fight) with.
In spite of his age, he was
ebullient (overflowing with enthusiasm, exuberance, excitement) and
unbelievably strong. I had had the idea, that, being so
old, he could have been the
perfect "informant" for me. Old people, I had been led to believe, made
the best informants, because
they were too feeble to do anything else, except talk. Don Juan, on the
other hand, was a miserable
subject. I felt, he was unmanageable and dangerous. The friend, who had
introduced us, was right. He
was an eccentric old Indian; and, although he was not plastered out of
his mind most of the time, as
my friend had told me, he was worse yet, he was crazy. I again felt the
terrible doubt and
apprehension, I had experienced before. I thought, I had overcome that.
In fact, I had had no trouble
at all, convincing myself, that I wanted to visit him again. The idea
had
crept into my mind,
however, that perhaps I was a bit crazy myself, when I realized, that I
liked to be with him. His
idea, that my feeling of self-importance was an obstacle, had really
made
an impact on me. But all
that was apparently only an intellectual exercise on my part; the
moment I was confronted with his
odd behavior, I began to experience apprehension and I wanted to leave.
I said, that I believed, we were so different, that there was no
possibility of our getting along.
"One of us has to change," he said, staring at the ground. "And you
know who." He began humming a Mexican folk song, then lifted his head
abruptly
and looked at me. His eyes were fierce and burning. I wanted to look
away or close my
eyes, but to my utter amazement
I could not break away from his gaze. He asked me to tell him, what I
had seen in his eyes. I said, that I saw
nothing, but he insisted,
that I had to voice, what his eyes had made me feel aware of. I
struggled to make him understand,
that the only thing, his eyes made me aware of, was my embarrassment,
and
that the way, he was looking
at me, was very discomforting. He did not let go. He kept a steady
stare. It was not an outright
menacing or mean look; it was
rather a mysterious, but unpleasant gaze. He asked me, if he reminded
me of a bird.
"A bird?" I exclaimed. He giggled like a child and moved his eyes away
from me.
"Yes," he said softly. "A bird, a very funny bird!" He locked his gaze
on me again and commanded me to remember. He said
with an extraordinary
conviction, that
he 'Knew' I had seen that look before. My feelings of the moment were,
that the old man provoked me, against my
honest desire, every time
he opened his mouth.
I stared back at him in obvious defiance (challenge). Instead
of getting angry, he began to
laugh. He slapped his thigh and yelled, as if he were riding a wild
horse. Then he became serious
and told me, that it was of utmost importance, that I stop fighting him
and remember, that funny bird
he was talking about. "Look into my eyes," he said. His eyes were
extraordinarily fierce. There was a feeling about them,
that actually reminded me of
something, but I was not sure, what it was.
I pondered upon it for a
moment and then, I had a sudden
realization; it was not the shape of his eyes, nor the shape of his
head, but some cold fierceness
in his gaze, that had reminded me of the look in the eyes of a falcon.
At the very moment of that
realization, he was looking at me askew (crooked, oblique, to one
side)
and for an instant my mind
experienced a total chaos.
46-47
I
thought, I had Seen a falcon's features, instead of don Juan's. The
image
was too fleeting and I was
too upset, to have paid more attention to it. In a very excited tone I
told him, that I could have sworn, I had Seen
the features of a falcon on
his face. He had another attack of laughter. I have Seen the look in
the eyes of falcons.
I used to hunt them when I
was a boy, and, in the
opinion of my grandfather, I was good. He had a Leghorn chicken farm
and
falcons were a menace to
his business. Shooting them was not only functional, but also
"right". I
had forgotten until that
moment, that the fierceness of their eyes had haunted me for years, but
it was so far in my past,
that I thought, I had lost the memory of it.
"I used to hunt falcons," I said.
"I know it," don Juan replied matter-of-factly. His tone carried such a
certainty, that I began to laugh. I thought, he
was a preposterous (foolish,
absurd)
fellow. He had the gall (impudence, bitterness) to sound, as if he
knew, I had hunted falcons. I felt
supremely contemptuous (scornful,
despise)
of
him. "Why do you get so angry?" he asked in a tone of genuine concern.
I did
not know why. He began to probe me in a very unusual manner. He
asked me to look at him again
and tell him about the "very funny bird" he reminded me of. I struggled
against him and out of
contempt (scornful,
despise)
said, that there was nothing to talk about. Then I felt
compelled (forced) to ask him, why he had
said, he knew, I used to hunt falcons. Instead of answering me, he
again
commented on my behavior. He
said, I was a violent fellow, that was capable of "frothing at the
mouth"
at the drop of a hat. I
protested, that that was not true; I had always had the idea, I was
rather congenial (sympathetic) and easygoing. I said, it was his fault,
for forcing me out of control
with his unexpected words and
actions. "Why the anger?" he asked. I took stock of my feelings and
reactions. I really had no need to be
angry with him. He again insisted, that I should look into his eyes and
tell him about
the "strange falcon". He had
changed his wording; he had said before, "a very funny bird," then he
substituted it with "strange
falcon". The change in wording summed up a change in my own mood. I had
suddenly become sad. He squinted his eyes, until they were two slits,
and said in an
overdramatic voice, that he was Seeing a very strange falcon.
He repeated his statement three times,
as if he were actually Seeing
it there in front of him. "Don't you remember it?" he asked. I did not
remember anything of the sort.
"What's strange about the falcon?" I asked.
"You must tell me that," he replied. I insisted, that I had no way of
knowing, what he was referring to,
therefore I could not tell him
anything.
"Don't fight me!" he said. "Fight your sluggishness and remember." I
seriously struggled for a moment to figure him out. It did not occur
to me, that I could, just as
well, have tried to remember. "There was a time, when you saw a lot of
birds," he said, as though
cueing me. I told him, that when I was a child, I had lived on a farm
and had hunted
hundreds of birds. He said, that, if that was the case, I should not
have any difficulty
remembering all the funny birds,
I had hunted. He looked at me with a question in his eyes, as if he had
just given me
the last clue.
"I have hunted so many birds," I said, "that I can't recall anything
about them."
'This bird is special," he replied almost in a whisper. "This bird is a
falcon."
I became involved again in figuring out, what he was driving at. Was he
teasing me? Was he serious?
After a long interval he urged me again to remember. I felt, that it
was
useless for me to try to
end his play; the only other thing, I could do, was to join him. "Are
you talking about a falcon that I have hunted?" I asked.
"Yes," he whispered with his eyes closed.
"So this happened, when I was a boy?"
48-49
"Yes."
"But you said you're Seeing a falcon in front of you
now."
"I am."
"What are you trying to do to me?"
"I'm trying to make you remember."
"What? For heaven's sakes!"
"A falcon swift, as light," he said, looking at me in the eyes, I felt
my heart had stopped. "Now look at me," he said. But I did not. I heard
his voice, as a faint sound.
Some stupendous
recollection had taken me
wholly. The
white falcon! It all began with my grandfather's explosion
of anger, upon taking a
count of his young Leghorn
chickens. They had been disappearing in a steady and disconcerting
manner. He
personally organized
and carried out a meticulous vigil (watch during
sleeping hours),
and after days of steady watching,
we finally saw a big white
bird flying away with a young Leghorn chicken in its claws. The bird
was fast and apparently knew
its route. It swooped down from behind some trees, grabbed the chicken
and flew away through an
opening between two branches. It happened so fast, that my grandfather
had hardly seen it, but I did and I knew, that it was indeed a falcon.

My grandfather said, that if,
that was the case, it had to be an albino. We started a campaign
against
the albino falcon and twice I thought, I
had gotten it. It even
dropped its prey, but it got away. It was too fast for me. It was also
very intelligent; it never
came back to hunt on my grandfather's farm. I would have forgotten
about it, had my grandfather not needled me to
hunt the bird. For two months
I chased the albino falcon all over the valley, where I lived. I
learned
its habits and I could
almost intuit its route of flight, yet its speed and the suddenness of
its appearance would always
baffle
(puzzle, bewilder)
me, I could boast, that I had prevented it from taking its prey,
perhaps every time we had
met, but I could never bag it. In the two months, that I carried on the
strange war against the albino
falcon, I came close to it
only once. I had been chasing it all day and I was tired. I had sat
down to rest and fell asleep
under a tall eucalyptus tree. The sudden cry of a falcon woke me up. I
opened my eyes without
making any other movement and I saw a whitish bird perched in the
highest branches of the
eucalyptus tree. It was the albino falcon. The chase was over. It was
going to be a difficult shot;
I was lying on my back and the bird had its back turned to me. There
was a sudden gust of wind and
I used it to muffle the noise of lifting my 22 long rifle to
take aim.
I wanted to wait, until the
bird had turned or until it had begun to fly, so I would not miss it.
But the albino bird remained
motionless. In order to take a better shot, I
would have needed to move,
and the falcon was too fast
for that. I thought, that my best alternative was to wait. And I did, a
long, interminable (endless, continual) time. Perhaps, what affected
me, was the long wait, or
perhaps it was the
loneliness of the spot, where the
bird and I were;
I suddenly felt a chill up my spine and, in an
unprecedented action, I stood up and
left. I did not even look to see, if the bird had flown away. I never
attached any significance to my final act with the albino
falcon. However, it was terribly
strange, that I did not shoot it. I had shot dozens of falcons before.
On the farm, where
I grew up,
shooting birds or hunting any kind of animal was a matter of course.
Don Juan listened attentively, as I told him the story of the albino
falcon.
"How did you know about the white falcon?" I asked, when I had
finished.
"I saw it," he replied.
"Where?"
"Right here in front of you."
I was not in an argumentative mood any more. "What does all this mean?"
I asked.
He
said, that a white bird like that, was an omen, and that, not shooting
it down, was the only right
thing to do. "Your death
gave you a little warning," he said with a mysterious
tone."It always comes, as a
chill."
"What are you talking about?" I said nervously. He really made me
nervous with his spooky talk.
"You know a lot about birds," he said. "You've killed too many of them.
50-51
You know how to wait. You
have waited patiently for hours. I know that. I am Seeing it." His words caused a
great turmoil in me. I thought that, what annoyed me
the most about him, was his
certainty. I could not stand his dogmatic assuredness about issues in
my own life, that I was not
sure of myself. I became engulfed in my feelings of dejection and I did
not see him leaning over me,
until he actually had whispered something in my ear. I did not
understand at first and he repeated
it.
He told me to turn around casually and look at a boulder to my
left. He said, that my death was
there staring at me, and if I turned, when he signaled me, I might be
capable of seeing it. He signaled me with his eyes. I turned and I
thought, I saw a nickering
movement over the boulder. A chill ran through my body, the muscles of
my abdomen
contracted involuntarily and I
experienced a jolt, a spasm. After a moment I regained my composure and
I explained away the
sensation of Seeing the flickering shadow, as
an optical illusion, caused
by turning my head so
abruptly.

"Death is our eternal companion," don Juan said with a most serious
air. "It is always to our left,
at an arm's length. It was watching you, when you were watching the
white falcon; it whispered in
your ear and you felt its chill, as you felt it today. It has always
been watching you. It always will, until the day it taps you." He
extended his arm and touched me lightly on the shoulder and at the
same time he made a deep
clicking sound with his tongue. The effect was devastating; I almost
got sick to my stomach. "You're the boy, who stalked game and waited
patiently, as death waits;
you know very well, that
death is to our left, the same way you were to the left of the white
falcon." His words had the strange power to plunge me into an
unwarranted
terror; my only defence was my
compulsion to commit to writing, everything he said. "How can anyone
feel so important, when we know, that death is stalking
us?" he asked. I had the feeling, my answer was not really needed.
I could not have
said anything anyway, a new
mood had possessed me. "The thing to do, when you're impatient," he
proceeded, "is to turn to
your left and ask advice from
your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped, if your death
makes a gesture to you, or if
you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling, that your
companion is there watching
you." He leaned over again and whispered in my ear, that, if I turned
to my
left suddenly, upon seeing his
signal,
I could again see my death on the boulder.

His eyes gave me an almost imperceptible signal, but I did not dare to
look. I told him, that I believed him and that he did not have to press
the
issue any further, because I
was terrified. He had one of his roaring belly laughs. He replied, that
the issue of our death was never pressed far enough.
And I argued, that it would be
meaningless for me to dwell upon my death, since such a thought would
only bring discomfort and
fear. "You're full of crap!" he exclaimed. "Death is the only wise
adviser,
that we have. Whenever you
feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about
to be annihilated, turn to
your death and ask, if that is so. Your death will tell you, that
you're
wrong; that nothing really
matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, "I haven't touched
you yet". He shook his head and seemed to be waiting for my reply. I
had none. My
thoughts were running
rampant
(unrestrained, widespread, extravagant). He had delivered a
staggering blow to my egotism. The
pettiness, of being annoyed with him,
was monstrous in the light of my death. I had the feeling, he was fully
aware of my change of mood. He had
turned the tide in his favor. He
smiled and began to hum a Mexican tune. "Yes," he said softly after a
long pause. "One of us here has to
change, and fast. One of us here
has to learn again, that death is the hunter, and that it is always to
one's left. One of us here
has to ask death's advice and drop the cursed pettiness.
52
That belongs to
men, that live their lives,
as if death will never tap them." We remained quiet for more, than an
hour, then we started walking again.
We meandered (wander
aimlessly, follow winding course) in the desert
chaparral for hours. I did not ask him, if there was any purpose to it;
it did not matter. Somehow he had made me recapture an old feeling,
something I had quite
forgotten, the sheer joy of
just moving around without attaching any intellectual purpose to it. I
wanted him to let me catch a glimpse of, whatever I had seen on the
boulder.
"Let me see that shadow again," I said.
"You mean your death, don't you?" he replied with a touch of irony in
his voice. For a moment I felt reluctant to voice it.
"Yes," I finally said. "Let me see my death once again."
"Not now," he said. "You're too solid."
"I beg your pardon?" He began to laugh and for some unknown reason his
laughter was no
longer offensive and insidious,
as it had been in the past. I did not think, that it was different,
from
the point of view of its
pitch, or its loudness, or the spirit of it; the new element was my
mood. In view of my impending
death, my fears and annoyance were nonsense. "Let me talk to plants
then," I said. He roared with laughter.
"You're too good now," he said, still laughing. "You go from one
extreme to the other. Be
still. There is no need to talk to plants, unless you want to know
their
secrets, and for that, you need the
most Unbending Intent. So save your good wishes. There is no need to
see your death either. It is
sufficient, that you feel its presence around you."
5. Assuming
Responsibility
53
Tuesday,
9 April 1961. I arrived at don Juan's house in the early morning on
Sunday, April 9. "Good morning, don Juan," I said. "Am I glad
to
see you!"
He looked at me and broke into a soft laughter. He had walked to my
car,
as I was parking it and
held the door open, while I gathered some packages of food, that
I
had
brought for him. We walked to the house and sat down by the door. This
was the first time I had been really aware of, what I was doing
there. For three months
I had
actually looked forward to going back to the "field". It was, as if a
time bomb, set within myself,
had exploded and suddenly I had remembered something transcendental
(mystical) to
me. I had remembered, that
once in my life I had been very patient and very efficient. Before don
Juan could say anything, I asked him the question, that had
been pressing hard in my mind.
For three months I had been obsessed with the memory of the albino
falcon. How did he know about it,
when
I myself had forgotten? He laughed, but did not answer. I
pleaded with him to tell me. "It was nothing," he said with his usual
conviction. "Anyone could tell,
that you're strange. You're just numb, that's all." I felt, that he was
again getting me off guard and pushing me into a
corner, in which I did not care
to be.
"Is it possible to see our death?" I asked, trying to remain within the
topic.
"Sure," he said, laughing. "It is here with us."

54-55
"'How do you know that?"
"I'm an old man; with age one learns all kinds of things."
"I know lots of old people, but they have never learned this. How come
you did?"
"Well, let's say, that I know all kinds of things, because I don't have
a
personal history, and
because I don't feel more important, than anything else, and because my
death is sitting with me
right here." He extended his left arm and moved his fingers, as if he
were actually
petting something. I laughed. I knew, where he was leading me. The old
devil was going to
clobber
(maul, strike violently and repeatedly) me again, probably
with my self-importance, but I did not mind this time.
The memory, that
once I had had a superb
patience, had filled me with a strange, quiet euphoria, that had
dispelled (dispense,
scatter) most
of my feelings of
nervousness and intolerance towards don Juan; what I felt instead was a
sensation of wonder about
his acts.
"Who are you, really?" I asked. He seemed surprised. He opened his eyes
to an enormous size and blinked
like a bird, closing his
eyelids, as if they were a shutters. They came down and went up again
and
his eyes remained in focus.
His manoeuvre startled me and I recoiled, and he laughed with childlike
abandon.
"For you I am Juan Matus, and I am at your service," he said with
exaggerated politeness. I then asked my other burning question.
"What did you do to me, the
first day we met?" I was referring to the look, he had given me.
"Me? Nothing," he replied with a tone of innocence. I described to him
the way, I had felt, when he had looked at me and how
incongruous (inharmonious,
incompatible with surroundings) it
had been for
me to be tongue-tied by it. He laughed, until tears rolled down his
cheeks. I again felt a surge of
animosity
(active
hostility)
towards him. I
thought, that I was being so serious and thoughtful, and he was being
so
'Indian' in his coarse
ways. He apparently detected my mood and stopped laughing all of a
sudden. After a long hesitation I told him, that his laughter had
annoyed me,
because I was seriously trying
to understand, what had happened to me. "There is nothing to
understand," he replied, undisturbed. I reviewed
for him the sequence of unusual events, that had taken place,
since I had met him,
starting with the mysterious look he had given me, to remembering the
albino falcon and seeing on
the boulder the shadow, he had said was my death.
"Why are you doing all this to me?" I asked. There was no
belligerence (aggressive
behaviour) in my question.
I was only
curious, as to why
it was me in particular.
"You asked me to tell you, what I know about plants," he said. I
noticed a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. He sounded, as if he were
humoring me.
"But what you have told me, so far, has nothing to do with plants," I
protested. His reply was, that it took time to learn about them. My
feeling was, that it was useless to argue with him. I realized then
the total idiocy of the easy
and absurd resolutions, I had made. While I was at home, I had promised
myself, that I was never going
to lose my temper or feel annoyed with don Juan. In the actual
situation, however, the minute he
rebuffed (blunt
refusal) me,
I had another attack of peevishness (annoyed, contrary). I felt there was no
way for me to interact with
him and that angered me.

"Think of your death now," don Juan said suddenly. "It is at arm's
length. It may tap you any
moment, so really you have no time for crappy thoughts and moods. None
of us have time for
that. "Do you want to know, what I did to you, the first day we met? I
saw you,
and I saw, that you thought,
you were lying to me. But you weren't, not really." I told him, that
his explanation confused me even more. He replied, that
that was the reason, he did
not want to explain his acts, and that explanations were not necessary.
He said, that the only thing,
that counted, was action, acting instead of talking. He pulled out a
straw mat and lay down, propping his head up with a
bundle.
56-57
He made himself
comfortable and then he told me, that there was another thing, I had to
perform, if I really wanted to
learn about plants. "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
(presented factually) 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."
I argued, in sincerity, that in my opinion, that was an unreal world,
because it was arbitrarily (random)
made, by taking an idealized form of behavior and saying, that that was
the way to proceed. I told him the story of my father, who used to give
me endless lectures
about the wonders of a
healthy mind in a healthy body, and how young men should temper their
bodies with hardships and
with feats of athletic competition. He was a young man; when I was
eight years old, he was only
twenty-seven. During the summertime, as a rule, he would come from the
city, where he taught
school, to spend at least a month with me at my grandparents' farm,
where I lived. It was a hellish
month for me. I told don Juan one instance of my father's behavior,
that
I thought would apply to
the situation at hand. Almost immediately upon arriving at the farm my
father would insist on
taking a long walk with me
at his side, so we could talk things over, and while we were talking,
he
would make plans for us to
go swimming, every day at six A.M. At night he would set the alarm for
five-thirty to have plenty
of time, because at six sharp we had to be in the water. And when the
alarm would go off in the
morning, he would jump out of bed, put on his glasses, go to the window
and look out. I had even memorized the ensuing (following) monologue.
"Uhm ... A bit cloudy today. Listen, I'm going to lie down again for
just five minutes. O.K.? No more, than five! I'm just going to stretch
my muscles and fully wake
up."
He would invariably fall asleep again, until ten, sometimes until noon.
I told don Juan, that, what annoyed me, was his refusal to give up his
obviously phoney resolutions.
He would repeat this ritual every morning, until I would finally hurt
his feelings by refusing to
set the alarm clock.
"They were not phony resolutions," don Juan said, obviously taking
sides with my father. "He just
didn't know, how to get out of bed, that's all"
"At any rate," I said, "I'm always leery (suspicious) of unreal
resolutions."
"What would be a resolution, that is real then?" don Juan asked with a
coy smile.
"If my father would have said to himself, that he could not go swimming
at six in the morning, but
perhaps at three in the afternoon."
"Your resolutions injure the spirit," don Juan said with an air of
great seriousness.
58-59
I thought, I even detected a note of sadness in his tone. We were quiet
for a long time. My
peevishness (annoyed, contrary) had vanished. I thought of
my father. "He didn't want to swim at three in the afternoon. Don't you
see?" don
Juan said.
His words made me jump. I told him, that my father was weak, and so was
his world of ideal acts,
that he never performed. I
was almost shouting. Don Juan did not say a word. He shook his head
slowly in a rhythmical
way. I felt terribly sad. Thinking of my father always gave me a
consuming feeling. "You think, you were stronger, don't you?" he asked
in a casual tone. I said, I did, and I began to tell him all the
emotional turmoil, that my
father had put me through,
but he interrupted me. "Was he mean to you?" he asked.
"No."
"Was he petty with you?"
"No."
"Did he do all he could for you?"
"Yes."
"Then what was wrong with him?"
Again, I began to shout, that he was weak, but I caught myself and
lowered my voice. I felt a bit
ludicrous (absurd) being cross-examined by
don Juan.
"What are you doing all this for?" I said. "We were supposed to be
talking about plants." I felt more annoyed and despondent (dishearted,
dejected), than ever. I told him, that he
had no
business or the remotest
qualifications to pass judgment on my behavior, and he exploded into a
belly laugh.
"When you get angry, you always feel righteous, don't you?" he said and
blinked like a bird. He was right. I had the tendency to feel justified
at being angry.
"Let's not talk about my father," I said, feigning (pretending,
fictitious)
a happy mood. "Let's
talk about plants."
"No, let's talk about your father," he insisted. "That is the place to
begin today. If you think,
that you were so much stronger, than he, why didn't you go swimming at
six in the morning in his
place?" I told him, that I could not believe, he was seriously asking
me that. I
had always thought, that
swimming at six in the morning was my father's business and not mine.
"It was also your business, from the moment you accepted his idea," don
Juan snapped at me. I said, that I had never accepted it, that I had
always known my father
was not truthful to himself.
Don Juan asked me matter-of-factly, why I had not voiced my opinions at
the time.
"You don't tell your father things like that," I said, as a weak
explanation.
"Why not?"
"That was not done in my house, that's all."
"You have done worse things in your house," he declared like a judge
from the bench. "The only
thing, you never did, was to shine your spirit." There was such a
devastating force in his words, that they echoed in my
mind. He brought all my
defenses down. I could not argue with him. I took refuge in writing my
notes, I tried a last feeble
explanation and said, that all my life I had encountered people of my
father's kind, who had, like
my father, hooked me somehow into their schemes, and, as a rule, I had
always been left dangling. "You are complaining," he said softly. "You
have been complaining all
your life, because you don't
assume responsibility for your decisions. If you would have assumed
responsibility for your
father's idea of swimming at six in the morning, you would have swum
by yourself, if necessary, or
you would have told him to go to hell, the first time he opened his
mouth, after you knew his
devices. But you didn't say anything. Therefore, you were as weak, as
your father. To assume the responsibility of one's decisions means,
that one is
ready to die for them."
"Wait, wait!" I said. "You are twisting this around." He did not let me
finish. I was going to tell him, that I had used my
father only as an example of
an unrealistic way of acting.
60-61
And that nobody, in his right mind, would
be willing to die for such an
idiotic thing.
"It doesn't matter, what the decision is," he said. "Nothing could be
more or less serious, than
anything else. Don't you see? In a world, where death is the hunter,
there are no small or big
decisions. There are only decisions, that we make in the face of our
inevitable death." I could not say anything. Perhaps an hour went by.
Don Juan was
perfectly motionless on his mat,
although he was not sleeping. "Why do you tell me all this, don Juan?"
I asked. "Why are you doing
this to me?"
"You came to me," he said. "No, that was not the case, you were brought
to me. And I have had a
gesture with you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You could have had
a gesture with your father by swimming for him, but
you didn't, perhaps, because
you were too young. I have lived longer, than you. I have nothing
pending (not finished). There is no hurry in my
life, therefore I can properly have a gesture with you."
In the afternoon we went for a hike. I easily kept his pace and
marveled again at his stupendous
physical prowess (outstanding
courage, daring).
He walked so nimbly and with such sure steps, that
next to him, I was like a child.
We went in an easterly direction. I noticed then, that he did not like
to talk, while he walked.
If
I
spoke to him, he would stop walking, in order to answer me. After a
couple of hours we came to a hill; he sat down and signaled me
to sit by him. He announced
in a mock-dramatic tone, that he was going to tell me a story. He said,
that once upon a time there was a young man, a destitute (poor) Indian,
who lived among the white
men in a city. He had no home, no relatives, no friends. He had come
into the city to find his
fortune and had found only misery and pain. From time to time he made a
few cents, working like a
mule, barely enough for a morsel; otherwise he had to beg or steal
food. Don Juan said, that one day
the young man went to the market place. He walked up and down the
street in a haze, his eyes wild
upon seeing all the good things, that were gathered there. He was so
frantic, that he did not see,
where he was walking, and ended up tripping over some baskets and
falling on top of an old man. The old man was carrying four enormous
gourds and had just sat down to
rest and eat. Don Juan
smiled knowingly and said, that the old man found it quite strange,
that
the young man had stumbled
on him. He was not angry at being disturbed, but amazed at why this
particular young man had fallen
on top of him. The young man, on the other hand, was angry and told him
to get out of his way. He
was not concerned at all about the ultimate reason for their meeting.
He had not noticed, that their
paths had actually crossed. Don Juan mimicked the motions of someone,
going after something, that was
rolling over. He said, that
the old man's gourds had turned over and were rolling down the street.
When the young man saw the
gourds, he thought, he had found his food for the day. He helped the
old man up and insisted on helping him carry the heavy
gourds. The old man told him,
that he was on his way to his home in the mountains and the young man
insisted on going with him,
at least part of the way. The old man took the road to the mountains
and, as they walked, he gave
the young man part of the
food, he had bought at the market. The young man ate to his heart's
content and when
he was quite
satisfied, he began to notice how heavy the gourds were, and clutched
them tightly. Don Juan opened his eyes, smiled with a devilish grin and
said, that
the young man asked, "What
do you carry in these gourds?" The old man did not answer, but told
him,
that he was going to show
him a companion or friend, who could alleviate his sorrows, give him
advice and wisdom about the
ways of the world. Don Juan made a majestic gesture with both hands and
said, that the old
man summoned the most
beautiful deer, that the young man had ever seen. The deer was so tame,
that it came to him and
walked around him. It glittered and shone.

62-63
The
young man was spellbound
and knew right away, that it
was a "spirit deer". The old man told him then, that if he wished to
have that friend and its wisdom,
all he had to do, was to let go of the gourds. Don Juan's grin (forced
smile) portrayed ambition; he said, that the young man's petty
desires were pricked (punctured), upon
hearing such a request. Don Juan's eyes became small and devilish, as
he
voiced the young man's
question: "What do you have in these four enormous gourds?"
Don Juan said, that the old man very serenely (calmly) replied, that he
was
carrying food: "pinole" and water.
He stopped narrating the story and walked around in a circle a couple
of times. I did not know, what
he was doing. But apparently, it was part of the story. The circle
seemed to portray the
deliberations of the young man.
Don Juan said, that, of course, the young man had not believed a word.
He calculated, that if the old
man, who was obviously a wizard, was willing to give a "spirit deer"
for his gourds, then the
gourds must have been filled with power beyond belief. Don Juan
contorted his face again into a devilish grin and said, that
the young man declared, that he wanted to have the gourds. There was a
long pause, that seemed
to mark the end of the story.
Don Juan remained quiet, yet I was sure,
he wanted me to ask about it,
and I did. "What happened to the young man?"
"He took the gourds," he replied with a smile of satisfaction. There
was another long pause. I laughed. I thought, that this had been a
real "Indian story". Don Juan's eyes were shining, as he smiled at me.
There was an air of
innocence about him. He began
to laugh in soft spurts (short burst of energy or activity)
and asked me, "Don't you want to know about the
gourds?"
"Of course I want to know. I thought, that was the end of the story."
"Oh no," he said with a mischievous light in his eyes. "The young man
took his gourds and ran away
to an isolated place and opened them."
"What did he find?" I asked. Don Juan glanced at me and I had the
feeling, he was aware of my
mental gymnastics. He shook his
head and chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself).
"Well," I urged him. "Were the gourds empty?"
"There was only food and water inside the gourds," he said. "And the
young man, in a fit of anger,
smashed them against the rocks."
I said, that his reaction was only natural - anyone in his position
would have done the same. Don Juan's reply was, that the young man was
a
fool, who did not know,
what he was looking for. He did
not know, what a power was, so he could not tell, whether or not he had
found it. He had not taken
responsibility for his decision, therefore he was angered by his
blunder (mistake). He expected to gain
something and got nothing instead. Don Juan speculated, that if I were
the young man and if I had
followed my inclinations, I would have ended up angry and remorseful,
and would, no doubt, have
spent the rest of my life feeling sorry for myself, for what
I had lost.
Then he explained the behavior of the old man. He had cleverly fed the
young man, so as to give him
the "daring of a satisfied stomach", thus the young man, upon finding
only food in the gourds,
smashed them in a fit of anger. "Had he been aware of his decision and
assumed responsibility for it,"
don Juan said,
"he would
have taken the food and would've been more, than satisfied with it. And
perhaps, he might even have
realized, that that food was power too."
6. Becoming a
Hunter
64-65
Friday,
23 June 1961. As soon, as I sat down, I bombarded don Juan with
questions. He did nor
answer me and made an
impatient gesture with his hand to be quiet. He seemed to be in a
serious mood. "I was thinking, that you haven't changed at all in the
time you've been
trying to learn about
plants," he said in an accusing tone.
He began reviewing in a loud voice all the changes of personality, he
had recommended, I should
undertake. I told him, that I had considered the matter very seriously
and found, that I could not
possibly fulfill them, because each of them ran contrary to my core. He
replied, that to merely
consider them was not enough, and, that whatever, he had said to me,
was
not said just for fun. I
again insisted that, although I had done very little in matters of
adjusting my personal life to
his ideas, I really wanted to learn the uses of plants. After a long,
uneasy silence I boldly asked him, "Would you teach me
about peyote, don Juan?"
He said, that my intentions alone were not enough, and that to know
about peyote - he called it
"Mescalito" for the first time - was a serious matter. It seemed, that
there was nothing else to
say. In the early evening, however, he set up a test for me; he put
forth a
problem, without giving me
any clues to its solution: to find a beneficial place or spot in the
area right in front of his
door, where we always sat to talk, a spot, where I could allegedly feel
perfectly happy and
invigorated. During the course of the night, while I attempted to find
the "spot" by
rolling on the ground, I
twice detected a change of coloration on the uniformly dark dirt floor
of the designated area. The problem exhausted me and I fell asleep on
one of the places, where I
had detected the change in
colour. In the morning don Juan woke me up and announced, that I had
had
a very successful
experience. Not only had I found the beneficial spot, I was looking
for,
but I had also found its
opposite, an enemy or negative spot and the colours associated with
both.
Saturday, 24 June 1961. We went into the desert chaparral in the early
morning. As we walked,
don Juan explained to me, that
finding a "beneficial" or an " enemy" spot was an important need for a
man in the wilderness. I
wanted to steer the conversation to the topic of peyote, but he flatly
refused to talk about it. He
warned me, that there should be no mention of it, unless he himself
brought up the subject. We sat down to rest in the shade of some tall
bushes in an area of
thick vegetation. The desert
chaparral around us was not quite dry yet; it was a warm day and the
flies kept on pestering me, but
they did not seem to bother don Juan. I wondered, whether he was just
ignoring them, but then I
noticed, they were not landing on his face at all. "Sometimes it is
necessary to find a beneficial spot quickly, out in
the open," don Juan went on.
"Or maybe it is necessary to determine quickly, whether or not the
spot,
where one is about to rest, is
a bad one. One time, we sat to rest by some hill and you got very angry
and upset. That spot was
your enemy.

A
little crow gave you a warning, remember?" I remembered, that he had
made a point of, telling me to avoid that area
in the future. I also
remembered, that I had become angry, because he had not let me laugh.
"I thought, that the crow, that flew overhead, was an omen for me
alone,"
he said. "I would never
have suspected, that the crows were friendly towards you too."
"What are you talking about?"
"The
crow was an omen," he went on. "If you knew about crows, you would
have avoided the place like
the plague.
66-67
Crows are not always available to give warning though, and
you must learn to find, by
yourself, a proper place to camp or to rest." After a long pause don
Juan suddenly turned to me and said, that in
order to find the proper place
to rest, all, I had to do, was to cross my eyes. He gave me a knowing
look
and in a confidential tone
told me, that I had done precisely that, when I was rolling on his
porch,
and thus I had been capable
of finding two spots and their colours. He let me know, that he was
impressed by my
accomplishment.
"I really don't know, what I did," I said.
"You
crossed your eyes," he said emphatically (positive,
striking, definite). "That's
the technique;
you must have done that,
although you don't remember it."
Don
Juan then described the technique, which he said took years to
perfect, and which consisted of
gradually forcing the eyes to see separately the same image. The lack
of image conversion entailed
a double perception of the world; this double perception, according to
don Juan, allowed one the
opportunity of judging changes in the surroundings, which the eyes were
ordinarily incapable of
perceiving.
Don Juan coaxed
(persuade) me to try it. He assured
me, that it was not injurious
to the sight. He said, that I
should begin by looking in short glances, almost with the corners of my
eyes. He pointed
to a large
bush and showed me how. I had a strange feeling, seeing don Juan's eyes
taking incredibly fast
glances at the bush.
His eyes reminded me of those of a shifty animal,
that cannot look
straight. We walked for perhaps an hour, while I tried not to focus my
sight on
anything. Then don Juan asked
me to start separating the images, perceived by each of my eyes. After
another hour or so I got a
terrible headache and had to stop.
"Do you think, you could find, by yourself, a proper place for us to
rest?" he asked. I had no idea, what the criterion for a "proper place"
was. He patiently
explained, that looking in
short glances allowed the eyes to pick out unusual sights.
"Such as what?" I asked.
"They are not sights proper," he said. 'They are more like feelings. If
you look at a bush or a
tree or a rock, where you may like to rest, your eyes can make you feel
whether or not, that's the
best resting place." I again urged him to describe, what those feelings
were, but he either
could not describe them or he
simply did not want to. He said, that I should practice by picking out
a
place and then he would
tell me, whether or not my eyes were working. At one moment I caught
sight of, what I thought was, a pebble, which
reflected light. I could not see
it, if I focused my eyes on it, but if I swept the area with fast
glances, I could detect a sort of
faint glitter.
I
pointed out the place to don Juan. It was in the
middle of an open unshaded flat
area, devoid of thick bushes. He laughed uproariously and then asked
me,
why I had picked that
specific spot. I explained, that I was seeing a glitter. "I don't care,
what you see," he said. "You could be seeing an elephant.
How you feel is the
important issue." I did not feel anything at all. He gave me a
mysterious look and said,
that he wished, he could
oblige me and sit down to rest with me there, but he was going to sit
somewhere else, while I tested
my choice. I sat down, while he looked at me curiously from a distance
of thirty or
forty feet away. After a
few minutes he began to laugh loudly. Somehow his laughter made me
nervous. It put me on edge. I
felt, he was making fun of me and I got angry. I began to question my
motives for being there. There
was definitely something wrong, in the way my total endeavor with don
Juan was proceeding. I felt,
that I was just a pawn in his clutches. Suddenly, don Juan charged at
me, at full speed, and pulled me by the
arm, dragging me bodily for
ten or twelve feet. He helped me to stand up and wiped some
perspiration from his forehead. I
noticed then, that he had exerted himself to his limit. He patted me on
the back and said, that I had
picked the wrong place and that he had had to rescue me in a real
hurry, because he saw, that the
spot, where I was sitting, was about to take over my entire feelings. I
laughed. The image of don
Juan, charging at me, was very funny. He had actually run like a young
man.
68-69
His feet moved, as if he
were grabbing the soft reddish dirt of the desert, in order to catapult
himself over me. I had seen
him laughing at me and then, in a matter of seconds, he was dragging me
by the arm. After a while he urged me to continue looking for a proper
place to
rest. We kept on walking, but I
did not detect or "feel" anything at all. Perhaps, if I had been more
relaxed, I would have noticed
or felt something. I had ceased, however, to be angry with him. Finally
he pointed to some rocks
and we came to a halt. "Don't feel disappointed," don Juan said. "It
takes a long time to
train the eyes properly." I did not say anything. I was not going to be
disappointed about
something, I did not understand at
all. Yet, I had to admit, that three times already, since I had begun
to
visit don Juan, I had become
very angry and had been agitated to the point of being nearly ill,
while
sitting on places, that he
called bad. "The trick is to feel with your eyes." he said. "Your
problem now is,
that you don't know, what to
feel. It'll come to you, though, with practice."
"Perhaps you should tell me, don Juan, what I am supposed to feel."
"That's impossible."
"Why?"
"Noone
can tell you, what you are supposed to feel. It is not heat, or
light, or glare, or
colour. It is something else."
"Can't
you describe it?"
"No.
All I can do is give you the technique. Once you learn to
separate the images and see two of
everything, you must focus your attention in the area between the two
images. Any change, worthy
of notice, would take place there, in that area."
"What
kind of changes are they?"
"That
is not important. The feeling, that you get, is what counts.
Every
man is different. You saw
glitter today, but that did not mean anything, because the feeling was
missing. I can't tell you
how to feel. You must learn that yourself."
We rested in silence for some time. Don Juan covered his face with his
hat and remained motionless,
as if he were asleep. I became absorbed in writing my notes, until he
made a sudden movement,
that made me jolt. He sat up abruptly and faced me, frowning.
"You have a knack (talant) for hunting," he said. "And that's, what you
should
learn, hunting. We are not
going to talk about plants any more."
He puffed out his jaws for an instant, then candidly (frank, without
prejudice) added, "I don't
think we ever have, anyway,
have we?" and laughed.
We spent the rest of the day walking in every direction, while he gave
me an unbelievably detailed
explanation about rattlesnakes. The way they nest, the way
they move
around, their seasonal habits,
their quirks
(oddity)
of behavior. Then he proceeded to corroborate (confirm) each
of the
points, he had made, and
finally
he caught and killed a large snake; he cut its head off,
cleaned its viscera, skinned it,
and roasted the meat. His movements had such a grace and skill, that it
was a sheer pleasure just to
be around him. I had listened to him and watched him, spellbound. My
concentration had been so
complete, that the rest of the world had practically vanished for me.
Eating the snake was a hard re-entry into the world of ordinary
affairs. I felt nauseated, when I
began to chew a bite of snake meat. It was an ill-founded queasiness
(causing nausea),
as the meat was
delicious, but my stomach seemed to be rather an independent unit. I
could hardly
swallow at all.
I thought,
don Juan would have a heart attack from laughing so hard. Afterwards we
sat down for a leisurely rest in the shade of some rocks.
I began to work on my
notes, and the quantity of them made me realize, that he had given me
an
astonishing amount of
information about rattlesnakes.
"Your hunter's spirit has returned to you," don Juan said suddenly and
with a serious face. "Now you're hooked."
"I beg your pardon?" I wanted him to elaborate on his statement, that I
was hooked, but he
only laughed and repeated
it. "How am I hooked?" I insisted.
"Hunters will always hunt," he said. "I am a hunter myself."
"Do you mean you hunt for a living?"
"I hunt, in order to live. I can live off the land, anywhere."
70-71
He indicated the total surroundings with his hand. "To be a
hunter means, that one knows a great deal," he went on. "It
means, that one can see the
world in different ways. In order to be a hunter, one must be in
perfect
balance with everything
else, otherwise hunting would become a meaningless chore. For
instance,
today
we took a little
snake. I had to apologize to her for cutting her life off so suddenly
and so definitely; I did, what
I did, knowing, that my own life will also be cut off someday in very
much the same fashion, suddenly
and definitely. So, all in all, we and the snakes are on a par. One of
them fed us today."
"I had never conceived (think, consider, formulated, become posessed) a
balance of that kind, when I used to hunt," I
said.
"That's not true. You didn't just kill animals. You and your family all
ate the game." His statements carried the conviction of someone, who
had been there. He
was, of course, right.
There had been times, when I had provided the incidental wild meat for
my family.
After a moment's hesitation I asked, "How did you know that?"
"There are certain things, that I just know," he said. "I can't tell
you
how though." I told him, that my aunts and uncles would very seriously
call all the
birds, I would bag,
"pheasants". Don Juan said, he could easily imagine them calling a
sparrow a "tiny
pheasant" and added a comical
rendition
(interpretation)
of how they would chew it. The extraordinary movements of his
jaw gave me the feeling,
that he was actually chewing a whole bird, bones and all.
"I really think, that you have a touch for hunting," he said, staring
at
me. "And we have been
barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps, you will be willing to change your
way of life, in order to
become a hunter."

He reminded me, that I had found out, with just a little exertion
(effort) on my
part, that in the world
there were good and bad spots for me; he added, that I had also found
out the specific colours,
associated with them. "That means, that you have a knack for hunting,"
he declared. "Not everyone, who tries, would find their colours and
their spots at the
same time." To be a hunter sounded very nice and romantic, but it was
an absurdity
to me, since I did not
particularly care to hunt. "You don't have to care to hunt or to like
it," he replied to my
complaint. "You have a natural
inclination. I think the best hunters never like hunting; they do it
well, that's all."
I had the feeling, don Juan was capable of arguing his way out of
anything, and yet he maintained,
that he did not like to talk at all. "It is like, what I have told you
about hunters," he said. "I don't
necessarily like to talk. I just
have a knack for it and I do it well, that's all." I found his mental
agility truly funny. "Hunters must be exceptionally tight individuals,"
he continued. "A
hunter leaves very little to
chance. I have been trying all along to convince you, that you must
learn to live in a different
way. So far I have not succeeded. There was nothing you could've
grabbed on
to. Now it's different. I
have brought back your old hunter's spirit, perhaps through it, you
will
change." I protested, that I did not want to become a hunter. I
reminded him, that
in the beginning, I had just
wanted him to tell me about medicinal plants, but he had made me stray
(deviate from the course)
so far away from my original
purpose, that I could not clearly recall any more, whether or not I had
really wanted to learn about
plants. "Good," he said. "Really good. If you don't have such a clear
picture
of what you want, you may
become more humble. Let's put it this way. For your purposes it doesn't
really matter,
whether you learn about plants
or about hunting. You've told me that yourself. You are interested in
anything, that anyone can tell
you.
True?"
I had said that to him, in trying to define the scope of anthropology
and, in order to draft him, as
my informant. Don Juan chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself),
obviously aware of his control over
the situation. "I am a hunter," he said, as if he were reading my
thoughts. "I leave
very little to chance. Perhaps I should explain to you, that I learned
to be a hunter.

72-73
I have
not always lived the way I do
now. At one point in my life I had to change. Now I'm pointing the
direction to you. I'm guiding
you. I know, what I'm talking about; someone taught me all this. I
didn't figure it out for
myself."
"Do you mean, that you had a teacher, don Juan?"
"Let's say, that someone taught me to hunt, the way I want to teach you
now," he said and quickly
changed the topic. "I think, that once upon a time, hunting was one of
the greatest acts a
man could perform," he said.
"All hunters were powerful men. In fact, a hunter had to be powerful to
begin with, in order to
withstand the rigors of that life." Suddenly I became curious. Was he
referring to a time perhaps prior to
the Conquest? I began to
probe him.
"When was the time you are talking about?"
"Once upon a time."
"When? What does "once upon a time" mean?"
"It means once upon a time, or maybe it means now, today. It doesn't
matter. At one time everybody
knew, that a hunter was the best of men. Now not everyone knows that,
but there are a sufficient
number of people, who do. I know it, someday you will. See what I mean?"
"Do the Yaqui Indians feel that way about hunters? That's what I want
to know."
"Not necessarily."
"Do the Pima Indians?"
"Not all of them. But some."
I named various neighboring groups. I wanted to commit him to a
statement, that hunting was a shared
belief and practice of some specific people. But he avoided answering
me directly, so I changed the
subject. "Why are you doing all this for me, don Juan?" I asked. He
took off his hat and scratched his temples in feigned
(pretending,
fictitious)
bafflement
(puzzlement,
bewilder).
"I'm having a gesture with you," he said softly. "Other people have had
a similar gesture with you;
someday you yourself will have the same gesture with others.
Let's say,
that it is my turn. One day I found out, that, if I wanted to be a
hunter worthy of
self-respect, I had to change my way
of life. I used to whine and complain a great deal. I had good reasons
to feel short-changed. I am
an Indian and Indians are treated like dogs. There was nothing, I could
do to remedy that, so all, I
was left with, was my sorrow. But then my good fortune spared me and
someone taught me to hunt. And I realized, that the way I lived, was
not worth living, so I
changed it."
"But I am happy with my life, don Juan. Why should I have to change it?"
He began to sing a Mexican song, very softly, and then hummed the tune.
His head bobbed up and down,
as he followed the beat of the song.
"Do you think, that you and I are equal?" he asked in a sharp voice.
His
question caught me off guard. I experienced a peculiar buzzing in
my ears, as though he had
actually shouted his words, which he had not done; however, there had
been a metallic sound in his
voice, that was reverberating in my ears. I scratched the inside of my
left ear with the small finger of my left
hand. My ears itched all the
time and I had developed a rhythmical nervous way of rubbing the inside
of them with the small
finger of either hand. The movement was more properly a shake of my
whole arm. Don Juan watched my movements with apparent fascination.
"Well... are we equals?" he asked.
"Of course we're equals," I said. I was, naturally, being condescending
(showing an air of superiority, patronising). I felt very warm towards
him,
even though at times I did not
know, what to do with him; yet
I still held in the back of my mind,
although I would never voice it,
the belief, that I, being a university student, a man of the
sophisticated Western world, was
superior to an Indian.
"No," he said calmly, "we are not."
"Why, certainly we are," I protested.
"No," he said in a soft voice. "We are not equals. I am a hunter and a
warrior, and you are a
pimp." My mouth fell open. I could not believe, that don Juan had
actually said
that.

74
I dropped my notebook
and stared at him dumbfoundedly and then, of course, I became furious.
He looked at me with calm and collected eyes. I avoided his gaze. And
then he began to talk. He enunciated his words clearly. They poured out
smoothly and deadly.
He said, that I was pimping
for someone else. That I was not fighting my own battles, but the
battles of some unknown people.
That I did not want to learn about plants or about hunting or about
anything. And that his world of precise acts, feelings and decisions
was
infinitely more effective, than
the blundering (foolish) idiocy I called "my life".
After he finished talking, I
was numb. He had spoken without
belligerence (aggressive behaviour) or conceit (high opinion about
himself, vain), but
with such
power, and yet such calmness, that I was not even angry any more. We
remained silent. I felt embarrassed and could not think of anything
appropriate to say. I waited
for him to break the silence. Hours went by. Don Juan became motionless
by degrees, until his body
had acquired a strange, almost frightening rigidity; his silhouette
became difficult to make out, as
it got dark, and finally, when it was pitch black around us, he seemed
to
have merged into the
blackness of the stones.
His state of motionlessness was so total, that
it was, as if he did not
exist any longer. It was midnight, when I finally realized, that he
could
and would stay
motionless there in that
wilderness, in those rocks, perhaps forever, if he had to. His world of
precise acts, feelings
and decisions was indeed superior. I quietly touched his arm and tears
flooded me.
7. Being
Inaccessible.
75
Thursday, 29 June 1961. Again don Juan, as he had done every day for
nearly a week, held me
spellbound with his knowledge
of specific details about the behavior of game. He first explained and
then corroborated (confirm) a number
of hunting tactics, based on what he called "the quirks (oddity) of quails". I
became so utterly involved in
his explanations, that a whole day went by and I had not noticed the
passage of time. I even forgot
to eat lunch. Don Juan made joking remarks, that it was quite unusual
for me to miss a meal. By the end of the day he had caught five quails
in a most ingenious
trap, which he had taught me to
assemble and set up.
"Two are enough for us," he said and let three of them loose. He then
taught me how to roast quail. I had wanted to cut some shrubs
and make a barbecue pit, the
way my grandfather used to make it, lined with green branches and
leaves and sealed with dirt, but
don Juan said, that there was no need to injure the shrubs, since we
had
already injured the
quail. After we finished eating we walked very leisurely towards a
rocky area.
We sat on a sandstone
hillside and I said jokingly, that if
he would have left the matter up
to me, I would have cooked all
five of the quail, and that my barbecue would have tasted much better,
than his roast.
"No doubt," he said. "But if you would have done all that, we might
have never left this place in
one piece."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "What would have prevented us?"
"The shrubs, the quail, everything around would have pitched (thrown
in) in."
76-77
"I never know when you are talking seriously," I said. He made a
gesture of feigned (pretending,
fictitious)
impatience and smacked his lips.
"You have a weird notion of what it means to talk seriously," he said.
"I laugh a great deal,
because I like to laugh, yet everything, I say, is deadly serious,
even,
if you don't understand
it. Why should the world be only, as you think it is? Who gave you the
authority to say so?"
"There is no proof, that the world is otherwise," I said. It was
getting dark. I was wondering, if it was time to go back to his
house, but he did not seem to
be in a hurry and I was enjoying myself. The wind was cold. Suddenly he
stood up and told me, that we had to
climb to the hilltop and stand
up on an area clear of shrubs.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "I'm your friend and I'll see, that nothing
bad happens to you."
"What do you mean?" I asked, alarmed. Don Juan had the most insidious
facility to shift me from
sheer enjoyment to sheer fright.
"The world is very strange at this time of the day," he said. "That's,
what I mean. No matter what
you see, don't be afraid."
"What am I going to see?"
"I don't know yet," he said, peering into the distance towards the
south. He did not seem to be worried. I also kept on looking in the
same
direction. Suddenly
he perked (cheered) up and pointed with his left hand towards a dark
area in the desert
shrubbery.
"There it is," he said, as if he had been waiting for something, which
had suddenly appeared.
"What is it?" I asked.
"There it is," he repeated. "Look! Look!" I did not see anything, just
the shrubs. "It is here now," he said with great urgency in his voice.
"It is here." A sudden gust of wind hit me at that instant and made my
eyes burn. I
stared towards the area in
question. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
"I can't see a thing," I said.
"You just felt it," he replied. "Right now. It got into your eyes and
kept you from seeing."
"What are you talking about?"
"I have deliberately brought you to a hilltop," he said. "We are very
noticeable here and something
is coming to us."
"What? The wind?"
"Not just the wind," he said sternly. "It may seem to be wind to you,
because wind is all you
know."
I strained my eyes staring into the desert shrubs. Don Juan stood
silently by me for a moment,
then walked into the near-by chaparral and began to tear some big
branches from the surrounding
shrubs; he gathered eight of them and made a bundle. He ordered me to
do the same and to apologize
to the plants in a loud voice for mutilating them. When we had two
bundles he made me run with them to the hilltop and lie
down on my back between two
large rocks. With tremendous speed
he arranged the branches of my
bundle to cover my entire body,
then he covered himself in the same manner and whispered through the
leaves, that I should watch how,
the so-called, wind would cease to blow, once we had become
unnoticeable.
At one moment, to my utter amazement, the wind actually ceased to blow,
as don Juan had predicted.
It happened so gradually, that I would have missed the change, had I
not
been deliberately waiting
for it. For a while the wind had hissed through the leaves over my face
and then, gradually, it
became quiet all around us. I whispered to don Juan, that the wind had
stopped and he whispered back,
that I should not make any
overt noise or movement, because, what I was calling the wind, was not
wind at all, but something, that
had a volition of its own and could actually recognize us. I laughed
out of nervousness. In a muffled voice don Juan called my attention to
the quietness around
us.
78-79
He whispered, that he
was going to stand up and I should follow him, putting the branches
aside very gently with my left
hand. We stood up at the same time. Don Juan stared for a moment into
the
distance towards the south,
then turned around abruptly and faced the west. "Sneaky (). Really
sneaky," he muttered, pointing to an area towards the
southwest. "Look! Look!" he urged me. I stared with all the intensity,
I was capable of. I wanted to see,
whatever he was referring to, but
I did not notice anything at all. Or rather I did not notice anything,
I
had not seen before; there
were just shrubs, which seemed to be agitated by a soft wind; they
rippled.
"It's here," don Juan said. At that moment I felt a blast of air in my
face. It seemed, that the
wind had actually begun to blow,
after we stood up. I could not believe it; there had to be a logical
explanation for it. Don Juan chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself)
softly and told me not to tax (strain)
my brain, trying to
reason it out. "Let's go gather the shrubs once more," he said. "I hate
to do this to
these little plants, but we
must stop you." He picked up the branches, we had used to cover
ourselves, piled
small rocks and dirt over them.
Then, repeating the same movements, we had made before, each of us
gathered eight new branches. In
the meantime the wind kept on blowing ceaselessly. I could feel it
ruffling the hair around my
ears. Don Juan whispered, that once he had covered me, I should not
make
the slightest movement or
sound. He very quickly put the branches over my body and then he lay
down and covered himself. We stayed in that position for about twenty
minutes and during that
time a most extraordinary
phenomenon occurred; the wind again changed from a hard continuous gust
to a mild vibration. I held my breath, waiting for don Juan's signal.
At a given moment he
gently shoved off the
branches. I did the same and we stood up. The hilltop was very quiet.
There was only a slight, soft
vibration of leaves in the surrounding chaparral. Don Juan's eyes were
fixedly staring at an area in the shrubs south of
us. "There it is again!" he exclaimed in a loud voice. I
involuntarily jumped, nearly losing my balance, and he ordered me in
a loud imperative voice to
look.
"What am I supposed to see?" I asked desperately. He said, that it, the
wind or whatever, was like a cloud or a whorl (curl, coil,
convolution),
that
was quite a way above the
shrubs, twirling its way to the hilltop, where we were. I saw a ripple
forming on the bushes in the distance.
"There it comes," don Juan said in my ear. "Look how it is searching
for us." Right then a strong steady gust of wind hit my face, as it had
hit it
before. This time, however,
my reaction was different. I was terrified. I had not seen, what don
Juan had described, but I had
seen a most eerie wave rippling the shrubs. I did not want to succumb
(gave
in, gave up) to
my fear and deliberately
sought any kind of suitable explanation. I said to myself, that there
must be continuous air
currents in the area, and don Juan, being thoroughly acquainted with
the whole region, was not only
aware of that, but was capable of mentally plotting their occurrence.
All he had to do was to lie
down, count, and wait for the wind to taper off (diminish, decrease);
and once he stood up,
he had only to wait again for
its reoccurrence. Don Juan's voice shook me out of my mental
deliberations. He was
telling me, that it was time to
leave. I stalled (employing
delaying tactics);
I wanted to stay to make sure, that the wind would
taper off (diminish, decrease).
"I didn't see anything, don Juan," I said.
"You noticed something unusual though."
"Perhaps you should tell me again, what I was supposed to See."
"I've already told you," he said. "Something, that hides in the wind
and
looks like a whorl (curl, coil,
convolution),
a
cloud, a mist, a face, that twirls around." Don Juan made a gesture
with his hands to depict a horizontal and a
vertical motion.
80-81
"It
moves in a specific direction," he went on. "It either tumbles or
it twirls. A hunter must know
all that, in order to move correctly." I wanted to humour him, but he
seemed to be trying so hard to make his
point, that I did not dare.
He looked at me for a moment and I moved my eyes away. "To believe,
that the world is only, as you think it is, is stupid," he
said. "'The world is a
mysterious place. Especially in the twilight." He pointed towards the
wind with a movement of his chin. "This can follow us," he said. "It
can make us tired or it might even
kill us."
"That wind?"
"At
this time of the day, in the twilight, there is no wind. At this
time there is only power." We sat on the hilltop
for an hour. The wind blew hard and constantly
all that time.
Friday, 30 June 1961. In the late afternoon, after eating, don Juan and
I moved to the area
in front of his door. I sat
on my "spot" and began working on my notes. He lay down on his back
with his hands folded over his
stomach. We had stayed around the house all day on account of the
"wind". Don Juan explained that we had disturbed the wind deliberately
and that it was
better not to fool around
with it. I had even had to sleep covered with branches. A sudden gust
of wind made don Juan get up in one incredibly agile jump.
"Damn it," he said. "The wind is looking for you."
"I can't buy that, don Juan," I said, laughing. "I really can't."
I was not being stubborn, I just found it impossible to endorse the
idea that the wind had its own
volition and was looking for me, or that it had actually spotted us and
rushed to us on top of the
hill. I said that the idea of a "willful wind" was a view of the world
that was rather
simplistic.
"What is the wind then?" he asked in a challenging tone. I patiently
explained to him, that masses of hot and cold air produced
different pressures and, that
the pressure made the masses of air move vertically and horizontally.
It took me a long while to
explain all the details of basic meteorology.
"You mean, that all, there is to the wind, is hot and cold air?" he
asked
in a tone of bafflement (puzzlement,
bewilder).
"I'm afraid so," I said and silently enjoyed my triumph. Don Juan
seemed to be dumbfounded. But then he looked at me and began
to laugh uproariously.
"Your opinions are final opinions," he said with a note of sarcasm.
"They are the last word, aren't
they? For a hunter, however, your opinions are pure crap. It makes no
difference whether the
pressure is one or two or ten; if you would live out here in the
wilderness, you would know, that
during the twilight the wind becomes power. A hunter, that is worth his
salt, knows that, and acts
accordingly."
"How does he act?"
"He uses the twilight and that power, hidden in the wind."
"How?"
"If it is convenient to him, the hunter hides from the power by
covering himself and remaining
motionless, until the twilight is gone and the power has sealed him
into
its protection." Don Juan made a gesture of enveloping something with
his hands. "Its protection is like a..." He paused in search of a word
and I suggested "cocoon". "That is right," he said. "The protection of
the power seals you like a
cocoon. A hunter can stay
out in the open and no puma or coyote or slimy bug could bother him. A
mountain lion could come up
to the hunter's nose and sniff him, and if the hunter does not move,
the lion would leave. I can guarantee you that. If the hunter, on the
other hand, wants to be noticed, all he has to do
is to stand on a hilltop at
the time of the twilight and the power will nag (bother) him and seek him all
night. Therefore, if a hunter
wants to travel at night or if he wants to be kept awake, he must make
himself available to the
wind. Therein lies the secret of great hunters.
To be available and
unavailable at the precise turn of
the road."
82-83
I felt a bit confused and asked him to recapitulate his point. Don Juan
very patiently explained,
that he had used the twilight and the wind to point out the crucial
importance of the interplay
between hiding and showing oneself. "You must learn to become
deliberately available and unavailable," he
said. "As your life goes now,
you are unwittingly (unaware,
not knowing) available at
all times." I
protested. My feeling was, that my life was becoming increasingly more
and more secretive.
He said, I had not understood his point, and that to be unavailable did
not mean to hide or to be
secretive, but to be inaccessible. "Let me put it in another way,"
he
proceeded patiently. "It makes no
difference to hide, if
everyone knows, that you are hiding. Your problems right now stem from
that. When you are hiding, everyone
knows, that you are hiding,
and when you are not, you are available for everyone to take a poke at
you." I was beginning to feel threatened and hurriedly tried to defend
myself. "Don't explain yourself," don Juan said dryly. "There is no
need. We
are fools, all of us, and you
cannot be different. At one time in my life,
I, like you, made myself
available over and over again,
until there was nothing of me left for anything, except perhaps,
crying.
And that I did, just like
yourself."
Don Juan sized me up for a moment and then sighed loudly. "I was
younger, than you, though," he went on, "but one day I had enough
and I changed. Let's say,
that one day, when I was becoming a hunter, I learned the secret of
being available and
unavailable." I told him, that his point was bypassing me. I truly
could not
understand, what he meant by being
available. He had used the Spanish idioms "ponerse al alcance" and
"ponerse en el medio del
camino", "to put oneself within reach", and "to put oneself in the
middle of a trafficked way". "You must take yourself away," he
explained. "You must retrieve
yourself from the middle of a
trafficked way. Your whole being is there, thus it is of no use to
hide; you would only imagine,
that you are hidden. Being in the middle of the road means, that
everyone, passing by, watches your
comings and goings." His metaphor was interesting, but at the same time
it was also obscure.
"You are talking in riddles," I said. He stared at me fixedly for a
long moment and then began to hum a tune.
I straightened my back and
sat attentively. I knew, that when don Juan hummed a Mexican tune, he
was
about to clobber (maul, strike
violently and repeatedly)
me.
"Hey," he said, smiling, and peered at me. "Whatever happened to your
blonde friend? That girl, that
you used to really like." I must have looked at him like a confounded
idiot. He laughed with
great delight. I did not know,
what to say. "You told me about her," he said reassuringly. But I did
not remember, ever telling him about anybody, much less about
a blonde girl.
"I've never mentioned anything like that to you," I said.
"Of course you have," he said, as if dismissing the argument. I wanted
to protest, but he stopped me, saying, that it did not matter
how he knew about her, that
the important issue was, that I had liked her. I sensed a surge of
animosity
(active
hostility)
towards him, building up within myself.
"Don't stall (employing
delaying tactics),"
don Juan said dryly. "This is a time, when you should cut
off your feelings of
importance. You once had a woman, a very dear woman, and then one day
you lost
her."
I began to wonder, if I had ever talked about her to don Juan. I
concluded, that there had never been
an opportunity. Yet I might have. Every time he drove with me we had
always talked incessantly
about everything. I did not remember everything, we had talked about,
because I could not take notes
while driving. I felt somehow appeased (pacified) by my conclusions. I
told him,
that he was right. There had
been a very important blonde girl in my life.
"Why isn't she with you?" he asked.
84-85
"She left."
"Why?"
"There were many reasons."
"There were not so many reasons. There was only one. You made yourself
too available." I earnestly wanted to know, what he meant. He again had
touched me.
He
seemed to be cognizant (conscious, aware) of the
effect of his touch and puckered up his lips to hide a mischievous
smile.
"Everyone knew about you two," he said with unshaken conviction.
"Was it wrong?"
"It was deadly wrong. She was a fine person." I expressed the sincere
feeling, that his fishing in the dark was odious (hateful)
to me, especially the fact,
that he always made his statements with the assurance of someone, who
had been at the scene and had
seen it all. "But that's true," he said with a disarming candor. "I
have seen it
all. She was a fine
person." I knew, that it was meaningless to argue, but I was angry with
him for
touching that sore spot in my
life and I said, that the girl in question was not such a fine person
after all, that in my opinion,
she was rather weak. "So are you," he said calmly. "But that is not
important. What counts
is, that you have looked for
her everywhere; that makes her a special person in your world, and, for
a special person, one should
have only fine words." I felt embarrassed; a great sadness had begun to
engulf me.
"What are you doing to me, don Juan?" I asked. "You always succeed in
making me sad. Why?"
"You are now indulging in sentimentality," he said accusingly.
"What is the point of all this, don Juan?"
"Being inaccessible is the point," he declared. "I brought up
the
memory of this person only as a
means to show you directly, what I couldn't show you with the wind.
"You lost her, because you were accessible; you were always within her
reach and your life was a
routine one."
"No!" I said. "You're wrong. My life was never a routine."
"It was and it is a routine," he said dogmatically. "It is an unusual
routine and that gives you
the impression, that it is not a routine, but I assure you, it is." I
wanted to sulk (bad-tempered, withdrawn) and get lost in moroseness
(gloom), but somehow his eyes made
me feel restless; they
seemed to push me on and on. "The art of a hunter is to become
inaccessible," he said. "In the case
of that blonde girl, it
would've meant, that you had to become a hunter and meet her sparingly.
Not the way you did. You stayed with her day after day, until the only
feeling, that remained,
was boredom. True?" I did not answer. I felt, I did not have to. He was
right. "To be inaccessible means, that you touch the world, around you,
sparingly. You don't eat five quails;
you eat one. You don't damage the plants just to make a barbecue pit.
You don't expose yourself to
the power of the wind, unless it is mandatory. You don't use and
squeeze
people, until they have
shriveled to nothing, especially the people you love."
"I have never used anyone," I said sincerely. But don Juan maintained,
that I had, and thus I could
bluntly state, that I became tired and bored with people. "To be
unavailable means, that you deliberately avoid exhausting
yourself and others," he continued.
"It means, that you are not hungry and desperate, like the poor
bastard,
that feels, he will never eat
again, and devours all the food, he can, all five quails !" Don Juan
was definitely hitting me below the belt. I laughed and that
seemed to please him. He touched my back lightly. "A hunter knows, he
will lure game into his traps over and over again,
so he doesn't worry. To worry
is to become accessible, unwittingly (unaware, not knowing) accessible.
And once you worry you
cling to anything out of
desperation; and once you cling, you are bound to get exhausted or to
exhaust whoever or whatever
you are clinging to." I told him, that in my day-to-day life it was
inconceivable (unbelievable)
to
be
inaccessible. My point was, that in
order to function, I had to be within reach of everyone, that had
something to do with me. "I've told you already, that to be
inaccessible does not mean to hide or
to be secretive," he
said calmly.
86
"It doesn't mean, that you cannot deal with people either. A
hunter uses his world sparingly
and with tenderness, regardless of whether the world might be things,
or plants, or animals, or
people, or power. A hunter deals intimately with his world and yet he
is inaccessible to that same
world."
"That's a contradiction," I said. "He cannot be inaccessible, if he is
there in his world, hour
after hour, day after day."
"You did not understand," don Juan said patiently. "He is inaccessible,
because he's not squeezing
his world out of shape. He taps it lightly, stays for as long, as
he
needs to, and then swiftly
moves away leaving hardly a mark."
8. Disrupting the Routines
of Life

87
Sunday, 16 July 1961.
We spent all morning watching some rodents, that looked like fat
squirrels; don Juan called them
water rats. He pointed out, that they were very fast in getting out of
danger, but after they had
outrun any predator, they had the terrible habit of stopping, or even
climbing a rock, to stand on
their hind legs to look around and groom themselves.
"They have very good eyes," don Juan said. "You must move only when
they are on the run, therefore,
you must learn to predict, when and where they will stop, so you would
also stop at the same
time."
I became engrossed in observing them and I had, what would have been a
field day for hunters, as I
spotted so many of them. And finally I could predict their movements
almost every time. Don Juan then showed me how to make traps to catch
them. He explained,
that a hunter had to take
time to observe their eating or their nesting places, in order to
determine, where to locate his
traps; he would then set them during the night and all, he had to do
the
next day, was to scare them
off, so they would scatter away into his catching devices. We gathered
some sticks and proceeded to build the hunting
contraptions. I had mine almost finished
and was excitedly wondering, whether or not it would work, when
suddenly
don Juan stopped and looked
at his left wrist, as if he were checking a watch, which he had never
had, and said, that according
to his timepiece, it was lunchtime.
88-89
I was holding a long stick, which I
was trying to make into a
hoop by bending it in a circle, I automatically put it down with the
rest of my hunting
paraphernalia. Don Juan looked at me with an expression of curiosity.
Then he made the
wailing sound of a factory
siren at lunchtime. I laughed. His siren sound was perfect. I walked
towards him and noticed, that
he was staring at me. He shook his head from side to side.
"I'll be damned," he said.
"What's wrong?" I asked. He again made the long wailing sound of a
factory whistle.
"Lunch is over," he said." Go back to work." I felt confused for an
instant, but then I thought, that he was joking,
perhaps because we really
had nothing to make lunch with. I had been so engrossed with the
rodents, that I had forgotten, we
had no provisions. I picked up the stick again and tried to bend it.
After a moment don Juan again
blew his "whistle". "Time to go home," he said. He examined his
imaginary watch and then looked at me and winked. "It's five o'clock,"
he said with an air of someone, revealing a secret.
I thought, that he had suddenly become fed up with hunting and was
calling the whole thing off. I
simply put everything down and began to get ready to leave. I did not
look at him. I presumed, that
he also was preparing his gear. When I was through, I looked up and saw
him sitting cross-legged a
few feet away.
"I'm through," I said." We can go anytime." He got up and climbed a
rock. He stood there, five or six feet above
the ground, looking at me. He put his hands on either side of his mouth
and made a very prolonged
and piercing sound. It was
like a magnified factory siren. He turned around in a complete circle,
making the wailing
sound. "What are you doing, don Juan?" I asked. He said, that he was
giving the signal for the whole world to go home. I
was completely baffled (bewildered, puzzled). I could not figure out,
whether he was joking or whether he had
simply flipped his lid. I
watched him intently and tried to relate, what he was doing to
something,
he may have said
before. We had hardly talked at all during the morning and I could not
remember
anything of importance. Don Juan was still standing on top of the rock.
He looked at me, smiled
and winked again. I
suddenly became alarmed. Don Juan put his hands on both sides of his
mouth and let out another long
whistle-like sound. He said, that it was eight o'clock in the morning
and, that I had to set
up my gear again, because we
had a whole day ahead of us. I was completely confused by then. In a
matter of minutes my fear
mounted to an irresistible desire
to run away from the scene. I thought don Juan was crazy. I was about
to flee, when he slid down
from the rock and came to me, smiling.
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" he asked. I told him, that he was
frightening me out of my wits with his
unexpected behavior. He said, that we were even. I did not understand,
what he meant. I was
deeply preoccupied with the
thought, that his acts seemed thoroughly insane. He explained, that he
had deliberately tried to
scare me out of my wits with the heaviness of his unexpected behavior,
because I myself was driving
him up the walls with the heaviness of my expected behavior.
He added,
that my routines were as
insane, as his blowing his whistle. I was shocked and asserted (affirm, state positevely), that I did not really
have any routines. I
told him, that I believed my
life was in fact a mess, because of my lack of healthy routines. Don
Juan laughed and signaled me to sit down by him. The whole
situation had mysteriously changed
again. My fear had vanished as soon, as he had begun to talk.
"What are my routines?" I asked.
"Everything you do is a routine."
"Aren't we all that way?"
"Not all of us. I don't do things out of routine."
"What prompted all this, don Juan? What did I do or what did I say,
that
made you act, the way you
did?"
90-91
"You were worrying about lunch."
"I did not say anything to you; how did you know, that I was worrying
about lunch?"
"You worry about eating every day around noontime, and around six in
the evening, and around eight
in the morning," he said with a malicious grin. "You worry about eating
at those times, even if
you're not hungry. All, I had to do to show your routine spirit, was to
blow my whistle.
Your spirit is trained to work
with a signal."
He stared at me with a question in his eyes. I could not defend myself.
"Now you're getting ready to make hunting into a routine," he went on.
"You have already set your
pace in hunting; you talk at a certain time, eat at a certain time, and
fall asleep at a certain
time." I had nothing to say. The way, don Juan had described my eating
habits,
was the pattern, I used, for
everything in my life. Yet I strongly felt, that my life was less
routine, than that of most of my
friends and acquaintances.
"You know a great deal about hunting now," don Juan continued. "It'll
be easy for you to realize,
that a good hunter knows one thing above all - he knows the routines of
his prey. That's what makes
him a good hunter. If you would remember the way, I have proceeded, in
teaching you
hunting, you would perhaps
understand, what
I
mean. First I taught you how to make and set up your
traps, then I taught you the
routines of the game you were after, and then we tested the traps
against their routines. Those
parts are the outside forms of hunting. Now I have to teach you the
final, and by far the most difficult,
part. Perhaps years will pass,
before you can say, that you understand it and that you're a hunter."
Don Juan paused, as if to give me time. He took off his hat and
imitated
the grooming movements of
the rodents, we had been observing. It was very funny to me. His round
head made him look like one
of those rodents. "To be a hunter is not just to trap game," he went
on. "A hunter, that
is worth his salt, does not
catch game, because he sets his traps, or because he knows the routines
of his prey, but because he,
himself, has no routines. This is his advantage. He is not at all like
the animals, he is after,
fixed by heavy routines and predictable quirks (oddity); he is free, fluid,
unpredictable."
What don Juan was saying, sounded to me like an arbitrary (random) and irrational
idealization. I could not
conceive (think, imagine, consider, formulated, become posessed) of
life without routines. I wanted to be very honest with him
and not just agree or
disagree with him. I felt, that what he had in mind was not possible to
accomplish by me or by
anyone.
"I don't care how you feel," he said." In order to be a hunter you must
disrupt the routines of
your life. You have done well in hunting. You have learned quickly and
now you can see that you are
like your prey, easy to predict."
I asked him to be specific and give me concrete examples.
"I am talking about hunting," he said calmly. "Therefore I am concerned
with the things animals do;
the places they eat; the place, the manner, the time they sleep; where
they nest; how they walk.
These are the routines I am pointing out to you so you can become aware
of them in your own
being.
"You have observed the habits of animals in the desert. They eat or
drink at certain places, they
nest at specific spots, they leave their tracks in specific ways; in
fact, everything they do can
be foreseen or reconstructed by a good hunter.
"As I told you before, in my eyes you behave like your prey. Once in my
life someone pointed out
the same thing to me, so you're not unique in that. All of us behave
like the prey, we are
after. That, of course, also makes us prey for something or someone
else. Now,
the concern of a hunter,
who knows all this, is to stop being a prey himself. Do you see, what I
mean?" I again expressed the opinion, that his proposition was
unattainable. "It takes time," don Juan said. "You could begin by not
eating lunch
every single day at twelve
o'clock." He looked at me and smiled benevolently. His expression was
very funny
and made me laugh. "There are certain animals, however, that are
impossible to track," he
went on.
92-93
"There are certain
types of deer, for instance, which a fortunate hunter might be able to
come across, by sheer luck,
once in his lifetime." Don Juan paused dramatically and looked at me
piercingly. He seemed to
be waiting for a question,
but I did not have any. "What do you think makes them so
difficult to find and so unique?" he
asked. I shrugged my shoulders, because I did not know, what to say.
"They have no routines," he said in a tone of revelation. "That's what
makes them magical."
"A deer has to sleep at night," I said."Isn't that a routine?"
"Certainly, if the deer sleeps every night at a specific time and in
one specific place. But those
magical beings do not behave like that. In fact, someday you may verify
this for yourself. Perhaps,
it'll be your fate to chase one of them for the rest of your life."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You like hunting; perhaps someday, in some place in the world, your
path may cross the path of a
magical being and you might go after it. A magical being is a sight to
behold (gaze at, look upon). I was fortunate enough to cross
paths with one. Our
encounter took place, after I had learned and practiced a great deal of
hunting. Once I was in a forest of thick trees in the mountains of
central Mexico, when suddenly,
I heard a sweet whistle. It
was unknown to me; never, in all my years of roaming in the wilderness,
had I heard such a sound. I could not place it in the terrain; it
seemed to come from different
places. I thought, that
perhaps I was surrounded by a herd or a pack of some unknown animals. I
heard the tantalizing (tease, torment) whistle once more; it seemed to
come from
everywhere. I realized then my
good fortune. I knew, it was a magical being, a deer. I also knew, that
a
magical deer is aware of
the routines of ordinary men and the routines of hunters.
It is very easy to figure out, what an average man would do in a
situation like that. First of all,
his fear would immediately turn him into a prey. Once he becomes a
prey,
he has two courses of
action left. He either flees or he makes his stand. If he is not armed,
he would ordinarily flee
into the open field to run for his life. If he is armed, he could get
his weapon ready and would
then make his stand either by freezing on the spot or by dropping to
the ground. A hunter, on the other hand, when he stalks in the
wilderness, would
never walk into any place
without figuring out his points of protection, therefore he would
immediately take cover. He might drop his poncho on the ground or he
might hang it from a
branch as a decoy (mislead, enclosed place) and then he
would hide and wait, until the game makes its next move. So, in the
presence of the magical deer, I didn't behave like either. I
quickly stood on my head
and began to wail softly; I actually wept tears and sobbed for such a
long time, that I was about to
faint. Suddenly I felt a soft breeze; something was sniffing my hair
behind my right ear. I tried
to turn my head to see, what it was, and I tumbled
down and sat up in
time to see a radiant creature
staring at me. The deer looked at me and I told him I would not harm
him. And the deer talked to
me." Don Juan stopped and looked at me. I smiled
involuntarily. The idea of
a talking deer was quite
incredible, to put it mildly. "He talked to me," don Juan said with a
grin.
"The deer talked?"
"He did." Don Juan stood and picked up his bundle of hunting
paraphernalia.
"Did it really talk?" I asked in a tone of perplexity (bewilderment,
puzzlement). Don Juan roared with laughter. "What did it say?" I asked
half in jest. I thought he was pulling my leg.
Don Juan was quiet for a moment, as if
he were trying to remember,
then his eyes brightened, as he told me, what the deer had said.
"The magical deer said, "Hello friend”,” don Juan
went on. "And I
answered, "Hello." Then he asked
me, "Why are you crying?" and I said, "Because I'm sad."
Then the
magical creature came to my ear
and said as clearly, as I am speaking now, "Don't be sad"."
94
Don
Juan stared into my eyes. He had a glint of sheer mischievousness.
He began to laugh
uproariously. I said, that his dialogue with the deer had been sort of
dumb. "What did you expect?" he asked, still laughing. "I'm an Indian."
His sense of humour was so outlandish, that all, I could do, was laugh
with him. "You don't believe, that a magical deer talks, do you?"
"I'm sorry, but I just can't believe, things like that can happen," I
said.
"I don't blame you," he said reassuringly. "It's one of the darndest
(damned)
things."
9.
The Last Battle on
Earth
95
Monday, 24 July 1961
Around mid-afternoon, after we had roamed for hours in the desert, don
Juan chose a place to rest
in a shaded area. As soon, as we sat down, he began talking.
He said, that
I had learned a great deal
about hunting, but I had not changed as much, as he had wished. "It's
not enough to know, how to make and set up traps,"
he said. "A
hunter must live as a hunter, in
order to draw the most out of his life. Unfortunately, changes are
difficult and happen very
slowly; sometimes it takes years for a man to become convinced of the
need to change. It took me
years, but maybe I didn't have a knack for hunting. I think for me the
most difficult thing was to
really want to change." I assured him, that I understood his point. In
fact, since he had begun
to teach me how to hunt, I
also had begun to reassess my actions. Perhaps the most dramatic
discovery for me was, that I liked
don Juan's ways. I liked don Juan as a person. There was something
solid about his behavior; the
way, he conducted himself, left no doubts about his mastery, and yet he
had never exercised his
advantage to demand anything from me. His interest in changing my way
of life, I felt, was akin to
an impersonal suggestion, or perhaps it was akin to an authoritative
commentary on my failures. He
had made me very aware of my failings, yet I could not see, how his
ways
would remedy anything in
me. I sincerely believed that, in light of, what I wanted to do in my
life, his ways would have only
brought me misery and hardship, hence the impasse (dead end).
96-97
However,
I had
learned to respect his mastery,
which had always been expressed in terms of beauty and precision. "I
have decided to shift my tactics," he said. I asked him to explain; his
statement was vague and I was not sure,
whether or not he was referring
to me.
"A good hunter changes his ways as often, as he needs," he replied.
"You
know that yourself."
"What do you have in mind, don Juan?"
"A hunter must not only know about the habits of his prey, he also must
know, that there are powers
on this Earth, that guide men, animals and everything, that is living."
He stopped talking. I waited, but he seemed to have come to the end of,
what he wanted to say.
"What kind of powers are you talking about?" I asked after a long
pause.
"Powers, that guide our lives and our deaths." Don Juan stopped talking
and seemed to be having tremendous difficulty,
in deciding what to say. He
rubbed his hands and shook his head, puffing out his jaws. Twice he
signaled me to be quiet, as I
started to ask him to explain his cryptic statements. "You won't be
able to stop yourself easily," he finally said. "I know,
that you're stubborn, but
that doesn't matter. The more stubborn you are the better it'll be,
when
you finally succeed in
changing yourself."
"I am trying my best," I said.
"No. I disagree. You're not trying your best. You just said that,
because it sounds good to you; in fact, you've been saying the same
thing about everything, you do.
You've been trying your best
for years to no avail. Something must be done to remedy that." I felt
compelled (forced), as usual, to defend
myself. Don Juan seemed to aim,
as a rule, at my very weakest
points. I remembered then, that every time I had attempted to defend
myself against his criticisms, I
had ended up feeling like a fool, and I stopped myself in the midst of
a long explanatory
speech. Don Juan examined me with curiosity and laughed. He said in a
very kind
tone, that he had already
told me, that all of us were fools. I was not an exception. "You always
feel compelled (forced)
to explain your acts, as if
you were the
only man on Earth who's wrong,"
he said. "It's your old feeling of importance. You have too much of it;
you also have too much
personal history. On the other hand, you don't assume responsibility
for your acts; you're not
using your death, as an adviser, and above all, you are too accessible.
In other words, your life is
as messy, as it was, before
I met you." Again I had a genuine surge of pride and wanted to argue,
that he was
wrong. He gestured me to be
quiet. "One must assume responsibility for being in a weird world," he
said.
"We are in a weird world, you
know." I nodded my head affirmatively. "We're not talking about the
same thing," he said. "For you,
the world
is weird, because if you're
not bored with it, you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird,
because it is stupendous,
awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince
you,
that you must assume
responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this
marvelous desert, in this marvelous
time.
I wanted to convince you, that you must learn to make every act
count, since you are going to
be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all
the marvels of it." I insisted, that to be bored with the world or to
be at odds with it, was
the human condition. "So, change it," he replied dryly. "If you do not
respond to that
challenge, you are as good, as
dead." He dared me to name an issue, an item in my life, that had
engaged all
my thoughts. I said art. I
had always wanted to be an artist and, for years, I had tried my hand
at
that. I still had the
painful memory of my failure. "You have never taken the responsibility
for being in this unfathomable
world," he said in an
indicting (charging) tone. "Therefore, you were never an artist, and
perhaps
you'll never be a hunter."
"This is my best, don Juan."
"No. You don't know, what your best is."
"I am doing, all I can."
98-99
"You're wrong again. You can do better. There is one simple thing wrong
with you - you think, you
have plenty of time." He paused and looked at me, as if waiting for my
reaction. "You think you have plenty of time," he repeated.
"Plenty of time for what, don Juan?"
"You think, your life is going to last forever."
"No. I don't."
"Then, if you don't think, your life is going to last forever, what are
you waiting for? Why the
hesitation to change?"
"Has it ever occurred to you, don Juan, that I may not want to change?"
"Yes, it has occurred to me. I did not want to change either, just like
you. However, I didn't like
my life; I was tired of it, just like you. Now I don't have enough of
it."
I vehemently (strong with
emotion) asserted (affirm, state
positevely), that his insistence, about changing my way of life,
was frightening and
arbitrary (random).
I said, that I really agreed with him, at a certain level,
but the mere fact, that he was
always the master, that called the shots, made the situation untenable (be
defended/vindicated)
for me. "You don't have time for this display, you fool," he said in a
severe
tone. "This, whatever you're
doing now, may be your last act on Earth. It may very well be your last
battle. There is no power,
which could guarantee, that you are going to live one more minute."
"I know that," I said with contained anger.
"No. You don't. If you knew that, you would be a hunter." I contended (discuss,
dispute, fight), that
I was aware of my impending death, but it was useless
to talk or think about it,
since I could not do anything to avoid it. Don Juan laughed and said, I
was like a comedian,
going mechanically through a routine. "If this were your last battle on
Earth, I would say, that you are an
idiot," he said calmly. "You
are wasting your last act on Earth in some stupid mood." We were quiet
for a moment.
My thoughts ran rampant (unrestrained, widespread, extravagant). He was
right, of
course. "You have no time, my friend, no time. None of us have time,"
he said.
"I agree, don Juan, but..."
"Don't just agree with me," he snapped. "You must, instead of agreeing
so easily, act upon it. Take the challenge. Change."
"Just like that?"
"That's right. The change, I'm talking about, never takes place by
degrees; it happens suddenly. And you are not preparing yourself for
that sudden act, that will bring
a total change." I believed, he was expressing a contradiction. I
explained to him, that
if I were preparing myself to
change, I was certainly changing by degrees.
"You haven't changed at all," he said. "That is why you believe, you're
changing little by
little. Yet, perhaps, you will surprise yourself someday by changing
suddenly
and without a single warning.
I know this is so, and thus I don't lose sight of my interest in
convincing you." I could not persist in my arguing. I was not sure of
what I really
wanted to say. After a moment's
pause don Juan went on explaining his point. "Perhaps I should put it
in a different way," he said. "What I
recom-
mend you to do is to notice,
that we do not have any assurance, that our lives will go on
indefinitely. I have just said, that
change comes suddenly and unexpectedly, and so does death. What do you
think, we can do about
it?" I thought, he was asking a rhetorical (showy, insincere) question, but he made a
gesture
with his eyebrows, urging me to
answer.
"To live as happily, as possible," I said.
"Right! But do you know anyone, who lives happily?" My first impulse
was to say yes; I thought, I could use a number of
people, I knew as examples.
On second thought, however, I knew my effort would only be an empty
attempt at exonerating (exempt, free from charge)
myself. "No," I said. "I really don't."
"I do," don Juan said. "There are some people, who are very careful
about the nature of their acts.
Their happiness is to act with the full knowledge, that they don't have
time; therefore, their acts
have a peculiar power; their acts have a sense of..." Don Juan seemed
to be at a loss for words. He scratched his temples and
smiled. Then suddenly, he
stood up, as if he were through with our conversation.
100-101
I beseeched (beg for) him
to finish, what he was telling
me. He sat down and puckered up his lips. "Acts have power," he said.
"Especially when the person, acting, knows,
that those acts are his last
battle. There is a strange consuming happiness in acting with the full
knowledge, that whatever, one
is doing, may very well be one's last act on Earth. I recommend, that
you
reconsider your life and
bring your acts into that light." I disagreed with him. Happiness for
me was to assume, that there was an
inherent continuity to my
acts and, that I would be able to continue doing, at will, whatever I
was doing at the moment,
especially if I was enjoying it.
I told him, that my disagreement was
not a banal one, but stemmed
from the conviction, that the world and myself had a determinable
(capable of being fixed)
continuity. Don Juan seemed to be amused by my efforts to make sense.
He laughed,
shook his head, scratched his
hair, and finally, when I talked about a "determinable continuity",
threw
his hat to the ground and
stamped on it. I ended up laughing at his clowning. "You don't have
time, my friend," he said. "That is the misfortune of
human beings. None of us have sufficient time, and your continuity has
no meaning in this
awesome, mysterious world. Your continuity only makes you timid," he
said. "Your acts cannot
possibly have the flair, the
power, the compelling force of the acts, performed by a man, who knows,
that he is fighting his last
battle on Earth. In other words, your continuity does not make you
happy or powerful." I admitted, that I was afraid of thinking, I was
going to die, and accused
him of causing great
apprehension in me with his constant talk and concern about death. "But
we are all going to die," he said. He pointed towards some hills in the
distance. "There is something out there, waiting for me, for sure; and
I will join
it, also for sure. But
perhaps, you're different and death is not waiting for you at all." He
laughed at my gesture of despair.
"I don't want to think about it, don Juan."
"Why not?"
"It is meaningless. If it is out there, waiting for me, why should I
worry about it?"
"I didn't say, that you have to worry about it."
"What am I supposed to do then?"

"Use it. Focus your attention on the link between you and your death,
without remorse or sadness or
worrying. Focus your attention on the fact, you don't have time, and
let
your acts flow accordingly.
Let each of your acts be your last battle on Earth. Only under those
conditions will your acts have
their rightful power. Otherwise, they will be, for as long, as you
live,
the acts of a timid
man."
"Is it so terrible to be a timid man?"
"No. It isn't, if you are going to be immortal, but if you are going to
die, there is no time for
timidity, simply because timidity makes you cling to something, that
exists only in your
thoughts. It soothes you, while everything is at a lull (cause to
sleep, soothe), but then the awesome,
mysterious world will open its
mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will
realize, that your sure ways
were not sure at all. Being timid prevents us from examining and
exploiting our lot as men."
"It is not natural to live with the constant idea of our death, don
Juan."
"Our death is waiting and this very act, we're performing now, may well
be our last battle on Earth,"
he replied in a solemn voice. "I call it a battle, because it is a
struggle. Most people move from
act to act without any struggle or thought. A hunter, on the contrary,
assesses every act; and
since he has an intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds
judiciously (exhibiting sound judgment), as if every act were his
last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the advantage, a hunter
has over his fellow men, a
hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It's only natural, that
his last act on Earth should
be the best of himself. It's pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of
his fright."
"You are right," I conceded. "It's just hard to accept."
"It'll take years for you to convince yourself and then it'll take
years for you to act
accordingly. I only hope, you have time left."
102-103
"I get scared, when you say that," I said. Don Juan examined me with a
serious expression on his face. "I've told you, this is a weird world,"
he said. "The forces, that guide
men, are unpredictable,
awesome, yet their splendor is something to witness." He stopped
talking and looked at me again. He seemed to be on the verge
of revealing something to
me, but he checked himself and smiled.
"Is there something, that guides us?" I asked.
"Certainly. There are powers, that guide us."
"Can you describe them?"
"Not really, except to call them forces, spirits, airs, winds, or
anything like that."
I wanted to probe him further, but, before I could ask anything else,
he
stood up. I stared at
him, flabbergasted (surprise, astound). He had stood up in one single
movement; his body simply
jerked up and he was on his
feet. I was still pondering upon the unusual skill, that would be
needed, in
order to move with such speed,
when he told me in a dry tone of command to stalk a rabbit, catch it,
kill it, skin it, and roast
the meat before the twilight. He looked up at the sky and said, that I
might have enough time. I
automatically started off, proceeding the way I had done scores of
times. Don Juan walked beside
me and followed my movements with a scrutinizing look. I was very calm
and moved carefully and I
had no trouble at all in catching a male rabbit. "Now kill it," don
Juan said dryly. I reached into the trap to grab hold of the rabbit. I
had it by the
ears and was pulling it out,
when a sudden sensation of terror invaded me. For the first time, since
don Juan had begun to teach
me to hunt, it occurred to me, that he had never taught me how to kill
game. In the scores of times
we had roamed in the desert, he himself had only killed one rabbit, two
quails and one
rattlesnake. I dropped the rabbit and looked at don Juan.
"I can't kill it," I said.
"Why not?"
"I've never done that."
"But you've killed hundreds of birds and other animals."
"With a gun, not with my bare hands."
"What difference does it make? This rabbit's time is up." Don Juan's
tone shocked me; it was so authoritative, so knowledgeable,
it left no doubts in my mind,
that
he knew, that the rabbit's time was up. "Kill it!" he commanded with a
ferocious look in his eyes.
"I can't." He yelled at me, that the rabbit had to die. He said, that
its roaming in
that beautiful desert had
come to an end. I had no business stalling (employing
delaying tactics),
because the power or the
spirit, that guides rabbits, had
led that particular one into my trap, right at the edge of the
twilight. A series of confusing thoughts and feelings overtook me, as
if the
feelings had been out there
waiting for me. I felt with agonizing clarity the rabbit's tragedy, to
have fallen into my trap.
In
a matter of seconds my mind swept across the most crucial moments of my
own life, the many times I
had been the rabbit myself. I looked at it, and it looked at me. The
rabbit had backed up against
the side of the cage; it was
almost curled up, very quiet and motionless. We exchanged a sombre
(gloomy, melancholy, dim, dismal)
glance, and that glance, which I
fancied (visualise, imagine, picture) to be of silent despair, cemented
a complete identification on
my part. "The hell with it,"
I said loudly. "I won't kill anything. That rabbit
goes free." A profound emotion made me shiver. My arms trembled, as I
tried to grab
the rabbit by the ears; it
moved fast and I missed. I again tried and fumbled (touch/handle
nervously) once more. I became
desperate. I had the
sensation of nausea and quickly kicked the trap, in order to smash it
and let the rabbit go
free. The cage was unsuspectedly strong and did not break, as I thought
it
would. My despair mounted to an
unbearable feeling of anguish (torment, torture). Using all my
strength, I stamped on the
edge of the cage with my
right foot. The sticks cracked loudly. I pulled the rabbit out. I had a
moment of relief, which was
shattered to bits in the next instant. The rabbit hung limp in my hand.
It was dead.
104
I did not know what to do. I became preoccupied with finding out, how
it
had died. I turned to don
Juan. He was staring at me. A feeling of terror sent a chill through my
body. I sat down by some rocks. I had a terrible headache. Don Juan put
his
hand on my head and whispered
in my ear, that I had to skin the rabbit and roast it, before
the
twilight was over. I felt nauseated. He very patiently talked to me, as
if he were talking
to a child. He said, that
the powers, that guided men or animals, had led that particular rabbit
to me,
in the same way they will
lead me to my own death. He said, the rabbit's death had been a gift
for
me in exactly the same way
my own death will be a gift for something or someone else. I was dizzy.
The simple events of that day had crushed me. I tried to
think, that it was only a
rabbit; I could not, however, shake off the uncanny identification I
had had with it. Don Juan said, that I needed to eat some of its meat,
if only a morsel (small bite of food),
in order to validate my
finding. "I can't do that," I protested meekly (weakly).
"We are dregs (sediment of liquid) in the hands of those forces," he
snapped at me. "So stop
your self-importance and
use this gift properly."
I picked up the rabbit; it was warm. Don Juan leaned over and whispered
in my ear, "Your trap was his last
battle on Earth. I told you,
he had no more time to roam in this marvelous desert."
10. Becoming Accessible to
Power
105
Thursday, 17 August 1961. As soon, as I got out of my
car, I complained to don Juan, that I was not
feeling well. "Sit down, sit down," he said softly and almost led me by
the hand to
his porch. He smiled and
patted me on the back. Two weeks before, on 4 August, don Juan, as he
had said, changed his
tactics with me and allowed me
to ingest some peyote buttons. During the height of my hallucinatory
experience, I played with a dog,
that lived in the house, where the peyote session took place. Don Juan
interpreted my interaction
with the dog, as a very special event. He contended (discuss,
dispute, fight), that
at moments of
power, such as the one
I had
been living then, the world of ordinary affairs did not exist and
nothing could be taken for
granted, that the dog was not really a dog, but the incarnation of
Mescalito, the power or deity
contained in peyote. The post-effects of that experience were a general
sense of fatigue and
melancholy, plus the
incidence of exceptionally vivid dreams and nightmares.
"Where's your writing gear?" don Juan asked, as I sat down on the
porch. I had left my notebooks in my car. Don Juan walked back to the
car and
carefully pulled out my
briefcase and brought it to my side. He asked, if I usually carried my
briefcase, when I walked. I said, I did. "That's madness," he said.
"I've told you never to carry anything in
your hands, when you walk. Get
a knapsack."
106-107
I laughed. The idea of carrying my notes in a knapsack was ludicrous (absurd). I
told him, that ordinarily, I
wore a suit and a knapsack, over a three-piece suit, would be a
preposterous (foolish,
absurd) sight.
"Put your coat on over the knapsack," he said. "It is better, that
people think, you're a hunchback,
than to ruin your body, carrying all this around." He urged me to get
out my notebook and write. He seemed to be making a
deliberate effort to put me
at ease. I complained again about the feeling of physical discomfort
and the
strange sense of unhappiness, I
was experiencing. Don Juan laughed and said, "You're beginning to
learn." We then had a long conversation. He said, that Mescalito, by
allowing me
to play with him, had
pointed me out, as a "chosen man" and that, although he was baffled (puzzled,
bewilder)
by
the omen, because I was not an
Indian, he was going to pass on to me some secret knowledge. He said,
that he had had a "benefactor"
himself, who taught him how to become a "Man of Knowledge". I sensed,
that something dreadful was about to happen. The revelation,
that I was his chosen man,
plus the unquestionable strangeness of his ways and the devastating
effect, that peyote had had on
me, created a state of unbearable apprehension and indecision. But don
Juan disregarded my feelings
and recommended, that I should only think of the wonder of Mescalito,
playing with me. "Think about nothing else," he said. "The rest will
come to you of
itself."
He stood up and patted me gently on the head and said in a very soft
voice, "I am going to teach
you, how to become a warrior in the same manner, I have taught you how
to
hunt. I must warn you,
though, learning how to hunt has not made you into a hunter, nor would
learning how to become a
warrior make you one."
I experienced a sense of frustration, a physical discomfort, that
bordered on anguish. I complained
about the vivid dreams and nightmares, I was having. He seemed to
deliberate for a moment and sat
down again.
"They're weird dreams," I said.
"You've always had weird dreams," he retorted (return, pay
back, reply, answer).
"I'm telling you, this time they are truly more weird, than anything
I've ever had."
"Don't concern yourself. They are only dreams. Like the dreams of any
ordinary dreamer, they don't
have power. So what's the use of worrying about them or talking about
them?"
"They bother me, don Juan. Isn't there something, I can do to stop
them?"
"Nothing. Let them pass," he said. "Now it's time for you to become
accessible to power, and you
are going to begin by tackling (wrestle with problem) Dreaming."
The tone of voice he used, when he said "Dreaming", made me think, that
he
was using the word in a
very particular fashion. I was pondering about a proper question to
ask,
when he began to talk
again. "I've never told you about Dreaming, because until now I was
only
concerned with teaching you how
to be a hunter,"
he said. "A
hunter is not concerned with the
manipulation of power, therefore his
dreams are only dreams. They might be poignant (touching, affecting),
but they are not Dreaming. "A warrior, on the other hand, seeks power,
and one of the avenues to
power is Dreaming. You may
say, that the difference between a hunter and a warrior is, that a
warrior is on his way to power,
while a hunter knows nothing or very little about it. "The decision as
to, who can be a warrior and who can only be a hunter,
is not up to us. That
decision is in the realm of the powers, that guide men. That's why your
playing with Mescalito was
such an important omen. Those forces guided you to me; they took you to
that bus depot, remember?
Some clown brought you to me. A perfect omen, a clown pointing you out.
So, I taught you, how to be
a hunter. And then the other perfect omen, Mescalito himself playing
with you. See what I
mean?" His weird logic was overwhelming. His words created visions of
myself
succumbing (gave
in, gave
up) to
something
awesome and unknown, something, which I had not bargained for, and
which
I had not conceived
(think, consider, formulated, become posessed) existed, even in my
wildest fantasies.
"What do you propose, I should do?" I asked.
108-109
"Become accessible to power; tackle your Dreams," he replied, "You call
them dreams, because you
have no power. A warrior, being a man, who seeks power, doesn't call
them dreams, he calls them
real."
"You mean, he takes his dreams, as being reality?"
"He doesn't take anything, as being anything else. What you call Dreams
are real for a warrior. You must understand, that a warrior is not a
fool. A warrior is an
immaculate hunter, who hunts
power; he's not drunk, or crazed, and he has neither the time, nor the
disposition to bluff
(cliff, river bank, mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate), or to
lie to himself, or to make a wrong move. The stakes are too high for
that. The stakes are his
trimmed, orderly life, which he has taken so long to tighten and
perfect.
He is not going to throw
that away, by making some stupid miscalculation, by taking something
for
being something else. Dreaming is real for a warrior, because in it he
can act deliberately,
he can choose and reject, he
can select from a variety of items, those, which lead to power, and
then
he can manipulate them and
use them, while in an ordinary dream, he cannot act deliberately."
"Do you mean then, don Juan, that Dreaming is real?"
"Of course it is real."
"As real, as what we are doing now?"
"If you want to compare things, I can say, that it is, perhaps, more
real.
In Dreaming you have power,
you can change things; you may find out countless concealed facts; you
can control, whatever you
want."
Don Juan's premises (subject, belief)
always had appealed to me at a certain level. I
could easily understand his
liking the idea, that one could do anything in Dreams, but I could not
take him seriously. The jump
was too great. We looked at each other for a moment. His statements
were insane and
yet he was, to the best of my
knowledge, one of the most level-headed men, I had ever met. I told
him,
that I could not believe, he took his Dreams to be reality.
He chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself), as if he knew the
magnitude of my untenable (be
defended/vindicated)
position, then he stood up without saying a
word and walked inside his
house. I sat for a long time in a state of stupor, until he called me
to the
back of his house. He had made
some corn gruel and handed me a bowl. I asked him about the time, when
one was awake. I wanted to know, if he
called it anything in
particular. But he did not understand or did not want to answer.
"What do you call this, what we're doing now?" I asked, meaning, that
what we were doing, was reality,
as opposed to dreams.
"I call it eating," he said and contained his laughter.
"I call it reality," I said. "Because our eating is actually taking
place."
"'Dreaming also takes place," he replied, giggling. "And so does
hunting, walking, laughing." I did not persist in arguing. I could not,
however, even if I stretched
myself beyond my limits,
accept his premise (subject, belief).
He seemed to be delighted with my despair. As soon, as we had finished
eating, he casually stated, that we were going
to go for a hike, but we
were not going to roam in the desert in the manner, we had done
before. "It's different this time," he said. "From now on
we're
going to
places
of power; you're going to
learn, how to make yourself accessible to power." I again expressed my
turmoil. I said, I was not qualified for that
endeavor. "Come on, you're indulging in silly fears," he said in a low
voice,
patting me on the back and
smiling benevolently. "I've been catering to your hunter's spirit. You
like to roam with me in this
beautiful desert. It's too late for you to quit." He began to walk into
the desert chaparral. He signaled me with his
head to follow him. I could
have walked to my car and left, except, that I liked to roam in that
beautiful desert with him. I liked the sensation, which I experienced
only in his company, that this was indeed an awesome,
mysterious, yet beautiful world. As he said, I was hooked. Don Juan led
me to the hills towards the east. It was a long hike. It was a hot day;
the heat,
however, which ordinarily would have been unbearable to me, was somehow
unnoticeable.
110-111
We walked for quite a distance into a canyon, until don
Juan came to a
halt and sat down in the
shade of some boulders. I took some crackers out of my knapsack, but he
told me not to bother with
them. He said, that I should sit in a prominent place. He pointed to a
single,
almost round boulder ten or
fifteen feet away and helped me climb to the top. I thought he was also
going to sit there, but
instead, he just climbed part of the way, in order to hand me some
pieces
of dry meat. He told me
with a deadly serious expression, that it was power meat and should be
chewed very slowly and should
not be mixed with any other food. He then walked back to the shaded
area and sat down with his back
against a rock. He seemed relaxed, almost sleepy. He remained in the
same position, until I had
finished eating. Then
he
sat up straight and tilted his head to the
right. He seemed to be
listening attentively. He glanced at me two or three times, stood up
abruptly, and began to scan
the surroundings with his eyes, the way a hunter would do. I
automatically froze on the spot and
only moved my eyes, in order to follow his movements. Very carefully he
stepped behind some rocks,
as if he were expecting game to come into the area, where we were. I
realized then, that we were in a
round, covelike bend in the dry water canyon, surrounded by sandstone
boulders. Don Juan suddenly
came out from behind the rocks and smiled at me. He stretched his arms,
yawned, and walked towards
the boulder, where I was. I relaxed my tense position and sat down.
"What happened?" I asked in a whisper. He answered me, yelling, that
there was nothing around there
to worry about. I felt an immediate jolt in my stomach. His answer was
inappropriate
and it was inconceivable (unbelievable)
to
me,
that he would yell, unless he had a specific reason for it. I began to
slide down from the boulder, but he yelled, that I should
stay there a while longer. "What are you doing?" I asked. He sat down
and concealed himself
between two rocks at the base of the
boulder, where I was, and
then he said in a very loud voice, that he had only been looking
around,
because he thought, he had
heard something. I asked, if he had heard a large animal. He put his
hand to his ear and
yelled, that he was unable to
hear me and, that I should shout my words. I felt ill at ease yelling,
but he urged me in a loud
voice to speak up. I shouted, that I wanted to know, what was going on,
and he shouted back, that
there was really nothing around there. He yelled, asking if I could see
anything unusual from the
top of the boulder. I said no, and he asked me to describe to him the
terrain towards the
south. We shouted back and forth for a while, and then he signaled me
to
come
down. I joined him and he
whispered in my ear, that the yelling was necessary to make our
presence
known, because I had to
make myself accessible to the power of that specific water hole. I
looked around, but could not see the water hole. He pointed, that we
were standing on it.
"There's water here," he said in a whisper, "and also power. There's a
spirit here and we have to
lure it out; perhaps it will come after you." I wanted to know more
about the alleged (claimed to exist) spirit, but he insisted on
total silence. He advised me to
stay perfectly still and not let out a whisper or make the slightest
movement to betray our
presence. Apparently it was easy for him to remain in complete
immobility for
hours; for me, however, it was
sheer torture. My legs fell asleep, my back ached, and tension built up
around my neck and
shoulders. My entire body became numb and cold. I was in great
discomfort, when don Juan finally
stood up. He just sprang to his feet and extended his hand to me to
help me stand up. As I was trying to stretch my legs, I realized the
inconceivable
(unbelievable)
easiness,
with which don Juan had
jumped up after hours of immobility. It took quite some time for my
muscles to regain the
elasticity, needed for walking. Don Juan headed back for the house. He
walked extremely slowly. He set
up a length of three paces,
as the distance I should observe in following him.
112-113
He meandered (wander
aimlessly, follow winding course) around
the regular route and
crossed it four or five times in different directions. When he finally
arrived at his house, it was
late afternoon. I tried to question him about the events of the day. He
explained, that talking was
unnecessary. For the time being, I had to refrain from asking
questions,
until we were in a place of
power. I was dying to know, what he meant by that, and tried to whisper
a
question, but he reminded me, with
a cold severe look, that he meant business. We sat on his porch for
hours. I worked on my notes. From time to time
he handed me a piece of dry
meat; finally it was too dark to write. I tried to think about the new
developments, but some part
of myself refused to and I fell asleep.

Saturday, 19 August 1961
Yesterday morning don Juan and I drove to town and ate breakfast at a
restaurant. He advised me not
to change my eating habits too drastically. "Your body is not used to
power meat," he said. "You'd get sick, if you
didn't eat your food." He himself ate heartily. When I joked about it,
he simply said, "My body
likes everything."

Around
noon we hiked back to the water canyon. We proceeded to make
ourselves noticeable to the
spirit by "noisy talk" and by a forced silence, which lasted hours.
When we left the place, instead of heading back to the house, don Juan
took off in the direction of the mountains. We reached some mild slopes
first and then
we climbed to the top of
some high hills. There don Juan picked out a spot to rest in the open
unshaded area. He told me,
that we had to wait, until dusk and, that
I should conduct myself in the
most natural fashion, which
included asking all the questions, I wanted. "I know, that the spirit
is out there lurking," he said in a very low
voice.
"Where?"
"Out there, in the bushes."
"What kind of spirit is it?"
He looked at me with a quizzical (teasing, mocking) expression and
retorted
(return, pay
back, reply, answer),
"How many
kinds are there?" We both laughed. I was asking questions out of
nervousness. "It'll come out at dusk," he said. "We just have to wait."
I remained quiet. I had run out of questions. "This is the time, when
we must keep on talking," he said. "The human voice attracts spirits.
There's one, lurking out there now.
We are making ourselves
available to it, so keep on talking." I experienced an idiotic sense of
vacuity (vacuum). I could not think , of
anything to say. He laughed and
patted me on the back. "You're truly a pill," he said. "When you have
to talk, you lose your
tongue. Come on, beat your
gums." He made a hilarious gesture of beating his gums together,
opening and
closing his mouth with great
speed. "There are certain things, we will talk about from now on only
at places
of power," he went on. "I have brought you here, because this is your
first trial. This is a
place of power, and here we
can talk only about power."
"I really don't know, what power is," I said.
"Power is something a warrior deals with," he said. "At first it's an
incredible, far-fetched
affair; it is hard to even think about it. This is what's happening to
you now. Then power becomes
a serious matter; one may not have it, or one may not even fully
realize, that it exists, yet one
knows, that something is there, something, which was not noticeable
before. Next power is manifested
as something uncontrollable, that comes to oneself. It is not possible
for me to say, how it comes or
what it really is. It is nothing and yet it makes marvels appear before
your very eyes. And finally power is something in oneself, something,
that controls
one's acts and yet obeys one's
command." There was a short pause. Don Juan asked me, if I had
understood. I felt
ludicrous (absurd), saying
I did. He seemed to have noticed my dismay and chuckled (laugh quietly
or to oneself). "I am going to
teach you right here the first step to power," he said,
as if he were dictating a
letter to me.
"I am going to teach you, how to set up Dreaming."
114-115
He looked at me and again asked me, if I knew, what he meant. I did
not.
I was hardly following him
at all. He explained, that to "set up Dreaming " meant, to have a
concise
(expressing much in few words)
and pragmatic control over
the general situation of a dream, comparable to the control one has
over any choice in the desert,
such as climbing up a hill or remaining in the shade of a water canyon.
"You must start by doing something very simple," he said.
"Tonight in
your dreams you must look at
your hands." I laughed out loud. His tone was so
factual, that it was, as if he were
telling me to do something
commonplace. "Why do you laugh? " he asked with surprise.
"How can I look at my hands in my dreams?"
"Very simple, focus your eyes on them just like this." He bent his head
forward and stared at his hands with his mouth open.
His gesture was so comical, that I had to laugh.
"Seriously, how can you expect me to do that?" I asked.
"The way I've told you," he snapped. "You can, of course, look at
whatever you goddamn please -
your toes, or your belly, or your pecker, for that matter. I said your
hands, because that was the
easiest thing for me to look at. Don't think it's a joke. Dreaming is
as serious, as Seeing,
dying
or any other thing in this awesome, mysterious world. Think about it,
as something entertaining. Imagine all the
inconceivable (unbelievable)
things,
you could
accomplish. A man, hunting for power, has almost no limits in his
Dreaming." I asked him to give me some pointers. "There aren't any
pointers," he said. "Just look at your hands."
"There must be more, that you could tell me," I insisted. He shook his
head and squinted his eyes, staring at me in short glances.
"Every one of us is different," he finally said. "What you call
pointers, would only be, what I
myself did, when I was learning. We are not the same; we aren't even
vaguely alike."
"Maybe anything you'd say would help me."
"It
would be simpler for you just to start looking at your hands." He
seemed to be organizing his thoughts and bobbed his head up and down.
"Every time you look at anything in your dreams, it changes shape," he
said after a long silence.
"The trick, in learning to set up Dreaming, is obviously not just to
look
at things, but to sustain
the sight of them. Dreaming is real, when one has succeeded in bringing
everything into focus. Then
there is no difference between, what you do, when you sleep, and what
you
do, when you are not
sleeping. Do you see, what I mean?" I confessed,
that although I understood, what he had said, I was incapable
of accepting his premise (subject, belief). I
brought up the point, that in a civilized world there were scores of
people, who had delusions and
could not distinguish, what took place in the real world from, what
took
place in their fantasies. I
said, that such persons were undoubtedly mentally ill, and my
uneasiness
increased every time, he
would recommend, I should act like a crazy man. After my long
explanation don Juan made a comical gesture of despair by
putting his hands to his
cheeks and sighing loudly. "Leave your civilized world alone," he said.
"Let it be! Nobody is
asking you to behave like a
madman. I've already told you, a warrior has to be perfect, in order to
deal with the powers he
hunts; how can you conceive (think, consider, formulated, become
posessed), that a warrior would not be able to tell
things apart? On the other hand, you, my friend, who knows, what the
real world is,
would fumble
(touch/handle nervously)
and die in no
time at all, if you would have to depend on your ability for telling,
what is real and what is
not." I obviously had not expressed, what I really had in mind. Every
time I
protested, I was simply
voicing the unbearable frustration of being in an untenable (be
defended/vindicated)
position.
"I am not trying to make you into a sick, crazy man," don Juan went on.
"You can do that yourself
without my help. But the forces, that guide us, brought you to me, and
I
have been endeavoring to
teach you to change your stupid ways and live the strong clean life of
a hunter. Then the forces guided you again and told me, that you should
learn to
live the impeccable life of a
warrior. Apparently you can't. But who can tell? We are as mysterious
and as awesome, as this
unfathomable world, so who can tell, what you're capable of?"
116-117
There was an underlying tone of sadness in don Juan's voice. I wanted
to apologize, but he began to
talk again. "You don't have to look at your hands," he said. "Like I've
said, pick
anything at all. But pick
one thing in advance and find it in your dreams. I said your
hands,
because they'll always be
there. When they begin to change shape, you must move your sight away
from
them and pick something else,
and then look at your hands again. It takes a long time to perfect this
technique."
I had become so involved in writing, that I had not noticed, that it
was
getting dark. The sun had already disappeared over the horizon. The sky
was cloudy and the
twilight was imminent. Don Juan stood up and gave furtive (secret,
shifty) glances towards the south. "Let's go," he said. "We must walk
south, until the spirit of the water
hole shows itself." We walked for perhaps half an hour. The terrain
changed abruptly and we
came to a barren area.
There was a large round hill, where the chaparral had burnt. It looked
like a bald head. We walked
towards it. I thought, that don Juan was going to climb the mild slope,
but he stopped instead and
remained in a very attentive position. His body seemed to have tensed
as a single unit and shivered
for an instant. Then he relaxed again and stood limply. I could not
figure out, how his body could
remain erect, while his muscles were so relaxed. At that moment a very
strong gust of wind jolted me. Don Juan's body
turned in the direction of the
wind, towards the west. He did not use his muscles to turn, or at least
he did not use them the way,
I would use mine to turn. Don Juan's body seemed rather to have been
pulled from the outside. It
was, as if someone else had arranged his body to face a new direction.
I
kept on staring at him. He
looked at me from the corner of his eye. The expression on his face was
one of determination,
purpose. All of his being was attentive, and I stared at him in wonder.
I had never been in any
situation, that called for such a strange concentration. Suddenly his
body shivered, as though he had been splashed by a sudden
shower of cold water. He had another jolt and then he started to walk,
as if nothing had
happened. I followed him. We flanked the naked hills on the east side,
until we
were at the middle part of it;
he stopped there, turning to face the west. From where we stood, the
top of the hill was not so round and smooth, as
it had seemed to be from
the distance. There was a cave, or a hole, near the top. I looked at it
fixedly, because don Juan
was doing the same. Another strong gust of wind sent a chill up my
spine. Don Juan turned towards
the south and scanned the area with his eyes. "There!" he said in a
whisper and pointed to an object on the ground. I
strained my eyes to see. There was something on the ground, perhaps
twenty feet away. It was
light brown and, as I looked at it, it shivered. I focused all my
attention on it. The object was
almost round and seemed to be curled; in fact, it looked like a
curled-up dog.
"What is it?" I whispered to don Juan.
"I don't know," he whispered back, as he peered at the object. "What
does it look like to you?" I told him, that it seemed to be a dog. "Too
large for a dog," he said matter-of-factly. I took a couple of steps
towards it, but don Juan stopped me gently. I
stared at it again. It was
definitely some animal, that was either asleep or dead. I could almost
see its head; its ears
protruded like the ears of a wolf. By then I was definitely sure, that
it was a curled-up animal. I
thought, that it could have been a brown calf. I whispered that to don
Juan. He answered, that it was
too compact to be a calf, besides its ears were pointed. The animal
shivered again and then
I noticed, that it was alive. I could
actually see, that it was
breathing, yet it did not seem to breathe rhythmically. The breaths,
that it took were more like
irregular shivers. I had a sudden realization at that moment.
"It's an animal, that is dying," I whispered to don Juan.
"You're right," he whispered back. "But what kind of an animal?"
118-119
I could
not make out its specific features. Don Juan took a couple of
cautious steps towards
it. I followed him. It was
quite dark by then
and we had to take two more
steps, in order to keep the
animal in view. "Watch out," don Juan whispered in my ear. "If it is a
dying animal, it
may leap on us with its last
strength." The animal, whatever it was, seemed to be on its last legs;
its
breathing was irregular, its body
shook spasmodically, but it did not change its curled-up position. At a
given moment, however,
a tremendous spasm actually lifted the animal off the ground. I heard
an
inhuman shriek and the
animal stretched its legs; its claws were more, than frightening, they
were nauseating. The animal
tumbled on its side after stretching its legs and then rolled on its
back. I heard a formidable growl and don Juan's voice shouting, "Run
for your
life!" And that was exactly, what I did. I scrambled towards the top of
the
hill with unbelievable speed
and agility. When I was halfway to the top, I looked back and saw don
Juan standing in the same
place. He signaled me to come down. I ran down the hill.
"What happened?" I asked, completely out of breath.
"I think the animal is dead," he said. We advanced cautiously towards
the animal. It was sprawled on its back.
As I came closer to it, I
nearly yelled with fright.
I realized, that it was not quite dead yet.
Its body was still
trembling. Its legs, which were sticking up in the air, shook wildly.
The animal
was definitely in its last
gasps. I walked in front of don Juan. A new jolt moved the animal's
body and I
could see its head. I
turned to don Juan, horrified. Judging by its body the animal was
obviously a mammal, yet it had a
beak, like a bird. I stared at it in complete and absolute horror. My
mind refused to
believe it. I was dumbfounded. I
could not even articulate a word. Never, in my whole existence, had I
witnessed anything of that
nature. Something inconceivable (unbelievable)
was
there in front of my very eyes. I
wanted don Juan to explain
that incredible animal, but I could only mumble to him. He was staring
at me. I glanced at him and glanced at the animal, and then something
in me
arranged the world and I knew
at once, what the animal was. I walked over to it and picked it up. It
was a large branch of a bush.
It had been burnt, and possibly the wind had blown some burnt debris,
which got caught in the dry
branch and thus gave the appearance of a large bulging round animal.
The colour of the burnt debris
made it look light brown in contrast with the green vegetation. I
laughed at my idiocy and excitedly explained to don Juan, that the
wind blowing through it, had
made it look like a live animal. I thought, he would be pleased with
the
way, I had resolved the
mystery, but he turned around and began walking to the top of the hill.
I followed him. He crawled
inside the depression, that looked like a cave. It was not a hole, but
a
shallow dent in the
sandstone. Don Juan took some small branches and used them to scoop up
the dirt,
that had accumulated in the
bottom of the depression. "We have to get rid of the ticks," he said.
He signaled me to sit down and told me to make myself comfortable,
because we were going to spend
the night there. I began to talk about the branch, but
he hushed me up. "What you've done is no triumph," he said. "You've
wasted a beautiful
power, a power, that blew life
into that dry twig." He said, that a real triumph would have been for
me, to let go and follow
the power, until the world
had ceased to exist. He did not seem to be angry with me or
disappointed with my performance. He
repeatedly stated, that this was only the beginning, that it took time
to handle power. He patted me
on the shoulder and joked, that earlier that day
I was the person, who
knew, what was real and what
was not. I felt embarrassed. I began to apologize for my tendency of
always
being so sure of my ways.
"It doesn't matter," he said."That branch was a real animal and it was
alive, at the moment the
power touched it. Since what kept it alive was power, the trick was,
like in Dreaming, to sustain
the sight of it. See what I mean?" I wanted to ask something else, but
he hushed me up and said, that I
should remain completely silent, but awake all night and, that he alone
was going to talk for a
while. He said, that the spirit, which knew his voice, might become
subdued
with the sound of it and leave
us alone.
120
He explained, that the idea of, making oneself accessible to
power, had serious overtones.
Power was a devastating force, that could easily lead to one's death
and
had to be treated with
great care. Becoming available to power had to be done systematically,
but always with great
caution. It involved: making one's presence obvious by a contained
display of
loud talk or any other type of
noisy activity, and then it was mandatory to observe a prolonged and
total silence. A controlled
outburst and a controlled quietness were the mark of a warrior. He
said,
that properly I should have
sustained the sight of the live monster for a while longer.
In a
controlled fashion, without losing
my mind or becoming deranged with excitation or fear, I should have
striven (exert, struggle) to "Stop the World". He
pointed out, that after I had run up the hill for dear life, I was in a
perfect state for "Stopping
the World". Combined in that state were fear, awe, power and death; he
said, that such a state would
be pretty hard to repeat.
I whispered in his ear, "What do you mean by "Stopping the World"?" He
gave me a ferocious look, before he answered, that it was a technique,
practiced by those, who were
hunting for power, a technique, by virtue of which the world, as we
know
it, was made to collapse.
11. The Mood of a
Warrior
121
I
drove up to don Juan's house on Thursday, 31 August 1961, and, before
I even had a chance to greet
him, he stuck his head through the window of my car, smiled at me, and
said, "We must drive quite a
distance to a place of power and it's almost noon." He opened the door
of my car, sat down next to me in the front seat,
and directed me to drive south
for about seventy miles; we then turned east on to a dirt road and
followed it, until we had reached
the slopes of the mountains. I parked my car off the road in a
depression don Juan picked, because
it was deep enough to hide the car from view. From there we went
directly to the top of the low
hills, crossing a vast flat desolate area. When it got dark don Juan
selected a place to sleep. He demanded
complete silence. The next day we ate frugally (sparing, not plantiful)
and continued our
journey in an easterly
direction. The vegetation was
no longer desert shrubbery, but thick green mountain bushes and trees.
Around mid-afternoon we climbed to the top of a gigantic bluff (cliff, river bank,
mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate) of
conglomerate rock, which looked
like a wall. Don Juan sat down and signaled me to sit down also. "This
is a place of power," he said after a moment's pause. "This is
the place, where warriors were
buried a long time ago." At that instant a crow flew right above us,
cawing. Don Juan followed
its flight with a fixed
gaze. I examined the rock and was wondering, how and where the warriors
had
been buried, when he tapped me
on the shoulder.
122-123
"Not here, you fool," he said, smiling. "Down there." He pointed to the
field right below us at the bottom of the bluff (cliff, river bank,
mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate),
towards the east; he explained,
that the field in question was surrounded by a natural corral of
boulders. From where I was sitting,
I saw an area, which was perhaps a hundred yards in diameter and, which
looked like a perfect circle.
Thick bushes covered its surface, camouflaging the boulders. I would
not have noticed its perfect
roundness, if don Juan had not pointed it out to me. He said, that
there were scores of such places scattered in the old
world of the Indians. They were
not exactly places of power, like certain hills or land formations,
which were the abode of spirits,
but rather places of enlightenment, where one could be taught, where
one
could find solutions to
dilemmas.
"All you have to do is come here," he said. "Or spend the night on this
rock, in order to rearrange
your feelings."
"Are we going to spend the night here?"
"I thought so, but a little crow just told me not to do that." I tried
to find out more about the crow, but he hushed me up with an
impatient movement of his
hand.
"Look at that circle of boulders," he said. "Fix it in your memory and
then someday a crow will
lead you to another one of these places. The more perfect its roundness
is, the greater its
power."
"Are the warriors' bones still buried here?"
Don Juan made a comical gesture of puzzlement and then smiled broadly.
"This is not a cemetery," he said. "Nobody is buried here. I said
warriors were once buried here. I
meant, they used to come here to bury themselves for a night, or for
two
days, or for whatever
length of time they needed to. I did not mean dead people's bones are
buried here. I'm not
concerned with cemeteries. There is no power in them. There is power in
the bones of a warrior,
though, but they are never in cemeteries. And there is even more power
in the bones of a Man of Knowledge, yet it would be practically
impossible to find them."
"Who is a Man of Knowledge, don Juan?"
"Any warrior could become a Man of Knowledge. As I told you, a warrior
is an impeccable hunter, that
hunts power. If he succeeds in his hunting, he can be a Man of
Knowledge."
"What do you..."
He stopped my question with a movement of his hand. He stood up,
signaled me to follow, and began
descending on the steep east side of the bluff (cliff, river bank,
mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate). There was a definite
trail in the almost
perpendicular face, leading to the round area. We slowly worked our way
down the perilous path, and when we reached
the bottom floor don Juan,
without stopping at all, led me through the thick chaparral to the
middle of the circle. There he used some thick dry branches to sweep a
clean spot for us to
sit. The spot was also
perfectly round. "I intended to bury you here all night," he said. "But
I know now, that
it is not time yet. You
don't have power. I'm going to bury you only for a short while."
I became very nervous with the idea of being enclosed and asked, how he
was planning to bury me. He
giggled like a child and began collecting dry branches. He did not let
me help him and said I
should sit down and wait. He threw the branches he was collecting
inside the clean circle. Then
he made me lie down with my
head towards the east, put my jacket under my head, and made a cage
around my body. He constructed it by sticking pieces of branches about
two and a half
feet in length in the soft
dirt; the branches, which ended in forks, served as supports for some
long
sticks, that gave the cage a
frame and the appearance of an open coffin. He closed the boxlike cage
by placing small branches
and leaves over the long sticks, encasing me from the shoulders down.
He let my head stick out with
my jacket as a pillow. He then took a thick piece of dry wood and,
using it as a digging
stick, he loosened the dirt
around me and covered the cage with it. The frame was so solid and the
leaves were so well placed, that no dirt
came inside. I could move my
legs freely and could actually slide in and out. Don Juan said, that
ordinarily a warrior would construct the cage and
then slip into it and seal it
from the inside.
124-125
"How about the animals?" I asked. "Can they scratch the surface dirt
and sneak into the cage and
hurt the man?"
"No, that's not a worry for a warrior. It's a worry for you, because
you
have no power. A warrior,
on the other hand, is guided by his unbending purpose and can fend off
(manage alone, turn aside, defend, deflect, parry)
anything. No rat, or snake,
or mountain lion could bother him."
"What do they bury themselves for, don Juan?"
"For enlightenment and for power." I experienced an extremely pleasant
feeling of peace and satisfaction;
the world at that moment
seemed at ease. The quietness was exquisite and at the same time
unnerving. I was not accustomed to
that kind of silence. I tried to talk, but he hushed me. After a while
the tranquility of the place
affected my mood. I began to think of my life and my personal history,
and experienced a familiar
sensation of sadness and remorse. I told him, that I did not deserve to
be there, that his world was
strong and fair and I was weak, and that my spirit had been distorted
by the circumstances of my
life. He laughed and threatened to cover my head with dirt, if I kept
on
talking in that vein. He said,
that I was a man. And like any man I deserved everything, that was a
man's lot - joy, pain, sadness
and struggle - and, that the nature of one's acts was unimportant as
long, as one acted, as a
warrior. Lowering his voice to almost a whisper, he said, that if I
really felt,
that my spirit was distorted,
I should simply fix it - purge it, make it perfect - because there was
no other task in our entire
lives, which was more worthwhile.
Not to fix the spirit was to seek
death, and that was the same, as to seek nothing, since death was going
to overtake us, regardless of
anything. He paused for a long time and then he said with a tone of
profound
conviction, "To seek the
perfection of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our
manhood." His words acted, as
a catalyst. I felt the weight of my past actions, as
an unbearable and hindering
load. I admitted, that there was no hope for me. I began to weep,
talking about my life.
I said, that
I had been roaming for such a long time, that I had become callous
(hardened, insensitive) to
pain and sadness, except on
certain occasions, when I would realize my aloneness and my
helplessness. He did not say anything. He grabbed me by the armpits and
pulled me out
of the cage. I sat up, when
he let go of me.
He also sat down. An uneasy silence set in between us.
I thought he was giving me
time to compose myself. I took my notebook and scribbled out of
nervousness.
"You feel like a leaf at the mercy of the wind, don't you?" he finally
said, staring at me. That was exactly the way I felt. He seemed to
empathize with me. He
said,
that my mood reminded him
of a song and began to sing in a low tone; his singing voice was very
pleasing and the lyrics
carried me away:
"I'm
so far away from the sky, where I was born.
Immense nostalgia invades my
thoughts. Now, that I am so alone and sad like a leaf in the wind,
sometimes I want to weep,
sometimes I want to laugh with longing." We did not speak for a long
while. He finally broke the silence. "Since the day you were born, one
way or another, someone has been
doing something to you," he
said.
"That's correct," I said.
"And they have been doing something to you against your will."
"True."
"And by now you're helpless, like a leaf in the wind."
"That's correct. That's the way it is." I said, that the circumstances
of my life had sometimes been
devastating. He listened attentively,
but I could not figure out, whether he was just being agreeable or
genuinely concerned, until I
noticed, that he was trying to hide a smile.
"No matter how much you like to feel sorry for yourself, you have to
change that," he said in a
soft tone. "It doesn't jibe (agree, harmonise) with the life of a
warrior." He laughed and sang the song again, but contorted the
intonation of
certain words; the result was a
ludicrous lament (grief,
mourn, wail, complain). He
pointed out, that the
reason, I had liked the song,
was because in my own life I
had done nothing else, but find flaws with everything and lament (grief, mourn, wail,
complain).
I
could not argue with him. He was
correct.
126-127
Yet
I believed, I had sufficient reason to justify my feeling of being
like a leaf in the wind. "The hardest thing in the world is to assume
the mood of a warrior," he
said. "It is of no use to
be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing, that
someone is always doing
something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a
warrior. You are here, with me, because you want to be here. You should
have
assumed full responsibility by
now, so the idea, that you are at the mercy of the wind, would be
inadmissible." He stood up and begin to disassemble the cage. He
scooped the dirt back,
to where he had gotten it
from, and carefully scattered all the sticks in the chaparral. Then he
covered the clean circle with
debris, leaving the area, as if nothing had ever touched it. I
commented
on his proficiency. He said, that a good hunter would know,
that we had been there, no
matter how careful he had been, because the tracks of men could not be
completely erased. He sat cross-legged and told me to sit down as
comfortably, as possible,
facing the spot, where he
had buried me, and stay put, until my mood of sadness had dissipated.
"A warrior buries himself, in order to find power, not to weep with
self-pity," he said. I attempted to explain, but he made me stop with
an impatient movement
of his head. He said, that he
had to pull me out of the cage in a hurry, because my mood was
intolerable and he was afraid, that
the place would resent my softness and injure me. "Self-pity doesn't
jibe with power," he said. "The mood of a warrior
calls for control over himself
and at the same time it calls for abandoning himself."
"How can that be?" I asked. "How can he control and abandon himself at
the same time?"
"It is a difficult technique," he said. He seemed to deliberate,
whether or not to continue talking. Twice he
was on the verge of saying
something, but he checked himself and smiled. "You're not over your
sadness yet," he said. "You still feel weak and
there is no point in talking
about the mood of a warrior now." Almost an hour went by in complete
silence. Then he abruptly asked me,
if I had succeeded in
learning the Dreaming techniques, he had taught me. I had been
practicing assiduously (busy, diligent, devoted) and had been
able, after a monumental effort, to obtain a degree of control over my
dreams. Don Juan was very
right in saying, that one could interpret the exercises, as being
entertainment. For the first time
in my life I had been looking forward to going to sleep. I gave him a
detailed report of my progress. It had been
relatively easy for me to learn to sustain the image of my
hands, after I had learned to
command myself to look at them. My visions,
although not always of my
own hands, would last a
seemingly long time, until I would finally lose control and would
become immersed in ordinary
unpredictable dreams. I had no volition whatsoever, over when I would
give myself the command to
look at my hands, or to look at other items of the dreams. It would
just happen. At
a given moment,
I
would remember, that I had to look at my hands and then at the
surroundings. There were nights, however, when I could not recall
having done it at
all.
He seemed to be satisfied and wanted to know, what were the usual
items,
I had been finding in my
visions. I could not think of anything in particular and started
elaborating on a nightmarish dream,
I had had the night before. "Don't get so fancy," he said dryly. I told
him, that I had been recording all the details of my dreams.
Since I had begun to practice,
looking at my hands, my dreams had become very compelling (forceful)
and my sense
of recall had increased to
the point, that I could remember minute details. He said, that to
follow
them was a waste of time,
because details and vividness were in no way important. "Ordinary
dreams get very vivid as soon, as you begin to set up Dreaming," he
said. "That vividness
and clarity is a formidable barrier, and you are worse off, than
anyone, I
have ever met in my life.
You have the worst mania. You write down everything you can."
128-129
In all fairness, I believed, what I was doing, was appropriate. Keeping
a
meticulous record of my
dreams was giving me a degree of clarity about the nature of the
visions, I had while sleeping. "Drop it!" he said imperatively. "It's
not helping anything. All you're
doing is distracting
yourself from the purpose of Dreaming, which is control and power." He
lay down and covered his eyes with his hat and talked without
looking at me. "I'm going to remind you of all the techniques, you must
practice," he
said.
"First
you must focus
your gaze on your hands, as the starting point. Then shift your gaze to
other items and look at them
in brief glances. Focus your gaze on as many things, as you can.
Remember, that if you only glance
briefly, the images do not shift. Then go back to your hands. Every
time you look at your hands you renew the power, needed for Dreaming,
so in the beginning
don't look at too many things. Four items will suffice every time.
Later on, you may enlarge the
scope, until you can cover all you want, but as soon, as the images
begin
to shift, and you feel you
are losing control, go back to your hands. When you feel,
you
can gaze at things indefinitely, you will be ready
for a new technique.
I'm going
to teach you this new technique now, but I expect you to put it to use
only when you are
ready." He was quiet for about fifteen minutes. Finally he sat up and
looked at
me. "The
next step in setting up Dreaming is to learn to travel," he said.
"The same way you have
learned to look at your hands, you can will yourself to move, to go
places. First, you have to
establish a place, you want to go to. Pick a well-known spot - perhaps
your school, or a park, or a
friend's house - then, will yourself to go there. This technique is
very difficult. You must perform two tasks: you must
will yourself to go to the
specific locale; and then, when you have mastered that technique, you
have to learn to control the
exact time of your traveling."
As I wrote down his statements, I had the feeling, that I was really
nuts. I was actually taking down
insane instructions, knocking myself out, in order to follow them.
I
experienced a surge of remorse
and embarrassment. "What are you doing to me, don Juan?" I asked, not
really meaning it.
He seemed surprised. He stared at me for an instant and then
smiled. "You've been asking me the same question over and over. I'm not
doing
anything to you. You are
making yourself accessible to power; you're hunting it and I'm just
guiding you." He tilted his head to the side and studied me. He held my
chin with one
hand and the back of my
head with the other and then moved my head back and forth. The muscles
of my neck were very tense
and moving my head reduced the tension. Don Juan looked up to the sky
for a moment and seemed to examine
something in it. "It's time to leave," he said dryly and stood up. We
walked in an easterly direction, until we came upon a patch of small
trees in a valley between
two large hills. It was almost five P.M. by then. He casually said,
that
we might have to spend the
night in that place. He pointed to the trees and said, that there was
water around there. He tensed his body and began sniffing the air like
an animal. I could
see the muscles of his
stomach contracting in very fast short spasms, as he blew and inhaled
through his nose in rapid
succession. He urged me to do the same and find out by myself, where
the
water was. I reluctantly
tried to imitate him. After five or six minutes of fast breathing I was
dizzy, but my nostrils had
cleared out in an extraordinary way and I could actually detect the
smell of river willows. I could
not tell, where they were, however. Don Juan told me to rest for a few
minutes and then he started me,
sniffing again. The second round
was more intense. I could actually distinguish a whiff (air gust, brief
odour) of river willow,
coming from my right. We
headed in that direction and found, a good quarter of a mile away, a
swamp-like spot with stagnant
water. We walked around it to a slightly higher flat mesa. Above and
around the mesa the chaparral
was very thick.

130-131
"This place is crawling with mountain lions and other smaller cats,"
don Juan said casually, as if
it were a commonplace observation. I ran to his side and he broke out
laughing. "Usually I wouldn't come here at all," he said. "But the crow
pointed
out this direction. There
must be something special about it."
"Do we really have to be here, don Juan?"
"We do. Otherwise, I would avoid this place." I had become extremely
nervous. He told me to listen attentively to,
what he had to say. "The only thing one can do in this place is hunt
lions," he said. "So
I'm going to teach you how to
do that. There is a special way of constructing a trap for water rats,
that live
around water holes. They
serve as bait. The sides of the cage are made to collapse and very
sharp spikes are put along
the sides. The spikes are hidden, when the trap is up and they do not
affect
anything, unless something
falls on the cage, in which case the sides collapse and the spikes
pierce, whatever hits the
trap." I could not understand, what he meant, but he made a diagram on
the
ground and showed me, that if the
side sticks of the cage were placed on pivot-like hollow spots on the
frame, the cage would
collapse on to either side, if something pushed its top. The spikes
were
pointed sharp slivers (splinter) of hard wood, which were
placed
all around the frame and
fixed to it. Don Juan said, that usually a heavy load of rocks was
placed over a net
of sticks, which were
connected to the cage and hung way above it. When the mountain lion
came upon the trap, baited with
the water rats, it would usually try to break it by pawing it with all
its might; then the slivers (splinter)
would go through its paws and the cat, in a frenzy, would jump up,
unleashing an avalanche of rocks
on top of him. "Someday you might need to catch a mountain lion," he
said.
"They have
special powers. They are terribly smart and the only way to catch them
is by fooling
them with pain and with the
smell of river willows." With astounding speed and skill he assembled a
trap and, after a long
wait, he caught three chubby
squirrel-like rodents. He told me to pick a handful of willows from the
edge of the swamp and
made me rub my clothes with
them. He did the same. Then, quickly and skillfully, he wove two simple
carrying nets out of reeds,
scooped up a large clump of green plants and mud from the swamp, and
carried it back to the mesa,
where he concealed himself. In the meantime the squirrel-like rodents
had begun to squeak very
loudly. Don Juan spoke to me from his hiding place and told me to use
the other
carrying net, gather a good
chunk of mud and plants, and climb to the lower branches of a tree near
the trap, where the rodents
were. Don Juan said, that he did not want to hurt the cat or the
rodents, so
he was going to hurl the mud
at the lion, if it came to the trap. He told me to be on the alert and
hit the cat with my bundle
after he had, in order to scare it away. He
recommended, I should be
extremely careful not to fall
out of the tree. His final instructions were to be so still, that I
would merge with the
branches. I could not see, where don Juan was.
The squealing of the
rodents became
extremely loud and, finally,
it was so dark, that I could hardly distinguish the general features of
the terrain. I heard a
sudden and close sound of soft steps and a muffled catlike exhalation,
then a very soft growl and
the squirrel-like rodents ceased to squeak. It was right then, that I
saw the dark mass of an animal
right under the tree, where I was. Before I could even be sure, that it
was a mountain lion, it
charged against the trap, but before it reached it, something hit it
and
made it recoil, I hurled my
bundle, as don Juan had told me to do. I missed, yet it made a very
loud noise. At that instant don
Juan let out a series of penetrating yells, that sent chills through my
spine, and the cat, with
extraordinary agility, leaped to the mesa and disappeared. Don Juan
kept on making the penetrating noises a while longer.
134-135
Then
he told me to come down from
the tree, pick up the cage with the squirrels, run up to the mesa, and
get to where he was as fast,
as I could. In an incredibly short period of time I was standing next
to don Juan.
He told me to imitate his
yelling as close, as possible, in order to keep the lion off, while he
dismantled the cage and let the
rodents free. I began to yell, but could not produce the same effect.
My
voice was
raspy, because of the
excitation. He said, I had to abandon myself and yell with real
feeling, because the
lion was still around. Suddenly I fully realized the situation. The
lion was real. I let out a
magnificent series of
piercing yells. Don Juan roared with laughter. He let me yell for a
moment and then he said, we had to leave the place
as quietly, as possible,
because the lion was no fool and was probably retracing its steps back,
to where we were. "He'll follow us for sure," he said. "No matter how
careful we are,
we'll leave a trail as wide, as
the Pan American highway." I walked very close to don Juan. From time
to time he would stop for an
instant and listen. At one
moment he began to run in the dark and I followed him with my hands
extended in front of my eyes, to
protect myself from the branches. We finally got to the base of the
bluff
(cliff, river bank, mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate),
where we had been earlier. Don
Juan said, that if we
succeeded in climbing to the top without being mauled by the lion, we
were safe. He went up first, to
show me the way. We started to climb in the dark. I did not know how,
but I followed him with dead
sure steps. When we were near the top, I heard a peculiar animal cry.
It
was almost like the mooing (мычание)
of a cow, except that it was a bit longer and coarser. "Up! Up!" don
Juan yelled. I scrambled to the top in total darkness ahead of don
Juan. When he
reached the flat top of the
bluff
(cliff, river bank, mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate), I was already sitting,
catching my breath. He rolled on the ground. I thought for a second,
that the exertion had
been too great for him, but
he was laughing at my speedy climb. We sat in complete silence for a
couple of hours and then we started
back to my car.
Sunday, 3 September 1961. Don Juan was not in the house, when I woke
up. I worked over my notes
and had time to get some
firewood from the surrounding chaparral, before he returned. I was
eating, when he walked into the
house. He began to laugh at, what he called my routine of eating at
noon, but he helped himself to
my sandwiches. I told him, that what had happened with the mountain
lion, was baffling
to me. In retrospect, it all
seemed unreal. It was, as if everything had been staged for my benefit.
The succession of events had
been so rapid, that I really had not had time to be afraid. I had had
enough time to act, but not to
deliberate upon my circumstances. In writing my notes the question, of
whether I had really seen the
mountain lion, came to mind. The dry branch was still fresh in my
memory.
"It was a mountain lion," don Juan said imperatively.
"Was it a real flesh and blood animal?"

"Of course." I told him, that my suspicions had been roused because, of
the easiness
of the total event. It was,
as if the lion had been waiting out there and had been trained to do
exactly, what don Juan had
planned. He was unruffled by my barrage (overwhelming outpouring) of skeptical remarks. He
laughed at me. "You're a funny fellow," he said. "You saw and heard the
cat. It was
right under the tree, where you
were. He didn't smell you and jump at you, because of the river
willows.
They kill any other smell,
even for cats. You had a batch of them in your lap." I said, that it
was not, that I doubted him, but that everything, that had
happened that night, was
extremely foreign to the events of my everyday life. For a while, as I
was writing my notes, I even
had had the feeling, that don Juan may have been playing the role of
the
lion. However, I had to
discard the idea, because I had really seen the dark shape of a
four-legged animal, charging at the
cage and then leaping to the mesa. "Why do you make such a fuss?" he
said. "It was just a big cat. There
must be thousands of cats in
those mountains. Big deal. As usual, you are focusing your attention on
the wrong item. It makes no
difference whatsoever, whether it was a lion or my pants. Your feelings
at that moment were, what counted." In my entire life I had never seen
or heard a big wildcat on the prowl (roaming through).
When I thought of it, I
could not get over the fact, that I had been only a few feet away from
one. Don Juan listened patiently, while I went over the entire
experience. "Why the awe for the big cat?" he asked with an inquisitive
expression.
"You've been close to most
of the animals, that live around here and you've never been so awed by
them. Do you like cats?"
"No, I don't."
"Well, forget about it then. The lesson was not on how to hunt lions,
anyway."
"What was it about?"
"The little crow pointed out that specific spot to me, and at that spot
I saw the opportunity of
making you understand, how one acts, while one is in the mood of a
warrior. Everything, you did last night, was done within a proper mood.
You were
controlled and at the same
time abandoned, when you jumped down from the tree to pick up the cage
and run up to me. You were not paralyzed with fear. And then, near the
top of the bluff
(cliff, river bank, mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate),
when the lion let out a
scream, you moved very well. I'm sure you wouldn't believe, what you
did,
if you looked at the bluff
(cliff, river bank,
mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress, intimidate)
during the daytime. You had a degree of abandon, and at the same time
you had a degree of control
over yourself. You did not let go and wet your pants, and yet you let
go and climbed that wall in
complete darkness. You could have missed the trail and killed yourself.
To climb that wall in
darkness required, that you had to hold on to yourself and let go of
yourself at the same time. That's what I call the mood of a warrior." I
said, that whatever, I had done that night, was the product of my fear
and not the result of any
mood of control and abandon. "I know that," he said, smiling. "And I
wanted to show you, that you can
spur (stimulate, promt, incite) yourself beyond your
limits, if you are in the proper mood. A warrior makes his own mood.
You
didn't know that. Fear got you into the mood of a warrior, but now,
that
you know about
it, anything can serve to get
you into it." I wanted to argue with him, but my reasons were not
clear. I felt an
inexplicable sense of
annoyance. "It's convenient to always act in such a mood," he
continued. "It cuts
through the crap and leaves
one purified. It was a great feeling, when you reached the top of the
bluff (cliff, river bank, mislead, deceive, hoodwink, impress,
intimidate). Wasn't it?" I told him, that I understood, what he meant,
yet I felt it would be
idiotic to try to apply, what he
was teaching me, to my everyday life. "One needs the mood of a warrior
for every single act," he said.
"Otherwise one becomes distorted
and ugly. There is no power in a life, that lacks this mood. Look at
yourself. Everything offends
and upsets you. You whine, complain and feel, that everyone is making
you dance to their tune.
You are a leaf at the mercy of the wind. There is no power in your
fife. What an ugly feeling that
must be! A warrior, on the other hand, is a hunter. He calculates
everything.
That's control. But once his
calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior
is not a leaf at the mercy of
the wind. Noone can push him; noone can make him do things against
himself or against his better
judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of
all possible fashions." I liked his stance, although I thought, it was
unrealistic. It seemed too
simplistic for the complex
world, in which I lived. He laughed at my arguments and I insisted,
that
the mood of a warrior
could not possibly help me
overcome the feeling of being offended or actually being injured by the
actions of my fellow men. As in the hypothetical case of being
physically harassed by a cruel and
malicious person, placed in
a position of authority. He roared with laughter and admitted the
example was apropos (appropriate,
pertinent).
"A warrior could be injured, but not offended," he said.
136
"For a warrior
there is nothing offensive
about the acts of his fellow men as long, as he himself is acting
within
the proper mood. "The other night you were not offended by the lion.
The fact, that it
chased us, did not anger you. I
did not hear you cursing it, nor did I hear you say, that he had no
right to follow us. It could
have been a cruel and malicious lion for all you know. But that was not
a consideration, while you
struggled to avoid it. The only thing, that was pertinent (appropriate)
was to
survive. And that you did very
well. If you would have been alone and the lion had caught up with you
and
mauled you to death, you
would have never even considered complaining or feeling offended by its
acts. The mood of a warrior is not so far-fetched for yours or
anybody's
world. You need it, in order to
cut through all the guff (nonsense, foolish talk)." I explained my way
of reasoning. The lion and my fellow men were not on
a par, because I knew the
intimate quirks (oddity) of men, while I knew nothing about the lion.
What
offended me, about my fellow men,
was, that they acted maliciously and knowingly. "I know, I know," don
Juan said patiently.
"To achieve the mood of a
warrior is not a simple
matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion, the water rats and
our fellow men as equals is a
magnificent act of the warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that."
12. A Battle of
Power

137
Thursday, 28 December 1961. We started on a journey very early in the
morning. We drove south and
then east to the mountains.
Don Juan had brought gourds with food and water. We ate in my car
before we started walking. "Stick close to me," he said. "This is an
unknown region to you and
there is no need to take
chances. You are going in search of power and everything you
do, counts.
Watch the wind, especially
towards the end of the day. Watch when it changes directions, and shift
your position, so that I
always shield you from it."
"What are we going to do in these mountains, don Juan?"
"You're hunting power."
"I mean, what are we going to do in particular?"
"There's no plan, when it comes to hunting power. Hunting power or
hunting game is the same. A hunter hunts, whatever presents itself to
him. Thus he must always be
in a state of readiness. You know about the wind, and now you may hunt
power in the wind by
yourself. But there are other
things, you don't know about, which are, like the wind, the centre of
power at certain times and at
certain places. Power is a very peculiar affair," he said. "It is
impossible to pin it
down and say, what it really
is. It is a feeling, that one has about certain things. Power is
personal. It belongs to oneself
alone. My benefactor, for instance, could make a person mortally ill by
merely
looking at him. Women would
wane away (decrease intensity, decline), after he had set eyes on them.
138-139
Yet he did not make people
sick all the time, but only when
his personal power was involved."
"How did he choose, who to make sick?"
"I don't know that. He didn't know it himself. Power is like that. It
commands you and yet, it obeys
you. A hunter of power entraps it and then stores it away, as his
personal
finding. Thus, personal power
grows, and you may have the case of a warrior, who has so much personal
power, that he becomes a Man
of Knowledge."
"How does one store power, don Juan?"
"That again is another feeling. It depends on, what kind of a person
the
warrior is. My benefactor
was a man of violent nature. He stored power through that feeling.
Everything he did was strong and
direct. He left me a memory of something, crushing through things. And
everything, that happened to
him, took place in that manner." I told him, I could not understand how
power was stored through a
feeling. "There's no way to explain it," he said after a long pause.
"You have
to do it yourself." He picked up the gourds with food and fastened them
to his back. He
handed me a string with eight
pieces of dry meat strung on it and made me hang it from my neck. "This
is power food," he said.
"What makes it power food, don Juan?"
"It is the meat of an animal, that had power. A deer, a unique deer. My
personal power brought it to
me. This meat will sustain us for weeks, months, if need be. Chew
little
bits of it at a time, and
chew it thoroughly. Let the power sink slowly into your body." We began
to walk. It was almost eleven A.M. Don Juan reminded me once
more of the procedure to
follow. "Watch the wind," he said. "Don't let it trip you. And don't
let it
make you tired. Chew your power
food and hide from the wind behind my body. The wind won't hurt me; we
know each other very well."

He led me to a trail, that went straight to the high mountains. The day
was cloudy and it was about
to rain. I could see low rain clouds and fog up above in the mountains,
descending into the area,
where we were. We hiked in complete silence, until about three o'clock
in the
afternoon. Chewing the dry meat was
indeed invigorating. And watching for sudden changes in the direction
of the wind, became a
mysterious affair, to the point that my entire body seemed to sense
changes, before they actually
happened. I had the feeling, that I could detect waves of wind, as a
sort
of pressure on my upper
chest, on my bronchial tubes. Every time I was about to feel a gust of
wind, my chest and throat
would itch. Don Juan stopped for a moment and looked around. He
appeared to be
orienting himself and then
he
turned to the right. I noticed, that he was also chewing dry meat. I
felt very fresh and was not
tired at all. The task of, being aware of shifts in the wind, had been
so
consuming, that I had not
been aware of time. We walked into a deep ravine and then up one side,
to a small plateau on
the sheer side of an
enormous mountain.
We
were quite high, almost to the top of the
mountain. Don Juan climbed a huge rock at the end of the plateau and
helped me up
to it. The rock was placed
in such a way, as to look like a dome on top of precipitous walls. We
slowly walked around it.
Finally, I had to move around the rock on my seat, holding on to the
surface with my heels and
hands. I was soaked in perspiration and had to dry my hands repeatedly.
From the other side I could see a very large shallow cave near the top
of the mountain. It looked
like a hall, that had been carved out of the rock. It was sandstone,
which had been weathered into a
sort of balcony with two pillars. Don Juan said, that we were
going to camp there, that it was a very safe
place, because it was too
shallow to be a den for lions or any other predators, too open to be a
nest for rats, and too windy
for insects. He
laughed and said, that it was an ideal place for men,
since no other living
creatures could stand it. He climbed up to it like a
mountain goat. I
marveled at his stupendous
agility. I slowly dragged myself down the rock on my seat and then
tried to run
up the side of the mountain,
in order to reach the ledge. The last few yards completely exhausted
me.
140-141
I kiddingly asked don Juan,
how old he really was. I thought, that in order to reach the ledge, the
way he had done it, one had to
be extremely fit and young.
"I'm as young, as I want to be," he said. "This again is a matter of
personal power. If you store
power, your body can perform unbelievable feats. On the other hand,
if
you dissipate power, you'll be
a fat old man in no time at all." The length of the ledge was oriented
along an east-west line. The open
side of the balcony-like
formation was to the south. I walked to the west end. The view was
superb. The rain had
circumvented (avoid, surround and entrap, outwit) us. It looked like a
sheet of transparent material, hung
over the low land. Don Juan said, that we had enough time to build a
shelter. He told me to
make a pile of as many
rocks, as I could carry on to the ledge, while he gathered some
branches
for a roof. In an hour he had built a wall about a foot thick on the
east end of
the ledge. It was about two
feet long and three feet high. He wove and tied some bundles of
branches, he had collected, and made
a roof, securing it on to two long poles, that ended in forks. There
was
another pole of the same
length, that was affixed (secure) to the roof itself and, which
supported it on
the opposite side of the wall.
The structure looked like a high table with three legs. Don Juan sat
cross-legged under it, on the very edge of the balcony. He
told me to sit next to him,
to his right. We remained quiet for a while. Don Juan broke the
silence. He said in a whisper, that we had to act, as
if nothing was out of the
ordinary. I asked, if there was something in particular, that
I should
do. He said, that I should
get busy writing and do it in such a way, that it would be, as if I
were at
my desk with no worries in
the world, except writing.
At a given moment he was going to nudge me
and then, I should look, where
he was pointing with his eyes. He warned me, that no matter, what I
saw, I
should not utter a single
word. Only he could talk with impunity (exemption from punishment,
immunity from retribution), because he was known to all the
powers in those
mountains. I followed his instructions and wrote for over an hour. I
became
immersed in my task. Suddenly, I felt a soft tap on my arm and saw don
Juan's eyes and head
move, to point out a bank of
fog about two hundred yards away, which was descending from the top of
the mountain. Don Juan
whispered in my ear with a tone, barely audible even at that close
range.

"Move your eyes back and forth along the bank of fog," he said. "But
don't look at it directly. Blink your eyes and don't focus them on the
fog. When you see a green
spot on the bank of fog,
point it out to me with your eyes." I moved my eyes from left to right
along the bank of fog, that was
slowly coming down to us. Perhaps half an hour went by. It was getting
dark. The fog moved
extremely slowly. At one moment I
had the sudden feeling, that I had detected a faint glow to my right.
At
first
I
thought, that I had
seen a patch of green shrubbery through the fog. When I looked at it
directly, I did not notice
anything, but when I looked without focusing, I could detect a vague
greenish area. I pointed it out to don Juan. He squinted his eyes and
stared at it. "Focus your eyes on that spot," he whispered in
my
ear. "Look without
blinking, until you See." I wanted to ask, what I was supposed to See,
but he glared at me, as if to
remind me, that I should not
talk. I stared again. The bit of fog, that had come down from above,
hung,
as if
it were a piece of solid
matter. It was lined up right at the spot, where I had noticed the
green
tint. As my eyes became
tired again and I squinted, I saw at first the bit of fog, superimposed
on the fog bank, and then I
saw a thin strip of fog in between, that looked like a thin unsupported
structure, a bridge, joining
the mountain above me and the bank of fog in front of me. For a moment
I thought, I could see the
transparent fog, which was being blown down from the top of the
mountain, going by the bridge
without disturbing it. It was, as if the bridge were actually solid. At
one instant the mirage
became so complete, that I could actually distinguish the darkness of
the part under the bridge
proper, as opposed to the light sandstone colour of its side. I stared
at the bridge, dumbfounded. And then I either lifted myself to
its level, or the bridge
lowered itself to mine.
142-143
Suddenly I was looking at a straight beam in
front of me. It was an
immensely long, solid beam, narrow and without railings, but wide
enough to walk on. Don Juan shook me by the arm vigorously. I felt my
head bobbing up and
down and, then I noticed, that
my eyes itched terribly. I rubbed them quite unconsciously. Don Juan
kept on shaking me, until I
opened my eyes again. He poured some water from his gourd into the
hollow of his hand and sprinkled
my face with it. The sensation was very unpleasant. The coldness of the
water was so extreme, that
the drops felt like sores on my skin. I noticed then, that my body was
very warm. I was
feverish. Don Juan hurriedly gave me some water to drink and then
splashed water
on my ears and neck. I heard a very loud, eerie and prolonged bird cry.
Don Juan listened
attentively for an instant and
then pushed the rocks of the wall with his foot and collapsed the roof.
He threw the roof into the
shrubs and tossed all the rocks, one by one, over the side. He
whispered in my ear, "Drink some water and chew your dry meat. We
cannot stay here. That cry was not a bird." We climbed down the ledge
and began to walk in an easterly direction.
In no time at all it was so
dark, that it was, as if there were a curtain in front of my eyes. The
fog was like an
impenetrable barrier. I had never realized how crippling the fog was at
night. I
could not conceive (think, consider, formulated, become posessed), how
don Juan
walked. I held on to his arm, as if I were blind. Somehow I had the
feeling, I was walking on the edge of a precipice. My
legs refused to move on. My
reason trusted don Juan, and I was rationally willing to go on, but my
body was not, and don Juan
had to drag me in total darkness. He must have known the terrain to
ultimate perfection. He stopped at a
certain point and made me
sit down. I did not dare let go of his arm. My body felt, beyond the
shadow of a doubt, that I was
sitting on a barren domelike mountain and, if I moved an inch to my
right, I would fall beyond the
tolerance point into an abyss. I was absolutely sure, I was sitting on
a
curved mountainside,
because my body moved unconsciously to the right. I thought it did so,
in order to keep its
verticality, so I tried to compensate by leaning to the left against
don Juan, as far, as
I
could. Don Juan suddenly moved away from me and, without the support of
his
body, I fell on the ground.
Touching the ground restored my sense of equilibrium.
I was lying on a
flat area. I began to
reconnoitre (make preliminary inspection) my immediate surroundings by
touch. I recognized dry leaves
and twigs. There was a sudden flash of lightning, that illuminated the
whole area
and tremendous thunder. I saw don Juan standing to my left. I saw huge
trees and a cave a few
feet behind him. Don Juan told me to get into the hole. I crawled into
it and sat down
with my back against the
rock. I felt don Juan leaning over to whisper, that I had to be totally
silent. There were three flashes of lightning, one after the other. In
a glance
I saw don Juan sitting
cross-legged to my left. The cave was a concave formation, big enough
for two or three persons to
sit in. The hole seemed to have been carved at the bottom of a boulder.
I felt, that it had indeed
been wise of me to have crawled into it, because, if I had been
walking,
I would have knocked my head
against the rock. The brilliancy of the lightning gave me an idea of
how thick the bank
of fog was. I noticed the
trunks of enormous trees, as dark silhouettes against the opaque light
grey mass of the fog. Don Juan whispered, that the fog and the
lightning were in cahoots with
each other and, I had to keep
an exhausting vigil (watch during
sleeping hours),
because I was engaged in a battle of power. At that
moment a stupendous flash
of lightning rendered (represent,
presented for consideration, give in return) the
whole scenery phantasmagorical (fantastic sequence of images as in
dreams). The fog was
like a white filter, that
frosted the light of the electrical discharge and diffused it
uniformly; the fog was like a dense
whitish substance, hanging between the tall trees, but right in front
of
me at the ground level, the
fog was thinning out. I plainly distinguished the features of the
terrain. We were in a pine
forest. Very tall trees surrounded us. They were so extremely big, that
I could have sworn, we were
in the redwoods, if I had not previously known our whereabouts. There
was a barrage (overwhelming outpouring) of lightning, that lasted
several minutes.
144-145
Each flash made
the features, I had already observed more discernible.
Right in front of me I saw a
definite trail. There was no vegetation on it. It seemed to end in an
area clear of trees. There were so many flashes of lightning, that I
could not keep track of,
where they were coming from.
The scenery, however, had been so profusely illuminated, that I felt
much more at ease. My fears and
uncertainties had vanished as soon, as there had been enough light to
lift the heavy curtain of
darkness. So, when there was a long pause between the flashes of
lightning, I was no longer
disoriented by the blackness around me. Don Juan whispered, that
I had
probably done enough watching, and that I
had to focus my attention
on the sound of thunder. I realized to my amazement, that I had not
paid
any attention to thunder at
all, in spite of the fact, that it had really been tremendous. Don Juan
added, that I should follow
the sound and look in the direction, where I thought, it came from.
There
were no longer barrages (overwhelming
outpouring) of lightning
and thunder,
but only
sporadic (occasional) flashes of intense light
and sound. The thunder seemed to always come from my right. The fog was
lifting and I, already
being accustomed to the pitch black, could distinguish masses of
vegetation. The lightning and thunder continued and, suddenly, the
whole right side
opened up and I could see the
sky. The electrical storm seemed to be moving towards my right. There
was
another flash of lightning and
I saw a distant mountain to my extreme right. The light illuminated the
background, silhouetting
the bulky mass of the mountain. I saw trees on top of it; they looked
like neat black cutouts,
superimposed on the brilliantly white sky. I ever saw cumulus clouds
over the mountains. The fog had cleared completely around us. There was
a steady wind and I
could hear the rustling of
leaves in the big trees to my left. The electrical storm was too
distant to illuminate the trees,
but their dark masses remained discernible. The light of the storm
allowed me to establish,
however, that there was a range of distant mountains to my right and,
that the forest was limited to
the left side. It seemed, that I was looking down into a dark valley,
which I could not see at
all. The range, over which the electrical storm was taking place, was
on the
opposite side of the
valley. Then it began to rain. I pressed back against the rock as far,
as I
could.
My hat served as a good
protection. I was sitting with my knees to my chest and only my calves
and shoes got wet. It rained for a long time. The rain was lukewarm. I
felt it on my feet.
And then I fell asleep. The noises of birds woke me up. I looked around
for don Juan. He was
not there; ordinarily I would
have wondered, whether he had left me there alone, but the shock of,
seeing the surroundings, nearly
paralyzed me. I stood up. My legs were soaking wet, the brim of my hat
was soggy and
there was still some water
in it, that spilled over me. I was not in a cave at all, but under some
thick bushes. I experienced
a moment of unparalleled confusion. I was standing on a flat piece of
land between two small dirt
hills, covered with bushes. There were no trees to my left and no
valley
to my right. Right in front of me, where I had seen the path in the
forest, there
was a gigantic bush. I refused to believe, what I was witnessing. The
incongruency (no harmony, incompatible) of my two
versions of reality made me
grapple (attempt to overcome) for any kind of explanation. It occurred
to me, that it was
perfectly possible, that I had
slept so soundly, that don Juan might have carried me on his back to
another place, without waking
me. I examined the spot, where I had been sleeping. The ground there
was
dry, and so was the ground on
the spot next to it, where don Juan had been. I called him a couple of
times and then had an attack of anxiety and
bellowed (utter in loud voice) his name as loud, as I
could. He came out from behind some bushes. I
immediately became aware,
that he knew, what was going
on. His smile was so mischievous, that I ended up smiling myself. I did
not want to waste any time in playing games with him. I blurted
out, what was the matter with
me. I explained as carefully, as possible every detail of my night-long
hallucinations. He listened
without interrupting.
146-147
He could not, however, keep a serious face and
started to laugh a couple of
times, but he regained his composure right away. I asked for his
comments three or four times; he only shook his head, as
if the whole affair was
also incomprehensible to him. When I ended my account, he looked at me
and said, "You look awful.
Maybe you need to go to the
bushes."
He cackled (shrill,
brittle laughter like hen)
for a moment and then
added, that I should take off my
clothes and wring (twist, squeeze) them out, so they
would dry.
The sunlight was brilliant. There were very few clouds. It
was a windy
brisk day. Don Juan walked away, telling me, that he was going to look
for some
plants and, that I should
compose myself and eat something and not call him, until I was calm and
strong. My clothes were really wet. I sat down in the sun to dry. I
felt, that
the only way for me to relax,
was to get out my notebook and write. I ate, while I worked on my
notes.
After a couple of hours I was more relaxed and I called don Juan. He
answered from a place near the top of the mountain. He told me to
gather the gourds and climb
up, to where he was. When I reached the spot, I found him sitting on a
smooth rock. He
opened the gourds and served
himself some food. He handed me two big pieces of meat. I did not know,
where to begin. There were so many things, I wanted to
ask. He seemed to be aware of
my mood and laughed with sheer delight. "How do you feel?" he asked in
a facetious (elegant) tone. I did not
want to say anything. I was still upset. Don Juan urged me to
sit down on the flat slab.
He said, that the stone was a power object and, that I would be renewed
after being there for a
while. "Sit down," he
commanded me dryly. He did not smile. His eyes were
piercing. I automatically sat down. He said, that I was being careless
with power by acting morosely, and
that I had to put an end to it
or power would turn against both of us, and we would never leave those
desolate hills alive. After a moment's pause he casually asked, "How is
your Dreaming?" I explained to him, how difficult it had become for me
to give myself
the command: to look at my
hands. At first, it had been relatively easy, perhaps because of the
newness of the concept. I had
had no trouble at all in reminding myself, that I had to look at my
hands. But the excitation had
worn off and some nights I could not do it at all.
"You must wear a headband to sleep," he said. "Getting a headband is a
tricky maneuver. I cannot
give you one, because you yourself have to make it from scratch. But
you cannot make one, until you
have had a vision of it in Dreaming. See what I mean? The headband has
to be made according to the
specific vision. And it must have a strip across it, that fits tightly
on top of the head. Or it may
very well be like a tight cap. Dreaming is easier when one wears a
power object on top of the head.
You could wear your hat or put on a cowl (hooded robe for monks), like
a friar, and go to
sleep, but those items would only
cause intense dreams, not Dreaming."
He was silent for a moment and then proceeded to tell me in a fast
barrage
(overwhelming outpouring) of words,
that the vision
of the headband did not have to occur only in Dreaming, but could
happen
in states of wakefulness
and, as a result of any far-fetched and totally unrelated event, such
as
watching the flight of
birds, the movement of water, the clouds, and so on. A
hunter of power watches everything," he went on. "And everything
tells him some secret."
"But how can one be sure, that things are telling secrets?" I asked. I
thought, he may have had a specific formula, that allowed him to make
"correct" interpretations.
"The only way, to be sure, is by following all the instructions, I have
been giving you, starting from
the first day you came to see me," he said. "In order to have power,
one
must live with power." He smiled benevolently. He seemed to have lost
his fierceness; he even
nudged me lightly on the
arm. "Eat your power food,"
he urged me.
148-149
I began to chew some dry meat and at that moment I had the sudden
realization, that perhaps the dry
meat contained a psychotropic substance, hence the hallucinations. For
a moment I felt almost
relieved. If he had put something in the meat, my mirages were
perfectly
understandable. I asked him
to tell me, if there was anything at all in the "power meat". He
laughed, but did not answer me directly. I insisted, assuring him,
that I was not angry or even
annoyed, but that I had to know, so I could explain the events of the
previous night to my own
satisfaction. I urged him, coaxed (persuade) him, and finally begged
him to tell
me the truth. "You are quite cracked," he said, shaking his head in a
gesture of
disbelief. "You have an
insidious (spreading harmfully in subtle manner) tendency. You persist
in trying to explain everything to your
satisfaction. There is
nothing in the meat, except power. The power was not put there by me or
by any other man, but by power itself. It is the dry meat of a deer and
that deer was a gift to
me in the same way a certain
rabbit was a gift to you not too long ago. Neither you, nor I put
anything in the rabbit. I didn't
ask you to dry the rabbit's meat, because that act required more power,
than you had. However, I did
tell you to eat the meat. You didn't eat much of it, because of your
own stupidity. What
happened to you last night was neither a joke, nor a prank. You
had an encounter with power.
The fog, the darkness, the lightning, the thunder and the rain were all
part of a great battle of
power. You had the luck of a fool. A warrior would give anything to
have such a battle."
My argument was, that the whole event could not be a battle of power,
because it had not been
real. "And what is real?" don Juan asked me very calmly.
"This, what we're looking at, is real," I said, pointing to the
surroundings.
"But so was the bridge, you saw last night, and so was the forest and
everything else."
"But if they were real, where are they now?"
"They are here. If you had enough power, you could call them back.
Right
now you cannot do that,
because you think, it is very helpful to keep on doubting and nagging (bothering).
It isn't, my friend. It
isn't. There
are worlds upon worlds, right here in front of us. And
they are nothing to laugh
at. Last night, if I hadn't grabbed your arm, you would
have walked on that
bridge, whether you wanted to
or not. And earlier I had to protect you from the wind, that was
seeking
you out."
"What would have happened, if you hadn't protected me?"
"Since you don't have enough power, the wind would have made you lose
your way and perhaps even
killed you, by pushing you into a ravine. But the fog was the real
thing
last night. Two things could have happened to you in the fog. You could
have walked
across the bridge to the
other side, or you could have fallen to your death. Either would have
depended on power. One thing,
however, would have been for sure. If I had not protected you, you
would have had to walk on that
bridge regardless of anything. That is the nature of power. As I told
you before, it commands you
and yet it is at your command. Last night, for instance, the power
would have forced you to walk
across the bridge and then it would have been at your command to
sustain (support spirit/vitality, prolong, keep in existence) you,
while you were
walking. I stopped you, because I know, you don't have the means to use
power, and without power the
bridge would have collapsed."
"Did you see the bridge yourself, don Juan?"
"No. I just saw power. It may have been anything. Power for you, this
time, was a bridge. I don't
know why a bridge. We are most mysterious creatures."
"Have you ever seen a bridge in the fog, don Juan?"
"Never. But that's, because I'm not like you. I saw other things. My
battles of power are very
different from yours."
'What did you see, don Juan ? Can you tell me?"
"I saw my enemies during my first battle of power in the fog. You have
no enemies. You don't hate
people. I did at that time. I indulged in hating people. I don't do
that any more. I have
vanquished (conquer
in
battle)
my hate, but at that time my hate nearly destroyed me.
"Your battle of power, on the other hand, was neat.
It didn't consume
you. You are consuming
yourself now with your own crappy thoughts and doubts. That's your way
of indulging yourself.
150-151
"The fog was impeccable with you. You have an affinity (likeness,
liking, personal attraction) with it. It gave
you a stupendous bridge,
and that bridge will be there in the fog from now on. It will reveal
itself to you over and over,
until someday you will have to cross it. I strongly recommend, that,
from this day on, you don't walk into foggy
areas by yourself, until you
know, what you're doing. Power is a very weird affair. In order to have
it and command it, one
must have power to begin
with. It's possible, however, to store it, little by little, until one
has enough to sustain
oneself in a battle of power."
"What is a battle of power?"
"What happened to you last night was the beginning of a battle of
power. The scenes, that you beheld (gaze at, look upon, see),
were the seat of power. Someday they will make sense to you; those
scenes are most meaningful."
"Can you tell me their meaning yourself, don Juan?"
"No. Those scenes are your own personal conquest, which you cannot
share
with anyone. But what
happened last night was only the beginning, a skirmish (minor conflict,
dispute). The real battle
will take place, when you
cross that bridge. What's on the other side? Only you will know that.
And only you will know, what's
at the end of that trail through the forest. But all that is something,
that may or may not happen
to you. In order to journey through those unknown trails and bridges,
one must have enough power of
one's own."
"What happens, if one doesn't have enough power?"

"Death is always waiting, and when the warrior's power wanes (decrease intensity,
decline),
death
simply taps (knock) him. Thus, to
venture into the Unknown without any power is stupid. One will only
find death." I was not really listening. I kept on playing with the
idea, that the
dry meat may have been the
agent, that had caused the hallucinations. It appeased (pacified) me to indulge in
that thought. "Don't tax
(strain) yourself trying to
figure
it out," he said, as if he were
reading my thoughts. "The world
is a mystery. This, what you're looking at, is not all there is to it.
There is much more to the
world, so much more, in fact, that it is endless.
So, when you're trying
to figure it out, all,
you're really doing, is trying to make the world familiar. You and I
are
right here, in the world,
that you call real, simply because we both know it. You don't know the
world of power, therefore
you cannot make it into a familiar scene."
"You know, that I really can't argue your point," I said. "But my mind
can't accept it either." He laughed and touched my head lightly.
"You're really crazy," he said. "But that's all right. I know how
difficult it is to live like a
warrior. If you would have followed my instructions and performed all
the acts I have taught you,
you would by now have enough power to cross that bridge. Enough power
to see and to Stop the World."
"But why should I want power, don Juan?"
"You can't think of a reason now. However, if you would store enough
power, the power, itself, will
find you a good reason. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?"
"Why did you want power yourself, don Juan?"
"I'm like you. I didn't want it. I couldn't find a reason to have it. I
had all the doubts, that you
have, and never followed the instructions I was given, or I never
thought,
I did; yet, in spite of my
stupidity, I stored enough power, and one day my personal power made
the World Collapse."
"But why would anyone wish to Stop the World?"
"Nobody does, that's the point. It just happens. And once you know,
what
it is like: to Stop the World, you realize, there is a reason for it.
You see, one of the arts of
the warrior is to Collapse
the World for a specific reason and then restore it again in order to
keep on living." I told him, that perhaps, the surest way, to help me,
would be to give me
an example of a specific
reason for Collapsing the World. He remained silent for some time. He
seemed to be thinking, what to say. "I can't tell you that," he said.
"It takes too much power to know
that. Someday you will live like
a warrior, in spite of yourself; then perhaps, you will have stored
enough personal power to answer
that question yourself. "I have taught you nearly everything a warrior
needs to know, in order
to start off in the world,
storing power by himself.
152-153
Yet I know, that you can't do that and I have
to be patient with you. I
know for a fact, that it takes a lifelong struggle to be by oneself in
the world of power."
Don Juan looked at the sky and the mountains. The sun was already on
its descent towards the west and rain clouds were rapidly forming on
the mountains. I did not
know the time; I had
forgotten to wind my watch. I asked, if he could tell the time of the
day and he had such an attack
of laughter, that he rolled off the slab into the bushes. He stood up
and stretched his arms,
yawning. "It is early," he said. "We must wait, until the fog gathers
on top of
the mountain and then you
must stand alone on this slab and thank the fog for its favors. Let it
come and envelop you. I'll
be nearby to assist, if need be." Somehow the prospect of staying alone
in the fog terrified me. I felt
idiotic for reacting in such
an irrational manner. "You cannot
leave these desolate (devoid of inhabitants, deserted) mountains
without saying your thanks,"
he said in a firm tone. "A
warrior never turns his back to power, without atoning (reconcile,
harmonise) for the favors
received."
He lay down on his back with his hands behind his head and covered his
face with his hat.
"How should I wait for the fog?" I asked. "What should I do?"
"Write!" he said through his hat. "But don't close your eyes or turn
your back to it." I tried to write, but I could not concentrate. I
stood up and moved
around restlessly. Don Juan
lifted his hat and looked at me with an air of annoyance. "Sit down!"
he ordered me. He said, that the battle of power had not yet ended, and
that I had to
teach my spirit to be
impassive (apathetic, emotionless). Nothing, of what I did, should
betray my feelings, unless
I
wanted to remain trapped in
those mountains. He sat up and moved his hand in a gesture of urgency.
He
said, that I
had to act, as if nothing was
out of the ordinary, because places of power, such as the one, in which
we were, had the potential
of draining people, who were disturbed. And thus one could develop
strange and injurious ties with a
locale. "Those ties anchor a man to a place of power, sometimes for a
lifetime," he said. "And this is not
the place for you. You did not find it yourself. So tighten your belt
and don't lose your
pants." His admonitions (warnings) worked like a spell on me. I wrote
for hours without
interruption. Don Juan went back to sleep and did not wake up, until
the
fog was
perhaps a hundred yards away,
descending from the top of the mountain. He stood up and examined the
surroundings. I looked around
without turning my back. The fog had already invaded the lowlands,
descending from the mountains to
my right. On my left side the scenery was clear; the wind, however,
seemed to be coming from my
right and was pushing the fog into the lowlands, as if to surround us.
Don Juan whispered, that I should remain impassive (apathetic, emotionless), standing where I was,
without closing my eyes,
and that I should not turn around, until I was completely surrounded by
the fog; only then was it
possible to start our descent. He took cover at the foot of some rocks
a few feet behind me. The silence in those mountains was something
magnificent and at the
same time awesome. The soft wind, that was carrying the fog, gave me
the
sensation, that the
fog was hissing in my
ears. Big chunks of fog came downhill like solid clumps of whitish
matter,
rolling down on me. I smelled
the fog. It was a peculiar mixture of a pungent (caustic, acid smell or
taste) and fragrant
smell. And
then I was enveloped in
it. I had the impression: the fog was working on my eyelids. They felt
heavy
and I wanted to close my
eyes. I was cold. My throat itched and I wanted to cough, but I did not
dare. I lifted my chin up
and stretched my neck to ease the cough, and as I looked up, I had the
sensation, I could actually See the thickness of the fog bank. It was,
as if my eyes could assess
the thickness by going through
it. My eyes began to close and I could not fight off the desire to fall
asleep. I felt, I was going
to collapse on the ground any moment. At that instant don Juan jumped
up, grabbed me by the arms
and shook me. The jolt was enough to restore my lucidity (clear, sane,
rational, easily understood). He whispered
in my ear, that I had to run downhill as fast, as I could.
154
He was going to follow behind,
because he did not want to get smashed by the rocks, that I might turn
over in my path. He said, that
I was the leader, since it was my battle of power, and that I had to be
clear-headed and abandoned,
in order to guide us safely out of there. "This is it," he said in a
loud voice. "If you don't have the mood of a
warrior, we may never leave
the fog." I hesitated for a moment. I was not sure, I could find my way
down from
those mountains. "Run, rabbit, run!" don Juan yelled and shoved me
gently down the slope.
13. A Warrior's Last
Stand
155
Sunday, 28 January 1962. Around ten A.M. don Juan walked into his
house. He had left at the
crack of dawn. I greeted him. He
chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself) and, in a clowning mood, he
shook hands with me and greeted me
ceremoniously. "We're going to go on a little trip," he said. "You're
going to drive
us to a very special place in
search of power." He unfolded two carrying nets and placed two gourds,
filled with food in
each of them, tied them
with a thin rope, and handed me a net. We leisurely drove north some
four hundred miles, then we left the
Pan American highway and took
a gravel road towards the west. My car seemed to have been the only car
on the road for hours. As
we kept on driving, I noticed, that I could not see through my
windshield. I strained desperately to
look at the surroundings, but it was too dark and my windshield was
overlaid with crushed insects
and dust. I told don Juan, that I had to stop to clean my windshield.
He ordered
me to go on driving, even if I
had to crawl at two miles an hour, sticking my head out of the window
to see ahead. He said, that we
could not stop, until
we had reached our destination. At a certain place he told me to turn
to the right. It was so dark and
dusty, that even the
headlights did not help much. I drove off the road with great
trepidation (fear, alarm, dread). I was afraid of the soft
shoulders, but the dirt was packed. I drove for about one hundred yards
at the lowest possible speed,
holding the door open to look
out.
156-157
Finally don Juan told me to stop. He said, that I had parked right
behind a huge rock, that
would shield my car from view. I got out of the car and walked around,
guided by the headlights. I
wanted to examine the
surroundings, because I had no idea, where I was. But don Juan turned
off
the lights. He said loudly,
that there was no time to waste, that I should lock my car, so we could
start on our way. He handed me my net with gourds. It was so dark, that
I stumbled and
nearly dropped them.
Don Juan ordered me in a soft firm tone to sit down, until my eyes were
accustomed to the darkness.
But my eyes were not the problem. Once I got out of my car,
I could see
fairly well. What was wrong, was a peculiar nervousness, that made me
act, as if I were
absent-minded. I was
glossing (make attractive by deception) over everything.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"We're going to hike in total darkness to a special place," he said.
"What for?"
"To find out for sure, whether or not you're capable of continuing to
hunt power." I asked him, if what he was proposing was a test, and if I
failed the
test, would
he still talk to me
and tell me about his knowledge. He listened without interrupting. He
said, that what we were doing was
not a test, that we were
waiting for an omen, and if the omen did not come, the conclusion would
be, that I had not succeeded
in hunting power, in which case I would be free from any further
imposition (establish as compulsory, levy), free to be as stupid,
as I wanted. He said, that no matter what happened, he was my friend
and
he would always talk to
me. Somehow I knew, I was going to fail. "The omen will not
come," I said jokingly. "I know it. I have a little
power." He laughed and patted me on the back gently.
"Don't you worry," he retorted (return, pay
back, reply, answer).
"The omen will come. I know it. I have
more power, than you." He found his statement hilarious.
He slapped his
thighs, clapped his
hands and roared with
laughter. Don Juan tied my carrying net to my back and said, that I
should walk
one step behind him and step
in his tracks as much, as possible. In a very dramatic tone he
whispered, "This is a walk for power, so
everything counts." He said, that if I would walk in his footsteps, the
power, that he was
dissipating as he walked, would
be transmitted to me. I looked at my watch; it was eleven P.M. He made
me line up like a soldier at attention. Then he pushed my right
leg to the front and made
me stand, as if I had just taken a step forward. He lined up in front
of
me in the same position and
then began to walk, after repeating the instructions, that I should try
to match his footsteps to
perfection. He said in a clear whisper, that I should not concern
myself
with anything else, except
stepping in his tracks; I should not look ahead or to the side, but at
the ground where he was
walking. He started off at a very relaxed pace.
I had no trouble at
all,
following him; we were walking on
relatively hard ground. For about thirty yards I maintained his pace
and I matched his steps
perfectly; then
I glanced to the side for an instant and the next thing
I knew, I had bumped into
him. He giggled and assured me, that I had not injured his ankle at
all,
when I had stepped on it with
my big shoes, but if I were going to keep on blundering (being
foolish),
one of us would
be a cripple by
morning. He said, laughing, in a very low, but firm voice, that he did
not intend
to get hurt by my stupidity
and lack of concentration, and that, if I stepped on him again, I would
have to walk barefoot.
"I can't walk without shoes," I said in a loud raspy voice. Don Juan
doubled up with laughter and we had to wait, until he had
stopped. He assured me again, that
he had meant, what he said. We were journeying
to tap power and things had
to be perfect. The prospect, of walking in the desert without shoes,
scared me beyond
belief. Don Juan joked, that my
family were probably the type of farmers, that did not take off their
shoes even to go to bed. He
was right, of course.
158-159
I had never walked barefoot and to walk in the
desert without shoes, would
have been suicidal for me. "This desert is oozing power," don Juan
whispered in my ear. "There is
no time for being
timid." We started walking again. Don Juan kept an easy pace. After a
while I
noticed, that we had left the
hard ground and were walking on soft sand. Don Juan's feet sank into it
and left deep tracks. We walked for hours, before don Juan came to a
halt. He did not stop
suddenly, but warned me ahead of
time, that he was going to stop, so I would not bump into him. The
terrain had become hard again and
it seemed, that we were going up an incline. Don Juan said, that if I
needed to go to the bushes, I should do it,
because from then on we had a
solid stretch without a single pause. I looked at my watch; it was one
A.M. After a fifteen-minute rest don Juan made me line up and we
began to walk again. He was
right, it was a dreadful stretch. I had never done anything, that
demanded so much concentration.
Don Juan's pace was so fast and the tension of watching every step
mounted to such heights, that at
a given moment I could not feel, that I was walking any more. I could
not feel my feet or my legs.
It was, as if I were walking on air, and some force were carrying me on
and on. My concentration had been so total, that I did not notice the
gradual
change in light. Suddenly I
became aware, that I could see don Juan in front of me. I could see his
feet and his tracks instead
of half guessing, as I had done most of the night. At a given moment he
unexpectedly jumped to the side, and my momentum
carried me for about twenty
yards further. As I slowed down, my legs became weak and started to
shake, until finally I collapsed on the ground. I looked up at don
Juan, who was calmly examining me. He did not seem
to be tired. I was panting
for breath and soaked in cold perspiration. Don Juan twirled me around
in my lying position by pulling me by the
arm. He said, that if I wanted
to regain my strength, I had to lie with my head towards the east.
Little by little I relaxed and
rested my aching body. Finally, I had enough energy to stand up. I
wanted to look at my watch, but
he prevented me by putting his hand over my wrist. He very gently
turned me around to face the east
and said, that there was no need for my confounded (puzzle, bewilder)
timepiece, that we
were on magical time, and that
we were going to find out for sure, whether or not I was capable of
pursuing power. I looked around. We were on top of a very large high
hill. I wanted to
walk towards something, that
looked like an edge or a crevice in the rock, but don Juan jumped and
held me down. He ordered me imperatively to stay on the place, I had
fallen, until the
sun had come out from behind
some black mountain peaks a short distance away. He pointed to the east
and called my attention to a heavy bank of
clouds over the horizon.
He said,
that it would be a proper omen, if the wind blew the clouds away in
time
for the first rays of the Sun to hit my body on the hilltop. He told me
to stand still with my right leg in front, as if I were
walking, and not to look
directly at the horizon, but look without focusing.
My legs became very stiff and my calves hurt. It was an agonizing
position and my leg muscles were
too sore to support me. I held on as long, as I could. I was about to
collapse. My legs were
shivering uncontrollably, when don Juan called the whole thing off. He
helped me to sit down. The bank of clouds had not moved and we had not
seen the Sun, rising
over the horizon. Don Juan's only comment was, "Too bad." I did not
want to ask right off, what the real implications of my
failure were, but knowing don
Juan, I was sure, he had to follow the dictum (dogmatic pronouncement)
of his omens. And there
had been no omen that morning.
The pain in my calves vanished and I felt a wave of well-being. I began
to trot, in order to loosen
up my muscles. Don Juan told me very softly to run up an adjacent hill
to gather some leaves from
a specific bush and rub my legs, in order to alleviate the muscular
pain.
160-161
From
where I stood, I could very plainly see a large lush green bush.
The leaves seemed to be very
moist. I had used them before. I never felt, that they had helped me,
but don Juan had always
maintained, that the effect of really friendly plants was so subtle,
that
one could hardly notice it,
yet they always produced the results, they were supposed to. I ran down
the hill and up the other. When I got to the top I realized,
that the exertion (effort) had almost
been too much for me. I had a hard time, catching my breath, and my
stomach was upset. I squatted and
then crouched over for a moment, until I felt relaxed. Then I stood up
and reached over to pick the
leaves he had asked me to. But I could not find the bush. I looked
around. I was sure, I was on the
right spot, but there was nothing in that area of the hilltop, that
even
vaguely resembled that
particular plant. Yet, that had to be the spot, where I had seen it.
Any
other place would have been
out of range for anyone, looking from where don Juan was standing. I
gave up the search and walked to the other hill. Don Juan smiled
benevolently, as I explained my
mistake.
"Why do you call it a mistake?" he asked.
"Obviously the bush is not there," I said.
"But you saw it, didn't you?"
"I thought, I did."
"What do you see in its place now?"
"Nothing." There was absolutely no vegetation on the spot, where I
thought, I had
seen the plant. I attempted to
explain, what I had seen, as a visual distortion, a sort of mirage. I
had really been exhausted, and,
because of my exhaustion, I may have easily believed, I was Seeing
something, that I expected to be
there, but which was not there at all. Don Juan chuckled (laugh quietly
or to oneself) softly and stared at me for a brief moment.
"I see no mistake," he said. "The plant is there on that hilltop." It
was my turn to laugh. I scanned the whole area carefully. There were
no such plants in view and,
what I had experienced was, to the best of my knowledge, a
hallucination. Don Juan very calmly began to descend the hill and
signaled me to
follow. We climbed together to
the other hilltop and stood right where I thought, I had seen the bush.
I chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself) with the absolute certainty, I
was right. Don Juan also
chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself). "Walk to the other side of the
hill," don Juan said. "You'll find the
plant there." I brought up the point, that the other side of the hill
had been outside
my field of vision, that a
plant may be there, but that that did not mean anything. Don Juan
signaled me, with a movement of his head, to follow him. He
walked around the top of the
hill, instead of going directly across, and dramatically stood by a
green bush without looking at
it. He turned and looked at me. It was a peculiarly piercing glance.
"There must be hundreds of such plants around here," I said. Don Juan
very patiently descended the other side of the hill, with me
trailing along. We looked
everywhere for a similar bush. But there was none in sight. We covered
about a quarter of a mile,
before we came upon another plant. Without saying a word, don Juan led
me back to the first hilltop. We
stood there for a moment and
then he guided me on another excursion to look for the plant, but in
the
opposite direction.
We
combed the area and found two more bushes, perhaps a mile away. They
had grown together and stuck
out as a patch of intense rich green, more lush, than all the other
surrounding bushes. Don Juan looked at me with a serious expression. I
did not know, what to
think of it.
"This is a very strange omen," he said. We returned to the first
hilltop, making a wide detour, in order to
approach it from a new
direction. He seemed to be going out of his way to prove to me, that
there were very few such plants
around there. We did not find any of them on our way. When we reached
the hilltop, we sat down in
complete silence. Don Juan untied his gourds. "You'll feel better after
eating," he said. He could not hide his delight. He had a beaming grin,
as he patted me on
the head. I
felt
disoriented. The new developments were disturbing, but I was too hungry
and tired to really ponder
upon them. After
eating I felt very sleepy.
162-163
Don Juan urged me to use the technique
of looking without focusing,
in order to find a suitable spot to sleep on the hilltop, where I had
seen the bush. I selected one. He picked up the debris from the spot
and made a circle
with it the size of my
body. Very gently he pulled some fresh branches from the bushes and
swept the area inside the
circle. He only went through the motions of sweeping, he did not really
touch the ground with the
branches. He then removed all the surface rocks from the area inside
the circle and placed them in
the centre, after meticulously sorting them by size into two piles of
equal number.
"What are you doing with those rocks?" I asked.
"They
are not rocks," he said. "They are strings. They will hold your
spot suspended."
He took the smaller rocks and marked the circumference of the circle
with them. He spaced them
evenly and, with the aid of a stick, he secured each rock firmly in the
ground, as if he were a
mason. He did not let me come inside the circle, but told me to walk
around and
watch, what he did. He counted eighteen rocks, following a
counter-clockwise direction. "Now run down to the bottom of the hill
and
wait," he said. "And I will
come to the edge and see, if
you are standing in the appropriate spot."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to toss each of these strings to you," he said, pointing to
the pile of bigger
rocks. "And you have to place them in the ground at the spot, I will
indicate
in the same manner, I have
placed the other ones. You must be infinitely careful. When one is
dealing with power, one
has to be perfect. Mistakes are deadly here. Each of these is
a string, a string, that
could kill us, if we leave it
around loose; so you simply can't make any mistakes. You must fix your
gaze on the spot, where
I
will throw the string. If you get distracted by anything at all, the
string will become an ordinary
rock and you won't be able to tell it apart from the other rocks, lying
around." I suggested, that it would be easier, if I carried the
"strings" downhill
one at a time. Don Juan laughed and shook his head negatively. "These
are strings," he insisted. "And they have to be tossed by me and
have to be picked up by
you." It took hours to fulfill the task. The degree of concentration
needed
was excruciating. Don Juan
reminded me every time to be attentive and focus my gaze. He was right
in doing so. To pick out a
specific rock, that came hurtling (crash, move with great speed)
downhill, displacing other rocks
in
its way, was indeed a
maddening affair. When I had completely closed the circle and walked to
the top,
I
thought, I was about to drop dead.
Don Juan had picked some small branches and had matted (created) the
circle.
He
handed me some leaves and
told me to put them inside my pants, against the skin of my umbilical
region. He said, that they
would keep me warm and I would not need a blanket to sleep. I tumbled
(fall in confusion)
down inside the circle. The
branches made a fairly soft bed and I fell asleep instantly. It was
late afternoon, when I woke up. It was windy and cloudy.
The
clouds overhead were compact
cumulus clouds, but towards the west they were thin cirrus clouds, and
the Sun shone on the land
from time to time. Sleeping had renewed me. I felt invigorated and
happy. The wind did not
bother me. I was not cold.
I propped my head up with my arms and looked around. I had not noticed
before, but the hilltop was
quite high. The view towards the west was impressive. I could see a
vast area of low hills and then
the desert. There was a range of dark brown mountain peaks towards the
north and east, and towards
the south an endless expanse of land, hills and distant blue
mountains. I sat up. Don Juan was not anywhere in sight. I had a sudden
attack of
fear. I thought, he may have
left me there alone, and I did not know the way back to my car. I lay
down again on the mat of
branches and strangely enough my apprehension vanished. I again
experienced a sense of quietness,
an exquisite (beautiful) sense of well-being.
164-165
It was an extremely new sensation to
me; my thoughts seemed to
have been turned off. I was happy. I felt healthy. A very quiet
ebullience (boiling with enthusiasm) filled me. A soft wind
was blowing from the west and swept over my entire body, without
making me cold. I felt it on my
face and around my ears, like a gentle wave of warm water, that bathed
me and then receded (diminished),
and
bathed me again. It was a strange state of being, that had no parallel
in my busy and dislocated
life.
I began to weep, not out of sadness or self-pity, but out of some
ineffable (indescribable, beyond expression, taboo), inexplicable
joy. I wanted to stay in that spot forever and I may have, had don Juan
not
come and yanked me out of
the place. "You've had enough rest," he said, as he pulled me up. He
led me very calmly on a walk around the periphery of the hilltop. We
walked slowly and in
complete silence. He seemed to be interested in, making me observe the
scenery all around us.
He pointed to clouds and mountains with a
movement of his eyes or with a
movement of his chin. The scenery in the late afternoon was superb. It
evoked sensations of
awe and despair in me. It
reminded me of sights in my childhood. We climbed to the highest point
of the hilltop, a peak of igneous (formed from lava) rock,
and sat down comfortably
with our backs against the rock, facing the south. The endless expanse
of land towards the south
was truly majestic. "Fix all this in your memory," don Juan whispered
in my ear. "This spot
is yours. This morning you
saw, and that was the omen. You found this spot by Seeing. The omen
was
unexpected, but it
happened. You are going to hunt power, whether you like it or not. It
is
not a human decision, not
yours or mine. Now, properly speaking, this hilltop is your place, your
beloved
place; all, that is around you, is
under your care. You must look after everything here and everything
will in turn look after
you."
In a joking way I asked, if everything was mine. He said yes in a very
serious tone. I
laughed and
told him, that, what we were doing, reminded me of the story of how the
Spaniards, that conquered the
New World, had divided the land in the name of their king. They used to
climb to the top of a
mountain and claim all the land they could see in any specific
direction. "That's a good idea," he said. "I'm going to give you all
the land, you
can see, not in one
direction, but all around you." He stood up and pointed with his
extended hand, turning his body around
to cover a complete
circle. "All this land is yours," he said. I laughed out loud. He
giggled and asked me, "Why not? Why can't I give you this land?"
"You don't own this land," I said.
"So what? The Spaniards didn't own it either and yet, they divided it
and gave it away. So why can't
you take possession of it in the same vein (tendency, turn of mind)?" I
scrutinized him to see, if I could detect the real mood behind his
smile. He had an explosion of
laughter and nearly fell off the rock. "All this land, as far, as you
can see, is yours," he went on, still
smiling. "Not to use, but to
remember. This hilltop, however, is yours to use for the rest of your
life. I am giving it to you,
because you have found it yourself. It is yours. Accept it." I laughed,
but don Juan seemed to be very serious. Except for his funny
smile, he appeared to
actually believe, that he could give me that hilltop. "Why not?" he
asked, as if he were reading my thoughts.
"I accept it," I said half in jest. His smile disappeared. He squinted
his eyes, as he looked at me.
"Every rock, pebble and bush on this hill, especially on the top, is
under your care," he said.
"Every worm, that lives here, is your friend. You can use them and
they
can use you." We remained silent for a few minutes. My thoughts were
unusually
scarce. I vaguely felt, that his
sudden change of mood was foreboding (premonition, apprehension, evil
omen, portent) to me, but I was not afraid or
apprehensive. I just did not
want to talk any more. Somehow, words seemed to be inaccurate and their
meanings difficult to
pinpoint. I had never felt that way about talking, and, upon realizing
my unusual mood, I hurriedly
began to talk.
166-167
"But what can I do with this hill, don Juan?"
"'Fix every feature of it in your memory. This is the place, where you
will come in Dreaming. This is the place, where you will meet with
powers, where secrets will
someday be revealed to
you. You are hunting power and this is your place, the place, where you
will
store your resources. It doesn't make sense to you now. So let
it be a piece of nonsense for
the time being." We climbed down the rock and he led me to a small
bowl-like depression
on the west side of the
hilltop. We sat down and ate there. Undoubtedly, there was something
indescribably pleasant for me on that
hilltop. Eating, like
resting, was an unknown exquisite sensation. The light of the setting
Sun had a rich, almost copperish, glow, and
everything in the surroundings
seemed to be dabbed with a golden hue. I was given totally to observing
the scenery; I did not even
want to think. Don Juan spoke to me almost in a whisper. He told me to
watch every
detail of the surroundings, no
matter how small or seemingly trivial. Especially the features of the
scenery, that were most
prominent in a westerly direction. He said, that I should look at the
Sun without focusing on it,
until it had disappeared over the horizon. The last minutes of light,
right before the Sun hit a blanket of low
clouds or fog, were, in a
total sense, magnificent. It was, as if the Sun were inflaming the
Earth, kindling (ignite) it like a
bonfire. I felt a sensation of redness in my face. "Stand up!" don Juan
shouted, as he pulled me up.
He jumped away from me
and ordered me in an
imperative, but urging voice, to trot on the spot, where I was
standing.
As I jogged on the same spot, I began to feel a warmth invading my
body. It was a copperish warmth.
I felt it in my palate (roof of mouth) and in the roof of my eyes. It
was, as if the top
part of my head were
burning with a cool fire, that radiated a copperish glow. Something in
myself made me trot faster
and faster, as the Sun began to disappear. At a given moment I truly
felt, I was so light, that I
could have flown away. Don Juan very firmly grabbed my right wrist. The
sensation, caused by the
pressure of his hand, brought back a sense of sobriety and composure. I
plunked (place abruptly) down on the ground
and he sat down by me. After a few minutes' rest he quietly stood up,
tapped me on the
shoulder, and signaled me to follow
him. We climbed back again to the peak of igneous (formed from lava)
rock, where we had sat
before. The rock shielded
us from the cold wind. Don Juan broke the silence. "It was a fine
omen," he said. "How strange! It happened at the end of
the day. You and I are so
different. You are more a creature of the night. I prefer the young
brilliancy of the morning. Or
rather the brilliancy of the morning Sun seeks me, but it shies
(cautious, distrustful) away
from you. On the other hand,
the dying Sun bathed you. Its flames scorched you without burning you.
How strange!"
"Why is it strange?"
"I've never seen it happen. The omen, when it happens, has always been
in the realm of the young
sun."
"Why is it that way, don Juan?"
"This is not the time to talk about it," he said cuttingly. "Knowledge
is Power. It takes a long
time to harness enough power to even talk about it." I tried to insist,
but he changed the topic abruptly. He asked me about
my progress in Dreaming. I had begun to Dream about specific places,
such as the school and the
houses of a few friends. "Were you at those places during the day or
during the night?" he
asked. My dreams corresponded to the time of the day, when I ordinarily
was
accustomed to being at those
places: in the school - during the day, at my friends' houses - at
night.
He suggested, that I should try Dreaming, while I took a nap during the
day time and find out, if I
could actually visualize the chosen place, as it was at the time I was
Dreaming. If I were Dreaming
at night, my visions of the locale should be of night-time.
168-169
He
said, that
what one experiences in Dreaming has to be congruous (harmonious,
appropriate) with the
time of the day, when Dreaming was
taking place; otherwise the visions, one might have, were not Dreaming,
but ordinary
dreams. "In order to help yourself, you should pick a specific object,
that
belongs to the place you want to go and focus your attention on it," he
went on. "On this hilltop
here, for instance, you now
have a specific bush, that you must observe, until it has a place in
your
memory. You can come back
here, while Dreaming, simply by recalling that bush, or by recalling
this
rock, where we are sitting,
or by recalling any other thing here.
It is easier to travel in
Dreaming, when you can focus on a
place of power, such as this one. But, if you don't want to come here,
you may use any other place.
Perhaps, the school, where you go, is a place of power for you. Use it.
Focus your attention on any
object there and then find it in Dreaming. From the specific object you
recall, you must go back to your hands
and then to another object and
so on. But now you must focus your attention on everything, that exists
on
this hilltop, because this is
the most important place of your life."
He looked at me,
as if judging
the effect of his words. "This is the place, where you will die," he
said in a soft voice. I fidgeted (moved
nervously)
nervously, changing sitting
positions, and he smiled. "I will have to come with you over and over
to this hilltop," he said.
"And then you will have to
come by yourself, until you're saturated with it, until the hilltop is
oozing (emit moisture, leak out slowly) you. You will know the
time, when you are filled with it. This hilltop, as it is now, will
then
be the place of your last
dance."
"What do you mean by my last dance, don Juan?"
"This is the site of your last stand," he said. "You will die here, no
matter where you are. Every
warrior has a place to die. A place of his predilection (inclinations,
preference), which is soaked
with unforgettable
memories, where powerful events left their mark, a place, where he has
witnessed marvels, where
secrets have been revealed to him, a place, where he has stored his
personal power. A warrior has the obligation to go back to that place
of his
predilection (inclinations, preference) every time, he taps power,
in order to store it there. He either goes there by means of walking or
by means of Dreaming. And finally, one day when his time on earth is up
and he feels the tap
of his death on his left
shoulder, his spirit, which is always ready, flies to the place of his
predilection (inclinations, preference) and there the
warrior dances to his death. Every warrior has a specific form, a
specific posture of power, which
he develops throughout his
life. It is a sort of dance. A movement, that he does under the
influence of his personal power. If a dying warrior has limited power,
his dance is short; if his power
is grandiose, his dance is
magnificent.
But regardless of whether his power is small or
magnificent, death must stop to
witness his last stand on Earth. Death cannot overtake the warrior, who
is recounting the toil (proceed with difficulty and pain) of
his life for the last time, until he has finished his dance." Don
Juan's words made me shiver. The quietness, the twilight, the
magnificent scenery, all seemed
to have been placed there as props, for the image of a warrior's Last
Dance of Power.
"Can you teach me that dance, even though I am not a warrior?" I asked.
"Any man, that hunts power has to learn that dance," he said. "Yet I
cannot teach you now. Soon, you may have a worthy opponent and I will
show you then the first
movement of power. You must add the other movements yourself, as you go
on living. Every
new one must be obtained
during a struggle of power. So, properly speaking, the posture, the
form of a warrior, is the story
of his life, a dance, that grows, as he grows in personal power."
"Does death really stop to see a warrior dance?"
"A warrior is only a man. A humble man. He cannot change the designs of
his death. But his
impeccable spirit, which has stored power after stupendous hardships,
can certainly hold his death
for a moment, a moment long enough to let him rejoice, for the last
time,
in recalling his power. We may say, that that is a gesture, which death
has with those, who have
an impeccable spirit." I experienced an overwhelming anxiety and I
talked just to alleviate
it.

170
I asked him, if he had known warriors, that had died, and in what way
their last dance had
affected their dying. "Cut it out," he said dryly. "Dying is a
monumental affair. It is more,
than kicking your legs and
becoming stiff."
"Will I too dance to my death, don Juan?"
"Certainly. You are hunting personal power, even though you don't live
like a warrior yet. Today the Sun gave you an omen. Your best
production in your life's
work will be done towards the
end of the day. Obviously you don't like the youthful brilliancy of
early light. Journeying in the
morning doesn't appeal to you. But your cup of tea is the dying Sun,
old yellowish, and mellow. You
don't like the heat, you like the glow. And thus you will dance to your
death here, on this hilltop, at the
end of the day. And in your
last dance you will tell of your struggle, of the battles, you have won
and of those, you have
lost; you will tell of your joys and bewilderments, upon encountering
personal
power. Your dance will tell
about the secrets and about the marvels, you have stored. And your
death
will sit here and watch
you. The dying Sun will glow on you without burning, as it has done
today.
The wind will be soft and
mellow and your hilltop will tremble. As you reach the end of your
dance, you will look at the Sun,
for you will never see it again in waking or in Dreaming, and then your
death will point to the
south. To the vastness."
14. The Gait of
Power

171
Saturday, 8 April 1962.
"Is death a personage, don Juan?" I asked, as I sat down on the porch.
There was an air of bewilderment in don Juan's look. He was holding a
bag of groceries, I had
brought him. He carefully placed them on the ground and sat down in
front of me. I felt encouraged
and explained, that I wanted to know, if death was a person, or like a
person, when it watched a
warrior's last dance.
"What difference does it make?" don Juan asked. I told him, that the
image was fascinating to me and I want to know, how
he had arrived at it. How he knew, that that was so. "It's all very
simple," he said. "A Man of Knowledge knows, that death
is the last witness, because
he Sees."
"Do you mean, that you have witnessed a warrior's last dance yourself?"
"No. One cannot be such a witness. Only death can do that. But I have
seen my own death watching me
and I have danced to it, as though I were dying. At the end of my dance
death did not point in any
direction, and my place of predilection (inclinations, preference) did
not shiver, saying goodbye
to me. So my time on Earth
was not up yet and I did not die. When all that took place, I had
limited power and I did not
understand the designs of my own death, thus I believed, I was dying."
"Was your death like a person?"
"You're a funny bird. You think, you are going to understand by asking
questions. I don't think you
will, but who am I to say? Death is not like a person. It is rather a
presence.

172-173
But one may also
choose to say, that it is
nothing and yet, it is everything. One will be right on every count.
Death is whatever one
wishes. I am at ease with people, so death is a person for me. I am
also given
to mysteries, so death has
hollow eyes for me. I can look through them. They are like two windows
and yet they move, like eyes
move. And so I can say, that death, with its hollow eyes, looks at a
warrior, while he dances for the
last time on Earth."
"But is that so only for you, don Juan, or is it the same for other
warriors?"
"It is the same for every warrior, that has a dance of power, and yet
it
is not. Death witnesses a
warrior's last dance, but the manner, in which a warrior sees his
death,
is a personal matter. It
could be anything - a bird, a light, a person, a bush, a pebble, a
piece of fog, or an unknown
presence." Don Juan's images of death disturbed me. I could not find
adequate
words to voice my questions and
I stammered. He stared at me, smiling, and coaxed (persuade) me to speak up. I
asked him, if the manner, in which a warrior saw his death, depended on
the way, he had been brought
up. I used the Yuma and Yaqui Indians, as examples. My own idea was,
that
culture determined the way,
in which one would envision death. "It doesn't matter how one was
brought up," he said. "What determines
the way, one does anything, is
personal power. A man is only the sum of his personal power, and that
sum determines, how he lives
and how he dies."
"What is personal power?"
"Personal power is a feeling," he said. "Something like being lucky. Or
one may call it a mood.
Personal power is something, that one acquires, regardless of one's
origin. I already have told you,
that a warrior is a hunter of power, and that I am teaching you, how to
hunt and store it. The difficulty with you, which is the difficulty
with all of us, is to
be convinced. You need to
believe, that personal power can be used and that it is possible to
store it, but you haven't been
convinced so far."
I told him, that he had made his point and that I was as convinced, as
I
would ever be. He
laughed. "That is not the type of conviction, I am talking
about," he said.
He tapped my shoulder with two or three soft punches, added with a
cackle
(shrill, brittle laughter like hen), "I don't need to be
humored, you know." I felt obliged to assure him, that I was serious.
"I
don't doubt it," he said. "But to be convinced means, that you can
act by yourself. It will still
take you a great deal of effort to do that. Much more has to be done.
You have just begun." He was quiet for a moment. His face acquired a
placid expression. "It's funny the way you sometimes remind me of
myself," he went on. "I
too did not want to take the
path of a warrior. I believed, that all that work, was for nothing, and
since we are all going to
die, what difference would it make to be a warrior? I was wrong. But I
had to find that out for
myself. Whenever you do realize, that you are wrong, and that it
certainly makes a world of
difference, you can say, that you are convinced. And then you can
proceed by yourself. And by
yourself you may even become a Man of Knowledge." I asked him to
explain, what he meant by a Man of Knowledge. "A Man of Knowledge is
one,
who has followed truthfully the hardships of
learning," he said. "A man, who has, without rushing or faltering (hesitating), gone
as far, as he can in
unraveling the secrets of
personal power." He discussed the concept in brief terms and then
discarded it, as a
topic of conversation, saying,
that I should only be concerned with the idea of storing personal
power.
"That's incomprehensible," I protested. "I can't really figure out,
what
you are driving at."
"Hunting power is a peculiar event," he said. "It first has to be an
idea, then it has to be set
up, step by step, and then, bingo! It happens."
"How does it happen?" Don Juan stood up. He began stretching his arms
and arching his back
like a cat. His bones, as
usual, made a series of cracking sounds.
"Let's go," he said. "We have a long journey ahead of us."
"But there are so many things I want to ask you," I said.
174-175
"We are going to a place of power," he said, as he stepped inside his
house. "Why don't you save
your questions for the time, we are there? We may have an opportunity
to
talk." I thought, we were going to drive, so I stood up and walked to
my car,
but don Juan called me from
the house and told me to pick up my net with gourds. He was waiting for
me at the edge of the
desert chaparral behind his house. "We have to hurry up," he said. We
reached the lower slopes of the western Sierra Madre mountains
around three P.M. It had been a
warm day, but towards the late afternoon the wind became cold. Don Juan
sat down on a rock and
signaled me to do likewise.
"What are we going to do here this time, don Juan?"
"You know very well, that we're here to hunt power."
"I know that. But what are we going to do here in particular?"
"You know, that I don't have the slightest idea."
"Do you mean, that you never follow a plan?"
"Hunting power is a very strange affair," he said. "There is no way to
plan it ahead of time. That's what's exciting about it. A warrior
proceeds, as if he had a plan
though, because he trusts
his personal power. He knows for a fact, that it will make him act in
the most appropriate
fashion." I pointed out, that his statements were somehow
contradictory. If a
warrior already had personal
power, why was he hunting for it? Don Juan raised his brows and made a
gesture of feigned (pretending,
fictitious)
disgust. "You're the one, who is hunting personal power," he said. "And
I am the
warrior, who already has it.
You asked me, if I had a plan and I said, that
I trust my personal power
to guide me and, that I don't
need to have a plan." We remained quiet for a moment and then began
walking again. The slopes
were very steep,
climbing them was very difficult and extremely tiring for me. On the
other hand, there seemed to be
no end to don Juan's stamina. He did not run or hurry.
His walking was
steady and tireless. I
noticed, that he was not even perspiring, even after having climbed an
enormous and almost vertical
slope. When I reached the top of it, don Juan was already there,
waiting for me. As I sat down next to him, I felt, that my heart was
about to burst out
of my chest. I lay on my back
and perspiration literally poured from my brows. Don Juan laughed out
loud and rolled me back and
forth for a while. The motion helped me catch my breath. I told him,
that I was simply awed by his physical prowess (outstanding
courage, daring, stamina).
"I've been trying to draw
your attention to it all along," he said.
"You're not old at all, don Juan!"
"Of course not. I've been trying to make you notice it."
"How do you do it?"
"I don't do anything. My body feels fine, that's all. I treat myself
very well, therefore, I have
no reason to feel tired or ill at ease. The secret is not in, what you
do to yourself, but rather in
what you don't do." I waited for an explanation. He seemed to be aware
of my incapacity to
understand. He smiled
knowingly and stood up.
"This is a place of power," he said. "Find a place for us to camp here
on this hilltop." I began to protest. I wanted him to explain, what I
should not do to my
body.
He made an imperative
gesture. "Cut the guff," he said softly. "This time just act for a
change. It
doesn't matter, how long it
takes you to find a suitable place to rest. It might take you all
night. It is not important, that
you find the spot either; the important issue is, that you try to find
it." I put away my writing pad and stood up.
Don Juan reminded me, as he had
done countless times,
whenever he had asked me to find a resting place, that I had to look
without focusing on any
particular spot, squinting my eyes, until my view was blurred. I began
to walk, scanning the ground with my half-closed eyes. Don Juan
walked a few feet to my
right and a couple of steps behind me. I covered the periphery of the
hilltop first. My intention was to work
my way in a spiral to the
centre. But once I had covered the circumference of the hilltop, don
Juan made me stop. He said, I
was letting my preference for routines take over.
176-177
In a sarcastic tone he added, that I was certainly covering the whole
area systematically, but in
such a stagnant way, that I would not be able to perceive the suitable
place. He added, that he
himself knew, where it was, so there was no chance for improvisations
on
my part.
"What should I be doing instead?" I asked. Don Juan made me sit down.
He then plucked a single leaf from a number
of bushes and gave them to
me. He ordered me to lie down on my back, loosen my belt and place
the leaves against the skin
of my umbilical region. He supervised my movements and instructed me to
press the leaves against my
body with both hands. He then ordered me to close my eyes and warned
me,
that if I wanted perfect
results, I should not lose hold of the leaves, or open my eyes, or try
to sit up, when he shifted my
body to a position of power. He grabbed me by the right armpit and
swirled me around. I had an
invincible desire to peek through
my half-closed eyelids, but don Juan put his hand over my eyes. He
commanded me to concern myself
only with the feeling of warmth, that was going to come from the
leaves.
I lay motionless for a moment and then, I began to feel a strange heat,
emanating from the leaves. I
first sensed it with the palms of my hands, then the warmth extended to
my abdomen, and finally it
literally invaded my entire body. In a matter of minutes my feet were
burning up with a heat, that
reminded me of times, when I had had a high temperature. I told don
Juan
about the unpleasant sensation and my desire to take
off my shoes. He said, that
he
was going to help me stand up, that I should not open my eyes, until he
told me to, and, that I
should keep pressing the leaves to my stomach, until I had found the
suitable spot to rest. When I was on my feet, he whispered in my ear,
that I should open my
eyes, and that I should walk
without a plan, letting the power of the leaves pull me and guide me. I
began to walk aimlessly. The heat of my body was uncomfortable. I
believed, I was running a high
temperature, and I became absorbed in trying to conceive (think,
consider, formulated, become posessed), by what means
don Juan had produced
it. Don Juan walked behind me. He suddenly let out a scream, that
nearly
paralyzed me. He explained,
laughing, that abrupt noises scare away unpleasant spirits. I squinted
my eyes and walked back and
forth for about half an hour. In that time the uncomfortable heat of my
body turned into a
pleasurable warmth. I experienced a sensation of lightness, as I paced
up and down the hilltop. I
felt disappointed, however; I had somehow expected to detect some kind
of visual phenomenon, but
there were no changes whatsoever in the periphery of my field of
vision, no unusual colours, or
glare, or dark masses. I finally became tired of squinting my eyes and
opened them. I was
standing in front of a small
ledge of sandstone, which was one of the few barren rocky places on the
hilltop; the rest was dirt
with widely spaced small bushes. It seemed, that the vegetation had
burned sometime before and the
new growth was not fully mature yet. For some unknown reason I thought,
that the sandstone ledge was
beautiful.
I
stood in front of it for a long time. And then I simply
sat down on it. "Good! Good!" don Juan said and patted me on the back.
He then told me, to carefully pull the leaves from under my clothes and
place them on the rock. As soon, as I had taken the leaves away from my
skin, I began to cool
off. I took my pulse. It seemed
to be normal. Don Juan laughed and called me "doctor Carlos" and asked
me, if I could
also take his pulse. He said, that, what I had felt, was the power of
the leaves, and, that that
power had cleared me and
had enabled me to fulfill my task. I asserted (affirm, state positevely) in all sincerity, that I
had done nothing in particular, and
that I sat down on that
place, because I was tired and because I found the colour of the
sandstone very appealing. Don Juan did not say anything. He was
standing a few feet away from me.
Suddenly, he jumped back and,
with incredible agility, ran and leaped over some bushes to a high
crest
of rocks some distance
away.
"What's the matter?" I asked, alarmed.
"Watch the direction, in which the wind will blow your leaves," he
said.
"Count them quickly. The wind is coming. Keep half of them and put them
back against your
belly."
178-179
I counted twenty leaves. I stuck ten under my shirt and then a strong
gust of wind scattered the
other ten in a westerly direction. I had the eerie feeling, as I saw
the
leaves being blown off, that
a real entity was deliberately sweeping them into the amorphous mass of
green shrubbery. Don Juan walked back to, where I was, and sat down
next to me, to my
left, facing the south. We did not speak a word for a long time. I did
not know , what to say.
I was exhausted. I wanted to
close my eyes, but
I did not dare. Don Juan must have noticed my state
and said, that it was all
right to fall asleep. He told me to place my hands on my abdomen, over
the leaves, and try to feel,
that I was lying suspended on the bed of "strings", that he had made
for
me on the "place of my
predilection" (inclinations, preference). I closed my eyes and a memory
of the peace and plenitude,
I had experienced while
sleeping on that other hilltop, invaded me. I wanted to find out, if I
could actually feel, I was suspended, but I fell asleep. I woke up just
before the sunset. Sleeping had refreshed and
invigorated me. Don Juan had also
fallen asleep. He opened his eyes at the same time,
I did. It was
windy,
but I did not feel cold. The leaves on my stomach seemed to have acted
as a furnace, a heater of
some sort. I examined the surroundings.
The place, I had selected to
rest, was like
a small basin. One could
actually sit on it, as on a long couch; there was enough of a rock wall
to serve as a backrest. I
also found out, that don Juan had brought my writing pads and placed
them underneath my head. "You found the right place," he said, smiling.
"And the whole operation
took place, as I had told
you, it would. Power guided you here without any plan on your part."
"What kind of leaves did you give me?" I asked. "The warmth, that had
radiated from the leaves and
had kept me in such a comfortable state, without any blankets or extra
thick clothing, was indeed
an absorbing phenomenon for me. "They were just leaves," don Juan said.
"'Do you mean, that I could grab leaves from any bush and they would
produce the same effect on
me?"
"No. I don't mean, that you yourself can do that. You have no personal
power. I mean, that any kind
of leaves would help you, providing, that the person, who gives them to
you, has power. What helped
you today was not the leaves, but power."
"Your power, don Juan?"
"I
suppose you could say, that it was my power, although that is not
really accurate. Power does not
belong to anyone. Some of us may gather it and then it could be given
directly to someone else. You
see, the key to stored power is, that it can be used only to help
someone else store power." I asked him, if that
meant, that his power was limited only to helping
others. Don Juan patiently
explained, that he could use his personal power however he pleased, in
anything he himself wanted,
but when it came to giving it directly to another person, it was
useless, unless that person
utilized it for his own search of personal power. "Everything, a man
does, hinges on his personal power," don Juan went on.
"Therefore, for one, who
doesn't have any, the deeds of a powerful man are incredible. It takes
power to even conceive (think, consider, formulated, become posessed),
what
power is. This is what I have been trying to tell you all along. But I
know, you don't understand,
not because you don't want to, but because you have very little
personal
power."
"What should I do, don Juan?"
"Nothing. Just proceed as you are now. Power will find a way." He stood
up and turned around in a complete circle, staring at
everything in the surroundings.
His body moved at the same time, his eyes moved; the total effect was
that of a hieratic () mechanical
toy, that turned in a complete circle in a precise and unaltered
movement. I looked at him with my mouth open. He hid a smile, cognizant
(conscious, aware) of my
surprise. "Today you are going to hunt power in the darkness of the
day," he said
and sat down.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Tonight you'll venture into those unknown hills. In the darkness they
are not hills."
180-181
"What are they?"
"They are something else. Something unthinkable for you, since you have
never witnessed their
existence."
"What do you mean, don Juan? You always scare me with that spooky
talk." He laughed and kicked my calf softly.
"The world is a mystery," he said. "And it is not at all, as you
picture
it." He seemed to reflect for a moment. His head bobbed up and down
with a
rhythmical shake, then he
smiled and added, "Well, it is also, as you picture it, but that's not
all there is to the
world; there is much more to it. You have been finding that out all
along, and
perhaps tonight you will
add one more piece." His tone sent a chill through my body.
"What are you planning to do?" I asked.
"I don't plan anything. All is decided by the same power, that allowed
you to find this spot." Don Juan got up and pointed to something in the
distance. I assumed,
that he wanted me to stand up
and look. I tried to jump to my feet, but before I had fully stood up,
don Juan pushed me down with
great force. "I didn't ask you to follow me," he said in a severe
voice. Then he
softened his tone and added,
"You're going to have a difficult time tonight, and you will need all
the personal power, you can
muster. Stay where you are and save yourself for later." He explained,
that he was not pointing at anything, but just making sure,
that certain things were out
there. He assured me, that everything was all right and said, that I
should sit quietly and get busy,
because I had a lot of time to write, before total darkness had set in
the land. His smile was
contagious and very comforting.
"But what are we going to do, don Juan?"
He shook his head from side to side in an exaggerated gesture of
disbelief. "Write!" he commanded me and turned his back to me. There
was nothing else for me to do. I worked on my notes, until it was
too dark to write. Don Juan maintained the same position all the time,
I
was working. He
seemed to be absorbed in
staring into the distance towards the west. But as soon, as I stopped
he
turned to me and said in a
joking tone, that the only ways to shut me up were to give me something
to eat, or make me write, or
put me to sleep. He took a small bundle from his knapsack and
ceremoniously opened it.
It contained pieces of dry
meat. He handed me a piece and took another for himself and began to
chew on it He casually
informed me, that it was power food, which both of us needed on that
occasion. I was too hungry to
think about the possibility, that the dry meat may have contained a
psychotropic substance. We ate
in complete silence, until there was no more meat, and by that time it
was quite dark. Don Juan stood up and stretched his arms and back. He
suggested, I
should do the same. He said, it
was a good practice to stretch the entire body after sleeping, sitting,
or walking. I followed his advice and some of the leaves, I had kept
under my shirt,
slid through the legs of my
pants. I wondered,
if I should try to pick them up, but he said to
forget about it, that there was
no longer any need for them and that I should let them fall, as they
might. Then don Juan came very close to me and whispered in my right
ear, that
I was supposed to follow him
at very close range and imitate everything he did. He said, that we
were
safe on the spot where we
stood, because we were, so to speak, at the edge of the night. "This is
not the night," he whispered, stomping on the rock, where we
were standing. "The night is
out there." He pointed to the darkness all around us. He then checked
my carrying net to see, if the food gourds and my
writing pads were secured, and in a
soft voice said, that a warrior always made sure, that everything was
in
proper order, not because he
believed, that he was going to survive the ordeal, he was about to
undertake, but because that was
part of his impeccable behavior. Instead of making me feel relieved,
his admonitions (warnings) created the
complete certainty, that my doom was
approaching. I
wanted to weep.
182-183
Don Juan was, I was sure, completely
aware of the effect of his
words. "Trust your personal power," he said in my ear. "That's all one
has in
this whole mysterious
world." He pulled me gently and we started to walk. He took the lead a
couple
of steps ahead of me. I followed him with my eyes fixed on the ground.
Somehow I did not dare
to look around, and, focusing
my sight on the ground, made me feel strangely calm; it almost
mesmerized me. After a short walk don Juan stopped.
He whispered, that total darkness
was near and that he was
going to get ahead of me, but was going to give me his position, by
imitating the cry of a specific
small owl. He reminded me, that I already knew, that his particular
imitation was raspy at the
beginning and then it became as mellow, as the cry of a real owl. He
warned me to be deadly aware of
other owl cries, which did not bear that mark. By the time don Juan
finished giving me all those instructions, I was
practically
panic-
stricken. I grabbed him by the arm and would not let go. It took two or
three
minutes for me to calm myself
enough, so I could articulate my words. A nervous ripple ran along my
stomach and abdomen, and kept
me from talking coherently. In a calm soft voice he urged me to get
hold of myself, because the
darkness was like the wind, an
unknown entity at large, that could trick me, if I was not careful. And
I
had to be perfectly calm, in
order to deal with it. "You must let yourself go, so your personal
power will merge with the
power of the night," he said
in my ear. He said, he was going to move ahead of me, and I had another
attack of
irrational fear.
"This is insane," I protested. Don Juan did not get angry or impatient.
He laughed quietly and said
something in my ear, which I
did not quite understand. "What did you say?" I said loudly through
chattering teeth. Don Juan
put his hand over my mouth and whispered, that a warrior acted,
as if he knew, what he was
doing, when in effect, he knew nothing. He repeated one statement three
or four times, as if he
wanted me to memorize it. He said:
"A warrior is impeccable, when
he
trusts his personal power,
regardless of whether it is small or enormous." After a short wait he
asked me, if I was all right.
I nodded and he went
swiftly out of sight with
hardly a sound. I tried to look around. I seemed to be standing in an
area of thick
vegetation. All, I could
distinguish, was the dark mass of shrubs, or perhaps small trees. I
concentrated my attention on
sounds, but nothing was outstanding. The whizzing (buzzing, hissing
sound) of the wind, muffled
every other sound, except the
sporadic piercing cries of large owls and the whistling of other birds.
I waited for a while in a state of utmost attention.
And then came the
raspy prolonged cry of a
small owl. I had no doubt it was don Juan. It came from a place behind
me. I turned around and
began to walk in that direction. I moved slowly, because I felt
inextricably (too
complicated to solve,
impossible to untie)
encumbered (impede,
hinder) by
the
darkness. I walked for perhaps ten minutes. Suddenly some dark mass
jumped in
front of me. I screamed and
fell backward on my seat. My ears began buzzing. The fright was so
great, that it cut my wind. I had
to open my mouth to breathe. "Stand up," don Juan said softly. "I
didn't mean to scare you. I just
came to meet you." He said, that he had been watching my crappy
(rubbish, nonsense, foolish) way of
walking and that,
when I moved in the darkness, I
looked like a crippled old lady, trying to tiptoe (one heel of shoe
raised) between mud puddles.
He found this image funny and
laughed out loud. He then proceeded to demonstrate a special way of
walking in the
darkness, a way, which he called
"the gait of power". He stooped (bend forward and downwards) over in
front of me and made me run my
hands over his back and
knees, in order to get an idea of the position of his body. Don Juan's
trunk was slightly bent
forward, but his spine was straight. His knees were also slightly bent.
He walked slowly in front of me, so I could take notice, that he raised
his knees almost to his chest,
every time he took a step. And then he actually ran out of sight and
came back again.
I could not
conceive (think, consider, formulated, become posessed), how he could
run in total darkness.
184-185
"The
gait of power is for running at night," he
whispered in my ear.
He urged me to try it myself. I told him, that I was sure, I would
break
my legs, falling into a
crevice or against a rock. Don Juan very calmly said, that the "gait of
power" was completely
safe. I pointed out, that the only way, I could understand his acts,
was by
assuming he knew those hills to
perfection, and thus could avoid the pitfalls. Don Juan
took my head in his hands and whispered forcefully, "This is
the night! And it is
power!" He let go of my head and then added in a soft
voice, that at night the
world was different, and that
his ability to run in the darkness had nothing to do with his knowledge
of those hills. He said,
that the
key to it was to let one's personal power flow out freely, so
it could merge with the
power of the night, and, that once that power took over,
there was no
chance for a slip-up. He added,
in a tone of utmost seriousness, that if I doubted it, I should
consider
for a moment, what was
taking place. For a man of his age to run in those hills at that hour
would be suicidal, if the
power of the night was not guiding him. "Look!" he said and ran swiftly
out into the darkness and came back
again. The way his body moved was so extraordinary, that I could not
believe,
what I was seeing. He sort of
jogged on the same spot for a moment. The manner, in which he lifted
his
legs, reminded me of a
sprinter doing preliminary warm-up exercises. He then told me to follow
him. I did it with utter constraint (force, oblige) and
uneasiness. With extreme care I
tried to look, where I was stepping, but it was impossible to judge
distance. Don Juan came back and
jogged by my side. He whispered, that I had to abandon myself to the
power of the night and trust
the little bit of personal power, that I had, or I would never be able
to move with freedom, and
that the darkness was encumbering (impede,
hindering), only
because I relied on my sight for
everything, I did, not
knowing, that another way to move was: to let power be the guide. I
tried various times without success. I
simply could not let go. The
fear of injuring my legs was
overpowering. Don Juan ordered me to keep on moving in the same spot
and to try to feel, as if I
were actually using the "gait of power". He then said, that he was
going to run ahead and, that I should wait for
his owl's cry. He
disappeared in the darkness, before I could say anything. I closed my
eyes at times and jogged on
the same spot, with my knees and trunk bent, for perhaps an hour.
Little
by little my tension began
to ease up, until I was fairly comfortable. Then I heard don Juan's
cry.
I ran five or six yards in the direction, where the cry came from,
trying to "abandon myself", as
don Juan had suggested. But stumbling into a bush immediately brought
back my feelings of
insecurity. Don Juan was waiting for me and corrected my posture. He
insisted, I
should first curl my fingers
against my palms, stretching out the thumb and index of each hand. Then
he said, that in his opinion,
I was just indulging myself in my feelings of inadequacy, since I knew
for a fact, I could always
see fairly well, no matter how dark the night was, if I did not focus
on anything, but kept scanning
the ground right in front of me.
The
"gait of power" was similar to
finding a place to rest. Both
entailed a sense of abandon, and a sense of trust. The "gait of power"
required, that one keep the
eyes on the ground, directly in front, because even a glance to either
side would produce an
alteration in the flow of movement. He
explained, that bending the trunk
forward was necessary, in
order to lower the eyes, and the reason, for lifting the knees up to
the
chest, was, because the steps
had to be very short and safe.
He warned me, that I was going to stumble
a great deal at first, but
he assured me, that with practice I could run as swiftly and as safely,
as I could in the
daytime.
For hours I tried to imitate his movements and get into the mood, he
recommended. He would very
patiently jog on the same spot in front of me, or he would take off in
a short run and return to,
where I was, so I could see, how he moved. He would even push me and
make me run a few yards. Then he took off and called me with a series
of owl cries. In some
inexplicable way I moved with an
unexpected degree of self-confidence.
186-187
To my knowledge, I had done
nothing to warrant that feeling,
but my body seemed to be cognizant of things without thinking about
them. For example, I could not
really see the jagged (rough,
uneven)
rocks in my way, but my body always managed to
step on the edges and never in
the crevices, except for a few mishaps (misfortune, bad luck), when I lost my balance,
because I
became distracted. The
degree of concentration, needed to keep scanning the area directly in
front, had to be total. As don
Juan had warned me, any slight glance to the side or too far ahead,
altered the flow. I located don Juan after a long search. He was
sitting by some dark
shapes, that seemed to be trees.
He came towards me and said, that I was doing very well, but it was
time
to quit, because he had been
using his whistle long enough and was sure, that by then, it could be
imitated by others. I agreed, that it was time to stop. I was nearly
exhausted by my
attempts. I felt relieved and asked
him, who would imitate his cry. "Powers, allies, spirits, who knows?"
he said in a whisper. He
explained, that those "entities of
the night" usually made very melodious sounds, but were at a great
disadvantage in reproducing the
raspiness of human cries or bird whistling. He cautioned me to always
stop moving, if I ever heard
such a sound and to keep in mind all, he had said, because at some
other
time I might need to make
the proper identification. In a reassuring tone he said, that I had a
very good idea, what the "gait
of power" was like, and that, in order to master it, I needed only a
slight push, which I could get
on another occasion, when we ventured again into the night. He patted
me
on the shoulder and
announced, that he was ready to leave. "Let's get out of here," he said
and began running.
"Wait! Wait!" I screamed frantically. "Let's walk." Don Juan stopped
and took off his hat.
"Golly!" he said in a tone of perplexity (bewilderment). "We're in a fix. You
know,
that I cannot walk in the dark.
I can only run. I'll break my legs, if I walk." I had the feeling, he
was grinning, when he said that, although I could
not see his face. He added in
a confidential tone, that he was too old to walk and the little bit of
the "gait of power", that I
had learned that night, had to be stretched to meet the occasion. "If
we don't use the "gait of power " we will be mowed down like
grass," he whispered in my
ear.
"By whom?"
"There are things in the night, that act on people," he whispered in a
tone, that sent chills through
my body. He said, that it was not important, that I keep up with him,
because he
was going to give repeated
signals of four owl cries at a time, so I could follow him. I
suggested, that we should stay in those hills, until dawn and then
leave. He retorted (return, pay
back, reply, answer)
in a very
dramatic tone, that to stay there would be suicidal; and even if we
came
out alive, the night would
have drained our personal power to the point, that we could not avoid
being the victims of the first
hazard of the day. "Let's not waste any more time," he said with a note
of urgency in his
voice. "Let's get out of
here." He reassured me, that he would try to go as slowly, as possible.
His
final instructions were, that I
should try not to utter a sound, not even a gasp, no matter what
happened. He gave me the general
direction, we were going to go in, and began running at a markedly
slower
pace. I followed him, but
no matter how slow he moved, I could not keep up with him, and he soon
disappeared in the darkness
ahead of me. After I was alone, I became aware, that I had adopted a
fairly fast walk
without realizing it.
And that came as a shock to me. I tried to maintain that pace for a
long
while and then I heard don
Juan's call a little bit to my right. He whistled four times in
succession. After a very short while, I again heard his owl cry, this
time to my far
right. In order to follow
it, I had to make a forty-five-degree turn. I began to move in the new
direction, expecting, that the
other three cries of the set would give me a better orientation. I
heard a new whistle, which placed don Juan almost in the direction,
where we had started. I
stopped and listened. I heard a very sharp noise a short distance away.
188-189
Something like the sound of
two rocks being struck against each other. I strained to listen and
detected a series of soft
noises, as if two rocks were being struck gently. There was another
owl's cry and then I knew, what
don Juan had meant. There was something truly melodious about it. It
was definitely longer and even
more mellow, than a real owl's. I felt a strange sensation of fright.
My
stomach contracted, as if
something were pulling me down
from the middle part of my body. I turned around and started to
semi-jog in the opposite
direction. I heard a faint owl cry in the distance. There was a rapid
succession
of three more cries. They
were don Juan's. I ran in their direction. I felt, that he must have
then been a good quarter of a
mile away and, if he kept up that pace, I would soon be inextricably
(complicated to solve, impossible to untie)
alone in those hills. I could
not understand why don Juan would run ahead, when he could have run
around me, if he needed to keep
that pace. I noticed then, that there seemed to be something moving
with me to my
left. I could almost see it
in the extreme periphery of my visual field. I was about to panic, but
a sobering thought crossed
my mind. I could not possibly see anything in the dark. I wanted to
stare in that direction, but I
was afraid to lose my momentum. Another owl cry jolted me out of my
deliberations. It came from my
left. I did not follow it,
because it was, without a doubt, the most sweet and melodious cry I had
ever heard. It did not
frighten me though. There was something very appealing, or perhaps
haunting, or even sad about
it. Then a very swift dark mass crossed from left to right ahead of me.
The
suddenness of its movements
made me look ahead, I lost my balance and crashed noisily against some
shrubs. I fell down on my
side and then I heard the melodious cry a few steps to my left. I stood
up, but before I could
start moving forward again, there was another cry, more demanding and
compelling (forced), than the first. It
was, as if something there wanted me to stop and listen. The sound of
the owl cry was so prolonged
and gentle, that it eased my fears. I would have actually stopped, had
I
not heard at that precise
moment don Juan's four raspy cries. They seemed to be nearer. I jumped
and took off in that
direction. After a moment I noticed again a certain flicker or a wave
in the
darkness to my left. It was not a
sight proper, but rather a feeling, and yet I was almost sure, I was
perceiving it with my eyes. It moved faster, than I did, and again it
crossed from left to right,
making me lose my balance. This time I did not fall down, and,
strangely enough, not falling down,
annoyed me. I suddenly became
angry and the incongruency (no harmony, incompatible) of my feelings threw me
into true panic. I
tried to accelerate my pace.
I wanted, to give out an owl cry myself, to let don Juan know, where I
was, but I did not dare to
disobey his instructions. At that moment some gruesome thing came to my
attention. There was
actually something like an
animal to my left, almost touching me. I jumped involuntarily and
veered to my right. The fright
almost suffocated me. I was so intensely gripped by fear, that there
were no thoughts in my mind, as
I moved in the darkness as fast, as I could. My fear seemed to be a
bodily sensation, that had
nothing to do with my thoughts. I found that condition very unusual. In
the course of my life, my
fears had always been mounted on an intellectual matrix and had been
engendered (procreate,
propagate)
by threatening
social situations, or by people, behaving towards me in dangerous ways.
This time, however, my fear was a true novelty. It came from an unknown
part of
the world and hit me in an
unknown part of myself. I heard an owl cry very close and slightly to
my left. I could not
catch the details of its pitch,
but it seemed to be don Juan's. It was not melodious. I slowed down.
Another cry followed. The
raspiness of don Juan's whistles was there, so I moved faster. A third
whistle came from a very
short distance away. I could distinguish a dark mass of rocks or
perhaps trees. I heard another
owl's cry and I thought, that don Juan was waiting for me, because we
were out of the field of
danger. I was almost at the edge of the darker area, when a fifth cry
froze me on the spot. I
strained to see ahead into the dark area, but a sudden rustling sound
to my left made me turn
around in time to notice a black object, blacker, than the
surroundings,
rolling or sliding by my
side. I gasped and jumped away.
190-191
I heard a clicking sound, as if someone
were smacking his lips, and
then a very large dark mass lurched out of the darker area. It was
square, like a door, perhaps
eight to ten feet high. The suddenness of its appearance made me
scream. For a moment my fright
was all out of proportion,
but a second later I found myself awesomely calm, staring at the dark
shape. My reactions were, as far, as I was concerned, another total
novelty.
Some part of myself seemed to
pull me towards the dark area with an eerie insistence, while another
part of me resisted. It was,
as if I wanted to find out for sure on the one hand, and on the other,
I
wanted to run hysterically
out of there. I barely heard don Juan's owl cries. They seemed to be
very close by
and they seemed to be frantic;
they were longer and raspier, as though he was whistling, while he ran
towards me. Suddenly I seemed to regain control of myself and was able
to turn
around, and for a moment I ran
just as don Juan had been wanting me to. "Don Juan!" I shouted, when I
found him. He put his hand on my mouth and
signaled me to follow, we both
jogged at a very comfortable pace,
until we came to the sandstone ledge, where we had been before. We sat
in absolute silence on the ledge for about an hour, until dawn.
Then we ate food from the
gourds. Don Juan said, that we had to remain on the ledge until midday,
and that we were not going
to sleep at all, but were going to talk, as if nothing was out of the
ordinary. He asked me to relate in detail everything, that had happened
to me from
the moment, he had left me.
When I concluded my narration, he stayed quiet for a long time. He
seemed to be immersed in deep
thought.
"It doesn't look too good," he finally said. "What happened to you last
night was very serious, so
serious, that you cannot venture into the night alone any
more. From now
on, the entities of the
night won't leave you alone."
"What happened to me last night, don Juan?"
'You stumbled on some entities, which are in the world, and which act
on
people. You know nothing
about them, because you have never encountered them. Perhaps
it would be
more proper to call them:
entities of the mountains; they don't really belong to the night. I
call them entities of the night,
because one can perceive them in the darkness with greater ease. They
are here, around us at all
times. In daylight, however, it is more difficult to perceive them,
simply because the world is
familiar to us, and that, which is familiar, takes precedence (used as
standard case). In the
darkness, on the other hand,
everything is equally strange and very few things take precedence (used as standard case), so
we are more susceptible to
those entities at night."
"But are they real, don Juan?"
"Of course! They are so real, that ordinarily they kill people,
especially those, who stray into the
wilderness and have no personal power."
"If you knew they were so dangerous, why did you leave me alone there?"
"There is only one way to learn, and that way is: to get down to
business. To only talk about power is useless. If you want to know,
what power is, and if you want to
store it, you must tackle
everything yourself. The road of knowledge and power is very difficult
and very long. You
may have noticed, that I have
not let you venture into the darkness by yourself, until last night.
You
did not have enough power
to do that. Now you do have enough to wage (engage in war) a good
battle, but not
enough to stay in the dark by
yourself."
"What would happen, if I did?"
"You'll die. The entities of the night will crush you like a bug."
"Does that mean, that I cannot spend a night by myself?"
"You can spend the night by yourself in your bed, but not in the
mountains."
"What about the flatlands?"
"It applies only to the wilderness, where there are no people around,
especially the wilderness in
high mountains. Since the natural abodes (dwellings) of the entities of
the night
are rocks and crevices, you
cannot go to the mountains from now on, unless you have stored enough
personal power."
"But how can I store personal power?"
192-193
"You are
doing it by living the way, I have recommended. Little by
little you are plugging all your
points of drainage. You don't have to be deliberate about it, because
power always finds a way.
Take me as an example. I didn't
know, I was storing power, when I first
began to learn the ways of a
warrior. Just like you, I thought, I wasn't doing anything in
particular, but that was not so. Power
has the peculiarity of being unnoticeable, when it is being stored." I
asked him to explain, how he had arrived at the conclusion, that it was
dangerous for me to stay by
myself in the darkness. The entities of the night moved along your
left," he said. "They were
trying to merge with your
death. Especially the door, that you saw. It was an opening, you know,
and it would have pulled you,
until you had been forced to cross it. And
that would have been your
end." I mentioned, in the best way I could, that I thought, it was very
strange, that things always
happened, when he was around, and that it was, as if he had been
concocting all the events
himself. The times, I had been alone in the wilderness at night, had
always been
perfectly normal and
uneventful. I had never experienced shadows or strange noises. In fact,
I had never been frightened
by anything. Don Juan chuckled (laugh quietly or to oneself)
softly and said, that everything was
proof, he had
enough personal power to call a
myriad of things to his aid. I had the feeling, he perhaps was hinting,
that he actually had called
on some people, as his confederates (ally, partners). Don Juan seemed
to have read my
thoughts and laughed out loud. "Don't tax (strain) yourself with
explanations," he said. "What I said, makes no
sense to you, simply because
you still don't have enough personal power. Yet you have more, than
when
you started, so things have
begun to happen to you. You already had a powerful encounter with the
fog and lightning. It is not
important, that you understand, what happened to you that night. What's
important is, that you have
acquired the memory of it. The bridge and everything else, you saw that
night, will be repeated
someday, when you have enough personal power."
"For what purpose would all that be repeated, don Juan?"
"I don't know. I am not you. Only you can answer that. We are all
different. That's why, I had to
leave you by yourself last night, although I knew, it was mortally
dangerous; you had to test
yourself against those entities. The reason I
chose the owl's cry was,
because owls are the
entities' messengers. To imitate the cry of an owl brings them out.
They became
dangerous to you, not because
they are naturally malevolent, but because you were not impeccable.
There is something in you, that
is very chintzy (trashy,
cheap)
and I know, what it is. You are just humoring me. You
have been humoring everybody
all along and, of course, that places you automatically above everyone
and everything. But you know
yourself, that that cannot be so. You are only a man, and your life is
too brief to encompass all the wonders and all the horrors of this
marvelous world. Therefore, your
humoring is chintzy (trashy, cheap); it cuts you down to a crappy
size." I wanted to protest.
Don Juan had nailed me, as he had done dozens of
times before. For a moment I
became angry. But, as it had happened before, writing detached me
enough, so
I could remain
impassive
(apathetic, emotionless).
"I think, I have a cure
for it," don Juan went on after a long interval.
"Even you would agree with
me, if you could remember, what you did last night. You ran as fast, as
any sorcerer, only when your
opponent became unbearable. We both know that, and I believe, I have
already found a worthy opponent
for you."
"What are you going to do, don Juan?"
He did not answer. He stood up and stretched his body. He seemed to
contract every muscle. He ordered me to do the same. "You must stretch
your body many times during the day," he said." The
more times the better, but
only after a long period of work or a long period of rest."
"What kind of opponent are you going to find for me?" I asked.
"Unfortunately, only our fellow men are our worthy opponents," he said.
"Other entities have no
volition of their own, and one must go to meet them and lure them out.
Our fellow men, on the
contrary, are relentless. We have talked long enough," don Juan said in
an abrupt tone and
turned to me. "Before we leave,
you must do one more thing, the most important of all.
194-195
I am going to
tell you something right now,
to set your mind at ease, about why you are here. The reason you keep
on
coming to see me is very
simple; every time you have seen me, your body has learned certain
things, even against your desire.
And finally your body now needs to come back to me to learn more. Let's
say, that your body knows,
that it is going to die, even though you never think about it. So I've
been telling your body, that
I too am going to die and before I do, I would like to show your body
certain things, things, which
you cannot give to your body yourself. For example, your body needs
fright. It likes it. Your body
needs the darkness and the wind. Your body now knows the gait of power
and can't wait to try it.
Your body needs personal power and can't wait to have it. So let's say
then, that your body returns
to see me, because I am its friend." Don Juan remained silent for a
long while. He seemed to be struggling
with his thoughts. "I've told you, that the secret of a strong body is
not in, what you do
to it, but in what you don't
do," he finally said. "Now it is time for you not to do, what you
always
do. Sit here, until we leave
and not-do."
"I don't follow you, don Juan."
He put his hands over my notes and took them away from me. He carefully
closed the pages of my
notebook, secured it with its rubber band, and then threw it like a
disc far into the
chaparral. I was shocked and began to protest, but he put his hand over
my mouth.
He pointed to a large bush
and told me to fix my attention not on the leaves, but on the shadows
of
the leaves. He said, that
running in the darkness did not have to be spurred (stimulated, promt, incite) by fear, but could be
a very natural reaction of
a jubilant (expressing triumph) body, that knew how "to not do". He
repeated over and over in
a whisper in my right ear,
that "to not do, what
I knew, how to do' was the key to power. In the
case of looking at a tree, what
I knew, how to do, was to focus immediately on the foliage. The shadows
of the leaves or the spaces
in between the leaves were never my concern. His last admonitions were
to start focusing on the
shadows of the leaves on one single branch and then eventually work my
way to the whole tree, and
not to let my eyes go back to the leaves, because the first deliberate
step to storing personal
power was to allow the body to not-do. Perhaps it was,
because of my fatigue or my nervous excitation, but I
became so immersed in the
shadows of the leaves, that by the time don Juan stood up, I could
almost
group the dark masses of
shadows as effectively, as I normally grouped the foliage. The total
effect was startling. I told don Juan, that
I would like to stay longer. He
laughed and patted
me on my hat. "I've told you," he said." The body likes things like
this." He then said, that I should let my stored power guide me through
the
bushes to my notebook. He gently pushed me into the chaparral. I walked
aimlessly for a moment
and then I came upon it. I
thought, that
I must have unconsciously memorized the direction, in
which
don Juan had thrown it. He
explained the event, saying, that I went directly to the notebook,
because my body had been soaked
for hours in not-doing.
15.
Not-Doings

196-197
Wednesday, 11 April 1962. Upon returning to his house, don Juan
recommended, that I work on my
notes, as if nothing had
happened to me, and not to mention or even be concerned with any of the
events, I had
experienced. After a day's rest he announced, that we had to leave the
area for a few
days, because it was
advisable to put distance between us and those "entities". He said,
that
they had affected me
deeply, although I was not noticing their effect yet, because my body
was not sensitive enough. In a
short while, however, I would fall seriously ill, if I did not go to my
"place of predilection" (inclinations, preference) to
be cleansed and restored. We left before dawn and drove north, and,
after an exhausting drive and
a fast hike, we arrived at
the hilltop in the late afternoon. Don Juan, as he had done before,
covered the spot, where I had once
slept, with small branches and
leaves. Then he gave me a handful of leaves to put against the skin of
my abdomen and told me to
lie down and rest. He fixed another place for himself slightly to my
left, about five feet away
from my head, and also lay down. In a matter of minutes
I began to feel an exquisite warmth and a sense
of supreme well-being. It was a sense of physical comfort, a sensation
of being suspended in
mid-air. I could fully agree
with don Juan's statement, that the "bed of strings" would keep me
floating. I commented on the
unbelievable quality of my sensory experience. Don Juan said in a
factual tone, that the "bed" was
made for that purpose.
"I can't believe, that this is possible!" I exclaimed. Don Juan took my
statement literally and scolded me. He said, he was
tired of my acting, as an
ultimately important being, that has to be given proof over and over,
that the world is unknown and
marvelous. I tried to explain, that a rhetorical (showy, insincere) exclamation
had no significance.
He retorted
(return, pay
back, reply, answer),
that, if that were
so, I could have chosen another statement. It seemed, that he was
seriously annoyed with me. I sat up
halfway and began to apologize, but he laughed and, imitating my manner
of speaking, suggested a
series of hilarious rhetorical (showy, insincere) exclamations, I could
have used instead.
I ended up laughing at the
calculated absurdity of some of his proposed alternatives. He giggled
and in a soft tone reminded me, that I should abandon myself
to the sensation of
floating. The soothing feeling of peace and plenitude, that I
experienced in that
mysterious place, aroused
some deeply buried emotions in me. I began to talk about my life. I
confessed, that I had never
respected or liked anybody, not even myself, and that I had always
felt,
I was inherently evil, and
thus my attitude towards others was always veiled with a certain
bravado and daring.
"True," don Juan said. "You don't like yourself at all."
He cackled
(shrill, brittle laughter like hen) and told me, that he had
been Seeing,
while I talked. His
recommendation was, that I should
not have remorse for anything I had done, because to isolate one's
acts,
as being mean, or ugly, or
evil, was to place an unwarranted importance on the self. I moved
nervously and the bed of leaves made a rustling sound. Don Juan
said, that if I wanted to
rest, I should not make my leaves feel agitated, and that I should
imitate him and lie without
making a single movement. He added, that in his Seeing he had come
across one of my moods. He
struggled for a moment, seemingly to find a proper word, and said, that
the mood in question was a
frame of mind, I continually lapsed (drift, vanish, decline) into. He
described it, as a sort of
trap door, that opened at
unexpected times and swallowed me. I asked him to be more
specific. He replied, that it was impossible to
be specific about Seeing.
198-199
Before I could say anything else, he told me, I
should relax, but not
fall asleep, and be in a state
of awareness for as long, as I could.
He said, that the "bed of strings"
was made exclusively to
allow a warrior to arrive at a certain state of peace and well-being.
In a dramatic tone don Juan stated, that well-being was a condition one
had to groom, a condition
one had to become acquainted with, in order to seek it. "You don't
know, what well-being is, because you have never experienced
it !" I
disagreed
with him. But he continued arguing, that well-being was an
achievement, one had to
deliberately seek. He said, that the only thing, I knew how to seek,
was a
sense of disorientation,
ill-being, and confusion. He laughed mockingly and assured me, that in
order to accomplish the
feat, of making myself miserable,
I had to work in a most intense fashion, and that it was absurd, I had
never realized, I could work
just the same, in making myself complete and strong. "The trick is in
what one emphasizes," he said. "We either make
ourselves miserable, or we make
ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."
I closed my eyes and relaxed again and began to feel: I was floating;
for a short while it was, as if
I were actually moving through space, like a leaf. Although it was
utterly pleasurable, the feeling
somehow reminded me of times, when I had become sick, dizzy and would
experience a sensation of
spinning. I thought perhaps
I had eaten something bad. I heard don Juan talking to me, but I did
not really make an effort to
listen. I was trying to make
a mental inventory of all the things, I had eaten that day, but I could
not become interested in it.
It did not seem to matter. "Watch the way the sunlight changes," he
said. His voice was clear. I
thought, it was like water, fluid and warm. The sky was totally free of
clouds towards the west and the sunlight
was spectacular. Perhaps the
fact, that don Juan was cueing me, made the yellowish glow of the
afternoon Sun truly
magnificent. "Let that glow kindle (ignite) you," don Juan said.
"Before the Sun goes down
today, you must be perfectly
calm and restored, because tomorrow or the day after, you are going to
learn not-doing."
"Learn not doing what?" I asked.
"Never mind now," he said. "Wait, until we are in those lava
mountains." He pointed to some distant jagged (rough, uneven), dark, menacing-looking
peaks towards
the north.

Thursday, 12 April 1962. We reached the high desert around the lava
mountains in the late
afternoon. In the distance the
dark brown lava mountains looked almost sinister. The Sun was very low
on the horizon and shone on
the western face of the solidified lava, tinting its dark brownness
with a dazzling array of yellow
reflextions. I could not keep my eyes away. Those peaks were truly
mesmerizing. By the end of the day the bottom slopes of the mountains
were in sight.
There was very little
vegetation on the high desert; all, I could see, were cacti and a kind
of
tall grass, that grew in
tufts (dense clumps). Don Juan stopped to rest. He sat down, carefully
propped his
food
gourds against a rock, and said,
that we were going to camp on that spot for the night. He had picked a
relatively high place. From where
I stood, I could see quite a distance
away, all around us. It was a cloudy day and the twilight quickly
enveloped the area. I
became involved in watching the
speed, with which the crimson clouds on the west faded into a uniform
thick dark grey. Don Juan got up and went to the bushes. By the time he
came back, the
silhouette of the lava
mountains was a dark mass. He sat down next to me and called my
attention to, what seemed to be, a
natural formation on the mountains towards the north-
east.
200-201
It
was a spot,
which had a colour much
lighter, than its surroundings. While the whole range of lava mountains
looked uniformly dark brown
in the twilight, the spot, he was pointing at, was actually yellowish
or
dark beige. I could not
figure out, what it could be. I stared at it for a long time. It seemed
to be moving; I fancied it
to be pulsating. When I squinted my eyes, it actually rippled, as if
the
wind were moving it. "Look at it fixedly!" don Juan commanded me. At
one moment, after I had maintained my stare for quite a while, I
felt, that the whole range of
mountains was moving towards me. That feeling was accompanied by an
unusual agitation in the pit of
my stomach. The discomfort became so acute, that I stood up. "Sit
down!" don Juan yelled, but I was already on my feet. From my new
point of view the yellowish formation was lower on the side
of the mountains. I sat
down again, without taking my eyes away, and the formation shifted to a
higher place. I stared at
it for an instant and, suddenly, I arranged everything into the correct
perspective. I realized, that
,what I had been looking at, was not in the mountains at all, but was
really a piece of yellowish
green cloth, hanging from a tall cactus in front of me. I laughed out
loud and explained to don Juan, that the twilight had
helped to create an optical
illusion. He got up and walked to the place, where the piece of cloth
was hanging,
took it down, folded it,
and put it inside his pouch.
"What are you doing that for?" I asked.
"Because this piece of cloth has power," he said casually. "For a
moment you were doing fine with
it and there is no way of knowing, what may have happened,
if you had
remained seated."

Friday, 13 April 1962.
At the crack of dawn we headed for the mountains. They were
surprisingly far away. By midday we
walked into one of the canyons. There was some water in shallow pools.
We sat to rest in the shade
of a hanging cliff. The mountains were clumps of a monumental lava
flow. The solidified
lava had weathered over the
millennia into a porous dark brown rock. Only a few sturdy weeds grew
between the rocks and in the
cracks. Looking up at the almost perpendicular walls of the canyon, I
had a
weird sensation in the pit of
my stomach. The walls were hundreds of feet high and gave me the
feeling, that they were closing in
on me. The Sun was almost overhead, slightly towards the southwest.
"Stand up here," don Juan said and manoeuvred my body, until I was
looking towards the Sun. He told me to look fixedly at the mountain
walls above me. The sight was stupendous. The magnificent height of the
lava flow
staggered my imagination. I began to wonder, what a volcanic upheaval
it must have been. I looked
up and down the sides of the
canyon various times. I became immersed in the richness of colour in
the rock wall. There were
specks of every conceivable hue. There were patches of light grey moss
or lichen in every rock. I
looked right above my head and noticed, that the sunlight was producing
the most exquisite
reflections, when it hit the brilliant specks of the solidified lava. I
stared at an area in the mountains, where the sunlight was being
reflected. As the Sun moved, the
intensity diminished, then it faded completely. I looked across the
canyon and saw another area of the same exquisite
light refractions. I told don
Juan, what was happening, and then I spotted another area of light, and
then another in a different
place, and another, until the whole canyon was blotched with big
patches of light. I felt dizzy; even, if I closed my eyes, I could
still see the brilliant
lights. I held my head in my
hands and tried to crawl under the hanging cliff, but don Juan grabbed
my arm firmly and
imperatively told me to look at the walls of the mountains, and try to
figure out spots of heavy
darkness in the midst of the fields of light. I did not want to look,
because the glare bothered my eyes. I said, that,
what was happening to me,
was similar to staring into a sunny street through a window, and then Seeing the window
frame, as a
dark silhouette everywhere else.
202-203
Don Juan shook his head from side to side and began to chuckle (laugh
quietly or to oneself). He let
go of my arm and we sat down
again under the hanging cliff.
I was jotting
down (write
briefly/hastily) my impressions of the surroundings, when don Juan,
after a long silence, suddenly
spoke in a dramatic tone. "I have brought you here to teach you one
thing," he said and paused.
"You are going to learn
not-doing. We might as well talk about it, because there is no other
way
for you to proceed. I
thought, you might catch on to not-doing without my having to say
anything. I was wrong."
"I don't know, what you're talking about, don Juan."
"It doesn't matter," he said. "I am going to tell you about something,
that is very simple, but very
difficult to perform; I am going to talk to you about not-doing, in
spite of the fact, that there is
no way to talk about it, because it is the body, that does it." He
stared at me in glances and then said, that I had to pay the utmost
attention to, what he was
going to say. I closed my notebook, but to my amazement he insisted,
that I should
keep on writing. "Not-doing is so difficult and so powerful, that you
should not mention
it," he went on. "Not until
you have Stopped the World; only then can you talk about it freely, if
that's what you'd want to
do."
Don Juan looked around and then pointed to a large rock. "That rock,
over there, is a rock, because of doing," he said. We looked at each
other and he smiled.
I waited for an explanation, but
he remained silent. Finally I had to say, that I had not understood,
what he meant. "That's doing!" he exclaimed.
"Pardon me?"
"That's also doing."
"What are you talking about, don Juan?"
"Doing is, what makes that rock: a rock and that bush: a bush. Doing
is,
what makes you: yourself and me:
myself." I told him, that his explanation did not explain anything. He
laughed
and scratched his temples. "That's the problem with talking," he said.
"It always makes one
confuse the issues. If one starts
talking about doing, one always ends up talking about something else.
It is better to just act. "Take that rock for instance. To look at it
is doing, but to See it is
not-doing."
I had to confess, that his words were not making sense to me. "Oh yes
they do!" he exclaimed. "But you are convinced, that they don't,
because that is your doing.
That is the way, you act towards me and the world." He again pointed to
the rock. "That rock is a rock, because of all the things you know how
to do to
it," he said.
"I call that
doing. A Man of Knowledge, for instance, knows, that the rock is a
rock,
only because of doing, so, if
he doesn't want the rock to be a rock, all he has to do is not-doing.
See what I mean?" I did not understand him at all. He laughed and made
another attempt at
explaining. "The world is the world, because you know the doing
involved, in making
it so," he said." If you
didn't know its doing, the world would be different." He examined me
with curiosity. I stopped writing. I just wanted to
listen to him. He went on
explaining, that, without that certain doing, there would be nothing
familiar in the surroundings. He leaned over and picked up a small rock
between the thumb and index
of his left hand and held it
in front of my eyes. "This is a pebble, because you know, the doing
involved in making it into
a pebble," he said.
"What are you saying?" I asked with a feeling of bona fide confusion.
Don Juan smiled. He seemed to be trying to hide a mischievous delight.
"I don't know, why you are so confused," he said. "Words are your
predilection (inclinations, preference). You should be in
heaven." He gave me a mysterious look and raised his brows two or three
times.
Then he pointed again to the
small rock, he was holding in front of my eyes. "I say, that you are
making this into a pebble, because you know, the
doing involved in it," he said.
"Now, in
order to Stop the World, you must stop doing."

204-205
He seemed to know, that I still had not understood and smiled, shaking
his head. He then took a twig
and pointed to the uneven edge of the pebble. "In the case of this
little rock," he went on, "the first thing, which
doing does to it, is to shrink
it to this size. So the proper thing to do, which a warrior does, if he
wants to Stop the World, is
to enlarge a little rock, or any other thing, by not-doing." He stood
up, placed the pebble on a boulder and then asked me to
come closer and examine it.
He
told me to look at the holes and depressions in the pebble, and try to
pick out the minute detail in
them. He said, that if I could pick out the detail, the holes and
depressions would disappear and I
would understand, what not-doing meant. "This damn pebble is going to
drive you crazy today," he said. I must
have had a look of bewilderment on my face. He looked at me and
laughed uproariously. Then
he pretended to get angry with the pebble and hit it two or three times
with his hat.
I urged him to clarify his point. I argued, that it was
possible for him
to explain anything he
wanted to, if he made an effort. He gave me a sly glance and shook his
head, as if the situation were
hopeless. "Sure I can explain anything," he said, laughing. "But could
you
understand it?" I was taken aback by his insinuation.
"Doing makes you separate the pebble from the larger boulder," he
continued. "If you want to learn
not-doing, let's say, that you have to join them." He pointed to the
small shadow, that the pebble cast on the boulder and
said, that it was not a
shadow, but a glue, which bound them together. He then turned around
and
walked away, saying, that he
was coming back to check on me later. I stared at the pebble for a long
time. I could not focus my attention
on the minute detail in the
holes and depressions, but the tiny shadow, that the pebble cast on the
boulder, became a most
interesting point. Don Juan was right; it was like a glue. It moved and
shifted.
I had the
impression, it was being squeezed from underneath the pebble. When don
Juan returned, I related to him, what I had observed about the
shadow.
"That's a good beginning," he said. "A warrior can tell all kinds of
things from the shadows." He then suggested, that I should take the
pebble and bury it somewhere.
"Why?" I asked.
"You've
been watching it for a long time," he said. "It has something
of you now. A warrior always
tries to affect the force of doing by changing it into
not-doing. Doing
would be to leave the
pebble lying around, because it is merely a small rock. Not-doing would
be to proceed with that pebble, as if it were something far beyond a
mere rock. In this
case, that pebble has soaked in
you for a long time and now it is you, and as such, you cannot leave it
lying around, but must bury
it.
If
you would have personal power, however, not-doing would be to
change that pebble into a
power object."
"Can I do that now?"
"Your life is not tight enough to do that. If you would See, you would
know, that your heavy concern
has changed that pebble into something quite unappealing, therefore the
best thing, you can do, is to
dig a hole, bury it and let the Earth absorb its heaviness."
"Is all this true, don Juan?"
"To say yes or no to your question is doing. But since you are learning
not-doing, I have to tell
you, that it really doesn't matter, whether or not all this is true.
It
is here, that a warrior has a
point of advantage over the average man. An average man cares, that
things are either true or false,
but a warrior doesn't. An average man proceeds in a specific way with
things, that he knows are
true, and in a different way with things, that he knows are not true.
If
things are said to be true,
he acts and believes, in what he does. But if things are said to be
untrue, he doesn't care to act,
or he doesn't believe, in what he does. A warrior, on the other hand,
acts in both instances.
206-207
If
things are said to be true, he would act, in order to do doing. If
things are said to be untrue, he
still would act, in order to do not-doing. See what I mean?"
"No, I don't see, what you mean at all," I said. Don Juan's statements
put me in a belligerent (marked
by hostile
behaviour) mood.
I could not make
sense of, what
he was saying. I
told him, it was gibberish, and he mocked me and said, that I did not
even have an impeccable spirit,
in what I liked to do the most, talking.
He actually made fun of my
verbal command and found it
faulty and inadequate.
"If you are going to be all mouth, be a mouth warrior," he said and
roared with laughter. I felt dejected. My ears were buzzing. I
experienced an uncomfortable
heat in my head. I was
actually embarrassed and presumably red in the face. I stood up, went
into the chaparral and buried the pebble. "I was teasing you a little
bit," don Juan said, when I returned and sat
down again. "And yet I know,
that if you don't talk, you don't understand. Talking is doing for you,
but talking is not
appropriate and, if you want to know, what I mean by not-doing, you
have
to do a simple exercise. Since we are concerned with not-doing, it
doesn't matter, whether you do
the exercise now or ten
years from now."
He
made me lie down and took my right arm and bent it at my elbow. Then
he turned my hand, until the
palm was facing the front; he curved my fingers, so my hand looked, as
if
I were holding a door knob,
and then he began to move my arm back and forth with a circular motion,
that resembled the act of
pushing and pulling a lever attached to a wheel. Don Juan said, that a
warrior executed that movement, every time he
wanted to push something out of
his body, something like a disease or an unwelcome feeling. The idea
was: to push and pull an
imaginary opposing force, until one felt a heavy object, a solid body,
stopping the free movements
of the hand. In the case of the exercise, not-doing consisted in
repeating it, until one felt the
heavy body with the hand, in spite of the fact, that one could never
believe, it was possible to feel
it. I began moving my arm and in a short while my hand became ice cold.
I
had begun to feel a sort of
mushiness around my hand. It was, as if
I
were paddling through some
heavy viscous liquid
matter. Don Juan made a sudden movement and grabbed my arm to stop the
motion.
My whole body shivered, as
though stirred by some unseen force. He scrutinized me, as I sat up,
and
then walked around me,
before he sat back down on the place, where he had been.
"You've
done enough," he said. "You may do this exercise some other
time, when you have more personal power."
"Did
I do something wrong?"
"No.
Not-doing is only for very strong warriors and you don't have the
power to deal with it yet.
Now you will only trap horrendous things with your hand. So do it
little by little, until your hand
doesn't get cold any more. Whenever your hand remains warm, you can
actually feel the lines of the
world with it." He paused,
as if to give me time to ask about the lines. But before I
had a chance to, he started
explaining, that there were infinite numbers of lines, that joined us
to
things. He said, that the
exercise of not-doing, that he had just described, would help anyone to
feel a line, that came out
from the moving hand, a line, that one could place or cast, wherever
one
wanted to. Don Juan said,
that this was only an exercise, because the lines, formed by the hand,
were not durable enough to be
of real value in a practical situation. "A Man of
Knowledge uses other parts of his body to produce durable
lines," he said.
"What
parts of the body, don Juan?"
"The
most durable lines, that a Man of Knowledge produces, come from the
middle of the body," he
said. "But he can also make them with his eyes."
"Are
they real lines?"
"Surely."
"Can
you see them and touch them?"
"Let's
say, that you can feel them. The most difficult part, about the
warrior's way, is to realize,
that the world is a feeling. When one is not-doing, one is feeling the
world, and one feels the
world through its lines."
208-209
He paused and examined me with curiosity. He raised his brows and
opened his eyes and then blinked.
The effect was like the eyes of a bird blinking. Almost immediately I
felt a sensation of
discomfort and queasiness
(causing nausea). It was
actually, as if
something was applying
pressure to my stomach. "See, what
I mean?" don Juan asked and moved his eyes away. I mentioned, that I
felt nauseated and he replied in a matter-of-fact
tone, that he knew it, and that
he was trying to make me feel the lines of the world with his eyes. I
could not accept the claim,
that he, himself, was making me feel that way. I voiced my doubts. I
could hardly conceive (think, consider, formulated, become posessed)
the idea,
that he was causing my feeling of nausea, since he had not, in any
physical way, impinged (strike, collide, trespass) on
me. "Not-doing is very simple, but very difficult," he said. "It is not
a
matter of understanding it, but
of mastering it. Seeing,
of course, is the final accomplishment of a Man of Knowledge,
and Seeing
is attained only, when one has Stopped the World through the technique
of not-doing." I smiled involuntarily.
I had not understood, what he
meant. "When one does something with people," he said, "the concern
should be
only with presenting the
case to their bodies. That's, what I've been doing with you so far,
letting your body know. Who
cares whether or not you understand?"
"But that's unfair, don Juan. I want to understand everything,
otherwise coming here would be a
waste of my time."
"A waste of your time!" he exclaimed parodying my tone of voice. "You
certainly are conceited (high
opinion about
himself, vain)."
He stood up and told me, that
we were going to hike to the top of the
lava peak to our right. The ascent to the top was an excruciating
affair. It was actual
mountain climbing, except, that
there were no ropes to aid and protect us. Don Juan repeatedly told me
not to look down; and he had
to actually pull me up bodily a couple of times, after I had begun to
slide down the rock. I felt
terribly embarrassed, that don Juan, being so old, had to help me. I
told him, that I was in poor
physical condition, because I was too lazy to do any exercise. He
replied, that once one had arrived
at a certain level of personal power, exercise or any training of that
sort was unnecessary,
since all one needed, to be in an impeccable form, was to engage
oneself in
"not-doing". When we arrived at the top, I lay down. I was about to be
sick. He
rolled me back and forth with his
foot, as he had done once before. Little by little the motion restored
my balance. But I felt
nervous. It was, as if I were somehow waiting for the sudden appearance
of something. I
involuntarily looked two or three times to each side. Don Juan did not
say a word, but he also
looked in the direction, I was looking.
"Shadows are peculiar affairs," he said all of a sudden. "You must have
noticed, that there is one
following us."

"I haven't noticed anything of the sort," I protested in a loud voice.
Don Juan said, that my body had noticed our pursuer, in spite of my
stubborn opposition, and assured
me in a confident tone, that there was nothing unusual about being
followed by a shadow. "It is just a power," he said. "These mountains
are filled with them.
It is just like one of those
entities, that scared you the other night." I wanted to know, if I
could actually perceive it myself. He asserted (state positevely, affirm),
that in the daytime I could
only feel its presence. I wanted an explanation of, why he called it a
shadow, when, obviously, it
was not like the shadow of a
boulder. He replied, that both had the same lines, therefore both were
shadows. He pointed to a long boulder, standing directly in front of
us. "Look at the shadow of that boulder," he said. "The shadow is the
boulder, and yet it isn't. To
observe the boulder, in order to know, what the boulder is, is doing,
but
to observe its shadow is
not-doing. Shadows are like doors, the doors of not-doing. A Man of
Knowledge,
for example, can tell the
innermost feelings of men by watching their shadows."
"Is
there movement in them?" I asked.
"You
may say, that there is movement in them (in shadows), or you may say,
that the
lines of the world are shown
in them, or you may say, that feelings come from them."
"But
how could feelings come out of shadows, don Juan?"
210-211
"To
believe, that shadows are just shadows is doing," he explained.
"That belief is somehow stupid.
Think about it this way: There is so much more to everything in the
world, that obviously, there must
be more to shadows too. After all, what makes them shadows is merely
our doing."
There was a long silence. I did not know, what else to say. "The end of
the day is approaching," don Juan said, looking at the sky.
"You have to use this
brilliant sunlight to perform one last exercise." He led me to a place,
where there were two peaks the size of a man,
standing parallel to each other,
about four or five feet apart. Don Juan stopped ten yards away from
them, facing the west. He marked a spot for me to stand on and told me
to look at the shadows
of the peaks.
He said, that I
should watch them and cross my eyes in the same manner, I ordinarily
crossed them, when scanning the
ground for a place to rest. He clarified his directions by saying, that
when searching for a resting
place, one had to look without focusing, but in observing shadows, one
had
to cross the eyes and yet
keep a sharp image in focus. The idea was to let one shadow be
superimposed on the other, by
crossing the eyes. He explained, that through that process one could
ascertain a certain feeling,
which emanated from shadows.
I commented on his vagueness, but he
maintained, that there was really
no way of describing, what he meant. My attempt to carry out the
exercise was futile.
I struggled, until I
got a headache. Don Juan was
not at all concerned with my failure. He climbed to a domelike peak and
yelled from the top,
telling me to look for two small long and narrow pieces of rock. He
showed with his hands the size
rock he wanted. I found two pieces and handed them to him. Don Juan
placed each rock
about a foot apart in two
crevices, made me stand above them facing the west, and told me to do
the same exercise
with their shadows. This
time it was an
altogether different affair. Almost immediately I
was capable of crossing my
eyes and perceiving their individual shadows, as if they had merged
into
one. I noticed, that the act
of looking without converging the images, gave the single shadow, I had
formed, an unbelievable depth
and a sort of transparency. I stared at it, bewildered. Every hole in
the rock, on the area, where
my eyes were focused, was neatly discernible; and the composite shadow,
which was superimposed on
them, was like a film of indescribable transparency. I did not want to
blink, for fear of losing the image, I was so
precariously (lacking in stabitlity), holding. Finally my
sore eyes forced me to blink, but I did not lose the view of the detail
at all. In fact, by
remoistening my cornea, the image became even clearer. I noticed at
that
point, that it was, as if I
were looking from an immeasurable height at a world, I had never seen
before. I also noticed, that I
could scan the surroundings of the shadow without losing the focus of
my visual perception. Then, for an instant, I lost the notion, that I
was looking at a rock. I
felt, that I was landing in
a world, vast beyond anything, I had ever conceived (think, consider,
formulated, become posessed). This extraordinary
perception lasted for a
second and then everything was turned off. I automatically looked up
and saw don Juan, standing
directly above the rocks, facing me. He had blocked the sunlight with
his body. I described the unusual sensation, I had had, and he
explained, that he
had been forced to interrupt
it, because he saw, that I was about to get lost in it. He added, that
it
was a natural tendency for
all of us to indulge ourselves, when feelings of that nature occur, and
that, by indulging myself in
it, I had almost turned not-doing into my old familiar doing. He said,
that what I should have done,
was to maintain the view without succumbing (gave in, gave
up) to
it, because in a way
doing was a manner of
succumbing
(gave
in, gave up).
I complained, that he should have told me beforehand, what to expect
and
what to do, but he pointed
out, that he had no way of knowing, whether or not I
would succeed in
merging the shadows. I had to confess, I was more mystified, than ever,
about not-doing. Don
Juan's comments were, that I
should be satisfied with, what I had done, because, for once, I had
proceeded correctly, that by
reducing the world, I had enlarged it, and that, although I had been
far
from feeling the lines of
the world, I had correctly used the shadow of the rocks, as a door into
not-doing. The statement, that I had enlarged the world by reducing it,
intrigued me
no end.
212-213-214
The detail of the
porous rock in the small area, where my eyes were focused, was so vivid
and so precisely defined,
that the top of the round peak became a vast world for me; and yet it
was really a reduced vision
of the rock. When don Juan blocked the light, and I found myself,
looking
as I normally would do, the
precise detail became dull, the tiny holes in the porous rock became
bigger, the brown colour of
the dried lava became opaque, and everything lost the shiny
transparency, that made the rock into a
real world. Don Juan then took the two rocks, laid them gently into a
deep crevice,
and sat down crosslegged,
facing the west, on the spot, where the rocks had been. He patted a
spot
next to him to his left and
told me to sit down. We did not speak for a long time. Then we ate,
also in silence. It was
only after the Sun had set,
that he suddenly turned and asked me about my progress in Dreaming. I
told him, that it had been easy in the beginning, but that at the
moment I had ceased altogether
to find my hands in my dreams. "When you
first started Dreaming, you were using my personal power,
that's why, it was easier,"
he
said. "Now you are empty. But you must keep on trying, until you have
enough power of your own. You
see, Dreaming is the not-doing of dreams, and, as you progress in your
not-doing, you will also
progress in Dreaming. The trick is not to stop looking for your hands,
even if you don't believe,
that, what you are doing, has any meaning. In fact, as I have told you
before, a warrior doesn't need
to believe, because as long, as he keeps on acting without believing,
he
is not-doing."
We looked at each other for a moment. "There is nothing else I can tell
you about Dreaming" he continued.
"Everything, I may say, would
only be not-doing.
But, if you tackle not-doing directly, you, yourself,
would know, what to do in Dreaming. To find your hands is essential,
though, at this time, and I
am sure, you will."
"I don't know, don Juan. I don't trust myself."
"This is not a matter of trusting anybody. This whole affair is a
matter of a warrior's
struggle; and you will keep on struggling, if not under your own power,
then
perhaps under the impact of a
worthy opponent, or with the help of some allies, like the one, which
is
already following you." I made a jerky involuntary movement with my
right arm. Don Juan said,
that my body knew much more,
than I suspected, because the force, that had been pursuing us, was to
my
right. He confided in a low
tone of voice, that twice that day the ally had come so close to me,
that
he had had to step in and
stop it. "During the day shadows are the doors of not-doing,"
he said. “But at
night, since very little
doing prevails
(be the same
or current)
in the dark, everything is a shadow, including the
allies. I've already told you
about this, when I taught you the Gait of Power." I laughed out loud
and my own laughter scared me. "Everything, I have taught you so far,
has been an aspect of not-doing,"
he went on. "A warrior
applies not-doing to everything in the world, and yet I can't tell you
more about it, than what I
have said today. You must let your own body discover the power and the
feeling of not-doing." I had another fit of nervous cackling. "It is
stupid for you to scorn (reject as unworthy) the mysteries of the
world, simply
because you know the doing of
scorn
(reject as unworthy),"
he said with a serious face. I assured him, that I was not
scorning
(reject as unworthy)
anything or anyone, but that I
was more nervous and
incompetent (clumsy, very inefficient), than he thought.
"I've
always been that way," I said. "And yet I want to change, but I
don't know how. I am so
inadequate."
"I
already know, that you think, you are rotten," he said. "That's your
doing. Now, in order to affect
that doing, I am going to recommend, that you learn another doing. From
now on, and for a period of
eight days, I want you to lie to yourself. Instead of telling yourself
the truth, that you are ugly, rotten and inadequate, you will tell
yourself, that you are the
complete opposite, knowing, that
you are lying and, that you are absolutely beyond hope."
"But what would be the point of lying like that, don Juan?"
"It may hook you to another doing and then you may realize, that both
doings are lies, unreal, and,
that to hinge (depend, attach) yourself to either one, is a waste of
time, because the
only thing, that is real, is the
being in you, that is going to die. To arrive at that being is the
not-doing of the self."
16. The Ring of
Power

215
Saturday, 14 April 1962. Don Juan felt the weight of our gourds and
concluded, that we had
exhausted our food supply and, that
it was time to return home. I casually mentioned, that it was going to
take us at least a couple of
days to get to his house. He said, he was not going back to Sonora, but
to a border town, where he had
some business to take care of. I thought, we were going to start our
descent through a water canyon, but
don Juan headed towards the
northwest on the high plateau of the lava mountains. After about an
hour of walking he led me into
a deep ravine, which ended at a point, where two peaks almost joined.
There was a slope there, going
almost to the top of the range, a strange slope, which looked like a
slanted concave bridge between
the two peaks. Don Juan pointed to an area on the face of the slope.
"Look there fixedly," he said. "The Sun is almost right." He explained,
that at midday the light of the Sun could help me with
not-doing. He then gave me a
series of commands: to loosen all the tight garments I had on, to sit
in a cross-legged position,
and to look intently at the spot, he had specified. There were very few
clouds in the sky and none towards the west. It was
a hot day and the sunlight
beamed on the solidified lava. I kept a very close watch over the area
in question. After a long vigil (watch during
sleeping hours),
I asked what, specifically, I was
supposed to look
for. He made me be quiet with
an impatient gesture of his hand.
I was tired. I wanted to go to sleep.
I half closed my eyes; they were
itching and I rubbed them,
but my hands were clammy (humid, damp) and the sweat made my eyes
sting.
216-217
I looked at
the lava peaks through
half-closed eyelids and suddenly the whole mountain was lit up. I told
don Juan, that if I squinted my eyes, I could see the whole range
of mountains, as an intricate
array of light fibers. He told me to breathe as little, as possible, in
order to maintain the
view of the light fibers, and
not to stare intently into it, but to look casually at a point on the
horizon right above the slope.
I followed his instructions and was able to hold the view of an
interminable
(endless, continual)
extension, covered with
a web of light. Don Juan said in a very soft voice, that I should try
to isolate areas
of darkness within the field
of light fibers, and that, right after finding a dark spot, I should
open
my eyes and check, where
that spot was on the face of the slope. I was incapable of perceiving
any dark areas. I squinted my eyes and
then opened them up various
times. Don Juan drew closer to me and pointed to an area to my right,
and then to another one right
in front of me. I tried to change the position of my body; I thought,
that perhaps, if I shifted my
perspective, I would be able to perceive the supposed area of darkness,
he was pointing to, but don
Juan shook my arm and told me in a severe tone to keep still and be
patient. I again squinted my eyes and once more saw the web of light
fibers. I
looked at it for a moment and
then I opened my eyes wider. At that instant I heard a faint rumble -
it could have easily been
explained as the distant sound of a jet plane - and then, with my eyes
wide open, I saw the whole
range of mountains in front of me, as an enormous field of tiny dots of
light. It was, as if for a
brief moment some metallic specks in the solidified lava were
reflecting the sunlight in unison.
Then the sunlight grew dim and was suddenly turned off, the
mountains became a