SOURCE OF ALL SUNS - HOLOGRAPHIC
UNIVERSE
Third
Lot of Books by
Carlos
Castaneda (3)
You are not
Your Physical Body; You are Not the Physical Matter: You are White Sun
Energy
!
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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 "Tales of Power"
Index:
Part
1: A Witness to the Acts of
Power
1. An
Appointment With
Knowledge............................................5
2. The
Dreamer And the
Dreamed...............................................31
3. The
Secret of The Luminous
Beings........................................46
Part
2: The Tonal and the Nagual
4.
Having to
Believe.....................................................................59
5. The
Island of The
Tonal...........................................................67
6.
Shrinking the
Tonal..................................................................83
7. In
Nagual's
Time......................................................................92
8. The
Whispering of The
Nagual..............................................102
9. The
Wings of Perception
.......................................................111
Part
3: The Sorcerers'
Explanation
10.
Three Witnesses to The
Nagual............................................119
11.
The Strategy of a
Sorcerer....................................................128
12.
The Bubble of
Perception.....................................................145
13.
The Predileciton of Two
Warriors........................................154
Scanned
by Ovix
(ControlledFolly@gmail.com)
The
conditions of a solitary
bird are five:
The
first, that it flies to the
highest point;
the
second, that it does not
suffer for company,
not
even of its own kind;
the
third, that it aims its beak
to the skies;
the
fourth, that it does not
have a definite color;
the
fifth, that it sings very
softly.
- San
Juan de la Cruz, Dichos de
Luz y Amor
Part
1: A Witness
to Acts of Power
1.
An Appointment With
Knowledge
9-10
I
had not seen don Juan for several months. It was the autumn of 1971.
I had the certainty, that
he was at don Genaro's house in central Mexico and made the
necessary preparations for a six- or seven-day drive to visit
him. On the second day of my journey,
however, on an impulse, I
stopped at don Juan's place in Sonora in the mid-afternoon. I parked my
car and walked a short
distance to the house. To my surprise, I found him there: "Don
Juan! I didn't expect to
find you here!"
He laughed; my surprise seemed to delight him. He was sitting on an
empty milk crate by the
front door. He appeared to have been waiting for me. There was an air
of accomplishment in the ease, with which he greeted me.
He took off his hat and flourished (make bold sweeping movement) it in
a comical gesture. Then
he put it on again and gave me a military salute. He was leaning
against the wall, sitting on the crate, as if it were a saddle.
"Sit
down, sit down," he said in
a jovial tone. "Good to see you again."
"I was
going to go all the way
to central Mexico for nothing," I said.
"And then I would've had
to drive back to Los Angeles. Finding you here has saved me days
and days of driving."
"Somehow
you would've found me,"
he said in a mysterious tone, "but
let's say, that you owe me
the six days, that you would've needed to get there, days
which you
should use in doing
something more interesting, than pressing down on the gas pedal of your
car."
There was something engaging in don Juan's smile. His warmth was
contagious.
"Where's
your writing gear?" he
asked. I
told
him, that I had left it in
the car; he said, that I looked
unnatural without it and made me go back and get it.
"I
have finished writing a
book," I said. He gave me
a long, strange look, that produced an itching in the pit of
my stomach. It was, as if
he were pushing my middle section with a soft object. I felt
like I
was going to get ill, but then he turned his head to the side and I
regained my original feeling of
well-being. I wanted to
talk about my book, but he made a gesture, that indicated,
that he did not want me
to say anything about it. He smiled. His mood was light and charming
and he immediately
engaged
me in a casual
conversation about people and current events.
Finally I managed to steer
the conversation onto the topic of my interest. I began by
mentioning,
that I had reviewed my
early notes and had realized, that he had been giving me a detailed
description of the Sorcerers' World from the beginning of our
association. In light of what he had
said to me in those stages, I had begun to question the role of
hallucinogenic plants. "Why
did you make me take those
power plants so many times?" I asked.
He
laughed and mumbled very
softly, "'Cause you're dumb."
I
heard him the first time, but
I wanted to make sure and pretended I
had not understood.
"I beg
your pardon?" I asked.
"You
know what I said," he
replied and stood up. He
tapped me on the head as he
walked by me.
"You're
rather slow," he said.
"And there was no other way to jolt you."
"So
none of that was absolutely
necessary?" I asked.
"It
was, in your case. There are
other types of people, however, that
do not seem to need them." He
stood next to me, staring at
the top of the bushes by the left side
of his house; then he sat
down again and talked about Eligio, his other apprentice. He said, that
Eligio had taken
psychotropic plants only once since he became his apprentice,
and yet
he was perhaps even more advanced, than I was.
11-12
"To
be sensitive is a natural condition of certain people," he said.
"You are not. But neither
am I. In the final analysis sensitivity matters very little."
"What's
the thing that matters
then?" I asked. He
seemed to search for an
appropriate answer.
"What
matters is that a warrior be impeccable," he finally said. "But
that's only a way of
talking, a way of beating around the bush. You have already
accomplished some tasks of sorcery and I
believe this is the time
to mention the source of everything, that
matters. So I will say, that
what matters to a warrior is arriving at the totality of
oneself."
"What
is the Totality of Oneself, don Juan?"
"I
said, that I was only going to
mention it. There are still a lot of
loose ends in your life, that you must tie together, before we can
talk about the Totality of Oneself."
He
ended our conversation there.
He made a gesture with his hands to
signal, that he wanted me
to stop talking. Apparently there was something or somebody
nearby.
He tilted his head to the
left, as if to listen. I could see the whites of his eyes, as he
focused on the bushes beyond the house to his left. He listened
attentively for a few moments and then
stood up, came to me and
whispered in my ear, that we had to leave the house and go for a walk.
"Is
there something wrong?" I
asked, also in a whisper.
"No.
Nothing is wrong," he said.
"Everything is rather right." He led
me into the desert
chaparral. We walked for perhaps half an hour
and then came to a small
circular area free from vegetation, a spot about twelve feet in
diameter, where the reddish
dirt was packed and perfectly flat. There were no signs, however,
that
machinery had cleared and
flattened the area. Don Juan sat down in the center of it, facing the
southeast. He pointed to a
place about five feet away from him and asked me to sit
there, facing
him.
"What
are we going to do here?"
I asked.
"We
have an appointment here
tonight," he replied. He
scanned the surroundings with
a quick glance, turning around on his
seat, until he was again
facing the southeast. His
movements had alarmed me. I asked him who we had the appointment
with.
"With knowledge," he said. "Let's say that knowledge is prowling (roam
with predatory intent) around
here." He
did
not let me hook on to
that cryptic answer.
He quickly changed
the subject and in a
jovial tone he urged me to be natural, that is, to take notes and talk
as we would have done at his house. What was most pressing on
my mind
at
that time, was the vivid sensation
I had had six months
before, of "talking" to a coyote. That event meant to me, that
for the first time I had been capable of visualizing or
apprehending, through my senses and in sober
consciousness, the
sorcerers' description of the world; a description, in which
communicating with animals through speech was a matter of course. ''We're
not going to engage
ourselves in dwelling on any experience of
that nature," don Juan
said upon hearing my question. "It is not advisable for you to indulge
in focusing your attention
on past events. We may touch on them, but only in reference."
"Why
is that so, don Juan?"
"You
don't have enough personal
power yet to seek the sorcerers'
explanation."
"Then
there is a sorcerers'
explanation!"
"Certainly.
Sorcerers are men.
We're creatures of thought. We seek
clarifications."
"I was
under the impression, that
my great flaw was to seek
explanations."
"No.
Your flaw is to seek
convenient explanations, explanations that
fit you and your world. What I object to is your
reasonableness. A sorcerer explains things in
his world too, but he's not
as stiff, as you."
"How
can I arrive at the
sorcerers' explanation?"
"By
accumulating personal power.
Personal power will make you slide
with great ease into the
sorcerers' explanation. The explanation is not what you would call
an explanation;
nevertheless, it makes the world and its mysteries, if not clear, at
least less awesome. That should be the essence of an explanation,
but that is not what you seek. You're
after the reflection of your ideas."
13-14
I
lost my momentum to ask questions. But his smile urged me to keep on
talking. Another issue of
great importance to me was his friend don Genaro and the
extraordinary effect, that his actions had had on me. Every time I
had come into contact with him I
had experienced the most
outlandish sensory distortions.
Don Juan laughed when I voiced my
question.
"Genaro
is stupendous," he said.
"But for the time being, there is no
sense in talking about
him or about what he does to you. Again, you don't have
enough personal
power to unravel that
topic. Wait until you have it, then we will talk."
"What
if I never have it?"
"If
you never have it, we'll
never talk."
"At
the rate I'm going, will I
ever have enough of it?" I asked.
"That's
up to you," he replied.
"I have given you all the information
necessary. Now it's your
responsibility to gain enough personal power to tip the scales."
"You're
talking in metaphors," I
said. "Give it to me straight. Tell me
exactly what I should do.
If you have already told me, let's say, that I've forgotten it."
Don
Juan chuckled and lay down,
putting his arms behind his head. "You know exactly what you need," he
said.
I told
him that sometimes I
thought I knew, but that most of the time I
had no self-confidence. "I'm
afraid, that you are
confusing issues," he said. "The
self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of
the
average
man. The average man seeks certainty
in the eyes of the
onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks
impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The
average
man is hooked to his fellow men,
while the warrior is hooked
only to himself. Perhaps you are chasing rainbows. You're after
the self-
confidence of the
average man, when you should be after the humbleness of a warrior. The
difference between the
two is remarkable. Self-confidence entails knowing something
for sure;
humbleness entails being
impeccable in one's actions and feelings."
"I've
been trying to live in
accordance with your suggestions," I said.
"I may not be the best,
but I'm the best of myself. Is that impeccability?"
"No. You must do better, than that. You must push yourself beyond your
limits, all the time."
"But
that would be insane, don
Juan. Noone can do that."
"There
are lots of things, that
you do now, which would have seemed
insane to you ten years
ago. Those things themselves did not change, but your idea of yourself
changed; what was
impossible before is perfectly possible now and perhaps your total
success in changing yourself is only a matter of time. In this
affair the only possible course, that
a warrior has, is to act
consistently and without reservations. You know enough of the warrior's
way to act accordingly,
but your old habits and routines stand in your way."
I
understood what he meant. "Do
you think that writing is
one of the old habits I should change?" I
asked. "Should I destroy
my new manuscript?"
He did
not answer. He stood up
and turned to look at the edge of the
chaparral. I told him,
that I had received letters from various people telling me,
that it was wrong to write
about my apprenticeship. They had cited as a precedent, that the
masters
of Eastern esoteric
doctrines demanded absolute secrecy about their teachings.
"Perhaps
those masters are just
indulging in being masters," don Juan
said without looking at
me. "I'm not a master, I'm only a warrior. So I really don't know what
a master feels like."
"But
maybe I'm revealing things,
I shouldn't, don Juan."
"It
doesn't matter what one
reveals or what one keeps to oneself," he
said. "Everything we do,
everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we have enough of
it, one word uttered to us
might be sufficient to change the course of our lives. But if we don't
have enough personal
power, the most magnificent piece of wisdom can be revealed
to us and
that revelation won't
make a damn bit of difference." He
then lowered his voice as if
he were disclosing a confidential
matter to me.
"I'm
going to utter perhaps the greatest piece of knowledge anyone can voice,"
he said. "Let's see what you can do with it.
15-16
"Do you know that at
this very moment you are surrounded by Eternity?
And do you know, that you
can use that Eternity, if you so desire?"
After
a long pause, during which
he urged me with a subtle movement of
his eyes to make a statement, I said, that I did not understand what he
was talking about.
"There!
Eternity is there!" he
said, pointing to the horizon.
Then he pointed to the zenith. "Or there, or perhaps we can say that
Eternity is like this.” He extended both arms to point to the
east and
west. We looked at each other. His eyes held a question. "What
do you say to that?" he
asked, coaxing (persuading by pleading) me to ponder upon his
words. I did not know what to say. "Do
you know that you can extend yourself forever in any of the
directions I have pointed to?" he went on.
"Do you know, that one moment
can be eternity? This is
not a riddle (perplexing enigma); it's a fact, but only if you mount
(fix on) that moment and use it to take the Totality of
Yourself forever in any direction
(the Totality of OneSelf,
means the combination of all of his Higher Selves on every high level
of vibration, LM)."
He
stared at me.
"You
didn't have this knowledge
before," he said, smiling. "Now you do.
I have revealed it to
you, but it doesn't make a bit of difference, because you
don't have
enough personal power to
utilize my revelation. Yet if you did have enough power, my words alone
would serve as the means
for you to round up the Totality of Yourself and to get the
crucial part of it out of the boundaries, in which it is contained." He
came to my side and poked my
chest with his fingers; it was a very
light tap.
"These
are the boundaries I'm
talking about," he said. "One can get out
of them. We are a
feeling, an awareness encased here." He
slapped my shoulders with
both hands. My pad and pencil fell to the
ground. Don Juan put his
foot on the pad and stared at me and then laughed. I asked him if he
minded my taking
notes. He said no in a reassuring
tone and moved his foot away. "We
are Luminous Beings," he
said, shaking his head rhythmically. "And
for a Luminous Being only
personal power matters. But if you ask me what personal power is,
I have to tell you, that my
explanation will not explain it." Don
Juan looked at the western
horizon and said, that there were still a
few hours of daylight
left. "We have to be here
for a long time," he explained. "So, we either sit
quietly or we talk. It is
not natural for you to be silent, so let's keep on talking.
This spot
is a power place and it must become used to us before nightfall.
You must sit here as naturally, as
possible, without fear or
impatience. It seems, that the easiest way for you to relax, is to take
notes, so write to your heart's content. "And
now, suppose you tell me
about your dreaming." His
sudden shift caught me
unprepared. He repeated his request. There
was a great deal to say
about it. "Dreaming" entailed cultivating a peculiar control over
one's dreams to the extent,
that the experiences undergone in them and those lived in one's waking
hours acquired the same
pragmatic valence (capacity to unite with something else).
Then
sorcerers' allegation was, that under the impact
of dreaming the ordinary
criteria to differentiate a dream from reality, became inoperative. Don
Juan's praxis (practical exercise) of dreaming was an exercise, that
consisted of finding
one's hands in a dream.
In other words, one had to deliberately dream, that one was
looking for and could find
one's hands in a dream by simply dreaming that one lifted one's hands
to the level of the eyes.
After years of unsuccessful attempts, I had finally
accomplished the
task. Looking at it in
retrospect (refer back), it had become evident to me, that I had
succeeded only after
I had gained a degree of
control over the world of my everyday life. Don Juan wanted
to know the
salient
(outstanding, protruding) points. I began telling him that
the difficulty of setting
up the command to look at my hands seemed to be, quite often,
insurmountable (impossible). He had warned me, that the early stage of
the
preparatory facet, which he called
"setting up dreaming," consisted of a deadly game, that one's mind
played with itself, and that some part
of myself was going to do
everything it could to prevent the fulfillment of my task. That could
include, don Juan had said,
plunging me into a loss of meaning, melancholy, or even a suicidal
depression.
17-18
I
did not go that far,
however. My experience was rather on the light, comical side;
nonetheless, the result was
equally frustrating. Every time I was about to look at my
hands in a
dream, something
extraordinary would happen; I would begin to fly, or my dream would
turn into a nightmare, or it would simply become a very
pleasant
experience of bodily excitation;
everything in the dream
would extend far beyond the "normal" in matters of vividness and,
therefore, be terribly
absorbing. My original intention of observing my hands was always
forgotten in light of the new situation. One night, quite unexpectedly,
I
found my hands in my dreams.
I dreamt,
that I was walking on an
unknown street in a foreign city and suddenly I lifted up my
hands and placed them in
front of my face. It was, as if something within myself had
given up and
had permitted me to watch
the backs of my hands.
Don Juan's
instructions had been, that as soon, as the sight of my hands
would begin to dissolve
or change into
something else, I had to shift my view from my
hands to any other
element in the surroundings of my dream. In that
particular dream I
shifted my view to a building at the end of the street. When the
sight of the building began to
dissipate I focused my attention on the other elements of the
surroundings in my dream. The end result
was an incredibly clear
composite picture of a deserted street in some unknown foreign city.
Don Juan made me continue with my
account of other experiences in
dreaming. We talked for a
long time. At the end of
my report he stood up and went to the bushes. I also
stood up. I was nervous. It
was an unwarranted sensation since there was nothing precipitating
(hurled down) fear
or concern. Don Juan
returned shortly. He noticed my agitation.
"Calm
down," he said, holding my
arm gently. He made me
sit down and put my notebook on my lap. He coaxed (persuaded) me to
write. His argument was, that
I should not disturb the
power place with unnecessary feelings
of fear or hesitation. "Why
do I get so nervous?" I
asked.
"It's
natural," he said.
"Something in you is threatened by your
activities in dreaming. As
long, as you did not think about those activities, you were all right.
But now, that you have
revealed your actions, you're about to faint. Each warrior has his own
way of
dreaming. Each way is different. The
only thing, which we all
have in common, is that we play tricks in order to force ourselves
to abandon the quest. The
counter-measure is to persist, in spite of all the barriers
and
disappointments." He
asked me then, if I was
capable of selecting topics for dreaming. I
said, that I did not have
the faintest idea of how to do that. "The
sorcerers' explanation of
how to select a topic for dreaming" he
said, "is, that a
warrior
chooses the topic by deliberately holding an image in his mind, while
he
shuts off his internal
dialogue.
In other words, if he is capable of not talking to himself
for a moment and then holds
the image or the thought of what he wants in dreaming, even if only for
an instant, then the
desired topic will come to him. I'm sure you've done that,
although you
were not aware of it." There
was a long pause and then
don Juan began to sniff the air. It was
as if he were cleaning
his nose; he exhaled three or four times through his nostrils with
great force. The muscles of his abdomen contracted in spasms,
which
he controlled by taking in short
gasps of air. "We
won't talk about dreaming
any more," he said. "You might become
obsessed. If one is to
succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of
effort, but with no stress
or obsession." He
stood up and walked to the
edge of the bushes. He leaned forward and
peered into the foliage.
He seemed to be examining something in the leaves, without
getting too close to them.
"What
are you doing?" I asked,
unable to contain my curiosity. He turned to me, smiled and raised
his brow. "The bushes are
filled with strange things," he said, as he sat down
again. His tone was so
casual, that it scared me more, than if he had let out a
sudden yell. My notebook
and pencil fell from my hands. He laughed and mimicked me and
said, that my exaggerated
reactions were one of the loose ends, that still existed in
my life.
I wanted to raise a point, but he would not let me talk.
19-20
"There's
only a bit of daylight
left," he said. "There are other things
we ought to touch upon
before the twilight sets in." He
then added, that judging by my
production in dreaming, I must have
learned how to stop my
internal dialogue at will. I told him, that I had. At the beginning of
our association
don Juan had delineated (depicted, show picture) another
procedure: walking for
long stretches without focusing the eyes on anything. His
recommendation had been to not look at anything directly but,
by
slightly crossing the eyes, to keep a
peripheral (side vision) view of everything, that presented itself to
the eyes.
He had insisted, that if one kept one's unfocused eyes at a
point just above the horizon, it was
possible to notice, at once, everything in almost the total
180-degree range in front of one's eyes (although
I had not understood it at the time).
He had assured me, that
that exercise was the only way of shutting off the internal dialogue.
He used to ask me for reports on my progress, and then he stopped
inquiring about it. I
told don Juan, that I had practiced the technique for years without
noticing any change, but I
had expected none anyway. One day, however, I had the
shocking
realization, that I had just
walked for about ten minutes without having said a single word to
myself. I mentioned to
don Juan, that on that occasion I also became cognizant
(fully informed, consciousness), that stopping the internal dialogue
involved more, than
merely curtailing the words I said
to myself. My entire thought processes had stopped and I
had felt I was practically
suspended, floating. A sensation of panic had ensued from
that
awareness
and I had to resume my internal
dialogue as an antidote. "I've
told you that the internal
dialogue is what grounds us," don Juan
said. "The world is such
and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its
being such and such or so
and so." Don
Juan explained, that the
passageway into the world of sorcerers
opens up after the
warrior has learned to shut off the Internal Dialogue. "To
change our idea of the World is the Crux of Sorcery," he said. "And
Stopping the
Internal Dialogue is the only
way to accomplish
it. The
rest is just padding (cushioning).
Now you're in the position to know, that nothing of what you've
seen or done, with the exception of Stopping the Internal
Dialogue,
could by itself have
changed anything in you, or in your idea
of the world. The provision is, of
course, that that Change should not be deranged (disorded).
Now
you can understand why a
teacher doesn't clamp down (restrict) on his apprentice. That would
only breed
obsession and morbidity (state of being diseased)." He asked for
details of other experiences I had had in shutting off the
internal dialogue. I
recounted everything, that I could remember. We talked until it became
dark and I
could no longer take notes in a
comfortable manner; I had
to pay attention to my writing and that altered my concentration.
Don Juan became aware of
it and began to laugh. He pointed out, that I had
accomplished another
sorcery task, writing
without concentrating.
The moment he said it, I realized, that I really
did not pay attention to the act of taking notes. It seemed
to be
a separate activity I had nothing
to do with. I felt odd. Don
Juan asked me to sit by him in the center of the circle. He
said it was
too dark and I was no
longer safe sitting so close to the edge of the chaparral. I felt a
chill up my back and jumped to his side. He made me face the
southeast
and
asked me to command myself to be
silent and without
thoughts. I could not do it at first and had a moment of impatience.
Don Juan turned his back to
me and told me to lean on his shoulder for support. He said, that once
I
had quieted down my
thoughts,
I should keep my eyes open, facing the bushes towards the
southeast. In a mysterious
tone he added, that he was setting up a problem for me, and that if I
resolved it, I would be ready for another facet of the sorcerers'
world. I posed a weak
question about the nature of the problem. He chuckled
softly. I waited for his
answer and then something in me was turned off. I felt: I
was
suspended.
My ears seemed to unplug
and a myriad of noises in the chaparral became audible. There
were so many, that I could
not distinguish them individually. I felt I was falling asleep and then
all at once something caught my attention.
21-22
It
was not something, which involved my thought processes;
it was not a vision, or a
feature of the environment either, yet my awareness had been engaged
by something. I was fully
awake. My eyes were focused on a spot on the edge of the
chaparral, but I was not looking, or thinking, or talking to myself.
My feelings were clear bodily
sensations; they did not need words. I felt, I was rushing through
something indefinite. Perhaps, what
would have ordinarily
been my thoughts, were rushing; at any rate, I had the
sensation, that I
had been caught in a
landslide and something was avalanching, with me at the crest. I felt
the rush in my stomach.
Something was pulling me into the chaparral. I could distinguish the
dark mass of the bushes in
front of me. It was not, however, an undifferentiated darkness, as
it
would ordinarily be. I could see every individual bush, as if I
were looking at them in a dark
twilight. They seemed to be
moving; the mass of their foliage looked like black skirts flowing
towards me, as if they were
being blown by the wind, but there was no wind. I became absorbed in
their mesmerizing
movements; it was a pulsating ripple, that seemed to draw them nearer
and nearer to me. And
then I noticed a lighter silhouette, which seemed to be superimposed on
the dark shapes of the bushes. I focused my eyes on a spot
to the side of the lighter
silhouette and I could make out a chartreuse glow on it. Then I looked
at it without focusing and
I
had
the certainty, that the lighter silhouette was a man hiding in the
underbrush. I was, at
that moment, in a most peculiar state of awareness. I was
cognizant of the
surroundings and of the mental processes, that the surroundings
engendered in myself, yet I was not thinking, as I ordinarily think.
For instance, when I realized, that
the silhouette superimposed
on the bushes was a man, I recalled another occasion on the desert; I
had noticed then, while don
Genaro and I were walking in the chaparral at night, that a
man
was
hiding in the bushes behind
us, but the instant I had attempted to explain the phenomenon
rationally, I lost sight of the man. This time, however, I
felt I
had
the
upper hand and I refused to
explain or to think anything at all. For a moment I had the impression,
that I could hold the man and force
him to remain, where he
was. I then experienced a strange pain in the pit of my stomach.
Something seemed to rip inside me and I could not hold the muscles
of my midsection tense any longer.
At the very moment I let
go, the dark shape of an enormous bird, or some sort of flying animal,
lurched at me from the
chaparral. It was, as if the shape of the man had turned into the shape
of a bird. I had the clear
conscious perception of fear. I gasped and then let out a
loud
yell and
fell on my back. Don Juan
helped me up. His face was very close to mine. He was laughing.
"What
was that?" I shouted. He
hushed me, putting his hand
over my mouth. He put his lips to my ear
and whispered, that we had
to leave the area in a calm and collected fashion, as if
nothing
had happened. We walked
side by side. His pace was relaxed and even. A couple of
times he turned around
quickly. I did the same and twice I caught sight of a dark
mass, that
seemed to be following us. I heard a loud eerie shriek behind me.
I experienced a moment of sheer
terror; ripples ran through
the muscles of my stomach; they came in spasms and grew in intensity,
until they simply forced
my body to run. The only
way of talking about my reaction has to be in don Juan's
terminology; and thus I
can say, that my body, due to the fright I was experiencing, was
capable
of executing what he had
called "the gait of power," a technique he had taught me
years before,
consisting of running in
the darkness without tripping or hurting oneself in any way. I was not
fully aware of what I had
done or how I had done it. Suddenly
I found myself again at
don Juan's house. Apparently he had also run and we had arrived at
the same time. He lit his
kerosene lantern, hung it from a beam in the ceiling and casually asked
me to sit down and relax.
I jogged on the same spot for a while, until my nervousness
became more
manageable. Then I sat
down. He forcefully ordered me to act, as if nothing had happened
and handed me my
notebook. I had not realized, that in my haste to leave the bushes I
had
dropped it.
"What
happened out there, don
Juan?" I finally asked.
"You
had an appointment with
Knowledge," he said, pointing with a
movement of his chin to
the dark edge of the desert chaparral.
23-24
"I
took you there, because I
caught a Glimpse of Knowledge prowling (roaming) around the house
earlier. You might say, that knowledge knew,
that you were coming and
was waiting for you. Rather than meeting it here, I felt it was
proper to meet it on a Power Spot. Then I set up a test to see, if
you had enough personal power to
isolate it from the rest of the things around us. You did fine."
"Wait
a minute!" I protested. "I
saw the silhouette of a man hiding
behind a bush and then I
saw a huge bird."
"You
didn't see a man!" he said
emphatically. "Neither did you see a
bird. The silhouette in
the bushes and what flew to us was a moth. If you want to be accurate
in sorcerers' terms, but
very ridiculous in your own terms, you could say, that tonight you had
an appointment with a moth. Knowledge is a moth." He
looked at me piercingly. The
light of the lantern created strange
shadows on his face. I
moved my eyes away. "Perhaps
you'll have enough
personal power to unravel that mystery
tonight," he said. "If not
tonight, perhaps tomorrow; remember, you still owe me six days." Don
Juan stood up and walked to
the kitchen in the back of the house.
He took the lantern and
set it against the wall on the short round stump, that he used as a
bench. We sat down on the
floor opposite each other and served ourselves some beans and
meat from
a pot, that he had placed
in front of us. We ate in silence. He gave me furtive (mysterious)
glances from time to time and seemed on the verge of
laughing. His eyes were
like two slits. When he looked at me, he would open them a bit and
the moistness of the
corneas (circular transparent structures sending light onto
the lens)
reflected the light of the lantern. It was, as if he were using
the light to create a mirror reflection. He played with it,
shaking his head almost imperceptibly
every time he focused his
eyes on me. The effect was a fascinating quiver (vibration) of light. I
became
aware of his maneuvers after he had executed them a couple of
times. I was convinced, that he was
acting with a definite
purpose in mind. I felt compelled (forced) to ask him about
it.
"I
have an ulterior (concealed
intentionally) reason," he said reassuringly. "I'm soothing you
with my eyes. You don't
seem to be getting more nervous, do you?" I had
to admit, that I felt quite
at ease. The steady flicker in his
eyes was not menacing and it had not scared or annoyed me in any
way.
"How do you
soothe me with your eyes?" I asked.
He repeated the
imperceptible shake
of his head. The corneas of his
eyes were indeed
reflecting the light of the kerosene lantern. "Try
to do it yourself," he said
casually, as he gave himself another
serving of food. "You can
soothe yourself." I
tried to shake my head; my
movements were awkward. "You
won't soothe yourself
bobbing your head like that," he said and
laughed. "You'll give
yourself a headache instead. The secret is not in the head shake, but
in
the feeling, that comes to
the eyes from the area below the stomach. This is what makes the head
shake." He
rubbed his umbilical region. After I had finished eating I
slouched (drop, hang down) against a pile of wood and some
burlap (hemp cloth) sacks. I tried to imitate his head shake. Don
Juan
seemed to be enjoying himself
immensely. He giggled and
slapped his thighs. Then
a sudden noise interrupted his laughter. I heard a strange deep
sound, like tapping on
wood, that came from the chaparral. Don Juan jutted (protrude) his
chin, signaling
me to remain alert. "That's
the little moth calling
you," he said in an unemotional tone. I jumped to my feet.
The sound
ceased instantaneously. I looked at don
Juan for an explanation.
He made a comical gesture of helplessness, shrugging his
shoulders.
"You
haven't fulfilled your
appointment yet," he added.
I told him, that I felt unworthy and that perhaps I should go home and
come back when I felt
stronger.
"You're
talking nonsense," he
snapped. "A warrior takes his lot,
whatever it may be, and
accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness
what he is,
not as grounds for regret,
but as a living challenge. It
takes time for every one of
us to understand that point and fully
live it. I, for instance,
hated the mere mention of the word “humbleness”.
I'm an Indian and we Indians have always been humble and have done
nothing
else, but lower our heads.
25-26
I
thought
humbleness was not in the warrior's way. I was wrong! I
know now, that the humbleness of a
warrior is not the
humbleness of a beggar. The warrior lowers his head to noone,
but at
the same time, he doesn't
permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand,
falls to his knees at the
drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be
higher;
but at the same time, he
demands, that someone lower, than him scrape the floor for him. "That's
why I told you earlier
today, that I didn't understand what
masters felt like. I know
only the humbleness of a warrior, and that will never permit me to be
anyone's master." We
were quiet for a moment. His
words had caused me a profound
agitation. I was moved by
them and at the same time I felt concerned with what I had witnessed in
the chaparral. My
conscious assessment was, that don Juan was holding out on me and that
he must have known what
was really taking place.
I was involved in those deliberations (careful and slow
decision), when
the same strange tapping
noise jolted me out of my
thoughts. Don Juan smiled and then began to chuckle.
"You
like the humbleness of a
beggar," he said softly. "You bow your
head to reason."
"I
always think, that I'm being
tricked," I said. "That's the crux of my
problem."
"You're
right. You are being
tricked," he retorted with a disarming
smile. "That cannot be
your problem. The real crux of the matter is, that you feel, that I
am
deliberately lying to you, am I correct?"
"Yes.
There is something in
myself, that doesn't let me believe, that
what's taking place is
real."
"You're
right again. Nothing of
what is taking place is real."
"What
do you mean by that, don
Juan?"
"Things
are real only after one
has learned to agree on their realness.
What took place this
evening, for instance, cannot possibly be real to you, because
noone
could agree with you about
it."
"Do
you mean, that you didn't see
what happened?"
"Of
course I did. But I don't
count. I am the one who's lying to you,
remember?" Don Juan laughed until he coughed and choked. His laughter
was friendly,
even though he was making
fun of me.
"Don't
pay too much attention to
all my gibberish," he said
reassuringly. "I'm just trying to relax you and I know, that you feel
at home only when you're muddled up (confused)." His
expression was deliberately
comical and we both laughed. I told him,
that what he had just
said, made me feel more afraid, than ever. "You're
afraid of me?" he asked.
"Not
of you, but of what you
represent."
"I
represent the warrior's
freedom. Are you afraid of that?"
"No.
But I'm afraid of the
awesomeness of your knowledge. There is no
solace (comfort in sorrow) for me, no haven to go to."
"You're
again confusing issues.
Solace, haven, fear, all of them are
moods, that you have
learned without ever questioning their value. As one can see, the
black
magicians have already
engaged all your allegiance (loyalty, fidelity)."
"Who
are the black magicians,
don Juan?"
"Our
fellow men are the black
magicians. And since you are with them,
you too are a black
magician. Think for a moment. Can you deviate from the path, that
they've lined up for you? No. Your thoughts and your actions are
fixed forever in their terms. That
is slavery. I, on the other
hand, brought you freedom. Freedom is expensive, but the
price is not
impossible. So, fear your
captors, your masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing me." I knew,
that he was right, and
yet in spite of my genuine agreement with
him, I also knew, that my
lifelong habits would unavoidably make me stick to my old path. I
did indeed feel like a
slave. After a long
silence don Juan asked me if I had enough strength for
another bout (fight, match) with Knowledge.
"Do
you mean with the moth?" I
asked half in jest (in humorous tone). His body contorted with
laughter. It
was as if I had just told him the
funniest joke in the
world.
"What
do you really mean when
you say that knowledge is a moth?" I
asked.
"I
have no other meanings," he
replied. "A moth is a moth.
27-28
I
thought,
that by now, with all
your accomplishments, you would have had enough power to see. You
caught sight of a man
instead and that was not true Seeing."
From
the beginning of my
apprenticeship, don Juan had depicted the
concept of "Seeing" as a
special capacity, that one could develop and which would allow
one to apprehend the "ultimate"
nature of things. Over
the years of our association I had developed a notion, that what he
meant by 'Seeing' was an
intuitive grasp of things, or the capacity to understand
something
at once, or perhaps the
ability to see through human interactions and discover covert meanings
and motives.
"I
should say that tonight, when
you faced the moth, you were half
looking and half Seeing,"
don Juan proceeded. "In that state, although you were not
altogether
your usual self, you were
still capable of being fully aware in order to operate your knowledge
of the world."
Don
Juan paused and looked at
me.
I did not know what to say at first. "How
was I operating my
knowledge of the world?" I asked.
"Your
knowledge of the world
told you, that in the bushes one can only
find animals prowling or
men hiding behind the foliage. You held that thought, and
naturally
you had to find ways to
make the world conform to that thought."
"But I
wasn't thinking at all,
don Juan."
"Let's
not call it thinking
then. It is rather the habit of having the
world always conform to
our thoughts. When it doesn't, we simply make it conform. Moths as
large, as a man cannot be
even a thought, therefore, for you, what was in the bushes had to be a
man. The
same thing happened with
the coyote. Your old habits decided the
nature of that encounter
too. Something took place between you and the coyote, but it
wasn't talk. I have been
in the same quandary (dilemma, predicament) myself. I've told
you, that
once I talked with a
deer; now you've talked to a coyote, but neither you, nor I will
ever know what really took place at
those times."
"What
are you telling me, don
Juan?"
"When
the sorcerers' explanation
became clear to me, it was too late to
know what the deer did to
me. I said, that we talked, but that wasn't so. To say, that we
had a conversation, is only a way of arranging it, so I can
talk
about it. The deer and I did
something, but at the time it was taking place I needed to make the
world conform to my ideas, just like
you did. I had been
talking all my life, just like you, therefore my habits prevailed and
were extended to the deer.
When the deer came to me and did whatever it did, I was
forced to
understand it as talking."
"Is
this the sorcerers'
explanation?"
"No.
This is my explanation for
you. But it is not opposed to the
sorcerers' explanation." His
statement threw me into a
state of great intellectual excitation.
For a while I forgot the
prowling moth or even to take notes. I tried to rephrase his statements
and we involved ourselves
in a long discussion about the reflexive (automatic, habitual
action)
nature of our world. The
world, according to don Juan, had to conform to its description;
that is, the description reflected
itself. Another point in his elucidation
(clarifying) was that we had learned to relate
ourselves to our description of the world in terms of what he
called "habits." I introduced what
I
thought was a more
engulfing term, intentionality, the property of human consciousness
whereby an object is referred to, or is intended. Our
conversation
engendered
(produced) a most interesting speculation (conclusion). Examined in
light of don Juan's
explanation, my "talk" with the coyote acquired a new character. I had
indeed "intended" the
dialogue, since I have never known another avenue of intentional
communication. I had also
succeeded in conforming to the description, that
communication takes
place through dialogue,
and thus I made the description reflect itself. I had a moment of great
elation. Don
Juan laughed and said, that to be
so moved by words was
another aspect of my foolery. He made a comical gesture of talking
without sounds. "All
of us go through the same
shenanigans (mischief, treachery, deceit)," he said after a
long
pause. "The only way to
overcome them is to persist in acting like a warrior. The rest comes of
itself and by itself."
"What
is the rest, don Juan?"
"Knowledge
and Power. Men of Knowledge have both. And yet none of them
could tell how they got
to have them, except, that they had kept on acting like
warriors and at a given moment everything changed."
29-30
He
looked at me. He seemed undecided, then stood up and said, that I had
no other recourse (way), but
to keep my appointment with knowledge. I felt a shiver; my heart began
to
pound fast. I got up. Don Juan moved
around me, as if he were
examining my body from every possible angle. He signaled me to sit
down and keep on writing. "If
you get too frightened you
won't be able to keep your appointment,"
he said. "A warrior must
be calm and collected and must never lose his grip."
"I'm
really scared," I said.
"Moth or whatever, there is something
prowling around out there
in the bushes."
"Of
course there is!" he
exclaimed. "My objection is, that you insist on
thinking, that it is a
man, just like you insist on thinking, that you talked with a coyote." A part
of me fully understood
his point; there was, however, another
aspect of myself, that
would not let go and, in spite of the evidence, clung steadfast
(unchanging) to
"reason." I told don Juan,
that his explanation did not satisfy my senses,
although I was in complete
intellectual agreement with it. "That's
the flaw with words,"
he
said in an assuring tone. "They always
force us to feel
enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world, they always
fail
us and we end up facing
the world as we always have, without enlightenment. For this
reason, a
sorcerer seeks to act
rather, than to talk and to this effect he gets a new description of
the
world — a new description,
where talking is not that important, and where new acts have new
reflections."
He sat
down by me and gazed into
my eyes and asked me to voice, what I
had really seen in the
chaparral. I was
confronted at the moment with an absorbing inconsistency. I had
seen the dark shape of a
man, but I had also seen, that shape turn into a bird. I had,
therefore, witnessed more, than my reason would allow me to consider
possible. But rather than discarding
my reason altogether, something in myself had selected parts
of my
experience, such as the
size and general contour of the dark shape, and held them as reasonable
possibilities, while
it
discarded other parts, such as the dark shape turning into a bird. And
thus I had become convinced,
that I had seen a man. Don Juan roared with laughter when
I expressed
my quandary. He said,
that sooner or later the sorcerers' explanation would come to my rescue
and everything would
then be perfectly clear, without having to be reasonable or
unreasonable. "In the meantime all I can do for you is to guarantee,
that that was not
a man," he said. Don Juan's gaze became quite unnerving. My
body
shivered involuntarily.
He made me feel embarrassed and nervous. "I'm
looking for marks on your
body," he explained. "You may not know
it, but this evening you had quite a bout (struggle, match)
out there."
"What
kind of marks are you
looking for?"
"Not
actual physical marks on your body, but signs, indications in your
Luminous Fibers, areas of Brightness. We are Luminous Beings and
everything we are or
everything we feel shows in our fibers. Humans have a Brightness
peculiar only to them. That's the only
way to tell them apart from other Luminous Living Beings.
If
you would have seen tonight,
you would have noticed, that the shape
in the bushes was not a Luminous Living Being." I
wanted to ask more, but he put
his hand on my mouth and hushed me. He
then put his mouth to my
ear and whispered, that I should listen and try to hear a soft
rustling, the gentle muffled steps of a moth on the dry
leaves
and branches on the ground.
I could not hear anything. Don Juan stood up abruptly, picked up the
lantern and said, that we
were going to sit under the ramada by the front door.
He led me through
the back and around the
house, on the edge of the chaparral rather, than going through the room
and out the front door. He
explained, that it was essential to make our presence
obvious. We half
circled around the house
on the left side. Don Juan's pace was extremely slow. His steps were
weak and vacillating (fluctuating). His arm shook, as he held the
lantern. I asked him if there was something
wrong with him. He winked at me and
whispered, that the big
moth, that was prowling around, had an appointment with a
young man,
and that the slow gait of a
feeble old man was an
obvious way of showing, who was the appointee.
31-32
When
we finally arrived at the front of the house, don Juan hooked the
lantern on a beam and
made me sit with my back against the wall. He sat to my right.
"We're
going to sit here," he
said, "and you are going to write and
talk to me in a very normal
manner. The moth, that lurched at you today, is around, in the
bushes.
After a while it'll come
closer to look at you. That's why I've put the lantern on a beam right
above you. The light will
guide the moth to find you. When it gets to the edge of the
bushes, it
will call you. It is a very
special sound. The sound by itself may help you."
"What
kind of sound is it, don
Juan?"
"It is
a song. A haunting call,
that moths produce. Ordinarily, it cannot
be heard, but the moth
out there in the bushes is a rare moth; you will hear its call clearly
and, providing, that you are
impeccable, it will remain with you for the rest of your life."
"What
is it going to help me
with?"
"Tonight,
you're going to try to
finish what you've started earlier.
Seeing happens only when
the warrior is capable of stopping the internal dialogue. Today,
you stopped your talk at
will, out there in the bushes. And you
saw. What you saw was not
clear. You thought, that it was a man. I say it was a moth.
Neither of us is correct, but that's because we have to talk.
I
still have the upper hand, because I
see better, than you and
because I'm familiar with the sorcerers' explanation; so
I know,
although it's not altogether accurate, that the shape you saw
tonight was a moth. And
now, you're going to remain
silent and thoughtless and let that
little moth come to you
again." I
could hardly take notes. Don
Juan laughed and urged me to keep on
writing, as if nothing
bothered me. He touched my arm and said, that writing was the
best
protective shield, that I had. "We've
never talked about
moths," he went on. "The time was not right
until now. As you already
know, your spirit was unbalanced. To counteract that, I
taught
you to live the warrior's
way. Well, a
warrior starts
off with the
certainty, that his Spirit is
off Balance; then by living in full Control
and
Awareness, but without hurry or compulsion, he does
his ultimate best to gain this
Balance. In your case, as in the case of every man, your
imbalance was due to
the sum total of all your
actions. But now your Spirit seems to be in the proper light to
talk about moths."
"How
did you know, that this was
the right time to talk about moths?"
"I
caught a glimpse of the moth
prowling around, when you arrived. It
was the first time it was
friendly and open. I had seen it before in the mountains
around
Genaro's house, but only as a menacing figure reflecting your lack
of order." I
heard a strange sound at that
moment. It was like a muffled creaking
of a branch, rubbing
against another, or like the sputtering of a small motor, heard from a
distance. It changed scales, like a musical tone, creating an
eerie rhythm. Then
it stopped.
"That
was the moth," don Juan
said. "Perhaps you've already noticed
that, although the light
of the lantern is bright enough to attract moths, there isn't
a single
one flying around it." I had
not paid attention to it,
but once don Juan made me aware of it,
I also noticed an
incredible silence in the desert around the house.
"Don't
get jumpy," he said
calmly. "There is nothing in this world, that
a warrior cannot account
for. You see, a warrior considers himself already dead, so
there is nothing for him to
lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he's clear and
calm; judging him by his
acts or by his words, one would never suspect, that he has
witnessed
everything." Don
Juan's words, and above all
his mood, were very soothing to me. I
told him, that in my
day-to-day life I no longer experienced the obsessive fear I used to,
but that my body entered into convulsions of fright at the thought
of what was out there in the dark. "Out
there, there is only
knowledge," he said in a factual tone.
"Knowledge is frightening,
true; but if a warrior accepts the frightening nature of knowledge, he
cancels out its
awesomeness."
The
strange sputtering noise
happened again. It seemed closer and
louder. I listened
carefully. The more attention I paid to it, the more difficult it was
to
determine its nature. It did not seem to be the call of a
bird or
the cry of a land animal.
33-34
The
tone
of each sputter was rich and deep; some were produced in a low
key, others in a high one. They had a
rhythm and a specific
duration; some were long,
I heard them like a single unit of sound;
others were short and
happened in a cluster, like the staccato sound of a machine gun. "The
moths are the heralds or,
better yet, the guardians of eternity,"
don Juan said after the
sound had stopped. "For some reason, or for no reason at all, they are
the depositories of the gold dust of Eternity." The
metaphor was foreign to me.
I asked him to explain it. "The
moths carry a dust on their
wings," he said. "A dark gold dust.
That dust is the dust of
knowledge."
His
explanation had made the
metaphor even more obscure. I vacillated (vibrate)
for a moment, trying to
find the best way of wording my question.
But he began to talk again. "Knowledge
is a most peculiar
affair," he said, "especially for a
warrior. Knowledge for a
warrior is something, that comes at once, engulfs him, and passes on."
"What
does knowledge have to do
with the dust on the wings of moths?" I
asked after a long pause.
"Knowledge
comes, floating like
specks of gold dust, the same dust, that
covers the wings of moths. So, for a warrior, knowledge
is like taking a shower, or being
rained on by specks of dark
gold dust." In
the
most polite manner I was
capable of, I mentioned, that his
explanations had confused
me even more. He laughed and assured me, that he was making
perfect
sense, except that my
reason would not allow me to be at ease. "The
moths have been the
intimate friends and helpers of sorcerers from
time immemorial," he
said. "I had not touched upon this subject before, because of your
lack of preparation."
"But
how can the dust on their
wings be knowledge?"
"You'll
see."
He put
his hand over my notebook
and told me to close my eyes and
become silent and without
thoughts. He
said, that the call of the moth in the chaparral
was going to aid me. If I paid attention to it, it would tell me of
imminent events. He stressed, that
he did not know how the
communication between the moth and myself was going to be
established,
neither did he know what
the terms of the communication would be. He urged me to feel at
ease and confident and
trust my personal power.
After an initial period of impatience and nervousness I succeeded in
becoming silent. My
thoughts diminished in number, until my mind was perfectly
blank. The
noises of the desert
chaparral seemed to have been turned on as I became more calm. The
strange sound, that don Juan said,
was made by a moth, occurred again.
It registered as a
feeling in my body and not as a thought in my mind. It occurred to me,
that it was not threatening
or malevolent at all. It was sweet and simple. It was like a child's
call. It brought back the
memory of a little boy, that I once knew. The long sounds reminded me
of
his round blond head, the
short staccato sounds of his laughter. The most anguishing feeling
oppressed me, and yet
there were no thoughts in my mind; I felt the anguish in my body. I
could no longer remain
sitting and slid to the floor on my side. My sadness was so intense,
that I began to think. I assessed my pain and
sorrow and suddenly found myself in the midst of
an internal debate about
the little boy. The sputtering sound had ceased. My eyes were closed. I
heard don Juan standing
up and then I felt him helping me to sit up. I did not want
to speak.
He did not say a word. I
heard him moving by me. I opened my eyes; he had knelt in front of me
and was examining my
face, holding the lantern close to me. He ordered me to put my hands
over my stomach. He stood
up, went to the kitchen and brought me some water. He
splashed some on
my face and gave me the
rest to drink. He sat
down next to me and handed me my notes. I told him, that the
sound had involved me in
the most painful reverie. "You
are indulging beyond your
limits," he said dryly.
He seemed to immerse himself in thought, as if he were searching for an
appropriate suggestion to
make. "The
problem for tonight is
seeing people," he finally said. "First you
must stop your Internal
Dialogue, then you must bring up the image of the person,
that you want
to see; any thought, that
one holds in mind in a state of silence, is properly a command, since
there are no other thoughts
to compete with it. Tonight, the moth in the bushes wants to
help you,
so it will sing for you.
35-36
Its
song will bring the
golden specks and then you will see the person,
you've selected." I
wanted to have more details, but he made an abrupt gesture and
signaled me to proceed.
After struggling for a few minutes to stop my internal dialogue I was
thoroughly silent. And
then I deliberately held the brief thought of a friend of
mine. I kept
my eyes closed for what I
believed to be just an instant and then I became aware, that someone
was
shaking me by the
shoulders. It was a slow realization. I opened my eyes and
found myself
lying on my left side. I had apparently fallen asleep so
deeply, that I did not remember having
slumped to the ground.
Don Juan helped me to sit up again. He was laughing. He imitated my
snoring and said, that if he had not witnessed it himself, he
would not believe, that anyone could
fall asleep so fast. He said, that it was a treat for him to be
around me whenever I had to do
something, that my reason did not understand. He pushed my
notebook away from me and said, that we had
to start all over. I
followed the necessary steps. The strange sputtering (like machinegun)
sound happened
again. This time,
however, it did not come from the chaparral; rather it seemed to happen
inside of me, as if my lips,
or legs, or arms were
producing it. The sound soon engulfed me. I
felt like soft balls were
being sputtered out from or against me; it was a soothing, exquisite
feeling of being bombarded
by heavy cotton puffs. Suddenly I heard a door blown open by
a gust of
wind and I was thinking
again. I thought, that I had ruined another chance. I opened my eyes
and
found myself in my room.
The objects on my desk were as I had left them. The door was
open; there was a strong
wind outside. The thought crossed my mind, that I should check
the water
heater. I then heard a
rattling on the sliding windows, that I had put up myself and which did
not fit well on the window
frame. It was a furious rattling, as if someone wanted to
enter. I
experienced a jolt of fright. I stood up from my chair. I felt
something pulling me. I screamed. Don Juan was shaking me by the
shoulders. I excitedly gave him an
account of my vision. It
had been so vivid, that I was shivering. I felt, that I had just been
at
my desk, in my full corporeal (of material) form.
Don Juan shook his head in disbelief and said, that I was a genius in
tricking myself. He did
not seem impressed by what I had done. He discarded it flatly
and
ordered me to start again.
I then heard the mysterious sound again. It came to me, as don Juan had
suggested, in the
form of a rain of golden
specks. I did not feel that they were flat
specks or flakes, as he had described them, but rather spherical
bubbles. They floated towards me.
One of them burst open and revealed a scene to me. It was as
if it had
stopped in front of my
eyes and opened up, disclosing a strange object. It looked
like a
mushroom. I was
definitely looking at it, and, what
I was experiencing, was not a dream.
The mushroomlike
object remained
unchanged within my field
of "vision" and then it popped, as though the light, that
was
shining on it, had been turned off. An interminable (endless) darkness
followed it. I felt a tremor, a very
unsettling jolt, and then I had the abrupt realization, that I
was
being shaken. All at once my senses were
turned on. Don Juan was
shaking me vigorously, and I was looking at him. I must have just
opened my eyes at that
moment. He sprinkled water on my face. The coldness of the water was
very appealing. After a
moment's pause he wanted to know what had happened. I
recounted every
detail of my
vision. "But
what did I see?" I asked.
"Your
friend," he retorted. I
laughed and patiently
explained, that I had seen a mushroom-like
figure. Although I had no
criteria (official standard, rule, test) to judge dimensions, I had had
the feeling, that it was about a
foot long. Don Juan
emphasized, that feeling was all, that counted. He said, that my
feelings were the gauge
(instrument for testing), that assessed the state of being of the
subject, that I was seeing. "From
your description and your
feelings I must conclude, that your
friend must be a very
fine man," he said. I was baffled by his words. He said, that the
mushroomlike
formation
was the essential shape of Human Beings, when a
Sorcerer was Seeing them from far
away, but when a Sorcerer was
directly facing the person, he was Seeing, the
human quality
was shown as an Egglike Cluster of Luminous Fibers.
37-38
"You were not facing
your friend," he said. "Therefore, he appeared
like a mushroom."
"Why
is that so, don Juan?"
"No
one knows. That simply is
the way men appear in this specific type
of Seeing." He
added, that every feature of
the mushroomlike formation had a special
significance, but that it
was impossible for a beginner to accurately interpret that
significance. I then had
an intriguing recollection. Some years before, in a state of
nonordinary reality
elicited (draw out) by the intake of psychotropic plants, I had
experienced or
perceived, while I was looking at a water stream, that a cluster
of
bubbles floated towards me,
engulfing me. The golden bubbles I had just envisioned had floated
and engulfed me in exactly the same
manner. In fact, I could
say, that both clusters had had the same structure and the
same
pattern. Don Juan listened to my commentaries
without interest. "Don't
waste your power on
trifles," he said. "You are dealing with
that immensity out there." He
pointed
towards the chaparral with a movement of his hand. "To
turn that magnificence out
there into reasonableness, doesn't do
anything for you. Here,
surrounding us, is Eternity itself. To engage in reducing it to a
manageable nonsense is petty and outright disastrous." He
then insisted, that I should
attempt to see another person from my
realm of acquaintances.
He added, that once the vision had terminated, I should
strive to open my
eyes by myself and
surface to the full awareness of my immediate surroundings. I succeeded
in holding the view of
another mushroomlike form, but while
the first one had been
yellowish and small, the second one was whitish, larger and
contorted. By the time we
had finished talking about the two shapes,
I had seen, I
had forgotten the "moth"
in the bushes, which had been so overwhelming a little while
before. I told don Juan, that it amazed me, that I had such a
facility for discarding something so
truly uncanny (unexpected, weird). It was as if I were not the person,
I
knew myself to
be. "I don't see why you make such a fuss out of this," don
Juan said.
"Whenever
the
dialogue
stops, the world collapses and
extraordinary facets of ourselves
surface, as though they had been kept
heavily
guarded by our
words. You are, like you are, because you
tell yourself, that you are
that way."
After
a short rest, don Juan
urged me to continue "calling" friends.
He
said, that the point was
to attempt to see as many times, as possible, in order to establish a
guideline for feeling. I
called thirty-two persons in succession. After each attempt,
he
demanded a careful and
detailed rendition (description) of everything I had perceived in my
vision. He
changed that procedure,
however, as
I became more proficient in my performance, judging by my
stopping the internal
dialogue in a matter of seconds, by my being capable of opening my eyes
by myself at the end of
each experience, and by my resuming ordinary activities without any
transition. I noticed this
change, while we were discussing the coloration of the
mushroomlike
formations. He had already
made the point, that what I called coloration, was not a hue, but a
glow
of different intensities. I
was about to describe a yellowish glow, that I had
envisioned, when he
interrupted me and
accurately described what I had seen. From that point on he discussed
the content of each vision,
not as if he had understood what I had said, but as if he had seen it
himself. When I called him to comment on it, he flatly refused to
talk about it. By the
time I had finished calling the thirty-two persons, I had
realized, that I had seen a
variety of mushroomlike shapes, and glows, and I had had a variety of
feelings towards them,
ranging from mild delight to sheer disgust. Don Juan explained, that
men
were
filled with configurations, that could
be wishes, problems,
sorrows, worries, and so on. He asserted, that only a
profoundly
powerful sorcerer could untangle the meaning of those configurations,
and that I had to be content with
viewing only the general shape
of men. I was very tired. There was
something indeed fatiguing about those
strange shapes. My overall sensation was one of
queasiness (nausea). I had not liked them. They had
made me feel trapped and
doomed. Don Juan
commanded me to write, in order to dispel the sensation of
somberness (melancholy, gloom).
39-40
And
after a long silent
interval, during which I could not write anything, he asked
me to call on people, that he himself would select. A new series of
forms emerged. They
were not mushroomlike, but looked
more like Japanese cups
for sake (japanese alcohol), turned upside down. Some of them had a
headlike
formation, just like the foot of sake cups; others were more round.
Their shapes were appealing and
peaceful. I sensed, that there was some inherent feeling of
happiness about them. They bounced, as
opposed to the earthbound
heaviness, that the previous batch had exhibited. Somehow, the mere
fact,
that they were there,
eased my fatigue. Among
the persons he had selected was his apprentice Eligio. When I summoned
the vision
of Eligio, I got a jolt, that shook me out of my visionary state.
Eligio
had
a long white shape, that jerked and seemed to leap at me. Don
Juan explained, that Eligio was a
very talented apprentice
and that he, no doubt, had noticed, that someone was Seeing
him.
Another of don Juan's selections was
Pablito, don Genaro's apprentice.
The jolt, that the vision
of Pablito gave me, was even greater, than Eligio's. Don Juan
laughed
so hard, that tears
rolled down his cheeks.
"Why
are those people shaped
differently?" I asked.
"They
have more personal power,"
he replied. "As you might have
noticed, they are not
pegged down to the ground."
"What
has given them that
lightness? Were they born that way?"
"We
all are born that light and
bouncy, but we become earth-bound and
fixed. We make ourselves
that way. So perhaps we may say, that these people are shaped
differently, because they
live like warriors. That's not important though. What's of value is,
that you are at the edge now. You've called forty-seven people,
and there is only one more left in
order for you to complete the original forty-eight." I
remembered at that moment, that
years before he had told me, while
discussing corn sorcery
and divination (insight, intuition, inspiration), that the number of
corn kernels, that a sorcerer
possessed was forty-eight. He had never explained why.
I asked him
again, "Why
forty-eight?"
"Forty-eight
is our number," he
said. "That's what makes us men.
I
don't know why. Don't
waste your power in idiotic questions." He
stood up and stretched his
arms and legs. He told me to do the same.
I noticed, that there was
a tinge of light in the sky towards the east. We sat down again. He
leaned over and put his
mouth to my ear. "The
last person you're going to
call is Genaro, the real McCoy," he
whispered. I felt a surge
of curiosity and excitation. I breezed through the
required steps.
The strange
sound from the edge of the chaparral became vivid and acquired new
strength. I had almost
forgotten about it. The golden bubbles engulfed me and then
in one of
them I saw don Genaro
himself. He was standing in front of me, holding his hat in his hand.
He was smiling. I hurriedly
opened my eyes and was about to speak to don Juan, but before
I could
say a word, my body
stiffened like a board; my hair stood on end and for a long moment I
did not know what to do or
say.
Don Genaro was standing right in front of me. In person! I turned
to don Juan; he was
smiling. Then both of them broke into a
giant laugh. I also tried
to laugh. I could not. I stood up. Don Juan handed me a cup
of water. I
drank it automatically. I thought
he was going to sprinkle
water on my face. Instead, he refilled my cup. Don Genaro
scratched his
head
and hid a grin. "Aren't you going to greet Genaro?" don Juan asked. It
took an enormous
effort for me to
organize my thoughts and my
feelings. I finally mumbled some greetings to don Genaro. He
took a bow.
"You
called me, didn't you?" he
asked, smiling. I muttered my amazement at
having found him standing there.
"He
did call you," don Juan
interjected.
"Well,
here I am," don Genaro
said to me. "What can I do for you?"
41-42
Slowly
my mind seemed to become
organized and finally I had a sudden
insight. My thoughts were
crystal clear and I "knew" what had really taken place. I
figured, that don Genaro
had been visiting with don Juan, and that as soon, as they had heard my
car approaching, don
Genaro had slipped into the bushes and had remained in
hiding, until it
got dark. I believed the
evidence was convincing. Don Juan, since he had no doubt engineered the
entire affair, gave me
clues from time to time, thus guiding its development. At the
appropriate time, don Genaro had made me notice his presence, and
when don Juan and I were walking back
to the house, he followed
us in the most obvious manner in order to arouse my fear. Then
he had waited in the
chaparral and made the strange sound, whenever don Juan had
signaled
him. The final signal to
come out from behind the bushes must have been given by don Juan while
my eyes were closed, after
he had asked me to "call" don Genaro. Then don Genaro must
have
walked to the ramada and
waited until I opened my eyes and then scared me out of my wits (out of
my senses).
The only incongruencies
(incompartibility) in my logical explanatory scheme were, that I
had actually seen the man
hiding in the bushes turn into a bird, and that
I had first
visualized don Genaro as an image in a golden bubble. In my vision he
had been dressed exactly as he was
in person. Since there
was no logical way for me to explain those incongruencies, I
assumed,
as I have always done in
similar circumstances, that the emotional stress may have played an
important role in determining what I "believed I
saw." I began to laugh
quite involuntarily at the thought of their
preposterous trick. I told them about my deductions. They
laughed
uproariously. I honestly believed,
that their laughter was the
giveaway.
"You
were hiding in the bushes,
weren't you?" I asked don Genaro. Don Juan sat down and held his
head in both hands.
"No. I
wasn't hiding," don
Genaro said patiently. "I was far from here
and then you called, so I
came to see you."
"Where
were you, don Genaro?"
"Far
away."
"How
far?"
Don
Juan interrupted me and said,
that don Genaro had showed up as an
act of deference (courtious respect, honour) to me, and that I could
not ask, where
he had been, because he had been
nowhere. Don Genaro came to my defense and said, that it was all right
to ask
him
anything.
"If
you were not hiding around
the house, where were you, don Genaro?"
I asked.
"I was
at my house," he said
with great candor (straight forward).
"In
central Mexico?"
"Yes!
It's the only house I've
got."
They
looked at each other and
again broke into laughter. I knew, that
they were kidding me, but
I decided not to contest the point any further. I thought they
must
have had a reason for
engaging themselves in such an elaborate production. I sat down. I
felt, that I
was truthfully cut in two; some part of me was not
shocked at all and could accept any of don Juan or don
Genaro's acts
at their face value. But there was
another part of me, that
flatly refused; it was my strongest part.
My conscious assessment was,
that I had accepted don
Juan's sorcery description of the world merely on an intellectual
basis, while my body, as a whole entity, refused it, thus my
dilemma.
But then over the course of the
years of my association with don Juan and don Genaro I had
experienced extraordinary phenomena and
those had been bodily
experiences, not intellectual ones. Earlier that very night I had
executed the "gait of power," which, from the point of view of my
intellect, was an inconceivable
accomplishment; and best of
all, I had had incredible visions through no other means, than my own
volition. I explained to
them the nature of my painful and at the same time bona
fide perplexity (real puzzle).
"This
guy is a genius," don Juan
said to don Genaro, shaking his head
in disbelief.
"You're
a huge genius,
Carlitos," don Genaro said, as if he were
relaying a message. They
sat down on either side of me, don Juan to my right and don Genaro
to my left. Don Juan
observed, that soon it was going to be morning. At that instant I
again heard the moth's call. It had moved. The sound was coming
from the opposite direction. I
looked at both of them,
holding their gaze. My logical scheme began to disintegrate. The sound
had a mesmerizing richness
and depth.
Moth
is an Ally
43-44
Then
I heard muffled
steps, soft feet crushing
the dry underbrush. The sputtering sound came closer and I
huddled (draw myself together) against don Juan. He dryly ordered me to
see it. I
made a supreme effort, not so much to
please him, as to please
myself. I had been sure, that don Genaro was the moth. But don Genaro
was sitting with me;
what, then, was in the bushes? A moth? The sputtering sound echoed in
my
ears. I could not stop my internal
dialogue altogether. I
heard the sound, but I could not feel it in my body, as I had
done
earlier. I heard definite steps. Something was creeping in the dark.
There was a loud cracking noise, as
if a branch had been
snapped in two, and suddenly a terrifying memory seized me. Years
before I had spent a
dreadful night in the wilderness and had been
harassed by something, something
very light and soft, that
had stepped on my neck over and over, while I crouched (bent) on the
ground.
Don Juan had explained
the event as an encounter with the ally, a mysterious force, that a
sorcerer learned to perceive as an entity (Inorganic Beings, LM).
I leaned closer
to don Juan
and
whispered, what I had remembered. Don
Genaro crawled on all
fours to get closer to us.
"What
did he say?" he asked don
Juan in a whisper.
"He
said, that there is an ally
out there," don Juan replied in a low
voice. Don Genaro crawled back and sat
down. Then he turned to me and said in
a loud whisper: "You're a
genius." They laughed
quietly. Don Genaro pointed towards the chaparral with a
movement of his chin.
"Go
out there and grab it," he
said. "Take off your clothes and scare
the devil out of that
ally." They
shook with laughter. The
sound in the meantime had ceased.
Don
Juan ordered me to stop
my thoughts, but to keep my eyes open, focused on the edge of the
chaparral in front of me.
He said, that the moth had changed positions, because don
Genaro was
there, and that if it were
going to manifest itself to me, it would choose to come from
the front.
After a moment's struggle to quiet
my thoughts, I perceived the sound
again. It was richer, than
ever. I heard first the muffled steps on dry twigs and then I
felt
them on my body. At that instant I
distinguished a dark mass directly in front of me, at the
edge of the chaparral. I
felt, I was being shaken. I opened my eyes. Don Juan and don Genaro
were standing above me
and I was kneeling, as if I had fallen asleep in a crouching
position. Don Juan gave me some water and I sat down again
with my
back against the wall. A
short while later it was dawn. The chaparral seemed to wake up. The
morning cold was crisp
and invigorating. The
moth had not been don Genaro.
Moth
is an Ally
My rational structure was falling
apart. I did not want to
ask any more questions, nor did I want to remain quiet. I finally had
to talk. "But
if you were in central
Mexico, don Genaro, how did you get here?"
I asked. Don Genaro made
some ludicrous (laughable, foolish) and utterly hilarious (boisterously
funny, gay, merry) gestures with his
mouth.
"I'm
sorry," he said to me, "my
mouth doesn't want to talk." He
then turned to don Juan and
said, grinning, "Why don't you tell him?"
Don
Juan vacillated (sway from
one side to the other). Then he said, that don Genaro, as a consummate
(perfect)
artist of Sorcery, was
capable of prodigious (extraordinary, marvelous) deeds. Don
Genaro's
chest swelled, as if don
Juan's words were inflating it. He
seemed to have inhaled so
much air, that his chest looked twice its normal size. He
appeared to be on the verge of floating. He leaped in the air. I
had the impression, that the air
inside his lungs had forced him to jump. He paced back and forth on the
dirt floor, until he apparently got
his chest under control; he
patted it and with great force ran the palms of his hands from his
pectoral muscles to his stomach, as if he were deflating the inner
tube of a tire. He finally sat down. Don Juan was grinning. His eyes
were shining with sheer delight: "Write your notes," he ordered
me softly. "Write, write or you'll die!" Then he remarked, that even
don
Genaro no longer felt, that my taking
notes was so outlandish.
"That's
right!" don Genaro
retorted. "I've been thinking of taking up
writing myself."
45-46
"Genaro
is a Man of Knowledge," don Juan said dryly. "And being a Man
of Knowledge, he's
perfectly capable of transporting himself (his Double - the Other - Second Body
-
Energy Body) over great distances." He
reminded me, that once, years
before, the three of us had been in the
mountains, and that don
Genaro, in an effort to help me overcome my stupid reason,
had
taken a prodigious leap to
the peaks of the Sierras, ten miles away. I remembered the event, but I
also remembered, that I
could not even conceive, that he had jumped. Don Juan added, that don
Genaro was
capable of performing extraordinary
feats at certain times. "Genaro
at certain times, is not
Genaro, but his Double," he said. He
repeated it three or four times.
Then both of them watched me, as if
waiting for my impending
(imminent, due to happen soon) reaction. I had not understood what he
meant
by "his Double." He had never
mentioned that before. I
asked for a clarification. "There
is another Genaro," he
explained. All three of us looked at one
another. I became very apprehensive (anxious). Don
Juan urged me with a
movement of his eyes to keep on talking.
"Do
you have a twin brother?" I
asked, turning to don Genaro.
"Of
course," he said. "I have a
twin." I
could not determine whether or
not they were putting me on (teasing). They both
giggled with the abandon
of children, that were pulling a prank (practical joke, mischievous
trick).
"You
may say," don Juan went on,
"that at this moment Genaro is his
twin." That statement brought both of
them to the ground with laughter. But I
could not enjoy their
mirth.
My body shivered involuntarily. Don Juan said in a severe tone,
that
I was too heavy and self-important. "Let go!" he commanded me
dryly.
"You know, that Genaro is a sorcerer
and an impeccable
warrior. So he's capable of performing deeds, that would be unthinkable
for the average man. His
Double, the
other Genaro, is one of
those deeds."
I was
speechless.
I could not conceive, that they were just teasing me. "For a
warrior like Genaro," he
went on, "to produce the Other is not
such a farfetched
(improbable in nature) enterprise."
After
pondering for a long time,
what to say next, I asked: "Is the Other
like the Self?"
"The
Other is the Self," don
Juan replied. His
explanation had taken an incredible turn, and yet it was not really
more incredible, than
anything else they did.
"What's
the Other made of?" I
asked don Juan after minutes of
indecision.
"There
is no way of knowing
that," he said.
(The Double or the Other is made of Sun Energy! LM.)
"Is it
real or just an illusion?"
"It's
real of course."
"Would
it be possible then to
say, that it is made of flesh and blood?"
I asked.
"No.
It would not be possible,"
don Genaro answered.
"But
if it is as real, as I am .
. ."
"As
real, as you?" don Juan and
don Genaro interjected (interrupted) in unison. They looked at each
other and
laughed, until I thought they were going
to get ill. Don Genaro
threw his hat on the floor and danced around it. His dance was agile
(light)
and graceful and, for some
inexplicable reason, utterly funny. Perhaps the humor was in
the
exquisitely "professional"
movements, he executed. The incongruency (discordant parts, arythmical
movements) was so subtle and at the same
time so remarkable, that
I doubled up with laughter.
"The
trouble with you,
Carlitos," he said, as he sat down again, "is
that you're a genius."
"I
have to know about the
Double," I said.
"There's
no way of knowing
,whether he's flesh and blood," don Juan
said. "Because he is not
as real, as you. Genaro's Double is
as real, as Genaro. Do you see what
I
mean?"
"But
you have to admit, don
Juan, that there must be a way to know."
"The Double is the Self; that explanation should suffice. If you would
see, however, you'd know, that there is a great difference between
Genaro and his Double.
For a Sorcerer, who Sees, the
Double is brighter."
47-48
(this is a
funny page)
I
felt, I was too weak to ask any more questions. I put my writing pad
down and for a moment I
thought I was going to pass out. I had tunnel vision; everything
around me was dark with the
exception of a round spot of clear scenery in front of my eyes. Don
Juan said, that I had to get
some food. I was not hungry. Don Genaro
announced, that he was
famished, stood up and went to the back of the house. Don Juan also
stood up and signaled me
to follow. In the kitchen, don Genaro gave himself a serving
of food
and then became involved
in the most comical mimicking of a person, who wants to eat, but
can't swallow. I thought,
that don Juan was going to die; he roared, kicked, cried,
coughed and choked with
laughter. I thought, I too was going to split my sides. Don Genaro's
antics were priceless. He
finally gave up and looked at don Juan and me in succession;
he had
shiny eyes and a beaming
smile.
"It
doesn't work," he said,
shrugging his shoulders.
I ate a huge amount of food, and so did don Juan; then all of us
returned to the front of the house. The sunlight was
brilliant,
the sky was clear and the morning
breeze sharpened the air. I felt happy and strong. We sat in a triangle
facing one
another. After a polite silence I
decided to ask them to clarify my dilemma. I felt, that I was again
in top form and wanted to exploit
my strength.
"Tell
me more about the Double,
don Juan," I said. Don
Juan pointed at don Genaro
and don Genaro bowed.
"There
he is," don Juan said.
"There is nothing to tell. He's here for
you to witness him."
"But
he's don Genaro," I said in
a feeble attempt to guide the
conversation.
"Surely
I'm Genaro," he said and
perked his shoulders.
"What
is a Double then, don
Genaro?" I asked.
"Ask
him," he snapped, pointing
to don Juan. "He's the one, who talks.
I'm dumb."
"A
Double is the Sorcerer himself,
developed through his Dreaming" don
Juan explained. "A Double
is an Act of Power to a Sorcerer, but only a tale of Power to
you. In the case of Genaro, his Double
is indistinguishable
from
the Original. That's, because his impeccability, as a warrior, is
supreme; thus,
you've never noticed the difference yourself. But in the
years, that you've known him, you've been with the original Genaro only
twice; every other time
you've been with his Double."
"But
this is preposterous
(foolish)!" I exclaimed.
I felt an anxiety building up in my chest. I became so agitated, that I
dropped my writing pad,
and my pencil rolled out of sight.
Don Juan and don Genaro practically
dove to the ground and began the most farcical search
for it. I had never seen a more
astonishing performance of
theatrical magic and sleight of hand. Except, that there was
no stage,
or props, or any type of
gadgetry, and most likely the performers were not using sleight
(trickery) of hand. Don
Genaro, the head magician, and his assistant, don Juan, produced in
a matter of minutes the
most astounding, bizarre and outlandish collection of objects, which
they found underneath, or
behind, or above every object within the periphery of the ramada. In
the style of stage magic, the
assistant set up the props, which in
this case were the few
items on the dirt floor - rocks, burlap sacks, pieces of wood, a milk
crate, a lantern and my jacket - then the magician, don Genaro,
would proceed to find an object, which
he would throw away as
soon, as he had attested, that it was not my pencil. The collection of
objects found included pieces of clothing, wigs, eyeglasses,
toys,
utensils, pieces of machinery,
women's underwear, human
teeth, sandwiches, and religious objects. One of them was outright
disgusting. It was a piece of compact human excrement, that
don
Genaro took from underneath my jacket.
Finally, don Genaro found
my pencil and handed it to me after dusting it off with
the tail of his shirt.
They celebrated their clowning with yells and chuckles. I found myself
watching, unable to join
them. "Don't
take things so seriously,
Carlitos," don Genaro said with a tone
of concern. "Otherwise
you're going to bust a ..." He
made a ludicrous gesture,
that could have meant anything. After their laughter subsided, I
asked don Genaro, what a Double did,
or
what a Sorcerer did with
the Double. Don Juan
answered.
49-50
He
said, that the Double had Power, and
that it was
used to accomplish feats,
that would be unimaginable under ordinary terms. "I've
told you time and time
again, that the world is unfathomable (to deep to measure),"
he
said to me. "And so are
we, and so is every Being, that exists in this World. It is impossible,
therefore, to reason out the Double.
You've been allowed to
witness it, though, and that should be
more, than enough."
"But
there must be a way to talk
about it," I said. "You yourself have
told me, that you
explained your conversation with the deer in order to talk about it.
Can't you do the same with
the Double?"
He was
quiet for a moment. I
pleaded with him. The anxiety I was
experiencing was beyond
anything I had ever gone through.
"Well,
a Sorcerer can double
up," don Juan said. "That's all one can
say."
"But
is he aware, that he is
doubled?"
"Of
course he's aware of it."
"Does
he know, that he is in two
places at once?" Both
of them looked at me and
then they exchanged a glance. "Where
is the Other don Genaro?" I
asked. Don Genaro leaned
towards me and stared into my eyes.
"I
don't know," he said softly. "No Sorcerer knows, where his Other is."
"Genaro
is right," don Juan said. "A Sorcerer has no notion, that he is
in two places at once. To be aware of
that would be the equivalent of facing his Double,
and
the Sorcerer, that finds himself face to face with himself is a Dead
Sorcerer. That is the rule.
That is the way Power has set things up. No
one knows why."
Don Juan
explained, that by the time a Warrior had conquered Dreaming
and Seeing and had developed a Double,
he must have also succeeded in
erasing Personal History, Self-importance, and routines. He
said, that
all the techniques, which he had taught me,
and which I had considered to be empty talk, were, in
essence, means
for removing the
impracticality of having a Double in
the ordinary World, by making the
Self and the World fluid, and by
placing them outside the bounds of prediction. "A fluid warrior can no
longer make the World chronological," don Juan
explained. "And for him, the world and
himself are no longer objects.
He's a Luminous Being
existing in a Luminous World. The Double
is a simple affair for a
Sorcerer, because he knows,
what he's doing. To take notes is a simple affair for you,
but you
still scare Genaro with your
pencil."
"Can an outsider, looking at a Sorcerer, see that he is in two places
at once?" I asked don Juan.
"Certainly. That would be the only way to know it."
"But can't one logically assume, that the Sorcerer would also notice,
that he has been in two places?"
"Aha!" don Juan exclaimed. "For once you've got it right. A Sorcerer
may certainly notice afterwards, that he has been in two places at
once. But this is only bookkeeping and has no bearing on the fact,
that while he's acting, he
has no notion of his Duality." My mind boggled. I felt, that if
I did
not keep on writing, I would explode. "Think of this,"
he went on.
"The World doesn't yield to us directly,
the description of the World stands in between. So, properly
speaking, we are always one step
removed and our experience of the World is always a Recollection
(Recall) of the experience. We
are perennially recollecting the instant, that has just happened, just
passed. We
recollect, recollect, recollect." He turned his hand over
and over to give me the feeling of, what he
meant. "If
our entire experience of the World is Recollection, then it's
not
so outlandish to conclude, that a Sorcerer can be in two places at
once. This is not the case from
the point of view of his own perception, because in order to
experience
the World, a Sorcerer, like
every other man, has to recollect the act, he has just performed, the
event, he has just
witnessed, the experience he has just lived. In his awareness there is
only a single recollection. But for an
outsider, looking at the Sorcerer, it may appear, as if the
Sorcerer is
acting two different
episodes at once. The Sorcerer, however, recollects two separate single
instants, because the glue of
the description of time is no longer binding him." When
don Juan had finished
talking, I was sure, I was running a
temperature.
Don Genaro examined me with curious eyes.
51-52-53
"He's right," he
said. "We're always one jump behind." He
moved his hand as don Juan
had done; his body started to jerk and he
jumped back on his seat.
It was, as if he had the hiccups and the hiccups were forcing
his
body to jump back. He
began to move backwards, jumping on his seat, and went all the way to
the end of the ramada and back. The sight of don Genaro
leaping
backwards on his buttocks, instead of
being funny, as it should
have been, threw me into an attack of fear so intense, that
don
Juan had to strike me
repeatedly on the top of my head with his knuckles.
"I
just can't grasp all this,
don Juan," I said.
"I
can't either," don Juan
retorted, shrugging his shoulders.
"Neither
can I, dear Carlitos,"
don Genaro added. My
fatigue, the bulk of my
sensory experience, the mood of lightness
and humor, that
prevailed, and don Genaro's clowning were too much for my nerves. I
could not stop the
agitation in my stomach muscles. Don Juan made me roll on the ground,
until I had regained my calmness,
then I sat down facing
them again. My
body leaped in the air, as if I had been propelled by a
formidable
force. I ran to my car.
"Is
the Double solid?" I asked don Juan after a long silence. They
looked
at me. "Does the Double have
corporealness (materiality)?" I asked.
"Certainly,"
don Juan said. "Solidity, corporealness are memories. Therefore,
like everything else we feel about the world, they are memories, we
accumulate. Memories of the description. You have the memory
of
my
solidity, the same way you have the memory of communicating through
words. Thus, you talked with a coyote and you feel me, as
being
solid." Don Juan put his shoulder next to mine and nudged (push gently)
me lightly. "Touch me," he said. I
patted him and then, I embraced him. I was close to tears. Don Genaro
stood up and came closer to me. He looked like a small child with shiny
mischievous eyes. He puckered up his lips and looked at me
for a long
moment.
"What about me?" he asked, trying to hide a smile. "Aren't you going to
embrace me too (but he is not
physical, he is his Plasmic Double! LM)?" I
stood up and extended my arms to touch him; my body seemed to freeze on
the spot. I had no power to move. I tried to force my arms to reach
him, but my struggle was in vain. Don Juan and don Genaro
stood by,
watching me. I felt my body contorting under an unknown pressure. Don
Genaro sat down and pretended to sulk (withdrawn in silent protest),
because I had not embraced him;
he pouted (protrude lips to show
displeasure) and hit the ground with his heels, then both of
them
exploded into more roaring laughter. The muscles of my stomach
trembled, making my whole body shake. Don Juan pointed out, that I was
moving my head the way he had recommended earlier, and that
that was
the chance to soothe myself by reflecting a beam of light on the cornea
of my eyes. He forcefully dragged me from under the roof of
his ramada
to the open field and manipulated my body into position, so that my
eyes
would catch the eastern sunlight; but by the time he
had put my body in
place, I had stopped shivering. I noticed, that I was clutching (grasp
and hold tightly) my notebook only after don Genaro said, that the
weight of the sheets was giving me the shivers. I told don
Juan,
that my
body was pulling me to leave. I waved my hand to don Genaro. I did not
want to give them time to make me change my mind. "Good-by,
don
Genaro," I yelled. "I have to go now." He waved back at me. Don Juan
walked a few yards with me towards my car. "Do you also have
a
Double, don Juan?" I asked.
"Of course!" he exclaimed.
I
had at that moment a maddening thought. I wanted to discard it and
leave in a hurry, but something in myself kept on needling me. Over the
course of the years of our association,
it had become
customary for me,
that every time I wanted to see don Juan, I would just go to Sonora or
central Mexico, and I would always find him waiting for me. I
had
learned to take that for granted and it had never occurred to me until
then, to think anything of it. "Tell
me something, don Juan," I said, half in jest. "Are you yourself or are
you your Double?"
He leaned over towards me. He was grinning. "My Double," he whispered. "I was
just kidding," don Juan
said in a loud voice. "You can't go yet.
You still owe me five
more days."
Both
of them ran towards my car,
as I was backing up. They were laughing
and jumping up and down.
"Carlitos,
call me any time!"
don Genaro shouted.
2.
The Dreamer And the Dreamed
54-55
I
drove to don Juan's house and arrived there in the early morning. I
had spent the night in a
motel on the way down, so I would get to his house before noon.
Don
Juan was in the back and came to
the front when I called him. He
gave me a warm greeting and the impression, that
he was pleased to see me. He made a
comment, that I thought
was intended to put me at ease, but produced the opposite effect. "I
heard you coming," he said, as
he grinned. "And I ran to the back. I
was afraid, that if I had
stayed here, you would've been frightened." He
casually remarked, that I was
somber and heavy. He said, that I
reminded him of Eligio,
who was morbid enough to be a good Sorcerer, but too morbid
(gruesome,
grisly) to become a Man of Knowledge. He
added, that the only way to counteract the devasting effect
of the
Sorcerers' World, was to laugh at it. He was right in his assessment of
my
mood. I was indeed worried and
frightened. We went for a
long walk. It took hours for my feelings to ease up. Walking
with
him made me feel better,
than if he had attempted to talk me out of my somberness (melancholy,
dismal). We returned to
his house in the late afternoon. I was famished. After
eating we sat under his
ramada. The sky was clear. The afternoon light made me feel complacent.
I wanted to talk.
"I've
felt uneasy for months," I
said. "There was something truly
awesome in what you and
don Genaro said and did the last time I was here." Don Juan did
not say anything. He got up and moved around the ramada. "I've
got to talk about this," I
said. "It obsesses me and I can't stop
pondering upon it."
"Are
you afraid?" he asked. I was not afraid, but baffled,
overwhelmed by what I had heard and
witnessed. The loopholes
in my reason were so gigantic, that either
I had to repair them or I
had
to dispose of my reason
altogether. My comments
made him laugh. "Don't
throw away your reason
yet," he said. "It's not time for it.
It'll happen though, but I
don't think, that now is the moment."
"Should
I try to find an
explanation for what happened, then?" I asked.
"Certainly!"
he retorted. "It's
your duty to put your mind at ease.
Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls,
but by overtaking the walls.
Warriors jump over the walls; they don't demolish them."
"How
can I jump over this one?"
I asked.
"First
of all, I think it's
deadly wrong for you to regard anything in
such a serious fashion," he
said as he sat down by my side. "There are three kinds of bad
habits,
which we use over and over
when confronted with unusual life situations. First, we may disregard
what's happening or has
happened and feel as if it had never occurred. That one is
the bigot's
(race-religion intolerant)
way. Second, we may accept
everything at its face value and feel as if we know what's going on.
That's the pious (devout) man's way. Third, we may become
obsessed with
an event, because either we cannot
disregard it or we cannot
accept it wholeheartedly. That's the fool's way. Your way?
There is a
fourth, the correct one, the Warrior's way. A warrior acts as if
nothing had ever happened, because
he doesn't believe in
anything, yet he accepts everything at its face value. He
accepts
without accepting and disregards without disregarding. He never feels
as if he knows, neither does he
feel as if nothing had ever
happened. He acts as if he is in control, even though he might be
shaking in his boots. To act in such a manner dissipates obsession."
56-57
We
were quiet for a long time. Don Juan's words were like a balm to me. "Can
I talk about don Genaro and his
Double?" I asked.
"It
depends on what you want to
say about him," he replied. "Are you
going to indulge in being
obsessed?"
"I
want to indulge in
explanations," I said. "I'm obsessed, because I
haven't dared come to see
you and I haven't been able to talk about my qualms (uneasiness)
and
doubts with
anyone."
"Don't
you talk with your
friends?"
"I do,
but how could they help
me?"
"I
never thought, that you
needed help. You must cultivate the feeling,
that a warrior needs
nothing. You say, you need help. Help for what? You have
everything
needed for the extravagant
journey, that is your life. I have tried to teach you, that the real
experience is to be a man, and that, what counts, is being alive; life is the little detour, that we are
taking now. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory
and
complete. A warrior
understands this and lives accordingly; therefore, one may
say without being
presumptuous (excessively bold, arrogant), that the experience of
experiences is being a Warrior." He
seemed to wait for me to say
something. I hesitated for a moment. I
wanted to select my words
carefully. "If
a
Warrior needs solace
(consolation, comfort in sorrow)," he went on, "he simply chooses
anyone and
expresses to that person
every detail of his turmoil. After all, the warrior is not
seeking to be understood or helped; by talking he's merely relieving
himself of his pressure. That is,
providing, that the warrior is given to talking; if he's not, he
tells no one. But you're not living
like a warrior altogether. Not yet anyway. And the pitfalls,
that you
encounter, must be truly monumental.
You have all my sympathy." He was
not being facetious
(elegant, fine flippant). Judging by the concern in his eyes,
he
seemed to be one, who had
been there himself. He stood up and patted me on the head. He walked
back and forth the length
of the ramada and looked casually to the chaparral around the
house.
His movements evoked a
sensation of restlessness in me. In order to relax I began to talk
about my dilemma. I felt, that it was
inherently too late for me
to pretend to be an innocent bystander. Under his guidance I had
trained myself to achieve
strange perceptions, such as "stopping the internal
dialogue," and
controlling my dreams. Those were instances, that could not be
faked. I had followed his suggestions,
although never to the letter, and had partially
succeeded in disrupting daily routines,
assuming responsibility for my acts, erasing personal history and
had finally arrived at a point, which
years before I had dreaded;
I was capable of being alone without disrupting my physical or
emotional well-being. That was perhaps my single most astounding
triumph. From the point of view of my
former expectations and
moods, to be alone and not "go out of my mind" was an inconceivable
state. I was keenly aware
of all the changes, that had taken place in my life and in my
view
of the world, and I was
also aware, that it was somehow superfluous (excessive) to be affected
so profoundly
by don Juan and don
Genaro's revelation about the Double.
"What's
wrong with me, don
Juan?" I asked.
"You
indulge," he snapped. "You
feel, that indulging in doubts and
tribulations (distress, suffering) is the sign of a sensitive man.
Well, the truth of
the matter is, that you're the
farthest thing from being sensitive. So why pretend? I told you the
other
day, a warrior accepts in
humbleness, what he is."
"You
make it sound as if I were
confusing myself deliberately," I said.
"We do
confuse ourselves
deliberately," he said. "All of us are aware
of our doings. Our puny
(weak, feeble) reason deliberately makes itself into the monster,
it
fancies itself to
be. It's too little for such a big mold, though." I
explained to him, that my
dilemma was perhaps more complex, than what
he was making it out to
be. I said, that as long, as he and don Genaro were men like
myself, their superior control made them models for my own
behavior. But if they were in essence men drastically different, than
I, then I could not conceive of
them any longer as models, but as
oddities, which I could not
possibly aspire (aim, soar, have an ambition) to emulate
(compete,
strive). "Genaro
is a man," don Juan said
in a reassuring tone. "He's no longer
a man like yourself,
true. But that's his accomplishment and it shouldn't give
rise to fear
on your part. If he's different, the more reason to admire him."
58-59
"But
his difference is not a human difference," I said.
"And
what do you think it is?
The difference between a man and a horse?"
"I
don't know. But he's not like
me."
"He
was at one time, though."
"But
can his change be
understood by me?"
"Of
course. You yourself are
changing."
"Do you mean, that I will develop a Double?"
"Noone develops a Double. That's only a way of talking about it. You,
for
all the talking you do, are a sap (depletion) for words. You get
trapped by their meanings. Now you think, that one develops a
Double
through evil means, I suppose. All of us Luminous Beings have a Double.
All of us! A Warrior learns to be aware of it, that's all.
There are
seemingly insurmountable (incapable of being overcome) barriers
protecting that Awareness. But that's expected; those barriers are what
makes arriving at that Awareness such a unique challenge.
"Why am I so afraid of it, don Juan?"
"Because
you're thinking, that the Double is
what the word says, a Double, or
another you. I chose those words in order to describe it. The Double is
Oneself and cannot be faced in any other way."
"What if I don't want to have it?"
"The
Double is not a matter of personal
choice. Neither is it a matter of
personal choice, who is selected to learn the Sorcerers' Knowledge,
that leads to that Awareness. Have you ever asked yourself,
why you in particular?"
"All the time. I've asked you that question hundreds of times, but
you've never answered it."
"I
didn't mean, that you should ask it as a question, that begs an answer,
but in the sense of a warrior's pondering on his great fortune, the
fortune of having found a challenge.
To make it into an
ordinary
question is the device of a conceited (high opinion about oneself)
ordinary man, who wants to be either admired or pitied for
it. I have
no interest in that kind of question, because there is no way of
answering it. The decision of picking you was a design of Power; noone
can discern the designs of Power. Now, that you've been
selected, there
is nothing, that you can do to stop the fulfillment of that design."
"But you yourself told me, don Juan, that one can always fail."
"That's
true. One can always fail. But I think, that you are referring to
something else. You want to find a way out. You want to have the
freedom to fail and quit on your own terms. Too late for
that. A
Warrior is in the hands of Power and his only freedom is to choose an
impeccable life. There is no way to fake triumph or defeat. Your reason
may want you to fail altogether, in order to obliterate (wipe out) the
Totality of Yourself. But there is a countermeasure, which will not
permit you to declare a false victory or defeat. If you
think, that you
can retreat to the haven of failure, you're out of your mind. Your body
will stand guard and will not let you go either way." He
began to chuckle softly.
"Why do you laugh?" I asked.
"You're
in a terrible spot," he said. "It's too late for you to retreat, but
too soon to act. All you can do is witness. You're in the miserable
position of an infant, who cannot return to the mother's
womb, but
neither can he run around and act. All an infant can do is witness and
listen to the stupendous tales of action being told to him.
You are at
that precise point now. You cannot go back to the womb of your old
world, but you cannot act with power either. For you there is only
witnessing acts of Power and listening to tales, tales of Power.
"The
Double is one of those tales. You know
that, and that's why your reason
is so taken by it. You are beating your head against a wall,
if you
pretend to understand. All that I can say about it, by way of
explanation, is that the Double,
although it is arrived at through
Dreaming, is as real, as it can be."
"According
to what you've told
me, don Juan, the Double can perform
acts. Can the Double then
. . .?" He
did
not let me continue with
my line of reasoning. He reminded me,
that it was inappropriate
to say, that he had told me about the Double,
when I could
say, that I had witnessed
it. "Obviously the Double can
perform acts," I said.
"Obviously!" he replied.
"But can the Double act in behalf of
the Self?"
"It is the Self, damn it!"
I
found it very difficult to explain myself. I had in mind, that if a
Sorcerer could perform two actions at once, his capacity for
utilitarian (useful, practical) production had to double.
He
could work
two jobs, be in two places, see two persons, and so on, at once. Don Juan
listened patiently.
60-61
"Let
me put it this way," I said. "Hypothetically, can don Genaro kill
someone hundreds of miles away by letting his Double
do it?"
Don Juan looked at me. He shook his head and moved his eyes away.
"You're
filled with tales of violence," he said. "Genaro cannot kill anyone,
simply because he no longer has any interest in his fellow men. By the
time a warrior is capable of conquering Seeing and Dreaming and having
the Awareness of his Luminosity, there is no such interest
left in him."
I
pointed out, that at the beginning of my apprenticeship he had made the
statement, that a Sorcerer, aided by his ally, could be transported
over hundreds of miles to deliver a blow to his enemies. "I am
responsible for your confusion," he said. "But you must remember, that
on another occasion I told you that, with you, I was not
following the
steps my own teacher prescribed. He was a Sorcerer and I should've
properly plunged you into that world. I
didn't, because I am no longer
concerned with the ups and downs of my fellow men. Yet, my teacher's
words stuck with me. I talked to you many times in the manner
he
himself would have talked. "Genaro
is a Man of Knowledge. The purest of them all. His actions are
impeccable. He's beyond ordinary men, and beyond Sorcerers.
His
Double
is an expression of his joy and his humour. Thus, he cannot possibly
use it to create or resolve ordinary situations. As far, as I know,
the Double is the Awareness of our
state as Luminous Beings. It can do
anything, and yet it chooses to be unobtrusive and gentle. It was
my error to mislead you with borrowed words. My teacher was
not
capable
of producing the effects Genaro does. For my teacher, unfortunately,
certain things were, as they are for you, only tales of Power." I was
compelled (forced) to defend my point. I said, that I was speaking in a
hypothetical sense. "There is no hypothetical sense, when you speak
about the world of Men of Knowledge," he said. "A Man of Knowledge
cannot possibly act towards his fellow men in injurious terms,
hypothetically or otherwise."
"But, what if his fellow men are plotting against his security and
well-being? Can he then use his Double
to protect himself?"
He
clicked his tongue in
disapproval.
"What
incredible violence in
your thoughts," he said. "No one can plot
against the security and
well-being of a Man of Knowledge. He Sees, therefore he would
take
steps to avoid anything like that. Genaro, for example, has taken
a calculated risk in joining you.
But there is nothing, that you could do to endanger his
security.
If there is anything, his Seeing
will let him know. Now, if there is something about you, that is
inherently injurious to him and his Seeing cannot reach it,
then it is
his fate, and neither Genaro,
nor anyone else can avoid that. So, you
see, a Man of Knowledge is in control without controlling
anything."
We
were quiet. The Sun was about
to reach the top of the heavy tall
bushes on the west side of
the house. There were about two hours of daylight left. "Why
don't you call Genaro?" don
Juan said casually. My
body jumped. My initial
reaction was to drop everything and run for
my car. Don Juan broke
into a belly laugh. I told him, that I did not have to prove
anything to myself, and that I was perfectly content to talk to him.
Don Juan could not stop laughing.
Finally he said, that it was a shame, that don Genaro was not
there
to enjoy a great scene. "Look,
if you're not interested
in calling Genaro, I am," he said in a
resolute tone. "I like his
company." I
had
a terrible sour taste on
the roof of my mouth. Beads of
perspiration ran down from my brow and my upper lip. I wanted to
say something, but there was really
nothing to say. Don Juan
gave me a long, scrutinizing look. "Come
on," he said. "A warrior
is always ready. To be a warrior is not
a simple matter of
wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle, that will go on to
the very last moment of our
lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way,
that nobody
is
born a reasonable being.
We make ourselves into one or the other.
"Pull yourself together. I don't want Genaro to see you shivering like
this."
62-63
He
stood up and paced back and
forth on the clean floor of the ramada.
I could not remain
impassive. My nervousness was so intense, that I could not write any
more and I jumped to my
feet. Don Juan made me
jog on the spot, facing the west. He had made me
perform the same
movements before on various occasions. The idea was
to draw power from
the impending twilight by
raising one's arms to the sky with the fingers stretched,
like a fan, and then clasp them forcefully when the arms were
in the
mid point between the horizon and
the zenith. The exercise
worked and I became almost instantly calm and collected. I
could not avoid
wondering, however, what had happened to the old "me", that
could never
have relaxed so completely by performing those
simple and idiotic movements. I wanted to focus all my
attention
on the procedure, that don Juan was
doubtlessly going to
follow to call don Genaro. I anticipated some portentous (ominous,
foreboding) acts. Don Juan
stood on the edge of the
ramada facing the southeast, cupped his hands around his mouth, and
yelled, "Genaro! Come
here!"
A
moment later don Genaro
emerged from the chaparral. Both of them were
beaming. They practically
danced in front of me.
Don Genaro greeted me effusively and then sat down on the
milk crate.
There was something dreadfully wrong
with me. I was calm, unruffled.
Some incredible state of
indifference and aloofness (distant, reserved) had taken over
my entire
being. It was
almost, as if I were watching myself from a hiding place. In a
very nonchalant (cool) manner I proceeded to
tell don Genaro, that
during my last visit he had nearly scared me to death, and that not
even during my experiences with psychotropic plants had I been
in such a complete state of chaos.
Both of them celebrated
my statements, as if they were meant to be funny. I laughed with them.
They obviously were aware of my
state of emotional numbness. They
watched me and humored me,
as if I were drunk. There
was something inside me, that fought desperately to turn the
situation into something familiar. I wanted to be concerned and afraid.
Don Juan finally
splashed some
water
on my face and urged me to sit
down and take notes. He
said, as he had done before, that either I took notes or I
died. The
mere act of putting down
some words brought back my familiar mood. It was as if something became
crystal clear again,
something, that a moment before had been opaque and numb. The advent
(monumental arrival) of
my usual Self also meant the advent of my usual fears.
Strangely enough, I was
less afraid of being afraid, than of being unafraid. The familiarity of
my old habits, no matter how unpleasant they were, was a
delightful respite (postponment). I fully realized then, that
don
Genaro had just emerged from the
chaparral. My usual processes were
beginning to function. I started by refusing to think or
speculate
about the event. I made the
resolution of not asking him anything. I was going to be a silent
witness this time. "Genaro
has come again, exclusively for you," don Juan said. Don Genaro was
leaning against the
wall of the house, resting his back
against it, while he sat
on a tilted milk crate. He looked as if he were riding on horseback.
His hands were in front of
him, giving the impression, that he was holding the reins (leather
straps) of a horse.
"That's
right, Carlitos," he
said and brought the milk crate to rest on
the ground. He
dismounted, whirling his right leg over an imaginary neck of a
horse, and then jumped to
the ground. His movements were so perfectly executed, that he gave me
the unquestionable
sensation, that he had arrived on horseback. He came to my side and sat
down to my left.
"Genaro
has come, because he
wants to tell you about the Other,"
don
Juan said. He made a
gesture of giving don Genaro the floor. Don Genaro bowed. He
turned slightly to face
me.
"What
would you like to know,
Carlitos?" he asked in a high-pitched
voice.
"Well,
if you're going to tell
me about the Double, tell me
everything," I said, feigning (pretend) casualness. Both of them shook
their heads and
glanced at each other.
64-65
"Genaro
is going to tell you about the dreamer and the dreamed," don
Juan said.
"As
you know, Carlitos," don
Genaro said with the air of an orator
warming up, "the Double begins in
Dreaming." He gave me a long look and
smiled. His eyes swept from my face to my notebook and
pencil.
"The
Double is a dream," he said, scratched
his arms and then stood up. He
walked to the edge of the ramada and stepped out into the
chaparral. He
stood by a bush showing three fourths of his profile to us; he was
apparently urinating. After a moment I noticed, that there seemed to
be
something wrong with him. He appeared to be trying desperately to
urinate, but could not. Don Juan's laughter was the clue, that don
Genaro was clowning again. Don Genaro contorted his body in
such
a
comical fashion, that he had don Juan and me practically in hysterics.
Don Genaro came back to the ramada and sat down. His smile
radiated a
rare Warmth. "When you can't, you just can't," he said and shrugged
his shoulders. Then after a moment's pause he added, sighing,
"Yes,
Carlitos, the Double is a dream."
"Do you mean, that he's not real?" I asked.
"No.
I mean, that the Double is a Dream,"
he retorted (replied). Don
Juan intervened and explained, that don Genaro was referring to the
first emergence of the Awareness, that we are Luminous
Beings.
"Each one of us is different, and thus the details of our struggles are
different," don Juan said. "The
steps, that we follow to arrive at the Double
are the same, though.
Especially the beginning steps, which are muddled and uncertain." Don
Genaro agreed and made a comment on the uncertainty, that a Sorcerer
had at that stage.
"When
it first happened to me, I didn't know it had happened," he explained.
"One day I had been picking plants in the mountains. I had gone into a
place, that was worked by other herb collectors. I had two
huge sacks
of plants. I was ready to go home, but before I did, I decided to take
a
moment's rest. I lay down on the side of the trail in the
shade of a tree and
I fell asleep. I heard then the sound of people
coming down the hill and woke up. I hurriedly ran for cover and hid
behind some bushes a short distance across the road, from
where
I had
fallen asleep. While I hid there, I had the nagging impression I had
forgotten something. I looked to see, if I had my two sacks of plants.
I
didn't have them. I looked across the road to the place, where I had
been sleeping and I nearly dropped my pants with fright. I was
still
there asleep! It was me! I touched my body. I was myself! By that time
the people, that were coming down the hill, were upon the me, that was
asleep, while the me, that was fully awake looked helplessly
from my
hiding place. Damn it to hell! They were going to find me there and
take my sacks away. But they went by me, as if I
were not there at all.
My vision had been so vivid, that I went wild. I screamed and then I
woke up again. Damn it!
It had been a dream!" Don Genaro stopped
his account and looked at me, as if waiting for a question or
a
comment.
"Tell him, where you woke up the second time," don Juan said.
"I
woke up by the road," don Genaro said, "where I had fallen asleep. But
for one moment I didn't quite know, where I really was. I can almost
say, that I was still looking at myself waking up, then
something
pulled me to the side of the road and I found myself rubbing my eyes."
There was a long pause. I did not know what to say.
"And
what did you do next?" don Juan asked. I realized, when both of them
began to laugh, that he was teasing me. He was imitating my questions.
Don Genaro went on talking.
He said, that he was stunned for
a moment
and then went to check everything.
"The place, where I had hid, was
there exactly, as I had seen it," he said. "And the people, who had
walked by me were down the road, a short distance away. I
know
it, because I ran downhill after them. They were the same
people
I had seen. I followed them, until they got to town. They must have
thought, I was mad. I asked them, if they had seen my friend
sleeping by
the side of the road. They all said they hadn't."
"You see," don
Juan said, "all of us go through the same doubts. We are afraid of
being mad; unfortunately for us, of course, all of us are already mad."
66-67
"You
are a tinge madder, than us, though," don Genaro said to me and winked.
"And more suspicious." They teased me about my suspiciousness. And then
don Genaro began to talk again. "All
of us are dense Beings," he said. "You're not the only one, Carlitos. I
was a bit shook up by my dream for a couple of days, but then
I had to
work for my living and take care of too many things and really had no
time for pondering upon the mystery of my dreams. So I forgot about it
in no time at all. I was very much like you. But one day, a
few months
later, after a terribly tiring day, I fell asleep like a log in
mid-afternoon. It had just started to rain and a leak in the
roof woke
me up. I jumped out of bed and climbed on top of the house to fix the
leak before it began to pour. I felt so fine and strong, that I
finished in one minute and I didn't even get wet. I thought, that the
snooze I had taken, had done me a lot of good. When I was through, I
went back into the house to get something to eat and I
realized, that I
could not swallow. I thought, I was sick. I mashed some roots and
leaves and wrapped them around my neck and went to my bed. And then
again, when I got to my bed I nearly dropped my pants. I was
there
in bed asleep! I wanted to shake myself and wake me up, but I knew,
that that was not the thing one should do. So I ran out of
the
house. I
was panic-stricken. I roamed around the hills aimlessly. I had no
idea, where I was going and, although I had lived all my life
there, I
got lost. I walked in the rain and didn't even feel it. It seemed, that
I couldn't think. Then the lightning and thunder became so intense,
that I woke up again."
He paused for a moment. "Do you want to know where I woke up?" he asked
me.
"Certainly," don Juan answered.
"I woke up in the hills in the rain," he said.
"But how did you know, that you had woken up?" I asked.
"My body knew it," he replied.
"That
was a stupid question," don Juan interjected. "You yourself know, that
something in the warrior is always aware of every change. It
is precisely the aim of the warrior's way to foster (bring
up, nurture)
and maintain that Awareness. The warrior cleans it, shines it, and
keeps it running." He was right. I had to admit to them, that
I
knew, that there was something in me, that registered and was aware of
everything I did. And yet it had nothing to do with the ordinary
awareness of myself.
It was something else, which I could not pin down.
I told them, that perhaps don Genaro could describe it better, than I.
"You're doing very well yourself," don Genaro said. "It's
an inner voice, that tells you what's what. And at that time, it told
me, that I had woken up a second time.
Of course, as soon, as I woke
up, I became convinced, that I must have been Dreaming.
Obviously,
it had not been an ordinary dream, but it hadn't been
dreaming proper
either. So I settled for something else: walking in my sleep, half
awake, I suppose. I could not understand it in any other way." Don
Genaro said, that his benefactor had explained to him, that
what he had
gone through, was not a dream at all, and that he should not insist on
regarding it as walking in his sleep.
"What did he tell you, that it was?" I asked.
They
exchanged
a glance. "He
told me, it was the bogeyman (mischievous spirit)," don Genaro replied,
affecting the tone of a small child. I explained to them, that I wanted
to know,
if don Genaro's benefactor explained things in the same way,
they themselves did.
"Of course he did," don Juan said.
"My
benefactor explained, that the dream, in which one was watching oneself
asleep," don Genaro went on, "was the time of the Double. He
recommended, that rather than wasting my power in wondering
and asking
myself questions, I should use the opportunity to act, and that when I
had another chance, I should be prepared. My next chance took
place at
my benefactor's house. I was helping him with the housework. I had lain
down to rest and, as usual, I fell sound asleep. His house was
definitely
a place of power for me and helped me.
I was suddenly aroused by a loud
noise and awakened. My benefactor's house was large. He was a wealthy
man and had many people, working for him.
68-69
The
noise seemed to
be the sound of a shovel digging in gravel. I sat up to listen and then
I stood up. The noise was very unsettling to me, but I couldn't figure
out why. I was pondering whether to go and check it out, when
I
noticed, that I was asleep on the floor. This time I knew, what to
expect and what to do, I followed the noise. I walked to
the back
of the house. There was no one there. The noise seemed to come from
beyond the house. I kept on following it. The more I followed it, the
quicker I could move. I ended up at a distant place, witnessing
incredible things." He
explained, that at the time of those events he still was in the
beginning stages of his apprenticeship and had done very little in the
realm of dreaming, but that he had an uncanny (strange) facility to
dream, that he was looking at himself.
"Where did you go, don Genaro?" I asked.
"That
was the first time, that I had really moved in Dreaming" he said. "I
knew enough about it to behave correctly, though. I didn't look at
anything directly and ended up in a deep ravine, where my
benefactor
had some of his power plants."
"Do you think it works better, if one knows very little about
dreaming?"
I asked.
"No!" don Juan interjected. "Each of us has a facility for something in
particular. Genaro's knack is for dreaming."
"What did you see in the ravine, don Genaro?" I asked.
"I
saw my benefactor doing some dangerous maneuvers with people. I
thought, I was there to help him, and hid behind some trees. Yet, I
couldn't have known, how to help. I was not dumb, though, and I
realized, that the scene was there for me to watch, not to act in."
"When and how and where did you wake up?"
"I
don't know, when I woke up. It must have been hours later. All I know
is, that I followed my benefactor and the other men, and when they were
about to reach my benefactor's house, the noise, that they
made, because
they were arguing, woke me up. I was at the place, where I had seen
myself asleep. Upon waking up, I realized, that whatever I had seen and
done, was not a dream. I had actually gone some distance away, guided
by the sound."
"Was your benefactor aware of, what you were doing?"
"Certainly.
He had been making the noise with the shovel to help me accomplish my
task. When he walked into the house, he pretended to scold me for
falling asleep. I knew, that
he had seen me. Later on, after
his
friends had left, he told me, that he had noticed my glow hiding behind
the trees." Don Genaro said, that those three instances set him off
on the path of Dreaming, and that it took him fifteen years to have his
next chance. "The
fourth time was a more
bizarre and a more complete vision," he
said. "I found myself
asleep in the middle of a cultivated field. I saw myself lying there on
my side sound asleep. I
knew, that it was Dreaming, because I had set myself to do
Dreaming
every night. Usually, every
time
I had seen myself asleep, I was at the site, where I had gone to
sleep. This time I was not in my bed, and I knew I had gone to bed
that night. In this Dreaming it
was daytime. So,
I began to
explore. I moved away from the place, where I was lying, and
oriented
myself. I knew where I
was. I was actually not too far from my house, perhaps a couple of
miles away. I walked around,
looking at every detail of the place.
I stood in the shade of a big
tree a short distance away and peered across a flat strip of land
to some corn fields on the side of a
hill. Something quite unusual struck me then; the details of
the
surroundings did not change or
vanish no matter how long I
peered at them. I got scared and ran back to where I was sleeping. I
was still there exactly, as I had been before. I began to
watch
myself. I had an eerie feeling of
indifference towards the body I was watching. Then I heard the sound of
people
approaching. People always seemed to
be around for me. I ran
up ahead to a small hill and carefully watched from there. There
were ten people coming to
the field, where I was. They were all young men. I ran back
to where I
was lying and went through one of the most agonizing
times of my life, while I faced
myself, lying there snoring like a pig. I knew, that I had to
awaken
me, but I had no idea how. I also
knew, that it was deadly for me to awaken myself. But if those
young men were to find me there, they
were going to be very
upset. All those deliberations (considerations), that were going
through my mind were not
really thoughts.
70-71
They
were more
appropriately scenes in front of my eyes. My worrying, for
instance, was a scene, in
which I looked at myself, while I had the sensation of being
boxed in. I
call that worrying. It has
happened to me a number of times after that first time. Well, since I
didn't know what to do,
I stood looking at myself,
waiting for the worst. A
bunch of fleeting images went past me in front of my eyes. I hung on to
one in particular, the
sight of my house and my bed. The image became very clear.
Oh, how I
wished to be back in my
bed! Something shook me then; it felt like someone was hitting me and I
woke up. I was on my bed!
Obviously, I had been Dreaming. I jumped out of bed and ran
to the
place of my Dreaming. It
was exactly, as I had seen it. The young men were working there. I
watched them for a long time. They were the same ones I had
seen. I
came back to the same place at the
end of the day after everybody
had gone and stood at the
very spot, where I had seen myself asleep. Someone had lain
there.
The weeds were crumpled!" Don
Juan and don Genaro were
observing me. They looked like two strange
animals. I felt a shiver
in my back. I was on the verge of indulging in the very rational
fear, that they were not
really men like myself, but don Genaro laughed. "In
those days,"
he said, "I was
just like you, Carlitos. I wanted to
check everything. I was as
suspicious, as you are." He
paused, raised his finger and
shook it at me. Then he faced don Juan. "Weren't
you as suspicious, as
this guy?" he asked.
"Not a
chance," don Juan said.
"He's the champ."
Don
Genaro turned to me and made
a gesture of apology. "I
think I was wrong," he said.
"I was not as suspicious, as you." They
chuckled softly as if they
did not want to make noise. Don Juan's
body convulsed with
muffled laughter. "This
is a place of Power for
you," don Genaro said in a whisper.
"You've written your
fingers off right where you are sitting. Have you ever done
some heavy
Dreaming here?"
"No,
he hasn't," don Juan said
in a low voice. "But he's done some
heavy writing." They
doubled up. It seemed, that
they did not want to laugh out loud.
Their bodies shook. Their soft
laughter was like a rhythmical cackle (shrill, brittle
laughter). Don Genaro sat
up straight and slid closer to me. He patted me on the
shoulder repeatedly,
saying, that I was a rascal, then he pulled my left arm with great
force
towards him. I lost my
balance and fell forward. I almost hit my face on the hard
ground. I
automatically put my right
arm in front and buffered my fall. One of them held me down by pressing
on my neck. I was not
sure who. The hand, that was holding me, felt like don
Genaro's. I had
a
moment of devastating
panic. I felt, I was fainting, perhaps I did. The pressure in my
stomach
was so intense, that I
vomited. My next clear perception, was that somebody was helping me to
sit up. Don Genaro was
squatting in front of me. I turned around to look for don Juan. He was
nowhere in sight. Don
Genaro had a beaming smile. His eyes were shiny. They were looking
fixedly at mine. I asked
him, what he had done to me and he said, that I was in pieces. His tone
was reproachful (admonish, disgraceful) and he seemed to be annoyed or
dissatisfied
with me. He repeated various times,
that I was in pieces and
that I had to come together again. He tried to feign (pretend) a severe
tone, but
he laughed in the middle of
his harangue (pompous speech). He was telling me, that it was just
terrible, that I was
spread all over the place, and that he would have to use a broom to
sweep all my pieces into one heap.
Then
he added, that I
might get the pieces in the wrong places and end up with my penis,
where
my thumb should be. He
cracked up at that point. I wanted to laugh and had a most
unusual
sensation. My body fell
apart! It was as if I had been a mechanical toy, that simply broke up
into pieces. I had no physical feelings whatever, and neither
had I
any fear or concern. Coming apart
was a scene, that I
witnessed from the point of view of the perceiver, and yet I did not
perceive anything from a
sensorial point of reference. The next thing
I became aware of
was, that don Genaro was manipulating
my body. I then had a
physical sensation, a vibration so intense, that it made me
lose sight
of everything around me.
I felt once more, that someone was helping me to sit up. I again saw
don
Genaro squatting in front
of me. He pulled me up by my armpits and helped me walk
around.
72-73
I
could not figure out
where I was. I had the feeling I was in a dream, and yet I had a
complete sense of sequential time. I was keenly aware, that I had just
been with don Genaro and don Juan in
the ramada of don Juan's
house. Don Genaro walked
with me, propping me by holding my left armpit. The
scenery, I was watching,
changed constantly. I could not determine, however, the nature
of what I was observing.
What was in front of my eyes was rather like a feeling or a mood; and
the center from where all
those changes radiated was definitely in my stomach. I had made that
connection not as a thought
or a realization, but as a bodily sensation, that suddenly
became fixed
and predominant. The
fluctuations around me came from my stomach. I was creating a world, an
endless run of feelings
and images. Everything I knew was there. That in itself was a
feeling,
not a thought or a
conscious assessment. I
tried to keep tabs for a moment, because of my nearly
invincible
(unbeatable) habit
of assessing everything,
but at a certain instant my processes of bookkeeping ceased
and a nameless something
enveloped me, feelings and images of every sort. At one point
something
in me began
again the tabulation (arrange, condense, list) and I noticed,
that one image kept on
repeating itself: don Juan and don Genaro, who were trying to
reach me.
The image was fleeting,
it passed by me fast. It was something comparable to seeing them from
the window of a fast moving
vehicle. They seemed to be trying to catch me, as I went by. The image
became clearer and it
lasted longer, as it kept on recurring.
I consciously
realized at
one point, that I was
deliberately isolating it from among a myriad of other images. I sort
of breezed through the rest to come to that particular scene. Finally
I was capable of sustaining it
by thinking about it. Once I had begun to think, my ordinary
processes took over. They were not as
defined, as in my ordinary activities, but clear enough to
know, that the scene or feeling I had
isolated, was that don Juan and don Genaro were in the ramada of don
Juan's house and were holding me
by the armpits. I wanted
to keep on fleeing through other images and feelings, but they
would not let me. I
struggled for a moment. I felt bouncy and happy. I knew, that
I liked
both of them and I also knew then, that
I was not afraid of them. I
wanted to joke with them; I did
not know how and I kept on
laughing and patting them on their shoulders. I had another
peculiar
awareness. I was certain, that I was Dreaming. If I focused my eyes
on anything, it immediately became
blurry. Don Juan and don
Genaro were talking to me. I could not keep their
words straight and I
could not distinguish, which of them was talking. Don Juan then turned
my body around and
pointed to a lump on the ground. Don Genaro pulled me closer to it and
made me go around it.
The
lump was a man lying on the ground. He was lying on his
stomach,
his face turned to his
right. They kept on pointing out the man to me, as they spoke. They
pulled me and twisted me
around him. I could not focus my eyes on him at all, but
finally I had
a feeling of quietness and
sobriety (seriousness) and I looked at the man. I had a slow awakening
into the
realization, that the man lying on the ground was me. My realization
did not bring any terror or
discomfort. I simply accepted it without emotion. At that moment I
was not completely asleep, but
neither was I completely
awake and in sober consciousness. I also became more aware of don Juan
and don Genaro and could
tell them apart, when they talked to me. Don Juan said, that
we
were going to go to the
round Power place in the chaparral. As soon, as he said it, the image
of
the place popped in my
mind. I saw the dark masses of bushes around it. I turned to my right;
don Juan and don Genaro
were also there. I had a jolt and the feeling, that I was afraid of
them. Perhaps because they looked like two menacing shadows.
They came
closer to me. As soon, as I saw
their features, my fears
vanished. I liked them again. It was as if I were drunk and
did not
have a firm grip on anything. They grabbed me by the shoulders and
shook me in unison. They ordered
me to wake up. I could
hear their voices clearly and separately. I had then a unique
moment. I
held two images in my mind, two dreams. I felt, that something in me
was deeply asleep and was waking up and I found myself lying
on the
floor of the ramada with don Juan and don Genaro shaking me. But I also
was at the Power Place and don Juan and don Genaro were still
shaking
me. There was one crucial instant, in which I was neither in one place,
nor the other, but I was rather in both places, as an observer
seeing
two scenes at once.
74-75
I
had the incredible sensation, that at that instant I could have gone
either way. All I had to do at that moment, was to change perspective
and rather, than watch either scene from the outside, feel it
from the
point of view of the subject. There was
something
very warm about don Juan's house. I preferred that
scene. I next had a
terrifying seizure, so shocking, that my entire ordinary
awareness came back to me
at once. Don Juan and don Genaro were pouring buckets of water on
me. I was in the ramada
of don Juan's house.
Hours later we sat in the kitchen. Don Juan had insisted, that I had to
proceed as if nothing had
happened. He gave me some food and said, that I had to eat a
great deal
to compensate for my
expenditure of energy. It
was after nine in the evening when I looked at my watch after we had
sat down to eat. My
experience had lasted several hours. From the point of view of my
recollection, however, it
seemed, that I had just fallen asleep for a short while. Even
though I
was completely myself,
I still was numb. It was not until
I had begun to write in
my notebook, that I regained my usual awareness. It was a surprise to
me, that taking notes
could bring about instantaneous sobriety. The moment I was myself
again,
a barrage of reasonable
thoughts immediately came to my mind; they purported (giving
appearance) to explain the
phenomenon I had
experienced. I "knew" on the spot, that don Genaro had hypnotized me
the
moment he pinned me down
on the ground, but I did not attempt to figure out how he had done
it. They both laughed
hysterically when I expressed my thoughts. Don Genaro
examined my pencil and
said, that the pencil was the key to wind up my mainspring (motivating
force). I
felt quite belligerent (engaged in warfare). I was tired and irritable.
I found
myself practically yelling at them,
while their bodies shook with laughter. Don Juan said, that it was
permissible to miss the boat, but not by such
a wide margin, and that
don Genaro had come exclusively to help me and show me the mystery
of the Dreamer and the
Dreamed. My irritability
came to a peak. Don Juan signaled don Genaro with a
movement of his head. Both of them stood and took me around the house. There don Genaro
demonstrated his great
repertoire of animal grunts and cries. He asked me to choose
one and he
taught me how to
reproduce it. After hours
of practice I got to the point, where I could imitate it
quite well. The end result
was, that they themselves had enjoyed my clumsy attempts and laughed,
until they were practically weeping, and I had released my
tension by reproducing the loud cry of
an animal. I told them, that there was something truly awesome in
my imitation. The relaxation of my
body was unequaled. Don
Juan said, that if I would perfect the cry I could turn it
into an
affair of Power, or I could
simply use it to relieve my tension whenever I needed to.
He suggested
I should go to sleep. But I
was afraid to fall asleep. I sat with them by the kitchen
fire for a
while and then, quite
unintentionally, I fell into a deep sleep. I woke up at dawn. Don
Genaro was
sleeping by the door. He seemingly
woke up at the same time
I did. They had covered me up and folded my jacket as a pillow. I
felt very calm and rested.
I commented to don Genaro, that I had felt exhausted the
night before.
He said, that so had he. He
whispered as if he were confiding in me and told me, that don Juan was
even more exhausted,
because he was older. "You
and I are young," he said
with a glint in his eyes. "But he's old.
He must be about three
hundred now."
I sat
up hurriedly.
Don Genaro
covered his face with his blanket and
roared with laughter. Don
Juan came into the room at that moment. I had a feeling of completeness
and
peace. For once, nothing really
mattered. I was so at ease, that I wanted to weep. Don Juan said, that
the night before,
I had begun to be aware of my Luminosity. He warned (admonished)
me not
to indulge in the
sense of well-being, I was having, because it
would turn into
complacency (contentment).
"At
this moment," I said, "I
don't want to explain anything. It doesn't
matter what don Genaro
did to me last night."
"I didn't do anything to you," don Genaro retorted. "Look, it's me,
Genaro. Your Genaro!
Touch me!"
76-77
I
embraced don Genaro and we both laughed like two children. He asked
me, if I thought it was
strange, that I could embrace him then,
when last time I had seen
him there, I had been unable to touch him. I assured him,
that those
issues were no longer
pertinent (relevant) to me.
Don Juan's comment was, that I was indulging in being
broad-minded and
good. "Watch
out!" he said. "A warrior
never lets his guard down. If you keep
on being so happy, you're
going to drain the little power you have left."
"What
should I do?" I asked.
"Be
yourself," he said. "Doubt
everything. Be suspicious."
"But I
don't like to be that
way, don Juan.''
"It is
not a matter of whether
you like it or not. What matters is,
what can you use as a shield? A warrior must use everything
available to him to close his mortal gap
once it opens. So, it's of
no importance, that you really don't like to be suspicious or ask
questions. That's your only shield now. "Write,
write. Or you'll die. To
die with elation is a crappy way of
dying."
"How
should a warrior die,
then?" don Genaro asked in exactly my own
tone of voice.
"A
warrior dies the hard way,"
don Juan said. "His death must struggle
to take him. A warrior
does not give himself to it." Don
Genaro opened his eyes to an
enormous size and then blinked. "What
Genaro showed you
yesterday is of utmost importance," don Juan
went on. "You can't
slough it off (shed it of like dead skin) with piousness
(devotion).
Yesterday you told me, that you had been
driven wild with the idea
of the Double. But look at you now.
You don't care anymore. That's the
trouble with people, that
go wild, they go wild both ways. Yesterday you were all questions,
today you are all acceptance." I
pointed out, that he always
found a flaw, in what I did, regardless of
how I did it. "That's
not true!" he exclaimed.
"There is no flaw in the Warrior's
way. Follow it and your
acts cannot be criticized by anyone. Take yesterday as an example. The
Warrior's Way would have been, first,
to ask questions
without fear and without suspicion and
then let Genaro show you the mystery of the dreamer; without
fighting him, or draining yourself.
Today, the warrior's way
would be to assemble what you've learned, without
presumptuousness
(arrogance) and
without piousness (devotion). Do
that and noone can find flaws in it." I
thought by his tone, that don
Juan must have been terribly annoyed
with my blunderings (errors, stupidity). But he smiled at me
and then
giggled, as
if his own words had made him laugh. I told him, that I was just
holding
back, not wanting to burden them
with my probes (investigating). I was indeed overwhelmed by what don
Genaro had done. I had been convinced -
although it no longer
mattered - that don Genaro had been waiting in the bushes for
don Juan
to call him. Then later on
he had cashed in on my fright and used it to stun me. After being held
forcibly on the ground, I
must have undoubtedly passed out, and then don Genaro must have
mesmerized me. Don Juan
argued, that I was too strong to be subdued that easily.
"What
took place then?" I asked
him. "Genaro came to see you to tell you something very exclusive," he
said. "When he came out of the bushes, he was Genaro the Double. There
is another way to talk about this, that would explain it better, but I
can't use it now."
"Why not, don Juan?"
"Because
you are not ready yet to talk about the Totality of Oneself. For the
time being I can only say, that this Genaro here is not the Double now."
He pointed to don Genaro with a movement of his head. Don Genaro
blinked repeatedly.
"The
Genaro of last night was the Double. And, as I told you already, the
Double has Inconceivable
(unbelievable) Power. He showed you a most
important issue. In order to do that, he had to touch you. The Double
simply tapped you on the neck, on the same spot the ally walked over
you years ago. Naturally, you went out like a light.
And naturally too,
you indulged like a son of a bitch. It took us hours to round you up.
78-79
Thus,
you dissipated (scatter, dispel) your power and when the time came for
you to accomplish a Warrior's feat you did not have enough sap."
"What was that Warrior's Feat, don Juan?"
"I
told you, that Genaro came to show you something, the Mystery of
Luminous Beings, as Dreamers. You wanted to know about the Double. It
begins in Dreams.
But then you
asked, “What is the Double?” And I
said
the Double is the Self. The Self
dreams the Double. That should be
simple, except, that there is nothing simple about us. Perhaps the
ordinary dreams of the Self are simple, but that doesn't mean, that the
Self is simple. Once it has learned to Dream the Double, the Self
arrives at this weird crossroad and a moment comes when one realizes,
that it is the Double, who Dreams the
Self."
I had written down
everything he had said. I had also paid attention to what he was
saying, but had failed to understand him. Don Juan repeated his
statements.
"The lesson last night, as I told you, was about the Dreamer (the
Double) and the
Dreamed, or who dreams whom."
"I beg your pardon," I said. Both of them broke into laughter.
"Last night," don Juan proceeded, "you almost chose to wake up at the
Power Place."
"What do you mean, don Juan?"
"That
would have been the feat. If you had not indulged in your stupid ways,
you would have had enough power to tip the scales, and you would've, no
doubt, scared yourself to death. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the
case may be, you did not have enough power. In fact, you wasted your
power in worthless confusion to the point, that you almost
didn't
have
enough to survive. So, as you may very well understand, to indulge
in your little quirks (oddity) is not only stupid and wasteful,
but
also injurious. A Warrior, that drains himself, cannot live. The body
is not an indestructible affair. You might have gotten gravely ill. You
didn't, simply because Genaro and I deviated some of your
crap."
The full impact of his words was beginning to take hold of me. "Last
night Genaro guided you through the intricacies of the Double," don
Juan went on. "Only he can do that for you. And it was not a vision or
a hallucination, when you saw yourself lying on the ground. You could
have realized, that with infinite clarity, if you had not
gotten
lost in
your indulging, and you could have known then, that you yourself are a
Dream, that your Double is
dreaming you, in the same fashion,
that you
dreamed him last night."
"But
how can that be possible,
don Juan?"
"No
one knows how it happens. We
only know, that it does happen. That's
the Mystery of us as
Luminous Beings. Last night you had two dreams and you
could have
awakened in either one, but
you didn't have enough power even to understand that." They
looked at me fixedly for a
moment.
"I
think he understands," don
Genaro said.
3.
The Secret of The Luminous
Beings
80-81
Don
Genaro delighted me for hours with some preposterous (absurd)
instructions
on how to manage my Daily World. Don Juan said, that I should be very
careful
and
serious-minded about the
recommendations, made by don Genaro because, although they were funny,
they were not a joke.
Around noon don Genaro stood up and without saying a word
walked into
the bushes. I was also
going to get up, but don Juan gently held me down and in a solemn
voice announced, that don
Genaro was going to try one more thing with me.
"What's
he up to?" I asked.
"What is he going to do to me?"
Don
Juan assured me that I did
not have to worry. "You
are approaching a
crossroad," he said. "A certain crossroad, that
every warrior comes to." I had
the idea, that he was
talking about my death. He seemed to
anticipate my question and
signaled me not to say anything. "We
won't discuss this matter,"
he said. "Suffice it to say, that the
crossroad I'm referring to, is the
Sorcerers' Explanation. Genaro
believes you're ready for it."
"When
are you going to tell me
about it?"
"I
don't know when. You are the
recipient, therefore it is up to you.
You will have to decide
when."
"What's
wrong with right now?"
"To
decide doesn't mean to
choose an arbitrary (random) time," he said. "To
decide means, that you have
trimmed your spirit impeccably, and that you have done
everything
possible to be worthy of
knowledge and power. Today,
however, you must solve a little riddle for Genaro. He's gone
ahead of us and he'll be
waiting somewhere in the chaparral. Noone knows the spot,
where he'll be, or the specific time to
go to him. If you're capable of determining the right time to leave
the
house, you will also be
capable of guiding yourself to where he is." I told
don Juan, that I could not
imagine anyone being able to solve
such a riddle.
"How
can leaving the house at a
specific time guide me to where don
Genaro is?" I asked.
Don
Juan smiled and began to hum
a tune. He seemed to enjoy my
agitation. "That's
the problem, which Genaro
has set up for you," he said. "If you
have enough personal
power you will decide with absolute certainty the right time to leave
the house. How leaving at
the precise time will guide you, is something, that noone
knows. And
yet, if you have enough
power, you yourself will attest, that this is so."
"But
how am I going to be
guided, don Juan?"
"No
one knows that either."
"I
think don Genaro is pulling
my leg."
"You
better watch out then," he
said. "If Genaro is pulling your leg,
he's liable to yank it out." Don
Juan laughed at his own
joke. I could not join him. My fear about
the inherent danger of
don Genaro's manipulations was too real.
"Can
you give me some clues?" I
asked.
"There
are no clues!" he said
cuttingly.
"Why
does don Genaro want to do
this?"
"He
wants to test you," he
replied. "Let's say, that it is very
important for him to know whether you can take the Sorcerers'
Explanation. If you solve the riddle, the
implication (indirect suggestion) will be, that you have stored enough
personal power
and you're ready. But if you flub (fail) it,
it'll be, because you don't
have enough power and in that case the sorcerers' explanation won't
make any sense to you. I
think, that we should give you the explanation regardless of whether
you understand it or not;
that's my idea. Genaro is a more conservative warrior;
he wants things
in their proper order and he won't give in, until he thinks
you're ready."
82-83
"Why
don't you just tell me
about the
Sorcerers' Explanation yourself?"
"Because
Genaro must be the one,
who helps you."
"Why
is that so, don Juan?"
"Genaro
doesn't want me to tell
you why," he said. "Not yet."
"Would
it hurt me to know the
sorcerers' explanation?" I asked.
"I
don't think so."
"Please,
don Juan, tell me then."
"You
must be joking. Genaro has
precise ideas on this matter and we
must honor and respect
them." He
made an imperative (powerful)
gesture to quiet me.
After a long unnerving pause I ventured a question. "But
how can I solve this
riddle, don Juan?"
"I
really don't know that, thus
I can't advise you what to do," he
said. "Genaro is most
efficient. He designed the riddle just for you. Since he's doing this
for your benefit, he's attuned to you alone, therefore only
you can
pick the precise time to leave the
house. He will call you
himself and guide you by means of his call."
"What
will his call be like?"
"I
don't know. His call is for
you, not for me. He'll be tapping your Will directly. In other words,
you must use your Will in
order to know the call. Genaro
feels, that he must make
sure,
at this point, that you have
stored sufficient personal
power to enable you to turn your Will into a functioning unit." Will
was another concept, which
don Juan had delineated (sketch out, depict) with great care,
but without making it
clear. I had gathered from his explanations, that Will was a Force,
that
emanated from the umbilical
region through an unseen opening below the navel, an opening he had
called the "gap." Will was
allegedly cultivated only by Sorcerers. It came to the practitioners,
veiled in mystery and
purportedly (have appearance, intention, meaning) gave them the
capacity to perform extraordinary acts. I remarked to don Juan, that
there
was no chance, that anything, so vague,
could ever be a
functioning unit in my life. "That's where you're wrong," he said. "The
Will develops in a warrior
in spite of every
opposition of the reason."
"Can't
don Genaro, being a
sorcerer, know whether I'm ready or not,
without testing me?" I
asked.
"He
certainly can," he said.
"But that knowledge won't be of any value
or consequence, because
it has nothing to do with you. You are the one who's
learning,
therefore you yourself
must claim knowledge as power, not Genaro. Genaro is not concerned with
his knowing as much, as
with your knowing. You must find out whether or not your Will
works.
This is a very difficult
point to make. In spite of what Genaro or I know about you, you must
prove to yourself, that you
are in the position to claim Knowledge as Power. In other
words, you
yourself have to be
convinced, that you can exercise your Will. If you're not, then you
must
become convinced today.
If you cannot perform this task, then Genaro's conclusion will be, that
regardless of what he might
see about you, you're not ready yet."
I
experienced an overwhelming
apprehension. "Is
all this necessary?" I asked.
"It's
Genaro's request and must
be obeyed," he said in a firm, but
friendly tone.
"But
what does don Genaro have
to do with me?"
"You
may find that out today,"
he said and smiled. I
pleaded with don Juan to get
me out of that intolerable situation and
explain all the mysterious talk. He laughed and
patted my chest and made a joke about a
Mexican weight lifter,
who had enormous pectoral (chest) muscles, but could not do heavy
physical labor,
because his back was weak. "Watch
those muscles," he said.
"They shouldn't be just for show."
"My
muscles have nothing to do
with what you're talking about," I said
in a belligerent (agressive) mood.
"They
do," he replied. "The body
must be perfection before the Will is
a functioning unit." Don
Juan had again deviated the
direction of my probing. I felt
restless and frustrated.
I stood up and went to the kitchen and drank some water. Don Juan
followed me and
suggested, that I should practice the animal cry, that don Genaro had
taught me.
84-85
We
walked to the side of
the house; I sat on a pile of wood and involved myself in
reproducing it. Don Juan made some corrections and gave me some
pointers about my breathing; the end
result was a state of
complete physical relaxation. We
returned to the ramada and
sat down again. I told him, that sometimes
I felt irked (irritable, annoyed) with myself, because I was
so
helpless. "There
is nothing wrong with the
feeling of being helpless," he said.
"All of us are most
familiar with it. Remember, that we have spent an eternity, as
helpless
infants. I have already told you, that at this very moment you are
like an infant, who can't get out
of the crib by himself, much less act on his own.
Genaro gets you
out of your crib, let's say, by
picking you up. But an infant wants to act and since he can't, he
complains. There is nothing wrong
with that, but to indulge in protesting and complaining is
another matter." He
demanded, that I keep myself
relaxed; he suggested, that I ask him
questions for a while,
until I was in a better frame of mind. For a
moment I was at a loss and
could not decide what to ask. Don
Juan unrolled a straw mat
and told me to sit on it. Then he filled
a large gourd (dried, hollowed out shell of fruit) with water and put
it in a carrying net.
He
seemed to be preparing for a journey.
He sat down again and
urged me with a movement of his eyebrows to begin my questions. I asked
him to tell me more about
the moth.
He gave me a
long scrutinizing look and chuckled. "That
was an Ally," he said.
"You know that."
"But
what actually is an Ally,
don Juan?"
"There
is no way of saying what
exactly an Ally is, just as there is no
way of saying, what
exactly a tree is."
"A
tree is a living organism," I
said.
"That
doesn't tell me much," he
said. "I can
also say, that an Ally is a
force, a tension. I've told
you that already, but that doesn't say much about an Ally. Just
like in the case of a
tree, the only way to know, what an Ally is,
is by experiencing it. Over the years I have struggled to prepare you
for the momentous
encounter with an Ally. You
may not realize this, but it took you years of preparation to meet
tree. To meet ally is no different. A teacher must acquaint his
disciple
with Ally little by little, piece
by piece. You have, over the course of the years, stored a great
amount of knowledge about it and
now you are capable of
putting that knowledge in use to experience Ally the way you
experience tree."
"I
have no idea, that I'm doing
that, don Juan."
"Your
reason is not aware of it,
because it cannot accept the
possibility of Ally to begin with. Fortunately, it is not the reason,
which puts Ally together. It is the
body. You have perceived Ally in many degrees and on many
occasions. Each of those perceptions was
stored in your body. The
sum of those pieces is the Ally. I don't know any other way
of
describing it." I
said, that I could not
conceive, that my body was acting by itself, as
if it were an entity, separate from my reason. "It
isn't, but we have made it
so," he said. "Our reason is petty and
it is always at odds with
our body. This, of course, is only a way of talking, but the triumph of
a Man of Knowledge is, that
he has joined the two together. Since you're not a Man of Knowledge,
your body does things now,
that your reason cannot comprehend. The Ally is one of those
things.
You were not mad, neither
were you dreaming, when you perceived the Ally that night, right here." I
asked him about the
frightening idea, which he and don Genaro had
implanted in me, that the
Ally was an entity, waiting for me at the edge of a small valley in
the mountains of northern
Mexico. They had told me, that sooner or later I had to keep my
appointment with the Ally and wrestle with it. "Those
are ways of talking about
mysteries, for which there are no
words," he said. "Genaro
and I said, that at the edge of that plain the Ally was waiting for
you.
That statement was true, but it doesn't have the meaning, that
you
want to give it. The Ally is
waiting for you, that's for sure, but it is not at the edge of any
plain.
It is right here, or there, or in
any other place. The Ally is waiting for you, just like death
is
waiting
for you, everywhere and nowhere."
"Why
is the Ally waiting for me?"
86-87
"For
the same reason,
that death waits for you," he said, "because you
were born. There is no
possibility of explaining at this point, what is meant by that. You
must
first experience the Ally.
You must perceive it in its full force, then the Sorcerers' Explanation
may throw light upon it. So
far you've had enough power to clarify at least one point,
that the
Ally is a moth. Some
years ago you and I went to the mountains and you had a bout with
something. I had no way
of telling you then what was taking place; you saw a strange
shadow flying back and
forth in front of the fire. You yourself said, that it looked like a
moth; although you didn't know what you were talking about,
you
were absolutely correct, the shadow
was a moth. Then, on
another occasion, something frightened you out of your wits, after you
had fallen asleep, again in
front of a fire. I had warned you not to fall asleep, but you
disregarded my warning; that act left you at the mercy of the Ally and
the
moth stepped on your neck. Why you
survived will always be a
mystery to me. You didn't know then, but I had given you up for dead.
Your blunder (foolish, clumsy act, remark) was, that serious.
From
then on every time we've been
in the mountains or in the desert,
even if you didn't notice
it, the moth always followed us. All in all then, we can say,
that for you the
Ally is a moth. But I cannot
say, that it is really
a moth, the way we know moths.
Calling the Ally a moth is again only
a way of talking, a way
of making that immensity out there
understandable."
"Is
the Ally a moth for you
too?" I asked.
"No.
The way one understands the
Ally is a personal matter," he said. I
mentioned, that we were back,
where
we had started; he had not told me,
what an Ally really was. "There's
no need to be
confused," he said. "Confusion is a mood one
enters into, but one can
also get out of it. At this point there is no way of clarifying
anything. Perhaps later on today we'll be able to consider these
matters in
detail; it's up to you. Or rather,
it's up to your personal
power." He
refused to say one more word.
I became quite upset with the fear,
that I was going to fail
the test. Don Juan took me to the back of his house and made me sit on
a straw mat at the edge of
an irrigation ditch. The water moved so slowly, that it almost seemed
stagnant. He commanded me
to sit quietly, shut off my internal dialogue and look at the water.
He said, that years before he had discovered, that I had a certain
affinity for bodies of water, a
feeling, that was most convenient for the endeavors, I was involved in.
I remarked, that I was not
particularly fond of bodies of water, but neither did I dislike
them. He said, that that was precisely,
why water was beneficial for me, I was indifferent towards
it.
Under conditions of stress, water
could not trap me, but neither could it reject me. He sat slightly
behind me to my
right and admonished me (warned,
cautioned) to let go and
not be afraid, because he
was there to help me, if there was any need. I had a moment of fear. I
looked at
him, waiting for further
instructions. He forcibly turned my head towards the water and
ordered me to proceed. I had no idea, what
he wanted me to do, so I
simply relaxed. As I looked at the water, I caught sight of
the reeds
on the opposite side.
Unconsciously I rested my unfocused eyes on them. The slow current made
them quiver. The water
had the color of the desert dirt. I noticed, that
the ripples
around the reeds looked like furrows or crevices on a smooth
surface. At one instant the reeds
became gigantic, the water was a smooth flat ocher
surface, and
then in a matter of seconds I was
sound asleep; or perhaps I
entered into a perceptual state, for which I had no parallel.
The
closest way of describing it would be to say, that I went to sleep and
had a portentous (ominous) dream. I felt, that I could have gone on
with it indefinitely, if I had wanted
to, but I deliberately ended it by engaging myself in a conscious
self-dialogue. I opened my eyes. I
was lying on the straw
mat. Don Juan was a few feet away. My dream had
been so magnificent,
that I began to recount it
to him.
He signaled me to be quiet. With a long twig he pointed to two
long shadows, that some
dry branches of desert chaparral cast on the ground. The tip of his
twig followed the outline of one of the shadows, as if it were
drawing it, then it jumped to the other and
did the same with it; the shadows were about a foot long
and over an inch wide; they were
from five to six inches apart from each other.
88-89
The
movement of the twig forced my eyes out of focus
and I found myself
looking with crossed eyes at four long shadows; suddenly the two
shadows in the middle merged into one and created an
extraordinary perception of depth. There was
some inexplicable
roundness and volume in the shadow thus formed. It was almost
like a
transparent tube, a round
bar of some unknown substance. I knew, that my eyes were crossed and
yet
they seemed to be focused
on one spot; the view there was crystal clear. I could move
my
eyes without dispelling
the image. I continued
watching, but without letting my guard down. I experienced a
curious compulsion (irresistable impulse to act) to let go
and immerse
myself in the
scene. Something, in what I was
observing, seemed to pull me; but something in myself
surfaced and
I began a semiconscious dialogue;
almost instantly I became
aware of my surroundings in the world of everyday life. Don Juan was
watching me. He
appeared to be puzzled. I asked him if
there was something
wrong. He did not answer. He helped me to sit up. It was only then,
that
I realized, that I had been
lying on my back, looking at the sky, and don Juan
had been leaning
over my face. My first
impulse was to tell him, that I had actually seen the shadows
on the ground while I had
been looking at the sky, but he put his hand over my mouth. We sat
in silence for a while. I
had no thoughts. I experienced an exquisite sense of peace,
and then,
quite abruptly, I had an
unyielding (inflexible) urge to get up and go into the chaparral to
look for don
Genaro. I made an attempt
to speak to don Juan; he jutted (protruded) his chin
and twisted
his lips, as a silent
command not to talk. I tried to assess my predicament in a rational
manner; I was enjoying my
silence so much, however, that I did not want to bother with
logical
considerations. After a
moment's pause, I again felt the imperious (domineering, overbearing,
dictatorial, urgent, pressing) need to walk into
the bushes. I followed a
trail. Don Juan tagged along behind me, as if I were the leader. We
walked for about an hour. I
succeeded in remaining without any
thoughts. Then we came to
a hillside. Don Genaro was there, sitting near the top of a rock
wall. He greeted me effusively and had to yell his words; he
was
about fifty feet above the ground.
Don Juan made me sit down and then sat next to me. Don Genaro
explained, that I had found the place, where he had been
waiting, because he had
guided me with a sound he had been making. As he voiced his words, I
realized, that I had indeed
been hearing a peculiar sound I thought to be a buzzing in my
ears; it
had seemed to be more of
an internal affair, a bodily condition, a feeling of sound so
undetermined, that it was beyond the realm of conscious
assessment and
interpretation. I
believed, that don Genaro had a small instrument in his left hand.
From where I sat, I could
not distinguish it clearly. It looked like a jew's-harp; with
it he
produced a soft eerie sound, which was practically indiscernible (not
perceivable). He kept on playing it for a moment, as
if allowing me time to fully realize, what he had just said. Then
he showed me his left hand. There
was nothing in it; he was
not holding any instrument. It had appeared to me, that he
was playing
some instrument, because
of the manner, in which he had put his hand to his mouth; actually, the
sound was being produced
with his lips and the edge of his left hand, between the thumb and
index finger. I turned to
don Juan to explain to him, that I had been fooled by don
Genaro's movements. He
made a quick gesture and told me not to talk and to pay close attention
to what don Genaro was
doing. I turned back to look at don Genaro, but he was no longer there.
I thought, that
he must
have climbed down. I waited a few moments for him to emerge from behind
the bushes. The rock, he
had been standing on, was a peculiar formation; it was more
like a
huge ledge on the side of a
larger rock wall. I must have taken my eyes away from him for only a
couple of seconds. If he
had climbed up, I would have caught sight of him before he had reached
the top of the rock wall,
and if he had climbed down, he would also have been visible
from where I
was sitting. I asked don
Juan about don Genaro's whereabouts. He replied, that he
still was standing on the
rock ledge. As far, as I could judge, there was noone there,
but don
Juan maintained over and
over again, that don Genaro was still standing on the rock. He did not
seem to be joking. His
eyes were steady and fierce (violent , intense, ferocious,
extreme, ardent). He said
in a cutting tone, that
my senses were not the proper avenue (opening to a goal) to
appraise
(evaluate, estimate), what don Genaro was
doing. He ordered me to
shut off my internal dialogue. I struggled for a moment and began to
close my eyes.
90-91
Don
Juan lurched (roll
erratically) at me and shook me by the shoulders. He whispered, that I
had to
keep my view on the rock
ledge. I had a sensation
of drowsiness and heard don Juan's words, as if they
were coming from far
away. I automatically looked at the ledge (stone shelf). Don Genaro was
there
again.
That did not interest me. I
noticed semiconsciously, that it was very difficult for me to breathe,
but before I could have a
thought about it, don Genaro jumped to the ground. That act did not
catch my interest either. He came over to me and helped me stand
up, holding me by the arm; don Juan
held my other arm. They
propped (supported) me up between the two of them. Then it was only don
Genaro,
who was helping me walk.
He whispered something in my ear, that I could not understand
and,
suddenly, I felt, that he
had pulled my body in some strange way; he grabbed me, in a manner of
speaking, by the skin of
my stomach and pulled me up to the ledge, or perhaps onto
another rock.
I knew, that for an
instant I was on a rock. I could have sworn, that it was the rock
ledge;
the image was so fleeting,
however, that I could not evaluate it in detail. Then I felt, that
something in me faltered (hesitate) and I fell backwards. I had a faint
feeling of
anguish (torment, torture) or perhaps physical
discomfort. The next thing I knew don Juan was talking to me. I could
not understand him. I concentrated
my attention on his lips.
The sensation I had was dreamlike; I was trying to rip (tear)
from the
inside
an enveloping filmlike
sheet, that encased me, while don Juan tried to rip it from the
outside.
Finally, it actually popped
and don Juan's words became audible and their meaning crystal clear. He
was commanding me to
surface by myself. I struggled desperately to gain my
sobriety; I had
no success. I quite
consciously wondered why I was having so much trouble. I fought to talk
to myself. Don Juan
seemed to be aware of my difficulty. He urged me to try
harder. Something out there was preventing me from
engaging myself in my familiar internal
dialogue. It was as if a
strange force were making me drowsy and indifferent. I fought
against
it, until I began to
lose my breath. I heard don Juan
talking to me. My body
contorted involuntarily with the tension. I felt, as if I
were embraced
and locked in mortal combat
with something, that was keeping me from breathing. I did not have
fear,
but rather some
uncontrollable fury possessed me. My wrath mounted to such
heights, that
I growled and screamed
like an animal. Then my body was taken by a seizure; I had a
jolt, that stopped me
instantly. I could again breathe normally and then I realized, that don
Juan had poured his gourd
of water over my stomach and neck, soaking me. He helped me
sit up. Don
Genaro was
standing on the ledge. He called my
name and then jumped to
the ground. I saw him plummeting down from a height of fifty
feet or so and I
experienced an unbearable sensation around my umbilical region; I had
had the same sensation in
dreams of falling. Don
Genaro came to me and asked me, smiling, if I had liked his
leap. I
tried unsuccessfully to
say something. Don Genaro called my name again. "Carlitos!
Watch me!" he said. He swung his arms at his sides four
or five times, as if to get momentum,
and then jumped out of
sight, or I thought he did. Or perhaps he did something else, for
which I had no description. He was five or six feet away from me
and then he vanished, as if he had
been sucked away by an
uncontrollable force. I
felt aloof (reserved) and tired. I had a sense of
indifference
and did not want
to think or talk to myself.
I was not afraid, but inexplicably sad. I wanted to weep. Don Juan hit
me repeatedly with his
knuckles (protruding bones of a fist) on the top of my head
and laughed,
as if everything, that had
happened, were a joke. He
then demanded, that I talk to myself, because that was the time when
the
internal dialogue was
desperately needed. I heard him ordering me, "Talk! Talk." I had an
involuntary spasm in the
muscles of my lips. My mouth moved
without sounds. I
remembered don Genaro moving his mouth in a similar way, when he was
clowning, and I wished I
could have said, as he had, "My mouth doesn't want to talk."
I tried
to voice the words and my
lips contorted in a painful way. Don Juan seemed to be on the verge of
collapsing with laughter.
His enjoyment was contagious and I also laughed. Finally, he helped me
to stand up. I asked him,
if don Genaro was coming back. He said, that don Genaro had
had enough
of me for the day.
92-93
"You
almost made it," don Juan said. We had been sitting near the fire
in
the earth stove. He had insisted,
that I eat. I was not
hungry, or tired. An unusual melancholy had overtaken me; I felt
removed from all the events of the day. Don Juan handed me my
writing pad. I made a supreme effort to
recapture my usual state.
I jotted down (write hastily, briefly) some comments. Little
by little,
I brought myself
back into my old pattern. It was as if a veil were being lifted;
suddenly I was again involved in my
familiar attitude of interest and bewilderment. "Good,
good," don Juan said,
patting my head. "I've told you, that the
true art of a warrior is to
balance terror and wonder." Don
Juan's mood was unusual. He
seemed almost nervous, anxious. He
appeared to be willing to
speak on his own accord. I believed, that
he was preparing me
for the Sorcerers' Explanation and I became quite anxious myself. His
eyes had a strange
glimmer (intermittent light, flicker), that I had seen only a
few times
before. After I
told him what I thought of his unusual
attitude, he said, that he
was happy for me, that, as a warrior, he could rejoice in the
triumphs of
his fellow men, if they were
triumphs of the spirit. He
added, that unfortunately I was not yet
ready for the Sorcerers' Explanation, in spite of the fact, that I
had successfully solved don
Genaro's riddle. His contention (controvesy, dispute) was, that when
he had poured water over my body, I had actually been
dying and my whole achievement had been canceled out by
my incapacity to fend off (turn aside) the last
of don Genaro's
onslaughts. "Genaro's
power was like a tide,
that engulfed you," he said.
"Did
don Genaro want to hurt
me?" I asked.
"No,"
he said. "Genaro wants to
help you. But power can be met only
with power. He was
testing you and you failed."
"But I
solved his riddle, didn't
I?"
"You
did fine," he said. "So
fine, that Genaro had to believe, that you
were capable of a
complete warrior's feat. You almost made it. What floored you this
time,
was not indulging,
though."
"What
was it then?"
"You're
too impatient and
violent; instead of relaxing and going with
Genaro, you began to fight
him. You can't win against him; he's stronger, than you." Don
Juan then volunteered some
advice and suggestions about my personal
relations with people. His remarks were a serious sequel to what don
Genaro had
jokingly said to me earlier. He was in a talkative mood and
without
any coaxing (urge, persuading) on my part he began to
explain, what had taken
place during the last two times, I had been there. "As
you know," he said, "the
crux (critical point, crucial moment) of sorcery is the internal
dialogue;
that is the key to
everything. When a warrior learns to stop it, everything
becomes
possible; the most far-fetched (improbable in nature) schemes
become attainable (reachable, accomplished). The passageway to all the
weird and eerie
experiences, that you have
had recently, was the fact, that you could stop talking to yourself.
You
have, in complete sobriety (seriousness), witnessed the Ally, Genaro's
Double,
the dreamer and the dreamed, and
today you almost learned
about the
Totality of Yourself ; that was the warrior's feat,
that Genaro
expected you to perform. All this has been possible, because of
the amount of personal power, that you
have stored. It started the
last time you were here, when
I caught sight of a
very auspicious
(promicing, favourable) omen.
As you arrived I heard the Ally
prowling around; first, I heard its soft steps and then I saw
the moth looking at you, as you
got out of your car. The Ally was
motionless, watching you. That to me
was the best omen. Had
the Ally been agitated, moving
around, as if it was
displeased with your
presence, the way it
always has been, the course of the events would have been different.
Many times I have caught
sight of the
Ally in an unfriendly state towards you, but
this time the
omen was right and I knew,
that the Ally had a piece of
knowledge for you. That was the reason why
I said, that you had an
appointment
with knowledge, an
appointment with a moth, that had been
pending (not yet settled) for a long time. For reasons inconceivable
(unbelievable) to us the Ally
selected the form of a moth to
manifest itself to you."
"But
you said, that the Ally was
formless, and that one could only judge
its effects," I said.
"That
is right," he said. "But
the Ally is a moth for the onlookers,
who
are associated with you -
Genaro and myself. For you, the Ally
is only an effect, a sensation
in your body, or a sound, or the
Golden Specks of Knowledge . It remains as a fact,
nonetheless,
that
by choosing the form of a
moth, the Ally is telling Genaro and
me something of great
importance.
Moths are the
Givers of
Knowledge and the Friends and Helpers of Sorcerers.
94-95
It
is because the Ally chose to be a
moth
around you, that Genaro places such a great emphasis on you. That
night, that you met the
moth, as I had anticipated, was a true
appointment with
Knowledge for you. You learned the Moth's Call, felt the gold dust of
its wings, but above all, that night for the first time, you were
aware, that you Saw and your body
learned, that we are Luminous Beings. You have not yet assessed
correctly, that monumental event in
your life. Genaro
demonstrated for you with tremendous force and clarity, that
we are a
feeling and that, what we
call our body, is a Cluster of Luminous Fibers, that have Awareness.
Last night you were back again under
the good auspices (patronage) of the Ally.
I
came to look at you, as you arrived and I knew, that I had
to call Genaro, so he could explain to you the mystery of the
dreamer and the dreamed. You believed then, just as you always have,
that I was tricking you; but Genaro was not hiding in the bushes,
as you thought. He came over for
you, even if your reason
refuses to believe it." That
part of don Juan's
elucidation (clarification) was indeed the hardest to take at
its face value. I could not
admit it. I said, that don Genaro had been real and of this world. "Everything,
that you've
witnessed so far, has been real and of this
world," he said. "There is no other world. Your stumbling block is
a peculiar insistence on your part
and that peculiarity of
yours is not going to be cured by explanations. So today Genaro
addressed himself directly to your body. A careful examination of
what you did today will reveal to
you, that your body put
things together in a most praiseworthy manner. Somehow, you refrained
from indulging in your visions
at the irrigation ditch.
You kept a rare control and aloofness (reserved),
as warriors should; you didn't believe anything, but you
still
acted efficiently and thus you were
capable of following Genaro's call. You actually found him without
any aid from me. When we
arrived at the rock ledge, you were imbued (permeate, saturate) with
power and you
saw Genaro standing, where
other sorcerers have stood, for similar reasons. He
walked over to you after
jumping from the ledge. He himself was all power. Had you proceeded, as
you did earlier by the
irrigation ditch, you would've seen him as he really is, a
Luminous
Being. Instead, you got
frightened, especially when Genaro made you leap. That leap in itself
should have been sufficient
to transport you beyond your boundaries. But you didn't have the
strength and fell back into the world of your reason. Then, of
course, you entered into mortal combat
with yourself. Something
in you, your will, wanted to go with Genaro, while your reason opposed
him. Had I not helped
you, you now would be lying dead and buried in that power
place. But
even with my help the
outcome was dubious for a moment." We
were silent for a few
minutes. I waited for him to speak. Finally I
asked, "Did don Genaro
make me leap up to the rock ledge?"
"Don't
take that leap in the
sense, that you understand a leap," he
said. "Once again, this is only a way of speaking. As long as you
think, that you are a solid body, you
cannot conceive what I am
talking about." He then spilled some ashes on the ground by the
lantern, covering an
area about two feet
square, and drew a diagram with his fingers, a diagram, that
had eight
points interconnected with
lines. It was a geometrical figure. He had
drawn a similar one years
before, when he tried to explain to me,
that it was not an
illusion, that I had observed the same leaf falling four times from the
same tree. The diagram in
the ashes had two epicenters; one he called "reason,"
the other, "will." Reason" was
interconnected directly with a point he called "talking."
Through "talking,"
"reason" was indirectly connected to three other points,
"feeling,"
"dreaming" and "seeing." The other epicenter, "will," was
directly connected to "feeling,"
"dreaming" and "seeing"; but only indirectly to "reason" and
"talking."
I remarked, that the diagram was
different from the one I had recorded
years before. "The
outer form is of no
importance," he said. "These points represent
a human being and can be
drawn in any way you want."
"Do
they represent the body of a
human being?" I asked.
"Don't
call it the body," he
said. "These
are Eight Points on the
fibers of a Luminous Being.
96-97
A
Sorcerer says, as you
can see in the diagram, that a human being is,
first of all, Will, because Will is directly connected to three
points, feeling, dreaming and seeing;
then next, a human being is
reason. This is properly a center, that is smaller, than will; it is
connected only with talking."
"What
are the other two points,
don Juan?"
He
looked at me and smiled. "You're a lot stronger now, than you
were the first time we talked about
this diagram," he said.
"But you're not yet strong enough to know all the eight
points. Genaro
will someday show you the
other two."
"Does
everybody have those eight
points or only sorcerers?"
"We
may say, that every one of us
brings to the world eight points. Two
of them, reason and
talking, are known by everyone. Feeling is always vague, but
somehow
familiar. But only in the
world of sorcerers does one get fully acquainted with dreaming, seeing
and will. And finally, at
the outer edge of that world one encounters the other two.
The eight
points make the Totality of Oneself." He
showed me in the diagram,
that, in essence, all the points could be
made to connect with one
another indirectly. I
asked him again about the two mysterious remaining points. He showed
me, that they were
connected only to "will" and that they were removed from "feeling,"
"dreaming" and "seeing,"
and much more distant from "talking" and "reason." He pointed with his
finger to show, that they
were isolated from the rest and from each other. "Those
two points will never
yield to talking or to reason" he said.
"Only Will can handle
them. Reason is so removed from them, that it is utterly
useless to try
figuring them out. This is
one of the hardest things to realize; after all, the forte of reason is
to reason out everything." I
asked him if the eight points
corresponded to areas or to certain
organs in a human being. "They
do," he replied dryly and
erased the diagram. He
touched my head and said, that that was the center of
"reason" and
"talking". The tip of my
sternum (breastbone) was the center of feeling. The area below the
navel was Will.
Dreaming was on the right
side against the ribs. Seeing on the left. He said, that sometimes in
some warriors seeing and
dreaming were on the right side.
"Where
are the other two
points?" I asked. He gave
me a most obscene (offensive, indecent) answer and broke into a belly
laugh.
"You're so
sneaky," he said. "You think I'm a sleepy old goat, don't
you?"
I
explained to him, that my
questions created their own momentum. "Don't
try to hurry,"
he said.
"You'll know in due time and then you
will be on your own, by
yourself."
"Do
you mean, that I won't see
you any more, don Juan?"
"Not
ever again," he said.
"Genaro and I will be then what we always
have been, dust on the
road."
I had
a jolt in the pit of my
stomach: "What are you
saying, don Juan?"
"I'm
saying, that we all are
unfathomable (too deep to be measured) Beings, Luminous and Boundless.
You, Genaro and I are stuck together by a purpose,
that is not our decision."
"What
purpose are you talking
about?"
"Learning
the warrior's way. You
can't get out of it, but neither can
we. As long, as our
achievement is pending (not yet settled), you will find me or Genaro,
but once it is
accomplished, you will fly
freely and noone knows, where the force of your life will take you."
"What
is don Genaro doing in
this?"
"That
subject is not in your
realm yet," he said. "Today I have to
pound (hammer, strike) the nail, that Genaro put in, the fact, that we
are
Luminous Beings. We are Perceivers. We are
an Awareness; we are not
objects; we have no solidity. We are Boundless. The world of objects
and solidity is a way of making our passage on Earth
- convenient. It is only a description, that
was created to help us. We,
or rather our reason, forget, that the description is only a
description
and thus we entrap the
Totality of Ourselves in a vicious circle, from which we rarely emerge
in our lifetime. At this
moment, for instance, you are involved in extricating (disengage,
release from entanglement)
yourself from the snarls (confused situation) of reason.
It is preposterous
(absurd) and unthinkable for you, that Genaro just
appeared at the edge of the
chaparral, and yet you cannot deny, that you witnessed it.
You
perceived
it as such."
98-99
Don
Juan chuckled (laughed quietly). He carefully drew another diagram
in the ashes and
covered it with his hat
before I could copy it. "We
are Perceivers,"
he
proceeded. "The world, that we perceive, though,
is an Illusion. It was
created by a description, that was told to us since the moment we were
born.
We,
the Luminous Beings, are born with two Rings of Power, but we
use
only One to create the
world. That Ring, which is hooked very soon after we are born,
is
Reason, and its companion is Talking. Between the two they
concoct (fabricate) and maintain the world. So, in essence, the world,
that your
reason wants to sustain, is the
world, created by a
description and its dogmatic and inviolable (sacred, secured) rules,
which the Reason
learns to accept and defend.
The
Secret of the Luminous Beings is,
that they
have another Ring of Power, which is never used, the Will. The
trick of the sorcerer is the same trick of the
average man. Both have a
description; one, the average man, upholds it with his reason; the
other, the
sorcerer, upholds it with his Will. Both
descriptions
have their rules and the rules are
perceivable, but the advantage of the Sorcerer is, that Will is more
engulfing, than reason.
The suggestion, that I want to make at this point is, that from now on
you should let yourself
perceive, whether the description is upheld (support, stand by) by
your
Reason or by your Will. I feel, that is the only way for you to use
your daily world,
as a challenge and a vehicle to
accumulate enough personal
power, in order to get to the Totality of Yourself
(Your Total Self,
LM). Perhaps the next
time, that you come, you'll have enough of it. At any
rate, wait until you feel,
like you felt today at the irrigation ditch, that an inner
voice is
telling you to do so. If you come in any other spirit, it'll be a waste
of
time and a danger to you." I
remarked (commented), that if
I had to wait for that inner voice, I would never see
them again. "You'd
be surprised how well one
can perform, if one is against the
wall," he said. He stood
up and picked up a bundle of firewood. He placed some dry
sticks on the earth stove.
The flames cast a yellowish glow on the ground. He then turned off the
lantern and squatted in
front of his hat, which was covering the drawing he had made in the
ashes. He commanded me to
sit calmly, shut off my internal dialogue, and keep
my eyes on his hat. I
struggled for a few moments and then I felt a sensation of floating, of
falling off a cliff. It was as if nothing were supporting me, as if
I were not sitting or did not have
a body. Don Juan lifted
his hat. Underneath there were spirals of ashes. I
watched them without
thinking. I felt the spirals moving. I felt them in my
stomach. The
ashes seemed to pile up. Then they were stirred and fluffed and
suddenly don Genaro was sitting in
front of me. The sight
forced me instantly into my internal dialogue. I thought,
that
I must have fallen
asleep. I began to breathe in short gasps and tried to open my eyes,
but my eyes were open. I
heard don Juan telling me to get up and move around. I jumped
up and
ran to the ramada. Don
Juan and don Genaro ran after me. Don Juan brought his lantern. I
could not catch my
breath. I tried to calm myself, as I had done before, by jogging in
place while I faced the west. I lifted my arms and began breathing.
Don Juan came to my side and said,
that those movements were
done only in the twilight.
Don Genaro yelled, that it was twilight for me and both of them began
to
laugh. Don Genaro ran to
the edge of the bushes and then bounced back to the ramada,
as
if he had been attached to a giant rubber band, that made him snap
back. He repeated the same
movement three or four times and then came to my side. Don Juan
had been looking at me fixedly,
giggling like a child.
They exchanged a furtive (secretive) glance. Don Juan said to
don
Genaro in a loud
voice, that my reason was
dangerous, and that it could kill me, if it was not placated
(pacifying).
"For
heaven's sake!" don Genaro
exclaimed in a roaring voice. "Placate
his Reason!"
They
jumped up and down and
laughed like two children.
Don Juan made me sit down underneath the lantern and handed me my
notebook.
"Tonight
we're really pulling
your leg," he said in a conciliatory
(soothing) tone. "Don't be afraid. Genaro was hiding under my hat."
Part
2:
The Tonal
and the Nagual
4.
Having to Believe
103-104
I
walked towards downtown on the Paseo de la Reforma. I was tired; the
altitude of Mexico City
no doubt had something to do with it. I could have taken a bus or
a taxi, but somehow, in
spite of my fatigue, I wanted to walk. It was Sunday afternoon. The
traffic was minimal and yet
the exhaust fumes of the buses and trucks with diesel engines
made the
narrow streets of
downtown seem like canyons of smog. I arrived at the Zocalo and
noticed,
that the cathedral of Mexico City
seemed to be more slanted,
than the last time I had seen it. I stepped a few feet inside
the enormous halls. A cynical thought crossed my mind. From there I
headed for the
Lagunilla market. I had no definite purpose
in mind. I walked aimlessly,
but at a good pace,
without looking at anything in
particular. I ended up at the stands of old coins and
secondhand books.
"Hello,
hello! Look who's here!"
someone said, tapping me lightly on
the shoulder. The voice
and the touch made me jump. I quickly turned to my right. My
mouth opened in surprise.
The person, who had spoken to me, was don Juan.
"My
God, don Juan!" I exclaimed
and a shiver shook my body from head to
toe. "What are you doing
here?"
"What
are you doing here?" he
retorted (returned) as an echo. I told him, that I had stopped in the
city for a couple of days before
venturing into the
mountains of central Mexico to search for him. "Well, let's
say then, that I came down from the mountains to find
you,"
he said, smiling. He
patted me on the shoulder several times. He seemed to be glad
to see
me. He put his hands on
his hips and swelled his chest and asked me whether or not I liked
his appearance. It was only
then, that I noticed he was wearing a suit. The full impact
of such an
incongruity (incompatible, inharmonious with surroundings) hit me. I
was dumbfounded (astonished/surp-
rised). "How
do you like my tacuche?" he
asked, beaming. He used the slang word
"tacuche" instead of the
standard Spanish word "traje" for suit. "Today
I'm in a suit," he said,
as if he had to explain; and then,
pointing to my open mouth, he added, "Close it! Close it!" I
laughed absentmindedly. He
noticed my confusion.
His body shook with
laughter, as he turned
around, so I could see him from every angle. His attire was
incredible. He was wearing a light brown suit with pin
stripes,
brown shoes, a white shirt. And a
necktie! And that made me
wonder if he had any socks on, or was he wearing his shoes without
them? What added to my bewilderment, was
the maddening sensation I had had,
that when don Juan tapped
me on the shoulder and I turned around, I thought, I had seen him
in his khaki pants and
shirt, his sandals and his straw hat, and then, as he made me aware of
his attire, and, as I focused my attention on every detail of it,
the complete unit of
his dress
became fixed, as if I had created it with my thoughts. My mouth seemed
to be the area of my body, which
was most taxed (strained) by the surprise.
It opened involuntarily.
Don Juan touched me gently on my
chin, as if he were helping
me to close it. "You
certainly are developing a
double chin," he said and laughed in
short spurts. I became
aware then, that he did not have a hat on, and that his short
white hair was parted on
the right side. He looked like an old Mexican gentleman, an
impeccably
tailored urban dweller. I
told him, that to have found him there, was so unnerving to me, that I
had to sit down. He was
very understanding and suggested, that we go to a nearby
park.
105-106
We
walked a few blocks in complete silence and then we arrived at the
Plaza Garibaldi, a place where musicians offered their
services, a sort of musicians'
employment center. Don
Juan and I merged with scores of spectators and tourists and walked
around the park. After a
while he stopped, leaned against a wall and pulled his pants
up
slightly at the knees; he
was wearing light brown socks. I asked him to tell me the meaning of
his mysterious apparel (attire, clothes). His vague reply
was, that he
simply had
to be in a suit that day for reasons,
that would be clear to me
later. Finding Don Juan
in a suit had been so unearthly, that my agitation was
almost uncontrollable. I
had not seen him for several months and I wanted more, than anything
else in the world, to talk
with him, but somehow the setting was wrong and my attention
meandered
(wandered)
around. Don Juan must
have noticed my anxiety and suggested, that we walk to La Alameda,
a more quiet park a
few
blocks away. There were not too many people in
the park and we had no trouble
finding an empty bench.
We sat down. My nervousness had given way to a feeling of
uneasiness. I
did not dare to look at
don Juan. There was a
long unnerving pause; still without looking at him, I said,
that the inner voice had
finally driven me to search for him, that the staggering
events I had
witnessed at his house had
affected my life very deeply, and that I just had to talk about them.
He made a gesture of impatience with
his hand and said, that his policy
was never to dwell on
past events. "What's
important now is, that
you've fulfilled my suggestion,"
he said.
"You have taken your
daily world as a challenge, and the proof, that you have stored
sufficient personal power is the indisputable fact, that you have
found me with no difficulty whatever,
at the precise spot, where
you were supposed to."
"I
doubt very much, that I could
take credit for that," I said.
"I was
waiting for you and then
you showed up," he said. "That's all I
know; that's all any
warrior would care to know."
"What's
going to happen now,
that I've found you?" I asked.
"For
one thing," he said, "we
won't discuss the dilemmas of your
reason; those experiences
belong to another time and to another mood. They are,
properly
speaking, only steps of an endless ladder; to emphasize them would mean
to take away from the importance
of what's taking place
now. A warrior cannot possibly afford to do that." I had
an almost invincible (unconquerable, unbeatable) desire to complain. It
was not, that
I
resented anything, that had
happened to me, but
I craved solace and sympathy. Don Juan appeared to
know my mood and spoke, as
if I had actually voiced my thoughts. "Only
as a warrior can one
withstand the path of knowledge," he said.
"A warrior cannot
complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and
challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are
simply
challenges."
His
tone was dry and severe, but
his smile was warm and disarming. "Now,
that you are here, what
we'll do is wait for an Omen," he said.
"What
kind of Omen?" I asked.
"We
need to find out whether
your Power can stand on its own," he said.
"The last time it petered
(became exhausted, diminished gradually) out miserably; this time the
circumstances of your personal
life appear to have given you, at
least on the surface, all the
necessaries to deal with the Sorcerers' Explanation."
"Is
there a chance, that you
might tell me about it?" I asked.
"It
depends on your personal
Power," he said. "As is always the case in
the doings and notdoings
of warriors, personal power is the only thing that matters. So far,
I
should say, that you're
doing fine."
After
a moment's silence, as if
wanting to change the subject, he stood
up and pointed to his
suit." I
have
put on my suit for you,"
he said in a mysterious tone. "This
suit is my challenge. Look
how good I look in it! How easy! Eh? Nothing to it !" Don
Juan did look
extraordinarily well in a suit. All I could think of,
as a gauge (measure unit) for comparison, was the way my
grandfather used to look in his heavy English
flannel suit. He always
gave me
the impression, that he felt unnatural, out of place in a suit.
Don Juan, on the contrary,
was so at ease. "Do
you think it is easy for me
to look natural in a suit?" don Juan
asked.
107-108
I
did not know what to say. I concluded to myself, however, that
judging by his appearance
and by the way he conducted himself, it was the easiest thing in the
world for him. "To
wear a suit is a challenge
for me," he said. "A challenge as
difficult, as wearing sandals and a poncho would be for you. You
have never had the necessity to take
that as a challenge,
though. My case is different; I'm an Indian." We
looked at each other. He
raised his brows in a silent question, as
if asking for my comments. "The
basic difference between an
ordinary man and a warrior is, that a
warrior takes everything
as a challenge," he went on, "while an ordinary man takes
everything
either as a blessing, or as a curse. The fact, that you're here
today indicates. that you have tipped
the scales in favor of the
warrior's way." His
stare made me feel nervous.
I tried to get up and walk, but he made
me sit down. "You
are going to sit here
without fretting (distress, vex, gnaw), until we're through,"
he
said imperatively. "We are
waiting for an Omen; we can't proceed without it, because it isn't
enough, that you found me, as it wasn't
enough, that you found
Genaro that day in the desert. Your power
must round itself up and
give an indication."
"I
can't figure out what you
want," I said.
"I saw
something prowling around
this park," he said.
"Was
it the ally?" I asked.
"No.
It wasn't. So, we must sit
here and find out what kind of Omen
your Power is rounding
up."
He
then asked me to give him a
detailed account of how I had carried
out the recommendations,
made by don Genaro and himself, about my daily world and
my relations with people.
I felt a bit embarrassed. He put me at ease with the
argument, that my
personal affairs were not
private, because they included a task of Sorcery, that he and
don Genaro were fostering (rear, nurture, bring up) in me.
I jokingly
remarked, that my
life had been ruined, because of that
task of Sorcery and
recounted the difficulties in maintaining my day-to-day world. I talked
for a long time. Don Juan
laughed at my account, until tears
were rolling down his
cheeks. He slapped his thighs repeatedly; that gesture, which I had
seen him do hundreds of
times, was definitely out of place, when it was done on the pants of a
suit. I was filled with
apprehension, which I was compelled to voice.
"Your
suit scares me more, than
anything you've done to me," I said.
"You'll
get used to it," he
said. "A warrior must be fluid and must
shift harmoniously with the
world around him, whether it is the world of reason, or the world of
Will. The most dangerous
aspect of that shifting comes forth every time the
warrior finds, that the
world is neither one, nor the other. I was told, that the only way
to
succeed in that crucial shifting, was by proceeding in one's
actions, as
if one believed. In other words,
the secret of a warrior is,
that he believes without believing. But obviously, a warrior
cannot just
say he believes and let it go at that. That would be too easy.
To just believe would exonerate (free from the charge, exempt)
him
from examining his
situation. A warrior, whenever he has to involve himself with
believing, does it as a choice, as an expression of his innermost
predilection (preference, predisposition). A warrior doesn't
believe, a
warrior has to believe." He
stared at me for a few
seconds, as I wrote in my notebook. I remained
silent.
I could not say,
that I understood the difference, but I did not want to argue or
ask questions. I wanted to think about what he had said, but my mind
meandered (wandered aimlessly) as I looked around.
On
the street behind us there
was a long line of automobiles and buses, blowing their horns. At the
edge of the park, perhaps
twenty yards away, directly in line with the bench, where we were
sitting, a group of about seven people, including three policemen in
light gray uniforms, stood over a
man lying motionless on
the grass. He seemed to be drunk or perhaps seriously ill. I glanced at
don Juan. He had also
been looking at the man.
I told
him, that for some reason
I was incapable of clarifying by myself,
what he had just said to
me.
"I
don't want to ask questions
any more," I said. "But if I don't ask
you to explain, I don't
understand. Not to ask questions is very abnormal for me."
"Please,
be normal, by all
means," he said with feigned (pretended) seriousness.
109-110
I
said, that I did not understand the difference between believing and
having to believe. To me
both were the same. To conceive, that the statements were
different, was
splitting hairs. "Remember
the story you once
told me about your friend and her cats?"
he asked casually. He
looked up at the sky and leaned back against the bench,
stretching
his legs. He put his
hands behind his head and contracted the muscles of his whole body. As
it always happens, his
bones made a loud cracking sound. He was referring to a story
I had
once told him about a friend of mine,
who found two kittens,
almost dead, inside a dryer in a laundromat. She revived them
and
through excellent nourishment and care groomed them into two
gigantic cats, a black one and a reddish
one. Two years later she
sold her house. Since she could not take the cats
with her and was unable
to find another home for them, all she could do under the circumstances
was, to take them to an
animal hospital and have them put to sleep. I helped her take
them. The
cats had
never been inside a car; she tried
to calm them down. They
scratched and bit her, especially the reddish cat, the one
she
called Max. When we finally
arrived at the animal hospital, she took the black cat first; holding
it in her arms, and without
saying a word, she got out of the car. The cat played with her; pawing
her gently as she pushed
open the glass door to enter the hospital. I glanced at Max; he was
sitting in
the back. The movement of my head
must have scared him, for
he dove under the driver's seat. I made the seat slide
backwards. I did not want to reach under it for fear, that he
would bite
or scratch my hand. The cat was
lying inside a depression on the floor of the car. He seemed very
agitated; his breathing was
accelerated. He looked at me; our eyes met and an overwhelming
sensation possessed me. Something took
hold of my body, a form
of apprehension, despair, or perhaps embarrassment for being
part of
what was taking place. I
felt a need to explain to Max, that it was my friend's decision, and
that I was only helping her. The cat kept on looking at me,
as if
he understood my words. I looked to see if she was coming. I could see
her through the glass
door. She was talking to
the receptionist. My body felt a strange jolt and automatically
I
opened the door of my car. "Run,
Max, run!" I said to the
cat. He jumped out of the
car, dashed across the street with his body close
to the ground, like a true
feline. The opposite side of the street was empty; there were no cars
parked and I could see Max
running down the street alone the gutter. He reached the
corner of a
big boulevard and then dove through the storm drain into the
sewer. My friend came
back. I told her, that Max had left. She got into the car
and we drove away without
saying a single word. In the
months, that followed,
the incident became a symbol to me. I
fancied, or perhaps, I saw a
weird flicker in Max's eyes when he looked at me, before jumping out of
the car. And I believed,
that for an instant, that castrated, overweight, and useless
pet became
a cat. I told don Juan,
that I was convinced, that when Max had run across the
street and plunged into
the sewer his "cat spirit" was impeccable, and that, perhaps,
at no other
time in his life was his
"catness" so evident. The impression, that the incident left on me, was
unforgettable. I told the
story to all of my friends; after telling it and retelling
it, my identification with the cat became quite pleasurable. I thought
myself to be like Max,
overindulgent, domesticated in many
ways, and yet I could not
help thinking, that there was always the possibility of one moment,
in which the spirit of man
might take over my whole being, just like the spirit of
"catness" took
over Max's bloated and
useless body.
Don Juan
had liked the story and had made some casual comments about
it. He had said, that it
was not so difficult to let the spirit of man flow and take
over; to
sustain it, however, was
something, that only a warrior could do.
"What
about the story of the
cats?" I asked.
"You
told me you believed, that
you're taking your chances, like Max,"
he said.
111-112
"I
do believe that."
"What
I've been trying to tell
you is, that as a warrior you cannot just
believe this and let it go
at that. With Max, having to believe means, that you accept the fact,
that his escape might have
been a useless outburst. He might have jumped into the sewer and died
instantly. He might have
drowned or starved to death, or
he might have been eaten by rats. A
warrior considers all those
possibilities and then chooses to believe in accordance with his
innermost predilection (preference, predisposition). As a
warrior, you
have to believe
that Max made it, that he not only
escaped, but that he
sustained his power. You have to believe it. Let's say, that
without
that belief you have nothing." The
distinction became very
clear. I thought, I really had chosen to
believe, that Max had
survived, knowing, that he was handicapped by a lifetime of
soft and
pampered living. "Believing
is a cinch
(certainty)," don Juan went on. "Having to believe is
something else. In this case, for instance, power gave you a
splendid lesson, but you chose to use
only part of it. If you have to believe, however, you must use all
the event."
"I see
what you mean," I said. My mind was in a state of clarity
and I thought, I was grasping his
concepts with no effort at
all.
"I'm
afraid you still don't
understand," he said, almost whispering. He stared at me. I held his
look for
a moment. "What about the
other cat?" he asked.
"Uh?
The other cat?" I repeated
involuntarily. I had
forgotten about it. My symbol had rotated around Max. The other
cat was of no consequence
to me.
"But
he is!" don Juan exclaimed
when I voiced my thoughts. ''Having to
believe means, that you
have to also account for the other cat. The one, that went
playfully,
licking the hands, that were
carrying him to his doom. That was the cat, that went to his death
trustingly, filled with his cat's judgments. You think, you're like
Max,
therefore
you have forgotten about the
other cat. You don't even
know his name. Having to believe means, that you must consider
everything, and before deciding, that you are like Max, you
must
consider, that you maybe like the other
cat; instead of running for
your life and taking your chances, you may be going to your
doom
happily, filled with your
judgments."
There
was an intriguing sadness
in his words, or perhaps the sadness
was mine. We remained
quiet for a long time. Never had
it crossed my mind, that I might be
like the other cat. The thought was very distressing to me. A mild
commotion and the muffled
sound of voices suddenly forced me out
of my mental
deliberations (thoughtful and lengthy consideration). Policemen were
dispersing some people gathered around
the man, lying on the
grass. Someone had propped the man's head on a rolled up
jacket. The
man was lying parallel to
the street. He was facing east. From where I sat, I could almost tell,
that
his eyes were open.
Don Juan sighed. "What
a magnificent afternoon,"
he said, looking at the sky.
"I
don't like Mexico City," I
said.
"Why
not?"
"I
hate the smog." He
shook his head rhythmically
is if he were agreeing with me. "I
would rather be with you in
the desert, or in the mountains," I said.
"If I
were you, I would never say
that," he said.
"I
didn't mean anything wrong,
don Juan."
"We
both know that. It is not
what you mean, that matters, though. A
warrior, or any man for
that matter, cannot possibly wish, he were somewhere else; a
warrior,
because he lives by
challenge, an ordinary man, because he doesn't know where his death is
going to find him. Look
at that man over there, lying on the grass.
What do you think is
wrong with him?"
"He's
either drunk or ill," I
said.
"He's
dying!" don Juan said with
ultimate conviction. "When we sat down
here, I caught a glimpse
of his death, as it circled around him. That's why I told you
not to get up; rain or shine, you can't get up from this
bench,
until the end. This is the Omen we
have been waiting for. It is late afternoon.
Right now the sun is about to set.
113-114
It
is your hour of Power. Look! The
view of that man is only
for us." He
pointed out from where we sat,
we had an unobstructed view of
the man. A group of
curious bystanders were gathered in a half circle on the
other side of
him, opposite us. The
sight of the man, lying on the grass, became very disturbing to me.
He was lean and dark,
still young. His black hair was short and curly. His shirt was
unbuttoned and his chest was uncovered. He was wearing an orange
cardigan sweater with holes in the
elbows, and some old beat
up gray slacks. His shoes, of some undefined faded color, were
untied. He was rigid. I could not tell whether or not he was
breathing. I wondered, if he were dying,
as don Juan had said. Or
was don Juan simply using the event to make a point? My past
experiences with him gave me the certainty, that somehow he
was making
everything fit into some
mysterious scheme of his.
After a long silence I turned to him. His eyes were closed. He began
to
talk without opening them. "That
man is about to die now,"
he said. "You don't believe it, though,
do you?" He
opened his eyes and stared at
me for a second. His look was so
penetrating, that it stunned
me.
"No. I
don't believe it," I said. I really felt, that the whole thing
was too easy. We had come to sit in
the park and right there, as if everything were being staged,
was a man dying.
"The
world adjusts itself to
itself," don Juan said after listening to
my doubts. "This is not a
setup. This is an Omen, an act of Power. The world, upheld by
reason,
makes
all this into an event, that we can
watch for a moment on our
way to more important things. All we can say about it is, that a man
is lying on the grass in the park, perhaps drunk. The world
upheld by Will makes it
into an act of power, which we can
see. We can see death
whirling around the man, setting its hooks deeper and deeper
into his
Luminous Fibers. We can see
the Luminous Strings losing their tautness (firm, stiffness) and
vanishing one by one. Those are the two possibilities, opened
to us - Luminous Beings. You are
somewhere in the middle,
still wanting to have everything under the rubric (title, heading) of
reason.
And yet, how can you discard the fact, that your personal
power
rounded up an Omen? We came to this
park, after you had found
me where I had been waiting for you - you found me by just walking into
me, without thinking, or
planning, or deliberately using your reason - and after we sat down
here to wait for an Omen,
we became aware of that man, each of us noticed him in our
own way, you
with your reason, I with
my Will. That dying man
is one of the cubic centimeters of chance, that Power
always makes available to
a warrior. The warrior's art is to be perennially fluid in order to
pluck it. I have plucked it, but have you?" I
could not answer. I became
aware of an immense chasm (gap, difference of opinions) within myself
and for a moment I was
somehow cognizant (aware, fully informed) of the two worlds
he was
talking about.
"What
an exquisite Omen this
is!" he went on. "And all for you. Power
is showing you, that
death is the indispensable (essential, required) ingredient
in having
to believe. Without the Awareness of death everything is ordinary,
trivial. It
is only because death is stalking
us, that the world is an
unfathomable (too deep to be measured) mystery. Power has shown you
that. All I have done myself
is to round up the
details of the Omen, so the direction would be clear to you;
but in
rounding up the details, I have also shown you, that everything I
have said to you today, is what I have
to believe myself, because
that is the predilection (preference) of my Spirit." We
looked each other in the eye
for a moment.
"I
remember a poem, that you
used to read to me," he said, moving his
eyes to the side. "About
a man, who vowed to die in Paris. How does it go?"
The
poem was Cesar Vallejo's
"Black Stone on a White Stone." I had read
and recited the first two
stanzas to don Juan countless times at his request.
115
"I
will
die in Paris while it
rains, on a
day, which I already
remember.
I will
die in Paris - and I do
not run away -
perhaps
in the Autumn, on a
Thursday, as it is today.
It will be a Thursday, because today, the
Thursday, that I write these
lines,
my
bones feel the turn, and
never so much as today, in
all my road,
have I
seen myself alone."
The
poem summed up an
indescribable melancholy for me. Don Juan whispered, that he had to
believe, that the dying man had had enough personal power to
enable him
to choose the streets of Mexico
City, as the place of his
death. "We're
back again to the story
of the two cats," he said. "We have to
believe, that Max became
aware of what was stalking him and, like that man over
there, had enough power
at least to choose the place of his end. But then
there was the other
cat, just like there are
other men, whose death will encircle them
while they are alone,
unaware, staring at the walls and ceiling of an ugly barren
room. That man, on the
other hand, is dying where he has always lived, in the streets.
Three policemen are his
guards of honor. And as he fades away
his eyes will catch a
last glimpse of the lights in the stores across the street
- the cars, the trees,
the throngs (large group) of people milling around (going
through some
process) - and his ears will be
flooded for the last time
with the sounds of traffic and the voices of men and women, as
they walk by. So you see, without an Awareness of
the presence of our death there is
no
power,
no mystery."
I
stared at the man for a long
time. He was motionless. Perhaps he was
dead. But my disbelief
did not matter any longer.
Don Juan was right. Having
to believe, that the
world is mysterious and unfathomable was the
expression of a warrior's
innermost predilection (preferece).
Without it he had nothing.
5. The
Island
of The Tonal
116-117
Don
Juan and I met again the
next day at the same park around noon. He
was still wearing his
brown suit. We sat on a bench; he took off his coat, folded it
very
carefully, but with an air of supreme casualness, and laid it on
the bench. His casualness was very
studied and yet it was
completely natural. I caught myself staring at him. He seemed
to be
aware of the paradox he was
presenting to me and smiled. He straightened his necktie. He had on a
beige long-sleeved shirt. It fitted him very well. "I
still have on my suit,
because I want to tell you something of great
importance," he said,
patting me on the shoulder. "You had a good performance
yesterday. Now
it is time to come to
some final agreements." He
paused for a long-moment. He
seemed to be preparing a statement. I
had a strange feeling in
my stomach. My immediate assumption was, that he was going to
tell me
the Sorcerers' Explanation. He stood up a couple of times and paced
back and forth in
front of me, as if it were
difficult to voice what he had in mind. "Let's
go to the restaurant
across the street and have a bite to eat,"
he finally said. He
unfolded his coat, and, before he put it on, he showed me,
that it was
fully lined. "It is made
to order," he said and smiled as if he were proud of it, as
if it mattered. "I have
to call your attention to it, or you wouldn't notice it, and
it
is very important, that you
are aware of it. You are aware of everything only when you think you
should be; the condition of
a warrior, however, is to be aware of everything at all times. My suit
and all this paraphernalia
(personal belonings) is important, because it represents
my condition in life. O rather,
the condition of one of the two parts of my totality. This
discussion has been pending. I feel, that now is the time to have
it. It has to be done properly,
though, or it will never make sense. I wanted my suit to give you the
first clue. I think it has. Now is the
time to talk, for in matters of this topic there is no
complete
understanding without talking."
"What
is the topic, don Juan?"
"The
Totality of Oneself (Total
Self, LM)", he said,
stood up abruptly and led me to a restaurant in a large hotel across
the street. A hostess
with a rather unfriendly disposition (temperament, character,
personality) gave us a table inside in a back
corner. Obviously the choice places were around the windows. I told don
Juan,
that the woman
reminded me of another hostess in a
restaurant in Arizona,
where don Juan and I had once gone to eat, who had asked us, before she
handed out
the menu, if
we had enough money to pay. "I
don't blame this poor woman
either," don Juan said, as if
sympathizing with her. "She too, like the other one, is afraid
of
Mexicans."
He
laughed softly. A couple of
people at the adjacent tables turned
their heads around and
looked at us. Don Juan
said, that without knowing, or, perhaps, even in spite of
herself, the hostess had given us the best table in the house, a
table, where we could talk, and I could
write to my heart's content. I had just taken my writing pad
out
of my pocket and put it on the
table, when the waiter
suddenly loomed (tower above) over us. He also seemed to be in a bad
mood.
He stood
over us with a
challenging
air. Don Juan proceeded to order a very
elaborate meal for himself. He
ordered without looking at
the menu, as if he knew it by heart. I was at a loss; the
waiter had
appeared unexpectedly and I
had not had time to read the menu, so I told him, that I would
have the
same.
118-119
Don
Juan whispered in my ear, "I bet you, that they don't have what
I've
ordered." He stretched his arms and legs and
told me to relax and sit comfortably,
because the meal was
going to take forever to be prepared. "You are at a very poignant
(agreeably intense) crossroad," he said. "Perhaps the last one,
and also perhaps the most
difficult one to understand. Some of the things I am going to
point out to you today will
probably never be clear. They are not supposed to be clear anyway.
So
don't be embarrassed or
discouraged. All of us are dumb creatures, when we join the world of
Sorcery, and to join it
doesn't in any sense insure us, that we will change. Some of
us remain
dumb, until the very end." I
liked it when he included himself among the idiots. I
knew, that
he
did not do it out of
kindness, but as a didactic (pedantic, moralising) device. "Don't
fret (agitate) if you
don't make sense out of what I'm going to tell you,"
he continued.
"Considering your temperament, I'm afraid, that you might
knock
yourself
out trying to understand.
Don't! What I'm about to say is meant only to point out a
direction."
I had
a sudden feeling of
apprehension (agitation). Don Juan's admonitions forced
me into an endless
speculation. He had warned me on other occasions, in very much the same
fashion, and every time
he had done so, what he was warning me about, had turned out to be
a devastating issue.
"It
makes me very nervous when
you talk to me this way," I said.
"I
know it," he replied calmly.
"I'm deliberately trying to get you on
your toes. I need your
attention, your undivided attention." He
paused and looked at me, I
laughed nervously and involuntarily. I
knew, that he was
stretching the dramatic possibilities of the situation as far, as he
could. "I'm
not telling you all this
for effect," he said, as if he had read
my thoughts.
"I am simply
giving you time to make the proper adjustments." At
that moment the waiter
stopped at our table to announce, that they
did not have what we had
ordered. Don Juan laughed out loud and ordered tortillas and beans. The
waiter chuckled (quiet
laugh) scornfully (with contempt, disdain, unworthiness) and said, that
they did not serve them and suggested steak or
chicken. We settled for
some soup. We
ate
in silence. I did not
like the soup and could not finish it, but
don Juan ate all of his. "I
have put on my suit," he said
all of a sudden, "in order to tell you
about something,
something you already know, but which needs to be clarified, if it is
going to be effective. I have waited until now, because
Genaro
feels, that you have to be not only
willing to undertake the road of knowledge, but your efforts by
themselves must be impeccable enough
to make you worthy of
that knowledge. You have done well. Now I will tell you the
Sorcerers' Explanation." He
paused again, rubbed his
cheeks and played with his tongue inside
his mouth, as if he were
feeling his teeth.
"I'm
going to tell you about the
tonal and the nagual" he said and
looked at me piercingly.
This was the first time in our association, that he had used those two
terms. I was vaguely
familiar with them through the anthropological literature on
the
cultures of central Mexico. I knew, that the "tonal" (pronounced,
toh-na'hl) was thought to be a kind
of guardian spirit, usually
an animal, that a child obtained at birth and with which he
had
intimate ties for the rest of his life. "Nagual" (pronounced,
nah-wa'hl) was
the name given to the animal, into
which sorcerers could
allegedly (claim to exist) transform themselves, or to the
sorcerer,
that elicited (performed, draw out, evoke) such a
transformation. "This
is my tonal" don Juan
said, rubbing his hands on his chest.
"Your
suit?"
"No.
My person."
He
pounded (strike) his chest
and his thighs and the side of his ribs. "My
tonal is all this." He
explained, that every
human
being had two sides, two separate
entities, two counterparts, which became operative at the
moment of birth; one was called the
"tonal" and the other the
"nagual." I
told
him, what anthropologists
knew about the two concepts. He let me
speak without
interrupting me.
120-121
"Well,
whatever you may think you know about them, is pure nonsense," he
said. "I base this
statement on the fact, that whatever I'm telling you about the tonal
and
the nagual, could not
possibly have been told to you before. Any idiot would know, that you
know nothing about them,
because in order to be acquainted with them, you would have
to be a
sorcerer and you aren't. Or
you would've had to talk about them with a sorcerer and you haven't. So
disregard everything you've
heard before, because it
is inapplicable."
"It
was only a comment," I said.
He
raised his brows in a comical
gesture.
"Your
comments are out of
order," he said. "This time I need your
undivided attention, since I am going to acquaint you with
the
tonal and the nagual. Sorcerers have
a special and unique
interest in that knowledge. I would say, that the tonal and the nagual
are in the exclusive realm of Men of Knowledge. In your case,
this
is the lid, that closes everything
I have taught you. Thus, I
have waited until now to talk about them. "The
tonal is not an animal, that
guards a person. I would rather say,
that it is a guardian, that
could be represented as an animal. But that is not the
important
point." He smiled and winked at me. "I'm using your own words now," he
said. "The tonal
is the social
person." He laughed, I
supposed, at the sight of my bewilderment. "The tonal is, rightfully
so, a
protector, a guardian - a guardian, that
most of the time turns into
a guard." I
fumbled (touched nervously)
with my notebook. I was trying to pay attention to what he
was saying. He laughed
and mimicked my nervous movements. "The
tonal is the organizer of
the world," he proceeded. "Perhaps the
best way of describing
its monumental work is to say, that on its shoulders rests
the task of
setting the chaos of the world in order. It is not farfetched
(doubtful, improbable in nature, unlikely) to maintain, as
sorcerers
do, that
everything we know and do as men, is the work of the tonal. At this
moment, for instance, what
is engaged in trying to make sense
out of our conversation
is your tonal; without it there would be only weird sounds and grimaces
and you wouldn't
understand a thing of what I'm saying. I would say then, that
the tonal
is
a guardian, that protects something
priceless, our very being.
Therefore, an inherent quality of the tonal is to be cagey (unwilling
to disclose information) and jealous
of its doings. And since its doings are by far the most important
part of our lives, it is no wonder,
that it eventually changes in every one of us, from a
guardian
into a guard." He
stopped and asked me if I had
understood. I automatically nodded my
head affirmatively and he
smiled with an air of incredulity.
"A
guardian is broad-minded and
understanding," he explained. "A guard,
on the other hand, is a
vigilante (on the alert, watchful), narrow-minded and most of
the time
despotic. I say,
then, that the tonal in all of us has been made into a petty and
despotic guard, when it should be a
broad-minded guardian." I
definitely was not following the trend of his explanation. I
heard
and wrote down every word
and yet I seemed to be stuck with some internal dialogue of my own.
"It is
very hard for me to
follow your point," I said.
"If
you didn't get hooked on
talking to yourself you would have no
quarrels," he said cuttingly. His remark threw me into a long
explanatory statement. I finally caught
myself and apologized for my insistence on defending
myself. He smiled and
made a gesture, that seemed to indicate, that my attitude
had not really annoyed
him.
"The
tonal is everything we
are," he proceeded. "Name
it! Anything we
have a word for is the
tonal. And since the tonal is its own doings, then everything,
obviously, has to fall under its domain." I
reminded him, that he had
said, that the tonal was the social person, a
term, which I myself had
used with him to mean a human being, as the end result of
socialization
processes. I pointed out,
that if the tonal was that product, it could not be everything, as he
had said, because the world
around us was not the product of socialization.
122-123
Don
Juan reminded me, that my argument had no basis for him, and that,
long before, he had
already made the point, that there was no world at large, but
only a
description of the world, which we had learned to visualize and take
for granted. "The
tonal is everything we
know," he said. "I
think this in itself
is
enough reason for then
tonal to be such an overpowering affair." He
paused for a moment. He
seemed to be definitely waiting for comments
or questions, but I had
none. Yet I felt obligated to voice a question and struggled
to
formulate an appropriate one. I failed. I felt, that the admonitions
(warnings), with which he had opened our
conversation, had perhaps served as a deterrent to any inquiry on my
part. I felt strangely numb. I
could not concentrate and order my thoughts. In fact, I felt
and
knew, without the shadow of a doubt,
that I was incapable of
thinking and yet I knew this without thinking, if that were at all
possible. I looked at don
Juan. He was staring at the middle part of my body. He
lifted his eyes and my
clarity of mind returned instantly. "The
tonal is everything we
know," he repeated slowly. "And that
includes not only us, as
persons, but everything in our world. It can be said, that the tonal is
everything, that meets the eye. We begin to groom it at the moment
of birth. The moment we take the
first gasp of air we also
breathe in power for the tonal. So, it is proper to say, that the
tonal of a human being is
intimately tied to his birth. You
must remember this point.
It is of great importance in
understanding all this. The tonal begins at birth and ends at death." I
wanted to recapitulate all the
points, that he had made. I went as far,
as opening my mouth to
ask him to repeat the salient (outstanding) points of our
conversation,
but to my
amazement I could not vocalize my words. I was experiencing a
most
curious incapacity, my words were
heavy and I had no
control over that sensation. I looked at don Juan to signal
him,
that I could not talk. He was again
staring at the area
around my stomach. He
lifted his eyes and asked me how I felt. Words poured out of me, as
if I had been unplugged.
I told him, that I had been having the peculiar sensation of
not being able to talk or
think and yet my thoughts had been crystal clear. "Your
thoughts have been crystal
clear?" he asked. I
realized then, that the clarity had not pertained (related) to my
thoughts, but
to my perception of the
world.
"Are
you doing something to me,
don Juan?" I asked.
"I am
trying to convince you,
that your comments are not necessary," he
said and laughed.
"You
mean, you don't want me to
ask questions?"
"No,
no. Ask anything you want,
but don't let your attention waver (sway)." I had
to admit, that I had been
distracted by the immensity of the topic.
"I still cannot understand,
don
Juan, what you mean by the statement,
that the tonal is
everything," I said after a moment's pause.
"The
tonal is what makes the
world."
"Is
the tonal the creator of the
world?"
Don
Juan scratched his temples. "The
tonal makes the world only
in a manner of speaking. It can not
create or change
anything, and yet it makes the world, because its function is
to judge,
and assess, and witness. I
say, that the tonal makes the world, because it witnesses and assesses
it
according to tonal rules. In a very strange manner the tonal is a
creator, that doesn't create a
thing. In other words, the tonal makes up the rules, by which it
apprehends (trust mentally) the world. So, in a
manner of
speaking, it creates the
world." He
hummed a popular tune,
beating the rhythm with his fingers on the
side of his chair. His
eyes were shining; they seemed to sparkle. He chuckled (quiet
laugh),
shaking his
head. "You're not
following me," he said, smiling.
"I am.
I have no problems," I
said, but I did not sound very convincing.
"The
tonal is an island," he
explained. "The
best way of describing it
is to say, that the tonal is
this." He ran his hand
over the table top.
124-125
"We can say, that the
tonal is like the top of this table. An island.
And on this island we have
everything. This island is, in fact, the world. There is a personal
tonal for everyone of us, and there is a
collective one for all of us at any given time, which we can call the
tonal of the times."
He
pointed to the rows of tables in the restaurant. "Look!
Every table has the same
configuration (arrangement). Certain items are
present on all of them. They are, however, individually different
from each other; some tables are
more crowded, than others;
they have different food on them, different plates, different
atmosphere, yet we have to admit, that all the tables in this
restaurant
are very alike. The same thing
happens with the tonal. We can say, that the tonal of the times is what
makes us alike, in the same way it
makes all the tables in this restaurant alike. Each table
separately, nevertheless, is an individual
case, just like the personal tonal of each of us. But the
important factor to keep in mind is, that
everything we know about ourselves
and about our world,
is on the island of the tonal. See what I
mean?"
"If
the tonal is everything we
know about ourselves and our world,
what, then, is the nagual?"
"The
nagual is the part of us,
which we do not deal with at all."
"I beg
your pardon?"
"The
nagual is the part of us,
for which there is no description - no
words, no names, no
feelings, no knowledge."
"That's
a contradiction, don
Juan. In my opinion, if it can't be felt or
described or named, it
cannot exist."
"It's
a contradiction only in
your opinion. I warned you before, don't
knock yourself out trying
to understand this."
"Would
you say, that the nagual
is the mind?"
"No.
The mind is an item on the
table. The mind is part of the tonal.
Let's say, that the mind is
the chili sauce." He took
a bottle of sauce and placed it in front of me.
"Is
the nagual the soul?"
"No.
The soul is also on the
table. Let's say, that the soul is the
ashtray."
"Is it
the thoughts of men?"
"No. Thoughts
are also on the table. Thoughts are like the silverware."
He picked up a fork and placed it
next to the chili sauce and the
ashtray.
"Is it
a state of grace? Heaven?"
"Not
that either. That, whatever
it might be, is also part of the
tonal. It is, let's say, the napkin." I went
on giving possible ways
of describing what he was alluding (make an indirect reference) to:
pure intellect, psyche,
energy, vital force, immortality, life principle. For each thing I
named he found an item on the table to serve, as a
counterpart and
shoved it in front of me, until he
had all the objects on the table stashed in one pile. Don Juan seemed
to be enjoying
himself immensely.
He giggled and
rubbed
his hands every time I
named another possibility.
"Is
the nagual the Supreme
Being, the Almighty, God?" I asked.
"No.
God is also on the table.
Let's say, that God is the tablecloth." He made a joking gesture of
pulling
the tablecloth, in order to stack it
up with the rest of the
items he had put in front of me.
"But,
are you saying, that God
does not exist?"
"No.
I
didn't say that. All I
said was, that the nagual was not God,
because God is an item of
our personal tonal and of the tonal of the times. The tonal is, as
I've
already said, everything we think
the world is composed of,
including God, of course. God has no
more importance other, than
being a part of the tonal of our time."
"In my
understanding, don Juan,
God is everything. Aren't we talking
about the same thing?"
"No.
God is only
everything you
can think of, therefore, properly
speaking, he is only another item on the island. God cannot be
witnessed at will, he can only be
talked about. The nagual, on the other hand, is at the service of
the warrior. It can be witnessed,
but it cannot be talked about."
"If
the nagual is not any of the
things I have mentioned," I said,
"perhaps you can tell me
about its location. Where is it?"
Don
Juan made a sweeping gesture
and pointed to the area beyond the
boundaries of the table.
126-127
He
swept his hand, as if with the back of it he were cleaning an
imaginary surface, that went beyond the edges of the table. "The
nagual is there," he said.
"There, surrounding the island. The
nagual is there, where
power hovers. We sense,
from the moment we are born, that there are two parts to us.
At the time of birth, and
for a while after, we are all nagual. We sense, then, that in
order
to function, we need a
counterpart to what we have. The tonal is missing and that gives us,
from the very beginning, a
feeling of incompleteness. Then the tonal starts to develop and it
becomes utterly important to our functioning, so important, that
it opaques the shine of the nagual,
it overwhelms it. From the
moment we become all tonal we do nothing else, but to increment
(enlarge in size) that old
feeling of
incompleteness, which accompanies us from the moment of our birth, and
which tells us
constantly, that there is another part to give us completeness. From
the moment we become all tonal
we begin making pairs. We sense
our two sides, but we
always represent them with items of the tonal. We say, that the two
parts of us are the soul and the body. Or mind and matter. Or
good and evil. God and Satan. We never
realize, however, that we
are merely pairing things on the island, very much like pairing
coffee and tea, or bread and tortillas,
or chili and mustard.
I tell you, we are weird animals. We
get carried away and in our
madness we believe ourselves to be making perfect sense." Don
Juan stood up and addressed
me, as if he were an orator. He pointed
his index finger at me
and made his head shiver. "Man
doesn't move between good
and evil," he said in a hilariously
rhetorical (showy, concerned with effect) tone, grabbing the salt and
pepper shakers in both
hands. "His true movement is
between negativeness and
positiveness."
He
dropped the salt and pepper
and clutched a knife and fork. "You're
wrong! There is no
movement,"
he continued, as if he were
answering himself. "Man
is only mind!" He took
the bottle of sauce and held it up. Then he put it down. "As
you can see," he said softly, "we can easily replace chili
sauce
for mind and end up
saying, 'Man is only chili sauce!' Doing, that won't make us more
demented, than we already are."
"I'm
afraid I haven't asked the
right question," I said. "Maybe we
could arrive at a better
understanding, if I asked what one can specifically find in that area
beyond the island?"
"There
is no way of answering
that. If I would say, Nothing, I would
only make the nagual part
of the tonal. All I can say is that there, beyond the island, one
finds the nagual"
"But,
when you call it the
nagual, aren't you also placing it on the
island?"
"No. I
named it only, because I
wanted to make you aware of it."
"All
right! But becoming aware
of it is the step, that has turned the
nagual into a new item of
my tonal"
"I'm
afraid you do not
understand. I have named the tonal and the
nagual as a true pair. That
is all I have done." He
reminded me, that once, while
trying to explain to him my insistence
on meaning, I had
discussed the idea, that children might not be capable of comprehending
the difference between
"father" and "mother", until they were quite developed in
terms of
handling meaning, and that
they would perhaps believe, that it might be that "father" wears pants
and "mother" skirts, or other differences dealing with hairstyle,
or size of body, or items of
clothing. "We
certainly do the same thing
with the two parts of us," he said. "We
sense, that there is
another side to us. But when we try to pin down that other side, the
tonal gets hold of the baton (conductor stick), and as a director it is
quite petty
and jealous.
It dazzles us with its
cunningness and forces us to obliterate (destroy, wipe out) the
slightest inkling (hint, vague idea) of the other part of the true
pair,
the nagual."
128-129
As
we left the restaurant, I told don Juan, that he had been correct in
warning me about the
difficulty of the topic, and that my intellectual prowess
(outstanding
ability, skill) was
inadequate to grasp his concepts and explanations. I suggested, that
perhaps, if I should go to my hotel and
read my notes, my
comprehension of the subject might improve. He tried to put
me at ease;
he said, that I was
worrying about words. While he was speaking I experienced a shiver, and
for an instant
I sensed, that there was
indeed another area within me. I mentioned to don Juan, that I was
having some inexplicable feelings.
My statement apparently
aroused his curiosity. I told him, that I had had the same
feelings before, and that they seemed
to be momentary lapses
(failure, minor slip, decline), interruptions in my flow of
awareness.
They always manifested
themselves as a jolt in my body, followed by the sensation, that I was
suspended in something.
We headed for downtown, walking leisurely. Don Juan
asked me
to
relate
all the details of my
lapses, I had a hard time describing them, beyond the point of
calling them moments of
forget-
fulness, or absent-mindedness, or not watching what I was doing. He
patiently rebuffed (refused,
repelled) me. He pointed out, that I was a demanding person,
had an
excellent memory,
and was very careful in my actions. It had occurred to me at
first, that those peculiar
lapses were associated with stopping the internal dialogue,
but I also
had had them, when I had
talked to myself extensively. They seemed to stem from an area
independent of everything I
knew. Don Juan patted me on the back. He smiled with apparent delight.
"You're finally beginning to make
real connections," he said. I
asked him to explain his
cryptic statement, but he abruptly stopped
our conversation and
signaled me to follow him to a small park in front of a church. "This
is the end of our journey to
downtown," he said and sat down on a
bench.
"Right here
we
have an ideal spot to watch
people. There are some, who walk by on
the street and others, who
come to church. From here we can see everyone."
He
pointed to a wide business
street and to the gravel walk leading to
the steps of the church.
Our bench was located midway between the church and the
street. "This
is my very favorite
bench," he said, caressing the wood. He winked at me and added with a
grin, "It likes me. That's why noone
was sitting on it. It
knew I was coming."
"The
bench knew that?"
"No!
Not the bench. My nagual."
"Does
the nagual have
consciousness? Is it aware of things?"
"Of
course. It is aware of
everything. That's why I'm interested in
your account. What you call
lapses and feelings is the nagual. In order to talk about it we
must
borrow from the island of the tonal, therefore it is more
convenient not to explain it, but to simply
recount (narrate effects, enumerate) its effects." I
wanted to say something else
about those peculiar feelings, but he
hushed me.
"No
more. Today is not the day
of the nagual, today is the day of the
tonal" he said. "I put on
my suit, because today I am all tonal." He
stared at me. I was about to
tell him, that the subject was proving
to be more difficult, than
anything he had ever explained to me; he seemed to have
anticipated my
words. "It
is
difficult," he continued.
"I know it. But considering, that this
is the final lid, the last stage of what I've been teaching
you, it
is not too farfetched (doubtful) to say, that it
envelops everything I
mentioned since the first day we met." We
remained quiet for a long
while. I felt, that I had to wait for him
to resume his explanation,
but I had a sudden attack of apprehension and hurriedly asked, "Are the
nagual and the tonal
within ourselves?"
130-131
He
looked at me piercingly. "Very
difficult question," he
said. "You yourself would say, that they
are within ourselves. I
myself would say, that they are not, but neither of us would
be right.
The tonal of your time calls for you to maintain, that everything
dealing with your feelings and
thoughts takes place within
yourself.
The sorcerers' tonal says the opposite, everything is
outside. Who's right? Noone. Inside, outside, it doesn't really
matter." I
raised a point. I said, that
when he talked about the tonal and the
nagual it sounded, as if
there was still a third part. He had said, that the tonal "forces us"
to
perform acts. I asked him to tell me, who he was referring to as
being forced.
He did
not answer me directly. "To
explain all this is not that
simple," he said. "No matter how
clever the checkpoints of the tonal are, the fact of the
matter is,
that the nagual surfaces. Its
coming to the surface is always inadvertent,
(accidental,
unintentional) though. The tonal's great art is to suppress
any
manifestation of the nagual in such a manner, that even if its presence
should be the most obvious thing in
the world, it is unnoticeable."
"For
whom is it unnoticeable?"
He
chuckled, shaking his head up
and down. I pressed him for an answer. "For
the tonal" he said. "I'm
speaking about it exclusively. I may go
around in circles, but that
shouldn't surprise or annoy you. I warned you about the difficulty of
understanding what I have to tell. I went through all that
rigamarole (complicated set of procedures), because my tonal
is aware,
that
it is speaking about itself. In other words, my tonal is using
itself in order to understand the
information I want your tonal to be clear about. Let's say,
that the
tonal, since it is keenly aware of
how taxing (pricy) it is to speak of itself, has created the terms
'I,'
'myself,' and so forth, as a balance
and thanks to them, it can talk with other tonals, or with itself,
about itself. Now when I
say, that the tonal forces us to do something, I don't mean,
that there is a third
party there. Obviously it forces itself to follow its own judgments. On
certain occasions, however, or under certain special circumstances,
something in the tonal
itself becomes aware, that there is more to us. It is like a voice,
that comes from the depths,
the Voice of the Nagual. You see, the Totality of Ourselves is
a
natural condition, which the tonal cannot obliterate (wipe out)
altogether, and there are moments, especially in the
life of a warrior, when the
Totality becomes apparent. At those moments one
can surmise (make a
guess) and assess
what we really are. I
was concerned with
those jolts you have had, because that is the way
the nagual surfaces. At
those moments the tonal becomes aware of the Totality of Oneself. It
is always a jolt, because
that Awareness disrupts the lull (rest, sleep).
I call that Awareness -
the Totality of
the Being, that is going to die. The idea is, that at the moment of
death the other member of the true
pair, the nagual, becomes
fully operative and the Awareness and
memories and perceptions, stored
in our calves and thighs,
in our back and shoulders and neck, begin to expand and
disintegrate.
Like the beads of an
endless broken necklace, they fall asunder (one by one) without the
Binding Force of Life." He
looked at me. His eyes were
peaceful. I felt ill at ease, stupid.
"The
Totality of Ourselves (which
are the sum of our Higher Selves, in a form of
Suns,
LM)
is a very tacky (sticky, offensive) affair," he said.
"We
need
only a very small portion
of it to fulfill the most complex tasks of life. Yet when we die, we
die with the Totality of
Ourselves. A sorcerer asks the question 'If we're going to
die
with
the Totality of Ourselves, why not, then, live with that Totality?'
"
He
signaled me with his head to
watch the scores of people, that went by. "They're
all tonal" he said. "I
am going to single some of them out, so
your tonal will assess
them, and in assessing them it will assess itself." He
directed my attention to two
old ladies, that had emerged from the
church. They stood at the
top of the limestone steps for a moment and then began to walk down
with infinite care,
resting on every step. "Watch
those two women very
carefully," he said. "But don't see them as
persons, or as faces, that
hold things in common with us; see them as tonals."
132-133
The
two women got to the bottom of the steps. They moved, as if the
rough gravel were marbles
and they were about to roll and lose their balance on them.
They walked arm in arm,
propping each other up with the weight of their bodies. "Look
at them!" don Juan said in
a low voice. "Those women are the best
example of the most
miserable tonal one can find." I
noticed, that the two women
were small-boned, but fat. They were
perhaps in their early
fifties. They had a painful look in their faces, as if
walking down the
church steps had been
beyond their strength. They
were in front of us; they
vacillated (sway, hesitate) for a moment and then they
came to a halt. There was
one more step on the gravel walk. "Watch
your step, ladies," don
Juan shouted, as he stood up dramatically. The women looked at
him,
apparently
confused by his sudden outburst. "My
mom broke her hip right
there the other day," he added and dashed
over to help them. They
thanked him profusely and he advised them, that if they ever lost
their balance and fell
down, they had to remain motionless on the spot, until the ambulance
came. His tone was sincere
and convincing. The women crossed themselves. Don Juan sat down again.
His eyes
were beaming. He spoke softly. "Those
women are not that old
and their bodies are not that weak, and
yet they are decrepit (weak, broken down). Everything about them is
dreary -
their clothes, their smell, their
attitude. Why do you think that's so?"
"Maybe
they were born that way,"
I said.
"No
one is born that way. We
make ourselves that way. The tonal of
those women is weak and
timid. I said, that today
was going to be the day of the tonal; I meant, that
today I want to deal with it exclusively. I also said, that I had
put on my suit for that specific
purpose. With it I wanted to show you, that a warrior treats his
tonal in a very special manner.
I've
pointed out to you, that my
suit has been made to order and, that everything I have on today, fits
me
to perfection. It is not my vanity
(preoccupation with excessive pride), that
I wanted to show, but my
warrior's spirit, my warrior's
tonal. Those two women
gave you your first view of the tonal today. Life can
be as merciless with you,
as it is with them, if you are careless with your tonal. I put
myself as the counterpoint. If you understand correctly, I should
not
need to stress this point." I had
a sudden attack of
uncertainty and asked him to spell out, what I
should have understood. I
must have sounded desperate. He laughed out loud. "Look
at that young man in green
pants and a pink shirt," don Juan
whispered, pointing to a
very thin and very dark complexioned, sharp-featured young man,
who was
standing almost in front
of us. He seemed to be
undecided, whether to go towards the church or towards
the street. Twice he
raised his hand in the direction of the church, as though he
were
talking to himself and were about to start moving towards it. Then he
stared at me with a blank
expression. Look at the
way he's dressed," don Juan said in a whisper. "Look at
those shoes!"
The
young man's clothes were
tattered (torn, shredded) and wrinkled, and his shoes were
in absolute pieces.
"He's
obviously very poor," I
said.
"Is
that all you can say about
him?" he asked. I
enumerated a series of
reasons, that might have accounted for the
young man's shabbiness:
poor health, bad luck, indolence (habitually lazy),
indifference to his
personal
appearance, or the chance, that he may have just been released from
prison. Don Juan said,
that I was merely speculating, and that he was not
interested in justifying
anything by suggesting, that the man was a victim of unconquerable
forces.
"Maybe
he's a secret agent made
to look like a bum," I said jokingly. The young man walked away towards
the street with a disjointed gait (uncertained way of
walking).
"He's
not made to look like a
bum; he is a bum," don Juan said. "Look
how weak his body is. His
arms and legs are thin. He can hardly walk. No one can pretend
to
look that way. There is
something definitely wrong with him, not his circumstances, though.
134-135
I
have to stress again, that I want you to see, that man as a tonal"
"What
does it entail (mean) to
see a man as a tonal?"
"It
entails to cease judging him
in a moral sense, or excusing him on
the grounds, that he is like a leaf at the mercy of the wind. In
other words, it entails seeing a
man without thinking, that he is hopeless or helpless. You know exactly
what I am talking
about. You can assess that young
man without condemning or
forgiving him."
“He
drinks too much," I said. My statement was not volitional. I
just made it without really knowing
why. For an instant I
even felt, that someone standing behind me had voiced the
words, I was
moved to explain, that my
statement was another of my speculations.
"That
was not the case," don
Juan said. "Your tone of voice had a
certainty, that you lacked
before. You didn't say, 'Maybe he's a drunkard.'" I felt
embarrassed, although I
could not exactly determine why. Don Juan
laughed. "You
saw through the man," he
said. "That was Seeing.
Seeing is like
that. Statements are made
with great certainty, and one doesn't know how it happened.
You know,
that young man's tonal was
shot, but you don't know how you
know it." I
had
to admit, that somehow I
had had that impression. "You're
right," don Juan said.
"It doesn't really matter, that he's
young, he's as decrepit (weak, broken down), as the two women. Youth is
in no way a
barrier against the deterioration of
the tonal. You thought,
that there might be a great many reasons for that man's
condition. I find, that
there is only one, his tonal. It is not, that his tonal is
weak, because
he drinks; it is the other way around, he drinks, because his tonal
is weak. That weakness forces him
to be what he is. But the same
thing happens to all of us,
in one form or another."
"But
aren't you also justifying
his behavior by saying, that it's his
tonal?"
"I'm
giving you an explanation,
that you have never encountered before.
It is not a justification
or a condemnation, though. That young man's tonal is weak and
timid.
And yet he's not unique.
All of us are more or less in the same boat." At
that moment a very large man
passed in front of us heading towards
the church. He was
wearing an expensive dark gray business suit and was carrying a
briefcase. The collar of his shirt was unbuttoned and his necktie
loose. He was sweating profusely. He had
a very light complexion,
which made the perspiration all the more obvious. "Watch
him!" don Juan ordered me. The man's steps were small, but
heavy. There was a wobbling quality to
his walking. He did not
go up to the church; he circumvented it (surround it)
and disappeared
behind it. "There
is no need to treat the
body in such an awful manner," don Juan
said with a note of scorn
(contempt).
"But the sad fact is, that all of us have learned to
perfection
how to make our tonal weak. I have called that
indulging." He put
his hand on my notebook
and did not let me write any more. His
rationale was, that as
long, as I kept on taking notes, I was incapable of
concentrating. He
suggested I should relax, shut off the internal dialogue and let
go, merging with the person being
observed. I asked him to
explain what he meant by "merging." He said, there was no
way to explain it, that
it was something, that the body felt or did, when put in
observational contact with other bodies. He then clarified
the issue
by saying, that in the past he had
called that process Seeing,
and that it consisted of a lull (calm)
of true silence within, followed by an
outward elongation (extention) of something in the self, an elongation,
that met
and merged with the other body, or
with anything within one's
field of Awareness. At
that point I wanted to get back to my writing pad, but he stopped me
and began to single out
different people from the crowd, that passed by. He pointed
out dozens
of persons,
covering a wide range of types among
men, women and children
of various ages. Don Juan said, that he had selected persons,
whose weak tonal could fit
into a categorization scheme, and thus he had acquainted me with a
preconceived variety of
indulging. I
did
not remember all the
people he had pointed out and discussed.
136-137
I
complained, that if I had
taken notes, I could have at least sketched out the intricacies (hard,
complexities) of his
schemata (outlined pattern, structure) on indulging. As it was, he did
not want to repeat it or
perhaps he did not remember it
either. He laughed and
said, that he did not remember it, because in the life of
a sorcerer it was the
nagual, that was accountable for creativity. He looked at the sky and
said, that
it was getting late, and, that from
that moment on, we were
going to change direction. Instead of weak tonals we were
going to wait
for the appearance of a
"proper tonal." He added, that only a warrior had a "proper tonal,"
and,
that the average man, at
best, could have a "right tonal." After a few minutes' wait he slapped
his thigh and chuckled. "Look
who's coming now," he
said, pointing to the street with a
movement of his chin. "It is as if they were made to order." I saw
three male Indians
approaching. They had on some short brown
woolen ponchos, white
pants, that came to their mid calf, long-sleeved white tops, dirty
worn-out sandals and old straw hats. Each of them carried a bundle,
tied to his back. Don
Juan stood up and went to
meet them. He spoke to them. They seemed
surprised and surrounded
him. They smiled at him. He was apparently telling them
something about me; the
three of them turned around and smiled at me. They were about ten or
twelve feet away; I listened carefully, but I could not hear what
they were saying. Don
Juan reached in his pocket and handed them some bills. They
appeared to be pleased;
they moved their feet nervously. I liked them very much. They
looked
like children. All of them
had small white teeth and very pleasing mild features. One, by all
appearances the oldest, had
whiskers. His eyes were tired, but very kind. He took off his
hat and
came closer to the bench. The others followed him. The three of
them greeted me in unison. We shook
hands. Don Juan told me
to give them some money. They thanked me and after a polite silence
they said good-by. Don
Juan sat back down on the bench and we watched them disappear
in the
crowd. I told don Juan,
that for some strange reason I had liked them very much. "It isn't so
strange," he said. "You must've felt, that their tonal is
just right. It is right, but not for our time. You probably felt they
were like
children. They are. And that is very
tough. I understand them
better, than you, thus I couldn't help, but feel a tinge of sadness.
Indians are like dogs, they
have nothing. But that is the nature of their fortune and I shouldn't
feel sad. My sadness, of
course, is my own way of indulging."
"Where
are they from, don Juan?"
"From
the Sierras. They've come
here to seek their fortune. They want
to become merchants. They're
brothers. I told them, that I also came from the Sierras and
I'm a
merchant myself. I said,
that you were my partner. The money we gave them was a token; a warrior
should give tokens
like that all the time. They, no doubt, need the money, but
need should
not be an essential
consideration for a token. The thing to look for is feeling. I
personally was moved by those three. "Indians are the losers of our
time. Their downfall began with the
Spaniards and now under
the reign of their descendants the Indians have lost everything. It is
not an exaggeration to say,
that the Indians have lost their tonal"
"Is that a metaphor, don Juan?"
"No. It is a fact. The tonal is very vulnerable. It cannot withstand
maltreatment. The white
man, from the day he set foot on this land, has systematically
destroyed
not only the Indian tonal
of the time, but also the personal tonal of every Indian. One can
easily surmise, that for the poor
average Indian the reign of the white man has been sheer
hell. And yet
the irony is, that for
another kind of Indian it has been sheer bliss."
"Who are you talking about? What kind of Indian is that?"
"The sorcerer. For the sorcerer the Conquest was the challenge of a
lifetime. They were the
only ones, who were not destroyed by it, but adapted to it and used it
to
their ultimate advantage."
"How was that possible, don Juan?
I was under the impression, that the Spaniards left no stone
unturned."
138-139
"Let's say, that they turned over all the stones, that were within the
limits of their own tonal. In
the Indian life, however, there were things, that were incomprehen-
sible
to the white man; those
things he did not even notice. Perhaps it was the sheer luck of the
sorcerers, or perhaps it was
their knowledge, that saved them. After the
tonal of the time and the
personal tonal of every
Indian was obliterated, the sorcerers found themselves holding on to
the only thing left
uncontested, the nagual. In other words, their tonal took
refuge in
their nagual. This couldn't
have happened had it not been for the excruciating conditions of a
vanquished people. The men
of
knowledge of today are the product of those conditions and are the
ultimate connoisseurs (знатоки) of the
nagual, since they were left there thoroughly alone. There,
the white
man has never ventured. In
fact, he doesn't even have the idea it exists." I felt compelled at
that point to present an argument. I sincerely
contended, that in European
thought we had accounted for, what he called the nagual. I brought in
the concept of the
Transcendental Ego, or the unobserved observer, present in
all
our
thoughts, perceptions and
feelings. I explained to don Juan, that the individual could perceive
or
intuit himself, as a self,
through the Transcendental Ego, because this was the only
thing
capable
of judgment, capable of
disclosing reality within the realm of its consciousness. Don Juan was
unruffled. He laughed. "Disclosing reality," he said, mimicking me.
"That's the tonal." I argued, that the tonal may be called the
Empirical Ego, found in one's
passing stream of
consciousness or experience, while the Transcendental Ego was found
behind that stream. "Watching, I suppose," he said mockingly.
"That's right. Watching itself," I said.
"I hear you talking," he said. "But you're saying nothing. The nagual
is not experience or
intuition or consciousness. Those terms and everything else, you may
care to say, are only items on
the island of the tonal. The nagual, on the other hand, is only effect.
The tonal begins at birth and
ends at death, but the nagual never ends. The nagual has no limit.
I've
said, that the nagual is
where power hovers; that was only a way of alluding to it.
By reasons
of its effect, perhaps the
nagual can be best understood in terms of power. For instance, when you
felt numb and couldn't
talk earlier today, I was actually soothing you; that is, my nagual was
acting upon you."
"How was that possible, don Juan?"
"You won't believe this, but noone knows how. All I know is, that I
wanted your undivided
attention and then my nagual went to work on you.
I know, that much,
because I can witness its
effect, but I don't know how it works." He was quiet for a while. I
wanted to keep on the same topic. I attempted to ask a question;
he
silenced me. "One can say, that the nagual accounts for
creativity," he finally said
and looked at me
piercingly. "The
nagual is the only part of us, that can create."
He remained quiet, looking at me. I felt, he was definitely leading me
into an area, I had
wished he would elucidate further. He had said, that the
tonal did not
create anything, but only
witnessed and assessed. I asked how he explained the fact, that we
construct superb structures and
machines. "That's not creativity," he said.
"That's only molding. We can mold
anything with our hands,
personally or in conjunction with the hands of other tonals. A group of
tonals can mold anything,
superb structures, as you said."
"But what's creativity then, don Juan?"
He stared at me, squinting his eyes. He chuckled softly, lifted his
right hand over his head and
twisted his wrist with a sharp jerk, as if he were turning a door knob.
"Creativity is this," he said and brought his hand with a cupped palm
to the level of my eyes. It took me an incredibly long time to focus my
eyes on his hand. I felt, that a transparent
membrane was holding my whole body in a fixed position and that I had
to break it, in order to
place my sight on his hand. I struggled, until beads of
perspiration ran
into my eyes. Finally I heard or felt a pop and my
eyes and head jerked free. On his right palm there was the most curious
rodent I had ever seen. It looked like a bushytailed
squirrel. The tail, however, was more like a porcupine's. It had stiff
quills. "Touch it!" don Juan said softly. I automatically obeyed him
and ran my
finger on its soft back. Don Juan brought his hand
closer to my eyes and then I noticed something, that threw me into
nervous spasms. The squirrel
had eyeglasses and big teeth.
140-141
"It
looks like a Japanese," I said and began to laugh hysterically. The
rodent then started to grow in don Juan's palm. And while my eyes were
still filled with
tears of laughter, the rodent became so enormous, that it
disappeared.
It literally went out of the
frame of my vision. It happened so rapidly, that I was caught in the
middle
of a spasm of laughter.
When I looked again, or when I wiped my eyes and focused them properly,
I was looking at don
Juan. He was sitting on the bench and I was standing in front
of him,
although I did not remember
having stood up. For a moment my nervousness was uncontainable. Don
Juan calmly got up, forced me to sit,
propped my chin between the bicep and forearm of his left arm and hit
me on the very top of my
head with the knuckles of his right hand. The effect was like the
jolt
of an electric current. It
calmed me down immediately. There were so many things, that I wanted to
ask. But my words could not wade through all
those thoughts.
I then became keenly aware, that I had lost control over
my vocal cords. I did not
want to struggle to speak, however, and leaned against the back of the
bench.
Don Juan said
forcefully, that I had to pull myself together and stop indulging. I
felt a bit dizzy. He imperatively
ordered me to write my notes and handed me my pad and pencil
after
picking them up from
underneath the bench. I made a supreme effort to say something and
again I had the clear sensation, that a membrane
was enveloping me. I puffed and groaned for a moment, while
don Juan
laughed, until I heard or
felt another pop. I began to write immediately. Don Juan spoke, as if
he
were dictating to me. "One of the acts of a warrior is never to let
anything affect him," he
said. "Thus, a warrior may
be seeing the devil himself, but he won't let anyone know
that. The
control of a warrior has to be
impeccable." He waited, until I had finished writing and then asked me
laughingly,
"Did you get all that?"
I suggested, that we should go to a restaurant and have dinner. I was
famished. He said, that we
had to stay until the "proper tonal" appeared. He added in a
serious tone, that if the "proper tonal"
did not come that day, we had to remain on the bench, until it cared to
show up.
"What is a proper tonal?" I asked.
"A tonal, that is just right, balanced and harmonious. You are supposed
to find one today, or
rather your power is supposed to bring one to us."
"But how can I tell it apart from other tonals?"
"Never mind that. I will point it out to you."
"What is it like, don Juan?"
"Hard to tell. It depends on you. This is a show for you, therefore you
will set up those
conditions yourself."
"How?"
"I don't know that. Your power, your nagual, will do that. There are, roughly
speaking, two sides to every tonal. One is the
outer part, the fringe, the
surface of the island. That's the part related to action and
acting,
the rugged side. The other part is
the decision and judgment, the inner tonal, softer, more delicate and
more complex. The proper tonal is a tonal, where the two
levels are in perfect
harmony and balance."
Don Juan stopped talking. It was fairly dark by then and I had a
hard
time taking notes. He
told me to stretch and relax. He said, that it had been quite an
exhausting day, but very prolific and,
that he was sure the proper tonal would show up. Dozens of
people
went by. We sat in a relaxed silence for ten or
fifteen minutes. Then don
Juan stood up abruptly: "By golly, you've done it! Look
what's
coming there. A girl!" He pointed with a nod of his head to a young
woman, who was crossing the
park and was
approaching the vicinity of our bench. Don Juan said, that
that
young
woman was the proper tonal
and, that if she would stop to talk to either one of us, it would be an
extraordinary omen and we
would have to do whatever she wanted. I could not clearly
distinguish the young woman's features, although
there was still enough
light. She came within a couple of feet, but went
by without looking at
us. Don Juan ordered me in
a whisper to get up and go talk to her. I ran after her and asked for
directions.
142-143
I
got very close to her. She was young, perhaps in her
mid-twenties, of medium height, very attractive and well-groomed. Her
eyes were clear and
peaceful.
She smiled at me as I spoke. There was something winning
about her. I liked her as
much, as I had liked the three Indians. I went back to the bench and
sat down.
"Is she a warrior?" I asked.
"Not quite," don Juan said. "Your power is not that keen yet to bring a
warrior. But
she's a just
right tonal. One, that could turn into a proper tonal. Warriors come
from that stock." His statements aroused my curiosity. I asked him if
women could be
warriors. He looked at
me, apparently baffled by my question. "Of course they can," he said,
"and they are even better equipped for
the path of knowledge,
than men. But then men are a bit more resilient. I would say, however,
that, all in all, women
have a slight advantage." I said, that it puzzled me, that
we had never talked about women in
relation to his knowledge.
"You're a man," he said, "therefore I use the masculine
gender when I
talk to you. That's all.
The rest is the same." I wanted to question him further, but he made a
gesture to close the
topic. He looked up. The
sky was almost black. The banks of clouds looked extremely dark. There
were still, however,
some areas, where the clouds were slightly orange. "The end of
the day is your best time," don Juan said. "The appearance
of that young woman
at the very edge of the day is an omen. We were talking about the
tonal, therefore it is an omen
about your tonal."
"What does the omen mean, don Juan?"
"It means, that you have very little time left to organize your
arrangements. Any arrangements,
that you might have constructed, have to be viable
arrangements because
you don't have time to
make new ones. Your arrangements must work now, or they are not
arrangements at all. "I suggest, that when you go back home,
you check your lines and make
sure they are strong.
You will need them."
"What's going to happen to me, don Juan?"
"Years ago you bid for power. You have followed the hardships of
learning faithfully, without
fretting or rushing. You are now at the edge of the day."
"What does that mean?"
"For a proper tonal everything on the island of the tonal is a
challenge. Another way of saying
it is, that for a warrior everything in this world is a challenge.
The
greatest challenge of all, of
course, is his bid for power. But power comes from the nagual, and when
a warrior finds himself
at the edge of the day it means, that the hour of the nagual
is
approaching, the warrior's hour of
power."
"I still don't understand the meaning of all this, don Juan. Does it
mean, that I am going to die
soon?"
"If you're stupid, you will," he retorted cuttingly. "But putting it in
milder terms, it means, that
you're about to shiver in your pants. You bid for power once
and that
bidding is irreversible. I
won't say, that you're about to fulfill your destiny, because there is
no destiny. The only thing, that
one can say then is, that you're about to fulfill your power.
The omen
was clear. That young
woman came to you at the edge of the day. You have little time left,
and none of it for crap. A
fine state. I would say, that the best of us always comes
out, when we
are against the wall, when
we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn't have it any
other way."
6.
Shrinking
The Tonal
Paseo
de la Reforma
144-145
On
Wednesday morning I left my hotel around nine forty-five. I walked
slowly, allowing
myself fifteen minutes to reach the place, where don Juan and I had
agreed
to meet. He had picked
a corner on the Paseo de la Reforma, five or six blocks away, in front
of the ticket office of an
airline. I had just finished eating breakfast with
a friend of mine. He
had
wanted to walk with me, but I
had insinuated, that I was going to meet a girl. I deliberately walked
on the opposite side of the
street from where the airline office was. I had the nagging
suspicion,
that my friend, who had
always wanted me to introduce him to don Juan, knew, that I was going
to
meet
him and might be
following me. I was afraid, that if I turned around I would find him
behind me. I
saw
don Juan at a magazine stand, on the other side of the street.
I
started to cross over, but
had to stop on the divider and wait there, until it was safe to walk
all
the way across the wide
boulevard. I turned around casually to see
if my friend was following
me. He was standing on the
corner behind me. He smiled sheepishly and waved his hand, as if
telling me, that he had been
incapable of controlling himself. I dashed across the street
without
giving him time to catch up
with me. Don Juan seemed to be aware of my predicament. When I reached
him, he
gave a furtive
glance over my shoulder. "He's
coming," he said. "We'd better go down the side street." He
pointed to a street, which cut diagonally into the Paseo de
la
Reforma at the point, where we
were standing. I quickly oriented myself. I had
never been on that
street, but two days before I
had been in the airline ticket office. I knew its peculiar
layout. The
office was on the pointed
corner, made by the two streets. It had a door opening onto each
street,
and the distance between
the two doors must have been about ten to twelve feet. There
was an
aisle through the office from
door to door, and one could easily go from one street to the
other.
There were desks on one side
of that pathway and a large round counter with clerks and cashiers on
the other side. The day I
had been there, the place had been filled with people. I
wanted to
hurry up, perhaps even run, but don Juan's pace was
relaxed. As we reached the
office door, on the diagonal street, I knew, without having
to turn
around, that my friend had also
run across the boulevard and was about to turn into the street, where
we
were walking. I looked at
don Juan, hoping that he had a solution. He shrugged his
shoulders. I
felt annoyed and could not
think of anything myself, short of punching my friend in the nose. I
must have sighed or exhaled
at that very moment, because the next thing I felt was sudden loss of
air due to a formidable
shove, that don Juan had given me, which sent me whirling
through the
door of the airline office. Propelled by his tremendous push, I
practically flew into the room. Don
Juan had caught me so
unprepared, that my body had not offered any resistance; my
fright
merged with the actual jolt of
his thrust. I automatically put my arms in front of me to protect my
face. The force of don Juan's
shove had been so great, that saliva flew out of my mouth and I
experienced a mild vertigo, as I
stumbled inside the room. I nearly lost my balance and had to make
a
supreme effort not to fall
down. I twirled around a couple of times; it seemed, that the speed of
my movements made the
scene blurry. I vaguely noticed a crowd
of customers conducting their
business. I felt extremely
embarrassed. I knew, that everyone was looking at me as I reeled across
the room. The idea, that I
was making a fool out of myself was more, than discomforting.
A series
of thoughts flashed
through my mind. I had the certainty, that I was going to fall on my
face.
Or I would bump into a
customer, perhaps an old lady, who would be injured by the impact. Or
worse yet, the glass door
at the other end would be closed and I would smash against it.
Paseo
de la Reforma
146-147
In a
dazed state I reached the door to the Paseo de la Reforma. It was
open and I stepped out. My preoccupation of the moment was, that I had
to keep cool, turn to my
right and walk on the
boulevard towards downtown, as if nothing had happened. I was sure,
that
don Juan would join me
and that, perhaps, my friend might have kept on walking along
the
diagonal street. I
opened my eyes, or rather I focused them on the area in front of me.
I had a long moment of
numbness before I fully realized what had happened. I was not
on the
Paseo de la Reforma, as I
should have been, but in the Lagunilla market one and a half miles
away. What I experienced at the moment of that realization
was such an
intense astonishment, that all
I could do was stare, stupefied. I looked around in order to orient
myself. I realized, that
I was
actually standing very close, to
where I had met don Juan on my first day in Mexico City. Perhaps I was
even on the same spot. The stands, that sold old coins were
five feet
away. I made a supreme
effort to take hold of
myself. Obviously I had to be experiencing a hallucination. It could
not possibly be any other
way.
I quickly turned to go back through the door into the office, but
behind me there was only a
row of stands with secondhand books and magazines.
Don Juan was standing next to me, to my
right. He had an enormous smile on his face. There was a pressure in my
head, a tickling feeling, as if carbonated
soda were going through
my nose. I was speechless. I tried to say something without success. I
clearly heard don Juan say, that I should not try to talk or think,
but
I wanted to say
something, anything. An awful nervousness was building up inside my
chest. I felt tears rolling
down my cheeks. Don Juan did not shake me, as
he usually does when I
fall prey to an
uncontrollable fear. Instead
he patted me gently on the head. "Now,
now, little Carlos. Don't lose your marbles." He held my face
in
his hands for an instant. "Don't try to talk," he said. He let my face
go and pointed to what was taking place all around us. "This
is not for talking. This is only for watching. Watch!
Watch everything!" I was
really crying. My reaction to my crying was very strange,
however; I kept on weeping
without any concern. It did not matter to me, at that moment,
whether
or not I was making a fool
out of myself. I looked around. Right in front of me there was a
middle-aged man
wearing a pink shortsleeved
shirt and dark gray pants. He seemed to be an American. A chubby woman,
apparently
his wife, was holding on to his arm. The man was handling some coins,
while a fourteen-year-old boy, perhaps the son of the proprietor,
watched him.
The boy followed every
movement the older man made. Finally, the man put
the coins back on the
table and the boy
immediately relaxed. "Watch
everything!" don Juan demanded again. There was nothing
unusual to
watch. People were passing by, going in
every direction. I
turned around. A man, who appeared to run the magazine stand, was
staring at me. He blinked
repeatedly, as if he were about to fall asleep. He seemed tired or sick
and looked seedy. I felt, that there was nothing to watch, at least
nothing of real
consequence. I stared at the
scene. I found, that it was impossible to concentrate my
attention on
anything. Don Juan walked in
a circle around me. He acted, as if he were assessing something in me.
He shook his head and
puckered his lips. "Come,
come," he said, grabbing me gently by the arm. "It's time to
walk." As
soon, as we began to move I noticed, that my body
was very light. In
fact, I felt, that the soles of my feet were spongy. They had
a peculiar rubbery, springing
quality. Don Juan must have been aware of my senses;
he held me
tightly, as
if not to let me
escape; he pressed down on me, as though he were afraid I would
move upwards beyond his
reach, like a balloon. Walking made me feel better. My
nervousness gave
way to a comfortable
easiness. Don Juan insisted again, that I should observe
everything.
148-149
I told
him,
that there was nothing I
wanted to watch, that it made no difference to me what people were
doing in the market, and, that
I did not want to feel like an idiot, dutifully
observing some moronic
activity of someone buying
coins and old books, while the real thing was escaping through my
fingers. "What
is the real thing?" he asked. I
stopped walking and vehemently told him, that the important thing was
whatever he had done
to make me perceive, that I had covered the distance between
the ticket
office and the market in
seconds. At that point I began to shiver and felt I was going to get
ill. Don
Juan made me put my hands
against my stomach. He pointed all around him and stated
again, in a
matter-of-fact tone,
that the mundane activity
around us was the only thing of importance. I felt annoyed with him. I
had the physical feeling of spinning. I took
a deep breath.
"What
did you do, don Juan?" I asked with forced casualness. With a
reassuring tone he said, that he could tell me about that any
time, but, that whatever was
happening all around me, was not ever going to be repeated. I had no
quarrel with that. The
activity I was witnessing obviously could not be repeated again in all
its complexity. My point
was, that I could observe a very similar activity any time. On the
other
hand, the implication of
having been transported over the distance, in whatever form,
was of
immeasurable significance. When I voiced these opinions don Juan made
his head shiver, as if what
he had heard me say,
was actually painful to him. We walked in silence for a
moment. My body
was feverish. I noticed, that
the palms of my
hands and the soles of my feet were burning hot. The same
unusual heat
also seemed to be
localized in my nostrils and eyelids.
"What
did you do, don Juan?" I asked him pleadingly. He did not answer me,
but
patted me on the chest and laughed. He said,
that men were very
frail creatures, who made themselves even more frail with
their
indulging. In a very serious tone
he exhorted (urge, advise, appeal) me not to feel, that I
was about to perish, but to push
myself beyond my limits and to
simply engage my attention on the world around me. We continued walking
at a very slow pace. My preoccupation was
paramount. I could not pay
attention to anything. Don Juan stopped and seemed to deliberate
whether or not to speak. He
opened his mouth to say something, but then he appeared to
change his
mind and we began to
walk again.
"What
happened is, that you came here," he said abruptly, as he turned
and stared at me.
"How
did that happen?"
He
said, that he did not know, and, that the only thing he did know was,
that I had selected that
place myself. Our impasse (dead end) became even more
hopeless, as we kept on
talking. I wanted
to know the steps
and he insisted, that the selection of the place was the only thing we
could discuss, and since I did
not know why
I had chosen it, there was essentially nothing to talk
about. He criticized, without
getting angry, my obsession to reason out everything, as an unnecessary
indulging. He said, that it
was simpler and more effective just to act, without seeking
explanations, and, that by talking about my experience and by thinking
about it, I was dissipating it. After a few moments he said,
that we had
to leave that place, because I
had spoiled it and it
would become increasingly injurious to me. We left the market
and
walked to the Alameda Park. I was exhausted. I
plunked down on a
bench. It was only then, that it occurred to me to look at my watch. It
was 10:20 A.M.
I had to
make quite an effort in order to focus my attention. I did not remember
the exact time when I had
met don Juan. I calculated, that it must have been around
ten. And it
could not have taken us more,
than ten minutes to walk from the market to the park, which left only
ten minutes unaccounted
for. I told don Juan about
my calculations. He smiled. I had the
certainty,
that his smile hid his
contempt for me, yet there was nothing in his face to betray that
feeling.
"You
think I'm a hopeless idiot, don't you, don Juan?"
150-151
"Ah
ha!" he said and jumped to his feet. His
reaction was so unexpected, that I also jumped up at the same time. "Tell
me exactly what you think my feelings are,"
he said emphatically.
I felt I knew his feelings. It was as if I were feeling them myself.
But when I tried to say what
I felt, I realized, I could not talk about it. To speak
required a
tremendous effort. Don Juan said, that I did not have enough power yet
to see him. But I
could certainly see
enough to find myself suitable explanations for what was
happening.
"Don't
be bashful," he said. "Tell me exactly what you see." I had
a sudden and strange thought, very similar to thoughts, that
usually come to my mind just
before falling asleep. It was more, than a thought; a complete image
would be a better description
of it. I saw a tableau, containing various personages. The
one, which was
directly in front of me,
was a man sitting behind a window frame. The area beyond the frame was
diffuse, but the frame
and the man were crystal clear. He was looking at me; his head was
turned slightly to his left, so
he was actually looking askance at me. I could see his eyes moving to
keep me within focus. He
was leaning on the windowsill with his right elbow. His hand was
clenched into a fist and his
muscles were contracted. To the left of the man there was another image
in the tableau. It was a
flying lion. That is, the
head and the mane were those of a lion, but the lower part of its body
belonged to a curly white
French poodle. I was about to focus my attention on it, when the man
made a smacking
sound with his lips
and stuck his head and trunk out of the window. His whole body emerged,
as if something were
pushing him. He hung for a moment, grabbing the windowsill with the
tips of his fingers, as he
swung like a pendulum. Then
he let go. I experienced in my own body the
sensation of falling. It was not a
plummeting down, but a
soft descent, and then a cushioned floating. The man was
weightless. He
remained stationary for
a moment and then he went out of sight, as if an uncontrollable force
had sipped him away
through a crack in the tableau.
An
instant later he was back at the
window, looking askance at me. His right forearm was resting on the
windowsill, only this time his
hand was waving good-by to
me. Don Juan's comment was, that my seeing was too elaborate. "You
can do better, than that," he said. "You want me to explain what
happened. Well, I want
you to use your Seeing
to do that. You saw, but you saw crap. That kind
of information is useless
to a warrior. It would take too long to figure out what's what. Seeing
must be direct, for a warrior
can't use his time to unravel what he himself is Seeing. Seeing is Seeing, because it
cuts through all
that nonsense." I
asked him if he thought, that my vision had only been a
hallucination
and not really Seeing. He was convinced, it had been Seeing, because of
the intricacy of detail,
but that it was
inappropriate for the occasion.
"Do
you think, that my visions explain anything?" I asked.
"Sure
they do. But I wouldn't try to unravel them, if I were you. In the
beginning Seeing
is
confusing and it's easy to get lost in it. As the warrior gets tighter,
however, his Seeing
becomes
what it should be, a direct knowing." As don
Juan spoke I had one of those peculiar lapses of feelings and I
clearly sensed, that I was
about to unveil something, which I already knew, a thing
which eluded me
by turning into
something very blurry. I became aware, that I was involved in a
struggle. The more
I tried to
define or reach that elusive piece of knowledge, the deeper it sank. "That Seeing was too...
too visionary," don Juan said. The sound of his voice
shook me.
"A
warrior asks a question, and through his Seeing he gets an
answer,
but the answer is simple,
never embellished to the point of flying French poodles."
We
laughed at the image. And half jokingly I told him, that he was too
strict, that anyone going
through what I had gone through that morning, deserved a bit
of leniency. "That
is the easy way out," he said. "That is the indulging way. You
hinge the world on the
feeling, that everything is too much for you. You're not living like a
warrior."
152-153
I told
him, that there were so many facets of what he called a warrior's
way, that it was
impossible to fulfill all of them, and that the meaning of it became
clear only
as I encountered
new instances, where I had to apply it. "A
rule of thumb for a warrior," he said, "is that he makes his
decisions so carefully, that
nothing, that may happen as a result of them, can surprise
him, much less
drain his power. "To be
a warrior means to be humble and alert. Today you were supposed
to watch the scene,
which was unfolding in front of your eyes, not to ponder how all that
was possible. You focused
your attention on the wrong place. If I wanted to be lenient
(merciful, forgiving) with you I
could easily say, that since
this was the first time it had happened to you, you were not prepared.
But that's not permissible,
because you came here as a warrior, ready to die; therefore,
what
happened to you today shouldn't
have caught you with your pants down." I
conceded, that my tendency was to indulge in fear and
bewilderment. "Let's
say, that a rule of thumb for you should be, that when
you come to
see me you should
come prepared to die,"
he said. "If
you come here ready to die, there
shouldn't be any pitfalls, or
any unwelcome surprises, or any unnecessary acts. Everything should
gently fall into
place,
because you're expecting nothing."
"That's
easy to say, don Juan. I am on the receiving end, though. I am
the one, who has to live
with all this."
"It is
not, that you have to live with all this. You are all this.
You're not just tolerating it for the
time being. Your decision to join forces with this evil world of
Sorcery should have burned all the
lingering feelings of confusion and should give you the spunk (spirit, pluck) to claim
all this, as your world." I felt
embarrassed and sad. Don Juan's actions, no matter how
prepared
I was, taxed me in
such a way, that every time I came in contact with him I was left with
no other recourse, but to act
and feel like a half-rational, nagging person. I had a surge
of wrath
and did not want to write any
more. At that moment I wanted to rip my notes and throw everything in
the trash can. And I
would have done that, had it not been for don Juan, who laughed and
held
my arm, restraining me. In a mocking tone he said, that my
tonal was about to fool itself again.
He
recommended, that I
should go to the fountain and splash water on my neck and ears. The
water soothed me. We were quiet for a long time. "Write,
write," don Juan coaxed me in a friendly tone. "Let's say, that
your notebook is the
only sorcery you have. To rip it up is another way of opening
yourself
to your death. It will be
another of your tantrums, a flashy tantrum at best, not a change. A
warrior doesn't ever leave the
island of the tonal. He uses it."
He
pointed all around me with a quick movement of his hand and then
touched my notebook. "This
is your world. You can't renounce it. It is useless to get angry
and feel disappointed with
oneself. All that, that proves, is that one's tonal is involved in an
internal battle; a battle within
one's tonal is one of the most inane contests
I can think of. The tight
life of a warrior is designed
to end that struggle. From the beginning I have taught you to avoid
wear and tear. Now there is
no longer a war within you, not as it used to be, because the
warrior's
way is harmony - the
harmony between actions and decisions, at first, and then the harmony
between tonal and nagual. Throughout
the time I have known you, I have talked to both your tonal
and your nagual. That
is the way the instruction should be conducted. In
the beginning, one has to talk to the tonal. It is the tonal,
that
has to relinquish (give up) control. But
it should be made to do so gladly. For example, your tonal
has
relinquished some controls
without much struggle, because it became clear to it that, had it
remained the way it was, the
totality of you would be dead by now.
In other words, the tonal is made
to give up unnecessary
things like self-importance and indulging, which only plunge it into
boredom. The whole trouble
is, that the tonal clings to those things, when it should be
glad to rid
itself of that crap. The task
then is to convince the tonal to become free and fluid. That's what a
sorcerer needs before
anything else, a strong, free tonal. The stronger it gets, the less it
clings to its doings, and the
easier it is to shrink it. So what happened this morning was,
that I saw
the opportunity to shrink
your tonal. For an instant, you were absent-minded, hurrying, not
thinking, and I grabbed that
moment to shove you.
154-155
"The
tonal shrinks at given times, especially when it is embarrassed.
In fact, one of the
features of the tonal is its shyness. Its shyness is not really an
issue. But there are certain
instances when the tonal is taken by surprise, and its shyness
unavoidably makes it shrink. This
morning I plucked my cubic centimeter of chance.
I noticed the
open door of that office
and gave you a shove. A shove is then the technique for shrinking the
tonal. One must shove at
the precise instant; for that, of course, one must know how
to see. Once
the man has been shoved and his tonal has shrunk, his nagual, if
it is already in motion,
no matter how small this motion is, will take over and
achieve
extraordinary deeds. Your nagual
took over this morning and you ended up in the market." He
remained silent for a moment. He seemed to be waiting for
questions.
We looked at each
other. "I
really don't know how," he said as if reading my mind. "All I know
is, that the nagual is
capable of inconceivable feats. This morning I asked you to
watch. That
scene in front of you,
whatever it may have been,
had an incalculable value for you. But instead of following
my advice,
you indulged in self-pity
and confusion and did not watch. For a while you were all nagual and
could not talk. That was the time
to watch. Then, little
by little, your tonal took over again; and rather, than plunging you
into a deadly battle between
your tonal and nagual, I walked you here."
"What
was there in that scene, don Juan? What was so important?"
"I
don't know. It wasn't happening to me."
"What
do you mean?"
"It
was your experience, not mine."
"But
you were with me. Weren't you?"
"No. I
wasn't. You were alone. I repeatedly told you to watch
everything, because that scene
was only for you."
"But
you were next to me, don Juan."
"No. I
wasn't. But it's useless to talk about it. Whatever I may say
doesn't make sense, because
during those moments we were in nagual's time. The
affairs of the
nagual can be witnessed only
with the body, not the reason."
"If
you were not with me, don Juan, who or what was the person I
witnessed as you?"
"It
was me and yet I wasn't there."
"Where
were you then?"
"I was
with you, but not there. Let's say, that I was around you, but not
in the particular place,
where your nagual had taken you."
"You
mean you didn't know, that we were at the market?"
"No, I
didn't. I just tagged along in order not to lose you."
"This
is truly awesome, don Juan."
"We
were in nagual's time, and there is nothing awesome about it. We
are capable of much
more, than that. That is the nature of us, as luminous beings. Our flaw
is to insist on remaining on
our monotonous, tiring, but convenient island. The tonal is the villain
and it shouldn't be." I
described the little bit I remembered. He wanted to know if I
had
witnessed any features of
the sky, such as daylight, clouds, the sun. Or if I had heard noises of
any sort. Or if I had caught
sight of unusual people or events. He wanted to know if there
had been
any fights. Or if people
were yelling, and if they were, what they had said. I
could not answer any of his questions. The plain truth was,
that I had
accepted the event at its
apparent face value, admitting as a truism, that I had "flown" over a
considerable distance in one
or two seconds, and that, thanks to don Juan's knowledge,
whatever it
may have been, I had
landed in all my material corporeality inside the market. My
reactions were a direct corollary of such an interpretation.
I
wanted to know the
procedures, the member's knowledge, the "how to do it." Therefore, I
did not care to observe, what
I was convinced were, the ordinary happenings of a mundane
event.
"Do
you think, that people saw me in the market?" I asked. Don
Juan did not answer. He laughed and tapped me lightly with his fist. I
tried to remember, if I had, actually, had any physical
contact with
people. My memory failed
me.
156-157
"What
did the people in the airline office see when I stumbled in?" I
asked.
"They
probably saw a man staggering (шатается) from one door to the other."
"But
did they see me disappear into thin air?"
"That
is taken care of by the nagual. I don't know how. All I can tell
you is, that we are fluid,
luminous beings made out of fibers. The agreement, that we are
solid
objects, is the tonal's doing. When
the tonal shrinks, extraordinary things are possible. But they are
only extraordinary for the
tonal. For
the nagual, it's nothing to move the way you did this
morning.
Especially for your
nagual, which is already capable of difficult ploys. As a matter of
fact, it has plunged into
something terribly weird. Can you feel what it is?" A
million questions and feelings came to me all at once. It was as if a
gust of wind had blown
off my veneer of composure. I shivered. My body felt, it was at the
edge
of an abyss. I struggled
with some mysterious, but concrete piece of knowledge. It was as if I
were on the verge of being shown something, and yet some
stubborn part
of me insisted on blowing a
cloud over it. The
struggle made me numb by degrees, until I could not feel my body. My
mouth was open and my
eyes were half closed. I had the feeling I could see my face getting
harder and harder, until it was
the face of a dried corpse with the yellowish skin, stuck
tight to the
skull.
The next thing I felt was a jolt. Don Juan was standing by me
holding
an empty bucket of
water. He had soaked me. I coughed and wiped the water from my face
and
felt another cold
seizure in my back. I jumped up from the bench. Don Juan had poured
some water down my
neck. There was a group of children looking at me and
laughing. Don
Juan
smiled at me. He held
my notebook and said, that we had better go to my hotel, so I could
change my clothes. He led me
out of the park.
We stood on the curb for a moment before a cab came
along. Hours later, after eating lunch and resting, don Juan and I sat
on his
favorite bench in the park
by the church. In an
oblique manner we got to the topic of my strange
reaction. He seemed to be
very cautious. He did not confront me directly with it. "Things
like that are known to happen," he said. "The nagual, once it
learns to surface, may
cause a great damage to the tonal by coming out without any control.
Your case is special,
though. You are given to indulging in such an exaggerated manner, that
you would die and not
even mind it, or worse yet, not even be aware, that you're dying."
I told
him, that my reaction began, when he had asked me, if I could feel,
what my nagual had
done, I thought I knew exactly, what he was alluding to, but when I
tried
to describe what it was, I
found I could not think clearly. I experienced a sensation of
lightheadedness, almost an
indifference, as if I did not really care about anything.
Then that
sensation grew into a
mesmerizing concentration. It was as though all of me was slowly being
sucked out. What
attracted and trapped my attention was the clear sensation,
that a
portentous secret was about to be
revealed to me and I did not want anything to interfere with such a
revelation. "What
was going to be revealed to you was your death," don Juan
said.
"That's the danger of
indulging. Especially for you, since you are naturally so exaggerated.
Your tonal is so given to
indulging, that it threatens the totality of you. This is a terrible
way
of being."
"What
can I do?"
"Your
tonal has to be convinced with reasons, your nagual with actions,
until one props the
other. As I have told you, the tonal rules, and yet it is very
vulnerable. The nagual, on the other
hand, never, or almost never, acts out; but when it does, it terrifies
the tonal. This
morning your tonal got frightened and began to shrink by
itself,
and then your nagual
began to take over. I had
to borrow a bucket from one of the photographers in the park, in
order to whip your
nagual like a bad dog back
to its place. The tonal must be protected at
any cost. The crown has to
be taken away from it, but it must remain as the protected overseer.
Any threat to the tonal always results in its death. And if
the tonal
dies, so does the whole
man.
158-159
Because
of its inherent weakness the tonal is easily destroyed,
and thus one of the balancing
arts of the warrior is to make the nagual emerge in order to prop up
the tonal. I say it is an art,
because sorcerers know, that only by boosting the tonal, can the nagual
emerge. See what I mean? That
boosting is called personal power."
Don
Juan stood up, stretched his arms and arched his back. I started to
stand up myself, but he
gently pushed me down. "You
must stay on this bench until twilight," he said. "I have to leave
right away. Genaro is
waiting for me in the mountains. So come to his house in three days and
we will meet there."
"What
are we going to do at don Genaro's house?" I asked.
"Depending
on whether you have enough power," he said, "Genaro may show
you the
nagual."
There
was one more thing, that I had to voice at that point. I had
to
know whether his suit was
a shocking device for me alone or was it actually part of his life.
Never had any of his acts caused
so much havoc in me, as his wearing a suit. It was not only
the act in
itself, that was so awesome to
me, but the fact, that don Juan was elegant. His legs had a youthful
agility. It was, as if wearing
shoes had shifted his point of balance and his steps were
longer and
more firm, than usual.
"Do
you wear a suit all the time?" I asked.
"Yes,"
he replied with a charming smile. "I have others, but I didn't
want to wear a different
suit today, because it would've scared you even more." I did
not know what to think. I felt, that I had arrived at the end
of
my path. If don Juan could
wear a suit and be elegant in it, anything was possible. He
seemed to enjoy my confusion and laughed. "I'm a
stockholder," he said in a mysterious, but unaffected tone and
walked away.
The next morning, on Thursday, I asked a friend of mine to
walk with me
from the door of the
office, where don Juan had pushed me, to the Lagunilla market.
We took
the most direct route. It
took us thirty-five minutes. Once
we arrived there, I tried to orient
myself. I failed. I walked into
a clothing store at the very corner of the wide avenue where
we were
standing.
"Pardon
me," I said to a young woman, who was gently cleaning a hat with
a duster. "Where
are the stands of coins and secondhand books?"
"We
don't have any," she said in a nasty tone.
"But I
saw them, somewhere in this market, yesterday."
"No
kidding," she said and walked behind the counter.
I ran
after her and pleaded with her to tell me, where they were. She
looked me up and down. "You
couldn't have seen them yesterday," she said. "Those stands
are
assembled only on
Sunday, right here along this wall. We don't have them the rest of the
week."
"Only
on Sunday?" I repeated mechanically.
"Yes.
Only on Sunday. That's the way. The rest of the week they would
interfere with the
traffic."
She
pointed to the wide avenue filled with cars.
7.
In Nagual's Time
160-161
I ran
up a slope in front of don Genaro's house and saw don Juan and
don Genaro sitting on a
cleared area by the door. They smiled at me. There was such
warmth and
innocence in their
smiles, that my body experienced a state of immediate alarm. I
automatically slowed down to a
walk. I greeted them.
"How
are you?" don Genaro asked me in such an affected tone, that we all
laughed.
"He's
in very good shape," don Juan interjected before I could answer.
"I can
see that," don Genaro retorted. "Look at that double chin! And
look at those chunks of
bacon fat on the jowls!" Don
Juan held his stomach as he laughed.
"Your
face is round," don Genaro went on. "What have you been doing?
Eating?" Don
Juan jokingly assured him, that my life style required, that I eat a
great deal.
In a most
friendly way they teased me about my life, and then don Juan asked me
to sit down between
them. The sun had already set behind the huge range of
mountains to the
west. "Where's
your famous notebook?" don Genaro asked me, and when I got it
out of my pocket
he yelled, "Yippee!" and took it from my hands. Obviously he
had
observed me with great care and knew my mannerisms to
perfection. He
held the notebook with both hands and played with it nervously, as if
he did not know what to do
with it. Twice he seemed to be on the verge of throwing it away, but
appeared to
contain himself. Then
he held it against his knees and pretended to write feverishly in
it, the way I do. Don Juan laughed so hard, that he was about to choke.
"What
did you do after I left you?" don Juan asked after they had
quieted down.
"I
went to the market on Thursday," I said.
"What
were you doing there? Retracing your steps?" he retorted. Don
Genaro fell backwards and with his lips made the dry sound of a
head hitting the ground.
He
looked at me askance and winked.
"I had
to do it," I said. "And I found out, that on weekdays there are
no stands, that sell coins
and secondhand books." Both
of them laughed. Then don Juan said,
that asking questions was not
going to reveal
anything new. "What
really took place, don Juan?" I asked.
"Believe
me, there is no way of knowing that," he said dryly. "In those
matters you and I are
on equal ground. My advantage over you at this moment is, that I
know
how to get to the nagual,
and you don't. But once I have gotten there, I have no more advantage
and no more knowledge,
than you."
"Did I
really land in the market, don Juan?" I asked.
"Of
course. I've told you, the nagual is at the warrior's command.
Isn't it so, Genaro?"
"Right!"
don Genaro exclaimed in a booming voice and stood up in one
single motion. It was
as though his voice had pulled him from a lying position to a
perfectly
vertical one. Don
Juan was practically rolling on the ground laughing. Don Genaro,
with a nonchalant air,
took a comical bow and said good-by. "Genaro
will see you tomorrow morning," don Juan said. "Now you must
sit here in total
silence." We
did
not say another word. After hours of silence I fell asleep. I
looked at my watch.
It was almost six in the morning. Don Juan
examined the solid mass of
heavy white clouds over the eastern horizon and concluded, that it was
going to be an overcast
day.
162-163
Don
Genaro sniffed the air and added, that it was also going to be
hot and windless.
"How
far are we going?" I asked.
"To
those eucalyptus trees over there," don Genaro replied, pointing to
what seemed to be a
grove of trees about a mile away. When
we reached the trees I realized, that it was not a grove; the
eucalyptus had been planted
in straight lines, in order to mark the boundaries of fields cultivated
with different crops. We
walked along the edge of a corn field, along a line of
enormous trees,
thin and straight, over a
hundred feet high, and arrived at an empty field. I figured, that the
crop must have just been
harvested. There were only the dried stalks and leaves of some plants I
did not recognize. I bent
over to pick up a leaf, but don Genaro stopped me. He held my arm with
great force. I recoiled in
pain and then I noticed, that he had only placed his fingers gently on
my arm. He
was
definitely aware, of what he had done and of what I was
experiencing. He swiftly
lifted his fingers off my arm and then again placed them gently on it.
He repeated it once more
and laughed like a delighted child when I winced. Then he
turned his
profile to me. His aquiline
nose made him look like a bird, a bird with strange long white teeth. In a
soft voice don Juan told me not to touch anything. I asked
him if
he knew what kind of
crop had been cultivated there. He seemed to be about to tell me, but
don Genaro interceded and
said, that it was a field of worms. Don
Juan looked at me fixedly, without cracking a smile. Don Genaro's
meaningless answer
appeared to be a joke. I waited for a cue to start laughing,
but they
just stared at me. "A
field of gorgeous worms," don Genaro said. "Yes, what was grown here,
was the most
delightful worms you've ever seen." He
turned to don Juan. They looked at each other for an instant. "Isn't
it so?" he asked.
"Absolutely
true," don Juan said, and turning to me he added in a soft
voice, "Genaro holds
the baton today; only he can tell what's what, so do exactly, as he
says."
The
idea, that don Genaro had the control, filled me with terror. I
turned to don Juan to tell him
about it; but before I had time to voice my words, don Genaro let out
a
long formidable scream; a yell
so loud and frightening, that I felt the back of my neck swell and
my hair flowing out, as if a
wind were blowing it. I had an instant of complete
disassociation and
would have remained glued
to the spot, had it not been for don Juan, who with incredible speed
and
control turned my body
around, so my eyes could witness an inconceivable feat. Don Genaro was
standing horizontally,
about one hundred feet above the ground, on the trunk of a eucalyptus
tree which was perhaps
fifty yards away! That is, he was standing with his legs
three feet
apart, perpendicular to the tree. It was,
as if he had hooks on his shoes, and with them was capable of
defying gravity. His arms
were crossed over his chest and his back was turned to me. I
stared at him. I did not want to blink for fear of losing
sight of
him. I made a quick judgment
and concluded, that if I could maintain him within my field of vision,
I
might detect a clue, a
movement, a gesture, or anything, that would help me
understand what was
taking place. I felt don Juan's head next to my right ear and I heard
him whisper,
that any attempt to explain,
was useless and idiotic. I heard him repeat, "Push your belly
down,
down." It
was
a technique he had taught me, years before, to use in moments of
great danger, fear, or
stress. It consisted of pushing the diaphragm down, while
taking four
sharp gasps of air through
the mouth, followed by four deep inhalations and exhalations through
the nose. He had explained,
that the gasps of air had to be felt as jolts in the middle part of the
body, and that keeping the
hands tightly clasped, covering the navel, gave strength to the
midsection and helped to control
the gasps and the deep inhalations, which had to be held for a count of
eight, as one pressed the
diaphragm down. The exhalations were done twice through the
nose and
twice through the mouth
in a slow or accelerated fashion, depending on one's preference. I
automatically obeyed don Juan. I did not dare, however, to
take my
eyes away from don
Genaro. As I kept on breathing, my body relaxed and I was aware, that
don Juan was twisting my
legs.
164-165
Apparently
when he had turned me around, my right foot had caught
in a clump of dirt and
my leg was uncomfortably bent. When he straightened me out, I
realized
that the shock of seeing
don Genaro standing on the trunk of a tree had made me oblivious to my
discomfort. Don Juan whispered in my ear, that I should not stare
at don
Genaro. I
heard him say, "Blink,
blink." For
a
moment I felt reluctant. Don Juan commanded me again. I was
convinced, that the whole
affair was somehow linked to me as the onlooker, and if I, as
the sole
witness of don Genaro's
deed, had stopped looking at him, he would have fallen to the ground or
perhaps the whole scene
would have vanished. After an excruciatingly long period of immobility,
don Genaro swiveled
on his heels, forty five
degrees to his right, and began to walk
up the trunk. His body
shivered. I saw him take one
small step after another, until he had taken eight. He even
circumvented
a branch. Then, with his
arms still crossed over his chest, he sat down on the trunk
with his
back to me. His legs dangled,
as if he were sitting on a chair, as if gravity had no effect on him.
He then sort of walked on his
seat, downwards. He reached a branch, that was parallel to his body,
and
leaned on it with his left
arm and his head for a few seconds; he seemed
to be leaning more for
dramatic effect, than for
support. He then kept on moving on his seat, inching his way from the
trunk onto the branch,
until he had changed his position and was sitting, as one
might normally
sit on a branch. Don Juan giggled. I had a horrible taste in my mouth.
I wanted to turn
round and face don
Juan, who was slightly behind me to my right, but I did not
dare miss
any of don Genaro's
actions. He dangled his feet for a while, then crossed them and swung
them
gently, and finally he
slipped upwards back onto the trunk. Don Juan took my head gently in
both hands and twisted my neck to the
left, until my line of vision was parallel
to the tree rather, than
perpendicular to it.
Looking at don Genaro from that
angle, he did not appear to be defying gravity. He was simply sitting
on the trunk of a tree. I
noticed then, that if I stared and did not blink, the background became
vague and diffuse, and the
clarity of don Genaro's body became more intense; his shape
became
dominant, as if nothing else
existed. Don Genaro swiftly slid downward back onto the branch. He sat
dangling
his feet, like on a
trapeze. Looking at him from a twisted perspective, made both
positions,
especially sitting on the
tree trunk, seem feasible. Don Juan shifted my head to the right, until
it was resting on my
shoulder. Don Genaro's
position on the branch seemed perfectly normal, but when he moved onto
the trunk again, I could
not make the necessary perceptual adjustment and I saw him,
as if he
were upside down, with his
head towards the ground. Don
Genaro moved back and forth various times, and don Juan shifted
my
head from side to
side every time don Genaro moved. The result of their manipulations
was,
that I completely lost
track of my normal perspective, and without it
don Genaro's actions
were not as awesome. Don Genaro remained on the branch for a long time.
Don Juan
straightened my neck and
whispered, that don Genaro was about to descend. I heard him
whisper in
an imperative tone,
"Press down, down." I was
in the middle of a fast exhalation, when don Genaro's body seemed
to be transfixed by
some sort of tension; it glowed, became lax, swung backwards, and hung
by the knees for a
moment. His legs seemed to be so flaccid, that they could not
stay bent
and he fell to the ground. At the moment he began his downward fall, I
also had the sensation of
falling through endless
space. My whole body experienced a painful and at the same
time
extremely pleasurable anguish;
an anguish of such intensity and duration, that my legs could no longer
support the weight of my
body and I fell down on the soft dirt. I could barely move my arms to
buffer my fall. I was
breathing so heavily, that the soft dirt got into my nostrils
and made
them itch. I tried to get up;
my muscles seemed to have lost their strength. Don Juan and don Genaro
came and stood over me. I heard their voices, as
if they were quite a
distance from me, and yet I felt them pulling me.
166-167
They
must have lifted
me up, each holding one
of my arms and one of my legs, and carried me over a short distance. I
was perfectly aware of the
uncomfortable position of my neck and head, which hung limp.
My eyes
were open. I could see
the ground and tufts of weeds passing under me. Finally, I had a cold
seizure. Water entered into
my mouth and nose and made me cough. My arms and legs moved
frantically. I began to swim,
but the water was not deep enough and I found myself standing
up in the
shallow river, where
they had dumped me. Don
Juan and don Genaro laughed themselves silly. Don Juan rolled up
his pants and came
over closer to me; he looked me in the eye and said, that I was not
complete yet and pushed me
gently back into the water. My body did not offer any resistance. I did
not want to be dunked
again, but there was no way of connecting my volition to my muscles and
I crumbled backwards. The
coldness was even more intense. I quickly jumped up and
scurried
out on the opposite bank
by mistake. Don Juan and don Genaro yelled and whistled and threw rocks
into the bushes ahead
of me, as though they were corralling a steer, that was
running astray.
I crossed back over the river
and sat on a rock next to them. Don Genaro handed me my clothes and
then
I noticed, that I was
naked, although I could not remember when or how I got my clothes off.
I was dripping wet and
did not want to put them on right away. Don Juan turned to
don Genaro
and in a booming tone
said, "For heaven's sake, give the man a towel!" It took me a couple of
seconds to realize the
absurdity. I felt very good. In fact, I was so happy, that I
did not
want to talk.
I had the certainty,
however, that if I showed my euphoria they would have dumped me into
the water again. Don Genaro watched me. His eyes had the
glint of a
wild animal's. They
pierced through me.
"Good
for you," don Juan said to me all of a sudden. "You're contained
now, but down by the
eucalyptus trees you indulged like a son of a bitch." I
wanted to laugh hysterically. Don Juan's words seemed so
utterly
funny, that I had to make a
supreme effort to contain myself. And then some part of me flashed a
command.
An
uncontrollable itching in the midsection of my body made me take off my
clothes and plunge
back into the water. I
stayed in the river for about five minutes. The
coldness restored my sense
of sobriety. When I got out I was myself again. "Good
show," don Juan said, tapping me on the shoulder. They led me back to
the eucalyptus trees. As we walked, don Juan
explained, that my tonal
had been dangerously vulnerable, and that the incongruity of don
Genaro's acts seemed to be
too
much for it. He said, that they had decided not to tamper with it any
more and go back to don
Genaro's house, but the fact, that I knew I had to plunge myself
into
the river again had changed
everything. He did not say, however, what they intended to do. We stood
in the middle of the field, on the same spot we had been
before. Don Juan was to my
right and don Genaro to my left. They both stood with their muscles
tensed, in a state of alertness. They maintained that tenseness
for
about ten minutes. I shifted my eyes
from one to the other. I
thought, that don Juan would cue me on what to do. I was right. At one
moment he relaxed his
body and kicked some hard clumps of dirt. Without looking at
me, he
said, "I think we'd better
go." I automatically reasoned, that don Genaro must have had the
intention of giving me another
demonstration of the nagual, but had decided not to. I felt relieved. I
waited another moment for a
final confirmation. Don Genaro also eased off and then both
of them
took one step forward. I
knew then, that we were through there. But at the very instant I
loosened up, don Genaro again let
out his incredible yell. I began to breathe frantically. I
looked
around. Don Genaro had
disappeared. Don Juan was
standing in front of me. His body convulsed with laughter. He
turned to
me. "I'm
sorry," he said in a whisper. "There's no other way." I
wanted to ask about don Genaro, but I felt, that if I did not keep on
breathing and pressing
down on my diaphragm I would die. Don Juan pointed with his
chin to a
place behind me. Without moving my feet, I began to turn my head over
my left shoulder.
But before
I could see
what he was pointing at, don Juan jumped and stopped me. The force of
his leap and the speed,
with which he grabbed me, made me lose my balance. As I fell
on my back,
I had the sensation,
that my startled reaction had been to grab on to don Juan and
consequently I dragged him with
me to the ground.
168-169
But
when I looked up, the impressions of my tactile
and visual senses were in
total disaccord. I saw don Juan standing over me laughing, while my
body felt the unmistakable
weight and pressure of another body on top of me, almost pinning me
down. Don Juan extended his hand and helped me get up. My bodily
sensation
was, that he was
lifting two bodies. He smiled knowingly and whispered, that one should
never turn to one's left,
when facing the nagual. He said, that the nagual was deadly, and there
was no need to make the
risks more dangerous, than they already were. He then gently turned me
around and made me face
an enormous eucalyptus tree. It was perhaps the oldest tree
around. Its
trunk was nearly twice as
thick, as any of the others. He pointed with his eyes to the top. Don
Genaro was perched on a
branch. He was facing me. I could see his eyes like two huge mirrors
reflecting light. I did not
want to look, but don Juan insisted, that I should not move my eyes
away.
In a very forceful whisper he ordered me to blink, and not to succumb
to fright or
indulgence. I noticed, that if I blinked steadily don Genaro's
eyes were
not so
awesome. It was only when I
stared, that the glare of his eyes became maddening. He squatted on the
branch for a long time. Then, without moving his
body at all, he jumped to
the ground and landed, in the same squatting position, a couple of
yards from where I was. I
witnessed the complete sequence of his jump, and I knew, that
I had
perceived more, than my eyes
had allowed me to catch. Don Genaro had not really jumped. Something
had pushed him, as if
from behind and had made him glide on a parabolic course. The
branch,
where he had been
perched, was possibly a hundred feet high, and the tree was located
about a hundred and fifty feet
away from me; thus, his body had to trace a parabola to land, where it
did. But the force, needed to
cover that distance, was not the product of don Genaro's
muscles; his
body was "blown" away
from the branch to the ground. At one point I was able to see the soles
of his shoes and his rear, as
his body described the parabola. Then he landed gently,
although his
weight crumbled the hard
clumps of dried dirt and even raised a bit of dust. Don
Juan giggled behind me. Don Genaro stood up as if nothing had
happened and tugged the
sleeve of my shirt to give me a signal, that we were leaving. Noone
spoke on the way to don Genaro's house.
I felt lucid and
composed. A couple of times
don Juan stopped and examined my eyes by staring into them. He seemed
satisfied. As soon, as
we arrived, don Genaro went behind the house. It was still early in the
morning. Don Juan sat on
the floor by the door and pointed to a place for me to sit. I was
exhausted. I lay down and went
out like a light. I woke up when don Juan shook me. I tried to look at
the time. My watch
was missing. Don
Juan pulled it from his shirt pocket and handed it to me. It
was around
1:00 P.M. I looked up and
our eyes met. "No.
There's no explanation," he said, turning away from me. "The
nagual is only for
witnessing."
I
went
around the house looking for don Genaro; he was not there. I
came back to the front. Don Juan had made me something to eat. After I
had finished eating, he
began to talk. "When
one is dealing with the nagual, one should never look into it
directly," he said. "You
were peering at it this morning, and therefore you were
sapped. The
only way to look at the
nagual is as if it were a common affair. One must blink in order to
break the fixation. Our eyes
are the eyes of the tonal, or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say,
that our eyes have been
trained by the tonal, therefore the tonal claims them. One of the
sources of your bafflement and
discomfort is, that your tonal doesn't let go of your eyes.
The day it
does, your nagual will have
won a great battle. Your obsession or, better yet, everyone's obsession
is to arrange the world
according to the tonal's rules; so every time we are confronted with
the nagual, we go out of our
way to make our eyes stiff and intransigent.
I must appeal to the part
of your tonal, which
understands this dilemma and you must make an effort to free your eyes.
The point is to convince
the tonal, that there are other worlds, that can pass in
front of the
same windows. The nagual
showed you that this morning.
170-171
So,
let your eyes be free; let them be
true windows. The eyes can
be the windows to peer into boredom or to peek into that infinity." Don
Juan made a sweeping arc with his left arm to point all
around us.
There was a glint in his
eyes, and his smile was at once frightening and disarming.
"How
can I do that?" I asked.
"I
say, that it is a very simple matter. Perhaps I say it is simple,
because I've been doing it for so
long. All you have to do is to set up your intent, as a customs
house.
Whenever you are in the
world of the tonal, you should be an impeccable tonal; no time for
irrational crap. But whenever
you are in the world of the nagual, you should also be
impeccable; no
time for rational crap. For
the warrior, intent is the gate in between. It closes completely behind
him when he goes either
way. Another thing one should do when facing the nagual is,
to shift the
line of the eyes from time
to time, in order to break the spell of the nagual. Changing the
position of the eyes always eases
the burden of the tonal. This morning I noticed, that you were
extremely
vulnerable and I changed
the position of your head. If you are in a pinch like that,
you should
be able to shift by yourself. This shifting should be done only as a
relief, though, not as another
way of palisading yourself to
safeguard the order of the tonal. My bet would be, that you
would strive
to use this technique to
hide the rationality of your tonal behind it, and thus believe, that
you're saving
it from extinction. The flaw of your reasoning is, that
nobody wants or seeks the extinction
of the tonal's rationality. That fear is ill founded. There is nothing
else I can tell you, except, that you must follow
every movement, that Genaro
makes, without draining yourself. You are testing now whether or not
your tonal is crammed with
nonessentials. If there are too many unnecessary items on your island,
you won't be able to sustain
the encounter with the nagual."
"What
would happen to me?"
"You
may die.
Noone is
capable of surviving a deliberate encounter
with the nagual without a
long training. It takes years to prepare the tonal for such an
encounter. Ordinarily, if an average
man comes face to face with the nagual, the shock would be so great,
that
he would die. The
goal
of a warrior's training then is not to teach him to hex or to
charm,
but to prepare his tonal not to
crap out. A most difficult accomplishment. A warrior must be taught to
be impeccable and
thoroughly empty, before he could even conceive witnessing
the nagual.
In your case, for instance, you have to stop calculating. What you
were doing this morning
was absurd.
You call it explaining. I call it a sterile and boring
insistence of the tonal to have
everything under its control. Whenever it doesn't succeed, there is a
moment of bafflement and
then the tonal opens itself to death. What a prick! It would rather
kill itself, than relinquish
control. And yet there is very little we can do to change
that
condition."
"How
did you change it yourself, don Juan?"
"The
island of the tonal has to be swept clean and maintained clean.
That's the only alternative,
that a warrior has. A clean island offers no resistance; it is as if
there were nothing there." He
went around the house and sat down on a big smooth rock. From there
one could look into
a deep ravine. He signaled me to sit down next
to him.
"Can
you tell me, don Juan, what else we are going to do today?" I
asked.
"We
aren't going to do anything. That is, you and I will only be the
witnesses. Your benefactor
is Genaro."
I
thought, I had misunderstood him in my eagerness to take notes. At the
beginning stages of
my apprenticeship, don Juan himself had introduced the term
"benefactor." My impression had
always been, that he himself was my benefactor. Don
Juan had stopped talking and was staring at me. I made a quick
assessment and my
conclusion was, that he must have meant, that don Genaro was
something
like the star performer
on that occasion. Don Juan giggled, as if he were reading my thoughts. "Genaro
is your benefactor," he repeated.
"But
you are, aren't you?" I asked in a frantic tone.
"I'm
the one, who helped you sweep the island of the tonal" he said.
"Genaro has two
apprentices, Pablito and Nestor. He is helping them sweep the island;
but I will show them the
nagual. I will be their benefactor. Genaro is only their teacher.
172-173
In
these matters one can either talk or act; one cannot do both with the
same person. One either takes the
island of the tonal or one
takes the nagual. In your case
my duty has been to work with your
tonal.'' As
don Juan spoke, I had an attack of terror so intense, that I was about
to get ill, I had the
feeling, that he was going to leave me with don Genaro and
that was a
most dreadful scheme to
me. Don
Juan laughed and laughed, as I voiced my fears. "The
same thing happens to Pablito,"
he said. "The moment he sets eyes
on me, he gets ill. The
other day he walked into the house when Genaro was gone. I was alone
here and I had left my
sombrero by the door. Pablito saw it and his tonal became so
frightened,
that he actually shit in
his pants."
I
could easily understand and project into Pablito's feelings. When
I
considered the matter
carefully, I had to admit, that don Juan was terrifying. I had learned,
however, to feel comfortable
with him. I experienced with him a familiarity born out of
our long
association.
"I'm
not going to leave you with Genaro," he said, still laughing. "I'm
the one, who takes care
of your tonal. Without it you're dead."
"Has
every apprentice a teacher and a benefactor?" I asked to ease my
turmoil.
"No,
not every apprentice. But some do."
"Why
do some of them have both a teacher and a benefactor?"
"When
an ordinary man is ready, power provides him with a teacher, and
he becomes an
apprentice. When the apprentice is ready, power provides him with
a
benefactor, and he becomes
a sorcerer."
"What
makes a man ready, so that power can provide him with a teacher?"
"Noone
knows that. We are only men. Some of us are men, who have
learned to see and use
the nagual, but nothing, that we may have gained in the course of
our
lives, can reveal to us the
designs of power. Thus, not every apprentice has a benefactor. Power
decides that."
I
asked him if he himself had had a teacher and a benefactor,
and for
the first time in thirteen
years he freely talked about them. He said, that both his teacher and
his benefactor were from
central Mexico. I had always considered that information
about don Juan
to be of value for my
anthropological research, but somehow at the moment of his revelation
it did not matter.
Don
Juan glanced at me. I thought it was a look of concern. He then
abruptly changed the
subject and asked me to recount every detail of what I had experienced
in the morning. "A
sudden fright always shrinks the tonal" he said as a comment on my
description of how I
felt when don Genaro screamed. "The problem here is not to
let the
tonal shrink itself out of the
picture. A grave issue for a warrior is to know exactly when to allow
his tonal to shrink and when
to stop it. This is a great art.
A warrior must struggle like a demon
to shrink his tonal; and yet at
the very moment the tonal shrinks, the warrior must reverse all that
struggle to immediately halt
that shrinking."
"But
by doing that, isn't he reverting back to what he already was?" I
asked.
"No.
After the tonal shrinks, the warrior is closing the gate from the
other side. As long, as his
tonal is unchallenged and his eyes are tuned only for the tonal's
world, the warrior is on the safe
side of the fence. He's on familiar ground and knows all the rules. But
when his tonal shrinks, he
is on the windy side, and that opening must be shut tight
immediately,
or he would be swept
away. And this is not just a way of talking. Beyond the gate of the
tonal's eyes the wind rages. I
mean a real wind. No metaphor. A wind, that can blow one's
life away. In
fact, that is the wind,
that blows all living things on this Earth (these are the cyclones,
typhoons, storms on Earth, which are increasing! LM).
Years ago I acquainted you
with that wind. You took it
as a joke, though." He was
referring to a time, when he had taken me to the mountains
and
explained certain properties of the wind. I had never thought
it was a joke, however. "It's
not important whether you took it seriously or not,"
he said
after listening to my protests. "As a rule the tonal must defend
itself, at any cost, every time it is
threatened; so it is of no real
consequence how the tonal reacts in order to accomplish its
defense.
The only important matter is,
that the tonal of a warrior must become acquainted with other
alternatives.
174-175
What a
teacher aims
for, in this case, is the total weight of those possibilities. It is
the weight of those new possibilities,
which helps to shrink the tonal. By the same token, it is the
same
weight, which helps stop the
tonal from shrinking out of the picture." He
signaled me to proceed with my narrative of the events of the
morning, and he interrupted
me when I came to the part, where don Genaro slid back and forth from
the tree trunk to the
branch. "The
nagual can perform extraordinary things," he said. "Things,
that do
not seem possible,
things, that are unthinkable for the tonal. But the extraordinary thing
is, that the performer has no
way of knowing how those things happen. In other words,
Genaro doesn't
know how he does
those things; he only knows, that he does them. The secret of a
sorcerer
is, that he knows how to
get to the nagual, but once he gets there, your guess is as good, as
his
as to what takes place."
"But
what does one feel while doing those things?"
"One
feels like one is doing something."
"Would
don Genaro feel like he's walking up the trunk of a tree?"
Don
Juan looked at me for a moment, then he turned his head away. "No,"
he said in a forceful whisper. "Not in the way you mean it." He did
not say anything else.
I was practically holding my breath,
waiting for his explanation.
Finally
I had to ask, "But what does he feel?"
"I
can't say, not because it is a personal matter, but because there is
no way of describing it."
"Come
on," I coaxed him. "There is nothing, that one can't explain or
elucidate with words. I
believe, that even if it's not possible to describe something directly,
one can allude to it, beat
around the bush."
Don
Juan laughed. His laughter was friendly and kind. And yet there was
a touch of mockery
and sheer mischievoiisness in it. "I
have to change the subject," he said. "Suffice
it to say, that the
nagual was aimed at you this
morning. Whatever Genaro did, was a mixture of you and him. His nagual
was tempered by your
tonal."
I
insisted on probing and asked him, "When you're showing the nagual to
Pablito, what do
you feel?"
"I
can't explain that," he said in a soft voice. "And not because I
don't want to, but simply
because I can't. My tonal stops there." I did
not want to press him any further. We remained silent for a
while, then he began to talk
again. "Let's
say, that a warrior learns to tune his will, to direct it to a
pinpoint, to focus it wherever
he
wants. It is as if his will, which comes from the midsection of his
body, is one single luminous
fiber, a fiber, that he can direct at any conceivable place. That
fiber
is the road to the nagual. Or I
could also say, that the warrior sinks into the nagual through that
single fiber. Once he has sunk, the expression of the
nagual is a
matter of his
personal temperament. If
the
warrior is funny the nagual is funny. If the warrior is morbid the
nagual is morbid. If the warrior
is mean the nagual is mean. Genaro always cracks me
up, because he's one
of the most delightful
creatures alive. I never
know what he's going to come up with. That to me is the
ultimate
essence of sorcery. Genaro is such a fluid warrior, that the slightest
focusing of his will makes his
nagual act in incredible
ways."
"Did
you yourself observe what don Genaro was doing in the trees?" I
asked.
"No, I
just knew, because I saw, that the nagual was in the trees. The
rest of the show was for
you alone."
"Do
you mean, don Juan, that, like the time when you pushed me and I
ended up in the
market, you were not with me?"
"It
was something like that. When one meets the nagual face to face,
one always has to be
alone. I was around only to protect your tonal. That is my charge."
Don
Juan said, that my tonal was nearly blasted to pieces when don
Genaro descended from
the tree; not so much because of any inherent quality of danger in
the
nagual, but because my
tonal indulged in its bewilderment.
176
He
said, that one of the aims of the
warrior's training was to
cut the bewilderment of the tonal, until the warrior was so fluid, that
he could admit everything
without admitting anything. When I described don Genaro's
leap up to
the tree and his leap down
from it, don Juan said,
that the yell of a warrior was one of the most important
issues of
sorcery, and that don Genaro
was capable of focusing on his yell, using it as a vehicle. "You
are right," he said. "Genaro was pulled partly by his yell
and
partly by the tree. That was
true seeing on your part. That was a true picture of the nagual.
Genaro's will was focused on the
yell and his personal touch made the tree pull the nagual.
The lines
went both ways from Genaro
to the tree and from the tree to Genaro. "What
you should have seen when Genaro jumped from the tree, was
that he
was focusing on a
spot in front of you and then the tree pushed him. But it only seemed
to be a push; in essence it
was more like being released by the tree. The tree released
the nagual
and the nagual came back
to the world of the tonal on the spot he focused on. "The
second time, that Genaro came down from the tree, your tonal was not
so bewildered; you
were not indulging so hard and therefore you were not as sapped, as you
were the first time." Around
four in the afternoon don Juan stopped our conversation. "We
are going back to the eucalyptus trees," he said. "The nagual is
waiting for us there."
"Aren't
we risking being seen by people?" I asked.
"No.
The nagual will keep everything suspended," he said.
8.
The Whispering of The
Nagual
177-178
As we
approached the eucalyptuses I saw don Genaro sitting
on a tree
stump. He waved his
hand, smiling. We joined him. There was a flock of crows in the
trees.
They were cawing, as if
something were frightening
them. Don Genaro said, that we had to remain motionless and quiet,
until
the crows had calmed
down. Don Juan leaned his back against a tree and signaled me
to do the
same
on a tree next to him a
few feet away to his left. We were both facing don Genaro, who was
three or four yards in front
of us. With a subtle movement of his eyes, don Juan gave me a cue to
rearrange my feet. He was
standing firmly, with his feet slightly apart, touching the
tree trunk
only with the upper part of his
shoulder blades and with the very back of his head. His arms hung at
his sides. We stood like that for perhaps an hour. I kept a
close vigil
on both of
them, especially on don
Juan. At a given moment he slid gently down the tree trunk and sat
down, still keeping the same
areas of his body in contact with the tree. His knees were
raised and
he rested his arms on them. I
imitated his movements. My legs had become extremely tired and
the
change of position made
me feel quite comfortable. The crows had stopped cawing by degrees,
until there was not a single
sound in the field. The
silence was more unnerving to me, than the noise of the
crows. Don Juan
spoke to me in a quiet tone. He said, that the twilight was my
best hour. He looked at
the sky. It must have been after six. It had
been an overcast day and I had had no way of checking the
position of the sun. I heard
the distant cries of geese and perhaps turkeys. But in the field with
eucalyptus trees there was no
noise. There had been no whistling of birds or sounds of large insects
for a long time. The bodies of don Juan and don Genaro had
been in
perfect immobility,
as far as I could
judge, except for a few seconds when they shifted their weight in order
to rest. After don Juan and I had slid to the ground, don
Genaro made a
sudden
motion. He lifted his
feet up and squatted on the stump. He then turned forty-five degrees,
and I was looking at his left
profile. I stared at don Juan in search of a clue. He jutted his chin;
it was a command to look at
don Genaro. A monstrous agitation began to overtake me. I was
incapable
of
containing myself. My bowels
were loose. I could absolutely feel what Pablito must have felt when he
saw don Juan's sombrero. I experienced such intestinal
distress, that I
had to get up and run to
the bushes. I heard them
howling with laughter. I did not dare to return to where they were. I
hesitated for a while; I
figured, that the spell must
have been broken by my sudden outburst. I did not have to ponder for
too long; don Juan and don
Genaro came over to where I was. They flanked me and we
walked to
another field. We stopped
at the very center of it and I recognized, that we had been there in
the
morning. Don Juan spoke to me. He told me, that I had to be
fluid and
silent and
should stop my internal
dialogue. I listened attentively. Don Genaro must have been aware, that
all my concentration was
focused on don Juan's admonitions and he used that moment to do what he
had done in the
morning; he again let out his maddening scream. He caught me
unaware,
but not unprepared. I
almost immediately recuperated my balance by breathing. The jolt was
terrifying, yet it did not
have a prolonged effect on me and I was capable of following don
Genaro's movements with my
eyes. I saw him leap to a low branch on a tree. As I followed his
course for a distance of eighty to
ninety feet, my eyes experienced an extravagant distortion. It was not
that he leaped by means of the spring action of his muscles; he rather
glided through the air, catapulted in part by his
formidable yell, and pulled by some vague lines emanating from the
tree.
179-180
It
was as if the tree had
sipped him through its lines. Don Genaro stayed perched on the low
branch for a moment. His left
profile was turned to
me. He began to perform a series of strange movements. His
head
wobbled, his body shivered. He hid his head various times in between
his knees. The more he moved
and fretted, the more
difficult it was for me to focus my eyes on his body. He seemed to be
dissolving. I blinked
desperately and then I shifted my line of vision by twisting
my head to
the right and to the left, as
don Juan had taught me. From my left perspective I saw don Genaro's
body, as I had never seen it
before. It was as if he had put on a disguise. He had a furry
suit on;
the hair was the color of a
Siamese cat, light buff-brown, with touches of dark chocolate brown on
the legs and the back; it
had
a long thick tail. Don Genaro's costume made him look like a furry
brown long-legged
crocodile sitting on a branch. I could not see his head or his
features.
I straightened my head to a normal position. The vision of
don Genaro
in disguise remained
unchanged. Don Genaro's arms shivered. He stood up on the branch,
sort
of stooped
over, and leaped
towards the ground. The branch was perhaps fifteen to twenty feet high.
As far as I could judge, it
was an ordinary leap of a man wearing a costume. I saw don
Genaro's
body almost touching the
ground and then the thick tail of his costume vibrated and, instead of
landing, he took off, as if
powered with a silent jet engine. He went over the trees and then
glided almost to the ground. He
did that over and over. At times he would hold on to a branch
and swing
around a tree, or curl
like an eel between branches. And then he would glide and circle around
us, or flap his arms, as he
touched the very tops of the trees with his stomach. Don
Genaro's
cavorting (jumping) filled me with awe. My eyes followed him and two
or three times I
clearly perceived, that he was using some brilliant lines, as
if they
were pulleys, to glide from one
place to another. Then he went over the tops of the trees towards the
south and disappeared
behind them.
I tried to anticipate the place where he would appear
again, but he did not show up
at all. I
noticed then, that I was lying on my back and yet I had not been aware
of a change in
perspective. I had thought all along, that I was looking at don Genaro
from a standing position. Don Juan helped me to sit up and then I saw
don Genaro walking towards
us with a
nonchalant air. He smiled coyly and asked me, if I had liked his
flying.
I attempted to say
something, but I was speechless. Don Genaro exchanged a
strange look
with don Juan and adopted a squat
position again. He
leaned over and whispered something in my left ear. I heard him say:
"Why don't you come and
fly with me?" He repeated it five or six times. Don Juan came towards
me and whispered in my right ear, "Don't talk.
Just follow Genaro." Don
Genaro made me squat and whispered to me again. I heard him
with
crystal clear
precision. He repeated the statement perhaps ten times. He said, "Trust
the nagual. The nagual
will take you." Then
don Juan whispered in my right ear another statement. He said,
"Change your feelings." I
could hear both of them talking to me at once, but I could
also hear
them individually. Every
one of don Genaro's statements had to do with the general context of
gliding through the air. The
statements, that
he repeated dozens of times seemed to be those, that
became engraved in my
memory. Don Juan's words, on the other hand, had to do with specific
commands, which he
repeated countless times. The effect of that dual whispering was most
extraordinary. It was as if
the sound of their individual words were splitting me in
half. Finally
the abyss between my two ears
was so wide, that I lost all sense of unity. There was something,
that was undoubtedly me, but
it was not solid. It was rather like a glowing fog, a dark
yellow mist,
that had feelings. Don
Juan told me, that he was going to mold me for flying. The sensation
I had then was, that
the words were like pliers, that twisted and molded my
"feelings."
Don
Genaro's words were an invitation to follow him. I felt I wanted
to, but I could not. The
split was
so great, that I was incapacitated. Then I heard the same
short statements, repeated
endlessly by both of them; things like "Look at that magnificent flying
shape."
181-182
"Leap,
leap. Your legs will reach the treetops. The eucalyptuses are like
green
dots. The worms are
lights."
Something
in me must have ceased at a given moment; perhaps my
awareness of being talked
to. I sensed, that don Genaro was still with me, yet from the point of
view of my perception I
could only distinguish an enormous mass of the most
extraordinary
lights. At times their glare
diminished and at times the lights became intense. I was also
experiencing movement. The effect
was like being pulled by a vacuum, that never let me stop. Whenever my
motion seemed to
diminish and I could actually focus my awareness on the lights,
the
vacuum would pull me away
again. At
one
moment, between being pulled back and forth, I experienced the
ultimate confusion. The world around me, whatever
it was, was coming
and going at the same
time, thus the vacuumlike
effect. I could see two separate worlds; one, that was going away from
me, and the other, that
was coming closer to me. I did not realize this, as one ordinarily
would; that is, I did not become
aware of it as something, that had thus far been unrevealed. I
rather
had two realizations without
the unifying conclusion. After that my perceptions became dull. They
either lacked precision, or
they were too many
and I had no way of sorting them. The next batch of
discernible
apperceptions were a series of
sounds, that happened at the end of a long tubelike formation. The tube
was myself and the sounds
were don Juan and don Genaro, again talking to me through each of my
ears. The more they
talked, the shorter the tube became, until the sounds were
in a range I
recognized. That is to say,
the sounds of don Juan and don Genaro's words reached my normal range
of perception; the
sounds were first recognizable as noises, then as words,
yelled, and
finally as words, whispered in
my ears. I next noticed things of the familiar world. I was apparently
lying
face down. I could
distinguish clumps of dirt, small rocks, dried leaves. And then I
became aware of the field of
eucalyptus trees. Don Juan and don Genaro were standing by me. It
was
still light. I felt,
that I had to get into
the water in order to consolidate myself. I walked to the river, took
off my clothes and stayed in
the cold water long enough to restore my perceptual balance.
Don Genaro
left as soon, as we arrived at his house. He casually patted
me on the shoulder as
he was leaving. I jumped away in a reflex reaction. I
thought, that his
touch was going to be
painful; to my amazement it was simply a gentle pat on the shoulder.
Don Juan and don Genaro laughed like two kids celebrating a
prank.
"Don't
be so jumpy," don Genaro said. "The nagual is not after you all
the time." He smacked his lips, as though disapproving my overreaction,
and with an
air of candor and
comradeship he extended his arms. I embraced him. He patted my back in
a most friendly warm
gesture. "You must be concerned with the nagual only
at certain
moments. The rest of the
time you and I are like all the other people on this earth." He
faced don Juan and smiled at him. "Isn't
it so, Juancho?" he asked, emphasizing the word Juancho, a
funny
nickname for Juan.
"That's
so, Gerancho," don Juan answered, making up the word Gerancho. They
both had an explosion of laughter. "I
must warn you," don Juan said to me,
"you have to exert the most
demanding vigil (watching) to be
sure when a man is a nagual and when a man is simply a man. You may
die,
if you come into
direct physical contact with the nagual" Don
Juan turned to don Genaro and with a beaming smile asked, "Isn't it
so, Gerancho?"
"That's
so, absolutely so, Juancho," don Genaro replied, and both of
them laughed.
Their
childlike mirth was very moving to me. The events of the day had
been exhausting and I
was very emotional. A wave of self-pity engulfed me. I was about to
weep, as I kept on repeating
to myself, that whatever they had done to me, was
irreversible and most
likely injurious. Don Juan
seemed to be reading my thoughts and shook his head in a gesture of
disbelief.
183-184
He
chuckled. I
made an effort to stop my internal dialogue, and my self-pity vanished.
"Genaro
is very warm," don Juan commented when don Genaro had left.
"The design of
power was, that you found a gentle benefactor." I did
not know what to say. The idea, that don Genaro was my benefactor,
intrigued me no end.
I wanted don Juan to tell me more about it. He did
not seem inclined to
talk. He looked at the sky
and at the top of the dark silhouette of some trees at the side of
the
house. He sat down with his
back against a thick forked pole, planted almost in front of the door,
and told me to sit next to him
to his left. I sat by him. He pulled me closer by the arm,
until I was
touching him.
He said, that that time
of the night was dangerous for me, especially on that occasion. In a
very calm voice he gave me a
set of instructions: "We were not to move from the spot, until he saw
fit
to do so; we were to keep
on talking, on an even keel, without long interruptions; and I had
to
breathe and blink, as if I were
facing the nagual.
"Is
the nagual around here?" I asked.
"Of
course," he said and chuckled. I
practically huddled against don Juan. He began to talk and actually
solicited any kind of
question from me. He even handed me my notebook and pencil,
as if I
could write in the darkness. His
contention was, that I needed to be as calm and normal, as possible
and there could be no
better way of fortifying my tonal, than through taking notes.
He put the
whole matter on a very
compelling level; he said, that if taking notes was my predilection,
then I should be able to do it in
complete darkness. There was a tone of challenge in his voice when he
said, that I could turn the
taking of notes into a warrior's task, in which case the
darkness would
be no obstacle. Somehow, he must have convinced me, for I managed to
scribble down
parts of our
conversation. The main topic was don Genaro as my benefactor.
I was
curious to know when don
Genaro had become my benefactor, and don Juan coaxed me to remember a
supposedly
extraordinary event, that had happened the day I had met don
Genaro, and
which served as a
proper omen. I
could not recollect anything of the sort. I began to
recount the experience; as far,
as I could remember, it was a most unobtrusive and casual meeting,
which
took place in the spring
of 1968. Don Juan stopped me. "If
you're dumb enough not to remember," he said, "we'd better leave it
that way. A warrior
follows the dictums of power. You will remember it when it becomes
necessary."
Don
Juan said, that having a benefactor was a most difficult matter. He
used as an example the
case of his own apprentice Eligio, who had been with him for
many
years. He said, that Eligio had
been unable to find a benefactor. I asked him if Eligio would
eventually find one; he answered, that there was no way of predicting
the quirks of power. He reminded me,
that once, years before,
we had found a group of young Indians, roaming around the desert in
northern Mexico. He said,
that
he saw, that none of them had a benefactor, and that the general
surroundings and the mood
of the moment were just right for him to give them a hand, by
showing
them the nagual. He was
talking about one night when four young men sat by a fire while don
Juan put on, what I thought
to be a spectacular show, in which
he, apparently, appeared to each of us
in a different guise. "Those
guys knew a great deal," he said. "You were the only greenhorn
among them."
"What
happened to them afterwards?" I asked.
"Some
of them found a benefactor," he replied. Don
Juan said, that it was the duty of a benefactor to deliver his ward
to power, and that the
benefactor imparted to the neophyte his personal touch, as
much, if not
more so, than the teacher. During
a short pause in our talk I heard a strange rasping noise at the
hack of the house. Don
Juan held me down; I had almost stood up as a reaction to it. Before
the noise happened, our
conversation had been a matter of course for me. But when the
pause
occurred, and there was a
moment of silence, the strange noise popped through it. At that instant
I had the certainty, that our
conversation was an extraordinary event. I had the sensation,
that the
sound of don Juan's words
and mine were like a sheet, that broke, and that the rasping sound had
been deliberately prowling,
waiting for a chance to break through.
185-186
Don
Juan commanded me to sit tight and not to pay attention to the
surroundings. The rasping
noise reminded me of the sound of a gopher, clawing on hard
dry ground.
The moment I had
thought of the simile, I also had a visual image of a rodent, like the
one don Juan had showed me
on his palm. It was, as if I were falling asleep and my
thoughts were
turning into visions or
dreams. I began the breathing exercise and held my stomach with my
clasped
hands. Don Juan kept on
talking, but I was not listening to him. My attention was on
the soft
rustle of a snake-like thing,
slithering over small dry leaves. I had a moment of panic and
physical
revulsion at the thought of
a snake crawling on me. I involuntarily put my feet under don Juan's
legs and breathed and
blinked frantically. I heard the noise so close, that it
seemed to be
only a couple of feet
away. My panic mounted. Don Juan calmly said, that the only way to fend
off the nagual was, to
remain unaltered.
He
ordered me to stretch my legs and not to focus my attention on the
noise. He imperatively
demanded, that I write or ask questions and make an effort not
to
succumb. After a great struggle I asked him, if don Genaro was making
the noise.
He said, that it was the
nagual and that I should not mix them; Genaro was the
name of the
tonal. He then said
something else, but I could not understand him. Something was circling
around the house and I
could not concentrate on our conversation. He commanded me to
make a
supreme effort. At one
moment I found, that I was babbling idiocies about my being unworthy. I
had a jolt of fear and
snapped into a state of great lucidity. Don Juan told me then, that it
was all right to listen. But
there were no sounds. "The
nagual is gone," don Juan said and stood up and went inside.
He
lit don Genaro's kerosene lantern and made some food. We ate in
silence. I asked him if
the nagual was coming back.
"No,"
he said with a serious expression. "It was just testing you. At
this time of night, just
after the twilight, you should always involve yourself in
something.
Anything would do. It is
only
for a short period, an hour perhaps, but in your case a most deadly
hour. Tonight the nagual tried to make you stumble, but you
were strong
enough to ward off its
assault. Once, you succumbed to it and I had to pour water over your
body, this time you did fine." I
remarked, that the word "assault" made the event sound very
dangerous. "Made
it sound dangerous? That's a weird way of putting it," he said.
"I'm not trying to scare
you. The actions of the nagual are deadly. I've already told
you that,
and it is not that Genaro tries
to hurt you; on the contrary, his concern for you is impeccable, but if
you don't have enough
power to parry the nagual's onslaught, you're dead, regardless of my
help or Genaro's concern." After
we finished eating, don Juan sat next to me and looked over
my
shoulder at my notes. I
commented, that it would probably take me years to assort everything,
that had happened to me
during that day. I knew, that I had been flooded with
perceptions I
could not ever hope to
understand. "If
you cannot understand, you're in great shape," he said. "It is when
you understand, that
you're in a mess. That's from the point of view of a
sorcerer, of
course. From the point of view of
an average man, if you fail to understand you're sinking. In your case,
I would say, that an average
man would think, that you are disassociated, or you're beginning to
become disassociated." I
laughed at his choice of words. I knew, that he was throwing the
concept of disassociation
back at me; I had mentioned it to him sometime back in connection with
my fears. I assured him,
that this time I was not going to ask anything about what I had been
through. "I've
never put a ban on talking," he said. "We can talk about the
nagual to your heart's
content, as long as you don't try to explain it. If you
remember
correctly, I said, that the nagual is
only for witnessing. So, we can talk about what we witnessed and about
how we witnessed it. You want to take on the explanation of
how it is
all possible, though,
and that is an abomination (intense dislike). You want to explain the
nagual with the
tonal. That
is stupid, especially in your case, since you
can no longer hide behind your ignorance.
187-188
You
know very well, that we
make sense in talking
only, because we stay within certain boundaries, and those boundaries
are not applicable to the
nagual"
I
attempted to clarify the issue. It was not only, that I wanted to
explain everything from a
rational point of view, but my need to explain stemmed from my
necessity to maintain order
throughout the tremendous onslaughts of chaotic stimuli and perceptions
I had had. Don Juan's comment was, that I was trying to defend a point,
I
did not
agree with. "You
know damn well, that you're indulging." he said. "To maintain order
means to be a
perfect tonal, and to be a perfect tonal means to be aware of
everything, that takes place on the
island of the tonal. But you're not. So your argument about maintaining
order has no truth in it. You
only use it to win an argument." I did
not know what to say. Don Juan sort of consoled me by saying, that
it took a gigantic
struggle to clean the island of the tonal. Then he asked me
to recount
all, I had perceived, in my
second session with the nagual. When I had finished, he said, that what
I had witnessed as a furry
crocodile, was the epitome of don Genaro's sense of
humor. "It's
a pity that you're still so heavy," he said. "You always get
hooked by bewilderment and
miss Genaro's real art."
"Were
you aware of his appearance, don Juan?"
"No.
The show was only for you."
"What
did you see?"
"Today
all, I could See, was the movement of the nagual, gliding through
the trees and whirling
around us. Anyone, who Sees, can witness that."
"What
about someone who doesn't See?"
"He
would witness nothing, just the trees being blown by a wild wind
perhaps. We interpret
any unknown expression of the nagual as something we know; in
this case
the nagual might be
interpreted as a breeze, shaking the leaves, or even as some strange
light, perhaps a lightning bug of unusual size. If a man, who doesn't
See, is pressed, he would say, that
he thought, he saw
something, but could not remember what. This is only natural. The
man
would be talking sense. After all, his eyes would have judged
nothing
extraordinary; being the
eyes of the tonal, they have
to be limited to the tonal's world, and in that world there is
nothing staggering-
ly new, nothing,
which the eyes cannot apprehend and the tonal cannot explain." I
asked him about the uncharted perceptions, that resulted from their
whispering in my ears. "That
was the best part of the whole event," he said. "The rest could
be dispensed with, but
that was the crown of the day. The rule calls for the
benefactor and
the teacher to make that final
trimming. The most difficult of all acts. Both the teacher and the
benefactor must be impeccable
warriors to even attempt the feat of splitting a man. You
don't know
this, because it still is
beyond your realm, but power had been lenient with you again. Genaro is
the most impeccable
warrior there is."
"Why
is the splitting of a man a great feat?"
"Because
it is dangerous. You may have died like a little bug. Or worse
yet, we may have
never been able to put you back together, and you would have
remained
on that plateau of
feeling."
"Why
was it necessary to do it to me, don Juan?"
"There
is a certain time, when the nagual has to whisper in the ear of
the apprentice and split
him."
"What
does that mean, don Juan?"
"In
order to be an average tonal, a man must have unity. His whole being
must belong to the
island of the tonal. Without that unity the man would go berserk;
a
sorcerer, however, has to
break that unity, but without endangering his being. A sorcerer's goal
is to last; that is, he doesn't
take unnecessary risks, therefore
he spends years sweeping his island,
until a moment when he
could, in a manner of speaking, sneak off it. Splitting a man in two is
the gate for such an escape.
The splitting, which is the most dangerous
thing you've ever gone
through, was smooth and
simple. The nagual was masterful in guiding you. Believe me, only
an
impeccable warrior can do
that. I felt very good for you." Don
Juan put his hand on my shoulder and I had a gigantic urge to weep.
189-190
"Am I
arriving at a point when you won't see me any more?" I asked. He
laughed and shook his head.
"You
indulge like a son of a bitch," he said. "We all do that, though.
We have different ways,
that's all. Sometimes I indulge too. My way is to feel, that I
have
pampered you and made you
weak. I know, that Genaro has the same feeling about Pablito. He
pampers
him like a child. But
that is the way power set it up to be. Genaro gives Pablito
everything,
he's capable of giving and
one cannot wish, he would do something else. One cannot criticize a
warrior for doing his
impeccable best." He was
quiet for a moment. I was too nervous to sit in silence.
"What
do you think was happening to me, when I felt like I was being
sucked by a vacuum?" I
asked.
"You
were gliding," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Through
the air?"
"No.
For the nagual there is no land, or air, or water. At this point
you yourself can agree with
that. Twice you were in that limbo and you were only at the door of
the
nagual. You've told me,
that everything you encountered, was uncharted. So the nagual glides,
or
flies, or does whatever it
may do, in nagual's time, and that has nothing to do with
tonal's time.
The two things don't jibe." As don
Juan spoke I felt a tremor in my body. My jaw dropped and my
mouth opened involuntarily. My ears unplugged and I could hear a barely
perceptible
tingle or vibration. While
I was describing my sensations to don Juan, I noticed, that when I
talked,
it sounded as if someone
else were talking. It was a complex sensation, that amounted to my
hearing what I was going to
say, before I said it. My left ear was a source of
extraordinary
sensations. I felt, that it
was more powerful and
more accurate, than my right ear. There was something in it, that had
not
been there before. When
I turned around to face don Juan, who was to my right, I became aware,
that I had a range of clear
auditory perception around that ear. It was a physical space,
a range,
within which I could hear
everything with incredible fidelity. By turning my head around I could
scan the surroundings
with my ear. "The
whispering of the nagual did that to you," don Juan said,
when I
described my sensorial
experience. "It'll come at times and then vanish. Don't be afraid of
it, or of any unusual sensation,
that you may have from now on. But above all, don't indulge and become
obsessed with those
sensations. I know you will succeed. The time for your
splitting was
right. Power fixed all that. Now
everything depends on you. If you are powerful enough you will
sustain the great shock of
being split. But if you're incapable of holding on, you will
perish.
You will begin to wither away,
lose weight, become pale, absent-minded, irritable, quiet."
"Perhaps
if you would have told me years ago," I said, "what you and
don Genaro were doing,
I would have enough . . ."
He
raised his hand and did not let me finish. "That's a meaningless
statement. "You once told me, that if it
wouldn't be for the fact,
that you're stubborn and given to rational explanations, you
would be a
sorcerer by now. But to be
a sorcerer in your case means, that you have to overcome stubbornness
and the need for rational
explanations, which stand in your way. What's more, those shortcomings
are your road to power. You can't say, that power would flow to you, if
your life would be
different. Genaro and I have to act the same way you do, within certain
limits.
Power sets up those
limits and a warrior is, let's say, a prisoner of power; a
prisoner who
has one free choice: the
choice to act either like an impeccable warrior, or to act like an ass.
In the final analysis, perhaps
the warrior is not a prisoner, but a slave of power, because
that choice
is no longer a choice for
him. Genaro cannot act in any other way, but impeccably. To act like an
ass would drain him and
cause his demise. The reason why you're afraid of Genaro is,
because he
has to use the
avenue of fright to
shrink your tonal. Your body knows that, although your reason
may not,
and thus your body
wants to run away every time Genaro is around." I
mentioned, that I was curious to know if don Genaro deliberately set
out to scare me. He said,
that the nagual did strange things, things, which were not foreseeable.
He gave me, as an example,
what had happened between us in the morning, when
he prevented my
turning to my left to look
at don Genaro in the tree.
191
He
said, that he was aware of what his nagual
had done, although he had
no way of knowing about it ahead of time. His explanation of the whole
affair was, that my
sudden movement to the left was a step towards my death, which my tonal
was deliberately
taking, as a suicidal plunge. That movement stirred his nagual and
the
result was, that some part
of him fell on top of me. I made an involuntary gesture of perplexity. "Your
reason is telling you again, that you're immortal," he said.
"What
do you mean by that, don Juan?"
"An
immortal being has all the time in the world for doubts and
bewilderment and fears. A
warrior, on the other hand, cannot cling to the meanings, made under
the
tonal's order, because he
knows for a fact, that the totality of himself has, but a little time
on
this earth."
I
wanted to make a serious point. My fears and doubts and
bewilderment
were not on a
conscious level, and, no matter how hard I tried to control them, every
time I was confronted
with don Juan and don Genaro, I felt helpless. "A
warrior cannot be helpless," he said. "Or bewildered or frightened,
not under any
circumstances. For a warrior there is time only for his
impeccability;
everything else drains his
power, impeccability replenishes it."
"We're
back again to my old question, don Juan. What's impeccability?"
"Yes,
we're back again to your old question and consequently we're back
again to my old
answer: 'Impeccability is to do your best in whatever you're engaged
in.'"
"But
don Juan, my point is, that I'm always under the impression I'm
doing my best, and
obviously I'm not."
"It's
not as complicated, as you make it appear. The key to all these
matters of impeccability is
the sense of having or not having time. As a rule of thumb, when
you
feel and act like an
immortal being, that has all the time in the world, you are not
impeccable; at those times you
should turn, look around, and then you will realize, that
your feeling
of having time, is an idiocy. There
are no survivors on this Earth!"
9.
The Wings of Perception
192-193
Don
Juan and I spent the whole day in the mountains. We left at dawn.
He took me to four
places of power and at each one of them he gave me specific
instructions on how to proceed
towards the fulfillment of the particular task, that he had outlined
years before as a life situation
for me. We returned in the late afternoon. After eating, don
Juan left
don Genaro's house. He told
me, that I had to wait for Pablito, who was bringing some kerosene for
the lantern, and that I
should talk to him.
I became utterly absorbed in working on my notes
and did not hear
Pablito come in, until he
was next to me. Pablito's comment was, that he had been practicing
the
gait of power, and,
because of that, I could not possibly have heard him, unless I was
capable of Seeing.
I had always
liked Pablito. I had not, however, had very many opportunities in the
past to be alone with him,
although we were good friends.
Pablito had always struck me as being a
most charming person. His
name, of course, was Pablo, but the diminutive, Pablito,
suited him
better. He was smallboned,
but wiry. Like don Genaro he was lean, unsuspectedly muscular, and
strong. He was
perhaps in his late twenties, but it seemed like he was eighteen. He
was dark and of medium
height. His brown eyes were clear and bright, and like don Genaro he
had a winning smile with a
touch of devilishness in it. I asked him about his friend Nestor, don
Genaro's other apprentice. In
the past I had always
seen them together, and they had always given me the
impression of
having an excellent rapport
with each other; yet
they were opposites in physical appearance and
character. While Pablito was
jovial and frank, Nestor was gloomy and withdrawn. He was also taller,
heavier, darker, and
much older. Pablito said, that Nestor had finally become
involved in
his work with
don Genaro, and that he
had changed into an altogether different person, since the last time I
had seen him. He did not
want to elaborate any further on Nestor's work or change of
personality
and abruptly shifted the
topic of conversation. "I
understand the nagual is biting your heels," he said. I was
surprised, that he knew, and I asked how he had found that out. "Genaro
tells me everything," he said. I
noticed, that he did not speak of don Genaro in the same
formal way I
did. He simply called
him Genaro in a familiar fashion. He said, that don Genaro was like his
brother, and that they
were at ease around each other, as though they were family.
He openly
professed, that he loved
don Genaro dearly. I was deeply moved by his simplicity and candor. In
talking to him, I realized
how close in temperament don Juan and I were; thus our relationship was
formal and strict in
comparison to don Genaro and Pablito's. I asked Pablito why
he was
afraid of don Juan. His eyes flickered. It
was, as if the mere
thought of don Juan made him wince (shrink). He did not answer. He
seemed to be
assessing me in some
mysterious way. "You're
not afraid of him?" he asked. I told him, I was afraid of don Genaro
and
he laughed, as if that were
the last thing he expected
to hear. He said, that the difference between don Juan and
don Genaro
was like the difference
between day and night. Don Genaro was the day; don Juan was
the night,
and as such he was the
most frightening being on Earth. Describing his fear for don Juan, led
Pablito to make some
comments about his own condition as an apprentice. "I'm
in a most miserable state," he said. "If you could see what's in
my house, you would
realize, that I know too much for an ordinary man, and yet if
you saw me
with the nagual, you
would realize, that I don't know enough."
194-195
He
quickly changed the subject and began to laugh at my taking notes.
He said, that don
Genaro had provided hours of fun imitating me. He added, that don
Genaro
liked me very much,
in spite of the oddities of my person, and that he had expressed his
delight in my being his
"protegido." This was the first time I had heard that term.
It was
congruous (harmonious, appropriate) with
another term, introduced
by don Juan at the beginning of our association. He had told me, that I
was his "escogido," the
chosen one. The word "protegido" meant the protected one. I asked
Pablito about his meetings with the nagual and he told me the
story of his first
encounter with it. He said, that once don Juan gave him a basket, which
he took to be a gift of
good will. He placed it on a hook over the door of his room, and,
since
he could not conceive any
use for it at that moment, he forgot about it all day. He said, that
his
idea was, that the basket was a
gift of power and had to be put to use with something very
special.
During the early evening, which Pablito said was his deadly hour also,
he walked into his
room to get his jacket. He was alone in the house and was
getting ready
to go visit a friend. The
room was dark. He grabbed the jacket and when he was about to reach the
door the basket fell in
front of him and rolled near his feet. Pablito said, that he
laughed his
fright away as soon, as he
saw, that it had only been the basket, that had fallen from the hook.
He
leaned over to pick it up
and got the jolt of his life. The basket jumped out of his reach and
began to shake and squeak, as
if someone were twisting and pressing down on it. Pablito said, that
there was enough light
coming from the kitchen to clearly distinguish everything in the room.
He stared at the basket for
a moment, although he felt he should not do that. The basket
began to
convulse in the midst of
some heavy, rasping and difficult breathing. Pablito maintained, in
recounting his experience,
that he actually saw and heard the basket breathing, and that it was
alive and chased him around
the room, blocking his exit. He said, that the basket then
began
to swell, all the strips of bamboo
came loose and turned into a giant ball, like a dry tumbleweed, that
rolled towards him. He fell
backwards on the floor and the ball began to crawl onto his
feet.
Pablito
said, that by that time he
was out of his mind, screaming hysterically. The ball had him trapped
and moved on his legs like
pins, going through him. He tried to push it away and then
noticed, that
the ball was the face of
don Juan with his mouth open ready to devour him. At that point he
could not stand the terror and
lost consciousness.
Pablito,
in a very frank and open manner, told me a series of
terrifying encounters, that he and
other members of his household had had with the Nagual. We
spent hours
talking. He seemed to
be in very much the same quandary, that I was in, but was definitely
more sensitive, than
I, in
handling himself within the sorcerers' frame of reference. At one
moment he got up and said, that he felt don Juan was coming and
did not want to be
found there. He took off with incredible speed. It was, as if
something
had pulled him out of the
room. He left me in the middle of saying good-by. Don
Juan and don Genaro came back shortly. They were laughing.
"Pablito
was running down the road like a soul, chased by the devil,"
don Juan said. "I wonder
why?"
"I
think he got frightened, when he saw Carlitos working his fingers to
the bone," don Genaro
said, mocking my writing. He
came closer to me. "Hey!
I've got an idea," he said almost in a whisper. "Since you
like
to write so much, why
don't you learn to write with your finger instead of a pencil. That'll
be a blast." Don
Juan and don Genaro sat by my side and laughed, while they
speculated about the
possibility of writing with one's finger. Don Juan, in a serious tone,
made a strange comment. He
said: "There is no doubt, that he could write with his finger, but
would
he be able to read it?"
Don
Genaro doubled up with laughter and added, "I am confident, that he
can read anything." And
then he began to tell a most disconcerting tale about a
country
bumpkin, who became an
important official during a time of political upheaval. Don Genaro
said,
that the hero of his story
was appointed minister, or governor, or perhaps even
president, because
there was no way of
telling what people would do in their folly.
196-197
Because
of this
appointment he came to believe, that
he was indeed important and learned to put on an act. Don Genaro paused
and examined me with the air of a ham actor
overplaying his part. He
winked at me and moved his eyebrows up and down. He said, that the hero
of the story was very
good at public appearances and could whip up a speech with no
difficulty at all, but that his
position required, that he read his speeches, and the man was
illiterate. So he used his wits to
outsmart everybody. He had a sheet of paper with something
written on
it and flashed it around
whenever he gave a speech. And thus his efficiency and other good
qualities were undeniable to
all the country bumpkins. But one day a literate stranger came along
and noticed, that the hero
was reading his speech while holding the sheet upside down.
He began to
laugh and pointed out
the lie to everyone. Don Genaro again paused for a moment and looked at
me, squinting his
eyes, and asked:
"Do
you think, that the hero was caught? Not a chance. He faced everyone
calmly and said, 'Upside
down? Why should the position of the sheet matter, if you
know how to
read?' And the bumpkins
agreed with him." Don
Juan and don Genaro both exploded into laughter. Don Genaro patted
me gently on the
back. It was, as if
I were the hero of the story. I felt embarrassed and
laughed nervously. I thought,
that perhaps there was a hidden meaning to it, but I did not dare ask.
Don Juan moved closer to me. He leaned over and whispered in
my right
ear, "Don't you
think it's funny?" Don Genaro also leaned over towards me and whispered
in my left ear, "What
did he say?" I had an automatic reaction to both questions and made an
involuntary synthesis.
"Yes.
I thought he asked it's funny," I said. They were obviously aware of
the effect of their maneuvers; they
laughed, until tears rolled
down their cheeks.
Don Genaro, as usual, was more exaggerated, than don
Juan; he fell
backwards and rolled on his back a few yards away from me. He lay on
his stomach, extending
his arms and legs out, and whirled around on the ground, as though he
were lying on a swivel. He
whirled, until he got close to me and his foot touched mine. He
sat up
abruptly and smiled
sheepishly. Don Juan was holding his sides. He was laughing very hard
and it seemed,
that his stomach
hurt. After a while they both leaned over and kept on
whispering into my
ears. I tried to memorize
the sequence of their utterances, but after a futile effort I gave up.
There were too many. They whispe-
red in my ears, until I again had the
sensation, that I had
been split in two. I
became a mist, like the day before, a yellow glow, that sensed
everything directly. That
is, I could
"know" things. There were no thoughts involved; there were only
certainties. And when I came
into contact with a soft, spongy, bouncy feeling, which was outside of
me and yet was part of me,
I "knew": it was a tree. I sensed: it was a tree by its odor. It did
not
smell like any specific tree I
could remember, nonetheless something in me "knew", that that
peculiar
odor was the "essence"
of tree. I did not have just the feeling, that I knew, nor did I reason
my knowledge out, or shuffle
clues around. I simply knew, that there was something there in contact
with me, all around me, a
friendly, warm, compelling smell emanating from something,
which was
neither solid, nor liquid,
but an undefined something else, which I "knew" was a tree. I felt,
that
by "knowing" it in that
manner, I was tapping its essence. I was not repelled by it.
It rather
invited me to melt with it. It
engulfed me or I engulfed it. There was a bond between us, which was
neither exquisite nor displeasing.
The next sensation I could recollect with clarity was a wave
of wonder
and exultation. All of
me vibrated. It was, as if charges of electricity were going through
me.
They were not painful. They were pleasing, but in such an undetermined
form, that there was no
way of categorizing
them. I knew, nevertheless, that whatever I was in contact
with, was the
ground. Some part of me
acknowledged with concise certainty, that it was the ground. But the
instant I tried to discern the
infinitude of direct perceptions I was having, I lost all
capacity to
differentiate my perceptions. Then all of a sudden I was myself again.
I was thinking. It was such an
abrupt transition, that I
thought I had woken up.
198-199
Yet
there was something in the way I felt that,
was not quite myself. I
knew, that there was indeed something missing before I fully opened my
eyes. I looked around. I
was still in a dream, or having a vision of some sort. My thought
processes, however, were not
only unimpaired, but extraordinarily clear. I made a
quick assess-
ment. I
had no doubt, that don
Juan and don Genaro had induced my dreamlike state for a specific
purpose. I seemed to be on
the verge of understanding what that purpose was, when
something,
extraneous to me, forced me to
pay attention to my surroundings. It took me a long moment to orient
myself. I was actually lying
on my stomach and, what I was lying on, was a most
spectacular floor. As
I examined it, I could
not avoid a feeling of awe and wonder. I could not conceive what it
was
made of. Irregular slabs
of some unknown substance had been placed in a most intricate yet
simple fashion. They had
been put together, but were not stuck to the ground or to
each other.
They were elastic and gave,
when I attempted to pry them apart with my fingers, but once I released
the tension, they went
right back to their original position. I tried to get up and
was seized
by the most outlandish sensory
distortion. I had no control
over my body; in fact, my body did not seem to be my own. It
was inert;
I had no connection to
any of its parts and, when I tried to stand up, I could not move my
arms
and I wobbled helplessly
on my stomach, rolling on my side. The momentum of my
wobbling almost
made me do a
complete turn onto my stomach again. My outstretched arms and legs
prevented me from turning
over and I came to rest on my back. In that position I caught a glimpse
of two strangely shaped
legs and the most distorted feet I had ever seen. It was my body!
I
seemed to be wrapped up in a
tunic. The thought, that came to my mind was, that I was experiencing a
scene of myself as a
cripple or an invalid of some sort.
I tried to curve my back and look
at my legs, but I could only
jerk my body. I
was looking directly at a yellow sky, a deep, rich
lemon-yellow sky. It had
grooves or canals of a deeper yellow tone and an endless
number of
protuberances, that hung like
drops of water. The total effect of that incredible sky was staggering.
I could not determine if the
protuberances were clouds. There
were also areas of shadows and areas
of different tones of
yellow, which I discovered, as I moved my head from side to
side. Then
something else attracted my attention: a sun at the very zenith of
the yellow sky, right
over my head, a mild sun - judging by the fact, that
I could stare into
it - that cast a soothing,
uniform whitish light. Before I had had time to ponder upon all these
unearthly sights, I was
violently shaken; my
head jerked and bobbed back and forth. I felt I was being
lifted. I
heard a shrill voice and
giggling and I was confronted by a most astounding sight: a giant
barefoot female. Her face was
round and enormous. Her black hair was cut in pageboy fashion. Her arms
and legs were
gigantic. She picked me up and lifted me to her shoulders,
as if I were
a doll. My body hung limp. I was looking down her strong back. She had
a fine fuzz around her
shoulders and down her
spine. Looking down from her shoulder, I saw the magnificent
floor
again. I could hear it giving
elastically under her enormous weight and I could see the pressure
marks, that her feet left on it. She put me down on my
stomach in front
of a structure, some sort of
building. I noticed then,
that there was something wrong with my depth perception. I could
not
figure out the size of the
building by looking at it. At moments it seemed ridiculously small, but
then after I seemingly
adjusted my perception, I truly marveled at its monumental
proportions.
The giant girl sat next to me and made the floor squeak. I was touching
her enormous knee. She smelled like candy or strawberries.
She talked
to me and I
understood everything she said;
pointing to the structure, she told me, that I was going to live there.
My prowess of observation seemed to increase as I got over
the initial
shock of finding myself
there. I noticed then, that the building had four exquisite
dysfunctional columns. They did not
support anything; they were on top of the building. Their
shape was
simplicity itself; they were
long and graceful projections, that seemed to be reaching for that
awesome, incredibly yellow
sky. The effect of those inverted columns was sheer beauty to me. I had
a seizure of aesthetic
rapture.
200-201
The
columns seemed to have been made in one piece; I could not even
conceive how. The two
columns in front were joined by a slender beam, a
monumentally long rod,
that, I thought, may
have served as a railing of some sort, or a veranda, overlooking the
front. The giant girl made me slide on my back into the
structure. The
roof
was black and flat and
was covered with symmetric holes, that let the yellowish glare of the
sky show through, creating
the most intricate patterns. I was truly awed with the utter
simplicity
and beauty, that had been
achieved by those dots of yellow sky, showing through those precise
holes in the roof, and the patterns of shadows, that they created
on that magnificent and
intricate
floor. The structure was
square, and outside of its poignant beauty it was
incomprehensible to
me. My state of exultation was so intense at that moment, that I wanted
to
weep, or stay there
forever. But some force, or tension, or something undefinable began to
pull me. Suddenly, I found
myself out of the structure, still lying on my back. The giant girl was
there, but there was another
being with her, a woman so big, that she reached to the sky
and eclipsed
the sun. Compared to her
the giant girl was just a little girl. The big woman was angry; she
grabbed the structure by one of
its columns, lifted it up, turned it upside down, and set it
on the
floor. It was a chair!
That realization was like a catalyst; it
triggered some overwhelming
perceptions. I went
through a series of images, that were disconnected, but could be made
to
stand as a sequence. In
successive flashes I saw or realized, that the magnificent and
incomprehensible floor was a straw
mat; the yellow sky was the stucco ceiling of a room; the sun
was a
light bulb; the structure, that
had evoked such rapture in me was a chair, that a child had turned
upside down to play house. I had one more
coherent and sequential
vision of another mysterious
architectural structure of
monumental proportions. It stood by itself. It looked almost like a
shell of a pointed snail,
standing with its tail up. The walls were made of concave and convex
plates of some strange
purple material; each plate had grooves, that seemed more
functional,
than ornamental. I
examined the structure meticulously and in detail and found, that it
was, like in the case of
the previous one, thoroughly incomprehen-
sible. I expected to suddenly
adjust my perception to
disclose the "true" nature of the structure. But nothing of the sort
happened. I then had a
conglomerate of alien and inextricable "awarenesses," or
"findings,"
about the building and its
function, which did not make sense, because I had no frame of reference
for them.
I regained my normal awareness all of a sudden. Don Juan and
don Genaro
were next to me. I
was tired. I looked for my watch; it was gone. Don Juan and
don Genaro
giggled in unison. Don
Juan said, that I should not worry about time and that I should
concentrate on following certain
recommendations, that don Genaro
had made to me. I turned to don Genaro
and he made a joke. He said, that the most
important recommendation
was, that I should learn to write with my finger, to save on
pencils and
to show off. They teased me about my notes for a while longer
and then I went to
sleep. Don Juan and don Genaro listened to the detailed
account of my
experience, which I gave
them at don Juan's request after I woke up the next day.
"Genaro
feels, that you've got enough for the time being," don Juan said
after I finished
talking. Don Genaro assented with a nod.
"What
was the meaning of what I experienced last night?" I asked.
"You
caught a glimpse of the most important issue of sorcery," don Juan
said. "Last night you
peeked into the Totality of Yourself. But that's of course a
meaningless statement for you at this
moment. Obviously, arriving at the Totality of Oneself is not a matter
of one's desire to agree, or
of one's willingness to learn. Genaro thinks, that
your body needs time
to let the whispering of the
nagual sink into you." Don
Genaro nodded again.
202-203
"Plenty
of time," he said, shaking his head up and
down. "Twenty or
thirty years perhaps."
I did
not know how to react. I looked at don Juan for clues. They both
had serious
expressions. "Do I
really have twenty or thirty years?" I asked.
"Of
course not!" don Genaro yelled and they broke into laughter.
Don Juan said, that I should return whenever my inner voice told me to,
and that in the
meantime,
I should try to assemble all the suggestions, that they had
made while I was split.
"How
do I do that?" I asked.
"By
turning off your internal dialogue and letting something in you
flow out and expand," don
Juan said. "That something is your perception, but don't try to
figure
out what I mean. Just let the
whispering of the nagual guide you." Then
he said, that the night before I had had two sets of intrinsically
different views. One was
inexplicable, the other was perfectly natural, and the order, in which
they had happened pointed to
a condition, that was intrinsic to all of us.
"One
view was the nagual, the other - the tonal" don Genaro added. I
wanted him to explain his statement. He looked at me and patted me on
the back. Don Juan stepped in and said, that the first two
views were
the nagual,
and that don Genaro
had selected a tree and the ground, as the points for emphasis. The
other two were views of the
tonal, that he himself had selected; one of them was my perception of
the world as an infant. "It
appeared to be an alien world to you, because your perception
had
not been trimmed yet to
fit the desired mold," he said.
"Was
that the way I really saw the world?" I asked.
"Certainly,"
he said. "That was your memory." I
asked don Juan whether the feeling of aesthetic appreciation, that had
enraptured me, was also
part of my memory.
"We go
into those views, as we are today," he said. "You were seeing
that scene, as you would
see it now. Yet the exercise was one of perception. That was
the scene
of a time, when the world
became for you what it is now. A time when a chair became a chair." He did
not want to discuss the other scene.
"That
wasn't a memory of my childhood," I said.
"That's
right," he said. "It was something else."
"Was
it something I will see in the future?" I asked.
"There's
no future!" he exclaimed cuttingly. "The future is only a way
of talking. For a
sorcerer there is only the here and now."
He
said, that there was essentially nothing to say about it, because the
purpose of the exercise
had been to open the wings of my perception, and that, although I had
not flown on those wings, I
had nonetheless touched four points, which would be inconceivable to
reach from the point of
view of my ordinary perception.
I began to gather my things to leave.
Don Genaro helped me pack my
notebook; he put it in
the bottom of my briefcase.
"It'll
be warm and cozy there," he said and winked. "You can rest
assured, that it won't catch
cold."
Then
don Juan seemed to change his mind about my leaving and started to
talk about my
experience. I automatically tried to grab my briefcase from don
Genaro's hands, but he dropped it
to the floor, before I touched it. Don Juan was talking with his back
turned to me. I scooped up
the briefcase and hurriedly searched for my notebook. Don
Genaro had
really packed it so tightly,
that I had a hellish time getting to it; finally I took it out and
began to write. Don Juan and don
Genaro were staring at me.
"You're
in terrible shape," don Juan said, laughing. "You reach for
your notebook as a drunkard
reaches for the bottle."
"As a
loving mother reaches for her child," don Genaro snapped.
"As a
priest reaches for his crucifix," don Juan added.
"As a
woman reaches for her panties," don Genaro yelled. They went on and on
presenting smiles and howling with laughter, as
they walked me to my
car.
Part
3: The
Sorcerers' Explanation
10.
Three Witnesses to The
Nagual
207-208
Upon
returning home I was faced again with the task of organizing my
field notes. What don
Juan and don Genaro had made me experience became all the
more poignant,
as I recapitulated
the events. I noticed, however, that my usual reaction of indulging for
months in bewilderment
and awe over what I had gone through, was not as intense, as
it had been
in the past. Various
times, I deliberately attempted to engage my feelings, as I had done
before, in speculation and
even in self-
pity; but something was missing. I had also had the
intention of writing down a
number of questions to ask don Juan, don Genaro, or even Pablito. The
project failed before I had
begun it. There was something in me, that prevented my entering into a
mood of inquiry or
perplexity.
I did
not purposely seek to go back to don Juan and don Genaro, but
neither did I shy away
from the possibility. One day, however, without any premeditation on my
part, I simply felt, that it
was time to see them.
In the
past, every time I was about to leave for Mexico, I had always
had the feeling, that there
were thousands of important and pressing questions, that I wanted
to ask
don Juan; this time there
was nothing on my mind. It was, as if after I had worked over my notes,
I
had become emptied of
the past and ready for the here and now of don Juan and don
Genaro's
world. I had
to wait only a few hours, before don Juan "found" me in the market
of a little town in the
mountains of central Mexico. He greeted me with utmost
affection and
made a casual suggestion. He
said, that before we arrived at don Genaro's place, he would like to
pay a visit to don Genaro's
apprentices, Pablito and Nestor. As I turned off the highway, he told
me
to keep a close watch for
any unusual sight on the side of the road or on the road
itself. I
asked him to give me more
precise clues about what he had in mind. "I
can't," he said. "The nagual doesn't need precise clues." I
slowed the car down in an automatic response to his reply. He
laughed
loudly and signaled
me with a movement of his hand to keep on driving. As we approached the
town, where Pablito and Nestor lived, don Juan told
me to stop my car. He moved his chin imperceptibly and pointed to a
group of medium size
boulders on the left side
of the road.
"There's
the nagual" he said in a whisper. There was no one around. I had
expected to see don Genaro. I looked at
the boulders again
and then I scanned the area around them. There was nothing in
sight. I
strained my eyes to
distinguish anything, a small animal, an insect, a shadow, a strange
formation of the rocks,
anything unusual. I gave up after a moment and turned to face
don Juan.
He held my questioning
gaze without smiling and then gently pushed my arm with the back of
his
hand to make me look
at the boulders again. I stared at them, then don Juan got out of the
car and told me to follow him
and examine them. We walked slowly on a gentle slope for
about sixty or
seventy yards to
the base of the rocks. He stood there for a moment and whispered in my
right ear, that the
nagual was waiting for
me
right at that place. I told him, that no matter how hard I tried, all I
could distinguish were the
rocks and a few tufts of weeds and some cactuses. He
insisted, however,
that the nagual was
there, waiting for me. He ordered me to sit down, turn off my internal
dialogue, and keep my
unfocused eyes on the
top of the boulders. He sat by me and, putting his mouth to
my right
ear, whispered, that the
nagual had seen me, that it was there, although I could not visualize
it, and that my problem was
merely one of not being capable of completely shutting off my internal
dialogue. I heard every word he said in a state of inner silence.
209-210
I
understood everything, yet I
was incapable of answering;
the effort, needed to think and talk, would have been impossible. My
reactions to his comments
were not thoughts proper, but rather complete units of
feeling, which
had all the innuendos of
meaning, that I usually associate with thinking. He whispered, that it
was very difficult to start by oneself on the path
towards the nagual, and
that I was indeed most fortunate to have been launched by the moth and
its song. He said, that by
holding the memory of the moth's call, I could bring it back to aid me.
His words were either an overpowering suggestion or, perhaps, I
summoned
that perceptual
phenomenon he called the moth's call, for no sooner had he whispered
his words to me, than the
extraordinary sputtering sound became audible. Its richness of
tone
made me feel, as if I were
inside an echo chamber. As the sound grew in loudness or proximity, I
also detected, in a
dreamlike state, that something was moving on top of the
boulders. The
movement frightened me
so intensely, that I immediately regained my crystal clear Awareness.
My
eyes focused on the
boulders. Don Genaro was sitting on top of one of them! His feet were
dangling; and with the
heels of his shoes he was hammering the rock, producing a
rhythmical
sound, that seemed to be
synchronized with the moth's call. He smiled and waved his hand at me.
I wanted to think
rationally. I had the feeling, the desire to figure out how
he got
there, or how I saw him there, but
I could not involve my reason at all. All I could do, under the
circumstances, was to look at him
while he sat smiling, waving his hand. After a moment he seemed to get
ready to slide down the round boulder.
I saw him stiffening
his legs, preparing his feet for landing on the hard ground,
and
arching his back, until he almost
touched the surface of the rock, in order to gain sliding momentum. But
in the middle of his
descent his body stopped.
I had the impression, he got stuck. He kicked
a couple of times with
both legs, as if he were floating in water. He seemed to be trying to
get loose from something, that
had trapped him by the seat of his pants. He rubbed the sides of his
buttocks frantically with both
hands. He
actually gave me the impression of being painfully caught. I
wanted to run to him and
aid him, but don Juan held my arm. I heard him say to me, half choking
with laughter, "Watch
him! Watch him!"
Don
Genaro kicked, contorted his body and wiggled from side to side, as
if he were loosening
a nail; then I heard a loud pop and he glided, or was hurled, to
where
don Juan and I were
standing. He landed four or five feet in front of me, on his feet. He
rubbed his buttocks and
jumped up and down in a dance of pain, yelling profanities. "The
rock didn't want to let me go and grabbed me by the ass," he said
to me in a sheepish
tone. I experienced a sensation of unequaled joy. I laughed
loudly. I
noticed,
that my mirth was
equal to my clarity of mind. I was engulfed at that moment in an
overall state of great awareness. Everything around me was
crystal
clear. I had been drowsy or
absent-minded before, because of
my inner silence. But then something in don Genaro's sudden appearance
had created a state of
great lucidity. Don Genaro kept on rubbing his buttocks and jumping up
and down for a
while longer; then
he limped to my car, opened the door and crawled into the
back seat. I
automatically turned around to talk to don Juan. He was not anywhere
in sight. I started to
call him out loud. Don Genaro got out of the car and began to
run
around in circles also calling
don Juan's name in a shrill, frantic tone. It was only then, as I
watched him, that I realized, he was
mimicking me. I had had an attack of such an intense fear
upon finding
myself alone with don
Genaro, that I had run around the car three or four times in quite an
unconscious manner, yelling
don Juan's name. Don
Genaro said, that we had to pick up Pablito and Nestor and that don
Juan would be waiting for us somewhere along the way. After I
had
overcome my initial fright, I told him, that I was glad to
see him. He teased me
about my reaction. He said, that don Juan was not like a father to me,
but rather like a mother. He
made some remarks and puns about "mothers", that were utterly funny. I
was laughing so hard,
that I did not notice, that we had arrived at Pablito's
house.
211-212
Don
Genaro told me to stop and he got
out of the car. Pablito was standing by the door of his house. He came
running, got in the car
and sat next to me in the front.
"Let's
go to Nestor's place," he said as if he were in a hurry. I
turned to look for don Genaro. He was not around. Pablito urged me in
a pleading voice to
hurry.
We drove up to Nestor's house. He was
also waiting by the door. We got
out of the car. I had
the feeling, that the two of them knew, what was going on.
"Where
are we going?" I asked.
"Didn't
Genaro tell you?" Pablito asked me with a tone of incredulity. I
assured them, that neither don Juan, nor don Genaro had mentioned
anything to me.
"We're
going to a power place," Pablito said.
"What
are we going to do there?" I asked. They both said in unison, that they
did not know. Nestor added, that don
Genaro had told him
to guide me to the place.
"Did
you come from Genaro's house?" Pablito asked. I mentioned, that I had
been with don Juan and, that we had found don
Genaro on the way and,
that don Juan had left me with him.
"Where
did don Genaro go?" I asked Pablito. But Pablito did not know what I
was talking about. He had not seen don
Genaro in my car. "He
drove with me to your house," I said.
"I
think you had the nagual in your car," Nestor said in a frightened
tone. He did not want to sit in the back and crammed next to Pablito in
the
front. We drove in silence, except for Nestor's short
commands to show
the way. I wanted to think about the events of that morning, but
somehow I knew,
that any attempt to
explain them, was a fruitless indulging on my part. I tried
to engage
Nestor and Pablito in a
conversation; they said, that they were too nervous inside the car and
could not talk. I
enjoyed
their candid reply and did not press them any further. After more, than
an hour's drive, we parked the car on a side road and
climbed up the side of a
steep mountain.
We walked in silence for another hour or so, with
Nestor in the lead, and then we
stopped at the bottom of a huge cliff, which was perhaps over two
hundred feet high with a
nearly vertical drop. With half-closed eyes Nestor scanned the ground,
looking for a proper place
to sit. I was painfully aware, that he was clumsy in his
scanning
movements. Pablito, who was
next to me, seemed at various times to be on the verge of stepping in
and correcting him, but he
restrained himself and relaxed. Then Nestor selected a place,
after a
moment's hesitation. Pablito
sighed with relief. I knew,
that the place Nestor had selected, was the
proper one, but
I could not
figure out how I knew that. Thus I involved myself in the pseudo
problem of imagining, what
place I would have selected myself, if I had been leading
them. I could
not, however, even begin
to speculate on the procedure I would have followed. Pablito was
obviously aware of what I was
doing. "You
can't do that,"
he whispered to me. I laughed with embarrassment, as if
he had caught me doing something
illicit. Pablito laughed
and said, that don Genaro always walked around in
the mountains with
both of them and gave
each of them the lead from time to time, so he knew, that there was no
way of imagining what would have been one's choice. "Genaro
says, that the reason why there is no way to do that is, because
there are only right and
wrong choices," he said. "If you make a wrong choice your
body knows
it, and so does the body
of everyone else; but if you make a right choice the body knows that,
relaxes and forgets right
away, that there was a choice. You reload your body, see,
like a gun,
for the next choice. If you
want to use your body again for making the same choice, it doesn't
work."
Nestor
looked at me;
he was apparently curious about my taking notes.
He nodded
affirmatively, as if agreeing with Pablito and then smiled for the
first
time. Two of his upper teeth
were crooked. Pablito explained, that Nestor was not mean or
morbid, but
embarrassed by
his teeth and that
that was the reason he never smiled.
213-214
Nestor
laughed, covering his
mouth. I told him, that I could
send him to a dentist to have his teeth straightened. They thought,
that
my suggestion was a joke
and laughed like two children. "Genaro
says, that he has to overcome the feeling of shame by himself,"
Pablito said. "Besides, Genaro says, that he's lucky;
while every-
one
else bites the
same way, Nestor can split a
bone lengthwise with his strong crooked teeth and he can bite a hole
through your finger like a
nail."
Nestor
opened his mouth and showed me his teeth. The left incisor
and
the canine had grown
in sideways. He made his teeth clatter by biting on them and growled
like a dog.
He made two or
three mock advances towards me. Pablito laughed. I had never seen
Nestor so light. The few times I had been with him in
the past, he had given
me the impression of being a middle-aged man. As he sat there
smiling
with his crooked teeth I
marveled at his youthful appearance. He looked like a young man in
his
early twenties. Pablito again read my thoughts to perfection. "He's
losing his self-importance," he said. "That's why he's younger." Nestor
nodded affirmatively and, without saying a word, he let out a
very
loud fart. I was
startled and dropped my pencil. Pablito and Nestor nearly died
laughing. When they had calmed down,
Nestor came to my
side and showed me a homemade contraption, that made a peculiar sound
when squeezed with the
hand. He explained, that don Genaro had showed him how to
make it. It
had a minute bellows,
and the vibrator could be any kind of leaf, that was placed in a slit
between the two pieces of
wood, that were the compressors. Nestor said, that the kind
of sound it
produced, depended on the
type of leaf, that one used as a vibrator. He wanted me to try it and
showed me how
to squeeze the
compressors to produce a certain type of sound, and how to open them in
order to produce
another.
"What
do you use it for?" I asked.
They
both exchanged a glance. "That's
his spirit catcher, you fool," Pablito said cuttingly. His
tone was peevish, but his smile was friendly. They were both such
a
strange unnerving
mixture of don Genaro and don Juan. I became absorbed in a horrible
thought. Were don Juan and don Genaro
playing tricks on
me? I had a moment of supreme terror. But something snapped
inside of
my stomach and I
instantly became calm again. I knew, that Pablito and Nestor were using
don Genaro and don
Juan as models for behavior. I myself had found, that I also was
behaving more and more like
them. Pablito said, that Nestor was lucky to have a spirit
catcher and
that he
did not have one
himself.
"What
shall we do here?" I asked Pablito.
Nestor
answered as if I had addressed the question to him:"Genaro told
me, that we have to wait here, and while we wait, we should
laugh and enjoy
ourselves".
"How
long do you think we have to wait?" I asked. He did
not answer; he shook his head and looked at Pablito, as if asking
him.
"I
have no idea," Pablito said. We got
involved then in a lively conversation about Pablito's sisters.
Nestor teased him, that
his oldest sister had such a mean look, that she could kill
lice with
her eyes. He said, that Pablito
was afraid of her, because she was so strong, that once, in a fit of
anger,
she plucked a handful of
his hair, as if it were chicken feathers. Pablito
conceded, that his oldest sister had been a beast, but that the
nagual had fixed her and
brought her into line. After he had told me the story of how
she was
made to behave, I realized,
that Pablito and Nestor never mentioned don Juan's name, but referred
to
him as the "Nagual." Apparently, don Juan had intervened in
Pablito's
life and coerced all
his sisters into leading a
more harmonious life.
Pablito said, that after the Nagual was through
with them, they were like
saints. Nestor wanted to know what I did with my notes. I explained my
work to
them. I had the
weird sensation, that they were genuinely interested in what I was
saying and I ended up talking
about anthropology and philosophy.
215-216
I felt
ludicrous and wanted to stop,
but I found myself
immersed in my elucidation and unable to cut it short. I had the
unsettling sensation, that both of
them, as a team, were somehow forcing me into that lengthy
explanation.
Their eyes were fixed on
me. They did not seemed to be bored or tired. I was in the middle of
a
comment, when I heard the faint sound of the
moth's call. My body
stiffened and I never finished my sentence. "The
nagual is here," I said automatically. Nestor and Pablito
exchanged a
look, that I thought was sheer terror, and
jumped to my side
and flanked me. Their mouths were open. They looked like frightened
children.
I had an inconceivable sensory experience then. My left ear
began to
move. I felt it sort of
wiggling by itself. It practically turned my head in a half circle,
until I was facing, what I thought
to be the east. My head tilted slightly to the right; in that position
I was capable of detecting the
rich sputtering sound of the moth's call.
It sounded, as if it were far
away, coming from the
northeast. Once I had established the direction, my ear picked up an
incredible amount of sounds. I had no way of knowing,
however, whether
they were memories of sounds
I had heard before or
actual sounds, which were being produced then.
The place, where we were,
was the rugged west slope of a mountain range.
Towards the
northeast there were groves of trees and patches of mountain shrubs.
My
ear seemed to pick up
the sound of something heavy, moving over rocks, coming from that
direction. Nestor and Pablito were either responding to my actions
or
they
themselves were hearing the
same sounds. I would have liked to ask them, but I did not dare; or
perhaps I was incapable of
interrupting my concentration. Nestor and Pablito huddled
against me,
by my sides, when the sound
became louder and
closer. Nestor seemed to be the one, who was most affected by it; his
body shivered
uncontrollably. At one moment my left arm began to shake; it raised
without my volition, until it
was almost level with my face, and then it pointed to an area
of
shrubs. I heard a vibratory sound
or a roar; it was a familiar sound to me. I had heard it many years
before under the influence of a
psychotropic plant. I
detected in the shrubs a gigantic black shape. It
was as if the shrubs themselves were becoming darker by degrees, until
they had changed into
an ominous blackness. It had no definite form, but it moved.
It seemed
to breathe. I heard a
chilling scream, which was
mixed with the yells of terror of Pablito and Nestor; and the
shrubs,
or the black shape, into which
they had turned, flew up towards us. I could not maintain my
equanimity. Somehow something in me faltered.
The shape first
hovered over us, and then engulfed us. The light around us became
opaque. It was, as if the sun
had set. Or as if, all of a sudden, it had become twilight.
I felt Nestor
and Pablito's heads under my
armpits; I brought my arms down over their heads in an unconscious
protective movement and I
fell, spinning backwards. I did not reach the rocky ground,
however,
for an instant later I found
myself standing up
flanked by Pablito and Nestor. Both of them, although taller than I,
seemed to have shriveled; by
arching their legs and backs they were actually shorter, than I, and
fit
under my arms. Don Juan and don Genaro were standing in front of us.
Don Genaro's eyes
glittered like the
eyes of a cat at night. Don Juan's eyes had the same glow. I had never
seen don Juan look that
way. He was truly awesome. More so, than don Genaro. He
seemed younger
and stronger, than
usual. Looking at both of them, I had the maddening feeling, that they
were not men like myself. Pablito and Nestor whined quietly.
Then don
Genaro said, that we were
the picture of the
Trinity. I was the Father, Pablito was the Son, and Nestor the Holy
Ghost. Don Juan and don
Genaro laughed in a booming tone. Pablito and Nestor smiled meekly. Don
Genaro said, that we had to disentangle ourselves, because
embraces
were permissible
only between men and women, or between a man and his burro. I realized
then, that I was standing on the same spot, I had been before,
and that, obviously, I
had not spun backwards, as I thought I had. In fact, Nestor and Pablito
were also on the same spot
they had been on.
217-218
Don
Genaro signaled Pablito and Nestor
with a movement of his head. Don
Juan signaled me
to follow them. Nestor took the lead and pointed out a sitting place
for me and another one for
Pablito. We sat in a straight line, about fifty yards from the place,
where don Juan and don Genaro
stood motionless at the base of the cliff. As I kept on staring at
them, my eyes went involuntarily
out of focus. I knew, I had definitely crossed them, because I was
seeing four of them. Then my
left eye image of don Juan became superimposed on the right
eye image
of don Genaro; the
result of the merger was, that I saw an Iridescent Being (lustrous,
rainbow like colours), standing in
between don Juan and don
Genaro. It was not a man, as I ordinarily see men. It was rather a Ball
of white fire; something like
fibers of Light, covered it. I shook my head; the double image
was
dispelled, and yet the sight of
don Juan and don Genaro, as Luminous Beings, persisted. I was seeing
two
strange elongated
luminous objects. They looked like white iridescent footballs
with
fibers, fibers, that had a Light of
their own. The two Luminous Beings shivered; I actually saw their
fibers shaking
and then they whizzed
out of sight. They were pulled up by a long filament a
cobweb, that
seemed to shoot out from the
top of the cliff. The sensation, I had, was, that a long Beam of Light
or
a Luminous Line had dropped
from the rock and lifted them up. I perceived the sequence with my eyes
and with my body. I was also capable of noticing enormous
disparities
in my mode of
perceiving, but I was
incapable of speculating about them, as I would have ordinarily done.
Thus, I was aware, that I
was looking straight at the base of the cliff, and yet I was seeing don
Juan and don Genaro on the
top as if I had tilted my head up forty-five degrees. I
wanted to feel
afraid, perhaps to cover my face and weep, or do
something else within my
normal range of responses. But I seemed to be locked. My desires were
not thoughts, as I know
thoughts, therefore they could not evoke the emotional response I was
accustomed to eliciting in myself. Don Juan and don Genaro
plunged to
the ground. I felt, that they had
done so, judging by the
consuming feeling of falling, that I experienced in my stomach. Don
Genaro remained where he had landed, but don Juan walked
towards us
and sat down,
behind me, to my right. Nestor
was in a crouching position; his legs
tucked in against his
stomach; he was resting his chin on his cupped palms; his forearms
served as supports by being
propped against his thighs. Pablito was sitting with his body
slightly
bent forward, holding his
hands against his stomach. I noticed then, that I had placed my
forearms
across my umbilical
region and I was holding myself by the skin on my sides. I
had grabbed
myself so hard, that my
sides ached. Don Juan spoke in a dry murmur, addressing all of us.
"You
must fix your gaze on the nagual" he said. "All thoughts and words
must be washed
away." He
repeated it five or six times. His voice was strange,
unknown to me;
it gave me the actual
feeling of the scales on the skin of a lizard. That simile
was a
feeling, not a conscious thought. Each
of his words peeled, like scales; there was such an eerie
rhythm
to them; they were muffled,
dry, like soft coughing; a rhythmical murmur made into a command. Don
Genaro stood motionless. As I stared at him, I could not keep my
image conversion, and
my eyes crossed involuntarily. In that state I noticed again a strange
Luminosity in don Genaro's
body. My eyes were beginning to close, or to tear. Don Juan
came to my
rescue. I heard him
giving a command not to cross the eyes. I felt a soft tap on my head.
He had apparently hit me
with a pebble, I saw the pebble bounce a couple of times on the rocks
near me. He must have also
hit Nestor and Pablito; I heard the sound of other pebbles as
they
bounced on the rocks.
Don
Genaro adopted a strange dancing posture. His knees were bent, his
arms were extended
to his sides, his fingers outstretched. He seemed to be about to
twirl;
in fact, he half whirled
around and then he was pulled up. I had the clear perception, that he
had been hoisted up by the
line of a giant caterpillar, that lifted his body to the very
top of the
cliff. My perception of the
upward movement was a most weird mixture of visual and bodily
sensations. I half saw and half
felt his flight to the top. There was something, that looked
or felt
like a line or an almost
imperceptible thread of Light, pulling him up. I did not see his flight
upward in the sense I would
follow a bird in flight with my eyes. There was no linear sequence to
his movement.
219-220
I
did not
have to raise my head to keep him within my field of vision. I saw the
line, pulling him, then I felt
his movement in my body, or with my body, and the next
instant he was
on the very top of the
cliff, hundreds of feet up. After a few minutes he plummeted down. I
felt his falling and groaned
involuntarily. Don Genaro repeated his feat three more times.
Each
time, my perception
was tuned. During
his last upward leap I could actually distinguish a series of Lines,
emanating from his midsection,
and I knew when he was about to ascend or descend, judging by the way
the Lines of his body
moved. When he was about to leap upward, the Lines bent
upward; the
opposite happened when
he was about to leap downward; the Lines bent outward and down.
After
his fourth leap don Genaro came to us and sat down behind
Pablito
and Nestor. Then
don Juan moved to the front and stood where don Genaro had been. He
stood motionless for a
while. Don Genaro gave some brief instructions to Pablito and
Nestor. I
did not understand what
he had said. I glanced at them and saw, that he had made each one hold
a
rock and place it against
the area of their navels. I was wondering whether I also had to do
that, when he told me, that the
precaution did not apply to me, but nonetheless I should have a rock
within reach, just in case I got
ill. Don Genaro jutted his chin forward to indicate, that I should gaze
at don Juan, then he said
something unintelligible; he repeated it, and although I did
not
understand his words, I knew, that it was more or less the same
formula,
that don Juan had voiced. The
words did not really matter; it
was the rhythm, the dryness of tone, the coughlike quality. I
had the
certainty, that whatever
language don Genaro was using was more appropriate, than Spanish for
the
staccato quality of the
rhythm. Don
Juan did exactly, as don Genaro had initially done, but then
instead
of leaping upward, he
twirled around like a gymnast. In a semi
-aware way I
expected him to
land on his feet again. He
never did. His body kept on twirling a few feet above the ground. The
circles were very rapid at
first, then they slowed down. From where I was, I could see
don Juan's
body hanging, like don
Genaro's body had, from a Threadlike Light. He
whirled
slowly, as if
allowing us to fully view him. Then he began to ascend; he
gained
altitude, until he reached the top of
the cliff. Don Juan was
actually floating, as if he had no weight. His turns were
slow and
evoked the image of an
astronaut in space, whirling around in a state of weightlessness.
I got
dizzy as I watched him. My
feeling of getting ill seemed to
trigger him and he began to
whirl at a greater speed. He moved away from the cliff and, as he
gained
speed, I became utterly
sick. I grabbed the rock and placed it on my stomach. I
pressed it
against my body as hard, as I
could. Its touch soothed me a bit. The act of reaching for the rock and
holding it against me had
allowed me a moment's break. Although I had not taken my eyes away from
don Juan, I had
nevertheless broken my concentration. Before I reached for the rock, I
felt, that the speed,
which
his floating body had gained, was blurring his shape; he looked like a
rotating disk and then a Light, that was spinning. After I
had placed the rock against my body,
his speed
diminished; he
looked like a hat floating in the air, a kite, that bobbed back and
forth. The movement of the kite was even more unsettling.
I became
uncontrollably ill. I heard the
flapping of bird wings and, after a moment of uncertainty, I knew, that
the event had ended. I felt so ill and exhausted, that I lay
down to
sleep. I must have dozed
off for a while. I opened
my eyes when someone shook my arm. It was Pablito. He spoke to me in a
frantic tone and said,
that I could not fall asleep, because if I did, all of us would die. He
insisted, that we had to leave
right away, even if we had to drag ourselves on all fours. He
also
seemed to be physically
exhausted. In fact, I had the idea, that we should spend the night
there. The prospect of walking to
my car in the dark seemed most dreadful to me. I tried to
convince
Pablito, who was getting more
frantic. Nestor was so ill, that he was indifferent. Pablito
sat down in a state of total despair.
I made an effort to
organize my thoughts. It was
quite dark by then, although there was still enough light to
distinguish the rocks around us. The
quietness was exquisite and soothing. I enjoyed the moment
fully, but
suddenly my body jumped;
I heard the distant sound of a branch being cracked.
221-222
I
automatically
turned to Pablito. He seemed
to know, what had happened to me. We grabbed Nestor by the armpits and
practically lifted him
up. We dragged him
and ran. He apparently was the only one, who knew the
way. He gave us
short commands from time to time. I was not concerned with what we did.
My attention was focused on my
left ear, which
seemed to be a unit independent from the rest of me. Some feeling in me
forced me to stop every
so often and scan the surroundings with my ear. I knew
something was
following us. It was
something massive; it crushed small rocks as it advanced. Nestor
regained a degree of composure and walked by himself, holding
on
to Pablito's arm
occasionally. We arrived at a group of trees. By then it was completely
dark. I heard
a sudden and
extremely loud cracking sound. It was like the cracking of a
monstrous
whip, that lashed the tops
of the trees. I could feel a wave of some sort rippling overhead.
Pablito and Nestor screamed and scrambled out of there at
full speed. I
wanted them to stop. I
was not sure I could run in the dark. But at that instant I heard and
felt a series of heavy
exhalations
right behind me. My fright was indescribable. The three of
us ran together, until we reached the car. Nestor led us in
some unknown way. I thought, that
I should leave them at their houses
and then go to a
hotel in town. I would not
have gone to don Genaro's place for anything in the world; but Nestor
did not want to leave the
car, neither did Pablito and neither did I. We ended up at Pablito's
house. He sent Nestor to buy
some beer and cola, while his mother and sisters prepared
food for us.
Nestor made a joke and
asked if he could be escorted by the oldest sister, in case he was
attacked by dogs or drunkards. Pablito laughed and told me,
that he had
been entrusted with Nestor.
"Who
has entrusted you with him?" I asked.
"Power,
of course!" he replied. "At one time Nestor was older, than me,
but Genaro did
something to him and now he's much younger. You saw that, didn't you?"
"What
did don Genaro do?" I asked.
"You
know, he made him a child again. He was too important and heavy.
He
would've died, if
he was not turned younger." There
was something truly candid and endearing about Pablito. The
simplicity of his
explanation was overwhelming to me. Nestor was indeed younger; not only
did he look younger,
but he acted like an innocent child. I knew without any
doubt, that he
genuinely felt like one. "I
take care of him," Pablito continued. "Genaro says, that it's an
honor to look after a warrior. Nestor is a fine warrior." His
eyes shone, like don Genaro's. He patted me vigorously on the back
and laughed. "Wish
him well, Carlitos," he said. "Wish him well."
I was
very tired. I had a strange surge of happy sadness. I told him,
that I came from a place,
where people rarely, if ever, wish one another well. "I
know," he said. "The same thing happened to me. But I'm a
warrior
now and I can afford to
wish him well."
11.
The Strategy of a Sorcerer
223-224
Don
Juan was at don Genaro's house when I got there in the late
morning. I greeted him. "Hey,
what happened to you? Genaro and I waited for you all night," he
said. I knew, that he was joking. I felt light and happy. I had
systematically
refused to dwell on
whatever I had witnessed the day before. At that moment, however, my
curiosity was
uncontrollable and I asked him about it. "Oh,
that was a simple demonstration of all the things, that you should
know before you get
the sorcerers' explanation," he said. "What you did
yesterday, made
Genaro feel, that you have
stored enough power to go for the real thing. You have obviously
followed his suggestions. Yesterday you let the wings of your
perception unfold. You were stiff,
but you still perceived all
the comings and goings of the nagual; in other words, you Saw. You also
confirmed something,
which at this time is even more important, than Seeing, and that
was the
fact, that you can now
place your unwavering attention on the nagual. And that's
what will
decide the outcome of the
last issue, the sorcerers' explanation. Pablito and you will go into it
at the same time. It is a gift of
power to be accompanied by
such a fine warrior." That
seemed to be all he wanted to say. After a while I asked about don
Genaro. "He's
around," he said.
"He went into the bushes to make the mountains
tremble." I
heard at that moment a distant rumble, like muffled thunder. Don Juan
looked at me and
laughed.
He made me sit down and asked if I had eaten. I had, so he
handed me my
notebook and led
me to don Genaro's favorite spot, a large rock on the west side of
the
house, overlooking a deep
ravine. "Now
is when I need your total attention," don Juan said. "Attention in
the sense, that warriors
understand attention: a true pause, in order to allow the
sorcerers'
explanation to fully soak
through you. We are at the end of our task; all the necessary
instruction has been given to you
and now you must stop, look back, and reconsider your steps.
Sorcerers
say, that this is the only
way to consolidate one's gains. I definitely would have preferred to
tell you all this at your own
place of power, but Genaro is your benefactor and his spot may be more
beneficial to you in an
instance like this." What
he was referring to as my place of power, was a hilltop in
the
desert of northern Mexico,
which he had shown me years before and had "given" to me as my own.
"Should
I just listen to you without taking notes?" I asked.
"This
is indeed a tricky maneuver," he said. "On the one hand, I need
your total attention, and
on the other, you need to be calm and self-assured. The only way
for
you to be at ease, is to write,
so this is the time to bring forth all your personal power and fulfill
this impossible task of being
yourself, without being yourself."
He
slapped his thigh and laughed. "I've
already told you, that I am in charge of your tonal and, that
Genaro is in charge of your
nagual" he went on. "It has been my duty to help you in every
matter,
concerning your tonal and
everything, that I've done with you or to you, was done to accomplish
one
single task, the task of
cleaning and reordering your island of the tonal. That's my job as your
teacher. Genaro's task, as
your benefactor, is to give you undeniable demonstrations of
the nagual
and to show how to get
to it."
"What
do you mean by cleaning and reordering the island of the tonal?"
I asked.
"I
mean the total change, which I've been telling you about from the
first day we met," he said.
225-226
"I've
told you countless times, that a most drastic change was needed, if
you wanted to succeed in
the path of knowledge. That change is not a change of mood,
or
attitude, or outlook; that change
entails the transformation of the island of the tonal. You have
accomplished that task."
"Do
you think, that I've changed?" I asked. He hesitated and then laughed
loudly.
"You
are as idiotic, as ever," he said. "And yet you're not the same.
See what I mean?" He
mocked my taking notes and said, that he missed don Genaro, who
would
have enjoyed the
absurdity of my writing down the sorcerers' explanation. "At
this precise point a teacher would usually say to his disciple, that
they have arrived at a
final crossroad," he continued. "To say such a thing is misleading,
though. In my opinion, there is
no final crossroad, no final step to anything. And since there is
no
final step to anything, there
shouldn't be any secrecy about any part of our lot, as Luminous Beings.
Personal power decides,
who can or who cannot profit by a revelation; my experiences
with my
fellow men have proven
to me, that very, very few of them would be willing to listen; and of
those few, who listen, even
fewer would be willing to act on what they have listened to;
and of
those, who are willing to act,
even fewer have enough personal power to profit by their acts. So,
the
matter of secrecy about
the sorcerers' explanation boils down to a routine, perhaps a routine
as empty, as any other
routine. At any rate, you know now about the tonal and the
nagual,
which are
the core of the
sorcerers' explanation. To know about them seems to be quite harmless.
We are sitting here,
talking innocently about them, as if they were just an
ordinary topic of
conversation. You are
calmly writing, as you've done for years. The scenery around us is a
picture of calmness. It is
early afternoon, the day is beautiful, the mountains around us have
made a protective cocoon for
us. One doesn't have to be a sorcerer to realize, that this
place,
which
speaks of Genaro's power
and impeccability, is the most appropriate background for opening the
door; for that is what I'm
doing today, opening the door for you. But, before we venture
beyond
this point, a fair warning is
required; a teacher is supposed to speak in earnest terms and warn his
disciple, that
the harmless-
ness and placidity of this moment, are a mirage, that there is
a
bottomless abyss in front
of him, and that, once the door opens, there is no way to close it
again."
He
paused for a moment. I felt light and happy; from don Genaro's place of
predilection I had a
breathtaking view. Don
Juan was right; the day and the scenery were more, than
beautiful. I
wanted to worry about his
admonitions and warnings, but somehow the tranquility around me
screened out all my attempts
and I found myself hoping, that perhaps he was speaking only of
metaphorical dangers. Don Juan
suddenly began to talk again. "The
years of hard training are only a preparation for the warrior's
devastating encounter with
. . ." He paused again, looked at me with squinting eyes, and chuckled.
". . .
with whatever lies out
there, beyond this point,"
he said. I asked him to explain his ominous
statements. "The sorcerers' explanation, which doesn't seem like an
explanation at
all, is lethal," he said. "It
seems harmless and charming, but as soon, as the warrior
opens
himself to it, it delivers a blow,
that noone can parry." He broke into a loud laugh. "So,
be prepared for the worst, but don't hurry or panic," he
proceeded. "You
don't have any
time, and yet you're surrounded by eternity. What a
paradox for your
reason!" Don
Juan stood up. He wiped off the debris on a smooth bowl-like
depression and sat there
comfortably, with his back against the rock, facing the northwest. He
indicated another place for
me, where I too could sit comfortably. I was to his left, also facing
the northwest. The rock was
warm and gave me a feeling of serenity, of protection. It was
a mild
day; a soft wind made the heat
of the afternoon sun very pleasant. I took off my hat, but don Juan
insisted, that I should wear
it. "You're
now facing in the direction of your own place of power," he
said. "That is a prop, that
may protect you. Today you need all the props you can use. Your hat may
be another one of
them."
227-228
"Why
are you warning me, don Juan? What's really going to happen?" I
asked.
"What
will happen here today depends on whether or not you have enough
personal power to
focus your unwavering attention on the wings of your perception,"
he
said.
His
eyes glittered. He seemed to be more excited, than I had ever seen
him before. I thought,
that there was something unusual in his voice, perhaps an
unaccustomed
nervousness. He
said, that the occasion required, that right there on my benefactor's
place of predilection, he
recapitulate for me every step, that
he had taken in his struggle to
help me clean and reorder my
island of the tonal. His recapitulation was meticulous and took him
about five hours. In a brilliant
and clear manner he gave me a succinct account of everything
he had
done to me since the day
we met. It was as if a dam had been broken. His revelations caught
me
completely off guard. I
had accustomed myself to be the aggressive prober; thus, to have don
Juan - who was always the
reluctant party - elucidating the points of his teachings in
such an
academic manner was as
astounding, as his wearing a suit in Mexico City. His control of the
language, his dramatic timing,
and his choice of words were so extraordinary, that I had no
way to
explain them rationally. He
said, that at that point a teacher had to speak to the individual
warrior in exclusive terms, that the
way he was talking to me and the clarity of his explanation were part
of his last trick, and that
only at the end would everything, that he was doing, make
sense to me. He
talked without
stopping, until he had finished presenting his recapitulation. And I
wrote down everything he said
without any conscious effort on my part. "Let
me begin by telling you, that a teacher never seeks apprentices and
noone can solicit the
teachings," he said. "It's always an omen, which points out an
apprentice. A warrior, who may be
in the position of becoming a teacher, must be alert in order to catch
his cubic centimenter of
chance. I saw you just before
we met; you had a good tonal, like that
girl we encountered in
Mexico City. After I saw you I waited, very much like what we did with
the girl that night in the
park. The girl went by without paying attention to us. But
you were
brought to me by a man, who
ran away after babbling inanities. You were left there, facing me,
also
babbling inanities. I knew,
I had to act fast and hook you; you yourself would've had to do
something of that sort, if that girl
would've talked to you. What I did was to grab you with my
will." Don
Juan was alluding to the extraordinary way he had looked at me the
day we met. He had
fixed his gaze on me and I had had an inexplicable feeling of
vacuity,
or numbness. I could not
find any logical explanation for my reaction and I have always
believed,
that after our first
meeting, I went back to see him, only because I had become
obsessed with
that look. "That
was my quickest way of hooking you," he said. "It was a direct
blow to your tonal.
I
numbed it by focusing my will on it."
"How
did you do that?" I asked.
"The
warrior's gaze is placed on the right eye of the other person,"
he
said. "And what
it does
is, to stop the internal dialogue, then the nagual takes over;
thus, the
danger of that maneuver. Whenever
the nagual prevails, even if it is only for an instant, there
is no way of describing the
feeling, that the body experiences. I know that you have
spent endless
hours trying to figure out,
what you felt and, that to this day you haven't been able to. I
accomplished what I wanted, though. I
hooked you." I told
him, that I could still remember him staring at me. "The
gaze on the right eye is not a stare," he said. "It's rather a
forceful grabbing, that one does through the eye of the other person.
In
other words, one grabs
something, that is behind the eye. One
has the actual physical sensation, that one is holding something
with the will." He
scratched his head, tilting his hat to the front, over his face. "This
is, naturally, only a way of talking," he continued. "A way of
explaining weird physical
sensations."
He
ordered me to stop writing and look at him. He said, that he was
going to grab my tonal
gently with his will. The sensation I experienced was a
repetition of
what I had felt on that first
day we had met and on other occasions, when don Juan had made me feel,
that his eyes were
actually touching me, in a physical sense.
229-230
"But,
how do you make me feel you're touching me, don Juan? What do you
actually do?" I
asked.
"There's
no way of exactly describing what one does," he said.
"Something snaps forward
from someplace below the stomach; that something has direction and can
be focused on
anything." I
again felt something like soft tweezers clasping some undefined part
of me. "It
works only when the warrior learns to focus his will" don
Juan
explained after he moved
his eyes away. "There's no way of practicing it, therefore I have not
recommended or encouraged
its use. At a given moment in the life of a warrior it simply
happens.
No one knows how." He
remained quiet for a while. I felt extremely apprehensive. Don Juan
suddenly began to
speak again.
"The
secret is in the left eye," he said. "As a warrior progresses on
the path of knowledge his
left eye can clasp anything. Usually the left eye of a warrior has
a
strange appearance; sometimes
it becomes permanently crossed, or it becomes smaller, than the other,
or larger, or different in
some way." He
glanced at me and in a joking manner pretended to examine my
left
eye. He shook his
head in mock disapproval and chuckled. "Once
the apprentice has been hooked, the instruction begins," he
continued. "The first act of
a teacher is to introduce the idea, that the world we think, we see, is
only a view, a description of
the world. Every effort of a teacher is geared to prove this
point to
his apprentice. But accepting
it, seems to be one of the hardest things one can do; we are
complacently caught in our particular
view of the world, which compels us to feel and act, as if we knew
everything about the world. A
teacher, from the very first act he performs, aims at
stopping that
view. Sorcerers call it stopping
the internal dialogue, and they are convinced, that it is the single
most important technique, that an
apprentice can learn. In order to stop the view of the world,
which one
has held since the
cradle, it is not enough to
just wish or make a resolution. One needs a practical task;
that
practical task's, called the right
way of walking. It seems harmless and nonsensical. As everything else,
which has power in itself
or by itself, the right way of walking does not attract attention. You
understood it and regarded it,
at least for several years, as a curious way of behaving. It didn't
dawn on you, until very recently,
that that was the most effective way to stop your internal
dialogue."
"How
does the right way of walking stop the internal dialogue?" I asked.
"Walking,
in that specific manner, saturates the tonal" he said. "It
floods it. You see, the
attention of the tonal has to be placed on its creations.
In fact, it
is that attention, that creates the
order of the world in the first place; so, the tonal must be attentive
to the elements of its world in
order to maintain it, and must, above all, uphold the view of
the world,
as internal dialogue." He
said, that the right way of walking was a subterfuge. The warrior,
first by curling his
fingers, drew attention to the arms; and then by looking,
without
focusing his eyes, at any point
directly in front of him on the arc, that started at the tip of his
feet
and ended above the horizon, he literally flooded his
tonal with
information. The tonal, without its
one-to-one relation with the
elements of its description, was incapable of talking to itself, and
thus one became silent. Don Juan explained, that the position of the
fingers did not matter at
all, that the only
consideration was to draw attention to the arms by clasping
the fingers
in various unaccustomed
ways, and that the important thing was the manner, in which the eyes,
by
being kept unfocused,
detected an enormous number of features of the world without
being
clear about them. He added,
that the eyes in that state were capable of picking out details, which
were too fleeting for normal
vision. "Together
with the right way of walking," don Juan went on, "a teacher
must teach his
apprentice another possibility, which is even more subtle:
the
possibility of acting without
believing, without expecting rewards - acting just for the hell of it.
I wouldn't be exaggerating, if I
told you, that the success of a teacher's enterprise depends
on how well
and how harmoniously he
guides his apprentice in this specific respect." I told
don Juan, that I did not remember him ever discussing "acting
just for the hell of it" as a
particular technique; all I could recollect were his constant, but
loose
comments about it.
231-232
He
laughed and said, that his maneuver had been so subtle, that it had
bypassed me to that day. He then reminded me of all the nonsensical
joking tasks, that
he used to
give me every time I had
been at his house. Absurd chores such as arranging firewood in
patterns, encircling his house
with an unbroken chain of concentric circles, drawn in the
dirt with my
finger, sweeping debris
from one place to another, and so forth. The tasks also included acts,
that I had to perform by
myself at home, such as wearing a black cap, or tying my left shoe
first, or fastening my belt
from right to left. The reason I had never taken them in any other
vein
except as jokes was,
that he would
invariably tell me to forget about them, after I had established them
as
regular routines. As he
recapitulated all the tasks, he had given me, I realized,
that by
making me perform
senseless routines, he had indeed implanted in me the idea of acting
without really expecting
anything in return.
"Stopping
the internal dialogue is, however, the key to the sorcerers'
world," he said. "The
rest
of the activities are only props; all they do is accelerate the effect
of stopping the internal
dialogue." He
said, that there
were two major activities or techniques, used to
accelerate the stopping of
the internal dialogue: erasing personal history and dreaming.
He
reminded me, that during the
early stages of my apprenticeship he had given me a number of specific
methods for changing
my "personality." I had recorded them in my notes and had
forgotten
about them for years, until I
realized their importance. Those specific methods seemed at first to
be highly idiosyncratic
devices to coerce me into modifying my behavior. He explained, that the
art of a teacher was to deviate the apprentice's
attention from the main
issues. A poignant example of that art was the fact, that I had not
realized until that day, that he
had actually tricked me into learning a most crucial point: to
act
without expecting rewards. He said, that in line with that rationale,
he
had rallied my interest
around the idea of Seeing,
which, properly understood, was the act of dealing directly
with the
nagual, an act, that
was an
unavoidable end result of the teachings, but an unattainable task as a
task per se.
"What
was the point of tricking me that way?" I asked.
"Sorcerers
are convinced, that all of us are a bunch of nincompoops,"
he
said. "We can never
relinquish our crummy control voluntarily, thus we have to be tricked."
His
contention was, that by making me focus my attention on a pseudo
task, learning to See, he
had successfully accomplished two things. First, he had outlined
the
direct encounter with the
nagual, without mentioning it, and second, he had tricked me into
considering the real issues of his teachings, as inconsequential
affairs. Erasing
personal history and
dreaming were never as
important to me as Seeing. I
regarded them as very entertaining
activities. I even thought, that they
were the practices, for which I had the greatest facility. "Greatest
facility," he said mockingly when he heard my comments. "A
teacher must not
leave anything to chance.
I've told you, that you were correct in
feeling, that you were being
tricked. The problem was, that you were convinced, that that tricking
was
directed at fooling your
reason. For me, tricking meant to distract your attention, or to trap
it, as the case required." He
looked at me with squinting eyes and pointed all around us with
a
sweeping gesture of his
arm. "The
secret of all this is one's attention," he said.
"What
do you mean, don Juan?"
"All
of this exists only, because of our attention. This very rock, where
we're sitting, is a rock,
because we have been forced to give our attention to it as a rock."
I
wanted him to explain that idea. He laughed and raised an accusing
finger at me. "This
is a recapitulation," he said. "We'll get to that later." He
asserted, that because of his decoy maneuver, I became
interested in
erasing personal
history and dreaming. He said, that the effects of those two techniques
were ultimately
devastating, if they were exercised in their totality, and that then
his
concern was the concern of
every teacher, not to let his apprentice do anything, that
would plunge
him into aberration and
morbidity.
233-234
"Erasing
personal history and dreaming should only be a help," he said.
"What any apprentice
needs to buffer him is temperance and strength. That's why a
teacher
introduces the warrior's
way, or living like a warrior. This is the glue, that joins together
everything in a sorcerer's world. Bit by bit a teacher must forge and
develop it. Without the sturdiness
and level-headedness of the
warrior's way there is no possibility of withstanding the path of
knowledge."
Don
Juan said, that learning the warrior's way was an instance,
when the
apprentice's attention
had to be trapped rather, than deviated, and that he had trapped my
attention by pushing me out of
my ordinary circumstances every time I had gone to see him.
Our roaming
around the desert and
the mountains had been the means to accomplish that. Maneuver
of altering the context of my ordinary world, by taking me
for hikes and
hunting, was another instance of his system, that had bypassed me.
Context disarrangement meant,
that I did not know the ropes and my attention had to be focused on
everything don Juan did. "What
a trick! Uh?" he said and laughed. I
laughed with awe.
I had never realized, that he was so aware. He
then enumerated his steps in guiding and trapping my attention. When
he had finished his
account, he added, that a teacher had to take into
consideration the
personality of the apprentice,
and that in my case he had to be careful, because I was violent and
would have thought nothing of
killing myself out of despair. "What
a preposterous fellow you are, don Juan," I said in jest, and he
exploded in a giant
laugh. He explained, that
in order to help erase personal history three
other techniques were taught. They
were: losing self-importance, assuming responsibility, and
using death, as an adviser. The
idea was that, without the beneficial effect of those three
techniques,
erasing personal history would involve the apprentice in being
shifty, evasive
and unnecessarily
dubious about himself
and his actions. Don Juan asked me to tell him
what had been the most
natural reaction I
had had in moments
of stress, frustration and disappointment, before I
became an
apprentice. He
said, that his own reaction had been wrath. I told him, that mine had
been self-pity. "Although
you're not aware of it, you had to work your head off to make
that feeling a natural
one," he said. "By now there is no way for you to recollect the immense
effort,
that you needed to
establish self-pity as a feature of your island. Self-pity bore witness
to everything you did. It was
just at your fingertips, ready to advise you.
Death is considered by a
warrior to be a more
amenable adviser, which can also be brought to bear witness on
everything one does, just like
self-pity, or wrath.
Obviously, after an untold struggle, you had
learned to feel sorry for yourself. But
you can also learn, in the same way, to feel your impending end,
and thus you can learn to
have the idea of your death at your fingertips. As an
adviser,
self-pity is nothing in comparison to
death." Don
Juan pointed out then, that there was seemingly a
contradiction in
the idea of change; on
the one hand, the sorcerers' world called for a drastic
transformation,
and on the other, the
sorcerers' explanation said, that the island of the tonal was
complete
and not a single element of
it could be removed. Change, then, did not mean obliterating anything,
but rather altering the use
assigned to those elements. "Take
self-pity for instance," he said. "There is no way to get rid
of
it for good; it has a
definite place and character in your island, a
definite facade, which is
recognizable. Thus, every
time the occasion arises, self-pity becomes active. It has history. If
you then change the facade of
self-pity, you would have shifted its place of prominence." I
asked him to explain the meaning of his metaphors, especially
the
idea of changing facades. I
understood it as, perhaps, the act of more, than one role at
the same
time. "One
changes the facade by altering the use of the elements of the
island,"
he
replied. "Take
self-pity again. It was useful to you, because you either felt
important and deserving of better
conditions, better treatment, or because you were unwilling
to
assume responsibility for the acts, that brought you to the
state,
that
elicited self-pity, or because you
were incapable of bringing the
idea of your impending death to witness your acts
and advise you.
235-236
Erasing
personal history and its three companion techniques are the
sorcerers' means for
changing the facade of the elements of the island. For instance, by
erasing your personal history,
you have denied use to self-pity; in order for self-pity to work, you
had to feel important,
irresponsible, and immortal. When those feelings were altered
in some
way, it was no longer
possible for you to feel sorry for yourself. The same was true with all
the other elements, which you've changed on
your island. Without
using those four techniques you never could've succeeded in changing
them. But changing
facades means only, that one has assigned a secondary place
to a
formerly important element. Your self-pity is still a feature of your
island; it will be there in
the back in the same way, that the
idea of your impending death, or your humbleness, or your
responsibility for your acts were
there, without ever being used." Don
Juan said, that once all those techniques had been presented,
the
apprentice arrived at a
crossroad. Depending on his sensibility, the apprentice did one of two
things. He either took the
recommendations and suggestions, made by his teacher at their
face
value, acting without
expecting rewards; or he took everything as a joke or an aberration
(отклонение от правильного направления). I
remarked, that in my own case I was confused by the word
"techniques."
I always expected a
set of precise directions, but he had given me only vague
suggestions;
and I was incapable of
taking them seriously or acting in accordance with his stipulations. "That
was your mistake," he said. "I had to decide then, whether or not
to use power plants. You could've used those four techniques to clean
and reorder your
island of the tonal. They
would've led you to the nagual. But not all of us are capable
of
reacting to simple
recommendations. You, and I for that matter, needed something else to
shake us; we needed those power plants." It had
indeed taken me years to realize the importance of those early
suggestions made by don
Juan. The extraordinary effect, that psychotropic plants had
had on me
was what gave me the bias,
that their use was the key feature of the teachings. I held
on to that
conviction and it was only in
the later years of my apprenticeship, that I realized, that
the
meaningful transformations and
findings of sorcerers were always done in states of sober
consciousness.
"What
would have happened if I had taken your recommendations
seriously?" I asked.
"You
would have gotten to the nagual" he replied.
"But
would I have gotten to the nagual without a benefactor?"
"Power
provides according to your impeccability," he said. "If you had
seriously used those
four techniques, you would've stored enough personal power to find
a
benefactor. You would've
been impeccable and power would have opened all the necessary avenues.
That is the rule."
"Why
didn't you give me more time?" I asked.
"You
had all the time you needed," he said. "Power showed me the way.
One night I gave you
a riddle to work out; you had to find your beneficial spot in front of
the door of my house. That
night you performed marvelously under pressure and in the morning you
fell asleep over a very
special rock, that I had put there. Power showed me, that you
had to be
pushed mercilessly or you
wouldn't do a thing."
"Did
the power plants help me?" I asked.
"Certainly,"
he said. "They opened you up by stopping your view of the
world. In this respect
power plants have the same effect on the tonal, as the right way
of
walking. Both flood it with
information and force the internal dialogue to come to a stop. The
plants are excellent for that,
but very costly. They cause untold damage to the body. This
is their
drawback, especially with
the devil's weed."
"If
you knew, that they were so dangerous, why did you give me so many
of them, so many
times?" I asked. He assured me, that the details of the procedure
were
decided by power
itself. He said, that
although the teachings were supposed to cover the same issues with all
apprentices, the order was
different for each one, and that he had gotten repeated
indications,
that I needed a great deal of
coercion, in order to bother with anything.
237-238
"I was
dealing with a sassy (impudent) immortal being, that had no respect for
his
life or his death," he
said, laughing. I brought up the fact, that he had described,
and
discussed those plants
in terms of
anthropomorphic qualities. His references to them were always, as if
the
plants had personalities. He replied, that that was a
prescribed means
for deviating the
apprentice's attention away from the
real issue, which was stopping the internal dialogue.
"If
they are used only to stop the internal dialogue, what's their
connection with the ally?" I
asked.
"That's
a difficult point to explain," he said. "Those plants lead the
apprentice directly to the
nagual, and the ally is an aspect of it. We function at
the center
reason exclusively, regardless of
who we are or where we come from. Reason can naturally account in one
way or another for
everything, that happens within its view of the world. The ally is
something, which is outside of
that view, outside the realm of reason. The ally can be witnessed only
at the
center of Will at times when
our ordinary view has stopped, therefore it is properly the
nagual.
Sorcerers, however, can learn
to perceive the ally in a most intricate way, and in doing so, they
get
too deeply immersed in a
new view. So, in order to protect you from that fate, I did not
emphasize the ally, as sorcerers
usually do. Sorcerers have learned, after generations of
using power
plants, to account in their views for everything, that is accountable
about them. I would say that
sorcerers, by using their Will, have succeeded in enlarging
their views of the world. My
teacher
and benefactor were the
clearest examples of that. They were men of great power, but they were
not Men of Knowledge. They
never broke the bounds of their enormous views and thus never
arrived at the Totality of Themselves, yet they knew about it. It
wasn't that they lived aberrant
lives, claiming things beyond
their reach; they knew, that they had missed the boat and that only at
their death would the total
mystery be revealed to them. Sorcery had given them only a
glimpse, but
never the real means to
get to that evasive Totality of Oneself. "I
gave you enough of the sorcerers' view, without letting you
get
hooked by it. I said, that only,
if one pits two views against each other, can one weasel (to be sneaky)
between them to
arrive at the real world. I
meant, that one can arrive at the Totality of Oneself only when one
fully understands, that the world
is merely a view, regardless of whether that view belongs to
an
ordinary man or to a sorcerer. Here
is where I varied from the tradition. After a lifelong struggle I
know, that what matters is,
not to learn a new description, but to arrive at the Totality
of Oneself. One should get to the nagual
without maligning the tonal, and above all, without injuring one's
body. You took those plants,
following the exact steps I followed myself. The only difference was,
that instead of plunging you
into them, I stopped, when I judged, that you had stored
enough views of
the nagual. That is the
reason, why I never wanted to discuss your encounters with power
plants,
or let you talk
obsessively about them; there was no point in elaborating
about the
unspeakable. Those were true
excursions into the nagual, the unknown." I
mentioned, that my need to talk about my perceptions under
the
influence of psychotropic
plants, was due to an interest in elucidating a hypothesis of my own. I
was convinced, that with the
aid of such plants, he had provided me with memories of
inconceivable
ways of perceiving. Those
memories, which at the time I experienced them, may have
seemed
idiosyncratic and disconnected
from anything meaningful, were later assembled into units of meaning. I
knew, that don Juan had
artfully guided me each time, and that any assembling of
meaning, was
made under his guidance. "I
don't want to emphasize those events, or explain them," he said
dryly. "The act of dwelling
on explanations will put us right back, where we don't want
to be; that
is, we'll be thrown back
into a view of the world, this time a much larger view." Don
Juan said, that after the apprentice's internal dialogue has been
stopped by the effect of
power plants, an unavoidable impasse develops. The apprentice begins to
have second thoughts
about his whole apprenticeship. In don Juan's opinion, even the most
willing apprentice at that
point would suffer a serious loss of interest. "Power
plants shake the tonal and threaten the solidity of the whole
island," he said. "It is at
this time, that the apprentice retreats, and wisely so; he
wants to get
out of the whole mess.
239-240
It is
also at this time, that the teacher sets up his most artful trap, the
worthy opponent. This trap has
two purposes. First, it enables the teacher to hold his
apprentice, and
second, it enables the
apprentice to have a point of reference for further use. The trap is a
maneuver, that brings forth a
worthy opponent into the arena. Without the aid of a worthy
opponent,
who's not really an enemy,
but a thoroughly dedicated adversary, the apprentice has no possibility
of continuing on the path
of knowledge. The best of men would quit at this point, if it were left
up to them to decide. I
brought to you, as a worthy opponent, the finest warrior one can find,
la
Catalina."
Don
Juan was talking about a time, years before, when he had led me
into a long-range battle
with an Indian sorceress. "I put
you in bodily contact with her," he proceeded. "I chose a
woman,
because you trust
women. To disarrange that trust was very difficult for her. She
confessed to me years later, that
she would've liked to quit, because she liked you.
But she's a great
warrior and, in spite of her
feelings, she nearly blasted you off the Planet. She disarranged your
tonal so intensely, that it was never
the same again. She actually changed features on the face of your
island so deeply, that her
acts sent you into another realm. One may say, that she could've become
your benefactor herself,
had it not been, that you were not cut out to be a sorcerer, like she
is.
There was something amiss
between you two. You were incapable of being afraid of her. You nearly
lost your marbles one
night, when she accosted (boldly approach and speak) you, but in spite
of that, you were attracted to
her. She was a desirable
woman to you, no matter how scared you were. She knew that. I
caught you
one day in town
looking at her, shaking in your boots with fear and yet
drooling at her. "Because
of the acts of a worthy opponent, then, an apprentice can be
either blasted to pieces
or changed radically. La Catalina's actions with you, since
they did
not kill you - not because she
did not try hard enough, but because you were durable - had a
beneficial
effect on you, and also
provided you with a decision. The teacher uses the worthy
opponent to
force the apprentice into the
choice of his life. The
apprentice must choose between the warrior's world and his
ordinary
world. But no
decision is
possible, unless the apprentice understands the choice; thus a teacher
must have a thoroughly
patient and understanding attitude and must lead his man with
a sure
hand to that choice, and,
above all, he must make sure, that his apprentice chooses the world and
the life of a warrior.
I
accomplished this by asking you to help me overcome la Catalina. I told
you, she was about to kill
me and, that I needed your help to get rid of her. I gave you
fair
warning about the consequences
of your choice and plenty of time to decide whether or not to make it." I
clearly remembered, that don Juan had set me loose that day.
He told
me, that if I did not want
to help him, I was free to leave and never come back. I felt at that
moment, that I was at liberty to
choose my own course and had no further obligation to him. I
left his
house and drove away with a mixture of sadness and
happiness. I was sad to leave
don Juan and yet I was happy to be through with all his
disconcerting
activities. I thought of Los
Angeles and my friends and all the routines of my daily life, which
were
waiting for me, those
little routines, that had always given me so much pleasure.
For a while
I felt euphoric. The
weirdness of don Juan and his life was behind me and I was free. My
happy mood did not last long, however. My desire to leave don
Juan's
world was
untenable. My routines had lost their power. I tried to think of
something I wanted to do in Los
Angeles, but there was nothing. Don Juan had once told me, that I was
afraid of people and had
learned to defend myself by not wanting anything. He said,
that not
wanting anything was a
warrior's finest attainment. In my stupidity, however, I had enlarged
the sensation of not wanting
anything and made it lapse into not liking anything. Thus, my
life was
boring and empty. He was right and, as I zoomed north on the highway,
the
full impact of my
own unsuspected
madness finally hit me. I began to realize the scope of my
choice. I
was actually leaving a
magical world of continual renewal for my soft, boring life in Los
Angeles. I began to recollect
my empty days. I remembered one Sunday in particular. I had felt
restless all day with nothing to
do. No friends had come to visit me. Noone had invited me to a party.
241-242
The
people, I wanted to see,
were not home, and worst of all, I had seen all the movies in town. In
the late afternoon, in
ultimate despair, I searched the list of movies again and
found one I
had never wanted to see. It
was being shown in a town thirty-five miles away. I went to see it, and
hated it, but even that was
better, than having nothing to do. Under the impact of don
Juan's world,
I had changed. For one thing,
since I had met him, I had
not had time to be bored. That in itself was enough for me;
don Juan
had indeed made sure I
would choose the warrior's world. I turned around and drove back to his
house.
"What
would have happened if I had chosen to go back to Los Angeles?" I
asked.
"That
would have been an impossibility," he said. "That choice didn't
exist. All, that was required of you, was to allow your tonal to become
aware of having
decided
to join the world of
sorcerers. The tonal doesn't know, that decisions are in the realm of
the nagual. When we think,
we decide, all we're doing is acknowledging, that something,
beyond our
understanding, has set up
the frame of our
so-called decision, and all we do is to acquiesce (accept
without protest). "In
the life of a warrior there is only one thing, one issue
alone,
which is really undecided: how
far one can go on the path of knowledge and power. That is an issue,
which is open and no
one can predict its outcome. I once told you, that the freedom
a warrior has,
is either to act impeccably
or to act like a nincompoop. Impeccability is indeed the only
act, which
is free and thus the true
measure of a warrior's spirit." Don
Juan said, that after the apprentice had made his decision to join
the world of sorcerers,
the teacher gave him a pragmatic chore, a task, that he had
to fulfill
in his day-to-day life. He
explained, that the task, which is designed to fit the apprentice's
personality, is usually a sort of
farfetched life situation, which the apprentice is supposed to get
into,
as a means of permanently
affecting his view of the world. In my own case,
I understood the task
more as a lively joke, than a serious life situation. As time passed,
however, it finally dawned on
me, that I had to be earnest
about it.
"After
the apprentice has been given his sorcery task, he's ready for
another type of
instruction," he proceeded. "He is a warrior then. In your case, since
you were no longer an
apprentice, I taught you the three techniques, that help dreaming:
disrupting the routines of life,
the gait of power, and not-doing. You were very consistent:
dumb as an
apprentice and dumb as a
warrior. You dutifully wrote down everything I said and everything,
that
happened to you, but you
did not act exactly as I had told you to. So I still had to
blast you
with power plants." Don
Juan then gave me a step-by-step rendition of how he had driven my
attention away from
dreaming, making me believe, that the important problem was a very
difficult activity, he had
called not-doing, which consisted of a perceptual game of
focusing
attention on features of the
world, that were ordinarily overlooked, such as the shadows of things.
Don Juan said, that his
strategy had been to set not-doing apart, by imposing the most strict
secrecy on it. "Not-doing,
like everything else, is a very important technique, but it
was not the main issue,"
he said. "You fell for the secrecy. You, a blabbermouth,
having to keep
a secret!"
He
laughed and said, that he could imagine the troubles, I must have gone
through, to keep my
mouth shut. He explained, that disrupting routines, the gait
of power,
and not-doing
were avenues for
learning new ways of perceiving the world, and that they gave
a warrior
an inkling of incredible
possibilities of action. Don Juan's idea was, that the knowledge, of a
separate and pragmatic world
of dreaming, was made possible through the use of those three
techniques. "Dreaming
is a practical aid, devised by sorcerers," he said. "They were
not fools; they knew
what they were doing and sought the usefulness of the nagual,
by
training their tonal to let go for
a moment, so to speak, and then grab again. This statement doesn't make
sense to you. But that's
what you've been doing all along: training yourself to let go, without
losing your marbles. Dreaming,
of course, is the crown of the sorcerers' efforts, the
ultimate use of the nagual.'' He
went through all the exercises of not-doing, that he had made me
perform, the routines of
my daily life, that he had isolated for disrupting, and
all the
occasions, when he had forced me to
engage in the gait of power.
243-244
"We're
coming to the end of my recapitulation," he said. "Now we have
to talk about Genaro." Don
Juan said, that there had been a very important omen the day
I met
don Genaro. I told
him, that I could not remember anything out of the ordinary. He
reminded
me, that on that day we
had been sitting on a bench in a park.
He said, that he had mentioned
earlier to me, that he was
going to wait for a friend, I had never met before, and then, when the
friend appeared, I singled him out,
without any hesitation, in the midst of a huge crowd. That was the
omen, that made them
realize, that don Genaro was my benefactor. I
remembered when he mentioned it, that as we sat talking, I
had turned
around and seen a
small lean man, who radiated an extraordinary vitality, or grace, or
simple gusto; he had just
turned a corner into the park. In a joking mood I told don Juan, that
his friend was approaching us,
and that he was most certainly a sorcerer judging by the way
he looked. "Genaro
recommended what to do with you from that day on," don Juan
proceeded. "As your
guide into the nagual, he gave you impeccable demonstrations,
and every
time he performed an
act as a nagual, you were left with a knowledge, that defied and
bypassed
your reason. He
disassembled your view of the world, although you are not aware of that
yet. Again, in this
instance you behaved just like in the case of the power plants, you
needed more, than was
necessary. A few of the nagual's onslaughts should be enough to
dismantle one's view; but even
to this day, after all the nagual's barrages, your view seems
invulnerable. Oddly enough, that's
your best feature. "All
in all, then, Genaro's job has been to lead you into the nagual.
But here we have a strange
question. What was being led into the nagual?" He
urged me with a movement of his eyes to answer the question.
"My
reason?" I asked (my
perception).
"No,
reason is meaningless there," he replied. "Reason craps out in an
instant, when it is out of
its safe narrow bounds."
"Then
it was my tonal" I said.
"No,
the tonal and the nagual are the two inherent parts of ourselves,"
he said dryly. "They
cannot be led into each other."
"My
perception?" I asked.
"You've
got it," he yelled, as if I were a child, giving the right
answer. "We're coming now to
the sorcerers' explanation. I've warned you already, that it won't
explain anything and yet..." He
paused and looked at me with shiny eyes. "This is another of the
sorcerers' tricks," he said.
"What
do you mean? What's the trick?" I asked with a touch of alarm.
"The
sorcerers' explanation, of course," he replied. "You'll see that
for yourself. But let's
continue with it. Sorcerers
say, that we are inside a bubble. It is a
bubble, into which we are placed
at the moment of our birth. At first the bubble is open, but then it
begins to close, until it has
sealed us in. That bubble is our perception.
We live inside
that bubble
all of our lives. And what
we witness on its round walls is our own reflection." He
lowered his head and looked at me askance. He giggled.
"You're
goofing," he said. "You're supposed to raise a point here." I
laughed. Somehow his warnings about the sorcerers' explanation plus
the realization of the
awesome range of his awareness had finally begun to take their toll on
me.
"What
was the point I was supposed to raise?" I asked.
"If
what we witness on the walls is our own reflection, then the thing,
that's being reflected,
must be the real thing," he said, smiling.
"That's
a good point," I said in a joking tone. My
reason could easily follow that argument.
"The
thing reflected, is our view of the world," he said. "That view is
first a description, which
is given to us from the moment of our birth, until all our attention
is
caught by it, and the
description becomes a view. The
teacher's task is to rearrange the view, to prepare the Luminous Being
for the time, when
the benefactor opens the bubble from the outside."
245-246
He
went into another studied pause and made another remark about my
lack of attention,
judged by my incapacity to make an appropriate comment or question.
"What
should've been my question?" I asked.
"Why
should the bubble be opened?" he replied. He laughed loudly and
patted my back, when
I said, "That's a good question."
"Of
course!" he exclaimed. "It has to be a good question for you, it's
one of your own. The
bubble is opened in order to allow the Luminous Being a view of
his Totality," he went on. "Naturally
this business, of calling it a bubble, is only a way of
talking, but in this case it is an
accurate way. The
delicate maneuver of leading a Luminous Being into the
Totality of Herself/Himself requires, that
the teacher work from inside the bubble and the benefactor from
outside. The teacher reorders the
view of the world. I have called that view 'the island of the tonal'.
I've said, that everything, that we
are, is on that island. The sorcerers' explanation says, that
the island
of the tonal is made by our
perception, which has been trained to focus on certain elements; each
of those elements and all of
them together, form our view
of the world. The job of a teacher, insofar
as the apprentice's
perception is concerned, consists of reordering all the elements of the
island on one half of the
bubble. By now you must have realized, that cleaning and
reordering the
island of the tonal means
regrouping all its elements on the side of reason. My task has been
to
disarrange your ordinary
view, not to destroy it, but to force it to rally on the side of
reason.
You've done that better, than
anyone I know." He
drew an imaginary circle on the rock and divided it in two
along a
vertical diameter. He
said, that the art of a teacher was to force his disciple to group his
view of the world on the right
half of the bubble.
"Why
the right half?" I asked.
"That's
the side of the tonal (right side of body)" he said. "The teacher always
addresses
himself to that side, and
by presenting his apprentice, on the one hand with the warrior's
way, he
forces him into
reasonableness, and sobriety, and strength of character and body; and,
by presenting him on the
other hand, with unthinkable, but real situations, which
the apprentice
cannot cape with, he forces
him to realize, that his reason, although it is a most wonderful
affair,
can only cover a small area. Once the warrior is
confronted with his
incapacity to reason everything
out, he will go out of his
way to bolster and defend his defeated reason, and, to that effect,
he
will rally everything, he's got
around it. The teacher sees to that, by hammering him mercilessly,
until
all his view of the world is
on one half of the bubble. The other half of the bubble, the
one, that
has been cleared, can then be
claimed by something sorcerers call Will. We can better explain this by
saying, that the task of the teacher is
to wipe clean one half of
the bubble and to reorder everything on the other half. The
benefactor's task then is to open the
bubble on the side, that has been cleaned. Once the seal is
broken, the
warrior is never the same. He has then the command of his Totality.
Half of the
bubble is the
ultimate center of reason,
the
tonal. The other half is the ultimate center of Will, the nagual.
That
is the order, that should
prevail; any other arrangement is nonsensical and petty, because
it
goes against our nature; it robs
us of our magical heritage and reduces us to nothing." Don
Juan stood up and stretched his arms and back and walked around
to
loosen up his
muscles. It was a bit cold by then. I asked him if we were through. "Why,
the show hasn't even started yet!" he exclaimed and laughed.
"That was only the
beginning."
He
looked at the sky and pointed to the west with a casual movement of
his hand. "In
about an hour the nagual will be here," he said and smiled.
He sat down
again. "We
have one single issue left," he continued. "Sorcerers call it the
secret of the Luminous Beings, and that is the fact, that we are
perceivers. We, men, and all the
other Luminous Beings on Earth are perceivers. That is our bubble, the
bubble of perception. Our
mistake is to believe, that
the only perception worthy of acknowledgment, is what goes
through our
reason. Sorcerers
believe, that reason is only one center and, that it shouldn't take so
much for granted.
247-248
"Genaro
and I have taught you about the eight points, that make the
totality of our bubble of
perception. You know six points. Today Genaro and I will further
clean
your bubble of
perception and after that you will know the two remaining points." He
abruptly changed the topic and asked me to give him a detailed
account of my perceptions
of the day before, starting from the point, where I saw don Genaro
sitting on a rock by the road. He did
not make any comments or interrupt me at all. When I had
finished, I added an
observation of my own. I had talked to Nestor and Pablito in the
morning and they had given me
accounts of their perceptions, which were similar to mine. My
point was,
that he himself had told
me, that the nagual was an individual experience, which only the
observer
can witness. The day
before there were three observers and all of us had witnessed
more or
less the same thing. The
differences were expressed only in terms of how each of us felt or
reacted to any specific instance
of the whole phenomenon.
"What
happened yesterday was a demonstration of the nagual for you, and
for Nestor and
Pablito. I'm their benefactor. Between Genaro and myself, we canceled
out the center of reason in
all three of you. Genaro and I had enough power to make you agree on
what you were witnessing. Several years ago, you and I were with
a
bunch of apprentices one
night, but I didn't have enough
power by myself alone to make all of you witness the same thing." He
said, that judging, by what I had told him, I had perceived
the day
before and from what he
had seen about me, his conclusion was, that I was ready for the
sorcerers' explanation. He added,
that so was Pablito, but he was uncertain about Nestor. "To be
ready for the sorcerers' explanation is a very difficult
accomplishment," he said. "It
shouldn't be, but we insist on indulging in our lifelong view
of the
world. In this respect you and
Nestor and Pablito are alike. Nestor hides behind his shyness and
gloom, Pablito behind his
disarming charm; you hide behind your cockiness and words. All are
views, that seem to be
unchallengeable; and as long, as you three persist in using them,
your
bubbles of perception have
not been cleared and the sorcerers' explanation will have no meaning." In a
spirit of jest I said, that I had been obsessed with the
famous
sorcerers' explanation for a
very long time, but the closer I got to it, the further it seemed to
be.
I was going to add a joking
comment when he took the words right out of my mouth. "Wouldn't
it be something, if the sorcerers' explanation turns out to be
a dud (bomb ready to explode)?" he asked in the
midst of loud laughter.
He patted me on the back and seemed to be
delighted, like a child
anticipating a pleasant
event.
"Genaro
is a stickler for the rule," he said in a confiding tone.
"There's nothing to this
confounded explanation. If it would've been up to me I would have given
it to you years ago. Don't
put too much stock in it." He
looked up and examined the sky. "Now
you are ready," he said in a dramatic and solemn tone. "It's time
to go. But before we
leave this place, I have to tell you one last thing: the
mystery, or the
secret, of the sorcerers'
explanation is, that it deals with unfolding the wings of perception." He put
his hand over my writing pad and said, that
I should go to the
bushes and take care of my bodily functions and after that I should
take off my clothes and
leave them in a bundle right
where we were. I looked at him questioningly and he
explained, that I
had to be naked, but that I
could keep my shoes and my hat on. I insisted on knowing why I had to
be naked. Don Juan laughed and said,
that the reason was
rather personal and had to do with my own comfort, and that I myself
had told him, that that was
the way I wanted it.
His explanation baffled me. I felt, that he was
playing a joke on me or that, in
conformity with what he had revealed to me, he was simply displacing my
attention.
I wanted to
know why he was doing that. He began to talk about an incident, that
had
happened to me years before
while we had been in
the mountains of northern Mexico with don Genaro. On that
occasion they
were explaining to me,
that reason could not possibly account for everything, that took place
in the world. In order to give
me an undeniable demonstration of it, don Genaro performed a
magnificent
leap as a nagual, and
"elongated" himself to reach the top of some peaks ten or
fifteen miles
away.
249-250
Don
Juan said, that I
missed the issue, and that as far, as convincing my reason was
concerned, don Genaro's
demonstration was a failure, but from the point of view of my bodily
reaction it was a riot. The bodily reaction, that don Juan was
referring
to, was something, which
was very vivid in my
mind. I saw don Genaro disappear in front of my very eyes, as
if a wind
had swished him away. His
leap, or whatever he had done, had had such a
profound effect on me,
that I felt as if his
movement had ripped something in my intestines. My bowels
became loose
and I had to throw
away my pants and shirt. My discomfort and embarrassment knew no
limits;
I had to walk
naked,
wearing only a hat, on a heavily trafficked highway, until I got to my
car. Don Juan reminded me,
that it was then, that I had told him not to let me ruin my
clothes
again. After I had taken my clothes off, we walked a few hundred feet
to
a very
large rock,
overlooking the same ravine. He made me look down.
There was a drop of
over a hundred feet. He then told me to turn off my internal dialogue
and listen to the
sounds around us. After a few moments I heard the sound of a
pebble
bouncing from rock to
rock on its way
down to the bottom of the ravine. I heard every single bounce of the
pebble with inconceivable
clarity. Then I heard another pebble being thrown, and another one yet.
I lifted my head to align
my left ear to the direction of the sound and saw don Genaro, sitting
on
top of the rock, twelve to
fifteen feet from where we were. He was casually tossing pebbles down
into the ravine. He yelled and cackled when I saw him and he said, that
he had been
hiding there, waiting for
me to discover him. I had a moment of bafflement. Don Juan whispered in
my ear repeatedly, that
my reason was not invited to that event, and that I should
give up the
nagging desire to control
everything. He said, that the nagual was a perception only for me, and
that that was the reason
Pablito had not seen the nagual in my car. He added, as if
reading my
unvoiced feelings, that
although the nagual was for me alone to witness, it still was don
Genaro himself. Don Juan took me by the arm and in a playful
manner led
me, to where don
Genaro was
sitting. Don Genaro stood up and came closer to me. His
body radiated a
heat, that I could see, a
glow which dazzled me. He came to my side and, without touching me, he
put his mouth close to
my left ear and began to whisper. Don Juan also began
whispering in my
other ear. Their voices
were synchronized. They were both repeating the same statements. They
said, that I should not be
afraid, and that I had long powerful fibers, which were not there to
protect me, for there was
nothing to protect, or to be protected from, but that they were there
to guide my nagual's
perception in very much the same way my eyes guided my normal tonal's
perception. They told
me, that my fibers were all around me, that through them I
could
perceive everything at once, and
that one single fiber was enough for a leap from the rock into the
ravine, or up from the ravine to
the rock.
I had listened to everything they had whispered. Every word
seemed to
have had a unique connotation for me; I could retain every utterance
and then play it
back, as if I were a tape
recorder. They both urged me to leap to the bottom of the ravine. They
said, that I should first feel
my fibers, then isolate one, that went all the way down to
the bottom of
the ravine, and follow it. As they spoke their commands, I actually
could
match their words with
adequate feelings. I
sensed an itching all over me, especially a most peculiar
sensation,
which was indiscernible in
itself, but approximated the sensation of a "long itching." My body
could actually feel the bottom
of the ravine and I sensed, that feeling, as an itching in some
undefined
area of my body. Don Juan and don Genaro kept on coaxing me to slide
through that
feeling, but I did not know
how. I then
heard don Genaro's voice alone.
He
said, that he was going to jump with me; he grabbed me, or pushed me,
or embraced me,
and plunged with me into the abyss. I had the ultimate
sensation of
physical anguish. It was, as if
my stomach was being chewed and devoured. It was a mixture of
pain and
pleasure of such
intensity and duration, that all I could do was to yell and yell at the
top of my lungs. When the
sensation subsided I saw an inextricable cluster
of sparks and dark
masses, beams of light and
cloudlike formations. I could not tell whether my eyes were open or
closed, or where my eyes
were, or where my body was for that matter.
251-252
Then I
sensed the same
physical anguish, although
not as pronounced as the first time, and next, I had the impression, I
had woken up and I found
myself standing on the rock with don Juan and don Genaro. Don
Juan
said, that I had goofed again, that it was useless to leap, if
the perception of the leap
was going to be chaotic. Both of them repeated countless
times in my
ears, that the nagual by
itself was of no use, that it had to be tempered by the tonal. They
said, that I had to leap willingly
and be aware of my act. I hesitated, not so much because I was afraid,
but because I was
reluctant. I felt my vacillation,
as if my body were swinging from side to side like a
pendulum. Then
some strange mood
overtook me and I leaped with all my corporealness. I wanted to
think,
as I took the plunge, but I
could not.
I saw, as if through a fog, the walls of the narrow gorge and
the jutting rocks at the
bottom of the ravine. I did not have a sequential perception
of my
descent, I had instead the
sensation, that I was actually on the ground at the bottom; I
distinguished every feature of the rocks in a short circle
around me.
I noticed, that
my view was not
unidirectional and stereoscopic
from the level of the eyes, but flat and all around me. After a moment,
I panicked and something
pulled me up like a yo-yo. Don Juan and don Genaro made me perform the
leap over and over. After
every jump don
Juan urged me to be less reticent (reseved)
and unwilling.
He said, time and time
again, that the sorcerers'
secret in using the nagual was in our perception, that leaping was
simply an exercise in
perception, and that it would end only after I
had succeeded in
perceiving, as a perfect tonal, what
was at the bottom of the ravine. At one moment I had an
inconceivable
sensation. I was fully and soberly
aware, that I was
standing on the edge of the rock with don Juan and don Genaro,
whispering in my ears, and then
in the next instant I was looking at the bottom of
the ravine.
Everything
was perfectly normal. It
was almost dark by then, but there was still enough light to make
everything absolutely
recognizable, as in the world of my everyday life.
I was watching some
bushes when I heard a
sudden noise, a rock rolling down. I saw instantly a good
size rock
tumbling down the wall of the
ravine towards me.
In a flash I also saw don Genaro throwing it. I had
an attack of panic and an
instant later I had been pulled back to the site on top of
the rock. I
looked around; don Genaro
was not there any more. Don Juan began to laugh and said, that don
Genaro had left, because he
could not stand my stench. I then had the embarrassing
realization, that
I was truly a mess. Don
Juan had been right, in making me take my clothes off. He
walked me to a
stream nearby and
washed me like a horse, scooping water with my hat and
throwing it at
me, while he made
hilarious comments about having saved my pants.
12.
The Bubble of Perception
253-254
I
spent the day by myself at don
Genaro's house. I slept most of the
time. Don Juan came back
in the late afternoon and we hiked, in complete silence, to a
nearby
range of mountains. We
stopped at dusk and sat on the edge of a deep gorge, until it was
almost
dark. Then don Juan led
me to another place close by, a monumental cliff with a sheer
vertical
rock wall. The cliff was
unnoticeable from the trail, that led to it; don Juan, however, had
shown it to me several times before. He had made me look over
the
edge and had told me, that the
whole cliff was a place of
power, especially the base of it, which was a canyon several hundred
feet down. Every time I had
looked into it, I had had a discomforting chill; the canyon was always
dark and menacing. Before
we reached the place, don Juan said, that
I had to go on by
myself and meet Pablito on
the edge of the cliff. He recommended, that I should relax and perform
the gait of power, in order
to wash away my nervous tiredness. Don Juan stepped aside, to
the left
of the trail, and the darkness
simply swallowed him. I
wanted to stop and examine, where he had gone, but
my body did not obey.
I began to jog, although I
was so tired, that I could hardly keep on my feet. When I reached the
cliff, I could not see anyone there and I went on jogging in
place,
breathing
deeply. After a while I relaxed a bit; I stood motionless with my back
against a rock, and I
noticed then the shape of a man a few feet away from me. He
was
sitting, hiding his head in his
arms. I
had a moment of intense fright and recoiled, but then I explained to
myself, that the man must be Pablito, and without any
hesitation I
advanced towards him. I called Pablito's name out loud. I figured, that
he must have been uncertain of who
I was, and had become so scared, that he had covered his head
not to
look. But before I reached him, some inexplicable fear took possession
of me. My body froze on the spot with my right arm already
extended to
touch him. The man lifted his head up. It was not Pablito! His eyes
were two enormous mirrors, like a tiger's
eyes. My body jumped backwards; my muscles tensed and then
released the
tension without the
slightest influence of my volition, and I performed a backward leap, so
fast and so far, that under
normal conditions I would have plunged into a grandiose speculation
about it. As it was,
however, my fright was so out of proportion, that I had no inclination
for pondering, and I would
have run out of there, had it not been, that someone held my arm
forcibly. The feeling, that
someone was holding me by the arm, threw me into total panic;
I
screamed. My outburst, instead
of being the shriek, I thought it should have been, was a long chilling
yell. I turned to face my assailant. It was Pablito, who was
shaking
even more, than me. My
nervousness was at its peak. I could not talk, my teeth chattered and
ripples went through my
back, making me jerk involuntarily. I had to breathe through
my mouth.
Pablito said, between chatters, that the nagual had been waiting for
him, that he had barely
gotten out of its clutches, when he bumped into me, and that
I had
nearly killed him with my yell. I wanted to laugh and made
the most
weird sounds imaginable. When I regained my calmness, I
told Pablito, that apparently the same thing had happened to me. The
end
result in my case had
been, that my fatigue had vanished; I felt instead an
uncontainable
surge of strength and wellbeing. Pablito seemed to be experiencing the
same sensations; we began to giggle in a nervous,
silly way. I heard the sound of soft and careful steps in the
distance.
I detected the sound before Pablito. He appeared to react to my
stiffening. I had the certainty, that someone was approaching
the place,
where we were. We turned in the direction of the sound;
a
moment later
the silhouettes of don
Juan and don Genaro became visible.
255-256
They
were walking calmly and
stopped four or five feet
away from us; don Juan was facing me and don Genaro faced Pablito. I
wanted to tell don Juan,
that something had scared me nearly out of my wits, but
Pablito
squeezed my arm. I knew, what he meant. There was something
strange about don Juan and don Genaro. As
I looked at them, my eyes
began to get out of focus.
Don Genaro gave a sharp command. I did not understand what he had said,
but I "knew", he had
meant, that we should not cross our eyes. "The
darkness has settled on the
world," don Juan said, looking at the
sky. Don Genaro drew a
half-moon on the hard ground. For a moment it seemed
to me, that he had used
some iridescent (lustrous, rainbow like colours) chalk, but then I
realized, that he was not holding
anything in his hands; I
was perceiving the imaginary half-moon, that he had drawn with his
finger. He made Pablito and
me sit on the inner curve of the convex (boundary curves
outwards)
edge, while he and don Juan sat
cross-legged on the
extreme ends of the half-moon, six or seven feet away from us. Don Juan
spoke first; he said,
that
they were going to show us their
allies. He told us, that if we would gaze at their left
sides,
between their hips and their rib bones,
we would see something like
a rag or a handkerchief hanging from their belts. Don Genaro added,
that
next to the rags on their
belts, there were two round buttonlike things, and that we
should gaze
at their belts, until we saw the rags and the buttons. Before don
Genaro
had spoken, I had
already noticed some flat item, like
a piece of cloth, and one
round pebble, that hung from their belts. Don Juan's allies
were
darker and more menacing,
than don Genaro's. My reaction was a mixture of curiosity and fear.
My
reactions were
experienced in my stomach and I was not judging anything in a rational
manner. Don Juan and don
Genaro reached for their belts and seemed to unhook
the dark pieces of cloth. They took them with their
left hands; don Juan flung his in the
air above his head, but don
Genaro let his drop to the ground gently. The pieces of cloth
stretched,
as if the hurling and the
dropping had made them spread like perfectly smooth handkerchiefs; they
descended slowly, bobbing
like kites. The movement of don Juan's ally was the exact
replica, of what I had perceived him doing, when he had whirled around
days before. As the pieces of
cloth got closer to the
ground, they became solid, round and massive. They first curled, as
though they had fallen over a door knob, then they expanded. Don
Juan's grew into a voluminous
shadow. It took the lead and moved towards us, crushing small
rocks and hard lumps of dirt. It came
within four or five feet of
us to the very dip of the half-moon, between don Juan and don
Genaro.
At one moment I thought
it was going to roll over us and pulverize us. My terror at that
instant was like a burning fire. The shadow in front of me
was
gigantic,
perhaps fourteen feet high and six
feet across. It moved, as if
it were feeling its way around with no eyes. It jerked and
wobbled. I
knew, that it was looking for me. Pablito at that moment hid his
head against my chest. The sensation,
that his movement
produced in me, dispelled some of the awesome attention, that
I had
focused on the shadow. The
shadow seemed to become disassociated, judging by its erratic jerks,
and then it moved out of
sight, merging with the darkness around. I shook Pablito. He lifted his
head
and let out a muffled scream. I
looked up. A strange man
was staring at me. He seemed
to have been right behind the shadow,
perhaps hiding behind it. He was rather tall and lanky, he had a
long face, no hair, and the left
side of his head was covered by a rash or an eczema of some
sort.
His eyes were wild and shiny; his
mouth was half open.
He
wore some strange pajama-like clothing; his pants were too short
for
him. I could not distinguish, whether or not he had shoes on.
He stood, looking at us for what seemed
to be a long time, as if
waiting for an opening, in order to lurch at us and tear us
apart. There
was so much intensity in his eyes. It was not hatred or
violence,
but some sort of animal feeling of
distrust. I could not stand
the tension any longer. I wanted to adapt a fighting position,
that don
Juan had taught me years
before, and I would have done so, had it not been for Pablito,
who whispered, that the ally could not go over the
line, that don
Genaro had drawn on the ground.
I
realized then, that there was indeed a bright line, that seemed
to detain whatever was in front of us.
257-258
After
a moment the man moved away to the left, just like the shadow
before. I had the
sensation, that don Juan and don Genaro had called them both back.
There
was a short quiet pause. I
could not see don Juan or don Genaro
any more; they were no
longer sitting on the points of the half-moon. Suddenly, I heard the
sound
of two small pebbles,
hitting the solid rock floor, where we were sitting, and, in a flash,
the
area in front of us lit up, as if a mellow yellowish light had been
turned on. In front of us there was a
ravenous (hungry, voracious) beast, a giant
nauseating-looking coyote or wolf.
Its whole body was covered with a
white secretion like
perspiration or saliva. Its hair was raggedy (harsh) and wet. Its eyes
were
wild. It growled with a blind fury, that sent chills through
me.
Its jaw shivered and globs of saliva
flew all over the place. It
pawed the ground like a mad dog, trying to get loose from a chain. Then
it stood on its hind legs
and moved its front paws and its jaws rabidly (raging, uncontrolable).
All its fury seemed to
be concentrated on breaking
some barrier in front of us. I became aware, that my fear of
that
crazed animal, was of a different
sort, than the fear of the
two apparitions, I had witnessed before. My dread of that
beast was a
physical revulsion and horror. I looked on in utter impotence
at its rage. Suddenly, it seemed
to lose its wildness and
trotted out of sight. I
heard then some
thing else coming towards us, or perhaps I sensed it;
all of a sudden the shape
of a colossal feline loomed in front of us. I first saw
its eyes
in the darkness; they were
huge and fixed like two pools of water, reflecting light. It snorted
and
growled softly. It exhaled
air and moved back and forth in front of us, without taking
its eyes
away from us. It did not have the
electric glow, that the coyote had; I could not distinguish
its
features clearly, and yet its presence was infinitely
more ominous,
than the other beast's. It seemed
to be gathering strength; I
felt, that it was so daring, that it would go beyond its limits.
Pablito
must have had a similar
feeling, for he whispered, that I should duck my head and lie almost
flat against the ground. A
second later the feline charged. It ran towards us and then it
leaped
with its paws extended
forward. I closed my eyes and hid my head in my arms against the
ground. I felt, that the beast had ripped the protective line, that
don Genaro had drawn around us and
was actually on top of us. I felt its weight pinning me down;
the fur on its belly rubbed against
my neck. It seemed, that its
forelegs were caught in something; it wriggled to set itself
free. I
felt its jerking and prodding and heard its diabolic puffing and
hissing. I knew then, that I was lost. I
had a vague sense of a
rational choice and I wanted to resign myself calmly to my fate of
dying there, but I was afraid of the physical pain of dying under
such awful circumstan-
ces. Then some
strange force surged (moved in, rolled) from
my body; it was, as if my body refused to die and pooled all its
strength in one single point, my left arm and hand. I felt an
indomitable surge coming through it.
Something uncontrollable was taking possession of my body,
something, that forced me to push the
massive malignant weight of
that beast off of us. Pablito seemed to have reacted in the same
fashion and we both stood up at once; there was so much energy
created by both of us, that the beast was
flung like a rag doll.
The exertion had been supreme. I collapsed on the ground, panting for
air. The muscles of my
stomach were so tense, that I could not breathe. I did not
pay any
attention to what Pablito was doing. I finally noticed, that don
Juan and don Genaro were helping me
to sit up. I saw Pablito
spread on the ground, face down with his arms outstretched. He seemed
to
have fainted. After they
had made me sit up, don Juan and don Genaro helped Pablito.
Both
of them rubbed his
stomach and back. They made him stand up and after a while he could sit
up by himself again. Don
Juan and don Genaro sat on the ends of the half-moon, and
then they
began to move in front of
us, as if a rail existed between the two points, a rail, that
they were using to shift their positions back and forth, from
one side to the other. Their movements
made me dizzy. They finally stopped next to Pablito and
began to whisper in his ear. After
a moment they stood up, all
three of them at once, and walked to the edge of the cliff. Don Genaro
lifted Pablito, as if he were a child. Pablito's body was stiff
like a board; don Juan held Pablito
by the ankles. He whirled him around, seemingly to gain momentum
and force, and finally he let go of
his legs and hurled his
body out over the abyss, away from the edge of the cliff.
259-260
I saw Pablito's body
against the dark western sky. It described
circles, just like don Juan's body had done days before; the
circles were slow. Pablito seemed to be
gaining altitude, instead of
falling down. Then the circling became accelerated; Pablito's body
twirled like a disk for a
moment and then it disintegrated. I perceived, that it had
vanished in
thin air. Don Juan and
don Genaro came to my side, squatted by me and proceeded
to whisper in my ears.
Each said something different, yet
I had no trouble
in following
their commands. It was, as if I became "split" the instant they
uttered their first words. I felt,
that they were doing with me, what they had done with Pablito. Don
Genaro made me whirl and then I had the
thoroughly conscious
sensation of spinning or floating for a moment. Next I was rushing
through the air, plummeting
down to the ground at a tremendous speed. I felt, as I was falling,
that my clothes were ripping off, then my flesh fell off, and
finally only my head remained. I had
the very clear sensation, that, as my body became dismembered, I lost
my superfluous weight, and thus my
falling lost its momentum
and my speed decreased. My descent was no longer a vertigo (dizziness).
I
began to move back and forth like a leaf. Then my
head was stripped of its weight and all,
that was left
of "me", was a
square centimeter, a nugget, a tiny pebblelike residue. All my feeling
was concentrated there;
then the nugget seemed to burst and I was a thousand pieces.
I knew, or
something somewhere knew,
that I was aware of the thousand pieces at once. I was the Awareness
itself. Then
some part of that Awareness began to be stirred; it rose,
grew. It
became localized, and,
little by little, I regained the sense of boundaries, consciousness or
whatever, and suddenly the
"me",
I knew and was
familiar with, erupted into the most spectacular
view of all the imaginable
combinations of "beautiful" scenes; it was, as if I were looking
at
thousands of pictures of the world, of people, of things. The scenes
then became blurry. I had
the sensation, that they were being
passed in front of my
eyes at a greater speed, until I could not single out any of
them for
examination. Finally it was, as if I were witnessing the
organization of the world rolling past my eyes
in an unbroken, endless
chain. I suddenly found myself standing on the cliff with
don Juan and don
Genaro. They whispered,
that they had pulled me back, and that I had witnessed the
Unknown,
that
noone can talk about.
They said, that they were going to hurl me into it once more, and that
I
should let the wings of my
perception unfold and touch the tonal and the nagual at once,
without
being aware of going back
and forth from one to the other. (More about
our Total Selves, LM).
I
again had
the sensations of being tossed, spinning, and falling down
at a tremendous speed.
Then I exploded.
I disintegrated. Something in me gave out; it released
something, I had kept locked up all my life. I was thoroughly aware
then, that my secret
reservoir had been tapped and, that it poured out unrestrainedly. There
was no longer the sweet unity
I call "me." There was nothing and yet, that nothing was filled. It was
not light or darkness,
hot or cold, pleasant or
unpleasant. It was not, that I moved or floated or was
stationary,
neither was I a Single Unit, a Self, as I am accustomed to being. I was
a Myriad of Selves, which were all
"Me," a colony of separate Units, that had a special
allegiance
(loyalty, fidelity) to one another and would join
unavoidably to form one single Awareness, my Human Awareness.
It was
not, that I "knew" beyond the
shadow of a doubt, because there was nothing, I could have "known"
with,
but all my Single Awarenesses "knew", that the "I",
"the "Me,"
of my
familiar world was a Colony, a Conglomerate (forming into adhering
mass) of separate
and independent feelings, that had an Unbending Solidarity to
one
another. The Unbending Solidarity of my
Countless Awarenesses, the Allegiance (loyalty), that those parts had
for one
another, was my Life Force. A way of describing that unified
sensation,
would be to say, that those Nuggets of Awareness were scattered; each
of them was aware of itself and none was more
predominant, than the other. Then something would stir them, and they
would join and emerge onto an
area, where All of Them had to be pooled in one Clump
(clustered mass),
the "Me" I know. As "Me" "Myself" then, I
would witness a coherent scene of worldly activity, or a scene, that
pertained (related) to other
worlds and which I thought must have been pure imagination,
or a scene,
that pertained to "pure
thinking," that is, I had views of intellectual systems, or of ideas
strung (string) together, as verbalizations.
In some scenes I talked to myself to my heart's content. After every
one of those coherent views
the "Me" would disintegrate
and be
nothing once more.
261-262
During
one of
those excursions into a coherent view I found myself on
the cliff with don Juan. I instantly realized, that I was then the
Total "Me", I am familiar with.
I felt my physicality as real. I was in the world, rather than merely
viewing it. Don
Juan
hugged me like a child.
He looked at me. His face was very
close. I could see his eyes in the darkness. They were kind.
They
seemed to hold a question. I knew what it was. The unspeakable was
truly unspeakable.
"Well?" he asked softly, as if he would need my
reaffirmation. I was speechless. The words, "numb," "bewildered,"
"confused," and so on, were not in any way appropriate
descriptions of
my feelings at that moment. I was not solid. I knew, that don Juan
had to grab me and keep me forcibly on the ground, otherwise I
would
have floated in the air and disappeared. I was not afraid of vanishing.
I longed for the "unknown", where my Awareness was not unified. Don
Juan walked me slowly, pushing down on both of my shoulders,
to an area
around don Genaro's house; he made me lie down and then covered me with
soft dirt from a pile, that he seemed to have prepared
beforehand. He
covered me up to my neck. With leaves he made a sort
of pillow for my head to rest on and told me not to move or fall asleep
at all. He said, that he was going to sit and keep me
company, until
the Earth had again consolidated my form. I felt very comfortable and
had a nearly invincible desire to fall asleep, but don Juan
would
not let me. He demanded, that I should talk about anything under the
sun,
except what I had just
experienced. I did not know what to talk about at first, then
I asked
about don Genaro. Don Juan
said, that don Genaro had taken Pablito and had buried him somewhere
around there and was
doing with him, what he himself was doing with me. I had the
desire to
sustain the conversation, but something in me was incomplete; I had an
unusual indifference, a tiredness that was more like boredom. Don Juan
seemed to know how I
felt. He began to talk about Pablito and how our fates were
interlocked. He said, that he became
Pablito's benefactor at the same time, that don Genaro became his
teacher, and that power had
paired Pablito and me step by step. He made the emphatic
remark, that
the only difference
between Pablito and me was, that while Pablito's world, as a warrior,
was
governed by coercion and
fear, mine was governed by affection and freedom. Don Juan
explained,
that such a difference
was due to the intrinsically different personalities of the
benefactors. Don Genaro was sweet and
affectionate and funny, while he himself was dry, authoritarian and
direct. He said, that my
personality demanded a strong teacher, but a tender benefactor, and
that
Pablito was the opposite;
he needed a kind teacher and a stern benefactor. We talked for a while
longer and then it was
morning. When the sun appeared over the mountains on the
eastern
horizon, he helped me to get
up from under the dirt.
After I woke up in the early afternoon, don Juan and I sat by the door
of don Genaro's house.
Don Juan said, that don Genaro was still with Pablito, preparing him
for
the last encounter. "Tomorrow you and Pablito will go into the
Unknown," he said. "I must
prepare you for it
now. You will go into it by yourselves. Last night you two were like
yo-yos, being pulled back
and forth; tomorrow you will be on your own." I had then a rush of
curiosity, and questions about my experiences of
the night before, just
poured out of me. He was unruffled by my barrage. "Today I have to
accomplish a most crucial maneuver," he said. "I have
to trick you for the
last time. And you must fall for my tricking." He laughed and
slapped
his thighs. "What Genaro wanted to show you with the first exercise the
other night
was, how sorcerers
use the nagual," he went on. "There's no way to get to the sorcerers'
explanation, unless one has
willingly used the nagual, or rather, unless one has willingly
used the
tonal to make sense out of
one's actions in the nagual. Another way of making all this clear is to
say, that the view of the
tonal must prevail, if one is going to use the nagual the way
sorcerers
do." I told him, that I had found a blatant incongruity (no harmony),
in what he had just
said.
263-264
On
the one hand, he
had given me, two days before, an incredible recapitulation of his
studied acts over a period of
years, acts, designed to affect my view of the world; and, on
the other
hand, he wanted that same
view to prevail. "One thing has nothing to do with the other," he said.
"Order, in our
perception, is the exclusive
realm of the tonal; only there can our actions have a sequence; only
there are they like stairways,
where one can count the steps. There is nothing of that sort in
the
nagual. Therefore, the view of
the tonal is a tool, and as such, it is not only the best tool, but the
only one we've got. Last night your bubble of perception opened
and its wings unfolded.
There is nothing else to
say about it. It is impossible to explain what happened to you, so I'm
not going to attempt to and
you shouldn't try to either. It should be enough to say, that
the wings
of your perception were
made to touch your Totality. Last night you went back and forth from
the nagual to the tonal time
and time again. You were hurled in twice, so as to leave no possibility
for mistakes. The second
time you experienced the full impact of the journey into the
Unknown.
And your Perception
unfolded its Wings, when something in you realized your true nature. You
are a Cluster. This is the sorcerers' explanation.
The
nagual is the
unspeakable. All the possible feelings
and beings and selves float in it like barges, peaceful, unaltered,
forever. Then the glue of life
binds some of them together. You yourself found, that out
last night,
and so did Pablito, and so
did Genaro, the time he journeyed into the Unknown, and so did I. When
the glue of life binds
those feelings together, a being is created, a being, that loses the
sense of its true nature and
becomes blinded by the glare and clamor of the area, where
beings hover,
the tonal. The tonal is
where all the unified organization exists. A being pops into the tonal,
once the force of life has
bound all the needed feelings together. I said to you once,
that the
tonal begins at birth and ends at
death; I said, that because I know, that as soon, as the force of life
leaves the body, all those single
awarenesses disintegrate and go back again to, where they came from,
the
nagual. What a warrior
does in journeying into the Unknown is very much like dying,
except
that his cluster of single
feelings do not disintegrate, but expand a bit without losing their
togetherness. At death, however,
they sink deeply and move independently, as if they had never been a
unit."
I wanted to tell him how completely homogeneous were his statements
with my experience.
But he did not let me talk. "There
is no way to
refer to the Unknown,"
he said. "One
can only
witness it. The sorcerers'
explanation says, that each of us has a center, from which the nagual
can
be witnessed, the Will.
Thus, a warrior can venture into the nagual and let his
cluster arrange
and rearrange itself in any
way possible. I've said to you, that the expression of the nagual is a
personal matter.
I meant, that
it is up to the individual warrior himself, to direct the arrangement
and rearrangements of that Cluster. The human form or human feeling is
the original one, perhaps
it is the sweetest form of
them all - to us; there are, however, an endless number of alternative
forms, which the Cluster may
adopt. I've said to you, that a sorcerer can adopt any form,
he wants.
That is true. A sorcerer, who is
in possession of the Totality of himself can direct the parts of his
Cluster to join in any conceivable
way. The force of life is what makes all that shuffling
possible. Once
the force of life is exhausted,
there is no way to reassemble that Cluster. I have called
that Cluster -
the Bubble of Perception. I have also said, that it is sealed, closed
tightly, and that it never opens, until the moment of our death. Yet,
it
could be made to open.
Sorcerers have obviously learned that secret, and although not all of
them arrive at the Totality of
themselves, they know about the possibility of it. They know,
that the
bubble opens only when
one plunges into the nagual. Yesterday I gave you a recapitulation of
all the steps, that you have
followed to arrive at that point." He scrutinized me, as if
he were waiting for a comment or a question.
What he had said was
beyond comment. I understood then, that it would have been of
no
consequence, if he had told me
everything fourteen years before, or if he would have told it to me at
any point during my
apprenticeship. What was important was the fact, that I had
experienced
with or in my body the
premises of his explanation. "I'm waiting for your usual question," he
said, voicing his words
slowly.
"What question?" I asked.
265-266
"The
one your reason is itching to voice."
"Today I relinquish all questions. I really don't have any, don Juan."
"That's not fair," he said, laughing. "There is one particular
question,
that I need you to ask." He said, that if I would shut off my internal
dialogue for just an
instant, I could discern what the
question was. I had a sudden thought, a momentary insight, and I knew,
what he wanted.
"Where was my body, while all that was happening to me, don Juan?" I
asked and he broke
into a belly laugh.
"This is the last of the sorcerers' tricks," he said. "Let's say, that
what I'm going to reveal to you,
is the last bit of the sorcerers' explanation. Up to this point
your reason has haphazardly followed
my doings. Your reason is willing to admit, that the world is not as
the
description portrays it, that
there is much more to it, than what meets the eye. Your
reason is almost
willing and ready to
admit, that your perception went up and down that cliff, or that
something in you or even all of
you leaped to the bottom of the gorge and examined with the
eyes of the
tonal, what was there, as
if you had descended bodily with a rope and ladder. That act,
of examining the bottom of the
gorge, was the crown of all these years of training. You did it well.
Genaro saw the cubic
centimeter of chance, when he threw a rock at you, that was
at the
bottom of the ravine. You
saw everything, Genaro and
I knew then without a doubt, that you were
ready to be hurled into the Unknown. At that instant you not
only Saw,
but you knew all about the Double, the Other." I interrupted and told
him, that he was giving me undeserving credit for
something, that was beyond my understanding. His reply was, that I
needed time to let all
those impressions settle
down, and that once I had done that, answers would just pour out
of me
in the same manner, that
questions had poured out of me in the past. "The secret of the Double
is in the Bubble of Perception, which in your
case that night was at
the top of the cliff and at the bottom of the gorge at the same time,"
he said. "The cluster of
feelings can be made to assemble instantly anywhere. In other
words, one can perceive the here and the there at once." He urged me to
think
and remember a sequence of actions, which, he said,
were so ordinary, that
I had almost forgotten them. I did not know, what he was
talking about.
He coaxed me to try harder. "Think about your hat," he said. "And think
what Genaro did with it."
I had a shocking moment of realization. I had forgotten, that don
Genaro
had actually wanted
me to take off my hat, because it kept on falling off, blown by the
wind. But I did not want to let
go of it. I had felt stupid being naked. Wearing a hat, which I
ordinarily never do, gave me a
sense of strangeness; I was not really myself, in which case,
being
without clothes, was not so
embarrassing. Don Genaro had then attempted to change hats with me, but
his was too small for
my head. He made jokes about the size of my head and the
proportions of
my body, and finally
he took my hat off and wrapped my head with an old poncho, like a
turban. I told don Juan, that I had forgotten about that
sequence,
which, I was sure, had happened in
between my so-called leaps. And yet the memory of those leaps stood as
a unit, which was
uninterrupted. "They certainly were an uninterrupted unit, and so was
Genaro's
cavorting with your hat," he
said. "Those two memories cannot be made to go one after the
other,
because they happened at the
same time." He made the fingers of his left hand move, as if they could
not fit into
the spaces between the
fingers of his right hand. "Those leaps were only the beginning," he
went on. "Then came your true
excursion into the Unknown; last night you experienced the
unspeakable, the nagual. Your
reason cannot fight the
physical knowledge, that you are a nameless Cluster of feelings. Your
reason at this point might
even admit, that there
is another center of assemblage, the Will,
through which it is possible to
judge or assess and use the extraordinary effects of the nagual.
It has
finally dawned on your
reason, that one
can reflect the nagual through the Will, although one
can never explain it. "But then comes your question,
'Where was I, when all that was taking
place?
Where was my
body?'
267-268
The
conviction, that there is a real you, is a result of the fact,
that you have rallied
everything you've got around your reason. At this point your reason
admits, that the nagual is the
indescribable, not because the evidence has convinced it, but because
it is safe to admit that. Your
reason is on safe ground, all the elements of
the
tonal are on its
side." Don Juan paused and examined me. His smile was kind. "Let's go
to Genaro's place of predilection," he said abruptly. He stood up and
we
walked to the rock, where we had talked two days
before; we sat
comfortably on the same spots with our backs against the rock. "To make
reason feel safe is always the task of the teacher," he said.
"I've tricked your reason
into believing, that the tonal was accountable and predictable. Genaro
and I have labored to give
you the impression, that only the nagual was beyond the scope of
explanation; the proof, that the
tricking was successful, is that at this moment it seems to you,
that, in
spite of everything you have
gone through, there is still a core, that you can claim as your own,
your reason. That's a mirage.
Your precious reason is only a center of assemblage, a
mirror, that
reflects something, which is
outside of it. Last night you witnessed not only the indescribable
nagual, but also the
indescribable tonal. "The last piece of the sorcerers'
explanation says, that reason is
merely reflecting an outside
order, and that reason knows nothing about that order; it
cannot
explain it, in the same way it
cannot explain the nagual. Reason can only witness the effects of the
tonal, but never ever could
it understand it, or unravel it. The very fact, that we are
thinking and
talking points out an order, that we follow without ever knowing how we
do that, or what the order
is." I brought up then the idea of Western man's research
into the workings
of the brain, as a
possibility of explaining what that order was. He pointed out, that
all,
that that research did, was to
attest, that something was happening. "Sorcerers do the same
thing with their Will," he said. "They say, that
through the Will they can
witness the effects of the nagual.
I can add now, that through reason,
no matter what we do with
it, or how we do it, we are merely witnessing the effects of the tonal.
In both cases there is no
hope, ever, to understand or to explain what it is, that we
are
witnessing. "Last night was the first time, that you flew on the Wings
of your Perception. You were still
very timid. You ventured only on the band of human
perception. A
sorcerer can use those wings
to touch other sensibilities, a crow's for instance, a coyote's, a
cricket's, or the order of other
worlds in that infinite space."
"Do you mean other planets, don Juan?"
"Certainly. The Wings of Perception can take us to the most recondite
(not easy understood, abstruse) confines of the nagual
or to inconceivable worlds of the tonal."
"Can a sorcerer go to the moon, for instance?"
"Of course he can," he replied. "But he wouldn't be able to bring back
a bag of rocks, though." We laughed and joked about it, but his
statement had been made in
ultimate seriousness. "We have arrived at the last part of the
sorcerers' explanation," he
said. "Last night Genaro
and I showed you the last two points, that make
the Totality of man, the
nagual and the tonal. I
once told you, that those two points were outside of oneself and yet
they were not. That is the
paradox of the Luminous Beings. The tonal of every one of us
is but a
reflection of that
indescribable Unknown, filled with order; the nagual of every
one of us
is but a reflection of that
indescribable void, that contains everything. Now you should sit on
Genaro's place of predilection until twilight;
by then you should have
pounded the sorcerers' explanation into place. As you sit here now, you
have nothing, except the
force of your life, that binds that Cluster of feelings." He stood up.
"Tomorrow's task is to plunge into the Unknown by yourself,
while Genaro
and I watch you
without intervening," he said. "Sit here and turn off your internal
dialogue. You may gather the
power, needed to unfold the Wings of your Perception and fly to that
Infinitude."
13. The Predileciton of Two
Warriors
269-270
Don
Juan woke me up at the crack of dawn. He handed me a carrying gourd,
filled with water
and a bag of dry meat. We walked in silence for a couple of miles to
the place, where I had left my
car two days before. "This
journey is our last journey together," he said in a quiet voice
when we arrived at my car.
I felt a strong jolt in my stomach. I knew what he meant. He leaned
against the back fender, as I opened the passenger door and he looked
at
me with a
feeling, that had never been there before. We got in the car,
but before
I started the motor, he made
some obscure remarks, that I also understood to perfection; he said,
that
we had a few minutes to
sit in the car and touch again upon some feelings very personal and
poignant (touching). I sat quietly, but my spirit was restless. I
wanted to say
something to him, something, that
would have essentially soothed me. I searched in vain for the
appropriate words, the formula, that
would have expressed the thing I "knew" without being told.
Don Juan
talked about a little boy, that I once knew, and about how my feelings
for him would
not change with the years or the distance. Don Juan said,
that he was
certain, that every time I
thought of that little boy, my spirit jumped joyfully and without a
trace of selfishness or pettiness
wished him the best.
He reminded me of a story, that I had once told him
about the little boy, a story, which he had
liked and had found to have a profound meaning. During one of
our hikes
in the mountains
around Los Angeles the little boy had gotten tired of walking, so I had
let him ride on my
shoulders. A wave
of intense happiness engulfed us then and the little boy
shouted his
thanks to
the sun and to the mountains. "That
was his way of saying good-by to you," don Juan said. I felt the sting
of anguish in my throat. "There
are many ways of saying farewell," he said. "The best way is perhaps by
holding a
particular memory of joyfulness. For instance, if you live like
a
warrior, the warmth you felt,
when the little boy rode on your shoulders, will be fresh and cutting
for as long, as you live. That
is a warrior's way of saying farewell."
I
hurriedly turned on the motor and drove faster, than usual, on the
hard-packed rocky ground,
until we got onto the unpaved road. We drove a short distance
and then
we walked the rest of the way. After about an hour we
came to a grove of trees.
Don Genaro, Pablito, and Nestor were there
waiting for us. I greeted
them. All of them appeared to be so happy and vigorous. As I looked at
them and at don Juan,
I
was overcome by a feeling of profound empathy for all of them. Don
Genaro embraced me and
patted me affectionately on the back. He told Nestor and Pablito,
that I
had had a fine performance
leaping into the bottom of a ravine. With his hand still on my shoulder
he addressed them in a
loud voice. "Yes
sir," he said, looking at them. "I'm his benefactor and I know, that
that was quite an
achievement. That was the crown of years of living like a warrior." He
turned to me and placed his other hand on my shoulder. His
eyes were
shiny and peaceful.
"There's nothing I can say to you, Carlitos," he said, voicing his
words slowly. "Except, that
you had an extraordinary amount of excrement in your bowels." With
that he and don Juan howled with laughter, until they seemed about
to pass out. Pablito
and Nestor giggled nervously, not knowing exactly what to do.
When don
Juan and don Genaro had quieted down, Pablito said to me, that he was
unsure of
his capability of going into the "Unknown" by himself.
271-272
"I
really don't have the faintest idea of how to do it," he said. "Genaro
says, that one needs
nothing, except impeccability. What do you think?" I told
him, that I knew even less, than he did. Nestor sighed and
seemed truly
concerned; he
moved his hands and his mouth nervously, as if he were on the verge of
saying something
important and did not know how. "Genaro
says, that you two will make it," he finally said.
Don
Genaro signaled with his hand, that we were leaving. He and don Juan
walked together, a
few yards ahead of us. We followed the same mountain trail nearly
all
day. We walked in
complete silence and never stopped. All of us had a provision of dry
meat and a gourd of water,
and it was understood, that we would eat as we walked. At a
certain
point the trail definitely
became a road. It curved around the side of a mountain and suddenly the
view of a valley opened
up in front of us. It was a breath-taking sight, a long green
valley
glimmering in sunlight; there
were two magnificent rainbows over it and patches of rain all over the
surrounding hills.
Don Juan stopped walking and jutted his chin to
point out something down in the valley to
don Genaro. Don Genaro shook his head. It was not an affirmative
or
negative gesture; it was
more like a jerk of his head. They both stood motionless, peering into
the valley for a long time. We left the road there and took,
what seemed
to be, a short cut. We began to descend via a
more narrow and hazardous path, that led to the northern part of the
valley. When we reached the flatland,
it was mid-afternoon. The strong
scent of river willows and
moist dirt enveloped me.
For a moment the rain was like a soft green
rumble on the nearby trees
to my left, then it was only a quivering in the reeds. I heard the
rustling of a stream. I stopped for
a moment to listen. I looked at the top of the trees; the high cirrus
clouds on the western horizon
looked like puffs of cotton scattered in the sky. I stood
there
watching the clouds long enough for
everyone else to get quite a bit ahead of me. I ran after them. Don
Juan and don Genaro stopped and turned around in unison;
their eyes
moved and focused
on me with such uniformity and precision, that
they seemed to be one single person. It was a brief
stupendous glance, that sent chills through my back. Then don
Genaro
laughed and said, that I ran
thumping, like a three-hundred-pound flat-footed Mexican.
"Why a
Mexican?" don Juan asked.
"A
flat-footed three-hundred-pound Indian doesn't run," don Genaro said in
an explanatory
tone. "Oh," don Juan said, as if don Genaro had really explained it.
We
crossed the narrow lush green valley and climbed into the mountains
to the east. By late
afternoon we finally came to a halt on top of a flat barren mesa,
that
overlooked a high valley
towards the south. The vegetation had changed drastically. There were
round eroded mountains
all around. The land in the valley and on the sides of the
hills was
parceled and cultivated and yet
the entire scene gave me the feeling of barrenness. The sun was already
low on the southwest horizon. Don Juan and don Genaro called
us to the
northern edge of the mesa. From that point the view was sublime. There
were endless valleys and
mountains towards the north and a range of high sierras
towards the
west. The sunlight reflecting
on the distant northern mountains made them look orange, like the color
of the banks of clouds
over the west. The scenery, in spite of its beauty, was sad and lonely.
Don Juan handed me my writing pad, but I did not feel like taking
notes. We sat in a half
circle with don Juan and don Genaro at the ends.
"You
started on the path of knowledge writing, and you will finish the same
way," don Juan
said. All
of
them urged me to write, as if my writing were essential.
"You're
at the very edge, Carlitos," don Genaro said suddenly. "You and Pablito
both." His
voice was soft. Without his joking tone, he sounded kind and worried.
"Other
warriors journeying into the Unknown have stood on this very spot," he
went on. "They
all wish you two very well." I felt
a ripple around me, as if the air had been half solid and
something had
created a wave,
that rippled through it. "All
of us here wish you two well," he said. Nestor
embraced Pablito and me and then
he sat apart from us.
273-274
"We
still have some time," don Genaro said, looking at the sky. And then
turning to Nestor, he
asked, "What should we do in the meantime?"
"We
should laugh and enjoy ourselves," Nestor answered briskly. I told
don Juan, that I was afraid of what was waiting for me, and that I had
most certainly
been tricked into all that; I, who had not even imagined,
that situations
like the one Pablito and I
were living, existed. I said, that something truly awesome had
taken
possession of me and little by
little had pushed me, until I was facing something, perhaps worse, than
death.
"You're
complaining," don Juan said dryly. "You're feeling sorry for yourself
to the last
minute."
They
all laughed. He was right. What an invincible urge! I begged
all of them to forgive my idiocy. And I thought
I had
vanquished it
from my life. "Don't
apologize," don Juan said to me. "Apologies are nonsense. What really
matters is being
an impeccable warrior in this unique Place of Power. This place has
harbored the finest warriors.
Be as fine, as they were." Then
he addressed both Pablito and me. "You
already know, that this is the last task, in which we will be
together,"
he said. "You will
enter into the nagual and the tonal by the force of your
personal power
alone. Genaro and I are
here only to bid you farewell. Power has determined, that Nestor should
be a witness. So be it. "This
will also be the last crossroad of yours, which Genaro and I
will
attend. Once you have
entered the Unknown by yourselves, you cannot depend on us to bring you
back, so a decision is
mandatory; you must decide whether or not to return. We are
confident,
that you two have the
strength to return, if you choose to do so. The other night you were
perfectly capable, in unison or
separately, to throw off the ally, that otherwise would have crushed
you
to death. That was a test
of your strength. I
must also add, that few warriors survive the encounter with
the Unknown, that
you are about
to have; not so much because it is hard, but because the nagual is
enticing beyond any state-
ment,
and warriors, who are journeying into it, find that to return to the
tonal, or to the world of order
and noise and pain, is a most unappealing affair. The
decision to stay or to return is done by something in us,
which is
neither our reason, nor
our desire, but our Will, so there is no way of knowing the outcome of
it beforehand.
If
you choose not to return, you will disappear, as if the Earth had
swallowed you. But if you
choose to return to this Earth, you must wait like true warriors, until
your particular tasks are
finished. Once they are finished, either in success or defeat, you will
have the command over the Totality of Yourselves."
Don
Juan paused for a moment. Don Genaro looked at me and winked. "Carlitos
wants to know, what it means to have command over the Totality of
Oneself,"
he said,
and everybody laughed. He was
right. Under other circumstances I would have asked about it; the
situation, however,
was too solemn for questions.
"It
means, that the warrior has finally encountered power," don Juan
said. "Noone can tell,
what each warrior would do with it; perhaps you two will roam
peacefully and unnoticed on the
face of the Earth, or perhaps you will turn out to be hateful men, or
perhaps notorious, or kind. All
that depends on the impeccability and the freedom of your
spirit. The
important thing, however, is your task. That is the bestowal (gift of
honour), made by a
teacher and a
benefactor to their apprentices.
I pray, that you two will succeed in
bringing your tasks to a
culmination."
"Waiting
to fulfill that task is a very special waiting," don Genaro said all of
a sudden. "And
I'm going to tell you the story of a band of warriors, who lived in
another time on the mountains,
somewhere in that direction." He
casually pointed to the east, but then, after a moment's hesitation, he
seemed to change his
mind, stood up and pointed to the distant northern mountains.
"No.
They lived in that direction," he said, looking at me and smiling with
an air of erudition.
275-276
"Exactly
one hundred and thirty-five kilometers from here." Don
Genaro was perhaps imitating me. His mouth and forehead were
contracted, his hands
were tightly clasped against his chest, holding some
imaginary object,
that he may have intended
to be a notebook. He maintained a most ridiculous posture. I had once
met a German scholar, a
Sinologist, who looked exactly like that. The thought, that all along I
might have been
unconsciously imitating the grimaces of a German Sinologist,
was utterly
funny to me. I laughed
by myself. It seemed to be a joke just for me. Don Genaro sat down
again and proceeded with his story. "Whenever
a member of that band of warriors was thought to have
committed an act,
which
was against their rules, his fate was put to the decision of all of
them. The culprit
(a person guilty of crime or fault) had to explain
his reasons for having done, what he did. His comrades had to listen to
him; and then they either
disbanded, because they had found his reasons convincing, or they lined
up with their weapons at
the very edge of a flat mountain, very much like this mountain, where
we
are sitting now, ready to
carry out his death sentence, because they had found his reasons to be
unacceptable. In that case
the condemned warrior had to say good-by to his old comrades,
and his
execution began." Don
Genaro looked at me and Pablito, as if waiting for a sign from us. Then
he turned to
Nestor. "Perhaps
the witness here could tell us, what the story has to do with
these
two," he said to
Nestor. Nestor
smiled shyly and seemed to immerse himself deep in thought for a
moment.
"The
witness has no idea," he said and broke up into a nervous giggle.
Don Genaro asked everyone to stand up and go with him to look over the
west edge of the
mesa. There was a mild slope down to the bottom of the land formation,
then there was a narrow flat
strip of land ending in a crevice, that seemed to be a
natural channel
for the runoff of rain water. "Right
where that ditch is, there was a row of trees on the mountain in the
story," he said. "Beyond
that point there was a thick forest. "After
saying good-by to his comrades, the condemned warrior was supposed to
begin
walking down the slope towards the trees. His comrades then
cocked
their weapons and aimed at
him. If noone shot, or if the warrior survived his wounds and reached
the edge of the trees, he
was free."
We
went back to the place, where we had been sitting. "How
about now, witness?" he asked Nestor. "Can you tell?" Nestor
was the epitome of nervousness. He took off his hat and
scratched his
head. He then hid his face in his hands. "How
can the poor witness know?" he finally retorted in a challenging tone
and laughed with
everybody else.
"They
say, that there were men, who pulled through unharmed," don Genaro
continued. "Let's
say, that their personal power affected their comrades. A wave
went
through them, as they were
aiming at him and noone dared to use his weapon. Or perhaps they were
in awe of his bravery
and could not harm him." Don
Genaro looked at me and then at Pablito. "There
was a condition set up for that walk to the edge of the trees," he went
on. "The warrior
had to walk calmly, unaffected.
His steps had to be sure and firm, his
eyes looking straight ahead,
peacefully. He had to go down without stumbling, without turning to
look back, and above all
without running." Don
Genaro paused; Pablito assented to his words by nodding. "If
you two decide to return to this Earth," don
Genaro said, "you
will have to
wait like true warriors,
until your tasks are fulfilled. That waiting is very much like the walk
of the warrior in the story. You
see, the warrior had run out of human time and so
have you. The only
difference is in who is
aiming at you. Those, who were aiming at the warrior, were his warrior
comrades. But what's
aiming at you two is the Unknown. Your only
chance is your
impeccability. You must wait
without looking back. You must wait without expecting rewards. And you
must aim all of your
personal power at fulfilling your tasks. If
you don't act impeccably, if you begin to fret and get impatient and
desperate, you'll
be cut
down mercilessly by the sharp shooters from the
Unknown.
277-278
If, on
the
other hand, your impeccability and personal power are such, that you
are
capable of
fulfilling your tasks, you will then achieve the promise of power.
And
what's that promise you
may ask? It is a promise, that Power makes to men as Luminous Beings.
Each warrior has a
different fate, so there is no way of telling, what that
promise will be
for either of you." The
sun was about to set. The light orange color on the distant northern
mountains had
become darker. The scenery gave me the feeling of a windswept
lonely
world. "You
have learned, that the backbone of a warrior is to be humble and
efficient," don Genaro
said and his voice made me jump. "You have learned to act
without
expecting anything in return. Now I
tell you, that in order to withstand, what lies ahead of you beyond
this
day, you'll need
your ultimate forbearance." I
experienced a shock in my stomach. Pablito began to shiver quietly. "A
warrior must be always ready," don Genaro said. "The
fate of all of us here has
been to know, that
we are the prisoners of power. Noone knows why us in particular, but
what a great fortune!" Don
Genaro stopped talking and lowered his head, as if
he were exhausted.
That had been the
first time, that I had heard him speak in such terms. "It is
mandatory here, that a warrior says good-by to all
those present and to
all those, he leaves
behind," don Juan said suddenly. "He must do this in his own words and
loudly, so his voice will
remain here forever in this place of power." Don
Juan's voice brought forth another dimension to my state of being at
that moment. Our
conversation in the car became all the more poignant
(touching). How right he was,
when he had said, that the
serenity of the scenery around us, was only a mirage and that
the
sorcerers' explanation, delivered
a blow, that noone could parry (avoid). I had heard the
sorcerers' explanation
and I had experienced its
premises; and there I was, more naked and more
helpless, than ever in my
entire life. Nothing, that
I had ever done, nothing, that I had ever imagined, could even compare
to the anguish and the
loneliness of that moment. The
sorcerers' explanation had stripped me even of my reason. Don
Juan was
right again, when he said, that a warrior could not avoid pain
and
grief, but only the
indulging in them. At that moment my sadness was
uncontainable. I could
not stand to say goodby
to those, who had shared with me the turns of my fate.
I told don Juan
and don Genaro, that I
had made a pact with someone to die together and that my
spirit could
not bear to leave alone.
"We
are all alone, Carlitos," don Genaro said softly. "That's our
condition."
I felt
in my throat the anguish of my passion for life and for those, close to
me; I refused to say
good-by to them.
"We
are alone," don Juan said. "But to die alone is not to die in
loneliness."
His
voice sounded muffled and dry, like coughing. Pablito wept quietly.
Then he stood
up and spoke. It was not a harangue or a testimonial. In
a
clear voice he thanked don Genaro and don Juan for their kindness. He
turned to Nestor and
thanked him for having given him the opportunity to
take care of him.
He wiped his eyes with his
sleeve.
"What
a wonderful thing it was to be in this beautiful world! In this
marvelous time!" he
exclaimed and sighed. His mood was overwhelming. "If I
don't return, I beg you as an ultimate favor, to
help those, who have
shared my fate," he
said to don Genaro. He then turned towards the west in the direction of
his home. His lean body, convulsed with
tears. He ran towards the edge of the mesa with outstretched arms, as
if he were running to
embrace someone. His lips moved, he seemed
to be talking in a low voice. I
turned my head away. I did not want to hear what Pablito was saying.
He came back, to where we were sitting, slumped down next to
me, and
lowered his head. I was incapable of saying a thing. But then an
outside force seemed to take over and made me
stand up, and I too spoke my thanks and my
sadness. We were quiet
again. A north wind hissed softly, blowing in my face. Don Juan looked
at me. I had never seen so much kindness in his eyes.
279-280
He
said to me, that a warrior said farewell by
thanking all those, who had had a gesture of kindness or concern for
him, and that I had to voice
my gratitude not only to them, but also to
those, who had
taken care of me and had helped me on
my way. I faced the northwest, towards Los Angeles, and all the
sentimentality of my spirit poured out.
What a purifying release it was to voice my thanks! I sat down again.
Noone looked at me.
"A
warrior acknowledges his pain, but he doesn't indulge in it," don Juan
said. "Thus the mood
of a warrior, who enters into the Unknown, is not one of sadness; on
the
contrary, he's joyful,
because he feels humbled by his great fortune, confident, that his
spirit is impeccable, and above
all, fully aware of his efficiency.
A warrior's joyfulness comes from
having accepted his fate, and
from having truthfully assessed, what lies ahead of him." There
was a long pause. My sadness was paramount. I wanted to do
something to
get out of
such oppressiveness.
"Witness,
please squeeze your spirit catcher," don Genaro said to
Nestor. I heard the loud, most ludicrous sound of Nestor's contraption.
Pablito nearly got hysterical laughing, and so did don Juan
and don
Genaro. I noticed a
peculiar smell and realized then, that Nestor had farted. What was
horrendously funny, was the
expression of ultimate seriousness on his face. He had farted
not as a
joke, but because he did not
have his spirit catcher with him. He was being helpful in the
best way
he could. All of them laughed with abandon. What facility
they had for
shifting from sublime situations to utterly ludicrous ones. Pablito
turned to me suddenly. He wanted to know, if I was
a poet, but before I
could answer
his question, don Genaro made a rhyme. "Carlitos
is really cool; he's got a bit of a poet, a nut and a fool,"
he said. They
all had another outburst of laughter.
"That's
a better mood," don Juan said. "And now, before Genaro and I say
good-by to you,
you two may say anything you please. It might be the last time you
utter
a word, ever."
Pablito
shook his head negatively, but I had something to say. I wanted
to express my
admiration, my awe for the exquisite temper of don Juan and
don Genaro's warrior spirit. But I
became entangled in my words and ended up saying nothing; or even worse
yet, I ended up
sounding, as if I were complaining again. Don Juan shook his
head and
smacked his lips in mock disapproval. I laughed involuntarily; it
did not matter, however, that I had flubbed my chance to tell
them of
my admiration. A very
intriguing sensation began to take possession of me. I had a sense of
exhilaration and joy, an
exquisite freedom, that made me laugh. I told
don Juan and don Genaro,
that I did not give a fig
about the outcome of my encounter with the Unknown, that I was happy
and complete, and that
whether
I lived or died, was of no importance to me at that moment.
Don
Juan and don Genaro seemed to enjoy my assertions even more, than I
did. Don Juan
slapped his thigh and laughed. Don Genaro threw his hat on
the floor
and yelled, as if he were
riding a wild horse.
"We
have enjoyed ourselves and laughed while waiting, just as the
witness recommended,"
don Genaro said all of a sudden. "But it is the natural condition of
order, that it should always
come to an end." He looked at the sky. "It's almost time for us to
disband like the warriors in the story," he said. "But before we go
our separate ways, I must tell you two one last thing. I am
going to
disclose to you a warrior's
secret. Perhaps you can call it a warrior's predilection." He
addressed me in particular and said, that once I had
told him, that the
life of a warrior was
cold and lonely and devoid of feelings. He even added, that at that
precise moment I was
convinced, that it was so. "The
life of a warrior cannot possibly be cold and lonely and without
feelings," he said,
"because it is based on his affection, his devotion, his
dedication to
his beloved. And who, you
may ask, is his beloved? I will show you now." Don
Genaro stood up and walked slowly to a perfectly flat area right
in
front of us, ten or twelve feet away.
281-282
He
made a strange gesture there. He moved his hands, as if he were
sweeping
dust from his chest and his stomach. Then an odd thing happened. A
flash of an almost
imperceptible light went through him; it came from the ground and
seemed to kindle his entire
body. He did a sort of backward pirouette, a backward dive
more
properly speaking, and landed
on his chest and arms. His movement had been executed with such
precision and skill, that he
seemed to be a weightless being, a wormlike
creature, that
had turned
on itself. When he was on
the ground, he performed a series of unearthly movements. He glided
just a few inches above the ground, or rolled on it,
as if
he were lying on ball bearings; or he
swam on it, describing circles
and turning with the swiftness and agility of an eel swimming
in
the ocean. My eyes began to cross at one moment and then,
without
any
transition, I was watching a Ball
of Luminosity sliding back and forth on something, that
appeared
to be
the floor of an ice-skating
rink with a thousand lights, shining on it. The sight was sublime. Then
the Ball of Fire came to rest and stayed motionless.
A voice shook me
and dispelled my attention. It was don Juan talking. I could not
understand at first what he
was saying. I looked again at the Ball of Fire; I could
distinguish
only don Genaro lying on the
ground with his arms and legs spread out. Don Juan's voice was very
clear. It seemed to trigger something in me and
I began to write.
"Genaro's
love is the world," he said. "He was just now embracing this enormous
Earth, but
since he's so little, all he can do is swim in it. But the Earth knows,
that Genaro loves it and it
bestows on him its care. That's why Genaro's life is filled to the brim
and his state, wherever he'll
be, will be plentiful. Genaro roams on the paths of his love
and,
wherever he is, he is complete." Don
Juan squatted in front of us. He caressed the ground gently. "This
is the predilection of two warriors,"
he said. "This Earth, this world.
For a warrior there
can be no greater love." Don
Genaro stood up and squatted next to don Juan for a moment, while both
of them peered
fixedly at us, then they sat in unison, cross-legged. "Only,
if one loves this Earth with unbending passion, can one release one's
sadness," don Juan
said.
"A warrior is always joyful, because his love is unalterable
and his beloved, the Earth,
embraces him and bestows upon him inconceivable gifts. The
sadness
belongs only to those, who
hate the very thing, that gives shelter to their Beings." Don
Juan again caressed the ground with tenderness. "This
lovely Being, which
is alive to its last recesses and understands every
feeling, soothed
me, it cured me of my pains, and, finally, when I had fully
understood my
love for it, it taught me
freedom." He
paused. The silence around us was frightening. The wind hissed
softly
and then I heard the
distant barking of a lone dog. "Listen
to that barking," don Juan went on. "That is the way
my beloved Earth
is helping me
now to bring this last point to you. That barking is the saddest thing
one can hear."
We
were quiet for a moment. The barking of that lone
dog was so sad and
the stillness around
us so intense, that I experienced a numbing anguish. It made me think
of
my own life, my sadness,
my not knowing where to go, what to do. "That
dog's barking is the nocturnal voice of a man," don Juan said.
"It
comes from a house in
that valley towards the south. A man is shouting through his
dog, since
they are companion slaves
for life, his sadness, his boredom. He's begging his death to come
and
release him from the dull
and dreary chains of his life." Don
Juan's words had caught a most disturbing line in me. I felt he was
speaking directly to
me.
"That
barking, and the loneliness it creates, speaks of the feelings
of peope,"
he went on. "Men,
for whom an entire life was like one Sunday afternoon, an afternoon,
which was not altogether
miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and
fussed a great deal. They
didn't know where to go, or what to do. That afternoon left
them only
with the memory of petty
annoyances and tedium, and then suddenly it was over; it was
already
night." He
recounted a story I had once told him about a seventy-two-year-old man,
who complained,
that his life had been so short, that
it seemed to him, that it was only the day before, that he was a
boy.
283-284
The
man had said to me, "I remember the pajamas I used to wear, when I was
ten years old. It seems, that only one day has passed. Where did the
time go?"
"The
antidote, that kills that poison, is here," don Juan said, caressing
the ground. "The
sorcerers' explanation cannot at all liberate the spirit. Look at you
two.
You have gotten to the
sorcerers' explanation, but it doesn't make any difference, that you
know it. You're more alone,
than ever, because without an unwavering love for
the Being, that gives
you shelter, aloneness is loneliness. Only
the love for this splendorous Being can give freedom to a warrior's
spirit; and freedom
is joy, efficiency, and abandon in the face of any
odds. That is the
last lesson. It is always left for
the very last moment, for the moment of ultimate solitude, when a
human
faces his death and his
aloneness. Only then does it make sense." Don
Juan and don Genaro stood up and stretched their arms and arched their
backs, as if
sitting had made their bodies stiff. My heart began to pound fast. They
made Pablito and me
stand up. "The
twilight is the crack between the worlds," don Juan said. "It
is the door to the Unknown." He
pointed with a sweeping movement of his hand to the mesa, where we
were standing. "This is the plateau in front of that door." He
pointed then to the northern edge of the mesa. "There is the door.
Beyond, there is an abyss and, beyond that abyss, is
the Unknown." Don
Juan and don Genaro then turned to Pablito and said goodby to
him. Pablito's eyes were
dilated and fixed; tears were rolling down his cheeks. I heard don
Genaro's voice saying good-by to me, but I did not hear don
Juan's. Don
Juan and don Genaro moved towards Pablito and whispered briefly in his
ears. Then they
came to me. But, before they had whispered anything,
I
already had that peculiar feeling of being
split.
"We
will now be like dust on the road," don Genaro said. "Perhaps it will
get in your eyes
again, someday." Don
Juan and don Genaro stepped back and seemed to merge with the
darkness.
Pablito held
my forearm and we said good-by to each other. Then a strange urge, a
force, made me run with
him to the northern edge of the mesa. I felt his
arm, holding me, as we
jumped and then I was
alone.
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